winter/hiver 2016 3 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies from the publications chair dear readers, on behalf of the cayc and the journal editors i would like to take this opportunity to thank the editorial board for their on going support for the journal of childhood studies. the journal’s editorial board is made up of ece national and international scholars who volunteer to review manuscripts, provide scholarly feedback and advice on enhancing the journal’s quality and capacity. through their work, the journal of childhood studies gains recognition as a peer-reviewed, high quality journal. we would especially like to express our gratitude to a number of editorial board members who will be leaving the journal at the end of this year. ailie cleghorn (concordia university, montreal, quebec), sue fraser (author/ consultant, west vancouver, bc), martha gabriel (university of prince edward island, charlottetown, pei), and sherry rose (university of new brunswick, fredericton, nb) have been involved with the journal of childhood studies for many years, their contributions will be missed. we wish them all the best in their endeavours. the next time you read the journal please take a minute to look through the list of the editorial board members to familiar yourself with the diverse scholarly support provided to the journal by the board members, and to find out who the new members are. iris berger publications chair canadian children directions & connections 46fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 for the past two years a group of early childhood educators who work for the university of victoria child care services have voluntarily participated in a course facilitated by two pedagogistas. each month one or two articles are put forward for reading. course participants then meet to share their thoughts, struggles, and learning from the readings. as one of the participants, i do my best to read and, more importantly, try to understand and make meaning of the articles. i find it necessary to read the articles multiple times because the academic language used is not part of my everyday early childhood educator vocabulary! it was after i read and reread an article titled “challenging anthropocentric analysis of visual data: a relational materialist methodological approach to educational research” by karin hultman and hillevi lenz taguchi that i was inspired to write the following poem. if you give a bird a binary she’ll ask you for two nests. once you’ve found the right materials she’ll decide what suits them best. it depends on definitions knowledge, theories, and beliefs. two eggs would be most common, most suited, cause less grief. but what if epistemology is foremost on your mind? a belief lends one suggestion, your truths another kind. to justify one’s decision puts to question one’s beliefs. are eggs the chosen objects? no questions, just relief. you know that birds lay eggs— it’s infallible, needs no proof. it’s simple, easy, obvious— unless you seek more truths. could the nests hold brand new knowledge? inviting questions from a few: what phenomenon is occurring when you question what to do? mary kelly graduated in 1981 with a certificate in early childhood education from camosun college, victoria, british columbia. after many satisfying years working in a variety of childcare settings, mary returned to camosun college in the fall of 2008 to obtain a diploma with an infant/toddler specialization in the early learning and care program. after graduating in 2009, mary was fortunate to join university of victoria child care services, where she loves working in one of their toddler programs. email: mcnkelly@shaw.ca if you give a bird a binary mary kelly canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 3 vol. 38 no. 2 canadian children from the editors we begin this editorial with a quote laurie introduces to the students in her early childhood education classes as they launch into their academic careers. readers of canadian children will know that the early years have long been regarded by society at large as somehow less worthy than other investments, and accordingly, those who work with young children don’t always look beyond the challenges and frustrations inherent in the quotidian activities of their work. and yet, the work we do is surely worthy of reverence: for many, reverence is too exalted a word to associate with the practical and often mundane activities of teaching. we routinely think teaching is about imparting skills and knowledge that will serve students well in career and life and that there is no need to think of teaching as a venerated activity beyond these goals. however, although teaching students involves imparting knowledge, it is also a calling with other dimensions beyond the cognitive. it is about the formation of minds, the molding of destinies, the creation of an enduring desire in students not only to know, but also to care for others, appreciate beauty, and much more. in some sense of the word, teaching is a spiritual, although not necessarily religious, activity. when done well, it cultivates human intimacy and allows teachers to find creative self-expression in classroom community. (garrison & rud, 2009, p. 2626) in this issue of canadian children, we include a wide range of offerings— all of which could be viewed with reverence in mind. massing, kirova, and hennig invite us to consider how parent involvement might be redefined in intercultural preschools by valuing the funds of knowledge that newcomer families bring. dietze calls us to seriously ponder how accessible neighbourhood playgrounds are for those, both younger and older, with mobility challenges. doan, in her work with novice early childhood educators, reminds us of how important mentoring is. munroe and maclellan-mansell build on the growing interest in outdoor play experiences, with particular emphasis on children of first nations communities. and mann reminds us that, in caring well for children, menu planning is significant. the directions and connections section of the journal includes an interesting collection of poetic pieces from vojnovic and kelly that portray awe, as well as board’s inquiry into “what is hope?” we are republishing brandon’s poem, this log, as inadvertently a portion of it was missed in the last issue. the professional resources introduced in this issue, all very different, provoke us to consider the ethical obligations in our work with children and families. a new review board is introduced in this issue. we are always grateful for the myriad contributors and reviewers, and for our copy editor, leslie prpich. here we wish to acknowledge the hundreds of hours that take place behind the scenes to bring this journal to you. as the annual rhythm moves us into a new cycle of teaching and learning, we challenge all of us to consider our work and our relationships with children and families worthy of reverence. references garrison, j., & rud, g. (2009). reverence in classroom teaching. teachers college record, 111(11), 2626–2646. editors dr. laurie kocher dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw canadian children professional resources 49fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 lara di tomasso received a ba in political science from mcgill university in 2003 and completed her master’s in child and youth care at the university of victoria in 2012. her work with immigrants and refugees both in canada and the middle east has fuelled her research interests, which include processes of racialization, ongoing colonialisms, migration, and the ways in which these forces impact the lives of children and families in canada. lara currently resides in toronto; she works as a freelance report writer in the nonprofit sector and as a course writer and online instructor for the university of victoria. stand together or fall apart: professionals working with immigrant families written by: judith k. bernard reviewed by: lara di tomasso human service professionals working with migrant children and families in canada, the united states, and other immigrantreceiving countries face rapidly evolving practice contexts. an enduring economic recession and rightward shifting immigration policies and discourses are creating increasingly complex realities for migrant families in western countries. these changes occur in the shadow of the impacts sustained by racialized and/ or muslim migrants, after the events of september 11, 2001. while human service professionals in training are often prompted to explore diversity issues in their college or university programs, they rarely have the opportunity to learn about the many issues surrounding immigration and the migratory process—issues that have a direct bearing on practice. stand together or fall apart by judith bernhard serves as a timely and important introduction to the realities facing immigrants in countries such as canada. it offers professionals working with migrant families alternative frameworks and examples of programs that can assist in “shifting the focus” (bernhard, 2012, p. 72) toward approaches that foreground the strengths, resilience, and knowledge of newcomer families. the first and longest section of the book discusses the contemporary realities of international immigration. chapter 1 makes a compelling case for the book’s relevance today, chapter 2 describes how immigration redefines societies in immigrant-receiving countries, chapter 3 discusses some of the social and legal issues faced by immigrants, and chapter 4 provides an overview of the challenges experienced by immigrant families as they settle into their new lives. chapter 4 ends by reminding readers that despite good intentions, human service professionals are often located within the dominant culture and may not approach their work with newcomers in a way that resonates with or benefits them. this is an extremely important point and one that absolutely needs to be emphasized in human service education and training programs. this first section does a good job of introducing readers to the myriad issues very often encountered during the processes of migration and settlement. however, the section’s main strength is the urgency it conveys for human service professionals in immigrant-receiving countries to learn about these complex and interconnected issues and develop an ability to apply this knowledge in their work with newcomer families. the book’s second section sets out to provide readers with new paradigms through which to work with immigrant children and families. in chapter 5, bernhard adeptly summarizes several alternative theoretical frameworks as part of her “call for a broader conceptual understanding of interventions with newcomers” (p. 54). next, in chapter 6, she challenges notions of “normal” in education settings and describes the ways in which western theories of development delineate specific standards of success that can serve to marginalize immigrant children and parents. in this vital chapter, bernhard importantly explores how “normal” is conceptualized and challenges the universal validity of mainstream assessment tools. she uses rich examples from her own research to emphasize how knowledge itself and the approaches that stem from dominant knowledge are rooted in particular values and norms that cannot always be applied universally across cultural lines. in chapter 7, bernhard advocates for shifting the focus to one that seeks out and works with potential and present strengths of newcomer families. the book’s third and final section focuses on research and practice with newcomer families. it introduces readers to typologies of effective interventions and to programs that the author herself was involved in designing and implementing. in chapter 8, bernhard eloquently explains the difference between programs that involve parental input into design and delivery and those that place parents on the sidelines. in a section with particular relevance for researchers and program designers, bernhard discusses “problems of evidence” (p. 86) in chapter 8. here, she explores how efforts to centre the voices of immigrant families can be challenged by the exigencies of funders, who often want to see a list of measurable, predesignated objectives before funds are allocated. the subsequent sections of this chapter offer well-articulated rationales for learning how to recognize canadian children professional resources 50fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 when full parental involvement is needed; examples are presented of programs that successfully do this. chapter 9 is one of the strongest chapters in the book, both for students in the human service professions and for researchers and readers who are interested in learning about successful approaches to building on newcomer families’ strengths. bernhard details her own initiatives with newcomer families, summarizes what she has learned from these experiences, and proposes future applications of this knowledge. chapter 10 is a compelling conclusion to the book that calls for “all helping professionals in immigrant-receiving countries to commit to and build on this foundation of empowering practices” (p. 116). stand together or fall apart addresses a large amount of complex subject matter. in addition to the many topics bernhard addresses, several other considerations could serve to round out readers’ understanding of the issues related to migration. increasingly, migrant justice movements in canada and elsewhere (e.g., no one is illegal, solidarity across borders) are making important connections among many of the trends that bernhard discusses and ongoing colonialism. in a growing number of social movements, justice for migrants is seen as necessarily tied to indigenous self-determination (walia, 2012). settler states like canada, the united states, and other immigrant-receiving countries were formed through colonization and are sustained through immigration. the history of colonization, as well as ongoing colonial processes in canada, are therefore deeply tied to immigration and to discussions of national identity, integration, racism, and marginalization. in the canadian context, a significant amount of scholarship explores the connections among colonization, migration, race, racism, whiteness, and processes of racialization (e.g., jiwani, 2006; razack, 1998; smolash, 2009; thobani, 2007). this type of scholarship offers a useful theoretical layer for understanding the complexity of issues tied to migration and settlement. beyond learning about policy, laws, and events or conditions that trigger migration, service professionals could benefit from learning about the ways in which racism informs systems and policies, the impacts of systemic racism on immigrant children and families, and the global systems that produce refugees, mass migrations, poverty, indigenous dispossession, and various forms of marginalization. these systems are directly implicated in producing the therefore an ability to understand them is a significant asset when working with migrant children and families. bernhard’s book encourages greater understanding of issues related to migration and settlement, provides a theoretical framework for alternative and more effective approaches for working with immigrant families, and describes programs that are effective because they have succeeded in building bridges with newcomer parents. universities, colleges, teachers, and students in the human services can use this book to start conversations about how to work with immigrant families in their communities to create and implement effective programs. references bernhard, j. k. (2012). stand together or fall apart: professionals working with immigrant families. black point, ns: fernwood. jiwani, y. (2006). discourses of denial: mediations of race, gender, and violence. vancouver, bc: ubc press. razack, s. (1998). looking white people in the eye: gender, race, and culture in courtrooms and classrooms. toronto, on: university of toronto press. smolash, w. n. (2009). mark of cain(ada): racialized security discourse in canada’s national newspapers. university of toronto quarterly, 78(2), 745–763. thobani, s. (2007). exalted subjects: studies in the making of race and nation in canada. toronto, on: university of toronto press. walia, h. (2012, january). decolonizing together: working beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization. briarpatch magazine. retrieved from: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/ decolonizing-together microsoft word baby pisa, pence.docx journal of childhood studies winter/hiver 2016 vol. 41 no. 3 54 journal of childhood studies opinion piece baby pisa: dangers that can arise when foundations shift alan pence: a call and commentary an inter-related set of issues, with implications for early childhood education, care and development at local, national and international levels, arose in 2016 in regards to a call for tenders from oecd inviting bids to develop and pilot what some have referred to as a ‘baby pisa’. many will be familiar with the oecd pisa testing program (organization for economic cooperation and development, programme for international student assessment), as its triennial release of results that rank countries by the test performance of their fifteen year olds on various academic subjects, invariably generates international controversy. the fact of such triennial controversies, makes it all the more surprising and concerning that a proposal to create, in essence, a ‘pisa’ for 5 year olds has proceeded to a development stage with virtually no public, or early childhood field visibility or input. the connection between the pisa for 15 year olds and the one proposed for 5 year olds (the international early learning study, or iels) is clear in oecd’s 2016 ‘call for tenders’: “in time, the information [from the iels] can also provide information on the trajectory between early learning outcomes and those at age 15, as measured by pisa. in this way, countries can have an earlier and more specific indication of how to lift the skills and other capabilities of its young people” (oecd, 2016, p. 9). hearing about the oecd’s plans in summer 2016, and concerned to raise wider awareness of what is in the offing as well as to encourage critical discussion of a project with potentially serious consequences for young children and their services, prof. peter moss reached out to colleagues in eight other countries, none of whom indicated more than a passing awareness of the oecd’s plans and its ‘call for tenders’. what began as a set of concerns in regards to a new alan pence is professor, school of child and youth care, university of victoria. he is the co-author, with gunilla dahlberg and peter moss, of beyond quality in early childhood education and care – a volume first published in 1999 which remains germane to the issues discussed in this commentary. journal of childhood studies winter/hiver 2016 vol. 41 no. 3 55 journal of childhood studies opinion piece oecd initiative: appropriateness of a pisa inspired international test for 5 year olds, subsequently morphed into a second set: oecd’s failure to engage with concerns raised by moss et al. (the nine colleagues). insofar as there are potentially significant implications for the early childhood field and for young children and their families with this initiative, and since the proposal has had very limited visibility internationally, it was felt that a brief overview of the initiative and activities to date was warranted for the readers of this journal. what follows is: a brief overview of the development of a critical response led by prof. moss with colleagues from eight additional countries; efforts to engage in dialogue with the oecd; publication of an article by the nine colleagues; the iels issue being taken up by the reconceptualizing early childhood education (rece) network at their international conference oct. 30-nov. 3, 2016; and a second critical article published on behalf of rece by mathias urban and beth swadener. following some online discussions regarding the initiative by the nine in june 2016, and many of those members contacting government or oecd-connected individuals within their own country who might have knowledge of the initiative, the group decided efforts must be made to make the issue more visible. a contact with the journal contemporary issues in early childhood (ciec), led to the august 2016 publication of, ‘the oecd’s international early learning study: opening for debate and contestation’ (moss, dahlberg, greishaber, mantovani, may, pence, rayna, swadener, & vandenbroeck). following the article’s publication, moss took the lead on behalf of the nine colleagues in contacting the oecd and making four specific proposals: 1) for oecd to provide a publishable response to the ciec article; 2) for the group of 16 countries participating in the scoping group for the iels to publicise and consult with the early childhood communities within their own country; 3) for oecd to invite one of the ciec authors to speak at an upcoming oecd meeting in paris planned for late october; and 4) for the oecd to set up a webpage devoted to the iels including a background and latest information on its development. as of mid-january 2017 only one of the four has taken place, the creation of a webpage offering limited information. journal of childhood studies winter/hiver 2016 vol. 41 no. 3 56 journal of childhood studies opinion piece following publication of the moss et al. article and efforts to have the oecd respond to the four proposals, the iels issue subsequently expanded to another venue for critique and action, being raised at the reconceptualizing early childhood education (rece) conference that took place in aotearoa/new zealand october 30 – nov. 3, 2016. the presentations and discussions taking place within the rece were complemented by debates and discussions within other aotearoa/new zealand organizations, including the new zealand association for research in education (nzare). in one of two related motions the nzare approved: “that members of the nzare call on the new zealand government to not participate in the oecd iels and urge government instead to continue the work already begun with the moe early childhood research policy forum, designed to produce appropriate outcome measures for early childhood education linked to the principles and strands of te whariki.” (proposed: alex gunn, seconded: linda mitchell, 2016). the nzare motion highlights the damage that initiatives such as the iels with their universalist approach and technocratic tools can do at individual country and international levels. moss et al. in their 2016 article start with a quote from loris malaguzzi, which speaks to the oecd’s approach and its potential dangers: “anglo-saxon ‘testology’ which is nothing but a ridiculous simplification of knowledge, and a robbing of meaning from individual histories.” (malaguzzi in cagliari, 2016). following the rece conference, mathias urban and beth swadener authored a critical assessment of the oecd-iels, ‘democratic accountability and contextualised systemic evaluation’, on behalf of rece which was published in international critical childhood policy studies (december, 2016). in the abstract for that article urban and swadener note that the iels “has received little attention from early childhood scholars and practitioners due not least to the absence of a meaningful consultation process.” they go on to note that “we argue that emerging resistance from the field against decontextualized standardised assessment of children, and the nature of the information gathered will render iels results largely meaningless for the stated purpose of improving early childhood experiences for all children.” the article is linked to the rece website which now includes over 170 scholars from around the world who have endorsed the statement. journal of childhood studies winter/hiver 2016 vol. 41 no. 3 57 journal of childhood studies opinion piece following publication of the rece statement, oecd offered a meeting with urban, scheduled to take place in early february, with moss also in attendance. it will provide an opportunity to seek further information from oecd, not least about the countries that have agreed to participate in the piloting of the iels (so far only england has gone public on its participation). it will also be an opportunity to seek clarification on whether and if so how the oecd plans to engage with the wider early childhood community, both to disseminate information about this major new initiative and to debate the concerns and criticisms that are increasingly being voiced as people find out what is planned. this commentary is a call for readers to access the articles published to date regarding the concerns raised here and to engage at local, national and international levels to help ensure that actions deemed important by a few are not allowed to be visited upon the many without an open and fully informed debate and opportunity for contestation. journal of childhood studies winter/hiver 2016 vol. 41 no. 3 58 journal of childhood studies opinion piece references cagliari p, castegnetti m, giudici c, rinaldi, c., vecchi, v., & moss, p. (eds.) (2016) loris malaguzzi and the schools of reggio emilia: a selection of his writings and speeches 1945–1993. london: routledge. gunn, a. & mitchell, l. (2016). ece sig motion approved at nzare conference, november 2016. (http://www.nzare.org.nz/portals/306/images/files/ece_2016_report.pdf) moss, p., dahlberg, g., grieshaber, s. mantovani, s., may, h., pence, a., rayna, s., swadener, b.b., & vandenbroeck, m. (2016). the organisation for economic co-operation and development’s international early learning study: opening for debate and contestation. contemporary issues in early childhood, 17(3), 343-351. (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1463949116661126) oecd. (2015). call for tenders: international early learning study. (http://www.oecd.org/callsfortenders/cft 100001420 international early learning study.pdf) urban, m. & swadener, b.b. (2016). democratic accountability and contextualised systemic evaluation. international critical childhood policy studies, 5(1), 6-18. (http://receinternational.org/rece-comment-on-oecd-iccps.html) canadian children professional resources 52spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 mary caroline rowan is a vanier scholar and phd student in the faculty of education at the university of new brunswick. she completed her masters degree at the school of child and youth care, university of victoria, in november 2011, defending her thesis exploring the possibilities of learning stories as a meaningful approach to early childhood education in nunavik. getting it wrong from the beginning: our progressivist inheritance from herbert spencer, john dewey, and jean piaget by: kieran egan reviewed by mary caroline rowan in getting it wrong from the beginning: our progressivist inheritance from herbert spencer, john dewey, and jean piaget, egan (2002) examines the theoretical backbone of our current educational theories and, in the process, exposes troubled foundations. in this concise and immensely readable volume (204 pages), egan fastidiously links herbert spencer’s 19th-century educational principles with two of the most influential contributors to ongoing educational practice, john dewey and jean piaget. in the process, he problematizes the limitations of a so-called natural, linear, staged progression of children’s growth as defined by developmental psychology, which he reveals is rooted in spencer’s adherence to long-discounted lamarckian theories of evolution. as a teacher of early childhood educators and administrators and as a student of early childhood education, i find egan’s book to provide many useful insights. egan calls the current state of schooling a catastrophe, lamenting impoverished anemic curriculum and “unforgivable ignorance”(p. 148). he is concerned that the perpetuation of child-centred, science-based, progressivist thought disables efforts “to make schooling more effective” (p. 8). he shows how 19th-century theory infuses what many teachers view to be the tenets of early childhood education, including the ideas that children learn through hands on, self-directed play and discovery, that knowledge builds on prior learning, and that learning should be pleasant and supported by the knowing teacher who acts as a facilitator (p. 42). egan, unsatisfied with a lack of history, grammar, memory work, and rigour in contemporary education, draws on the work of vygotsky and wertsch to explain the sociocultural nature of learning. he argues for the value of directing research investments and studies to understand the processes involved in acquiring cultural cognitive tools, thereby opening educators to the possibilities of imaginative engagements and effective learning. egan finds two main faults with progressivist thought: first, that planned learning is essentially different from incidental/ absorptive/experiential learning; second, that spencer’s approach is based on the premise that by coming to know the child through scientific study, teaching and learning can be improved. egan cites howard gardner (1983, 1993) to help make the case for the diversity of human learning. gardner (cited in egan, 2002) writes: “empirical evidence shows that the mind— human or pre-human—is distinguished by the fact that it does not . . . harbor all-purpose rules or operations” (p. 58). egan fortifies this line of reasoning by referencing hirst (1974), who argues that it is not possible to track the workings of the mind. he writes: “if there are regularities to be seen, they are produced by the regularities of having socialized children and having taught them certain forms of knowledge at regular times” (hirst, cited in egan, 2002, p. 82). this claim challenges a fundamental progressivist notion of the knowable child. within his text, egan develops carefully crafted challenges to spencer’s principles for intellectual education, which include the following: • mind develops from homogeneous to heterogeneous: simple to complex. • mind develops from chaos to clarity: indefinite to definite. • lessons should start with the concrete and move to the abstract. • the progress of the developing mind follows principles of recapitulation theory. • instruction proceeds from practical to complex. • the curriculum is child centred—the child is the investigator and the teacher the facilitator. • learning should be pleasant. canadian children professional resources 53spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 according to egan, spencer “followed the mid-nineteenth-century conviction that the human race went through—recapitulated— all of the stages of development of our species, from a simplecelled creature, through gilled fishlike ancestors, and so on, to the present” (p. 27). egan writes about spencer’s casual and brutal racism and explains that spencer’s theories were used to view other races as inferior. he argues that spencer’s flawed theories “profoundly shape current practice” (p. 34) and provides examples of influential educational thinkers who subscribed to the same racist thinking. these include g. stanley hall, father of the developmental checklist, and john dewey, both of whom took up recapitulationist discourses. dewey wrote that there “is a sort of natural recurrence of the child mind to the typical activities of primitive people” (gould, 1977, cited in egan, 2002, p. 27). egan also includes james sully, the british leader of the child study movement, in this list. he reports sully (1895) as saying, “as we all know, the lowest races of mankind stand in close proximity to the animal world. the same is true for infants of the civilized races” (cited in egan, 2002, p. 91). recapitulation theory is used to construct ideas of racialization and perpetuate racist practices. i find this deeply concerning, and i am disturbed by egan’s connecting of spencer’s racist foundations with educational influencers including spencer, hall, dewey, and sully. i am led to conclude that much of current educational thinking is grounded in structures founded on racist perspectives and that these structures perpetuate practices of racialization in contemporary educational practice. how, i ask, can we as practitioners of early childhood education become aware of, identify, and disrupt these dividing forces that are so insidious and invisible? in addition to raising awareness of the problems connected with spencer’s influence, egan makes several important contributions. by carefully deconstructing issues with the principles upon which developmental psychology is founded, egan provides substantive content to explain problems linked with developmental psychology, including its blindness to cultural influences, adherence to linear processes, and the flawed idea that a child’s mind is primitive and can be known through scientific research. egan also raises awareness of compromised academic content when learning is directed to purposes of socialization. he does not, however, simply criticize spencer’s theories and piaget’s stages and operations. he sets out to point to solutions. he suggests that “what we know forms a resource for our imaginations” (p. 137) and that imaginative engagement leads to “genuine educational experience” (p. 176). egan proposes that richer educational experiences can be cultivated by doing the following: focusing educational research to intentionally gain insights into the cultural-cognitive tools that shape learning; working with an overarching theory of education; creating opportunities for children to acquire a wide base of intellectual resources; and eliminating the barriers to learning imposed by notions of ages and stages. these are ideas which, i find, present abundant possibilities for early childhood settings. reference egan, k. (2002). getting it wrong from the beginning: our progressivist inheritance from herbert spencer, john dewey, and jean piaget. new haven, ct: yale university press. criteria the friends of children award may be presented to an individual or group, regardless of age, who: • has a history of commitment to the cayc mission statement and/ or aims. • has shown an outstanding scholarly, advocacy, innovative or practical contribution to the well-being of young children. • may or may not be of canadian citizenship. • may or may not hold cayc membership although it is encouraged. procedure • a nomination must be made by a member of the board of directors and be seconded by a member of the board of directors. board members can, however, receive recommendations for nominations from individual cayc members or from other organizations. • nominations will be brought forward at a board of directors or national executive meeting by the board or executive member assigned responsibility for the award. this board or executive member will present and speak to the nomination. • the nomination will be voted upon and passed by the board of directors with a consensus decision. • the award will be presented promptly and in person when possible. • publicity of the award and the recipient(s) will appear in the journal, canadian children, and other publications where possible. • the number of awards per year will vary. friends of children award guidelines the cayc “friends of children award” was established to give cayc a way of recognizing outstanding contributions, by individuals or groups to the well-being of young children. if you wish to nominate an individual or group for this award, please use the criteria and procedure below. canadian children professional resources 53fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 sandra chang-kredl is assistant professor in the department of education at concordia university, montreal. her research interests are in curriculum studies, teacher identity, childhood studies and children’s popular culture, all of which are framed by qualitative and cultural studies approaches. she also has experience teaching and administering in early childhood settings. re-situating canadian early childhood education edited by: veronica pacini-ketchabaw and larry prochner reviewed by: sandra chang-kredl re-situating canadian early childhood education (2013), edited by veronica pacini-ketchabaw (professor in the school of child and youth care and coordinator of the early years specialization at the university of victoria) and larry prochner (professor of early childhood education and chair of the department of elementary education at the university of alberta) is part of a series called rethinking childhood (gaile s. cannella, general editor). the series challenges modernist approaches to childhood, through reconceptualist and critical scholarship, with the purpose of developing new understandings of the early childhood education field within a framework of postfoundational theories. re-situating canadian early childhood education presents scholarship from a uniquely canadian context, providing examples of reconceptualist work by canadian early childhood researchers. the two opening chapters set the tone and purpose for this volume by presenting a forceful overview of the reconceptualist movement in early childhood education. in the book’s foreword, curry and cannella describe the scholars of the movement, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, as advocates who challenge dominant, positivist, universalizing, and euro-western ideologies that disregard (to the point of erasure) the contributions and experiences of marginalized groups. this trend is perhaps best exemplified by the privileging of developmental psychology in the field of early childhood education. the construction of the child from a developmental standpoint is an idea that has been institutionally legitimized, and its powerful discourse affects the lives of children, families, and teachers around the globe. reconceptualists argue against discourses of childhood that legitimate a belief in control and predictability, for example, the process of adults observing and measuring children’s development/progress against a standard of normality. significantly, book editors pacini-ketchabaw and prochner frame reconceptualist work in early childhood education as a political project. the critical activism implicit in reconceptualist scholarship aims to decolonize the field and open it to more diverse and socially just approaches. its purpose, then, is to give voice to those whose voices have traditionally been oppressed, in particular, children, their teachers and families, women, and racial and ethnic minorities. the collection of work in this volume demonstrates how canadian scholars in early childhood education contribute to the reconceptualist project of challenging discourses entrenched in modernist, neoliberal agendas through “deconstructive action” (curry & cannella, p. xv) while reconstructing new ways of thinking. these new ways draw on postfoundational theories that encourage dialogue, process, and openness to diversity, multiplicity, and complexity. the book succeeds in representing a diversity of approaches and topics from a reconceptualist standpoint in canadian early childhood education scholarship. in their introduction, pacini-ketchabaw and prochner describe how the original focus of reconceptualist studies in early childhood education was to critique assumptions framed by developmental psychology, and this appears to still be a prominent theme, as reflected in many of the chapters in this edited volume. postfoundational theories are used to challenge dominant views forwarded by developmental psychology and exemplified in naeyc’s guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice. for example, sociocultural theories are applied to challenge the view of literacy development as a solely cognitive activity (davidson); sociohistorical perspectives of play are used to interrogate the dominant, eurocentric perspective of play as stage and age-based (kirova); and critical disability studies are used to challenge dominant discourses of disability as deficit oriented and literacy as print focused and psychometrically defined (iannacci & graham). many of these chapters are thought provoking. langford, in writing about the early childhood educator’s professional authority, applies feminist studies and critical theories to help the early childhood educator reclaim her identity and work. the dominant view of early childhood educators as professional technicians who merely carry out standardized procedures dictated by experts (e.g., child psychologists, professors in education), langford claims, must be challenged. she advocates for an educator who can understand her position in a highly gendered profession, actively pursue a professional authority that is complex, and reconceive of herself as a critical subject and agent. such new understandings of the project of early childhood education, sorely lacking in current canadian society and teacher education programs (with their hegemonic devotion to child-centred and developmental discourses), bolster the early childhood professional with the will to contribute to social justice as a caring, intelligent citizen who is historically, socially, and culturally aware. to be clear, the book is not a collective hunt to overthrow developmental approaches. kummen, pacini-ketchabaw, and thompson, in what they title “making developmental knowledge stutter and canadian children professional resources 54fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 stumble,” challenge traditional dualisms, such as human versus nonhuman and discourse versus matter, to literally reconceptualize developmental knowledge (i.e., rather than offering alternative theories to developmental psychology, they encourage us to think differently about developmental knowledge). the authors apply postfoundational theories of new materialisms and posthumanism to resituate developmental knowledge from within the educator, as successful or unsuccessful developmental worker, to an event that emerges from interactions between educators, children, and materials. the reconceptualist movement has also expanded beyond the interrogation of developmental psychology to encompass a broader aim of equality, diversity, social justice, and emancipation (paciniketchabaw & prochner). davidson presses for an integrated approach that combines cognitive and sociocultural understandings of literacy development. queer theory is used to challenge heteronormative approaches to teacher education in early childhood (janmohamed). and work from indigenous scholars is used to oppose colonization practices in an inukjuak centre (rowan). challenging persistent core ideas in the early childhood education field is not an easy goal. unchallenged assumptions that have been recycled for decades, such as the undisputed belief that human intellect should be measured through predetermined and universal psychological constructs, make it difficult for different ideas to be considered. as janmohamed notes, challenging dominant discourses requires a “constant need to swim against the tide” (p. 99). a project of reconceptualization is by necessity complex and messy, not straightforward. this book’s chapters—and their somewhat “piecemeal” presentation, which echoes pacini-ketchabaw and prochner’s description of the movement—serve to disrupt and resituate the conversations away from some of the core ideas too long unchallenged. many do so in a preliminary and exploratory manner, leaving space and an implicit invitation for further research to be conducted in important areas. a recurrent experience in reading the various chapters was a sense of surprise, almost a sort of awakening “i never thought of this issue in this way”and an appreciation for the vision and mettle required to challenge dominant discourses in everyday early childhood events. for example, rose and whitty move the reader to reconsider how neoliberal constructions of time dictate so much of our lives, specifically, the routines that are ritualized in child care settings, the goal of efficiency that is prioritized through timefixated beliefs, and the quantification and objectification of students’ and teachers’ experiences. in this way, they reveal some of the unquestioned ways of thinking that are so embedded in our lives as educators, parents, and children. pacini-ketchabaw and prochner describe the reconceptualist movement in early childhood education as a political project, in that the work is meant to move beyond theorizing and make a real-world difference by addressing social injustices. the collected work in this book certainly supports this vision by interrogating the marginalization of different populations in a variety of actual canadian early childhood contexts. kirova studies the experiences of refugee families and their young children in an intercultural early learning program in western canada. to challenge the dominant stage-based view of play, she brings to light the importance of cultural “brokering” that educators carry into children’s play, showing that play is not a culture-free activity to be parsed into measures of norms and deficiencies. rowan addresses remnants of recapitulation and evolutionary theories that continue to perpetuate the marginalization of indigenous students and families. she urges for accessibility to inuit culture and identities for children in a child care centre in inukjuak, nunavik. swadener, peters, and gaches focus on a children’s rights perspective across three nations: australia, northern ireland, and canada. in challenging the traditional and neoliberal tokenizing of the child as passive, dependent, and inferior, they go farther than many scholars who advocate theoretically for children’s greater participation. by fusing their theoretical interrogation of adults’ assumptions about childhood with actual cross-national examples of children being supported in forming and expressing their views, they present possibilities for including children, especially children under 8, as participants in serious forms of decision making about issues that affect their lives. bernhard’s focus is on latin american immigrant mothers’ relationships with their children’s schools. drawing on critical pedagogy, cultural capital, and identity studies, bernhard makes a case for the need to help immigrant parents develop their agency through a process of “conscientization” (freire, 1994), to acquire their own habitus. through focus group discussions, the mothers developed knowledge and awareness of social positioning, power, social strata, and cultural capital in western school systems and, through this awareness, began to engage with and maximize their own identity. bernhard also challenges the lack of awareness that canadian teachers have about immigrant families as they unknowingly subscribe to assumptions of western norms as superior. in addition to langford’s chapter on authority and the early childhood teacher, other chapters address the need to reconceptualize early childhood teacher education. in examining curriculum documents in ontario, janmohamed notes that the focus of diversity in teacher education is on different abilities and different cultures, but has yet to attend adequately to the queer population. janmohamed challenges heteronormative approaches to teacher education and contends that queer theory can offer important, rupturing ways of understanding children, families, and early childhood education. iannacci and graham apply critical disability studies to question dominant discourses of disability in teacher education. the teacher candidates in their study learned to understand children’s assets as opposed to deficits, to move beyond print texts, and to focus on the quality and nature of instruction canadian children professional resources 55fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 rather than the quantity; however, they were not drawn to consider disability to be a social construction. iannacci and graham conclude that the monolithic discourse of disability is difficult to penetrate, but they urge teacher educators to encourage more complex and reconceptualized discussions about disability. a reader who is unfamiliar with postfoundational theories may have benefited from a more explicit explanation of the theoretical positions being referred to early in the book, but it is perhaps only through reading the various chapters that a keen understanding of these theories, through the different authors’ practical and critical applications to real-world problems, can be appreciated. in terms of the book’s representation of reconceptualist scholarship in canada, the contributing authors write from a number of provinces, as well as from the united states. of course, any book is limited in its ability to fully represent its constituents; however, as a québécoise, i would have liked to have seen québec in terms of its linguistic politics or its prominent (and controversial) subsidized child care program represented in the book. let this be a call to scholars in different provinces to step forward, as reconceptualist work in early childhood education is needed if the aims of social justice, diversity, and emancipation are to be had for all canadian children, families, and educators in early childhood settings. to conclude, this is an important book that i would highly recommend to researchers and graduate students looking for important directions in which to focus their developing research in early childhood education. it would also be valuable for prospective teachers studying in teacher education programs, to help them understand the impact of foundational ideas on their beliefs about childhood and teaching, and to enable them to consider alternative postfoundational approaches reflected in this collection. references curry, daphne l., & cannella, g. s. (2013). reconceptualist her/histories in early childhood studies: challenges, power relations, and critical activism. in v. paciniketchabaw & l. prochner (eds.), re-situating canadian early childhood education (pp. ix–xxvi). new york, ny: peter lang. freire, p. (1994). pedagogy of hope: reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. new york, ny: continuum. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & prochner, l. (eds.). (2013). resituating canadian early childhood education. new york, ny: peter lang. canadian children directions & connections 41fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 intended for educators working within a prescribed curriculum, this article demonstrates how student engagement and success are achieved using an inquiry approach and integrating the curriculum. alison outlines how she initially planned for this outcome by selecting four questions that were provided for the toronto district school board’s teaching and learning critical pathways for literacy. she then documents the children’s responses throughout the inquiry to assess their understanding. subquestions, rich narrative stories, and knowledge building were used to support the children’s learning in a deeper context. ultimately, the children with the most challenges in reading and writing were able to demonstrate their knowledge using a variety of assessment forms that included oral responses, visual arts, science journals, and technology. what is hope? this was the inquiry question i presented to the grade 1 and 2 children in my classroom. i wanted a question that was broad enough to incorporate strands of the science and social studies curricula, as well as allow for many interpretations depending on context, as could be considered with art and language. the plan would follow the same timeline as teaching and learning critical pathways (tlcp) for literacy, which is now standard across the toronto district school board (tdsb). my intention was to integrate science, social studies, art, and math within the same big idea as language, to allow time and space for inquiry with the intention to expand and deepen the question, “what is hope?” i also planned to assess the children’s understanding, using photographs, recorded conversations, and observations, and provide opportunity to represent their understanding in a variety of forms. this intention was based on my previous years of experience as a kindergarten teacher who used inquiry to engage learners; i also wanted to follow a reggio emilia approach. my enthusiasm for an integrated and inquiry approach was often met with skepticism by primary teachers who felt restricted to cover a more prescribed curriculum than was outlined for kindergarten. i was motivated to teach a primary grade where i could present guiding questions to engage students (and myself) in a curriculum that could be considered in a nonlinear way. after reading jeffrey wilhelm’s (2007) work on inquiry, i felt confident that i could surpass merely “covering the curriculum” and aim to design curriculum that would engage learners and support deeper understanding. hence, my challenge was to combine and integrate a grade 1 and 2 curriculum provided in a flexible longrange plan and presented in the form of questions for inquiry-based learning. each school in the tdsb approaches the implementation of tlcps in a unique way that benefits staff and student needs. at our school, we were to complete four tlcps for language that span from september to june. we were provided with a list of possible questions that were developed by our literacy coach and influenced by the director of the toronto district school board, dr. chris spence, and his vision of hope: “imagine there is a clear focus on achieving student success and every student is engaged, has a voice, [has] access to a caring adult, and [has] the opportunity to develop to their full potential” (toronto district school board, n.d., para. 2). once i selected the four questions for the tlcps for language, i then integrated the curriculum strands from the social studies, science, arts, and math curricula that fit best with each question, using a web graphic organizer. i then created subquestions to create a framework for inquiry-based learning and presented them with the four main questions as long-range plans for the year. the longrange plans were flexible, but provided a list of learning opportunities (curriculum expectations), possible excursion ideas, and a culminating task. the integrated pathway september was a time to create an inclusive environment as a foundation for inquiry-based learning. students in grade 2 were surprised to see an art studio and blocks in the classroom, but they were quick to utilize the materials during extended inquiry time where the students could explore ways of representing their learning. we spent the first month building our classroom community and taking the time to share and listen to one another. to start the first integrated pathway, i simply asked the children, “what is hope?” ryder: you want something. alex: being excited. alison board is a teacher with the toronto district school board. her interest in the reggio emilia approach to education has led to opportunities for sharing her practical implementations with teachers in her school board and in other boards in ontario. she is a contributor to the book and blog the heart and art of teaching and learning: practical ideas and resources for beginning teachers (elementary teachers’ federation of ontario, 2011). email: alison.board@tdsb.on.ca student engagement and success using an inquiry approach and integrated curriculum in primary education alison board canadian children directions & connections 42fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 madeline: you wish something. leah: worrying about other people. by recording the children’s responses, i could see that the children had similar ideas of hope as wanting or wishing, such as “i hope i get a new toy.” only leah’s comment seemed to differ in that it touched on worry or care for others. the children in my classroom needed an opportunity to consider hope in a deeper context. i looked at the subquestions i had developed in connection to the science and social studies curricula, such as, why is hope important to our community? how is hope different for other communities around the world? how do the sun, air, and water (as energy/life source) give hope to people in our community and other communities around the world? i looked to narrative as a form that could provide the stories and context needed to promote a deeper understanding of hope. using various search engines, i located texts to read aloud that would provide opportunities to discuss the idea of hope in relation to our own community and communities elsewhere in the world. the following four texts, which were chosen in response to the children’s needs for understanding and were not in my original long-range plan, became the foundation for our inquiry: • lila and the secret of rain, by david conway and jude daly • listen to the wind, by greg mortenson and susan roth • poor fish, by heide helene beisert • the whispering cloth: a refugee’s story, by pegi shea and anita riggio we read the books two or three times each over a period of a month. the grade 1 students easily compared their own community with the environmental issues in poor fish, and with teacher direction, the grade 2 students compared the people, houses, transportation, and geography presented in the other books about pakistan, africa, and thailand. to support the learning needed for these comparisons, each student was provided with a field journal. we used these journals on a weekly outing to our school grounds, where we made observations about the sun, the air, or water in relation to our familiar surroundings. we would return to class and share our findings, building on our own understandings in a process chiarotto (2011) calls knowledge building. in my long-range plans, i had outlined the culminating task as a fabric picture, using a variety of textiles to represent the children’s understanding of hope in the context of their local community (grade 1) or another community in the world (grade 2). part of our learning included a class trip to the textile museum of canada. this trip provided us with new information about the symbolism and purpose of clothing in african cultures. it also gave the students an opportunity to explore textiles, wool, and weaving in a hands-on area. upon returning to school from our class trip, kieran, a grade 2 student, handed me a piece of fabric that he had just cut out, saying, “here, ms. board, this is for you.” figure 1. student representation of african clothing, using scissors and fabric. kieran’s representation was not petitioned or expected. i felt the need to have something written to support his representation of a garment, so i asked him to explain what it represented in words. he said, “hunter clothes. the red symbol is good luck. they go hunting so they can eat.” his written piece did not convey his understanding of symmetry as demonstrated in how he cut the garment, nor his initiative and interest which, until this time, had not been evident. after our trip to the textile museum, extended “inquiry time” in the class to pursue topics and interests at various centres, and discussions around our four foundation books, the children started to make their own observations and connections. integrating the science curriculum for both grades, which included focus on the sun’s energy (grade 1) and the need for air and water (grade 2), contributed to their understanding of the texts. i asked the children again, “what is hope?” madeline: to keep the environment clean. leah: to build a school. alex: for rain to cool down the land, fill the wells so people will not die. molly: to live in a new country; to have a home. kieran: to go to school. the children’s responses were now reflecting their understanding of hope in other contexts. they were continuously making connections between the books that we read. they were also showing interest in locating the various countries that are the settings for the texts. when we were in the computer lab, many of the children searched their country of interest on google earth. leah and madeline were surprised to see the snow-covered mountainous terrain of korphe, pakistan. canadian children directions & connections 43fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 figure 2. leah takes her chair to work by the map where she is working on locating korphe, pakistan, and describing its climate. an emergent interest in weaving an interest in weaving emerged from the children’s learning regarding the importance and cultural significance of cloth in our community and communities in pakistan, thailand, and africa. this interest was the result of our trip to the textiles museum, the rich texts combining themes of hope, cloth, and community, and the social studies and arts curricula. a basic loom was set up as a centre in the classroom, on a table with chairs set on either side as an invitation for two. a basket was provided with strips of blue fabric and a limited selection of beige and grey yarn. all the children wanted to try weaving; however, over an extended time i observed three main outcomes that resulted from the weaving centre. first, i was surprised by the unlikely partnerships that it brought together and the collaboration it encouraged. ryder said, “we can do this together. first i hold the strings and kate pushes the fabric through, then she holds the strings and i do it!” second, the loom attracted interest from some students who were not usually interested in the arts. for example, ryan worked alone at the loom and methodically wove the materials, noting the pattern as he worked. for many of the grade 1 boys, weaving provided necessary opportunities for small motor development. figure 3. ryan at the loom. third, the loom provided a centre for oral language development. eve-marie, an english language learner, was often reticent about participating in any group activities at the beginning of the year. yet, she felt comfortable participating with others at the loom, and it was here that she engaged in dialogue while sharing in the act of weaving. figure 4. eve-marie, grade 1 english language learner, at the loom. the culminating project when it came time for the culminating project, i doubted my decision to rely on the fabric representation for assessment. so, i created a graphic organizer or template for the children to complete first. however, i found the fabric representations captured a depth of understanding that was not evident in the written task. figure 5. graphic organizer for culminating fabric picture. in figure 5, grade 2 student leah is receiving support for below-grade reading and writing skills. however, her detailed drawings represent her knowledge when comparing her community with a community in pakistan. note the curly lines in the mountains representing the effects of the air as wind in the higher altitude of korphe. figure 6. culminating fabric picture, korphe, pakistan. leah’s fabric representation shows the altitude of the korphe community, the challenge of the water that was previously crossed using a wire pulley and a box to sit in, and the wise man who slipped. in korphe, the people’s need for a bridge is more clear than their need for a school. canadian children directions & connections 44fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 figure 7. culminating fabric picture, africa. in figure 7, grade 2 student molly uses fabric to effectively demonstrate her understanding of the dry african landscape. she has also shown perspective with a home and person in the background on the horizontal line, skills that were explored during instruction of the visual arts curriculum. this work demonstrates how a student can represent his or her knowledge using visual art. as lorraine chiarotto (2011) notes, “the fact that a student may not possess particularly strong writing skills does not mean that he or she is devoid of ideas or knowledge” (p. 24). conclusion at the end of the inquiry, i asked the students if their ideas about hope had changed. kieran: hope is more about needing something, like a place to live, food, or water to survive. leah: we pretty much have everything we need. it was evident from these responses that the children had gained a deeper understanding of the question through their own inquiry, which had been supported using an integrated curricular approach. more importantly, the children were successful in demonstrating their knowledge and understanding in science and social studies that would not have been achievable if only paper and pencil tasks were provided. visual art provides a valuable means of assessment. through the documentation process, i was able to clarify my own objectives and make the children’s learning visible. how to implement an integrated inquiry approach to implement a similar approach, brainstorm ways to connect the children to the curriculum using real-world problems or questions. provide many, many ways to approach the inquiry, and allow for extended time periods where the children can explore their topics of interest at the computer, in an art studio, or using building materials. more specifically: 1. make flexible plans 2. build classroom community 3. learn with the children 4. share ideas as a group 5. provide the resources and the time 5. allow students to express understanding in many forms 6. document and reflect references chiarotto, l. (2011). natural curiosity: building children’s understanding of the world through environmental inquiry: a resource for teachers. toronto, on: ontario institute for studies in education. elementary teachers’ federation of ontario. (2011). the heart and art of teaching and learning: practical ideas and resources for beginning teachers. toronto, on: author. toronto district school board. (n.d.). better schools today means a brighter future for children of tomorrow. retrieved from: http://www.tdsb.on.ca/ wilhelm, j. d. (2007). engaging readers and writers with inquiry. new york, ny: scholastic. canadian children reviews of books and resources 52spring/printemps 2016 vol. 41 no. 1 amanda stewart teaches 4th and 5th grades at ventana school, a reggio-emilia-inspired elementary program in los altos, california. she holds a ba in theatre from ubc and a master’s in teaching from brown university. email: amandaashbey@gmail. com book review: elizabeth coffman’s dramatic play in the early years reviewed by amanda stewart “pretend that we’re …”—a phrase so deeply associated with children’s play that it could be a contender for the slogan of childhood. its ubiquity clearly illustrates that children possess an inherent affinity and aptitude for dramatic play. as landreth (2012) writes, “unlike adults, whose natural medium of communication is verbalization, the natural medium of communication for children is play and activity” (p. 7). in dramatic play in the early years (routledge, 2015), elizabeth coffman provides a step-by-step guide for teachers on how to engage with children in co-constructing dramatic play experiences. dramatic play functions as both a creative expression and a learning tool that is developmentally appropriate for children. when employed in the classroom, dramatic play can act as a catalyst for the development of critical thinking skills, social construction of understanding, social-emotional learning, active academic engagement, and student-driven emergent curriculum. coffman is quick to point out that dramatic play and dramatic performance are not the same. dramatic play, as it is discussed in this book, refers to a specific type of imaginative play, one that is facilitated by an adult and utilized as a learning tool. it is different from the kind of dramatic play that children may engage with in the absence of adults. in coffman’s dramatic play, “the story is investigated collaboratively, with the teacher co-constructing the unfolding of the story as she listens to the children, initiating the central tensions to be explored, stopping and starting as the story develops to consider the next steps” (p. 8). in their role as co-constructors of learning, teachers engage in active listening as they allow their students’ ideas to drive the story’s direction. pointedly, the author acknowledges the urge felt by some adults and older children to move the experience of dramatic play into something that more closely resembles performance, and quickly cautions against it. advocating process over product, she asserts that dramatic play is about planning play experiences not just for, but with children that will invite them to explore and try out many situations in order to grow their own ideas and perceptions and develop empathy for, and understanding of others and, indeed themselves. (p. 18) references to empathy and perspective taking are woven throughout the text and are heralded as the intention behind many types of dramatic play. coffman states: “the difference between storytelling and dramatic play is the children becoming the story, living the lives of the characters or animals, bumping up against the issues and tensions the that story brings into the foreground” (p. 7). the idea of using story as a vehicle for perspective taking is far from new. writing about the nature of narrative in autobiography, jerome bruner (2004) states: “any story one may tell about anything is better understood by considering other possible ways in which it can be told” (p. 709). in line with bruner’s thinking, coffman describes dramatic play as “living through the story” (p. 7). she argues that dramatic play allows children to practice taking on perspectives and experiences far different from their own lives. despite the author’s multitude of references to perspective taking, social justice was mentioned only once in the text. i was disappointed that coffman missed the opportunity to explicitly state, and further develop, how dramatic play could be used to illustrate issues of social justice. with emphasis on multiple perspectives and connecting emotionally with the lived experience of various characters, dramatic play is a natural partner to social justice education that is, unfortunately, not manifested in the text. co-construction of dramatic play necessitates a trust between teacher and student and a commitment to investigating emergent experience. in exploring these ideas, coffman roots her work in the reggio emilia approach and social-constructivist theory. loris malaguzzi (1994) pioneer of the reggio emilia approach, asserts: each one of us needs to be able to play with the things that are coming out of the world of children. each one of us needs to have curiosity, and we need to be able to try something new based on the ideas that we collect from the children as they go along. life canadian children reviews of books and resources 53spring/printemps 2016 vol. 41 no. 1 has to be somewhat agitated and upset, a bit restless, somewhat unknown. (p. 53) viewing children as competent and capable, coffman advocates for teachers to trust in their students’ ability to engage in meaningful dramatic play experiences, but she also makes it clear that teachers must have faith in themselves that they can handle something “a bit restless, somewhat unknown” and effectively manage emergent curriculum that occurs within the dramatic play experience in order to become co-creators alongside their students. emergent play experiences, as coffman suggests, can provoke anxiety in teachers who are used to controlling outcomes. she notes: “risks taken in dramatic play are often the teacher’s risks rather than the children’s. it may feel risky to address big issues not normally discussed in the classroom” (p. 12). “big issues” are often of great interest to children, and more often than not are shied away from by teachers. topics such as war, climate change, and human suffering can feel like ideas we need to shelter children from. however, dramatic play offers a powerful tool to engage children with these topics in developmentally appropriate ways by giving “children an opportunity to explore and experience situations in a safe environment that is ‘not for real’” (p. 18). allowing students to explore challenging issues in a safe environment helps them build empathy for others and offers them an opportunity to practice identifying and processing emotions, key elements of social-emotional learning. as coffman notes, the ‘not for real’ aspect of play allows you and the children to examine all sides of the story: to look between the lines, take a different approach, try out someone else’s experience, ‘walk in another person’s shoes,’ and move back and forth in time. (p. 18) addressed throughout the text are common concerns and potential pitfalls teachers are likely to develop when engaging in dramatic play with children. one of the book’s strengths is the way the author acknowledges potential anxieties for teachers while simultaneously providing them with strategies to manage their own expectations and nerves. she states: the open-ended process requires you to take an open stance, listening, observing, being curious about the children’s response, and wondering what will come next. it is important for you to see dramatic play as a step-by-step lived experience. seldom is this kind of drama played out from the beginning to end without discussion, trial and error, reflection, research, and practice. (p. 27) the author’s wealth of experience, as evidenced through the documented classroom experiences in the text, allows her to identify areas where teachers are likely to find the process of dramatic play dynamic and unpredictable, and she makes suggestions for managing challenging situations. in seven chapters and an introduction, coffman outlines the major aspects for utilizing dramatic play as a tool for teaching and learning. looking beyond theory toward active practice, each chapter begins with an exploration of theory before presenting actionable strategies for investigating dramatic play with students. the book explores the essential elements of dramatic play while grounding the text in actual practices and descriptions of experience that serve as a road map for implementing dramatic play in the classroom. “chapter one: the creative process” attempts to demystify the creative process by describing four stages of the creative process (preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification) and providing concrete examples of how a teacher can craft an invitation for students to engage in co-creating a dramatic play experience. in “chapter two: beginning dramatic play,” coffman focuses on ways to help students engage deeply in the dramatic play experience through activities and exercises that prepare them to willingly suspend their disbelief. she also highlights the importance of pausing, which “is important in dramatic play as play itself” (p. 23), and suggests multiple ways to utilize pauses to enhance children’s comprehension and engagement with the experience. “chapter three: the importance of practice” highlights ways to help students (and teachers) prepare for and practice the skills and mindset needed to delve deeply into dramatic play. also described is the practice of side-coaching, where the teacher “co-imagines with the children by describing aloud the who, what, where, and when of their emerging story” (p. 34). in “chapter four: building belief” coffman describes multiple approaches to help students build belief in their dramatic exploration. according to her, “all dramatic processes require both a willing suspension of disbelief and an active effort to promote believability” (p. 41). therefore, “children entering into imaginative play may need to explore a variety of ways to build belief in order to participate fully in the unfolding story” (p. 41). outlining several concrete activities for belief building, coffman prepares teachers with strategies to engage a range of students, from eager six-year-olds to reluctant preteens. canadian children reviews of books and resources 54spring/printemps 2016 vol. 41 no. 1 “chapter five: finding the story” delves into how a teacher works as a co-constructor in creating an experience. when utilizing dramatic play as a learning tool, coffman writes, “the adult is very present as co-constructor in both the planning and the guiding. the response and much of the direction, however, come from the children” (p. 53). she asserts that the key to successful co-construction is the teacher’s intentionality, and this chapter outlines how to identify an intention or goal and then choose a story that is ripe for exploration. in “chapter six: playing inside the curriculum” coffman acknowledges the constraints that teachers are under in terms of content. she aims to help teachers find ways to use dramatic play to fulfill curricular goals, suggesting that teachers “often forget the emotional aspects buried in stories in science (e.g., the impact of a dwindling resource) and in social studies” (p. 64). coffman seeks to highlight how dramatic play can be interwoven into any curriculum and can heighten children’s enthusiasm for a topic. this chapter explains how to establish a “framework for investigation” and outlines questions teachers can use to effectively build a curriculum-based dramatic play experience. coffman uses rich and varied examples to highlight the elements of a framework. “chapter seven: teacher in role” suggests two ways teachers can engage in co-constructing a story from inside the play experience. the first, formal role, occurs when the teacher “tells the story from inside a character’s particular point of view” (p. 85) and is, in many ways, a monologue performed by the teacher. this role may involve telling a story from one perspective or taking on multiple perspectives in the same story. when a teacher is in formal role, their intention is to help students build empathy for a character and/or view an event from multiple perspectives. in the second, interactive role, “the teacher takes on a character or plans a character with the students in order to engage the children in problem solving” (p. 85). this role involves playing directly with the children as you guide their experience from within the story. coffman ends each chapter with a brief bulleted summary. instead of simply reiterating the information from the chapter, the list acts as a set of action items for teachers and contains a mix of activities, mindsets, and strategies for teachers to employ. these helpful summaries allow teachers to easily access information on their role in dramatic play. interspersed throughout the chapters are firsthand accounts of the author’s experiences engaging in dramatic play with various groups of children. through these stories, she not only illustrates key elements of dramatic play in context, but also indicates how children at different developmental stages will engage differently with this type of play. it is rare to see a text so firmly based in the reggio emilia approach that refers to working with students in grade 3 and above. in highlighting her work with students in all elementary grades, coffman has produced a book that is a rare gem for upper-grade teachers in social-constructivist or emergent-curriculum schools. dramatic play in the early years is written in a straightforward, conversational style that engages readers both as colleagues and as learners. filled with step-by-step instructions, detailed examples of dramatic play experiences, and strategies for teachers and students alike, this book may inspire curious beginners or reignite the enthusiasm of seasoned dramatists. it is certainly one i will return to for guidance as i explore dramatic play with children. works cited bruner, j. (2004, fall). life as narrative. social research, 71(3), 691–710. coffman, e. (2015). dramatic play in the early years. markham, on: pembroke. landreth, g. l. (2012). play therapy: the art of the relationship. new york, ny: routledge. malaguzzi, l. (1994). your image of the child: where teaching begins. child care information exchange, 3(94), 52-56. june 2022 47 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice “watch out for their home!”: disrupting extractive forest pedagogies in early childhood education nancy van groll and heather fraser nancy van groll is an instructor in the school of education and childhood studies and a pedagogist at ecebc (early childhood educators of british columbia) living, working, and learning on the unceded coast salish territories of the sel̓íl ̓witulh (tsleilwaututh), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (musqueam) nations. in her writing, research, teaching, and advocacy, nancy pays attention to lively relations and activates slow, situated, and spiralling pedagogical projects with(in) 21st-century contexts. email: nancyvangroll@capilanou.ca heather fraser is a forest educator and the owner of saplings outdoor programs, located on the traditional territories of coast salish peoples, including sel̓íl ̓witulh (tsleil-waututh), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (musqueam) nations. her passionate advocacy focuses on working with young children in outdoor contexts as they develop responsive relationships with place. human relationships with old-growth forests saw an increase in public attention and concern in 2021, with news cycles dominated by an extremely active forest fire season in western north america (cbc news, 2021), historic old-growth logging protests (mckeen, 2021) and a landmark call to action by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc; 2021). in these times of climate precarity and uncertainty, educators, instructors, pedagogists, and researchers who work, think, and engage with young children in settler colonial contexts are compelled to engage in speculative pedagogical processes that respond to the complex worlds that are coinherited, coconstructed, and coinhabited by human and more-than-human communities. in this conceptual and practicebased paper we consider the ways early childhood education is implicated in and reproduces ongoing systems of settler colonialism. we aim to notice, generate, and “stay with the trouble” (haraway, 2016) of stories that disrupt and unsettle colonial dialogues that often reverberate within forest pedagogies. according to donna haraway (2016), troubles are tensions, complexities, or knots that challenge us to “stir up potent response” (p. 1) in our pedagogical practice. we see troubles as generative entry points for resisting taken-for-granted practices in early childhood education and for speculating about how we might be able to activate new ways of living well together (government of british columbia, 2019). throughout this piece, we respond to a series of everyday moments that occurred in a forest-based early learning program (forest school) that operates out of a municipal park on unceded coast salish territory (land colonially known as coastal british columbia (bc), canada). the narrative below illustrates the complicated and, at times, troubling relations between children, educators, and place. as we think carefully with these happenings, we take up david greenwood’s (2016) invitation to pay attention to the paradoxical nature of place as both a concept and a relationship. we see place as meeting ground and contact zone (the collision of conflicting values, discourses, logics, and practices) that locates us within the past, present, and future of settler colonial contexts (greenwood, 2016). the frictions of living and learning in times of climate precarity, global unrest, and uncertainty require educators to consider the ways we can collectively engage in speculative pedagogies that respond to the complex, coinherited common world(s) we inhabit. this conceptual and practice-based paper considers the way early childhood education is implicated in ongoing settler colonialism. it aims to notice, generate, and stay with the trouble of stories that disrupt and unsettle the extractive and colonial dialogues about the forest as a resource and pedagogical tool. key words: forest pedagogies; climate precarity; early childhood education; settler colonialism june 2022 48 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice situated with/in this contact zone, we enact a troubled dialogue grounded in resistance to the romantic coupling of child and forest and engage deeply with pasts, presents, and futures of bc’s coastal forests. we notice how the particularities of practicing within a forest-based program include frictions that are often overlooked as they compose shifting colonialisms. as fikile nxumalo (2015) notes, settler colonial conditions can present themselves through “material and discursive erasures, as well as dispossessions, displacements, and appropriations” (p. 22). we see traces, echoes, and scars of these erasures within everyday relations in the forest and are particularly troubled by the risk of perpetuating romantic, extractive, and redemptive discourses that present the pairing of child and forest as neutral, innocent, or inherently good (nxumalo, 2015; taylor, 2013). inspired by nxumalo, we seek to consider the ways colonialism shapes everyday relations in taken-for-granted ways and refigure our presence in the forest to dwell with the frictions and fraught complexities we encounter. we take seriously the provocation by the editors of this special issue and the organizers of the responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods colloquium to deepen our grappling with these issues into a speculative discussion of imperfect relations. we are also curious about what might happen if we shift our pedagogical focus away from the polarity between extractivism and reciprocity in ecological relations and toward dwelling in uncertainty, imperfection, and intimate unknowings. by remaining with unknowing, uncertainty, and trouble, we see possibility for resisting complex forms of settler colonialism that are enacted in early learning environments. the following story about a log is intended as a provocation, a narrative purposefully written with no solution or consensus to the dilemma of the log. we invite readers to pause and stay with the trouble in the children’s and educators’ experience. “watch out for their home” the decaying log had been a centrepiece of the forest-based preschool program for many years. not only was it a landmark and a place to gather, it had also in moments become many different things: a boat, a mountain, a balance beam, and even a kitchen. over time, the log slowly rotted and decomposed, returning to the earth on which it once stood tall as a tree. after years of getting to know the rhythms and temporalities of particular parks, the educators at the forest school choose to gather in particular areas and avoid others. we pay close attention to what has changed over a hot, dry summer, or to where a river might be surging due to a fast snow melt in the alpine. thinking with robin wall kimmerer (2003), we carefully select meeting points for the school year that are open and generously spaced and without dense bush or a high presence of moss, so that our running and jumping bodies do not trample or interfere with the vital role moss plays in the creation and function of forest. further, when salmon spawn in the fall, we might avoid the river entirely to give them (and the bears) space. by paying attention to plants, animals, and other ecological community members that coinhabit the forest, we hope to nourish a responsive and reciprocal relationship with the forest rather than an extractive one. in the spring of 2020, educators had been suggesting to the children that they try out other fallen logs during their play in an attempt to minimize the damage the program does to this particularly favoured log. on a crisp, damp morning, one of the younger children in the group was sitting quietly beside the log as older boys jumped off of it playing a “big movement game.” the boy’s attention shifted from the group’s energetic activity to carefully examine the smaller details and happenings of the log. all of a sudden, another child landed precariously on the side of the log and a large chunk of decaying wood fell to the ground. hundreds of wood bugs and other tiny insects scurried out of the commotion. the children began excitedly running about and kneeling down to catch a glimpse of a bug in transit. a heated debate broke out over whether or not they should continue to play there, as a few children pointed out that the jumping had “broken” the bug’s home. alex (pseudonym) pointed out the many small holes on the log and said that they had noticed bugs crawling in and out of those holes. jamie (pseudonym), who had been sitting next to the log originally, began to share with the group all of the different bugs he had observed that morning. the discussion turned to a consideration as to whether or not the group should play on the log in the future. june 2022 49 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice on our return to the forest the following week, jamie carefully sat down in the same spot next to the log. as the group of older children moved throughout the forest, he watched warily. when the group neared the decomposing log, jamie jumped up and yelled, “hey! watch out for their home! we don’t want to break it again!” moments like these become troubles, or contradictory contact zones for activating our pedagogical responses. in this instance, this particular log became a “protected” area of the forest, avoided and cared for by children and educators. however, this event exposed a trouble, a knot of uncertainty that has possibility to be activated pedagogically. how and why do we minimize our damage? who gets to decide which log gets touched and which goes untouched? how should we respond to the forest’s rhythms? as educators, in situations like this, navigating the tensions of learning with and in the forest while upholding symbiotic ecological relations is paradoxical. our presence is not and has never been neutral or innocent. we are deeply implicated within the ways colonialisms shift and are recomposed. this leaves us with uncertainty. what has or has not been protected? who is here with us? who isn’t? how might we stay with our troubles and contradictions in order to activate new relations between forests and pedagogy? troubled histories, uncertain futures paying attention to everyday encounters between children and place is essential in attuning to and upholding the pedagogical and ethical values of living and learning well together in common worlds (latour, 2004; taylor, 2013). these small but significant moments provide insight into the ways children and educators relate to and with place and support educators in enacting responsive pedagogies. central to our work is a concern with the ways that narratives of innocence and purity have penetrated deeply into conceptualizations of both forests and children (see pacini-ketchabaw, 2013 and taylor, 2013 for critical engagements with nature-based early childhood programs). to operate a forest school, there must be a partnership and agreement between the local parks board, which results in a business licence to operate in that space. conversely, there are areas such as crown lands or provincial parks that forest schools are prohibited from operating within. for the forested areas that are deemed open for this type of educational use, programs carefully complete risk and impact assessments of the spaces within the park, explaining how they will mitigate harm to the ecological community. this process is grounded in a eurocentric assumption that particular parts of the forest should be protected from human and other damage. in north america, “nature parks,” or enclosures of “wilderness” cared for and controlled by local and federal governments, have a history fraught with “strategic amnesia” (apffel-marglin, 2012) on the part of settlers about indigenous communities’ ancestral stewardship and deep relationships with lands, a history that has resulted in the systematic displacement and legal erasure of indigenous presence, agency, and ownership (plumwood, 2001. the idea of preserving large areas of land through conservation policies to protect them from the environmental consequences of industrialization conveys a utilitarian relationship intended to contradictorily rein in the excesses of capitalism through the lens of conservation. what results is that some places, chosen for their beauty, fragility, or biodiversity, are extremely protected, while others are devastated (apffel-marglin, 2012; cronon, 1996). conservation policies intertwine deeply with neoliberal logics, which, as we demonstrated above in jamie’s request to protect a particular log, have inadvertent consequences. the park in which the forest school operates has been selected for conservation—positioned within bc’s lower mainland as a pure space that must be protected from damage. as a part of the school’s collaboration with the local parks board, children and educators must carefully protect particular logs from the consequences of forest play and leave no trace of our presence in the forest. however, in troubling the settler colonial logics that insidiously permeate 21st-century forest relations, we are moved to orient ourselves and our pedagogies differently. we wonder, how might we refigure our relationships and attempt to unknow powerful hierarchal assumptions about the forest? in our work, the issue of minimizing june 2022 50 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice damage to natural spaces unfolds into uncertainty as we consider the assumptions, conditions, and logics that have been inherited and recreated. the romantic and redemptive coupling of the child and nature further the parallel assumptions of innocence and purity that are dominant in 21st-century conceptualizations of forests and children. there is a push to conserve children’s innocence from technology and artificiality by seeking to resituate early childhood education in green spaces, the assumption being that by simply pairing the child and the forest, we can preserve the purity and “goodness” of both (louv, 2005, taylor, 2013). this maintains early childhood education’s political neutrality, as well as a system of logics that ignores the colonial pasts, presents, and futures of forests. a romantic coupling of the child and nature as innocent often results in fundamentally extractive encounters with nature. in this arrangement, the forest is positioned as a resource or pedagogical tool that offers redemptive qualities. the child is positioned as deficient, in need of intervention or a “return to nature” to ensure their health, well-being, and developmental trajectory (burman, 2017). a significant amount of research regarding children and “nature” focuses on how children benefit developmentally and academically from spending extended periods of time in nature (see louv, 2005 and sobel, 2005 for detailed accounts of the benefits of nature). this positioning has repercussions that uphold settler colonial logics of extracting resources from the forest for human gain, as well as dominant, colonially driven discourses about who and how a child should be (burman, 2017). forests are a meeting point and contact zone for activating different types of pedagogical, political, and ethical relationships to the climate crisis. as we invite the reader to stay with the trouble of the narrative of the log, it is important to note that certain knowledges or ways of being are privileged in early childhood programs, where others are ignored. jamie’s response to the possible destruction of the log is similar to how many people respond to the intensifying climate crisis. societal responses to the ecological devastation all terrestrial beings face (but are not equally implicated in) commonly (and paradoxically) manifest as a search for human solutions: technological interventions, conservation policies, and collective or individual action. researchers, journalists, and politicians steeped within western scientific values often settle into a discourse of positioning humans as agents of change, or caretakers of the environment who are obligated to troubleshoot technological initiatives that will reverse the damage we have done. capitalist, neoliberal, and extractivist logics orient us toward the belief that the world can again be “pure,” rid of toxicity and waste, if only we invent or discover the right technology, resource, or cure (shotwell, 2016, tsing, 2015). these logics have emerged from a euro-western historical assumption of humans thinking themselves to be central to and separate from ecological, earthly relations, an assumption that is closely tied to a powerful value system oriented around notions of truth and objectivity—an epistemological fascination with conflating legitimacy, consensus, and power (burman, 2017; marker, 2018; taylor, 2013). centuries of western imperialism and colonialism have influenced what we have come to know as normal, neutral, or selfevident and have accelerated the emergence of an artificial binary between that which is “natural” and that which is “human.” such “legitimate” knowledge systems silence onto-epistemologies of non-euro-western communities and have contributed to what marie battiste (1998) terms cognitive imperialism, a form of manipulation used to discredit nondominant knowledge systems and values with the intent of universalizing one source of “valid” knowledge. this powerful form of imperialism has its resonance in all aspects of society—politics, education, ethics, the economy, and so forth. according to michael marker (2018), “modernist social systems and knowledge taxonomies have too often followed a colonialist recipe for seeing the landscape as an inanimate surface for extracting, shaping, and constructing the artifacts of progress” (p. 453). this view of land is evident in the ways forests are often seen and positioned as a resource or “weapon” in the “fight” against climate change, with much debate and speculation about their role in the stabilization, restoration, and ultimate redemption of the climate (popkin, 2019). seeing a forest as a “surface” also presents itself powerfully within discourses of early childhood education—and is visible in canadian approaches to curriculum and pedagogy, as well as dominant images of the child throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. we june 2022 51 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice offer the log narrative as an example of a messy and uncertain everyday encounter (taylor, 2013) that illustrates the need to refigure forest relations as more than instrumentalized, neutral, or static. the encounter troubled us, and made us rethink the ways our pedagogical choices are implicated in recreating settler colonial logics. what values or relationships do we as educators want to sustain, resist, or disrupt in our practice? conversations about damage to the log and how we might minimize that damage might lead us to enact place inquiries. for example, as educators we might bring children into conversations about why certain rivers should be avoided in the fall, or about the flight patterns of birds who noisily join us at certain time of day or year and otherwise disappear, or about what it means to be implicated in the destruction of a home. in essence, we speculate that a deep attunement to place opens up pedagogical possibilities that resist extractivism. what stories do forests hold? ultimately, these everyday, small encounters might support us in locating ourselves and our pedagogies differently within bc’s colonial pasts, presents, and futures. however, as glenda macnaughton (2005) reminds us, “critical reflection means that there are always far more questions than there are answers” (p. 15). refiguring endings: pedagogies of staying with the trouble in coming together to write this paper, we recognized and grappled with the trouble that in making visible the mattering of this forest story through writing, we tell—and, one could argue, extract—a one-sided story of the child-log encounter to express our thinking and concerns. as haraway (2019) says, “it matters what stories tell stories; it matters whose stories tell stories” (p. 565). we acknowledge that telling forest stories outside of the forest with(in) which they emerged indicates anthropocentric bias, but we hope our attempts to stay with the trouble of tensions might contribute to a body of work that resists extractivist logics and colonial discourses. pedagogy is and will always be troubled, be it through ideas, pasts, presents, futures, and that which we cannot predict. we speculate that thinking-with unknowing, uncertainty, and trouble is a generative pedagogical response to the complex, coinherited common worlds (latour, 2005) we inhabit. in doing so, we position forest relations as imperfect, always emerging, and situated, and hold space for multiple ways of being, understanding, and knowing the land. our pedagogies privilege unknowing and uncertainty and seek to create a space for discussing imperfect ecological relations. if we consider ourselves a part of an ecological community, recoiling against the extraction of resources, how do we navigate this tension of being with(in) and outside of this story? the frictions of caring for the forest, of having empathy for more-than-human community members and falling into ongoing settler colonial patterns of deciding what or who should be protected in a forest are intricate and nuanced. it is uncomfortable for a story to have no ending, and as haraway (2020) states, “it matters what ends end endings” (p. 445), but we believe that ending with uncertainty is pertinent in staying with the trouble of 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(2019, january 17). the forest question. nature, 565, 280–282. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00122-z june 2022 53 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice shotwell, a. (2016). against purity: living ethically in compromised times. university of minnesota press. sobel, d. (2005). place-based education: connecting classrooms and communities. the orion society. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures of childhood. routledge. tsing, a. (2015). the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton university press. ! neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education by cristina d. vintimilla 08!fall$ ! ! ! editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editor, special issue: neoliberalism dr. luigi iannacci, trent university, peterborough, ontario publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 79 why bother with neoliberalism in early childhood education? neoliberalism is a word one might hear repeated and used in different circumstances. it is also a word one might find difficult to define; it is vague and faintly accusatory. in some of the education and childhood studies university courses i teach, i have noticed that this word has special power: once it is pronounced, once uttered out loud in the classroom, it can be followed by a tense, awkward moment of silence. or, it can become a source of contestation. a colleague asked me once, “why should one teach neoliberalism in an early childhood degree?” my students have asked: “why should we bother studying this?”; “why should we bother with neoliberalism when we have to learn how to teach children?” these questions are the starting point for this article. why bother with neoliberalism? this question is important because it invites inquiry into what neoliberalism is and what it does. author’s bio cristina vintimilla became a pedagogista after studying at the university of siena in italy. she then received a phd from the university of british columbia. she is a faculty member in the school of education and childhood studies at capilano university and works closely with the capilano children’s centre as a pedagogista. her research interests exist in the intersections between philosophy, the arts, and education. abstract this paper considers neoliberalism, not only as a set of economic principles, but as a form of governance with political and social consequences. it argues for considering neoliberalism as that which produces subjects, ways of behaving, and organization of social and economic life. it then relates such consideration to the analysis of early childhood discourses on fun and happiness and how these discourses might sustain possibilities for the creation of neoliberal subjects. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 [page 79 to 87] www.cayc.ca neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education! by cristina d. vintimilla ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 80 more than the question of what neoliberalism is, the question of what it does provokes us to think about the concept in a more critical way. this approach entails seeing neoliberalism not simply as the set of economic principles that endorse a radical free market and policies that favour statism on the corporate model of business and profit in a globalized world, but as something more pervasive. wendy brown (2003) brings this point into focus: “while these [economic] referents capture an important effect of neoliberalism, they also reduce neoliberalism to a bundle of economic policies with inadvertent political and social consequences” (p. 38). thus, when asking why we should bother with neoliberalism in early childhood education, it is necessary to recover and attend to neoliberalism’s “inadvertent political and social consequences.” to do so requires thinking about neoliberalism beyond economic effects, as a rationality, one which expands its normative ideology and values to other spheres of our lives through specific discourses and practices. suddenly, neoliberalism is a more present concern than we may have thought. as one example, consider how popular culture has insinuated itself into early childhood curriculum and practices through images, artifacts, and literature. taking my students’ questions from above as a starting point helps frame how i refer to neoliberalism in this article. i approach neoliberalism as a mode of governance—one that is not limited to the state, one that produces subjects, ways of behaving, and organization of social and economic life. as brown (2003) writes, “the extension of economic rationality to formerly noneconomic domains and institutions reaches individual conduct, or, more precisely, prescribes the citizen-subject of a neoliberal order” (p. 42). in other words, we are called to think about neoliberalism, not only as a state’s economic orientation, but as particular modes of subjectivity, and how one becomes (or may resist becoming) a neoliberal subject, especially through the project of education. how does neoliberalism, as a form of governance, define and structure the ways in which people conduct themselves (foucault, 1994)? in university classrooms, for example, students assume the role of client or consumer, accumulating credits in the quest for a degree. often students’ interests are focused on one question: “what can i do to get an a in your class?” in this way students are the entrepreneurs of their own knowledge. this is no accidental development. it is the result of the pervasive insinuation of neoliberal discourse into the conduct of university life. the encroachment of “the businessmen of knowledge” into the university’s constitution and operation is not new (see kant’s on the conflict of the faculties, 1798/1979); what is new is the very practice of learning as a mercantile matter. this is a neoliberal development (see nussbaum’s not for profit, 2010). if we take up the question of neoliberalism in education, open it to interrogation as a condition of possibility for educators, children, and our institutions, we need to approach it as generative of questions—new questions which help us to see the early childhood education field ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 81 for what it has become and may be becoming. thus, in what follows, i engage with the following questions:  in what ways is neoliberalism active in early childhood education?  in what ways does it manifest, and through what discourses or apparent concerns?  how may thinking about these questions expand into the ways we define and imagine the collective life (the life of relationships) in pedagogical contexts?  how has neoliberalism come to shape the way educators relate to the question of what it means to live well with others? as i have shown elsewhere (vintimilla, 2012), these questions carry profound implications for who the early childhood educator is permitted to be. i take up these questions by attending closely to particular daily practices and discourses i have encountered in the different pedagogical contexts in which i move, both as a pedagogista and in my conversations with future early childhood educators. specifically, i analyze the pervasiveness of the discourses of fun and happiness, and how they might work as a condition for the creation of neoliberal subjectivity. fun as a self-evident value in pedagogical contexts often i ask first-year students why they have chosen to become an educator. i ask the question as a way to begin what sarah ahmed (2010) calls “the messiness of the experiential” (p. 574) in order to elicit, through discussing the work we share, the “drama of contingency, how we are touched by what goes near” (ahmed, 2006, p. 124). over the years i have noticed that a consistently high proportion of students answer with some version of “because we want to have fun experiences with children” or “because being with children is fun.” i have been struck by how prominently “fun” appears everywhere in education in north america. clearly, the discourse of fun does not live only among young students or only within the education field. i remember when i came to canada years ago, i found it fascinating how, for the cashier at the grocery store, people i met at work, my friends, and even my professors at university, the word fun would be used so variously and with such apparent consensus. i recall being curious about how fun seemed to be an easy-touse term. i would ask the educators with whom i was working how their day had been and they would answer, “oh, it was so much fun!” at the end of the day, over and over i would listen to parents asking children, “did you have fun today?” in early childhood settings, educators often arrange materials in different areas of the classroom for children to explore. i have noticed how children will stay in these areas, or with the materials, until they are bored or they have decided the activity is not fun anymore. then they are ready to jump to the next area or table. i suspect the presumption behind such classroom organization is that children can’t be engaged for long periods of time. the consequence of this implication is that teachers provide for moments of fun as if that were a meaningful, or merely ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 82 sufficient, way for children to spend their time. for, after all, one of the characteristics of a “good” teacher is that she can engage children. it would be reductive to say that i am arguing for children and educators to not have fun; that is not the intention of this discussion. the intention is instead to notice, with the help of a critique of neoliberalism, how a discourse as “innocent” as the discourse of fun comes to reduce our important and diverse experiences in early childhood education and, further, how it participates in creating and managing subjectivitiesi (a matter to which i believe we turn far too little attention in the field). thus, i want to consider the connections between fun as a pervasive and self-evident value in pedagogical contexts and as a condition for the creation of neoliberal subjectivities. i contend that the concept of fun has evolved and developed into a central place in neoliberal societies, as one of the ideological vectors of subjective governance, even perhaps to the extent that we may consider fun “another tyrant molded by our culture and economy” (bryant & forsyth, 2005, p. 197). the neoliberal discourse of fun and the management of subjectivities fun, and the expressions derived from it, lead to a “tendency to generalize experiences … by declaring everything and everyone as an experience” (wehr, 2004, p. 4, emphasis added). expressions like “it was fun,” “she is fun,” “i’m having fun” confer meaning on experience without the need to ask how—indeed, by suggesting that the question is irrelevant. additionally, the concept of fun as a neoliberal operant should be seen as a concept involved in the management and government of everyday life because it signifies a specific way of being in the world: taking life superficially and lightly; “no worries”; ostensibly “childish” playfulness; easy-going agreeability; not going too deeply into things; simplifying life.ii here, fun may be seen as an indicator of well-being and the successful conduct of a “good life.” fun is thus a guarantor of the importance of experience and also the measure of its successful implementation. furthermore, a critique of neoliberalism suggests that fun plays a key part in governing emotions. many teachers and practicum students describe “cleaning up” emotions and removing children from situations that might make them unhappy. for example, they may avoid speaking with children about death (even if children bring up the subject). as another example, it is rare to encounter a situation where children are invited to collaboratively give their opinions about a specific child’s idea or work for fear that the child might be upset by such interactions. many times i have witnessed adults intervening in children’s conflicts. we have moved away from allowing ambivalence in children’s emotional lives or supporting ways of being that are more complex than being happy. this is important to pinpoint because it implicates lifestyles and practices valorized in what ahmed (2010) calls the “happiness turn” (p. 2) and by ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 83 which, i argue, neoliberalism in its recent incarnations forms the basis for subjective and collective well-being. such lifestyles are characterized by naturalized and uncontestable “micropractices of self government, understood as intimate and personal enterprises” (binkley, 2011, p. 372). well beyond the apparently personal matters they involve, these micro practices prescribe less and more valuable ways of being in the world. further, they demarcate what becomes impossible to think within a collective. i will come back to this point later. who is the educator allowed to be in a pedagogy of fun? if fun as a discourse not only characterizes our experiences but prescribes a particular subjectivity, then one can ask: who is the educator allowed to be in a pedagogy of fun? in a pedagogy of fun, the educator is an entertainer and impresario, a facilitator of fun experiences. the educator in such pedagogy calculates the benefits and satisfaction of experiences, both of which, according to brown (2003), are calculations and conduct typical of an entrepreneurial actor. within such calculations, the educator becomes an editor of knowledge and culture in a way that can avoid processes of meaning and thinking that could be classified as “boring” or difficult. and what of the child? the child is positioned as nothing more than a consumer of experiences as they are presented to her or him. this denigration allows for the smooth deposition of the image of the child as what legitimates the teacher’s competence in a prevalent discourse, as a mere postulate of “excellence” in education. in the pedagogy of fun, the pedagogical relationship between teachers and children is based on a teacher’s desire to engage children in entertainment and the children’s expectations of the same. the teacher is there to guarantee fun experiences, and the child is there to judge them as such. one of the main characteristics of the pedagogy of fun is an apparent learning process that is clear, simple, quick, recognizable, and “easy to take.” the reduction of pedagogical complexity to a manageable minimum is the most convenient attribute of a neoliberal educational milieu.iii a pedagogy of fun tends to reduce and distort the complexity of life to fit into a simplistic (and concrete—which is to say consensual) mode of understanding the world; life is, in other words, wholly “appropriate.” one surely, therefore, may classify as “boring” or “not fun” experiences that involve difficulty, disorientation, unfamiliarity, trouble, struggle. appealing to a consensual presupposition, pedagogies of fun allow us to prescribe quick, short processes that lead to clear, concrete, and easily understandable answers (which are, of course, predictable and measurable). more complex ways of creating meaning and relating to the world are to be avoided. indeed—such is neoliberal morality—they are “not appropriate.” ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 84 children therefore may be caught up in processes that even their teachers do not recognize so much as unwittingly impose. ways of thinking about the world evidenced by pedagogies of fun are intimate with what i have called elsewhere a “capricious anti-intellectualism symptomatic of a market culture” (vintimilla, 2012, p. 15) and are supported by a reduction of school to a “skill and knowledge factory (or corporation)” (pinar, 2011, p. 8) and by the “standardized test-making industry” (pinar, 2011, p. 8) of neoliberal audit culture. happy tales and their politics of niceness more broadly considered, the status quo discussed above is one of silent subjectivities, cultural conformity, and the pervasive symptoms of political apathy. for the neoliberal subject, the limit of one’s responsibility is care for one’s self; it does not extend to care for the public. as wendy brown (2003) writes: the model neo-liberal citizen is one who strategizes for her/himself among various social, political and economic options, not one who strives with others to alter or organize these options. a fully realized neo-liberal citizenry would be the opposite of public-minded; indeed, it would barely exist as a public. (p. 43) in my experience, the political apathy and the model neoliberal citizen brown describes are frequently seen in early childhood contexts. i would argue that certain stereotypes and cultural myths—particularly those about community and teacher identity—make available discursive practices that help sustain the neoliberal subjectivities brown describes. for example, in conversations with educators, i often notice that the coming together of the educational collective (of schools’ culture) takes place within a politics of niceness, one characterized by a commitment to social harmony, to a common good. this commitment prescribes the privileging of certain ways of being—of certain feelings, responses, and actions—and the denigration and dismissal of others. such a politics (of niceness) expresses a profound concern for the personal and the superficially affective, thus prescribing the ways a collective exists in these contexts as if the well-being of such a collective is defined by the warmth of its relations and its commitment to harmony. a certain etiquette of niceness prevails, one that functions as a social code and substantiates the neoliberal “happiness turn” introduced above. this politics of niceness (which presupposes the unity of community rather than the diversity of difference) is reinforced by a generalized conception of early childhood educators (most of them female) first and foremost as care providers and protectors. both of these roles are synonymous with domestic nurturers and guarantors of familial harmony. these myths, of course, sustain a broader image of who a woman is within our patriarchal society, and they also emerge from this conception (see grumet, 1998). we find antecedents of this conception in the traditional feminine notion of “niceness,” of the timid female virtue so alive and well in the gender ghetto ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 85 that remains in early childhood education in many societies, including north america. here, i am referring to the professional identity that commonly populates the imaginaries of who an early childhood educator is—the “lady bountiful” teacher (harper & cavanaugh, 1994)—who is most often female, gracious, nurturing, loving, and ready to inculcate children with a particular set of social and moral norms (see langford, 2007; meiners, 2002). women “do” early childhood education, and thus traditional “female” virtues continue to find fertile ground in these practices. these virtues and the characteristics of the nice teacher or lady bountiful are so normalized and naturalized in early childhood settings that they are often not considered problematic or even noticed. the “good early childhood educator,” langford (2007) writes, “is viewed as common sense and natural. indeed, the particularity of the good early childhood educator is not heard by or visible to the listener, speaker, reader, or writer without considerable reflexivity” (p. 348), but such reflexivity might not be welcome in pedagogical contexts governed by a politics of niceness. within such discourses is the intimate connection between these “harmonizing” approaches and the political apathy or conformism that keeps alive the neoliberal status quo and allows it to remain unthought. this is a status quo that can infuse teaching with a gross lack of intellectual curiosity, where thinking is marginalized as auxiliary, or even held in a sort of fearful contempt because of its disruptive invitation of doubts, questions, uncertainties, and impasses. all these conditions have come to be held as anathema to professionalism in early childhood education. more broadly, they are taken as signs of not knowing how to live well. this, i submit, is because of the risk that they might provoke conflict and separation and unsettle an always precarious collective harmony. thus, often there seems to be a need to eradicate these conditions from our relations with others, to order them, in some vague sense, to a presumed (good) world. an invitation for new thinking as experience is denigrated by a pedagogy of fun and apathetic neoliberal subjectivities are allowed to predominate in their happiness curricula, vital socio-political culture is likewise denuded by the smiling normalization of the virtue of niceness. none of this is to argue for the opposite: that we should be brutish to each other. it is rather to pursue this paper’s invitation to outline the implications of neoliberalism in early childhood education and indicate how early childhood education serves the neoliberal project by maintaining the status quo through a sort of political apathy that is symptomatic of the diminishing criticality caused by a pedagogy of fun and a politics of niceness. i bring this discussion forward as a way to open windows into our field to allow the fresh air of new thinking, awkward as doing so always is at first. it is a risk we have to take if we wish to avoid allowing risk aversion to become the virtue that neoliberalism seems to propose. it is a risk we have to take if we are to be educators—that is, teachers nourished by the complexity of our times, inspired by the richness of the unending challenge of our work, but also educators who refuse to be constrained and directed by the promise of a pedagogy of fun and its resulting condition of a passive and impoverished conception of happiness. ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 86 acknowledgements thank you to graham giles for his important and helpful feedback and to dr. linda farr darling for her insight. references ahmed, s. (2006). queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others. durham, nc: duke university press. ahmed, s. (2010). the promise of happiness. durham, nc: duke university press. binkley, s. (2011). happiness, positive psychology, and the program of neoliberal governmentality. subjectivities, 4, 371–394. brown, w. (2003). neo-liberalism and the end of liberal democracy. theory & event, 7(1). retrieved from: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/tae/v007/7.1brown.html bryant, c., & forsyth, c. (2005). the fun god: sports, recreation, leisure, and amusement in the united states. sociological spectrum, 25, 197–211. cook, d. (2004). the commodification of childhood: personhood, the children’s wear industry, and the rise of the child-consumer, 1917–1962. durham, nc: duke university press. foucault, m. (1994). the subject and power. in j. faubion (ed.), michel foucault: power. new york, ny: new press. grumet, m. (1988). bitter milk: women and teaching. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts. harper, h., & cavanaugh, s. (1994). lady bountiful: the white woman teacher in multicultural education. women’s education, 11(2), 27–33. kant, i. (1979). the conflict of the faculties. m.j. gregor (trans.). new york, ny: abaris books. (original work published 1798) langford, r. (2007). who is a good early childhood educator? a critical study of differences within a universal professional identity in early childhood education preparation programs. journal of early childhood teacher education, 28(4), 333–352. meiners, e. (2002). disengaging from the legacy of lady bountiful in teacher education classrooms. gender and education, 14(1), 85–94. nussbaum, m. c. (2010). not for profit: why democracy needs the humanities. princeton, nj: princeton university press. ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 87 pinar, w. (2011). allegories of the present: curriculum development in a culture of narcissism and presentism. paper presented as part of the pinar seminar series 2011–2012, university of british columbia, vancouver, canada. vintimilla, d.c. (2012). aporetic openings in living well with others: the teacher as a thinking subject. unpublished doctoral dissertation. university of british columbia, vancouver, canada. retrieved from: https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/42557/ubc_2012_fall_delgadovintimilla_mariacristina.pdf ?sequence=5 endnotes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i by managing subjectivities i am referring to a set of daily practices and discourses that, in a selfevident, taken-for-granted way, are assumed to be the appropriate way of being, thus they regulate and normalize subjects’ collective lives. ii in another paper it might be worthwhile to ask questions regarding fun as a technology to manage subjectivities in relation to the ones who do not participate in such discourses of fun. i am thinking about individuals who might be labelled as the “difficult” ones, the “troublemakers,” the “strange” or otherwise aberrant ones. iii although is not within the scope of the present article, it is worthwhile noticing here the profound material connection between the process that such a pedagogy of fun fosters and the overwhelming presence of commodities or products in pedagogical contexts. these commodities are defined as “beneficial goods” (cook, p. 5) for children because they foster fun or so-called educational moments. this connection is symptomatic of learning contexts and children in which both are already embedded historically in the market cultures of late capitalism. these cultures are becoming ever more consumer-driven places inhabited by consumer-driven subjects.! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca ! 08!fall$ ! in this issue: from the editor’s desk special issue: neoliberalism guest editor dr. luigi iannacci, phd, trent university, peterborough, ontario i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, fikile nxumalo producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education by cristina d. vintimilla radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by kim atkinson call for contributions: ‘the visual arts in early childhood education’ find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca canadian-children-vol-39-1-c-d-vintimilla in-this-issue summer/ete 2016 60 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice kim atkinson is an early childhood educator and a pedagogical facilitator with the university of victoria’s unit for early childhood research and development. she also co-coordinates, with danielle davis, the images of learning project—an exhibit, blog, and series of presentations that highlights the work of eces and the competencies of children (www.imagesoflearningproject.com). email: klatkins@uvic.ca a touch of paint: transgressing unspoken boundaries kim atkinson contemporary early childhood contexts are rife with unspoken rules, boundaries, and expectations that are understood to be best practice within discourses of quality in early years settings. these habitual practices are not apolitical: they flow from powerful discourses purporting to be scientific and reliable, with systematically defined ways of thinking, seeing, and speaking about children. drawing on a body/ paint/brush/forest encounter, the author looks to disrupt these discourses and transgress unspoken boundaries. by engaging with an ethic of resistance, acknowledging the relationality of early childhood practice and the entanglements of human and nonhuman forces, the author seeks to transgress fixed identities and be open to otherness in an ongoing process of becoming. keywords: early childhood, quality, pedagogy of listening, relationality on a damp day in the forest i am sitting on a stump watching as eight toddlers experiment with paint, brushes, and paper, all of which are placed among the trees, sand, and logs. red, yellow, and green paint are held within small shells placed on stumps. the children dab the brushes into the paint, watching as globs of colour adhere to bristles. they touch the brushes to the paper, to the stump, to the logs, noticing the colourful traces that are left. micah comes toward me with his paintbrush, looking at me with great seriousness. his brush holds a gleaming glob of green paint. he slowly, slowly lifts the brush to my face and very carefully touches it to my nose. the paint stays on my skin, at first cool and wet, later drying to a crusted second skin. this moment in the forest of paint, brush, and two human bodies stayed with me for days afterward, as though the paint had touched me in ways that were more than skin deep. in my 35 years of working as an early childhood educator, never had a child deliberately painted my face. or should i say, i have never allowed a child to paint my face. the allowable intersections of paint, children, and adults had always been clear: paint stayed on paper, sometimes travelling to children’s hands and arms. occasionally a dab would land daringly on a child’s cheek or nose, always scrubbed away by pick-up time. children did not paint on adult faces. the boundaries of where paint could and could not go were never discussed among my colleagues and myself. they were unspoken but nonetheless understood. paint was something to be contained, and was offered in ways that made this clear. paint was presented in small containers, in small amounts, with paper placed invitingly alongside. smocks were offered, and the table was protected with paper or plastic. cloths were placed close by to wipe up spills, and a wash tub was nearby to clean hands. without any words spoken, the message was resoundingly clear: paint had the potential to become unruly, but we would keep it under control. not only did we want to keep paint under control, we had a specific agenda for paint. paint was offered in particular ways that would facilitate particular skills and outcomes, such as sensory experience, fine motor skills, self-expression, and colour mixing. as educators, we viewed both the children and the paint through this narrow lens and had clear expectations of the “right way” to “do” paint. not only would the potentially unruly paint remain under control, we would also control the children’s ways of being with paint. paint/child/table/ brush/paper interactions would remain predictable, stable and never uncomfortable. unspoken agendas and boundaries permeated much of our dailyness with children, and flowed from educators’ mutual understandings of what constituted best practice. creating centres with blocks, books, dolls, and cars, gathering for circle time and snack time, taking trips to the pumpkin patch in october, singing songs about pussy willows in april—all these proceeded year by year unquestioned. we had expectations of how children should act and strategies and language we used when children did not act as we thought they should. phrases such as “walking feet,” “use your words,” and “wait your turn” were habitual, as were demands to sit “criss cross” and “shake your wiggles out.” no one discussed the “rightness” of these phrases, they simply were. summer/ete 2016 61 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice developmentally appropriate practice as quality in working with these unspoken ways of doing, educators adhered to established conceptions of best practice and quality based on theories of developmentally appropriate practice (dap). within these theories, children are viewed as inferior, immature, incomplete, and in need of prescribed knowledge delivered by adults. activities are valued for the particular skills children will learn—skills deemed necessary for children to become the right kind of adult. for example, the operations guide for a drop-in program funded by the bc government posits that art activities encourage children to express emotions, plan and follow through on plans, make representations of their thoughts and ideas, and problem-solve. when children are creating, they are learning about symbolic representation, an important element of emergent literacy and numeracy. the early symbolic representation in art can help to lay a firm foundation for future academic learning. for younger children, adults can use hand-over-hand strategies to help their young children enjoy using the materials. (strongstart bc early learning programs, n.d., p. 46) the implicit message is that engaging in artistic processes is valuable only for the developmental goals that can be achieved and to prepare children for future academics. younger children are seen as incapable of enjoying materials without adult intervention, and learning outcomes are measurable, static, and applicable to all children regardless of their context or community. within this discourse, quality is defined as the application of a universal set of norms, which, as lenz-taguchi (2008) tells us, provide universally determined stages of development that have become entrenched as truth: formulated within the discipline of developmental psychology, these ideas about universal, age-related stages have produced widely held “truths” about children’s development and learning. these truths have been translated into accepted practices, often collectively called developmentally appropriate practice (dap), designed to educate and normalize children into healthy, enlightened, and free citizens. (p. 271) within this framework of dap, children are viewed through a particular lens of what is deemed “normal development” and are thus classified, judged, instructed, and “fixed” if they are found to not fit the norm. children are offered particular types of experiences based on developmental needs, and they are expected to take on those experiences in “normal” ways. the role of the educators is clear: to be knowledgeable about developmental norms and to implement programs and strategies that foster normal growth and development. noting how developmental theories have come to dominate perceptions of childhood, macnaughton (2005) observes that this perception has “settled so firmly into the fabric of early childhood studies that its familiarity makes it just seem ‘right’, ‘best’ and ‘ethical’” (p. 1). in these “right,” best,” and “ethical” ways of doing early childhood, there are unspoken understandings as to how paint is offered and what children can do with it. both paint and children are bounded by these unspoken understandings, this normalizing lens that prescribes particular ways of being and doing. to fall outside this normalizing lens is to fail at “normaliz[ing] children into healthy, enlightened, and free citizens” (lenz taguchi, 2008, p. 271). clearly there is no room for a child to touch paint to an educator’s nose. quality as political these established notions of childhood purport to be scientific, rational, and reliable (dahlberg & moss, 2005) and have been taken up by policy makers and governing bodies in determining what constitutes quality childcare. subjectivity and local knowledges are put aside, and “objective” technical measures are put in place to assess outcomes and prescribe “one size fits all” norms. standards and regulations are routinely enacted to ensure that practice conforms to dap. dahlberg and moss (2005) tell us of the multitude of technologies used to ensure standardization: measuring quality is just one of a variety of technologies deployed to regulate practice in preschools. preschools are increasingly bounded by other normalising frameworks—either required by government or offered by experts: standards, curricula, accreditation, guidelines on best practice, inspection, audits, the list rolls on. like quality, these guides to technical practice purport to provide decontextualised “benchmarks”—generalisable standards—of what is necessary or desirable. what these normalising technologies have in common is an administrative logic, an intention and capacity to govern more effectively by ensuring that correct outcomes are delivered. (p. 9) the “correct outcome” is ensuring that children progress through normal developmental stages, a narrowly structured set of standards that progress in linear, stable, and predictable increments. embedded in this theory is the understanding that learning takes place within individual children, and that the knowledges and abilities valued within dap are neutral and applicable to all children in all contexts summer/ete 2016 62 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice (lenz taguchi, 2011). these very powerful “truths” of children’s development are used in constructing programs and policies, and they sanction right and wrong ways of thinking, talking, and doing early childhood. childcare services continue to expand internationally with more children in care for longer periods of time, thus generating greater interest and scrutiny as to what kind of care and education is desirable. childcare services are perceived as key to a creating a competitive economic advantage, not only by enabling parents to work, but also by inculcating young people with the right kind of education with defined outcomes that will benefit a future economy (dahlberg & moss, 2005). governing bodies globally are focusing on policies, provisions, and investment that will result in economic benefits and secure a stable social order (dahlberg & moss, 2005; osgood & giugni, 2015). scientific knowledges that claim to “know” children and offer prescriptive and reliable models of achieving a desired end (the right kind of adult) are appealing to government bodies whose agendas include “objective truths” and predetermined outcomes. thus dap is more than simply an apolitical set of guidelines for practice with young children: it is a highly political agenda that offers organizations and government agencies scientific, orderly, and stable responses to questions of what we want a child to become. osgood and giugni (2015) suggest that excellence in the early childhood context is reduced to the production and cultivation of normative development in childhood so that the young children of today will become the worthy citizens of tomorrow to ensure global economic advantage. so it becomes very clear that far from being apolitical and commonsense the top-down imposition of quality through curriculum, assessment, inspection, regulation—and other disciplinary technologies (to borrow from foucault) is deeply political and driven by economic imperatives. (p. 3) not only are normalizing theories of dap deeply political and driven by economic imperatives, they are implicit in the ongoing project of settler colonialism. euro-western knowledges that value scientific truths and predictable linear development that universalize children continue to dominate canadian practice and thinking about childhood (nelson, coon, & chadwick, 2015). these practices are embedded into early years pedagogy in which colonial assumptions of humancentrism, of categorizing and controlling for the benefit of the colonizer are taken for granted (nelson et al., 2015). early childhood education becomes “a site in which we all learn to participate in the logic of colonialism” (clark, pacini-ketchabaw, & hodgins, 2014, p. 753). the forest where micah and i sat with paint appears idyllic and is in keeping with the current trend of taking children into nature to encourage social and environmental responsibility (nxumalo, 2014; pacini-ketchabaw, 2013). however, these lands are the traditional territories of the coast and straits salish and lekwungen peoples, and they hold histories and stories that have been silenced, stories of displaced people, of conquest, of violence (nxumalo, 2014; pacini-ketchabaw, 2013). the paint micah and i use is equally implicated, because histories of paint are entangled with colonizing practices of categorizing art and identifying what counts as “art.” art has had a social function in perpetuating colonialism by depicting and romanticizing the dying indian, the noble savage, and the unknown, uninhabited wilderness (clark et al., 2014). unspoken assumptions of best practice perpetuate the idea that a single story of childhood exists. that story is imbued with eurowestern values that systematically define ways of thinking, seeing, and speaking about children. quality is understood as a set of universal understandings that can be applied to all children, educators, and settings. these understandings purport a very particular view of the world and very particular truths. unspoken agendas and mutual understandings of what constitutes best practice are not innocent: they are laden with colonial values and political intentions. critical reflection and challenging the status quo what possibilities are there to challenge these highly valourized theories? how might we begin to invite multiple stories of children and educators, stories that are diverse, complex, nonlinear, and often messy? how might we shift our pedagogies away from prescriptive outcomes toward a recognition of entangled relations, of stories past and present? how do we resist notions of child/forest encounters as idyllic and begin to invite more complicated conversations about the ethics and politics of our presence in the forest (pacini-ketchabaw, 2013, p. 363)? how might a moment with a touch of paint create a rupture in our unspoken assumptions? as micah approached me with the paintbrush on that day in the forest, my mind was flooded with a rush of questions, uncertainties. should i allow this? as he raised the paint-filled brush to my nose, my body tensed, instinctively wanting to shrink backwards, away from the brush. but as the brush neared my nose, i was aware of a pull, a connection within the adult/child/brush/paint/forest assemblage, a dynamic force that could not be contained within a prescriptive theory. the familiar became unfamiliar, and something new and summer/ete 2016 63 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice unexpected was produced. resisting the status quo of developmental frameworks and euro-western assumptions requires that we be inspired by difference, letting go of fixed habits of seeing and doing and opening spaces for the yet-to-be-known. it means acknowledging the relationality of early childhood practice, the rich and varied entanglements of human and nonhuman forces that circulate in an ongoing process of becoming. but how to do this? what processes might we engage with to begin a shift away from our conventional ingrained practices? we can begin by critically reflecting on why we do what we do, scrutinizing our ways of thinking and our values, unpacking our understandings to reveal our taken-for-granted assumptions. lenz taguchi (2008) terms this process deconstructive talk and suggests that it is not about replacing one understanding with another, but being open to difference: in the context of ece practice … deconstruction is about purposeful disruptions, destabilizations, undermining, and challenges to taken-for-granted notions, values, practices, and pedagogy-as-usual (lenz taguchi, 2000, 2006a, 2006b). difference, in this context, is something to be actively used as a productive force, rather than as a threat to consensus or a problem to overcome. (p. 272) in that moment with a boy and a paintbrush, there was a temptation to simply wipe the paint off my nose, to wipe away the traces of green, and in doing so wipe away the questions and uncertainties. but, having perceived a disruption, i could not let it go. i needed to hold onto that moment with paint and place it alongside taken-for-granted pedagogy. by actively attending to the moment of difference, the unspoken assumed meanings of paint began to crumble. a pedagogy of listening: creating space for difference challenging our pedagogy-as-usual means letting go of certainty. it means shifting away from known identities, abandoning images of the educator as expert and children as knowable subjects. most crucially, it means we have an ethical responsibility to listen. listening in this context is not a tokenistic gesture, but is about being open without reservation to what is heard. bronwyn davies (2011) uses the term open listening and explains: the philosophy and practice of open listening that i am developing here is not just about being nice or tolerant, and nor is it the kind of listening that looks for the repetition and affirmation of the already known. open listening “requires a suspension of our judgments and above all our prejudices” (rinaldi, 2006 , p. 65). but more than this, it means opening up the ongoing possibility of coming to see life, and one’s relation to it, in new and surprising ways. open listening might begin with what is known, but it is open to the understandings one has of self and other, and the relations between them, creatively evolving into something new. open listening opens up the possibility of new ways of knowing and new ways of being, both for those who listen and those who are listened to. (p. 1) working within a pedagogy of listening means that we as educators are open to children’s thinking, their wonderings, their theories. it means treating what we hear with respect for “otherness,” such that we do not try to fit what we hear into a neat category or dismiss it as invalid, untrue, or without value. to be open to the other demands that we struggle to make meaning, to resist marginalizing, ignoring, or “cutesifying” what we hear. listening is central to the pedagogy of reggio emilia and is understood to be complex and intensely relational. as we listen we must suspend our judgment and assumptions and be open to curiosity, doubt, and new questions. this is not easy, and not without risk. our habits of classifying and normalizing children with prescribed outcomes so as to “know” them are easy to fall into. there is a danger that listening can be used a tool to “know,” to maintain the status quo. to confront the powerful discourse of development theories, we must work with an ethic of resistance to disrupt what we take for granted and make conscious choices for practice driven by our sense of responsibility to our new understandings of ourselves, our work, and the children (lenz taguchi, 2008). carlina rinaldi (2001), president of reggio children and a professor of pedagogy at the university of modena and reggio emilia (italy) says: listening is not easy. it requires a deep awareness, and at the same time a suspension of our judgements, and above all our prejudices; it requires openness to change. it demands that we have clearly in mind the value of the unknown and that we are able to overcome the sense of emptiness and precariousness that we experience whenever our certainties are questioned. (p. 81) with a touch of paint on my nose from a small boy with a paintbrush, conventional boundaries, fixed identities, and truths were transgressed. a different reality emerged: a reality where the normative rules, assumptions, and knowledges were displaced and summer/ete 2016 64 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice something new was created. i was not the same as before the brush touched me. i could not go back to who i was before. davies (2011) tells us that listening, in this sense, involves opening oneself to an ongoing process of what deleuze (1994) named differentiation, that is, to becoming other to oneself, and to a process of evolution that takes the self beyond what it already knows. (p. 1) these openings or “moments of grace” (davies, 2011) might give us the impetus to become more aware of who and what we are, where we believe ourselves to be, and who and what we might become (lenz taguchi, 2008). entangled relations: attending to the in-between in that moment in the forest, the child and i were not the only participants. the brush, the glistening paint, the coolness and silence of the forest air, the stump on which i sat, the uneven ground beneath the child’s feet…. all these were inextricably entangled, flowing among and through the moment, inspiring particular ways of being. conventional perspectives of children’s learning are solidly based on the individual child. children, indeed all of us, are considered separate from objects, ideas, practices, and place. the assumption is that learning is an individual process taking place within individual children. developmental theories rest on this understanding and identify specific knowledges children should have at specific ages, no matter what their environment. these perspectives are predicated on the assumption that books, toys, routines, expectations of behaviour, rules, sounds, furniture, the kind of language used by adults in conversations and songs—all of this—has no bearing on learning or on what children do. however if we shift our focus away from the child and attend to the environment, the space, the codes of practice, the bodies and materials, we can begin to notice how all of these are entangled, each acting on the other, interconnecting, transforming, and being transformed. different materials invite different engagement; they have meaning, they evoke ways of doing … they are not passive. paint held within a shell on a stump beckons us, calling to each of us in different ways, and we cannot predict the movements, directions, or possibilities that might emerge. lenz taguchi (2011) tells us: thus, thinking and learning is always an encounter; something that “hits us” as we engage with the world (bennett, 2001). thinking and learning takes place in between heterogeneous actors, rather than being something localised inside a human superior mind separated and located above the material world and other organisms. “something in the world forces us to think. this something is an object not of recognition but of a fundamental encounter” (deleuze, 1994, p. 139). (p. 46) by attending to what happens in-between children/adults/paint/brush/forest/stump we are able to notice differently. we are pushed beyond our taken-for-granted ways of seeing to see something unknown, new. we might notice the forces, flows, gestures, time, movement, the glistening, the smooth, the damp, the intensities, how all of these move and bounce and tumble, interacting, transforming, and becoming. by engaging with the world in this way, by noticing differently and embracing the unknown, we transcend the unspoken boundaries of “best practice.” in transcending these unspoken boundaries, we are rupturing the status quo of universalizing childhood, normalizing frameworks, and unspoken agendas. within this rupture, this crack, we can begin to listen. we might listen for stories of place, of histories, of people and animals and stumps and shells and paint. and perhaps we might begin to tell new stories of childhood, stories that are diverse, relational, complicated, and always shifting. the touch of paint on my nose surprised me with its coolness, its gentleness. micah moved back to the stump, dabbed his brush into the paint and returned to me, this time to touch my hand. he carefully stroked my palm with the brush, making criss-crossing lines. the paint felt different on my hand than on my nose. yet was that true? maybe it felt more “normal” to have paint on my hand than on my nose. maybe it was me that was different, and not the paint. the blob of paint on my nose had blurred conceptions of normal. unspoken boundaries had been transgressed; fixed identities had been ruptured. i cannot turn away from these transgressions and ruptures, but must ask instead, how might i remain open to otherness in an ongoing process of becoming? summer/ete 2016 65 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references clark, v., pacini-ketchabaw, v., & hodgins, d. (2014). thinking with paint: troubling settler colonialisms through early childhood art pedagogies. international journal of child, youth, and family studies, 5(4.2), 751–781. dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. new york, ny: routledge. davies, b. (2011). open listening: creative evolution in early childhood settings. international journal of early childhood, 43(2), 119–132. doi: 10.1007/s13158-011-0030-1 lenz taguchi, h. (2008). an “ethics of resistance” challenges taken-for-granted ideas in swedish early childhood education. international journal of educational research, 47, 270–282. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. london, england: routledge. lenz taguchi, h. (2011). investigating learning, participation, and becoming in early childhood practices with a relational-materialist approach. global studies of childhood, 1(1), 36–50. macnaughton, g. (2005). doing foucault in early childhood studies: applying poststructural ideas. london, england: routledge nelson, n., coon, e., & chadwick, a. (2015). engaging with the messiness of place in early childhood education and art therapy: exploring animal relations, traditional hide, and drum. canadian children, 40(2), 43–56. nxumalo, f. (2014). unsettling encounters with “natural” places in early childhood education (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/5772 osgood, j., & giugni, m. (2015). reconfiguring “quality”: beyond discourses and subjectivities to matter, bodies, and becomings in early childhood education. in g. s. cannella, m. salazar pérez, & i. f. lee (eds.), critical examinations of quality in childhood education and care: regulation, disqualification, and erasure. new york, ny: peter lang. pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2013). frictions in forest pedagogies: common worlds in settler colonial spaces. global studies of childhood, 3(4), 355–365. rinaldi, c. (2001). documentation and assessment: what is the relationship? in project zero and reggio children: making learning visible: children as individual and group learners. reggio emilia, italy: reggio children strongstart bc early learning programs. (n.d.). operations guide. retrieved from: http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/educationtraining/administration/kindergarten-to-grade-12/early-learning/strongstart-bc friends of children.pdf winter/hiver 2016 4 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies jim grieve was the assistant deputy minister of the early years division (eyd) for the ontario ministry of education (moe) from 2009 2015. this portfolio gave jim responsibility for the conversion to full-day every day kindergarten, staffed by a certificated teacher and a registered early childhood educator. he also oversaw the transfer of child care and family support programs from the ministry of children’s services to the moe. guiding these changes required optimism, diplomacy, respect, and the ability to listen and build bridges. jim assembled a team in the eyd who mirrored his collaborative approach. the changes that have been introduced are both structural and philosophical. the team engaged in provincial consultations, listening to a wide range of sectors, including educators working directly with children, families, indigenous communities, administrators, municipalities, agencies responsible for designing professional learning, unions, tertiary education, professional associations, school boards, the college of early childhood educators, and others. in 2013, two documents were released: think, feel, act: lessons from research about young children, and ontario early years policy framework. among the guiding principles identified in the latter document was an articulated view of the child as “competent, capable of complex thinking, curious, and rich in potential” (p. 7). the think, feel, actdocument included articles written by cayc members dr. carol anne wien, anne marie coughlin, lorrie baird, and karyn callaghan, among others, with video clips posted on the moe website. these initiatives served to encourage critical reflection on how we view children, and how that is reflected in practice and policy. in 2014, how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early yearswas released, including an articulated view not only of the competent child, but also of the competent educator and family. this document is designed to provoke thought and conversation. it is not a checklist or a ‘how to’ manual, a decision that signals significant change in thinking. jim has been a passionate advocate for early learning, working as one of the founding members of the council for early child development. working with dr. fraser mustard, dr. dan offord, dr. magdalena janus and other leaders, he developed strong multisectoral initiatives to support children and families in canada. he has often said that he has to be sure he is making good decisions, or he will pay the price at home: his wife, son, and daughter are all kindergarten teachers. since 2010, jim has co-chaired a working group on early learning and development for the council of ministers of education canada and is a member of the oecd network on early childhood education and care. despite this national and international profile, jim grieve remains the kind of leader who connects directly with people. at a recent provincial conference, in a room with 360 people, he visited every table. jim has done more than oversee a transition in structure and practice in early learning in ontario; he has worked with a team to guide a transformation in thinking. he has done so with courage in the true sense of that word: it is work of the heart. respectfully submitted by karyn callaghan friends of children award jim grieve canadian children directions & connections 47fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 at london bridge child care services we share in the belief that growing children deserve growing adults. one of our core professional development practices is to do for educators what we want them to do for children. in other words, if we want educators to foster curiosity and support deep thinking in children, we need to foster curiosity and support deep thinking with them. one of the ways we do this is to support teacher research through our master educator program. after two years, london bridge educators are eligible to apply for the 18-month program, where they are supported by mentors in a yearlong research project on a topic they are curious about. shelley brandon, a recent graduate of the program, chose to do her research around the question “how can i support a toddler curriculum in a patch of grass?” shelley’s research stemmed from her deep connection to the outdoors and her strong desire to offer young children meaningful experiences in a natural environment. her idea was to study how toddlers engaged in an outdoor space that housed nothing but grass, stones, logs, leaves and other items that would naturally be found there. among other things, shelley’s research deepened her appreciation for an old log bench that had been a quiet, forgotten part of the playground for years. over the course of her research, her thinking was transformed as she watched this driedup piece of wood come alive under the careful study of several two-year-olds. the following is a poem shelley wrote in response to the wisdom of those children. shelley brandon is a toddler educator at maitland early learning centre with london bridge child care services. her strong commitment and passion for supporting children’s relationship with the earth has motivated her to create a toddler curriculum that is primarily focused on the outdoors. anne marie coughlin is the professional development coordinator and program director at london bridge child care services in london, ontario, canada. she currently serves as a director on the ontario reggio association board and is provincial director for the canadian association of young children this log: a poem shelley brandon and anne marie coughlin this log this log used to be a tree. perhaps it was one of many trees on a ridge, or perhaps it stood alone against the horizon – one will never know for sure. we know from its rings that its life spanned several years but we will never know the details of its existence. who did it shelter from the elements? who did it nourish? who did it protect? who did it inspire? this log used to be a tree. somehow at some time it was removed from its original home and altered from its original state. now it takes form as a miniature bench and has assumed the position as part of our playground landscape. it blends well in its new setting, its potential unnoticed and unsolicited. it is just a log, after all. this log used to be a tree. through the changes in the seasons, the log remains a constant in our environment. its weathered exterior is a testimonial to our climate – cracks form along its axis in response to extremes of heat and cold; its rugged bark begins to slip off as the log itself expands and contracts. its surface becomes polished and slippery with the rain. this log no longer has the defenses against the harsh elements that it once did in its life as a tree. this log used to be a tree. its base now presses firmly against the ground, inventing habitats for the tiniest of creatures. tall grass surrounds its perimeter, shielding it from sight at times. near record snowfall levels hid this log from our sight. it is easy to forget about this log at times. it is simply a bench, after all – nothing more, nothing less. this log used to be a tree. years pass and its unwavering presence in our landscape make it increasingly difficult for us to ignore, so we accept this log as a permanent fixture in our environment. true, it is no longer a tree, but perhaps in time we would see value in its new form. canadian children directions & connections 48fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 this log used to be a tree. we watch and we wait as this seemingly uninspiring log ignites a transformation. in an instant, this log becomes a hub for social networking, as toddlers form and strengthen relationships with their peers. this log becomes a place for children to test theories, explore boundaries, and take risks. this log became a place to exercise an active imagination and a refuge for solitary reflection – a place for rest, a place for quiet contemplation. this log is alive… this log used to be a tree. now we see it as so much more. it has established itself as a place where our youngest citizens can challenge themselves – a place where they are free to ask questions and seek answers. it is a base camp for making discoveries about our world and a place we can go to learn about ourselves. this log used to be a tree, but now it is a prop for climbing, balancing, and jumping. it provides a surface to build on; it is a vessel with the ability to contain even the smallest pebble or sprinkle of sand. it begs to be poked at, climbed, balanced on, hammered, peeked under, squatted upon, jumped over. this log is admired, revered, and appreciated. this log used to be a tree. we no longer live in its past; rather we marvel in its presence. this log has opened our minds to the significance of the seemingly insignificant. it has forced us to reexamine our methods and it has allowed us the freedom to let go of our inhibitions. this log used to be a tree. perhaps it was one of many trees on a ridge or perhaps it stood alone against the horizon – one will never know for sure. we are certain however, that this log does not need roots or branches or leaves to hold a special place in our hearts. its power rests in its possibilities. winter/hiver 2016 38 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research rachel caplan is a doctoral student in the department of psychology, wilfrid laurier university, with research interests that include early childhood education and social policy, child and family health and well-being, and child and family homelessness. email: capl0410@mylaurier.ca colleen loomis is an associate professor in the department of psychology, wilfrid laurier university, with expertise in early childhood studies. her local, national, and international research focuses on linking community, schools, government, and nongovernmental organizations to foster children’s development to its full capacity, preventing developmental issues. aurelia di santo is an associate professor in the school of early childhood studies, ryerson university. her research includes children’s rights, children’s participation in research and in their early learning programs, transitions to school, and play-based learning. a conceptual model of children’s rights and community-based values to promote social justice through early childhood curriculum frameworks rachel caplan, colleen loomis, and aurelia di santo social justice cannot be achieved until the rights of all children are realized. unfortunately, across canada, children’s rights remain unfulfilled. building on the notion that sustainable progress toward social justice can be achieved through early childhood education (ece; e.g., cannella, 1997; dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007; pelo, 2008; schoorman, 2011), we explore how infusing community values into a rights-based framework through ece curriculum may guide educators in realizing and actualizing children’s rights. the “rights-integrative approach to early learning” developed by di santo and kenneally (2014) has argued a reconceptualization of children from passive recipients to active participants: if the early years are to be viewed as a vital time for the realization of children’s rights, then there must be a shift in how children are conceptualized, how their rights and responsibilities as citizens are acknowledged, and how their agency in the societies in which they live is validated. (p. 396) integrating community-based values into early learning curriculum frameworks will enrich conceptualizations of a child’s rights on an individual level and to children’s rights on a community level, which will contribute to the shift called for by di santo and kenneally (2014) toward the realization of children’s citizenship and agency rights and responsibilities within society. background early childhood education and children’s rights early childhood is one of the most critical periods in a person’s life (gallahue & ozmun, 2011). neuroplasticity occurring at significant rates during early childhood creates opportune periods for cognitive, social, physical, spiritual, and emotional growth: early childhood education is important in its own right as a time when children inquire, explore and discover a great deal about the world around them and establish attitudes to learning that remain with them throughout their lives. (victorian curriculum and assessment a “rights-integrative approach to early learning” has been proposed as a foundation for curriculum frameworks. building on this work we conceptually explored the complementarity and compatibility of children’s rights to autonomy, protection, nondiscrimination, and participation, with community-based values of prevention and promotion, empowerment, diversity, and civic participation. we argue that it is necessary to infuse a rights-based approach with community-based values in early childhood curriculum frameworks to promote social justice for children as individuals and as a relational community. our proposed expanded conceptual framework may be useful for evaluating early learning frameworks, nationally and internationally, from a rights-based social justice perspective. keywords: early childhood curriculum, children’s rights, community values, social justice winter/hiver 2016 39 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research authority, 2008, p. 6) governments in many countries have ece policies, and some have advanced an explicit mandate or framework that guides funding, teacher training, and curriculum. while canadian advocates continue working toward universal, accessible, high-quality early childhood education and care (ecec) programs across canada (friendly & prentice, 2009), early childhood learning frameworks have been designed in various provinces and utilized as pedagogical guides or tools within ecec environments (langford, 2012). these curriculum frameworks provide opportunities to accelerate awareness and realization of children’s rights and values associated with social justice. for example, the british columbia early learning framework includes a subsection devoted specifically to explaining “the united nations rights of the child” (government of british columbia, 2008, p. 7). however, the degree and efficacy to which children’s rights have been incorporated into the framework can only be assessed through a comprehensive document analysis. to protect children’s rights, canada ratified the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc) in 1991, declaring children as citizens, rather than property (united nations, 1989). in addition to provisional rights to competent standards of care, compulsory and free primary education, play, rest and leisure, etc., children have rights to protection from violence, abuse, neglect, discrimination, etc., and rights to participation through freely expressing their views, thoughts, religion, etc. (penn, 2008). integrated within these three domains of rights (i.e., provision, protection, and participation) are the four guiding principles of the uncrc, namely children’s rights to nondiscrimination (article 2); the best interest of the child (article 3); life, survival, and development (article 6); and respect for the views of the child (article 12; united nations, 1989). using the four guiding principles as a framework to analyze ontario’s early learning for every child today (elect; government of ontario, 2007) document, di santo and kenneally (2014) proposed a practical approach to assist educators in using what they termed a “rights-integrative approach to early learning” (p. 396). for example, with respect to children’s rights to nondiscrimination (article 2), they suggested that educators look for “how children’s rights are recognized” and “how diversity, equity, and inclusion are made explicit” (p. 405) in their curriculum documents. to support the best interest of the child (article 3), they suggested that educators ask themselves, “how do i share power and consider children’s individual capacity in my practice?” (p. 405). with respect to children’s rights to life, survival, and development (article 6), educators can look for “opportunities where children direct their own development—have the freedom to explore and play on their own terms—with, where, and as long as they choose” (p. 405). to respect the views of each child (article 12), they suggested that educators ask themselves: “what are the opportunities built into our day-to-day program that support children in practicing problem-solving and decision-making among themselves?” and “how do i listen seriously to what children are saying and feeling?” (p. 405). social justice definitions, types, and conceptualizations of social justice have been long disputed and vary across and within disciplines (evans, rosen, & nelson, 2014; kruger, 2004; munger, macleod, & loomis, 2016; riemer & van voorhees, 2014; sloan, 2010). for the purpose of this paper, social justice refers to individual and collective well-being, whereby the rights of all living beings and the ecosystem are fulfilled equitably. integral to processes leading to social justice are community-based values, as long as these values serve individuals, families, communities, and the planet equitably. these values are, in many ways, compatible with and complimentary to di santo and kenneally’s (2014) rights-integrative approach to early learning. community-based values community-based values include and are not limited to prevention and promotion (albee, 1986; nelson & caplan, 2014; nelson, prilleltensky, & hasford, 2009), empowerment (rappaport, 1987; zimmerman, 2000), diversity (akkari, loomis, & bauer, 2011; paciniketchabaw & berikoff, 2008; trickett, 1996), and civic participation (loomis & akkari, 2012). in pursuit of social justice, communitybased values support “ the relationships of the individual to communities and society” and “seek to understand and to enhance quality of life for individuals, communities, and society” (dalton, elias, & wandersman, 2001, p. 5). community-based values allow for conceptualizations of children, not only as individuals, but also as a relational community—a children’s community—where children may feel “a sense of belonging, with a common perception of collective needs and priorities” and are “able to assume a collective responsibility for community decisions” (jewkes & murcott, 1996, p. 556). some of the values that are compatible with children’s rights to protection and autonomy, nondiscrimination, and participation, include prevention and promotion, empowerment, diversity, and civic participation. these values must be understood, be embraced, and permeate all domains of social life to work toward social justice. to realize this goal, we build on the notion of conceptualizing social justice through early childhood curriculum frameworks by integrating community-based values at a community level, with children’s rights as individuals. work has been done to illuminate tensions and contradictions existing between specific individual versus collective rights and values, including problematizing differing values across cultures (e.g., dahlberg et al., 2007). the focus of this paper, however, is to elucidate the complementarity and compatibility between winter/hiver 2016 40 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research specific child rights (protection and autonomy, nondiscrimination, and participation) and community-based values (prevention and promotion, empowerment, diversity, and civic participation), with an implicit recognition that values differ across and between cultures and social systems and across time and context. conceptualizing social justice in early childhood education curricula issues around social justice can be introduced using existing ece curriculum frameworks as tools. a conceptualization of social justice is necessary to guide and support educators in building, modelling, teaching, and living social justice values by fulfilling children’s rights both in and outside of the classroom. integrating community-based values with the rights-integrative approach to early learning provides a holistic conceptualization of social justice. di santo and kenneally (2014) explained that a rights-integrative approach to early learning is “a teaching and learning practice that acknowledges the crc [convention on the rights of the child] explicitly and puts it into action, regardless of the philosophical framework that guides the program” (p. 396). they analyzed ontario’s elect document (government of ontario, 2007) through a rights-based lens and presented findings on ways that the document reflected (or failed to reflect) the four guiding principles of the uncrc, both implicitly and explicitly. they described the need for educators to “move out of a child/educator-centred philosophy to one of creating a global community” (p. 396). envisioning a global community of children—one that includes all children and only children—through a rights-based approach can be exemplified by a conceptualization of social justice that explicitly infuses communitybased values (see figure 1). figure 1. conceptualization of social justice through early childhood curriculum frameworks. winter/hiver 2016 41 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1 illustrates that integrating children’s rights (top left square) with community-based values (top right square) in early childhood education is needed for social justice (individual and collective well-being) through early childhood curriculum frameworks (bottom central square). left of dashed line, the individual child (blue triangle) is shown balancing (blue horizontal line) child’s protection and autonomy rights, with the weight of each changing with evolving capacities of the child (adapted from lansdown & wernham, 2012). examples of a child’s rights to nondiscrimination and participation are included. right of the dashed line, children as a community (blue triangle) balance (blue horizontal line) community-based values of prevention and promotion, and empowerment, again with the weight of each changing with evolving capacities of children. examples of diversity and civic participation are included. generally, protection rights on an individual level are compatible with values of prevention and promotion (purple shading) on a collective level. individual autonomy rights are compatible with empowerment (light blue shading) on a collective level. on an individual level, non-discrimination rights are compatible with the value of diversity on a collective level, and individual participation rights are compatible with civic participation on a collective level. child’s rights to protection and autonomy with their evolving capacity a child’s rights to protection and autonomy are compatible, mutually reinforcing rights that must remain balanced, especially with the evolving capacities of the child changing over time (lansdown & wernham, 2012). according to this particular framework, as the child matures, their capacity for making decisions based on issues affecting them increases, and they require less external protection from duty-bearers (e.g., parents, educators, government), whereas children who are less mature require higher levels of protection from dutybearers, hence limiting their autonomy. in all cases, however, the objective of those engaging with children should be to support the strengthening of the child’s autonomy, which is in fact a means of protecting them. ensuring that a child’s rights are fulfilled through this balanced relationship between protection and autonomy may bring us closer to achieving justice for each individual child, but what about justice for children as a collective group or relational community? despite widespread social justice movements initiated and led by children (e.g., malala yousafzai, child activist and advocate for education for girls in pakistan and globally [kantor, 2014]) and shannen koostachin, youth advocate for first nations children from attawapiskat first nation in ontario, canada [first nations child & family caring society of canada, n.d.]), the capacities of children as a group (relational community) continue to be immensely underestimated. in other words, just as the capacity of an individual child can be underestimated, so can the collective capabilities of children as a whole. children as a relational community remain marginalized from social, political, and economic processes that critically impact progress toward or away from social justice. as an example, we might ask why, in canada, children can only vote or run for office when they turn 18 years old. how common is it for children to participate in curriculum development throughout their education, and if they participate, how meaningful and impactful is their involvement? even the uncrc itself, a document that affects every child directly, and which says that “state parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child” (united nations, 1989, article 12, p. 4), did not consult with children to develop the convention. why have our theories, practices, and policies in canada not evolved congruent with our increased understandings of the capabilities of children as a group? one partial explanation is that adults have chosen to prioritize child protection rights over child autonomy rights. conceptualizing children’s rights on a community level in addition to the individual level will help us better develop and integrate theories, practices, pedagogies, policies, and, in this particular case, ece curricula that balance the protection and autonomy rights of children as a community. for this conceptualization to be actualized, having a shared understanding of the compatibility between child rights and community-based values is necessary. compatibility of protection and autonomy rights with community-based values. community-based values are compatible with di santo and kenneally’s (2014) rights-integrative approach to early learning and children’s protection and autonomy rights. integration of these values within the rights-integrative approach allows us to conceptualize children, not only as individuals with rights, but also as a relational community with rights, and therefore with a commitment to one another to ensure each others’ well-being. on an individual level, protection rights are compatible with community-based values of prevention and promotion, and on an individual level, autonomy rights are compatible with the community-based value of empowerment. right to protection (individual child), and values of prevention and promotion (children as a collective). rights-based approaches must go beyond conceptualizing protection rights “as simply a list of ‘protection rights’” and toward a “broader vision of protection as the positive promotion of optimal development and well-being” (lansdown & wernham, 2012, p. 2). this broader vision can be described by community-based values of prevention of suffering (e.g., physical, emotional, social) and promotion of well-being. positive health and well-being and high quality of living are the central objectives of prevention and promotion principles (prilleltensky & nelson, 2000), and research shows that prevention programs lead to positive outcomes for children (e.g., see the perry preschool [schweinhart, barnes, winter/hiver 2016 42 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research & weikart, 1993] and better beginnings, better futures [peters et al., 2010]). on an individual level, problem-solving skills may be taught with young children to promote competence, while on a meso level, school-based prevention programs may be implemented, and on a macro level, these principles are applied in ways to change public policy (nelson & prilleltensky, 2010). embracing communitybased values of prevention and promotion on multiple structural levels with communities of children and within early learning curricula can lead to fulfillment of the protection rights of each child. furthermore, with the evolving capacity of children as a collective, just as protection rights must be balanced with autonomy rights for individual children, community-based values of prevention and promotion must be balanced with the community-based value of empowerment for children as a collective. right to autonomy (individual child) and value of empowerment (children as a collective). autonomy involves having control over and being able to make choices and decisions for one’s self. working with young children on skills such as critical thinking and informed decision making is important to increasing personal autonomy (lansdown & wernham, 2012). just as autonomy rights must be realized for each individual child, they must also be fulfilled for children as a relational community, which is possible through community empowerment. empowerment is “a process, a mechanism by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their affairs” (rappaport, 1987, p. 122). fundamental to empowerment are relationships and power, whereby a common difficulty arises when attempting “power sharing,” resulting in reproducing the status quo more implicitly. one way to counter reinforcing existing power structures is to embrace empowerment as a process to initiate social change (angelique, 2008; munger et al., 2016). to do so, in addition to working with young children on critical thinking and informed decision-making skills (that lead to autonomy), early learning curriculum frameworks can be used to guide educators to work with children on developing group-advocacy, capacity-building, and resource-mobilization skills (that lead to empowerment). for example, employing multimodal approaches to learning, such as through storytelling and storyacting (paley, 1981), and pedagogical narrations (atkinson, 2012; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2014), creates spaces where children can explore ways to overcome challenges together as a community, develop a sense of community, and better understand their individual roles within their broader community (zepeda, 2014). compatibility of nondiscrimination and participation rights with community-based values. community-based values of diversity and civic participation are compatible with each child’s right to nondiscrimination and participation. integration of these values within early learning frameworks enhances our conceptualization of a child’s individual rights toward children’s rights on a relational community level. on an individual level, nondiscrimination rights are compatible with the community-based value of diversity, and on an individual level, participation rights are compatible with the value of civic participation. right to nondiscrimination (individual child) and value of diversity (children as a collective). nondiscrimination is one of the four guiding principles of the uncrc (united nations, 1989). article 2 of the uncrc states that every child has a right not to experience “discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status” (united nations, 1989, p. 2). while the right to nondiscrimination is essential to move toward justice for every child, we must broaden and deepen our understanding of what nondiscrimination means on a community level so that children as a community have their rights fulfilled. nondiscrimination can be conceptualized as valuing diversity, which goes beyond accepting or including people/groups considered to differ from the “norm.” instead, actively seeking and integrating diversity into social contexts and celebrating, exploring, and engaging in diverse experiences as ongoing praxis can develop and promote diverse ideas, structures of leadership, and strategies to distribute and redistribute power within and between groups. within the ecec classroom, santora (2004) writes, “children need to see themselves, and people who represent the diversity of their families, their communities, and their world, in the environment in which they live, work, and play” (p. 4). educators may enhance early learning curriculum frameworks to infuse their classroom communities with books, images, materials, activities, discussions, and celebrations that embody diverse family configurations (including, but not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual, two-spirited, and queer members), cultural and religious traditions, and socioeconomic statuses; nonstereotypical gender roles (such as male caregivers and female police officers), and varying abilities. moreover, educators themselves can employ and encourage children to use diverse and inclusive language, such as “people first” language, whereby putting people before their circumstances (e.g., referring to “a person who is living with diabetes” as opposed to “a diabetic person” or a “family living in poverty” as opposed to a “poor family”); “gender neutral” language (e.g., referring to “firefighters” rather than “firemen”); and “nonheterosexist” language (e.g., referring to one’s “partner” rather than one’s “husband,” “wife,” “girlfriend,” or “boyfriend”). exploring philosophies around play through a “transcultural curriculum,” for example, may help to facilitate these processes and create spaces to celebrate diversity within early learning centres and classrooms (bjartveit & panayotidis, 2015). immense diversity exists in individual and group characteristics (e.g., race, language, ideas, opinions), but recognizing the “contexts of diversity and the diversity of contexts … [facilitates] an appreciation of how sociocultural diversity interacts with diversity in ecological contexts within which individuals live” (trickett, 1996, p. 218). winter/hiver 2016 43 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research right to participation (individual child) and value of civic participation (children as a collective). article 31.1 of the uncrc (united nations, 1989) recognizes each child’s right to “participate freely in cultural life and the arts” (p. 9), and article 23.1 recognizes the rights of children with mental or physical disabilities to “enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community” (p. 7). participation rights are necessary to move toward justice for every child; however, conceptualizing participation on a community level as civic participation can contribute to fulfilling children’s rights as a community. citizen participation has been defined as “a process in which individuals take part in decision making in the institutions, programs, and environments that affect them” (kloos et al., 2012, p. 354). since the term citizenship (or citizen participation) has traditionally been used to exclude certain groups of people from participating fully in their communities, more inclusive concepts of citizenship (e.g., those that include all members of a community regardless of immigration status) are essential (kloos et al., 2012). more inclusively, civic participation involves all community members, who make and execute important decisions, in ways that are fundamental to creating social change, rather than through tokenistic means. to embrace values of civic participation within early learning environments, early learning frameworks can guide educators in exploring, designing, and integrating strategies that encourage young children to make important decisions within their child care centres, their classrooms, and the activities they choose to participate in. furthermore, educators can encourage dialogue and critical thinking around various ways that each child and educator might engage in democratic processes (e.g., turn taking, voting) and the benefits and consequences of civic participation for individual members of the community (each child and educator) and/or the community as a whole (child care centre or classroom). conclusions concerning ourselves with and conceptualizing the rights of individual children is critical, but we need to extend our perspectives to include children as a larger community. in addition to children’s local communities, children are also members of a relational “children’s community” that spans ability, gender, sex, culture, socioeconomic status, and other categorical boundaries that exist among them. expanding conceptualizations around children and exploring ways in which rights-based, value-oriented curriculum can contribute to universal and high-quality early childhood education are essential in our pursuit of social justice. the conceptual model presented in this paper can be used as a framework to develop, implement, and evaluate early learning frameworks across canada and internationally. furthermore, since all children’s rights are of equal importance, additional child rights, including provisional rights—along with rights to autonomy, protection, nondiscrimination, and participation—can and should be explored and connected with community-based values of prevention and promotion, empowerment, diversity, civic participation, and other community-based values that have not been explored in this paper. in order to work toward individual and collective well-being throughout canada and across the globe, the rights of all living beings and the ecosystem must be fulfilled equitably. the lessons and practices necessary to achieve this goal must begin in early childhood, and can be achieved through two interconnected structural processes that must occur and be sustained simultaneously: provision of universal, accessible, high-quality early childhood education and care programs for every child, and provision of early childhood curriculum frameworks that integrate and infuse community-based values with a 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(2000). empowerment theory. in handbook of community psychology (pp. 43–63). new york, ny: springer us. winter/hiver 2016 50 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research lisa terreni is a senior lecturer at victoria university of wellington’s faculty of education, teaching in the early childhood education degree programs. she has been involved in early childhood education for many years, as a kindergarten teacher, a senior teacher, and a professional development adviser for the new zealand ministry of education. she is also an artist. lisa’s research interests focus on exploring how visual art can be used to enhance young children’s thinking, communication, and multiliteracy skills. she also has a keen interest in social and cultural diversity and how teachers can meet the needs of diverse communities. her master’s in education research focused on children’s and teachers’ use of an interactive whiteboard for visual art in a kindergarten setting. her current phd research is examining early childhood access to and use of art museums and galleries in new zealand. email: lisa.terreni@vuw.ac.nz visual arts education for young children in aotearoa new zealand lisa terreni a whakatauki (māori proverb) that is sometimes used in relation to visual arts education in new zealand declares: te toi whakairo, ka ihiihi, ka wehiwehi, ka aweawe te ao katoa—artistic excellence makes the world sit up in wonder (new zealand ministry of education, 2014). the proverb speaks of the importance of the arts—how these contribute to a nation’s identity both locally and internationally, how important these are to the spirit of a nation, and, consequently, how important it is to invest in the arts and arts education so a nation’s citizens, particularly the children, can excel (clark, grey, & terreni, 2013). this paper starts by discussing the new zealand early childhood curriculum te whāriki (new zealand ministry of education, 1996), describing some of the key philosophical and pedagogical beliefs that underpin the document, and discussing the connections these have to visual arts education for young children. a brief historical overview of early childhood visual arts education in new zealand is presented to create a historical context for showing how paradigmatic changes have occurred in relation to visual art pedagogy and practice over the past hundred years. to conclude, i provide three examples of innovative art projects that illustrate some current teaching approaches and practices. the new zealand early childhood curriculum te whāriki he whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o aotearoa: early childhood curriculum (new zealand ministry of education, 1996) was developed in consultation with the early childhood community so that the principles of partnership inherent in the treaty of waitangi, new zealand’s founding document, were honoured (ritchie, 2003; te one, 2003). the aim of the document is to ensure that young children 0–5 years of age who attend early childhood services in new zealand are given the opportunity to develop an understanding of the cultural heritages of the partners to the treaty (new zealand ministry of education, 1996). by developing parallel, but not identical, curricula to meet the specific needs of māori and all other young new zealand children, te whāriki is unique in its bicultural approach to curriculum. visual art education plays a significant role in fostering young children’s learning, thinking, and communicating. in new zealand, approaches to early childhood visual art education have developed in response to international educational theories and trends, which, over the years, have often resulted in changes to pedagogy and practice in this domain. currently, the national early childhood curriculum te whāriki includes references to visual art education in many of its learning strands. whilst the curriculum has a strong sociocultural orientation to learning and teaching, approaches to early childhood visual art education are diverse. a brief historical overview of early childhood visual arts education in new zealand is presented and, to conclude, three examples of current, innovative art projects are discussed. keywords: visual art education; te whāriki winter/hiver 2016 51 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research te whāriki also addresses issues of cultural diversity within the curriculum. this is significant because of increasing cultural diversity in the population and the huge diversity of early childhood services within the sector itself. for example, the new zealand early childhood education sector includes mainstream services such as kindergartens and childcare services, special character services such as montessori and steiner centres, and ethno-specific services such as te kohanga reo, māori immersion centres, and pacific island language nests. there are also early childhood centres with particular religious orientations. the metaphor provided by the title of the document (a whāriki is a woven mat) implies that this is a framework in which the strands and goals of curriculum are interwoven. the different types of early childhood services are also able to “weave their own mat” so that their programs are responsive to their children, families, context, and values (may, 2002). te whāriki guides early childhood teaching practice through four key principles:  empowerment (whakamana)  holistic development (kotahitanga)  family and community (whānau tangata)  relationships (ngā hononga) there are also five learning strands which suggest to teachers the types of learning experiences that need to be provided for infants, toddlers, and young children. specific learning outcomes for children are identified in each of the learning strands. the strands include:  well-being (mana atua)  belonging (mana whenua)  contribution (mana tangata)  communication (mana reo)  exploration (mana aotūroa) te whāriki draws from a range of theoretical positions: developmental, constructivist, ecological, and sociocultural. however, it important to note that since its inception, there has been an increasing shift away from developmental theory toward a more sociocultural orientation (terreni, 2009). for instance, key statements of the document highlight “ the critical role of socially and culturally mediated learning and of reciprocal and responsive relationships with people, places and things” and how children learn through “collaboration with adults and peers, through guided participation and observation of others, as well as through individual exploration and reflection” (new zealand ministry of education, 1996, p. 9). one of the most significant aspects of the new zealand early childhood curriculum is that it challenges the traditional notion that curriculum is discipline based where subject matter is compartmentalized (haggerty, 2003). visual arts and the other knowledge domains (such as music, science, and mathematics) are not treated as separate subject-based disciplines. rather, they are seen as integrated throughout an early childhood program. curriculum, as described by te whāriki, is the “sum total of the experiences, activities, and events, whether direct or indirect, which occur within an environment designed to foster children’s learning and development” (new zealand ministry of education, 1996, p. 10). consequently, the early childhood curriculum is substantially different from the curricula of the primary and secondary education sectors in new zealand. most references to visual arts education appear in the communication strand, which focuses on the development of children’s literacy (in the arts as well as written and oral language) and the fostering of creativity. there are specific learning outcomes that have implications for the provision of visual art experiences. for example, teachers are encouraged to provide children winter/hiver 2016 52 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research with an environment where they develop “an increasing familiarity with a selection of the art, craft, songs, music, and stories, which are valued by the cultures in the community,” where “skills and confidence with the processes of art and craft, such as cutting, drawing, collage, painting, print-making, weaving, stitching, carving and constructing” are encouraged, and where children “experience the stories and symbols of their own and other cultures” (new zealand ministry of education, 1996, p. 80; terreni, 2008). specifying actual content of curriculum, which includes visual art, or providing a recipe for teacher practice is not the intention of the document. rather, it provides a “framework for action guided by philosophic principles” (te one, 2003, p. 42) and supports the “fundamentally interpretative nature of teaching” (nuttall, 2003, p. 14). this idea applies equally to visual arts education as it does to other aspects of curriculum and, consequently, has resulted in many different approaches to teaching visual art. nonetheless, some historical developments can be identified when looking at visual arts educational practices in new zealand over the past 100 years. a brief historical overview of visual arts education the first kindergartens: a teacher-directed, rote art curriculum the early childhood services that were dominant in new zealand before world war 2 were kindergartens, which was a teacher-led service originally for children of the poor. programs and teacher practice were based on ideas developed by german educationalist fredrick froebel. the approach to teaching was authoritarian and formalized. teacher practice in the early kindergartens was very directive, and art activities strictly timetabled (lawrence, 1952; may, 1997). characteristics of a teacher-directed, rote art curriculum are evident in these early kindergartens, where the emphasis of art activities “involved dexterity and fine motor skills, neatness, memorization, and following directions” rather than individual creative self-expression (bressler, 1994, p. 93). the new zealand kindergarten movement remained wedded to traditional froebelian ideas until after world war 2. child-centred free play and the development of the playcentre movement post-war influences from international developments in child psychology and education, for example, the progressive education movement based on the ideas of american educationalist and philosopher john dewey, began to have an impact in new zealand educational settings (visser, 2005). dewey’s ideas called attention to the necessity of children’s play being grounded in “the child’s experiences of the real world” (may, 1997, p. 113) and learning by doing. ideas such as these began to be embraced by the new playcentre movement (a parent-led, cooperative approach to early childhood education that started in 1941). the new zealand kindergarten movement also embraced these ideas. an emerging “free-play” approach to learning was deemed to be the most suited to the education of young children. visual art learning experiences such as painting, collage, and clay were important activities that were provided in a free-play curriculum. the role of the parent or teacher was to let children play and create “freely and spontaneously” (somerset, 1948, p. 14). it was important that adults did not interfere with the child’s engagement in art “in order to preserve the developing character of the child” (boughton, 1999, p. 4) and that they provided children with assistance only when they needed it. playcentre also published literature for parents and teachers involved in young children’s learning. magic places (brownlee, 1983, 1991, 2004) became a significant visual art text for new zealand early childhood educators and parents. this book has been, and remains, hugely influential in determining teacher practice in visual art in early childhood contexts in new zealand. winter/hiver 2016 53 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the developmentally appropriate curriculum at this time, early childhood teacher training, which was only available to kindergarten teachers until 1975, was influenced strongly by piaget’s theories of education. this orientation supported ideas generated from visual art research by american educators and researchers, such as kellogg (1969) and lowenfeld (1957), who believed there were distinct, universal developmental patterns in children’s art (koster, 1997). during the 1980s, early childhood education in new zealand was also strongly influenced by the american developmentally appropriate practice (dap) model of early childhood education. in this model, visual art was seen mainly as a vehicle for individual creative expression and the exploration of materials (bredekamp, 1986). a uniquely new zealand visual art education initiative emerged during the 1980s. the structured environment allowing for communicative original happenings (known as seacoh) was focused on the provision of child-centred visual art experiences (terreni, 2010). its aim was to liberate children from undesirable teacher-structured art activities by providing specialized furniture, such as attractive open shelving and screen printing tables, to give children free access to materials and the ability to make their own choices. this was seen as a way to assist children’s increased self-determined engagement in art making (lewis, 1998). an emerging sociocultural orientation during the 1990s, new theories in visual art education, and education generally, emerged which began to question some of the assumptions and practices of developmental theory in visual art education (kindler, 1996). gardner’s (2000) work and theories on multiple intelligences, whilst retaining some aspects of developmental theory with regard to visual art education, suggested that visual art was an important dimension to children’s cognition and thinking processes rather than only for creative expression. kindler and darras (1994, as cited in koster, 1997) suggested that visual art education involved a two-fold process: physical and cognitive development, as well as social and cultural learning. these ideas meshed well with sociocultural/constructivist theories of education from educationalists such as bruner, bronfenbrenner, and vygotsky, whose ideas began to significantly influence early childhood pedagogy in new zealand (may, 1997; smith, grima, gaffney, & powell, 2000) and, in 1996, the development of te whāriki. the project approach and reggio emilia in the late 1990s, reggio emilia early childhood programs and the project approach (katz & chard, 1989) were becoming known to early childhood educators in new zealand. one experienced education commentator recently remarked: in the early 1990s when their book [engaging children’s minds: the project approach] was published, it made a big impact on teachers and supported them to go beyond themes [for art activities].… the step by step approach that the formula of the project approach offered gave teachers a system that they felt comfortable to follow when starting something new. the project approach provided a helpful starting point to launch a new way of teaching. (c. bayes, personal communication, june 29, 2014) these two approaches highlighted the ways in which the arts provide abundant opportunities for children to use multiple symbolic languages, particularly visual art, to mediate their thinking and make their thinking visible (brooks, 2005; eales, 1996; project zero & reggio children, 2001). from 2000, reggio emilia pedagogical approaches and ideas became increasingly popular with teachers in new zealand. this popularity can, in part, be attributed to the development of reggioaffiliated organizations (see, for instance, reggio emilia inspirations and reggio emilia association of new zealand). teachers were also starting to go on organized tours to reggio emilia, as well as to australia, to visit successful reggioemilia-inspired programs operating there. winter/hiver 2016 54 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research consequently, in the late 1990s and into the new century, a sociocultural/constructivist orientation in visual art education slowly began to challenge the developmentalist view that children’s artistic growth is the result of “natural, genetically preprogrammed unfolding of dispositions controlled by maturation” (kindler, 1996, p. 10). rather than setting up wellresourced art areas and then standing back to let children engage without adult input, active teacher engagement with children in this domain was increasingly seen to provide opportunities for children to “talk about, critique and reflect upon their representation of their worlds” (gunn, 2000, p. 160). this approach to visual art involved teacher practices such as scaffolding, discussion, modelling specific skills, and facilitating or “provoking” art learning experiences (kindler, 1995; visser, 2005). current approaches and practices in visual art education in new zealand despite this slow pedagogical shift, a number of researchers (clark & de lautour, 2007; gunn, 2000; lewis, 1998; pohio, 2009; richards, 2009; richards & terreni, 2013; terreni, 2009; visser, 2006) have noted that many new zealand early childhood teachers today still retain a noninterventionist, hands-off stance in relation to visual art education. nonetheless, there are also examples of teachers taking a very active role in fostering visual arts education and engaging actively in intentional teaching (duncan, 2009) in this domain. the development of the e-magazine ecartnz (see http://www.elp.co.nz/ecartnz_e_magazine_on_arts_education.cfm) has given early childhood teachers in new zealand a forum for showcasing exciting and innovative visual art projects, often driven by children’s interests (emergent curriculum) but sometimes by teachers. a recent publication, kia tipu te wairua toi—fostering the creative spirit: arts in early childhood (clark, grey, & terreni, 2013) and an influential dvd, visual arts inspirations: people, places, and things (auckland university, 2012), have also been vehicles for encouraging new thinking and approaches to visual art education. these publications showcase examples of high-quality visual arts teaching and learning in new zealand early childhood settings. the exemplars discussed in the following section are drawn from these sources and connect to the fundamental premise of te whāriki that young children learn most through their relationships with people, places, and things. learning about people—all the colours of the earth: painting our diversity teachers at papamoa kindergarten in tauranga work in an ethnically diverse community and are respectful of cultural and social differences (wright, 2014). an investigation into ethnic diversity arose from a teacher’s observations of a group of 4-year-old children who were playing in the family area with a selection of different ethnic dolls. after a few days of watching and listening, the teacher noticed that only the white european-looking dolls were being played with. she asked why and one of the children replied, “that’s because he is a bit too brown for me. i like white.” using a picture book, all the colors of the earth (hamanaka, 1994), which describes people’s skin colour in different ways, teachers used the children’s comments and the picture book to provoke an exploration of skin colour through the painting of self-portraits. children were encouraged to look closely at their own and each other’s skin colour. some children identified their skin colour as “white” or “brown,” yet when they put brown and white paint on the back of their hands, they realized that these basic colours did not have enough variation to create a match for their skin tone. teachers also encouraged the children to look carefully at themselves by using mirrors, and helped the children to mix different paints to find the closest colour match for their skin. this was a lengthy process of investigation, but one which encouraged the children to think deeply about what they were doing. the colour mixing “enabled children to explore and ‘re-see’ their skin colour. through discussion, thoughtful deliberation and self-discovery, they moved from describing themselves and others as monotone pink, white, black or brown to using more sophisticated language to describe their skin tone” (wright, 2014, p. 7). the teachers extended the children’s ideas by getting them to think about what foods would best describe their skin colour and that of their friends. one of the children said, “my eyes and eyelashes look like the sun. my winter/hiver 2016 55 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research skin is like caramello chocolate bar brown.” a series of portraits were painted by the children using careful observations of themselves and their new knowledge about skin colour. the project lasted for ten weeks and at its conclusion one of the teachers stated: describing themselves supported children’s developing awareness of, and appreciation for, similarity and more importantly, for uniqueness and difference…. supporting young children to recognise and acknowledge diversity and difference is a fundamental component of intercultural education. as aotearoa [new zealand] becomes more ethnically and racially diverse, teachers as agents of social justice have a fundamental role in supporting children’s working theories about diversity and difference. (wright, 2014, p. 8) learning about place—there’s a taniwha (monster) down our drain sobel (2004, as cited in rosenthal, 2008) suggests that place-based education is “the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language, arts, mathematics, social studies, science, [art], and other subjects across the curriculum” (p. 7). by providing hands-on learning experiences, this approach to education can help children develop stronger ties to their community and increase their appreciation for their local environment. the teachers at paparangi kindergarten in wellington have a strong commitment to providing a bicultural curriculum, and place-based education is part of this. to encourage an exploration of place through the visual arts, one of the teachers used her skills in art and design to foster an investigation of the taniwha (a mythical māori monster) that the children believe lives down a drain at the kindergarten. according to kindergarten folklore, the taniwha has been living there for a long time. however, when the teacher asked more about it, no one seemed to know why it was living there or where it came from. this prompted her to think about how to extend and deepen understandings about the myth. she remarked: the taniwha legend resonated with me. i saw the story as a way i could use my background in art and design to help the tamariki (children) deepen their connection to our place in the community, to māori myths, as well as to their lived reality at the kindergarten. moreover, my study (at victoria university) illustrated to me that the environment around us could and should be used to enhance learning for the tamariki. so, reflecting on this, one morning i sculpted a large taniwha in the sandpit as a provocation for the children. (wilson jackson, 2013, p. 11) the teacher observed that throughout the day, groups of children worked with the taniwha in the sandpit in very different ways. she saw children adding to her design, embellishing it with natural resources, making water come out of its mouth, and constructing a trench around its body to make a river. she felt that this learning opportunity had a big impact on the children because they revisited the ideas many times over the following weeks. it also resulted in a lot of collaborative play where ideas were shared and children worked together. the creation of an illustrated book about the taniwha was another strategy the teacher used to extend the children’s learning and engagement in visual art and storytelling. the book was a collaborative effort between the teachers and the children. illustrations for the book were discussed with the children. research, via internet searches, produced ideas about taniwha as well as other aspects of the story. relevant images were printed off and children drew their own pictures based on these images, using oil pastels on black paper. as well as including children’s drawings in the book, the teacher used photoshop to incorporate a photograph of the children into one of their own illustrations. to do this, she encouraged the children to perform the story they had written. as they performed the story, she took photos of them for the book and, in the process, realized that performance of the story added winter/hiver 2016 56 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research another dimension to the children’s own lived experience of their story. at the end of the book-making process, copies were made for the children to take home. the picture book continues to be read at the kindergarten to this day. learning about things—spider invasion teachers at st. andrews epsom early childhood centre in auckland actively encourage visual art as a way of extending children’s thinking and learning. the teachers have described their approach to art education as “hybrid—wandering between the two pointers of socio-constructivism and the project approach depending on what we’re doing” (m. johnston, personal communication, june 29, 2004). teachers take a lead role in developing projects, actively scaffolding children’s skills and ideas. an exploration of spiders, which developed into an extensive learning project that lasted several months, began when a child shared her favourite book about spiders and some of the drawings she had done at home with her teachers. as a result, many other children declared their interest in spiders and consequently, with encouragement from the teachers, a study of spiders began. the teachers’ involvement in observational drawing, which is done alongside the children, is an important part of the centre’s visual arts program. picture books, models of spiders, images from the internet, and real spiders were used for the observational drawing of spiders. the study also facilitated the learning of the technical names of a spider’s body parts and about different spider habitats. when the drawings were completed, they were displayed prominently in the centre. the drawings and the learning that had resulted from the observations were used to inform further spider creations by the children using different art mediums. for instance, a student teacher shared her own personal interest in jewellery making using wire and enamel with the children. consequently, children began making spiders out of wire, developing new skills to create the three-dimensional forms. when the wire spiders were completed, they were hung in a tree outside and, much to the delight of the children and teachers, a real spider that lived in the tree spun a web around them. over many weeks, the children and teachers carefully noticed and observed spider behaviour in the centre. clay, painting, and silkscreen printing were all used to further children’s visual art learning experiences, but the interest in spiders also extended into other areas of the curriculum: music, science, language, and literacy. the project culminated in an exhibition of the children’s multimedia work. one of the teachers involved in the exhibition remarked: the exhibition pulled together the various aspects of spiders we had discovered … the wide variety of habitats and the many characteristics of each and every spider [studied]. it was a successful evening, and the exhibition gave each child a sense of belonging to our centre’s community and helped foster their selfesteem by seeing their gorgeous art work being highly valued by all the visitors. (m. johnston, personal communication, july 2010) conclusion the three examples described in this article highlight the ways in which visual arts education can connect with significant learning opportunities for young children. art can be a vehicle for supporting young children’s increased knowledge and understanding in important areas, such as social justice, awareness of significant features of their local environment, and the study of natural phenomena. in all of these projects, the teachers’ and/or the children’s interests were used to start the projects and to drive them to their conclusion. the provision of unlimited time, quality resources, and intentional and often imaginative teaching strategies enabled sustained opportunities for in-depth learning to occur. one of the aspirations of te whāriki is that children in early childhood services in new zealand “grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body, and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make winter/hiver 2016 57 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research a valued contribution to society” (new zealand ministry of education, 1996, p. 9). the visual arts, as these examples illustrate, provide many opportunities for children to become competent and confident learners. however, early childhood teachers in new zealand need robust professional development opportunities to be able to successfully critique their practice in this domain. this is increasingly important when there are new curriculum developments, educational policy changes, and pedagogical shifts (not only in the early childhood sector but also in the other education sectors). awareness of new ideas, research, and innovative teaching practices are also necessary so that vibrant, quality arts education learning experiences are provided in early childhood settings. if these opportunities are made available to teachers, i believe the future for visual arts education in early childhood settings in new zealand will be a healthy one. references auckland university. 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(2009). aligning early childhood visual art education with socio-cultural theory and practice: a personal pedagogical stance on the relationship between theory and visual arts education practice in new zealand early childhood education. journal of australian research in early childhood, 16(1), 63–72. terreni, l. (2010). a history of visual art education in early childhood in new zealand: looking backwards to go forwards. international art in early childhood research journal, 2, 1–11. visser, j. (2005). the historical, philosophical, and theoretical influences on early childhood visual arts education in aotearoa new zealand. ace papers, 16, 25–38. retrieved from: http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/fms/ default/education/docs/word/research/foed_paper/issue16/ace_paper_2_issue_16.doc visser, j. (2006). teachers’ beliefs and practices in toddler art education: a tension between developmental and sociocultural perspectives (master’s thesis, university of auckland, new zealand). wilson jackson, p. (2013). there’s a taniwha down our drain: strengthening connections to place through art and design. ecartnz, 8. retrieved from: http://www.elp.co.nz/files/ecartnz_issue_8.pdf wright, g. (2014). all the colours of the earth: painting our diversity. ecartnz, 9. retrieved from: http://www.reanz.org/ files/2813/9866/3440/ecartnz_issue_9_2014.pdf winter/hiver 2016 3 vol. 41 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor in this special issue of the journal of childhood studies, each of the authors considers how we might be provoked by serious engagement in the visual arts—and how an educator’s role, children’s explorations, and curriculum, materials, and environments might take shape in response. rather than seeing young children’s engagement in the visual arts as recreation, as self-expression, or as necessary to an individual child’s creative or sensory development, each author proposes a perspective of art as relational, as collaborative, and as a social practice. each offers ways that educators and children might reimagine living and learning together. each looks for avenues to enable emergence, build intensity, provoke sustained attention to particular ideas, and engage in prolonged investigations while using visual arts as provocation and process of inquiry. art as a collaborative social practice situates art as a shared exchange, a relational form of thinking, narrating, investigating, making meaning, and articulating experience. visual art becomes a language and an unpredictable process of collaboratively working through ideas, constructing understandings, and communicating perspectives. art as a social project also considers the generative encounters between contemporary art and pedagogy. in this special issue on young children and the visual arts, maria iafelice explores an artful pedagogy shaped in response to children’s unpredictable engagements with contemporary art practices. her article brings into focus implications for visualizing conversations with young learners through art. lisa terreni considers the visual arts in the context of the development of new zealand’s national curriculum. her article demonstrates how, through imaginative teaching strategies, art can be a vehicle to support young children’s growing knowledge and understanding in areas such as social justice and awareness of their local environment. raewyn penman and rachael maiden describe a series of children’s art projects provoked by a natural phenomenon that became a rich source of learning in a kindergarten. their article highlights artistic ways of knowing as they describe how the children used visual arts to voice their ideas and thoughts and to document and assess their own learning. natalie kauffman’s blank canvases art program was inspired by the reggio emilia atelier. her article explores the potential of the studio in schools to support artistic processes of speculation, research, creation, reflection, and dialogue. finally, adrienne argent gives insight into the creation of a living curriculum provoked by contemporary art. rather than contemplating objects of art as finished pieces with inherent meanings, her article shows how materials and themes are in a constant state of becoming. detailing what was produced by an encounter with an art exhibit, she describes how the encounter enlivened the children’s spaces, materials, and unfolding artistic processes, and how she too felt entangled in the artist’s work in an embodied response. the authors’ experimentations with the visual arts invite us to create innovative spaces where we, and young children, can imagine the world in alternate ways. dr. sylvia kind canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 14 vol. 38 no. 2 beverlie dietze, phd, is an assistant professor in the department of child and youth study at mount saint vincent university in halifax, nova scotia. her research interests include outdoor play environments for children and early learning and child care professional staff development models. she was educated at sheridan college, the university of new brunswick, st. francis xavier university, and the university of toronto. email: beverlie.dietze@msvu.ca how accessible and usable are our neighbourhood playgrounds for children who have mobility restrictions or use mobility devices? beverlie dietze many municipalities across canada have created neighbourhood playgrounds that are intended to offer children and families a place to play, meet other families, and participate in activities that support the establishment of a healthy lifestyle. yet the structural designs of many of these neighbourhood playgrounds restrict or eliminate children or adults who have mobility restrictions from participating at them. structural barriers include the placements of the sidewalks, pathways, ground surface, and elevated frameworks around the playground equipment. this paper discusses the results of examining the municipal neighbourhood playgrounds in one suburban community in nova scotia in relation to accessibility and usability features for children or adults with mobility restrictions. adjusting the current accessibility and usability designs of neighbourhood playgrounds becomes increasingly important in our quest to increase children’s physical activity levels, promote play, and model inclusive practices for all members of society. environmental barriers contribute to social barriers and social exclusion. accessibility to public space is a legal right and must be viewed as a community’s moral and ethical obligation. it is critical that all citizens in a community experience inclusive practices and a sense of dignity in their daily living experiences. in nova scotia, where do the children play? the province prides itself as being “canada’s ocean playground.” for many, these three words bring about images of children and families outdoors, near water, and playing in the sand. visualizing the beach, we may imagine active, healthy children who are running, jumping, swimming, building, or climbing. when the word “ocean” is removed and we think of playgrounds, different images may emerge. instead we may think of children using swings and climbers; we may recall squeals of joy or young voices asking for “just one more minute.” we may have visions of neighbourhood playgrounds that attract children and families, or we may picture underutilized spaces where few children gather. increasing children’s levels of physical activity is a priority for governments and organizations associated with child development and wellness. studies suggest that outdoor play is widely considered a key component in increasing children’s physical activity levels, reducing obesity, and developing healthy, active lifestyles (gubbels et al., 2011). the reality of hurried lifestyles and changing societal values, however, are contributing to the challenge of families developing active lifestyles. active lifestyles can be even more challenging for children with mobility restrictions or children who have adults in their lives with mobility issues, especially if they depend on their neighbourhood playground as a space for, and a source of, active play. most of us assume that we now live in an inclusive society. inclusion is “the philosophy that all people have the right to be included with their peers in age-appropriate activities throughout life” (miller & schleien, 2006). examining places where children and families may gather to play in their community from an accessibility perspective is important because of the relationship between motor movement abilities, physical activity, and social inclusion. upon examination of many community places, the environmental barriers that prevent children or adults with mobility restrictions from participating in everyday life situations become evident. being excluded from everyday life situations is not a new phenomenon. in spite of the early studies of goffman (1963) and decades of research and activism that followed, there continue to be social and environmental barriers that preclude accessibility for all. instead of a model of accessibility, researchers such as michalko (1998), titchkosky (2008), and others identified that a social model of disability has been created by society due to the many types of barriers that exclude individuals with disabilities from being able to access public space or participate in common daily living experiences (oliver, 1996; prellwitz, tamm, & lindqvist, 2001). when barriers prevent children and families from accessing spaces, such as neighbourhood playgrounds, an imbalance in society is created (lawton, 1980). this imbalance may contribute to individuals with a disability having canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 15 vol. 38 no. 2 feelings of inequality, and it reinforces the types of struggles that individuals with disabilities face and live with on a daily basis. children have the right to play. this right is highlighted in the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc; united nations high commission for human rights, 1989). the convention contains a number of articles which are “specifically relevant to children’s access to and experiences of their local environment and their access to play” (cole-hamilton, harrop, & street, 2002). articles 31 and 23 are most relevant to this study. article 31 states that: every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. and article 23 indicates that: a mentally or physically disabled child should enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community. canada ratified the uncrc in 1991. canada also released the canadian standards association (csa) play spaces accessibility document in 2007, which establishes minimum accessibility requirements for newly constructed and existing playgrounds that require upgrading. increasingly more research is available that highlights the disrespect shown to people with disabilities when their social right of having access to places is denied, is publicized by signs, or is different from non-disabled citizens (michalko, 2009; titchkosky, 2008). changes to accessibility practices notwithstanding, there are still many environments in various parts of canada where children with mobility restrictions are excluded. to have the neighbourhood playground be such a space is paradoxical, especially in light of the public perception of inclusive practice. in one nova scotia municipality, for example, the jurisdiction’s website states their mission as providing quality inclusive leisure services, facilities, and programs for their citizens. unfortunately, many of the neighbourhood playgrounds in that municipality exhibit structural design features that inhibit or exclude individuals with mobility restrictions from being able to access or use the play space. in this article, i highlight the results of a study that examined the accessibility, usability, and barriers of neighbourhood playgrounds at the entrance points and pathways to the equipment in one suburban nova scotia community. because social inclusion and access to public space is a right of all citizens, this study is viewed as a starting point to facilitate change to the playgrounds by outlining the current conditions that, by design, exclude children or adults with mobility restrictions. specifically, the study is intended to provide insight into the extent to which the entrances to playgrounds, the pathways within them, the ground surfaces, and the transfer systems from the perimeter of the playground to the play equipment may support or inhibit children or adults with mobility restrictions in using neighbourhood playgrounds. such environmental barriers may negatively impact children’s social and physical wellness, play options, interaction with others, and sense of belonging in society. environmental barriers have a direct correlation to the social disability model which, when present, is inequitable and reduces the overall wellness of communities. neighbourhood playgrounds several studies reveal that outdoor play spaces influence how and where children play (bjorklid, 2005; fjortoft, 2001; moser & martinsen, 2010). the people and spaces in children’s environments shape their physical activity and depth of play (dietze & kashin, 2012; miles, 2008). the level of comfort that adults have with neighbourhood playgrounds influences the quality and type of play in which children engage (loukaitousideris & sideris, 2010). for example, adults who have positive feelings toward neighbourhood play spaces intentionally create opportunities for children to actively engage in play that supports exploration, experiential play, and risk taking (dietze & kashin, 2012). if adults feel ambivalent or negative toward the play space, they either avoid the play space or rush children to complete their play episode so that they may move to a space that offers more comfort to them or their children. neighbourhood playgrounds are intended to be play spaces for children and families to gather to socialize and engage in active play with others. play is the foundation on which children can increase their levels of physical activity, and it contributes to them gaining a sense of freedom, independence, and improved self-concept (frost, 2006; rivkin, 1995). conversely, if children with restricted mobility do not have access to quality group play experiences that include physical play, they may not develop the same level of skills in independence, experimentation, problem solving, communicating with peers, or taking risks that are necessary for their social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development (bilton, 2002; ouvry, 2003). physical play influences children’s social connections in terms of developing playmates and becoming part of social groups (segal, mandich, polatajko, & cook, 2002). neighbourhood playgrounds can be a pivotal place for user groups to participate in informal networking, explore community and cultural identity, and model inclusive practices (loukaitousideris & sideris, 2010; miles, 2008; woolley, armitage, bishop, curtis, & ginsborg, 2006). children strive to be accepted into their peer group. research studies suggest that when children with mobility issues do not have access to the same play environments as their peers, they feel different from their peers. when children are not part of a peer group, they may develop feelings of not canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 16 vol. 38 no. 2 fitting in or social isolation; they may feel victimized or discriminated against, that they are not the equal of their peers; or, they may experience stigmatization from their peers (nabers & badawi, 1997; segal et al., 2002), which can lead to feelings of loneliness (poulsen, ziviani, cuskelly, & smith, 2007). as a way to protect themselves, children tend to choose to withdraw or avoid having contact with their peers (segal et al., 2002). the absence of peers changes the quality of play, often leading children to become more dependent on adults as their play partners or to predominately engage in solitary play. as well, as a way to protect children from feeling inadequate or at risk of being bullied or teased, it is not uncommon for families to develop “stigma management techniques,” such as avoiding places, people, and situations that contribute to the feelings of difference (prellwitz, 2007). prolonged negative feelings and isolation from peers put children at risk of developing psychosocial issues, such as low self-esteem, lack of confidence and self-regulation skills, and interpersonal relationship challenges (skär, 2002). all children have the right to have access to and be able to use their neighbourhood playground. when access is denied for whatever reason, discrimination occurs. prellwitz and skär (2007) define accessibility as one’s ability to approach, enter, and exit the playground in a functional manner. similarly, the canadian standards association (2007) describe an accessible route as “a continuous unobstructed pathway from the perimeter of the use zone to the equipment” (p. 3). playground usability is identified as the person being “able to move around, be in and use the environment on equal terms with others” (prellwitz & tamm, 1999, p. 145). neighbourhood playgrounds that incorporate accessibility and usability elements into their design support users of the play space in building a foundation for healthy and active lives, which in turn builds healthy communities (barovick, 2010). drawing on the definitions of accessibility and usability as identified by prellwitz and skär (2007), this study examined the neighbourhood playgrounds in one suburban community in nova scotia. looking at the accessibility and usability features of these neighbourhood playgrounds brings awareness to how children with mobility restrictions or children who have adults in their lives with mobility issues may be included or excluded from play opportunities within their home community. this study may provide a forum for municipalities and communities to examine their neighbourhood playgrounds for accessibility and usability features and, as importantly, to determine if and how socially inclusive practices are being exhibited. the findings may also facilitate discussions about how neighbourhood playgrounds need to be redesigned to model inclusive practices. the study the main purpose of this study was to examine the accessibility and usability features of the municipal playgrounds located in one suburban community to determine how each playground space supports or restricts children or adult caregivers with mobility restrictions in accessing or using the playground. the research was exploratory in nature because only limited data are available about neighbourhood playgrounds in nova scotia or about children with mobility restrictions using neighbourhood playgrounds in nova scotia. based on a literature review conducted on accessible play spaces and the definitions of accessibility and usability identified by prellwitz and skär (2007), a set of questions on accessibility and usability was developed that focused on the entrance to the playground, the pathways within the playground, the ground surfaces, and the transfer systems from the perimeter of the playground to the play equipment. the municipal website was used to locate the neighbourhood playgrounds. the website identified nineteen neighbourhood playgrounds in the community. upon examination of these playgrounds, it turned out that two playgrounds listed on the municipal site did not exist. in addition, one playground only had tennis courts and another was a naturalized forest play space with a walking trail. this reduced the study sample to fifteen municipal playgrounds, four of which were located adjacent to or on school properties. using direct observation at the fifteen municipal playgrounds, six core questions were answered in relation to how entry points, ground surfaces, space for mobility, ramps, and transfer systems impact families using neighbourhood playgrounds. photos and field notes were taken at each playground. a coding system was developed and used to identify playground accessibility and usability features. themes were identified and compared with the notes taken in relation to the accessibility and usability definitions outlined by prellwitz and skär (2007). findings the presentation of findings is aligned with the research questions formulated to examine the accessibility and usability of the playgrounds. accessibility the accessibility features of neighbourhood playgrounds influence how children approach play, their motivation to play, their play options, and the depth of active play in which they engage. the accessibility factors of the municipal playgrounds were examined in relation to parking space, the sidewalks/pathways to the playground and from the entrance of the playground to the playground equipment, and entrance restrictions. is there a parking lot for vehicles that would support children or adults with mobility issues to be able to safely exit the vehicle, acquire their mobility device, and move toward the playground? canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 17 vol. 38 no. 2 one important aspect of children and families using neighbourhood playgrounds is being able to drive to the playground and have adequate space to park. four of the fifteen playgrounds had designated parking spaces. onstreet parking was available at seven playgrounds. one playground had parking space for one car, but the allocated space had a slight incline which could cause difficulty for individuals exiting the vehicle, especially if mobility devices were required to support them entering or exiting the vehicle. another playground had a flat, gravelled parking space that could accommodate twenty cars. the three remaining playgrounds, adjacent to local schools, had paved, flat parking lots available. are there sidewalks/pathways leading up to the playground, and is there a hard surface that would support a child or adult using a mobility device? the presence of sidewalks in neighbourhoods, the pathways leading to playgrounds, and the surface cover used on pathways have a significant impact on whether individuals with mobility devices can manoeuvre their devices to get to the playgrounds. eight playgrounds did not have designated sidewalks or pathways that led to the playground. there were sidewalks on the opposite side of the street at three of the playgrounds. two playgrounds had standard cement sidewalks on the same side of the street as the playground. none of the sidewalks had curb cuts that would allow individuals using mobility devices, such as a wheelchair, to manoeuvre from the street level to the sidewalk or from the sidewalk to the playground. one playground, located on school property, had a solid surface pathway that led to the playground from the parking lot. another playground, located in a mature part of the community, had two entrances. the first entrance had an off-street parking lot with a gravel surface located approximately 59 metres from where the playground equipment was located. users would be required to follow a winding, sloped gravel path down the hill to the playground. the second entrance to this playground was located on a side street approximately 51 metres from the playground equipment. there was no path from the street leading to the playground equipment. there was an approximate 1.5-metre incline from the street entrance to the playground equipment. the ground cover from the street entrance to the playground equipment area was grass. are there sidewalks/pathways from the entrance of the playground to the playground equipment, and is there a ground surface that would support the use of a mobility device? children or adults using mobility devices require pathways and ground surface covers that provide them with a feeling of stability. examination of the pathways from the entrance of the playground to the playground equipment revealed that only four of the fifteen playgrounds had sidewalks/pathways leading to the playground equipment. three of these playgrounds were located in school spaces. as indicated previously, the one playground with two entrances had gravel or grass pathways. the ground surfaces leading to the play equipment varied from grass to pea gravel to hard surface pavement. of the fifteen playgrounds examined, 46% had pea gravel as a ground surface leading up to and around the playground equipment. twenty-six percent of the playgrounds had pavement as their ground surface, and 20% had grass as the ground surface leading to the playground equipment. one playground had a man-made rubberized solid surface material leading to the playground. are there entrance restrictions such as gates or posts that may limit access to children who use mobility devices? an important aspect for children or adults with restricted mobility is if the gates or posts erected at the entrance and exit of playgrounds are wide enough to accommodate mobility devices. the playground that had two entrances (one at the top of the hill and the other on the side street at the bottom of the hill) had a padlocked gate and fence at the entrance at the bottom of the hill. the gate opening was approximately 88 centimetres in width. this size of opening would restrict mobility devices such as wheelchairs from entering through the gate. the remaining playgrounds had unrestricted open spaces at their entrances. usability the design of the neighbourhood playground as a play space influences if and how children or adults with mobility issues use the playground (prellwitz & skär, 2007). the usability factors of the municipal playgrounds were examined in relation to elevated paths and transfer systems, ground pathways within the playground area, surface coverings, and the open space available for manoeuvring mobility devices. are there elevated paths or systems in place that allow children with mobility devices to get to the playground equipment? elevated paths or systems are intended to provide individuals with mobility aids to move about the play space; they connect play spaces and offer access to the equipment in the playground. in this case, all fifteen playgrounds lacked elevated pathways or transfer systems that would support children with restricted mobility in connecting to the playground equipment or open space. another complication observed was that twelve of the fifteen playgrounds had elevated wooden borders around the perimeter of the playground equipment that were between 10 and 20 centimetres above ground level. there were no transfer systems in place that would support children with mobility devices getting over the borders to access the playground equipment. are there ground paths within the play space that support a child with mobility canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 18 vol. 38 no. 2 devices to move around and have access to all aspects of the play space? the purpose of ground paths within the play space is to support children with mobility devices in having access to the core play space so that they may engage in a variety of play experiences (prellwitz, tamm, & lindqvist, 2001). all fifteen playgrounds examined lacked ground paths within the play space that would support individuals with restricted mobility or devices to access all parts of the play space. although the playground that had the man-made rubberized ground covering did not have designated ground paths within the play space, the ground surface made it feasible for children to access more aspects of the play space than the other playgrounds examined. does the surface covering around the play structure support a child with mobility devices to have the opportunity to move around the play structure? the surface coverings around a play structure support or inhibit how children with mobility devices explore and engage within the play space. the playground with the man-made rubberized solid surface around the play equipment would support children or adults with mobility devices to get to the playground equipment. all other playgrounds had pea gravel or a combination of grass and pea gravel around the playground equipment. in most instances, the pea gravel completely surrounded the play structures. if children could get to the play structures, the pea gravel would interfere with them easily manoeuvring mobility devices such as wheelchairs, crutches, or canes. is there manoeuvring space around the play structure that would allow for children with mobility devices to make 180-degree turns if required? children with restricted mobility require space to manoeuvre their mobility devices in a variety of directions. small spaces around play structures reduce children’s ability to move in and out of a space comfortably or to make the 180-degree turns that may be required. the playground that had the man-made rubberized ground surface covering had sufficient space and a surface covering that would support children being able to make adequate turns. two other playgrounds had sufficient space for children to manoeuvre their mobility devices, but had pea gravel as the surface covering, which would also inhibit the ease with which a mobility device could be manoeuvred. twelve playgrounds did not have adequate space for children with mobility devices to make 180-degree turns. discussion according to researchers such as baker and donnelly (2002) and heath, mcguire, and law (2007), the barriers in children’s environments have a stronger influence than their disability on their participation in play. michalko (1998) and others who have studied the social model of disability reinforce this perspective by suggesting that the disability is not the main issue for the individual. participation is influenced more by how society views disabilities and creates barriers, thereby excluding people with disabilities from engaging in daily living experiences (imre, 1997; oliver, 1996). to break the social model of disability, neighbourhood playgrounds need to be accessible to all citizens. the results of this study indicate that in the community where this study occurred, significant environmental design flaws exclude potential users with restricted mobility from accessing their neighbourhood playground. the findings indicate that only one playground had some environmental features that would make it accessible to children with mobility restrictions. the remaining playgrounds lack appropriate ground surfaces on pathways and around equipment, and appropriate transfer systems. these limitations clearly imply, from a societal positioning perspective, that there is not fair or equitable accessibility for all and that social exclusion exists. social exclusion has many negative implications for community development and for children and their development, and it works against accepting and celebrating diversity and individuals with differences. when children are faced with environmental or social barriers, such as not having the freedom to access the playground and choose where to play, what to play on, and with whom, they are in essence being segregated from their social network. yet playing with peers is an important developmental requirement (dietze & kashin, 2012; stanley, 2011). this means that just through presenting these environmental conditions, children with restricted mobility have fewer opportunities to participate in interactions, experiences, or experimentation with their physical and social environments than do their peers without disabilities. it would further appear that the lack of accessibility to neighbourhood playgrounds is in direct violation of articles 23 and 31 of the uncrc, as well as a variety of laws, such as the accessibility for ontarians disability act, that have been legislated to protect individuals from discrimination. this study raises important issues about the physical inaccessibility of the playgrounds in this particular community and how “exclusive practices” rather than “inclusive practices” are being modelled by this community. neighbourhood playgrounds can be the hub of activity for children and families that positively influences individual, family, and community wellness. based on the results of this study, there would appear to be a lack of understanding of the importance of all citizens having access to public space and what environmental barriers implicitly or explicitly communicate about being an inclusive society. removing the physical environmental barriers is achievable. many communities have been guided by universal design principles created by the center for universal design (1997) at north carolina state university. playgrounds that adapt these principles model equitable use (so canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 19 vol. 38 no. 2 that the design supports people with diverse abilities), flexibility in use (so that the play space supports a wide range of individual abilities), low physical effort (so that manoeuvring around the play space may be done with comfort, ease, and a minimum of fatigue), and reasonable size and space (so that individuals are supported regardless of mobility and body structure). inclusive playgrounds may be unique in their presentation, but what they should have in common is that all users can be active and feel included, safe, and able to participate in play, similar to their peers. these types of play spaces are designed to intentionally facilitate bringing together physical play with social connections and social play, which leads to increasing the play options for people of diverse abilities, interests, race, gender, and culture. this model of inclusion breaks down the barriers that have perpetuated the social disability model. municipalities could benefit from becoming familiar with and adapting universal design concepts in their decisionmaking processes around playgrounds. if these concepts were employed, the environments and the materials within the playground would only be present if they were usable by all people, without adaptation or specialized designs being required (christophersen, 2002; ringaert, 2002). municipal staff may be required to examine and change some attitudes, engage in different levels of problem solving and visioning, and seek input from users of neighbourhood play spaces. research has shown that involving children and adults with mobility restrictions in planning play spaces provides valuable information and a better understanding of how simple design features can change the functionality and accessibility of the play space (barnes, mercer, & shakespeare, 1999). adopting universal design concepts may bring forth positive attitudinal changes that would promote open access to environmental space and equality to all citizens of a neighbourhood, regardless of their ability or disability (iwarsson & stahl, 2003), which in turn supports both the physical and psychological needs of all users (ringaert, 2002). bringing together experts, such as early childhood education specialists, early intervention specialists, and occupational therapists, as well as parents and children with mobility restrictions could lead to the creation of a new blueprint for accessible neighbourhood playgrounds, thus support the development of active, healthy communities. creating educational tool kits that provide key attributes of accessible playgrounds could be helpful for communities, municipalities, and school settings. expanding municipal websites to include specific sections on accessible playground principles and models of accessible playgrounds may further support communities in redesigning their play spaces so that they are inclusive. the availability of educational programming on accessible playgrounds, in a variety of formats, could support individuals and groups seeking up-to-date information on accessible playgrounds. such information may help parents, community leaders, municipal planners, and others to determine how to ensure that the uncrc is adhered to in their community and that all children have access to their neighbourhood playground. finally, if it is agreed that it is in the best interest of society to have accessible and usable environmental space such as neighbourhood playgrounds for all citizens, how do we move this agenda forward? do we need specific legislation to upgrade the playgrounds? how do we provide the public with education to rethink the messages we send when exclusive, rather than inclusive, environmental space is within our community settings? it is time to rethink neighbourhood playgrounds and design them so that they are active, accessible play spaces for children and adults alike. this could be an important strategy in creating healthy communities that celebrate diversity and differences. limitations this study provides a snapshot of neighbourhood playgrounds in one suburban community. the sample was small and focused only on accessibility and usability in relation to gaining access to the playground space from the perspective of children or adults with mobility restrictions. the study did not examine the playground equipment for accessibility or usability features. this is the next phase needed so that playgrounds are adapted to be inclusive. nevertheless, information obtained from analyzing the playgrounds based on the core questions used in this study suggests that the playground sponsors need to examine public play space relative to inclusive practice, the social disability model, and the uncrc. this study did not seek out the opinions of municipal staff responsible for neighbourhood playgrounds or children or adults with mobility restrictions to obtain their perspective on the playgrounds examined. such information would provide rich data and insight into the current challenges that children with mobility restrictions face in using neighbourhood playgrounds. conclusion to summarize, it is evident that even though active outdoor play and being part of a community are essential to the development of young children, not all neighbourhood playgrounds are accessible or usable for children or their adult caregivers with mobility restrictions. the fact that the neighbourhood playgrounds examined had pathways, ground surfaces, and wooden borders that would pose a challenge and most likely eliminate children with mobility restrictions from playing there should be a concern to all citizens of the community. excluding citizens from public space is unacceptable. investing in inclusive neighbourhood playgrounds can’t be seen as an option. communities have an obligation to advocate for and create social space that canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 20 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(1980). environment and aging. monterey, ca: brooks/cole. loukaitou-sideris, a., & sideris, a. (2010). what brings children to the park? analysis and measurement of the variables affecting children’s use of parks. journal of the american planning association, 76(1), 89–107. michalko, r. (1998). the mystery of the eye and the shadow of blindness. toronto, on: university of toronto press. michalko, r. (2009). the excessive appearance of disability. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 22(1), 65–74. miles, r. (2008). neighborhood disorder, perceived safety, and readiness to encourage use of local playgrounds. american journal of preventive medicine, 34(4), 275–281. miller, k., & schleien, s. (2006). a community for all children: a guide to inclusion for out-of-school time. department of recreation, parks & tourism. university of north carolina, greensboro, nc. moser, t., & martinsen, m. (2010). the outdoor environment in norwegian kindergartens as pedagogical space for toddlers’ play, learning, and development. european early childhood education research journal, 18(4), 457–471. nabers, l. a., & badawi, m. (1997). playground interactions for preschool-age children with special needs. physical & occupational therapy in pediatrics, 17, 21–31. oliver, m. (1996). understanding disability: from theory to practice. basingstoke, uk: macmillan. ouvry, m. (2003). exercising muscles and minds: outdoor play and the early years curriculum. london, uk: national early years network. poulsen, a., ziviani, j., cuskelly, m., & smith, r. (2007). boys with developmental coordination disorder: loneliness and team sports participation. american journal of occupational therapy, 61, 463–474. prellwitz, m. (2007). playground accessibility and usability for children with disabilities: experiences of children, parents, and professionals. unpublished doctoral dissertation, lulea university of technology, lulea, sweden. prellwitz, m., & skär, l. (2007). usability of playgrounds for children with different abilities. occupational therapy international, 14(3), 144–155. prellwitz, m., & tamm, m. (1999). attitudes of key persons to accessibility problems in playgrounds for children with restricted mobility: a study in a mediumsized municipality in northern sweden. scandinavian journal of occupational therapy, 6(4), 166–173. prellwitz, m., tamm, m., & lindqvist, r. (2001). are playgrounds in norreland (northern sweden) accessible to children with restricted mobility? scandinavian journal of disabilities research, 3(1), 56–68. ringaert, l. (2002). universal design and occupational therapy. ot now. september/october, 28–30. rivkin, m. (1995). the great outdoors: restoring children’s rights to play outside. washington, dc: national association for the education of young children. segal, r., mandich, a., polatajko, h., & cook, j. v. (2002). stigma and its management: a pilot study of parental perceptions of the experiences of children with developmental coordination disorder. american journal of occupational therapy, 56, 422–428. skär, l. (2002). disabled children’s perceptions of technical aids, assistance and peers in play situations. scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 16(1), 27–33. stanley, e. (2011). the place of outdoor play in a school community: a case study of recess values. children, youth and environments, 21(1), 185–211. retrieved from: http://www.colorado.edu/journals.cye titchkosky, t. (2008). to pee or not to pee. canadian journal of sociology, 33(1), 37–60. titchkosky, t. (2009). disability images and the art of theorizing normality. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 22(1), 75–84. united nations high commission for human rights (1989). convention on the rights of the child, geneva, switzerland: author. woolley, h., armitage, m., bishop, j., curtis, m., & ginsborg, j. (2006). going outside together: good practice with respect to the inclusion of disabled children in primary school playgrounds. children’s geographies, 4(3), 303–318. canadian children directions & connections 45fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 to be... to be in the place is to relate to others in the external objectivity. to be in the place is to embody the experience and to establish identity. if there is no relation to others then no relation to self exists either for to be in the place is to encounter the world. we are places the place in which we begin the place in which we question is the place in which we stand and discover ourselves. in finding ourselves “in” the world we find ourselves “in” a place already given over to and involved with “the other.” place does not gather but is gathering itself so we don’t merely belong to a place but we are places themselves. ana vojnovic is an early childhood educator who is in the process of completing her ba in early childhood education at capilano university. with her educational background in philosophy and fine art techniques, she discovered a passion for the concept of being in a place and what it means in the context of these disciplines. she situates her work within existential phenomenology as she critically examines the role of the child care centre as a place of childhood. place ana vojnovic dear members of the cayc community, we would like to share with you exciting news about the cayc journal. journal name change in april 2016, the cayc board decided unanimously to change the name of the journal. formerly titled canadian children: journal of the canadian association for young children, the journal is now called: the canadian association for young children journal of childhood studies. the new title reflects contemporary changes in the conception of childhoods and its growing relation to a wider array of fields of studies and practices. this change also responds to, and opens up, questions about identities and belonging in light of the transient nature of contemporary childhoods, and the necessity to actively respond to histories, present and future, of indigenous childhoods. increase in number of issues over the past couple of years, with the support of a grant from the social sciences and humanities research council, the journal has grown in its scope, depth, and accessibility. our goal is to publish four issues per year (an increase of two issues per year). to this end, we regularly put out calls for papers from researchers and practitioners. the journal of childhood studies invites papers that explore childhoods through theory, research, and practice across diverse disciplines. free access as one of the leading journals on the topic of childhood on the canadian landscape, cayc has committed to making the journal of childhood studies freely accessible online. in its new format, local and international early childhood practitioners, students, and researchers can access the journal on a regular to basis learn about and respond to alternative approaches and conceptualizations of childhood and its related practices. please visit: http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/jcs to find out about the current and past issues, as well as to learn about the process of online submission of papers. canadian children professional resources 51fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 maria petrescu is a phd candidate at ontario institute for studies in education at the university of toronto in the language and literacies education program. her research interests include child language acquisition, bilingualism/multilingualism, minority language learning and maintenance, and heritage languages. her phd research focuses on documenting the bilingual development and bicultural experiences of romanian-speaking canadian children. linguistically appropriate practice: a guide for working with young immigrant children written by: roma chumak-horbatsch reviewed by: maria claudia petrescu it was with great curiosity that i started to read roma chumak-horbatsch’s linguistically appropriate practice: a guide for working with young immigrant children, since it covers an area dear to me as a graduate student, that of bilingual children’s education. my curiosity came not only from the researcher in me, but also from my role as parent of two young bilingual children. i was curious to find out how and what classroom practices could support the maintenance and development of bilingual children’s heritage languages, as my wish for my children is to continue to be bilingual even when they attend school in english. so, my double role as parent and graduate student drew my attention to this book immediately. the purpose of the book is multifold, and it reflects the diversity of its intended audience. the book offers practical solutions to the challenges encountered by educators in childcare centres and primary schools where immigrant children do not speak the classroom language. it also provides answers to parents who value and encourage heritage language maintenance and who might wonder what is best for their children in terms of bilingualism. last but not least for all the workers, educators, and policy makers involved in early childhood education in canada, it describes in detail a plan for an inclusive learning environment in which all children’s linguistic, cultural, personal, and intellectual richness is supported and validated. the book is organized into three main parts. “laying the groundwork for linguistically appropriate practice (lap)” provides background information about immigrant children. part 1 contains four chapters; in the first three, the author answers questions related to (1) the presence and the linguistic situation of immigrant children globally and in canada, (2) current classroom practices with young immigrant children, and (3) why we need a new approach in how we help immigrant children. a detailed description and explanation of the new approach, lap, is provided in chapter 4. part 2, “setting the stage for lap,” offers a detailed description of how ece practitioners can prepare their classes for lap and what has to be in place before launching lap in their classrooms. part 3, “implementing lap activities,” offers a series of practical classroom activities that can be used as they are or adapted to children’s diverse needs. by identifying a gap in the current classroom practices with regard to the language and literacy needs of young immigrant children, by providing a rationale for the need for a new approach, by rigorously planning and organizing the book, and by clearly presenting practical suggestions and examples, chumakhorbatsch has succeeded in producing a much-needed resource that offers a comprehensive overview of the linguistic and cultural situation of canada’s immigrant children. she proposes inclusive language and literacy practices that will enrich the academic experiences of all children. although these are definite signs of success for the book, a few things make me consider the book particularly valuable and outstanding. first, while reading the book, i could not help but appreciate the author’s clear definition of the construct linguistically appropriate practice (lap). in the introduction, the author relates the birth of lap while jogging in toronto’s high park, telling an audience of sleepy canada geese that lap would be “inclusive, research based and practitioner friendly” (p. 4). chapter 4 is dedicated in its entirety to defining the new approach, describing lap’s theoretical grounding and the absolute, immediate necessity of a new way to work with immigrant children. the author explains how the proposed classroom practice extends inclusive practices and reflects the principles of dynamic bilingualism in a way that takes into account all language circumstances, contexts, and speakers. thus, chumakhorbatsch writes, “lap sees immigrant children as emergent bilinguals, acknowledges their unique language and literacy needs, focuses on the social and communicative aspects of languages, encourages translanguaging, promotes bilingualism, and builds partnerships with families” (p. 57). another important aspect of the book’s success is the presence of concrete examples in the form of activities and lesson plans on how lap can be put into practice in the classroom. as willing as practitioners often are to provide the canadian children professional resources 52fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 best instruction for all children, they are just as often at a loss when it comes to putting into practice new theories that promote child growth because of the lack of clear guidance, proper support, and training. chumak-horbatsch’s inclusion of this guidance and support gives the book extreme value and sets up the new approach for success. not only does she promote a new classroom practice of inestimable value to developing and maintaining heritage languages by immigrant children, but she also provides very carefully planned and detailed activities and lesson plans that will help practitioners set the stage for and adopt lap in their classrooms. after she describes each activity in detail, the author offers tips and suggestions with regard to expanding and extending the activities to make them suitable and appropriate for the children’s needs. the fact that the activities have been through a “tried and tested” process by being rigorously developed and implemented throughout the years by the author herself or by other practitioners and researchers speaks to the efficiency and success these activities bring to a class. in my opinion, lap’s overall value stems from its significance for pedagogy. the call for supportive approaches to children’s home languages and cultures in preschool and elementary classrooms is nothing new, but unfortunately, that is what it remained for a long time— just a call waiting to be answered in a proactive way that comprehensively addresses the language and cultural needs of bilingual children. the brilliance of chumak-horbatsch’s book stems from the fact that it goes a step further—a huge and important step, i might say—and provides educators with what the field was lacking—concrete examples of how inclusiveness can be achieved. in other words, the book successfully makes the link between theory and practice. although i am not currently an early childhood educator, i absolutely enjoyed the group activities section included at the end of each chapter. the section took me on a journey back into the past and helped me to reflect on my past beliefs and practices with the bilingual children i once taught and to remember those years with warm feelings. i took tremendous joy in carrying out some of the activities on my own and appreciated the new tips i learned that will help me with my current home practices with my children. last but not least, the book is extremely reader friendly. the book’s attractive format is clearly explained in the introduction and is followed throughout. i particularly liked the easiness of the read and the lack of pretentious terms. a list of definitions for terms used throughout the book is provided in the introduction, with additional explanations inserted throughout the book, making the book accessible for everyone. the inclusion of anecdotes, photos, and stories makes the argument for a new approach more convincing and real. whether you are a policy maker, an ece instructor, or a parent, this book draws you into wanting to become part of an inclusive community— the lap community. to conclude, linguistically appropriate practice: a guide for working with young immigrant children has something to offer everyone involved in the education of bilingual children. the book provides researchers and graduate students like me with a comprehensive overview of the linguistic situation of canada’s immigrant children. it proposes a new, inclusive, and supportive language approach to the classroom practices in daycare centres with immigrant children and offers practical suggestions and ready-to-use activities and lesson plans. for language policy makers and curriculum planners, the book makes a call for carefully building a curriculum that is inclusive of the language learning acquired at home and that enables immigrant children’s continuous development. references chumak horbatsch, r. (2013). linguistically appropriate practice: a guide for working with young immigrant children. toronto, on: university of toronto press. microsoft word khattar and callaghan online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 5 to 19] www.cayc.ca professionalism: interrogating the idea and ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan authors’ bios randa khattar researches in the areas of social justice, attentiveness practices, and children’s rights. she teaches in the bachelor of early childhood studies program at charles sturt university in burlington, ontario, and australia. email: rkhattar@csu.edu.au karyn callaghan is the program coordinator and lecturer in the bachelor of early childhood studies program at charles sturt university, president of the ontario reggio association, a national director of the canadian association for young children, and a member of the board of directors for the north american reggio emilia alliance. karyn has been a consultant to the ontario ministry of education early years division in the past two years, contributing to the development of its new documents. email: kcallaghan@csu.edu.au abstract taking  up  the  early  childhood  tertiary  classroom  as  a  microcosm  of  the  field,  this  paper   engages  with  a  series  of  parallel  questions  meant  to  problematize  narrow  understandings   of  professionalism  and  views  of  the  educator  regularly  circulating  in  the  field.  by   examining  some  of  the  structural  and  discursive  contexts  organizing/ruling  early   childhood  educators’  lives,  the  paper  offers  up  a  conversation  meant  to  rethink  the  work   of  early  childhood  in  intellectually  liberating  and  democratic  ways.   considerations of the conditions of professionalism peter moss (2010) offers this provocation to the early childhood education (ece) field: “perhaps it is time to move beyond ‘professionalism’” (p. 17). moss writes this with an aim to interrogate narrow, and perhaps impoverishing, views of professionalism which may obfuscate more urgent debates about what he terms the broader contexts of democracy, citizenship, diversity, and ecological survival. a conversation is burgeoning in local and international settings that questions narrow views of professionalism. this   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   conversation, timely in the canadian context, provokes us to think beyond technical, instrumental views of the early childhood educator that draw largely on industrial and neoliberal (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007) metaphors for sustenance, and on perspectives that may limit professionalism to conformist sensibilities, abrogating more transformational orientations (macnaughton, 2003). this conversation coincides with a change in how we view children. ultimately, children are affected by how their educators view themselves and are viewed. we feel that our views of children should inform our thoughts about what it means to be professional educators. this confluence of discussions is not only generative, but essential. competing enactments of professionalism are evident in the values, knowledge, and practices of early childhood educators. as early childhood teacher educators in an ontario ece tertiary program, we see the early childhood classroom as a microcosm reflecting this broader conversation on professionalism that is taking place in our field. in this paper, we engage with a series of parallel questions germane to this conversation: which competing ideas, values, and tools shape understandings of professionalism in early childhood? which appear to narrow and which expand definitions of professionalism? which seek to go “beyond professionalism”? these questions problematize issues we experience regularly in the early childhood tertiary classroom, but of course, faculty in ece programs are also closely connected to ece professionals in the community, so these questions are not limited to students. we argue that deploying regular opportunities to grapple with these kinds of questions helps to keep our understandings of professionalism in tension and thus maintain an open stance to listening responsively to new and broadening perspectives. here, we focus on recent ontario early childhood policy papers to explore, tease out, and trouble definitions of professionalism, in particular, early learning for every child today (best start expert panel on early learning, 2007), known colloquially as the elect document, and the recently released how does learning happen? (ontario ministry of education, 2014). both documents discuss the roles and responsibilities of the early childhood educator in ontario and may imply conceptions of professionalism that are different from each other. we also draw on an international examination of professionalism in 15 countries to consider possibilities for redefining the contours of professionalism using the vocabulary of competent systems. conformist and transformational conversations about professionalism calls abound for more professionalism, more accountability, more knowledge, and more quality in the ece field. however, moss’s words, “beyond professionalism,” invite us to question what is really meant by these calls. moss and others suggest that certainty, control, and predictability function as mental maps informing how we see, think, feel, and act (lakoff & johnson, 2003), and these maps delineate the dominant   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   boundaries of professionalism. macnaughton (2003) identifies key social, political, and economic tensions that undermine potential transformative change as conformist mindsets and normative discourses. in an ocean of possible conversations we could be having about professionalism in early childhood, these dominant discourses (macnaughton, 2005) act like undertows, attracting attention to particular articulations of professionalism while marginalizing others. there are benefits from the standpoint of public perception, yet there is a simultaneous playing into the inclination or expectation to position early childhood educators and their field within conformist perspectives ruled by a regulatory gaze (foucault, 1978; osgood, 2006). cannella (1997) critiques the propensity to define professionalism using the language of standards of “goodness” and/or “normalcy”: the discourses and actions associated with professional institutions and practices have generated disciplinary and regulatory powers over teachers (who are mostly women) and children. standards have been created through which individuals judge and limit themselves, through which they construct a desire to be ‘good,’ ‘normal’ or both. (p. 137) cannella argues that opportunities exist to interrogate professionalization in ways that trouble the term’s historically steeped pedagogic authority, its homogenization of professional knowledge, and its devaluing of non-western knowledges in pursuit of those that legitimate western science. in addition, it is possible to imagine conversations that challenge “the claim to professional status [that] rests on a simple bargain: technical competence ... exchanged for technical autonomy, practical knowledge for control over practice” (labaree, 1992, p. 125). yet early childhood professionalism is often regulated within contexts that offer up inducements or rewards that externalize feelings of satisfaction and gratification, and thus encourage compliance, reducing intrinsic motivation to interrogate what is at times professionalism’s regulatory gaze (osgood, 2006). one may not be inclined to “bite the hand” that has just given a certificate with a silver bar on it. many of our conversations with students and colleagues have focused on “quality” as a central aspect of professionalism. in communities throughout ontario, initiatives have sprung up in an effort to support “quality.” these initiatives often require educators to complete a set number of hours of “professional development” to achieve levels of recognition (such as affiliated services for children and youth, 2002). some of these initiatives are characterized by a propensity to focus on views of the educator as becoming or as being made ready for the next stage or level of professional development. although traditional notions of what constitutes professional development and quality have been soundly critiqued (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007; penn, 2009), “quality”defined orientations continue to form a mainstay of dominant discourses and require further interrogation.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   a microcosm reflecting broader conversations we offer up an honours bachelor tertiary ece classroom as a microcosm of competing conversations and interrogations of professionalism that we think need to take hold of the public imagination and broaden understandings of the roles and responsibilities of early childhood professionals. our students are part of a group of pedagogues within the ece field who are engaged in furthering their education. given the focus of our particular program, which is grounded in poststructural, feminist, critical, and decolonizing approaches, the students are encouraged to problematize and grapple with the seminal and current issues of the field. these conversations are intended to provide students with nuanced opportunities to examine competing articulations of professionalism and to invite them to engage in healthy critique of policy, practice, and “common sense.” we would like, as foucault (1988) puts it, to show that things are not as self-evident as one believed, to see [that] that which is accepted as self-evident will no longer be accepted as such ... since as soon as one can no longer think as one formerly thought then transformation becomes both very urgent, very difficult and quite possible. (p. 155) theoretically grounded discussion must be joined with a critique of practice. a “permanently critical attitude” (freire, 1974, p. 5) to both “read the world” and to simultaneously grasp that the educator’s role to “bring out the fact that there are other readings of the world” at times in opposition to the educator’s own (moss, 2010, p. 15) informs the students’ (and our) practice. the task of adopting this attitude is often very difficult, particularly when it questions closely cherished assumptions and certainties. yet, as hooks (2010) argues, “when we make a commitment to become critical thinkers, we are already making a choice that places us in opposition to any system of education or culture that would have us be passive recipients of ways of knowing” (p. 185). required also, we are finding, is a critical disposition based in relationships (edwards, gandini, & forman, 2012; fraser, 2011). relationship, as malaguzzi (1993) reminds us, is not to be understood “simply as a warm protective backdrop or blanket but as a coming together of elements interacting dynamically toward a common purpose” (p. 10). malaguzzi (1994) further challenges us with his advice that life has to be somewhat agitated and upset, a bit restless, somewhat unknown. as life flows with the thoughts of the children, we need to be open, we need to change our ideas; we need to be comfortable with the restless nature of life. (p. 2) the practice of interrogating ideas and practices within the context of fostering critical friendships is also essential. as costa and kallick (1993) write,   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   a critical friend can be defined as a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critiques of a person’s work as a friend. a critical friend takes the time to fully understand the context of the work presented and the outcomes that the person or group is working toward. the friend is an advocate for the success of that work. (p. 50) within this context of critical collaboration, we have regular opportunities to think deeply with our students (and colleagues) about what it means to consider the multiple competing discourses of professionalism, and, borrowing heavily from frierian critical pedagogies (1970) and foucauldian approaches to criticism (1988), to interrogate commonsense assumptions and “truths” afforded to professionalism. mirroring tensions that are ubiquitous in the field, these are difficult but necessary conversations because they challenge deeply held beliefs and assumptions, and, more importantly, invite an examination of everyday tacit practices that often do not reflect professed views of children or the early childhood educator. in our teacher education practice, we have found that tensions arise, particularly when students begin to critically reflect on deeply held beliefs about children’s growth as measured by developmentalism, and when they reflect on the tacitly held adherences to technical-instrumental views of early childhood educators and ece and attendant developmentally appropriate and constructivist teaching practices. students begin to recognize that these beliefs arise from a view of the child who is becoming, who needs to be made ready for the next stage, or whose needs and deficiencies must be fixed so that the child might be “normalized.” these approaches, despite benevolent aims, may serve to “reduce the complexities and diversities of learning and knowing” and “simultaneously shut out the inclusion and justice we want to achieve” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 8). these aspirations may not sit well as those of a critically reflective professional. as a view of the competent child is reconsidered, a broader view of the educator who is not simply becoming but can meet and learn with and from this child, who can welcome uncertainty and complexity, who can have a voice and influence in their own schools and communities, and who can question the dominant discourse can take hold. it is an approach that makes “visible and possible the potentialities of the child” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 85)—and, we argue, also of the educator. the view of the competent child questions the primacy of developmentalism that both theoretically and in practice tends to measure how similar or different one child is to others in typically similar contexts (katz, 1996) or depicts development as “unitary, irrespective of culture, class, gender, or history” (burman, 1994, p. 185). this view needs to be met by a contemporaneous view of the educator as rich in potential, powerful, competent, connected, and connecting, as a “public intellectual” (giroux, 1990, p. 361).   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   an accompanying articulation of professionalism as, for example, engaging with society’s youngest citizens with rights (e.g., rinaldi, 2006; united nations, 1989) positions early childhood educators differently and more expansively from technist, instrumental perspectives. these more expansively envisioned educators are engaged agents of change and advocates participating in a growing conversation that is honed by democratic participation and global citizenship, with concern for a “more than human” world (abram, 1996). a transformation in ontario policy framework as two ontario educators working at the tertiary level, we feel privileged to be witnessing and participating in a powerful change that is slowly bubbling across the early childhood landscape in our province. our early childhood economic and social contexts resemble many others, both locally and globally. in ontario as elsewhere, the population of ece students/professionals is overwhelmingly female, and within this subset, a significant majority may choose to “care” for young children because it is a traditionally female role—what women “naturally” do (cannella, 1997). a recent survey of 215 beginning ece students in ontario identifies “enjoyment of children” as the most common reason for being attracted to the ece field (winder & corter, 2014, p. 14). while the potential for playing a role in encouraging and supporting social change is significant in this work (pelo, 2008), few students embrace this as a goal; fewer than onequarter of beginning students surveyed by winder and corter (2014) listed “to make a difference” as their reason for entering the field. it would appear that most students ascribe to a conformist view (macnaughton, 2005) and do not see themselves or their work as political. given the opportunity and a transformational mindset, however, ece students and professionals are highly capable of critical reflection interrogating the status quo, and of addressing oppression and unearned privilege as steps leading to transformative practice (macnaughton, 2003). one indication of how a profession is viewed is through frameworks and policy documents, which can be seen as reflecting underlying beliefs that are often not stated. while frameworks and documents often reflect the dominant discourse and play a role in validating the status quo, they can play a transformative role. they can establish a context of compliance or invite participation. in ontario, we are experiencing a transformation. the recently released how does learning happen? establishes its intention clearly: this resource guide is intended to inspire educators and administrators in early years settings and to ignite critical reflection and discussion. (ontario ministry of education, 2014, p. 12) this is an invitation for professionals to participate in meaning making. in contrast to documents that spell out the lists of knowledge and skills early childhood   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   educators need to identify (and measure) in children, this document articulates the following view of the child: we view children as competent, capable of complex thinking, curious, and rich in potential. they grow up in families with diverse social, cultural, and linguistic perspectives. every child should feel that he or she belongs, is a valuable contributor to his or her surroundings, and deserves the opportunity to succeed. when we recognize children as capable and curious, we are more likely to deliver programs and services that value and build on their strengths and abilities. (ontario ministry of education, 2014, p. 6) in addition to the articulated view of the child, in itself a signal of a paradigm shift, this document also presents a view of the educator and family as “competent and capable, curious, and rich in experience” (ontario ministry of education, 2014, p. 7). when all partners in learning—child, family, and educator—are recognized as protagonists, the hierarchy is disrupted. taken together, these views can be seen as an expression of confidence in the professional abilities of the educator. it is a move away from a positivist stance derived from developmentalism. a view is a choice. if taken up, it would need to be made concrete in decisions every day. a view can provide the foundation for critically reflective practice. the previous ontario policy document for the early years, early learning for every child today (the elect document, best start expert panel on early learning, 2007), does not articulate an underlying view of the child or educator, but states that the early childhood educator is expected to use a developmental continuum that stretches from page 24 to page 68 of the document as “a guide that identifies sequences of development as a foundation to implementing early childhood curriculum and pedagogy in a variety of settings” (p. 22). the verb “implementing” may conjure up an image of a technician rather than one who is involved in intellectual, critically reflective, professional work. for each root skill, examples of interactions with educators are provided. for example, in the birth to 24 months grouping, the interaction suggested for skill 3.3 is as follows: “imitate the infant’s vocalizations. infant: ‘ba, ba!’ adult: ‘ba, ba!’” (p. 27). one must wonder if other professionals are provided with such detailed scripting. in macnaughton’s (2005) opinion, “a technocratic view of teacher decisionmaking dominates a majority of mainstream early childhood literature” (p. 18). the very format of a numbered list of skills and interactions may communicate a sense of certainty regarding the sequence that educators should be monitoring and programming for. a focus on lists of skills may have the impact of diminishing complexity and may push educators into the role of technicians who know (or must know) what they are looking for, record it, and then plan accordingly to get the child to the next skill. marshall mcluhan’s (1994) statement that the medium is the message, that we shape our tools and   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   thereafter our tools shape us, merits serious consideration in this context. perhaps it is incumbent on us as professionals to engage in discussions about our view of the kind of citizen we want in our society: one who complies, or one who is a thinker who engages in critical reflection. the developmental continuum has come to be seen as encapsulating the “professional knowledge” of early childhood educators. however, in this positivist stance, there is little opportunity for the kind of meaning making that moss (2010) conjures with his interrogation of professionalism. it is possible that after many years of being told what the root skills are, what indicators they should be seeing, and how they should interact, educators may lose confidence in their own sensibilities, interpretations, and responses. the practice of pedagogical documentation is being embraced by the ontario ministry of education’s new pedagogy document for early years, how does learning happen? (ontario ministry of education, 2014) as well as by the literacy and numeracy secretariat (2012), whose focus is on elementary school curriculum. this practice situates the educator alongside the child, with curiosity, documenting how the child investigates the world and makes meaning while the educator also makes meaning. the documentation is intended to be shared with children, colleagues, parents, and the community, recognizing that our knowledge is partial, and inviting other perspectives. perhaps this is a move “beyond professionalism.” giving visibility to life in the classroom where educators and children are learning together may contribute to increased awareness of the professional work that is done by the educators. how does learning happen? does not include a continuum of development, although the elect document is still available as a resource on the ministry website. the longstanding practice of creating clinical, objective observations of children may not fit comfortably with the view of the child and educator in the new document, and educators may feel adrift during this time of transition. however, continuing to use the continuum to list skills without addressing the different view of the child on which the practice of pedagogical documentation is based may contribute to confusion. it may take time to internalize the view of the child, family, and educator that is articulated in the new document. however, a view that expresses confidence in professional knowledge, judgment, and reflective practice (sustained by a more expansive view of educators and the system in which they function) can transform early learning. for professionals, foucault’s (1983) notion of a stance of interrogating dominant discourse is instructive. as he puts it: maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are. we have to imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of a ‘political double bind,’ which is the simultaneous individualisation   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   and totalisation of modern power structures. the conclusion would be that the political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is not to try to liberate the individual from the state, and from the state’s institutions, but to liberate us both from the state and from the type of individualisation that is linked to the state. we have to promote new forms of subjectivity through refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed upon us. (p. 216) as a professional community, we can accept this responsibility to engage in challenging conversations about how we are seen, how we see ourselves, and how we see children, to identify messaging about professionalism with which documents and policies are imbued, and, because it is important as part of a critical transformative orientation, to engage in the regular critique of documents that “rule” our lives (smith, 1987). toward competent ece systems it is difficult to imagine a notion of competent early childhood educators functioning independently of a system that works to support them. a notion of the competent early childhood educator can become narrow, and consideration must be given to the systemic supports required (and also to potential barriers), otherwise, professionalism is at risk of being reduced to demonstration of a set of measurable and quantifiable competencies (urban, vandenbroeck, van laere, lazzari, & peeters, 2011, p. 21). in some ways mirroring our own ontario conversations, international pockets of conversations are underway about how an articulated notion of competence can contribute to an understanding of professionalism (see fenech, sumsion, & sheppard, 2010). what lessons can be learned from international practices and investigations? how can what we are learning in ontario contribute to these conversations? while a review of individual international studies is beyond the scope of this paper, we would like to report on a sensibility of competent systems articulated in one recent 15-country european study (urban, vandenbroeck, van laere, lazzari, & peeters, 2011, 2012) that we think can contribute to more complex understandings of professionalism. economically and politically, europe faces a number of challenges at the moment—poverty, access to jobs, political upheaval. socially, europe has enshrined the united nations convention on the rights of the child in its charter of fundamental rights of the european union (jones & walker, 2011), seeing children’s access to highquality, affordable child care as a right. early childhood education and care is seen as potentially contributing to mitigating economic, social, and political problems. in a joint study (urban et al., 2011) conducted by the university of east london and the university of ghent and reported on by urban et al. (2012), an international   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   exploration of what constitutes competent systems in ecec was conducted to identify the systematic supports that would be necessary to develop, maintain, and sustain ecec contexts and support early childhood educators who are educated, highly qualified, and competent. the report identifies that while unique approaches are being adopted by different european countries, they share a commitment to considering change at four levels: individual; institutional and team; interinstitutional; and governance. the approaches are grounded in a commitment to understand professionalism in holistic and systemic ways, such as “the german concept of bildung, the danish concept of social pedagogy and the italian concept of collegialità” (2012, p. 32). they also share a commitment to seeing the competent early childhood professional within an intentional and purposeful context of the competent system. a ‘competent system’ requires possibilities for all staff to engage in joint learning and critical reflection. this includes sufficient paid time for these activities. a competent system includes collaborations between individuals and teams, institutions (pre-schools, schools, support services for children and families…) as well as ‘competent’ governance at policy level. (2012, p. 21, emphasis in original) working toward a competent system requires an intentional, purposeful reciprocity. it requires a focus on examining the systemic issues or barriers, such as wage parity, that prevent the kind of collaboration among different levels of interaction; simultaneously it requires finding ways to build intentional relationships. competent systems in early childhood do not emerge out of aspiration alone. if competence is to unfold in reciprocal relationships between actors at all levels of a system, certain conditions must be in place across the entire system. brought together in a coherent framework, they render early childhood education and care ... a deeply democratic practice at the core of society. (urban et al., 2012, pp. 516–518) assuming this holistic perspective, the notion of professionalism as competence moves beyond individual competencies identified and identifiable through measurable “knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (urban et al., 2011, p. 33) to more expansive considerations of “knowledge, practices, and values” (p. 33). this is a shift from the question “do i do things right?” to “do i do the right things?” (p. 33), a shift that embraces more readily the concerns that moss (2010) provokes in his invitation to move beyond narrow understandings of professionalism. furthermore, the report concludes that “by referring to values instead of attitudes we intend to distance ourselves from an ‘individualised’ conceptualisation of ecec purposes to move toward a vision of early childhood education that underpins negotiated goals and collective aspirations” (urban et al., 2011, p. 33, emphasis in original).   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   toward a locally grown ontarian competent ecec system it is early to say how change will unfold in the ontario early childhood context. it is also not advisable to import, without critical consideration, international solutions to local contexts. recognizably, in a rapidly global world, policy and knowledge transfer is an increasing reality (dolowitz & marsh, 2000; steiner-khamsi, 2006), although taking ideas that work elsewhere without thoughtful consideration to how they can grow in a grassroots local context is not only impulsive, but also prone to failure. taking up the notion of a competent system requires a focus that is complex and multipronged. it requires that attention be focused to unfold across individual, team or institutional, interinstitutional, and governance levels. across these different levels of a competent system, the challenge now is to communicate optimism that early childhood educators are most certainly capable of noticing, documenting, and sharing with others their interpretation of children’s meaning making, and of critically reflecting on the meaning of the messages in the learning environment independent of a checklist. the long-held ideal of objectivity in preparing clinical observations of children is giving way to rigour in pedagogical documentation, foregrounding relationship and recognizing subjectivities. there is transparency in this work, and accountability by the nature of its inclusion of documented data and its invitation to share other perspectives. this change in view of the role of the early childhood educator may be liberating. the ontario college of early childhood educators (cece) was formed five years ago. the creation of the cece was seen as a significant move toward recognition of early childhood education as a profession, and was promoted in this way by the association of early childhood educators, ontario, who lobbied for several years for the establishment of the college (college of early childhood educators, 2014). because it is a professional self-regulatory body, a role of the college is to make the ece profession self-governing. it protects the public by regulating who can be licensed as a professional early childhood educator and by providing an avenue for complaints about practice if a member is alleged to have failed to abide by the code of ethics and standards of practice (college of early childhood educators, n.d.). as a body accountable for defining professionalism and ensuring ongoing professional development, the cece is entrusted with great responsibility and has the capacity for great responsiveness. it is introducing a new continuous professional learning initiative this year, and the fact that the framework does not prescribe a set number of hours of learning suggests an approach that is not based on compliance with a quantifiable indicator. community colleges and universities with educator preparation programs can also work to encourage critical reflection in students/graduates. also, through their numerous connections with the community, colleges and universities with educator preparation programs can provide opportunities to question underlying assumptions about the view of   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   the child and educator implied in policies and practices and in the dominant discourse of developmentalism. they can also provide opportunities to advocate for competent systems that respect the intelligence of children, families, and educators and to see this advocacy as a professional responsibility. teachers can, as reflexive practitioners, both contest dominant discursive thinking on children’s development and learning, as well as produce and formulate new knowledge about children derived from their experiences from the practices they enact.... in other words, discursive analysis helped us, and still helps us, displace our thinking around pedagogical practices and contest the discursive structures identified. hence, doing discursive analysis proved to be, and will continue to be, of vast importance in the learning processes of practitioners as well as in teacher training. (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 84) this perspective of a locally grown competent system will enable critical conversations about the nature of change that hold potential to bring into being a new kind of early childhood professional, as moss (2010) invites. references abram, d. (1996). the spell of the sensuous: perception and language in a more-thanhuman world. new york, ny: vintage books. affiliated services for children and youth. (2002). raising the bar. retrieved from: https://ascy.ca/raising-the-bar/ best start expert panel on early learning. (2007). early learning for every child today: a framework for ontario early childhood settings. retrieved from: http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/english/topics/earlychildhood/early_learnin g_for_every_child_today.aspx burman, e. (1994). deconstructing developmental psychology. london, uk: routledge. cannella, g. 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(2011). authentic childhood: experiencing reggio emilia in the classroom (3rd ed.). scarborough, on: nelson thomson learning. freire, p. (1970). pedagogy of the oppressed. new york, ny: continuum. freire, p. (1974). education for critical consciousness. new york, ny: bloomsbury academic. giroux, h. a. (1990). curriculum theory, textual authority, and the role of teachers as public intellectuals. journal of curriculum and supervision, 5(4), 361–383. hooks, b. (2010). teaching critical thinking: practical wisdom. new york, ny: routledge. jones, p., & walker, g. (2011). children’s rights in practice. los angeles, ca: sage. katz, l. (1996). child development knowledge and teacher preparation: confronting assumptions. early childhood research quarterly, 11, 135–146.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   labaree, d. f. (1992). power, knowledge, and the rationalization of teaching: a genealogy of the movement to professionalize teaching. harvard educational review 62(2), 123–154. lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (2003). metaphors we live by. chicago, il: university of chicago press. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. new york, ny: routledge. literacy and numeracy secretariat. (2012). pedagogical documentation: leading learning in the early years and beyond. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/cbs_pedagogic al.pdf macnaughton, g. (2003). shaping early childhood: learners, curriculum, and contexts. berkshire, uk: open university press. macnaughton, g. (2005). doing foucault in early childhood studies: applying poststructural ideas. london, uk: routledge. malaguzzi, l. (1993). for an education based on relationship. young children, 49(1), 9– 12. malaguzzi, l. (1994). your image of the child: where teaching begins. exchange, 3, 1–5. mcluhan, m. (1994). understanding media: the extensions of man (30th anniversary edition). cambridge, ma: mit press. moss, p. (2010). we cannot continue as we are: the educator in an education for survival. contemporary issues in early childhood, 11(1), 8–19. ontario ministry of education (2014). how does learning happen? retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/howlearninghappens.pdf osgood, j. (2006). deconstructing professionalism in early childhood education: resisting the regulatory gaze. contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(1), 5– 14. pelo, a. (2008). rethinking early childhood education. milwaukee, wi: rethinking schools. penn, h. (2009). understanding early childhood: issues and controversies. new york, ny: open university press.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia: listening, researching, and learning. new york, ny: routledge. smith, d. (1987). the everyday world as problematic: a feminist sociology. boston, ma: northeastern university press. steiner-khamsi, g. (2006). the economics of policy borrowing and lending: a study of late adopters. oxford review of education, 32(5), 665–678. united nations. (1989). convention on the rights of the child. retrieved from: http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx urban, m., vandenbroeck, m., van laere, k., lazzari, a., & peeters, j. (2011). competence requirements in early childhood education and care: research documents. london, uk: european commission, directorate general for education and culture. urban, m., vandenbroeck, m., van laere, k., lazzari, a., & peeters, j. (2012). toward competent systems in early childhood education and care: implications for policy and practice. european journal of education, 47(4), 508–526. winder,  c.,  &  corter,  c.  (2014).  working  with  families  and  the  wisdom  of   experience.  interaction,  28(1),  11–18. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 khattar formatted back page w2015 summer/ete 2016 4 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research maria cantalini-williams is an associate professor at nipissing university’s schulich school of education at the brantford campus. she completed her doctorate in education at the university of toronto in the department of applied psychology. her areas of interest include transitions in early learning, practicum models in professional programs, and the teacher as researcher. she has published numerous journal articles, technical reports, and book chapters and co-authored the kindergarten teacher’s language resource book (2000) and the preschool teacher’s resource book (2000). cantalini-williams was the principal investigator of several large-scale research projects, including an evaluation of the family and community engagement strategy for the learning partnership and an evaluation of innovative practicum models for the higher education quality council of ontario. email: mariac@ nipissingu.ca jessica perron is a graduate student at nipissing university and a graduate research assistant to maria cantalini-williams. her areas of interest include school readiness and the developmental trajectories of individuals with a learning disability. andrew biemiller is an emeritus professor in the department of applied psychology and human development, ontario institute for studies in education, university of toronto. he completed msc and phd degrees in child development and family relationships at cornell university and a ba at harvard college. he directed the graduate teacher education program at the institute of child study, university of toronto, for 15 years. his areas of interest include vocabulary and education, reading comprehension, selfdirection and education, and problems of disadvantaged children. he has published widely cited articles on reading and vocabulary, book chapters (mainly on vocabulary), and two major books, nurturing independent learners (meichenbaum and biemiller) and words worth teaching (biemiller). he has held several sshrc, ontario ministry of education, and corporate grants concerning vocabulary, self-direction, and children’s progress. he has also consulted with the us institute of education sciences, us institute of human health and development, and a number of education-related companies. revisiting the age-old question: what are the effects of relative age and gender on young children in school settings? maria cantalini-williams, jessica perron, and andrew biemiller in many jurisdictions, as is currently the case in ontario, children are entering school at an earlier age and are attending school for longer periods of time than in previous decades (bell, greenfield, & bulotsky-shearer, 2013; bulotsky-shearer, wen, faria, hahsvaughn, & korfmacher, 2012; ensar & keskin, 2014). in canada, for most school systems, admission and eligibility are determined solely by birthdate. in each province, there is most commonly one cut-off date, such as december 31 in ontario, causing some children born just after the cut-off date to be a full year older than classmates who were born just before the cut-off date. the ageold question of whether birthdate, along with gender, has an effect on later school success is of great interest to educators, parents, and policymakers. this complex issue is debated both in the popular press (gladwell, 2008; hu, 2011) and in research studies (boardman, 2006; cantalini, 1987; furlong & quirk, 2011; son, lee, & sung, 2013; whitehead, 2006). it is important to revisit this issue since research shows that children who are youngest in a grade, especially males, demonstrate developmental differences and, often, lower academic achievement in school (boardman, 2006; cantalini, 1987; ensar & keskin, 2014; furlong & quirk, 2011). this literature review examines the concept of readiness and current studies related to age and gender effects on the social/emotional and cognitive development of young children, thus exploring the presence and persistence of these effects in school. recommendations are suggested to address the educational issue of birthdate and gender effects. it is incumbent on all stakeholders in early learning to ensure smooth transitions and successful progress in school for every child. this review of current literature revisits the “age-old question” of whether relative age and gender differences affect school readiness and success. an integrated and holistic understanding of readiness is postulated whereby every child is viewed as ready and able to learn, with parents, educators, and communities being responsible for nurturing optimal development and appropriate assessments accommodating for age and gender differences. findings from numerous studies exploring the effects of age and gender on social/emotional, behavioural, and cognitive/academic skills are described. recommendations are suggested regarding potential changes in school entry, instruction, and evaluation policies and the need for further research. keywords: school readiness, early school success, age, gender summer/ete 2016 5 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the concept of readiness the concept of readiness has been studied since the middle of the 20th century (smith, 1950). the well-known gesell readiness studies (ilg, ames, haines, & gillespie, 1978) found significant effects of age on measures of readiness for school. in practice, as laparo and pianta (2000) and others have described, readiness is usually defined in terms of children’s skills or characteristics. this concept assumes that children’s readiness is typically a function of reaching a certain age or of progressing through specific stages of development that are influenced almost entirely by chronological growth and children’s inherent characteristics. another body of research has questioned the notion of a lockstep fashion of development arriving at a stage of being “ready to learn.” some research strongly suggests that children can benefit from learning opportunities that may not have been expected (bowman, donovan, & burns, 2001). from this perspective, communities, parents, and schools are responsible for providing children with experiences that will promote development and learning. in the literature, there is also a concept named “school readiness” which implies the social, emotional, and cognitive development of skills that are essential for learning and that help foster overall academic success (janus & duku, 2007; lemelin et al., 2007). such skills are often measured at school entry and may predict later school adjustment and success (okado, bierman, & welsh, 2014). the pivotal canadian study conducted by janus and duku (2007) using the early development instrument (edi) measured children’s readiness for school success as reported by teachers’ perceptions of children’s development. demographic, health, and family variables were also examined. this study unequivocally showed that young age (due to month of birth) and male gender were significant factors increasing risk for lower scores on the edi measures. the authors report that the impact of relative age on children’s readiness and later school success is persistent and real. there is much discussion in the literature regarding whether the child should be ready for school or the school should be ready for any child who is eligible to attend. some believe that the “ready for school” philosophy places an undue burden on children by expecting them to meet the expectations of school (rafoth, buchenauer, crissman, & halko, 2014, p. 1). of equal importance, some very recent research indicates that classroom structure and quality influence children’s readiness outcomes (winterbottom & piasta, 2015). according to rafoth et al. (2014), “a more constructive way to consider school readiness is to remove the expectations from the child and place those expectations onto the schools and the families” (p. 1) thereby suggesting that communities consider the range of learning needs and potential supports that benefit young children when preparing them for school entry. the authors of the present article assume an integrated view of readiness whereby the variables of relative age and gender are seriously considered as risk factors for early and ongoing school success, but, at the same time, it is recognized that parents, communities, schools, and policymakers have important responsibilities for ensuring the optimal growth, development, and learning of all children. interestingly, the very well-known writer malcolm gladwell (2008) discussed this issue in his famous book outliers: the story of success, confirming through references to many academic studies that age differences due to month of birth not only affect academic achievement, but also greatly affect achievement in sports, with the older children, born just after cut-off dates in each year, performing better over time. this issue merits further exploration and discussion. the following sections will describe studies examining effects of relative age and gender on social/emotional and cognitive/academic skill areas. relative age differences a child’s early learning experiences in school set the foundation for academic careers and are dependent on several individual characteristics. both developmental and academic factors play a key role in learning readiness and a child’s early school success. developmental factors include social, emotional, and behavioural skills that help children adapt to their environment and build positive relationships with peers and teachers (ziv, 2013). academic skills involve cognitive abilities that allow a child to experience academic success; these include literacy, numeracy, and learning skills (ziv, 2013). studies show that significant school readiness differences exist between the youngest and oldest students in primary classrooms (boardman, 2006; cantalini, 1987; ensar & keskin, 2014; furlong & quirk, 2011). a deeper understanding of the relationship between a child’s age and capacity to benefit from school experiences is important because negative experiences could impact the initial perceptions of the youngest learners, their families, and their educators. relative age effects on social, emotional, and behavioural development children need a combination of intellectual and social-emotional skills to succeed in school (thompson, 2002). however, research suggests that a student’s age may significantly influence social and emotional development (bassett, denham, mincic, & graling, 2012; winsler et al., 2012). further, age may also be related to some students’ behavioural concerns. winsler et al. (2012) conducted a study to measure the influences of several demographic variables on delayed entry and kindergarten retention using a large sample size of kindergarten students. an analysis of the results indicated that kindergarten delay and retention were significantly more likely for summer/ete 2016 6 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research younger children (winsler et al., 2012). additionally, both parents and teachers rated younger students’ social skills significantly lower than those of older students. accordingly, younger students also scored significantly higher on behavioural problem scores (winsler et al., 2012). this evidence implies that younger children may lack many important developmental skills, preventing them from being successful in the perceptions of their parents and kindergarten teachers and influencing the likelihood of kindergarten delay and retention. such negative early school outcomes could be damaging to children’s self-esteem, and greater attention to emotional development is necessary from educators. in another study, bassett et al. (2012) used emotional knowledge as a key measure of school readiness. from a sample of 324 preschoolers, they measured the effect of age on emotional knowledge. results indicated that older children had a significantly better understanding of emotion compared to their younger classmates. ensar and keskin (2014) measured the relationship between socio-emotional adjustment and age. a significant positive correlation between these two variables indicated that older children appeared to demonstrate higher levels of socio-emotional adjustment (ensar & keskin, 2014). likewise, bulotsky-shearer, wen, faria, hahs-vaughn, and korfmacher (2012) conducted a study to examine the various relationships between gender, age, and school readiness skills. they found that younger children displayed significantly more problem behaviours and poorer social skills. these results suggest that older children have a better understanding of expectations and more well-developed social and emotional skills in comparison to younger children. further, younger children tend to display more behavioural issues than older children within a school grade. student relative age has been found as a key school readiness factor and plays an important role in the development of a student’s social, emotional, and behavioural skills, which are crucial to early school success. relative age effects on cognitive development and academic skills cognitive development and academic skills are equally important variables to consider when examining children’s adjustment to school. many studies have supported the belief that younger students may be at an academic disadvantage upon school entry in comparison to their older peers due to delays in cognitive development. boardman (2006) examined the relationship between children’s age and gender on measures related to school/academic areas. the sample comprised a very large group of kindergarten students ranging from five to six years of age. the younger students had significantly lower math, reading, and phonics scores in comparison to the older children, who were closer to six years of age. in the same study, teacher interviews indicated that there is a belief that this difference in test scores is due to a developmental difference between the youngest and oldest students (boardman, 2006). this finding can be further supported by a study conducted by murray and harrison (2011), who found that a child’s age was significantly related to literacy and numeracy competencies. these findings, taken together, may suggest that some academic expectations that are set in kindergarten may be unrealistic for the youngest students and their developmental capabilities (boardman, 2006). in a similar study, ziv (2013) examined the relationship between age, gender, and family income on children’s school readiness and social development for kindergarten students. ziv (2013) found a significant negative correlation between age and attention/ persistence scores. this would signify that higher persistence and attention were significantly associated with older age. further, age was significantly negatively correlated to scores measuring attitude toward learning, indicating that younger children may have more difficulty paying attention and persisting academically than older children. in addition, bulotsky-shearer et al. (2012) found that younger students scored significantly lower on dictation, applied problem, and word identification measures in the primary grades. in a study of vocabulary development, biemiller and slonim (2001) found that a student’s age is related to root vocabulary scores and that large gains in vocabulary are made in the primary grades. these results suggest that age may impact a student’s vocabulary and, in doing so, affect their language development. further, these results are supported by winsler et al. (2012), who found that younger children had significantly poorer cognitive, language, and fine motor skills. such findings strengthen the position that younger students are at a developmental disadvantage in terms of early academic success and are possibly more vulnerable to early school failure. another large-scale study (biemiller & cantalini-williams, 2000) analyzed the effects of age (month of birth) and gender on the standards-based provincial assessment results of 31,000 third-grade students in ontario in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics. the effects of age and gender were significant, with younger students, especially boys, receiving lower assessment scores and experiencing a greater percentage of retentions and a higher need for accommodations and/or special education support (biemiller & cantalini-williams, 2000). these results challenge the practice of using standard assessments and the same expectations for all students within a grade, regardless of age and gender. younger students may experience significant developmental and academic challenges in their early schooling; moreover, this disadvantage may continue to be evident years later. in a canadian study conducted many years ago, cantalini (1987) found that 42% of boys who were born in months just before the cut-off date and who were thereby youngest in the class, had failed a grade by the time they had summer/ete 2016 7 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research reached grade 6 and 27% of the youngest girls had suffered the same rate of retention. these rates of retention were much higher than those for older students born just after the cut-off date. even though retention is not currently a common practice today, the issue of age and gender disadvantages persists without a change in present school entry policies. furlong and quirk (2011) investigated the relationship between age at school entry and children’s school readiness following a large sample of hispanic children from kindergarten to grade 2. they found a significant effect exists between school readiness and season of birth, whereby the oldest children born just after the cut-off date achieved greater school success; age at kindergarten entry was a significant predictor of grade 2 academic achievement (furlong & quirk, 2011). these results shed light on the issue of students’ birthdate/age and school readiness, whereby older students outperform younger students on cognitive measures and school achievement scores and are less prone to retention; this effect still holds in later grades (furlong & quirk, 2011; quirk, nylund-gibson, & furlong, 2013). the longitudinal evidence from various studies further strengthens the argument that age influences readiness at the kindergarten level and that some of these effects persist over time. in conclusion, socio-emotional, behavioural, and cognitive/academic skills seem to be related to a child’s relative age, with younger students at greater risk. research has repeatedly found that younger children are at a significant disadvantage both developmentally and academically in comparison to their older peers. furthermore, some of these disadvantages may persist into a student’s academic future and have a strong effect on later school success. additional research is needed to determine if educational interventions can mitigate the effects of relative age differences in schools. gender differences research suggests that significant gender differences may exist in terms of social/emotional development, behavioural regulation, and academic achievement among primary grade students. such gender differences can influence a child’s readiness level and could explain why girls are performing better than boys in early development measures (janus & duku, 2007) and in provincial standard assessments at the grade 3 level, with boys consistently scoring lower than girls in both language and mathematics areas (education quality and accountability office, 2014; ontario ministry of education, 2004). there is long-time evidence that boys do not mature as quickly as girls (ilg et al., 1978; killgore & yurgelun-todd, 2004; lenroot et al., 2007; tanner, 1978) and this fact may, on average, be causing their inability to score as high as girls on school-based and large-scale assessments (biemiller & cantalini-williams, 2000; cantalini, 1987). this area of gender differences in education is currently undergoing much study, but further investigation into the effects of gender compounded by relative age in grade needs to be conducted to address this inequity for the youngest males. gender effects on social, emotional, and behavioural development young boys and girls may differ in terms of their behavioural regulation, which is considered to be an important school readiness factor (vallotton & ayoub, 2011). school engagement can be characterized by the effort and investment students have toward learning, which involves a commitment and enthusiasm for knowledge (whitehead, 2006). these gender differences in areas of social, emotional, and behavioural attributes have been shown to affect school success. whitehead (2006) compiled a literature review to help explain the many reasons why girls typically outperform boys on readiness scores and experience greater early school success. overall, a variety of studies have indicated that girls across grade levels demonstrate significantly higher school engagement than boys and this may be due to specific gender role differences (finn & cox, 1992; lee & smith, 1995; marks, 2000). these studies found that girls tended to be more engaged in school and were more intrinsically motivated than young boys (frawley, mccoy, banks, & thornton, 2014; whitehead, 2006). riley (2014) suggests that teachers tend to treat students differently based on their gender. such academic and behavioural gender expectations can influence a student’s self-perception in an academic environment and thus help manifest gendered behaviours (wolter, glüer, & hannover, 2014). moreover, ziv (2013) found that girls scored significantly higher on attitudes toward learning, postulating that young girls may possess more positive views toward academics due to their early experiences and the gender expectations of society. girls also demonstrated higher behavioural regulation scores (denham, warren-khot, bassett, wyatt, & perna, 2012; vallotton & ayoub, 2011). further, according to cooper, osborne, beck, & mclanahan (2011), male students are more likely to experience verbal and behavioural problems in kindergarten. these results suggest that girls may possess higher school engagement and more advanced behavioural skills, and such results could explain why girls appear to be more successful in early schooling than boys. additionally, it is possible that greater problems with verbal communication in male students may lead to more problem behaviours due to the frustration of miscommunication (cooper et al., 2011). early school success may be strongly related to gender differences in school engagement and behavioural regulation. great gains could summer/ete 2016 8 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research potentially be made to the engagement of young boys in school and in their attitudes toward learning given appropriate early educational and parental support. just as there is currently an increased emphasis on girls entering the science and technology fields, there may be a need for educational communities to work collaboratively to promote boys’ overall success and competence in school-related endeavours. gender effects on cognitive development and academic skills students’ cognitive development and academic skills are clearly important to early school success, and gender is found to affect adjustment and achievement in school as indicated by various studies. girls are consistently outperforming boys academically, with the compounded effect of relative age causing young boys to be achieving the lowest levels on provincial assessments (biemiller & cantalini, 2000). some of the differences in literacy levels may be due to parental influence since parents have been found to foster the literacy skills of young girls more than those of young boys (eccles, 1993; whitehead, 2006). in these studies, parents reported that they were more likely to foster early communication skills in girls by encouraging them to read and by responding positively to their verbal attempts. in addition, frawley et al. (2014) suggest that boys may typically perform more poorly on literacy skills at the kindergarten level since they deem that these skills and activities are feminine and are afraid of failure. son, lee, and sung (2013) conducted a large study to examine the relationship between the behavioural regulation of preschoolers, gender, and school readiness skills. they investigated the impact of gender on school readiness skills and found that girls significantly outperformed boys on early reading, social, and academic-related skills. in a previously mentioned study, boardman (2006) found that girls scored significantly higher on math, reading, and phonics than did boys. further, teacher interviews indicated a gender difference in activity choice between boys and girls where, significantly, girls actively engage in reading and writing games during play and boys direct themselves to more hands-on games and have less interest in books (boardman, 2006). additionally, in a previously mentioned study, bulotsky-shearer et al. (2012) found that male students had significantly lower dictation and word identification scores. male students also experienced significantly more problem behaviours and significantly lower social skills (bulotsky-shearer et al., 2012). further, it was found that boys are significantly more likely to experience delayed school entry and to be retained in kindergarten (winsler et al., 2012). as previously described, janus and duku (2007) examined how risk factors influence school readiness and found that gender caused boys to have 2.3 times higher vulnerability than girls to low school readiness scores provided by kindergarten teachers. similarly, furlong and quirk (2011) found a significant main effect between gender and school readiness where male students scored significantly lower on measures of school readiness. these results suggest that male students are at an increased risk for poor academic achievement, school entry delay, and retention. there exists in the literature a consistent relationship between male students and early and ongoing school challenges. this is especially concerning for boys who are relatively younger than peers in the same grade. greater effort is needed to help identify the reasons for such gender discrepancies and to create successful early learning experiences for all children. conclusions and recommendations the studies cited in this literature review overwhelmingly indicate that it is time to address the effects of relative age and gender on developmental differences and thus on school success. furthering an understanding of the discrepancies that exist among the young learners of our schools has great value for all stakeholder groups. educators, parents, practitioners, and policymakers have a responsibility to more closely examine the variables which may affect adjustment and achievement in school. it seems entirely unfair and a human rights issue that relative age and gender may adversely affect some children’s progress and attitudes toward formal learning. this issue has been studied for many years, but changes in policy have only involved the moving of cut-off entry dates in some provinces, which has not alleviated the relative age and gender effects. with greater insights and attention to differences caused by birthdate and gender, educational communities would better serve these disadvantaged children. the previously mentioned research demonstrates that these effects appear to be robust, cross-cultural, and present in areas such as canada (biemiller & cantalini-williams, 2000; cantalini, 1987; janus & duku, 2007; riley, 2014), the united states (bell et al., 2013, bulotsky-shearer et al., 2012; furlong & quirk, 2011; winsler et al., 2012), turkey (ensar & keskin, 2014), korea (son et al., 2013), and australia (boardman, 2006). further, the described age and gender differences persist over time (furlong & quirk, 2011). this relationship exists among various ethnicities and is present across various family-income levels (bassett et al., 2012; ensar & keskin, 2014; janus & duku, 2007; winsler et al., 2012). the previously presented research also used large sample sizes, and genders were equally presented within these studies. these studies reinforce the very eloquent point made by malcolm gladwell (2008) in his book outliers: the story of success: summer/ete 2016 9 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research most parents, one suspects, think that whatever disadvantage a younger child faces in kindergarten eventually goes away. but it doesn’t. it’s just like hockey. the small initial advantage that the child born in the early part of the year has over the child born at the end of the year persists. it locks children into patterns of achievement and underachievement, encouragement and discouragement, that stretch on and on for years. (gladwell, 2008, p. 27) the presented literature review strengthens the position that age and gender significantly influence learners’ school success in educational systems. importantly, it is acknowledged that the readiness of the school to promote every child’s development is equally important as the readiness of the child to learn from school experiences (boethel, 2004). it is for this reason that educational systems need to strongly consider the recommendations below and adjust school entry policies, curriculum, and pedagogical and assessment practices to meet the needs of all learners, recognizing age and gender differences. in conclusion, the previous research, over decades, provides important insights into age and gender influences that may affect the school success of our young children. this evidence is concerning because many young boys might wrongly experience unrealistic challenges, retention, and special education referrals. clearly, there is a need for change in the way we perceive, instruct, and assess our youngest learners. evidently, age and gender can significantly influence students’ school success, and the age-old question has been substantially answered: there are real and persistent effects of relative age and gender on measures of school readiness and school success. it is imperative to address the need for adjusted entry policies, differentiated instruction, intervention programs, ageand gender-related standardized assessments, and increased resources for further research and advocacy efforts. it is necessary to honour the abilities and competencies of our young—especially male—learners in schools by heeding the perceptions and advice of teachers, parents, writers, researchers, and children themselves who have echoed the words of gladwell (2008): “if we chose to, we could acknowledge that cut-off dates matter” (p. 33). gladwell continues to postulate potential changes to the school system and states: they could let students learn with and compete against other students of the same maturity level. it would be a little bit more complicated administratively. but it wouldn’t necessarily cost that much more money, and it would level the playing field for those who—through no fault of their own—have been dealt a big disadvantage by the educational system. we could easily take control of the machinery of achievement, in other words—not just in sports but, as we will see, in other more consequential areas as well. but we don’t. and why? because we cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don’t matter at all. (gladwell, 2008, p. 33) conclusively, relative age and gender effects matter in schools. there is no better time than the present in canada to develop policies and practices to address and attenuate the effects of age and gender to ensure readiness and success for all of our children. some strategies that could be attempted to address the effects of relative age and gender are suggested below. 1. recent changes in ontario have developed a more open-ended and play-based approach to the pedagogy of learning in both child care and kindergarten (ministry of education, 2014). this approach is encouraging, but curriculum across primary grades (junior kindergarten-grade 3) needs to address age and gender differences. more professional development should be provided to educators regarding differentiated curriculum and instruction. 2. age and gender differences need to be taken into account in the expectations and assessments across primary grades. our school systems should allow for realistic socio-emotional and academic expectations for children, differentiated by age (birthdate) and by gender. provincial assessments could analyze results based on month of birth effects in addition to gender effects. 3. the presented research findings reinforce the need to have differentiated entry policies. the education act of ontario allows for a beginner class for older students born in the first half of the year and provides delayed entry for children born after the first day of september (education act, sections 21[1] and 34[3]). both of these provisions should be better known to parents and school administrators. a full review of school entry policies across canada should be conducted to ensure that the policies address choice and attention to the needs of all children entering formal schooling. in addition, international school entry practices could be studied for comparative purposes. 4. communities and partners in early learning can work collaboratively to become better informed of the potential effects of age and gender, thereby being prepared to attenuate these effects through stimulating and engaging learning experiences for young children and their families. the transition to school can be smooth and successful, through individualized approaches, meeting the needs of diverse families. summer/ete 2016 10 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references bassett, h. h., denham, s., mincic, m., & graling, k. 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(2014). gender-typicality of activity offerings and child–teacher relationship closeness in german “kindergarten”. influences on the development of spelling competence as an indicator of early basic literacy in boys and girls. learning and individual differences, 31(complete), 59–65. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2013.12.008 ziv, y. (2013). social information processing patterns, social skills, and school readiness in preschool children. journal of experimental child psychology, 114, 306–320. canadian children news 54spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 iris berger publications chairperson early childhood education in canada: are we in motion or are we stepping forward? when children walk, very often they don’t walk with the purpose of getting ahead. so many things can happen on the way; something interesting found on the sidewalk—a snail or a branch, or there is a discovery of walking being done backwards or in circles, or jumping on one leg. ~ olsson (2009, p. 5) a history of movements last summer i taught a course about the history of early childhood education. even though i have been teaching this course online for a number of years, the course this past summer stood out as a unique experience because it was offered in a face-to-face format. the daily encounters between the students and myself, the critical engagement with an array of historical figures, events, and phenomena, and the birthing and clashing of ideas, memories, questions, and discussions created a rich platform for putting the past in dynamic conversation with the present and rethinking some aspects of our field’s history. one word, in particular, seems to come back and haunt me after the experience of the history course. that word is movement. those of you who are acquainted with the historical accounts of the field of early childhood education (ece) will be familiar with the abundance of the movement terminology. for example, we frame periods of the field’s history as the kindergarten movement (indicating the spread of the froebelian kindergarten model across europe and north america in the late 1800s), the child study movement (linked with the inauguration of the scientific investigation of child development in the early 1900s), and the progressive education movement (associated with john dewey’s childcentred pedagogy of the 1920s). the more i reflected on the word movement, its meaning in the historical context of ece, its connection with change, and its relation to current discussions within the field of ece, the more i panicked. the term, which strongly conveys political flavour and fervour, seemed far removed from our present ece experiences. for a while i could not think of what in our present day might be characterized as political movements in ece—the kinds of movements that will be remembered and documented in the ece history books about our era. contemporary movements in ece curious about what might be identified with movement in our contemporary ece landscape, i entered the subject heading “movement in early childhood in canada” into a google search box. to my surprise, when i hit the return key, the first link that came up was an edited book by veronica pacini-ketchabaw and alan pence, two ece scholars located in b.c. at the university of victoria (veronica pacini-ketchabaw is, of course, a coeditor of canadian children). their book, early childhood education in motion: the reconceptualist movement in canada (2005), is a collection of articles portraying canadian interpretations, by way of research and practice, of the reconceptualizing early childhood education (rece) movement that emerged in the early 1990s in the u.s. scholars leading the rece movement often ascribe to critical, feminist, and postmodern theories, and have always confessed to upholding a political agenda. they challenge long-held assumptions upon which ece has been established (including the credibility and legitimacy of the historical movements that were mentioned in the previous paragraph), and they centre their scholarly efforts on advancing equity and social justice for children, educators, and families. some of the topics addressed by rece scholars are described by two of the movement’s leaders, beth blue swadener and gaile cannella (2007), as follows: the early work from reconceptualists in our field questioned the promotion of universal prescriptions for “best practice” and other “grand narratives.” many of the reconceptualists based in the u.s. were doing anti-bias, full-inclusion or cultureand genderfocused research that sought to appreciate and support diversity in people, ideas and ways of being. we shared a concern about privileging particular sets of beliefs or forms of knowledge that can create power for certain groups of people and oppress others. (p. 25) along with the challenges posed to a universal view of childhood that is based on developmental theory and a critique of the idea of quality in ece as a valuefree concept, the reconceptualists also questioned the conventional idea of change as an upward, predictable evolution, based on the “natural” process of progress. for example, in the introductory chapter to the aforementioned book, pacini-ketchabaw and pence (2005) comment that the prevailing metaphor in canadian ecec history is an evolutionary spiral. early childhood educators are seen as canadian children news 55spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 having developed, since the days of the infant schools in the 1820s, ever more sophisticated understandings of children and their development and appropriate care. the evolutionary spiral is consistent with the modernist view of “progress.” (p. 13) rather than thinking about change or movement through the metaphor of an evolutionary process (stepping forward or upward toward an assumed best practice), pacini-ketchabaw and pence suggest taking a revolutionary approach to change that entails rethinking our practices and examining the assumptions underlying our pedagogies. this deconstructive approach to change involves risk and uncertainty (“pulling the rug from under one’s feet,” as one educator put it), but it opens up a possibility to approach the idea of movement or change in such a way that it is, at least to some degree, free from the standards of the present that inevitably limit and constrain our thinking. the swedish ece researcher liselott olsson also introduced new concepts for thinking about movement in early childhood practices. in her book, movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: deleuze and guattari in early childhood education (2009), olsson engages with complex ideas from the french philosophers deleuze and guattari to think about change as something that happens at the molecular or micro-political level, and not at the administrative or governmental level. according to olsson, change is not something that is willed as much as it is something that “sneaks up behind one’s back” (p. 74). change happens within the relational fields of our practice in “little moments” when, for example, the curriculum plan breaks down and complex, unforeseen connections unfold in front of us. while curriculum involves a macropolitical decision, when it encounters situations within the classroom, “an enormous creativity is released that completely and continuously transforms and defines the curriculum,” as something always “escapes” the plan in the actual encounter with the children (p. 75). the question about change, argues olsson, has to change. rather than asking how we can get from this predefined position to the next, we can ask: what are the conditions that most favour the continuous experimentation that releases creative forces in our classrooms? how can we remain open to such experimentation? setting early childhood education into motion i believe that now is a good time to ask questions about change and movement because something else happened last summer. in july 2012, the travelling exhibit from reggio emilia, the wonder of learning: the hundred languages of children, opened in new westminster. the exhibit created an opportunity for a lot of movement here in b.c., including the cayc national conference in october 2012. yet, when this issue of canadian children is published, the exhibit will already be on display in another part of the world. and so perhaps it is time to pose the following question to ourselves: do we want to take the reggio emilia approach, which has been an instigator of change within the canadian ece scene for almost 20 years, as a symbol for an incremental step forward—a destination, a yardstick to measure our “progress”—or, alternatively, can we challenge ourselves to see the exhibit as a provocation—an opening for questions for which we still do not know the answers, but towards which we can begin thinking and experimenting together? in conclusion, i would like to go back to the quote at the beginning of this discussion, because i think that we can take our inspiration for a reconceptualized idea of movement from young children. while for us, as adults, walking becomes an automated, purpose-bound activity, supported by an illusion that we actually know where we are going, for a child, walking is not necessarily about stepping forward with a clear destination in mind. what keeps children moving is a constant desire for experimentation through which new worlds are discovered and new relations are generated. clearly, we cannot simply set aside the need for a sense of direction and destination, but perhaps we could create the possibility (or the conditions) to experience moments in which change might sneak up behind our backs. references olsson, l. (2009). movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: deleuze and guattari in early childhood education. new york, ny: routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v. & pence, a. (2005). chapter 1: contextualizing the reconceptualist movement in canadian early childhood education. in v. paciniketchabaw & a. pence (eds.), early childhood education in motion: the reconceptualist movement in canada (pp. 5–20). ottawa, on: canadian child care federation. available online (chapter 1 only) at http:// www.cyc.uvic.ca/uccr/pubs/ swadener, b. & cannella g. (2007). reconceptualizing early childhood education in north america: a brief introduction. canadian child care federation, winter, 25–26. retrieved from http://www.cyc.uvic.ca/uccr/ documents/ canadian children news 56fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 iris berger publications chairperson who are you (as an early childhood educator)? a history of invisibility it is generally agreed that, in the early childhood education field, a great deal of time and effort has been spent on observing, documenting, studying, researching, and theorizing about children. additionally, ece philosophy and practice have leaned heavily on a pedagogical tradition based on the notion of child-centredness. within this context, early childhood educators have frequently been cast in semipassive roles as facilitators, gentle guides, observers (of the development of children), and planners of activities that follow children’s lead. since the late 1990s, however, questions have been raised by a number of scholars about how this particular history might limit and constrain the professional identity of the early childhood educator. is it possible, we may ask, that a heightened attention on the child, along with an understanding of the child’s growth as a process of sequential development requiring mainly a “warm” and supportive educator, has inadvertently veiled the complex pedagogical work of the early childhood educator to the point of rendering it invisible? this is a big and difficult question to raise. yet, within the current political landscape, where new policy demands are placed on both the ece field and early childhood educators, responding to—or at least beginning to address this question—has become pertinent. the “good” early childhood educator alongside, and in relation to, the issue of invisibility of the early childhood educator’s pedagogical work is the stereotypical image of the “good” ece teacher. undoubtedly intensified by societal assumptions about women “naturally” taking on caring roles, the “good” early childhood teacher is typically portrayed as a substitute mother—a feminine, sensitive, nurturing carer of the young (moss, 2006; ryan & ochsner, 1999). sharon ryan and mindy ochsner explain that these prevailing images of the “good” early childhood educator have often positioned early childhood teachers as apolitical practitioners who view change and activism as a responsibility to be placed somewhere else. in response, ryan and ochsner challenge teachers of young children to transform the dominant images of the early childhood educator through repositioning themselves from facilitators to activists or interventionists—as teachers who take a proactive political stance in order to expand definitions of what teaching in ece means. in embracing identities in early childhood education: diversity and possibilities, sue grieshaber and gaile cannella (2001) address some of the issues emanating from a tradition that portrayed the “good” early childhood educator within the dominant discourse of nurturance and caring, or within what louise hard (2006) later termed the “discourse of niceness.” grieshaber and cannella argue that contemporary understanding of identities as multiple and dynamic has opened space for early childhood educators to embrace a wider (and seemingly contradictory) range of identifies. early childhood educators can embrace the notion of nurturance and care while questioning and critiquing knowledge and practices, challenging authority, and upholding the idea that there is room for uncertainty and spontaneity because there are (always) multiple ways of being a teacher of young children. in our canadian context, rachel langford’s (2006) research into the construction of the “good” early childhood educator within an ece training program in canada revealed similar issues to those discussed above. early childhood educators in the training program imagined their identities by identifying personal traits that enabled them to be an alert and responsive teacher. the educators in the program tended to minimize their role as social agents, and were inclined to hide their world views when those were different from the mainstream. langford called for a reenvisioning of ece training programs in such as way that early childhood teachers may see themselves as significant agents of change in contemporary social and political struggles. changing times… the early childhood educator as change agent. the identity of the ece field is changing on a global scale. we have seen over the last decade unprecedented attention from policy makers on early education. we have witnessed an increase in the standardization of the field as numerous countries have created curriculum documents for the early years. another international trend is the transfer of responsibility for early education and care from ministries of welfare, health, or children and families, to education ministries. while these changes pose new challenges to the field, including the possibility of new accountability measures, they also create an opportunity to surface some important questions about the identity of the ece field and its protagonist—the early childhood educator. canadian children news 57fall / automne 2013 vol. 38 no. 2 action or reaction? the ece scholar sharon ryan (2008) asks: how might early childhood educators act rather than react to the changes we are witnessing? in other words, she encourages early childhood teachers to become active participants who effect changes in the field, rather than being observers who react to these changes. moss (2006) urges early childhood educators to take responsibility not only for their work but also for how pedagogical practice in ece contexts is understood in public. whether we choose to act and how we enter into these political discussions will be determined by the identities we dare to embrace. in bc, a number of initiatives have already made it possible for early childhood educators to enter into dialogues with the greater community and to share, or make visible, the complexities involved in their pedagogical work with young children. for example, the bc early learning framework (government of british columbia, 2007) portrays the early childhood educator as a researcher who continuously seeks to deepen her understandings of the practice with others by using the tool of pedagogical narration. a number of early childhood educators from bc have been engaged in thinking about their identity through the ecebc leadership initiative (early childhood educators of bc, 2007). one of the leadership projects, initiated by kim atkinson and danielle davis and called the images of learning project, has evolved into a travelling exhibit and a blog (see http://imagesoflearningproject.com/ info/) which aim to expand the images of children and early childhood educators by sharing multiple stories from ece settings. through sharing these stories, the early childhood teacher’s identity becomes less predictable and more surprising. the stories keep the question of who is an early childhood educator dynamic and provocative—as it should be! in fact, it may be time to ask this question: in what ways have the canadian association for young children (cayc) and its journal, canadian children, been a platform for sustaining and enriching the conversation about the politics of the identities of the early childhood educator? references early childhood educators of bc. (2007, november). framework for ecebc professional leadership initiative: “everyone is a leader.” retrieved from: http://www.ecebc.ca/leadership/files/ece_ framework_prof_leadership.pdf government of british columbia. (2007). british columbia early learning framework. victoria, bc: ministry of education, ministry of health, ministry of children and family development, & early learning advisory group. grieshaber, susan j., & cannella, gaile s. (eds.) (2001). embracing identities in early childhood education: diversity and possibilities. early childhood education series. new york, ny: teachers college press. hard, l. (2006). horizontal violence in early childhood education and care: implications for leadership enactment. australian journal of early childhood, 31(3). retrieved from: http://www. earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ langford, r. (2006). discourses of the good early childhood educator in professional training: reproducing marginality or working toward social change. international journal of education policy, research, and practice, 7, 115–125. moss, p. (2006). structures, understandings, and discourses: possibilities for re-envisioning the early childhood worker. contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(1), 30–41. ryan, s. (2008). action or reaction? reflecting on sally lubeck’s wisdom to reinvent the field of early education. journal of early childhood research, 6(1), 69–74. ryan, s., & ochsner, m. (1999). traditional practices, new possibilities: transforming dominant images of early childhood teachers. australian journal of early education, 24(4), 14–20. criteria the friends of children award may be presented to an individual or group, regardless of age, who: • has a history of commitment to the cayc mission statement and/ or aims. • has shown an outstanding scholarly, advocacy, innovative or practical contribution to the well-being of young children. • may or may not be of canadian citizenship. • may or may not hold cayc membership although it is encouraged. procedure • a nomination must be made by a member of the board of directors and be seconded by a member of the board of directors. board members can, however, receive recommendations for nominations from individual cayc members or from other organizations. • nominations will be brought forward at a board of directors or national executive meeting by the board or executive member assigned responsibility for the award. this board or executive member will present and speak to the nomination. • the nomination will be voted upon and passed by the board of directors with a consensus decision. • the award will be presented promptly and in person when possible. • publicity of the award and the recipient(s) will appear in the journal, canadian children, and other publications where possible. • the number of awards per year will vary. friends of children award guidelines the cayc “friends of children award” was established to give cayc a way of recognizing outstanding contributions, by individuals or groups to the well-being of young children. if you wish to nominate an individual or group for this award, please use the criteria and procedure below. summer/ete 2016 43 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research dr. laura k. doan is an assistant professor in the faculty of education and social work at thompson rivers university in kamloops, bc, where she teaches in the early childhood education program. laura’s research interests include how to best support new early childhood educators as they enter the field of early childhood education, as well as what sustains experienced educators. currently she is involved in the creation of a pilot induction program for new educators. email: ldoan@tru.ca the early years: beginning early childhood educators’ induction experiences and needs in british columbia laura k. doan every beginning early childhood educator deserves the opportunity to be adequately supported as they begin their career. knowledge of what helps beginning educators to become successfully inducted into the profession is an important part of ensuring quality early childhood education programs for children and families. induction refers to both the time period when an educator is first in the field, as well as specific induction activities, such as mentoring, feedback, observations, and professional development (aitken, ferguson, mcgrath, piggot-irvine, & ritchie, 2008; winstead fry, 2010). it was hoped that the knowledge generated from this study would offer new insights into the needs of beginning early childhood educators, which would inform future professional development for beginning educators. additionally, the results from this study sought to fill a gap in the literature since limited research has been carried out on the subject of novice early childhood educators’ needs (mahmood, 2012). context qualifications qualifications of early childhood educators vary widely internationally, nationally, and provincially, with educators receiving a certificate, diploma, or degree in early childhood education. for example, in new zealand, early childhood educators are involved in a twoto five-year process of induction and support prior to applying for “fully registered teacher status” (aitken et al., 2008, p. 1). early childhood educators are partially registered prior to concluding the induction process. in canada, where education falls under provincial jurisdiction, requirements vary from province to province. in bc, early childhood educators apply to the early childhood education registry to be registered as an early childhood education assistant, after taking one course, or as a fully certified early childhood educator, which involves completing a recognized postsecondary early childhood education program and an additional 500 hours of work experience under the supervision of a certified early childhood educator (friendly, grady, macdonald, & forer, 2015). early childhood educators who have completed the educational requirements and additional work experience can apply for a five-year certificate, while those needing to complete the work experience can apply for the one-year certificate (government of british columbia, 2016). for the purposes of this study, all participants were certified early childhood educators who had been working in the field for five years or less. support to early childhood education students early childhood education postsecondary programs rely on “relationships between the student, the early childhood education instructor this purpose of this study was to understand the experiences and needs of beginning early childhood educators in british columbia. utilizing a mixed methods approach, the research involved 114 beginning educators who took part in an online questionnaire, 11 of whom also participated in semistructured interviews. the key findings were that the work is both overwhelming and deeply satisfying; the induction support that beginning early childhood educators receive is haphazard; and beginning early childhood educators would like induction support in the form of mentoring or peer support, observations, feedback, and professional development. a model for induction support is presented. keywords: early childhood educators, induction, peer support, mixed methods summer/ete 2016 44 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and the sponsor educator” (doan, 2013, p. 21). students are given opportunities to apply what they are learning in classes through involvement in practica in community-based early learning programs. students take on increasing levels of program responsibility, with the support of the sponsor educator, who works alongside the student, and the instructor, who is involved in observations and the sharing of feedback (doan, 2013). when early childhood education students graduate, the relationships change, and while instructors may encourage graduates to stay in contact for additional support (c. alger, personal communication, march 6, 2013), barriers exist. induction support the support early childhood educators receive as they enter the profession varies too. in new zealand, early childhood educators are assigned a mentor who is involved in providing professional development, observation, feedback, and assessments during a twoto five-year period prior to educators applying for fully registered teacher status (aitken et al., 2008). the kentucky teacher internship program offers a one-year mentoring program for new teachers to support them as they create their professional identities (mccormick & brennan, 2001). a mentoring program based in worcester, england, is based on the premise that mentoring supports adult learning in the workplace by facilitating experiential learning (murray, 2006). in contrast to these programs, in canada there is no defined structure to support early childhood educators at the beginning of their careers, a time when they may possibly need it the most (rodd, 2006). this, however, does not mean that there is not interest in supporting new educators. for example, in a report by the early childhood educators of british columbia, it was reported that “a mentoring framework is needed to help people to take steps to be mentors” (gay, 2007, p. 18). recognizing a shortage of mentors, the organizers of this program identified the role of a “professional critical friend” who may be a peer with the same qualifications. the work environment to understand the needs of beginning educators, it is important to identify the issues at play within the work environment. without a formal structure for supporting beginning educators (doan, 2014), there may or may not be adequate support to mentor them through their survival year, a term katz (1972) used to describe an early childhood educator’s first year, a time when they are simply trying to make it through the day or week. in addition, the early childhood education field is one where there is a high staff turnover, and educators may be elevated to positions of leadership when they may not be prepared (bella & bloom, 2003). in bc there are 12,000 licensed early childhood educators on the ece registry, yet only 50% of them are currently working as early childhood educators (early childhood educators of british columbia, 2011). moreover, it is estimated that half of all early childhood educators leave the field within the first five years of work (early childhood educators of british columbia, 2012). additionally, beginning educators may find themselves working in a child care program where they are the only staff member with recognized postsecondary credentials. a constant rotation of new staff and/or very few qualified educators can lead to role ambiguity and workplace conflict, which in turn can result in burnout (manlove, 1993). a further area of complexity for a new educator is how one works within an environment that may be very different than their preservice experiences. for example, in 2007, the bc government produced the early learning framework, a document describing the content areas for young children’s learning within early learning programs (government of british columbia, 2007). a key piece of this document has been the introduction of pedagogical narrations, or learning stories. though widely known in the early childhood education community within bc and taught within postsecondary settings, not all early childhood educators use pedagogical narrations, and this can cause tension within the workplace (doan, 2014). the study when beginning early childhood educators are not properly inducted into the profession, the quality of early childhood education programs suffers and the needs of children are not met. for example, early childhood educators may have difficulty connecting theory to practice (rodd, 2006); they may experience exhaustion (manlove, 1993); and some may leave the profession completely (early childhood educators of british columbia, 2012). in this study’s quantitative phase, questionnaire data were collected from 114 early childhood educators who had been working in the field for five years or less. participants were involved in answering a series of closed and open-ended questions related to their induction experiences. in the qualitative phase of the study, 11 beginning educators took part in semistructured one-on-one interviews, with the researcher asking open-ended questions about their induction experiences and their thoughts on what beginning early childhood educators need. all interview participants also took part in the online questionnaire. the following research questions were addressed: summer/ete 2016 45 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 1. what are beginning early childhood educators’ perceptions of their induction experiences in their first year as early childhood educators? 2. what, if any, kind(s) of induction support do beginning early childhood educators receive in their first year, and how effective are these in supporting beginning early childhood educators’ development of professional capacity? 3. what, if any, forms of induction or novice professional development would beginning early childhood educators like to take part in, and why? sample purposeful sampling was used to identify beginning early childhood educators within the population of newly certified educators, those who had been certified between 2008 and 2012. purposeful sampling is where the researcher chooses participants who have experience with the phenomenon being explored (creswell & plano clark, 2007). all of the participants came from this sample, and all of the participants who were involved in semistructured interviews also completed the online survey. the selection criterion was certified early childhood educators who had been working in the early childhood education field for five years or less. in other words, this study was only open to participants who held valid early childhood education postsecondary training. it was not, for example, open to people working as assistants in early childhood programs. the researcher also used snowball sampling, a form of purposeful sampling where the researcher is involved in asking participants “to recommend other individuals to be sampled” (creswell, 2012, p. 209). while acknowledging the use of both purposeful and snowball sampling, it is important to note that participants selected themselves to participate. the researcher did not select the participants. it is estimated that every year 800 early childhood educators are certified, so because this study involved educators who had been certified between 2008 and 2012, the population was approximately 4,000 (government of british columbia, 2011). however, given that half of all early childhood educators leave the field within the first five years, it was assumed the population would be much smaller, approximately 2,000 (early childhood educators of british columbia, 2012). rationale for selection of participation criterion the criterion for participation was selected for two reasons. first, the research questions centre around the induction experiences of beginning early childhood educators in bc, which means educators must hold a recognized certificate or diploma from a postsecondary institution. additionally, in order to be employed, early childhood educators must be issued a certificate to practice by the province of bc. second, because the researcher was studying the phenomenon of induction, it was a logical step to involve those individuals who were closest to, thus most familiar with, and able to recall their initial years in the profession. the researcher chose to include educators who had been working in the field for five years or less because the induction process has been thought to take two to five years (aitken et al., 2008). participants in the questionnaire participants ranged in age from 18 to 60, the mean being 31.4. there were four males and 110 females. furthermore, all participants had completed, at the minimum, a certificate or diploma in early childhood education. twenty-three participants had special needs postdiploma certificates; 33 had infant toddler post-diploma certificates; 16 had bachelor’s degrees; and 3 had master’s degrees. participants indicated that they worked in provincially regulated child care programs. the participants represented all areas of the province: 16 from the islands, 48 from the vancouver coast and mountains, 31 from the thompson okanagan region, 3 from the bc rockies, 7 from northern bc, and 9 from the cariboo chilcotin coast. thirty-one participants were in their first year, 20 were in their second year, 24 were in their third year, 20 were in their fourth year, and 19 were in their fifth year; the mean was twenty-three months. theoretical framework the theoretical framework for this study draws on current theories of learning in professional workplaces as well as general theories of learning. knowles, holton, and swanson’s (2012) adult learning theory provided a theoretical context to how adults learn and, more specifically, what motivates them and how they can be taught in a way that meets their needs. the theories of professional identity development put forth by katz (1972) and vander ven (1988) are pivotal to this work because the study participants are in the beginning stages of their career and are trying to develop their professional identity. lave and wenger’s (1991) community of practice theory fits summer/ete 2016 46 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research well given the early childhood education workplace and educational context, where educators do not receive consistent professional development and/or ongoing training. this theory provides a theoretical base from which workplace support can be considered. teacher efficacy, which comes from bandura’s (1997) work, informs the study in a variety of ways, including in regard to why some educators remain in the profession and why others choose to leave. professional identity development. katz (1972) proposed a theoretical model for the stages of professional growth of early childhood educators. the first stage, survival, is, as its name suggests, where the educator simply tries to get through the day or week, and this stage can last up to one year. katz wrote, “during this period the teacher needs support, understanding, encouragement, reassurance, comfort and guidance. she needs instruction in specific skills and insight into the complex causes of behaviour—all of which must be provided on the classroom site” (p. 4). what is key here is the on-site support the beginning early childhood educator requires, making it important that the mentor is physically nearby to assist the educator in daily situations, such as how to guide children’s behaviour, form connections with family members, and plan programming based on children’s needs and interests. teacher efficacy. self-efficacy is one part of bandura’s social cognitive theory and is related to an individual’s beliefs about their own power to create change (bandura, 1997). it is less about one’s skills and more to do with what one thinks one is able to accomplish. bandura posited the idea that “beliefs of personal efficacy constitute the key factor of human agency” (p. 3). in other words, people who believe they have the power to create change will attempt to do so. bandura believed people are not simply products of their environments. rather, they are seen as agents who have the power to act, based on what they believe they can do. teacher efficacy is a term that refers to a teacher’s belief in their own ability to carry out teaching tasks with success (tschannen-moran, woolfolk hoy, & hoy, 1998). early childhood educators who have a strong sense of teacher efficacy are open to new ideas, are better able to plan, demonstrate greater enthusiasm for teaching, have a strong commitment to teaching, and are more likely to stay in the profession (ozgun, 2005). adult learning theory. knowles, holton, and swanson (2012) believed there were inherent differences in the ways that children and adults learn, and they argued that specific principles must be considered when involved with adult learning. theories of pedagogy and andragogy both hold assumptions on the following: the need to know; the learner’s self-concept; the role of experience; readiness to learn; orientation to learning; and motivation; however, they are viewed very differently (knowles et al., 2012). in the pedagogical model, it is assumed that learners only need to know what content they must grasp in order to pass. it is not necessary for them to know how the content can be applied to their lives. in direct contrast is the assumption from andragogy, that learners need to know why they need to learn something and that this knowledge must be shared prior to the learning process. in the theory of andragogy, emphasis is placed on the experiences of the learner (knowles et al., 2012). communities of practice. lave and wenger (1991) put forth the theory that learning takes place within a framework of participation, not in the mind of an individual. lave and wenger asserted that practitioners within communities are at work helping to bring more practitioners into the community by way of apprenticeship. from this perspective, learning occurs through hands-on participation as opposed to teaching that takes place in a classroom far removed from the workplace. lave and wenger’s research is based on the premise that practitioners are naturally drawn to communities of practice, and their work came out of the apprenticeship experiences of tailors who became skilled master tailors through informal learning within communities of practice. wenger and snyder (2000) defined communities of practice as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise” (p. 139). wenger (1998) argued that participation in a community of practice “is essential” to learning and helps to define “what constitutes competence in a given context” (p. 229). communities of practice are not only for novice educators; they can benefit those with considerable experience as well (wenger, 2000). in discussing potential benefits to organizations who use communities of practice, wenger and snyder (2000) reported that “communities summer/ete 2016 47 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of practice can drive strategy, generate new lines of business, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop people’s professional skills, and help companies recruit and retain talent” (p. 140). in this way, both novice and experienced educators can work together on a project that may involve the solving of various problems. wenger and snyder (2000) argued that communities of practice are powerful because of their ability to produce new knowledge, which helps to renew the community. however, while there seem to be many potential benefits to participation within a community of practice, there can be negative consequences as well. communities of practice can become stagnant, resulting in a cessation of new idea creation and problem solving. initiative, strong relationships and senses of belonging, and the ability to reflect are critical for those in communities of practice. it is the researcher’s belief that all four of the theories outlined above are relevant to the induction of new early childhood educators. moreover, in the context of this research, each theory has the capacity to influence and inform the other. for example, a teacher’s level of efficacy, how they perceive their abilities as a teacher, impacts their ability to develop their professional identity. if an early childhood educator is unable to move past katz’s (1972) survival stage, they may not develop the necessary level of teacher efficacy and may leave the profession. in addition, all four theories relate to the concept of the image of the educator. while educators are not highly valued within our society, and are thought to have low skills, pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, and sanchez (2015) argue that an educator’s work is complex, involving critical reflection, a pedagogy of listening, and the coconstruction of knowledge. paciniketchabaw et al. (2015) look beyond the dominant images of the educator as a substitute for maternal care, an expert, and a technician and invite dialogue around the ideas of the educator in relationship and as a researcher. when looking at the image of the educator in this more complex way, one can see the need for additional support for new educators, within a context that supports the ongoing development of all educators. method mixed methods researchers believe that using both qualitative and quantitative methods will provide more comprehensive knowledge of the phenomenon under question than the use of either method alone (given, 2008), and this is the reason mixed methods were used in this study. an online questionnaire was adapted from ones used in researching novice early childhood educators in turkey (ozgun, 2005) and beginning teachers in alberta (magill, 2002). the online questionnaire was useful because it allowed for geographic representation, while the interviews provided the opportunity to explore in detail the experiences of beginning educators. the interview schedule was modified from interview schedules used in similar research conducted by hellsten, prytula, and ebanks (2009) and swanson (1999). the data for the online questionnaire and the interviews were collected concurrently. prior to the start of the study, the researcher ensured she had full ethical clearance from a research ethics board. accuracy several measures were undertaken to ensure validity and reliability of the study. the researcher used existing instruments from researchers who have used them with established reliability. furthermore, the researcher conducted a pilot study to ensure that the wording of the questionnaire was understood by the participants. in addition, the coefficient alpha was used “to test for internal consistency” (creswell, 2012, p. 163). for each of the scales in the questionnaire, the coefficient alpha score ranged from .91 to .98. lastly, the researcher ensured interrater reliability by involving another researcher in the initial analysis of the open-ended questions (roberts, 2010). this was to ensure consistency. to ensure accuracy of the findings from the participants, the researcher conducted member checks by sending the interview transcripts for participants to review. moreover, the researcher utilized peer debriefing, a process of inviting a colleague to engage in a review of the field notes and asking questions to elicit “alternative ways of looking at the data” (bloomberg & volpe, 2012, p. 113). data analysis in this study, qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed in different ways. for the semistructured interviews, a process of data condensation through the use of codes (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014) was used. prior to the start of data collection, provisional codes were assigned using the research questions, conceptual framework, and codes and themes used in similar research studies on beginning early childhood educators (miles et al., 2014). this phase of coding was meant as a starting point only, and the researcher remained open to further codes that emerged from the data, something that is consistent with this form of coding (miles et al., 2014). second-level coding began with additional codes emerging. summer/ete 2016 48 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the online questionnaire included mostly quantitative data with several open-ended response questions as part of the mixed-methods approach. the open-ended questions were analyzed in the same way as the interview data. using spss software, the researcher analyzed the likert-scale questions under each cluster to determine the areas in which beginning early childhood educators require and receive the most support. the findings from both data sets were then further analyzed to understand what is important and what can be learned (bloomberg & volpe, 2012). this analysis included a process of iterative thematic coding that involved a three-step nonlinear process of looking at individual findings to determine their meaning, viewing all of the findings to see connections, and searching for similarities and differences among individual participants. out of this process, key themes emerged, as outlined below. limitations there are at least four possible limitations of this study. first, aitken et al. (2008) reported an “inability to use observation as a means of gathering data” as a possible limitation, and this limitation may be relevant to this study because the researcher relied on participant reports and not direct observations. second, the quantitative data gathered through the use of an online questionnaire may be biased due to the fact that participants took part through a self-selection process. for example, it is probable that those who took part were either beginning early childhood educators who were doing quite well in their first year or were doing rather poorly. third, the data from the semistructured interviews may not be fully accurate because it is possible that what participants shared is different from what they do in practice. in addition, interview participants were recalling what their experiences had been in their first year as an educator, and their memories may not be exact. fourth, relative to the number of beginning early childhood educators in bc, this study involved a small number. thus, the findings, though useful for this particular context, are not generalizable. key themes the work is both overwhelming and deeply satisfying in seeking to answer the first research question (what are beginning early childhood educators’ perceptions of their induction experiences in their first year as early childhood educators?), the main theme that emerged from the analysis of the data, both the online questionnaires and the interviews, is that beginning early childhood educators find the work to be both overwhelming and deeply satisfying. in the online questionnaire, 34% of beginning early childhood educators reported that they did not get the support they needed with regard to a workload that reflected their training and lack of experience. what is meant by workload is that the child-to-educator ratio is the same for both new and experienced educators. because the job title is the same, there is no difference in what is expected of new educators in terms of number of hours worked and task completion. for example, one interview participant described his second day on the job, when he was expected to do everything that the experienced staff did, including opening up the centre, when he still did not know the children or the families. further to this finding, 49% of the online questionnaire participants reported receiving no or little support in this area. in this study, 34% reported receiving no support in understanding the philosophy of the program. one interview participant described her experiences as “sink or swim” in a workplace where the program philosophy was very different than what she was used to. despite the overwhelming workload reported by beginning early childhood educators in this study, a large majority (89%) of participants who completed the online questionnaire reported deriving high levels of satisfaction from their work as an early childhood educator. additionally, 68% of these new early childhood educators in bc agreed or strongly agreed that they would choose to go into the field of early childhood education again. the induction support beginning early childhood educators in bc receive is haphazard in analyzing the findings related to the second research question (what, if any, kind(s) of induction support do beginning early childhood educators receive in their first year, and how effective are these in supporting beginning early childhood educators’ development of professional capacity?), what became clear is that the induction support beginning early childhood educators in bc receive is haphazard, meaning that it is inconsistent. based on the findings from this study, beginning early childhood educators in bc cannot assume they will receive the induction support they need in their first year. results showed that support was very much dependent on the particular job site, the educators on site, and the level of staff turnover. in the online questionnaire, between 43% and 52% of participants indicated they received no or little support through such practices as feedback, mentoring, observations, professional development, and other induction activities. feedback was the area in which the highest level of participants reported receiving no or little support. summer/ete 2016 49 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in regard to supervisory practices, 52% to 56% of beginning early childhood educators who took part in the online questionnaire reported that they received no or little support from supervisors. thirty-two percent of beginning early childhood educators reported receiving no visit for evaluation, and 22% reported receiving little in this area. twenty-four percent of beginning early childhood educators reported receiving nothing regarding one-on-one discussions with their primary supervisor to address their goals, concerns, and difficulties. interview participants were asked if they felt they had received the support they needed in their first year of work, and most (64%) revealed that they had not received the support they required. beginning early childhood educators in bc would like induction support in the form of mentoring or peer support, observations, feedback, and professional development in identifying the key theme for research question 3 (what, if any, forms of induction or novice professional development would beginning early childhood educators like to take part in, and why?), it was determined that beginning early childhood educators in bc would like induction support in the forms of mentoring or peer support, observations, feedback, and professional development. the participants who identified themselves as having taken part in some or all of the above induction activities spoke highly of the experiences, emphasizing the importance of these kinds of experiences in their initial year as an early childhood educator. some participants had not received the induction support they needed, and this was due to several factors, including a lack of supervisory visits to the classroom, little or no time to discuss programming and/or individual concerns, and a lack of support to help them cope with feelings of frustration and/or inadequacy. furthermore, beginning early childhood educators in the study needed additional support in knowing how to deal with the low respect given to those who work with very young children. while many beginning early childhood educators in bc form connections with and receive support from a colleague at work, educators in this study did not get the support they needed with regard to the lack of correspondence between theory and practice. practical and theoretical implications from the three major findings, a major implication that addresses all three of the research questions is that the early childhood education workplace is ideally suited for new educators to be successfully inducted into the profession and to form their professional identity (flores & day, 2006). this idea fits very well with the communities of practice theory put forth by lave and wenger (1991), where learning is viewed as something that occurs through participation, not solely in the mind of an individual. despite the fact that it was not consistent for all beginning early childhood educators, 41% of beginning educators in this study reported receiving great or very great support with regards to forming a connection with an experienced educator; 35% reported receiving great or very great support in feeling comfortable interacting with all staff; and 29% reported receiving great or very great opportunities to observe educators. beginning educators in this study reported that they receive support from colleagues. there is a baseline on which to build. beginning educators working alongside experienced educators can gain perspective on who they are and what their identity is as an early childhood educator. model of practice for the induction of beginning early childhood educators the model of practice for the induction of beginning early childhood educators presented below is based on the positive finding from this research that beginning educators who do receive support do so from their workplace and/or the greater early childhood education community. the model is future oriented and implies that change is needed in order to move to a system where all beginning educators are supported. in this model (see figure 1), beginning educators are positioned in the first circle, representing their importance and the significance of the support they should receive. beginning educators who participated in this study indicated that the work was both overwhelming and deeply satisfying. furthermore, participants wanted a program of support for beginning early childhood educators. the participants who did receive induction support did so in the workplace from fellow educators, supervisors, or administrators. additionally, participants received support from the greater early childhood education community, such as postsecondary faculty, licensing officers, and educators from other child care centres. early childhood educators in this study who did not receive adequate support believed they were perceived in one or more of the following ways: as an empty vessel, knowing nothing; as someone who is licensed and ready to go; as one who needs to learn how things are done in the real world; or as one who needs nothing. summer/ete 2016 50 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1: a model for the induction of beginning early childhood educators. perceptions of new early childhood educators. some beginning educators in bc are left on their own, without adequate induction support during their first year of work. it is as if they are viewed as fully prepared, or “licensed and ready to go,” when in fact educators in this study reported that they did not want to be left on their own. the concept of being “licensed and ready to go” is linked to the idea that the beginning educator needs nothing. it may come from a view that educators have already received what they need through their postsecondary training and now need to get on with the work of performing as an educator. in addition, some early childhood educators in bc feel undervalued by their coworkers. attempts to bring new programming ideas into the classroom that had been learned in the educator’s recent education were rebuffed, and due to an environment where those with seniority held the power, the new educator felt “shut down.” this finding ties in well with the idea that the new educator needs to learn how things are done in the real world. furthermore, some beginning educators think they are viewed as empty vessels, knowing nothing. this is a way of looking at beginning educators as not having anything to add. it is the antithesis of viewing the early childhood educator as being a team player, ready to help and add to the workplace environment. despite summer/ete 2016 51 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research their novice status, beginning educators are not empty vessels, ready to be filled. rather, they are ready and willing to contribute to the learning environment. how new early childhood educators would like to be treated. the beginning educators in this study indicated that they would like to be valued, shown an interest in, given feedback, included on the team, and invited to professional development opportunities. beginning educators want to be valued by their coworkers and supervisors. participants who felt valued described situations where experienced educators collaborated with them by sharing programming ideas and by asking for their thoughts and ideas. furthermore, beginning educators want coworkers and supervisors to take an interest in them. this may include intentional communication with the beginning educator regarding how their induction is going. whatever form it takes, this requires someone in the workplace who cares and takes the time to show the beginning educator that they are interested in them. in addition, beginning educators want feedback. performance feedback is a regular occurrence for early childhood education students, and educators in this study wanted feedback in the form of reviews of their practice to help them in knowing how they were doing in their new role. this feedback could take several forms, including informal verbal feedback throughout the day and formal employee evaluations. beginning educators in this study want to be included on the team and they want to be invited to professional development opportunities. the majority of beginning educators in this study are not working alone in an educational setting. most beginning educators are joined by one to three colleagues in their workplaces. the concept of a team is something that is taught and put into practice in postsecondary early childhood education preparation programs, but what happens in the workplace can be very different. some beginning educators do not experience a feeling of being part of a team. in some cases, beginning educators find themselves in work environments where there is a definite hierarchy and chain of command that allows for little in the way of innovation or new ideas from beginning educators. this is in direct contrast to what beginning educators in this study indicated they want, which is to be active, contributing members of teams in the workplace. this includes opportunities for professional development, such as paid time off to attend professional development as well as monetary support to cover the associated costs. beginning educators are in a place in their career where they need to have opportunities to gain information that affects their practice. additionally, beginning educators need professional development for the purpose of meeting other educators in the community. in this model, which is described using present tense, the beginning early childhood educator is surrounded by a community of practice that includes supportive colleagues who are able to engage in mentoring and/or peer support. support is context specific, not “cookie cutter.” every early childhood centre is unique, staff groups have different strengths and challenges, and new educators have different needs and abilities. therefore, this is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. the induction support is consistently offered, but it is based on the context of the specific community of practice and the individual needs of the beginning early childhood educator. this model is not based on the underlying assumptions that new early childhood educators know nothing, need nothing, need to learn how things are done in the “real world,” and are licensed and ready to go. rather, beginning educators are viewed as ready to begin their work as a contributing member of the workplace team. the idea of developing communities of practice is not a new one, and in bc, the community early learning and child care facilitators pilot project, which came out of the investigating quality project, involves learning circles, critical reflection, and learning how to do innovative work (mirau, 2015). the learning circles were forums where educators had opportunities to “share their established and emerging practices” (unit for early years research and development, n.d., p. 6). though the purpose of the facilitators project is not specifically directed at beginning educators, it is assumed that both new and experienced educators will benefit. projects like these challenge the traditional discourse of training and delivery, where educators are viewed as passive vessels waiting to be filled (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). rather, the educator is seen as an active, contributing agent, participating in the coconstruction of knowledge. furthermore, this perspective on continued learning within a community of practice supports the image of the educator as being “in process” (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 64), which challenges the current notions of professionalization and competencies. using the workplace as the learning environment for new educators aligns well with the theory of adult learning, which places importance on the experiences of the learner (knowles et al., 2012). in this kind of model, both novice and more experienced educators can benefit. though it is a theory based on children’s learning, vygotsky’s zones of proximal development (1986) seem to fit well within the context of workplace support and/or learning. perhaps it is because educators are being supported in their moment of need—in that place of what they know and what they need to know. this concept of readiness to learn, from the theory of adult learning, is critical for those involved in supporting new educators. knowles et al. (2012) asserted that adults “become ready to learn when their life situation creates a need to know” (p. 192). they went on to suggest that the more “adult learning professionals can anticipate and understand adults’ life situations summer/ete 2016 52 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and readiness for learning, the more effective they can be” (pp. 192–193). here it would seem that the team-centred approach that is common in most early childhood settings is poised to support new educators as they learn, through their zone of proximal development, when they are ready to learn. lave and wenger (1991) wrote this about identities: “we conceive of identities as long-term, living relations between persons and their place and participation in communities of practice. thus identity, knowing, and social membership entail one another” (p. 53). this study’s findings indicate that a significant number of beginning educators are in workplaces that do not operate under the idea of communities of practice. these are workplaces where beginning educators are left on their own to figure things out, instead of having the potential benefit of learning alongside experienced educators for the purpose of forming a professional identity. this type of environment contrasts with the ideas put forth by sachs (2000), who reported that networks based on mutual trust can develop into ongoing learning communities where learning occurs for everyone involved. in this induction model, communication is pivotal. supportive administrative and supervisory practices are enabled, which allows time for the beginning educator to observe more experienced educators. furthermore, the beginning educator is able to receive ongoing, relevant feedback on their practice. there is both time for planning with colleagues and summative evaluations, which allow the beginning educator to grow and fully develop into a professional. the entire staff team, including the beginning educator, has the opportunity for regular, sustained professional development, which of course is helped by funding and support by the government. the early childhood community of practice is deeply connected with both the local and provincial organization representing early childhood educators. additionally, there are significant connections with the local early childhood education program at the nearest postsecondary institution, which assists the staff in remaining current. while additional funding from the provincial and federal governments would be helpful, this model can be put into place without it, with an aim to testing the model. conclusion the findings from this study indicate that beginning early childhood educators in bc have both a need and a desire for induction support in the form of mentoring or peer support, observations, feedback, and professional development. a model for the induction of beginning educators suggests a move toward viewing early childhood education workplaces as communities of practice, a term used by lave and wenger (1991) and seen in the investigating quality project (unit for early years research and development, n.d.). to bring this concept into fruition, much will be required, including the involvement of governments, postsecondary institutions, and provincial ece organizations. despite challenges such as inconsistent induction support, beginning early childhood educators in bc are deeply satisfied with their work, and this is reason for optimism. references aitken, h., ferguson, p. b., mcgrath, f., piggot-irvine, e., & ritchie, j. 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(2010). the analysis of an unsuccessful novice teacher’s induction experiences: a case study presented through layered account. the qualitative report, 15(5), 1164–1190. presents a close encounter with the wonder of learning with carol anne wien saturday, 1 october, 2016 royal york fairmont hotel 100 front st w, toronto, on registration: 8:30 a.m. session: 9 a.m.-12 p.m. followed by cayc annual general meeting for tickets contact angela woodburn awoodburn@londonbridge.com 519-432-5606 cayc members: $65. 10% off for narea members new members: $120 (includes 1 year membership to cayc)* join us for an intimate community professional learning opportunity that invites your engagement with the wonder of learning exhibit. we invite you to explore the wonder of learning with attentiveness, slowing down to perceive more widely and deeply, to question more thoughtfully, and to resist our interpretations until they are grounded in more expansive consideration. the session will include the opportunity to study a selected segment of the exhibit closely within the community of a small group. groups will gather with a facilitator for discussion and preparation of comments for the whole group. *member benefits include two issues of canadian children journal, provincial newsletters featuring information about regional news, resources and cayc activities and favorable registration rates for cayc conferences. carol anne wien and facilitators randa khattar, karyn callaghan, ellen brown & joanne babalis. mailto:awoodburn@londonbridge.com canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 25 vol. 38 no. 2 despite the many known benefits of outdoor play, early childhood educators are often reluctant to take children outdoors. we have been examining this issue as part of collaborative school improvement work with early childhood educators in first nation communities in nova scotia. in this article, we first present a review of related literature and then share information gathered from educators related to the barriers to taking children outdoors. finally, we propose four processes that encourage and support educators as they reconsider the challenges and reexamine the potential of this crucial area of experience for young children. acknowledgments thank you to kyle denny, fnssp school improvement coordinator, rena falls, director of the acadia first nations child care centre, and mindy gallant-zwicker, director of the three wishes annapolis first nations child care centre for suggestions and comments on this article. outdoor play is beneficial for young children (louv, 2005) and young children usually enjoy opportunities to spend time outdoors. furthermore, most early childhood programs operate under policies and standards of practice that regulate the time children spend outdoors. however, despite these strong reasons to include outdoor play in their programs, early childhood educators are often reluctant to take children outdoors (davis, greenfield, harris, starbuck, & white, 2011). in our work with early childhood educators in first nation communities in nova scotia, we heard widespread agreement about the importance of outdoor play experiences and recognition of cultural connections to the land, but participants often mentioned barriers to providing enriching outdoor play experiences. in this paper, we review the benefits of outdoor play in terms of enhancing the multilayered development of individual children and in relation to deeply held aboriginal cultural relationships with the land. we review challenges to taking children outdoors, as discussed in the published literature, and we relate these to our conversations with early childhood educators in 11 first nation communities in nova scotia. in particular, we examine the data gathered during one workshop regarding educators’ perceptions of barriers to taking children outdoors. finally, we propose four processes that encourage and support educators as they reconsider the challenges and reexamine the potential of this crucial area of experience for young children. of the 70 educators with whom we collaborate, 96 percent are first nation, and all of the parents and children they work with are first nation. however, we believe the issues explored in this paper are not particular to first nation contexts. as the literature demonstrates, barriers to taking young children outside exist in many communities in the world, so we suggest that the processes to encourage and support change in this area of practice would be appropriate and helpful for many directors and educators in a wide variety of settings. children spending time outdoors— what do others say about the benefits? the early childhood education literature is replete with articles extolling the benefits of being outside. one area of focus is the skills, attitudes, and knowledge individual children gain through experience outdoors. for instance, outdoor spaces that provide a variety of play options, such as imaginative/dramatic play, building, digging, running, jumping, swinging, and climbing, offer children the opportunity to develop both physically and socially and to enhance their reasoning and observation skills (clements, 2004; handler & epstein, 2010; nature action collaborative for children, n.d.; stephenson, 2003). outdoor play also develops children’s independence by giving them the freedom to explore without the interference of adults (handler & epstein, 2010; kernan, 2010; little & eager, 2010). for children with symptoms elizabeth munroe is an assistant professor at st. francis xavier university in antigonish, nova scotia. she holds a phd in early childhood education from the university of calgary. elizabeth’s research interests revolve around teacher learning as it relates to school improvement. this article derives from a research grant with the first nations student success program, in conjunction with mi’kmaw kina’matnewey in nova scotia. email: emunroe@stfx.ca alanna maclellan-mansell is a student in the bachelor of education program at st. francis xavier university in antigonish, nova scotia. she holds an ma in sociology from the university of victoria in british columbia. outdoor play experiences for young first nation children in nova scotia: examining the barriers and considering some solutions elizabeth munroe and alanna maclellan-mansell canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 26 vol. 38 no. 2 of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, frequent outdoor play especially in green spaces provides crucial sensory input that enables the children to maintain focus (handler & epstein, 2010; nature action collaborative for children, n.d.). outdoor play also reduces aggressive behaviour and bullying, as long as the space is of an adequate size (handler & epstein, 2010; lambert, 1999). much of the literature we reviewed reveals the developmental advantages of childhood exposure to the challenges posed by the outdoors, particularly in the natural environment (dowling, 2010; fjørtoft, 2001; handler & epstein, 2010; miller, 2007; moore, 1997; rivkin, 1997; white, 2004). play in nature offers varying degrees of risk or challenge, thereby giving children the opportunity to determine their physical or social limits and to choose whether to challenge themselves further (almon, 2009; copeland, sherman, kendeigh, kalkwarf, & saelens, 2012; handler & epstein, 2010; miller, 2007; nature action collaborative for children, n.d.). for little and eager (2010), this opportunity was crucial because willingness to take a risk is “fundamental to human learning as we endeavor to develop new skills, try new behaviors, develop new technology, and abandon the familiar to explore what we know less well” (p. 499). in the absence of natural settings, some authors argue that play areas and structures can be designed and built to incorporate nature and provide opportunities for challenge, if they are created with the management of risk in mind rather than its elimination altogether (little & eager, 2010; sandseter, 2009). in addition to benefiting children’s physical and social development, active outdoor play has been found to promote health in ways that popular indoor screenbased activities cannot. during the crucial period of greatest physical growth between the ages of 3 and 12, children’s muscles, heart, lungs, brains, and other organs are strengthened greatly through energetic activities associated with outdoor play (clements, 2004). vigorous play has also been linked to stimulation of the digestive system, improved appetite, and the bodily strength and growth that results (clements, 2004). physical activity reduces childhood overweight and obesity, which has lasting benefits for cardiovascular and muscular health and endurance, as well as decreasing depression and anxiety (tucker, 2008). perhaps most importantly, active play in these early years has been linked to the formation of positive associations with physical activity and children’s continued engagement in active and healthy lifestyles into adulthood (clements, 2004; handler & epstein, 2010; tucker, 2008). spending time outdoors has implications beyond benefits to individual children. louv (2005) claims that “the health of the earth is at stake.… how the young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes our daily lives” (p. 3). when children spend time outdoors, they are more likely to develop an environmental ethic or a sense of stewardship for the earth (white, 2004), which contributes to ecoliteracy, one of the literacies thought to be essential for the 21st century (21st century schools, 2010, para. 3). much of the foregoing literature is derived from mainstream research on individual child development. these writings are pertinent to early childhood educators and families in first nation communities as they strive to enhance each child’s intellectual, social, and physical health, but they overlook the cultural significance of the outdoors and the land to aboriginal people. the assembly of first nations (n.d.) describes the special relationship aboriginal people have with the earth and all living things in it as a “profound spiritual connection to mother earth” (para. 2). greenwood and shawana (2003) insist that traditional values and beliefs should be the “fundamental building blocks” of programs for young children (p. 60). they quote one of their study participants who emphasized that including the natural environment in child care settings would promote holistic learning, “a reflection of who we are” (p. 58). certainly, several parts of the nova scotia mi’kmaq child care facility guidelines (nova scotia child care initiative program technical group, 1998) reflect the cultural value placed on the land and nature. for example, the guidelines state: • mi’kmaq language and culture can be reinforced through activities related to the environment: taking special field trips; picking berries; setting up a small teepee, etc. • outside play is encouraged as children need a minimum of one (1) hour a day for physical well-being. mi’kmaq philosophy in regards to child development puts an emphasis on connecting to nature. fresh air and sunshine are necessary elements for social, spiritual, physical, and emotional development. (p. 9) what discourages educators from taking children outdoors? despite the many known benefits of outdoor play, many children do not spend as much time playing outdoors when compared with previous generations (handler & epstein, 2010; kernan, 2010; rivkin, 1997; tucker, 2008; white, 2004). inadequate or impoverished outdoor play spaces attached to child care centres can be one kind of barrier (staempfli, 2009). when the square footage of play space is less than the recommended guideline, or when the space has few provocations for interaction either with fixed or moveable structures and props children may not find it positive to be outside. other barriers to outdoor play relate more to educators’ attitudes and fears. beliefs about weather are often a barrier to outdoor play (copeland et al., 2012; cuencas, 2011; kernan, 2010). in much of north america, rain, snow, or cold can be perceived as reasons to stay indoors, thereby limiting children’s outdoor play opportunities. in some locations, such as iqaluit, nunavut, the daily use of outdoor canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 27 vol. 38 no. 2 environments is central to the operations of daycares, demonstrating that some communities experiencing difficult weather continue to make outdoor play a priority (mcnaughton, 1995). elsewhere, in countries such as sweden and norway where outdoor kindergartens are increasingly popular, weather is not seen as an impediment (fjørtoft, 2001; new, mardell, & robinson, 2005; litmus films, 2008). there, children and adults dress for the weather and continue to play and learn outside in all weather conditions. perhaps the most pervasive barrier is concern for children’s safety. fears of accidents and falls, kidnapping, sun exposure, air pollution, insect bites, contact with garbage, and a plethora of other safety concerns have prevented adults from encouraging children to play outside (clements, 2004; copeland et al., 2012; dwyer, higgs, hardy, & baur, 2008; handler & epstein, 2010; kernan, 2010; moore, 1997; stephenson, 2003; white, 2004). despite the acknowledgement of the benefits of providing challenges for young children, as discussed above, play spaces or equipment often offer little to no risk because of more stringent safety regulations for outdoor play areas. such low-risk environments can lead children to play in dangerous ways as they seek appropriate challenge (almon, 2009; copeland et al., 2012; dwyer, higgs, hardy, & baur, 2008; kernan, 2010; stephenson, 2003). adults’ worries about injury during outdoor play can lead to restrictions on the amount of children’s free mobility, since injury prevention has come to overshadow injury management (kernan, 2010; sandseter, 2009). some suggest that this situation stems from fears of litigation, so prevalent in north american society; these fears, in turn, pressure educators to dissuade children from taking beneficial and developmentally appropriate risks (almon, 2009; little & eager, 2010; new et al., 2005). in countries such as italy, where litigation resulting from injury is rare, children have been more likely to have opportunities to challenge themselves (new et al., 2005). conversations with early childhood educators and directors in norway also made it evident that litigation related to outdoor play is rarely an issue in norway (personal communications, march, 2012).1 safety concerns can be exacerbated by the lack of adequate outdoor space offered by many child care facilities. a lack of space can result in a dearth of private spaces to hide alone or with friends, increased stress and aggression among children, and potentially injurious collisions (lambert, 1999; mauffette, 1998). as a consequence, adults may come to see the outdoor space as an area of stress and choose to remain indoors instead, where safety can be more comfortably monitored (kernan, 2010; lambert, 1999; mauffette, 1998). in addition to safety concerns, educators, parents, and community adults may lack conviction that learning and development occur through outdoor play (dwyer et al., 2008; lambert, 1999; mauffette, 1998). this notion has its roots in spencer’s 19th-century surplus energy theory, which considered children’s outdoor play simply as a means to work off excess energy (white, 2004). as a result of spencer’s theory, white (2004) explains, “playgrounds are seen as areas for physical play during recess, where children ‘burn off steam,’ and not for the other domains of development or for learning” (p. 1). in reality, outdoor play provides authentic and rich learning experiences not replicated indoors (dowling, 2010; miller, 2007), and children who spend time in welldesigned, nature-filled outdoor spaces with nurturing adults develop valuable skills across all learning domains (miller, 2007). belief in the value of outdoor play for providing learning opportunities is perhaps best evidenced through norway’s nature kindergartens, where children spend much, if not all, of their time learning outdoors (aasen, grindheim, & waters, 2009; fjørtoft, 2001; litmus films, 2008; sandseter, 2009). educators’ attitudes about being outside can be a significant predictor of children’s experiences and attitudes about learning outside (stephenson, 2003). educators’ concerns about weather or safety affect children’s views of outdoor play by suggesting when it is appropriate to go outside or what it is appropriate to do there (cuencas, 2011). research indicates that pressure from parents to keep children completely injury free and to focus on academic skills creates the impression among some educators that outdoor play has little place in their program (copeland et al., 2012). this mindset affects children’s outdoor experiences by situating educators as mere supervisors rather than as learning facilitators and by placing limits on the allotment of time for outdoor activities (lambert 1999; moore, 1997). conversely, educators with positive attitudes about the learning that can occur outdoors have a tendency to overcome barriers and to build time outdoors into the day (aasen et al., 2009; davis et al., 2011; litmus films, 2008; fjørtoft, 2001; mcnaughton, 1995; sandseter, 2009). in communities where the educators, children, and families are first nation, it might be assumed there would be fewer barriers to children spending time outdoors, and that it would be a high priority because of strong cultural connections to the land. however, as stairs and bernhard (2002) explained, there is considerable complexity inherent in education for aboriginal children because of the need to intertwine the goals of mainstream academic success with “the essential establishment of children’s identity valuing and giving expression to aboriginal cultures” (p. 309). comments made by elders when child care centres and aboriginal head start programs were created on reserves in the late 1990s illustrate this complexity (greenwood & 1 while supervising twelve bachelor of education students conducting their field experience in bergen, norway, the first author had multiple opportunities to discuss this cultural difference regarding children’s safety and responsibility when outdoors. canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 28 vol. 38 no. 2 shawana, 2003). some elders expressed concern that these programs would be a sort of residential-school experience for the youngest members of their communities. rowan (2011) agrees that a community’s adherence to mainstream regulations may colonize the programming for young children in aboriginal communities. greenwood and shawana’s work sought to define quality child care for first nation children in terms of the communities’ priorities. however, greenwood (2009) notes that “one of the greatest challenges facing early childhood caregivers is to take principles of indigenous knowledge and actualize them in current practice” (p. 75). this review of the literature provides strong evidence of the benefits and importance of outdoor play for all children, but it has also revealed educators’ hesitation and the complexities in taking the children outdoors (almon, 2009; handler & epstein, 2010). considering the strong traditional aboriginal identification with nature and the land, it might be assumed that the first nation early childhood educators with whom we have collaborated would readily embrace taking the children outdoors. in reality, these women experienced similar barriers to those described in the mainstream literature, as will be discussed below. two professional learning workshops as part of an ongoing research study in partnership with the mi’kmaw kina’matnewey (mk) first nation student success program (fnssp) in nova scotia, professional learning opportunities have been offered for early childhood educators, with a specific emphasis on programming for children in the year before they enter formal schooling. in addition to visits to the communities and initial collaborative work with specific individuals, two full-day workshops, one year apart, have been held. the primary purpose of these workshops has been to facilitate collaboration and networking among the educators on the topics of language and cultural enrichment. as part of the emphasis on increasing programs’ cultural relevance, the workshops included discussions about the benefits of and barriers to providing enriching outdoor play experiences for the children. prior to the first workshop, the researchers and the fnssp coordinator had visited many of the communities. when asked in what area they felt improvement was needed, some of the educators had expressed frustration with their outdoor play spaces, and they had asked questions about designing new outdoor areas. although none of the educators or directors specifically linked their interest in improving outdoor play with the aboriginal context in which they worked, the fnssp coordinator affirmed that, in his view as a first nation person, children’s connection to nature was very important. a focus on taking children outdoors was seen as an extension of the focus on the programs’ cultural enrichment. thirty early childhood educators and directors from eight first nation communities in nova scotia attended the first all-day workshop organized under the auspices of the partnership. as part of the workshop, the first author shared photos and information from a recent trip to sweden, where she had visited child care centres with extensive and interesting outdoor spaces. as well, participants viewed the video, leave no child inside (harvest resources, 2006), which included inspiring photos of naturalistic outdoor play spaces for young children as well as research-based information on the benefits of outdoor play. during the year after the first workshop, the researchers and the fnssp coordinator continued to visit communities and collaborate with the early childhood educators. it became obvious that while directors and educators were enthusiastic about increasing the time children spent outdoors and were interested in alternative play spaces, they were meeting considerable barriers to achieving that goal. at some meetings, the topic of “catalogue” style versus natural play spaces arose, and at other meetings, some educators described some tension with regard to increasing outdoor play time. with candour, they admitted to their personal dislike of taking children outdoors and their belief that outdoor experiences were not as crucial as the indoor learning time. these discussions influenced the decision to continue a focus on outdoor play in the second annual workshop. seventy-five educators from all 11 first nation communities associated with mk attended the second full-day workshop. most early childhood programs closed for the day, and almost all the educators working in first nation communities received approval to attend the event. interactive experiences were offered to reach the participants on an emotional as well as an intellectual level (keeler, 2004). we showed a segment entitled “exploring the natural world” from the dvd our children, our ways: early childhood education in first nations and inuit communities (red river college, n.d.), which was very well received by the group. the images and the encouraging narrative underscored the role of early childhood educators in assisting aboriginal children to learn about their cultural connections to nature and to the land. at another point in the workshop, everyone selected a smooth beach stone to hold while listening to and viewing the illustrations from if you find a rock by christian and lember (2000). then, the educators reflected on and discussed their own memories of playing outdoors. the room filled with conversation as the participants reminisced about their positive outdoor play experiences and commented with regret and concern on the few hours children spend outside nowadays. the participants watched a slide presentation that reviewed information about the benefits of children spending time outdoors and examined some of the possible reasons that children are not playing outdoors as much now as in the past (nature action collaborative for children, n.d.). there was widespread agreement among the educators that canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 29 vol. 38 no. 2 children should be spending more time outdoors, for individual and cultural reasons. examining barriers and proposing solutions at this point in the second workshop, the participants were randomly assigned to small groups and asked to record on poster paper all the barriers that they believed prevented or limited their taking young children outside in their centres. the barriers listed by the 12 groups are represented in figure 1. this graph shows the frequency of the responses and offers examples of the participants’ specific concerns in each category. all of the barriers identified by the early childhood educators in these first nation communities were similarly identified in the literature reviewed above. the workshop participants clearly recognized the problems associated with weather, educators’ and parents’ attitudes and fears, and inadequate or dangerous outdoor play spaces. interestingly, no group identified children not wanting to go outdoors as a barrier! subsequent to identifying barriers to taking children outdoors, each group was asked to look at another group’s list and propose solutions to those listed barriers. in only a couple of minutes, many practical solutions came forth, ranging from personal actions to community initiatives. for example, with regard to the barrier of children who run away, there were suggestions to improve supervision, use a harness, give the children special jobs, employ a special assistant, or install a fence. considering the ease with which participants offered solutions, one might assume that all the barriers to taking the children outdoors would be removed once the participants returned to their communities. however, such an assumption overlooks several layers of complexity. figure 1. barriers to outdoor play, as described by early childhood educators taking part in a workshop in nova scotia, canada. numbers in the chart indicate how many of the 12 groups listed this circumstance as a barrier. in some instances, when one group examined the barriers listed by another group, people maintained that some items on the list were not barriers at all. for example, one group had listed puddles on the playground as a barrier to taking the children outdoors. the next group disagreed and suggested that puddles offer an interesting play opportunity. others commented that the lack of appropriate clothing for the children was not a barrier; their centre had a supply of outdoor clothing to lend so that children were not prevented from going outdoors. the educators who perceived certain constraints as barriers were not simply conjuring up excuses. as bernhardt (2004) writes, “all of us have perceptions of the way the world operates. we act upon those perceptions everyday as if they are reality” (p. 54). therefore, the views of those educators who saw these issues as real barriers merit respect. as well, ignorance concerning the extent of some barriers, such as puddles on specific playgrounds, must be acknowledged. perhaps the puddles were deep, extensive, and filled with mud, and as such offered a particular challenge to the educators taking the young children to the space. perhaps the educators were following the suggestions in the first nations head start standards guide regarding eliminating water in the outdoor play space (health canada, 2001). finally, in the case of the educators who had a ready supply of children’s outdoor clothes, the fact that that they had already faced a barrier and found a solution should be celebrated. considering next steps the workshop participants completed a detailed feedback form at the end of the second workshop. they were asked to comment on the ideas discussed in the workshop and to explain whether or not they hoped to make any changes in their work regarding outside play space and/or taking children outdoors. the majority of participants stated that they had found the conversations and resources to be useful, informative, and inspiring. some added canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 30 vol. 38 no. 2 that they had not previously thought about the possibilities for learning through outdoor play and that the workshop had opened the door to new practices. participants acknowledged that outdoor play could incorporate mi’kmaw culture and suggested that elders could visit to discuss the importance of nature. the notion of natural play spaces, as highlighted in some of the resources, captivated many participants’ interest, with some highlighting the welcoming appearance and simplicity of playthings such as tires, wood, or dirt. participants noted the current lack of comfort outdoors and expressed the desire to create spaces with shade, such as gazebos or outdoor tables, where children and adults alike could relax and chat. of those who expressed these interests, only a few believed that space and resource concerns would inhibit them from moving forward with new initiatives. many participants indicated that they could see themselves making an initial change in their practice by “bringing the outdoors indoors.” they noted that children love going for walks and so it would not be difficult to spend more time picking up items in nature, discussing them, and bringing them back into the classroom. one educator remarked, “i am going to make a science centre with outdoor things—branches, rocks, moss, etc.” others resolved to have more plants and perhaps a fish tank inside their centre. a small number of participants indicated that they would not change their practices. some reported that they felt a lack of agency at their workplace because they were not able to make decisions. however, these individuals also indicated that they intended to make suggestions to their directors or other supervisors in the hopes of effecting change. six months later, the authors sent a followup email to participants asking if they had thought more about the information and experiences shared during the second workshop and requesting an update with regard to taking the young children outdoors. although the response rate was low, one message was particularly exciting. the centre director wrote: we are in the phase of getting more added to our playground…. we have looked at the books and found great ideas as to what we’d like to implement in terms of play outdoors. we’re waiting on funding for [a] new swing set. ideally, we’d like a bike trail, little hill for sledding, and a tunnel. we do have an area set out for a medicine/ flower garden. we’re excited for our new additions. possible processes to encourage and support change the comments on the feedback forms from the second workshop illustrated a very encouraging positive response to the information about outdoor play shared throughout the day together. however, a workshop’s success is found, not in the feedback forms, but rather in actual changes in practice (guskey, 2000). we know we cannot ignore the long lists of barriers the educators created and we cannot assume that all the tensions regarding taking children outdoors were erased through the workshop experience. for educators to reflect on and perhaps change their practices, ongoing information, encouragement, and support are needed (fullan, 2007). we suggest four processes as next steps to encourage and support change in young children’s outdoor play time. it is important to note that these processes rarely depend on external experts. the first suggestion, offering professional learning opportunities, may rely on external resources to some extent, but overall, the discussions and experiences that occur should be primarily an opportunity for educators to network, collaborate, reflect, and make plans for next steps in their communities. • offer professional learning opportunities to build awareness a single professional learning event such as a workshop may not change practice (joyce & calhoun, 2010), but a single event does hold the potential for building awareness. through our two annual workshops described above, we observed that a cycle was started, with awareness leading to action, which led in turn to more widespread awareness and, ultimately, to more action. during our first workshop, participants viewed slides of innovative natural play spaces. one child care director exclaimed with regret that she had just purchased a play set from a glossy catalogue; she had not known about nature-based materials and equipment for outdoor play spaces. perhaps white (2004) was thinking about people like this director as he observed that “when most adults were children, playgrounds were asphalt areas with manufactured, fixed playground equipment such as swings, jungle gyms and slides, where they went for recess. therefore, most adults see this as the appropriate model for a playground” (p. 1). inspired by the photos shared during the first workshop, this director applied for and received a grant for a new natural play space at her centre. at our second workshop, we showed photos of that new play space and the educators from that location participated in an interactive conversation about their experience in changing their outdoor play area. all the people in the room seemed to be inspired by the way that the dream for change had become a reality for one of their sister communities; the possibility for change in their own communities seemed more possible. as we found out through our email correspondence six months later, another community was in the midst of changing their outdoor space to include more natural elements. this series of events illustrates the awareness-actionawareness-action cycle that we hoped for. • acknowledge and examine the past and current experiences of adults canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 31 vol. 38 no. 2 the second process we suggest to support and encourage change in children’s outdoor play experiences is that directors and educators examine their past and current experiences with outdoor play. one barrier listed during our workshop activity was that “eces [early childhood educators] refuse to go outside.” during another conversation, one first nation educator commented frankly that she did not like going outside and wished she did not have to take the children out. in early childhood settings, the adults make the decisions whether or for how long the children spend time outdoors, despite regulatory policies. why might an educator decide against going outdoors? what are the past and current experiences of the adults regarding outdoor play? the answers to these questions are pivotal to the decisions the adults make on a daily basis. many educators are part of a generation that has not spent hours playing freely outside and that has little nostalgia for being outside. almon (2009) suggests: it’s time to move forward.… there are several good ways for adults to get started on this. one is to share play memories from one’s own childhood. we remind ourselves that we are players at heart, and young teachers who may not have played learn from the older ones. when teachers share play memories with each other and with parents they help create a strong play culture in their school or child care center. (p. 44) in collaborating with aboriginal early childhood educators in alaska, hughes (2007) invited them to paint a representation of their childhood. their representations led to an examination of core beliefs and values, one of which was a desire to have children spend a lot of time outdoors experiencing nature. attention to the adults’ current experience while outside with the children is paramount in supporting outdoor play. some of the educators we collaborated with mentioned broken benches and no shade as deterrents to their enjoyment of being outdoors with the children. we suggest centre directors and staff could examine outdoor space in terms of how it meets the adults’ needs. is there a place for adults to sit down, for example? mauffette (1998) observes that “if the outside space is cramped, uncomfortable or stressful, adults will avoid it and spend minimal time outside.… making the outdoors more enjoyable for everyone is of utmost importance” (p. 21). • explore and share the adults’ values, beliefs, and goals in discussions during community visits and the two workshops, we learned that educators placed considerable emphasis on the learning that should occur when children are attending organized early childhood programs. educators commented that they felt the need to spend the time “teaching” the children in order to prepare them for school and they did not want to interrupt this teaching by taking the children outdoors. such comments were especially common among those who worked in half-day programs. educators from a wide variety of programs also believed that this was the expectation of parents and other adults in the community. however, during meetings held with parents and others in two communities, we heard strong agreement about the value of children spending time outdoors, learning some of the traditional ways of the (typically rural) communities. the adults of the community seemed to value outdoor play as well as school readiness experiences. stairs and bernhard (2002) emphasize the complexity inherent in aboriginal education, as the students “must be competent in the skills and knowledge that will allow them to be successful in both the community of their birth and broader canadian society” (p. 8). early childhood educators have often received their certification through coursework that reflects a mainstream lens (the case until recently with most of the first nation educators with whom we collaborate), and this state of affairs has introduced additional complexity. the resultant programming may be more “submersion education” (bear nicholas, 2011, p. 1) than culturally relevant education. it might be assumed that children will spend some time outdoors once they are at home, but statistics indicate that this is not always the case (copeland et al., 2012). if communities examine the extent of their children’s outdoor play opportunities beyond experiences in organized programs, they may acknowledge the need to increase the time spent outdoors while children are in child care, aboriginal head start, or kindergarten. as gruenewald (2008) explains, “to develop an intense consciousness of places that can lead to ecological understanding … children must regularly spend time out-of-doors building long-term relationships with familiar, everyday places” (p. 316). community collaboration and consultation is strongly encouraged in the first nations head start standards guide (health canada, 2001), and is a central tenet of aboriginal early childhood policy (greenwood, 2006). perhaps increased and targeted communication among all the adults (parents and educators) about time spent outdoors would lead to clarification of the goals of the various early childhood programs and discussion of the ways in which those goals might be achieved. children may not learn the letters of the alphabet while they are outside, but they do develop social and physical skills, as well as vocabulary and language skills, that are important for school success. they may also develop a deeper understanding of their culture, which is “vital for educational success amongst aboriginal youth” (nguyen, 2011, p. 239). through these community discussions, strong cultural values may become evident and changes to the experiences of the young children in organized programs may result. canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 32 vol. 38 no. 2 • reframe barriers in terms of problems and conditions early childhood education centre directors and educators are constantly bumping up against the barriers to taking children outdoors that are particular to their location and then considering possible solutions. sometimes this becomes a reactive process. to move into a more proactive approach, we suggest that child care centre staffs work with a model that incorporates bernhardt’s (2004) notions of ideal state, driving forces, restraining forces, problems, and conditions. to begin, the staff would have to agree that the goal, or ideal state, is taking children outdoors for longer periods of time in enriched or natural play spaces. staff members then would consider what forces are driving and restraining progress toward the ideal state. the main driving force toward this ideal state would be the strong belief in the value of children playing outdoors, while the restraining forces would be the various barriers experienced by staff members. to effect change in behaviour, bernhardt (2004) proposes “gnawing away at the restraining forces, while strengthening the driving forces” (p. 176). one way to gnaw away at the restraining forces, or barriers, is to think about whether they are problems or conditions. bernhardt explains: “a problem is something we can do something about … a condition is something that we cannot do anything about—we acknowledge it and go around it, but we do not waste time trying to change it” (p. 177). for example, the weather is a condition; the lack of proper clothing to go outdoors in that weather is a problem. after agreeing which of the barriers are conditions and which ones might be reframed as problems, stakeholders could develop an action plan that would facilitate progress toward the ideal state. clarifying the priorities our review of the literature provided substantial confirmation of the benefits children reap from spending time outdoors. emotional, social, fine and gross motor, creative, and intellectual development may be enhanced through exploration and play in outdoor settings. mental and physical health benefits are also evident. beyond benefits to individuals, some suggest that the ongoing health of our planet depends on children developing ecoliteracy. in the case of first nation children, spending time outdoors and learning about and honouring their connectedness to and responsibility for the land reflects their communities’ traditional beliefs and values. even though there is widespread agreement that children should spend significant periods of time outdoors, the literature and our research data suggest that many barriers prevent the realization of this ideal state. questionable safety for the children, unpleasant experiences for the adults, and unclear goals for the programs may prevent or shorten the time that educators take the children outside, despite policies or regulations being in place and despite cultural values. in this article we have suggested four strategies or processes that may assist early childhood educators to overcome the barriers. these processes describe potential next steps in our collaborative work with the first nation communities in nova scotia. the first three of these strategies are (1) increasing educators’ awareness of the importance of outdoor play and the possibilities for outdoor play spaces through professional learning opportunities; (2) facilitating discussions wherein the adults’ past and current experiences with the outdoors are examined; and (3) exploring staff members’, parents’ and communities’ values, beliefs, and goals with regard to the educative experiences of their young children. through these processes, we believe staff and community members will clarify where their priorities lie with regard to outdoor play experiences for their young children. once the priorities are established, we recommend a fourth step whereby educators work through bernhardt’s (2004) process of reframing barriers in terms of problems and conditions to create an action plan to facilitate children playing outdoors in enriched play spaces. references 21st century schools. 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(2004). young children’s relationship with nature: its importance to children’s development and the earth’s future. children and nature network. retrieved from: http://www.childrenandnature.org/ research/volumes/c16/16 canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 5 vol. 41 no. 1 heather a. coe is a doctoral student in the faculty of education at queen’s university in kingston, ontario. her research interests include student health and well-being, outdoor and nature-based education, and early childhood education. in addition to her graduate studies, heather works with the social program evaluation group and has been involved in several externally funded research projects, such as the health behaviour in school-aged children (hbsc) study. before pursuing her graduate degrees, heather worked as a kindergarten teacher at various accredited international schools in shanghai, china. email: heather.coe@queensu.ca from excuses to encouragements: confronting and overcoming the barriers to early childhood outdoor learning in canadian schools heather a. coe in recent years, a growing interest among educators, researchers, and parents has emerged regarding the need to connect young children with the natural world. in addition to cultivating environmental appreciation, empathy, and stewardship, connections and interactions with nature are essential to children’s overall health and well-being (bell, wilson, & liu, 2008; ewert, place, & sibthorp, 2005). in canada, numerous forest and nature-based early years programs have emerged across the country, offering educational environments and philosophies that embrace child-nature connections. while forest and naturebased programs provide an ideal educational setting for children to connect and interact with the natural world, they are not always easily accessible or practical for a majority of young canadians. in addition, many educators and parents may feel uncomfortable with the idea of outdoor learning, possibly fearing that children may not be safe or that teachers will not be able the address the curriculum in a suitable manner (copeland, sherman, kendeigh, kalkwarf, & saelens, 2012; munroe & maclellan-mansell, 2013; nelson, 2012). there are, however, approaches and ideas that can be drawn from these specialized outdoor early years programs and applied more broadly to contemporary urban and rural canadian schools. drawing on outdoor education literature in canada and abroad and literature specifically addressing outdoor early childhood learning in canada, this paper aims to address issues related to outdoor learning and to confront some of the potential barriers and concerns that educators, administrators, parents, and researchers may have with regard to outdoor learning. a conceptual shift from a culture of excuses to a model of encouragement is presented, suggesting that outdoor learning should be viewed as a pedagogical and problemsolving exercise. this paper may also provide support and encouragement to educators who are implementing or seeking to integrate outdoor learning into everyday practice within contemporary canadian schools. learning outdoors and the new nature movement since its first publication in 2005, richard louv’s last child in the woods has served as a focal point and influential text within a growing movement to connect young children with the natural world. through the introduction of terms such as nature-deficit disorder and the criminalization of natural play, louv illuminates a changing landscape of childhood, arguing that children growing up today drawing on outdoor education literature, this paper aims to address issues related to outdoor learning and to confront some of the potential barriers and concerns that educators, administrators, parents, and researchers may have with regard to outdoor learning. while forest and nature-based programs provide an ideal educational setting for children to connect and interact with the natural world, they are not always easily accessible or practical for a majority of young canadians. there are, however, approaches and ideas that can be drawn from these specialized outdoor early years programs and applied more broadly in contemporary urban and rural canadian schools. a conceptual shift from a culture of excuses to a model of encouragement is presented, suggesting that educators should view outdoor learning as a pedagogical and problem-solving exercise. keywords: nature-based education, outdoor education, environmental education, early childhood education, canada canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 6 vol. 41 no. 1 are becoming distanced and detached from the natural world. louv asserts that the current generation of children is suffering from a “de-natured childhood”—a childhood with limited outdoor play, a childhood that is becoming increasingly sedentary, a childhood with more interaction with electronic devices than the natural environment outdoors (louv, 2008). through his written work and the creation of the children & nature network, louv has launched and continues to propel a campaign that advocates for a world where every child has the opportunity to play, learn, and grow in nature (children & nature network, 2016). davy (2012) asserts: through what the writer richard louv has called the new nature movement there has been an international plea to stop and think about why more children are overweight and less independent or ‘risk averse’, and why basic ‘facts of life’ such as where food comes from or the names and properties of trees or animals in the neighbourhood do not have higher priority in children’s education. (p. 26) while louv has sparked an ever-growing dialogue and recent forms of action among child-nature advocates, the concept of connecting children with the natural world and the need for outdoor learning is not a new one. child-nature connections have long been recognized as an important part of education. in fact, friedrich froebel’s coining of the term kindergarten, or children’s garden, in 1840 reflected his belief in the importance of outdoor learning as an integral part of every child’s growth and development (gautreau, 2009; herrington, 2005). although froebel was one of the first educators to promote and place value on children’s self-initiated activities, emergent exploration, and experimentation with the outdoor physical environment, he was not the first to support child-nature connections (herrington, 2005). in the 17th and 18th centuries, child-nature relationships were believed by scholars and church officials to help cultivate the development of moral values. in the 18th century, jean-jacques rousseau argued that education should take place outdoors, where learners had the opportunity to interact with and experience nature using their bodies and senses. embracing a similar philosophy in the same century, johann heinrich pestalozzi sought to help children from poor families by employing a teaching style that engaged children in the arts and agricultural activities in the natural outdoor environment. influenced by rousseau’s and pestalozzi’s educational principles, froebel took children outdoors to collect and investigate artifacts from the natural world. as early as 1876, john dewey incorporated gardening and the notion of learning through experience into practice after expressing an interest in froebel’s learning gardens (upitis, 2010). in more recent history, modern environmental educationists such as rachel carson and david sobel have further promoted child-nature connections as an integral part of education. in her 1965 book the sense of wonder, rachel carson provided a moving description and reflection on her young nephew’s outdoor experiences. carson subtly argued that children should be provided with adequate time and space to make meaningful connections with the natural world and that nature should be taught as a system of processes rather than a static condition (norwood, 1987). similarly, sobel has long focused his work on place-based education and the need for children to connect with and learn from the local environments and ecologies in which they live. in a recent book, childhood and nature: design principles for educators, sobel (2008) argues that, with an increased emphasis on curriculum standards and test preparation, environmental education has moved away from children’s first-hand experiences with nature and toward a pedagogical approach of ingesting sets of environmental facts and concepts. however, sobel contends that “what gets lost when we focus on facts are the initiation experiences, the moments of transcendence when the borders between the natural world and ourselves break down” (p. 12). in this respect, the focus on environmental facts is occurring through the forfeiture of opportunities for children to experience the natural world—experience that sobel argues is essential to developing the attitudes, commitment, behaviours, and pursuit of knowledge necessary for environmental conservation. while the original traditions of kindergarten and early childhood education embrace outdoor learning and child-nature connections, time has revealed a shift from the natural world to a primarily indoor school setting—a setting that is now understood as the canadian norm. in recent years, however, this model has begun to shift again. in alignment with louv’s new nature movement, several naturebased organizations and early years programs have been developed and implemented across the country. offering support at the national level, the child and nature alliance of canada provides a network of organizations and individuals working to connect children and nature through education, advocacy, programming, policy, research, and the built environment (child and nature alliance of canada, n.d.). in partnership with the child and nature alliance of canada, forest school canada is a growing initiative that aims to connect children and nature within their educational setting by fostering rich learning experiences, ecological literacy, and healthy living (forest school canada, 2014a, 2014b). on a smaller scale, several forest and nature-based preschool and kindergarten programs have been developed and implemented across the country. within these early years programs, children are fully immersed within the natural world for a majority of the school day. in some cases, children spend the entire day outdoors. while these programs are all unique, reflecting physical locality and place, they provide students with similar experiences of learning in and from local environments, woodlands, and green spaces. based in both rural and urban communities, these schools and programs provide young children with “opportunities to canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 7 vol. 41 no. 1 build an on-going relationship with the land, to a dedicated educator, to one another, and to themselves” (forest school canada, 2014a, p. 12). child-nature connections and the benefits for children in addition to having a positive impact on cognitive development (e.g., development of academic skills, miller, 2007; improved cognitive functioning, wells, 2000; see also selhub & logan, 2012), connections and interactions with the natural world can be beneficial for children’s overall health and well-being. child-nature connections may help decrease anxiety, depression, and stress among children (chawla, keena, pevec, & stanley, 2014; maas et al., 2009; wells & evans, 2003) and increase self-esteem, mood, and self-efficacy (barton & pretty, 2010). similarly, interactions with nature can help to increase children’s concentration and attention (mayer, frantz, bruehlman-senecal, & dolliver, 2009; martensson et al., 2009; taylor & kuo, 2009; taylor, kuo, & sullivan, 2001). in a survey of urban primary schools, maller (2009) found that hands-on experiences with nature were perceived by educators to contribute to a sense of achievement and empowerment among children, as well as improved self-esteem, self-confidence, engagement with school activities, and connectedness with others. natural environments and green schoolyards providing uniquely diverse and challenging landscapes motivate children to be physically active, often provoking their engagement in free play and risk-taking experiences (coe, in press; dyment & bell, 2008; grigsbytoussaint, chi, & fiese, 2011; sandseter, 2009; waters & maynard, 2010). these physical and challenging endeavours may support the development of coordination and physical control (schweizer, 2009) and the improvement of gross and fine motor skills among children (fjortoft, 2001; fjortoft & sageie, 2000). in addition, outdoor play and physical engagement with the natural world have been associated with decreased childhood obesity and lowered body mass index (bell et al., 2008; mccurdy, winterbottom, mehta, & roberts, 2010). just as child-nature connections are essential for children’s healthy development, engagement with the natural world may help children develop empathy (cheng & monroe, 2012; kane & kane, 2011), responsibility (cheng & monroe, 2012), and mindfulness (howell, dopko, passmore, & buro, 2011) and cultivate environmental appreciation and stewardship (ewert et al., 2005). in addition, a strong relationship has been found between frequent experiences with nature as a child and visits to woodlands or green spaces as an adult (thompson, aspinall, & montarzino, 2008). similarly, positive early-life experiences with the natural world may help to cultivate an appreciation for nature and an environmental consciousness later in life (ewert et al., 2005). in this respect, children’s early interactions with nature can be viewed as a vital foundation for the cultivation of a close relationship with the natural world. shifting from a culture of excuses to a model of encouragement recognizing that child-nature connections are an essential part of a child’s holistic development (wijffels et al., 2010) and that nature plays a crucial role in the maintenance of good health and wellness, it would appear that the opportunity to experience, interact, and connect with the natural world should be a part of any child’s education—whether they are educated in the forest or at any other public or private canadian school. while many educators, administrators, and parents may believe this notion to be true, they may also possess apprehensions and concerns with regard to taking young children outdoors (copeland et al., 2012; munroe & maclellan-mansell, 2013; nelson, 2012). while some educators may feel limited by their own expertise or their ability to access a full spectrum of nature (such as that provided in a forest), other individuals may have concerns related to lesson planning or the achievement of curriculum goals. apprehensions regarding erratic weather and the idea of allowing children to engage in risk-taking experiences may leave teachers and administrators feeling uncomfortable, possibly limiting their willingness to take children outdoors. while these ideas are important concepts to consider when planning outdoor experiences for children, a genuine concern for student wellbeing should not be confused with an excuse to exclude outdoor experiences from everyday teaching and learning. instead, the various concerns about outdoor learning that often manifest themselves as barriers can be used as a foundation to develop an authentic strategy to connect children with the natural world that is reflective of the school, environment, and community in which it is implemented. in this respect, integrating the natural world into early childhood education can be viewed as a pedagogical endeavour for teachers, where the ideas and theories embraced by forest and nature-based programs can be used as guiding lenses for educators and administrators within canadian contemporary schools. by shifting from a culture of excuse, where concerns and apprehensions act as obstacles preventing outdoor learning, to a model of encouragement, where concerns and apprehensions are foundational in the creation of a safe and holistic educational program, a pedagogical space connecting theory and practice emerges. it is within this newly found space where the barriers to outdoor practice within canadian schools can be overcome. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 8 vol. 41 no. 1 encouragement 1: one does not need a forest to learn about, through, and with nature. nature is everywhere, and comes in all shapes and sizes. for many people, nature may be perceived as a landscape untouched by human life, a space beyond urban and agricultural development where natural processes are unimpeded by human contact (“handle with care,” 2008). however, by suggesting that nature exists where people do not presents a negative view of our role within the life cycles and ecosystems of the planet. instead, humans are embedded in nature and should not be viewed as separate (wickson, 2008). nature can be viewed as the biodiversity and abundance of “natural wildness” (louv, 2008), and is found in both urban and rural environments. nature is anything from “loose parts in a backyard” to “a rugged mountain ridge” (louv, 2008, p. 8), a small flower or insect in the schoolyard to a forest filled with trees. ryden (2008) summarizes this perspective in one elegant passage: “nature lives where we do, rather than out there somewhere beyond where the pavement ends” (p. 129). whether it is a field covered in grass, a garden along the side of the school, a patch of long, unkempt grass, or a lonely tree in the corner of a schoolyard, nature is everywhere, and can be used as a place and tool for learning. interactions and experiences with these natural spaces—no matter how large or small, vast or narrow—provide children with opportunities to connect to and learn from the places, environments, and ecologies in which they live and learn. this localized educational concept reflects a theoretical idea illuminated by place-based learning, a framework often at the heart of many forest and nature-based programs. guided by the notion that education should prepare students with the skills and desire to sustain the cultural and ecological integrity of the places they inhabit (woodhouse & knapp, 2000), as well as enable them to connect learning to their own lives (smith, 2002), place-based education strives to dissolve the boundaries between school and the local environment. through hands-on experience and community involvement, place-based education (also known as place-conscious education; gruenewald, 2003) strives to ground learning in local phenomena and students’ lived experiences. consequently, these experiences serve to strengthen children’s connections to the places in which they live and to those with whom they share the world (aucoin, 2011; smith, 2002). ann pelo (2014) states succinctly: “place-based learning communities expand beyond classroom walls to include the land and sky and water and their creatures, not as pretty backdrops to teaching and learning, but as the context for and content of teaching and learning” (p. 6). in recent years, the academic work of affrica taylor (e.g., 2011) and veronica pacini-ketchabaw (e.g., 2013) has addressed the complexity of outdoor pedagogies and the frictions and possibilities that emerge from children’s encounters with nature and the more-than-human world. in one such article, taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2015) investigate the idea of interspecies learning through encounters among children, worms, and ants in canada and australia. drawing on these encounters, emergent entanglements, and mutual vulnerabilities, the authors illuminate the ways in which children may learn with, rather than simply about, the natural world and other animals within their immediate and everyday common worlds. taylor and pacini-ketchabaw note: “as we see it, the children are not the only orchestrators or actors in these interspecies worlds and encounters. rather, the learning emerges from the relations taking place between all actors— human and more-than-human alike” (2015, p. 2). this perspective of young children learning with nature embraces that notion that humans are inherently entangled with the lives of other worldly species, a reminder that the children (and educators) that learn with, through, and among the natural world are all “members of interconnected and interdependent multispecies common worlds” (p. 5). encouragement 2: one does not need to be an expert, environmentalist, or naturalist to support outdoor learning. learning comes with and through engagement with the natural world and from each other. david sobel (2008) paints a grim picture of how outdoor learning is often characterized today: in schools and at nature centers, we see just the opposite [of hands-on experiences with nature]: science units on animal taxonomy … where students never go outside; young students being charged with the responsibility of saving endangered species; and a prevailing, don’t touch! attitude when children actually get outside. (p. 31) within this conceptualization, learning is framed in relation to the acquisition of specific terminology, environmental facts, and a world beyond human interaction. furthermore, nature is viewed as something to be learned about rather than something to learn from, with, and within. with such a limited perspective in mind, it is understandable that some educators within contemporary canadian schools may feel ill-equipped to take children outdoors—if an educator cannot repeat all of the facts or names, surely they must not “know” nature. however, a central purpose of education and hands-on experiences with the natural world is to foster curiosity and wonder among students. such endeavours inspire children to ask questions and to make meaning of the unknown (williams & brown, 2012). similarly, children may even develop emotional, ethical, and empathetic connections with the natural world (dickinson, 2013; taylor & pacinicanadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 9 vol. 41 no. 1 ketchabaw, 2015). through hands-on experiences, learning becomes embodied; children come to understand what nature feels, smells, sounds, and sometimes even tastes likes (hoyland & elliot, 2014; pelo, 2014; williams & brown, 2012). in a study conducted at a nature-based kindergarten in eastern ontario, children were observed using their bodies and senses to explore the natural world—anything from touching and feeling snakeskin to tasting snow and ice, from smelling branches of an evergreen tree to listening to birds in the forest. while these hands-on, sensory experiences were meaningful learning opportunities in their own right, they often sparked conversation, questioning, and critical thought among the children in the class. to support student learning, the teacher within this program frequently responded to such situations with thoughtful probing and questioning to push children’s thinking and by encouraging children to engage in further hands-on investigations and experimentation with nature (coe, 2013). the teacher notes: children lead our activities and what they might want to do—because it’s not about my agenda, it’s about their agenda and their learning. when i see an opportunity for going more in-depth in their learning, expanding their knowledge, then i can kind of jump in there and use that as a springboard to move onto something else. (coe, 2013, p. 29) the idea of using the children’s interests as a springboard for future learning is reiterated at the sooke school district nature kindergarten in british columbia, where children’s inquiries, investigations, and ideas are central to program planning. within this early years program, a teacher and early childhood educator work collaboratively to support children’s outdoor learning, paying close attention to the theories and ideas that emerge through children’s hands-on experiences with the natural world. the educators use these insights to help plan for future outdoor experiences and to conceptualize ways in which they can help to extend and deepen children’s thinking and learning (hoyland & elliot, 2014). the common world interactions between young children at a childcare centre in victoria, bc, and earthworms found in the garden, forest, and sidewalks illuminate the notion that children’s encounters with the natural world are inherently pedagogical (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). through an ethnographic account of child-worm encounters within this canadian setting, taylor and paciniketchabaw (2015) illustrate that children’s more-than-human interactions allow for learning that reaches well beyond that of simply acquiring knowledge about the natural world. while it was clear that through common world encounters children were learning how to identify the features and characteristics of earthworms and where to find them (such as by digging beside the root of a fallen cedar tree) it was also apparent that much deeper learning was occurring simultaneously. fascinated by the worms’ movements, children appeared enthralled by the small more-than-human creatures. equally captivating were the responses that these small creatures shared with those of their human counterparts. in fact, these “multispecies pedagogies are filled with difficult decisions, unanswered questions and ethical conundrums” (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015, p. 12) as children interpret child-worm responses in individualized ways. among the children at the bc childcare centre, these meaningful encounters with earthworms moved children to change their physical actions, such as treading carefully through the forest to avoid stepping on a worm, and to engage in ethical thought and conversation about life, death, and relationships among worms and humans. within this common world, children and worms appeared to learn together as they responded in unpredictable, unexpected, and occasionally unwelcomed ways. taylor and pacini-ketchabaw write: “multispecies pedagogies explore the conditions of possibility for interspecies learning, not autonomous individual human development and learning. they are built upon relations, they stress interdependencies and they ponder the ethical and political implications of entangled human and nonhuman lives” (p. 10). outdoor education involves a reciprocal and collaborative relationship among the environment, students, and educators. the environment can drive and inspire children’s curiosities and questions; educators can respond to the children’s emergent interests by extending and expanding on their experiences (coe, 2013; ontario ministry of education ontario, 2010, p. 121). just as children are able to build an intimate relationship with the natural world without knowing the name of every plant, animal, or object in their environment, educators within canadian schools can support student outdoor learning without being an expert, environmentalist, or naturalist. rather, educators may take on other important roles, such as facilitator, advocate, role model, ally, or member of the learning community. nelson (2012) explains that “truly engaged [early childhood] teachers are often in the background, observing and responding rather than leading. engaged teachers support children who are initiating their own learning” (p. 12). trusting children to guide their own outdoor learning (warden, 2010) does not mean that educators or other early childhood professionals cannot share their knowledge and understanding about the natural world. nor is it to say that facts, categories, and terminology do not have a place in outdoor education. rather, child-driven learning serves as a reminder that educators should take a reflective approach in their teaching. pelo (2014) suggests: canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 10 vol. 41 no. 1 be present and attentive to the possibilities for engaging the world, and find [the] way with awareness and intention. does this moment call for silence or for naming? will a shift in perspective help us see the familiar more deeply, or will it dislodge us from the intimacy of knowing? (p. 8) within the nature-based kindergarten program in eastern ontario, educators found that gathering resources to help facilitate new avenues of exploration was important in supporting young children’s outdoor learning. not only did the kindergarten teacher carry a backpack equipped with items such as magnifying glasses, pencils, ropes, and guidebooks, the tent that served as an indoor classroom housed additional art supplies (e.g., paint) and resource tools (e.g., books). through engagement with these additional materials, children were provided with the means through which to answer questions that may have emerged while the children were out in the forest or that represent their thinking and understanding of the natural world (coe, 2013). the teacher and early childhood educator at the nature kindergarten in sooke, bc, ventured outdoors with a similar set of tools and resources. in addition, the educators often drew on the expertise of the wider educational community to enhance student learning. recognizing indigenous connections to the natural world, educators invited an indigenous support worker into their learning community on a regular basis to venture into the forest with the class and to share stories and traditional knowledge of the places in which they learned (hoyland & elliot, 2014). when embracing outdoor learning as a pedagogical activity, educators may wish to draw on experiences and examples of canadian nature-based early years and kindergarten programs to help support outdoor learning within contemporary canadian schools. to support children’s outdoor learning, educators may wish to gather resources to help facilitate exploration. the introduction of tools such as magnifying glasses, note pads, and pencils to the outdoor environment may inspire children to examine objects of interest more closely. coloured pencils, paint, and other art materials may serve as tools for children to use to represent their thinking and understanding of the natural world. similarly, guidebooks, nature posters, and books about the natural world may prove to be useful educational resources and may provide answers to children’s questions. additionally, educators may wish to draw on the expertise of colleagues and the wider community to enhance student learning. school or local librarians may be able to gather a collection of books on a particular area of interest or be used as an outside expert to show children how to use books to answer their questions. if there is a school garden, educators may wish to draw on the expertise of or partner with the person or class involved in its creation and maintenance. beyond the school, educators can draw on the knowledge and expertise of people who work at local conservation areas and wildlife centres, museums, zoos, or aquariums. finally, educators may also wish to invite parents into the school to share their own experiences and expertise. such school and community partnerships may not only help facilitate outdoor learning and deepen children’s connections to the natural world, but also help to build an engaged community of support for outdoor programming. encouragement 3: the curriculum does not need to be delivered indoors. children can and do learn outdoors. in most contemporary canadian schools, children spend a large portion of their day confined to the classroom. within this context, teaching, learning, and the idea of delivering the curriculum may be assumed by many to be an indoor exercise. children spend hours studying, playing, and learning inside the walls of the school, moving outside only at designated recess times throughout the day. occasionally, physical education classes take place outdoors when the lesson seems appropriate (e.g., track and field or soccer). however, for the most part, the schoolyard predominantly serves as a place for children to take a break from learning. within canadian teacher education programs, a similar indoor-centred perspective may be reinforced. the claim could be made that, unless otherwise instructed, teacher candidates learn to plan and deliver lessons and study units in an indoor educational environment. within some teacher education programs, outdoor education is embraced as a specialized area of focus (e.g., the outdoor and experiential education program at queen’s university; http://educ.queensu.ca/oee). however, even within these programs the idea of outdoor education is framed as a unique form of teaching and learning and an alternative to the norm. additionally, these outdoor-focused programs often cater to a limited number of teacher candidates and are not a part of every teacher’s education. while canadian society appears to embrace the dominant view that schooling should take place indoors, green schoolyards and naturalized outdoor environments have the potential to provide for a holistic education (blanchet-cohen & elliot, 2011). just as the role of a teacher may need to be adapted outdoors, how teaching and learning is conceptualized may also need to be altered. rather than relying on worksheets, math manipulatives, and new technologies, teachers can turn to the flora, fauna, and elements of the local environment as tools to help deliver and uncover the curriculum (banning & sullivan, 2011; schweizer, 2009; wilson, 2008). at the nature kindergarten in sooke, educators are constantly looking for learning opportunities that may arise during children’s outdoor play or adventures in the forest (hoyland & elliot, 2014). hoyland and elliot (2014) describe the following example: canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 11 vol. 41 no. 1 while reading a story in a grassy clearing one morning, lisa [the teacher] hears a pileated woodpecker nearby, and so do several children. lisa stops reading to locate the woodpecker and help the children find it. this moment offers an opportunity for language development as lisa describes how to find the woodpecker in the dead wood of the tree. (p. 40) along with language development, this emergent activity appears to address several other learning outcomes outlined in the bc kindergarten curriculum, such as learning about the characteristics of living things and demonstrating an ability to observe their surroundings (british columbia ministry of education, 2010). in another example, researchers describe how the teacher and early childhood educator planned to extend children’s thinking about a specific area of interest: when the children showed an interest in birds, lisa [the teacher] and erin [the early childhood educator] provided a stimulus for a discussion about birds with the creation of a box that had a nest with an egg, some feathers, and a few pictures. this box generated a child-led discussion on birds. how you would define a bird? what had wings but wasn’t a bird? from this discussion, the children created a big book on birds and what they knew about them. (hoyland & elliot, 2014, p. 43) in addition to helping children develop their knowledge and understanding about birds, the creation of a box to guide and support children’s inquiries undoubtedly allowed the educators to simultaneously address several literacy outcomes. it can be conceived that the child-led discussions and questioning encouraged children to share ideas about their own experiences, build vocabulary, and experiment with language using new words or phrases. similarly, group discussion most likely provided a forum for children to demonstrate and practice the use of good conversational and communication skills, interacting co-operatively with others and taking turns to talk and listen (british columbia ministry of education, 2010). moreover, the creation of a book almost certainly involved children crafting illustrations and engaging in some form of writing as a way to share their knowledge and understanding about birds. not only does this exercise allow children to demonstrate their learning in a creative way and to form simple messages and illustrations to convey their thinking, it also provides an opportunity for children to gain knowledge about books themselves (e.g., understanding that books can be used as a source of knowledge; writing as a means to communicate messages; using pictures and drawings to support written meaning; british columbia ministry of education, 2010). at the nature-based kindergarten in eastern ontario, many of the children’s daily experiences reflect the learning expectations outlined in the full-day early learning–kindergarten program document (coe, 2013; ontario ministry of education, 2010). when examining children’s experiences at this nature-based early years program, coe (2013) found that children often exhibited acts of caring, respect, and appreciation for others, nature, and place. this observation aligns with several learning expectations outlined in the ontario kindergarten curriculum, such as learning to identify ways in which children can care for and show respect for the environment, develop empathy, and demonstrate respect for others (ontario ministry of education, 2010). beyond the obvious connection to the environment, other curricular connections can be made. coe describes a conversation among students sparked by the discovery of the skull of an unknown animal: the mere sight of the skull sparks instant conversation among the children. “maybe it’s a dinosaur! a little dinosaur. or a big animal,” jasper proposes. as the children each take turns touching and feeling the skull, they talk about the different parts of the bone. “those teeth look like nails!” one child remarks. comparing the skull to his teacher’s head, jasper announces, “that one’s small and your head’s big. it’s not going to be a person.” (pp. 35–36) the narrative goes on to describe jasper’s sustained interest in the skull and describes how he and another boy ran through a list of possible animals and eliminated them based on the characteristics of the skull and what they knew about that animal (e.g., the idea of a bird is rejected because there is no beak on the skull). in addition to addressing learning expectations related to inquiry, conversation, and effective communication, this emergent learning experience touches on areas of problem solving and reasoning, and mathematical concepts, such as investigating the size and shape of nontraditional 3-dimensional objects (ontario ministry of education, 2010). the examples of student learning and curricular connections extracted from canadian nature-based early years programs provide evidence that learning can and will happen outdoors when the opportunity is provided. however, before taking children outdoors it is essential that educators take the time to assess potential risks and plan for safety and success (coe, in press; hoyland & elliot, 2014; knight, 2011, 2013). part of staying safe is ensuring that children are dressed well for the weather. educators should be cognizant of children’s physical needs and help children learn to assess and care for their own well-being (e.g., what to do if they are feeling too hot; forest school canada, 2014a). in addition, they can familiarize themselves with the outdoor learning environment, taking note of possible risks (e.g., trees that children might want to climb) and eliminating any potential hazards (e.g., broken glass). like the one prepared by the sooke school district nature kindergarten, a risk management plan specific to the outdoor learning environment can be canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 12 vol. 41 no. 1 developed (and frequently reassessed) outlining steps to take in various situations (e.g., if someone gets hurt or stung by a bee; hoyland & elliot, 2014). in both nature-based programs and contemporary school-based programs, educators can strive to not only keep children safe but also to teach children to manage particular risks for themselves (forest school canada, 2014a; nelson, 2012; stephenson, 2003). children can be taught ways to assess and identify potential hazards (e.g., what to do if they find wild berries), and how to manage physical risk (e.g., when to ask for help). in this respect, planning for safety and success involves the creation of a community of care where safety is the responsibility of everyone involved (coe, in press). moving forward as the new nature movement builds momentum and the dialogue surrounding child-nature connections continues to grow, the need for contemporary canadian schools to provide children with the opportunity to learn from and in the natural world becomes ever more important. if children are to access the benefits of nature, they must be provided with meaningful experiences to interact with the natural world. similarly, if canadian schools are to provide a holistic education, outdoor experiences should be embraced as an important part of everyday teaching and learning. forest and nature-based early years programs have opened the door to what is possible for outdoor learning in canada. with guidance and encouragement from these early years programs, a conceptual shift from a culture of excuses to a model of encouragement is possible within contemporary canadian schools. rather than viewing concerns and apprehensions about outdoor learning as barriers for practice, educators and administrators can approach these concerns as the foundation to a safe and healthy outdoor program. within a model of encouragement, outdoor learning becomes a pedagogical and problem-solving exercise for educators—a challenge to be embraced and not avoided. references aucoin, p. j. 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(2008). nature and young children: encouraging creative play and learning in natural environments. new york, ny: routledge. woodhouse, j. l., & knapp, c. e. (2000). place-based curriculum and instruction: outdoor and environmental education approaches. eric document ed448012. charleston, wv: eric clearinghouse on rural education and small schools. retrieved from: http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/place.htm microsoft word baldacchino et al. online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 111 to 129] www.cayc.ca from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna authors’ bios anna  baldacchino  is  a  learning  manager  at  holland  college,  prince  edward  island,  in  the   early  learning  care  and  education  program.  she  completed  her  first  degree  in  child  and   family  studies  and  her  master  in  education,  leadership,  and  learning  from  the  university   of  prince  edward  island.  her  teaching  interests  are  to  spread  the  reggio  emilia  principles   /  emergent  curriculum  among  early  childhood  educators.  email:   abaldacchino59@gmail.com   ray  doiron  is  a  professor  emeritus  with  the  faculty  of  education  at  the  university  of   prince  edward  island.   martha  gabriel  is  professor  and  graduate  studies  coordinator  in  the  faculty  of  education,   university  of  prince  edward  island.  her  research  and  teaching  interests  focus  on  the  early   years,  qualitative  research  design,  children’s  singing,  and  digital  literacies.     alaina  roach  o’keefe  is  a  phd  student  and  sessional  instructor  at  the  university  of  prince   edward  island.  she  also  works  as  the  early  literacy  specialist  with  the  department  of   education  and  early  childhood  development  in  prince  edward  island.   jessica  mckenna  assists  in  the  development  of  educational  tools  for  educators  in   fredericton,  new  brunswick.  she  completed  her  master  of  education,  educational   psychology  from  mount  saint  vincent  university  in  halifax,  nova  scotia.     all  of  the  above  authors  were  part  of  a  research  team  that  recently  completed  a  project  to   facilitate  action  research  initiatives  developed  and  implemented  by  early  childhood   educators  in  early  years  centres  on  prince  edward  island.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   abstract recent  international,  national,  and  provincial  interest  in  early  childhood  education,   evidence  of  the  positive  impact  of  the  early  years  on  society  and  on  learning  later  in  life,   and  local  government-­‐generated  reports  inspired  the  study  “play  in  early  learning   programs:  beliefs,  practices,  and  professional  development.”  this  research  was  generated   by  the  early  childhood  development  association  of  prince  edward  island  in  collaboration   with  the  research  in  early  child  development  team  at  the  university  of  prince  edward   island.  this  paper  reports  on  the  fourth  and  final  phase  of  this  research  study,  in  which   four  early  years  centres  on  prince  edward  island  participated  by  developing  and   implementing  an  action  research  plan.  findings  of  this  phase  suggest  how  action  research   impacts  early  childhood  educators’  practices,  both  personally  and  professionally,  and  how   early  childhood  educators  developed  leadership  skills  and  a  sense  of  belonging  to  a   community  of  learners  during  the  action  research  journey.   keywords:  action  research,  child-­‐minders,  early  childhood,  professionals     the early childhood development association of prince edward island, in collaboration with the research in early child development team at the university of prince edward island recently carried out a research study entitled “play in early learning programs: beliefs, practices, and professional development.” this study was influenced by recent international, national, and local interest in early childhood education; evidence of the positive impact of the early years on society and on learning later in life; and local governmentgenerated reports (e.g., flanagan, 2010) and subsequent provincial initiatives (prince edward island preschool excellence initiative, 2010). the study consisted of four phases, all focused on the role of play in early childhood programs, with the fourth phase culminating in several action research projects being implemented in early years settings. this paper reports on this particular phase of the research study, in which four early years centres (eycs) on prince edward island (pei) took part in planning and implementing an action research project of their choice in their own centre. the findings of this phase are discussed, with particular emphasis on how action research impacted early childhood educators’ (eces) practices both personally and professionally, and how eces went through the stages of learning during their action research journey. context of the project throughout the project, there was evidence that the eces who were participating in the action research projects were going through changes in their personal and professional development as eces. most of them held a diploma in early childhood care and education. the curriculum supporting this diploma promotes an emergent curriculum approach and focuses on the significant role of play and the learning environment to a child’s learning and development. participants repeatedly expressed the belief that their involvement in the action research projects impacted their practice with the result that they now had (a) an affirmation of their   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   values and beliefs in early childhood pedagogy; (b) an increased awareness of play-based pedagogy; (c) an increased communication with fellow staff, colleagues, children, and parents; (d) a better understanding of how to make children’s learning visible; (e) knowledge of how to connect play-based practice to learning outcomes in the new pei early learning framework (flanagan, 2010); and (f) a growing recognition that their personal resilience and self-efficacy had been enhanced. as eces, their experience in these projects reinforced a strong belief in themselves and in the work they do. stages of learning as early as 1940, abraham maslow proposed four stages of learning: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence (chapman, 2012). maslow argued that persons going through a change or a learning curve went through these phases until they mastered the task they were doing. in the unconscious incompetence stage, the learner is not aware of the existence or relevance of the particular skill set. in the conscious incompetence stage, the learner becomes aware that, by improving their skill or ability in a particular area, their effectiveness will improve. when learners move on to the third stage—conscious competence—they are able to perform the new skill reliably, but with a deliberate focus and concentration. the skill is not “second nature” or “automatic” to them. moving on to the fourth and final stage—unconscious competence—the skill becomes so ingrained that it enters the unconscious part of the brain and becomes “second nature” to them. complementing maslow’s early theories on progressive change, two other models are relevant in the learning and professional growth of eces. lilian katz (1972) outlined what she saw as the four developmental stages of preschool teachers: survival, consolidation, renewal, and maturity. in the survival stage, the ece is able to handle and cope with daily routines and transitions while improving classroom management. with consolidation, eces increase their knowledge base and strengthen specific skills. in the renewal stage, eces get tired and/or bored with the routine and so they may seek new ideas. the final stage is maturity that enhances professional growth as eces have now gained a comfortable level of confidence in their own competence. at this maturity stage, eces search for more insight and increased responsibilities within the early years centre (katz, 1972). carol anne wien (2008) in emergent curriculum in the primary classroom hypothesized four stages of understanding and becoming an emergent teacher. through her experiences with the reggio emilia approach and emergent curriculum in north america, wien noticed that eces seemed to go through the following stages while transitioning from their current pedagogy to the new emergent one: the challenged teacher, the novice teacher, the practicing teacher, and the master teacher. the challenged teachers like the idea of an emergent curriculum, but at the same time realize that they do not know how to go about it. the novice teachers realize that they are becoming emergent teachers through their actions with the children, but do not really know why they are doing it. when these teachers move on to the   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   third stage—the practicing teacher—they know that they are now implementing an emergent curriculum in their centres. however, they still have challenges relating to time and staffing, so at times they fall back to traditional ways of teaching. when teachers reach the final stage—the master teacher —they do all that the practicing teacher does, but are now fully committed to the emergent curriculum and manage to find ways and means to overcome challenges. their main focus is to sense possibilities in the children and to find ways to draw them out so that they can work with the children and expand on these possibilities (wien, 2008). while the katz and wien models are very similar in structure to maslow’s model, their strength lies in how they are targeted to a more specific audience and how they focus clearly on early childhood pedagogies. these models provide a conceptual framework for the process through which eces gain a certain level of professional identity, moving toward becoming researchers of their own practice and away from the widely held belief that eces are simply babysitters. because historically the emphasis was frequently on caring rather than educating, the job of ece has been viewed as low-skilled babysitting, not “real teaching” (ackerman, 2006). the early childhood educators of british columbia (2007) contend that “historically early childhood educators have been less visible and less valued than teachers of older children and … this impacts early childhood educators’ view of themselves as potential leaders” (para. 6). professional development and identity early years education has undergone prominent changes in recent years on prince edward island, across canada, and internationally (flanagan, 2010; penner et al., 2011). the traditional role of eces is being modified as practitioners are held up to a newly heightened set of expectations regarding their proficiency with child development and the creation of enriching educational environments and experiences for the children in their care (dalli, 2008; sheridan, edwards, marvin, & knoche, 2009). according to research carried out in new zealand and england (dalli, 2008; simpson, 2010), these expectations bring about a high sense of responsibility and accountability, having moved from the former traditional conceptions of early childhood as a setting for “child minding” to a newly conceived educational environment. practitioners within the early years field are being asked to take ownership of this more dynamic role (dalli, 2008) and the professional responsibilities that go along with a newly shaped identity (osgood, 2006). viewing oneself as a professional in the field of early childhood education requires eces to be active in their own education and professional development. this conception of being active and engaged in one’s education and professional development is crucial in shaping eces’ professional identity, confidence, and professional practice (dalli, 2008; osgood, 2006). in a survey of 594 eces conducted in new zealand, dalli (2008) found that eces viewed professionalism as “valuable, desirable and entirely achievable” and that professionalism can be attained through a distinct pedagogical style, professional practice and   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   knowledge, and collaboration. in taking part in opportunities that promote development, eces can broaden and deepen their knowledge of the early years and reflect on their role in order to create sustained change (dalli, 2008; osgood, 2006; sheridan et al., 2009). teachers as researchers the word “research” has a serious tone to it, and the public often tends to connect it with scientists, academics, laboratories, and experiments. it is certainly not a word commonly used in an early childhood setting. carlina rinaldi (2003) contends that “research is not a word with common usage and, above all, it is not a concept that we normally think about putting into practice in our daily lives” (p. 1). eces who work in direct contact with children might think twice about referring to themselves as researchers. however, eces are asked numerous questions every day by the greatest researchers of all—children—so is what they do not research? research is about searching for and making meaning, constructing and sharing together the meaning of the world around us, “where the solution to certain problems leads to the emergence of new questions and new expectations, new changes” (rinaldi, 2003, p. 3). it is a cyclical building on previous experiences and new knowledge. research in early childhood settings involves learning new ideas, delving deeper into children’s interests, and finding that which was not there before (rinaldi, 2006). susan stacey (2009) in emergent curriculum in early childhood settings argues that research is a process of investigating and studying further in order to reach new conclusions and ideas about children’s questions. stacey proposes that: in this type of practice [early childhood settings], we are immersed in data all day long. if we are paying attention to it, recording it, and using it in order to develop new understandings and approaches, then we are engaged in a cycle of inquiry. (p. 129) teachers most often engage in action research (nimmo & park, 2009). in this type of research endeavour, teachers are active participants in developing their own questions, facing challenges, researching, planning, and implementing meaningful and effective inquiries in their workplaces. action research is an effective method for conducting research in early years settings. as the research process adopted in this study evolved, it became evident that engaging in action research empowered the participants to think of themselves not only as researchers, but as professionals. action research action research (ar) has always been understood as people taking action to improve their personal and social situations (macnaughton & hughes, 2009; mertler, 2006). researchers and educators also focus on its potential for promoting a more productive and peaceful world order (reason, 2006; stringer, 2014). educational ar is increasingly viewed as a methodology for real-world social change. as reason and bradbury (2001) state, “action research is about working towards practical outcomes, and also about creating new forms of understanding, since action without reflection is meaningless” (p. 2). they suggest that ar   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   emerges over time within a process that connects strongly with members of the community and individuals’ developing skills as researchers. at its core, “action research is emancipatory; it leads not just to new practical knowledge, but to new abilities to create knowledge” (reason & bradbury, 2001, p. 2). knowledge acquisition in formal educational settings is not sufficient to maintain effective teaching of skills and knowledge in the early years (edwards & nuttall, 2009; sheridan et al., 2009) because the environment is constantly evolving and the educator is also maturing and developing as s/he goes through the stages of learning. therefore, the development of new knowledge in a community of practice is a critical step for eces in their work in educational environments. by providing professional development opportunities for deeper learning and reflection, practitioners can take ownership of their own learning and development (edwards & nuttall, 2009). when adopting an ar approach to their practice, eces develop a reflective approach and are able to pose thoughtful questions and conduct purposeful investigations to find the answers to situations relevant to their everyday work. through reflection on the outcomes, eces may actively create sustained change within their centres (mcguire-schwartz & arndt, 2007), leading to a sense of empowerment as they become researchers and professionals in the field (dalli, 2008; nimmo & park, 2009; reason & bradbury, 2001; stacey, 2009). the action research project the research project “play in early learning programs: beliefs, practices, and professional development” was funded by the early childhood development association of prince edward island. a research plan was developed to explore the beliefs and practices of educators in the early years field, as well as to provide the opportunity for directors and educators to learn how to conduct ar projects within their centres. components of the project included (a) the development, dissemination, and analysis of online surveys on educators’ beliefs about play in their classrooms; (b) focus groups to discuss the role of play in preschool and primary grade classrooms; and (c) the development, facilitation, and support of ar projects in four early years centres. this article focuses on the ar projects, the methods used, and the findings emerging from the ar aspects of the study. methods the method chosen for this phase of our work was qualitative in nature and utilized an ar approach. practitioners (educators) in the actual practice setting (early childhood centres) design action research that aims to improve practice (teaching) and increase understanding of the nature of early childhood education practice (kuhne & quigley, 1997; macnaughton & hughes, 2009; stringer, 2007). the goal in this project was for the participants—the eces and eyc directors in the study (along with the research officers)—to expand their understanding of issues pertinent to the play components of their programs. after deepening their understanding,   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   the goal was to create ar projects to explore these issues (mertler, 2006). the research team’s goal was to work with directors of eycs and together engage their staffs in ar to improve programs and services related to play-based programming in their centres. we used purposeful sampling to choose the participants for the ar projects (patton, 2002). the executive director of the early childhood development association of pei mentioned five directors from different centres across pei to the research team who might be interested in the project. the research team approached each director and informed them of the project. four out of the five directors agreed to take part. directors of the four eycs indicated their need to work on improving programs and to support their staffs in making a change. the directors of the four centres, together with 19 staff (18 female and 1 male) were involved in this project. we held three ar workshops with the participants in march, april, and may 2012. these workshops were developed to (a) build the capacity of the eces and directors to conduct their own research projects, (b) to provide professional development on the ar cycle, and (c) to make available to directors and eces some opportunities to collaborate and share experiences with other educators. each of the workshops was held after working hours, on a voluntary basis, and the sessions were structured to provide information and activities that built on the previous workshop, thus scaffolding learning about action research. two principal investigators and three project officers facilitated the ar projects. all researchers had past experience working with eces. the role of the project officers was to visit the eycs each week for three to four hours to facilitate and guide the director and staff in developing, implementing, monitoring, and reflecting on one or more ar projects in their centre. the researcher team helped the participants go through at least one complete ar cycle, with three out of four eycs completing several cycles of the ar process. the project officers visiting the eycs kept researchers’ logs, which formed one component of the data. four types of data in all were collected: � researchers’ logs of all visits to each eyc � reflection sheets completed by all participants � discussion, feedback, and evaluation of the three workshops � each eyc’s final learning story and feedback on the project. the project officers visited each of the four centres 13 times, for a total of 52 visits over a period of 13 weeks (first week of february until the first week of may 2012). each project officer was responsible for two centres. they guided participants through the ar cycle by helping educators formulate their research questions, providing them with professional articles about their particular area of inquiry, encouraging the educators to develop strategies to address   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   their research questions, and, in general, supporting them throughout the process. the approaches adopted by each eyc was unique; each focused on the specific questions and needs of the particular centre. during the first meeting with the project officers, the participants came prepared with a set of concerns they wanted to put forward to them. these concerns had been discussed among them in their centres beforehand according to the needs of the particular centre. it was a process in itself for these participants to agree on the specific, manageable questions they were going to research through this project. the research questions developed by participants at the four centres are shown in table 1 below. table 1. research questions of the four eycs. centre a   1. how does a family group setting impact the development and learning of the older children in the centre? (evangelou, 1989; katz, 1995; reese, 1998) 2. how can documentation make learning through play visible and create a medium for communication with parents? (goldhaber & smith, 1997; schroeder yu, 2008)   centre b   1. how would a project approach affect the children’s play behaviour in the prekindergarten group? (goldhaber & smith, 1997; schroeder yu, 2008) 2. how can the day be structured to support learning outcomes in the framework for early learning?   centre c   1. what is the purpose of documentation? (goldhaber & smith, 1997) 2. how can documentation work in the infant room? (schroeder yu, 2008)   centre d   1. how can literacy be increased in the building and block area? (bachrudin, 2010; goldhaber, lispon, sortino, & daniels, 1996) 2. how will changing the environment in the infant room impact their play? (firlik, 1994; wurm, 2009) 3. how can learning stories be incorporated in the classroom? (carter, 2010)     we used a colour-coding strategy to analyze the data collected from the researchers’ logs, the reflection sheets completed by participants, the workshops, and the final learning stories, outlining similar and recurring themes (charmaz, 2009). in all of the documentation developed by participants, strong connections were made between documentation for the research projects and the similar approach to the daily documentation of children’s work. emerging themes six themes emerged from the data analysis, which are discussed below. 1. documentation and reflective practice. through an analysis of their documentation, directors and eces confirmed that they were able to (a) increase their own professional development, (b) better identify children’s interests, and, as a result, (c) create a more   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   emergent curriculum for learning (penner et al., 2011; wien, 1998). documentation also (a) reinforced key elements of play-based learning pedagogy for the eces, (b) became a tool to open up a new world of communication with parents, and (c) provided an additional component to the children’s language and literacy experiences within the play environments through their display. 2. play environments. “our play became more child based.” participants reported that children were more deeply engaged in their activities and for longer periods of time. one ece summed up the feelings of many of the participants at the conclusion of the project when she stated that “the impact [of this project] was more effective teaching.” through these changes to their environment and the skills that improved their abilities of observation and documentation, the majority of the eces commented that their practice has become more emergent in nature and that children have more choice over how they learn. 3. communication, communities of practice, and confidence. communication with families improved, there was an increase in communication among eces (within and beyond their early learning centres), and a learning community emerged. this theme also highlights how eces developed more positive feelings about their work, felt less isolated, and cultivated positive changes in professional attitudes (le cornu & ewing, 2008; roach o’keefe, 2010). in addition, researchers observed an increase in the levels of motivation and confidence of eces. 4. leadership roles. eces highlighted the critical nature of the support of their directors throughout the ar process. all of the directors involved in the projects allocated time for the eces to discuss, document, and implement the changes that emerged as a result of the ar project. 5. the facilitator, mentor, coach, and teacher. within the reggio emilia approach to early childhood learning in italy, the “provocateur,” or teacher, is known as the partner in learning, the guide who practices the “pedagogy of listening” (wien, 1998). this is the role that the research team adopted during this action research project—to listen to and be a part of the practice that prompted the questions that eces asked about their beliefs and practices surrounding play-based learning and pedagogy. participants noted that this role was crucial in their learning and professional growth. they appreciated the role of the project officers as they visited each week. the participants felt that they were being held accountable for their actions and progress each time the project officer came to visit. this kept them going forward, knowing that they had someone to guide them along the way. 6. “i am a researcher.” participants came to the realization that they now could name the process they had undertaken, and that action research was an important component of their work with the children. they also noted the new knowledge they had learned or skills they had improved, such as using the computer, conducting observations, and developing documentation.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   discussion the action research component of the research project began to take shape by introducing the four eycs to the ar project in which they had agreed to participate. in the initial meeting with each centre, a principal investigator and the project officer who would be working closely with the centre met with the director to discuss the ar project, address questions and concerns that could be answered through ar, and explain the role of each member of the research team. within the first or second visit to the centre, project officers met with the eces who were taking part in and working most closely with the ar team. this was because it was not possible for all the educators to take part in the action research at the same time. project officers were met with enthusiastic professionals who welcomed the idea of a chance to expand their professional practice, but who also had questions and concerns about how the project would play out in their everyday routines within the centres. most of the participants were nervous about embarking on such a project because they were afraid it would take time away from the children or that it would mean extra work to be done at home. we propose that these participants were at that time in maslow’s unconscious incompetence stage (chapman, 2012), as yet unaware of the existence or relevance of action research. we could say that they could be located within lilian katz’s (1972) survival stage of teacher development. participants were pleased and satisfied with what they were doing, but at the same time they wanted to find ways to improve their classroom management. we might also add that they were “challenged teachers” because they liked the idea of action research, but at the same time they realized that they did not know how to go about it (wien, 2008). reflections from the first workshop that took place about a month after the initiation of the ar project showed that participants were already discovering some changes in themselves and their practices. comments reflected in the evaluation forms at the end of workshop #1 include the following: � “action research is a new way of doing what we already do.” � “different techniques work for different centres and those needs change over time.” � “we are researchers!” � “action research benefits everyone in the centre.” � “action research is an ongoing process that we can all do at our own pace.” project officers could already see that participants were going through a learning process as they progressed through the ar project. the progression from stage to stage was often accompanied by a feeling of awakening, of acknowledgment, of agency (chapman, 2012). participants were moving on to maslow’s second stage of learning—conscious incompetence. the participants had now become aware of the existence and relevance of action   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   research and were attempting to use this new skill in their centres. katz (1972), on the other hand, refers to this stage as the consolidation stage in which the eces increase their knowledge base and strengthen specific skills. “novice teachers,” as seen in wien’s (2008) second stage, are now aware of how to go about action research, but they still do not fully understand how it benefits their practice. the second workshop was offered as work progressed on individual projects in the four eycs. during this workshop, the project officers noticed that the participants were becoming more willing to take part in the discussions that went on. they also started showing more confidence in themselves and expressed a belief in what they were doing. some of the comments we collected during workshop #2 highlight the growing perception of self-efficacy (bandura, 1986). these comments included the following: � “loved the discussions the other centres shared.” � “just knowing things need to change all the time to find the best way that works for you.” � “sharing the action research projects with colleagues because we don’t get to do that at work.” � “hearing how other centres will share the action research project with parents.” � “reassurance we are ‘right,’ gaining more confidence in what i already know.” � “sharing with other staff where we are in this project.” participants could be steadily seen moving to the stage of conscious competence. eces started believing in their ability to go through the process of action research, but at the same time still needed to concentrate and think about it in order to perform this skill (chapman, 2012). this stage is very similar to the third stage in wien’s stages of becoming emergent—the practicing teacher who still needs support to continue with the change. according to katz’s (1972) developmental stages of teachers, the eces were now in the renewal stage. katz contends that “during this stage, teachers are likely to find it especially rewarding to meet colleagues from different programs on both formal and informal occasions” (p. 52). she goes on to say that teachers at this stage are open to professional development such as workshops or focus groups. the participants were now more interested in reading more about their particular research questions and asking themselves how to find a suitable solution and how to implement it in the centres. as the ar study was coming to an end after 13 weeks of collaboration, learning, and researching between the research team and the participants, it was evident that eces and directors in all four centres were feeling more confident and competent in conducting future   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   action research in their respective settings. this was evidenced in workshop #3 where participants shared the lessons learned from their engagement with the ar process. representatives from the four centres presented their findings and discussed their new ar cycles. new relationships were formed and a community of practice was developed through participation in this project and involvement in the series of workshops. participants also shared some of the changes that took place as a result of this project: � learning stories were turned into picture books for children to enjoy rather than leaving the learning stories in binders on a shelf. � project work was introduced in two of the centres and it proved to be a success, enhancing teamwork and children’s enthusiasm in learning through play. � a babies’ room was rearranged in a way that made it safer for them and more spacious so that a larger variety of activities could be offered to this group of children. � documentation became purposeful and meaningful to the participants of one centre as they learned new ways of implementing it in a way that was made visible to children, parents, and educators. � incorporating literacy in the block area by creating a book depicting the letters of the alphabet spelled out in blocks, and introducing writing instruments and paper in the area. this attracted more children, both boys and girls, into this area. since the children were more engaged in their play, behavioural problems decreased. here are some final reflections that participants shared with the research team through an evaluation form: � “i have been doing action research for a while but i didn’t really know it had a ‘formal’ name. i learned how to better formulate what i have discovered when researching something.” � “my centre focused on what developmental benefits are there for 4to 5-year-olds in a family group setting. i was able to learn more about this so to better answer the same question when asked by parents.” � “[i] learned how to become a more reflective educator. [i learned about] the impact documentation has on the children in our class.” � “the importance of reflection about the environment, how changes can affect the children, the educators, and the program as a whole.”   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   � “i needed to learn to take an approach and focus on it. spending the time on our action research was an asset to our centre! we are much more confident in our documentation!” � “how much of a second nature action research is even though we are unaware of it. an outside point of view is so beneficial.” � “now i can tell the parents what the children are learning. i feel now that we can measure their progress of self-discovery and that their journey is easier to document.” the research team could clearly trace the growth and learning these eces had gone through, as well as the changes in practice they demonstrated when compared to the beginning of the project. while the representatives from the four eycs were presenting and sharing their ar journey during the third workshop, it was evident that they were quite confident doing so and that they were now ready to take on another project on their own. by this point, participants had entered the final stage of maslow’s stages of learning—unconscious competence (chapman, 2012). the skill became so practiced that it entered the unconscious parts of the brain and became second nature for the participants to implement another ar project in their centres. according to katz (1972), these educators had reached the final stage of development—maturity. eces were asking deeper and more abstract questions about their philosophy of teaching and the impact they might be having in and out of the early childhood setting. these educators had begun to explore both their philosophical perspective and their role in assisting change at an organizational level and beyond (katz, 1972). educators who have reached the final stage of development are usually ready to take on a leadership or mentoring role (chapman, 2012; katz, 1972). these “master teachers” would now be committed to action research and would be confident to do it all over again, on their own this time (wien, 2008). analysis of the data suggested that participants learned the importance of reflection and documentation to support their role as professional eces. taking the time to document their experiences with children, their connection of practice to the expected learning outcomes of their curriculum framework, and their consistent communication with parents about what they were doing with the children became a hallmark of their professional growth and signalled a breakthrough in their awareness of themselves as professionals. through this action research project and through hands-on experiences, participants learned how important teamwork is in planning and implementing change, how they support and validate children’s learning, and how to recognize themselves as researchers and professionals. the alignment of some of the participants’ comments to the developmental stages proposed by maslow, katz, and wien is graphically represented in table 2.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   table 2. developmental stages of learning.   stage  1   comments   stage  2   comments   stage  3   comments   stage  4   comments   maslow   unconscious  incompetence   how  do  i                             write  up  a               research               question?     what  is  the         purpose  of              all           all  this?     do  i  have                               time  for  it?   conscious   incompetence   action                           research                     benefits                   everyone  in                           the  centre.                                                                             we  are             researchers.   conscious   competence   gaining                                 more                         confidence                                   in  what  i                       already  do.     sharing                                       with  other                           staff  where                                 we  are  in                                   this  project.   unconscious   competence   i  learned                                  about   how  to                                       become  a                                       more                                       reflective                       educator.     we  learned                      how   much  of  a                               second  nature                   action  research                               is  even  though            we   are  unaware                              of   it.   katz   survival   consolidation   renewal   maturity   wien   challenged                       teacher   novice  teacher   practicing                     teacher   master                                   teacher     we found a strong alignment among the three theorists and the growth demonstrated by the participants in this study. conclusion as educators begin to recognize themselves as researchers within their own practice, they are able to find better ways to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, challenge themselves to try new initiatives, enhance their visibility as educators, and remain committed to their work (nimmo & park, 2009). findings from this study indicated that attitudes toward the early childhood education profession began to shift in the course of the project. participants were excited about the challenges they faced, and with the tools they had learned through the ar process in hand, they believed their work was important and worth recognition and support. as one ece said, “there was less wishing and talking, and more doing.” another said there was a new “momentum” and focus to the work with the children. directors commented on the transformed collegiality of their staff, who were happier, enjoyed their work more, and were motivated to work together on these explorations as a team. communication improved among staff members and their work days became easier as they made changes to the work environment. the ar project allowed them to become more confident, reflective educators. it revealed more about their practice, and they realized that, through action research, they could make positive changes in their practice, especially in the learning and working environment. as a follow-up to this study, some of the participants have organized presentations for the parents of children in their care to inform them of all the changes that had been going on in the eyc and to present themselves as professionals and researchers rather than babysitters.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   others have presented and shared their action research journey in front of other eces at the 2012 province-wide fall conference organized by the early childhood development association of pei. participants confirmed that they saw a great deal of value in the professional development that occurred during this project, especially in the way eces learned new ideas and implemented changes in their practice. throughout the ar process, eces and directors learned with the support of a “provocateur” who helped them formulate questions about their own practice, provided them with professional readings about their particular area of inquiry, and brainstormed with them to come up with an action plan. after the action plan was implemented, they discussed and reflected on the results and decided where to proceed next in their learning and practice. directors and eces in these four centres have now realized the value and benefits of action research, its strength in supporting professional learning, and how it leads to staff growth and improved play-based activities for children. this study also shows that intense professional learning requires time (for planning, preparation, and reflection), support from external experts (who supply new knowledge, encouragement, and some positive pressure) and commitment and leadership by the eyc director if true and meaningful professional learning and change are to take place. references ackerman, d. j. 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(2009). how the environment inspires curriculum. community playthings. retrieved from: http://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/reggio/environment.html   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 baldacchino formatted back page w2015 canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 39 vol. 38 no. 1 the kindergarten drama centre is a place where children recreate familiar play scenarios, explore new ideas and feelings, and engage deeply in learning (schwartz & copeland, 2010). miller and almon (2009) suggest that play is crucial to children’s development. however, play is often contested as parents question its relevance at school (ashiabi, 2007) and schools focus on academic achievement and readiness (bodrova & leong, 2003; miller & almon, 2009). this paper explores the author’s learning through reflecting on the successes and challenges of a bakery centre created in her kindergarten classroom. the bakery became an excellent vehicle for strengthening students’ literacy and motor skills through play, but the impact varied greatly across students in the class. further, assessment and planning enhancements to the bakery were significantly restricted by constraints on the time and attention the author could devote to them due to the dynamic classroom environment. the bakery also led to a rethinking of the learning agenda in the classroom. the drama centre is a staple in many kindergarten classrooms. it can be a place where children recreate familiar play scenarios as well as explore new ideas and feelings as they engage deeply in their learning (schwartz & copeland, 2010). children pretend to be moms, dads, doctors, fire fighters, chefs, and veterinarians while they are making breakfast, fighting fires, cooking, and caring for animals. miller and almon (2009) suggest that play is critical to children’s development in all learning domains and should be an essential part of the kindergartener’s school day. however, the place of play is often contested as parents question its relevance at school (ashiabi, 2007) and schools focus increasingly on academic achievement and school readiness (bodrova & leong, 2003; miller & almon, 2009). wien (2008) puts it this way: “as pressures to teach literacy and numeracy have increased, it [becomes] difficult for teachers to notice what is outside their agendas” (p. 25). pelletier (2011) views play as a vehicle for learning; for example, she connects play to literacy and numeracy development in the early years. to date, much of the literature on play focuses primarily on play’s importance (ashiabi, 2007; bodrova & leong, 2003; leong & bodrova, 2012) or provides resource ideas for teachers (schwartz & copeland, 2010). in contrast, what we learn from teachers’ classroom stories can add nuance to our current understandings of how play has the potential to extend learning in early years’ classrooms and how teachers can support children’s play, particularly in the kindergarten drama centre. the purpose of this article is to critically reflect on how i used play in our drama centre bakery to extend learning. inquiring into my own practice using a teacher research lens opens up a space in which to reflect on and unpack some of the successes and challenges i experienced as play at the bakery unfolded. i struggled at times to “notice what was outside of my agenda” (wien, 2008, p. 25); i negotiated curricular goals with my kindergarten students and allowed them opportunities to plan, reflect, and set their own goals for learning through the drama centre bakery. assumptions are that many of the practices for play and inquiry are already embedded in teachers’ daily work in early years’ classrooms. in contrast, some teachers struggle with the practical implications of the focus on play and inquiry as vehicles for learning (stuber, 2007). stuber (2007) points out that “today, it is rare to see elementary school classrooms with a plethora of materials that children can use in multiple ways depending on their individual learning styles, needs, and interests” (p. 2). according to stuber, some teachers feel that play takes away from academic learning in the classroom. on the other hand, helm, beneke, and steinheimer (2007) argue that, through play, children’s interests and goals for their learning surface. although there is a growing body of literature that supports play and inquiry-based learning, early years’ teachers continue to explore the role of play and embed it in their daily practice (ontario ministry of education, 2010). significance of the study critical reflection can help teachers respond meaningfully to students while, at the same time, meeting the everyday challenges of teaching. the term critical is used in this context to refer to substantive and mindful thinking about teaching and learning as teachers examine what they do and say in the classroom from a variety of lenses aimed at improving practice. teachers who are critically reflective seek ways to make changes in laura hope-southcott is a phd candidate in the joint phd in educational studies program at lakehead university, studying reflective practice and journal writing. she is also an early years teacher with the lakehead board of education in thunder bay, ontario. email: csouthco@hotmail.com the use of play and inquiry in a kindergarten drama centre: a teacher’s critical reflection by: laura hope-southcott canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 40 vol. 38 no. 1 their classroom, school, and community and to use their practice as sites of critical reflection (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009; goswami et al., 2009; hatch et al., 2005). these teachers research their practice as a natural extension of their teaching and learning (baumann, 1996). as teachers critically reflect, they dig deeper to better understand the assumptions, beliefs, and values that shape their practice. huerta-charles (2007) puts forth that “[teachers] have not had the opportunity, nor the support, for critical thinking about their own practice”(p. 253). it is my belief that by hearing the experiences of other teachers, we become better at reflecting critically on our own actions to improve our practice. a better understanding, from a critical lens, of how dramatic play in the drama centre bakery extends young children’s learning will add to the current conversation about the connections between play as a vehicle for learning, emergent curriculum, and the role of inquiry. exploring the play that unfolded at the drama centre in my classroom opens up an opportunity to “rethink the concept of play” (ontario ministry of education, 2010) opens up. this exploration of practice can also help illuminate how teachers plan for play to support the relationships children create with their peers, classroom materials, and the environment (lewin-benham, 2011). theoretical framework play and inquiry the literature in two key areas, playbased learning and inquiry, informs this reflection on my practice. in ontario at the present moment, early learning programs are undergoing significant change in light of the pascal report released in june 2009. across the province, teachers, early childhood educators, and administrators are currently exploring how play can be used as a vehicle for learning in early years’ classrooms. hughes (2003) defines play as the “freedom of personal choice, personal enjoyment, and focus on the activity rather than on its outcome” (cited in saskatchewan ministry of education, 2008, p. 24). children choose or help to choose topics to explore, and it is their interests that determine the direction of learning. as seitz (2006) puts it, “in negotiated or emergent curriculum, the child’s interest becomes the key focus” (p. 1). sometimes, children’s conversations and natural curiosity are the catalyst for a new learning experience. other times, a teacher or an early childhood educator invites children to discover a new material or an interesting object. lewin-benham (2006) suggests that working with emergent curriculum moves the focus of teaching and learning away from a set plan, including an agenda determined only by the teacher. she states: “rather than sets of lesson plans and objectives, emergent curriculum is a process “teachers need to trust when planning for and creating learning experiences” (lewinbenham, 2006, p. 2). following children’s interests by observing them interact with each other, with the materials gathered for learning, and with the classroom environment reveals children’s own agendas for learning. by carefully listening to these cues, teachers can support children’s own agendas and learning goals in all domains. epstein (2003) contends that teachers must broaden the scope of skills they teach young learners, not focus solely on literacy and numeracy development. by listening with care, teachers are able to better understand children’s interests and the learning goals they set for themselves (wien, 2008). when teachers let go of their preset plans, they are free to tap into children’s own agendas, trusting in the environment to act as a third teacher and in the children’s interests to guide classroom learning (lewin-benham, 2006; stuber, 2007). wien (2008) argues that children’s conversations reveal the depth and direction of their interests and goals. themes, theories, and patterns surface during children’s talk during play when we take the time to listen closely. in this sense, the curriculum is fluid as both teachers and students negotiate learning. what are the children interested in learning more about? how do they want to show what they know? how do i proceed from this point? are some questions teachers ask themselves when they view children as capable learners and as co-constructors of learning experiences. fraser (2012) writes: “deconstructing our thinking about children and in collaboration with others constructs a view of children that is responsive to families, community, and culture of our time and place” (p. 33). to adopt a multiperspective view of learning or a poststructuralist view, teachers become open to new ways of understanding and viewing the children in their classroom (fraser, 2012). one teacher suggests that “to become passionately engaged in learning, children have to feel free to choose where to invest their curiosity, intelligence, and emotions” (wien, 2008, p. 119). significant learning about a topic of children’s interest can emerge through play when teachers listen carefully to children’s conversations and connect their talk to curriculum. although many definitions and characteristics of play as well as ways to spark play can be found in the literature, most authors agree that play is enjoyable, child-centred, and imaginative. as defined in the literature, play encourages exploration, discovery, and creativity. new knowledge is constructed and consolidated as children engage deeply in play (ashiabi, 2007; millar grant & eden, 2012) and inquiry (millar grant & eden, 2012; schwartz & copeland, 2010; youngquist & pataray-ching, 2004). during play, children negotiate meaning, communicate with others, practice what they know, and add to each other’s ideas. millar grant and eden (2012) suggest that play is light hearted and happy. children engaged in play laugh, talk, and learn joyfully with others in the classroom. “as teachers critically reflect, they dig deeper to better understand the assumptions, beliefs, and values that shape their practice.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 41 vol. 38 no. 1 play is also supported by communication with peers and the teacher. youngquist and pataray-ching (2004) and stuber (2007) suggest that play helps children to reflect and critique the world around them if they are given time, resources, and space to “shift [their learning] to deeper levels of understanding” (youngquist & patarayching, 2004, p. 174). children learn to be flexible in their thinking and to accept multiple points of view as they play. play is a complex and layered engagement involving all of the learning domains: social, cognitive, affective, communicative, and physical (genishi & haas dyson, 2009; miller & almon, 2009; youngquist & pataray-ching, 2007). children solve real-world problems during play, develop self-regulation, acquire numeracy and literacy skills, and work on fine and gross motor skills. in particular, drama can help “isolate, capture, and simulate increasingly abstract and complex concepts” (wien, 2008, p. 123) as children’s play unfolds. as children play, they make sense of what they see, hear, and do. when teachers intentionally plan for and support learning through play, play has the potential to extend the thinking of our youngest learners. however, teachers also need to reflect on the play that is taking place in their classrooms to understand more fully how play scaffolds learning; they also need to reflect deeply on who is setting the learning agenda. lewin-benham (2006) points out that “the curriculum emerges as children’s investigations and activities [lead] to the evolution of old interests and the development of new ideas” (p. 5), thus preparing the classroom environment and documenting the children’s experiences are important activities to support learning. wien (2008) writes: “when young children are not used to making choices, i suspect the teacher needs to make explicit the potential in their choices and the successful outcomes that result from them” (p. 119), helping children set their own agenda and learning goals. when planning and reflection unfold as part of the learning process, young learners are digging deeper and applying what they know and can do (epstein, 2003). play is important, but more structured learning takes place in kindergarten classrooms through play. many learning experiences in a kindergarten classroom are sparked by and can help to support students’ interests and natural curiosity. according to the elementary teachers’ federation of ontario (2010a), inquiry incorporates four essential elements: initial engagement, exploration, investigation, and communication. each of these elements leads children to question, notice, and observe the world around them. worth and chalaford (p. 19, 2010, cited in elementary teachers’ federation of ontario, 2010a) argue that “direct hands-on exploration lies at the heart of inquiry and effective teachers design the learning environment to stimulate and support children’s investigation.” children’s wonderings and teachers’ questions have the potential to act as “seeds” (wien, 2008, p. 154) that, given the right conditions, help children’s ideas grow. teachers create space for children to test their own living theories in ways that make sense to them and that open up possibilities for new learning. they are mindful of the children’s developing relationships with each other, with new and familiar materials, and with the classroom environment. katz (cited in helm & katz, 2011) defines this type of learning in the following way: “a project is an in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about” (p. 1). seitz (2006) agrees. she suggests that children learn best and are most engaged in the creation of new knowledge when they follow their curiosity, are invested in their learning, and set the learning agenda. young students engaged in inquiry “find it interesting, enjoyable, and self-fulfilling” (ontario ministry of education, 2011, p. 1) and are intrinsically motivated to learn. inquiry supports children as they make decisions about what they want to learn and how they will demonstrate what they know. children willingly spend their time, energy, and resources for learning when they are deeply engaged and intrinsically motivated. it is up to teachers to plan for and extend the relationships children develop with materials, the environment, and each other to support the potential of play and inquiry to produce rich learning that pushes children’s thinking in new ways (lewin-benham, 2011). methodology in this study, i inquired into my practice and my students’ learning, drawing on teacher research and anderson and herr’s (2005) action research spiral of plan/act/observe/ reflect. hatch (2006) suggests that teacher research is an intentional and reflective study of questions that surface from a teacher’s practice, explored to improve learning and to add to what we know about teaching and learning. similarly, action research is an inward as well as an outward search embarked on by teachers for deeper understanding of a classroom event to bring about change (anderson & herr, 2005; zeichner & liston, 1996). teacher research and action research are systematic ways to study teachers’ identities, bring about generative change through reflective practice, and respond to local questions from the classroom (samaras & freese, 2009). it is research “by me for us” (samaras, 2011, p. 13). understanding small classroom stories adds to what we know about teaching and learning one example at a time (cochransmith & lytle, 2009; hatch et al., 2005), creating a chain of stories that inform our daily work. classroom stories develop as teachers work through a “cognitive knot” or puzzle from their practice (wien, 2008). here, i reflect on and explore the small story that develops in my drama centre bakery to better understand how to extend learning through play. this small story becomes my own cognitive knot to unpack. in my classroom, the bakery became a space to rethink play in the drama centre and the role that play assumes in student learning and to create an opportunity to let children set the learning agenda. following teacher research methodology, i used canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 42 vol. 38 no. 1 photos, anecdotal notes, observations, and work samples as multiple data sources. documentation in the form of photos and observational notes helped me to reflect on the learning that was taking place in the drama centre bakery during play time. wien (2008) suggests that such recording of insights on learning can help teachers communicate with students about their learning as well as reflect on what students know and can do. in turn, insights gained from observations and photos captured moments of learning used to plan for next steps. a new window on learning emerged. classroom context i teach in a large urban school in ontario in a three-day-a-week senior kindergarten french immersion class. my school offers both a french immersion stream and an english stream to students from senior kindergarten to grade 8. both streams follow the ontario curriculum; the key difference is the language of instruction. in the french immersion stream, the language of instruction in senior kindergarten and grade 1 is 100% french. starting in grade 2, english is introduced into the school day. the ratio of english to french instruction continues to grow until students are instructed equally in both languages by grade 7. the majority of my kindergarten students are 4 and 5 years old and speak english as their first language. french immersion senior kindergarten is usually the children’s first exposure to french. by winter break, many children have settled into our classroom routines and are beginning to use some french words and phrases to move about the day. the class size ranges yearly from 15 to 18 students with a mix of boys and girls. i planned a bakery in our drama centre for several reasons. a bakery fit well with our literacy focus on the gingerbread man story and it tied in with plans to bake cookies. story time is an important part of our day together at school, as it is in many kindergarten classes, and we bake once a month with a parent volunteer. i felt that a bakery offered a hands-on centre with many opportunities to interact with materials as well as provided students with multiple points of entry into play. baking and cooking were also familiar activities for some children in the classroom. i wanted to create a drama centre that incorporated children’s prior knowledge to help scaffold our learning, while also recognizing that children come to school with different experiences and knowledges. bodrova and leong (2003) argue that “home and classroom experiences of many children may not be sufficient to produce the rich, imaginative play that has long been considered an inherent characteristic of early childhood” (p. 13). i wondered how the children’s experiences with baking at home could shape our learning at the centre and what types of experiences would engage them in play at our drama centre bakery. a trip to a local store with a scratch bakery was organized to create a shared and focused experience (schwartz & copeland, 2010), provide some prior knowledge of a bakery, and help students develop and use rich language related to a bake shop in order to deepen play. the drama centre bakery was open in the classroom for approximately one month. new practices emerge according to wien (2008), new practices can emerge when teachers select a group of children to engage in inquiry, schedule play time during the school day, add different tools to the classroom environment, tease out meaning from children’s wonderings, and encourage play. as i reflect on these key components in my own practice during the play at our drama centre bakery, i notice that new practices began to emerge and new learning unfolded for both my students and myself. this is how new practice emerged in my classroom drama centre. at the bakery, different children engaged in play each day. some children baked cookies and muffins while others took orders and delivered the treats. the aforementioned field trip gave students a shared experience and common language for their play at the bakery. inquiry was incorporated into the bakery, such as when children were encouraged to explore new materials or create cookies to sell. curricular expectations in literacy and numeracy were enriched by play at the drama centre as the children filled out order forms, explored patterning with the cookies, wrote their own and their classmates’ names, and counted resources, such as buttons for decorating cookies. new materials were added to the centre to deepen and enhance the children’s play scenarios at various points during the time the bakery drama centre was open; these included a storefront window, gingerbread-scented play dough, a cookie order form, and paper bags for delivery. play was given a central focus in the day’s schedule and planned for in the morning and the afternoon. extending, supporting, enriching once the bakery opened for business in our classroom, i wondered what else could be added to extend play, support inquiry, and enrich skills in language, math, and science. leong and bodrova (2012) posit that although play can help children learn to self-regulate, develop literacy and numeracy skills, and practice social skills, without adult guidance play’s full potential may not be met. in addition, children need more than play experiences to gain skills in mathematics needed for later years, and although play has the potential to support numeracy skills, it does not “guarantee mathematical development” (elementary teachers’ federation of ontario, 2010b, p. 29). teachers need to plan play in a purposeful and mindful way, building on the children’s mathematical understandings that surface while they play. similar to wien’s (2008) notions of emergent curriculum mentioned earlier, leong and bodrova (2012) suggest five elements of play that teachers can scaffold in ways to support children’s development in all the domains: planning; developing roles; using props; giving time; developing appropriate language; and negotiating settings. canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 43 vol. 38 no. 1 i used classroom observations to capture small moments of learning and to gather data. at-a-glance sheets were used to take notes during play time at the bakery. i recorded individual students’ actions as well as student dialogue to reflect on after school. observations and anecdotal notes taken at the bakery drama centre froze the learning so that i could study it more closely. as noted by the saskatchewan ministry of education, (2008), “taking time to notice what children are saying, planning, and doing requires some organized way of observing and recording learning processes and information” (p. 36). our play time lasted for approximately one hour each morning, plus an additional shorter block of time in the afternoon. although ample time was scheduled for play to unfold during the day, it proved challenging to observe and take notes. small groups of students would play at one time at the bakery. children were free to choose which centre they wanted to play in and could move to a different centre freely. sometimes, students from another centre came over to ask a question, while at other times i had to leave the bakery to attend to other students’ needs. most days, there were only short intervals without distractions or interruptions during which to gather information about students’ learning. when possible, i took notes about who played at the centre, what they were doing, and what they said in their conversations and peer interactions, filling in my at-aglance sheets. i used my observations to make changes in the bakery and tried to plan for next steps for individual students the following school day. early on in the planning stages of the bakery, one idea that came from my observations of play in the classroom was to incorporate play dough at the centre, blurring boundaries between two centres. previously, i had noticed that few students were visiting the play dough centre and i wondered how children could be encouraged to rediscover this material to strengthen their relationship with the materials in the classroom to support their learning. using play dough helps children to develop fine motor skills as they roll out the material, make large and small balls, and manipulate cutting tools. play dough can also scaffold oral language development as students make meaning, negotiate rules, and communicate with one another through purposeful talk as they play. with the addition of play dough to the bakery drama centre, i hoped that the children would sell cookies, make cakes or muffins, and deliver goods to customers. i also hoped that the new material would encourage the children to talk to each other, supporting oral language growth and building fine motor skills as they made cookies to sell. when the play dough was added, i observed children talking about packaging and ingredients while they decorated the cookies and placed and took orders. i also noted that they were drawing on their experience at the local bakery, decorating cookies in a similar way to those they had seen at the store. the children also negotiated roles, such as who would bake and who would sell. i placed new materials in the centre based on my daily observations of the children’s play in the bakery, hoping to “stimulate investigation and learning” (saskatchewan ministry of education, 2008, p. 25) through play and inquiry. initially, rolling pins, cookie cutters, baking sheets, muffin tins, oven mitts, buttons, wooden cookies, and spatulas were organized in the centre. as the play evolved during the month, i wondered what other resources could be added to enrich and deepen the play. i drew from my observations made each day at the bakery. i observed that the children could benefit from additional practice in writing numbers and letters, and i searched for authentic ways to incorporate literacy and numeracy into the drama centre. as a result, i began to add materials to the centre to encourage writing and reading. by taking orders and reading them out to the baker, the children could practice and encourage the development of these skills in a real-life situation. order forms for cookies as well as markers and bakery stationery were added. crosser (2008) suggests that teachers can extend thinking by asking questions, using prompts, and adding and removing materials to challenge students to think about different perspectives or a new way of working. in the case of the drama centre bakery, adding new materials did help to extend the children’s play. rather than taking orders verbally, children began to write down the names of their classmates and the number of cookies they ordered. a clothesline was soon erected in the centre for students to hang the completed order forms. a hanging curtain normally used for a puppet theatre was reconfigured into a storefront window and paper bags were used to deliver cookies. children were using the new materials to support learning, set their own agendas, and build relationships. saying, doing, representing the children represented their new learning in several ways. initially, when i added a cookie order form to the centre, the children drew happy faces on the cookie outline. to provoke deeper thinking, i asked students in what other ways the form could be used. one day, i modelled how to use the form to record my cookie order. after modelling how to fill out the form, the children began to fill it out on their own and started to ask their classmates to write or spell their name and to list the type and number of cookies they wanted to purchase. i found that the learning at the drama centre met students where they were by offering multiple entry points into the “when teachers let go of their preset plans, they are free to tap into children’s own agendas, trusting in the environment to act as a third teacher and in the children’s interests to guide classroom learning.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 44 vol. 38 no. 1 play. for instance, some students were ready to write and record numbers on the cookie order form. other students were interested in making the cookies and began to roll the dough, strengthening their fine motor skills. students also engaged in conversations about their play, supporting oral language development. the play at the drama centre offered a unique opportunity to use some of the language they had heard during their field trip to the local bakery. i also observed that some students needed assistance in negotiating rules, taking turns, and developing self-regulation. the bakery play scenario provided me with an opportunity to individualize some of the learning in my classroom. although i felt i knew the curriculum well, i found that, at times, it was difficult to name some of the learning emerging in the bakery drama centre and connect it to curricular expectations for our kindergarten program. in hindsight, backmapping (harvey & daniels, 2009) could have been beneficial in creating those crucial connections between the program’s expectations and the learning that was unfolding in the classroom. this difficulty challenged me to think more deeply about who was setting the agenda for learning at the centre, what kind of relationships were being developed in our classroom, and how learning was enhanced or inhibited as children played at the bakery. drawing on the work of wien (2008) and pelletier (2011), i reflected on how our kindergarten curriculum might potentially bump up against the children’s own agendas and what that could mean for my own practice. my daily observations and photos did help me to better understand some of the literacy and social skills that the children needed to work on further, such as letter and number formation as well as sharing. perhaps these supports were more closely aligned with my own teacher’s agenda and our program’s curriculum than with the children’s goals for learning. critical reflections linder (2010) argues that teachers can assess children’s learning when they have extensive time to reflect and observe children at play. teachers’ observations uncover the strategies children use to learn and highlight potential gaps in understanding. wien (2008) describes the importance of slowing down the day, listening closely to children’s conversations, and developing deep insights about learning in the classroom. when i let go of the teacher’s agenda, the interests and goals of the children at the bakery had the potential to become the focus of learning. children take ownership of their own learning when they are given choices and are empowered to make decisions (stuber, 2007). these dynamics unfolded in some ways at the bakery. lewin-benham (2011) suggests that it is the relationships children develop in the classroom that help or hinder deep learning. she asks: “how will this arrangement, that experience, those materials encourage children to form relationships with the space, the materials, with another child or a small group of children, with a teacher, a parent, with ideas between what they already know and something new” (p. 70)? the bakery fostered different relationships to support new learning and change practice. my students engaged in inquiry as they prepared ingredients, made cookies from play dough, and baked them in the oven, following their own interests and natural curiosity as they developed relationships with the materials and the environment. although i offered the initial invitation to explore, the additional materials placed at the centre and direction of the play scenario were determined by the children, as were the peer interactions that unfolded. using familiar materials in new ways helped to support the agenda set by the children and to give them opportunities to make their own decisions. the children investigated the role of bakers and extended the initial play scenario when they used the storefront window to take orders and sell cookies. they also talked about delivering cookies to customers and shared their thinking around negotiated rules. lewin-benham (2011) states that the classroom environment can offer significant and meaningful possibilities for new and deeper understandings such as those offered at the bakery. the children were able to deepen their relationships with each other and the environment as they played at the bakery drama centre, taking up role playing based on their own prior knowledge, the shared experience of the field visit, and rules of play they had negotiated together. using the play at the bakery to assess learning has important implications for my classroom practice. following linder’s (2010) approach, i assessed learning at the bakery by reflecting on writing samples, anecdotal notes, and photos. there were many challenges and successes during my daily assessments. i found it difficult to sustain my focus on the students at play in the bakery for extended periods of time. because i was the only adult in the room, children from other centres often came to speak with me and other tasks in the classroom needed to be completed. at times, i felt that i only saw and understood the learning at a very superficial level and was not able to dig deeply enough to have a clear understanding of the relationships children were building with the environment and each other or to know what i could take from the play at the bakery to push their thinking further. time limitations and distractions were challenges that frequently surfaced. i also felt that i missed opportunities to extend the children’s learning as i followed my own goals in our classroom bakery. my agenda focused on using the bakery as a way to scaffold literacy and numeracy skills. what were the other areas of “... listen more carefully to our students’ conversations, be more flexible and open to new ideas, and embrace our own role of learner and co-constructor in the classroom.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 45 vol. 38 no. 1 learning outside my agenda that were left unattended? what did the children want to learn at the bakery? these are cognitive knots still waiting to be unravelled. on the other hand, the bakery provided a meaningful context for children to practice their emerging social skills, and perhaps this area of development was more closely aligned to the children’s agenda as they set rules, made sense of the bakery shop play, and communicated with each other. self-regulation skills help children “recognize their strengths and needs and to monitor their progress, and adaptive, coping, and management skills help them to respond to challenges as they learn and develop” (ontario ministry of education, 2011, p. 8). play at the bakery helped children to self-regulate, the foundation of learning. epstein (2003) argues that “when we engage children in planning, we encourage them to identify their goals and consider the options for achieving them” (p. 2). providing time to reflect on their choices helps children to build on what they already know and can do as well as develop self-awareness. stuber (2007) argues that some learning centres are created with prescribed activities and time limits for children to accomplish during play. in contrast, our bakery allowed children the space to create their own play scenarios and choose the directions they wanted to follow. there were also multiple opportunities to play at the centre, allowing children time, space, and resources to recreate their play and practice skills. although i had a literacy and numeracy agenda in mind when adding or removing materials or modelling, for example, the children were free to make decisions about how they used the materials, to negotiate roles and rules of the play, and to enter and reenter the play in “unhurried time” (wien, 2008, p. 148). another challenge emerged when children chose a different centre, moved to a new centre to engage in play, or did not visit the bakery at all. few children consistently played in the centre day after day. as a result, i felt that my observations on any particular day were only a small indication of the learning taking place rather than robust evidence of learning. it was difficult to see patterns emerging, notice new trends, or discover gaps in learning because the children often moved to a new centre or groups of children who played at the bakery one day chose to spend their time at the blocks or the paint easel the next day. often my attention was required in other areas of the classroom to sharpen pencils, retrieve materials, or to help solve problems. it became challenging to plan individual next steps, and many of the interventions were targeted more at enhancing the children’s relationships with the classroom environment and the new and familiar materials on offer at the drama centre in general. at times, it was also difficult to name the learning that was taking place and to fully understand what i observed, particularly when it was outside my own agenda. those children who returned more consistently to the bakery made use of the new resources and used them to extend their learning. the children who wrote their names and the number and type of cookie on the order forms, for example, were already engaged in many other reading and writing activities throughout the school day. these students naturally gravitated toward these types of learning experiences. the bakery did, though, offer an authentic and meaningful opportunity to practice their developing skills. new resources, such as the cookie form, storefront window, and clothesline, added a new dimension and complexity to some children’s play and served to spark new interest for others. some children began to take, read, and fill orders and deliver cookies. they made packages of cookies similar to those they had seen during our field trip and talked about making all the cookies uniform. other students who may have benefited from more literacy or numeracy opportunities did not choose the centre at all during the month, even with encouragement. these students stayed at familiar centres in the classroom. conclusion as my experience with the drama centre bakery shows, connecting play, inquiry, and learning can be problematic at times for teachers. youngquist and patarayching (2004) encourage teachers to “create inquiry curricula around students’ interests … [that] help children broaden the ways in which they think, question, and explore” (p. 178). although i agree that inquiry through play has the potential to help extend and push students’ thinking in many different domains, it is challenging to assess and plan for individual learning. in contrast, the addition of new materials, teacher guidance and modelling, and a shared experience facilitated children’s engagement in their play and supported the view of the classroom environment as a third teacher at the bakery. i found that the next steps for the centre that i planned were more general in nature than based on particular children’s needs and focused mainly on the relationship children had with the classroom environment and materials. this may also be a result of my own growing understanding as a teacher of how to use play at the drama centre as a vehicle for learning. i found it challenging to name some of the learning that was occurring at the drama centre and to observe what was needed for individual children’s next steps based on that learning. time and interruptions were also factors because our classroom is a three-day-a-week program. perhaps this difficulty may be of less concern in a fullday every-day program where students are engaged in play for longer blocks of time and more often during the week, as some kindergartens in ontario have begun to implement. full-day every-day programs also have an early childhood educator in the room in addition to the teacher. while assessment and planning next steps proved to be a challenge at the bakery centre, the centre provided an excellent venue for developing children’s skills. not all the children were ready for these tasks, so the gains were not uniform. my critical reflection throughout the bakery canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 46 vol. 38 no. 1 time helped me to identify these strengths and weaknesses and to reflect on my own practice and agenda setting. teachers assume a significant role in planning an environment and organizing learning experiences that support and emphasize both play and inquiry in the early years classroom. in fact, this shift in focus requires us to listen more carefully to our students’ conversations, be more flexible and open to new ideas, and embrace our own role of learner and co-constructor in the classroom. although teachers may be “letting go,” a phrase frequently heard in our daily work, they are still, as wien (2008) notes, integral to the learning that unfolds through play and inquiry in the classroom. references anderson, g., & herr, k. 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(1996). reflective teaching: an introduction. new york, ny: routledge. microsoft word tukonic and harwood online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years’ educators sense of professionalism by stephanie tukonic and debra harwood editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 36 to 54] www.cayc.ca the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stephanie tukonic and debra harwood authors’ bios stephanie  tukonic  is  a  graduate  of  the  master’s  program  of  brock  university.  she  is   a  research  intern  for  children's  services,  community  services  of  niagara  region,   ontario.  email:  stephanie.tukonic@niagararegion.ca   debra  harwood  is  an  associate  professor  at  brock  university.  she  co-­‐developed  and   teaches  within  the  bachelor  of  early  childhood  education  degree  program  and   focuses  her  research  interests  on  professionalism,  and  curriculum  and  pedagogy  in   the  early  years.  email:  dharwood@brocku.ca   abstract the  ontario  landscape  of  early  years  education  is  undergoing  dramatic  shifts,   perhaps  a  sign  of  a  beginning  movement  toward  an  integrated  publicly  funded   delivery  system  model.  ontario  is  engaged  in  the  final  phase  of  a  5-­‐year   implementation  plan  to  incorporate  services  for  4-­‐  and  5-­‐year-­‐olds  within  the   educational  sector.  the  full-­‐day  early  learning–kindergarten  program  (elkp)  is  a   model  that  relies  on  the  collaboration  and  professionalism  of  a  teacher  and  an  early   childhood  educator  within  each  elkp  classroom.  while  early  childhood  education   programs  for  children  0–4  years  of  age  continue  to  be  provided  via  a  market-­‐ delivery  system,  the  legislative  and  regulatory  framework  for  child  care  now  resides   with  the  ministry  of  education.  potentially,  merging  these  two  distinct  fields  (care   and  education)  within  one  ministry  can  provoke  ideological  discussions  related  to   professionalism,  a  facet  that  is  noticeably  absent  in  the  policy  and  framework   literature  produced  by  the  ministry  thus  far.  as  teachers  and  early  childhood   educators  collaborate  within  elkp  classrooms  and  beyond,  ideologies  and  praxis   encounters  can  challenge  one’s  sense  of  professionalism.  thirty-­‐seven  early  years     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   educators  participated  in  a  study  examining  concepts  of  professionalism  and  the   factors  that  mediate  and  influence  professional  identity.  the  findings  indicate  that   educators  perceive  a  “glass  ceiling”  effect  in  their  profession.  perhaps  a  reimagining   of  the  glass  ceiling  can  be  fostered  by  finding  ways  to  challenge  policy  makers  and   educational  systems  to  consider  both  new  models  of  training/education  and   pathways  for  the  co-­‐construction  of  professional  identities  for  teachers  and   educators.   a shifting landscape of care and education over the last decade, a call for greater integration and alignment of policy between early childhood care and education (ecce) and schooling has emerged, both internationally and in canada. pointedly, the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) emphasizes the need for a “systemic and integrated approach to early childhood care and education policy and a strong and equal partnership with the education system” (organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2006, p. 3) as two of eight key elements of successful ecce policy. furthermore, in the first starting strong report (organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2001), several suggestions were highlighted to foster systems integration and address the historical issue of the two-tiered system of care (for children from birth to 3 years) and education (for children 3 years old and older) that developed in many of the oecd member countries, including canada.i the oecd (2001) recommends strong links across services, professionals, and parents in each community and the promotion of “equality of relationship and strong continuity between early childhood provision and the education system” (p. 58). how this partnership and equality between the two sectors are operationalized, however, raises some interesting questions. for example, which sector will dominate? how does equality of relationships impact professionalism and professional identity construction? within canada, much of the discourse on systems integration focuses on early education serving as a precursor to, and in support of the objectives of, public education; a clear ‘readiness for school’ orientation appears to dominate much of the dialogue (moss, 2013). moss discusses some of the potential inherent dangers in the development of a relationship between early childhood education and compulsory schooling within a model that has been historically a “split delivery” system (e.g., canada, united states, australia, united kingdom). the sectors typically differ in important respects: administration, regulation, curriculum, access, funding, workforce, and types of provision. this is not a case of different but equal, but different and unequal. (moss, 2013, p. 7) ontario provides one context within canada to examine the movement toward a publicly funded integrated systems model. the ontario landscape of early years education is undergoing dramatic shifts. the province is currently engaged in the final   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   phase of a 5-year implementation plan to incorporate services for 4and 5-year-olds within the educational sector. the full-day early learning–kindergarten program (elkp) is a model that relies on the collaboration and professionalism of a teacher and an early childhood educator within each elkp classroom. and, although early childhood education (ece) programs for children 0–3 years of age continue to be provided via a market-delivery system, the legislative and regulatory framework for child care now resides with the ministry of education. the ministry’s 2010–11 draft report on the new program noted that the elkp team “will have the benefit of a collaborative and complementary partnership to support children and families in a high-quality, intentional, play-based learning environment” (ontario ministry of education, 2010, p. 8). teachers are responsible for the long-term planning and organization of the program and the management of these classes, while early childhood educators are responsible for ageappropriate program planning that facilitates experiences that promote physical, emotional, social, language, and cognitive child development (ontario ministry of education, 2010). potentially, merging these historically distinct professions might provoke ideological and praxis encounters that could challenge educators’ and teachers’ sense of professionalism. if ontario is to achieve the aims of the oecd starting strong reports (2001, 2006), “equality of relationship and strong continuity between early childhood provision and the education system” (organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2001, p. 58) must be realized at both the macro (e.g., attitudes and ideologies of the culture) and micro (e.g., school, peers, and family) levels. this small-scale study of 37 early years educators in ontario examined the educators’ concepts of professionalism and the factors that mediate and influence professional identity. initially the study aimed to include both kindergarten teachers and early childhood educators. however, the majority of the self-nominated participants were registered early childhood educators (reces); few teachers completed the survey. thus, throughout this article we utilize the terms “educator” and “early years sector” to refer to all the participants of the study who held positions within the educational field at the time the data were collected (including preschools, child care and education centres, and halfday and elkp kindergarten programs). our interest in this study rested with understanding how early years educators defined their own sense of professionalism, and the ways in which professional perceptions may be impacted by one’s role (i.e., as a teacher or rece). additionally, the data collection took place during year 2 of the implementation of the elkp model, thus we sought ways to explore how the merging of two sectors and the changing landscape of early years education in ontario provided opportunities and/or challenges to professional identity construction. the findings indicate that a “glass ceiling” effect was perceived by early childhood educators that acted to limit and constrain their insights of professional identity. in this article, we borrow the metaphor of the glass ceiling from cotter, hermsen, ovadia, and vanneman (2001) to explore some of the barriers and inequalities   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   that may potentially impact and limit early childhood educators’ sense of professionalism. and, although cotter and his colleagues use the term “glass ceiling” to refer strictly to gender and race inequalities, in this article we utilize the concept more liberally to explore some of the structural and attitudinal barriers that may exist in the current ontario early years sector. for example, the educators who participated in this study identified pay and education level differences between early childhood educators and teachers, lack of administration leadership, and societal misunderstandings as some of these barriers. we highlight the study’s preliminary findings in the hope of challenging policy makers and educational systems to consider both new models of training/education and pathways for the co-construction of professional identities for teachers and early childhood educators alike. potentially, by reimagining the glass ceiling, new opportunities and pathways to educator professionalism can be realized. defining professionalism in the canadian ece context, the concept of professionalism is a relatively new discussion. amid long-held public conceptions of early childhood educators as mere care providers or babysitters; early childhood educators themselves have been reluctant to enter the debate on professionalism (brock, 2012). moreover, little agreement exists within the literature in defining the construct, adding to the challenge of researching educators’ conceptions of professionalism (martin, meyer, jones, nelson, & ling, 2010). according to the oxford online dictionary, a professional is an individual who demonstrates proficiency and skill within a particular profession (oxford university press, 2014). this somewhat simplistic definition adds little to understanding the complexity of what constitutes a profession and a professional. in 1985 lilian katz utilized what she deemed “scientific conceptions” in a discussion of educator professionalism, naming eight criteria that need to be met for the term professional(ism) to apply: social necessity, altruism, autonomy, code of ethics, distance from client, standards of practice, prolonged training, and specialized knowledge (katz, 1985). in 2001, cherrington (cited in dalli, 2008) added to the discussion by highlighting four cornerstones of professionalism, namely, “professionalism of interpersonal actions, having and acting upon a professional knowledge base, acting in the child’s best interest, and taking professional responsibility for the actions of one’s colleagues” (p. 174). contemporary conceptualizations emphasize “early childhood professionalism [as] something whose meaning appears to be embedded in local contexts, visible in relational interactions, ethical and political in nature, and involving multiple layers of knowledge, judgement, and influences from the broader societal context” (dalli, miller, & urban, 2012, p. 6). thus, professionalism appears to be a “multi-layered and multi-faceted concept” (miller & cable, 2011, p. 8) whose definition requires a “ground-up” perspective from educators themselves (dalli, 2008; martin et al., 2010).   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   in the thirty years since katz’s original discussion, the ece field has made advances in the eight criteria she outlined. for some countries (e.g., new zealand), the discussion of professionalism has moved well beyond whether or not an educator is a professional to focus more on the quality and continuity of professional learning and the development of all educators (cherrington & thornton, 2013). dalli (1993) and others (lee, 2012; opper, 1993) argue that the ece field has made significant gains that challenge its historical “cinderella” status of being “undervalued and underfunded” (dalli, p. 3). this ability to challenge historical notions of what constitutes a professional educator seems particularly important since, as hargreaves (2000) describes in a discussion related to teachers, a sense of professionalism has to do with “how teachers feel they are seen through other people’s eyes—in terms of their status, standing, regard and levels of professional reward” (p. 152). and, although ontario has made strides in prioritizing early years education, we argue that the cinderella syndrome is still pervasive within this context. comparable to other locales, the canadian discourse on professionalism and the early childhood educator is relatively underdeveloped, with educators’ voices largely silent (brock, 2012). the research methodology the study employed a web-based questionnaire that explored concepts of professionalism and professional identities of educators and teachers in the ece sector. the study aimed to include all early years educators (i.e., both kindergarten teachers and early childhood educators). thus, educators and teachers were invited to participate in the study through various early years associations and professional networks. however, only five teachers responded to the survey and identified themselves as kindergarten teachers; therefore, comparative measures of differences in perceptions of professionalism between early childhood educators and teachers were not possible within the scope of this study. consequently, throughout the description of methods and findings, we utilize the terms “educator” and “early years sector” to refer to all of the study participants. the design of the questionnaire was informed by previous research related to educator professionalism (dalli, 2008; martin et al., 2010; rodgers & raider-roth, 2006) and by adapting the profile of child care professionals measure (martin et al., 2010). additionally, specific factors that contribute to feelings of being a professional were also explored (e.g., commitment to the field of specialization, education, expert knowledge, pedagogy, and ethics). the first section, the quantitative portion of the questionnaire, asked participants to share their perceptions and beliefs related to the ethics, practice, care, and knowledge incumbent on an early years educator. the educators’ perceptions and beliefs were collectively compared with the varied participant characteristics (e.g., years of experience, role, and level of education). the second section, the qualitative aspect of the   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   questionnaire, explored what participants perceived the qualities of a professional early years educator to be and any challenges they associated in the construction of professional identity. both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed. the quantitative data were analyzed using a statistical software program, spss 20.0, to perform descriptive analysis and limited inferential statistical examination. descriptive statistics were calculated for the frequency of each response and the mean response of each question. in addition, several nonparametric tests of analysis were conducted to collectively compare the perceptions of professionalism of early childhood educators with several participant characteristics. the qualitative data analysis was supported with the use of nvivo 9 to generate theme-based frequencies that emerged in the coding process. these codes were assigned to participant responses that were then used to form descriptions and broader themes in the data set (creswell, 2012). two overarching meta-themes emerged from the study: educators’ self-perceptions of professionalism, and mediating influences on professional identity. potentially, these mediating influences can create a glass ceiling effect for professionalism and educator professional identity construction. the participating educators thirty-seven early years educators participated in the study. the participant profiles (i.e., gender, years of experience, family income, education level, and role) are detailed in table 1. table 1. profile of participant characteristics. participant   profile   characteristics   percentage of responses gender   female   100.0   years  of   experience   less  than  5  years   10.8   6  to  10  years   10.8   11  to  15  years   16.2   15  to  20  years   29.7   more  than  21  years   32.4   education  level   college  diploma  (2  years)   62.2   university  degree  completed   10.8     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   (includes  bachelor  of  education)   university  degree  completed   (not  including  bachelor  of   education)   13.5   master’s  degree   13.5   role   early  childhood  educator  (rece)   40.5   director/manager  ece   27.0   other  ece  role   18.9   junior  kindergarten  /   senior  kindergarten  teacher   (certified  teacher)   13.5     the participants, all female, tended to be proficient or experts in their field (katz, 1972). in descending order of frequency, the participants indicated their role as the following: a registered early childhood educator (rece), director/manager ece, other ece role, or junior kindergarten / senior kindergarten teacher (certified teacher). aligned with the practices of teachers and the mandate of the ontario college of teachers (2013), the practice of early childhood education in ontario is regulated by the college of early childhood educators in accordance with the early childhood educators act, 2007 (college of early childhood educators, 2013). thus, the term rece refers to an individual who is registered with the college and accountable to act in accordance with its regulations. the 5 participating teachers and 32 educators were all registered members of their respective colleges. in addition, many participants (27%) reported that they currently held a position as a director or manager of an early childhood centre. in ontario, the director of a centre often maintains responsibility for administrative and leadership duties and they often also uphold educator responsibilities in programming and interacting with children. the majority of the respondents (62.2%) held a two-year diploma, which adheres to the province’s minimal qualification expectation for early childhood educators (government of ontario, 1990). quantified perceptions of professionalism the quantitative section of the questionnaire captured and examined perceptions and beliefs related to the ethics, practice, care, and knowledge incumbent on an early years educator. all educators (100%) considered themselves to be professional. the   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   majority of the educators (93.5%) reported that they felt qualified and confident to help others learn about the role of an early years educator, with 90.6% stating that they had a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of their current position. moreover, approximately half (46.9%) of the educators agreed strongly with the statement that they felt supported in their role. approximately one-third of the educators (38.7%) felt strongly that others demonstrated respect for their current position. almost 65% of the respondents indicated that they felt others viewed them as professionals. inferential statistics were calculated to examine any variances in perceptions of professionalism among the participants. a kruskal-wallis test of one-way variance determined a variance in perceptions of professionalism based on the five levels of experience (less than 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 15 years, 16 to 20 years, and more than 21 years) and four levels of education (college diploma, university degree with and without a bachelor of education, and graduate degree). specifically, educators with less than 5 years of experience perceived that others were less likely to view them as a professional, while educators with more than 21 years of experience felt strongly that others viewed them as professionals (χ2(4) = 10.303, p = 0.036). moreover, educators with a bachelor’s degree reported feeling strongly supported in their role in comparison to educators with a college diploma or a master’s degree, who did not report feeling as strongly supported in their role (χ2(3) = 11.185, p = 0.11). thus, although the participants overwhelmingly reported a strong sense of professionalism, there were subtle differences in those perceptions that were also explored through a qualitative lens. qualitative conceptions of professionalism in this study, the participating educators reported a strong sense of perceived professionalism, yet both autonomy and collegiality were mediating influences that acted to limit professionalism (see later discussion on mediating influences). to better understand the meanings of the educators’ perceptions of professionalism (dalli, 2008) and how these perceptions would be described qualitatively, the participants were asked to (a) list the qualities they would expect to find in an early years educator that they would describe as a professional and (b) describe how they would recognize professionalism in early years educators’ interactions across a range of workplace situations. the most frequently used descriptors utilized by the participants in their conceptualization of the qualities of a professional included caring, knowledgeable, selflearner, and respectful. caring was one of the most frequently reported qualities of a professional. the concept of caring included references the participants made to compassion, patient, loving, kindness, and ethics. participant 16 noted that professionalism is a delicate balance and is evidenced by an individual who “maintains an appropriate boundary between being caring and being ethical.”   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   according to brock (2012), an educator’s role is multifaceted and “involves understanding teaching methodologies, developing curriculum frameworks and organizing children’s learning experiences” (p. 38). the 37 study participants appeared to recognize the distinct levels of knowledge required of their roles and referred to the importance of having an understanding of how children learn, of learning/developmental theories, and of early child development. being knowledgeable as a professional tended to be an all-encompassing construct, as participant 5 noted in her comments: [a professional] advocates for the needs of children, communicates and understands child development, understands and applies current research/evidence, [applies] observation-informed practise, attends professional development opportunities. additionally, based on the participants’ responses, we used the theme “selflearner” to refer to educators’ conceptualizations of qualities of professionalism that included being inquisitive, a lifelong learner, reflective, intuitive, and able to apply acquired knowledge. the theme of respect was also evident in the participants’ responses. here, educators referred to qualities such as being observant, inclusive, respectful of diverse cultures, and having a non-judgmental view of the children and others. participants appeared to consider respect as a quality of a being professional, an inherent disposition of the individual. respect also appeared as a theme related to educators’ interactions. in terms of recognizing professionalism in early years educators’ interactions across a range of workplace situations, the participants most frequently reported on the role of respect, a strong work ethic, educator development, and professionalism in practice. in terms of respect and professional interactions, the educators discussed concepts such as acting responsibly toward children, parents, and other colleagues, being supportive of one another’s roles, maintaining a collaborative orientation, demonstrating a willingness to share resources, upholding confidentiality, and “being a team player” (participant 20). the theme “work ethic” included responses related to acting ethically, being nonjudgmental, maintaining an appropriate attire and comportment, and demonstrating commitment to one’s role. for example, in terms of the latter, participant 21 referred to “a person who is not concerned about financial gain and can work 15 minutes before or after school even if they are not being paid.” professionalism in practice tended to include descriptions related to ideas of “best practice,” demonstrating desires and behaviours to improve practice, and use of observation and research-informed practices. for example, participant 37 described her   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   ability to recognize professionalism in others as reflective of “an individual who can articulate the ‘why’ behind what they are doing regardless of the situation.” mediating influences on early years educators in 2010, ontario began implementing full-day early learning within the formal education system under the jurisdiction of the ministry of education. perhaps ontario is mirroring the international developments of integrated publicly funded delivery systems in other nations. for example, france, italy, belgium, austria, germany, new zealand, spain, slovenia, england, scotland, brazil, iceland, norway, and sweden deliver care and education programs for preschool children in seamless models (bennett, 2008). regardless, the shift in jurisdiction and oversight of the ece sector from the ministry of children and youth services to the ministry of education serves as a potential first step for the integration of early years services in ontario. several changes occurred as a result of the shift, ultimately impacting legislation, policy, funding, quality assurance procedures, and structural changes within the education ministry itself. in light of these developments, to better understand the potential role of the socio-political landscape on perceptions of professionalism, the study participants were asked to discuss obstacles and challenges they had experienced in association with professionalism and professional identity construction. if they were part of an elkp team, they were asked to describe any experiences with opportunities for and challenges to professionalism and professional development. fourteen of the participants (4 teachers and 10 reces) were part of an elkp team, and the majority of them indicated that it was their second year in an elkp classroom. four themes emerged from the participants’ qualitative responses: (a) internal perceptions that devalue the role of an early years educator; (b) external perceptions that devalue the role of an early years educator; (c) compatibility of the relationship between early childhood educators and teachers; and (d) levels of education and years of service. below we discuss each of these themes individually; however, it is important to consider how these four constructs are interrelated and interdependent. potentially, this interrelation and interdependence of constructs may have a greater impact on fuelling the glass ceiling effect on professionalism and professional identity construction than the presence of any one construct alone. nevertheless, much like the transparent glass ceiling itself, the “invisible” barriers that study participants discussed appeared to negatively impact their sense of professionalism. internal perceptions that devalue an early years educator we categorized participants’ discussions of the lack of professional development opportunities and the negative views of administrators, teachers, and staff as internal perceptions that devalue early years educators. in terms of identified challenges, participants branded principals’, teachers’, and other administrative staff persons’   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   commonly held perceptions of their role of an early years educator as an obstacle to professionalism and professional identity construction. often these commonly held perceptions were critiqued by the participants as part of the rationale for the devaluing and lack of supports for early years programs within the education sector itself. as participant 16 expressed, “school boards until recently always thought of us as ‘babysitters’ not ‘educators’ [and although] that is now changing, [it] can still be readily seen in some schools/situations.” lack of adequate resourcing for early years programming appeared to be aligned with participants’ sense of devaluation. participant 19 shared that “kindergarten is [considered] a ‘program,’ not a mandated curriculum; therefore, the support for high needs students [is] not available.” leadership was also highlighted as an obstacle: “a principal and vice-principal who don’t know the kindergarten curriculum; a principal who doesn’t understand multiple intelligence; a principal and vice-principal who don’t understand the developmental continuum” (participant 25). the qualitative discussion of perceived respect was mirrored in the quantitative findings. here, the roles of administrators, teachers, and staff were predictive of educators’ perceptions of how they felt supported in their role (β = 0.819, p = 0.000). similarly, the perceived level of support by others was predictive of the participants’ professed feelings of being respected in their position (β = 0.457, p = 0.000). another devaluing mechanism the participants expressed was related to professional development (pd) and opportunities for professional growth. participants noted obstacles such as “few opportunities for paid and ongoing pd” (participant 37) and “very rarely is professional development offered with our teaching partners” (participant 22). limited diversity in the professional development opportunities was also noted as a challenge to professional growth. for example, participant 24 stated: “we have had workshops for us after school but when it comes to pd day stuff it’s the same stuff over and over and there are no new opportunities to learn new things.” external perceptions that devalue an early years educator the participating educators also identified perceptions of parents and the general public regarding the value of early years educators as an obstacle to professionalism and constructing a professional identity. congruent with the descriptions of internal stakeholders’ perceptions within the education system, one educator stated: the average person’s perception in canada is that working with children 0–6 years old is babysitting. there is now a small shift in the understanding that the early years are the foundation of the child’s health and well-being. more knowledge on the importance of the early years needs to be communicated to the public. this understanding would help [the] government provide funds for the programs that are needed in every community for this age group. (participant 1)   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   another educator concurred, explaining that a challenge to professionalism was related to “societal misunderstanding of the role of eces, [misunderstandings of] the importance of the early years and brain development, and a general lack of eces’ ability to communicate with parents and the community about what they do” (participant 5). in addition, it was clear in the findings that the perceptions of parents and the public are predictive of educators’ perceptions and understanding of the responsibilities of their role (β = 0.244, p = 0.045). compatibility of the relationship a notable recurring theme in the participants’ narrated responses was the compatibility of the relationship between early childhood educators and teachers. the educators identified the relationship compatibility of the rece and teacher as both an opportunity and a challenge associated with professionalism and constructing a professional identity. one educator highlighted this complexity by stating: [i am] amazed at the constant opportunities for growth and learning. i always come away with new knowledge that i’d love to apply, but as an ece i am then met with the larger challenge of trying to convince my teaching partner to move forward. we as eces can only be as good as we are permitted to be as it seem to be up to the teacher to have the final say and decide how the program will unfold. (participant 23) the compatibility of the relationship was also described as a journey: as a dece [designated ece] within the school board i have had the opportunity to get back to what i went to school for, which was helping children learn and adjust to the world around them. the school board has given me the opportunities to make the time that i spend with children meaningful and measurable. as a dece it has been a journey with my teaching partner to navigate our roles, responsibilities, and strengths. i feel that i have had to prove to her that i am as much of a professional as she is. i feel great now that she feels confident in my abilities as her teaching partner and not her assistant. (participant 26) one educator shared the importance of establishing this balance and compatible relationship as an opportunity for professional growth: developing a relationship with your partner is an important part of the early learning team. having difficult conversations and challenging each other’s practices is very important, yet challenging. the beautiful part of the partnership is how much the roles complement each other. i have   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   learned so much from my ece partners about documentation, child development, assessment, and play. (participant 31) the participants also noted obstacles that challenge the compatibility of this relationship. most notably, these obstacles include the pay differential that exists between educators and teachers, contrary belief systems, ill-defined roles, lack of shared professional development opportunities, and the need for “joint planning/prep time offered for reces with their teaching partners” (participant 22). level of education and the years of service the participating educators identified level of education and years of service as obstacles associated with professionalism and constructing a professional identity. one educator shared that a lack of value and recognition exists in relation to a college diploma (the minimal requirement for an rece). recognition as an educator in the childcare setting is challenging. [specifically], [there is] less recognition of a college diploma [than a] university degree. intense training in child development is more credible than a degree in geography. when is the educational field going to recognize that social and emotional growth is just as important as learning academics? (participant 8) another educator shared the trials associated with pay and professional identity, saying, “if pay does not reflect our responsibilities in comparison to our teaching partner then we will never be viewed as a professional” (participant 23). these responses are congruent with the perceptions of professionalism that educators shared in respect to specific level of education and years of service. educators with a bachelor’s degree reported a stronger belief that they were supported in their role compared to educators with college diplomas or master’s degrees (χ2(3) = 11.185, p = 0.011). also, feeling qualified and confident to help others learn about the role of early years educators was predictive of enjoyment of work (β = 0.915, p = 0.005). educators with more than 21 years of experience reported more robust perceptions that others were likely to view them as professional compared to educators with 20 years experience or less (χ2(4) = 10.303, p = 0.036). the educational training requirements between the two sectors appeared to impact perceptions of professionalism. participant 21 said: i wonder if the ece see themselves as teachers, if the public sees them as a teacher, and if society sees them as teachers. with only two years of further education should they be considered in the same light [as professionals] just like a teacher who holds a degree and also a bachelor of education degree? i think that the term ‘professional’ is usually   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   reserved for doctors, lawyers, teachers (someone with advanced education). summary and discussion the goal of this small-scale study of educator insights and beliefs related to perceived qualities of professionalism and the potential mediating factors that may influence professional identity construction was to gain a beginning understanding of concepts of professionalism within and between the two historically divided sectors of education and care. professionalism is a challenging construct to define (evetts, 2009). an educator’s role is complex, involving specific “knowledge domains, beliefs and practices, [and ability to demonstrate] the interplay between personal voices and professional ideologies” (brock, 2012, p. 27). perhaps the typology of interrelated dimensions of professionalism proposed by brock can inform the discourse within ontario. in brock’s (2012) research in the united kingdom, she too utilized educators’ voices to define seven interrelated aspects of professionalism: (a) knowledge, (b) qualifications, training and professional development, (c) skills, (d) autonomy, (e) values, (f) ethics, and (g) rewards (p. 27). yet opportunities to engage in critical and analytical discourse on professionalism appear to be largely absent in the ontario context, and reconceptualist discussions “remain outside the canadian ecec mainstream” (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2005, p. 13). spaces for educators themselves to reflect, critique, and evaluate their role may be a key aspect of pursuing and defining professionalism and countering deprofessional discourses (hargreaves, 2000; hughes & menmuir, 2002). as the ontario early years landscape shifts, opportunities to reimagine early years professionalism through research seem fundamental (woodrow, 2007). the 37 educators in this study reported high levels of professionalism, and they conceived of professionalism as encompassing dimensions of caring, knowledge, selflearning, and respect. additionally, the educators noted the roles of respect, work ethic, educator development, and professionalism in practice as integral in educators’ professional interactions. like brock (2012), the educators who participated in this study highlight the complexity of defining and recognizing professionalism, providing valuable insights into constructing a holistic view of early years professionalism within the ontario context. the participants also noted specific internal and external influences that impact professionalism and professional identity construction. specifically, educators noted that they felt devalued by the lack of understanding from administrators and principals, and they attributed the deficiency of resourcing and professional supports as reflective of this devaluing. as stamopoulos (2012) suggests in her leadership model, principals, along with postsecondary institutions and professional organizations, have a direct role to play   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   in building professional competency of educators. however, the idea of “reframing early childhood leadership from a shared responsibility” lens (stamopoulos, 2012) was not evident in the professionalism discourse of the educators who participated in this study, nor does the concept appear evident in the ontario education policy context. moreover, the findings from this study provide insight into how notions of professionalism are impacted by the external environment. here, educators noted the role of parents and society in shaping the professionalism discourse. thus, in keeping with dalli and her colleagues’ notion of the “critical ecology of the early childhood profession,” the conceptualization of professionalism needs to be considered within “the complex realities in which early childhood practitioners live their lives and their profession, and how practitioners’ realities are inextricably linked to their wider context” (dalli et al., 2012, p. 7). interestingly, the participants noted that the compatibility of the relationship between early childhood educators and teachers was both an opportunity and a challenge to professionalism. purposefully planned opportunities for all early years educators to generate and find new ways of being in relationship with one another appear to be a foundational piece to the discussion of professionalism within the ontario early years sector. currently, the training and education of early years educators is fragmented, with early childhood educators requiring a two-year college diploma and teachers a bachelor’s degree and certification (typically a four-year university degree coupled with a one-year university certification). some countries (e.g., sweden, denmark, and finland) have integrated a coherent approach in training all educators who work with young children (oberhuemer, 2005). and although the ontario early years policy framework (ontario ministry of education, 2013) identifies priority areas to foster system and policy integration within the province, noticeably absent is any reference to professionalism, dimensions of professionalism, leadership, and training. conclusion the findings of this small-scale study offer some beginning insights into educators’ thoughts and conceptions of professionalism. we hope to foster greater discourse and critique of professionalism in ontario and beyond. from a critical ecology of the early childhood profession perspective, educators, leaders, policy makers, and educational systems need to consider new models of training and pathways for the coconstruction of professional identities for all early years educators. an integrated training model for all educators and teachers who work with children from birth to 8 years of age (i.e., the foundational stages of development and early learning) could foster greater opportunities for developing a common knowledge and understanding of the continuum of children’s learning and developmental needs. in france, all educators working with young children 2 to 11 years of age receive the same training and job title: professeur des   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   écoles (new & cochran, 2007). a shared training experience and a common foundation of knowledge could foster opportunities for the co-construction of a professional identity for all early years educators, ultimately strengthening educators’ ability to define and enhance their sense of professionalism and capabilities in countering any deprofessionalism rhetoric and initiatives. we suggest that the current environment in ontario fosters a glass ceiling effect for professionalism and professional identity construction (i.e., perceived differences of professionalism) that may inadvertently add to the fragmentation and marginalization of the early years sector. throughout this article, we used the glass ceiling metaphor to explore some of the structural and attitudinal barriers that exist within the current early years sector of care and education in ontario. similar to existing research, the glass ceiling effect we discuss describes inequalities or differences that were identified by the participating educators and that operated to negatively impact professionalism (cotter et al., 2001). thirty-seven educators shared their insights on the role of several constructs that impact one’s sense of professionalism. some of these constructs, such as pay and education differentials, administrative leadership and lack of understanding, and societal misunderstandings can act as barriers to professionalism. however, the authors note that any of these constructs that were conceptualized as constraints can be reimagined as opportunities. one has only to visualize a glass ceiling made of venetian murano glass to imagine the endless possibilities, patterns, and pathways of professionalism that can be fostered. venetian murano glass is revered worldwide for its mastery, brilliance, and uniqueness (heiremans, 2002). the making of the glass relies on a team of master craftspersons who couple centuries-old techniques with contemporary practices (bentham, 2006; levin, 2004). reimagining the glass ceiling of professionalism through a murano glass lens can help foster a discourse that explores possibilities and opportunities for redefining professionalism within the early years sector. a coherent and integrated training model and professional development training for all those working within the early years sector is an example of this reimagining. references bennett, j. (2008). early childhood education and care systems in the oecd countries: the issue of tradition and governance. in r. e. tremblay, r. g. barr, r. dev. peters, & m. boivin (eds.), encyclopedia on early childhood development. retrieved from: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/ bentham, d. (2006). the island of blown glass. glass age, 49(7), 18–18. brock, a. (2012). building a model of early years professionalism from practitioners’ perspectives. journal of early childhood research, 11(1), 27–44. doi: 10.1177/1476718x12456003   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   cherrington, s., & thornton, k. (2013). continuing professional development in early childhood education in new zealand. early years: journal of international research & development, 33(2), 119–132. college of early childhood educators. 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(1993). kindergarten education: cinderella of the hong kong education system. in a. b. m. tsui & i. johnson (eds.), teacher education and development (vol. 18, pp. 80–89). hong kong: university of hong kong. organisation for economic cooperation and development. (2001). starting strong: early childhood education and care. paris, fr: author. organisation for economic cooperation and development. (2006). starting strong ii: early childhood education and care. paris, fr: author.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   oxford university press. (2014). professionalism. retrieved from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/professional pacini-ketchabaw, v., & pence, a. (2005). contextualizing the reconceptualist movement in canadian early childhood education. in pacini-ketchabaw & a. pence (eds.), early childhood education in motion: the reconceptualist movement in canada (pp. 5–20). ottawa, on: canadian child care federation. rodgers, c. r., & raider-roth, m. b. (2006). presence in teaching. teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 12(3), 265–287. stamopoulos, e. (2012). reframing early childhood leadership. australasian journal of early childhood, 37(2), 42–48. woodrow,  c.  (2007).  whither  the  early  childhood  teacher:  tensions  for  early  childhood   professional  identity  between  the  policy  landscape  and  the  politics  of  teacher  regulation.   contemporary  issues  in  early                                                                                                                 i ages vary by country. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 tukonic formatted back page w2015 july 2020 85 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research caring, relating, and becoming: child-horse relationships in equestrian leisure utsa mukherjee dr. utsa mukherjee is an associate lecturer in childhood studies at birkbeck university of london. he recently received his phd in sociology from royal holloway university of london. his research is located at the intersections of childhood studies and leisure studies, with a focus on questions around children’s social identities, agency, and materialities. email: utsa.mukherjee.2015@live. rhul.ac.uk twitter: @utsa_mukherjee humans have historically shared a complex set of relationships with their equine companions, especially in the realms of transport, warfare, sport, industry, and agriculture (crossman & walsh, 2011; forrest, 2016). guided by the recent upsurge of interest in the relations between humans and nonhuman animals (see bornemark, 2019), social research too has come alive to the ways in which humans and horses create shared meanings and influence each other’s engagement with the world they cohabit. such understandings are grounded in the context, for human-equine interactions derive from and unfold within specific historical and sociocultural settings. in this respect, equestrian sports and leisure offer an important opportunity to understand human-horse relationships as a social process. the growing body of literature around equestrian leisure has explored questions of social class (coulter, 2014; fletcher & dashper, 2013; lenartowicz & jankowskic, 2014) and gender (birke & brandt, 2009; butler, 2013; dashper, 2016; plymoth, 2012) and offered a critique of the anthropocentric paradigm that sees horses as passive objects of human leisure (dashper, 2018a, 2018b). in contrast to this paradigm, it has been argued that horses possess agency and are able to cocreate communication systems with their human companions that allow for intersubjective experiences to emerge (brandt, 2004; dashper, 2018a). nonetheless, children’s experiences and perspectives have remained at the margins of these narratives. this article presents empirical findings about a child’s lived experiences of meaningful interactions with horses in spaces of equestrian leisure and illuminates how care is embedded in these processes. in doing so, it draws on two bodies of scholarship, namely human–nonhuman-animal studies (has) and the sociology of childhood. the discussion presented here contributes to both. in the uk, equestrian activities form a key part of the commercial leisure scene and they are indeed integral to what has been described as britain’s “horse industry” (department for environment, food, and rural affairs, 2004; suggett, 1999). equestrian leisure received significant public visibility during the 2012 london olympics, where the british contingent achieved unprecedented success in equestrian sports. since then, there has been a sharp increase in the number of young horse riders, as well as in net customer spending across horse-related goods and services in the country (british equestrian trade association, 2015). the 2015 national equestrian survey in the uk found that horse riding as a leisure activity was the most popular horse-related activity in the country at this article theorizes child-horse relations and explores the role of care therein. the existing body of research on human-animal relationships in the context of equestrian sport and leisure has for the most part eschewed children’s narratives. drawn from a wider project on british indian children’s everyday leisure, this article presents a case study of a child engaged in horse riding as a structured leisure activity. using interview data with the child and her parents, the analysis demonstrates that child-equine care relationships are reciprocal and unfold within a wider set of social relationships or what i call “multispecies generational order.” key words: child-horse relations; horse riding; equestrian leisure; care work; generational order july 2020 86 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 96%, with most of the horse riders being between the ages of 25 and 44 followed by under 16s (british equestrian trade association, 2015). relatedly, a recent nationwide survey by sport england (2018) found that 1.3% of children under the age of 16 did horse riding at school while 2.4% did so outside of school. the limited spread of equestrian leisure among children points toward the financial barriers that still remain in accessing equestrian leisure: it is far more expensive and thus more class biased than many other leisure and sport activities available to children. as such, horse riding serves as a class marker (coulter, 2014; fletcher & dashper, 2013; lenartowicz & jankowskic, 2014) that helps one to achieve social distinction; therefore, urban middle-class parents often make a conscious effort to encourage their children to take up equestrian leisure for its symbolic and cultural worth. besides social class, equestrian leisure mediates an important gender dynamic (see dashper, 2018a) as unlike many other sport and leisure activities it has no formal practice of sex-segregation and it is the only olympic sports where men and women horse riders compete against each other in the same category at all levels. apart from these questions of class and gender in horse riding, which have been looked into at length within social research, equestrian leisure also opens up an important analytical space to examine the various forms of interspecies interaction, communication, and participation that makes equestrian leisure possible in the first place. studies that have addressed those dynamics of human-horse relations manifest in equestrian leisure have predominantly done so with respect to adult humans and horses, with the experiences of children in these settings remaining largely at the margins. in this article, the meanings and experiences of human-horse relations for children will be presented using a case study, and i will pay particular attention to how care is engendered in such relations. but before presenting the empirical material, it is important to clarify and harness key conceptual frameworks from both has and childhood studies, which will enable us to sketch out the processes and implications of interspecies interactions in a more-than-human-world. nonhuman animals, childhoods, and “caring” in more-than-human worlds the shift in the conceptualization of horse from an automaton or a biological system with species-typical behaviour to a subject in their own right who participates in society and possesses feelings and perspectives of their own has flown from the wider domain of has (bornemark, 2019). the interdisciplinary field of has in turn draws on both posthumanism and the animal rights literature: the former challenges anthropocentrism and draws attention to interspecies entanglements, while the later takes a normative stance about the treatment of animals and their place in society. in considering human-horse relations in equestrian leisure, in this article i draw mostly on posthuman frameworks and their overlap with the animal rights perspective. this new way of framing human-horse relations calls into question the dualism—and indeed the hierarchy—that is often constructed between humans, who are regarded as subjects, and animals, who are understood as objects (see collard & gillespie, 2015). instead, horses are understood as actors, that is, “beings that have the capacity to direct change,” with subjectivities who “act in concert with other beings and things, including humans” (collard & gillespie, 2015, p. 8). bornemark (2019) notes that to understand the horse … as an interspecies cultural being … means that it is not “one and the same thing” but different depending on its personal character … social sciences thus have to be broadened to … examine power-relations where the animals are also treated as subjects. (p. 4) building on these insights, i will now locate the notion of care(-ing) within child-horse relations in a way that recognizes the intersections of animals, work, and care (coulter, 2016a, 2019). i will then sketch the role of the child vis-à-vis care—ideas i will harness later in this article to theorize an interspecies approach to children’s power relations that takes childhood studies beyond (human-centered) generationality to include what i call “multispecies generational orderings” of childhood. july 2020 87 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research care is a complex and multifaceted concept. though it has been formulated in different ways within various intellectual frameworks, the most useful approaches for understanding the dynamics of “caring” in human-animal interactions are found in the works of donna haraway (2008) and maría puig de la bellacasa (2012). their newmaterial-feminist interventions offer a robust means to appreciate the significance of care and to reflect on what it means for humans to care for nonhuman others (desai & smith, 2018; van dooren, 2014). in more-than-human worlds where heterogeneous forms of life and matter are entangled and interdependent, puig de la bellacasa (2012) says, “to care about something, or for somebody, is inevitably to create relation” (p. 198). though not all relations can be characterized as caring, none can endure or survive without care. in puig de la bellacasa’s vision of care, care emerges as simultaneously an affective state, an ethical obligation, and a practical labour. thus conceived, the “ethico-affective everyday practical doings” of care (p. 199) are significant for thinking and living in interdependent more-than-human worlds. enlisting these ideas, i follow kendra coulter (2019) in defining care work as a “large cross-section of work involved in caring for others, physically and/or emotionally” (p. 22). in a similar vein, haraway (2008) invites us to think about multispecies living in terms of “becoming with,” where species are consequent on a “subjectand object-shaping dance of encounters” (p. 4). as beings-in-encounter, species in the more-than-human world are participants in practices of becoming worldly in a way that can potentially gesture toward a just and peaceful autre-mondialization (haraway, 2008). this process of multispecies “becoming with” inserts one into a “web of caring” (haraway, 2008) where caring means “becoming subject to the unsettling obligation of curiosity, which requires knowing more at the end of the day than at the beginning” (p. 36). in underlining these notions of caring, both puig de la bellacasa and haraway are attentive to the fact that species meet within macrogeographies inscribed by postindustrial capitalism, gender, race, and class. in other words, the caring embedded in multispecies coconstitution and worlding is underpinned by the material-semiotic interplay that shapes their becomings (van dooren et al., 2016). although these modes of thinking create affordances for understanding nonhuman animals as subjects, they fall short of robustly identifying and comprehensively theorizing the care work these nonhuman animals carry out for themselves, for other animals, and for humans (see coulter, 2016b). if we are to push beyond a human-focused idea of caregiving and of social justice and begin to unpack the reciprocal traffic that characterizes care in human-animal interactions, we have to first interrogate the intersections of animals and (care) work (coulter, 2016a, 2016b). nonhuman animals, whether in the wild or on a farm or living as companion species with humans at home, are sentient beings with feelings, perspectives, and experiences of their own. they also carry out different kinds of work in different contexts, but as coulter (2016a) points out, “animals’ own forms of caregiving are rarely recognized as a kind of care work” (p. 200). she goes on to argue that we need to recognize these forms of labour carried out by animals as work. for instance, many companion animals in the domestic space are not only beneficiaries of care work and social reproductive labour carried out by humans for them, but they also perform “voluntary work” (coulter, 2016b) for humans in the form of informal care work such as emotional support, interactions, and touch. further, the life-sustaining labour that animals in the wild do is underpinned by informal care work for their young ones and communities. this kind of “subsistence work” (coulter, 2016b) carried out by animals is often impeded by a range of human actions, including construction of physical infrastructure, leisure pursuits (such as hunting), and anthropogenic climate change, among others. finally, animals—such as those on farms, racecourses, and in laboratories—have to do work that is mandated by humans and which largely serves the needs and wants of humans (coulter, 2016b). as animals are increasingly being used by humans for therapeutic (e.g., equine-assisted therapies) and service work (such as that carried out by guide dogs), the labour animals do in these contexts requires care work. this kind of care work that animals do for humans in the context of human-mandated work arrangements, coulter (2016b) writes, “is psychologically and emotionally challenging for animals, and they are required to suppress their personal feelings, reactions, and instincts in order to behave july 2020 88 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the proper way regardless of what is going on around them” (pp. 204–205). considering the care work that animals do for themselves as well as for humans offers a springboard into understanding the fact that nonhuman animals are subjects in their own right who contribute to human society and to the reproduction of ecosystems in multiple ways (see coulter, 2016a). furthermore, drawing on feminist political economy and cognitive ethology scholarship, coulter (2019) argues that horses on farms and in other human-controlled spaces have “work lives” wherein they carry out a range of work—which is simultaneously intellectual and embodied—although they are not remunerated for their work in a conventional sense. coulter’s (2019, 2016a, 2016b) scholarship on horses’ work lives and her conceptual vocabulary for understanding nonhuman animal’s care work, described above, are useful in unpacking the processes of caring that underpin child-equine relations. just as the care work animals do has long been unrecognized, the care work children carry out within their lived geographies has hardly ever been explicitly valued as work. this stems from the dominant framing of childhood as a period of dependency and thus children are seen only as recipients of care, where such caring responsibilities lie with the family and at times the state. recent developments in childhood studies have challenged these ideas and have instead drawn our attention to the range of informal, everyday, and reciprocal care work that children carry out for parents, siblings, kin, carers, friends, neighbours, and others both inside and outside the home (eldén, 2016; luttrell, 2013; morrow, 2008; webster, 2018). studies have also pointed out that children contribute to the care of family pets, often treating such companion species as members of their family (mason & tipper, 2008; morrow, 1998; tipper, 2011). the growing scholarship on children’s relationships with family companion animals (mason & tipper, 2008; morrow, 1998; rautio & leinonen, 2018; tipper, 2011) has inaugurated fresh conversations within childhood studies about child-animal relationality and prompted researchers to rethink the conceptual frames currently used in the field. nonetheless, these studies have located the relationships of care with nonhuman animals that children construct and nurture largely within the confines of the home, the school, and occasionally the neighbourhood. the entanglement of the human child and nonhuman animals in leisure activities organized and paid for outside of school is conspicuously absent from the current body of scholarship. equestrian leisure in that respect offers a crucial opportunity to reshape our understanding of child-animal relations in contexts beyond the home or the school and involving a nonhuman animal, the horse, which is physically distinguished from common family pets like dogs, cats, or hamsters or from species like rats, worms, and insects that children encounter in their everyday geographies. as keaveney (2008) points out, horses display formidable differences from common domestic nonhuman co-species, and therefore their relations with humans demonstrate a unique “kind of human-animal relationship, one in which the line between [nonhuman] animal and human is not quite so blurred” (p. 444). it is this alterity that can help us learn more about multispecies relationality and caring in the anthropocene using children’s cases as the point of entry. based on the discussion presented above, it can be argued that children and nonhuman animals—especially horses—are two important social groups who perform care work for others, but in both cases their care work is hardly explicitly recognized or valued as work. therefore, shared spaces in which children and horses interact create opportunities for us to harness those lived experiences and reshape our current understanding, not only of human-child–horse relationality, but also of the dynamics of care work itself. at the same time, it bears pointing out that the care work involving human children and horses implicates power relationships and cultural legacies which need to be seriously considered. as coulter (2019) reminds us, “horses may indeed partner with us in a range of tasks and exercise agency, but the situation is not one of absolute equals” (p. 21). paying due attention to these structural dynamics, in what follows i outline the methods through which the empirical materials for this article were generated. drawing on a case-study approach to qualitative research, i elaborate the case of 12-yearold koel, who does horse riding as a structured leisure activity. july 2020 89 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research studying child-horse relations: a case-study approach the empirical material presented in this article is based on a case study of a 12-year-old child named koel (a pseudonym) who engages in horse riding once a week as a structured leisure pursuit, or what is often described as an “enrichment activity” (vincent & ball, 2007). a case study “is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case” (stake, 1995, p. xi). koel’s case, as elaborated in this article, is drawn from a wider qualitative project conducted by the author during 2017–2018 which investigated the interplay between social identities and leisure practices in the everyday lives of british indian children aged 8 to 12 growing up in the contemporary uk. the families in the study were based in and around london, and all the parents (except for housewives) were high-earning professionals in the knowledge-based economy. in this article, the case of koel has been set apart for detailed study. her case was selected for detailed study in this article because, unlike other children in the wider project, she was involved in a structured activity—namely horse riding—that revolved around a nonhuman animal (the horse). other children did sports, swimming, and performative arts that involved human-material entanglements without direct participation of animals. indeed, horse riding did not come across as a popular structured leisure activity in the participating families. this is because riding classes are relatively expensive (a onehour lesson can cost around £100) and there are a limited number of training facilities available in london. as will be explained below, koel was on a waiting list for five years before she could start at the riding school. nevertheless, her case needs to be heard and understood because of its relative uniqueness. to date the studies on horse-human relationality and care work have not systematically attended to the experiences of younger children. in that sense, koel’s case offers an important entry point to contribute to the scholarly work on child-horse relations. it is a springboard that can uncover underlying processes of theoretical import missing from both childhood studies and the has. in embracing the case-study approach, i will now discuss its controversial status within the folds of social research and its limitations. nonetheless, i argue that there is much value to be accrued from a case study of an area of research which is particularly underdeveloped. as indicated previously, case studies are in-depth investigations of particular cases. in this article, i am positing case study not as a “method” but as an “approach” which can use different sets of methods “to reconstruct and analyze a case from a sociological perspective” (hamel et al., 1993, p. 1). the critics of case study argue that given its reliance on a singular event or person, case studies produce nongeneralizable theories and suffer from biased case-selection (see gerring, 2007). on the other hand, advocates of this approach point out that no case, however carefully selected, can be truly “representative,” and that such criticisms are therefore misdirected (yin, 2003). moreover, yin (2003) posits that although a researcher cannot generalize the insights of a case study to other cases, they can generalize it to theory. taking yin’s (2003) argument as my point of departure, i will now elaborate on how i conducted koel’s case study, including the method of data analysis. koel’s family was recruited to the study from a facebook group that catered to indian families in london where i canvassed for participants and koel’s mother contacted me to express her interest. it was explicitly stated in the study poster posted to that facebook group that participation in the study would be voluntary and no incentive was offered. during my study visit to koel’s family home, i presented koel’s mother, aparna, and her father, sumit, with information sheets, and they also filled in a consent form for themselves and their child to take part in the study. koel was given an age-appropriate information booklet that described the study in simpler language and told her that she was free to decide for herself if she wanted to take part or not. it was further stressed that she was entitled to not answer any question or to withdraw from the study without giving any reason. she provided written as well as verbal consent for her own participation. i conducted semistructured narrative interviews to collect data from koel and her parents. separate one-to-one interviews were conducted with koel, sumit, and aparna. during the interview, i asked open-ended questions to july 2020 90 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research koel about her everyday life and her experiences of the various leisure activities she takes part in. similarly, with the parents, i took a narrative approach and asked questions about their occupation, life trajectories, everyday life, parenting practices, and, most importantly, their views about koel’s leisure engagements. i interviewed both koel and her parents for two reasons. first, we know from existing studies that parents influence their children’s leisure choices and that children’s enrollment into multiple structured activities and the activities’ perceived benefits for children have made them an integral aspect of the “good parenting” discourse in middle-class families (jeanes & magee, 2011). second, most of these studies rely on parents’ narratives alone and therefore a research design that accommodates and juxtaposes both parents’ and children’s narratives was deemed most suitable to gain a deeper understanding of the social processes that underpin children’s structured leisure choices and lived experiences. the data gathered through these interviews was audio-recorded with the explicit consent of the participants and then transcribed verbatim. the data was then interpreted using narrative analysis. i read each transcript multiple times and extracted the key points, which i then read in relation to the life stories of the participants and their spatial-temporal contexts. as griffin and may (2018) rightly point out, narratives produced through interviews do not give us direct access to what “really” happened or to subjects’ underlying motives, but they are indispensable for conveying how experiences are subjectively understood and reconstructed by subjects once they have occurred. in presenting my analysis of these narratives, i am aware of the limitations of this (human) case study. a comprehensive understanding of child-horse relations requires insights into both the child’s and the horse’s perspectives. although accessing the horse’s feelings and experiences is impossible for social researchers (bornemark, 2019), observation data of real-time interactions, which my study lacks, could have been useful. nevertheless, human interpretations and narratives about horses found in the accounts of koel and her parents reveal important clues about how horses are constructed as objects/subjects of knowledge—and how those constructions manifest forms of power relations (palmer, 2017). in the rest of this article, i draw on koel’s and her parents’ narratives to explore, describe, and theorize different dimensions of the child-horse relation within the time-spaces of equestrian leisure and unpack the processes of care therein. the process of (classed) world making: entering the “horse world” koel is a 12-year-old girl who lives in london with her parents, sumit and aparna. both sumit and aparna grew up in middle-class families in urban india. they attended fee-paying english-medium schools and then completed their undergraduate education in india. after marriage they moved to germany to study for their mbas. it was there that koel was born. when koel was three months old, sumit got a job in the uk and the entire family migrated with him to the south of england. they have now lived in the uk for 12 years and hold british citizenship. much like other middle-class children in london, koel has a busy schedule of organized and paid-for leisure activities that she attends every week. her catalogue of structured leisure activities includes swimming, tennis, netball, piano, and horse riding. as previous scholars have argued, middle-class children are increasingly being enrolled in a plethora of organized leisure lessons by their parents at an ever-younger age (lareau, 2011; nelson, 2010; pugh, 2009; vincent & ball, 2007). these studies reveal that parents treat their investment in children’s leisure activities as a means of shaping their children’s future career trajectories by equipping them with key skills and social networks manifested in “résumés sparkling with extracurricular” achievements (nelson, 2010, p. 25; also see pugh, 2009). reflecting this wider pattern of middle-class discourses of parenting, sumit and aparna have enrolled koel in multiple structured leisure lessons. they think that these lessons will equip her with key skills that will supplement the social advantages cornered through her private-school education. they also possess the financial and cultural resources to play the leisure market at will, and they devote a great deal of money, time, and effort at supporting their child’s leisure activities. this aspect is reinforced by the fact that aparna, an mba graduate with many years july 2020 91 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of experience in the knowledge-industry, decided to give up her career soon after koel was born because of her parenting responsibilities. her life now revolves around koel’s daily schedule. indeed, koel’s multiple leisure engagements create a great deal of logistical labour in terms of accompanying her to these places, most of which is done by aparna, not sumit. aparna grew up in india. her parents wanted her to learn dancing and singing through after-school lessons, but she refused. she preferred outdoor play with her neighbourhood friends. the outdoor play culture in the neighbourhood is largely absent in the uk today. it has declined radically over the years because of dominant risk perceptions of “stranger danger” for unsupervised younger children (see scott et al., 1998). aparna says, “my daughter is very different; she is very lonely here. as such, the culture of playing outside on the road is missing.” it is in this context that her encouragement for koel to take up multiple organized leisure pursuits garners added urgency. nonetheless, the activities she has shortlisted for koel bear the mark of social class processes. for instance, she had put koel on a waiting list for horse-riding lessons five years before koel even got to try a taster session. although koel got to decide whether to continue or jettison horse riding, the very choice of horse riding as a leisure activity in the urban spaces of london speaks of the class distinctions it brings. but where previous studies on children’s structured leisure (see lareau, 2011; vincent & ball, 2007) stop at the class implications alone, it is important to probe the posthuman geographies of these leisure spaces. while recalling the way koel started off with horse riding, aparna explained: when i went there [the horse-riding school], i heard that they wanted to make the children responsible. so, they’re not only teaching horse riding, they’re teaching how to clean the boots, how to clean the stable, and then literally mucking the poo, the horseshit, every day. so, i thought that was a tremendous test of character and personality. and my daughter is a very delicate person and i didn’t think that she’d do it, but she doesn’t mind. that was a revelation! aparna here stresses not only the technical aspects of horse riding but the associated aspects of the “horse world” (dashper, 2018a). the horse world denotes an entanglement, not only of horses and humans, but also of the materialities of the stable, as well as the sights, sounds, touch, and smells that constitute it. the discourse of character building and personality that aparna draws on comports with the findings of previous scholars (knight, 2005; theodossopoulos, 2005) who noticed that adult-human actors often take an instrumental view of nonhuman animals’ role in society. the cleaning of the boots and stables is not seen here as care work but as a conduit for testing the child’s “character and personality.” relatedly, sociologists of childhood (morrow, 1998; rautio & leinonen, 2018) have critiqued the tendency of adults, often informed by developmental psychology, to position children’s care work for companion species such as family pets as a kind of role rehearsal for future adult responsibilities, thereby rendering the latter as pedagogical tools bereft of subjectivity. for aparna, the horse— and the horse’s work life—is immaterial. the horse serves a purpose for koel—not the other way around. aparna deems it a “revelation” that koel—“a very delicate person”—is cleaning the stables and “mucking the [horse] poo.” therein lie the social implications of koel’s entry into the horse world: the horse-human “contact zone” (haraway, 2008) emerges as a world-making entanglement, a process of mutual coconstitution and becoming. the horsehuman koel is different. she cleans the stables and mucks the horse poo and enjoys being around horses. this illustrates her “becoming with” horses where her immersion in the horse world has implications for her life outside it. aparna further points out: [koel] is not usually very animal friendly, but when she went and she saw a horse, she immediately started petting it and stroking it and she just took to the horse like a fish to water and she absolutely adores it. july 2020 92 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research aparna’s observations demonstrate the tactile and sensorial dimensions of the multispecies “contact zone” created between koel and the horse. in asking the question “whom and what do i touch when i touch my dog?” (p. 35) haraway (2008) points out that touch ramifies and shapes accountability as it “it peppers its partners with attachment sites for world making” (p. 36). although aparna is reducing the horse to a species representative and not recognizing the horse’s subjectivity as such, her narrative can be read from haraway’s perspective to illustrate how koel’s acts of touching and stroking the horse are “peppering” both of them with such sites for co-being and becoming. however, it is important to note here that the horse is at “work” in the riding school. drawing on coulter (2016a, 2016b, 2019), it can be argued that while the horse is engaging with koel—that is, allowing koel to pet and stroke them without resisting—they are performing a range of work that needs to be recognized as such. first, a horse is not a biological system alone but a subject with perspectives, feelings, and personality of their own, and they do have “work lives” (bornemark, 2019; coulter, 2019). when talking to me about horse riding, koel shared experiences of initial nervousness about horse riding—she was concerned about how the horse would behave and how she should react. we will investigate koel’s narrative later, but suffice it to say that she was presumably anxious in her first contact with the horse she now describes as “my horse.” koel’s horse must have perceived koel’s anxiousness but still remained calm and allowed koel to pet and stroke them. in that sense, koel’s horse was performing what hochschild (1983) calls “emotional labour” as part of their job as a riding-horse-ina-stable. the horse’s emotional labour plays out in concert with emotional work, that is, the internal regulation and management of emotions on the part of that horse (see coulter, 2019). in other words, we must recognize the range of work—including the informal care work—that “koel’s horse” carried out, which created the space for koel to extend her care work toward “her horse.” second, by marking this specific horse as her horse, koel is symbolically establishing the fact that horses are owned and controlled by humans and therefore the power relationship between the two is never of absolute equals. moreover, koel was already paired with this horse by the instructor in the riding school, which signifies another set of power relations in which koel is situated besides her relationship with her parents. hence, the power relations circumscribing koel’s leisure identity are layered and multifaceted. coulter (2016a, 2019) argues that from the standpoint of horses, work is experienced along a continuum of suffering and enjoyment. we simply do not know where on this continuum koel’s horse’s informal care work for koel fits. but we have a means to know what koel feels about her informal care work toward her horse, as i will now elaborate. caring, communicating, and becoming in the horse world while talking to me about her everyday leisure repertoire, koel reported the following: koel: of all the activities i do after school, horse riding is my favourite. interviewer: why is it your favourite? koel: because i really like being around horses. i like my horse-riding lessons. as i asked follow-up questions about what sets equestrian leisure apart for her, koel explained the structure of this leisure activity and located her rationale therein. she told me the following: one week we ride. the next week, we [fellow riders in the riding school] clean the stables and get to spend time with the horse. my horse is really nice. i like the week where we clean the stables. the riding school in london that koel attends operates a weekly training cycle, where one-week participants learn how to ride horses and the next week they clean the stables and look after their horses. this weekly cycle affords koel the opportunity to engage with the different actors of the horse world, including fellow riders, and with the july 2020 93 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research materiality of the stable. this practice is different from the notion of the “stable girl” found in finland where girls of koel’s age and older volunteer at local stables several times a week to take care of horses (see ojanen, 2012). while describing her experiences of engaging with the horse world, koel says that she prefers the week where she gets to clean the stable more than the day of riding. that way, she gets to immerse herself in the material environs of the stable and to familiarize herself with the texture of hay and straw, the smell of “horse poo,” and the touch of her horse, understood here not as an automaton but as co-species or partner. it is important to note the multiple generational relationships in which koel’s equestrian leisure is embedded, and indeed through which she exercises her agency. in the excerpt above, koel refers to her fellow riders as “we,” with whom she shares the stable alongside the horses. further discussions with koel revealed that her group of fellow riders is mixed sex and mixed age. in her riding school, the instructors set the scene in terms of grouping the riders together according to riding abilities irrespective of age or gender. this creates a space—unlike all other leisure activities that koel does—where people across age groups are brought together around the common purpose of riding horses and cleaning the stables. moreover, by singling out the act of cleaning the stables and looking after “her” horse, koel demonstrates how care work underpins child-animal relations in equestrian leisure settings. her care work—encompassing both emotional and physical dimensions—is brought to the fore in the following description she offered regarding her preferred act of cleaning the stables: so, if you have to clean their [horses’] hooves you have to tap them. and then they will lift their hooves for cleaning … they are really nice animals and they are nice to be around. as discussed earlier, koel was anxious about horses in the beginning, but her initial positive experience of “stroking” and “petting” facilitated her sense of comfort with horses. earlier in this article, i argued—drawing on coulter (2019)—that koel’s horse was at work when koel attempted to pet and stroke them: the horse was doing emotional work to regulate their own emotions and present a calm demeanour that suited koel. the horse, in a sense, was caring for koel. although we know that koel enjoys her care work, we have no way of discerning the consequences of that interaction for the horse. in the quotation above, koel outlines two other interrelated processes. first, koel’s fond memory of cleaning the hooves of horses underlines her ethical-affective, practical labour of care (puig de la bellacasa, 2012). the notion of “nice animals” and a general sense of fondness toward “her” horse is evident. she is therefore emotionally at stake and is being affected by her interaction with the nonhuman other. of course, the specific tasks she carried out—like cleaning the stables—were learned in interaction with the instructor and her fellow riders; nonetheless, they are underpinned by care work that encompasses her physical effort of using brooms to clear the detritus and make the stable more livable for the horses. second, koel lays bare the process through which she and her horse cocreate a nonverbal and embodied communication system wherein a tap by koel on a specific part of the horse’s body and in a certain manner makes the horse lift their hooves, which in turn enables koel to clean them. the two-way process of tapping the horse’s body and lifting of the hooves, carried out by koel and the horse respectively, demonstrates that child-animal relation is a reciprocal process. koel has learned to “speak horse” (birke, 2007) from her instructor and fellow riders, as shown by her reported ability to understand horses’ bodily gestures and sounds. her horse in turn interprets the meanings of her touches and gestures. it is through this collaboration, communication, and reciprocity that multispecies relationality is lived out. the establishment of this human-animal system of communication is noteworthy; brandt (2004) argues that deprivileging the human emphasis on spoken language “opens the door for investigation of the ways in which animals and humans alike use a variety of modes of communication to convey subjectivity” (p. 314). in a similar fashion, koel’s description of hoof cleaning, which is underpinned by her care july 2020 94 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research work, points to the nonverbal and embodied basis of child-horse interaction. conclusion in this article i have drawn on childhood studies and has to unpack child-horse relations in the context of equestrian leisure. acknowledging the limitations and benefits of the case study approach, i have argued that indepth exploration of a case study like koel’s can serve as a springboard to begin systematic work on the role of care work in child-horse relations. the empirical material presented throughout this article has posited key points of interest, which i will now summarize and build upon. care is a complex and multifaceted concept. consequently, the imbrications of care work in child-horse relations go beyond the human actor alone. building on coulter’s (2016a, 2016b, 2019) scholarship on nonhuman animals’ work, i have indicated how, at various points in koel’s interaction with her horse, the care work performed was not exclusive to koel. on the contrary, the horse cooperated, managed their own emotions, and stayed calm to reassure koel and help create the bond that koel cherishes. it can be argued that the care work performed by the horse is integral to their work life in the riding school. although the implications of that care work for koel can be identified from her narrative, the horse’s own experiences of receiving and providing informal care work cannot be known. even in shared spaces of child-animal commingling and becoming, ethico-political questions remain as to the bodily appropriation of the horses in equestrian leisure spaces that makes riding and companionship possible in the first place. in other words, understanding the care work in child-animal relations depends on serious consideration of the power relations across species boundaries within which such shared spaces are produced. in this article i have pointed out some of those questions, but they need to be unpacked further in future studies. koel’s relationship with her horse is situated within wider webs of other social relations involving her parents, her riding instructor, and her fellow learners. koel’s mother, aparna, plays an active role in shaping koel’s leisure repertoire. for instance, sending koel to horse riding was her choice. aparna also undertakes the activity management labour in terms of driving her to and from lessons. while at the riding school, the instructor assigns koel her horse and puts her in specific groups based on her ability. koel then learns about horse riding and care from her instructor as well as from her fellow riders in the mixed-sex, mixed-age group. we also know from ojanen (2012) that social hierarchies are constructed among human actors in the stable based on age and experience. in this way, these interand intragenerational relations—child/parent, child/instructor, child/fellow-learner—inform koel’s equestrian leisure geographies. the existing theoretical lens of “generational order” (alanen, 2001, 2011) is useful in identifying the various reciprocal generational relations koel is part of. but the anthropocentrism of the generational-order lens falls short of acknowledging and analyzing children’s power relations and structural positioning across the species boundary. therefore, i posit the notion of “multispecies generational order” as a hybrid lens that can bring within a single framework children’s intergenerational as well as interspecies positioning in particular time-spaces and draw out the implications of these relative locations for children’s lived experiences and agency. seen in this light, the reciprocal care work carried out by koel and her horse within the time-spaces of equestrian leisure is one set of relations that is in turn embedded in a wider set of (human) generational relations. the meaning and implication of child-horse relations in this context is informed by and distributed along these power relations and relative positions of humans and nonhumans. this lens of multispecies 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(2003). case study research: design and methods (3rd ed.). sage. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 24 vol. 41 no. 1 marlene asselin is an associate professor at the university of british columbia in the language and literacy department. she works in the areas of early literacy and librarianship and has contributions in new literacies and social media, information literacy, and literacy and librarian education in emerging countries. she presents at international literacy and library conferences and her recent publications include linking literacy and libraries in global communities, coedited with dr. ray doiron, and articles in new library world, language and literacy, and the research journals of numerous organizations. email: marlene.asselin@ubc.ca ray doiron is a professor emeritus in the faculty of education at the university of prince edward island. he has an international reputation in school libraries with leadership in international organizations, invitations to speak, published research, and numerous workshops in several countries. he has been keynote speaker in every province in canada, president of a national school library association, and a consultant on major library initiatives. he has taught many undergraduate and graduate courses in early literacy, curriculum, school librarianship, and educational research. his research interests include play in early childhood development, early literacy and numeracy, and school/community libraries and their roles in literacy education and community development. ethical issues facing researchers working with children in international contexts marlene asselin and ray doiron inherent in globalization and internationalization is the increasing presence of researchers from the west working in non-western contexts. those conducting research with children in such contexts invariably take with them western conceptions of children, families, and research. much of this research is rooted in initiatives and interventions that aim to “fix” children (and families), employ a scientific or positivistic research paradigm, and are sponsored by funders that demand measurable accountability. the emergence of children’s right “to be properly researched” (ennew, abebe, bangyani, karapituck, kjørholt, & noonsup, 2009), the development of qualitative and participatorybased paradigms of research with children, and the proliferation of ethical approval procedures are current reference points for planning and conducting research with children, not only in euro-western countries, but, by default, in the global south. this paper problematizes expectations of a seamless transfer of current assumptions about and procedures of research with children in the global south. while recognizing the common challenge to all researchers as one of ethically and respectfully engaging participants in protective and beneficial ways, we argue that other issues are largely unaddressed. these include recognizing the need to work within the local ethos, viewing the ultimate aim of research of the worlds’ most vulnerable children as empowerment, and reconsidering the role of the researcher in such advocacy. in this paper, we discuss the intentions and concerns of major approaches to researching young children— and the limits of these approaches. we argue against imposing western norms and standards or seeking universalist principles of ethical research, and promote recognizing the particularities and situatedness of research ethics. we reflect on our own experiences as canadian, white, middle-class researchers working in the global south in early literacy projects as the locus for understanding our own research processes with an emphasis on developing a situational ethics approach for research in the global south. over the past two decades, the movement to rights-based participatory research with children has propelled ethical matters to the forefront (childwatch international research network, n.d.; graham, powell, taylor, anderson, & fitzgerald, 2013; powell, fitzgerald, taylor, & graham, 2012). spurred by the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc) in 1989 (unicef, 2014), rights-protecting procedures have been instituted in many countries. as well, the emergence of the sociology of childhood (james, jenks, & prout, 1998; mayall, 2002) has engendered development of a wide array of participatory methods to enable children’s voices, agency, and investment in the research process. however, from an international standpoint, the wide use of rights-based, participatory approaches as international research collaborations increase, the ethics of doing research involving children and their families has emerged as a significant and challenging aspect of the process. potential issues include procedures around gaining consent, assumptions about children and their families, and the use of qualitative and participatory-based research methods. this paper poses some of the difficulties faced by scholars working in international contexts, describes what these issues look like within four current approaches to research with children, and offers recommendations for researching in diverse contexts. keywords: ethics, international, children, research canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 25 vol. 41 no. 1 to research and the ensuing knowledge from this research are norms of questionable validity given that, as pence and nsamenang (2008) argue, “only a little more than 10% of the world’s children live in the developed countries of europe, north america and other european outposts ... yet the research [underlying this perspective] is heavily concentrated on children from these places” (p. 14). in euro-western countries, critical discussions of rights-based and participatory approaches to research with children are underway (alderson, 2012, 2013; dalli & te one, 2012; dockett, einarsdottir, & perry, 2009; gallacher & gallagher, 2008; holland, renold, ross, & hillman, 2010; palaiologou, 2014; skelton, 2008). parallel discussions are emerging among researchers of children in indigenous communities (anderson & morrison, 2011; smith, 2012; van der woerd & cox, 2006) and in communities of the global south (abebe, 2009; abebe & bessell, 2014; clacherty & donald, 2007; ebrahim, 2010; morrow, 2009; powell et al., 2012; tekola, griffin, & camfield, 2009; vakaoti; 2009). this paper links these separate discussions, describes research tensions encountered by the authors from the lenses of four current approaches to researching young children, and argues for a universally endorsed contextualized ethical praxis of research. background: shifting concepts, principles, and methodologies ethical issues of research with children are embedded in diverse and shifting paradigms of children, childhood, and research that are embodied in theory, policy, and research discourses. in the euro-western world, cognitive and social developmental theories have informed early childhood curriculum (national association for the education of young children, 2009) and a scientific approach to studying children’s development has shaped research discourse (copple & bredekamp, 2009. recent participatory discourses of research with children position the child as key informant about matters of childhood. instead of viewing children as becoming adults through key stages, the sociology of childhood positions children as already competent beings and as “beings rather than becomings” (qvortrup, 1994) and as “social agents, beings in their own right and experts in their own lives, whose ‘voices’ are nonetheless routinely ignored or misrepresented by adults” (gallagher, 2009, p. 24). educational policy/curriculum aligned with this view typically stresses the inquiring and expressive needs of the child. in contrast, indigenous children in canada learn through “good walks and good talks” with those with more wisdom than the child (hare, 2005) rather than through direct explanation. school curriculum for indigenous children has moved from colonial models to approaches grounded in indigenous ways of knowing (british columbia ministry of education, n.d.). similarly, research with indigenous children utilizes traditional indigenous methods, such as storytelling, ecological approaches, and ceremonial teachings (indigenous child wellbeing research network, 2013). the idea of childhood as a state of innocence and a unique stage of life marked with intellectual, emotional, moral, social, and physical indicators is largely a western one. across history and cultures, children have been situated as an economic resource, immature adults, burdens, gifts, and evidence of social status. as socially constructed and contextually specific concepts, king (2007) notes, there is no definitive or universal account of what childhood is or what children should be. all is relative and depends upon particular constructions of childhood of different societies or of the same society at different times and the expectations associated with children (and adults) resulting from these constructions. (p. 186) tied closely to these concepts of children are patterns of adult-child relationships which include child as passively subservient and adult as authority, and child as independent being and adult as friendly guide. as with the contrasts in discourses between euro-western and indigenous peoples, differences are especially marked between minority and majority world countries and thus the collisions and conundrums that arise in international research. as pain (2008) observes, understandings and practices of ethics are “socioculturally and contextually specific so may not be shared by researcher and researched” (p. 105). different views of ethics, privileging of different research paradigms, and varying concepts of childhood produce a complex interwoven terrain of often unexamined assumptions, values, and beliefs shaping research involving children. the following section presents four approaches to researching children derived from a review of the literature on ethical matters of research involving children: (a) adultist/scientific; (b) child rights-based / protectionist; (c) children’s movement; and (d) critical reflexivity. the approaches relate to views of children broadly and are reflected or enacted within the research process, methodological frameworks, and research methods. the first approach is historically rooted in medical views of research and basically seeks to identify conditions most beneficial to children’s development; the second and third essentially reflect white, middle-class, and eurocentric perspectives of canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 26 vol. 41 no. 1 children for the purpose of gaining in-depth knowledge about children in those groups; and the fourth is emerging from viewing the purpose of research as social change and the need for critical awareness of the local ethos to gain full trust of highly vulnerable children. each approach is undergirded by socially and culturally held views of children, childhood, and adult-child relationships. approaches to researching children: on, about, with, for, and by children contemporary principles of ethical research with children evolved from the nuremberg code (1947) which spelled out the need for benefits and protection from harm for research participants. directed to medical research at first, these principles were slowly included in the social sciences for all people and specifically for vulnerable groups and children. the uncrc (unicef, 2014) and the dakar framework for action (unesco, 2000) are landmark proclamations that established principles and protocols for institutional review boards (irbs) for the protection of all children. adultist/scientific: research on and about children historically rooted in the transfer of medical research standards to the social sciences, the adultist approach aligns with the positivist or scientific research paradigm. most typically used in medical and psychological domains, research is on children. the child is positioned as subject and the adult as authority. interventions, treatments, tests, and observation are primary research methods. research sites are often laboratories and decontextualized learning settings rather than home, school, and community. children are not informed or only minimally informed about benefits the research could contribute to their lives, and they do not participate in any direct way in any part of the research process. examples include preand post-test instructional or program interventions, ethnographic studies of children’s play or cross-cultural play in which data is limited to observation, and studies of child nutrition in which parents are the sole informants, often through questionnaires. for example, in arojjo and nyonyintono’s (2009) review of 83 studies involving african children, they distinguish research on and about children in terms of data collection methods. they conclude that “in research on children, children are researched as objects with little agency (27/83 of studies) … research about children involves the exploration of children’s issues with adults speaking on behalf of the children (24/83 of the studies)” (p. 36). although the review data cited above pertains to research done in africa, the scientific approach is prevalent in other regions. current western literacy policies such as no child left behind (u.s. department of education, 2001) reinforce this approach. also, well-funded large-scale responses to the millennium development goals concerning early education and literacy (e.g., literacy boost) are imbued with data collection on children in the programs. ethical review processes for educational research are often not required in countries of the global south. review boards primarily serve researchers in biomedical and public health sciences. we encountered this quandary when we were part of an ethiopian-based research team for various literacy initiatives. when we questioned the lack of consent and assent procedures as part of the data collection team, the program director of an ethiopian ngo explained that it is acceptable by the government to collect data, including photographs of children, without any formal review process if it is for educational purposes (alemu abebe, personal communication, february 2014). rights-based/protectionist: research with children the rights-based or protectionist approach also has roots in human rights and medical principles of research rights of children as grounded in the internationally endorsed uncrc, specifically in articles 5, 12, 13, and 17. together, these articles recognize children’s vulnerability and lack of power in matters pertaining to their own lives as well as their entitlement to express opinions in all matters of their lives, which, in turn “helps children bring about the realization of all their rights and prepares them for an active role in society” (unicef, 2014, n.p.). ethical issues discussed in the rights-based literature are informed consent, protection from harm, anonymity and confidentiality, and payments and gifts. to instantiate children’s right to express opinions in research, researchers employ theories and methods that authorize children to actively represent their perceptions of issues in their lives. a qualitative, constructivist research paradigm facilitates this goal. flowing from these cornerstone concepts of child rights and the child as a competent being is a shift in research methods from testing and observation to a wide range of child-friendly participatory methods. these include drawing, writing, dramatizing, story writing, talking, taking photographs, and making things. children also have a voice in how these artefacts are interpreted. integral to the successful application of these concepts and methods is the changed role of the researcher from authority to friendly adult. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 27 vol. 41 no. 1 one of our projects focused on young children’s perceptions of the uses and forms of reading and writing in two countries (canada and ethiopia). the project was led by researchers and their graduate students from major universities in each country, using the same research questions and methods. the introduction of participatory methods—in this case, children’s photography and narrations about their photos—was a novelty for the ethiopian researchers. digital cameras were provided to the research team in ethiopia. lively discussions between the research teams (on the ground in ethiopia) about the benefits of these methods, followed by some informal piloting with the researchers’ children, convinced the ethiopian researchers to conduct the study in the same way as the canadian team. some of the differences in conducting the studies were that the ethiopian children had never used a digital camera, but they quickly caught on. there were also differences with the ethical review process between the institutions. the canadian team went through the stringent approval process required by the canadian irb. while the canadian participants were guided to take photos that did not include people, this was not a concern in the ethiopian study. for example, the ethiopian children took photos of their friends reading and writing. when we asked the lead ethiopian researcher about the approval process in the university, he explained that as dean he vetted all research applications. it was difficult to get clear answers about any requirements for consent and assent, and it was often mentioned in these conversations that many people are not literate and that oral consent is a common method. however, we never were able to ascertain the particulars of the approval process for this project. this became a problem when the teams planned coauthored conference presentations, papers, and manuscripts. the canadian irb advised us that as long as the ethiopian data collection had met the ethiopian institution’s approval process, it was acceptable to coauthor using both sets of data. we have acted on this instruction but remain uncomfortable using the ethiopian photos with people, including children, in them. thus, although the uncrc is touted as an international document, and although “basic” participatory methods of research could be presumed to be universal, our experience with this project challenged these premises. children’s movement: research with, for, and by children the line between rights-based/protectionist research and the children’s movement blurs around the purpose of participatory methods and the position of the child within the research context. in the rights-based/protectionist school, children are primarily viewed as vulnerable and needing protection. in contrast, the children’s movement focuses on the child’s agency and competence in contributing to all stages of the research process for the purpose of becoming empowered through research. gallacher and gallagher (2008) explain that “researchers should be attentive to the peculiarities and specificities of individual childhoods as geographically, historically and socially situated” (p. 501). in this way, it is not sufficient to carry out research on or about childhood; childhood researchers must research for and with children (e.g., cairns, 2001; christensen & prout, 2002; mayall, 2002). in the children’s movement, “participation has become both an aim and a tool in an ethical quest towards ‘empowering’ children” (gallacher & gallagher, 2008, pp. 500–501, emphasis in original). compared to the child-rights-based approach that positions children as an oppressed minority, the children’s movement privileges children as experts on their own lives. furthermore, researchers “involve children in meaningful ways such as formulating the research questions, planning the methodology, collecting and/or analyzing data, drafting recommendations and disseminating findings” (coad & evans, 2008, p. 43). within this approach, lundy and mcevoy (2012) draw on the uncrc to emphasize researchers’ responsibilities of ensuring that in appropriate circumstances, children are given information (articles 13, 17) and adult guidance (article 5) while their views are in formation, in order to be assisted in determining and expressing what will then be both a formed and informed view (article 12). (p. 140) marsh (2012) proposes that children’s critical role in the research process go beyond that of active participants to “knowledge brokers.” in this way, participatory research with children is not just about child-centred data collection and interpretation, but ultimately is a means of agency and empowerment for children. in both the child rights and children’s movement approaches, adults take on roles as atypical adult, incompetent adult, adult-child model, and familiar adult (corsaro, 2005) to gain trust and establish rapport. neither rights-based nor children’s movement approaches is without criticism (coad & evans, 2008; dockett et al, 2009; gallacher & gallagher, 2008). first, it is argued that these approaches are not directly grounded in the uncrc because the convention does not explicitly address the right to be researched. second, and more concerning, is the underlying naive relationship between researcher and child, including that of equals, child as privileged information holder, and researcher as benevolent portal of the child’s need for voice to be released. there is a growing argument that complex understandings about children, families, and ethics, along with profound responsibilities of the researcher, must be more forthrightly acknowledged by those taking such research perspectives with children. as alderson (2012) comments on a previously published editorial about rights-based research, canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 28 vol. 41 no. 1 [we] support young participants’ agency, but they [the researchers being critiqued] present a one-sided theme of beneficent expert researchers providing children with opportunities to take part in research, instead of examining deeper historical concerns. these concerns include how to define, respect and promote the rights and informed autonomy of participants at every stage of research through to the potential influence on policy and practice and on professional and public opinion, which affect children’s daily lives. (p. 238) in our own experiences with research and young children in east africa, we never encountered anything like the children’s movement. we speculate that this is primarily due to the local ethos where children are seen more as subjects rather than co-researchers in exploring research questions. children are regarded as neither engaged with nor impacted directly by the research rather than being recognized that they may have something important to inform the research processes and outcomes. critical reflexivity: research for children the approaches to researching with children described above have been applied primarily in euro-western contexts and assume particular conceptions of children and families. an emerging movement in international research with children from non-western cultures is being led by postmodern and poststructural social geographers. their work primarily consists of sociological and epidemical studies conducted with highly vulnerable groups. research methods used in the multipronged young lives project provide robust examples of critical reflexivity as an essential feature of qualitative research. this long-term study of children of poverty in four developing countries has inaugurated extensive and in-depth examinations of and guidelines for ethical issues raised in this type of research (e.g., morrow, 2009). researchers have documented and reflected on the challenges of deeply and respectfully understanding children’s lives and the necessity for critical reflexivity in such contexts (abebe, 2009; skovdale & abebe, 2012; tekola et al., 2009). reflexivity involves multiple dimensions of research and includes trust, consent, privacy and confidentiality, parents’ fears, power differentials, reciprocity, long-term relationships, and archiving (morrow, 2009). powell et al. (2012) explain that “reflexivity is a means of managing the gap between adult researchers and child participants by encouraging self-awareness on the part of the researcher regarding assumptions about childhood and how this may influence the research process” (p. 4). all participatory research with children must be reflexive and not undertaken as status quo. involving children in participatory research in the global south while adhering to global north standards is problematic in unanticipated ways. abebe’s (2009) reflection on his fieldwork in ethiopia with young children, as part of the young lives project, resonates with ours in that the research “entails a moral consideration grounded in respect for local, gendered and socio-spatial constructions of childhood and the need to go beyond acknowledging such complexities to ask how moral and ethical spaces are (re-)produced and who they actually serve” (p. 463). letters of consent required by irbs—essentially concerned with risk management and therefore legalities—are likely incomprehensible to many participants. while in a legal sense researchers act ethically, they could be engaging in highly unethical practice. lund (2007) shows through case studies of children in non-western contexts how “participation methods may be embedded in external structural forces related to globalisation and geopolitics … through their participation, [children] may be exposed to direct violation and fear” (p. 131). in this view, all aspects of participation must be acknowledged and acted on before participation can begin to address the uncrc’s rationale for the rights of children to improve their own lives. a few examples illustrate the complex challenges of deeply and reflexively contextualizing research. tekola, griffin, and camfield (2009) describe the difficulties of gaining trust and consent and using task-based participatory methods in fieldwork in ethiopia: a number of people came to beg me to put their children’s name on my ‘list’ thinking that they might get money or free health care for their children. additionally, almost all the children found it difficult to express themselves through task-based activities particularly drawings and time lines … as part of an ‘oral culture’ the children are not accustomed to communicating by pictures or timelines. (p. 13) abebe (2009) relates his own experiences of finding public spaces more conducive to meaningful talk with participants rather than the children’s one-room homes. heated debates about paying vulnerable children, especially the beggars and very poor, are unresolved and arguments for and against are equally persuasive. alderson and morrow (2011) describe the dilemma of explaining the need for archiving data to participants in countries where government access to such data could endanger them and their families. gatekeepers at all levels must be consulted and their approval granted. knowing the inner workings and cultural nuances of these institutional, community, and family gatekeepers is particularly challenging for those from outside as well as for those inside the larger culture (abebe, 2009; jirata, 2013). canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 29 vol. 41 no. 1 our own experiences with a family literacy project of an ethiopian ngo in which we played significant roles designing the research components spoke loudly to the complexities beyond recognizing the implications for research from the uncrc. as western “experts” visiting the project sites in rural areas of the country, we were caught in hierarchies of relationships and power, including the families of the participating children, the community and governing body in which the projects took place, the local facilitators of the program, the ngo program director, and, on one visit, the ngo director. in these circumstances, above and beyond the obvious language barrier, we withdrew from any data collection activities and took a quiet backseat observer role. we recognized that we were not the purveyors of this research as we would be normally in our research work. this became an awakening that as traditional western researchers, we were facing a new research process. this heightened our awareness of the issues of ethics and forced us to acknowledge that these are just some of the common matters that are less considered by euro-western researchers when engaged in the new internationalism of researching children. discussion as argued by graham et al. (2013), new directions for the ethics of research involving children need to go further than those currently “circumscribed by concerns about conduct and guided by compliance-focused exercises” (p. 11). similarly, powell et al. (2012) recommend “the potential use of the uncrc in progressing ethical research with children and fostering dialogue regarding research ethics in majority and minority world contexts” (p. 5). in research involving children, we can look within our own national borders to encounter diverse perspectives and practices about children and research. in 1999, most african countries endorsed the african charter of the rights and welfare of the child (unicef, n.d.). the charter “was created partly to complement the crc, but also because african countries were under-represented in the drafting process of the crc, and many felt another treaty was needed to address the specific realities of children in africa” (unicef, n.d.) moving toward inclusive and respectful ethical research that encompasses scholars from and contexts of majority world countries as well as canada’s indigenous and culturally diverse peoples requires rethinking roles and responsibilities as researchers. the examples above show the challenges facing privileged euro-western assumptions and practices about research and epistemology. debates between protectionist and participation discourses pervade the literature on the merits and “rightness” of approaches to research involving young children. however, graham et al. (2013, p. 4) propose that conventions of ethical research such as internal research boards requirements, matters directly pertaining to the uncrc, and the worldly/social position of child participants are not in and of themselves the determinants of the participants’ inclusion or exclusion in any research. rather, they are points of information. a growing position is that the heart of research ethics is continuous critical reflection on the multiple relationships at all points of the research, hence “the important role of dialogue, collaboration and critically reflective practice in navigating the uncertainty that often arises in ethical decision-making” (graham et al., 2013, p. 4). this is particularly urgent for researchers working in the majority world, where potential for unanticipated problems arising from unique social, cultural, political, and religious contexts are magnified. abebe (2009) reflects on his relationships with acutely vulnerable children of poverty in ethiopia: i became compelled not to detach myself from their circumstances … reciprocal relationships have nurtured the research space in many fruitful ways … reciprocity … reflects how ethical spatiality is the product of interrelationships … and that dominant ethical principles are actually lived in, reproduced and experienced by research participants through interactions. (p. 461) alderson (2013) puts aside the need for protectionist-participation debate and argues that “critical analysis of current contradictory theories in childhood studies, to map new areas between the extremes of relativist social constructionism and naive positivism, is needed in order to develop new approaches to rights-respecting research with children” (p. 238). palaiologou (2014) goes further by presenting the need for a freirean notion of ethical praxis characterized as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (freire, 2007, p. 8). thus palaiologou (2014) contends that although participation is a vitally important element in researching young children, the discourse of children’s participation should be focused additionally on ethical praxis of the research [thus] … all methods become relevant to research with children when ethical praxis characterises the nature of the project. (p. 689) such perspectives align with discussions about researchers taking a transformative stance to enable research as a way of contributing to the enhancement of human rights and social change (mertens & ginsberg, 2008). our work in rural ethiopia included multiple data collection methods consisting of familiar participatory methods as well as preand canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 30 vol. 41 no. 1 post-project assessments of early literacy. we were committed to developing culturally and linguistically relevant tasks, not simply buying into the predominantly used western-based measures such as the early grade reading assessment (egra). the development process was cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary, with a few western early literacy “experts” introducing some alternatives to the standard assessments. in conversation with local ethiopians, we encouraged them to further adapt the items and larger processes of the project framed by us (the western “literacy experts”) to account for such factors as the particular social contexts in which the program and assessments would be carried out, the normative structures of oral mother-tongue texts, and how oral culture and literature might be most authentically captured in the process of formatting children’s reading material for the program. this international and intercultural process was intended to deconstruct western assumptions about early literacy indicators (rather than blithely imposing them), analyze and construct valid local indicators (both in content and administration), and build respectful and meaningful tasks for further literacy research. much negotiation took place because the ethiopian favouring of western norms of literacy had to be respectfully discussed. in ethiopia, where the pressure from the government is on all organizations and institutions to support the national goal of joining the global economy, following western norms of practice was obviously a more likely route to children’s literacy than inventing practices more aligned with the local ethos. additionally, this particular project was funded by a prominent western philanthropic organization that held extensive workshops for the local leaders and enforced continuous monitoring of the impact of the program, all of which stressed project promotion and empirical evidence of impact. there is growing consensus that universality of ethical codes and mechanical procedures is untenable and that what is needed is recognition of how local contextual frameworks could be employed. graham et al. (2013) argue for a flexible framework of “internationally agreed ethical guidelines and principles that can be applied across multiple contexts” (p. 13). skelton (2008) outlined the profound social and cultural differences in family and household formation in the caribbean that challenged her western university’s institutional ethical requirements and assumptions, particularly around the consent process. she questions whether ethical frameworks developed in western universities can be valid for research in other cultures, and notes that “ethical research guidelines could be yet another western construct that create a global discourse of ‘our way’ is the ‘right way’ to do things” (p. 29). skovdale and abebe (2012) argue that doing ethical research with children should not be based solely on dominant and decontextualized understandings of ethics, knowledge, and social relations, but should be negotiated reflexively and through dialogue with participants, including the children, their guardians, and local community members—all with the aim of doing good and avoiding harm in the research process. the basic principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, and justice provide a universal framework and underpin ethical issues; however, the ethical and moral dilemmas that arise during the research process are shaped by the specific contexts in which the research is conducted, which includes views of children and adult-child relationships among broader social, economic, political, and religious contexts. clacherty and donald (2007) consider unequivocally that the key ethical principles in research are universal. however, they assert that “the interpretation and application of ethical principles with different groups of children in different social contexts must take varying factors into account. this requires flexibility and often complex decision-making” (p. 147). in sum, the literature reveals the impracticality of universal ethical codes and calls instead for “situational ethics” (ebrahim, 2010). in the critical reflexivity perspective of research with children, such matters of consent, protection from harm, confidentiality, payment, power disparities, and authenticity in representation of children’s views are critiqued and negotiated so that ethics are used to “promote exploration and examination of dilemmas, rather than purely as a basis for rules of research conduct” (powell et al., 2012, p. 1). however, such flexible and contextualized frameworks may run into problems when applied. in many majority world countries, research with children participating (rather than research on children) is relatively new. there is a lack of regulatory mechanisms and monitoring of research projects (leach, 2006) and a greater need to ensure that children are protected and respected (vakaoti, 2009). thus another perspective from the flexible, contextualized one arises from the lack of regulatory mechanisms in some majority world contexts, which places the onus on researchers and the institutions to which they belong (leach, 2006). leach (2006) argues that it is important for national authorities and research sponsors to put clear ethical codes in place along with transparent and rigorous systems of approving research proposals in order to meet research challenges. here once again, privilege and power are assigned to such official discourses, removing opportunity to build local frameworks for collaborative negotiation. canada’s tricouncil policy statement: ethical conduct for research involving humans (canadian institutes of health research, natural sciences and engineering research council of canada, & social sciences and humanities research council of canada, 2014) addresses the ethical review challenges facing canadian researchers with projects “involving multiple institutions and/or multiple rebs, researchers and rebs … [they] should select the most appropriate research ethics review model from among those authorized by their institution” (section 8.2). the current “children in crises” focus influencing many non-western researchers often arises because they assume that african (or other canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 31 vol. 41 no. 1 majority world) children and families are not doing what those of us in the west think is “natural,” “proper,” and “the right way.” what is needed is a shift to “understanding the unique and rich sociocultural milieu in which african children are raised and how that makes them the people they are and are capable of becoming” (shung-king, september, okatcha, & cardoso, 2008, p. 27). possibilities for research with this asset focus are tied to funding sources. the major funders of research involving african children are international aid organizations, ngos, and global sources such as the world bank and unesco—all of which have common agendas tied to the millennium development goals and its crisis packaging. thus another challenge to the type of scholarly research involving children in africa advocated by shung-king et al. (2008) is competing with well-established large funders. a contemporary view of ethics shifts from codified practices to new skills in becoming aware of latent or unasked problems and questions and dealing with conflict, disagreement, and ambivalence rather than attempting to eliminate it (alderson, 2005; powell et al., 2012). ethical dilemmas are going to exist and are situational, requiring the ability to respond to unanticipated events. given this stance, countries in both the global north and the global south are exploring new approaches to research with children, engaging in critical discussions about the conceptual and ethical assumptions and implications of these approaches, and developing guidelines and resources addressing dilemmas arising from the new ethical terrain of research with children. although originally bounded by borders between the geographical global north and south, activities and conversations about ethical research with children are moving toward a central vision (abebe & bessell, 2014). this article traced the state of research with children in separate worlds and in so doing indicated their commonalities and priorities of ensuring maximally ethical research with children in terms of both process and benefit. such informal comparative perspectives of research with children is the contribution of a historical and cultural framework for understanding north and south research but more importantly for explicating concepts and practices held in developed and developing countries that affect the actual enactment of notions of a global knowledge community. these in turn give rise to ethical and procedural questions that pervade the entire research process, requiring researchers and their collaborators to recognize the importance of considering ideas such as the few with which we end our discussion. recommendations while various approaches to researching young children are practiced, there is no singular “best” approach, especially when applied to international contexts. as always, methods fall out of the research questions, the values and positions of the researcher, and consideration of the application of methods to particular contexts. diverse and complex contexts are to be found in both the global north and the global south, which necessities researchers in all contexts to anticipate them reflexively and think of ways to address them in the field. in all cultural contexts of researching young children, researchers need to examine ways in which western ethical review policies and processes can provide for cross-cultural research with children in culturally diverse euro-western contexts and internationally. the following recommendations provide a start to this examination. 1. approach international research collaborations as opportunities for dialogues about ethical requirements, protocols, and monitoring. do not assume that your institution’s requirements for obtaining ethical approval of a study provide ethical access to children who will be recruited for participation. the same applies to ethical approval from a collaborator’s institution (which may have different standards). in many communities, children are protected as much by political and cultural/social gatekeepers as they are by their parents. you will need to gain their trust and consent even it is informal. canadians should refer to section 8 of the tri-council policy statement: ethical conduct for research involving humans (canadian institutes of health research, natural sciences and engineering research council of canada, & social sciences and humanities research council of canada, 2014) for specific direction. 2. uphold the prevalent place of ethics throughout the design, conduct, and dissemination of research. ethics is not a separate part of the research, nor does it take place at a certain time in the designing. ethical codes need to be iterative and responsive, which does not fit the standard format of knowing in advance what will happen and how it will be managed, as is generally required by ethics committees. it is essential to consider ethical issues at the outset and throughout the research process, from conceptualization to post-dissemination (graham et al., 2013, p. 3). 3. apply ethical codes as continuous problem solving. protocols for all phases of a critically reflexive approach to research with young children have been developed. for example, see the protocol for the young lives project (alderson & morrow, 2011). the aim was to provide an international handbook on research ethics that not only spelled out the planning, data collecting, and interpreting/writing stages, but more importantly expanded traditional rigid and narrow guidelines with questions about what canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 32 vol. 41 no. 1 researchers can learn from reflecting on their own moral feelings and relationships during research, how the broader social context affects research with children, how research affects all children beyond gaining and applying ethical principles, and how the researcher, on their own in actual situations, acts with high degrees of self-awareness of varying factors and flexible and complex decision-making abilities. 4. be mindful of the multiple relational aspects of research ethics. if research positions children as social actors, knowledge brokers, voices, and agents of their lives, the child-adult/researcher relationship shifts dramatically. the approach advocated by ethical research involving children (graham et al, 2013) is underpinned by the core principles of respect, benefit, and justice. dockett et al. (2009) explain that both data generation and interpretation are the result of intercultural collaboration (p. 290). following from this, christiansen and prout (2002) argue for ethical symmetry in new models of critically reflexive participatory research in which “dialogue is required on two levels: between researchers as a means of collectively sharing experience; and between researchers and children as participants in the ongoing research process” (p. 477). abebe (2009) learned to value genuine reciprocity between himself as researcher and children of poverty. more broadly viewed, graham et al. (2013) posit the necessity of tending to the broad spectrum of relationships affecting the research, thus stressing the importance of maintaining cross-cultural, intersectoral, and cross-disciplinary dialogue. 5. privilege an asset-based purpose for researching with children and ensure that assets are defined in local contexts. there is as much risk in homogenizing children and childhoods in the new championing of children’s voices in research as there is in the adultist/scientific approach. instead, new understandings of childhoods and diversity provide rich potential for research approaches to researching with children. researchers have an ethical responsibility to uphold not only diversity but, especially for children of the global south, “understanding the unique and rich sociocultural milieu in which african children are raised and how that makes them the people they are and are capable of becoming” (shung-king et al., 2008, p. 27). 6. consider models of indigenous research and build local research capacity. smith (2012) and others present ways of decolonizing social science research by reformulating culture and tradition in research. the university of victoria’s indigenous child wellbeing research network (2013) states: “we believe indigenous communities have within themselves the culturally appropriate tools for responding to indigenous needs. we believe that research should come from within our communities to benefit those participating” (n.p). of utmost importance is that indigenous peoples and peoples from the global south take ownership of their own research, including identifying their own questions and issues, codeveloping ethics and values for working together, utilizing traditional ways of knowing, and sharing. such ethical guidelines for working with canada’s indigenous peoples are spelled out in chapter 9 of the tri-council policy statement: ethical conduct for research involving humans (canadian institutes of health research, natural sciences and engineering research council of canada, & social sciences and humanities research council of canada, 2014). countries of the global south may work with western researchers to develop a protocol for consent that irbs would approve in contexts of oral cultures. 7. keep a critically reflective and reflexive researcher journal. the journal should focus on how various factors influence research, such as personal assumptions about childhood and adult-child relationships, researcher roles, academic paradigms, and life experiences. critically reflect on how these factors are shaping each aspect of the research process and the effect on participants. references abebe, t. 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(2008). child research in africa. african child research network initiative report on the colloquium held november 21–22, 2006, dakar, senegal. council for the development of social science research in africa (codesria) and childwatch international. retrieved from: http://www.codesria.org/img/pdf/ child_research_in_africa.pdf skelton, t. (2008). research with children and young people: exploring the tensions between ethics, competence, and participation. children’s geographies, 6(1), 21–36. skovdale, m., & abebe, t. (2012). reflexivity and dialogue: methodological and socio-ethical dilemmas in research with hiv-affected children in east africa. ethics, policy & environment, 15(1), 77–96. doi:10.1080/21550085.2012.672691 smith, l. t. (2012). decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). london, england: zed books. tekola, b., griffin, c., & camfield, l. (2009). using qualitative methods with poor children in urban ethiopia: opportunities and challenges. social indicators research, 90(1) 73–87. doi 10.1007/s11205-008-9313-9 unesco. (2000). the dakar framework for action. paris, france: author. retrieved from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0012/001211/121147e.pdf unicef. (n.d.). the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child. retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/esaro/children_ youth_5930.html unicef. (2014). convention on the rights of the child. retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/crc/ u.s. department of education. (2001). no child left behind act. retrieved from: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index. html vakaoti, p. (2009). researching street-frequenting young people in suva: ethical considerations and their impacts. children’s geographies, 7, 435–450. doi:10.1080/14733280903234493 van der woerd, k., & cox, d. (2006). from theory to practice: methodological and ethical issues for research with first nations communities. pimatisiwin, 4(1), 40–46. retrieved from: http://pimatisiwin.com/uploads/1948412219.pdf canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 11 vol. 38 no. 1 yiola cleovoulou, phd, is a former elementary school teacher and now a lecturer at the dr. eric jackman institute of child study, ontario institute for studies in education (oise), university of toronto. current research includes critical theory and pedagogy in the early and elementary years, teacher education, and literacy pedagogy. email: y.cleovoulou@utoronto.ca heather mccollam, erica ellis, lauren commeford, isabelle moore, and annie chern are all graduates of the ma program in child study and education at oise. janette pelletier, phd, is the director of the dr. eric jackman institute of child study. her research includes early child development and education, family literacy, and school-as-hub models for early years programs and services. email: janette.pelletier@utoronto.ca using photographic picture books to better understand young children’s ideas of belonging: a study of early literacy strategies and social inclusion by: yiola cleovoulou, heather mccollam, erica ellis, lauren commeford, isabelle moore, annie chern, and janette pelletier this study examined the ways young children (3 years 11 months to 7 years 9 months) talk about and demonstrate their understanding of social inclusion through the use of self-produced family photograph books. one hundred eighty-seven children from the greater toronto area participated in the study by first sharing their personal photograph books with a small group of peers and then exploring books produced by children unknown to them. a mixed methods approach was used where children’s understanding of vocabulary was documented and small focus group discussions were transcribed and analyzed. this article focuses on the study’s qualitative findings that children spoke about and conveyed their understanding of concepts surrounding social inclusion (inclusion, diversity, respect, acceptance, understanding) based on (1) their learning of the social inclusion vocabulary, (2) their personal experience with social inclusion, and (3) their talk of social inclusion in relation to social identity. these themes and their implications for early childhood education are discussed. our world today is more interconnected, dynamic, and socially conscious than ever before. the crossing of borders through immigration, leisurely travel, and internet browsing have made the recognition, acknowledgement, and appreciation of diverse experience and existence more apparent. canada’s population has rapidly changed in recent decades (malenfant, lebel, & martel, 2010). statistics canada reports an increase “in the proportion of persons born abroad, persons whose mother tongue is neither english nor french, and persons belonging to visible minority groups” (malenfant, lebel, & martel, 2010, p. 3). issues surrounding multiculturalism and our responses to diversity have never been more relevant to our everyday lives. increasingly diverse populations and urban demographic shifts toward more cultural integration have resulted in an increased awareness of the value of social inclusion. our classrooms are mirror reflections of larger society, and it is children’s understandings of social inclusion that illustrate the essence of multiculturalism in a learning community. for example, in the greater toronto area it is common to have over forty languages and an equally wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds represented in a school. it is important that children understand and recognize their contributions to diversity and inclusion. educational research has begun to explore the role and value of social inclusion through understanding children’s perspectives (e.g., pelletier, morley, & messina, 2010). our study was based in toronto, canada, one of the world’s most diverse cities. more than 200 different ethnic origins were counted in the metropolitan area of toronto in the 2006 census. a major factor contributing to this diversity is the high number of immigrant families living in the city, most of whom (81.9%) belong to a visible minority group (statistics canada, 2006). as toronto moves toward even greater multiculturalism, school populations mirror this diversity. children from diverse families and social identities come together in a classroom to interact and learn from and with one another. teachers in communities across toronto work with students from a wide range of cultural, racial, cognitive, gender, linguistic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. within this diverse context, many teachers spend a great deal of time and thought creating inclusive environments where students are affirmed, engaged, and respected. social inclusion is a key component in developing social relations and a strong self-image among students. the ontario ministry of education and school boards long ago established equity policies on social inclusion in educational settings, which, it is hoped, will result in children feeling included, valued, and appreciated. to understand and support this process, our study focused on educational settings in the early years with the goal of gaining canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 12 vol. 38 no. 1 greater insight into young children’s constructs of social inclusion. knowledge of how students process concepts of inclusion is critical in our efforts to improve teachers’ practices, including the development of effective curricula, to foster social inclusion. to obtain richer understandings of young children’s inner thoughts of social inclusion, this research examines and illustrates the interpretations of children’s thoughts and voices. through sharing students’ experiences and personal stories and thoughtfully reflecting on the meaning behind these words, we hope that purposeful changes can be made to the current curriculum to support the learning of social inclusion in the early years’ classroom. significance of the study london and colleagues (2002) write: “as our society moves toward greater cultural heterogeneity, children from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds will be interacting with one another on a larger scale in school, work, and play” (p. 61). the movement toward cultural heterogeneity reminds us of the value that inclusion plays in our ability to foster and promote community building and a sense of belonging for all. according to london et al. (2002), in order for individuals to work toward creating attitudes that foster and promote a positive reception for people from diverse backgrounds, they must understand and relate to one another, and to do this, they must learn about each other’s backgrounds. some research describes how older children and adults understand social inclusion (kumashiro, 2000; ladson-billings, 1994, 1995); fewer studies have looked at how children in the early years understand this concept. this study contributes to the expanding research literature that explores social inclusion and the young child. previous studies show that young children have understandings of and preferences for particular social identities. for example, mehta’s (2010) research showed that young participants of diverse ethnicities, in an interview task using ethnically diverse puppets, were more inclined to choose the puppet representing the whiteskinned, blue-eyed, blond-haired child over the puppet that they most closely selfidentified with. vuckovick (2008) argues that “children’s attempts to understand the social world must be respected and adults working with children should be ready to provide them with opportunities to explore and understand a diverse range of social contexts” (p. 9). social environments, such as the home and school, should provide children with opportunities to explore diverse perspectives and traditions. however, without a comprehensive understanding of how children in the early years understand social inclusion, very little can be done to foster and develop this construct in our classrooms. for these reasons, researchers and practitioners alike have called for further inquiry into young children’s understanding of social inclusion. a recent report titled “we all belong: the effects of photograph books to enhance literacy development and social inclusion in early years classrooms (pelletier, morley, & messina, 2010) examined young children’s understandings of social inclusion through the use of family photograph books. the report included quantitative measures of children’s language and literacy learning related to social inclusion terms and general comprehension. the findings suggest that through explicit and intentional instruction of concepts related to social inclusion using family photograph books, young children can enhance their understanding of social inclusion. the findings inform inclusive educational practices and the integration of social inclusion into the curriculum. in this article, we share qualitative, descriptive findings gathered in the report in the form of children’s expressions of their understandings of social inclusion. we consider the children’s words to explore what we—as researchers, educators, and parents—can do to support children’s understandings of social inclusion. the findings shared here extend the findings of the pelletier, morley, and messina report by adding detailed insights directly from the children’s voices and connecting those details to the literature on social inclusion. thus this study contributes to the literature on diversity, early childhood education, and inclusion by analyzing children’s discourses of inclusion. social inclusion until recently, the term social inclusion has been used to describe integrated schooling in a special education setting (evans & lunt, 2002). as topping and maloney (2005) state, “all commentators now agree that inclusion should mean much more than the mere physical presence of pupils with special education needs in mainstream schools” (p. 5). the present study follows the path of many scholars in the field who conceive of inclusion in this broader sense (ainscow, 2008; dei, 1996; kosnik & beck, 2009; kumashiro, 2002; melnick & zeichner, 1997; topping & maloney, 2005; verma, bagley, & jha, 2007). the term social inclusion now encompasses a much wider social context, including any individual who is vulnerable to exclusionary pressures (ainscow, 2008). the increasing level of diversity in our communities, coupled with the revised interpretation of social inclusion, highlights the importance of this concept and the need for further research on how to foster inclusion in classrooms. in our study, social inclusion is defined as “students experiencing a sense of belonging in a classroom where all the students are achieving and participating in equitable ways regardless of their social identities” (cleovoulou, 2010, p. 8). we very intentionally included the concept “our classrooms are mirror reflections of larger society, and it is children’s understandings of social inclusion that illustrate the essence of multiculturalism in a learning community.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 13 vol. 38 no. 1 of equity in the definition to highlight the importance and value of issues of power within social inclusion. in this study, social inclusion was operationally defined through the use of five related terms: inclusion, diversity, respect, acceptance, and understanding. the terms were chosen because we believe them to be important words for young children to understand in discussions about social inclusion. based on collaborative discussions with practicing early years and primary level teachers, the terms were defined as follows: • inclusion: welcoming all people such that everyone feels a sense of belonging, everyone feels equally part of a group. • diversity: seeing differences in people and places; acknowledging that differences are special, that we benefit from diversity, and that we can be different in some ways and the same in some ways. • respect: recognition of other people’s choices as their right; regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others. • acceptance: willingness to welcome people and to like them for who they are; all people can be themselves. • understanding: knowing that we are different and the same; relating positively to someone else’s choices and thinking (perspective taking); wanting to know about what other people think and do. theoretical perspective building on the definition that social inclusion is a broad concept that considers any person vulnerable to exclusionary pressures (ainscow, 2008), we bring critical theory to our discussion of this investigation’s findings. critical theory adds to the definition of social inclusion by its emphasis on the issue of power as it relates to inclusion. kumashiro’s (2000) anti-oppression framework for thinking critically about the “other” –“other” being any marginalized group or person— provides a broad theoretical frame for considering the ways young children talk about aspects of inclusion. kumashiro’s framework also provides pedagogical opportunities to teach young children about inclusion and exclusion while maintaining the natural and authentic discourses that young children experience daily. in addition to kumashiro, we include ladson-billings’ (1994) and gay’s (2000) work in culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy to discuss how institutional curriculum can be altered to be inclusive and to support the learning of social inclusion, and how educators can raise students’ consciousness of issues of social inclusion. bringing a critical theory framework to early years learning about social inclusion adds a complexity and layering of thoughtful decision making on the part of the teachers. for example, decisions around use of words, choice of language, exposure to explicit sensitivities that may or may not be realized by the children, and responses to children’s thoughts play a role in framing the study and the analysis. overall, a focus on social inclusion was used to capture the understandings of young children’s ideas surrounding inclusion, and a critical frame was central in the analysis and discussion to explore more deeply and profoundly the case for social inclusion in the early years. the study methodology and methods initially intended as a quantitative study that looked at social inclusion vocabulary acquisition in the early years, the study also generated qualitative data that went beyond the scope of the quantitative findings. as researchers interested in the qualitative findings, we studied, analyzed, and discussed, through a critical lens, the descriptive accounts of children’s talk during the focus group discussion. this article reports on the qualitative findings and shares the details of two of the research questions from the larger study. the questions we explored and report on here were: 1. how do children talk about social inclusion using family photograph books? 2. how do children in the early years understand social inclusion when referring to specific vocabulary? there were three stages involved in the study. in the first stage, team members developed a research plan designed to examine young children’s understanding of social inclusion. to extend previous research involving the creation of photograph books to foster home literacy practices and children’s reading, it was decided that the same quantitative methodology would be used to help children pay attention to—and, in doing so, develop a deeper understanding of— issues of social inclusion. junior kindergarten to grade one children from six schools in the greater toronto area varying widely in their sociodemographic profiles were invited, through information and consent letters sent home to parents, to participate in the research study. the parents of 187 children consented to the research (95 boys, 92 girls with an age range of 3 years 11 months to 7 years 9 months). the sample is relatively large and includes children from a wide variety of social backgrounds (race, ethnicity, economic status, language, religion) and classroom settings. two of the participating schools are associated with a university; one of these offers a reverse integrated kindergarten program that integrates typically developing children with children who have physical challenges in a unique learning environment and the other is a private school. the public schools in the study varied in demographic location, from subsidized housing communities to middle-class suburban neighbourhoods. when describing and analyzing the findings, we refer to the dominant and canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 14 vol. 38 no. 1 most common responses as “the children’s responses.” the second stage of the project also involved quantitative methods. a vocabulary measure pertaining to social inclusion was developed by the primary school teachers from one of the participating schools. “inclusion” terms were generated during collaborative meetings with the research team and then were rank-ordered by the group of primary teachers. the teachers selected terms they felt would be important for young children to understand and manageable to track and record. the top five ranked terms— inclusion, diversity, respect, acceptance, and understanding—were discussed in detail, and a shared definition was established for use by all the researchers. a teaching protocol for introducing and discussing these terms with the children while using the family photograph books was created. this was done to assess children’s understanding and learning of particularly vocabulary. the third and last stage of the project drew in the qualitative methods. the family photograph books were used as part of a focus group discussion that targeted the five inclusion terms and drew children’s attention to their own and other children’s books. a series of photographs was collected from each child to construct the family photograph books. the books, identical in terms of their layout and design, were printed and bound. additional copies of some books were made to ensure that the children in the book study group received books that were from children from different schools during the second session. the children who participated in this study were divided into two distinct groups: book study and control. it is important to note that the groups were not randomly assigned. the specific collaborative nature of this study necessitated the involvement of the university-associated classrooms in the partnership research. seven groups participated in the focus group discussions. on the first day of the focus group discussions, the children were given their own books to look through while the researcher drew their attention to similarities and differences among the books, following a detailed script. these books were designed to represent a wide range of items that may be significant and easily identifiable to young children. these items included name, family, favourite animals and toys, neighbourhood and shopping places, favourite activities, toy preference, favourite place, favourite pet or animal, and dreams. a photograph represented each item and each photograph was specifically linked to a particular inclusion term. for example, the term inclusion was explicitly discussed when viewing the photographs pertaining to neighbourhood places and shopping; the term diversity was explicitly discussed when viewing the photograph of the child and their family. all group discussions were recorded and transcribed. on the second day of the focus group discussions, the children received books belonging to children from other schools. a detailed script was once again used to ensure consistency and structure throughout the duration of each discussion. the children discussed what they noticed was similar and different about their own books compared to the other children’s books. the detailed script directed the children through a meaningful review of the family photograph books, which involved the explicit discussion of the five inclusion terms. group discussions were transcribed and detailed field notes were taken by the researchers to capture children’s talk of social inclusion. analysis since this article reports on the third stage of the study and the findings related to it, we will only mention here the analysis process for the third stage. the analysis involved multiple reviews of the transcripts and the detailed observational notes taken by the researchers. fifteen interviews (one transcript was unrecoverable) were completed and used for the qualitative analysis. after the completion of the interviews and the transcribing process, the researchers organized the transcripts according to grade, teaching sessions (1 and 2), and school. once the data had been organized, researchers read and reviewed the transcripts repeatedly to gain insight and to discuss strategies by which to further organize the data. the data were further arranged based on the five inclusion terms by assigning each term a colour code and highlighting the sections of each transcript where the term was explicitly discussed. repetition, description, and explanation of the vocabulary were highlighted and coded. once the text had been identified by inclusion term, each researcher was randomly assigned to a term and proceeded to examine that term independently through a cross-analysis (across schools and grades). each researcher repeatedly reviewed the notes associated with their assigned term. descriptive observational notes were made, which drew attention to emerging themes. the emergent themes are reflected in this paper’s discussion. the researchers met several times over the course of several weeks to discuss findings and emergent themes across each of the terms. the terms were later analyzed as a whole, through group discussions, to identify and address shared themes and patterns as well as interrelationships between the terms. the themes that emerged from the text helped the team to develop interpretive theories and understandings about the data (harry, sturges, & klingner, 2005). limitations the large nature of this study offered benefits and constraints in relation to the third stage of the study—the qualitative focus groups. on the one hand, this study affords strength in its large number of participants. the data acquired of 187 young children in small focus groups, across six different schools and with a four-year age span across participants, provides several opportunities for analysis and discussion. we were able to explore canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 15 vol. 38 no. 1 what children of different age groups said about the various social inclusion terms and compare what children across school settings had to say about social inclusion. the large number was helpful in acquiring more data by way of more children participating in the focus group, and offers strength in transferability. on the other hand, the constraint of such a largescale study was that its original nature, a quantitative methodology, limited the time and scope of the qualitative methods. for example, because there were so many focus groups, less time was spent with each group. the first two stages of the study were designed for quantitative methodology from a developmental psychology background. this provided an inherent tension when it came to engaging in qualitative analysis through a critical lens in stage three. nevertheless, there is much to be gained through this research because the critical lens used in the framework and analysis of the findings offers a great deal of information to the fields of psychology and the early years with regards to how children talk about social inclusion in a natural social setting. another limitation of the third stage specifically was that the structure of the interview script limited the number of opportunities children and researchers had to explore additional themes. the structured nature of the interviews, while very helpful for the quantitative findings, posed limitations to the qualitative findings given that interviewers did not veer away from the script or probe children’s responses. also, the brevity of the focus groups resulted in limited opportunities to explore in any great depth some of the themes that emerged in the discussion. results and discussion social inclusion is a dynamic concept. academics, educators, and parents work hard to understand its complexity. aspects of social inclusion, varying definitions, and how they are enacted in educational practice are explored at all levels of education. in this study, young children from vastly diverse backgrounds demonstrated similarities and differences in the ways they spoke about varying aspects of social inclusion. there are several factors that influence the ways children respond to questions and demonstrate their understandings. for example, the local community, the family, the school, and the classroom all contribute to the way children experience and respond to ideas of social inclusion. methodological factors in any study— in this case, the administration of the teaching scripts—also contribute to children’s responses. our analysis leads us to share that through young children’s talk, complex understanding of social inclusion is evident. we chose to explore social inclusion through a critical lens as a way to push the boundary of what it means to explore and understand social inclusion through the words of young children. insights are made that demonstrate the complexity of young children’s awareness and understanding of social inclusion. this complexity is portrayed through children’s understanding of words associated with social inclusion and their talk of social inclusion in relation to some aspects of social identity. the results of our research are described and discussed below. examples of children’s understandings of concepts of social inclusion children have a good sense of what inclusion is and is not, and are able to describe their understandings of term related to inclusion with ease. many of the children’s comments about their understandings of social inclusion were described through personally relevant examples. we organize and describe their talk here according to the five terms of social inclusion (inclusion, diversity, respect, acceptance, and understanding). following the descriptions we discuss implications. inclusion it means it doesn’t matter if you’re from a different country. it means we don’t exclude anyone. inclusion means that you don’t, that you let people join, and if you don’t, then you’re not doing inclusion. i would welcome you in. bringing people into your favourite places. everyone can come. if you have a soccer ball and they ask you to play, you say yes for first, second, and third recess. you can go with me and come to wal-mart. it’s pretty much like being nice to people and welcoming them into our space. be nice, welcome them, and show them around. . . . if you’re playing a game with someone else you should let everyone play because if you want to be by yourself and you’re playing with someone else it wouldn’t be nice. if you had a house, if someone lived in vancouver, if you didn’t allow them to come over but if you did it would be inclusion. you don’t need to include him because we already go to the same place. in an interesting example, on the page about a favourite store is a picture of a grocery store. the interviewer asked a child how the boy who made the book could make them feel welcome at the grocery store. the child replied: “to take my hand and walk me all the way to the “to take my hand and walk me all the way to the golden section … where there are pears.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 16 vol. 38 no. 1 golden section … where there are pears.” children’s understandings of inclusion focus on the idea that others are welcomed or are actively part of the larger social group. for example, many of the definitions and examples provided by the children surround the idea of allowing or welcoming someone into a physical space, such as a department store or someone’s home. in a couple of statements, children described a geographic place. children did not provide particular reasons as to why other children would not be included, but they did provide a number of examples based on their contextual understanding of place. in other words, students did not articulate that inclusion was important regardless of social difference or identity, just that inclusion was important and the nice thing to do. one young child stated, “you don’t need to include him because we already go to the same place,” suggesting that inclusion only matters when exclusion occurs or could occur. diversity some families come from different countries. some are tiny families, some were chinese, and some are purple like hair. it means different. diversity means a lot of different things together. diversity is what it is when there are a lot of differences. god made everybody different. jesus makes us different. like “bill” where we don’t match (their shirts) so we have something different. everyone’s name is different. in all the world there are different names and if there is another angela you have to call them angela 1 and angela 2. people don’t look the same, they look different. mom and dad look the same; they have same eyes, but some people have blue and brown eyes. mom and dad don’t look alike because mom came from different family and dad came from different family. short discourse among students and interviewer: student 1: they’re [people in two photograph books] not the same … why? student 2: because they are not the same age. student 1: and they are not wearing the same clothes. interviewer: different from our families? student 1: they are different, yes. student 3: some are dark and some are light. interviewer: are we all different in this room? everyone: yes. in most instances of talking about diversity, children demonstrated some understanding of the term as defined in this study. children understood the term diversity to mean that, while things are not the same, they do come together. children noted differences between themselves and others in a variety of ways, such as the clothes they wear, the number of letters in their names, and the colour of their skin. children recognized social identity as a factor of diversity among other traits such as different toys and letters in names. this could be attributed to the nature of the script, and the discussions from the photographs on the page. the family photograph books allowed children to learn about others and to celebrate their similarities. this practice is similar to kumashiro‘s (2002) principle of educating about the other as a way of developing affirming communities: “by increasing students’ knowledge of the other, and perhaps helping students see similarities between the groups, this approach challenges oppression by aiming to develop in students an empathy for the other” (p. 42). respect i could show how i respect someone’s pet. i would ask if i could see it for a long time. if you want me to show respect you could come to the house and have a play date and show my favourite toy. i would play with others’ toys nicely. how you show respect is you have to look after the toys. even if you don’t like it don’t say that because they would feel sad. you could do a white lie and say you do like it. not laugh. say you like it. you can lie. if it wasn’t respect you called it stupid pet, that wouldn’t be nice. but if you called it a lovely pet that would be nice. say “i like your hair.” it doesn’t matter what you look like. by supporting everybody else in your family and all your friends and all your cousins. don’t rip the toys. give the fish some food. [even though people’s toys may be different from your own] i would just love to play with them and have fun and try new stuff. if you have a pet and you don’t like another one, you don’t have to say it, you can respect it. you show respect for someone’s game when you say it is the same game as mine and everyone’s game is fun. respect was the most described and defined of the five terms. the children defined respect by treating both things and people nicely. children stated that respect was about saying nice things, being careful with other people’s things, not breaking things, and not hurting people’s feelings. canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 17 vol. 38 no. 1 the ways in which children demonstrated their understanding of respect most closely resembles a less critical perspective. similar to literature in the area of character education, children describe respect through a set of universal values (lickona, 1991). lickona (1991) draws attention to universal moral values such as treating all people justly and respecting their lives, liberty, and equality. “we have a right,” he claims, “and even a duty to insist that all people behave in accordance with these universal moral values” (p. 38). ideas of sharing, fairness, and the need to build community by playing nicely with one another’s games were reflected in the children’s responses. acceptance accept the things that other people say. you like it but you might not want to play with it all the time. [you can show acceptance] … by being nice. by letting people come with you to the park and store. i would say “hi” and introduce her to everyone and i would let her play a game and if she wanted to be by herself i would let her. understanding you can understand people and if you’re really smart you can understand people’s brains. understanding means i understand your pictures. i understand your hair. i understand everything. to understand about someone else. listening. (this was repeated several times by several children at different schools.) understanding school rules. making people happy. if parents say “go clean your room,” you go clean your room. to understand someone, what they want, and listen to them. a child kissing their book “momma” and again states “i understand about my mommy and daddy.” the last two terms, acceptance and understanding, were less about social inclusion based on social identity and difference and more about understanding the actions for fostering social inclusion— to be understanding and accepting. children demonstrated their knowledge of these words in relation to their own lives and made clear assertions of what they should do. much of their understanding is similar to more traditional views of what it means to be socially inclusive, that is, to employ universal values of fairness, listening, sharing, and being nice, as suggested in the work of lickona (1991). overall, children demonstrated a complex understanding of the five terms of social inclusion. they were able to define the terms and, in most cases, provide examples of them. what is less evident is students’ ability to relate notions of social identities, such as those outlined in topping and maloney’s (2005) framework (race, class, gender, ethnicity), while talking about social inclusion. children did share their understandings of some socially constructed identities, and those understandings are discussed next. in addition to children’s ability to define terms of social inclusion, a closer look at the ways in which they talked about social inclusion in relation to themselves and others further demonstrates the complexity of their understandings. the results show that, across the five terms, students were able to identify their own social positions—their likes and dislikes and their personal belongings and experiences. when students compared themselves to others it was often based on the similarities students shared. additional analysis led us to an understanding that young children are able to talk about specific attributes of themselves in relation to others. on the second day of discussing the family photograph books, children shared some insights of their understanding of social inclusion based on social identities. there are several ways people socially identify; the social constructs that children made were mainly in reference to family structures, race/ethnicities, and religion. family this family has glasses and this family doesn’t. they are the same because they are all family. “a” is different because she has a brother and i have a sister. that’s your family? only your mom and your dad? our families have different names. their families have lots of family. other people have more people in their family and some people have short people in their family. some of our parents broke up with their real dad and met another dad that is our step dad. this is my real brother (points to his photo). . . . i have two stepbrothers, and my dad’s girlfriend is having another one right now in her tummy, she has two babies. pictures are different and families are, too. two children were exploring a photograph book in which the mother had a boyfriend; both children laughed and placed their hands over their mouths. in keeping with the premise of equity, diversity, and inclusion, the interviewer asked: “what is funny about that? moms are allowed to have boyfriends and this may mean the parents are not together anymore and that’s okay. that is what makes families diverse.” another child responded, “that’s so weird.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 18 vol. 38 no. 1 race/ethnicity [when exploring a photograph of a neighbourhood] lots of people here are chinese. yes, the ocean super store—it has chinese people, too. some people are white and some are different colours, some have blond hair and some have black hair. some have blue eyes, some have green eyes. in her book, her mom is not wearing a hijab and in mine, my mom is. religion my [favourite place] was my church, this [person’s] was baskin robbins. god made us different. a child shared his favourite place as being the temple and talked about the gods and the golden dresses. another child responded that she had been to that temple before and the child replied that she knew they attended the same temple. the student explained they go to the temple but sometimes “d” and “a” go to the temple but he does not. the student went on to explain that he has his own place where he would go to respect god. when it came to discussions that included talk about social identity, students most often made comments that directly noted how they were similar to others rather than how they were different. when prompted to explore differences, students were able to identify differences based on family structure, race, and religion. this supports earlier findings in which children defined the word inclusion as “everyone feels that they belong; when everyone feels that they are equally part of a group; welcoming people even though they have different names or look different.” the first two parts of the definition are reflected in children’s talk (how we are similar) but the latter one (how we are different) required prompting. when children were prompted, they were able to identify differences. the findings related to issues of social identity show that children are able to recognize difference and, when prompted, they are able to identify what the differences are. young children’s capacity to recognize social difference is evident. in most cases, children simply stated what the differences were without judgment; in a few examples, students felt uncomfortable when difference was based on an identity outside traditional norms. for example, when one child shared that her mother had a boyfriend, both the child and another giggled at the photo and one of the children said, “that’s so weird.” pedagogical considerations for social inclusion in the early years these findings give us a great deal to consider when thinking about learning environments for the early years. do we encourage explicit discussion of issues related to social identity and social inclusion? should we? how do we talk to children about social issues that move beyond traditional norms? kumashiro’s (2000, 2002) approach of teaching about the other and for the other works to question “normalcy” and provides a way to foster social inclusion. to create affirming spaces where students not only understand but appreciate diversity and to foster learning environments that are safe and welcoming, teachers and students must not presume normalcy but rather question it and be explicit with students about it. differences must also be embraced. there are a variety of ways of talking to children about embracing difference. kumashiro (2000), for example, focuses on questions of social identity and on students who experience oppression. a close look at social identities and the systemic power inequities in classrooms and in the community that prevent students from experiencing inclusion is but one way. he suggests revamping the ways in which students think about certain identities by teaching about differences (p. 28). he also argues that schools should provide resources and spaces where students can “receive advocacy” (p. 28). several scholars (banks, 1990; dei, 1996; kosnik & beck, 2009; kumashiro, 2002, 2002; ladson-billings, 1994; osborne, 2005) who promote social inclusion as pedagogical practice stress the inclusion and integration of content that represents the social identities of students in the classroom and people in the community. the representations of social identities need to be affirming and positive; they also need to represent people’s past and present experiences. these scholars also stress that bias, prejudice, and discrimination that provoke inequity should be addressed. the findings in this study show that young children do have a sense of social inclusion and that their understandings are complex. children’s learning of social inclusion vocabulary each social inclusion term (inclusion, diversity, respect, acceptance, understanding) was taught both implicitly through natural discussion about the children’s family photograph books and explicitly through a standard teaching script. for example, while looking at the books children were explicitly asked, “can you show us how your family is different from this family? diversity means that we can be the same in some ways and different in other ways but we all still belong.” children were then asked to give other examples of diversity using their books. the results showed that the terms diversity and inclusion were less understood by children at the pretest in contrast to the terms understanding and respect. in other words, the participants had the most to learn about the terms diversity and inclusion. the quantitative results also showed that targeted teaching of these terms in conjunction with the use of their own family photograph books significantly increased their canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 19 vol. 38 no. 1 knowledge of these terms. this finding suggests the value of explicit, intentional instruction of social inclusion as well as the importance of teachers knowing which words children know and need to know in order to better understand social inclusion. anti-oppression pedagogies work directly and explicitly to end the exclusion of groups and individuals who experience marginalization. the aim is to foster inclusion by changing individuals’ perceptions of what is dominant and/ or “normal.” in his work that builds a framework for anti-oppression pedagogy, kumashiro (2000) advocates for explicit discussion about the “other.” he defines “other” as “those groups that are traditionally marginalized, denigrated, or violated (i.e., othered) in society. . . . they are often defined in opposition to groups traditionally favored, normalized, or privileged in society and as such, are defined as ‘other than’ the idealized norm” (kumashiro, 2002, p. 32). kumashiro (2002) describes four principles of antioppressive practice: (1) education for the other; (2) education about the other; (3) education that is critical of privileging and othering; and (4) education that changes students and society. this family photograph book study addresses several of kumashiro’s principles in relation to children in their early years and demonstrates how explicit teaching of key concepts related to social inclusion can develop children’s understandings of themselves and others in relation to issues of inclusion. a unique finding emerged specifically in the kindergarten program. when a crossschool comparison was carried out, there was an unusual pattern for the word inclusion. the children who were part of the school community based on the integration of children with and without special needs had a significantly stronger understanding of inclusion in the pretest than did those in the other schools. yet surprisingly, while all other schools increased in understanding of inclusion through the focus group, the integrated kindergarten program decreased. this suggested to us that the children’s very deep but specific understanding of inclusion in their setting had been confounded by the focus group discussion that suggested a much broader definition of inclusion. this finding may indicate the importance of explicit instruction and the need to be aware of the breadth of the instruction when considering social inclusion, specifically, the background knowledge of our students. in addition to considerations of explicit discussion of social inclusion, the study demonstrates a consideration of student background knowledge and beginning points for discussing inclusion. children from the school community based on integration of special needs understood the word inclusion in a very particular context that differed from children from other school communities. this finding leads us to consider the works of ladson-billings (1994, 1995) and gay (2000) on culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy and how children in the early years may best acquire deepened understandings of social inclusion. gay (2000) outlines four critical aspects of culturally responsive teaching: caring, communication, curriculum, and instruction. in explaining instruction, she argues that culturally responsive teaching includes multiple ethnic perspectives. according to gay (2000), culturally responsive teaching means respecting the cultures and experiences of various groups and then using these experiences as resources for teaching and learning. this approach appreciates the existing strengths and accomplishments of all students and enhances these strengths through instruction. therefore, consideration for the social and schooling experiences of particular groups of students (e.g., special needs integrated school community, religion-based schools, low-income community, racialized community) should be taken into account when thinking about fostering social inclusion and its explicit instruction. similar to gay’s work, ladson-billings (1995), in reference to african american identities, believes that culturally relevant pedagogy intends to “assist in the development of a ‘relevant black personality’ that allows african american students to choose academic excellence yet still identify with african and african american culture” (p. 17). one key principle of culturally relevant pedagogy is that students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order (p. 160). children who develop cultural competence develop an awareness of themselves and the people around them while maintaining a strong sense of self. this awareness allows them to recognize social inclusion and exclusion. the family photograph books along with the standard script that explicitly taught social inclusion vocabulary provided some space for young children to explore their own identities and culture while also learning about others. while it did not go as far as explicitly exploring issues of inequity, when issues of “fairness” arose, they were discussed with children in more subtle ways. further research this study contributes to the growing area of social inclusion research in the early years. a range of research directions could build on these findings to continue exploring young children’s understanding of social inclusion. the use of personal storybooks in the classroom provides a rich source for discussion and can facilitate young children’s identification of difference and of how to better understand their peers and others. areas for exploration could include how young children form and understand first impressions, kindergarten “to create affirming spaces where students not only understand but appreciate diversity and to foster learning environments that are safe and welcoming, teachers and students must not presume normalcy but rather question it and be explicit with students about it. differences must also be embraced.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 20 vol. 38 no. 1 children discussing salient features, and the reasons behind the prejudices and social choices children make based on their interpretations of these features. a particularly intriguing study currently underway will answer the question of whether young children have learned to conceal their prejudices and explore how they explain these preferences. in this study, the books may also be used as inspiration for children to write a story that features the child in the book they choose; this activity will enable attention to the attributes that are salient to young children and the basis of children’s stereotypes. deeper exploration of children’s understandings of social inclusion could include additional group and dyad sharing of books and discussions, as well as open-ended interviews that invite critical perspectives to surface and be explored. while many students come to school with various ideas on the topic of social inclusion, it is important to note that young children have the ability to understand its complexities and are able to form opinions. it is through exposure to materials dealing with social inclusion and the subsequent discussion that takes place that students are able to develop their own social identity and become aware of the social identity of those around them. the findings in this study open the door for further research in how young children’s understanding of social inclusion can be developed using concepts of critical theory. the findings also present a useful entry point in helping educators decide where and how to talk about social inclusion with their students. the use of vocabulary is one starting point. the thoughtful planning of discussion with critical perspectives in mind is another. friendly and lero (2002) have stated that in the right context and with inclusionsensitive educators, early childhood care and education (ecec) can contribute to the support of social inclusion in students. future research that invites indepth examination of young children’s social understandings has significant implications for all educators. friendly and lero (2002) have further explain that in canada we have yet to provide the right conditions for such change. providing the right context and support for both ecec and classroom teachers would allow children to delve into the complex and important topic of social inclusion. references ainscow, m. (2008). teaching for diversity: the next big challenge. in f. m. connelly, m. f. he, & j. i. phillion (eds.), the sage handbook of curriculum and instruction (pp. 240–258). thousand oaks, ca: sage. banks, j. (1990). citizenship education for a pluralistic democratic society. the social studies, 81(5), 210–213. cleovoulou, y. (2010). examining the complexities of fostering social inclusion in elementary classrooms. unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of toronto, ontario. dei, g. (1996). the role of afrocentricity in the inclusive curriculum in canadian schools. canadian journal of education, 21(2), 170–186. evans, j., & lunt, i. (2002). inclusive education: are there limits? european journal of special needs education, 17(1), 1–14. friendly, m., & lero, d. s. (2002). social inclusion through early childhood education and care. working papers on social inclusion. toronto, on: laidlaw foundation. gay, g. (2000). culturally responsive reaching: theory, research, and practice. new york, ny: teachers college press. harry, b., sturges, k., & klingner, j. (2005). mapping the process: an exemplar of process and challenge in grounded theory analysis. educational researcher, 34(2), 3–13. kosnik, c., & beck, c. (2009). priorities in teacher education: the seven key elements of pre-service preparation. new york, ny: routledge. kumashiro, k. (2000). toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. review of educational research, 70(1), 25–53. kumashiro, k. (2002). troubling education: queer activism and anti-oppressive pedagogy. new york, ny: routledge. ladson-billings, g. (1994). the dreamkeepers: successful teachers for african-american children. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. ladson-billings, g. (1995). but that’s just good teaching! the case for culturally relevant pedagogy. theory into practice, 34(3), 159–165. lickona, t. (1991). educating for character: how our schools can teach respect and responsibility. new york, ny: bantam books. london, l. h., tierney, g., buhin, l., greco, d. m., & cooper, c. j. (2002). kids college: enhancing children’s appreciation and acceptance of cultural diversity. journal of prevention and intervention in the community, 24(2), 61–76. malenfant, é. c., lebel, a., & martel, l. (2010). projections of the diversity of the canadian population 2006 to 2031. retrieved from: http://www.statcan. gc.ca/ mehta, s. (2010). young children’s perception of their own skin tone and the skin tone of others: an examination of young children’s puppet selection based on racial characteristic variations. unpublished masters qualifying research paper. toronto, on: ontario institute for studies in education of the university of toronto. melnick, s., & zeichner, k. (1997). teacher education for cultural diversity. enhancing the capacity of teacher education for institutions to address diversity issues. in j. king, e. hollins, & w. hayman (eds.), meeting the challenge of diversity in teacher preparation (pp. 23–39). new york, ny: teachers college press. osborne, k. (2005). political education and citizenship: teaching for civic engagement. education canada, 45(1), 13–17. pelletier, j., morley, e., & messina, r. (2010). “we all belong”: the effects of photograph books to enhance literacy development and social inclusion in early years classrooms. in c. rolheiser, m. evans, & m. gambhir (eds.), inquiry into practice: reaching every student through inclusive curriculum. toronto, on: ontario institute for studies in education, university of toronto. statistics canada. (2006). canada’s ethnocultural mosaic, 2006 census: canada’s major census metropolitan areas. retrieved from http://www12.statcan.ca/censusrecensement/2006/as-sa/97-562/p21-eng.cfm topping, k., & maloney, s. (eds.). (2005). inclusive education. london, uk: routledge. verma, g. k., bagley, c. r., & jha, m. m. (eds.). (2007). international perspectives on educational diversity and inclusion: studies from america, europe, and india. new york, ny: routledge. vuckovick, a. (2008). making the multicultural learning environment flourish: the importance of the childteacher relationship in educating young children about diversity. australian journal of early childhood, 33(1), 9–16. acknowledgements: we thank the council of ontario directors of education (code) and ontario institute for studies in education (oise), university of toronto initial teacher education as sponsors of the research. some of this report draws on previous publication of these findings from pelletier, morley, and messina (2010) in c. rolheiser, m. evans, & m. gambhir (eds.), inquiry into practice: reaching every student through inclusive curriculum, ontario institute for studies in education, university of toronto. march 2021 34 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research shifting from a rules-based culture to a negotiated one in emergent curriculum matthew sampson and christine mclean matthew sampson, who has worked in the field of early childhood education for 20 years, recently graduated with a master of arts in child and youth study from mount saint vincent university, halifax. in 2018, matthew received the prime minister’s award of excellence in early childhood education. he also coauthored “zombie world: boys invent a culture in their after-school program,” a chapter in carol anne wien’s book the power of emergent curriculum: stories from early childhood settings (2014). his research interests are emergent classroom environment design, emergent curriculum, and pedagogical documentation. email: matthew.sampson@msvu.ca christine mclean is on faculty in the child and youth study department at mount saint vincent university. she completed her phd in applied psychology and human development (early learning) from oise, university of toronto, in 2018 and has been involved in the early childhood education field in newfoundland and labrador and in nova scotia for over 30 years. she is particularly interested in reflective practice and reflective thinking with both children and adults, as well as the coconstruction of pedagogical documentation by educators and children in early learning environments. email: christine.mclean@msvu.ca early childhood educators have had a spotlight shone on them over the past several years with the introduction of such initiatives as jurisdictional early learning frameworks, quality assurance systems, and other regulatory programs designed to support the needs of children and families during these challenging social, physical, political, and global times. educators are required and expected to engage in critical reflection and pedagogical inquiry in meaningful ways without necessarily having the time, space, and opportunity to do so. as an early childhood educator myself, it seems at times like everything is changing and next steps in my practice are not always clear. as veronica pacini-ketchabaw and her colleagues (2015) describe, “we have learned to question taken-for-granted assumptions about what young children know and what they can do. we question what counts as appropriate practice, what our roles as early childhood educators are, and what they could be” (p. xiii). as we question our assumptions, we look around to see if anyone else is also feeling unsure in their practice. are others making “mistakes” as they attempt new ways of being, doing, and knowing? does anyone talk about this? this article tells the story of two early childhood educators who were provided with the time, space, and opportunity to use pedagogical documentation as a catalyst for critically examining and questioning their current and past practices specific to emergent curriculum. emergent curriculum is an open-ended yet intentional way of teaching. in an emergent curriculum setting, the educator must “actively seek out and chase the interests of the children” (biermeier, 2015, p. 73). emergent curriculum written in the voice of the first author, this article examines how two early childhood educators who practice emergent curriculum shifted from following a rulesbased culture in their classroom to a more negotiated one. the voices of the child and educator research participants are excerpts from a larger qualitative study involving five educators who participated in interviews focused on their perceptions of how their understanding of emergent curriculum evolved over time. using selfselected examples of pedagogical documentation as a catalyst for discussion, the participants reflected on how their experiences with mentors, children, and program administrators influenced their shifts in practice. key words: early childhood education; emergent curriculum; shifting practice; reflective practice; pedagogical documentation march 2021 35 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research focuses on children’s inquiry and engagement, using pedagogical documentation as a tool for communication (stacey, 2019). it helps us understand the meaning children are making of their experiences (wien, 2014) and it requires respectful, collaborative relationships based on trust and a sharing of power. in my own career as an ece at peter green hall children’s centre in halifax, nova scotia, i began to understand emergent curriculum with the help of two strong mentor educators who gave me time to follow the children’s developing interests when i was ready to do so. my mentors had a few years of experience practicing reggio-emiliainspired emergent curriculum in the early 2000s when it was still new to our region of canada. when i became the lead ece for a school-age classroom with this centre, i assumed that my practice in emergent curriculum would easily translate to this new setting. the classroom used an emergent approach, but as i would discover later, the power dynamics between adults and children and between educators and leaders felt unbalanced. this affected me and my relationships with the children and my colleagues. at one point, i encountered an uncomfortable situation where a piece of art drawn by a 7-year-old depicted what i interpreted as a scene involving drugs and violence. i felt the need to deal with it before it became an issue with other children, parents, and the director. i was worried that i was not doing my job well (or that it would be perceived in this way) and i would be reprimanded. my reaction to this stress was to ask the child for an explanation using a somewhat demanding tone: “what are you drawing?” no explanation was given (probably due to my tone and posture) so my strategy was to ban the art: “if you cannot talk about it then you cannot draw it here.” i was uncomfortable with how i handled the situation, but i felt that my reaction was necessary to avoid further issues / power struggles in the classroom. later, upon reflection, i realized that i had betrayed the child’s trust and taken away his right to express himself. over the next few years, my relationship with this child and my appreciation for his art and unique ways of looking at the world deepened. he became a central figure in a significant and career-changing art piece called “zombie world. “zombie world” was a comprehensive and ongoing art piece that emerged from a homework assignment given to the grade 4 class at their elementary school and that i heard about from the children while they were in my school-age after-school classroom. as in my previous experience with the drawing about the drug deal, i had similar struggles with the child-initiated “zombie world” art piece due to its insinuations of violence and evil. however, and as a result of my reflective practice with other colleagues and my experiences in the field, my confidence as an educator had grown, and this, plus my trust in the children, gave me strength and the belief that the positive benefits of the experience for the children outweighed the negative. i realized that the “zombie world” project had demonstrated their personality, their questions and understandings of the world, their creative expressions, and so much more. i believed, this time, that it was not my place to limit the artwork’s potential. my role was to document its growth and try to understand the children’s thinking. as i reflected on this remarkable project, i realized that my shift in practice—away from controlling the classroom and toward supporting creativity—allowed children to rise to a level of success that previously seemed unlikely. as a result of these experiences, i wondered if this sort of change happens to other educators, if they experience similar changes in practice related to their understanding and use of emergent curriculum. as a graduate student, i chose to examine what shifts in practice were experienced by other educators and if there were commonalities among these shifts. this article focuses on how two participants from this larger research study shifted their practice, from rules-based curriculum approaches to a more negotiated, participatory, and emergent curriculum. march 2021 36 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research literature emergent curriculum simply stated, emergent curriculum is an open-ended style of teaching and learning (wien, 2008). it is not as simple in practice, however, and moving from a more traditional theme-based and adult-directed curriculum approach to understanding and implementing emergent curriculum can be difficult for some. according to nxumalo, vintimilla, and nelson (2018), “emergent curriculum stands in contrast to, and is an important site of resistance to standardized and theme-based curriculum in early childhood education, including increasingly regimented modes of governing what children can do and learn in the classroom” (p. 434). therefore, emergent curriculum is in opposition to adult-directed curriculum in early childhood education. adult-directed curriculum generally adopts a developmental perspective and focuses on what the child will know at the end of the lesson. educators who follow an emergent curriculum approach, however, do not focus on the right answers; they focus on supporting children’s sense of agency and community, which includes their ability to research, plan, work together, and problem solve. carol anne wien (2008) deconstructs and makes meaning of the contradiction between traditional and emergent curriculum: the term emergent curriculum, thus, captures a seeming paradox: an intentional course is implied by the use of the word curriculum, derived from the latin currere, meaning to run a course or make one’s way around a known route. but paradoxically, the course of this curriculum is not known at the outset. it is emergent—that is, its trajectory develops as a consequence of the logic of the problem, the particular connections that develop as participants bring their own genuine responses to the topic and collaboratively create the course to follow out of these multiple connections. (pp. 5–6) this explanation dissects the complex nature of emergent curriculum; the unknown is the path to a much richer learning experience for both the child and the educator. it cannot be predetermined: as jones and nimmo (1994) explain, “emergent curriculum is sensible but not predictable. it requires of its practitioners trust in the power of play—trust in spontaneous choice making among many possibilities” (p. 1). many early childhood education programs have been interpreting emergent curriculum, with some subtle differences, by focusing on its foundation of taking children’s theories and curiosities seriously and treating children as citizens who are capable of participating in society, considering children as creators of culture, placing the environment as a third teacher, guiding behaviour and inspiring creative thought, and creating pedagogical documentation (nxumalo et al., 2018; wien, 2008). these fundamental ideas are necessary for understanding and coconstructing emergent curriculum. capable child as coconstructor before an ece can begin to develop the curriculum or design the learning environment, they must first reflect on their image of the child. the educator’s image of the child is fundamental to emergent curriculum; it is the key that unlocks the possibilities of each child’s learning journey and each ece’s teaching journey (biermeier, 2015). loris malaguzzi, one of the originators of the reggio emilia system of municipal preschools, described the image of the child as a metaphor for how society views the capacities and/or incapability of children (rinaldi, 2006). malaguzzi (as cited in rinaldi, 2006), proposed that a child, “right from the moment of birth is so engaged in developing a relationship with the world and intent on experiencing the world that he develops a complex system of abilities, learning strategies and ways of organizing relationships” (p. 83). this image of children’s potential is the basis for what is seen as possible for children and supports the necessity of valuing children’s right to think and learn on their own terms. malaguzzi (1994) said: each one of you has inside yourself an image of the child that directs you as you begin to relate to a march 2021 37 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research child. this theory within you pushes you to behave in certain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child, listen to the child, observe the child. it is very difficult for you to act contrary to this internal image. (p. 1) perhaps the primary and most basic principle of teaching in an emergent learning space is the belief that the child is capable. this image sets up the educator to talk, listen, and observe in a manner that respects the child’s capability as a thinker, participant, citizen, and researcher of the world around them. pedagogical documentation pedagogical documentation, a fundamental aspect of emergent curriculum, has its roots, in part, in the schools of reggio emilia, italy. educators use documentation to share the captured thinking and learning of the children and others in the classroom and to propel their investigations further (fraser, 2012). many forms of documentation in educational practice are evaluative; they usually seek to assess the students’ progress and the quality of the education (wien, jacobs, & brown, 2015). in contrast to this, pedagogical documentation is more of an invitation to get involved in the learning process and a starting point for conversation about it. to document experiences in an early childhood environment means to approach everyday situations with wonder and curiosity. iris berger (2015) describes how the process of pedagogical narration (another term for pedagogical documentation) “triggered in educators an attunement to unexpected events that punctured a hole in ordinary understanding, and thus required complex, interpretative responses” (p. 145). jones and nimmo (1994) describe pedagogical documentation as an invitation to the parents and community that opens a space for understanding and dialogue. educators who practice emergent curriculum must trust that learning is happening, and it is their job to recognize, support, and make it visible, and to make meaning of the children’s play and exploration, through pedagogical documentation (cowan & kress, 2017). children are constantly making meaning of the world around them as they play, explore, and engage, and in pedagogical documentation the eces transcribe the children’s meaning in order to communicate it to their colleagues and the children’s parents (cowan, 2018). dahlberg, moss, and pence (2013) caution us to not confuse pedagogical documentation with child observation, which is generally used as a type of developmental assessment. when the focus of documentation is outcome driven, then we are engaging in a strategy of “complexity reduction,” as described by hillevi lenz taguchi (2010). pedagogical documentation is much more complex than an evaluative tool for educators: it is a form of research into children’s relationships with their world. with the educators as the researchers, pedagogical documentation is the analyzed data that has been generated in the form of drawings, conversations, and photographs, etc. it is then designed in a way that suits its specific purpose and audience, as described by susan stacey (2015). although research and analysis are linked to pedagogical documentation, it also “reveals connections between events, and it provides children, parents, and teachers with an opportunity to review and plan future experiences” (fraser, 2012, p. 141), while at the same time serving as “a practice to encourage a reflective and democratic pedagogical practice” (dahlberg et al., 2013, p. 152). carlina rinaldi (2006) describes how the process of documenting learning is a form of research that has evolved and is still evolving in reggio emilia. by using this documentation, the educator is able to assess, engage in dialogue, and find meaning in the process of learning that was documented, informing their teaching practice (rinaldi, 2006). pedagogical documentation helps them organize the children’s thinking and negotiate the curriculum with the children. educators who use it are able to constantly research teaching practices with their students, which will then provide the opportunity for change through their findings or reflections. march 2021 38 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research critical reflective practice reflective practice, as described by donald schön (1983), “can surface and criticize the tacit understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice and can make new sense of situations of uncertainty or uniqueness” (p. 61). critical reflective practice is how professionals examine what they are doing, assess how it is working, and then make changes to improve. in the field of education, critical reflective practice can be defined as “the sustained and intentional process of identifying and checking the accuracy and validity of our teaching assumptions” (brookfield, 2017, p. 3). it is an “active process of engaging with difficult concepts, tensions, and uncertainties” (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 28). consequently, as deb curtis and her colleagues (2013) explain, “educators who commit to focused reflection experience immediate and long-term benefits” (p. 14). in emergent curriculum, educators develop their learning and knowledge with children as reflection in action or practice (curtis & carter, 1996; schön, 1983). schön (1983) explains the process of reflection in action where a practitioner “seeks to discover the particular features of his [or her] problematic situation, and from their gradual discovery, designs an intervention” (p. 12). curtis and carter (1996) add that reflection in practice requires a “set of attitudes and habits of mind that enable them to respond to the classroom dynamics and multiple needs of children with the readiness of an improvisational artist” (p. 171). to ensure that their responses reflect the children’s thinking, experiences, understandings, and interests, eces must be critically reflective; as brookfield (2017) explains, “critically reflective teaching happens when we build into our practice the habit of constantly trying to identify, and check, the assumptions that inform our actions as teachers” (pp. 4–5). this is how educators in emergent curriculum think on their feet and problem solve with children to support and expand their ideas and interests. earlier i highlighted two major points in my practice that were times for reflection: the “drug art” and the “zombie art.” both pieces made me uncomfortable—as schön (1983) puts it, were “situations of uncertainty”—because it was not what i had expected to see as examples of children’s art. wien (1995) refers to these times of discomfort as “pivot points”: moments of change where educators take a different direction in their thinking and practice. berger (2015) describes “moments of perplexity” where we are “forced to think about the unpredictable and contingent nature of our lives and to find together new meanings, new realities, and new relationships in a world that, for the most part, desires control, predictability and knowing.” (p. 138). in my experience, these challenges were opportunities for change or growth that were brought on by my discomfort. it is important to note that even though my actions in each situation were vastly different, upon reflection they were both opportunities for a change in my practice, the former (drug art) being an internal signal and the latter (“zombie world”) being a change that affected my practice. both moments were also highlighted by disequilibrium, or a moment of being unsure. karen murris (2008) describes disequilibrium as “a positive force that opens up a space in which educators have the need to reflect upon their values, their beliefs about learning and teaching, and ultimately ... rethink their own role” (p. 1). generally, people shy away from disequilibrium; as adults, we are comforted by the familiar and expected, but the uncertainty and excitement for learning in emergent curriculum may not be comfortable. it is like the feeling in your stomach as you swing with your eyes closed: uncomfortable but possibly delightful. thus, disequilibrium and pivot points may work in synchrony to bring about the possibility of change in educators’ practice. educators can learn from their challenges and, by embracing the unexpected, they can open up to the opportunity for growth. march 2021 39 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research method research design this qualitative research project examined the journey of educators specific to their experiences of shifting their practice with emergent curriculum. my research is guided by a social constructionism perspective that posits that there are many interpretations to one inquiry and that meaning is constructed through interaction (guba, 1990). social constructionist perspectives, according to pacini-ketchabaw et al. (2015), “enable educators to critique the assumption of universal truths about children, families, and what constitutes ‘good practice’” (p. 33). chosen because this research study focused on individuals who were trying to articulate, through their documentation and their own narratives, how their practice as educators had shifted or changed, social constructionism provided me with a lens that would help interpret and construct meaning from our conversations. using semistructured interviews with early childhood educators, i endeavoured to work with the participants to identify a particular point in time where a shift in practice had occurred. documentation supplied by the participants provided a retrospective of their beliefs and practices and so, using this documentation, i asked the participants to reflect on what had changed between their past and current practices and uncovered, from their stories of change, why the change occurred and how it had affected their understanding of emergent curriculum. participants ece participants were selected according to specific criteria that included both education and experience in emergent curriculum. all participants needed a working understanding of emergent curriculum and needed to use pedagogical documentation as a regular part of their practice. the original research was based on data from four adults who were working in early childhood classrooms with children up to 10 years old, and one adult in an administrative role. this article focuses on the stories of two of these participants. the participants met with me on two separate occasions within the span of a month for a 30-minute interview to discuss significant moments of their teaching practice. they shared two pieces of pedagogical documentation from their previous work. one piece of documentation focused on what they considered to be an example of their strongest work, and the other piece was an example of what they felt to be, in retrospect, evidence of a time when their skills and understanding of emergent curriculum were not as developed as they were at the time of the interview. data generation using an ethnographic interview approach, i conducted two semistructured interviews with each participant at the local public library. as stated previously, the interviews each centered on a different piece of documentation that the interviewee provided from their work history. each piece of documentation was provided one week before the interview so i could familiarize myself with it. james spradley (1979) describes how ethnographic interviews follow a format similar to a friendly conversation; this format helps the interviewer keep the dialogue relaxed yet meaningful. one interview with the participants centered on documentation that the interviewee considered a reflection of a recent successful interaction or project with the children. in other words, it was what they considered to be an exemplary piece of their documentation that illustrated emergent curriculum in action. this was documentation they are proud to share with others as a good example of emergent practice that successfully led children and/or educators to deeper thinking and curiosity. march 2021 40 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the other interview with the participants centered on a piece of documentation that represented an earlier understanding of emergent curriculum. this documentation demonstrated work they had since grown from, for example, where the educator had attempted to follow an interest, support answering a question, or scaffold an idea, but upon reflection and with more experience they recognized that this did not happen as they hoped. as with the first interview, questions were designed to gather details around the story and context of this documentation. this interview also included questions that examined what had changed or was different in the educator’s practice/ beliefs/values/opportunities as a catalyst between documentation two and documentation one. data analysis i transcribed the interviews verbatim, including notes to clarify emotion, confusion, or any other aspects of the interview that needed clarification. one participant added a one-page email after each of her two interviews to add to her answers. i summarized the transcriptions by creating a chronological narrative of their journey using the most significant points in their responses. i replaced all names of educators and children with pseudonyms. in each educator’s journey i began with their early example as a starting point, continued with their reflections on what had changed for them, and then finished with what they felt was their evolved example of documentation. participants’ stories sahar: “i really wanted to know the right answer.” i interviewed sahar about the two pieces of documentation she titled “let’s talk about guns!” and “learning from burned cookies.” “let’s talk about guns!” in our interview to examine the “let’s talk about guns!” documentation, sahar described how, in her first six months of teaching in a preschool classroom with children between 3.5 to 4.5 years old, children were playing a pretend gun game. this made her uncomfortable. when sahar asked if this kind of play was allowed, her lead educator asked her to document and explore this interest despite her discomfort, so sahar took photos and made initial notes from her observations. she also wrote down and included a conversation that she had with the children about guns. her piece of documentation included a brief description of the play, photographs of the children working with their gun creations, and transcribed conversations. although she remembered feeling nervous, sahar had started her exploration of gun play with a conversation, as she had seen demonstrated by her mentor. here is the transcript of her conversation with two of the children involved in this gun play exploration, as included in her documentation: sahar: so what kind of things did you make with k’nex©?  john: swords.  orion: guns.  john: swordguns and sticksmash. sahar: why do you like to make those? orion: because we can play superheroes.  march 2021 41 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research john: because they sharp the bad guys.  sahar: guns are good or bad? john: guns are bad, they die people.  orion: swords as bad as guns.  john: some toy guns and water guns are good because they won’t die people.  orion: how about playdough guns, they are safe?  in her documentation of the conversation, sahar had asked what they were making, and the children replied with several answers, one of which was “guns.” sahar then asked an open-ended “why” question. the children mentioned superheroes, but sahar explained to me that since she was investigating guns, she continued to focus on that aspect of the conversation. following this chat with the children, sahar described how she tried to learn more about guns with trips to the library to find books and she attempted some follow-up conversations about guns, but the children did not seem interested. she described how, two years later, as she looked back at her first documentation, she thought she had erred. she saw that the children had only mentioned guns once in the conversation and there was more of a focus on superhero play. as she read her documented conversation from “let’s talk about guns!” she recognized that she had focused on guns, but the children had been focused on heroism. she reflected on her misinterpretation in this way: i couldn’t listen to that or maybe i didn’t want to, i guess. i wasn’t sure if it was going somewhere that i didn’t know, so i had my walls up to make sure [the children] came along with me to discuss what i was asking about ... i wanted to hear what i was ready to hear, so i was picking up their words. i would pick up the word guns, but i wouldn’t pick up the word superheroes because guns was my topic and superheroes was not my topic. according to sahar, in her first year or two of teaching, she was not able to relax. she was rushing to make a perfect plan and she needed to have all the answers. in the gun play scenario, she felt like she had to teach the children something about guns. after much reflection, she recognized that teaching was less about the facts that were discussed in her conversation, exploration, and documentation and more about how the children were thinking. her questions could support the children to think and communicate their thoughts effectively. sahar said, “maybe i was not confident enough; i was not relaxed enough; i didn’t have faith in myself and my children.” sahar explained that since this early time in her career, she had built her confidence through teaching experience, reflected on her previous work, set up her own classroom, and worked in partnership with a variety of early childhood educators at different points in their development. for the second interview sahar chose a more recent example of her documentation called “learning from burned cookies.” the documented exploration lasted for over a year. “learning from burned cookies” similar to the first example, this documentation included photographs, a brief explanation of what provoked the exploration, and the transcribed words of the children. however, this example also included more detailed explanation of the children’s processes of exploration. during the interview, sahar provided more detail about the event than what was evident in the actual documentation, often referring to her document as the original piece in a series of documentation related to this particular event. march 2021 42 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research as she described, one morning she had set up a provocation of baking ingredients that were available for the children to explore. these ingredients included flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger powder, apple spice, and oil. according to sahar, although she did not know it yet, this simple provocation would lead to over a year of scientific exploration. as she explained, on this particular morning, the children were happily mixing ingredients without a predetermined plan or recipe. as one child moved away from his mixing, another joined and commented about this sensory exploration: safa: this looks like real food.  jen: i am making rainbow ice cream.  the children wanted to eat their food, but sahar reminded them that the dishes and tools they used were not clean for eating but they could test it in other ways. the children decided to bake it for ten minutes, and when their timer went off, they discovered that their food was burned. jen: can we smell them?  safa: maybe we can wash off the black part.  teo: maybe you guys put too much oil.  sahar: to bake for ten minutes was maybe too long.  jen: yes, maybe we can try four minutes next time.  safa: no, i think we should try two minutes next time.  jen: can we make it again?  sahar: sure. we can try again tomorrow.  sahar described how she was already getting feedback from the other staff at the centre. some educators were saying, “what is that gross smell?” and suggesting recipes that they knew.  sahar stated that she had not been fazed by this criticism or suggested change in direction. she knew that the children were not disappointed with their baking. the next day they tried again.  safa: i think we put too much oil yesterday.  jen: yes, we shouldn’t put too much oil this time.  as the children continued, their play changed. on the previous day they had focused on pouring and mixing, but on this day, they were carefully using the spoon to delicately spread out the flour, and serena would taste each ingredient before adding any to the mixture. joud and sofia joined in the play and soon serena shouted, “look, i made chocolate!” sahar described in the interview how serena was able to share her process of making chocolate and, as a result, the other children tried to make some too. sahar described this as a key moment, when the children found success in their own terms and were able to ask and explain their process. once everyone was happy with their creation, sahar took them to the oven and they set a timer for two minutes. as her documentation indicates, when the timer went off, they said: sahar: do you think they are done?  joud: (poked the baked food with her finger to test the texture) yes! it’s done!  march 2021 43 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the children brought their food back to the classroom and started tasting.  joud: it’s delicious!  serena: do you want to try mine?  jen: sure, do you want to try mine?  sahar explained how she noticed a change in the children’s willingness to try this new food. she believed that being involved in the complete process of making the food allowed the children to consider food in a more comfortable way. sahar remembered that they were very proud of their food and wanted to share it with their families. this exploration of food and baking took place over a year, with different children joining and leaving the group. the ingredients were always available in the classroom and were replenished frequently. with each new idea and discovery, sahar added to the documentation, which eventually covered an entire wall. sahar has been asked by other educators how she could let the children do whatever they wanted with the ingredients. she said, “if you have those eyes for children, then you know how important that is, to value their thinking.” sahar further explained that valuing children’s thinking will help develop a trusting and comfortable relationship because it gives them space to share their big ideas in a meaningful way. sahar had stated that this documentation was not perfect, and when asked “what would you change about it?” she replied: it’s not about changing or that i know what to do differently. it would have been beneficial if i had a strong coworker with me seeing the same value. so, we could have a positive argument from our different perspectives, and we could see the different sides of the learning. i’m still learning. how could i say that’s my perfect work or perfect documentation? nobody’s perfect, i’m just trying and learning. i will learn something from my next group that will open my eyes to a new thought. looking back at her first example, sahar remembered the words of her first coworker when she had asked if gun play was okay. he had said, “hmm, i don’t know, what do you think?” she thought he sounded like he trusted her and it was okay to try.  so that is the advice she would like to share with new or struggling educators: you don’t have to have all the answers because it’s not about outcomes, it’s the process of learning that is more important ... if it doesn’t always go as you planned, it wouldn’t matter to your children because they don’t know what your plan was. sahar’s final thought during our interview process was, “i was wondering if i was ready for this research because it seems very professional or for someone who knows everything. it sounded very deep, so i was not sure if i was okay to have an interview, but it gave me a chance to revisit my own journey.” ingrid: “is it okay to ask a question?” i interviewed ingrid about her early and recent documentations, “sam’s combine harvester” (first interview) and “ami makes clothes” (second interview).  “sam’s combine harvester” during our initial interview, ingrid explained that she was not sure we would have enough to talk about from this piece of documentation, but it was her oldest piece, so she decided to use it anyway. “sam’s combine harvester” included an introduction, three small photos, and a brief explanation of what was happening in the pictures on half a letter-sized piece of paper. it began with an explanation of how 2.5-year-old sam was using bungee cords to wrap march 2021 44 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research around a wooden ramp structure. he called it a combine harvester and explained what it did. we can put a corn (pointing to a yellow foam block) into a hole in here (pointing to a hole in the wood structure for balls). it goes down and it will come out of this hole (pointing to another hole in the spindle). he brought the corn to the shelf, saying “this is an oven. we can cook this corn here.” ingrid indicated that sam wanted to show his combine harvester to his mom and that later he made another machine called the “combine polar.” ingrid explained that the materials used in this play were recycled materials, and she had been interested in how they were used by the child, but this explanation was not included in her documentation. ingrid also noted that sam had built another machine in addition to the combine harvester and she had brought in books about a combine harvester and had a conversation with him about it; however, this extra information was also not included in the documentation. although ingrid had planned to write a second piece of documentation with pictures she had printed out, she lost the pictures and completely forgot about continuing the documentation until she reflected on it for the interview. she regretted losing the extra pieces of documentation because they could have led to further understanding of what sam was doing with the corn. ingrid explained in the interview that it was interesting that he was using multiple different materials to construct the machine, and that this complexity had caught her eye. ingrid was also very critical of the aesthetics of this piece of documentation. she said she had been more focused on the shapes and styles of the photos and less on how easy it was to read. ingrid also asked herself, “is it okay to ask a question?” she felt that if she asked questions during sam’s construction play it might change his idea, so she did not try to challenge his thinking with questions about his work. she felt that she had missed the opportunity to understand more, not only about sam’s play but also about the play of other children, because she did not want to get in their way. she said: i was kind of passive with documentation and a passive educator because i didn’t want to interrupt their play. i was hesitant to ask them questions and challenge them to go to the next level, so i was just observing them and writing down what they were saying and what i saw. according to ingrid, she believed that if she saw this type of play now, she would have a different perspective on it. she said, “now i would want to know what he was really into. like, i know he was making a combine harvester, but was he just having fun with a bungee cord or maybe he wanted to cook some corn?” sam had continued working on the combine harvester and combine polar, yet she did not make another piece of documentation about it. she stated that in the past, she believed that toddlers could not engage in long-term projects due to their “lack of memory.” however, in an email following the interview, ingrid shared another thought: “i thought toddlers had a short attention span that caused them to have shorter-lasting interests compared to preschoolers. now, i think i was wrong and maybe it was my excuse[for not attempting ongoing project work with young children].” she explained that if she had followed up with other pieces of documentation and believed that younger children had the capacity to engage in longer-lasting projects and interests, then sam’s exploration could have gone deeper. in our second interview, ingrid explained that over the two years between the two pieces of documentation, she had worked with several coworkers with varying levels of experience. regardless of their years of experience, ingrid described how they challenged her ideas and how this had helped her to refine her ability to argue and defend her opinions. she described how she discovered that, by using documentation, she can reach out in a way that makes the children feel more valued and listened to. in talking about her more recent example of documentation, ingrid described how her questions and the documentation acted as a provocation for a child who appeared to be bored in the classroom and losing interest in the activities of her peers. march 2021 45 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research “ami makes clothes” the second piece of documentation that ingrid chose to share consisted of six letter-sized pages with two or three photos on each page and text that included observations, children’s words, and conclusions. it appeared to be a series of pieces of documentation that, all together, told a longer story. ingrid explained that she worked with a group of 4-5-year-old children that included one particular child, ami, who was older than her peers. one day, ami brought in a naked barbie© doll, whom she called baby. ingrid explained that her own first reaction was to remove the toy, because the children were not supposed to share toys from home. this was a classroom rule. aside from the rules, she personally considered this type of doll to not have much play potential in the classroom. ingrid said that, despite her misgivings, she asked a playful question: “i think baby must be cold without any clothes on, what can you do for her?” ami appeared to be challenged by this openended question and responded with “i don’t know what to do.” ingrid had previously noted ami’s drawing skills, so she suggested that ami attempt to draw an idea. ingrid explained in the interview that perhaps this was the catalyst ami needed, because she quickly began to draw some clothes for her doll. later, ingrid noticed that ami only made a dress for the front of her doll. she did not mention this to ami, and instead observed and documented as ami glued the dress on the doll. according to ingrid, the other children noticed ami using the doll and getting her picture taken and her words written down by the educator, and this appeared to motivate them to help ami make a bed and pillows to keep her doll warm. they wanted their pictures taken too. ingrid mentioned that she had observed how ami was having difficulty connecting with other children and making friends, but now she was the centre of attention and others were joining her. ingrid described how the next dress ami made had vertical lines cut in it and so she asked about it. ami explained, “it’s a fashion.” she noticed that ami was not able to cut the way she wanted to, but later it became obvious that the vertical lines were meant to be a fringe. ami went on to cut, colour, and style the doll’s hair in the same style as both of the educators in the classroom, with different colours for each educator represented on either side of the doll’s head. ingrid explained that she had quickly created documentation and posted it that same day, primarily because it was not what she expected to happen with a “toy from home,” particularly this type of doll. ami saw herself and her dress in the documentation and was excited to point it out to the other children in the class. after a long weekend, ami came back with a similar doll and again she had a plan to make a dress for her. ingrid wanted to try to push the dressmaking a little farther. [ingrid said to ami:] “oh, maybe she’ll be fine on the front because you made a dress for her, but maybe she might feel cold on the back, so what are you going to do? do you have any plan for that?” i asked those kinds of questions and i didn’t try to put my idea into my question and shift her idea. ingrid described how ami quickly made a dress for the back and another educator provided some elastics, which ami used as a scarf and to hold the dresses on. more children kept joining in the dressmaking play with ami. they were now also making side panels for the dresses. ingrid explained that she felt it was time to shake things up a bit and help this play evolve and expand, so she added real fabric pieces. ami was quick to make dresses and she even invented a closure where a long piece would pull through a small slit in the fabric and hold it closed. ingrid described how she took photos and wrote notes throughout the activity to include in the documentation. each time she created a new piece of documentation, ami was happy to see her designs and herself included in the display. ingrid found some fashion books from the library that showed 1600s fashions and she brought in her own special dolls from different cultures. after this step, ingrid described how she was ready to challenge ami again and brought in bigger pieces of fabric. she asked ami if she wanted to make fashion for herself. ami quickly cut and tied some fabrics together and made clothes. ingrid asked, “do you want to see what you look like?” and ami said “yes,” so ingrid took a picture of her and showed her. ami was not happy with the way she looked: she thought she looked silly. she took off the fabric and went to play with something else. ingrid explained that this was where march 2021 46 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the documentation ended and that she and ami were comfortable with this natural conclusion. ingrid’s advice to other educators is: i want them to break their own rules, because i had a fixed idea, like a prejudice, that we cannot allow disney© characters or barbie© because it’s too [stereo]typical, it’s not open ended, its nothing useful for the kids and [does not] welcome their ideas. and be there for the kids, be there to listen and play with them and learn from their activities. i learned a lot from [ami]. after the interview process, ingrid emailed some additional thoughts about the complexity of emergent curriculum and asked that they be included. she wrote: emergent curriculum gives children opportunities to choose their own path to develop their ideas. children are the leaders and educators support them as a co-learner by having conversations and designing optimal environments. educators help children think deeper or extend their work into expected or unexpected fields and educators make documentation for children to revisit and for parents to use it as a way of communication. shift identified shift from a rules-based culture to a participatory culture in the classroom emergent curriculum is a style of teaching that relies on the emergence of new ideas occurring, somewhat naturally, through exploration, curiosity, and interactions with others and with the physical environment. attempting to practice emergent curriculum while following rules, a lesson plan, or a daily schedule can become problematic, because these are predetermined by the educator. eces who practice emergent curriculum begin a shift where they challenge assumptions, let go of their rules, lesson plans, and schedules, and instead follow the thinking, questions, and excitement of children. to shift one step further, when an ece is more comfortable following emerging ideas, they also come up with questions and ideas, some that are shared with the children and some that remain as their own reflections. this shift dismantles the traditional adult-to-student flow of knowledge by allowing children to coconstruct their own learning. it is then that the ece can participate in the questions and ideas while ensuring their voice does not lead the thinking. they are now a part of a participatory culture. both participants in this study shifted toward negotiating a participatory culture rather than a rules-based culture in their classrooms. this shift allowed emergent curriculum to flourish. a rules-based classroom refers to a space where predetermined or nonnegotiated rules are applied, like, no running in the halls, or no climbing up the slide, and where space for negotiation and conversation is limited. in sahar’s story, the proposed rule was “no guns in the classroom” and for ingrid it was “no toys from home in the classroom.” but whether it was intrinsically motivated or through the extrinsic motivation of feeling challenged by a mentor teacher, both hesitated about applying the classroom rules and instead asked for input from the children. this important step helped the educators to resolve their discomfort with these seemingly arbitrary and authoritarian rules, and it allowed the negotiation to begin. now, both educators use questions and negotiation as a natural part of their interactions, practice, and planning for emergent curriculum. sahar explicitly stated that in her earlier example she had asked others for the classroom rules about gun play. also, she had been more worried about knowing the right answer than about knowing what the children were thinking. later in her interview, using the pedagogical documentation as a tool for critical reflection, she described how negotiation among the children about possible changes to their recipes led to a months-long exploration of cooking ingredients. she shifted from demonstrating to the children how to do the cooking (the rules the march 2021 47 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research adult might impose) to supporting and engaging in a negotiated curriculum where children’s participation was welcomed and necessary. the second example ingrid provided of this type of shift was when she described how her opinion changed in respect to classroom rules about toys from home, as well as the play value of barbie© dolls. by breaking her own rules about commercial toys, ingrid created an environment where ami was able to develop her own plan with the barbie© doll, which led to an exploration of how clothes are constructed. ingrid shifted from applying arbitrary rules that narrowed children’s opportunities to creating an atmosphere where adults and children negotiated the curriculum and cocreated the learning. implications and recommendations it is likely that preservice postsecondary education training cannot sufficiently prepare educators for the complexity of practicing emergent curriculum in an early learning setting. mary ann biermeier (2015) writes, “learning to teach well rarely occurs during college instruction, but rather within the context of classroom experiences and discussions with colleagues” (p. 74). this is not necessarily a new finding. as mary beattie (1997) explains in reference to teacher education programs, “our programs are not long enough, or good enough, to bring about the necessary conceptual changes, growth, and attitudes necessary to be a successful teacher” (p. 121). educators need time, opportunity, and a safe space to critically reflect, debrief, and deconstruct their classroom experiences so that a deeper and more complex understanding of their role as educators and the children’s role as active and authentic participants in the program-planning process can emerge. using pedagogical documentation as a catalyst for these important and somewhat difficult conversations was an effective tool for critical reflection for the participants in this study. they expressed how they benefitted from reflective peer dialogue and how their documentation provided a window into their past and current practice. these conversations with peers helped them to consider their understanding of emergent curriculum and their role in the classroom, and this practice of critical reflection appeared to motivate a change toward embracing and accepting the complexity inherent in an emergent curriculum approach. the findings of this research could help educators recognize that documentation is not only for the development of children’s thinking, but it can also contribute to their own personal and professional growth. reflecting on pedagogical documentation with peers, whether on site during regularly scheduled planning times or in professional learning communities, can contribute to a refinement of practice and the development of a more complex understanding of emergent curriculum for all involved. as well, postsecondary ece programs can build safe spaces for critical reflective practice, in both the classroom teaching and practical components of the program, thereby building a belief among early years practitioners that their work environments should strive to create atmospheres where reflection is welcomed and expected. conclusion using emergent curriculum in an early learning classroom is a complex venture. in addition to having knowledge and understanding about what it is and how to do it, the ability to apply this knowledge depends on personal attributes such as confidence, openness, flexibility, and an ability to be comfortable with discomfort. these skills are honed over time and cannot be developed in a vacuum. in other words, educators need to be able to engage in reflective dialogue with peers in order to develop to their own full potential. while designing this research study, i wanted to explore what shifts in practice relative to emergent curriculum march 2021 48 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research take place as a result of the process of reflection. people learn best from experience and, in many cases, what they might consider as mistakes; therefore, i felt it could be helpful to see the self-identified mistakes of other educators in their own applications of emergent curriculum and how they learned from these experiences. the insights from the educators during the interviews were both practical and philosophical. true to the nature of social constructionism, where meaning is constructed through interaction, my own practice has been changed by my interactions with the research participants. both participants came to conclusions that required me to reflect on both my own practice as an educator and how i understand children’s interaction with their learning environments. this allowed me the freedom to be comfortable with and to take comfort in the complexity and ever-evolving roles and relationships that occur among children, educators, and colleagues in early learning environments. march 2021 49 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references beattie, m., (1997). fostering reflective practice in teacher education: inquiry as a framework for the construction of a 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(2015). pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing. canadian children, 40(1). 130–147. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v40i1.15215 biermeier, m. (2015). preschool inspired by reggio emilia: emergent curriculum in relationship-driven learning environments. young children, 70(5), 72–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.70.5.72 brookfield, s. (2017). becoming a critically reflective teacher (2nd ed.). jossey-bass. cowan, k. (2018) visualising young children’s play: exploring multimodal transcription of video-recorded interaction [doctoral thesis, university college london institute of education]. ucl discovery. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10048404/ cowan, k., & kress, g. (2017) documenting and transferring meaning in the multimodal world: reconsidering “transcription.” in f. serafini & e. gee (eds.), remixing multiliteracies (pp. 50–61). teachers college press. curtis, d. & carter, m. 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(1983). the reflective practitioner: how practitioners think in action. basic books. spradley, j. p. (1979). the ethnographic interview. holt, rinehart & winston. stacey, s. (2015). pedagogical documentation in early childhood education: sharing children’s learning and teachers thinking. redleaf press. stacey, s. (2019). inquiry-based early learning environments: creating, supporting, and collaborating. redleaf press. wien, c. a. (1995). developmentally appropriate practice in “real life”: stories of teacher practical knowledge. teachers college press. wien, c. a. (2008). emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: interpreting the reggio emilia approach in schools. teachers college march 2021 50 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research press. wien, c. a. (2014). the power of emergent curriculum: stories from early childhood settings. national association for the education of young children. wien, c. a., jacobs, b., & brown, e. (2015). emergent curriculum and the tension between relationship and assessment. in b. spodek & o. saracho (eds.), contemporary perspectives on research in assessment and evaluation in early childhood education (pp. 93–114). information age. canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 29 vol. 38 no. 1 intended for educators and researchers in the field of early childhood education working with children from immigrant families, this article first briefly addresses the relationship between home literacy environment and english language learners’ literacy development in both their heritage language and english. second, through surveying the literature, i identify three different areas in which a home literacy environment influences english language learners’ literacy development: (a) through language attitudes and parental beliefs; (b) through identity formation; and (c) through literacy behaviour of immigrant parents. some helpful strategies learned from the literature are provided for educators to use with newcomer families in support of children’s literacy development. literacy development is essential to a child’s school performance and future success. yet, literacy is not a single, monolithic, and autonomous construct (street, 2000). here, literacy is defined as a social practice that is socially constructed in educational and cultural contexts, including skills in dealing with printed and nonprint-based texts and in critical thinking (kahn & kellner, 2005). this definition is in contrast to a singular, autonomous notion of literacy in which literacy development emphasizes decoding a text and studies involve the analysis of literacy rates, comprehension levels, ages, and reading and writing skills (kahn & kellner, 2005). multiple literacies consider literacy to be a social practice (street, 2000), where context and meaning in groups of different cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds need consideration. just as cultural and linguistic backgrounds in families vary, literacy practices vary between and within cultures. in addition, rapid development in technology has changed how we look at literacy; the idea of multiliteracies shifts our thinking about literacy from privileging the printed text to acknowledging various ways that literacy is practiced in a society (cope & kalantzis, 2009). with the increasing use of technology, literacy is no longer restricted to an ability to deal with printed texts, but has expanded to include electronic and multimedia modes. nonetheless, as cope and kalantzis (2009) argue, “whichever way we look, written language is not going away. it is just becoming more closely intertwined with the other modes” (p. 182). in this paper, an english language learner (ell) will refer to preschool and early elementary grade children whose first language is not english and who are learning english as a second language in a north american setting (shi, 2011). learners of english as a second language may include children from africa, bangladesh, hispanic regions, china, laos, and many others (shi, 2012). although different terms appear in the literature to describe such learners, english language learner is increasingly utilized because it highlights the learning process instead of a deficiency in nonnative english-speaking students (gere, 2008). because literacy is a socially constructed practice, children who are learning english and whose parents speak another language and come from a culture different from that of the mainstream culture will inevitably be influenced by literacy practices at home. therefore, i have prepared a representative (not comprehensive) review of published research in the past decade that is focused on preschool to early elementary grade children and addresses the relationship between a home literacy environment (hle) and ell literacy development. i will: 1. define the concepts of hle and home literacy practices and briefly review relevant research regarding the relationship between home literacy practices, heritage language maintenance, and the acquisition of english as a second language. 2. identify three areas in which a hle influences ell literacy development: (a) language attitudes and parental beliefs; (b) identity formation; and (c) literacy behaviour of immigrant parents. 3. identify strategies that educators can use to work with newcomer families in support of their children’s literacy development. zihan shi is a phd candidate in the faculty of education, university of victoria. zihan’s research interests are second language acquisition, english language learners, literacy development, heritage language maintenance, and home literacy environment. home literacy environment and english language learners’ literacy development: what can we learn from the literature? by: zihan shi canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 30 vol. 38 no. 1 current research with home literacy environments and english language learners’ literacy acquisition a child’s literacy development involves home, school, and community support. in this paper, i focus the discussion on the literacy environment at home (burgess, hecht, & lonigan, 2002; sénéchal & lefevre, 2002; teale, 1986). a hle consists of a variety of attitudes, resources, and practices in the home that influence children’s literacy practices and development (burgess, hecht, & lonigan, 2002). in the literature, researchers define the hle in a variety of ways. teale (1986), for example, categorize the hle as a physical and social environment, defining it as (a) the physical environment where print exists; and (b) the social environment where children, siblings, and parents interact with print. however, this construct emphasizes the role of print in literacy development. cope and kalantzis (2009) suggest that it is important to consider multiliteracies, with “linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial modes of meaning becoming increasingly integrated in everyday media and cultural practices” (p. 166). alternatively, burgess, hecht, and lonigan (2002) define the hle as either passive or active. in a passive environment, parents indirectly model behaviours such as parental leisure reading, parental literacy beliefs, the number of books at home, and public library visits. in an active environment, parents engage children in literacy activities, such as shared reading activities. similarly, sénéchal and lefevre (2002) define home literacy activities as informal or formal. informal experiences focus on information in a storybook, such as the meaning of a story, while formal literacy experiences centre on print, such as talking about the letters or providing the names and sounds of specific letters. however, the definitions proposed by burgess, hecht, and lonigan (2002) and by sénéchal and lefevre (2002) are from studies with english native speakers rather than english language learners. in addition, these definitions ignore the concept of multiliteracies. of these different definitions, i have adopted that of teale (1986); however, i extend the idea of a physical literacy environment to include multiliteracy elements, such as the multimodal texts in pokemon and yugio characters presented in television, film, and game cards (pahl, 2003). here, i focus on linguistic, visual, and audio elements of literacy behaviour without considering gestural and spatial modes of meaning in literacy activities. i maintain that a hle consists of a number of activities that children observe at home and activities in which parents participate actively. a hle also includes parental beliefs regarding literacy, the parental education level, the family socioeconomic status, the number of books at home, and daily life activities in the social domains (auerbach, 1989; teale, 1986; van steensel, 2006). with the understanding that literacy practices are socially constructed, children’s literacy experiences in daily life will inevitably influence their literacy development. many different terms are used interchangeably in the literature (street, 2000) to refer to literacy experiences, such as literacy events, literacy activities, literacy patterns, literacy strategies, and literacy situations. i use the term literacy practices to denote children’s multiple literacy experiences in home settings. the idea of literacy practice refers to a broad “cultural conception of particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing in cultural contexts” (street, 2000, p. 22) and offers the potential to understand observable behaviour within different cultural contexts. that is, the concept of a literacy practice is broader than that of literacy events as the latter is used primarily in a descriptive way without offering any possibility of understanding how meaning in literacy is constructed (street, 2000). to attain an understanding of how a hle influences ell literacy development, current research has taken two approaches. one line of research examines the effect of the hle on heritage language maintenance. a heritage language is a language other than english that is associated with an individual’s ethnic or cultural background (chinen & tucker, 2005). in terms of order of acquisition, this is the first language for an individual; however, an individual may not completely acquire this language because of a transfer to the dominant language, such as english, in a host country (valdés, 2000). the role of heritage language maintenance in promoting second language development is well documented in the literature; heritage language maintenance is directly associated with english proficiency and academic achievement (suarez, 2007; yeung, marsh, & suliman, 2000). bilingualism is not a disadvantage for children who are acquiring literacy in a second language (dickinson, mccabe, clark-chiarelli, & wolf, 2004). cummins (1981, 1983) proposes a common underlying proficiency model to explain this effect, where literacy-related skills are transferable across languages. cummins (1981) argues that, given adequate exposure to a second language, concepts developed in the first language can be transferred. however, it may be noted that ells have diverse backgrounds in terms of heritage language proficiency. some learners might develop their first language literacy in formal educational settings while others start and develop the language at home. researchers have identified a number of practices of a hle that positively influence heritage language maintenance (archer, francis, & mau, 2010; farruggio, 2010; francis, archer, & mau, 2010; lao, 2004; wu, 2005). these practices may include, but are not limited to, sending a child to a heritage language school, speaking a heritage language at home (liao & larke, 2008), emphasizing the value of learning the language (chinen & tucker, 2005; lynch, 2003), and parental involvement in heritage language education. this involvement may include parents making their voices heard at public and heritage schools, participating in heritage language programs, visiting relatives in their country of origin, providing resources at home, talking to children in a heritage canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 31 vol. 38 no. 1 language, and having friends who speak the heritage language (pacini-ketchabaw, bernhard, & freire, 2001; shin, 2005). on the other hand, chumak-horbatsch (2008) argues that too-early second language exposure might reduce the effectiveness of first and second language learning for young ells. a second line of research uses a variety of methods and designs (e.g., ethnography and case study) to examine how home literacy practices influence ell literacy development in second language acquisition (garcia, 2008; li, 2006a; 2006b; menard-warwick, 2005; perry, kay, & brown, 2008; reese & gallimore, 2000; zhang, 2007). given the complex and heterogeneous population of ells, qualitative researchers in the last decade have employed interviews, observations, focus groups, and documents in the study of the hle (shi, 2012). these studies include analyses of how the hle affects the literacy behaviour of chinese children (liu & vadeboncoeur, 2010), how immigrant parental beliefs affect literacy acquisition (garcia, 2008), and how chinese immigrant family human and social capital affect literacy (li, 2006a). these studies examine the hle of learners from many different ethnic backgrounds and demonstrate that a hle shapes the development of english language literacy (shi, 2012). in summary, current research helps us to understand the scope and complexity of the hle of immigrant families from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. however, there is a lack of consideration in the literature of how hle influences ell children’s literacy development in specific areas. it is important to connect both heritage language maintenance and learning english as a second language to ell literacy development because these two areas may embody distinct hles in literacy development. therefore, a review of the literature in both areas is of paramount importance. the influence of the home literacy environment on literacy development here, i review the literature in the past decade and propose that three areas of a hle influence ell children’s literacy development: (a) language attitudes and parental beliefs; (b) identity formation; (c) literacy behaviour of immigrant parents. i will examine the relevant research in each area. language attitudes and parental beliefs the literature regarding the hle states that language attitudes and parental beliefs influence children’s literacy development. for instance, li (2006c) argues that parents’ attitudes toward their status as a minority group and toward their heritage language predict the language choices of their children. the attitude that parents take toward a language is described as positive or negative feeling (richards, platt, & platt, 1992). in addition to positive or negative feelings, parents may have instrumental or integrative attitudes toward learning a language (gardner & lambert, 1972). those with instrumental language attitudes have utilitarian goals and focus on achieving personal success and status in society, while those with an integrative language attitude are characterized by a desire to be identified with a language-speaking group. the positive or negative, instrumental or integrative language attitudes that parents have toward a heritage language directly affect their home language behaviour, which, in turn, inevitably affects the extent to which the home language is maintained. as fishman (1996) argues, culture is expressed through language, and a language loss indicates that a way of valuing is lost. he argues the importance of involving family life to maintain a heritage language instead of relying solely on the school system. a wealth of research now links parental language attitudes to heritage language maintenance (archer, francis, & mau, 2010; douglas, 2005; farruggio, 2010; finch, 2009; francis, archer, & mau, 2010; isurin & ivanova-sullivan, 2008; lao, 2004). immigrants with integrative attitudes from different ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups often encourage their children to maintain a heritage language by emphasizing the value of learning the language and encouraging pride in the language and culture (chinen & tucker, 2005; lynch, 2003). in this way, parents demonstrate an integrative language attitude by strongly supporting the preservation of a heritage language and cultural roots for their children (farruggio, 2010). for example, farruggio (2010) conducted a study of 58 first-generation immigrant parents (51 women and 7 men) of elementary school children from mexico and central and south american countries. he used the following factors to examine parental language attitudes toward a heritage language: (a) residence in latino communities; (b) children in schools with common use of spanish; and (c) previous experience of learning spanish in a united states school. parental language attitudes toward heritage language maintenance were strongly demonstrated through the fact that none of the 58 immigrants would agree to abandon spanish learning for their children (farruggio, 2010). most parents held integrative language attitudes and referred to spanish as “our language” (farruggio, 2010, p. 15). although this study focuses on parental attitudes toward heritage language learning and maintenance in the context of bilingual programs, it provides a clear understanding of how one group of parents values heritage language learning, which will positively influence children’s heritage language maintenance. however, he did not specify the age of the participating children. positive language attitudes are also shown in studies of chinese, japanese, korean, “with the understanding that literacy practices are socially constructed, children’s literacy experiences in daily life will inevitably influence their literacy development.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 32 vol. 38 no. 1 and ukrainian families (archer, francis, & mau, 2010; chumak-horbatsch & garg, 2006; douglas, 2005; isurin & ivanovasullivan, 2008; liao & larke, 2008; takei, 2004). over 50% of participating ukrainian parents in a toronto study sent their children to a ukrainian school and 92% maintained the importance of transmission of ukrainian culture (chumak-horbatsch & garg, 2006). likewise, focusing on seven turkish students from prekindergarten, the first, third, and fifth grades, otcu (2010) showed that first-generation immigrant parents in the united states believe in the continuity of turkish and encourage children to use turkish as much as possible. these parents demonstrated both instrumental and integrative language attitudes. pacini-ketchabaw, bernhard, and freire (2001) argue that parents believe knowing spanish is important in maintaining contact with relatives and links with their native culture. in addition, many parents think that children will have more professional opportunities if they maintain their heritage language; for example, one parent stated: “we believe that if you are bilingual, you have many job opportunities with private american and european businesses” (paciniketchabaw, bernhard, & freire, 2001, p. 15). although the literature consistently reports that parents hold positive language attitudes toward heritage language maintenance, many immigrant parents face the dilemma of supporting their children in acquiring english while maintaining their heritage language (wu, 2005). in describing her experiences in supporting her children’s heritage language maintenance, wu (2005) said she felt like an alien from another planet when she spoke chinese to her son in the playground with english-speaking american children around. she felt that trying to preserve her son’s chinese was selfish because she thought it inevitably delayed his exposure to english and resulted in an inability to communicate with the outside world. in addition, more mothers than fathers felt that exposure to two languages was confusing to their children (chumak-horbatsch, 2008). for example, one mother said: “i am concerned that this can be pressure for her. i think it would be too difficult for her if i restrict her to use only one language” (chumak-horbatsch, 2008,p. 14).the participating mothers (and one father) in the chumak-horbatsch (2008) study reported anxiety and uncertainty about the continued use of the home language and wondered about its possible negative affects on the learning of english and future difficulties in school. one parent reported, “i am also wondering will her english be good enough when she starts school if we continue to speak serbian at home. this is confusing for him (sic)” (chumak-horbatsch, 2008, p. 14) even if parents hold positive language attitudes toward heritage language learning, they may behave passively and have low expectations of their children (liao & larke, 2008). over time, parents make diminishing effort and investment in their children’s language maintenance (lee, 2002; shin, 2005). as well, negative parental language attitudes will inevitably negatively influence children’s heritage language maintenance. some parents think it is difficult for their children to acquire reading and writing skills in a heritage language due to lack of input and resources in the mainstream society (liao & larke, 2008). some parents often want their children totally immersed in english and, as a result, the children’s heritage language proficiency often suffers (chumak-horbatsch & garg, 2006). in addition to parental language attitudes toward heritage language maintenance, studies have shown that parents in different sociocultural groups vary substantially in their beliefs concerning their role in promoting children’s literacy skills, including their attitudes toward reading, toward children’s participation during reading, and toward the influence of the environment on children’s learning (bennett, weigel, & martin, 2002; hammer, miccio, & wagstaff, 2003). de houwer (1999) identifies two types of language beliefs: the strong impact and the weak impact belief. parents who hold strong impact beliefs consider that they play an important role in their children’s literacy development and they employ strategies to influence their children’s literacy practices. on the other hand, those with weak impact beliefs consider that the wider environment, such as society, is responsible for children’s development and, therefore, that parents have little or no role in the process, which inevitably diminishes their efforts or activities at home. to understand immigrant parent beliefs regarding literacy development, rodriguez, hammer, and lawrence (2009) conducted a study with mexican immigrant parents with children in early childhood education programs, aged 4–5 years, using the parent reading belief inventory (prbi). the prbi assesses (a) the positive affect associated with reading; (b) the valuation of a child’s verbal participation; (c) parental resources; (d) parental teaching efficacy; (e) parental knowledge base; (f) the environmental input; and (g) the appropriateness of direct reading instruction (debaryshe & binder, 1994). with a study base of 274 mexican mothers, the internal consistency of five of the scales—teaching efficacy, positive affect, verbal participation, knowledge base, and resources—was established; internal consistency of the other two other scales—environmental input and reading instruction—was not established. this study indicates that parents’ beliefs depended on their cultural backgrounds. therefore, rodriguez, hammer, and “although the literature consistently reports that parents hold positive language attitudes toward heritage language maintenance, many immigrant parents face the dilemma of supporting their children in acquiring english while maintaining their heritage language.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 33 vol. 38 no. 1 lawrence (2009) suggest the need to design an instrument specific to immigrant parents that would include questions regarding how immigrant parents view the influence of a first language on second language acquisition. similarly, in an earlier study, li (2001) concluded that parents’ language beliefs were related to their cultural background. immigrant parents come to canada with their own understanding and cultural beliefs about literacy. for example, chinese parents are more likely to hold a strong impact parental belief toward children’s literacy development. as one participant in the li (2001) study mentioned, “chinese culture and education is good for children, and we are used to it, so we should parent our child in a chinese way” (p. 485). she was particularly dissatisfied with weaker intellectual challenges in canadian schools: “for me, i think that elementary and secondary school education in china is better than that of canada. you know, children go to school to learn something” (p. 485). to fix their perception of shortcomings, they intervene directly through teaching or tutoring at home (li, 2001). in addition, chinese immigrant parents are influenced by a confucian ideology that emphasizes the authority of text, classics, and schools. li (2000, 2006) maintains that literacy practices in immigrant families coming from a more traditional chinese school model, which emphasizes rote learning, homework, standardized material, and a transmission approach to learning, provide the basis of a home literacy support environment for their children (li, 2000, 2006b). in summary, language attitudes and parental beliefs inevitably influence how parents view a heritage language and their role in children’s literacy development, which will inevitably influence their literacy behaviour. however, it should be noted that even when parents hold a positive language attitude toward heritage language, they have concerns in supporting their children’s heritage language maintenance. identity formation it is important to recognize that identities and literacy practices are linked and interrelated (compton-lilly, 2006). identities are formed within relationships with others and are constantly subject to the influences of other people and institutions (kendrick, 2005). as mccarthey and moje explain (2002), “identities are always situated in relationships” (p. 231). i utilize norton’s (1997) notion of identity, which presents the relationship between self and the world around self. identity is defined as “how people understand their relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across space and time, and how people understand their possibilities for the future” (p. 410). norton’s notion of identity includes both the relationship between oneself and the world and the relationship between oneself and the future. she maintains that identity is a process of continual emerging and becoming, a process that identifies what a person becomes and achieves. maintaining a heritage language is a way of constructing a learner’s cultural identity and, hence, his or her relationship to the world . archer, francis, and mau (2010) draw on a qualitative study conducted in six chinese heritage schools to investigate the relationship between heritage language maintenance and identity formation. this study found that parents valued heritage language schools as a means of encouraging and helping children to feel (or be) “more chinese” (p. 411). the loss of chinese language was equated with loss of identity or identity crisis. similarly, with spanish heritage language learners, farruggio (2010) maintains that parents want their children to remember that they are “hispanos” or “mexicanos.” spanish loss was viewed as a loss of latino identity (farruggio, 2010). in analyzing korean heritage learners, lee and kim (2008) found that the motivation to learn korean was tied to identity, family, and ethnic community. students who identified with their ethnic background generally assessed their language proficiency as higher than students who identified less (finch, 2009). to learn a heritage language means not merely to inherit one’s language and maintain one’s cultural identity, but also to transform the heritage language and recreate one’s identity (he, 2006). a learner’s previous linguistic experience inevitably influences and recreates his or her identity (he, 2006). however, this does not mean that educators should accept learners’ pregiven identities as fixed (menard-warwick, 2005). as learners construct and reconstruct identities, they take on new practices (menard-warwick, 2005). as mccarthey and moje (2002) maintain, “it seems that we are trying to work through how identities are coherent, yet hybrid and stabilizing, yet dynamic” (p. 232). english language learners bring with them an identity that affects their language and literacy development. a learner may carry multiple identities and multiple discourses (mccarthey & moje, 2002). menardwarwick (2005) theorizes about identity in second language acquisition and literacy studies through a review of the studies in the field. she concludes that “learning a language or taking on new literacies in a particular social context has consequences for the identities of its users” (p. 254). when language and literacy development activities are matched with how a learner sees himor herself and his or her relationship with the world, learning is enhanced (menard-warwick, 2005). literacy and literacy practices are means for performing particular identities. monzo (2010) has raised interesting questions about language learning and identity through home literacy practices. through an ethnographic study, eight latino families were examined with over 200 home visits, with two hours of home observation and one classroom observation per week. in addition, interviews were conducted with grade five elementary children, their older siblings, their parents, their classroom teachers, community members, and other teachers. monzo (2010) found that parents engaged in cultural practices that supported the development of children’s academic canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 34 vol. 38 no. 1 identities. in addition, through active participation as translators and decision makers at home through two languages, children developed confidence, which is closely associated with academic performance. smith (1988) referred to the need for children to identify themselves as a member of literacy club. he explained that members of the literacy club are people who read and write, even the beginners, and the fact that one is not very competent yet is no reason for exclusion or ridicule. a newcomer is the same kind of person as the proficient club member, except that he or she hasn’t yet had as much experience. it is the same in all normal sports and recreation clubs. (p. 11) when children identify themselves as a member of a literacy club, they see themselves as the same kind of people as the more proficient club members, who are already able to read and write and participate in literacy activities. this will result in children viewing their literacy development as a positive relationship with the world. in summary, english language learners may carry multiple identities. therefore, their learning and literacy practices will be inevitably influenced by a learner’s identities. if literacy practices are congruent with a learner’s sense of gender roles, societal positions, cultural backgrounds, ethnic histories, and class backgrounds, the learning process can be enhanced (menard-warwick, 2005). otherwise, resistance to learning may occur (menard-warwick, 2005). literacy behaviour of immigrant parents literacy behaviour is a very broad concept, and it occurs in both passive and active hles (burgess, hecht, & lonigan, 2002). literacy behaviour includes (a) literacy events such as decoding, phonics behaviour, comprehension, inference, and critical reading skills; (b) aesthetic appreciation behaviour; (c) reading flexibility skills; and (d) study skills (bormuth, 1973–1974). literacy behaviour may include parental reading for pleasure, shared reading with children, exposing children to print, and other activities. literacy behaviour can be recreational or functional and may include both parents and children together or parents and children individually. in this paper, i expand the idea of literacy behaviour beyond reading and writing to include all interactions happening in the home where either parent models literacy behaviours, or parents interact with children, or children independently carry out activities that will contribute to their literacy development. in this instance, literacy behaviour could include cultural activities such as parents and children watching a chinese movie together (zhang, 2009). by engaging children in literacy behaviour, parents promote literacy engagement. literacy engagement incorporates notions of time on task (reading and writing extensively), affect (enthusiasm and enjoyment of literacy), depth of cognitive processing (strategies to deepen comprehension), and active pursuit of literacy activities (amount and diversity of literacy practices in and out of school; guthrie, 2004). children’s active participation in literacy practices, expression of positive attitudes toward literacy practices, employment of strategies for comprehension, and active pursuit of literacy activities are demonstrations of literacy engagement (guthrie, 2004). cummins (2011) argues that to engage children in literacy activities, it is essential that home and schools provide engaging books and other printed materials in children’s home language or english. literacy behaviour in immigrant families may occur in both a heritage language and english. parental support in heritage language learning is very important. the more a child is exposed to a heritage language, the greater the chances that the child will become proficient in it (arriagada, 2005). parents are committed to providing a variety of literacy activities at home if they support their children to maintain a home language. for example, parents may speak the language at home and insist that children respond similarly (liao & larke, 2008); they may help with literacy activities and promote positive attitudes toward language study (paciniketchabaw, bernhard, & freire, 2001); and they may provide opportunities to use the heritage language in a variety of social and cultural contexts (shin, 2005). using data from the national education longitudinal study, arriagada (2005) conducted research with 2,736 first-, second-, and third-generation latino children to examine why some latino children maintain knowledge of their native language. the results demonstrate that language and family context strongly influence spanish usage and proficiency for latino children, regardless of generational status. parents develop many strategies to compensate for the growing presence of english in the home. lao (2004) conducted research with 45 latino families with school-aged children. parental strategies emphasized the use of only spanish at home, visits to relatives in their country of origin, and interacting with friends who spoke spanish. through observations of literacy activities at home, kenner et al. (2004) examined six-year-olds learning to write in chinese, arabic, or spanish. parents taught children how to use a bilingual dictionary, read them children’s books or stories in a heritage language, and read and listened to the qur’an in arabic. similar results were found with chinese learners. zhang and koda (2011) conducted a survey to examine the relationship between the hle and word knowledge with 36 grade three chineseenglish bilingual children. the hle was examined through (a) parents reading to the children in chinese or helping with chinese school homework, and (b) the child’s independent reading in chinese. overall, parents seemed to use primarily chinese to talk to their children, while children often used english or both canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 35 vol. 38 no. 1 chinese and english to talk to their parents. there was a significant positive correlation between parental language use, school-work related practices, and learners’ chinese vocabulary breadth. xiao (2008) compared the hle of chinese heritage language learners at three proficiency levels. participants recalled the availability of chinese resources, shared literacy activities with parents, and independent literacy activities when they were a child. xiao (2008) suggested differences in the hle between the three groups of learners with different proficiency levels. however, it should be noted that the way xiao defined chinese proficiency is based on instructional years. it does not necessarily reflect the heritage language proficiency. in addition, this study relies on adult retrospection of childhood experience. a direct look at children who are learning a heritage language would better suit a study of how home literacy experience influences literacy acquisition. in a phenomenological study of three immigrant children’s individual networks of linguistic contact, zhang (2009) concludes that it is important for parents to provide literacy opportunities for children to develop heritage language. one participant in the study was in an early elementary grade; his parents took the role of language teacher and spent 30 minutes to one hour per day tutoring him. in addition, they introduced tv programs as part of the heritage language learning and catered to the child’s interests in certain popular tv programs, such as classic chinese cartoon videos. for example, while the child watched tv, his parents explained or discussed the program. moreover, the mother read simple rhythms and poems to the child every day until he committed them to memory (zhang, 2009). each day, the children copied one poem several times to remember the characters. his mother explained the meaning of each new character and paraphrased each poem for him. these examples indicate how parents transfer their beliefs to their daily home literacy activities and create a learning environment for children through interacting with them. chumak-horbatsch (2008) examined language views and home language practices of sixteen immigrant parents with children in a toronto english-language childcare centre. she administered questionnaires separately to mothers and fathers in eight immigrant families. the questionnaire included questions concerning (a) demographics; (b) language attitudes, beliefs, and proficiency; (c) home language practices; (d) child’s language proficiency; (e) bilingualism; and (f) language-related concerns. the results indicated that immigrant mothers were more committed to their children’s first language development than were fathers. in addition, negative effects of early second language exposure on children’s first language competence were reported. these parents used a number of strategies at home to support children’s heritage language maintenance: using only the first language at home; reading first language books to their children; and direct first language teaching. however, even though the parents promoted home language use, they worried that even if their children developed and retained an understanding of the home language, they would probably never acquire literacy skills in the home language, which resulted in anxiety and uncertainty about the continued use of the home language. in summary, immigrant parents promote children’s literacy engagement by providing a variety of literacy activities at home in both heritage language and english. recognizing home literacy environment strategies to support literacy i briefly review the literature in both heritage language and english acquisition and identify how a hle influences ell literacy development. chumakhorbatsch (2004) argues that the starting point to support learners should be an understanding of the “centrality and importance of their home contexts” (p. 21). language acquisition depends on a number of factors, including a child’s literacy in his or her native language, previous schooling experience, and family support, etc. a number of strategies can support literacy development; those suggested here for educators and researchers who work with immigrant families are derived from the literature reviewed. (1) even if parents hold positive language attitudes toward heritage language learning, they may behave passively and have low expectations (liao & larke, 2008) and, over time, may make diminishing efforts and investment in their children’s language maintenance (lee, 2002). therefore, educators may consider reassuring immigrant parents regarding the possibilities of children’s heritage language maintenance. this will provide parents with confidence and they may become more willing to make contributions and investments. (2) parents still receive “subtle messages” (pacini-ketchabaw, bernhard, & freire, 2001, p. 16) from school personnel indicating that children having problems at school could be linked to the use of a heritage language at home. therefore, rather than give subtle messages regarding the detriment of heritage language, it is important for educators to reassure parents with clear messages about the importance of their support of heritage language learning at home. (3) although it is consistently reported in the literature that parents hold positive language attitudes toward heritage language maintenance, many immigrant parents face dilemmas in supporting their children in acquiring english while maintaining “maintaining a heritage language is a way of constructing a learner’s cultural identity and, hence, his or her relationship to the world.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 36 vol. 38 no. 1 their heritage language (wu, 2005). therefore, educators could assure immigrant parents that young children can handle two languages (chumakhorbatsch, 2004). in addition, it is important to inform parents that the human brain has the capacity to learn multiple languages and that the highest receptivity for language is in early infancy and childhood (chumak-horbatsch, 2004). (4) some parents tend to perceive shortcomings of school, such as a lack of intellectual challenges (li, 2001). this could be due to a lack of knowledge about what occurs in school and the purpose of certain activities at school. therefore, it is important to establish communication between school and home. for example, a weekly diary could be transferred between parents and teachers so that both will have an indepth understanding of learning at school and at home. (5) students who identify with their ethnic background generally assess their language proficiency as higher than students who identify less (finch, 2009). as one participant mentioned, his favourite social studies teacher often praised him for his bilingual skills and had him write mandarin characters on the blackboard to show to his classmates (zhang, 2009). educators could seek opportunities to connect students’ ways of being with literacy learning into school literacy activities. in addition, it is important to support each child to recognize the ways literacy can contribute to his or her personal way of being in the world. literacy and identity are connected, and these connections are critical to literacy engagement and learning. respecting the language and the culture that children bring to school enables each child to feel accepted (chumak-horbatsch, 2004). (6) as lee (2004) argues, “the challenge in many classrooms has been how to apprentice students into disciplinary identities that do not diminish existing identities that students bring both individually and as members of different cultural communities” (p. 130). a number of studies show that when this challenge is not met, resistance, rather than learning, is likely to result (menard-warwick, 2005). therefore, educators could encourage children to develop identity through, for example, supporting children’s active participation in literacy practices and literacy engagement. by taking on new practices, children establish confidence and construct and reconstruct identities. (7) cummins (2011) argues that to engage children in literacy activities, one priority is to provide engaging books and other printed materials in either the children’s home language or english at home and in school. therefore, cummins (2011) suggests that schools could send such materials to students’ homes. these materials could include multiliteracy resources, such as recorded stories. by providing resources for immigrant parents in both the heritage and second languages, one of the challenges that immigrant parents face—lack of resources—could be mediated. (8) chumak-horbatsch’s (2008) study suggests that parents welcome specific heritage language maintenance strategies from childcare teachers. therefore, early childhood educators could support immigrant families by communicating with parents how to support their children’s heritage language maintenance in specific ways. conclusion research to date on the relationship between the hle and ell literacy development has shown relevancy between different areas of the hle and literacy development. in summary, a hle influences ell literacy development through parents’ positive or negative language attitudes toward heritage language maintenance and their beliefs regarding children’s literacy development. in addition, the understanding that learning is enhanced when a learner’s identity matches literacy practices provides an opportunity for educators to use available resources to nurture learners’ positive identity. finally, immigrant parents’ literacy behaviour will influence children’s literacy engagement. i have provided some strategies for educators and researchers to work with newcomer families in support of their children’s literacy development. my goal in this paper has been to examine the relationship between home literacy practices and ell literacy acquisition on both heritage language maintenance and second language acquisition, and provide educators and researchers with strategies so that they could work together with immigrant families to support english language learners’ literacy development. references archer, l., francis, b., & mau, a. 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(2009). mandarin maintenance among immigrant children from the people’s republic of china: an examination of individual networks of linguistic contact. language, culture and curriculum, 22(3), 195–213. doi: 10.1080/07908310903308279. become a montessori teacher ... without missing work toll-free: 1.877.531.6665 info@montessoritraining.net www.montessoritraining.net infant/toddler early childhood elementary accessible the convenience of distance education flexible start any time on your own schedule affordable montessori diploma programs and curriculum valuable enrich or transform your center with montessori untitled winter/hiver 2016 5 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research rachel heydon, phd, is professor and program chair, curriculum studies and studies in applied linguistics, faculty of education, western university. her research and teaching centre on multimodal literacy, intergenerational curricula, early childhood curricula, teacher professional learning and literacies, and curriculum-related research approaches. the goals of her work are the expansion of people’s literacy and identity options with a special emphasis on the very young and old. rachel’s more recent books include constructing meaning: teaching language and literacy k-8 (6th ed.; with joyce bainbridge), learning at the ends of life: children, elders, and literacies in intergenerational curricula, and negotiating spaces for literacy learning: multimodality and governmentality (with mary hamilton, roz stooke, and kathryn hibbert). email: rheydon@uwo.ca lori mckee is a phd candidate in the curriculum and applied linguistics program in the faculty of education, western university. her research interests extend from her experiences as an elementary educator and centre on supporting young children as they acquire literacies. lori’s doctoral work focuses on working with early primary educators as they use digital technologies within their classrooms to provide young children with expansive meaning-making opportunities. email: lmckee@uwo.ca lynda phillips, phd, is an instructor in the department of child and youth care counselling at douglas college and a child and adolescent psychotherapist. prior to taking up her position in the child and youth care counselling department, lynda was the coordinator of the early childhood education program at douglas college. her research interest involves determining how children make meaning from lived experiences of adversity. she is a member of the western canada infant mental health network and the bc play therapy association, and is the organizing chair for the seattle schore institute. this international institute meets quarterly to discuss the neurological foundations of attachment. email: lyndaphillips@shaw.ca the affordances and constraints of visual methods in early childhood education research: talking points from the field rachel heydon, lori mckee, and lynda phillips particularly within the last ten years, visual methods have become “a distinctive feature” (lundy, mcevoy, & byrne, 2011, p. 716) of early childhood research, that is, research concerning children from birth up to and including age 8. the literature suggests that this trend stems from a plethora of arguable benefits, such as the opportunity for children to document their own lives (clark, 2010, 2011; dalli & te one, 2012; dockett, einarsdottir, & perry, 2012; harcourt & hagglund, 2013; pascal & bertram, 2009) and use modes and media that reflect the semiotic complexity of contemporary times (kendrick, 2015), hence offering researchers unique and timely insights into children’s lived experiences (e.g., brostrom, 2012; clark, 2005b, 2010; mctavish, streelasky, & coles, 2012). a variety of visual methods have been devised and implemented to work toward the goal of “recognis[ing] young children’s competencies” (clark & moss, 2011, p. 2) and enabling children to become co-researchers and knowledge builders (clark, 2010; pascal & bertram, 2009). yet, while the importance of visual methods is emerging in sectors of the early childhood research literature (e.g., bradbury-jones & taylor, 2015; dalli & te one, 2012), and interest in them is expanding, as evidenced, for instance, in research groups devoted entirely to visual research (e.g., see visual research group, 2015), the nascent as well as diverse, fragmented, and fast-moving nature of visual methods demands pause, consideration, and conversation among researchers. visual methods are increasingly being developed and used in early childhood research. the literature strongly suggests the affordances of visual methods; still, such methods are not unproblematic. through a critical reading of literature pertinent to visual methods in early childhood research (i.e., involving children from birth to age 8), including multimodal literacy literature, this paper offers six discussion points to promote critical conversations among educational researchers about visual methods. the points pertain to the definition of visual methods, their potentialities in early childhood research, children’s rights and participation in research, authenticity and children’s voices, methods for interpretations of visual texts elicited from children, and ethics and assent. aggregated, the points suggest the need for the enactment of critical, dialogic relationships between methods and methodologies, adults and children, and researchers and research participants. keywords: visual methods, early childhood education, multimodality, voice winter/hiver 2016 6 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research we are three early childhood researchers (rachel heydon and lori mckee study early childhood curricula and literacy and lynda phillips early childhood development) who use visual methods of various kinds in our scholarship. our goal with this paper is to contribute to the needed groundwork for better understanding the visual turn in research with a focus on its implications for those who study early childhood. herein we explore the nature of visual methods as well as responses to the following question: what are the problematics and potentialities when using visual methods in early childhood research? our goal in posing this question was not to answer it absolutely or to conduct an exhaustive literature review, but rather, given the intricacies and newness of the topic, to highlight relevant literature and raise talking points, which we define as ideas pertinent to the topic at hand requiring further elaboration and scrutiny by researchers. the talking points are the result of a synthesis of applicable literature read through a critical theoretical lens (lewison, flint, & van sluys, 2002) as well as reflexively as early childhood researchers. to devise the talking points, we first compiled articles, book chapters, and books on visual methods in early childhood, searching four databases (google scholar, proquest education, psycinfo, and summon) using variations of the search terms “visual method*” and “child*”. to investigate the topic through a child’s rights lens, we additionally conducted a search where we added “uncrc, and “child* right*” and searched specific modes of data collection, such as “photograph*”. we considered primary, secondary, conceptual/ theoretical, and anecdotal/opinion sources and used the references in literature we found to lead us to additional sources of import. noticing the reoccurrence of issues relative to multimodality in our readings, we also wove into our readings and talking points pertinent literature from the field of multimodal literacy. the critical readings of this literature involved asking within and across sources, as well as our own interpretations of what was taken for granted, where views converged and/or diverged, and implications for equity and social justice relative to child research participants. the synthesis of these critical readings produced the following set of talking points, which we elaborate on in this paper: the definition of visual methods the potentialities of visual methods in early childhood research children’s rights and participation in research authenticity and children’s voices methods for interpretation of visual texts elicited from children ethics and assent we share each point in turn and conclude the paper with implications of these points for research in early childhood. the definition of visual methods to begin to generate the talking points, we had to first deal with defining visual methods. we identified quickly that this is a term that is used in the literature in varied ways. by employing media and data collection efforts, such as “cameras, drawing, tours, map making, and ranking exercises” (lundy, mcevoy, & byrne, 2011, p. 716), in their simplest sense, visual methods can be defined as using “visual materials of some kind as part of the process of generating evidence in order to explore research questions” (rose, 2014, p. 25). admittedly these methods come in varied form in terms of what kind of data are collected, worked with, and interpreted (rose, 2014), hence there is a breadth of latitude in what could be called a study that employs visual methods. researchers like wood (2015) call for methods to be distinguished from more complex visual methodologies. methods refers to “a ‘catch-all’ label to define established approaches” to data collection or forms of data exemplified by “video and still images, drawings, sculptures and models that are used across a range of disciplines” (wood, 2015, p. 130). methods are akin to the “what?” or “how to?” of a study. methodologies, however, are the overarching approach to the study as a whole which “make[s] the visual the mode of enquiry” (p. 130). as such, the visual is pertinent throughout the study from data source, form, “analysis,” interpretation, and “the means of data (re)presentation” (p. 130). furthermore, the nature of the visual can be construed in more intricate terms, relating, for example, to the “sensory, symbolic, metaphoric and[/or] existential” (p. 130). we noted in the literature that the term visual methods is often used as a shorthand for visual methodologies, and wood’s distinction, which is ontologically and epistemologically important and hence a talking point, is not explicit in most of the literature. this distinction is nonetheless something we raise within other talking points. winter/hiver 2016 7 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the potentialities of visual methods in early childhood research our review of the literature relative to the affordances of visual methods strongly suggests that they make many things possible for children and researchers. most generally, we found that these affordances coalesce around enabling children to express their views and lived experiences so that they might be documented by both children and researchers. specifically, visual methods have been found to create numerous authentic opportunities for children, researchers, and educators. first, visual methods allow children to actively participate in documenting and interpreting their own lives (clark, 2005a, 2005b, 2010) and reflect on those their experiences (clark, 2005a, 2005b; singal & swann, 2011). visual methods also afford children’s participation in research in ways that capitalize on their production of and engagement with visual texts (clark, 2005a, 2005b; elden, 2012). the making and viewing of images, for example, have been found to be familiar practices that can be “experienced” by children as “fun” and “relaxing” (elden, 2012, p. 68). visual methods indeed can permit children to express themselves through the modes of communication that are most salient to them in their daily lives (kendrick et al., 2010). this enjoyment of the quotidian might help research by “triggering remembering” in the children as well as “helping the abstract become concrete” (elden, 2012, p. 68). having these memories be accessible to children could help flatten the “power relationship between the adult researcher and the child” (elden, 2012, p. 68). other affordances of visual methods involve their ability to allow children to discuss their lives through image and language, thus representing what words alone cannot convey (rose, 2007). in expressing themselves through the conjunction of modes and media, new meanings can be opened up as the relationship between modes can itself communicate something of significance which might be otherwise lost in more restrictive communication situations (rose, 2007). the use of visual designs has similarly been shown to convey children’s tacit understandings (rowsell & decoste, 2012) and provide children with a feeling of relief, because they have been invited to use diverse communication channels instead of being forced to use only language-based modes to generate knowledge (kendrick et al., 2010). these affordances create new possibilities for researchers, including for them to gain “detailed information about how participants see their world” (rose 2007, p. 242), to understand different perspectives (rowsell & decoste, 2012), to see children’s experiences across domains and garner information about the children’s funds of knowledge (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzales, 1992; singal & swann, 2011), to perceive the multidimensionality of children’s voices (elden, 2012), to collect information about children’s “experiences and perspectives while at the same time democratically involving children as ‘producers of knowledge’” (elden, 2012, p. 68), and to recognize children’s identities (singal & swann, 2011). this recognition happens as researchers learn through children’s diverse meaning-making practices that expose parts of their identity that might otherwise be invisible in other communication modes (albers, frederick, & cowan, 2009). researchers can also account for semiosis and the materiality of children’s texts and the embodiment of their experiences through visual methods (kendrick et al., 2010). moreover, the literature has highlighted ways that visual methods can provide opportunities for the perspectives of young children to “become the focus for an exchange of meanings between children, practitioners and researchers” (clark, 2005b, p. 29). most of the above affordances suggest that the potentialities of visual methods reside in capitalizing on children’s meaning-making practices and positioning children in research as capable communicators. visual methods use “tools which play to the strengths of young children, methods which are active and accessible and not reliant on the written or spoken word” (clark & moss, 2011, p. 15). this is essential because young children in particular have “not yet settled into the fairly narrow range of methods of communication used by the adults around them” (fraser & gestwicki, 2002, p. 249). thus, leveraging the affordances of nonor extra-linguistic multimodal literacies may be particularly apt for research in early childhood. we use the term multimodal literacies to refer to meaning-making practices that draw on a variety of communication channels (e.g., walsh, 2011), most notably the visual. further, given that the visual is increasingly salient in contemporary communication (e.g., kress, 1997), visual methods may allow for different, even expanded, ways of understanding children’s lived experiences in ways that honour children’s multimodal meaning making (anning & ring, 2004). for instance, when writing about their “mosaic approach” for listening to young children by, in part, leveraging multiple modes and media, clark and moss (2011) express that this visual method positions even the youngest of children as “experts in their own lives,” “skilful communicators,” “rights holders,” and “meaning makers” (p. 5, as cited in clark, 2011, p. 328). this positioning is in sync with the concept of early childhood literacy, which refutes children’s meaning making as a lesser form of adult literacy. in a comprehensive review of the literature related to young children’s literacy, gillen and hall (2013) offer that the very term early childhood literacy is a concept that allows early childhood to be seen as a state in which people use literacy as it is appropriate, meaningful and useful to them, rather than a stage on a path to some future literate state. it is not about emergence or becoming literate; it is about being literate and allows the literacy practices and products of early childhood to be acknowledged as valid in their own right, rather than perceived winter/hiver 2016 8 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as inadequate manifestations of adult literacy. (p. 14) for instance, kress (1997), in his foundational study of how children learn to write and writing’s relationship to a host of other literacy practices that draw on multiple modes and media (e.g., model making, drawing, cutting), argues that children are not just users of signs, but producers of signs. relatedly, children’s expressions are understood by early childhood literacy to be purposeful and motivated. gillen and hall (2013) highlight that kress’s findings argue that “children’s use of signs, symbols and modalities is not arbitrary but is structured and reflects strategic choices by them to represent things that are important to them” (p. 12). visual methods that simply create opportunities for the use of multiple modes and media do not guarantee the benefits previously described. although the use of the visual may be evocative of an honouring of children’s personhood, our critical reading suggests that it needs to be seen in its totality within a research methodology. bloome, may-woods, wilson, katz, and hong (2013), for example, argue that early childhood research methodologies are always undergirded by “assumptions about the personhood of children” (p. 606). the mosaic approach (clark & moss, 2011), for instance, insists not just on multimodality but also on methods that foster listening through participation, reflexivity, adaptability, a focus on children’s lived experience, and an intertwining of research and practice. this is a totalizing approach to research involving young children rather than mere method. children’s rights and participation in research further to the affordances already relayed concerning visual methods, the literature also suggests the promise of the methods for mobilizing children’s rights in research (e.g., clark, 2010; dalli & te one, 2012; dockett et al., 2012; harcourt & hagglund, 2013; pascal & bertram, 2009). the united nations convention on the rights of the child (1990) establishes children’s rights to be heard (article 12) and to have freedom of expression (article 13) as imperatives that researchers must heed. the uncrc “clearly positions all children, including young children as rights holders and places a corresponding duty on ratifying states to respect, protect and fulfill the extensive obligations contained therein” (lundy et al., 2011, p. 715). most relevant for our discussion, the uncrc’s concern for freedom of expression entails children’s right to express themselves “orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the children’s choice” (article 13). these rights reify the notion that “young childhood is an intrinsically multimodal state of being” (young & gillen, 2010, p. 60) and call for the protection of multimodal expression. the urgency of keeping open children’s literacy options (e.g., heydon, 2013), that is, in children having access to and facility with a range of modes so as to select the most apt, is particularly salient given that every sign is motivated (kress, 2009). otherwise put, signs are created and/or mobilized through children’s interests and funds of knowledge (moll et al., 1992; e.g., their epistemic and semiotic resources) and are connected to children’s identities (e.g., rowsell & pahl, 2007). there are thus increasing calls in the early childhood research literature for children to help illuminate the circumstances of their lives, with researchers learning from and with them rather than about them (bradbury-jones & taylor, 2015; clark, 2005b, 2010; todd, 2003). though early childhood “is a critical period for the realization of these rights” (united nations, 2005, p. 1), children’s rights in early childhood are understood as “frequently overlooked” (p. 6). research is a place where there have been attempts to mobilize rights and increasingly, “it is accepted” that children’s “involvement in the design and delivery of research projects is essential if children’s rights and best interests are to be duly respected” (lundy et al., 2011, p. 716). children’s rights are thus not surprisingly a salient theme in the visual methods literature; however, holding and exercising rights within research has been identified as neither neutral nor necessarily straightforward (dalli & te one, 2012; dockett et al., 2012; pascal & bertram, 2009). certainly there is no one-to-one correspondence between visual methods and children’s rights, and even the notion of rights is a complicated and difficult one. all of the problematics of rights and research cannot be dealt within this paper; however, we do offer, within the context of the talking points, some of the literature that signals to the scope of the issues. gadda (2008), for example, accepts that the uncrc has received endorsements from national governments and child rights advocates for its work in helping to “establish an internationally accepted framework for the treatment of all children” (p. 3). she posits that the uncrc has “encouraged a positive and optimistic image of children as active holders of rights, and stimulated a greater commitment to safeguarding these rights” (p. 2). at the same time, however, she also forwards that the discourse that underlies these rights is “limited” (p. 3) for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that it normalizes a western ideal of childhood. this ideal views children through a lens of vulnerability and in need of care and protection. the implications of this view are tied up with a colonial power structure where “nations which are unable or unwilling to adopt [this western ideal] are judged to be immoral and in need of salvation” (p. 7). another implication of the view that colonizes childhood and again positions the west as morally superior is the idea that “universal children’s rights gives children the right to be remade in the image of adults and non-western childhood the right to be remade in western forms” (p. 7). in her critique of the rights discourse, rogers (2004) highlights that all rights discourses, no matter how well-meaning, are undergirded by the notion of “doing things for children simply because they are ‘good for them’” (p. 134). rogers highlights the discourse’s constraints by forwarding this example: winter/hiver 2016 9 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research if we accept that children cannot thrive and flourish unless they have warm and caring relationships—this is not all that intimate relationships mean to a child. adults don’t regard being loved and cared about as just about having their “needs” met. neither do children. for a child, being loved is profoundly meaningful and valuable in itself. (p. 134) the above would suggest that complex, socioculturally situated, and diverse images of children should inform their involvement in making decisions about their lives, including, we might infer, their participation in research. further, an ontological and epistemological question is raised when considering the dual notions of childhood and children’s participation in research. the literature on visual methods suggests that such methods tend to view children “not as passive objects in the research process or in society in general but as social actors who are ‘beings not becomings’” (qvortrup et al., 1994, as cited in clark, 2005b, p. 30, emphasis in original). watson, emery, and bayliss (2012) identify a debate in the literature that has emerged over the last thirty years where children are seen as either “social actors in their own right”—that is, being—or “as adults in the making, who are judged as incompetent against adult standards” (p. 30)—that is, becoming. they explain that the notion of being is marked by theories that conceptualize childhood as “a state of being in its own right” (p. 29) and becoming as a notion marked by theories that conceptualize childhood as “a natural, biological state and transition on the way to adulthood” (p. 29). visual methods have been seen to “accentuat[e] children’s rights and promot[e] social justice” (agbenyega, 2014, p. 160) by positioning children as active meaning makers (clark, 2005a, 2010; singal & swann, 2011) who are capable of commenting on their own lives (clark, 2005b, 2005b, 2010) through various modes as text designers (rowsell & decoste, 2012). lundy et al. (2011) found that to engage children as co-researchers, they needed to allow children to express their views within the research process. this meant that children informed “how the research [was] conducted and what methods [were] used” (lundy et al., 2011, p. 718). further in their research, children had the choice to participate and were not obligated to do so. watson et al. (2012) suggest a more nuanced view of children, which raises questions about how adults might conceptualize them as both being and becoming and audit the demands that are placed on children as rights holders and the allies they might need (as well as other supports) to exercise rights. the literature on visual methods identifies research strategies that may be supportive of children’s participation as they are becoming. for instance, lundy et al. (2011) offer a heuristic for conceptualizing children’s participation in ways that are consistent with their rights (p. 717), and they recommend particular operationalized methods, such as conducting research in a safe, familiar place for the child and, when conducting research in classrooms, to clarify the difference between schoolwork and the research project. the questions around being and becoming are perhaps most salient in the case of young children who may require the most support to meet the demands of being rights holders (e.g., watson et al., 2012). from our reading of the literature, it appears that there needs to be a broader and more intricate conversation regarding how research conceptualizes children as holding and exercising rights. such a conversation would be more in line with watson et al.’s (2012) concern for children as being and becoming, where researchers might develop methods that more fully honour the complexity and situated nature of children and childhood. it is also suggestive of the uncrc article 5, where children are described as having “evolving capacities” and where adults are encouraged to offer support and guidance to children in ways that reflect the child’s gradual acquisition of “knowledge, competencies and understanding” and enable the child to exercise their rights (united nations, 2005, p. 8). offering this support might require the promotion of reflexivity in researchers who “seek to challenge the taken-for-granted in the production of knowledge about children and childhood” and ask critically oriented questions about “what gets researched, when, how and why” (spyrou, 2011, p. 161). this (re)positioning of the researcher explicitly locates the researcher “within the inquiry” and opens the door for “complexities, messiness, vulnerability and competence as well as unexpected relations and practices … to emerge” (elden, 2012, p. 71). our talking point here is not even the tip of the iceberg of these issues. the being and becoming discussion is inexorably tied to the discussion of rights, with the pursuit of both being crucial for conceptualizing what visual methods can and cannot accomplish, the responsibilities of researchers, apt methods for operationalizing these responsibilities, and the implications for all concerned. authenticity and children’s voices visual methods, like other contemporary movements in research concerning children (e.g., the new social studies of childhood (spyrou, 2011), are built on the concept of children’s voices and the necessity of the participation of those voices in decision making, including concerning research. collaboration and dialogue in research raises questions about multivocality (gillen et al., 2007). how do researchers listen to the voices of children above others within a multivocal account? the literature is awash with the importance of children’s voices, but to appreciate the ethical and epistemological promises of voices, researchers like spyrou (2011) argue that we must wrestle with their conceptualization and use. in this section we proffer a talking point concerning the potentialities and problematics of voice in winter/hiver 2016 10 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research early childhood research. spyrou (2011) recognizes several interrelated problematics concerning voice, such as the representation of children’s voices where researchers may unquestioningly represent them as authentic (e.g., james, 2007), individual (komulainen, 2007), and the product of a unitary subject (mazzei & jackson, 2009). there may also be the tendency to “essentialize” (elden, 2012, p. 67) children’s voices. instead, spyrou (2011) posits that voices are socially and culturally constructed and mediated or shaped through a variety of factors, such as researchers’ “assumptions about children … particular use of language, the institutional contexts in which [they] operate and the overall ideological and discursive climates which prevail” (p. 152). children’s voices can, for instance, also be the result of governmentality (e.g., heydon, 2015), constrained and constraining, requiring that researchers attend, not so much to devising better methods to capture their “essence,” as in lundy et al. (2011), but rather to discern the ways “power relations in data generation” influence knowledge production (spyrou, 2011, p. 152). we would also argue for a contemplation of ontological questions about the nature of voice. what is a voice and how might it be relocated from the personal so that the politics of the personal might be viewed and a critical reading enabled (kamler, 2001)? again, this seems like a call for critical reflexivity. further, our consideration of the literature on children’s voices returns us to the problem of being and becoming in children expressing their voices. watson et al. (2012) urge researchers to consider the demands that are placed on children as rights holders. all people require particular abilities and dispositions to hold and exercise rights, like the rights to voice and freedom of expression. in terms of the multimodal nature of expression, people require knowledge and facility of modes and media to make meaning. what are the conditions that can support this acquisition? further, young children may require extra support within meaning-making processes (bradbury-jones & taylor, 2015; brostrom, 2012; pascal & bertram, 2009). children, for instance, are viewed in the early childhood literacy literature as competent text designers (e.g., walsh, 2007), but they are also understood as not always being aware of their design choices (e.g., stein, 2008), and such choices are not always successful in conveying intended meanings (e.g., rowsell & decoste, 2012). moreover, spyrou (2011) identifies the difficulties associated with “actualizing children’s voices: to get children to freely and openly express themselves in such a way that the goal of understanding is served” (p. 153). lundy et al. (2011) argue that “the younger the child, the more complex [it is to] involve them in the research process” (p. 731) and the less the child is able to communicate through speech, the more “salient” these issues become (spyrou, 2011, p. 152). however, we are reminded that according to the uncrc it is not necessary for children to prove that they are capable of participating in research, it is for us, as researchers, to use methodologies that can assure that they can (bradbury-jones & taylor, 2015). ultimately, “young children are neither incompetent nor fully competent in many situations, including research studies and they will benefit from (and in fact are entitled to) adult guidance (lundy et al., 2011, p. 732). guidance may take the form of modelling representational choices (e.g., what modes and media may be available for expression; zhang & heydon, 2014). methods for interpretation of visual texts elicited from children given the complexities of voice just described, as well as what is known about multimodal communication, the notion of how to interpret visual texts becomes critical when using visual methods in early childhood research. the literature is unequivocal in relaying the range of complex considerations and negotiations that are part of visual and multimodal texts, as well as the processes involved in creating them. the semiotics of the research must be considered. for instance, in interpreting data, one must be aware that they are interpreting signs and texts. classic literacy literature expresses that there is at least an interpolation between text-maker, text-reader, and the situated nature of expressive and receptive textual practices (rosenblatt, 1978). the meaning of text is never singular, nor is it produced in a vacuum. rose (2007) describes three sites of making meaning from text—the site of text production, the site of the text itself, and the site of viewing/reading—and states that researchers must give attention to each of these sites when trying to interpret text or understand its interpretation. considerations for making meaning of visual texts and text making include the ways in which the “visual becomes a tool for understanding how children … momentarily visualize and embody their knowledge and experience of their everyday worlds (kendrick et al., 2010, p. 406, emphasis in original), as well how text production is affected by the text-making materials that are available to children and the cultural affordances of how these resources can/should be used (hackett & yamada-rice, 2015). these considerations are akin to agbenyega’s (2014) suggestion that researchers must be aware of capital when conducting visual research. cultural and social capital certainly influence research design and also text design. further, to read the visual and to understand visual texts, pahl and rowsell (2006) assert that researchers “need not only to account for the materiality of the texts, that is, the way they look, sound, and feel, but also have an understanding of who made the text, why, where, and when” (p. 2). additional considerations we identified in the literature for when contemplating the issue of interpretation include the following: winter/hiver 2016 11 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research meaning communicated through any text is contingent and interpretations must be contextualized (e.g., elden, 2012). “each person interprets media texts and their messages differently” (rowsell & decoste, 2012, p. 250). “textual meanings are local and global, socially situated and discursively produced” (kendrick et al., 2010, p. 405). meaning is created through a “friction” between text and context (albers et al., 2009). at the site of audiencing or viewing, the effects that texts produce “are always embedded in social practices … and may well be negotiated by the image’s audiences” (rose, 2007, p. 35). “reading [an] image as a whole text requires understanding how the various sign systems (e.g., visual and linguistic) work in relation to each other, that is, as fused, rather than as separate systems” (kendrick et al., 2010, p. 399). interpreting the texts of children, particularly young children, by adults who have become entrenched in language (e.g. reference withheld) may require a special attention to the issues raised by the authors above. we located in the literature on visual methodologies a variety of approaches that have been used to analyze and interpret data which are fitting for use with the texts of early childhood. we reckoned that given the multimodal nature of such data and the notion that analyzing and interpreting such data are forms of reading or sense making, multimodal analyses pulled from literacy studies with an emphasis on early literacy could be useful. the literature in this area clearly shows how such analyses are adept at attending to the complexities, materialities, and situated nature of voice, as per our previous discussion points. witness kendrick et al.’s (2010) description of how they handle visual data. kendrick has long explored how to interpret visual data, in particular children’s drawings in relation to other modalities like print literacy (e.g., kendrick & mckay, 2004). as a literacy researcher who takes a sociocultural approach to the study of literacy, including child-generated texts, kendrick, with her team, adopts an analytic approach to visual data that accounts for the social semiotics of text generation and interpretation. kendrick describes how she and her team begin their analysis of visual text with an “initial description of the image” asking, “what visual and textual material is contained” in the text, and “who and what is represented?” (kendrick et al., 2010, p. 397, emphasis in original). this is an attention to the literal elements of the text and an identification of the modes used therein. here there is no judgment, just description. then, “focusing on immediate connotation,” the team inquires, “what does the image/text signify in this context?” they next move on to the “systemic connotation” associated with the text, which sees them ask, “what is the place and status of the [image] with respect to the communication system or systems it is part of?” this is where the researchers think about visual image in relation to other visual images or about language in relation to language more generally. last, the team establishes the “narrative threads,” posing the questions, “for what/whom was the [image] intended? what is the relationship between the [image] and local/global discourses?” (p. 397, emphasis in original). other researchers involved in visual methodologies signal even more forcefully the importance of considering the materiality of textual data in relation to the social. pahl and rowsell’s (2011) “artifactual critical literacy approach,” for example, “combines a focus on objects,” asking questions about what these material data are, what they are made of, and the “stories” or situated cultural, historical, and social information that surround them. more specifically, pahl and rowsell forward that the artifacts that children create or hold in their daily lives tell stories about those lives. by inviting children to share their artifacts with researchers and then analyzing them in terms of their material and situated natures, researchers, especially those interested in children and families who have been minoritized, can “understand how children experience home literacy practices in a way that accounts for material culture (the things that lie around us in everyday life) and lived experience” (p. 130). in short, the sharing and analysis of daily artifacts that are of import to children have much to teach about the children, their practices, and situations, and, more broadly, can link up with larger sociocultural trends and happenings. regardless of the specific visual method used, the literature exhorts researchers to collect multiple modes of data and focus on the potential relationships among these modes, for example, connecting the visual with opportunities for children’s oral explanation to allow for textual interpretation (e.g., albers et al., 2009; clark, 2005b, 2011; rose, 2007). the literature also suggests that, again, it is important to operationalize “reflexive research processes” (elden, 2012, p. 67) that “[accept] the messiness, ambiguity, polyvocality, non-factuality and multi-layered nature of meaning in” visual and other data (spyrou, 2011, p. 162). we read this to suggest that to include the voices of children in research, researchers must listen with eyes and ears to begin to understand the messages inscribed in both linguistic and (other) multimodal terms (albers et al., 2009). winter/hiver 2016 12 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research ethics and assent ethics are at the heart of research with children and foremost in all of the talking points we have forwarded thus far, and their consideration is itself productive given that todd (2003) posits that ethics “potentially offers” us as researchers “a discourse for rethinking our relations to other people” (p. 1). the notion of who we are for the other, or what could be called the ethical relation, is a strong vein in pertinent ethics literature (cornell, 1992). the literature we read on visual methods outlines different ethical concerns that run from the philosophical to the more operational. this section highlights some of the major ethical deliberations that may be required when undertaking or evaluating visual methods with children, which are always more complicated the younger the children are as communication can become increasingly challenging. to enact an ethical relationship with children within research, the literature on visual methods says first that researchers must be knowledgeable about children (pascal & bertram, 2009; spyrou, 2011). this knowledge can then help researchers to determine how much the child can participate and select methods that will maximize the child’s right to be heard (lundy et al., 2011). for instance, lundy et al. (2011) point to how “presenting data to children in analysis requires thought in how data is represented to children” (p. 726). we might ask, are we using a mode that is familiar and understandable to the child? knowing children also better permits “children to express their own views rather than just reflecting adult views” (p. 726), understanding children’s voices as variable (spyrou, 2011), and leading adults, who may be firmly entrenched in language to the detriment of other modes (e.g., heydon, 2013) to “relearn other languages” (clark, 2005b, p. 47). reconceptualist approaches to early childhood (e.g., iannacci & whitty, 2009) do caution that knowledge about children needs to be context specific as in knowledge about these specific children, rather than relying on static developmental norms. thus we would argue that the search for responses to the questions about what children are likely to understand and the best modes for communicating with them should be directed toward the particular children who are involved in a particular research instance. the literature also calls for ethical researchers to be knowledgeable about research methods so as to recognize that different visual methodologies elicit different data (spyrou, 2011, p. 153; also see elden, 2012) and to appreciate that different methodologies position children in different ways (e.g., lundy et al., 2011). this tenet might also entail researchers recognizing that traditional power relationships between researcher and researched undergo a change—which itself must be critically examined (clark, 2010; dalli & te one, 2012; pascal & bertram, 2009). consider that engaging a child as co-researcher can disrupt power differences between adult and child, but not fully (lundy et al., 2011). even when the adult takes care to reposition her/himself, it is difficult to disrupt the power of adults in the research process (spyrou, 2011). changes in power structures have been seen as potentially destabilizing for families if the researcher is not aware of the capital the participants and researcher bring to the research field (agbenyega, 2014). this consideration returns to the question of being and becoming. phillips and coppock (2014) relate that much established research with children has taken what we interpret as a becoming approach to children and their capacity to participate in research. they explain that according to the uncrc, children’s rights have been organized into three categories—provision, protection, and participation—and they highlight that organizations (such as ethical review boards) have embraced the provision and protection categories because they fit with adult western ideologies that children are in need of care and protection. at the same time, research that operates from what we might term as a being approach positions children as citizens of today and therefore capable participants in research (e.g., clark, 2005a, 2011; coppock & phillips, 2013; hall & rudkin, 2011; phillips & coppock, 2014). there is no easy resolution to the being and becoming dilemma, especially given that there is no doubt a power differential between children and adults, especially given the observation that traditional ways of conducting research tend to play to adult strengths, such as communication through verbal and written modes rather than children’s preferred modes (coppock & phillips, 2013). consequently, there is a need to explore, not only new ways of thinking about children as potentially active, contributing participants in society, but also their capacity to knowingly participate in research, again a point that is more complicated the younger the child. much of the dialogue around the process of gaining consent/assent for/with children involves discussing how one ensures that children understand what they are assenting to (brostrom, 2012; dockett et al., 2012; harcourt & hagglund, 2013; mortari & harcourt, 2012). a variety of methods for this process have been documented in the literature. for example, in the “day in the life” research approach (e.g., gillen & cameron, 2010), which is premised on visual methods, researchers seek to ensure insofar as possible that the child understands what it means to participate in a study. to reinforce the child’s capacity to control what information is recorded, a researcher invites the child participant to create a signal to use if/when the child wishes the filming to stop, and practices using the sign prior to filming. however, even when children give assent for the day of filming, they may not fully understand the implications of assent, and in particular that the data collected will be studied for years to come (gillen & cameron, 2010). how can researchers respond to issues of ethics and assent? winter/hiver 2016 13 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the literature calls once more for critical reflexivity to deal with these problematics of inquiry (elden, 2012; spyrou, 2011), with agbenyega (2014) saying that, without it, “visual research becomes depersonalising, objectifying and compartmentalising and treats research participants in mechanical terms, neglecting visual research as lived experience” (p. 155). and we might add that despite the complications of ethics and assent with young children in particular, the benefits may be worth the risks, given that without visual methodologies, children’s lived experiences could go unheard, unexamined, and unknown (e.g., lomax, 2015). conclusion early childhood research studies involving visual methods are seeking new ways to learn about children and the circumstances of their lives. much of this research is also concerned with larger methodological issues and implications, including learning with children and not just enriching findings through data that are semiotically heterogeneous. reaching these goals seems to require opportunities for children to express a diversity of voices in research processes and products. our review of visual methods finds that research employs myriad methods to generate and capture children’s multimodal expressions. to engage children successfully in research, methods must play to children’s strengths (clark, 2005b, 2010, 2011). visual methods that involve digital videotaping, photographic techniques, interviews, field notes, contextual mapping, and the like have been identified, among other potentialities, to mitigate the communication challenges children experience when involved in research (clark 2005b, 2011). these methods “do not in themselves provide a failsafe shortcut to children’s experiences” (lomax, 2012, p. 114), however, and raise numerous important considerations. in this paper we asked, “what are the problematics and potentialities when using visual methods in early childhood research?” in our response we identified numerous affordances of visual methods and six discussion points: the definition of visual methods, the potentialities of visual methods, children’s rights and participation in research, authenticity and children’s voices, methods for interpretation of visual texts elicited from children, and ethics and assent. none of the discussion points is complete in and of itself, nor are they exhaustive. our goal in raising the points is to provide a sense of the scope of complexity and issues inherent in visual methods and, more broadly, in research work involving young children. within our explication of these discussion points, we have noted some commonalities. first, issues of the image of the child and children’s capacities, especially in relation to the adult as norm, come repeatedly into play. we see this issue in tension with attempts by some parts of the literature to mitigate colonizing, adult conceptualizations of children, research, communication, and rights. questions raised in relation to these issues include how researchers might talk about children and childhood in ways that defy universals, fixed trajectories, and problematic power relations, but at the same time have a sense of how to practically proceed in needed research. given the sociomaterial nature of the visual, approaches to visual methods that build from the literacy literature are an apt place to begin. we have included a taste of such literature that can provide a full accounting of the semiotic demands of expression and voice and the social and material qualities of all data, and can aid in data collection and interpretation. we have also signalled to what kinds of supports and conditions could provide opportunities for child participants to make use of available modes and media. critical reflexivity is also a strong current we identified in the talking points. we understand this reflexivity as the need for a situated research practice that seeks to understand and work with the children and circumstances at hand rather than making gross generalizations and assumptions. much work remains, but the affordances of visual methods listed in this paper are a beginning to grasping their potentialities. the literature is so firm in its regard for these potentialities that one might read visual methods as an imperative of early childhood research in contemporary times. our talking points suggest that such methods are no panacea. there are undoubtedly epistemological, ontological, and ethical challenges in this work. in discerning a way forward, our reading of the issues of visual methods suggests that needed are critical, dialogic relationships between methods and methodologies, adults and children, researchers and participants, and always a striving to listen to the other. we offer our discussion points as a contribution toward crystallizing the issues associated with such emergent methods so that researchers can further dialogue about them. references agbenyega, j. s. 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(2010). musicality. in j. gillen & c. a. cameron (eds.), international perspectives on early childhood research: a day in the life (pp. 59–76). houndmills, england: palgrave macmillan. zhang, z., & heydon, r. (2014). lived literacy curriculum in a globalized schooling context: a case study of a sino-canadian transnational programme. journal of curriculum studies, 46(3), 389–418. doi: 10.1080/00220272.2013.878395 spring/printemps 2017 45 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice lynne wanamaker is an early childhood educator in two family drop-in programs in british columbia. she worked for many years in ontario with families with preschool-aged children providing consultation to educators regarding the children’s inclusion in early childhood settings in their communities. since 2011, lynne has been a participant-educator in the community early learning and child care facilitators project in the university of victoria’s unit for early years research and development’s investigating quality project. lynne is visited by a pedagogical facilitator from the project each week at the family drop-in program and she participates in monthly learning circles. her interests include engaging with pedagogical narrations as critically reflective encounters and openings. she strives to continually practice from an ethics of resistance and an ongoing desire for equity and social justice. email: lwanamaker@sd63.bc.ca within a room lynne wanamaker when any of us must endure inequity or injustice, when there are those who are not heard, as human beings we are all diminished. (cannella, 1998, p.179) in the face of an injustice toward a child, what is the responsibility of an early childhood educator? what are the risks if we speak out? what are the risks if we remain silent, if we do nothing? “courage, hannah arendt (1958/1998) suggests, which we often think of as a quality of the ‘hero,’ is already present in the willingness to act and speak, to insert oneself into the world and begin a story” (berger, 2010, p. 73). “lynne is conscientious in her work but she is shy.” i find it quite interesting that this comment/label written about me on my report card 52 years ago by my kindergarten teacher entered my thoughts out of somewhere while i was contemplating how to tell this particular story about taking risks in my practice as an early childhood educator, and how i let go of normal. if indeed i am normally shy, i most definitely let go of my personal and professional normal in a family drop-in program in which i am the only early childhood educatorfacilitator. it happened one busy morning in front of parents, grandparents, care providers, and children from infancy to five years old. people had been engaged in relation with each other and the mostly unconventional materials in the intentionally unstructured, untimed, and nontraditionally run program that is situated within a room in an urban elementary school. i also find it interesting that my story about letting go of normal involves a child about whom adults have asked me if there is, and told me that there is, “something wrong with him.” can they actually be saying that he is not right, that he is abnormal? thankfully, this child has been so intensely involved in his wonderful moments of intra-action with the materials that he has not noticed that for more than a year he has been, incredulously, on the receiving end of adults’ overt disrespect, evidenced in their rolling eyes and stares on-the-edgeof glares, in their disapproving looks, and, shockingly, in the mouthed word “crazy” from one adult to another. the child’s mother and father, on the other hand, have noticed—and so have i, numerous times. i ponder: what is it that circulates in our society that manifests itself in such negative responses toward a child engaged in intra-action with materials he encounters within a room in his community, within a room in which i have consciously chosen to let go of the traditional, practicing instead from a pedagogy of listening (rinaldi, 2006), an ethics of resistance (lenz taguchi, 2010), an ethics of care (dahlberg & moss, 2005), and an ongoing desire for social justice and equity. within a room beside an educator who has created a space in which lines of flight (deleuze & guattari, 1987) are possible, having intentionally let go of the ideas, conditions, and practices traditionally thought to promote and denote “quality” in early childhood settings. within a room to which this child has come with his father, mother, or grandmother up to three or four times each week for almost all of his life. this child knows this room, having sat on his father’s lap and looked about in it, crawled and walked in it, made inquiries and discoveries within in it, and intra-acted with provocations and materials that called out to him within it. within a room that this child’s parents know as a place of theirs, as well as their child’s. a place where they know their image of children spring/printemps 2017 46 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice as being capable, competent, and natural researchers matches with the image of children held by the educator (government of british columbia, 2008; rinaldi, 2006). a place where they know that time and space is given to the ideas of their child, and others’ children. a place in which this child’s parents and i have frequently engaged in critically reflective dialogue about children, childhood, and learning, as well as about society, power relations, and freedom. within a room in which this child can come upon a three-foot-long birch branch on a shelf, pick it up, say aloud to no one and to everyone that this is “my axe for chopping down trees” as he walks across the room, with the branch held in his hands and resting on his shoulder, over to another child and asks, “do you want to play chopping down trees?” within a room beside an educator who let go of her personal and professional normal and risked the same behaviour that had been directed at the child being directed at her—rolling eyes, stares on-the-edge-of glares, disapproving looks, and the mouthed word “crazy”— when i loudly declared to them all, “there is a game of chopping down trees with axes going on over here. i know we are in a small space, but there is no way in the world i am going to shut this down. the children are asking some very thoughtful questions, like, ‘why do trees grow bigger than people?’ and i want to give space to this encounter.” the not quite four-year-old child asked me this question as we sat side by side, waiting for another child who had said he would play chopping down trees with axes when he was finished what he was doing. i responded: “that is a really deep question. i don’t know why trees grow bigger than people.” in the silence between us that followed my response, i could not have felt a deeper connection with, affection for, and affinity with this child. upon critical reflection a day after this event, i recognized that this child and our relationship over the past three years played a significant part in giving me, a constantly becoming educator, the courage to stand up and declare to (some disapproving) adults that i am making space for somethings, and somebodies, in this someplace. i am making space within a room that happens to be in a location and time in a society that resists, and at times opposes, what i choose to have this someplace room be about. within a room in a society that operates from a discourse of valuing order and normal. within a room that rejects the untruth of a universal child, that rejects the belief that children need to be powered over and their ideas disregarded, all in the quest to shape, bend (break?) and make children into model future citizens of the world. within a room beside an educator who is beginning to understand more deeply how power relations operate and circulate in society and the institutions within it (macnaughton, 2005). what is it that we want, now and in the future, for children and society (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013)? i wonder what my kindergarten teacher might report about me now. maybe that “lynne is a conscientious worker who is shy but will risk taking a public stand for children and what she believes in, even though it is not of the current popular consensus.” what do we do, now that we have heard this story? whose story is it? and who is the “hero” in this story? reflecting with arendt’s suggestion in iris berger’s (2010) quote, let us consider that this child is the “hero” in this story, not the educator who spoke out. let us imagine what the individual rooms in our preschools and schools might look like, for all of us, if our choices and decisions were all guided by equity and social justice in caring, responsible communities (cannella, 2008). then would there be a room within which a child could run exuberantly across it, flapping long feathers in his arms and declaring, “i’m a fast eagle!” as he runs, without an adult physically impeding his flight? would there be a room within which this same child could, minutes later, come upon a branch, pick it up, walk across a room of people with it over his shoulder, without being glared at, then ask and wait for another child to play chopping down trees with him? i want to be free to work as an early childhood educator within a room in which i can bear witness to a three-year-old child asking me the question “why do trees grow bigger than people?” a question that at 58 years old i have never, ever thought about. i want to work as an early childhood educator within a room in which these unpredictable, precious, and astounding moments are free to come into being. i do not want children being disrespected, their ideas and movements being oppressed to the point that i am compelled to make the choice to interrupt everyone and power-over some disapproving adults with my words that “there is no way in the world i am going to shut this down” and that “i want to make space for this encounter.” i continue to ask myself why i spoke out. was it for this child? did he really need me to speak up for him? was it so this child’s parent would feel supported by me in that moment? was it for me, explaining my action, so i would not feel negatively judged by the disapproving others for not controlling (and in their mind fixing) this child by stopping him from stacking some wooden tree blocks up spring/printemps 2017 47 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice high and swinging an “axe” to “chop” them down? why would i stop this child who capably, competently, and confidently moves with a “willingness to act and speak, to insert [him]self into the world and begin a story” (berger, 2010, p. 73)? let us consider deeply what gaile cannella (2008) asserts: to reconceptualize a field in which social justice and hearing the voices of younger human beings are the foundation, we must be willing to expand our possibilities, to go beyond the ways that we have been taught to perceive. my colleagues have disagreed with these radical ideas for early childhood education, calling them “too revolutionary.” some believe that the ideas can cause trouble. i believe that we want to cause trouble, that we need to transform ourselves into revolutionary activists for social justice and care, not simply for younger human beings, but for all of us. (p.173) within a room in which the pedagogical narrations i have written sit upon our walls and shelves in open invitation to others to read and think with, how can i make more broadly visible to the hundreds of adults who come into this family drop-in the values, beliefs, philosophies, discourses, and pedagogies i intentionally choose to practice with, and why? my displaying of pedagogical narrations, along with my desire to make my choices in practice more visible, is not done with the intention of making others think the same way i do, but rather “for stirring the wind of thought” (berger, 2015) within us, expanding our perspectives and generating ongoing, critical dialogue and debate about important issues such as race, class, gender, and age. drawing on pinar (1994), cannella (2008) posits that “only when we are willing to transform ourselves and our work do we have the possibility of transforming society” (p. 173). as an early childhood educator-citizen, i am committed to doing all that i can, within a room and beyond, to contribute to what i hope for, now and in the future, for children and society—the constant becoming of a more just and equitable world. references berger, i. (2010). extending the notion of pedagogical narration through hannah arendt’s political thought. in v. pacini-ketchabaw (ed.), flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 57–76). new york, ny: peter lang. berger, i. (2015). pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing. journal of the canadian association for young children, 40(1), 130–147. cannella, g. s. (1998). early childhood education: a call for the construction of revolutionary images. in w. f. pinar (ed.) curriculum: toward new identities (pp. 157–184). new york, ny: garland. cannella, g. s. (2008). deconstructing early childhood education: social justice and revolution. new york, ny: peter lang. dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. new york, ny: routledgefalmer. dahlberg, g., moss, p., & pence, a. (2013). beyond quality in early childhood education and care: languages of evaluation (3rd ed.). london, england: routledge. deleuze, g., & guattari, f. (1987). a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia (b. massumi, trans.). minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. government of british columbia. (2008). british columbia early learning framework. victoria, bc: ministry of education, ministry of health, ministry of children and family development, & british columbia early learning advisory group. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. london and new york: routledge. macnaughton, g. (2005). doing foucault in early childhood studies: applying poststructural ideas. new york, ny: routledgefalmer. rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia: listening, researching and learning. new york, ny: routledge. microsoft word canadian-children-vol-39-1-atkinson.docx ! !radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by kim atkinson 08!fall$ ! ! ! editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editor, special issue: neoliberalism dr. luigi iannacci, trent university, peterborough, ontario publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 92 over the many years i worked with families, i regularly heard stories about experiences with public school, and while the individual stories were all different, they shared a common thread: a deep sense of dissatisfaction. if i were to distill the dissatisfaction down to a single complaint, it would be this: a loss of identity or individuality within a system that narrowed who and what a child and a family could be and do. standards, labels, routines, and prescriptive curriculum defined the school experience, requiring children and families to fit within their confines. from the 5-year-old who told me that “at school we have to do a lot of super sitting” to the 10-year-old that i invited back to attend preschool so he could regain some sense of himself, to the 16-year-old who simply stopped going to school because he was utterly bored, the grievances were wide ranging and ever present. to all of these families i would like to have recommended radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss, a book that offers new possibilities for education and hope for what might be. the authors “set out what [they] hope is a real utopia, a fundamentally redesigned but pragmatically possible alternative for education and schooling” (fielding & moss, 2011, p. 2). drawing on the work of two social author’s bio kim atkinson is an early childhood educator and a pedagogical facilitator with the university of victoria’s unit for early childhood research and development. she also cocoordinates, with danielle davis, the images of learning project—an exhibit, blog, and series of presentations that highlights the work of eces and the competencies of children (www.imagesoflearningproject.com). ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 [page 92 to 96] www.cayc.ca radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by: kim atkinson ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 93 thinkers, erik olin wright and alberto mangabeira, fielding and moss present a theory for the transformation of education. chapter 1 begins by describing two examples that illustrate radical education. the first project described is the schools of reggio emilia in italy. the authors then discuss st. georgein-the-east, a secondary school in london which ran from 1945–1955. both schools were built on a pedagogy of democracy and relationships, and both welcomed plurality and experimentation. the authors offer these examples as hopeful prospects before plunging the reader into a critique of current education, where schools have become a business “whose ‘mission’ is to use teacher-technicians to apply prescribed ‘human technologies’ to achieve predefined outcomes” (p. 17). the authors contend that public discourse about knowledge, values, ethics, the image of the child, and the image of the educator has been forgotten in the pursuit of market-driven economic values and goals. democratic deliberation about the meaning and purpose of schools and education has been replaced by reductionist technical issues of defining outcomes and universal objective assessments for achieving predetermined ends. in the words of the authors, “the political and ethical have been drained out of public discourse” (p. 21) on education, thus our society has lost sight of education as both a public responsibility and a site for dialogue and democracy. the authors argue that schools, and thus learning, should open spaces for complexity, for new interpretations and connections, and allow for the emergence of independent thinking. the failure to invite plurality and engage with complexity ignores the global state in which we are confronted by environmental and economic crisis. our current educational systems “seem stuck in a time warp . . . displaying an unwillingness or inability to engage with either new thinking or the state we are in—and worse, the state we are heading towards” (p. 33). chapter 2 sets out fielding and moss’s “overtly utopian” (p. 39) approach to radical education, an approach wherein democracy is the heart. the authors argue for a definition of democracy that moves past the formal sphere of the public institution of government, instead inviting a multidimensional concept of a relational ethic of everyday being and thinking. democracy in this sense is a way of life, a cultural climate of social relationships that allow for “human flourishing and the conditions under which it can be best fostered” (p. 41). radical education, then, sees schools as sites of democratic fellowship where individuals come together in a person-centred learning community. values integral to radical education include social and political justice, solidarity in a common effort, shared purpose, plurality and multiplicity of values, and experimentation to invite thinking beyond the known. the image of the child and the image of the teacher in this context are of individuals who are rich co-constructors of knowledge, in relationship with each other and the local community. schools are places of connection between citizens, forums for encounters “which [are] capable of many collective purposes and projects of common interest and benefit” (p. 53). ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 94 the authors stress that these schools cannot remain isolated or exclusive. rather, they require expansive reciprocity with both the local and global communities to make learning processes visible and open to dialogue. they encourage not only shared responsibility by community stakeholders, but full engagement in problematizing boundaries and contesting dominant discourses. critical to pedagogical practice in radical education is reenvisioning relationships between adults and children within an ethic of care and adopting a dialogic approach of genuine openness and reciprocity. ongoing, attentive dialogue between adults and children of all ages opens up understandings and opportunities for making meaning together that “nudge us away from the individualistic preoccupation of personalization and high-performance schooling towards a person-centered approach . . . not as an instrumental lubricant for a smoother running organization” (p. 80). chapter 3 outlines what a school for radical education might look like, how it might be structured, organized, and staffed to become a place of ethical and political practice. short vignettes describe models of schools that are small in scale, age integrated, and staffed with multidisciplinary teams of teachers, pedagogues, and atelieristas. the pedagogue is described as attending to the whole child, his/her mind, body, creativity, and history, recognizing the interconnectedness of relationships and social context to learning. the atelierista is described as an educator with an arts background who brings aesthetic sensibilities and ways of seeing to offer broader perspectives to the processes of thinking and learning. interdisciplinary teaching teams are integral to the common school to invite multiple approaches and connections. the authors also argue for schools as public spaces where all members of the community come together to “produce ideas, images, knowledge, communication, cooperation, and affective relations” (p. 111). common schools are for and of the community, offering resources, advocacy, and services particular to the area and members it serves. the final chapter addresses the obvious questions: how can such a school, such a radical common education, come to be a reality? how can this “overtly utopian” approach be put into practice? the authors are clear that they will not offer an authoritative set of how-to guidelines because the notion of centralized diktat is contrary to the values and philosophy they purport. instead they offer “modest possibilities . . . in which each step brings new learning and worthwhile change” (p. 135). the arguments and reasoning brought forward embrace utopian thinking as a means of envisioning possibilities and potentials and as a valuable process of contesting the dominant education discourse. in further exploring possibilities of conceptualizing the transformation of education, the authors call for local governments to nurture small local organizations and projects that endeavour to think differently and transform education, but they stress the importance of national governments recognizing that democratic education is needed to bring about a more sustainable and flourishing society. they end with an impassioned plea, a warning that we are facing a global crisis where maintaining the status quo of constant growth, ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 95 hyper consumerism, high inequality, environmental damage, and weakening of social responsibility is not sustainable. the very future of humankind, the authors contend, depends on renewed democratic practices to collaboratively respond to the challenges before us. the transformation of education must be seen as an active partner in the larger process of transforming society. this is a book i want to hand out to colleagues, students, and parents. in fact, i want to hand it out to everyone i know, and to a lot of folks i don’t know. as an early childhood educator who has been thinking and working toward transforming practice in my field, i found this book to be powerful in its impassioned argument for the need for change. in a field whose workers are chronically underpaid and undervalued and that typically has little or no paid time for professional development or team meetings, opportunities for critical reflection and transforming practice are limited. compounding this limitation is the fact that we are often so immersed in the daily activities and challenges of our roles, the tensions inherent in relationships with colleagues, families, and children, underfunding, staff turnover, and dealing with regulatory bodies, that important issues of the meaning and values of education and school are put aside. in my experience, conversations around transforming practice sometimes get caught up with change in the minutiae of the daily practicalities: should we use clay instead of play dough? should we remove plastic toys? but to what end? the more important questions are often neglected: what is the meaning of school? what is education for? what values do we hold about education? who is responsible for education? whose voices are heard and whose voices are silenced? radical education and the common school makes it abundantly clear that we ignore these questions at great risk to our collective future. dialogue must begin among early years professionals, instructors, students, parents, administrators, and regulating bodies. this book is just the thing needed to spark it. as much as it is alarming, even depressing, to read the authors’ critique of the current state of education, schooling, and the global crisis, their critique is convincing, and it makes the above-mentioned limitations seem like insufficient excuses for inaction. the book offers many reasons to be hopeful and many examples of ways to move forward. while fielding and moss call for systemic change in education policy, they are clear that creating small, independent projects that embrace democratic fellowship and ethical practice equates to steps to wider change. they argue that we cannot wait “for a sudden revolutionary rupture” (p. 149) to call us to transform education, but that transitional practices must be initiated, bringing with them hope, ideas, and new learning and releasing “the imagination of what could be” (p. 148). in other words, it is incumbent on all of us in the early childhood field to envision a new way of doing early learning and care, to think differently, to start from where we are to transform our practice. ! ! canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 96 reference fielding, m., & moss, p. (2011). radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative. london, uk: routledge. ! in this issue: from the editor’s desk special issue: neoliberalism guest editor dr. luigi iannacci, phd, trent university, peterborough, ontario i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, fikile nxumalo producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education by cristina d. vintimilla radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by kim atkinson call for contributions: ‘the visual arts in early childhood education’ find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca winter/hiver 2017 1 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies introduction dialogue on play kathryn ricketts and patrick lewis the cover image of this special issue shares lug – a playful research character performed by dr. kathryn ricketts photo by jenny arnzten with a floor length overcoat, a large hat, and a bulky leather suitcase, my beckettesque character of 13 years tells stories through a moving poetic narrative; a narrative that fragments meaning and blasts chronology and logic into space.  the pieces fall where they may and are read differently by each of those who witness. lug playfully traverses a narrative arc circuitously moving through and around points of arrival and points of departure evoking shared stories of belonging and displacement. kathryn: you know, patrick, i have been improvising all of my dancing life, which is about 40 years now. i am always so grateful that my experience with this form has informed a beautiful balance between structure and impulse. stephen nachmanovitch (1990) refers to this as “the power of free play sloshing against the power of limits” (p. 33). i think this must be at the root of play. what do you think? patrick: i think stephen is quite accurate in his characterization of play. however, i would add that the “power of limits” is in fact of our own construction. that is, i liken it to rough and tumble play in that the players are always attentive to each other’s abilities, strengths, and limits, really watching each other’s “play face” so as to be always pushing up against and expanding those limits, even when self-handicapping in that play in order to bring along the other players. kathryn: this reminds me of davis and sumara’s (2006) notion of “enabling constraints” as a part of their complexity theory. ramiah (2014), discussing their work, says that “enabling constraints are structural conditions that balance a need for a common identity or purpose, and sources of randomness that require the learning system to adapt” (p. 67). i think this randomness is actually the unfolding of ideas as the players move into disequilibrium. part of the “rough and tumble” play that you write about is that idea of moving off axis and away from habituated postures of knowing. i think that the thrill of playing is the imminence that something new will emerge. as davis and sumara state, “complex emergence happens far from equilibrium” (p. 136). patrick: that’s interesting and decidedly playful, don’t you think? so, we might say instead of enabling constraints, we are playing with constraints? i don’t want to go too far with this cognitive play for fear of doing what vygotsky (1933/2002) warned of, that to “refuse to approach the problem of play from the standpoint of fulfilment of the child’s needs, his (sic) incentives to act, and his (sic) affective aspirations would result in a terrible intellectualization of play” (para. 7). perhaps i am placing constraints on myself, ha ha! of course, play is not simply the domain of childhood, i have to keep reminding myself of that. i agree with you, through play there is always the ever-present potential for something new to emerge from the play process, and that new thing can take a myriad of forms— healing, understanding, insight, pleasure, and more! kathryn: this notion of the “terrible intellectualization of play” seems to be sliding down the cartesian slope of binaries. can we fully engage in play and still be thoughtful, mindful, and even smart? well, i think yes … can we be fully engaged with play and still have a purpose? would having a purpose to “play” (healing or therapy, for example) rule out the tenets of play as allowing serendipitous discoveries? would we then be cornering ourselves winter/hiver 2017 2 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies introduction into expectations that may sabotage the event of play completely? patrick: hmm, yes, that is important to consider; however, humans still struggle to transcend binary thought. even play is always juxtaposed with work as its opposite. yet, the ancient greeks felt the opposite of play was seriousness. but to mind that only feeds into my thought that play is serious. so how can that be an opposite? while i’m sliding down this slope, i might as well bring up brian sutton-smith (2001) and this particular idea i find so terribly compelling, even though it is still prisoner to binary thinking. for him, the opposite of play is not work—it is depression (p. 198). herein lies the magnificence of play, in that the opposite of depression is play! and play is easily recognized but so difficult to define because it is so many things. in fact, it could be anything if the play frame is brought to it. so, yes, i think you are on to something. play does potentially lead to discoveries, and purposeful play can be fulfilling, but it is always possessed with a playfulness that may allow it to transcend that purpose. kathryn: i was at an elementary school today and i passed a 6-year-old boy who was speeding by in the hallway. he was wearing a red sweatshirt with big white letters across the front that read “never stop playing.” at the same time there was a girl in the hallway who had passed out from playing too hard in the gym (perhaps she had come to school without breakfast). playing is a complicated concept. i was looking after a friend who was dying of aids and who would speak to me about his fears and discomforts through a family of stuffed monkeys. each had their name and voice, and they were critical in the attention and care we provided. we precariously balanced the entire family of monkeys on his coffin as we walked him to the hearse. i now teach with the assistance of a collection of puppets and stuffed animals that allow me to channel critical and uncomfortable information through a playful voice. i found this poem that i thought was useful to think about. i thought it was time for a poem in this conversation. it is when we play it is when we play that we know who is angry he keeps his face like excrement and says nothing good it is when we play that we know who is sick she drones and wants to put her head on my chest it is when we play that we know who are wicked they make us cry aloud and do not play at all it is when we play that we know who are part of us they smile like we do and sing like we always do. samuel nze patrick: a poem—is a poem a play with words, or playing with words? “it is when we play that we know/who are part of us.” i wonder: does this speak to the notion that play has receded so far into the background of our consciousness that we don’t even notice it anymore—it’s just there? when in fact play is a fundamental drive winter/hiver 2017 3 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies introduction similar to sleep, and without enacting it, there are significant consequences. perhaps we have been at play since humans emerged and what we are in fact playing toward across generations is to become human—we are playing at being human. certainly, the articles in this collection suggest the myriad ways we can frame play and how humans pursue play. perhaps it is time for us to set aside our playful explorations of play and share the pieces of this special issue with our readers. kathryn: i have been skipping, jumping, and sliding through this collection of scholarly works, and i feel so much awe for the ways in which these authors have embraced play in their individual scholarship. the breadth and scope of these inquiries has surprised me and quickened my own curiosity with the ways in which i define play in my scholarship. i am deeply grateful for this evocation and will follow all of these authors as they play(fully) move forward in their work. references davis, b., & sumara, d. (2006). complexity and education: inquiries into learning, teaching, and research. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. nachmanovitch, s. (1990). free play, improvisation in life and art. new york, ny: penguin putnam. ramiah, r. (2014). complexity thinking in all practice. journal of academic language and learning, 8(3), a62–a71. sutton-smith, b. (2001). the ambiguity of play. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. vygotsky, l. (2002). play and its role in the mental development of the child (c. mulholland, trans.). psychology and marxism internet archive 2002. original work published 1933. retrieved from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1933/play.htm   bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, and fikile nxumalo 08  fall         editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editor, special issue: neoliberalism dr. luigi iannacci, trent university, peterborough, ontario publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 25 authors veronica pacini-ketchabaw is professor of early childhood studies in the school of child and youth care, university of victoria, where she is also the coordinator of the early years specialization. she currently holds a social sciences and humanities research council (sshrc) grant for her ethnographic study “encounters with materials in early childhood education,” and works in collaboration with members of the common worlds childhoods and pedagogies research collective. her current research revolves around the pedagogical possibilities of multispecies relations for early childhood. fikile nxumalo is a ph.d. candidate in the school of child and youth care at the university of victoria. she currently holds a doctoral sshrc (social sciences and humanities research council) fellowship for her research, which brings posthumanist theories, indigenous relationalities and postcolonial perspectives into conversation with a focus on possibilities for anticolonial and antiracist responses to everyday encounters in early childhood spaces. fikile is currently working as a pedagogical facilitator, supporting early childhood educators in her local community. lara di tomasso received a ba in political science from mcgill university in 2003, and completed her master’s in child and youth care at the university of victoria in 2012. her research interests include processes of racialization, ongoing colonialisms, migration, and the ways in which these forces impact the lives of children and families in canada. lara currently resides in toronto, and works as a consultant in the non-profit sector, and as a course writer for the university of victoria. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 [page 25 to 53] www.cayc.ca bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, and fikile nxumalo     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 26 preface: bear-child encounters bears in the forest we often go for walks to the forest close to the child care center. when we encounter holes, both tree hollows and holes in the soil where trees once stood, the children imagine them as ‘bear holes’: “this is where the bears would take a bath,” they chant. bear scenes a plastic bear has been placed in a corner of the child care classroom that has been transformed into an ‘indoor forest’ using sand, tree stumps, rocks, indoor plants and several sticks and branches that the children carry back to the child care centre on their regular walks to the forest.   figures 1 & 2 abstract the article examines the entangled constitution of the child-bear figure through the analytics of late liberal colonial investments. it maps three frictional child-bear encounters, both imaginary and real, in the context of early childhood classrooms: bears as unwelcome and (yet) original inhabitants that pose a threat to human safety, bears as endangered victims in need of human protection, and bears as cuddly and cute creatures in children’s literature. specifically, we explore bear-child entanglements in early childhood classrooms in british columbia by grappling with the complexities and tensions that emerge in late liberal colonized and colonialist spaces where bears and human children “meet.”     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 27 a child clutches a stick, stirring the sand and scooping sand onto the bear. “i’m making dinner for the bear”, he says. the educator quickly asks, “what is he eating?” the child immediately replies, “the bear is having pancakes--my grandma makes pancakes”. another child carefully arranges pinecones sticks and rocks in the ’indoor forest’ play area while he says, “this is a dark, dark cave. i have made a dark cave for the bear to sleep in. he is going to hibernate for a long time”   figures 3 & 4   figure 5     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 28 bear paintings the children are painting on a large piece of white paper onto which a forest and water image by coast salish artist lawrence paul yuxweluptun has been projected. multiple dialogues emerge. one child says as he paints, “a bear is coming to eat me up” dangerous bears the children are getting ready to go for their forest walk. today a group of younger children who have not been at this particular forest before are joining the older group. the older children tell the younger ones what they might see in the forest: “there might be some bears in the forest. but don’t worry, we have never seen them before.” “it is dangerous. you should be careful…” it’s summertime. the children are on a walk to the forest to pick salmon berries. leslie, the educator, asks the children to make lots of noise in the forest. when children ask why, the educator explains that they have to let bears know it is their turn to pick berries. leslie says,“bears look cute in books, but they are strong and can be dangerous, so we have to make loud noises to warn them. bears have a different language, we have to talk to them with a big sound to let them know that we are coming to take some berries too”. with interest, a child asks, “why are bears here? another child adds, “why are they eating our berries?” leslie replies, “this is the bears' home. we are visiting the bears’ home, the mountain forest. maybe bears also like sweet berries just like you”. a child responds: “bears eat honey”.   figure 6     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 29 bear aware following this conversation, back at the child care centre children began drawing or painting pictures of bears eating berries. leslie brings a bear awareness poster, which hangs on the classroom wall. over the summer there are a number of bear sightings close to the child care centre that are widely reported in the local media. leslie and the children continue their conversations about bear awareness. introduction bears and humans share a long history in the mountains, valleys, and coastal regions of what is now referred to as british columbia (bc). bear-human entanglements are constitutive of, and are constituted by, a complex interplay of forces and figurations in late liberal colonialist spaces (dempsey, 2010). as the stories above demonstrate, early childhood classrooms are not insulated from these past-present entanglements with bears. what takes place in early childhood classrooms occurs within a specific context or, as anthropologist elizabeth povinelli (2013) says, a concrete world. in this paper, we are interested in the forces and imaginaries that maintain connections between early childhood classrooms and the concrete world of late liberal colonialism (povinelli, 2011). by late liberalism, povinelli (2011) refers to “a period that marks the co-emergence of variations of neoliberalisms and cultural recognition” (p. 25). liberalism, she writes, “has entered a new stage of reflexivity” in which “liberal governmentality” assumes new shape “as it responds to a series of legitimacy crises in the wake of new movements” such as anti-colonialism, decolonization and antiracism (p. 25).   figures 7 & 8     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 30 like povinelli, we are interested in the ways in which late liberalism handles different modes of being in settler societies and in how these modes of being are made and remade in early childhood spaces. an important aspect of late liberal colonialism is that it creates “specific arrangements that extend beyond simple human sociality or human beings” (povinelli, 2011, p. 7; povinelli, 2013; de la cadena, 2010). as povinelli explains, “a social project is dependent on a host of interlocking concepts, materials, and forces that include human and nonhuman agencies and organisms” (p. 7). we appreciate how feminist philosopher donna haraway (2008) also makes this point clear in when species meet (2008): “species interdependence”, she says, “is the name of the worlding game on earth” (p. 19). thus, we explore frictional encounters (tsing, 2005) with bears, both imaginary and real, in the context of early childhood classrooms. the paper grapples with the complexities and tensions that emerge in these late liberal colonized and colonialist spaces where bears and human children ‘meet’ and where contradictory images and figures of child and bear abound. our interest is in the entanglements (the tangled up stories, the tangled making of beings, the intimate coshapings) that take place between bears and children as well as the effects of these entanglements. worlds are made as bears and children become entangled. these relational entanglements lead us to ask questions about how we want to live with bears in early childhood classrooms. the idea for this paper came from everyday encounters in the classrooms that we have had the privilege to be in, collaborate with, and learn from through multiple action research and ethnographic projects since 2006. the goal of these projects has been to work with groups of early childhood educators to shift our perspectives and inspire ethical action in response to everyday pedagogical encounters (for details about the studies see di tomasso, 2012; pacini-ketchabaw et al., forthcoming). in this paper, specifically, we explore data about bear-child entanglements that emerged from these projects. in addition, we employ a wide range of children’s literature and various media to extend our ideas. early childhood spaces in settler colonial bc provide rich opportunities to explore these entanglements. to begin with, these spaces are sites that occupy ‘bear country’, as we explain later on in this paper. early childhood classrooms also utilize stories featuring infantilized and human-like representations of bears, as well as bear figurines and toys. as dempsey (2010) writes, bears have an “extremely cuddly charisma with a face and fur that trigger human concern” (p. 1149), so children are rendered “owners” of toy bears and exposed to a wide range of literature and media that portray bears as friendly creatures. contradictorily, early childhood spaces in bc also protect children from potentially dangerous encounters with bears. bears are conjured as fearsome predators and children are seen as particularly at risk from bears – they are considered vulnerable prey in one sense     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 31 especially during visits to nearby forests as the stories above illustrate. and to make things even more complex, ‘bear protection and conservation’ activities are often deployed in early childhood sites as a way to develop young children’s environmental stewardship and prevent the eradication of bears. working theoretically and methodologically with the bear-child figure (haraway, 1997), and the frictions that this figure brings, this paper offers a multi-layered storying of bear-human and bear-child entanglementsi. specifically, it addresses what the figure of the bear-child is becoming within late liberal settler colonialist spaces such as bc (povinelli, 2011), presents how practices in early childhood classrooms are implicated in the becoming of the bear-child figure, and discusses the responsibilities and obligations that emerge through this becoming. first, we turn to how we use the concepts of ‘figures’ and ‘storying’. storying and figurations in late liberal colonial times we think of the conditions of late liberal colonialism through the figuration of bearchild/human entanglements. if we consider that understandings of the workings of late liberal colonialism require attention to both human and non-human actors, effects and socialities (povinelli, 2011), then the relations between humans and non-humans are an important way to engage with the effects of late liberalism and its intimate connections to colonial “accumulation by dispossession” (povinelli, 2011, p. 18). we use practices of storying to attend to, to create disruptions in, and to question how the bear-human figure emerges in current conditions: how does the bear figure become and endure in late liberal colonialism in the context of bc? how does the bear become entangled with children’s real and imaginary situated encounters in connection with late liberalism? what kinds of conditions for life are distributed within late liberalism, including modes of recognition, and in settler colonial spaces such as early childhood classrooms? what are the particular modes in which formations of power within this period are organized? what are the figures that organize formations of power in our present times in early childhood classrooms? storying situated bear-human encounters and entanglements in bc holds potential for generating alternate perspectives that make visible the worldings created by late liberalism in early childhood spaces. as cameron (2010) explains, stories, practices of storying, and the human and more than human relations that comprise stories create effects. how might stories that attend closely to bear-human relations interrupt “stories of a unified and successful regime” of late liberal governance (tsing, 2005, p. 271)? our intent then, in highlighting particular stories is also to inhabit the frictions and tensions (tsing, 2005) that these stories bring. as haraway (1995) notes, ‘‘stories do not reveal secrets by heroes pursuing luminous objects across and through the plot matrix of the     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 32 world’’ (p. 71); instead, they put ‘‘unexpected partners and irreducible details into a frayed, porous carrier bag’’ (p. 71). in other words, these stories build worlds. taylor, blaise and giugni (2012) also use haraway’s approach to storytelling in early childhood education. they explain that haraway’s stories become “collections of ordinary everyday encounters between these ‘unexpected partners’ -human and non-human” (p. 2). it is these more than human concerns and their threads and connections that we story here through the bear-child figure. there are many stories that we could tell. we are leaving out other (equally important) stories. for instance, we do not include here indigenous bear ontologies; although we write this paper on unceded coast salish territories. what now constitutes the majority of bc’s territory rests on unceded first nations land. the research projects and early childhood practice settings from which we generate the stories used in this article are located on land belonging to the k’ómoks, qualicum, snuneymuxw, quw’utsun, esquimalt, squamish, songhees, saanich, musqueam, tsleil-waututh, kwikwetlem, stó:lô and semiahmoo first nations (british columbia assembly of first nations (bcafn), 2012). in what is now referred to as bc, there are over 200 distinct first nations (bcafn, 2012), speaking 32 different languages (first peoples’ heritage, language and culture council, 2012). yet, these rich geontologies (povinelli, 2013) are silenced and ghosted through ongoing colonialist practices and policies. we have chosen to not tell indigenous stories in this short paper as they deserve much more than just a brief mention. byrd (2011), cameron (2008; 2011) and povinelli (2011) also remind us that settler colonial ghosting persists in ‘well-intentioned’ research that perpetuates colonialisms by re-centering and re-inscribing settler perspectives through the relegation of indigenous peoples to the past or to a “spectral presence” (povinelli, 2011, p. 39) and by taken for granted appropriations of indigenous knowledges. as byrd (2011) notes, anticolonial articulations risk perpetuating colonial “discourses of indigenous displacements that remain within the present everydayness of settler colonialism, even if its constellations have been naturalized by hegemony and even as its oppressive logics are expanded to contain more and more historical experiences” (p. xviii). we focus on the bear figure in settler-society, both historical and contemporary, so as to explore the means by which ‘bears’ derive their power as figures in relation to childhoods in the specificities of the colonized, late liberal spaces that we inhabit. the stories we tell from our research are unavoidably entangled with settler colonial relations, not only in the kinds of stories we tell but also in how we tell our stories, in our ways of relating to these stories, and in the bear-child entanglements themselves. we story bears and bear-child entanglements as “a harawayian figure”, as collard (2012) calls them. this figure is “both metaphorical and real” (collard, 2012, p. 524) and helps us to query particular knowledges, power asymmetries, practices and relations     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 33 (haraway 1997) that connect to late liberalism, including their colonialist troubles and implications. we work with figures and not agents per se. we are interested in how bears come to work as a figure for the kinds of problems that we grapple with; with the hope that with and through these figures we can capacitate new forms of social imaginaries. that is to say, we are interested in working with the bear figure and its accompanying performativities, as “maps of contestable worlds” (haraway, 1997, p. 11) not only to make visible and unpack the situated workings, tensions, complex power relations, and effects of late liberal settler colonialisms, but also to produce “some kind of displacement that can trouble [the] identifications and certainties’’ (haraway 1997, p. 11) that accompany these forces of late liberalism. in other words, as timeto (2011) notes, figures “do not simply figure, but ‘turn’ what they figure” (p. 161). in previous work, we have examined the workings of late liberalism in early childhood education as uneven and as “a set of dispersed stances” (povinelli, 2012, n.p.) – comprising shifting heterogeneous material-semiotic, human-non-human linkages, and multitudinous effects that are not necessarily easily pinned down (nxumalo, paciniketchabaw & rowan, 2011; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo & rowan, in press). social projects such as late liberalism and neoliberalism, povinelli (2011) writes, are not uniform, homogenous formations of power or even “terrains of social maneuver” (povinelli, 2011, p. 28). consequently, we see inhabiting the mobile ‘more-than-representational’ bear figure as a useful way to engage with the complexities of late liberalism and its shifting and contradictory techniques of governance and surveillance through “recognition-espionagecamouflage” (povinelli, 2011, p. 30). in other words, the bear figure allows us to map, through practices of storying, situated intricacies of late liberal settler colonial worldings, including the “stakes, alliances, and action of a much-enhanced array of constituents and producers of what may count as fact” (haraway, 1997, p.270). through our stories, we inquire into how bears become in late liberalism both “creatures of imagined possibility and creatures of fierce and ordinary reality” (haraway, 2008, p. 5), and how these figurations come to matter as late liberal settler colonial worldings in everyday bear-child encounters. exploring how figures come to matter permits us to ask: what “otherwise” stories might be told of our relating to bears that disrupt the story written through late liberal colonial imaginaries? how might we negotiate this slippery reworking of stories in ways that do not romanticize and appropriate bear-child relations? multi-layered stories of bear-human and bear-child entanglements in this section we trace human/bear entanglements across time and space in north america, but we pay close attention to the territories now referred to as bc. we consider bears both as the animals that have roamed across north america for millennia, and as the various bear figures that are brought into being through entanglements with humans. these     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 34 entanglements have never, and do not, occur in neutral space; rather they are layered upon diverse histories and play out in varied presents, all of which are tied to processes of colonization, continued colonialisms, and the topographies carved by late liberalism. we begin by presenting the figure of the bear in bc, and follow by briefly tracing stories of bear-human entanglements as colonialist efforts in late liberal times. then, we introduce stories of how bear-human encounters are making headlines in bc, and turn to stories that describe bears as dangerous animals and stories that situate bears in ‘bear country’. stories of bear commodification and stories of the management and control of bear-human encounters are also addressed. all of these stories are layered upon stories from early childhood classrooms and children’s literature as well as news media to trace threads of bear-child entanglements. first though, we have a few words of caution for the reader. storying through a harawayian figure does not mean that we tell stories in a logical manner or that we make orderly and tidy inferences that could neatly fit in a box. we do not engage with the stories presented here in order to arrive at the ‘truth’. our goal instead is to pull and tangle threads by constantly linking stories to see what they do together. we are interested in entanglements. our stories are entangled, not neatly packaged together, without following a linear trajectory. the stories aggregate; they add up to create other stories and to disrupt taken for granted stories. they are stories that grapple with troubles, with connections that trouble us, but have no generalized moral teachings nor are they finished stories of grandiose research findings. they do, however, have “consequences for response-ability” (haraway, 2012, p. 312), which we will address in the last section of this paper. bears in british columbia british columbia is home to the grizzly and the black bear. it is estimated that 18,000 years ago, black bears lived in two temperate refugia on the continent, and are believed to have spread out over north america following glacial melting at the end of the last ice age (government of british columbia, 2001). encounters with black bears, who are far more numerous than grizzlies, are the most common type of bear-human meeting in bc. in 2001, the black bear population in bc was estimated between 120,000 and 160,000, which accounted for approximately 25% of the black bear population in canada (government of british columbia, 2001). depending on the climate, black bears will hibernate for several months during the year, with bears in the interior and the north of the province hibernating for up to 7 months per year (government of british columbia, 2001). black bear cubs are born during hibernation, and weigh only half a kilogram or less at birth. female black bears are solely responsible for raising their cubs, and nurse them for quite some time. as more and more black bears become accustomed to having access to a year round supply of garbage, hibernation patterns seem to be changing, with some bears not going into     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 35 hibernation at all (government of british columbia, 2001). bears require large amounts of food, and have diverse diets depending on the season and the context in which they find themselves. in their natural habitats, bears eat small and large mammals, berries, salmon, fruit, nuts, and vegetable matter (government of british columbia, 2001). they are opportunistic eaters (dempsey, 2010) that seek out high-energy foods that do not necessitate the expenditure of high amounts of energy to access (government of british columbia, 2001), which is why they find human garbage so attractive. bears play a vital role in larger eco-systems, particularly through their eating habits. for instance, “the transport of seeds via bear droppings aids the dispersal of many species of berry-producing shrubs. along salmon spawning streams, bear feces and the remains of fish carried into the woods contribute to the long-term nutrient cycle in oldgrowth forest” (government of british columbia, 2001, p. 4). the spirit, or kermode bear, is found in the temperate rainforests along the pacific coast of bc, and is a subspecies of the black bear. the spirit bear most often has a white or cream-colored coat due to a recessive gene mutation that is passed down by both parents. the name spirit bear is thought to possibly come from a first nations name, however the tsimshian people refer to it today as “moskgm’ol” or “white bear” (first nations drum website, 2012). the kitasoo/xaixais people believe that these bears are a remnant and reminder of the last ice age (first nations drum website, 2012, par. 3). local first nations never hunted white bears, and managed to keep their existence hidden from settlers and traders throughout the bc fur trade (barcott, 2011). as we noted in the introduction, bears are not imaginary, distant creatures to children in bc. this is evident in the stories we included in the preface. but there are also plenty of opportunities for children to learn about bears and bear facts through literature. the literature though is very diverse. cute bears abound in children’s storybooks (coats, 2013). as coats (2013) writes, "the ubiquitous rise of the teddy since 1903 has given the cuddly sort of bear a firm place in most modern children's hearts… there are sleepless bears, scary bears, wise old bears, magical bears, sad bears and spaceman bears…” (par. 1). in fact, these are probably the kinds of stories that might resonate the most with children, educators and families. yet, these stories are far removed from the bears that live in bc. the kinds of narratives deployed in these books work to distance children from the relations that sustain humans and other species on this land—and we expand on this below. the real-life bears that children in bc might encounter are depicted in stories such as s is for spirit bear: a british columbia alphabet” (2006), written by roberts and illustrated by doucet. this book entices different kinds of relationships with bears than the children’s storybooks described by coats (2013). s is for spirit bear, distributed to all kindergarten children in the province, makes interesting and particular connections between the “natural” world and children’s worlds. it also suggests/presents non-human others in     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 36 what is now considered bc as distinctly bc, as “belonging” to the province and thus doing important work to construct and deploy ideas about bc as ‘the most beautiful place on earth’. these kinds of narratives are not innocent in that they have become a late liberal colonial campaign to sell the province’s non-human others as tourist attractions. the protection of bears as resources for tourism is the primary message in s is for spirit bear. bears need to be protected because they provide a return. the attachment between children and bear here is created through the idea of ‘loving pristine nature’ and ‘saving the planet’. interestingly, while children are intentionally exposed to these messages, the province continues to expand the fast growing extraction of minerals from the land. ironically, the profits from mineral extraction go towards funding the production of s is for spirit bear and the overall provincial (although lacking) early childhood system. we begin to see here the types of frictional and messy bear-child entanglements that constitute the focus of this paper. the complex narratives in these children’s books are part of, as povinelli (2011) says, late liberal colonialism and they are deployed through “aggregating practices, incessantly fixing phenomena and consubstantiating practices” (p. 8). within late liberalism, as with any other social imaginary, certain forms of life are made (become) possible. yet, as povinelli (2013) explains, every form of emergence (every new possibility) is coupled with a form of extinguishment. although a liberal imaginary might (mis)lead us to think that we can pluralize everything infinitely, or simply ‘make room’ for new forms of life, what is always at stake in this social imaginary is life itself something (another way or form of life) has to be extinguished. in other words, the cost of something emerging is the extinguishment of something else. bear-human entanglements and colonial ties the frictional bear-human entanglements we are beginning to thread can be traced historically through the colonization, theft and settlement of land in north america. dempsey (2010) emphasizes that settlers’ accounts and records of expeditions in the west highlight numerous instances of human encounters with grizzlies. historically, bears feeding on the cattle and sheep of settlers were killed, and this eventually resulted in their wholesale extermination over large parts of north america (dempsey, 2010). describing the grizzly bear’s dangerous interface with the colonizer’s mission, dempsey (2010) writes: “grizzly bears posed specific economic threats, but were also considered more generally as ‘dangerous impediments to progress’ by colonial settlers, undoubtedly influencing the pace of killing and ‘civilizing' of the landscape” (p. 1143). colonization and the emergence of capitalist markets thrust bears into the heart of biopolitical concerns, whereupon their survival was calculated according to the cold science of economics and the necropolitics (mbembe, 2001) of colonization. this calculated     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 37 swapping of life – the extinguishment of one form of life for the emergence of another (povinelli, 2011) – grew out of the violence of colonization, and continues today through the neo-colonialist processes inherent to late liberalism that shape bear-human entanglements in bc. there were other concerns and forces at play in bear-human entanglements after the arrival of european settlers than the safety of livestock. dempsey (2010) asserts, “…while the eradication of bears was impelled by economic rationales, it was also a part of a project of producing `biosecurity'” (p. 1144), which facilitated the understanding and description of practices whose primary goal was/is to make human life safe (collard, 2012). the threat (real or imagined) of large predators to human life justifies protective measures through, as bingham (2008) explains, the regulation, monitoring, and halting of movements of certain bodies. as we will explore through the news story below about a recent bear attack in bc, bears who attack humans are often rendered “killable” through the way in which they “[unmake] safe space” (collard, 2012, p. 35). as european settlers scrambled westwards across what is now referred to as canada, an imagined country began to take shape. the west coast was the last region in southern canada to be colonized, and images and stories of pure, untamed wilderness and ‘real’ natives soon fed the national imaginary. bears became part of this imaginary. braun (2002) explains that by the 1880s, the west coast of canada had been produced as a distinct region in the canadian national imaginary and bourgeois travelers flocked to the inside passage (a route followed by boats that weaves between the islands of the pacific northwest and the mainland). braun (2002) writes: from the comfort of the ship deck one could view nature – and natives – as a passing spectacle. the effect of such distancing was to evacuate specific meanings assigned to places and incorporate them instead into a mythological space that had little to do with the lived details of particular sites and much more to do with discourses of european modernity and national history. (p. 220) this is still the case today in terms of ecotourism, which relies heavily on wildlife viewing tours. customers pay for the ability to gaze upon bears, wolves and whales in their natural habitats from the decks of boats along the coast of bc; an experience completely devoid of the traces of the contested and bloody entanglements that humans and bears have been embroiled in for the past 150 plus years. perhaps an example that still carries the image of the bear devoid of colonial struggles, depicts nature as pure and innocent, and presents the notion of trouble-free childhood separated from big predators, is one that many children encounter today in winnie the pooh (1926) written by british author a. a. milne. there are many excellent analyses of the story itself (for examples see hemmings, 2007; kutzer, 2000). what interests us for     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 38 the purpose of this paper are the links between the story and an actual bear. the story goes something like this. winnie the pooh was, in part, named after the toy bear winnie that belonged to milne’s son christopher. christopher had named his toy bear after a canadian black bear (originally called winnipeg) that he had fallen in love with through his regular visits to the london zoo where winnie was kept. the historica foundation of canada describes the colonial links of this ‘lovable bear’: winnipeg emigrated to britain along with her owner, captain harry colebourn, an army veterinary surgeon in the canadian military. in 1915, as world war i raged, captain colebourn was sent to the front in france. unable to take winnipeg along, he donated her to the london zoo, where she quickly became a star attraction. colebourn purchased winnipeg in white river, ontario from a trapper who had killed the cub's mother. she was named after colebourn's hometown. (winnie, 2008, par. 34) through winnie the pooh, we thus find traces of british imperialism, the colonization of canada, and the subordination of the black bear to the whims and viewing pleasure of european settlers. this is not to say that a child who encounters winnie the pooh understands these complex forces, however the figure of the bear conjured in this story carries with it a history that still bears traces of the colonialist, imperialist dynamics that brought the story into being. bears in the news while bear-human entanglements stretch back thousands of years, actual encounters between bears and humans in bc are increasingly common as cities, suburbs, agriculture and industry sprawl outwards into bears’ natural habitats. forestry and mining industries cut into larger and larger swaths of the landscape, while more humans venture into the wilderness as part of the province’s burgeoning eco-tourism industry. for example, the government of bc advertises the province as ‘the most beautiful place on earth’. yet, these narratives of unspoiled wilderness work to serve the ongoing colonial project (braun, 2002) as what seems to be ‘pure’ untouched areas were often created by depopulation through colonial practices (povinelli, 2012); meanwhile urban and industrial encroachment into bears’ habitats continue. bear-human entanglements can be peaceful, but are increasingly bloody. here, we turn to the nature of some of these entanglements, and what is produced through them.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 39 as we write this paper, several bear attacks in bc are in the news. bear-human encounters in bc are not uncommon, and the media diligently covers the bear-human conflicts in which bears are the perpetrators of an attack. one of the most recent incidents was covered by an article appearing july 5th, 2013 on the canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc) website: “grizzly bear attack of bc men brings terror and screams”. two men in the kootenay region of the province who were scouting for a deer hunt inadvertently found themselves between a mother bear and her cub. the men recount that with no warning, the bear attacked, swatting at them and swinging one man through the air and down a hill. the bear spray that one man used was ineffective. “the most terrifying part was i was so vulnerable, head down hill, feet up. i was screaming. her face was no more than a foot from my boot. and she turned around and left" (cbc, 2013, par. 11). in accordance with law in provincial parks, the rifle that one of the men was carrying was unloaded at the time of the attack. officers at the scene asserted that the men did everything right, and that this was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. the bear in this encounter was also deemed “not to blame” as this type of behavior is considered normal when a bear is caught off guard by the presence of humans; particularly when a human comes between a mother and its cub. mother bear stories are not uncommon in early childhood education. in the following dialogue two educators during one of our research focus groups (paciniketchabaw et al., forthcoming), discuss how they feel about protecting a child who was excluded from ‘princess play’ because her skin is brown. miriam: but then that brings up for me … i am really protective of that little girl. for me, i don’t want her to be the subject of a big, intense conversation about why she’s different. i, you know, i’ve got that ferocity … of protection... i get that really ferocious. gaile: mother bear. miriam: mother bear! absolutely. gaile: oh ya. [laughing] miriam: absolutely. so i – i wanted to protect that little girl. i don’t want anybody to be making her uncomfortable with herself. gaile: mmm hmm. miriam: so, i’d love to talk about it. but i’m afraid to, because i don’t know … if i can protect her, or how i would protect her.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 40 in the above excerpt, the mother-bear figure is used to respond to a racialized encounter in the classroom. we have thought about the complexities of this story in other publications (di tomasso, 2012; pacini-ketchabaw et al., forthcoming). here we highlight the geo-historical circumstances of this event. we are reminded that this dialogue, as well as the encounter that is discussed, take place in colonized space, stolen-unceded land, as well as in bear country/habitat. appropriation and displacement take place on different levels simultaneously, and we wonder: who has the right to the mother-bear figure in colonized, colonialist space? what kinds of pasts-presents are conjured when non-indigenous educators and researchers on stolen land (stolen from all indigenous inhabitants, including bears) invoke the figure of the mother-bear in a move to "protect" a racialized child from the materiality of her own body? and, importantly, what kinds of responses were rendered impossible through the utilization of the mother-bear figure in this context? although the “mother-bear” instincts that are often referred to in early childhood settings may be taken as a simple figure of speech, these affective engagements with bears are charged with late liberal colonial narratives, defined through relations of power that bring about displacement and appropriation. as povinelli (2011) reminds us, late liberal colonialist discourses of protection and recognition may appear to care for ‘difference’, while also working to keep the other ‘in place’ without agency or with agency defined by the ‘protector’. while “late liberalism is a belated response to the challenge of social difference and the alternative social worlds and projects potentially sheltered there”, late liberalism continues colonial violences in that it allows “cultures a space within liberalism without rupturing the core frameworks of liberal justice” (p. 26). povinelli continues: “in late liberalism to care for difference is to make a space for culture to care for difference without disturbing key ways of figuring experience ordinary habitual truths” (p. 26). in the case of the dialogue, the mother-bear invocation maintains, as we outlined above, certain bodies situated within the temporalities and spatialities of the settler state. a second news story that is relevant to our discussion describes a black bear attack in an urban area. appearing on the canadian television network (ctv) news website on july 12, 2013, an article entitled “man nursing scratches after mission black bear attack” describes a man that was lunged at by a bear on a walking path near several busy streets in the town of mission, bc. the human involved in this attack was also deemed to have ‘done everything right’, but in this case, the bear’s behavior surpassed what is considered acceptable, normal, or safe. a conservation officer interviewed on video about the attack asserted, “as a result of its behavior and the aggressive type nature, we’ll probably have to put this animal down”. these stories are complex renderings of layered dynamics and forces that imbue encounters between bears and humans with particular meanings. the notions in both news articles of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, safety, and protection reveal the ways in     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 41 which humans attempt to manage and police space and the encounters that occur therein between human and non-humans. the intensity and type of attention these media articles generate are indicative of society’s fascination with bears, and fear of them. as neighbors and as natural inhabitants of bc’s perceived untamed wilderness, bears have a particular hold on imaginaries in settler societies. bear figures in settler colonial late liberal space are also utilized in specific ways to conjure up particular types of humans: bears used as symbols of unspoiled wilderness are thus considered representative of the province’s robust environmental protection laws; bears constructed as victims position humans as their benevolent protectors; and bears as wild, fearsome aggressors construct humans as vulnerable victims in need of protection. these various entanglements between bears and humans produce particular figurations of both bear and human, which are the product of late liberalism, and also inscribe the landscape of late liberalism with the messy, bloody, unfinished traces of these encounters. bear country most of bc rests on what some environmentalists refer to as ‘bear country’. this phrase in and of itself is interesting, as the provincial government, municipalities, industry, businesses, and human residents seem to be embroiled in a continuous battle to delineate and enforce bear-free space. for reasons that we discuss in more depth later on, this has become an increasingly difficult task. bears populate every corner of the province, and are considered plentiful enough by the government to allow bear hunting licenses in the majority of the province’s regions. when one thinks about ‘bear country’, images such as the photo shown in figure 9, (taken during one of lara’s hiking trips in golden, bc, home to both grizzly and black bears), may flash before one’s eyes: wide open expanses, roaring rivers, towering mountains, and no apparent trace of human development.   figure 9       canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 42 this image also populates children’s imaginations when they explore the forest. in the encounter bears in the forest (presented in the preface of this paper), the bear as a creature that roams natural, untouched land devoid of human presence is part of children’s imaginaries. bears become the mysterious creatures that live in places that are outside of children’s worlds. perhaps this is even more salient in dangerous bears, where children and the educators are visiting the ‘bear home’. however, ‘bear country’ looks increasingly like figure 10 (retrieved from city of coquitlam, n.d.) below: pavement, street signs, condominiums, manicured lawns, and garbage bins. are these the worlds that children are ‘becoming with’ in bear scenes (the story introduced in the preface of this paper)? perhaps there is more to bear scenes than just innocent dramatic play or problematic representations of ‘real’ bears. might encounters such as bear scenes be the spaces where children and bears breathe and “grapple inside the flesh” (haraway, 2007, p. 4) of the contradictions and tensions of late liberal colonial relations? and, just as important, how do we respond to these contradictions and tensions in early childhood classrooms? figures 9 and 10 depict encounters that tell us about the ways in which bears and humans consistently disturb the boundaries between human-space and bear-space that have been arranged through late liberal colonial relations. borders have been established in an effort to construct safe and appropriate spaces for humans (including human children, as the bear aware encounter presented in the preface demonstrates). often bears pay a much heavier price for transgressing those boundaries than humans do. going back to povinelli   figure 10     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 43 (2013) we can remind ourselves that in late liberal colonial times there are always lives that need to be extinguished in order for other forms of life to flourish. yet, we are by no means suggesting that we should put children at risk of an encounter with bears. we do want to point out however that these are the very risky situations of life and death in which we swim in late liberal colonialism. bears as commodities we begin here with we're going on a bear hunt (2003) written by michael rosen and illustrated by helen oxenbury. this is a famous british children’s book that tells the story of five children, a baby and a dog going on a bear hunt. here is how the author describes the book: “the words were designed for a kind of play-song that you act out as you sing it. the book is an insight into a drama being faced by what is actually quite a vulnerable group: five children, a baby and a dog” (tims, 2012, par. 11). the song goes like this: we're going on a bear hunt. we're going to catch a big one. what a beautiful day! we're not scared uh-uh! grass! long wavy grass. we can't go over it. we can't go under it. oh no! we've got to go through it! swishy swashy! swishy swashy! swishy swashy!     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 44 we're going on a bear hunt. we're going to catch a big one. what a beautiful day! we're not scared. we're going on a bear hunt. we're going to catch a big one. what a beautiful day! we're not scared. uh-uh! a forest! a big dark forest. we can't go over it. we can't go under it. oh no! we've got to go through it stumble trip! stumble trip! stumble trip! what's that? one shiny wet nose! two big furry ears! two big googly eyes! it's a bear!!!! quick! back through the cave! tiptoe! tiptoe! tiptoe!     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 45 back through the snowstorm! hoooo woooo! hoooo woooo! back through the forest! stumble trip! stumble trip! stumble trip! back through the mud! squelch squerch! squelch squerch! back through the river! splash splosh! splash splosh! splash splosh! back through the grass! swishy swashy! swishy swashy! get to our front door. open the door. up the stairs. oh no! we forgot to shut the door. back downstairs. shut the door. back upstairs into the bedroom. into bed. under the covers. we're not going on a bear hunt again. we include this story here because it is one that is rehearsed every time we visit the forest with young children. it is the stories that become invisible and untold in early childhood spaces that we want to turn to as the ‘otherwise’ story of late liberal colonialism in the classroom. the hunt. bear country is contested space, for a multitude of reasons, and bears themselves have become a contested commodity within this space. take for example a recent disagreement between several first nations and the provincial government over the bear hunt. the most common, and the most bloody type of encounter between bears and humans in bc occurs as a result of the hunt of bears for sport. the tourism industry and the provincial government reap large profits from the bear hunt. the province sells hunting     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 46 licenses to hunters for trophy kills, and tourism companies sell hunters the promise of killing a bear. a canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc) online article (september 13, 2012) entitled “bear hunting ban declared by 10 b.c. first nations, but provincial government says only it has the authority to declare such a ban” provides an example of the contested meanings that circulate within late-liberal, colonialist space. in the article, william housty of the heiltsuk first nation asserts that bear trophy hunting threatens ecotourism opportunities for first nations and goes against the values of management and cultural beliefs of first nations people. he states, “because we have not ceded any of this land to anybody, we feel that we have a voice and should have a voice in how these lands are managed and this includes the bear hunt” (par.7). however, the hunting industry yields $350 million in revenues for the province annually (cbc, 2012) and the government is not about to relinquish jurisdictional power in this regard. in the article, bc minister of forests, steve thomson, states that the hunt is managed on “sound science” and is sustainable. instructively, metcalf (2008) explains: much contemporary north-american environmentalist and anti-environmentalist discourse relies on bears as a trope for human-wilderness relations, both to the betterment and detriment of actual bear populations. the stories we tell of bears can be both data and normatively compelling. but this use of bears as a model or trope for human experience is nothing new; it has unexpected echoes throughout the mythologies and materialities that inform our storytelling practices. one of the ways in which bears are presently figured as threats to late liberal capitalism is through their parallel figuration as a synecdoche for entire conservation regions (dempsey, 2010). dempsey (2010) explains that environmental campaigns to protect particular areas have used the cultural and discursive importance of bears, as well as their material needs for water, food and land, as arguments for increased environmental conservation and protection. therefore, we can also see the use of bears as a form of currency in battles waged between governments, industry, and environmental groups. this was especially true of the so-called “great bear rainforest” conservation initiative, concerned with the temperate rainforest that stretches up the length of bc’s coast. bears are still used as symbols of the rainforest and the advocacy organizations that have sprung up to protect this massive area. an example of bears used as symbols is the upcoming move to advertise the storybook spirit bear (2013), written by jennifer harrington and illustrated by michael arnott, as an ‘eco-book’ (the story and illustrations are available on the publisher’s     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 47 website). the publisher, who specializes in books that promote children’s love for reading and environmental conservation, describes the purpose of the book as follows: spirit bear is an entertaining, educational book intended to raise awareness about the spirit bears of british columbia, whose habitat is currently under threat by the proposed northern gateway and trans-mountain oil pipelines. this book has been researched in order to make it as biologically accurate as possible, so that teachers may use it in their biology curriculum. the book will be accompanied by free resource materials for educators to make it easy for them to implement spirit bear into their lesson plans. spirit bear will be available as an ebook, and as a paperback printed on 100% recycled paper with an fsc cover. (par. 2-3) as the discussion up to this point elucidates, bears are incredibly powerful symbols that conjure up particular realities and imaginaries. they teeter on a fine line in lateliberalism – the line between their figuration as profitable, exploitable commodities, and/or their figuration as threats to both human safety and economic development. and as the stories in the preface show, these figurations are very much present in early childhood classrooms. bear-human entanglements as subjects of management and control one of the effects of the frictional figurations of bears as both threats and victims is the perceived imperative to manage their existence and strictly control bear-human encounters. read together, the bear-child encounters storied in the preface illustrate these frictional figurations. practices of management and control center on two main purposes: the mitigation of threat and the assurance of future economic gain. one of the preconditions for the effective management and control of animal bodies is the ordering of the animal world. lugones (2007) argues that global capitalism is contingent upon colonialist classifications of the world’s human population into racialized groups. taking this idea one step further, it is possible to assert that late liberalism is dependent upon neo-colonialist classifications of both human and non-human others on the planet. beginning during europe’s colonization of most of the globe, and stemming from darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection, western science has sought to order the animal world (collard, 2012). as the two news articles described earlier on in this paper highlight, although bears are constantly classified (through identification, delimitation of their territory and so on),     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 48 bears continually adapt and disrupt the boundaries created by humans, and are therefore often positioned as existing in conflict to humans (see collard (2012) for a similar argument about cougars). a large amount of resources are dedicated to creating and disseminating information about bears to the public in bc. many cities’ websites in the province list behaviors and measures that humans are expected to adopt in order to avoid such bloody entanglements, stating for instance, “bears cannot change their behaviour but we can” (city of nelson, n.d.). the bear aware bc organization is “an educational program designed to prevent and reduce conflicts between people and bears in our communities” (bear aware b.c., n.d.). the bear aware program uses discourses of protection to bring both the safety of humans, and the survival of bears, under its mandate. aside from listing recent bear sightings from around the province, the bear aware website also houses a number of educational resources, grouped under the heading: be bear aware, conflict prevention, safety, and education. as evidenced by all of the organization’s resources, bears are a powerful constitutive force of both space in bc and the ways in which humans come to perceive their relationship to this space. the bear aware encounter in the preface provides a rich example of this. what is important to recall here is that the management and control of bear-human entanglements do not affect both humans and bears equally. late liberal practices decide which species “will, and should, live and die, and how” (haraway, 2008 p. 18). the spaces in which children and bears come together in early childhood classrooms in colonialist bc are contentious, and their relationships are embroiled in complex and evolving dynamics informed by notions of safety and conservation; influenced by sociopolitico-economic forces, and shaped through affective investments (ahmed, 2004) in fear, love and protection. responding to bear-child entanglements this paper presented multi-layered stories of bear-child entanglements in early childhood classrooms, as always entangled in past-present social imaginaries. we addressed specifically how such entanglements become and function in late liberal colonialist spaces, as well as how these various bear-child entanglements occur within multiple temporal and spatial layers. as the reader might already have anticipated, we cannot provide clear answers regarding what to do in practice. in other words, we are not in a position to outline a set of guidelines on how educators should teach children about bears, or nature for that matter. yet, we are deeply convinced, as taylor (2013) is, that we are to take these messy entanglements seriously in early childhood education. as ‘researchers’ and ‘practitioners’ we are committed to think through what it might entail to respond to the troubles that these     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 49 encounters bring, to acknowledge our own implication in these encounters, and to care for the world we are in—in other words, to stay with the trouble itself. we agree with metcalf (2008) who writes: when bears and humans encounter each other, how they encounter each other should not be taken for granted. when bears are encountered as wild on the trail, in legislatures, in environmentalist literature, or ancient mythology, all the tropes of wildness—nuisance, threat, free, untamable, mystical— must be interrogated as the effect of a specific material and conceptual apparatus, not as difference that preexists the encounter and with which we can determinately justify a response. (p. 103) we therefore end this article by grappling with how we are attempting (partially and imperfectly) to respond to the obligations that animal-child encounters bring. because, as we have shown, these entanglements are highly messy and complex, we require situated responses that attend to the specificities of each entanglement. one of the authors, veronica, has been working with her colleague affrica taylor to explore how innovative common world pedagogies (taylor, 2013) might prepare young children to inherit and co-inhabit messy and complex postcolonial and multispecies worldsii. in common worlds pedagogies, taylor (2013) writes, “the pressing question is how to inherit, how to face, the living—and killing—past… in order to be able to move toward multispecies reconciliation” (p. 106). pacini-ketchabaw and taylor (2013) are currently working with educators to explore how classroom practices might place less focus on the boundaries between children and animals, and more focus on the possibilities that reside in the forms of relating and intersecting. thinking with animals in classrooms might require paying attention to the ways in which nonhumans are typically left out of children’s histories and futures. yet, these common world pedagogies do not assume harmony or balance in the form of a perfect equality in multispecies encounters. common world pedagogies are an ethico-political project that opens new channels of communication that take into account the messiness already inherent in that communication. fikile (one of the authors) is working in the classroom to address messy entanglements by bringing educators’ attention and responsiveness to place in ways that bring into view the multiple relationalities, tensions and complexities that are always already entangled prior to and within everyday pedagogical encounters. in her work, fikile highlights the fluidities, partialities and potential contradictions that emerge in each pedagogical encounter. she is experimenting with forms of responsive, accountable attention that make visible and create interruptions to connections to colonialisms in everyday encounters that might otherwise remain unnoticed. she is working with a     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 50 pedagogy of presencing (simpson, 2011) through stories that attend to indigenous relationalities, human-nonhuman entanglements and the ever-present settler colonial tensions that come together in the making of the particular ‘natural’ places that fikile encounters with children and educators. drawing inspiration from haraway (2008), she is interested in how knowledge-making that foregrounds more-than-human worlds might bring into view multiple stories and create openings towards pedagogies that engage in difficult conversations, disruptive understandings, and different unsettled place relations. through storying bear-child figures within the context of bc, we have attempted to show that early childhood education is inextricably entangled with the forces of late liberal colonialism. by making visible some of the endurances and emergences of late liberalism and its coalescence with colonialism in children’s concrete and imaginary worlds, we see possibilities for disrupting, interrupting, and confronting these late liberal colonial imaginaries on their slippery territories. by paying close attention to the multiple ways in which mobile late liberal colonialisms endure, re-assemble and mutate within the intensities of everyday encounters in the early childhood classroom, the children, the educators and we can begin the difficult work of responding to the messy worlds we have inherited and live in. references ahmed, s. (2004). the cultural politics of emotion. new york: routledge. altamirano-jimenez, i. (2013). indigenous encoutners with neoliberalism: place, women, and the environment in canada and mexico. vancouver, bc: ubc press. barcott (2011). spirit bear. retrieved from: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/kermodebear/barcott-text bear aware. (n.d.). retrieved from: http://www.bearaware.bc.ca/ bingham, n., enticott, g., & hinchliffe, s. (2008). biosecurity: spaces, practices, and boundaries. environment and planning a, 40, 1528-1533. braun, b. (2002). colonialism’s afterlife: vision and visuality on the northwest coast. cultural geographies, 9, 202–247. british columbia assembly of first nations (2012). about bcafn (british columbia assembly of first nations website). retrieved from: http://www.bcafn.ca/files/about-bcafn.php byrd, j. (2011). the transit of empire: indigenous critiques of colonialism. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 51 cameron, e. (2008). indigenous spectrality and the politics of postcolonial ghost stories. cultural geographies, 15, 383-393. cameron, e. (2010). environmental change in the north: toward different stories. retrieved from http://niche-canada.org/node/8966 cameron, e. (2011). copper stories: imaginative geographies and material orderings of the central canadian arctic. in a. baldwin, l. cameron, and a. kobayashi (eds.) rethinking the great white north: race, nature and the historical geographies of whiteness in canada (pp. 169-190). vancouver: ubc press. cameron, e. (2012). new geographies of story and storytelling. progress in human geography, 36 (5): 572591. canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc). (2012, september 13). bear hunting ban declared by 10 b.c. first nations. cbc news. retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britishcolumbia/story/2012/09/12/bc-natives-seek-bear-hunting-ban.html canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc). (2013, july 5). grizzly bear attack of b.c. men brings terror and screams. cbc news. retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britishcolumbia/story/2013/07/04/bc-fernie-grizzly-bear-attack.html city of coquitlam. (n.d.). bear aware coquitlam. retrieved from: http://www.coquitlam.ca/publicsafety/animal-pest-control/bear-aware-coquitlam.aspx city of nelson. (n.d.). bear awareness. retrieved from: http://www.nelson.ca/en/main/services/animalbylaw-services/bear-aware.html canadian television network (ctv). (2013, july 12). man nursing scratches after mission black bear attack. ctv news. retrieved from: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/man-nursing-scratches-after-mission-black-bearattack-1.1364420 coats, l. (2013, march 21). lucy coats's top 10 bear picture books. the guardian. retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/21/lucy-coats-top-10-bear-picture-books collard, r-c. (2012). cougar figures, gender, and the performances of predation. gender, place & culture: a journal of feminist geography, 19(4), 518-540. de la cadena, m. (2010). indigenous cosmopolitics in the andes: conceptual reflections beyond ‘politics’. cultural anthropology, 25(2), 334–370. dempsey, j. (2010). tracking grizzly bears in british columbia’s environmental politics. environment and planning, 42, 1138-1156. di tomasso, l. (2012). engaging with early childhood educators' encounters with race: an exploration of the discursive, material and affective dimensions of whiteness and processes of racialization (unpublished masters dissertation). university of victoria, victoria, b.c. first nations drum. (2012, july 29). coastal first nations declare ban on trophy bear hunting. retrieved from: http://www.firstnationsdrum.com/2012/11/coastal-first-nations-declare-ban-on-trophy-bearhunting/     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 52 first peoples’ heritage, language and culture council (2012). language (first peoples’ heritage, language and culture council webpage on language). retrieved from: http://www.fphlcc.ca/language government of british columbia. (2001). black bears in british columbia: ecology, conservation and management. retrieved from http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/blackbear.pdf haraway, d. (1995). otherwordly conversations, terran topics, local terms. in v. shiva & n. moser (eds.), biopolitics: a feminist and ecological reader on biotechnology (pp. 69–92). london, uk: palgrave macmillan. haraway, d. (1997). modest_witness@second_millennium.femaleman©_meets_onco mouse™: feminism and technoscience. new york: routledge. haraway, d. (2008). when species meet. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. haraway, d. (2012). awash in urine: des and premarin® in multispecies response-ability. wsq: women’s studies quarterly 40(1 & 2), 301-316. harrington, j., & arnott, m. (2013). spirit bear. retrieved from: http://ecobooks4kids.wordpress.com/spiritbear-childrens-book/ hemmings, r. (2007). a taste of nostalgia: children's books from the golden age-carroll, grahame, and milne. children's literature, 35, 54-79. kutzer, m. d. (2000). empire’s children: empire and imperialism in classic british children’s books. new york: garland. lugones, m. (2007). heterosexualism and the colonial / modern gender system. hypatia, 22(1), 186-209. mbembe, a. (2001). on the postcolony: studies on the history of society and culture. berkeley: university of california press. milne, a. a. (1926). winnie-the-pooh. london, uk: methuen. metcalf, j. (2008). intimacy without proximity: encountering grizzlies as a companion species. environmental philosophy, 5(2), 99–128. nxumalo, f., pacini-ketchabaw, v., & rowan, c. (2011). lunch time at the child care centre: neoliberal assemblages in early childhood education. journal of pedagogy, 2(2), 195–223. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., & rowan, c. (in press). researching neoliberal and neocolonial assemblages in early childhood education. international review of qualitative reasearch. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l, elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (forthcoming) journeys: complexifying early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on, canada: university of toronto press. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & taylor, a. (2013, june). learning to inherit and respond to the challenges of the anthropocene: toward an early years multispecies pedagogy. paper presented at the “7th world environmental education congress”, marrakech, morocco. povinelli, e.a. (2011). economies of abandonment: social belonging and endurance in late liberalism. durham: duke university press.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 53 povinelli, e. (2012, november). geontologies: indigenous transmedia in the anthropocene. public lecture, john e. sawyer seminar on the comparative study of cultures. indigenous cosmopolitics: dialogues about the reconstitution of worlds, delivered at university of california davis. retrieved from: http://webcast.ucdavis.edu/llnd/2f1933c povinelli, e. a. (2013, january). geontologies: a requiem to late liberalism. keynote lecture, haus de kulturen der welt anthropocene project, delivered at humboldt-universität, berlin, germany. retrieved from: http://www.hkw.de/en/programm/2013/anthropozaen/multimedia_anthropozaen/video_anthropozaen/vi deo_anthropozaen.php rosen, m. & oxenbury, h. (2003). we're going on a bear hunt. new york: margaret k. mcelderry books. tims, a. (2012, november 5). how we made: helen oxenbury and michael rosen on ‘we're going on a bear hunt’. the guardian. retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/05/how-we-madebear-hunt simpson, l. (2011). dancing on our turtle’s back: stories of nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence, and a new emergence. winnipeg: arbeiter ring publishers. taylor, a., blaise, m., & giugni, m. (2013). haraway’s ‘bag lady story-telling’: relocating childhood and learning within a ‘post-human landscape’. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 34(1), 48-62. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures and cultures of childhood. london: taylor & francis. timeto, f. (2011). diffracting the rays of technoscience: a situated critique of representation. poiesis and praxis, 8(2–3), 151–167. tsing, a. (2005). friction: an ethnography of global connection. princeton, nj: princeton university press. winnie. (n.d.). historica minutes, the historica foundation of canada. retrieved from: https://www.historicadominion.ca/content/heritage-minutes/winnie endnotes                                                                                                                           i  we use both ‘bear-human’ and ‘bear-child’ entanglements. when we refer to bear-human, we include children. bear-child is used when we are referring specifically to encounters between children and bears. at times we also refer to ‘bear-child/human’ to combine both bear-human and bear-child.       ii  see http://commonworlds.net canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca   08  fall     in this issue: from the editor’s desk special issue: neoliberalism guest editor dr. luigi iannacci, phd, trent university, peterborough, ontario i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, fikile nxumalo producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education by cristina d. vintimilla radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by kim atkinson call for contributions: ‘the visual arts in early childhood education’ find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca canadian-children-vol-39-1-pacini-ketchabaw-tomasso-nxumalo in-this-issue microsoft word massing online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 73 to 99] www.cayc.ca professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing author’s bio christine  massing  is  a  doctoral  candidate  in  the  department  of  elementary   education  at  the  university  of  alberta,  specializing  in  early  childhood  education.  she   also  instructs  part  time  in  the  early  learning  and  child  care  program  at  grant   macewan  university.  prior  to  undertaking  her  studies,  christine  taught  in   guatemala,  japan,  mexico,  colombia,  egypt,  and  canada.  her  research  interests   include  immigrant  and  refugee  studies,  early  childhood  teacher  education,   professional  identity  construction,  adult-­‐child  interactions,  and  familial  involvement   in  child  care  programs.  email:  christine.massing@ualberta.ca   abstract this  one-­‐year  ethnographic  study  explored  how  immigrant  and  refugee  women   enrolled  in  an  early  childhood  teacher  education  program  constructed   understandings  of  the  authoritative  discourse  in  their  program  in  relation  to  their   personal  and  cultural  knowledges  and  beliefs.  this  article  focuses  on  the   participants’  processes  of  learning  to  speak  and  act  as  professionals  as  made  visible   in  their  play  interactions  with  children  in  their  field  placement  sites.  although  these   participants  were  expected  to  appropriate  normative  practices,  they  in  fact   dialogically  authored  their  own  hybridized  professional  identities  informed  by  their   own  understandings  and  the  authoritative  discourse.     keywords:  authoritative  discourse,  early  childhood  education,  immigrants  and   refugees,  play,  professional  identity,  teacher  education       canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   acknowledgements   i  am  grateful  to  my  research  participants  who  so  generously  welcomed  me  into  their   classes  and  field  placement  sites  and  shared  their  stories  and  experiences  with  me.  i   would  also  like  to  thank  my  doctoral  supervisor,  dr.  anna  kirova,  and  the  two   anonymous  reviewers  for  their  helpful  comments  on  this  paper.  my  doctoral   research  is  supported  by  the  social  sciences  and  humanities  research  council  of   canada  and  the  killam  trusts.       immigrant and refugee women may gravitate to the field of early childhood education (ece) for various reasons: to benefit from the availability of positions both nationally and provincially (beach, friendly, ferns, prabhu, & forer, 2008), to enter a field that is widely viewed as very accessible to newcomers (service canada, 2011), or to draw on the experience they gained as teachers, mothers, aunts, siblings, and grandmothers in their home countries (massing, 2014). it is unknown precisely how many immigrant and refugee women are employed in child care in alberta, where this study took place, though anecdotal observations suggest they form well over half of the urban workforce. statistics canada (2010) foretells that the ethnocultural diversity of canada’s population will increase dramatically by 2031, when one in three people is projected to be a visible minority, one in four is expected to be foreign born, and more than one-third of these individuals are anticipated to be children. in view of these projections, it is imperative to recruit and retain educators who represent these groups (souto-manning & dice, 2007) because they possess the life experiences, cultural bridging and mediation skills, and cultural knowledges needed for working with children and families from similar backgrounds (adair, tobin, & arzubiaga; 2011; bernheimer, 2003; guyton, saxton, & wesche, 1996; wilgus, 2013). however, immigrant and refugee women who seek to increase their qualifications by enrolling in an early childhood teacher education (ecte) diploma or certificate program experience unique challenges in their studies, particularly in field placements (ortlipp & nuttall, 2011).i students in ecte programs are widely believed to come with preexisting beliefs about teaching, learning, and the adult role which may be derived from their personal histories and theories (lopes & pereira, 2012; stenberg, karlsson, pitkaniemi, & maaranen, 2014), their experiences as students in the school system (brown & feger, 2010; furlong, 2013) their prior experiences working in the field (horsley & bauer, 2010), or their personal experiences as mothers or familial caregivers (osgood, 2012; vincent & braun, 2011). cultural background is deemed to play an especially powerful role in shaping one’s beliefs and practices (gupta, 2011; quiocho & rios, 2000). britzman (2003) has theorized that students are inhabited by “cultural myths” or stereotypes about what it means to be an educator informed by these personal biographies. students convey these myths about their professional role into their   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   coursework or field experiences, where they either inhibit or create possibilities for professional identity construction. immigrant and refugee women may experience an especially profound dissonance between the euro-north-american content and expectations of the program and their own cultural beliefs, knowledges, experiences, and values (gupta, 2006). previous research has suggested that these women feel compelled to adopt program expectations at the expense of their own beliefs (moles, 2014; nuttall & ortlipp, 2012). in this article, i describe how immigrant and refugee women enrolled in one ecte certificate program in urban alberta experienced this disjuncture while negotiating their professional identities. after describing the context, theory, literature, and methodology informing this study, i briefly outline the participants’ own experiences with learning, teaching, and play as a counterpoint to the “learning through play” theory studied in their coursework. then, i utilize a series of excerpts from my field observations in their field placement sites to make visible some of these negotiations. i argue that although these immigrant and refugee students were expected to appropriate normative professional practices, they in fact dialogically authored their own hybridized professional identities informed by both their personal biographies and the authoritative discourse of early childhood education. the context of the authoritative discourse discourses have been defined in a general sense as “ways of talking, listening, reading, writing, acting, interacting, believing, valuing and using tools and objects in particular settings and at specific times so as to display or recognize a particular social identity” (gee, hull, & lankshear, 1996, p. 10). bakhtin (1981) more explicitly described an authoritative discourse as being infused with historically derived power and authority, binding us and demanding “unconditional allegiance” (p. 343). in the ece field, western child development theory has long been upheld as the authoritative knowledge base. it is embodied within texts, policies, regulations, standards, and programs and has evolved into a set of defined, prescriptive ways of being with, teaching, and caring for young children. this quantifiable, scientific, technical knowledge exerts dominance over the practical knowledge that shapes our “daily actions in the world” (mclaren, 1989, p. 170). in the context of child care, practical knowledge emerges out of one’s personal experiences, beliefs, values, and relationships with children. reconceptualist scholars have long problematized this authoritative discourse for proposing a universal and essentialized childhood whereby all children progress through the same developmental stages irrespective of the familial, social, and cultural contexts in which they live their lives (e.g., cannella, 1997; lubeck, 1996; ludlow & berkley, 1994; dahlberg, moss, & pence, 1999, 2007). in spite of this critique, culture is still largely appended to the existing discourse (fleer, 2006).   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   educators’ professional knowledge, then, is predominantly defined as theoretical knowledge of western child development and “developmentally appropriate practices” (national association for the education of young children, 2009). accordingly, the dominant construction of the professional, moss (2006) argues, is that of a technician who assumes an educative role by transmitting and applying “a defined set of technologies through regulated processes to produce pre-specified and measurable outcomes” (p. 35). when the educator’s role is conceived of in such terms, professional autonomy is subsumed beneath the perceived power of the authoritative discourse (langford, 2010; osgood, 2006, 2012). urban (2008) explains that when professionalism is defined by these external frameworks, “it is almost impossible (for educators) to make judgements themselves in a way that is relevant for their actual working context (i.e., the particular children, families, and communities they are working with)” (p. 142). ecte programs similarly promote the view of the professional educator as a technician (lobman & ryan, 2007; woodrow, 2008) bound to the authoritative discourse as operationalized in provincial standards, regulations, and curriculum frameworks. these scientific approaches “necessarily eliminate culturally based understandings about teaching and learning that teacher candidates bring to their teacher preparation” (montecinos, 2004, cited in wilgus, 2013, p. 7). even if ecte programs are desirous of shifting toward a sociocultural framework, the pervasiveness of the authoritative discourse in field placement sites poses challenges to doing so (garavuso, 2013). this universal, mythologized view of the educator as a technician therefore perpetuates notions of identity as predetermined and immovable, something that is assumed rather than constructed (britzman, 2003). the authoritative discourse in alberta in the alberta context, regulated child care centres or family day homes are overseen by the ministry of human services and existing frameworks privilege child development knowledge. for example, the child care licensing act (government of alberta, 2013a) defines programs and types of staff certification and mandates program requirements with a particular emphasis on the health and safety of children and children’s developmental needs and capabilities. the government of alberta (2013b) delineates three levels of staff certification (child development assistant, worker, or supervisor) incorporating some child development coursework. while there is no official code of ethics, the alberta child care accreditation program (accap) standards expand on the legislation to promote and measure program “quality” (alberta association for accreditation of early learning services, 2011). according to lirette (2012), though, the standards, outcomes, and indicators are rigidly defined, prescribing very specific interactional styles and practices within the dominant construction of professionalism. these “official” definitions of professional practice foreground the authoritative discourse and advance narrow definitions of what the professional educator should do   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   (fenech, sumison, & shepherd, 2010), thus marginalizing educators’ own practical knowledges (colley, 2006; moyles, 2001). conceptual framework: communities of practice this study is framed by sociocultural-historical theory (vygotsky, 1978) and informed by lave and wenger’s (1991) concept of communities of practice. in any community of practice, as ece is commonly conceived to be (egan, 2009; fleer, 2003)ii, members are mutually engaged in joint enterprise as they develop a shared repertoire of practice, including actions, language, and artifacts (wenger, 1998). as new members (or “newcomers”) actively participate with others and gain access to the community’s historically developed sources for understanding, they move closer to becoming full, legitimate participants. ecte instructors and field placement supervisors (“oldtimers”) might apprentice students (newcomers) into the community by helping them develop the skills and knowledges required for future employment in ece settings. these “sources for understanding” might include the licensing regulations, accreditation standards, policies, developmental theories, and day-to-day practices that constitute the authoritative discourse as understood by that particular community. identity, which wenger (1998) has conceptualized as the counterpart to practice, is defined by several elements, including negotiated experience, community membership, a learning trajectory, a nexus of multimembership, and a relation between the local and the global. first of all, wenger (1998) explains that “we define who we are by the ways we experience our selves through participation as well as by the ways we and others reify our selves” (p. 149). the experience of engaging in practice with others allows one to produce an identity within the community. in addition, becoming a full member by achieving a certain level of competence or expertise in the authoritative discourse contributes to identity formation (see also karila, 2008; thomas, 2012). wenger (2000) maintains that newcomers are perceived as knowing or having learned if they have not only gained competence in the ways of acting, speaking, and being in the community, but also can apply their own personal experience to redefine these competencies. as sachs (2003) has written, this personal dimension, including experiences, beliefs, and values, influences how each individual “translates” and enacts the authoritative discourse. hence identity develops in relation as other members of the community contribute to the formation of the self and the individual defines herself in relation to others. identity is also conceived of as a nonlinear learning trajectory, thus identity construction is temporal, fluid, and continuously shifting (wenger, 1998). it is an ongoing negotiation among the past, present, and future shaped by the oldtimers’ and the newcomers’ individual and collective sense making in specific sociocultural contexts. a trajectory leading to admission or acceptance in the community satisfies a desire for recognition (packer & goicoechea, 2000) and fosters a sense of belonging in the   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   individual (moloney, 2010). packer and goicoechea (2000) explain that becoming a legitimate member in a community of practice may define who we are, but “also confronts us as something alien, so we are divided from ourselves and need to discover ourselves” (p. 234). in other words, the process of negotiating an identity is a struggle wherein the individual may become ontologically split between the person they once were (“back home,” for example) and the person they are becoming in the community. next, identity in practice always represents an interplay between the local and the global (wenger, 1998). for instance, ortlipp, arthur, and woodrow (2011) argue that since local practice is informed by regulations, standards, and curriculum documents, changes in these frameworks impact professional identity construction, especially in new educators. finally, individuals always belong to multiple communities, which may deviate in terms of ways of being and acting. for this reason, educators move fluidly among multiple, often competing, discourses in practice (alsup, 2006; miller marsh, 2003). field placements, lamote and engels (2010) clarify, may represent a new culture or community with norms and values that differ from those in the program. immigrants and refugees also experience a disjuncture between discourses as they move from one context and belief system to another (wenger, 1998). bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) conceptualizations of internally persuasive discourse and dialogism further elucidate how these students might negotiate these discontinuities. dialogism and internally persuasive discourse when newcomers participate in the practice of a community, as in the field placement site or workplace, it permits them to learn “how to talk (and be silent) in the manner of full participants” (lave & wenger, 1991, p. 105). this aspect of the apprenticeship is particularly important given that professions have a social language (bakhtin, 1986); that is, there are distinct types of jargon, words, and phrases that one must access and utilize to be construed as a professional. this shared social language is structured by the authoritative discourse, functioning as the “language of truth” bound to ideology and a specific worldview (bakhtin, 1981, p. 367). since one must have mastered english to learn the social language, immigrant and refugee students who are still in the receptive stage of english language acquisition may have difficulties apprehending the social language. bakhtin further theorizes that because all languages are historically and collectively developed, they derive meaning and power from the heteroglossia, or the context in which they are spoken or written. consequently whenever we speak, our utterances are deemed to be half our own and half someone else’s, situated in both the past and the present: “one may speak of another’s discourse only with the help of that alien discourse” (bakhtin, 1981, p. 355). our voice becomes our own only when we imbue words with our own intentions, accents, and meanings (wertsch, 1998). these concepts apply not only to language as in words and texts, but also more broadly to actions, practices, knowledges, ideas, beliefs, and values.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   the authoritative discourse, as inscribed formally in texts and regulations and informally in ways of speaking, acting, being, and knowing within the community of practice, is not merely transmitted to a passive learner. rather, it must be or become what bakhtin (1981) called an internally persuasive discourse, “tightly interwoven with one’s own word” (p. 345). matusov and von duyke (2010) emphasize that a discourse comes to be internally persuasive to the individual when the meaning of these words, knowledges, approaches, and ideas are negotiated, questioned, and tested by the student in dialogue with others, with the self, and with discourse. this process may present unique challenges to immigrant and refugee learners. if dialogue is the basis for composing internally persuasive discourses, then language can create disadvantage for these students. furthermore, since discourse is embedded in the heteroglossia, students who are new to canada do not have full access to the traditions and meanings of these words, approaches, and ideas (landay, 2004). phrases and words such as “learning through play” and “childcentred practice” present as abstract ideas that have been reified into a context-bound set of practices confronting immigrant and refugee students as “alien” (fleer, 2003; wenger, 1998). finally, these students are far more likely to find dissonance between the “ideologically saturated” authoritative discourse (bakhtin, 1981, p. 271) and their own personally and culturally formed beliefs, values, and worldviews, as outlined in the section that follows. culturally and linguistically diverse ecte students and educators to date, very few studies focus on the experiences of immigrant and refugee early childhood educators or ecte students, especially in relation to professional identity development, but existing studies do provide some insights into their encounters with the authoritative discourse. in the context of ecte programs, moles (2014), who interviewed immigrant ecte students in new zealand, stated that the students had contested identities because their perspectives on the role of the teacher were not represented in the dominant discourse. for example, one student with a well-established identity as a leader and holder of knowledge in her cultural community shared that she struggled to make sense of the program content since “the things i knew are not here” (p. 173). when langford (2007) interviewed instructors and analyzed textbooks and student assignments, she found that canadian instructors utilized child development theory to quash diverse students’ own cultural and linguistic knowledges. the diverse student, langford claims, appears to be “viewed as less competent (and thus is more marginalized) because first she must learn discourses that are assumed to be commonsense, and second she must shed cultural and material practices (such as teacherdirection) incompatible with those of the good ece” (langford, 2006, p. 118). not surprisingly, by the end of the program most of the students purged any of their cultural practices and beliefs that competed with the notion of the “good” early childhood educator, retaining only superficial signifiers of their cultural identities in practice. in australia, nuttall and ortlipp (2012) interviewed culturally and linguistically diverse   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   students after their field placements. positioned by her supervisor within a discourse of “difference as deficit,” one student commented that she needed to “become someone she would not be ‘in real life’” in order to pass her placement (p. 57). she reconstructed her identity as an educator by erasing her difference and imitating her supervisor. these findings were consistent with those in the much more substantial body of literature on international or internationally trained preservice teachers in the field of teacher education, which emphasize that students need to change their beliefs and practices to successfully fit in the existing system (e.g., agbenyega, 2012; cho, 2010; feuerverger, 1997; myles, cheng, & wang, 2006; walsh, brigham, & wang, 2011). consequently, the perceived power of the authoritative discourse may lead these immigrant and refugee ecte students to engage in “performative professionalism” (taggert, 2011), suppressing their personal and cultural beliefs in favour of enacting the professional practices expected in the community of practice. with respect to practicing educators, adair, tobin, and arzubiaga (2011) found that “many immigrant teachers described their journey to becoming professional as one of having to give up old beliefs as well as to acquire new ones” because they were made to believe that their cultural knowledges were incompatible with the professional knowledge they had learned in the ecte program and workplace (p. 11). jipson (1991) concurred that diverse educators adopted practices which they personally found to be “culturally inappropriate.” huijbregts, leseman, and tavecchio’s (2008) quantitative findings propose that immigrant and refugee educators trained in holland adhered closely to the authoritative discourse in the workplace, but their responses suggest that they still retained culturally informed child-rearing beliefs and practices at home with their own children. similarly, the latina educators in wilgus’s (2006) study of disciplinary beliefs and strategies did not simply enact the authoritative discourse, but critically evaluated ideas they had learned in the ecte program, actively deciding which to embrace and which to discard (p. 265). in these latter two cases, then, the educators seemed to pursue a trajectory leading to competence and acceptance within the professional community of practice while simultaneously maintaining some of the beliefs of their cultural communities. methodology with the exception of wilgus’s study, previous studies have relied solely on selfreported data, but researchers have identified substantial gaps between educators’ selfreported beliefs and actual teaching practices (e.g., wen, elicker, & mcmullen, 2011). the overall purpose of this study, then, was to gain insights into how immigrant and refugee women experience their studies and field placements in an ecte program by using an ethnographic methodology over a sustained period of time. ethnography has been used in studies of culturally diverse teachers in the school system “in the hopes of making visible and meaningful the complexity of what is usually not seen” (quiocho &   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   rios, 2000, p. 494). three questions framed the research: (1) what understandings do immigrant women in one ece program construct of the dominant discourse in ece? (2) what impact do these understandings have on their perceptions of themselves in relation to children as they negotiate their professional identities as ece teachers? (3) how does their learning in this program influence their interactions with children in their field experiences? research site and participants the research site was a large urban community college in alberta offering a variety of upgrading and esl courses, as well as postsecondary certificate and diploma programs. the college enrolls a high proportion of immigrant and refugee learners, particularly women, who are often eligible for government funding for language and career training. twenty immigrant and refugee women—five from china, one from india, four from the middle east, and ten from africa—enrolled in a ten-month ece certificate program (referred to as an ecte program in this article) participated in the study. in this article, i focus on six african/middle eastern students (see table 1) whom i observed on field placement and who constituted a “culture sharing group” (i have noted instances where their experiences or viewpoints differed). their experiences cannot be generalized to other students coming from the same countries. these women all came from comparatively affluent families, grew up in urban centres, are mothers, and are muslim. geena and jasmine came to canada as immigrants while the other women came as refugees. table 1. study participants. pseudonym age home country prior experience ameena late 20s ethiopia mother of three preschool-aged children asmaa late 20s somalia (spent part of childhood in yemen) mother of one school-aged child bijou mid-20s sudan (spent part of childhood in senegal and central african republic) mother of two school-aged children began teacher training back home and worked in child care in canada fatima early 50s somalia mother of four grown children and one school-aged child geena early 40s sudan mother of two school-aged children jasmine late 30s syria (spent childhood in kuwait) mother of four school-aged children   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   data collection and analysis i was a participant-observer situated within the students’ day-to-day experiences in this program for two to three full days a week from september to june during their courses, breaks, special events, and field placements. qualitative data were collected through observational field notes (at the college and in field placement sites), interviews, focus groups, informal conversations, spatial maps, and artifacts/documents (field placement evaluations, class notes, assignments, assessments, artistic creations, and class work). participants were interviewed two to six times throughout the year for 30–45 minutes and took part in up to four 60-minute focus groups. i obtained permission to observe seven of the participants for half a day each week during their term two field placements in four different accredited child care centres. i analyzed the data descriptively by doing an overview reading of the textual and oral data as they were being collected. once i identified areas of dissonance and congruence with the students’ own cultural practices during classes, interviews, and focus groups, i was particularly attentive to these notions as operationalized in the field placement sites. i used open coding to categorize and identify themes, and, upon completion of the data collection, i read these patterns theoretically based on the literature (angrosino, 2007). in the next section, i provide some context to the students’ commonly held understandings with respect to the adult role during play and teaching/learning in their home countries in order to juxtapose their experiences with the authoritative discourse on “learning through play” that they learned in the ecte program. then, i present the findings in the form of a series of excerpts from my field notes detailing participants’ interactions with children that revealed elements from their dialogues with the authoritative discourse as they attempted to make them internally persuasive. the context of play, learning, and teaching “back home” the participants brought with them to the ecte program very specific notions about the separation of play and learning based on their own preschool experiences. from the time they could walk, all participants recalled playing outdoors with siblings and other children in the community. these times were often largely unsupervised by adults, though a parent would check on them occasionally and neighbours might admonish the children to go home if they were still out at night time. as ameena recalled: “mostly we played outside with other children, with the neighbours. it’s not like here. they just send you outside…. we play outside, we enjoy and then we come back, like, night time. but here, 24/7 the kids stick with you” (interview, feb 28, 2013). the adult role in play, then, was one of an occasional supervisor who steps in when problems arise. the interactional patterns between adult and child affirmed this relationship as adults remained standing and more distant from the children. geena confirmed: “i have to sit down on the ground or be at the same level? we don’t have this” (interview, february   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   28, 2013). similarly, ameena stated: “we never sit with the children face to face. we don’t talk that much” (interview, february 28, 2013). jasmine, then, was “shocked and surprised” when an educator knelt down and talked extensively with a child (interview, february 25, 2013). interactions were also more nonverbal and less conversational than those back home. for example, fatima stated that asking questions as parents might do in canada was rare: “most parents don’t ask a lot, just like ‘what are you doing?’ when the child is doing something. the open-ended [questions]? no, they never do” (interview, june 25, 2013). only infants, then, were held and “played with” or sung to. although conversations between adults and children were uncommon, in their experience, everyone recalled that parents or grandparents sang to them or told them stories orally. these songs and stories were not shared with the goal of fostering literacy skills, though, but rather to transmit cultural values, guide behaviour, or convey encouragement or familial hopes for the child (massing, 2014). while the participants experienced a great degree of freedom in their childhood play, the adult role in the context of formal schooling was more prescribed and directive. only geena had had the experience of attending preschool (with a private religion tutor on the weekends), while the others attended preparatory madrassas, or religious schools, starting at the age of four or five and then advanced to the school system upon completion (usually one year). early experiences in school were overwhelmingly associated with literacy and numeracy skills or “numbers and abcs.” beginning in the madrassa, children were taught to read, primarily through memorization, as fatima explained: we learn how to read and write the quran and then you take a quran test…. you are not looking at your book. they ask you story number one, you have to say it. number five, you have to say it. so you go to grade one, you know the quran, you know arabic. that’s what we learn first. (interview, october 23, 2012) according to bijou, a school teacher might write a passage on the board, then “you copy it. you go home. you make sure you memorize” (interview, may 14, 2013). none of the participants remembered having educational toys or materials in their classrooms apart from paper and writing implements and the occasional book. as ameena declared, “just in our minds and write it down, no materials” (interview, february 28, 2013). in the madrassa, children also learned values such as respect and honesty and “how to behave,” as children were expected to listen and obey. pedagogically, teachers asked closed-ended questions to test children’s skills in memorizing the content and, as students, they were expected to respond. bijou affirmed that this style helped her to retain information: “everything is in your head…. our teacher gave us the questions, we made   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   the answers, but he made your brain go beyond what you know, and why. this way you get smart” (focus group, december 4, 2012). not surprisingly, then, there was a strict separation in the women’s minds between play and learning; play is free, unsupervised time whereas learning is formal, structured, and highly controlled. geena explained this distinction: “if we are learning abcs, we have to sit in a desk, not like here playing and learning abcs, like, we had to sit and i had a pencil and tried to write abc or 123…. no playing. you can’t play while you are learning. if you want to play, you play outside” (interview, february 28, 2013). the authoritative discourse: the adult role in teaching and learning at the end of the first term of the program, the students took a course entitled “learning through play” in which they learned about the characteristics of play, play theory, play and development, the play environment, planning for play experiences (both experiences and centres), and the adult role in play. they studied the distinctions between child-directed and adult-directed activity as well as open-ended and closed-ended activities. resonant with the participants’ own experiences, the instructors, learning materials, and texts also privileged literacy and numeracy learning; however, these were often disguised as games, activities, or centres. as sherwood and reifel (2010) also found, singing songs was classified as “play.” a secondary goal of the course was to expose the students to a wide variety of unfamiliar toys, art supplies, books, natural materials, and musical instruments which they might encounter in the field. throughout the year, they utilized these materials as they explored or planned an array of centres: dramatic play, art, sensory, literacy, or numeracy. by second term, most students were able to plan and set up “learning centres” to encourage open-ended, child-directed play based on the children’s interests. many of the students came to associate the provision of such centres or experiences as consistent with their role as a professional. in terms of the adult role, the students were taught to be actively involved in play by playing with the children, being on the floor with children, adding materials to extend play, modelling appropriate play and language, answering children’s questions, and asking open-ended questions (e.g., “can you tell me about … ?”; course learning guide). given that their own childhood play experiences had been child-directed and their school experiences had been adult-directed, the addition of an adult supervisor/educator during play was particularly difficult for the students to envision. so, although they understood the concept of child-directed play as defined in this course—the child chooses the activity, is in charge of the play, has a goal for play, and there is no expected end product—having the adult follow the child’s lead or play with the child was not within the realm of their experiences. rather, they alternately imagined the adult as a teacher or a supervisor who would stand, observe, and ensure their safety.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   in their coursework, then, the students had the opportunity to engage in dialogue with this authoritative discourse and form opinions about its content and use. as bakhtin (1981) has described, the student may draw a word or idea into her own conceptual system, establish “a series of complex interrelationships, consonances and dissonances with the word,” and then formulate a response (p. 282). different conceptual horizons and social languages come into dialogue as interlocutors (both people and texts) interact. these participants accessed their own cultural myths related to what an educator should do and juxtaposed them with the content they were learning in the program, moving back and forth between conceptual systems to make meaning. while on field placement, their actions and interactions with the children made visible, in a sense, this process of negotiating and dialoguing with the authoritative discourse so that it would become internally persuasive. in the next section, representative vignettes from their field placements, examples that the participants themselves define as “learning through play,” have been chosen to exemplify some variations of these dialogues. dialogues with the authoritative discourse few participants seemed entirely convinced that play was an efficacious means of learning all-important literacy and numeracy skills given their personal histories whereby learning and play were separated. jasmine and geena, in particular, concurred that their parents taught them that “academics”—numbers and abcs—are most important, then playing. geena confirmed: if i send my kids to the kindergarten (back home), you know, the basic things like reading, story time is very important. i don’t know why they think playing is important (in canada). i understand that learning through play is important here. back home, not exactly. they are playing outside … adults leave them to play what they want. (focus group discussion, december 13, 2012) in view of this disconnect, assuming the concomitant adult role in “learning through play” proved challenging for both of the women once on field placement, as can been seen in the following excerpts from my field notes. at 10:44 in the morning, jasmine is seated on a child-sized chair in the reading area in the middle of the preschool room. two boys are building with duplo™ blocks in front of her. she sits on the floor between the boys and asks the first boy, james, “what’s this?” he tells her it’s a bridge. “what colour is it?” she asks him. he explains that he has a car that will go on the bridge he has built out of the duplo. she turns to the other boy, blake, and asks “who’s this?” he states that it’s his sister. she turns back to james: “i’m going to build something with you.” jasmine picks up blocks one at a time—“what colour is this? and this? and this? very   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   good”—before placing them back down on the floor. james tells her he has more blocks at home. “oh, at home” she repeats. “you can use this one too if you want to,” she tells him as she hands him a block. she turns to blake, asks him if he has a car. not waiting for an answer, she turns back to james and says “what’s this? it’s a window. it’s huge. oh, look at this” she says as she hands him a block. “do you know what this letter is? do you know?” james replies, “no.” jasmine asks him, “do you want to know?” and james again replies “no.” jasmine says “okay” and sits back up on her chair. (field notes, february 13, 2013) in the following short excerpt from a play episode, geena was drawn into pretend play with two children (nearly three years old) and seated herself on a child-sized chair in the dramatic play area. emily is cooking on the stove and geena asks her, “what’s this? what’s this? … are you going to put it on a plate like that? yeah good. where’s the fork? where’s the fork?” emily hands her a spoon. geena says, “that’s not the fork.” guessing that emily may have a different plan, geena says, “okay, you are going to mix it? are you going to put salt? no salt? breakfast is now ready? put this here. where’s the milk? where is the milk? we need to put milk in the cereal.” (field notes, february 12, 2013) both jasmine and geena incorporated elements of the authoritative discourse into their interactions: sitting at the children’s level, interacting with the children, and asking them questions. however, both women seemed uncomfortable joining the children’s play and instead performed as a “teacher,” a role consistent with their own experiences back home. they bombarded the children with closed-ended “test” questions such as “what’s this?” and “who’s this?” jasmine quizzed james on his knowledge of colours and attempted to introduce a lesson on letters. geena sought to teach by directing emily’s play and correcting her mistakes, which resonated with her own school experiences. consistent with a north american view, the authoritative discourse mandated asking questions to stimulate conversation, demonstrate interest, and extend play, but jasmine and geena invoked a didactic understanding of instructing through questioning and testing knowledge. these questions operated as hybrid constructions, spoken by a single speaker but belonging simultaneously to two intersecting belief systems (bakhtin, 1981). while each woman was in dialogue here with the authoritative discourse, their interactions with the children implied monologue or transmission of knowledge rather than dialogue or co-construction of understanding. while many participants did make attempts to play with the children, more often they fell easily into this teaching role when invited to play. their instructors had   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   introduced them to many children’s songs and books, and had them manufacture story props or games to be used with various texts. the authoritative discourse regulated how they should “do” story time: sitting on the floor (or a short chair) at the children’s level, holding up the book so the children could see, asking open-ended questions, and involving children with the props (class handout). ameena was surprised by this aspect of the program because, back home, parents, not teachers, sang to children: “i know in back home we sing for the children, but in school? i never see like that” (october 3, 2012). in the professional context, ameena strongly believed that her role was to teach the children and prepare them for school: “if i just watch over them, feed them, if i don’t teach them anything, when they go to school they get a surprise. no. i’m going to teach them numbers, abcs” (october 3, 2012). therefore, when amy approached the dollhouse next to where ameena was sitting and invited her to play, ameena instead diverted her toward the “game” she had brought: a five little ducks book with felt board props. “i have a new game for you,” she says to amy enticingly. a large cluster of children soon join her as she walks to the reading area with amy, the book, and the props. eight children gather around her, sitting on the floor as ameena sits on a chair. she holds the book in her lap and reads the first verse out loud. evan asks, “where is daddy?” and ameena responds: “daddy come after, yeah, he called the next one. quack, quack, quack, quack (she pronounces the sound in her language and it sounds like “quock”). three little duckie, one go swimming over the hill and far away. mother duck call quack, quack, quack. how does she quack? who can tell me? yay” she says as she claps her hands. ameena reads the book two more times, each time in a slightly different way as she seems to rely less on the words and more on her memory to interpret the words in her own way. during these readings, three of the children use the felt board, manipulating the ducks as she speaks. (field notes, february 11, 2013) while ameena had memorized the song in class, she chose instead to sing from the book, holding it on her lap so she could rely on the text to guide her interactions with the children. the song represented the words of another, derived from an unfamiliar sociocultural context; however, through her dialogue with the text and with the children, ameena made the authoritative discourse (the text and her learning in the program) internally persuasive. the content of the song reassured her that she was teaching the children numeracy skills. as she altered the words of the song and made the duck’s cry in her home language, she populated the words of the song with her own accents and meanings in a playful manner, constructing her own way of speaking within this community of practice rather than mechanistically reproducing the words as written in this authoritative text. the act of reading and singing thus became what bakhtin (1981) referred to as double-voiced discourse: a dialogue of “two voices, two worldviews, and two languages” (p. 325). the words belonged both to the text (author) and to ameena,   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   and in the dialogue between them, she produced her own professional voice (see also knoeller, 2004). in the final vignette, asmaa was engaged in block play with two 3-year-old boys. asmaa is sitting down on the floor. kevin, sitting to her left, asks for assistance in pushing together duplo blocks. she holds the structure for him as he adds blocks. it seems to resemble an airplane. they work silently, attaching blocks to the building plate to fashion what is perhaps a landing strip. he picks up the airplane with his right hand and adjusts it. asmaa turns her attention to a basket of tinker toys™ and begins spearing sticks into the connectors. she seems to be building a vehicle. kevin sits to her left and appears to be observing what she is doing as he tries out his airplane, but she is concentrating fully on her own work. kevin also begins to extract parts from the basket, trying to put a stick in the hole. ethan, playing nearby, indicates her car with his finger and asmaa gives it to him. “this is a nice car,” he comments. asmaa does not speak. she chooses a few more blocks to build with, but then the educator proclaims that it is time to clean up. (field notes, february 12, 2013) asmaa was cognizant of the expectation that she sit on the floor and “play with” the children, but she interpreted this role in a different manner. contrary to dominant practice, which would emphasize role modelling language and asking questions (heath, 1983), this episode was a rich, nonverbal, embodied interchange as asmaa spoke only once during the entire ten-minute play episode. however, she was still acutely aware of the children, responding to ethan’s expression of interest in the car, and her rich nonverbal messages invited the children to be with her. she explained to me that in somalia people believe that “if you are a good person, they come. the kids all come beside you. but if you are not a good person, they don’t like you. children know” (interview, february 20, 2013). therefore, asmaa saw verbalizing and questioning as superfluous. she felt that since children were drawn to be with her, they perceived her to be a “good person,” a challenge to the adult role presented in the authoritative discourse. in this manner, she was constructing her professional identity dialogically but nonverbally with these children as she played alongside them. within the community of practice, then, these immigrant and refugee ecte students were engaged in a process of sense making as they dialogued with the unfamiliar authoritative discourse and endeavoured to relate it to their own practical knowledges, beliefs, values, and experiences.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   discussion the process by which aspects of the authoritative discourse were (or were not) made internally persuasive to an individual student was quite complex because much of this negotiation occurred outside of the participants’ conscious awareness and was barely discernible to the casual observer. focused observations of their interactions with the children allowed for a nuanced look at the ways in which the cultural myths about what it means to be an educator formed in their own experiences pervaded their practices. if we consider the transparent and observable surface elements to be representative of one’s professional practice, then we cannot perceive the invisible layers of deeply held cultural beliefs and values dwelling beneath the surface that inform and propel our actions (goodfellow, 2003; nieto, 2010). in terms of identity, the women were attempting to negotiate belongingness in multiple, disparate communities, each with very different expectations about how to teach young children. their practices suggested that, at that point at least, the women resided within the interstices of an identity conferred by the community of practice and one established in the context of their own personal and cultural biographies. ameena’s explanation actualizes this tension between personal or cultural ways of being with children and the authoritative discourse of professionalism: “professional means you do how they teach you [in the ecte program] even if they (supervisor or instructors) don’t see you…. joanne [an educator], she’s more professional in how she talks to the kids, how the kids love her. everything she does in a real way, the right way, and a real way” (interview, february 28, 2013). joanne is perceived as holding the “right” professional knowledge, but she is also “real,” acting intuitively and applying what she personally knows about children. consistent with wenger’s (2000) work, the professional educator must be able to mobilize her personal understandings and refine the expected competencies. since the practical knowledges of immigrant and refugee students or educators are excluded from the authoritative discourse, it is difficult for them to legitimately apply their own understandings in this manner. essentially, these women are positioned as needing to change themselves, otherwise their learning trajectory will never lead to full, legitimate participation in the community (wenger, 1998). furthermore, wenger (1998) explains that identity is a locus of social power: “power derives from belonging as well as from exercising control over what we belong to” (p. 207). previous studies (e.g., langford, 2007; moles, 2014) have suggested that immigrant and refugee students appear to succumb to this pressure to conform, and geena confided that she, too, felt a sense of obligation to the authoritative discourse: i know the system is different here. i can’t do anything because this is the system and the rules for day care…. sometimes you have to follow your heart, but if you have rules, you know, guidelines, you can’t do the   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   opposite of that. you can’t follow your heart everywhere. i know what to do. i know my obligations. (interview, february 28, 2013) power is infused with tension in cases where belonging in the community means losing the ability to negotiate and contribute to the terms of membership. potential outcomes include feelings of powerlessness, vulnerability, and marginality (wenger, 1998). alsup (2006) found that students who had difficulty envisioning themselves fitting into the established identity experienced conflicts which, in some cases, led to leaving the profession. geena frequently referred to the internal struggle to make the authoritative discourse internally persuasive as “making the balance” between belief systems. such conflicts need not always be negative, but can also potentially be productive: “our ideological development is just such an intense struggle within us for hegemony among various available verbal and ideological points of view, approaches, directions and values … this (internally persuasive) discourse is able to reveal even newer ways to mean” (bakhtin, 1981, p. 346). the areas of tension operationalized in their interactions with the children expose aspects of practice that are easily made internally persuasive to these immigrant and refugee students and others that are not. as these “newer ways to mean” emerge, the participants may continue drawing ideas into their conceptual systems, relating them to their own prior understandings, and dialogically (re)constructing their own professional identities. both practice and identity are not immovable, but fluid, continuing to shift and change over time. alsup (2006) describes such shifts as “a state of continual becoming rather than an endpoint” (p. 7). currently, though, the power of regulatory frameworks ensures that many ecte programs adhere to a monologic, authoritative discourse (white, 2009) with a desired endpoint of the professional as a technician. within the ecte program, miller marsh (2003) posits, instructors need to be aware that the discourses they themselves use could either constrain or offer possibilities for students’ identity construction. to disrupt this authoritative discourse, instructors must create spaces for immigrant and refugee students to form meaningful connections between their own beliefs, experiences, and practical knowledges and the course content (gupta, 2006, 2013; moles, 2014; pui-wah, 2006). since the findings in this study demonstrate that practice is a hybridized mixture of two belief systems contained within a single action or encounter (bakhtin, 1981), instructors and supervisors should understand that students will always retain residual traces of their beliefs (though these will change over time). if students have time and space for dialogue with the content and practices they are learning, they can populate their practice with their own intentions and meanings and make it their own. when immigrant and refugee students access their practical knowledges, they may be marginalized within their ecte program community of practice. their experiences are not accountable to “the regime of competence” and therefore “are repressed, despised, feared, or simply ignored” (wenger,   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   1998, p. 216). thus ecte programs must acknowledge the validity of multiple, polyphonic voices “with equal rights and each with its own worlds” (bakhtin, 1984, p. 6). in this way, immigrant and refugee educators or ecte students can imbue practice within the community with their own personal competencies and author their own legitimized professional voices in dialogue with other members of the community of practice instead of being made to feel they must adopt a universal professional identity to pass their courses. ultimately, practices that blend personal, cultural, and professional knowledges will provide richer and more meaningful experiences for immigrant and refugee children and their families, who will be supported in their diverse ways of being and becoming. references adair, j. k., tobin, j., & arzubiaga, a. 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(2003). the activist teaching profession. philadelphia, pa: open university press. service canada. (2011). early childhood educators and assistants. retrieved from: http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/qc/job_futures/statistics/4214.shtml sherwood, s. a. s., & reifel, s. (2010). the multiple meanings of play: exploring preservice teachers’ beliefs about a central element of early childhood education. journal of early childhood teacher education, 31, 322–343. doi: 10.1080/10901027.2010.524065 souto-manning, m., & dice, j. (2007). reflective teaching in the early years: a case for mentoring diverse educators. early childhood education journal, 34, 425–430. doi: 10.1007/s10643-007-0151-1 statistics canada. (2010). projections of the diversity of the canadian population, 2006 to 2031. ottawa, on: ministry of industry. stenberg, k., karlsson, l., pitkaniemi, h., & maaranen, k. (2014). beginning student teachers’ teacher identities based on their practical theories. european journal of teacher education, 37(2), 204–219. doi: 10.1080/02619768.2014.882309 taggert, g. (2011). don’t we care? the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism. early years, 31, 85–95. doi: 10.1080/09575146.2010.536948 thomas, l. (2012). new possibilities in thinking, speaking, and doing: early childhood teachers’ professional identity constructions and ethics. australasian journal of early childhood, 37(3), 87–95. urban, m. (2008). dealing with uncertainty: challenges and possibilities for the early childhood profession. european early childhood education research journal, 16, 135–152. doi: 10.1080/135029308021141584 vincent, c., & braun, a. (2011). ‘i think a lot of it is common sense...’: early years students, professionalism, and the development of a ‘vocational habitus.’ journal of education policy, 26(6), 711–785. doi: 10.1080/02680939.2010.551143 vygotsky, l. (1978). mind and society: the development of higher mental processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. walsh, s. c., brigham, s. m., & wang, y. (2011). internationally educated female teachers in the neoliberal context: their labour market and teacher certification experiences in canada. teaching and teacher education, 27, 657–665. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2010.11.004.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   wen, x., elicker, j. g., & mcmullen, m. b. (2011). early childhood teachers’ curriculum beliefs: are they consistent with observed classroom practices? early education and development, 22(6), 945–969. doi: 10.1080/10409289.2010.507495 wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. wenger, e. (2000). communities of practice and social learning systems. organization, 7, 225–246. doi: 10.1177/135050840072002 wertsch, j. v. (1998). mind as action. new york, ny: oxford university press. white, e. j. (2009). bakhtinian dialogue: a philosophical and methodological route to dialogue and difference. paper presented at the annual conference of the philosophy of education society of australasia, imin international conference center, east-west center, honolulu, hawaii, december 3–6, 2009. wilgus, g. (2006). beyond because i said so! three early childhood teachers challenge the research on disciplinary beliefs and strategies of individuals from workingclass minority backgrounds. contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(3), 253– 269. wilgus, g. (2013). introduction. in g. wilgus (ed.), knowledge, pedagogy, and multiculturalism: shifting the locus of learning in urban teacher education (pp. 1– 20). new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. woodrow, c. (2008). discourses of professional identity in early childhood: movements in australia. european early childhood education research journal, 16, 269– 280. doi: 10.1080/13502930802141675                                                                                                                   i in this article i use the term “teacher education” to maintain consistency with the literature. although one-third of my participants were teachers in their home countries, they were actually studying in a one-year certificate program in a community college. i refer to individuals who are enrolled in ecte programs as “students.” ii the field of ece actually represents a constellation of practice comprising multiple communities of practice that are interconnected and overlapping, possibly having historical roots, members, discourses, enterprises, and working conditions in common (wenger, 1998). canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 massing formatted back page w2015 canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 21 vol. 38 no. 2 the mentoring needs of novice early childhood educators are identified within the british columbian context, where graduates do not receive formal mentoring. following a description of the problem, a literature review is provided on the following themes: how mentoring facilitates a culture of learning; characteristics of successful mentors; and the mentoring process. examples are drawn from mentoring programs in new zealand and worcester, england. leadership implications are discussed with an emphasis on future research on mentoring in early childhood education. diploma programs that prepare early childhood educators for their profession can provide an excellent introduction to theory and practice; however, graduates often explain that they need support during their first year of work (rodd, 2006). like first-year elementary and secondary school teachers, early childhood educators report that a mentoring model where they connect with an experienced educator would be most effective as they transition into the role of a professional early childhood educator (brindley, fleege, & graves, 2000; whitebook & sakai, 1995). when asked what would help to increase their confidence, competence, and professionalism, novice teachers identified mentoring as their first priority (ontario college of teachers, 2006). moreover, novice teachers recognized the benefits of mentoring as “collaboration, feedback, observation, and sharing with experienced colleagues” (p. 8); experiences like these can help educators to avoid feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and uncertain (feiman-nemser, carver, schwille, & yusko, 1999; noble & macfarlane, 2005). novice educators involved in a mentoring program through the university of worcester benefited from “support in the workplace, layers of mentoring support, relationship building, and interactions and communication” (murray, 2006, p. 73). in contrast, early childhood educators in british columbia are not involved in a formal mentoring program, and are potentially left on their own during a critical time in their careers when mentoring might be beneficial. the purpose of this article is to determine how mentoring might assist or ameliorate the stresses associated with beginning educators. the mentoring process will be discussed, with examples from programs in new zealand and worcester, england. finally, leadership implications for establishing formal mentoring programs will be shared. context early childhood education programs rely on relationships between the student, the early childhood education instructor, and the sponsor educator. the early childhood education instructor teaches in a postsecondary institution and the sponsor educator works in the community alongside the student, supporting the student in their practicum by modelling skills, observing the student, and providing feedback. the early childhood education instructor and sponsor educator spend many hours with the early childhood education student, discussing matters of pedagogy and issues of practice, such as how to guide children’s behaviour (rodd, 2006). with the assistance of the sponsor educator and the instructor, the student takes on increasing levels of responsibility. the student is given feedback on a consistent basis and is supported in making any necessary changes to their practice. when early childhood education students graduate and begin working, these relationships change, and at present in the province of british columbia, there is no defined structure to support novice early childhood educators. when attempting to understand the needs of novice early childhood educators, it can be helpful to draw on theories of educator development. katz (1972) proposed a theoretical model for the stages of early childhood educators (see figure 1). the first stage, survival, as its name suggests, is where the educator simply tries to get through the day or week, and this can last up to one year. katz wrote, “during this period the teacher needs support, understanding, encouragement, reassurance, comfort and guidance. she needs instruction in specific skills and insight into the complex causes of behaviour—all of which must be provided on the classroom site” (p. 4). what is key here is the on-site support the novice early childhood educator requires, making it important that the mentor is physically nearby to assist the novice in daily situations, such as how to guide children’s behaviour, form connections with family members, and plan programming based on children’s needs and interests. laura doan is a lecturer in the early childhood education program at thompson rivers university, where she has taught for the last twelve years. she is a doctoral candidate through the university of calgary, where she is studying leadership in postsecondary contexts. research interests include the mentoring needs of novice early childhood educators, training needs of early childhood education mentors, and leadership in the field of early childhood education. email: ldoan@tru.ca mentoring: a strategy to support novice early childhood educators laura k. doan canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 22 vol. 38 no. 2 figure 1. the four stages of the katz model, modified from katz (1972). katz (1972) went on to describe stage 2, consolidation, as a phase when educators are “ready to consolidate overall gains made during the first stage and to differentiate specific tasks and skills to be mastered next” (p. 5). this period is one where educators feel more confident and are able to focus less on themselves and more on the individual needs of the children. katz described the third and fourth stages, renewal and maturity, as times when educators seek further professional development and ask deeper questions about topics such as philosophy and how change occurs. in 2007 the early childhood educators of british columbia wrote a report entitled developing a strategy for professional leadership where they reported that “a mentoring framework is needed to help people take steps to be mentors” (gay, 2007, p. 18). additionally, it was suggested that katz’s (1972) developmental stages of early childhood educators be explored. furthermore, the organisation for economic cooperation and development (2005) has suggested that teacher development be viewed as a continuum, with teachers receiving support at the beginning of their career in addition to ongoing professional development. it is possible that mentoring could be a useful strategy in helping novice early childhood educators to successfully enter the profession. mentoring in early childhood education in reviewing the literature on mentoring in early childhood education, the following themes have emerged: culture of learning, characteristics of successful mentors, and the mentoring process. these themes are elaborated below. culture of learning successful mentoring can result in a culture of learning, where knowledge gain occurs for both the mentor and the novice. rodd (2006) points out that the early childhood profession has “endorsed informal and formal mentoring as a key leadership strategy because it focuses on helping practitioners to realize their professional potential” (p. 173). rodd (2006) believes that most early childhood educators feel enthusiastic about their work and are eager to help others by sharing “their own knowledge, understanding, practice and expertise” (p. 173). researchers have found that mentoring supports professional growth (rodd, 2006), is a strategy for professional development (bellm & whitebook, 1996), helps to promote attitudes of lifelong learning (weaver, 2004), and assists in rising above “some of the shortcomings of current approaches to training early childhood practitioners” (rodd, 2006, p. 172). additionally, there are opportunities for shared learning among staff groups as opposed to learning that is occurring between mentoring dyads exclusively (murray, 2006), making mentoring an opportunity for professional development that could impact the whole workplace, resulting in increased learning and collegiality among staff (weasmer & woods, 2003). characteristics of successful mentors rodd (2006) identifies the following characteristics of successful mentors: “empathy and understanding, an interest in lifelong learning and professional development, sophisticated interpersonal skills, cultural sensitivity, understanding of the role of mentor, and considerable early childhood expertise” (p. 172). hurst and reding (2002) found the following to be important mentoring characteristics: “authenticity, gentleness, patience, consistency, positive attitude, teachability and enthusiasm” (p. 19). specific skills connected with successful mentoring are “active listening, effective observations, reflective conversations, awareness of different learning styles, and adult/teacher development” (rodd, 2006, p. 173). callan (2006) describes the mentor as a “bridge between the academic forum and the day-to-day experience encountered by practitioners in early years settings” (p. 8). additionally, novice educators benefit from modelling by the mentor (weasmer & woods, 2003). ingersoll and kralik (2004) found that some types of mentoring actions were more useful than others. these included working with a mentor from the same field, and having common planning time, opportunity to collaborate with other educators about instruction, and supportive communication from administrators. the mentoring process mentoring occurs in a variety of forms, ranging from informal to formal and lasting a diverse amount of time. mentors may be assigned to a particular novice or may be chosen by the novice themselves. in most cases, mentors are considered to have more experience than the novice, but it is possible for peers to mentor each other (murray, 2006). in new zealand, novice teachers are involved in a two to five-year stage of induction before applying for fully registered teacher status (aitken, ferguson, mcgrath, piggotirvine, & ritchie, 2008). these novice educators, referred to as provisionally registered teachers (prts), are assigned a mentor who is involved in “the provision of emotional support and encouragement; giving general guidance and suggestions; providing summative feedback; promoting reflective questioning and conversation; supporting goal setting; and generally advocating for the prt and her progress” (aitken et al., pp. 25–26). during this time, the prt is involved in a prearranged program of “mentoring, professional development, observation, targeted feedback on their teaching, and regular assessments based on the standards for full registration” (p. 1). the prts portrayed their mentoring experience with the mentor teacher as “vital to their profession and to the eventual completion canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 23 vol. 38 no. 2 of their teacher registration” (p. 25). the relationship between the mentor and the novice educator is important, and building trust is a crucial first step (ebbeck & waniganayake, 2003). some novice educators are reluctant to ask for help, despite the fact that they need it, making it all the more important for the novice to know that the mentor understands their needs and is there to support them (liberman, hanson, & gless, 2012). one program in worcester, england, uses the term professional critical friend to describe the mentor, one who provides “front-line peer support” (murray, 2006, p. 64). the worcester program is based on the premise that mentoring supports adult learning in the workplace by facilitating experiential learning, which helps the novice educator to “draw personal meaning and value” through the context of their work site (p. 64). the professional critical friend is typically a workplace colleague and may be a peer with the same qualifications as the novice educator. novice educators select their own mentor, giving them the opportunity to choose a mentor they trust and feel comfortable with. one novice educator spoke about the support she received from her mentor: i have gone through the traumas. my mentors made me realise it was manageable. i might not have got to the end and was tempted to ‘throw in the towel’ at times. my mentor helped those times. there was a sense of family and community with the mentor and the college. (murray, p. 75) mentoring practices differ depending on the interaction style of the mentor and the needs of the novice educator. novice educators benefit from mentors who are responsive to both their needs as a novice educator and the context in which the mentoring is occurring (murray, 2006). a critical element of the mentoring process and educator development is reflection, and mentors play a pivotal role in facilitating it (mccormick & brennan, 2001). mentors and novice educators should meet regularly; during these times, the mentor can invite the novice to reflect on their daily practice with children, families, and educators. this reflection may include recognizing areas of strength and growth, and identifying goals. what is important is that, as the novice educator enters the profession, they are not alone (murray, 2006). leadership implications when early childhood educators are involved in mentoring, leadership ability is built within the profession; this is something that needs to happen for early childhood education to achieve the same professional status as other occupations (rodd, 2006). additionally, mentoring is one way to help novice early childhood educators “to perceive themselves as leaders in the profession” (p. 34), which some may be reluctant to do. furthermore, there are opportunities for early childhood faculty in postsecondary institutions to explore and develop leadership capability through mentoring programs. researchers who can partner with educators to develop and research a mentoring program can provide leadership by helping to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners, which is of particular interest in early childhood education, where many educators do not embrace a research culture (rodd, 2006). puig and recchia (2008) found that novice educators were feeling overwhelmed and desired further connections with their university faculty. they wrote, “bringing new teachers and professors together through these forums of support creates meaningful connections between research and practice as well as teacher training and teacher work” (p. 342). maintaining relationships between faculty and graduates can be a benefit to all stakeholders in the early childhood education community. conclusion as novice early childhood educators enter the profession, they experience “survival,” as katz (1977) described, a time when educators could benefit from hands-on support through a mentor in the workplace. novice early childhood educators can gain support from mentors who demonstrate gentleness, patience, and a positive attitude, and are able to encourage reflective thinking (hurst & reding, 2002; rodd, 2006). furthermore, there are advantages for staff who become involved in mentoring, as a culture of learning can develop where early childhood educators learn together (rodd, 2006). mentoring is a relevant topic for early childhood educators, and pursuing research on the mentoring needs of novice early childhood educators could lead to increased levels of workplace satisfaction for mentors and novice early childhood educators, including less burnout, greater understanding of leadership in early childhood education, and better quality care (bella & bloom, 2003; rodd, 2006). references aitken, h., ferguson, p. b., mcgrath, f., piggot-irvine, e., & ritchie, j. (2008). learning to teach: success case studies of teacher induction in aotearoa new zealand. wellington, nz: new zealand teachers council. bella, j., & bloom, p. j. (2003). zoom: the impact of early childhood leadership training on role perceptions, job performance, and career decisions. wheeling, il: center for early childhood leadership. bellm, d., & whitebook, m. (1996). mentoring for early childhood teachers and providers: building upon and extending tradition. young children 52(1), 59–64. brindley, r., fleege, p., & graves, s. (2000). a friend in need: mentorship and community. childhood education, 76(5), 312–316. callan, s. (2006). what is mentoring? in a. robins (ed.), mentoring in the early years (pp.5–16). london, uk: paul chapman. ebbeck, m., & waniganayake, m. (2003). early childhood professionals: leading today and tomorrow. marrickville, nsw: maclennan & petty. feiman-nemser, s., carver, c., schwille, s., & yusko, b. (1999). beyond support: taking new teachers seriously as learners. in m. scherer (ed.), a better beginning: supporting and mentoring new teachers (pp. 3–12). alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. gay, c. 2007. developing a strategy for professional leadership. early childhood educators of british columbia strategy session. retrieved from http:// www.ecebc.ca/leadership/files/ecebc_strategy_ session.pdf hurst, b., & reding, g. (2002). teachers mentoring teachers: fastback 493. bloomington, in: phi delta kappa international. ingersoll, r., & kralik, j. (2004). the impact of mentoring on teacher retention: what the research says. denver, co: education commission of the states. katz, l. (1972). developmental stages of preschool teachers. urbana, il: educational resources canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 24 vol. 38 no. 2 information centre clearinghouse on early childhood education. liberman, a., hanson, s., & gless, j. (2012). mentoring teachers: navigating the real-world tensions. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. puig, v. i., & recchia, s. (2008). the early childhood professional mentoring group: a forum for professional learning. journal of early childhood teacher education, 2, 340–354. mccormick, k. m., & brennan, s. (2001). mentoring the new professional in interdisciplinary early childhood education: the kentucky teacher internship program. topics in early childhood special education, 21, 131–149. murray, j. (2006). designing and implementing a mentoring scheme: university of worcester surestartrecognized sector-endorsed foundation degree in early years. in a. robins (ed), mentoring in the early years (pp.63–78). london: paul chapman. noble, k., & macfarlane, k. (2005). romance or reality?: examining burnout in early childhood teachers. australian journal of early childhood, 30(3), 53–58. ontario college of teachers. (2006). new teacher induction: growing the profession. toronto, on: author. organisation for economic cooperation and development. (2005). teachers matter: attracting, developing, and retaining effective teachers. paris, france: author. rodd, j. (2006). leadership in early childhood (3rd ed.). new york, ny: open university press. weasmer, j., & woods, a. m. (2003). mentoring: professional development through reflection. the teacher educator, (39)1, 64–77. weaver, p. e. (2004). the culture of teaching and mentoring compliance. childhood education 80(5), 258–260. whitebook, m., & sakai, l. (1995). the potential of mentoring: an assessment of the california early childhood mentor teacher program. washington, dc: national center for the early childhood work force. become a montessori teacher ... without missing work toll-free: 1.877.531.6665 info@montessoritraining.net www.montessoritraining.net infant/toddler early childhood elementary accessible the convenience of distance education flexible start any time on your own schedule affordable montessori diploma programs and curriculum valuable enrich or transform your center with montessori summer/ete 2016 55 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice andrea dewhurst has been an early childhood educator at london bridge child care services since 2008. she is a graduate of the london bridge master educator program, and is currently the program supervisor at stoneybrook early childhood learning centre in london, ontario. throughout her career, andrea has been involved in numerous long-term projects with children and has shared her work with others through mentoring, writing, and presenting. andrea is inspired by the teachers of reggio emilia, and in 2015 had the opportunity to travel to italy to learn from them first hand. andrea is passionate about learning together with children and making visible the incredible things that children can do when the world believes in them. email: andrea.e.dewhurst@gmail.com how to say “yes” to children’s ideas andrea dewhurst what do i have to consider about my own practice in order to say yes to children’s ideas? this is a question that i have sat with for a long time, and it has changed the way i approach my work. while i always had strong relationships with the children in my classroom, there were many times during the day when the stress levels of both the children and myself were high. children would have an idea, such as standing on furniture in order to reach higher. i would stop them because i perceived the idea to be a dangerous one. they would react by either getting upset or continuing to try and achieve their goal when i wasn’t looking. the resulting power struggle made me feel like i was spending my day policing, and i lost the joy in my work. as i began to reflect more on my own practice, i discovered that i was saying no to children’s ideas without really pausing to consider the reason why. i recognized that there was a connection between the stress levels in the room and me saying no, and i began to wonder how i might relieve that tension. as a preschool educator with london bridge child care services, i have access to many professional learning opportunities. one of these opportunities is a 16-month master educator course that helps educators strengthen reflective practices, build leadership skills, and deepen understanding of inquiry-based learning and emergent curriculum. one of the course requirements is to choose a question that is of interest to us, and to use the question to guide us through an action research project. this seemed to be a perfect opportunity to explore the question that had been lingering on my mind: what do i have to consider about my practice in order to say yes to children’s ideas? i embarked on my research with the hope of discovering how i might better support the children in my classroom. throughout my journey i made some important discoveries that ultimately altered the way i interact with children. i discovered the following:  to say yes to children, i must be present and genuinely interested in what they have to say.  to say yes, i must try to fully understand the children’s ideas.  to support a child in taking risks, i must first understand the thinking behind their idea.  to say yes, there must be collaboration and negotiation between children and adults.  to say yes to children’s ideas, i must first be honest with myself about the reasons why i say no. to say yes to children, i must be present and genuinely interested in what they have to say. as an educator, i spend a great deal of time trying to give visibility to children’s learning. before i engaged in my action research project, i would take numerous photographs and compose many handwritten notes. i wanted to be sure that i captured what the children were saying. however, upon reflection, it seemed that i was putting more emphasis on capturing word-for-word dialogue than on summer/ete 2016 56 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice understanding what the children were actually trying to say. while i understand that documenting is a very important part of my work, i found that my approach was actually robbing me of opportunities to gain a deep understanding of children’s thinking. as drummond (2002) said, “the quality of the relationship with each learner depends upon the teacher’s ability, not only to be present in the moment, but also to be present with integrity and authenticity” (p. 201). as i began to explore my research question, i decided to make digital video recordings to help capture conversations with children. when i reviewed the videos i realized that they served a much richer purpose than merely being a transcription tool. when i first began to record conversations i still kept a notebook nearby in order to write things down as they happened. i noticed that in doing so, i wasn’t really focusing on the children and what they were saying. although i was responding to their words, i was missing the subtleties of the conversation. my eyes were on the paper, not on the children. also, i realized that i was doing the majority of the talking. however, a moment arose that changed everything. i was engaged in a conversation with a small group of children. one of the children was describing a drawing she had done of a log. another child questioned the drawing, saying, “logs have holes. where are the holes?” the question caused me to pause as i was writing down her words. i found myself suddenly curious about the idea that logs have holes. this is when i noticed a shift in my role. i put the notebook aside, and become fully invested in the conversation. through our dialogue i came to realize that the child was talking about the knots in the wood. capturing this moment on video enabled me to reflect back and understand the significance of what had happened. i began to listen more to what the children were saying and my questions became about seeking to understand what the children’s ideas were, rather than just responding. in turn, i noticed that the children became more engaged as well, and our conversation deepened. through reflecting on these videos, i began to change the way that i used video recordings in my work. while i still used them as a way to capture children’s quotes, the videos became a tool for me to reflect on my practice and helped me to gain a deeper understanding of my role in these moments. videos became a tool for reflecting on my own thinking, as well as the children’s. when i viewed the videos later, i was able to reflect on the things i said and to consider what i might have done differently. to say yes, i must try to fully understand the children’s ideas. prior to beginning my research, i would often jump to conclusions and assume that i knew what children meant. my assumptions led me to say no to their ideas, or to guide them in the wrong direction and help them do something that they didn’t want to do. of course this led to conflict and made me miss out on the deeper meaning that is often hidden between children’s words. i recognized that to fully understand what a child’s idea is, i have to really listen to what they are saying. understanding requires building genuine relationships and taking the time to have conversations with the children to clarify what their thinking is. one of the ways that my colleagues and i try to build relationships and listen to children’s ideas is through morning meetings. at the start of each day we gather as a classroom community, and both children and educators share their thoughts and ideas with each other. at one of our morning meetings, a conversation unfolded stemming from some work we were doing with mixing paint colours. a child shared how he was trying to make a precise shade of green, but was unable to get it exactly the way he wanted it. another child suggested that he needed to start with red paint in order to make that green. i questioned the child’s thinking, because through previous experiences the children had already determined that blue and yellow made green. he insisted that you had to start with red. i could have asserted my own understanding, but instead i respected the knowledge he had accumulated through his experiences and invited him to show me how his theory worked. we met at the art table, where he quickly began the process by mixing a small amount of red paint with larger amounts of blue and yellow, thus creating the exact shade of green that his peer was trying to create. if i had not paused and offered a way to clarify the child’s thinking, i would have missed out on this valuable moment. to support a child in taking risks, i must first understand the thinking behind their idea. we live in a society where safety is paramount. whenever i provide new experiences for children, safety is always a consideration. during the process of forming my research question, i recognized that i was inconsistent in my responses to any activities that i perceived as risky. although i understood the importance of offering opportunities for children to challenge their bodies, i still struggled with concerns over their safety. however, as i began to clarify that the children were being thoughtful while taking risks, i found myself able to provide them with the time, space, and materials necessary to fill out their theories. in doing so i enabled children to deepen their thinking and take more complex risks. summer/ete 2016 57 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice for example, one morning the children had set out a number of chairs in a long row. they were climbing over the backs of the chairs and then jumping off the last chair. rather than stopping the activity, i invited the children into the following conversation: me: guys, i’m a little concerned. i see that you are walking over the chairs. i’m worried that the chairs will tip over and that you will fall and get hurt. child a: if we make sure that all of the legs are on the ground then they won’t tip over. child b: yeah, and no pushing. child a: we need to take turns. one at a time. child c: yeah, and hang on. child a: my sandals are kind of slippery. i will take them off and my bare feet aren’t slippery. child c: yeah! then we’ll be safe! me: that sounds pretty safe. this short exchange allowed me to be honest with the children about my concerns. they were able to come up with some strategies to help keep themselves safe, which in turn helped me to feel more comfortable with the amount of risk being taken. when i embarked on this research, i primarily thought of risk as being physical. as the scope of my research broadened, i came across an online article that introduced the idea of not only physical risk, but also intellectual and social/moral risk. as edgington (n.d.) states, “early years practitioners have a responsibility to ensure that they offer children all these opportunities” (para. 7). in our classroom, we began to facilitate intellectual risk taking by inviting the children to draw their theories and ideas and then share them with each other at our morning meeting. for example, one of the characters in a novel we were reading was faced with the problem of helping their friend, who had been turned into a statue. we asked the children, “how would you help someone who was turned into a statue?” and invited them to draw their ideas. as my coworker and i reflected on the children’s individual drawings, we realized that to understand the children’s ideas, we had to first think about their understanding of the challenge that was posed to them. for example, one child’s solution was to “put it in the oven to melt it.” this solution seemed illogical if the statue was made of rock. however, when you consider other comments that the child made while drawing, such as, “you have to put it in the oven because the sun will take a long time to melt it,” you realize that their understanding is likely that the statue is made of ice, and therefore, the solution is perfectly logical. when these drawings were shared at our morning meeting, we encouraged the children to question each other about their ideas. often times, ideas were expressed that did not align with what we as educators understood to be true. we embraced these moments and supported the children as they took a social risk and challenged our thinking. doing this has helped us to create a culture in our room where the children are confident in taking social and moral risks. they feel comfortable standing up for themselves and their ideas by questioning the thinking of both children and educators. when children take physical, intellectual, and social/moral risks, they are vulnerable. they are opening themselves up to other viewpoints, criticism, and questioning. however, when children are supported in this complex way, the benefits of risk taking become visible. children learn to help each other fill out their thinking in a respectful way, and as a result, they gain confidence in themselves and their abilities. to say yes, there must be collaboration and negotiation between children and adults. as early childhood educators, we rarely work alone. i work in a large centre with eight classrooms and over 100 children. in my class there are 16 preschool-aged children and two educators. during the course of a day, i interact with not only the children and my coworker, but with other educators, support staff, and parents. it is important to ensure that everyone is comfortable with the level of summer/ete 2016 58 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice risk being taken in the classroom. according to curtis (2010), we all have different reactions to challenging situations and what we perceive as too risky. it is important for early childhood professionals to examine our views of these situations and make distinctions between our personal feelings and experiences, our coworkers’ points of view, and children’s strong desire for autonomy and competence. (p. 53) prior to beginning my research, when faced with a risky situation, my coworker and i often had conversations about what our comfort levels were. through these conversations we were able to point out the children’s competencies and ensure that we were both aware of, and comfortable with, what was happening. we also engaged in these conversations with other staff who entered our room, and with parents, to make sure that the balance of benefits versus risks was clear. however, we didn’t include children in these conversations. as educators, we simply made the decision about what we determined to be a safe or unsafe risk and expected the children to trust our judgment. not considering the children’s input often led to moments of tension between the children and the educators. when we began to try and support the children in finding an appropriate way to fulfill their intention while still maintaining the values of our classroom, we found that the tension dissipated. for example, the children in our classroom were very interested in making and flying paper airplanes. in the past, we had supported their interest by inviting a child who was a paper airplane expert to draw a set of instructions for how to make a paper airplane. these instructions have become a part of our room. however, we still struggled with having paper airplanes flying around the room during the course of the day. we found that some children were getting upset because they were being hit by flying planes while they were trying to engage in different activities. we had multiple discussions about how we could achieve a balance between the children’s obvious interest in flying their airplanes and our value that children should be able to engage in uninterrupted play. together with the children, we decided to solve the problem by hanging several paper targets around the room. in this way, children who wanted to fly their paper airplanes had a safe area to do so without interrupting other children. as soon as the targets went up, the children were drawn to them. not only did they serve the purpose of lessening anxiety from rogue airplanes, but they offered the children a new challenge as they attempted to aim and launch their airplanes through the hoops. when we began to involve children in conversations about risk, we saw the children as competent in a whole new way. they were able to explain their ideas and engage in discussion about how to safely carry them out. we believe that the children became empowered when we valued and respected their opinions and included them in the decision-making process. to say yes to children’s ideas, i must first be honest with myself about the reasons why i say no. there are many times during our day when we must tell a child no, often to keep the child safe. however, in considering my own practice and reflecting with my peers, i came to the realization that i use safety concerns as an umbrella, often covering a number of less flattering reasons why i may be saying no. for example, i might outwardly say that something is a safety concern, but internally i am concerned about the amount of time or effort that it would take to say yes, or i am concerned about the opinions of others. other times a perceived safety risk could be eliminated if i were to place myself nearby. at our centre we are lucky to have a large indoor space for more active exploration. there is a ramp that wraps around the room, connecting it to the main floor. the children in my class were very interested in climbing the railings on this ramp. my initial reaction was to say no. i was concerned about the height of the railings, as well as the hard flooring underneath. however, instead of simply saying no, i expressed my concerns to the children and engaged in a conversation about how we could satisfy both the children’s desire to climb and my desire to keep them safe. we decided that as long as the children climbed one at a time and there was an educator there to catch them if they fell, then the risk was manageable. as the children began to climb, we maintained a dialogue about how we were each feeling about the experience. each child had a different comfort level, and some climbed higher than others. when a child climbed to a height where i no longer felt confident in my ability to catch them, i expressed to them that i was feeling a little scared. the child responded that they were feeling a little scared too, and began to climb down. when i was honest with myself about the real reasons i was saying no to children, i was also able to find ways to overcome barriers, both summer/ete 2016 59 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice real and perceived, that stood in the way of saying yes. through having conversations with the children, sharing my values honestly with them, and actively listening to their ideas, i was able to build strong, genuine relationships with them while maintaining my integrity. as a result of my research, i now have a greater appreciation for the complexity of children’s thinking. when speaking with children, rather than assuming that i know what they mean, i listen and ask questions to learn more about their idea and the thinking behind it. my inner narrative has changed as well. rather than allowing children to do something, which puts me in complete control, i consider how i can enable them to work through their own ideas. instead of asking “can they?” i ask “how can they?” instead of worrying “is it safe?” i consider “how can we make it safe?” i have witnessed the effect that a shift in my practice has had on the culture of our classroom. language is a powerful tool, and changing my inner narrative has also changed the way i speak with children. it has enabled me to model how to be respectful, inquisitive, and kind while seeking to understand a different perspective. the children have begun to speak to each other in this same way, explaining their intention and engaging in dialogue with one another. as a result, the children respect each other’s ideas more than in the past, and they are willing to give each other the time to explain their thinking. they have also become comfortable questioning each other and challenging one another’s thinking. the changes in my classroom didn’t happen quickly. this kind of change is an ongoing process that requires an investment of time and energy. for children to feel comfortable enough to take such substantial risks, there must be a culture of mutual support, trust, and respect. as i was working on building the culture of my classroom, i was also being offered support, trust, and respect by my pedagogical leaders. throughout my research, i was linked with experienced educators and mentors who were genuinely invested in my growth. in doing so, i was able to draw parallels between the way my mentors interacted with me and the way i was interacting with the children. in the same way that children become vulnerable when they take risks, engaging in active research required me to step outside of my comfort zone as i evaluated my practice. i was offered a safe environment where i was able to take risks and be vulnerable without fear of judgment. i was asked questions to help me deepen my understanding and given time to fill out my thinking. it was because i was supported in this way that i was able to support the children. thus, they became empowered and were able to support each other. there were many times when i questioned myself and was uncomfortable with my decisions. these moments encouraged self-reflection and growth. they enabled me to make important discoveries that ultimately changed my practice and helped me rediscover the joy in my work. references curtis, d. (2010, march). what’s the risk of no risk? exchange, 192, 52. drummond, t. (2002). enterprise talk: a handrail to integrity and authenticity. issues in early childhood education: curriculum, teacher education, and dissemination of information. proceedings of the lilian katz symposium, champaign, illinois, november 5–7, 2000. retrieved from: http://ecap.crc.illinois.edu/pubs/katzsym/katzsym.pdf edgington, m. (n.d.). supporting young children to engage with risk and challenge. retrieved from: http://www.teachingexpertise.com/ articles/supporting-young-children-to-engage-with-risk-and-challenge-2089 canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 4 vol. 38 no. 2 involving immigrant and refugee families is a desirable goal of ece programs in canada; however, families are typically brought into a prescriptive, defined space framed by euro-north american standards of developmental appropriateness. within this space, immigrant and refugee families’ funds of cultural knowledge are systematically marginalized. an intercultural preschool program, in which english was the common language alongside three other languages, aimed at enhancing the children’s knowledge and pride in their home languages and cultures; the program challenged the conventional view of parental involvement. first language facilitators and cultural brokers acted as conduits between home and preschool and supported social networking within each of the three cultural communities represented in the program. drawing on data collected through ethnographic methods during a unit on babies as part of an emergent curriculum, the authors describe how the facilitators and brokers brought newcomer families’ knowledge funds into the classroom and curriculum, resulting in a culturally sustaining pedagogy. acknowledgments the authors gratefully acknowledge the community partnership enhancement fund (cpef) and the alberta centre for child, family, and community research (accfcr) for their generous support of this research. barriers to involving immigrant and refugee parents involving families is a desirable goal of early childhood education (ece) programs in canada; however, immigrant and refugee families that are brought into a prescriptive, defined space framed by euro-north american standards of developmental appropriateness encounter a number of challenges. within such a space, newcomer families’ funds of linguistic and cultural knowledge are systematically marginalized. tara, now a young adult who works as a kurdish first language facilitator (flf) in the intercultural preschool program this article describes, speaks of her family’s experience of coming to canada as nonenglish speaking refugees from kurdistan: my brother was in day care when we came here. he went through the whole system. it would have really, really helped him and it would have really helped my parents’ confidence if the teachers were saying to my parents, “come, be involved, be part of the school” because a lot of time they felt like strangers to the school and they didn’t understand why other parents were involved and they weren’t and they didn’t know how and what steps they should be taking. (focus group discussion, may 20, 2009) for immigrant and refugee families with young children, ece programs are often the first point of contact with the formal educational structures of the dominant culture (adair, 2009). like tara’s family, many are unsure of how to navigate the child care system, particularly if such programs do not exist in their home country. feeling intimidated by the school system is one of many barriers to involvement in ece programs and schools that immigrant and refugee families report (turney & kao, 2009). others include christine massing is a fourth-year doctoral student in the department of elementary education at the university of alberta, specializing in early childhood education. she also instructs in the early learning and child care program at grant macewan university. her doctoral research focuses on immigrant and refugee women’s knowledge construction in early childhood teacher education programs. email: christine.massing@ualberta.ca anna kirova, phd, is professor of early childhood education at the university of alberta. her research interests include understanding culturally and linguistically diverse children’s experiences of loneliness and isolation at school, and the possibility such an understanding offers for culturally sensitive pedagogy. most recently, her research focuses on collaborative research with children, use of arts-based methodologies with vulnerable children, and community-based participatory research aimed at developing an intercultural early learning program for immigrant and refugee children in which children maintain their home language and culture while learning english. email: anna.kirova@ualberta.ca kelly hennig has worked in a variety of roles for edmonton head start programs over the last 16 years. he has worked as an early learning teacher, a head start supervisor and a planning and evaluation coordinator. he is currently a senior manager with the alberta ministry of education. his work has included planning for responsive program delivery, developmental evaluation, and policy development. his research interests include exploring alternative means of representing young children’s learning, and social policy related to poverty reduction. email: kelly.hennig@gov.ab.ca the role of first language facilitators in redefining parent involvement: newcomer families’ funds of knowledge in an intercultural preschool program christine massing, anna kirova, and kelly hennig canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 5 vol. 38 no. 2 linguistic differences, lack of program or school support (song & wang, 2006), teacher bias or other discrimination issues (ali, 2012; eberly, joshi, & konzal, 2007), not understanding program/ school expetctations for involvement (bernhard, 2010), holding different views of education and the parental role (adair, 2009; ali, 2012), and lack of material resources and/or time (souto-manning & swick, 2006). dominant views of culturally diverse families majority-culture early learning programs typically consider cultural difference as a deficit instead of an asset. for example, the current position statement of the globally influential american organization, the national association for the education of young children (naeyc), describes “children of color, children growing up in poverty and english language learners” as “at risk,” possessing “deficits,” and “lagging” behind their peers in foundational skills needed for academic achievement (national association for the education of young children, 2009, p. 6). by extension, these children’s families are also depicted as deficient and in need of learning the right way to be and behave in their new context (lightfoot, 2004; soutomanning & swick, 2006). this attitude undermines newcomer parents’ sense of competence in raising their children and may lead to the loss of parenting selfefficacy among immigrant parents (ali, 2008). as a consequence, o’connor (2011) asserts, “the power base which determines which people are more likely to be successful in life is uneven right from the start as children start school with hugely different amounts of the ‘right’ kind of cultural capital” (p. 117). families from diverse cultural, racial, or linguistic backgrounds or of low socioeconomic status are perceived to lack this capital (carreón, drake, & barton, 2005) due to the lack of congruence between their familial culture and that of the dominant society (lee & bowen, 2006). in addition, newcomer families frequently do not possess the resources, skills, and familiarity with the dominant social arrangements in schools to acquire and activate this “right kind” of capital (lareau, 2000; levine-rasky, 2009). since preservice teachers are educated into a developmental framework based on research with western, white middle-class children, the cultural capital of immigrant families is largely invisible or inaccessible to them (bernhard, 2010). the “right kind” of capital is often reflected in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment (genishi & goodwin, 2008); therefore, young children from such backgrounds continue to be viewed as inadequate in relation to preset developmental norms and expectations (yosso, 2005). the typical societal response is to offset such “disadvantage” through interventions aimed at building up the “right kind” of cultural capital these children are perceived to need to succeed in school. the dilemma faced by educators educators feel challenged to respond to the cultural diversity in their classrooms and to communicate to the parents what their children need for school success while remaining true to cultural competence as one of their professional standards. the naeyc (2009) standards, for instance, emphasize knowing the characteristics of diverse families and communities, building respectful and reciprocal relationships with families, linking language and culture to the program, and maintaining continuity between home and program practices. however, educators must also meet standards related to knowledge of western child development theories and use interactional, instructional, and assessment approaches consistent with these theories. the tension between what teachers perceive to be their role and the lack of adequate knowledge of particular cultural practices is expressed in the following statement made by a centre director who participated in reedy and mcgrath’s (2010) study of child care centres’ communications with parents in the usa: the whole issue of cultural sensitivity/ diversity really complicates the situation. a big part of our role is to honour and support the original culture of the family, the original language and all that. so there is the gray area between what we might make recommendations of what we think is best but might be in conflict with their own cultural belief system. and there are a lot of places where i do not have the answer. (p. 353) teaching guides such as naeyc’s (2009) developmentally appropriate practice (dap) contribute to this dilemma. preschool teachers’ uncertainty with regard to individual families’ cultural practices is often resolved by their reliance on prescriptive ways of interacting with families, including asking parents to volunteer in the classroom, to read developmentally appropriate children’s books to individual children or the whole group, or to engage in play using developmentally appropriate materials and toys that will help their children reach the development milestones. although the notion of partnership and equality with parents is emphasized in ece, the dap framework positions teachers as experts holding specific professional knowledge, especially that of child development (alasuutari, 2010). adair (2009) found that teachers sometimes even “train parents in its principles,” reshaping their culturally formed ways of being with their children (p. 154). the dominant framework of parent involvement in ece settings family involvement in ece settings is typically conceived in a uniform manner, one that brings families into spaces—which have been defined, and are controlled, by teachers and programs or schools—as volunteers or for meetings and conferences. within this dynamic, parental involvement inevitably becomes an unquestioned concession to teacher expectations without regard to the families’ sociocultural perspectives. this construction has been problematized for canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 6 vol. 38 no. 2 construing immigrant families as apathetic (crozier & davies, 2007), focusing on familial deficits rather than strengths (carreón et al., 2005; ippolito & schecter, 2012), trying to subtly change families (lópez, scribner, & mahitivanichcha, 2001), failing to acknowledge parents’ culturally specific ways of being involved (lópez, 2001; carreón et al, 2005), excluding visual and oral traditions of some families (souto-manning & swick, 2006), and neglecting the ways in which involvement is a social practice impacted by myriad external forces (barton, drake, perez, st. louis, & george, 2004). early childhood programs, even those that require parent participation (e.g., head start programs) are sites presenting unique challenges to family involvement. if parents have enrolled their children in early childhood programs in order to go to work, as is often the case, participation within the traditional on-site involvement paradigm is seriously curtailed by familial time restrictions (morrison, storey, & zhang, 2011). therefore, it is essential to expand our current conceptualizations of family involvement by diversifying the means, tools, and locations for engagement (knopf & swick, 2008), as well as by developing instructional practices that access families’ knowledge funds (espinoza-herold, 2007). we contend that new approaches in working with culturally diverse and newcomer families should include cultural brokers whose roles can be defined as “the act of bridging, linking, or mediating between groups or persons [of differing cultural backgrounds] for the purpose of reducing conflict or producing change” (jezewski, 1990, p. 497). the study the study took place in the context of an intercultural preschool program aimed at enhancing the children’s knowledge and pride in their home languages and cultures. first language facilitators and cultural brokers acted as conduits between home and preschool and supported social networking within each of the three cultural communities represented in the program. purpose and research questions the purpose of the study described here was to explore ways in which cultural brokers and flfs in an intercultural preschool program acted as conduits to newcomer families and their cultures. it is built on the premise of a high correlation between a child’s educational outcome and his or her environment (i.e., family circumstances, parents’ educational level, parent participation, etc.) (worswick, 2006), thus the role of parents and their communities must be implicated in the whole process of educating children (harvey & houle, 2006). the overall aims of this ongoing longitudinal study are twofold: (1) to identify approaches to working with immigrant/refugee communities and families that strengthen the home language for young english as an additional language (eal) learners, and (2) to identify approaches to curriculum and pedagogy that lead to genuine inclusion of both newcomer children’s home languages and cultural traditions and the english language and canadian cultural traditions. this paper, however, focuses on the following research question: what is the role of cultural brokers and flfs in creating a shared space in an ece classroom that bridges the boundaries between home and school cultures? we argue that, through these cultural agents, families were drawn into the preschool space even if they were unable to be physically present, thus challenging the normative view of what constitutes parental involvement in the preschool setting. theoretical framework the study is framed by a socioculturalhistorical theory of learning as informed by the work of vygotsky (1978), whereby knowledge is actively constructed by learners as a result of their interactions with others in meaningful activities in a particular sociocultural context. these interactions are often structured so that more knowledgeable or skilled adults or peers can scaffold the child’s learning (wood, bruner, & ross, 1976) or guide the child’s participation in activities valued by the culture (rogoff, 1990, 1995). more skilled partners often employ culturally specific mediational means, such as technologies, tools, or signs to assist with learning processes, assisting the child to move toward full participation in the activities of the family and community (lave & wenger, 1991). human actions are also mediated by, and inseparable from, the cultural, institutional, and historical contexts in which they occur (wertsch, 1991, 1998). it is therefore essential to attend to the various contexts in which children dwell. understanding families, the skills and knowledges they value, and the ways in which they guide and mediate their children’s learning is crucial when they come from diverse cultural backgrounds. the notion of space, as explained by barton, drake, perez, st. louis, and george (2004), conveys how people’s actions and the roles they enact, events, the rules and expectations for participating in the space, the cultural tools people select and utilize to mediate learning (i.e., objects or artefacts), and signs all operate to define the preschool space. immigrant children enter into preschool spaces that have already been constructed by actions, events, and tools. since these are likely to be unfamiliar to them, the relationships between instruction/mediation and development are disrupted. a newcomer child experiences dramatic dissonance between two ways of learning because the language of instruction and patterns of interaction are alien to the child; likewise, the activities taking place in schools do not resemble anything with which the child is familiar (rogoff, 1990, 2003). the concept of funds of knowledge is an example of an attempt to construct a bridge between home and school (gonzález, moll, & amanti, 2005). it is premised on the understanding that children learn culturally valued knowledge and skills in the course of their daily lived experiences in familial and community contexts. a household’s knowledge funds become part of a cultural “tool kit” which helps canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 7 vol. 38 no. 2 members negotiate daily life or, in bruner’s (1985) view, understand and master their cultural world. teachers can gain access to families’ knowledges through ethnographic field visits to their homes. if teachers are willing to learn from and genuinely collaborate with families, then these knowledges become resources that can mediate teachers’ understandings of the household and inform pedagogical theory and practice (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzález, 2005). for immigrant and refugee families, whose cultural knowledges are systematically marginalized in dap-centred early childhood settings, this concept has particular resonance. when these understandings are formally acknowledged and reenvisioned as a source of strength in the preschool, it disrupts the traditional, asymmetrical power structures among the family, the ece program, and the child (gonzález, 2005). in the study presented here, the flfs and cultural brokers traversed the borders between home and preschool, moving between the two locations and bringing knowledges and cultural practices and objects from one to the other. not only did the flfs and brokers mediate between home and preschool, but they assisted with the formation of social networks within each of the three cultural communities involved in the study. these exchanges helped preserve historically and culturally formed, socially transmitted funds of knowledge (vélez-ibáňez & greenberg, 2005) which may have been eroded during immigration. setting and participants as noted elsewhere (dachyshyn & kirova, 2011; kirova, 2010), the intercultural preschool program described in this paper was instigated by several notfor-profit organizations working closely with immigrant and refugee communities, who then partnered with the public school board, the provincial government, community stakeholders, and university researchers. children from three refugee communities—sudanese, somali, and kurdish—attended the program four mornings a week for two and a half hours a day in a public school classroom. through the process of establishing a parenting group at a family support centre, these three communities had already formed intergroup relationships, and they approached the public school district with the request to offer an early learning program that would meet their specific needs (see dachyshyn & kirova, 2011). however, as the program became well established and known among other refugee communities, over 60 families from iraq, serbia, china, and el salvador, to list a few, as well as the canadianborn families in the neighbourhood, have been served by the program in the last five years of its operation. nevertheless, the majority of the children are from the three ethnolinguistic communities: sudanese arabic, somali, and kurdish. the program staff consists of an englishspeaking canadian certified teacher and three first language facilitators (flfs), each speaking english and at least one of the languages of the ethnolinguistic groups and having some previous experience working with young children. the role of the flfs was to speak their home language with the children from their language group, to give cultural input for planning, and to provide a link to the families. some of these facilitators also worked for the founding agency as cultural brokers who visited families multiple times in the home, at school, and at other locations, such as at an appointment (ford & georgis, 2011). during these visits, the cultural brokers provided families with a comprehensive array of linguistic and adaptive supports including community resources and supports for basic needs, advocacy, school, health, education, employment, communication, and parenting (see ford & georgis, 2011). in essence, the cultural brokers served as substitutes for the extensive community support network the families would have had “back home” but lacked in the new context; they acted as elders closely involved with raising the children. several other cultural brokers from the agency (called “community insiders” by other researchers, including ippolito, 2012, p. 4) also worked closely with the project. data collection and analysis this qualitative study primarily utilized ethnographic research methods (lecompte & schensul, 2010). data were collected in multiple ways in the course of sensory, first-hand experiences in the natural setting (the classroom) in which the phenomena occurred (lecompte & preissle, 1993). the researchers were positioned both as participant observers ensconced within the daily classroom activities and as facilitators and advisors. focus groups (bloor, frankland, thomas, & robson, 2001) were conducted with three groups of participants: (1) the community members and parents of the children enrolled in the intercultural early learning program at the research site; (2) the classroom teacher, the flfs, the cultural brokers, and the school administrators at the research site; and (3) all stakeholders, including communityserving agencies and policy makers. other sources of data during focus groups included field notes taken during and after the focus group. focused observations aimed at describing and recording classroom behaviours and practices as they occurred, as well as giving and receiving feedback, reflecting and setting goals for improvement, and suggesting modifications to behaviours/ practices. detailed field notes were taken during and after these observations. research conversations (herda, 1999) allowed for participants from diverse cultures to work together and assess their actions. these conversations were ongoing and were initiated by both the participants and the researchers. they mostly took place during the regular monday morning sharing and curriculum planning that involved all flfs, the teachers, representatives from the not-for-profit organizations, and the university researchers. it was through these conversations of the classroom team that life stories became interconnected in canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 8 vol. 38 no. 2 a shared understanding about the children in the program and the diverse worlds they needed to know and navigate on a daily basis. in the absence of a set curriculum, grumet (1995) describes conversation [as] “the process of making sense with a group of people of the systems that shape and organize the world that we can think about together” (p. 19). taking a constructivist viewpoint, bruner (1987) defines world-making, or life-making, as “a process in which the life-stories of those involved must mesh, so to speak, within a community of life stories; tellers and listeners must share some ‘deep structure’ about the nature of ‘life’” (p. 21). the flfs and cultural brokers assisted the researchers in observing appropriate cultural protocols in the discussions with members of their communities (schensul, schensul, & lecompte, 1999). as primary contacts with the families, they were also able to bring information from their home visits into these discussions. finally, cultural artefacts, such as cooking and other kitchen utensils, baskets, and musical instruments (see hennig & kirova, 2012) brought into the classroom space by the flfs and used on a regular basis by the children and the classroom staff were significant data sources, providing insights into cultural values and beliefs. the cultural brokers and flfs were instrumental in obtaining informed consent for children’s, parents’ and community members’ participation in the research aspect of the program. focus group discussions, videotapes, and research conversations were transcribed verbatim and translated by the flfs as needed to check the accuracy of the participants’ statements. thematic data analysis of the research conversations, field notes, and interview and focus group data involved indexing, assigning codes to common viewpoints, management, combining similarly coded data into categories and clustering like categories from each of the data sources, and interpretation (creswell, 2005). the flfs assisted in deciphering the meanings and cultural intent of observed behaviours in videotapes. data analysis was a recursive process. learning alongside the brokers and flfs challenges to involving families it was originally hoped that families would be directly and consistently involved in programming and classroom activities. however, due to various barriers faced by the families (transportation, child care, multiple low-paying jobs, attending esl classes during the day, and so on), the program needed to focus on engaging communities and involving families in ways not defined by “middle-class terms” (settlement worker meeting, october 2, 2008). some parents attended evening meetings but, for the most part, the teacher did not have contact with families because the children took the bus to the preschool. considering the unique circumstances of the refugee families meant that parental and community involvement in the program’s design was mainly through the ongoing participation of the flfs and cultural brokers. they offered rich and diverse perspectives on the children’s lived experiences and the funds of knowledge formed in home and community contexts, thus creating conditions for learning (vonta, 2007). in this paper, we focus on three specific ways in which the flfs and cultural brokers brought parental knowledges and perspectives into the preschool: (1) knowledge of home realities and traditions; (2) purposeful inclusion of everyday cultural objects; and (3) modelling the use of home languages. for the purposes of continuity, the examples have been drawn from a long-term unit on babies. knowledge of home realities and traditions first of all, the flfs and brokers possessed firsthand knowledge of the families’ cultural traditions and the realities of their day-to-day lives. not only did they come from the same cultural groups and geographical locations “back home,” but they belonged to the same communities here in canada. their contacts with one another were often both formal—as cultural brokers—and informal—through community events, kin connections, and mutual friends. knowing the families in these ways helped flfs share insights with the teacher which could be incorporated into the planning. from her outside connections to the family, for example, maryam , the somali flf/broker, knew there was a new baby in amina’s family even though amina “doesn’t talk much” about it. she also noted that three of the other families had recently had babies, too. she observed that the recent births might explain why “they are playing babies a lot in the classroom.” since the teacher seldom had direct contact with parents, she might not otherwise have had this information. although most ece teachers consistently observe children to better understand their interests and knowledges, unless the teacher and children have a shared cultural background, it is sometimes challenging to accurately interpret immigrant children’s actions. since the flfs and brokers were from the same cultural backgrounds as the children, they were especially attuned to their culturally formed practices. as tara assured us, “if we listen, children will show us what they need to learn.” typically, the children demonstrated what they already knew, and then the flfs were able to build on their knowledge in the classroom in culturally specific ways. for instance, as the team discussed the children’s play, tara noted, “it is interesting how they are very observant and they know how to take care of the baby and hold the baby.” the children were frequently observed enacting cultural scripts around tea ceremonies or parties, both with and without the babies (field notes, september 22, 2009; october 13, 2009). tea making and tea ceremonies later became a curricular focus with the support of the flfs (kirova, 2010). at this point, though, the flfs were able to serve as interpreters of cultural practices, providing the teacher with information which would not otherwise have been accessible to her. canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 9 vol. 38 no. 2 the facilitators described how the babies’ arrivals might be celebrated in the three cultures. these details deepened the teacher’s understanding of cultural practices and enriched the programming. as the teacher, researcher, and flfs collaboratively brainstormed a unit on babies, for example, they produced a planning chart which combined typical ece experiences (interpreted according to the children’s cultures) with more culturally specific experiences. maryam stressed that even though the kurdish, somali, and sudanese communities had some similarities, there were also differences in the “little details.” however, the facilitators concurred that after a birth, there would be many visitors to the homes and that these visitors would prepare food to bring along. in the somali tradition, maryam explained, a gathering would be held prior to the baby’s birth, which was kind of like a shower, but it was different because the family cook food and all the ladies—the neighbour and the relative and the friend bring the family…they are not bringing any gift but food, whatever kind of food they prepare in their own home. (focus group discussion, may 20, 2009) the facilitators also shared naming traditions. achi explained that sudanese parents give their babies names after seven days, and often the baby would be named after the grandparents. tara added that in kurdish culture, the baby’s name was often related to “meaningful things that’s going on in their life.” she suggested that we ask parents about name songs and meanings of their children’s names and then sing a song for each of the children. these name songs are often sung to the children by adults, such as grandmothers or mothers, and they highlight the child’s characteristics and the adults’ hopes for them. achi shared several sudanese name songs with the group. then we conferred on how to co-construct similar songs with the children or elicit such songs from the families themselves. some of the flfs’ suggestions were similar to those commonly used in canadian ece settings. for example, tara emphasized that the parents could be asked to send in baby photos of their children which would “involve parents and show them we appreciate their children” (focus group discussion, may 20, 2009). maryam wondered about inviting mothers to bring in their babies and offered to help facilitate this contact. the final planning web included such experiences as asking the families to send in baby pictures, bathing and dressing the dolls, asking one of the new mothers to bring in her baby, visiting and bringing food before the baby’s birth, gatherings, making sacrifices, offering prayers, name songs and naming traditions, traditional lullabies, and giving gifts to charity or to the family. the flfs provided a bridge between the usual “canadian” practices and those of their own cultures. many of these proved to be somewhat similar, though they were reinterpreted according to the traditions of the culture, allowing children to enact what they were seeing in home, community, and school. as the flfs explained traditions from their home countries, it gave the teacher and researchers a better sense of the specific stresses the families might be experiencing in canada, particularly because of the lack of extended family and community support. maryam further described the “shower” in the somali tradition: when we have a new baby, it’s a big event in the community…. they pray and eat and pray for her to have healthy baby and, you know, to be ‘four eyes’—the mom has two and the baby has two…. for 6 weeks after the new baby is born the mom is treated like a queen. her only jobs are to eat, sleep, and breastfeed the baby. new moms don’t have problems with postpartum depression because they are surrounded by people all the time. it’s our way of showing our happiness and of teaching her if she’s a new mom. (focus group discussion, may 20, 2009) in kurdish families, there is similar support because, as tara explained, babies “don’t leave the house for 40 days…. they want them familiar with the house before they take them somewhere else” (focus group discussion, may 20, 2009). cultural practices, the brokers recognized, do not remain static, nor are they transplanted from one place to another. since most of the families did not have extended family in the city, brokers, as community members, provided links to other families and assisted in constructing these kinds of support networks. immigrant and refugee families often lack these relationships and connections to others (suárez-orozco & suárez-orozco, 2000; vandenbroeck, roets, & snoeck, 2009). maryam acknowledged this cultural change as she explained that “now we don’t have grandmothers and grandfathers so we help each other” (focus group discussion, may 20, 2009). when someone helps the family navigate the new culture, it also might allow them to access the rules of that culture (delpit, 2006) and share “resources for action” (graue, kroeger, & prager, 2001, p. 486). lópez et al.’s (2001) research found that meeting the multiple needs of families is essential to involving them, but one must first understand what they might be experiencing. this understanding assisted the facilitators and teacher in working with the families as they helped families cope with change. together they co-created new cultural processes (rogoff, 2003). purposeful inclusion of everyday cultural objects ece programs conventionally honour the children’s diversity by bringing in cultural objects, particularly in the dramatic play area. however, without knowing the families, it is often very challenging to ascertain which objects are commonly used in their homes, where to locate and purchase such objects, and how to model their use appropriately. in the absence of such knowledge, cultural objects brought from different parts of the world by parents of children previously enrolled in the program, or accumulated by the canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 10 vol. 38 no. 2 teachers themselves during their travels, serve as “decoration.” in contrast, in the classroom in which the study took place, the facilitators, drawing on their personal relationships with the families, were able to bring in the same cultural artefacts the children would have seen at home— such as traditional slings, rattles, kitchen implements, and cradles—to support the children’s play. these artefacts served as cultural tools, mediating the children’s learning in a manner which resonated with home (hennig & kirova, 2012). figures 1 and 2 show the children preparing to put the baby to sleep in the cradle, and carrying the baby in it. figure 1. time to put the baby in the cradle. figure 2. ali carries the baby in the cradle. once these familiar cultural objects were introduced into the preschool room, the children were able to bring their home knowledges into their play. for instance, during one play episode, yasmin moved from making soup to feeding the baby doll: yasmin held the baby in her lap to feed her with the special “baby fork.” i (researcher) asked her if the babies eat soup, but she replied, “no, babies only eat cereal.” as i began to use a large fork to feed a different baby, she corrected me by giving me a baby fork. then amina joined the play. the girls fed the babies and gently put them to sleep in the cradles. yasmin exhorted us to be quiet. even when we spoke quietly we were told to “stop it” because “the baby is sleeping.” once her baby woke up, she again picked her up and cradled her as she sat. at that point amina took the opportunity to place her baby in the cradle. as amina moved her baby into the cradle, yasmin perked up from her seat, saying “don’t pick to baby’s neck” (“don’t pick the baby up by the neck”), demonstrating that she was the one with extensive knowledge about how to care for the babies. amina conceded and took more care with the baby. when i spoke with maryam about yasmin’s proficiency, she commented that “depending on the household,” even the very young children observed their mothers carefully to learn these skills. (field notes, october 27, 2009) one of the somali boys, jamal, played alongside the girls, making food and then feeding his baby (a “diego” doll). maryam commented that such actions would not be “his job” in her culture, but that some somali husbands begin to take on traditional female roles here in canada. by involving their children in the activities of daily life, parents guide them in learning specific skills and how to use cultural tools valued by the family and community, but these sometimes change in the new context (see rogoff, 1990). the flfs integrated these knowledge funds in their teaching, modelling aspects of care and use of materials that resonated with familial and cultural practices. in figure 3, achi demonstrates how to soothe the baby to sleep. figure 3. soothing the baby. demonstrations such as these often incorporated artefacts, such as a traditional rattle which was used in conjunction with the song. modelling the use of home languages perhaps the most important way in which the flfs integrated home knowledges into practice was through sustained and intentional use of home language in the classroom space. each of the flfs communicated with children from their own cultural background in their home language and spoke english with the children belonging to the other two linguistic/cultural groups. guided by the children’s interests and the focus on babies and naming, the flfs showed children how to write their names in their home languages. the flfs, teacher, and researchers also identified key vocabulary words in each of their respective home languages to support the programming. culturally relevant vocabulary was relayed to the children by the flfs, in particular through stories and songs, such as lullabies and naming songs. in a series of focus group discussions with parents, cultural brokers, community leaders, and elders, it became clear that, for them, learning happens through observing and participating in life, and that teaching respect for family members and elders in the community is a priority. therefore, instead of using western approaches to teaching young children vocabulary, descriptions, labelling of objects, questioning, or extensive “talk,” traditional songs were used to instruct, to canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 11 vol. 38 no. 2 convey important words of wisdom in the contexts in which they would normally be used (see hennig & kirova, 2012). as a result, the children used the target vocabulary in the context of their play. for example, during a play episode in which she prepared food, yasmin proudly informed us that she knew how to say spoon and pot in somali (field notes, october 13, 2009). the flfs demonstrated that they were particularly adept at including the children’s and, by extension, the families’ perspectives. in a circle time activity, each flf shared lullabies in their first language and ways of soothing babies to sleep, then invited children to sit with them to sing. in one instance, maryam began to sing a lullaby and one of the boys spoke out, saying “no, it’s not like that.” rather than correcting the child, maryam stated, “that’s a song your mom’s doing right now.” she encouraged him to come up and share his family’s version (field notes, december 15, 2009). some of the other children who had babies at home clamoured to come and sing with maryam in the manner they had learned from their own mothers. the playful and participatory nature of the circle time was a typical example of the mutual contribution of all participants, not just the adults. therefore, the familial perspectives were expressed and shared by way of the flfs, who lived and worked in both worlds as trusted members of the cultural community and as members of the school community. figure 4 shows maryam singing with amina and her “baby.” figure 4. singing to the baby. discussion the concept of hospitality, which is sometimes invoked in literature on family involvement (barone, 2011; lahman & park, 2004), might imply that families are guests to be welcomed into the preschool space rather than partners in constructing it (carreón et al., 2005). adair’s (2009) research with immigrant and non-immigrant preschool teachers proposed that teachers make “contextbased decisions about how to work with children of immigrants and their families” (p. 192). often this context is that of the dominant culture, reflecting the teacher’s own past experiences and interactions rather than those of the family and community. when the teacher lacks cultural awareness and knowledge, her or his biases inhibit communication with families (eberly et al., 2007) and planning may be operationalized in the form of a cultural tourism approach (strickland, keat, & marinak, 2010). in reviewing the body of work that has been done based on conceptualizations of resource pedagogies—including funds of knowledge (moll & gonzalez, 2005), culturally relevant pedagogy (ladsonbillings, 1995), funds of knowledge and third space (gutiérrez, baquedana-lopez, & tejeda, 1999)—paris (2012) argues that such approaches “do not explicitly enough support the linguistic and cultural dexterity and plurality (paris, 2009, 2011) necessary for success and access” in schools and communities (p. 95, italics in original). he offers the term culturally sustaining pedagogy as an alternative that builds on these resource pedagogies. this pedagogy maintains both the traditional and the evolving ways in which young people live in contemporary multilingual, multiethnic, and multicultural societies. it affirms that pedagogical approaches should “support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competence of their communities while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence” (p. 95). the study briefly described here, we believe, is an example of such culturally sustaining pedagogy because the flfs served as mediators of home practices as they entered the classroom. the children in the program were able to bring the collective (cultural) knowledge they first learned by participating in family and community practices into the classroom, where this knowledge was transformed into personal competence. children’s knowledge of “event structures” (nelson, 1995) such as feeding a baby, soothing a baby with a lullaby, cuddling a baby, putting the baby in a crib, and so forth is necessary for children to acquire categories and language. according to nelson (1974), young children’s concept formation is a process of acquiring knowledge through the child’s actions and interactions in specific types of situations. what the child learns in these everyday practices also depends on the objects that adults make available in any given situation (rogoff, 1990). consistent with sociocultural approaches to learning, the program recognized that development occurs largely through everyday activities and interactions of individuals and their social partners (tudge & odero-wanga, 2009). these interactions were facilitated by the inclusion of cultural artefacts that were connected to the children’s lives outside of the classroom and had significance to the members of the classroom community (holzman, 2009). thus, having cultural artefacts in the children’s dramatic area was not simply an act of recognition and appreciation of diversity. rather, it was an essential element of the classroom environment that allowed children from diverse backgrounds to enact their cultural knowledges. providing cultural objects in the classroom play area, alongside objects typically found in ece settings, enabled children to continue to appropriate cultural knowledge while guided by more knowledgeable members of their cultural group (i.e., flfs and cultural brokers) in the process of transition to the new school context. moreover, through the teacher and more “canadian” artefacts and practices, the children concurrently gained competencies within the dominant culture (delpit, 2006; paris, 2012). vygotsky’s theory of concept formation, according to which everyday concepts associated with home and community life and scientific concepts associated canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 12 vol. 38 no. 2 with school life are preconditions for each other, helps us realize that knowing what is happening in children’s lives and their families’ and communities’ cultural practices goes far beyond what the prevalent early childhood “parent involvement” practices entail. in the case of newcomer children, in particular, the theory implies that if the spontaneous everyday concept formation is interrupted as the child enters school, then the scientific concept development built on everyday concept development is also interrupted. this study affirms that the use of cultural brokers and flfs supports children’s everyday concept development based on their families’ cultural practices, so these were “present in their parents’ absence” (see vandenbroeck, roets, & snoeck, 2009). this presence ensures continuity of children’s learning and concept development. since the facilitators were present in the families’ home lives, they carried parental (and cultural) expectations and ways of being with children into the classroom space. these facilitators deeply enriched the planning process, supporting the funds of knowledge developed in home and community and providing materials and play experiences that not only resonated with the children and allowed them to enact real events in their lives, but also allowed them to acquire the home language vocabulary and cultural practices associated with the events. although the example provided here cannot necessarily be applied to all immigrant groups, it demonstrates one possible means by which newcomer families can contribute to their children’s education apart from the western model of parental involvement. implications for practice unfortunately, many programs do not have access to full-time, on-site cultural brokers or first language facilitators. there are other means, however, by which programs and teachers can deepen their understanding of immigrant families’ funds of knowledge. initial home visits are, of course, a very useful tool in getting to know families in the home and community context and eliciting their funds of knowledge, if programs have the resources to support these visits. however, yin, the director of the immigrant agency partnering in this project, suggested that programs look internally to see if they have staff members from the same cultural backgrounds as the children who can act as resources. she stressed the importance of the initial contacts with parents. a translator—a friend, family member, volunteer, or another parent—can provide “linguistic bridging,” not only so that teachers can let families know what to expect in the program, but so that teachers can “listen deeply” to the families’ stories and their hopes and dreams for their children. parents, she believes, should have the opportunity to guide programs as to how to get involved instead of programs imposing expectations on families (interview, may 17, 2009). tara added that teachers can “educate themselves about the children and where they come from” (interview, may 17, 2009). as paris (2012) argues, however, fostering children’s home language and “withingroup cultural practices” is only one of the goals of culturally sustaining pedagogy (paris, 2012). as in the program briefly described here, another goal is to create intercultural space based on “common, across group cultural practices” (p. 95) in which cultures mix and a new culture emerges. the examples provided here demonstrate pedagogical practices that allow both aspects of culturally sustaining pedagogy to develop simultaneously and to inform one another. references adair, j. k. 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(1995). observing sociocultural activity on three planes: participatory appropriation, guided participation, and apprenticeship. in j. wertsch, p. del rio, & a. alvarez (eds.), sociocultural studies of mind (pp. 139–164). cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. rogoff, b. (2003). the cultural nature of human development. new york, ny: oxford university press. schensul, s. l., schensul, j., & lecompte, m. d. (1999). essential ethnographic methods: observations, interviews and questionnaires. walnut creek, ca: altamira. song, s., & wang, x. c. (2006). immigrant parents’ involvement in american schools: perspectives from korean mothers. early childhood education journal, 34(2), 25–132. souto-manning, m., & swick, k. j. (2006). teachers’ beliefs about parent and family involvement: rethinking our family involvement paradigm. early childhood education journal, 34, 187–193. doi: 10.1007/s10643-006-0063-5 strickland, m. j., keat, j. b., & marinak, b. a. (2010). connecting worlds: using photo narrations to connect immigrant children, preschool teachers, and immigrant families. the school community journal, 20(1), 81–101. suárez-orozco, c., & suárez-orozco, m.m. (2001). children of immigration. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. tudge, j. r. h., & odero-wanga, d. (2009). a culturalecological perspective on early childhood among the luo of kisumu, kenya. in m. fleer, m. hadegaars, & j. r .h. tudge (eds.). the world year book of education 2009: childhood studies and the impact of globalization: policies and practices at global and local levels (pp. 142–160). new york, ny: routledge. turney, k., & kao, g. (2009). barriers to school involvement: are immigrant parents disadvantaged? the journal of educational research, 102(4), 257–271. vandenbroeck, m., roets, g., & snoeck, a. (2009). immigrant mothers crossing borders: nomadic identities and multiple belongings in early childhood education. european early childhood education research journal, 17, 203–216. doi: 0.1080/13502930902950452 vélez-ibáñez, c., & greenberg, j. (2005). formation and transformation of funds of knowledge. in n. gonzález, l. c. moll, & c. amanti (eds.), funds of knowledge: theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 47–70). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. vonta, t. (2007, august). vygotsky’s ideas in the new democracies. children in europe, 21–23. retrieved from http://www.issa.nl/news/children%20in%20 europe_august_2007-pages21-23.pdf vygotsky, l. (1978). mind and society: the development of higher mental processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. vygotsky, l. (1986). thought and language. (a. kozulin, trans.). cambridge, ma: mit press. wertsch, j. 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(2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8, 69–91. doi:10.1080/1361332052000341006 microsoft word from the editors' desk online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 from the editors’ desk rachel langford, jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [pages 1 to 4] www.cayc.ca from the editors’ desk by rachel langford, jane hewes, sonya harper, and monica lysack this special issue of canadian children focuses on professionalism in early childhood education and care (ecec). the genesis was a presentation organized by guest editors rachel langford (ontario), jane hewes (alberta), sonya hooper (prince edward island), and monica lysack (then saskatchewan) for the international innovations in ece conference in victoria, bc, in 2012. as we collaborated on our presentation “constructing professionalism in four canadian provinces,” we discovered a rich variety of innovations and developments, some systemic, others pilots, some common among provinces, others unique. this discovery led us to wonder about other provinces, other innovations, and the status of ecec as an emerging profession in canada. the call for papers on the topic of professionalism yielded submissions that are as diverse as canada. the articles raise more questions than they answer about evolving constructs of professionalism in ecec as the reader is presented with multiple perspectives, philosophies, contradictions, and conundrums. the evolution of professionalism in canadian ecec is directly related to how a system for ecec is developing—or not—in canada. ecec is a provincial responsibility with a sporadic yet influential history of federal leadership and involvement. responding to a decade of decline in federal leadership and funding for ecec, provinces have chosen not to take up the slack, and development in almost all provinces has been minimal. an important reality we face in canada is that ecec is a disjointed patchwork across the country. sadly, the only consistent factor among provinces is the inadequate access (number of regulated spaces) and varying quality, which are the direct result of severe underresourcing by governments at all levels. it is old news that canada remains last when compared to ecec systems in other oecd countries. unicef, too, in its report canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   card on ecec, shows canada ranking last, with our only point coming from a generous interpretation of preservice professional preparation specific to ecec. thus postsecondary institutions, along with professional associations, have served as the foundation for ideas of ecec professionalism in canada and its further development. the child care human resources sector council (cchrsc) that operated from 2003 until it closed its doors as a result of federal cuts in 2013 did groundbreaking work identifying and defining the sector. the cchrsc provided a national framework and a body of research and knowledge about the sector and our emerging profession. its demise means the loss of the only national body positioned to coordinate and disseminate information related to the development of the profession. provincially, the establishment of the college of early childhood educators in ontario, the only one of its kind in north america, is a significant milestone for at least one province in canada and a development in which some other provinces have expressed interest. but as the multiple perspectives in the articles urge new uncertainties, what are the implications of a professional regulatory body to the profession? moreover, in what ways have recent initiatives by the sector and government, such as early learning curriculum frameworks, more ece degree programs, and increasing professional development, contributed to understandings of professionalism? drawing on the concept of a competent system in ecec proposed by urban, vandenbroeck, van laere, lazzari, and peeters (2012) this issue reveals how professionalism unfolds at the individual, institutional and team, interinstitutional, and governance levels and is negotiated and constructed in and through an interplay of these multiple levels. the disjointed patchwork approach to ecec mirrors canada’s approach to developing professionalism, and the contributions to this journal are representative, in the opinions of the editors, of that diverse and uneven canadian context. despite a broad call for submissions to the journal to a national audience, the submissions received were limited in representation of canada’s provinces and diverse cultural, political, and ethnic voices. yet the articles do represent a valuable range of perspectives, from the philosophical to the technical and much in between. what are different constructs of professionalism? how are processes of regulation, professional autonomy, and judgment played out in these constructs? in what ways, if at all, do the perspectives presented in the articles represent a particular canadian approach for understanding ecec professionalism? randa khattar and karyn callaghan set the stage for this issue with big ideas and questions. they note in “beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and ideals” that “a conversation is burgeoning in local and international settings that questions narrow views of professionalism. this conversation, timely in the canadian context, provokes us to think beyond technical, instrumental views of the early childhood educator.” khattar canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   and callaghan ask: “which competing ideas, values, and tools shape understandings of professionalism in early childhood? which appear to narrow and which expand definitions of professionalism? which seek to go ‘beyond professionalism’?” in “negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten programs,” romona gananathan notes that “the professional role of reces is evolving through the integration of care and education through fdk programs across canada. while unions have historically played an integral role in improving the wages and working conditions of reces in the childcare sector, integration of early learning in the education sector presents a new opportunity to raise the professional profile and working conditions of reces.” “the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism” by stephanie tukonic and debra harwood also uses ontario’s fullday kindergarten as a lens through which to explore perceived limitations of professionalism and the factors that mediate and influence professional identity for early childhood educators compared to teachers. the authors urge consideration of new models of training/education and pathways for the co-construction of professional identities for teachers and educators. in “enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring,” glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey report on the evaluation findings and lessons learned from a training program, mentoring pairs for child care (mpcc). mpcc combined a formal curriculum to enhance administrative and leadership knowledge and skills, a collegial learning and mentoring process, and activities related to professionalism. the findings suggest that the program was effective and provide some insight into policy and professional learning. drawing on an ethnographic study, christine massing explores how immigrant and refugee women enrolled in a postsecondary ece program author their own professional identities. massing describes how these identities are constructed from knowledge gained in a professional preparation program and from personal and cultural knowledges and beliefs. in “eces as childcare advocates,” lyndsay macdonald, brooke richards, and rachel langford examine the commonly held notion that early childhood educators (eces) don’t make good advocates. unfortunately, being an “advocate” and being an ece “professional” are often viewed as contradictory, rather than complementary, roles. the authors examine whether eces can be advocates from the perspective of childcare movement actors in manitoba and ontario. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   “from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island” is authored by the research team of anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna, who have recently completed a project to facilitate action research initiatives developed and implemented by early childhood educators in early years centres on prince edward island. the project describes how eces developed leadership skills and their sense of belonging to a community of learners. in “thinking in moments of not knowing,” iris berger draws us full circle as she illuminates “the potentiality of the practice of pedagogical narration to orient educators toward complexity and thinking that is triggered by encounters with unexpected pedagogical situations. such encounters have the potential to initiate educational judgment that is inspired by events and not by following known rules and standards. they invite thinking beyond generalizations and clichés and they orient future (more) responsive and ethically rich pedagogical ventures in ece contexts.” this dialogue of professionalism is happening all around us, yet it is clear that there is no cohesiveness, no system, and no clear path. we—all of us—are the coconstructors of professionalism. the articles in this issue provide a series of snapshots of perspectives, initiatives, and research that collectively provide an important, but only partial, view of the complex dynamics unfolding in the emerging profession of early childhood education and care in canada. we trust that this is only the beginning of our journey of broadening and deepening our understandings of professionalism. references urban, m., vandenbroeck, m., van laere, k., lazzari, a., & peeters, j. (2012). towards competent systems in early childhood education and care: implications for policy and practice. european journal of education, 47(4), 508–526. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 intro formatted back page w2015 canadian children directions & connections 47spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 our program, like many other early childhood programs, is an environment of emergent and playbased programming for twenty-five 3 and 4-year-old children. in september 2011 we decided to introduce clay into our program. we had been moving toward presenting materials in our space that are open ended, rather than fixed or prescribed in meaning, and that allow for change. materials that inspire imagination, creativity, and exploration. it was hoped that the introduction of clay would extend on and allow for a creative and divergent thinking process that only open-ended materials can provide for the children, families, and educators of the centre. what follows are my reflections on our work with clay: how this material led us to a state of inquiry, exploration, wonder, and dialogue. the story of how clay became alive in our space, our ideas, and our minds and ultimately led us to a line of flight we couldn’t have imagined, a place of new questions and changing dialogues. at the time of the introduction of clay into the centre, i was also interested in the idea of movement—movement of children, materials, and time. many strides had been made in our work with children and the idea of movement of bodies and time in our space, but i wondered about movement of materials. specifically, i wondered if the children were reluctant to move materials because we educators had created both visible and invisible boundaries. vecchi (2010) writes: we must evaluate in everyday life how much environments allow for or forbid, how much they encourage or censor, how much they educate ways of seeing, exploration or sensibility. the extent to which personal sensibilities and culture can grow on journeys of this kind is often underestimated, as are the effects it can have on our relationships with children, the surrounding environment and educational work. (p. 89) i wondered how could we expand the children’s work with the ideas of materials and movement using clay as a starting point in our environment. my colleagues and i hoped that by letting go of some of our ideas of “space for things to happen” the children would embrace the idea and begin to explore and experience clay in relationship to themselves and other materials throughout the environment. we decided we would introduce clay by engaging in project work once a week, hoping that clay would become a staple material in our centre as the year went on. during the initial encounters, clay was put on the red table in large chunks with beach glass, bamboo sticks, and dinosaurs. we chose to first present clay as large forms because we wanted to reveal clay in the classroom in a form closest to how we received it. honestly, we didn’t know how to start or to introduce clay, and the above-mentioned items were things we had regularly seen the children engage with. much of the time during these first sessions was spent putting things into clay, digging, and describing the physical properties of the large blocks; heavy, sticky, and hard were words often heard. hiding, decorating, and making holes and homes were common discussion threads heard during these initial encounters. in the beginning there was also discussion on what the clay was. for some it resembled coffee play dough in both texture and smell, while others were adamant that “it is clay, it is different!” during these initial explorations, nothing was added by the children. they did not move anything to or from the clay and clay itself was not moved from the table. after a month of presenting clay on the red table, alone and with the materials chosen by the educators, emily went to the shelf and picked up the sea creatures. we watched in silence as she swam the creatures through the clay sea, put them into their homes, and fed them small pieces of clay and beach glass. soon after that session, several items came to the table—knives, wiggly glue, cloth, pencils, and tree stumps joined the children and clay. the relationship between children and clay was changing, but still clay itself was not moving from the table. we wondered why the children chose to work with clay only in the area we had placed it in. did our environment forbid or censor movement? had we put things into categories without realizing it? kind (2010) suggests, “there is an incredible richness, variation, and eclecticism in what children do. in many ways educators limit this richness or provoke a narrowing of experience by what we think, what we expect, and the frames we use to interpret children’s artistic explorations” (p. 116). were we limiting the possibilities of clay with past thoughts? what frames were we using to question and make interpretations? to stimulate dialogue sherri-lynn yazbeck is an early childhood educator and supervisor of a 3to 5-year-old program at the university of victoria’s child care services. she strives to be in a state of exploration, wonder, and dialogue with the children, families, materials, and her fellow educators at the centre. she finds joy in the ordinary moments of the day and loves to find comfort in those uncomfortable moments of inquiry and question. movement and clay by: sherri-lynn yazbeck canadian children directions & connections 48spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 and reflection with the children, i printed some of the photos of our experiences. it was at this point that jordan, a child looking at the photos, asked, “why is clay always at the red table?” an educator nearby responded, “where should clay be?” looking around the room, jordan quickly replied, “at the green table under the painting” [pointing to a group painting done by the children]. at the next session, clay took place at the green table, again in large forms. however, this experience was different: the children asked for water. we gave them small cups of water, but it wasn’t enough; they needed more. the children poured the water over the clay, rubbed the clay and smoothed it out, and then would head to the bathroom to get more water. water began to flow off the table. some worked the water into the clay, while others continued to pour water over their block, watching it flow down over the sides and onto the table and eventually drip to the floor. this went on for an hour or so, with children coming and going from the area. some concerns about safety and the amount of water on the floor were expressed, and the session ended with the children using paper and cloth towels to mop up the water. later that day jordan requested that clay be moved to the yellow table for the next session. at the following session, clay was displayed in large forms on the yellow table when the centre opened. when i arrived about an hour later, i saw extremely wet mounds of clay on the table and water pouring off and flowing into a drain on the floor in the nearby bathroom. no children were working with the clay. towels had been placed over large puddles and i was able to follow a trail to the bathroom sinks, where i found an educator trying to control the flow of water. she explained that the children had been bringing water from the bathroom to the clay and things got a bit out of hand. clay closed early that day. the amount of water the children used made us uncomfortable—uncomfortable with water, uncomfortable with mess, and uncomfortable with each other because we disagreed on the need for water that some of the children were expressing when working with clay. we wondered: what are our boundaries? how far could we take this? when does the need for safety override the need for exploration? why do some children need water to explore clay while others show no interest when water is present? and what were we going to do with clay? we decided to have clay available in the areas suggested by jordan, the only child who had wished to move it. clay was put into plastic airtight containers on the shelves by the red, blue, yellow, and green tables. we decided that if the children were directly supervised we would welcome water at the yellow and green tables because the water source was nearby. i did not feel good about this. i felt as if we were creating more boundaries, boundaries i was so desperately wanting to break down. the containers also felt cold and unwelcoming. we had been thinking a lot about the aesthetic characteristics of our space, and the containers did not fit the direction we were going. those buckets sat on the shelves for almost a month and clay never came out. each time i looked at it my body tensed, i tried to ignore them, but each time i passed by the shelves i felt uncomfortable. eventually, i couldn’t stand looking at them: clay was not appealing to me or the children in this form. so i put the containers and clay away. was this the end of clay for us? interestingly, while we saw no work or movement of clay for those few weeks, we did see movement of other materials in our space. we noticed the children using things in different ways and in different areas. materials were moving. we wondered if deliberately deciding to relax boundaries with clay had led us to unconsciously let go of boundaries in other areas. materials were now moving, ideas and play were changing, a creative, imaginative, and divergent thinking process was happening before our eyes. we began to wonder whether the frame through which we view children and materials was changing. excited by this new turn of events, i was not yet ready to give up on clay. i had seen the relationship between the children and clay beginning to change and i wanted to explore more. we had a staff meeting before winter break and decided to continue our explorations, understanding that some educators and children were not comfortable and may choose not to take part. we agreed that clay would be tried in the water table, allowing for some containment of water. based on my observations of the children exploring materials in our space, i suggested also presenting clay in a different way. the children had been showing an interest in small stones, spools, jewels, and treasures. what if clay was presented in this way? would movement happen? what was it about the idea of movement that i couldn’t shake? spools, jewels, and other small items could be found moving about the room, taking on new roles and responsibilities. would small clay balls elicit the same response? a practicum student and i rolled close to 400 clay balls of varying size. clay was presented in the water table and as balls on the tables over the next several sessions. some children were drawn to water and clay; others gravitated to the small balls. balls were collected, rolled, and flattened. pencils were used to write and draw on clay and knives to cut clay balls into pieces. snowmen and birds were made and then flattened by large tree rounds. children came and left. water was poured; clay became wet, thick, and gooey. we covered our hands and arms, filled jars, and poured more water. we turned clay into paint and used brushes; we made clay balls wet and sticky. clay became diverse, similar to the way that munnelly (2010, p. 16, quoting bergson, 1929, p. 196) describes the experience of drawing: “the body acts as a place of passage of the movements received and thrown back, a hyphen, a connecting link between the things that act on me and the things upon which i act”; munnelly says that bergson’s statement “eloquently captures both the corporeal and cerebral experience of drawing where the body is canadian children directions & connections 49spring / printemps 2013 vol. 38 no. 1 governed by a triumvirate of movement, cognition and material” (2010, p. 16). clay was acting on us and we on it. for the first time in my exploration with clay, i was comfortable. i was able to let go of some of my hesitations and just be in the moment. i had opened myself up to see the extraordinary in the everyday moments with clay. i was in that one place, being totally present with that one child or group of children and not trying to control, through a lack of or need for movement. the children were beginning to understand clay and to teach me, through their explorations, the “way of clay.” however, when each session would end i couldn’t help but wonder, why is clay always worked with in the area where it is arranged by the educators? i felt we were letting go of our boundaries with materials in our space and we were seeing so much movement of everything else. maybe clay didn’t need to move for the children to come to understand it. i began to think about our days: what is it about clay, the children, the environment, and the educators that does not inspire clay to be moved and worked with in another space? and why couldn’t i stop thinking about the need for clay to move? during this time a fellow educator and i presented our experiences with clay in an art inquiry course we were taking with a small group of early childhood educators. as we talked about our experiences and tried to answer the group’s questions, i was left wondering if, while we were working to remove material-movement boundaries, we were in fact creating boundaries for ourselves. why were we, the educators, so reluctant to move clay ourselves? we claim to view the children as protagonists, as active constructors of their own knowledge, but aren’t we too protagonists, acting as co-constructors of that knowledge and observing, facilitating, and inspiring possibilities to unfold, in both the children and the clay? the next day i went to work early and moved clay into the block space. initially, the children seemed hesitant, pulling blocks off the shelf but not really engaging with the clay. eventually one child got a block, put it on a chunk of clay, stomped on it, and lifted the block to reveal a very flat piece of clay. soon the room was buzzing with conversation and questions: how did you do that? this works better, it is heavier. how is yours so flat? did you step on it? the dialogue and work continued for almost two hours until slowly children left to go outside. those of us who remained cleaned up the clay, swept and vacuumed the carpet, and wiped down the blocks. our sessions in the block space continued for several weeks, not always on the same day, sometimes initiated by the children’s requests and other times by myself. as time went on more children came to work with clay and blocks, some who had never engaged with the material when it was presented on the tables. the clay became the bolts holding the ships and machines together; we discovered that it sticks to walls; we added water by way of wet paper towels; we made designs using our shoes, knives, straws, bamboo, glass beads, and pencils, all brought to the clay by the children. dry clay became chalk and wet clay became mortar. our understanding of clay was growing and changing once again. our relationship with the material was strengthening. this year with clay has allowed us to let go of visible and invisible boundaries, boundaries within ourselves and boundaries we set up for children, materials, and our space. we have questioned both our practice and the design and aesthetics of our environment, and we have opened ourselves up to be coconstructors of experience and exploration with the children. now that we—children and educators—move clay and other materials throughout the room, clay is taking on new roles and responsibilities. some children are drawing plans and are deliberately sculpting cups, dogs, penguins, birds, and snakes. we are learning that dried clay needs to be fired or it is extremely fragile, and we are working to make connections with some professional potters. as educators we are discussing how the process of exploration can lead to a product through understanding and relationship forming. we wonder if a product can ever be finished or if it is always in process. we are considering burrington’s (2004) thoughts on the importance of time– time for observing life, time for entering play, time for building relationships and time for revisiting ideas and experiences. it takes a long time to learn to use tools and to understand media. no person is born knowing how to write, how to move a paintbrush or dance or write music. no child enters the classroom asking to represent their thinking and state their questions with clay either. it takes time. and it takes teachers who honor that way of being with children— teachers who enter the natural time frame of children. (p. 84) letting go and seeing the children as protagonists and researchers and allowing myself to take on similar roles has given us all an opportunity to understand clay in a different way. clay, like the other materials in our space, is a living part of our environment; it has become a language to express feelings and thoughts, a form of expression, representation, wonder, desire, understanding; and inquiry. clay is all of this, with or without movement, alone or with other materials, and in many forms. references burrington, b. (2004). afterword. in d. smith & j. goldhaber (eds.), poking, pinching and pretending: documenting toddlers’ explorations with clay (pp. 8387). st. paul, mn: redleaf. kind, s. (2010). art encounters: movements in the visual arts and early childhood education. in v. paciniketchabaw (ed.), flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education (pp. 113–131). new york, ny: peter lang. munnelly, l. (2010). dialogues in proximity. studies in material thinking, volume 4. retrieved from: http:// www.materialthinking.org/papers/13 vecchi, v. (2010). art and creativity in reggio emilia: exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. new york, ny: routledge. spring/printemps 2017 1 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research a former elementary teacher in rural alberta schools, shelley stagg peterson is a professor in the department of curriculum, teaching, and learning at oise/university of toronto. she teaches graduate courses in elementary literacy and conducts research on young children’s oral language and writing in play contexts in northern rural and indigenous communities. email: shelleystagg. peterson@utoronto.ca christine portier is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of curriculum, teaching, and learning at oise/university of toronto. she is a former elementary teacher who now teaches graduate courses in elementary education and conducts research on young children’s oral language and writing in play contexts in northern rural and indigenous communities. adam murray worked as a teacher in the city centre for edmonton public school board for ten years. he is currently the principal of kennedy elementary school and grimshaw jr/sr high school for the peace river school division and an advisory committee member for the northern oral language and writing through play (now play) project. as a public school educator, he is passionate about teaching children to read, and he continues to research and implement strategies that close the literacy gap of early learners. the role of play at home and in kindergarten and grade one: parents’ perceptions shelley stagg peterson, christine portier, and adam murray in a recent interview-based study involving early childhood educators and teachers in kindergarten, grade one, aboriginal head start programs, and daycares in four canadian provinces (peterson, forsyth, & mcintyre, 2015), participants told us that their views of play as a forum for children’s active learning seemed to conflict with the views of their students’ parents. one teacher said, “i was asked by parents, ‘why should i send my kid to kindergarten? all they’re going to do there is play, and they can play at home.’” this teacher, and many others participating in the interview study, felt that parents viewed play as an engaging activity that was a different entity from educational activity. teachers participating in our interview research said they wanted to know more about parents’ perceptions of the role of play at home and in kindergarten and grade one classrooms. were their encounters with parents, such as the one described above, reflective of a large number of parents’ views? we provided them with information gathered through a survey of parents, most of whom had children in kindergarten or grade one in northern rural communities in a particular canadian province. research questions guiding the survey study were as follows:  what are parents’/guardians’/grandparents’ definitions of play, and do they see a connection between play and learning?  what place do participants see for play at home, in kindergarten, and in grade one classrooms?  in participants’ views, what role should teachers and parents take vis-à-vis children’s play? in this article, we report the results of the survey. we begin with a review of the literature examining parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on play, and the constructs of play that informed the development of our survey. after reporting the findings, we draw conclusions and discuss implications for teachers and administrators. this paper reports results of a survey of 208 parents and grandparents of children who attend kindergarten and grade one in northern rural communities in one canadian province. participants, whose education ranged from elementary school to university degrees, described play as an enjoyable physical activity involving running and being outdoors, and agreed that children are learning when they play. our findings contrast with those of previous research, where parents’ valuing of play as a learning activity correlated positively only with higher education levels. keywords: parent perceptions; play; learning; northern rural communities spring/printemps 2017 2 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research previous research: parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on play in previous research, parents have presented a fairly uniform view of play as important for the amusement, socialization, or physical wellbeing of children (badzis, 2003; morrow & rand, 1991), appropriate for early learning in preschool programs (qadiri & manhas, 2009) but not associated with academic learning as children get older (badzis, 2003). in contrast, teachers have highlighted the motivational and active learning characteristics of play, suggesting that adults could contribute to children’s learning through play (chowdhury & rivalland, 2012; christmas, 2005; fogle & mendez, 2006; rothlein & brett, 1987). these differing views have endured across decades and international borders, from 1987 (rothlein & brett), when preschool children, their parents, and teachers in various socioeconomic and cultural communities in an american state were surveyed, to 2006 (fogle & mendez), when african american mothers were surveyed using a parent play beliefs scale to capture their views on the academic benefits of play and the role of adults in children’s play, to 2012 (chowdhury & rivalland), when four mothers from a low socioeconomic neighbourhood in bangladesh were interviewed. we did not find similar research investigating canadian parents’ views on play or play-based learning. some of the research has shown sociocultural influences on parents’ views of play. chowdhury and rivalland (2012), for example, concluded that, “play is greatly influenced by their [parents’] socio-economic position, personal experiences, educational background, and cultural nature of play. to the less educated or uneducated parents, children’s academic achievement is more important than a leisure-time activity like play” (p. 120). these participating parents defined play as a leisure activity that should not distract children from their study in school at any grade, as they equated educational success with a route out of their socioeconomic conditions. in their homes, children played with each other, but parents generally did not enter into the children’s play. a study examining the influence of education on parents’ views, conducted in a province in turkey, showed that primary-school educated parents were more likely than their university-educated counterparts to identify characteristics of play as an enjoyable activity rather than a learning activity (pirpir, er, & koçak, 2009). an outcome of views separating play and learning in some jurisdictions, such as the usa (e.g., bassok & rorem, 2014; lynch, 2015; miller & almon, 2009) and australia (e.g., freeman, 2015) is that primary teachers are being pressured to incorporate more formal reading instruction in place of play-based learning opportunities. these pressures appear to arise from a parental desire to give their children a “competitive edge … [because parents] want to see results from educational expenditures, and while they do not mind seeing children paint and play as they might in a non-academic kindergarten, they would somehow rather see a rise in test scores” (dombkowski, 2001, p. 545). these pressures and their influence on kindergarten and grade one classroom activities are critiqued in academic articles written about kindergartens in hong kong (e.g., fung & cheng, 2012) and in the uk (e.g., anning, 2015; moyles, 2015). development of the survey: understandings about play overarching all understandings of play used to develop the survey items is the notion that play is a culturally constructed concept. all themes around play must be viewed as particular to certain sociocultural groups within particular historical and geographical contexts (göncü, jain, & tuermer, 2006). indeed, questions in our parent survey study reflect a view of play that cannella and viruru (2004) argue “represents the biases and values of western societies that privilege explorations with objects and monocultural notions of progress” (p. 104). for example, definitions of play as child centered and supportive of children’s learning and overall development were influential to our survey item development. proponents of a view of play as child initiated and enjoyable to children agree that play provides a context where children feel free to explore, try out hypotheses, and set their own goals and rules for their play (smith, 2009; wood, 2013). the notion of choice is both sociocultural and individual, because the possible choices reflect the cultural views of play within homes, communities, and schools, yet individual children take up these potential roles and activities in varying ways (broadhead, wood, & howard, 2010). our decision to ask questions about the roles that adults take in children’s play also reflects views of play as an activity supporting children’s cultural and overall learning. recognizing these cultural influences on survey development, we created open-ended questions such as “when you think of the word play, what comes to mind?” and “what do your children like to play at home?” in an attempt to create space for parents to present alternate perspectives of play. we also asked questions about how frequently participants thought children should be playing at home, in kindergarten, and in grade one to gain an understanding of cultural views on the value of play in these contexts. influential perspectives on play and learning, the topic that was of greatest interest to teachers and thus the central focus of the survey, are detailed below. spring/printemps 2017 3 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research play provides a context for learning and development this view of play stems from lev vygotsky’s (1967) social constructivist theory, of which one tenet is that play is the source of development and creates the zone of proximal development. action in the imaginative sphere, in an imaginary situation, the creation of voluntary intentions and the formation of real-life plans and volitional moves—all appear in play and make it the highest level of preschool development. (p. 16) pretend/dramatic play is considered especially important to children’s learning because of the abstract thinking that is involved, where children attach meaning to everyday objects, a process similar to the symbolic representation of ideas involved in reading and writing (bodrova & leong, 2009; roskos & christie, 2009; van oers, 2014). in addition to encouraging abstract thinking, play contexts promote children’s problem solving and hypothesis testing (whitebread, 2010). it is not only cognitive learning that is developed through play, but children’s physical coordination and muscular strength as well (power, 2000). pyle and bigelow (2014) propose three categories of classroom approaches to play-based learning in their profile of three kindergarten teachers: “play as peripheral to learning, play as a vehicle for social and emotional development, and play as a vehicle for academic learning” (p. 392). our survey included a forcedchoice question asking whether children learn when they play, followed by an open-ended question requesting participants to explain their answer or provide examples. we did not want to influence participants’ responses to this question by providing examples of children’s learning. adult roles in children’s play researchers and theorists are divided in their views on how much and in what ways teachers, parents, and other adults should enter into children’s play. cautioning against intervention, pellegrini and galda (1993) use their research to show that adult intervention can put constraints on the sophistication of children’s language during play. bennett et al. (1997), however, question the assumption that when children make their own choices, learning becomes a much more powerful activity. their research shows that the quality of childcentered learning depends on the range of choices available, the amount of interaction with more knowledgeable peers and adults, the provision of supportive resources, and the potential for activity to be connected to worthwhile learning. bodrova and leong (2009) also argue that adult intervention can raise the level of children’s play toward more abstract mental representations that support children’s cognitive development and their literacy learning. this perspective appears to have been accepted, to a large extent, by mainstream parents and teachers in contemporary western cultures. peter k. smith’s (2009) work shows that adults are inclined to enter into children’s play, encouraging certain kinds of play and channelling children’s play toward educational outcomes. survey questions about teachers’ and parents’ roles in children’s play arose from this research regarding adult intervention in children’s play. the item choices invited parents to rate parent and teacher interventions so that a range of perspectives might be represented in the survey results. methods participants and their northern school division participants were 205 parents and three grandparents, most of whom (88.9%) were female. parents/grandparents were sent surveys via their children, who each were attending one of eight elementary schools in the eagle hills school division in northern canada. eagle hills school division covers a large geographic area and serves more than 10 communities. the average population of schools in the division is 200 students. average class sizes are 15 in primary grades and slightly less than 20 in the upper elementary grades. economic activities in eagle hills communities are based in agriculture, resource extraction, and forestry, requiring a trade-qualified workforce that is augmented with general labourers and small business entrepreneurs that cater to these industries. parents in eagle hills school division communities are heavily involved in their children’s curriculum and have high expectations for meaningful and engaging educational experiences for their children. all participants had children, with 94% having at least one child of kindergarten or grade one age, and 59% of participants had college or university education, 31% had secondary school education, 7% had trades training, certification, or licensing, and 3% identified elementary education as their highest level of education. all participants completed the survey independently without reading assistance. spring/printemps 2017 4 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research development of survey survey questions were developed to provide information that the teachers and administrators in the participating school division would find useful to inform their classroom practices and communications with parents. additionally, our item development was carried out with the following goals in mind: (1) presenting items clearly so that the participants would interpret them as researchers intended; (2) generating valid information that would address the research questions; and (3) ensuring that completing the survey was not an onerous and off-putting task. we piloted the survey by asking four graduate students who were parents of young children to complete the survey. the students kept track of the time it took to complete the survey and provided suggestions for rewording two questions to clarify their intent. the school division’s early learning/supports and services coordinator organized and carried out the distribution and collection processes. she emailed principals and kindergarten teachers of eight elementary schools in the eagle hills school division to inform them about the study and invite their participation. potential participants were sent paper copies of the surveys through the school division courier system. each school then sent the surveys home via children in the kindergarten and grade one classrooms in the school. students brought the completed surveys to their teachers. the school secretary collected the surveys and then sent them to the school division’s central office. return rates ranged from 100% in one of the smaller schools to 24% in the largest school. the average return rate was approximately 50% per school. data analysis we used inductive analysis methods for open-ended questions and questions in which participants had been asked to check all responses that applied to them (strauss & corbin, 1998). this involved highlighting key words and phrases, combining these words and phrases into groups, and creating labels to describe what the words and phrases within each group had in common. for example, when participants described the play activities in which their children engaged at home, some wrote playing outside, some wrote play on the trampoline, some wrote swimming, some wrote quadding (riding all-terrain vehicles), and others wrote riding bikes. we grouped these responses together and categorized them as physical/outdoor play because we felt that this label captured the characteristics common to all the play activities mentioned. we then calculated the percentages of words or phrases within each category and displayed the results in frequency tables. for survey questions 6, 7, 8, and 11, we used likert scale (close-ended) questions to gather a range of responses. we calculated averages (out of four) for questions that asked participants to indicate how often they thought that particular activities should take place (never, rarely, sometimes, or often; strongly disagree, disagree, agree, or strongly agree) at home, in kindergarten, and in grade one classrooms. we calculated frequencies (in percentages) for these responses as well. the frequencies for each of these questions required large separate tables, so we condensed the data and simplified our tables by using mean values (see tables 4 and 6). we are aware of the concerns around the use of mean values with likert-type scales. for example, although we asked participants to rank their responses along a scale of never-rarely-sometimes-often, the intervals between the values on our scale may not have been presumed equal by the participants (blaikie, 2003; jamieson, 2004), and thus statistical tests (e.g., for significance) cannot be performed on mean values. instead, we used the mean values to convey more information in fewer tables. we also used them to indicate where participants’ responses tended to fall in the given range. to discuss our results in relation to previous research in other countries, we also compared the responses of the participants who had secondary and postsecondary education to those with elementary education, but did not conduct statistical analyses because the number of participants with elementary education was very small (3%). findings views of play in response to question 3 (when you think of the word play, what comes to mind?), participants most frequently described play as a physical activity that involves running and being outdoors and is enjoyable or fun (see table 1). for example, some participants noted that when children play, they “go to the park” and “build snow forts and snow men.” children’s play, according to participants, also involves “running, jumping, [being] outside, and [getting] exercise and fresh air.” spring/printemps 2017 5 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research play was also frequently described as a social activity (e.g., “interacting with peers” and “children verbally interacting with each other”) and as an activity where children create something and use their imaginations to pretend (e.g., “dressing up,” “making crafts,” and “unstructured, imaginative interaction”). table 1: how participants defined play (in percentages) definition (n = 661 phrases) percentages physical activity 27.2 enjoyable/fun 23.9 social activity 21.8 create/imagine 16.6 play with games/toys 10.5 when participants were given a list of activities in question 5, they generally agreed that children are playing when engaged in all these activities, with the exception of using apps on electronic devices. outdoor games, such as tag and hide-and-seek, were almost unanimously defined as examples of children’s play, with dressing up, imagining or pretending, and building with blocks or lego also supported by almost all participants (see table 2). table 2: activities participants considered to be play (in percentages) activities participants who said “yes” take part in outdoor game (e.g., tag, hide and seek) 99.0 dress-up 97.6 build with blocks or lego 97.1 imagine or pretend 97.1 climb, crawl, etc., on large equipment 95.7 act out stories with puppets 95.6 sing / dance / make music with instruments 93.7 make things out of materials (play dough, macaroni, etc.) 92.3 pour, measure, etc., with sand and water 91.8 use board games 91.0 put puzzles together 90.8 participate in organized sports 88.9 use apps for children on electronic devices 48.3 play and learning when asked directly in question 10 whether children are learning when they are playing, all participants agreed that they are. in their written explanations about the specific learning that occurs through play, they most frequently referred to the development of social skills, such as “learning to share and play fairly with others” and “appropriate ways to handle different situations.” participants also explained that when children play, they develop conceptual understandings that span across discipline areas, noting, for example, that children learn “counting,” “colours,” “literacy + numeracy,” “the nature of the world,” and “how things work.” participants also wrote about the development of cognitive processes (e.g., “problem solving,” “cause and effect,” and “critical thinking”), as well as the development of creativity and a sense of imagination. they wrote that the physical activity of play contributes to a child’s gross and fine motor skill development, because children learn “coordination,” “balance,” “dexterity,” and “hand-eye coordination.” with some frequency, participants also mentioned that because children have choices and feel success in play activities, they gain self-confidence and independence through play. one parent described learning through play as “joyous experimentation with the world around them.” table 3 shows the percentages of the types of responses that participants gave to the open-ended question. spring/printemps 2017 6 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 3: participants’ descriptions of how they consider children to be learning in play activities (in percentages) types of learning during play (n = 596 phrases) percentages develop social skills 29.2 develop conceptual understandings across disciplines 21.4 develop thinking processes 11.1 enhance creative and imaginative thinking 11.1 develop motor skills (fine and gross) 10.9 motivational and enjoyable 5.7 develop self-confidence and independence 3.7 enhance communication skills 3.7 good for health (physical and emotional) 3.2 time for play at home, in kindergarten, and in grade one in response to questions 6–9, all participants agreed that children should have time to play in kindergarten classrooms, at home, and in daycare settings, though less frequently in grade one than in the other contexts. participants generally agreed that children should be engaging frequently in all identified activities, with the exception of using apps, at home and in kindergarten and grade one (see table 4). participants indicated that playing with toys should occur less frequently in grade one than at home or in kindergarten. kindergarten was identified as the context where children should most frequently play with sand. table 4: participants’ views of how often children should engage in play activities at home and in kindergarten or grade 1 classrooms (1=never; 2=rarely; 3=sometimes; 4=often) means (out of 4) type of activity home kindergarten grade 1 play (in general) 3.93 3.74 3.43 toys 3.83 3.71 3.43 apps 2.83 2.69 2.74 climbing 3.50 3.64 3.56 lego 3.79 3.73 3.51 pretend 3.81 3.79 3.64 materials 3.71 3.83 3.66 art 3.79 3.86 3.80 sand 3.40 3.62 3.34 play activities at home in response to question 12 (what do your children like to play at home?), participants listed playing with lego more frequently than any other activity (in 116 responses), although the category that we placed it in (building) was the fourth most frequent overall category (see table 5). physical/outdoor play was by far the most frequently identified overall category of children’s play activities at home. creative activities (e.g., colouring / making crafts / drawing) and playing games or doing puzzles were also frequently identified activities. spring/printemps 2017 7 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 5: participants’ descriptions of play activities in which children engage at home (in percentages) type of play (n = 1457 descriptions) percentages physical or outdoor play 27.9 creating 13.9 games and puzzles 13.7 building 10.7 pretending or imagining 9.9 playing with toys 9.1 technology or media 8.3 playing with family and pets 4.1 dancing or singing 2.4 teachers’ and parents’ roles in response to question 13 (what do you do when your children are playing?), the majority of participants said they provide materials for their children to play with, observe what their children are doing, ask questions about what their children are doing, join in and play with their children, and show or tell their children things to teach them something new. most participants agreed that these parental roles should be mirrored in kindergarten and grade one classrooms. fewer participants indicated that they do not intervene in children’s play, other than to ensure that the children do not get hurt. table 6 shows how strongly participating parents agreed with specific contributions to children’s play in kindergarten and grade one. table 6: participants’ level of agreement about teachers’ roles while children are playing in kindergarten and grade 1 classrooms (1=strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3=agree; 4=strongly agree) teacher role mean frequency of agreement (out of 4) use children’s play interests in a lesson 3.61 provide materials for children to play with 3.56 ask children questions about what they are doing 3.54 show or tell children things to teach them something new 3.53 observe and assess children’s learning 3.39 join in and play with the children 3.32 keep track of time to make sure children have a chance to play at all centres 3.15 make sure children don’t get hurt but leave them alone otherwise 2.85 participants’ education levels and perspectives on play a comparison of responses by participants’ education levels showed no differences. education level was not related to participants’ views on play. for example, the elementary-educated participants thought that grade 1 children should be engaged in play closer to “often” for both pretend play (mean = 3.8) and playing with materials (mean = 3.6), as did the more highly educated participants (means of 3.64 and 3.66 respectively). conclusions and implications results of our study show that views of parents and grandparents, whose education backgrounds ranged from elementary school to university, aligned with teachers’ and researchers’ (e.g., bodrova & leong, 2009; whitebread, 2010) perspectives. parents indicated that play is an activity that should often be part of a kindergarten program, and sometimes, if not often, part of grade one programs. parents spring/printemps 2017 8 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research gave examples of a wide range of play options for their children, with outdoor/physical play and creative play valued to a greater extent than playing with technology or digital media. additionally, participating parents indicated that they value their own interactions with children and felt that teachers should be actively involved in classroom play activities. while it is advisable to conduct further research of a qualitative nature in order to contextualize these survey findings, given that many parents explicitly identified various types of learning that occurs through play and indicated that children should be engaging in play activities at least sometimes, it appears that they see a role for play-based learning in kindergarten and grade one. the specific types of learning align with pyle and bigelow’s (2014) categorization of social/emotional learning and academic learning. participants also included children’s creativity and their health and physical development as play-based learning. our survey results go against the grain of previous surveys of parents (e.g., christmas, 2005; fogle & mendez, 2006), which found that views of parents with postsecondary education were more likely to align with teachers’ and researchers’ views than were those of parents with lower education levels. further research is needed to explore the influence of education and other sociocultural variables on parents’ perspectives, given the differences in survey results. further research could also explore principals’ perceptions of play and learning and forms of support that they provide to teachers who implement play-based learning. concomitantly, teachers’ perspectives and experiences could be examined to understand forms of support that teachers receive and would like to receive from school and school district administrators and from parents as they implement play-based teaching and learning practices. in reflecting on other research that has found low support among parents for play-based learning, from a school principal’s perspective (one of the authors), it is understandable that parents might be concerned if their children said that all they did was play in school. yet our survey shows that these parents are in the minority. as an explanation for negative parental attitudes toward play-based learning, it is possible that teachers are more likely to remember or feel pressure from parents who express negative sentiments about the play activities in the classroom. it is also possible that some teachers are unsure how to explain to parents the learning that occurs through play-based activities. as teachers shape play activities to support learning outcomes, they might consider how they will clearly articulate this learning to parents, including how play supports and strengthens learning, and the roles that teachers take in supporting children’s learning through play. school and school division administrators also play a role in articulating their support for play-based learning in formal and informal 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(2010). play, metacognition, and self-regulation. in p. broadhead, j. howard, & e. wood (eds.), play and learning in the early years (pp. 161–176). thousand oaks, ca: sage. wood, e. (2013). play, learning, and the early childhood curriculum. london, england: sage. fall/automne 2017 1 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research marjorie montreuil is a phd student at the ingram school of nursing, mcgill university, working with the views on interdisciplinary childhood ethics (voice) team. she is a canadian nurses foundation scholar, and her current work is supported by the fonds de recherche du québec—santé (frqs) doctoral training award and the richard and edith strauss fellowship in nursing. email: marjorie.montreuil@mail.mcgill.ca olivia saint-laurent holds a msc in nursing from the ingram school of nursing, mcgill university. her research interests are in global and public health, with a focus on examining health concerns from the perspectives of vulnerable populations. franco a. carnevale’s current academic appointments include (all at mcgill university) full professor, ingram school of nursing; associate member, faculty of medicine (pediatrics); adjunct professor, counselling psychology; affiliate member, biomedical ethics unit. he is the founder and principal investigator for voice, a mcgill-based international initiative to advance knowledge and practices relating to ethical concerns in childhood. the moral experiences of children living in poverty: a focused ethnography marjorie montreuil, olivia saint-laurent, and franco a. carnevale article 12 of the united nations convention on the rights of the child (1989) stipulates that children have a right to express their views in all matters that affect them, and that their views should be “given due weight.” in different fields, such as law, health, and social sciences, children are increasingly recognized as having a double identity: they are defined as vulnerable and requiring protection according to their “best interests,” but they are also moral agents, which refers to “children’s capacity to act deliberately, speak for oneself, and actively reflect on their social worlds, shaping their lives and the lives of others” (montreuil & carnevale, 2016, p. 510). in this context, the aim of this study was to explore the moral experiences of children living in poverty to inform on their daily experiences and moral lives, which have been scarcely studied. background childhood ethics rooted in the wider field of childhood studies, childhood ethics is an emerging field of interdisciplinary inquiry recently developed to explore knowledge and practices that relate to children’s moral experiences, with the goal of reconciling the notion that children are both moral agents and vulnerable (carnevale, campbell, collin-vézina, & macdonald, 2015; hunt & carnevale, 2011; wall, 2010). this work is based on a constructivist conception of ethics in which moral experience is socially defined through a person’s interpretation of their own lived experiences situated on the spectrum of right–wrong, good–bad, or just–unjust (hunt & carnevale, 2011). for an action or event to be considered a moral experience, it must bear significance for the person living it. important aspects of moral experience are thus defined in everyday events, which we sought to explore in relation to children living in poverty. childhood poverty in canada children living in poverty are considered to be a doubly vulnerable population: as minors, their decision-making capacity is a focused ethnography was conducted in an after-school academic support program serving vulnerable populations in montreal, quebec, canada. the aim of this study was to explore the moral experiences of children living in poverty to inform on their daily experiences and moral lives. our results highlighted that these children, who were experiencing economic hardship and/or social isolation, faced various social barriers, such as stigmatization, family isolation, and linguistic challenges for new immigrant children. as active agents, they navigated the challenges they encountered with help from the program. keywords: children; poverty; experience; ethnography fall/automne 2017 2 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research transferred to surrogate actors, and they are more profoundly affected by the effects of poverty than adults (carnevale et al., 2015). the material and social aspects of poverty directly affect food security, housing, living habits, and physical as well as psychological health. in cities, people living alone, single-parent families, and immigrant newcomers are considered as most vulnerable to poverty (canadian teachers’ federation, 2009). very little is known about the experiences of children living in these contexts. multiple adverse outcomes are associated with poverty. globally, poverty is recognized as the most important predictor of ill health (ecob & davey smith, 1999; united nations development programme, 2014). childhood poverty is associated with a plethora of adverse outcomes, from material disadvantage and poor mental/physical health to limited social participation and fear of marginalization (chen, cohen, & miller, 2010; crossley & curtis, 2003; ridge, 2011). poverty can also lead to the impaired development of adequate personal relationships with both family members and peers (barrera et al., 2002; cui, conger, bryant, & elder, 2002; morrow, 2001). potential social deprivation puts children living in poverty at further risk for both psychological and physical ill health and at increased risk of mortality (robinson, mcintyre, & officer, 2005). in 2015, it was estimated that one in five children in canada lived in poverty, as defined by canada’s low-income cut-off measure (fern, freiler, friendly, & tougas, 2015). this highlights that canada mostly uses economic criteria alone to define poverty, while there is growing recognition internationally that the definition of poverty must take into account social exclusion and loss of opportunity (united nations development programme, 2014). groups vulnerable to social exclusion, such as new immigrant families, might therefore be underrepresented in these studies. because of the adverse outcomes associated with poverty, children living in poverty are a particularly vulnerable population, and the study of their experiences would contribute to enhance our understanding of their daily lives. exploring the moral experiences of children living in poverty research looking at the everyday experiences of children living in poverty in canada is very limited, and no study was found exploring children’s moral experiences, in reference to what they consider morally meaningful in their everyday lives. this focus on moral experiences can also help advance our understanding of these children as active moral agents. one study documented the impact of poverty on children’s social status, which is linked to feeling deprived, feeling excluded from peers (e.g., receiving labels such as “welfare babies”), having low self-esteem, or feeling responsible for improving their financial situation (robinson et al., 2005). very little information related to their experience is available. this gap in knowledge highlights a need for research in this area to better understand children’s perspectives. therefore, our research question was “what are the moral experiences of children living in poverty?” methods study design focused ethnography was the methodology chosen for this study. it enabled us to explore children’s everyday moral experiences while situating their experiences in their respective sociocultural contexts. in contrast to classical ethnographic studies, it was focused both in scope (by focusing on children’s moral experiences in a specific context) and in time (muecke, 1994). the study was conducted in a nonprofit community organization offering an academic support program to children living in poverty in montreal, quebec, canada. the organization was funded mainly through private donations and provided services for vulnerable populations. among these, an academic support program was offered to children ranging in age from 5 to 16 who attended biweekly sessions. some sessions were dedicated to homework help, while others focused on learning french. the program took place in two different locations: a social housing setting, and a building close to a reception school for new immigrants. children were recruited mostly through word of mouth, as well as through advertising in both locations. children attended the program in groups of 10 to 25, with three to four educators present at each session to support children, help them with their homework, or provide additional exercises related to schoolwork or learning french. the educators, who held a professional degree in psychosocial adaptation, were paid by the organization and were assigned to the same group of children throughout the year. the academic support program was selected for this study because it served the population of interest (i.e., children considered as living in poverty). to promote a participatory research approach, staff members from the organization were involved in key stages of project design and implementation through several meetings over the span of a year. ethical approval from mcgill university’s institutional review board and administrative authorization from the partner organization were obtained prior to the start of the study. data collection and analysis were performed by a graduate nursing student (olivia saintfall/automne 2017 3 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research laurent), with support from a doctoral nursing student in childhood ethics (marjorie montreuil) and a senior qualitative researcher with a background in childhood ethics (franco a. carnevale). data collection all participants were recruited through the academic support program. a program educator introduced the research project and the researcher to potential participants. written consent was sought from adult participants and parents of child participants, either through a one-on-one meeting with the researcher or through a consent letter sent home via the children if parents did not come to the academic support program. the consent letter presented the study’s purpose as “to gain a better understanding of children’s daily experiences of right and wrong, good and bad, and fair and unfair (e.g., helping others, telling the truth, lying, cheating, or bullying”). activities such as participant observation and one-on-one meetings were described, and the option to withdraw consent at any time was emphasized. verbal assent was sought from children whose parents consented to their participation in the study. only child participants for whom both parental consent and child assent had been obtained were enrolled in the study. children were recruited using consecutive sampling to examine their moral experiences through participant observation and individual interviews. the main challenge related to the recruitment of children came from the difficulty communicating with parents (e.g., often having to send consent letters home via children rather than meeting parents directly). consistent with a focused ethnographic framework, participant observation was the primary method for data collection because it has been shown to produce richer data and foster insights more readily than other research methods (such as structured interviews) with children (carnevale, macdonald, bluebond-langner, & mckeever, 2008). we conducted 22 sessions of participant observation during the academic support program with groups of 10 to 25 children, over a span of eight weeks. data generated from participant observation were recorded in field notes and reviewed after each observation session. numerous informal interviews were conducted with the children during the participant observation sessions. in addition, a participatory activity was designed in consultation with the educators to provide an additional focused forum to foster reflection and stimulate group discussion on different themes, such as stealing, helping, and sharing. the activity consisted of three role-play sketches followed by a debriefing period, and was conducted with children from one of the groups. children were divided in small groups and asked to role-play in front of the group how they would act in different scenarios (see “results” for more detail related to the content of the scenarios). notes from observations during the activity itself, as well as feedback from child participants and educators, were recorded in field notes. semistructured individual interviews were also conducted with nine children (aged 5 to 11) to further explore morally relevant subjects that came up during informal interviews or interactions with peers (fetterman, 2010). interviews lasted between five and ten minutes, and everyday good and bad experiences were explored in an open-ended manner (e.g., “what do the words good or bad mean to you?”; “tell me about something good or bad that happened at school today. what seemed good, bad? who was involved? how did you feel?”). of the nine children who were recruited for interviews, new immigrant children and children living in social housing were similarly represented (five and four participants, respectively). semistructured interviews were conducted with three mothers of children from the program to provide information on the social context in which the child participants lived and inform on the children’s experiences. semistructured interviews were also conducted with three educators from the program to provide additional data related to the children’ social context, as well as on institutional structures, practices, and norms in the study setting. four additional educators participated in informal conversations that occurred during participant observation. documents provided by the educators pertaining to the academic support program, such as program rules and tools used to monitor academic progress, were used to provide additional contextual data on institutional structures, practices, and norms. data analysis line-by-line coding of the raw data was conducted in the original language (french or english). codes were then arranged into meaningful thematic categories in an iterative process. each source of data was thus considered as an opportunity to explore ongoing analyses and interpretations of previous data. once data collection was completed, all data were reanalyzed as an integrated whole. identified themes were presented to educators from the academic support program, who were invited to provide comments and feedback to help inform the interpretation of results. credibility and trustworthiness were enhanced by a variety of strategies. author olivia saint-laurent kept a field journal to note a daily schedule of activities related to the research project, notes from participant observation, and a personal diary, including a fall/automne 2017 4 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research reflective commentary of her experience to help her identify potentially problematic preconceptions. credibility was also enhanced through source triangulation by using data from three different groups of children, as well as from parents and educators. results throughout data collection, a key aspect of children’s moral experiences was related to what participants considered as social barriers in children’s social environments, mainly stigmatization, family isolation, and linguistic barriers for new immigrant children. the linguistic barrier was mentioned numerous times by new immigrant children; however, stigmatization and family isolation were only mentioned explicitly by adult participants, who perceived these challenges as important and central to children’s experiences. the academic support program where the study took place was both an environment where adults actively tried to provide a space where children were supported to overcome these challenges as individuals, and a highly structured environment with group rules and academic expectations in place. children navigated these different challenges, highlighting some of the social barriers they perceived and what they considered important. verbatim quotes from interviews and excerpts from field notes are presented to illustrate the identified themes. brackets are used to make grammatical adjustments to quotes to increase clarity, either removing irrelevant parts of sentences or adding words that were omitted, without changing the sense of the initial statement. we use the word “educator” to refer to staff members of the academic support program, whereas “teacher” refers to the formal school environment. various social barriers affect children living in poverty we call “social barriers” elements of children’s social environments, whether at home, at school, or with peers, which were interpreted as impeding them from expressing their views and actively taking part in social life. stigmatization. people who access our services come from underprivileged backgrounds, whether it be social housing, or […] new migrants […] they are often in precarious situations. [one of their ethical concerns related to] stigmatization [is] the way their families are perceived. […] just living in [a social housing setting] is not well perceived […] many children will say “i am poor.” […] just being in that environment, they already have that label: poor. (interview with an educator) educators emphasized stigmatization as one of the challenges experienced by children coming to the program. they reported that children shared with them being labelled as poor, which educators considered stigmatizing. they further described two components of poverty: “economic (or situational) poverty” (e.g., a family living on insufficient income), and “social poverty” (e.g., a family living in isolation, with few friends or family members outside of the household). according to the educators, stigmatization came from different sources, such as teachers, peers, neighbours, and parents. educators recalled a child from the program who was identified as “a total disaster” by a teacher and for whom extra efforts and support were “not worth it.” some children also disclosed to educators that they were set apart from their peers, “being put in a corner of the classroom” or “being told in front of the whole class that ‘[they were] going nowhere in life.’” educators believed that the stringent socioeconomic climate in quebec at the time this study was conducted (as evidenced by budget cuts in schools and community services) jeopardized the services offered to children living in poverty, because some teachers were “overwhelmed,” “out of breath,” and “fed up,” and that this might cause children to “fall through the cracks.” family isolation. in iran, their family was wealthy. they had a big family, a lot of people around, including a lot of cousins and friends of the same age for her son to play with. here, there is one iranian child who is the same age as her son. that child has been to their house a few times to play xbox with her son. (field notes, interview with a mother) all parents interviewed reported some level of social isolation, regardless of their cultural background. all parents interviewed were fall/automne 2017 5 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research currently the only parent living with their children, whether that was temporary (e.g., spouse living abroad awaiting visa) or long term, and had few family friends or family members to help them outside of their household. this was reported to be a heavy burden; some parents reported fatigue and high anxiety levels. one mother, who had arrived in canada two years earlier, said multiple times: “i worry about [my son] all the time.” educators reported that some of the parents of children attending the program “felt helpless” and unable to stand up for their children when faced with stigmatization at school, saying “[they were] exhausted” and did not “have the time [or] the energy” to confront teachers. according to educators, this was associated with the fact that these parents also bore stigmatizing characteristics, such as low education levels or a language barrier. educators believed these circumstances further reinforced the “cycle of poverty” in which children accessing the program were living, as parents were at times unable to fulfill their parenting role and advocate for their children when they encountered injustices at school, whether with peers or with their teachers. according to the educators, this could also have had a negative impact on older siblings in the family, on whom were imparted some of their parents’ responsibilities in caring for their younger siblings. the language barrier for new immigrant children. i ask one of the children how things are at school. he says it is hard because “french is hard.” i ask if the teacher helps him understand. he says that his first teacher was good because he was from here and french was his first language. now, he does not like his teacher because the teacher’s first language is another language. when some of the child’s peers, who also speak that language, do not understand, the[ir] teacher helps them by translating in their mother tongue. the child asks why he could not have a teacher who speaks his mother tongue. (field notes) new immigrant children directly referred to the language barrier at school as a significant challenge. as some of the participants had been in canada for less than a year, it was clear throughout our conversations that not knowing certain words yielded daily challenges. for example, two children who were interviewed did not know what the words “fair” and “unfair” meant, either in english or in french, and had to look up the words in their bilingual dictionary. one time at school, her son was hurt by another child (she gestures hitting her own throat), but he could not express what had happened to the teachers, because of the language barrier […] she said: “it is difficult for him to talk, he does not know how to ask and does not want to disturb.” (field notes, interview with a mother) new immigrant families who did not speak either english or french fluently prior to their arrival in canada all identified their difficulty to communicate due to the language barrier as their main challenge in overcoming isolation and stigmatization. additionally, parents reported on occasion that their child had been a victim of bullying at school, and had been incapable of explaining what had happened to the teachers because of the language barrier. children are active agents in the context of the academic support program the academic support program was a space where the challenges mentioned above were acknowledged and where children were supported and encouraged to learn to navigate those challenges. within the program itself, children showed their capacity to accommodate and challenge rules, showing nuance in their actions for everyday experiences. children navigate the challenges they encounter with help from the academic support program. the barriers identified above highlight some of the specific challenges faced by children living in poverty in the context of this focused ethnography. children and families who participated in the study presented the academic support program as an environment where, despite the academic focus, children were supported to address the social barriers they encountered in their daily lives. our mission, i would say, is really to break the cycle of poverty; well, for the child to succeed in breaking [his or her] own poverty cycle. […] we think that education is what will allow the child to [break that cycle], […] by giving [him or her] the right tools; […] everything we do is through an educative approach. (interview with an educator) fall/automne 2017 6 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the academic support program was both a structured environment, where children had to meet academic objectives, as well as an environment where adults actively tried to provide a space where children were empowered to overcome the social barriers they encountered. class rules were in place at the academic support program to give structure to the interactions between staff and children (e.g., “during the homework period, i focus on my homework and i whisper”). the rules were on display in one of the two settings, accompanied by pictures to help convey their meaning. rules were read and explained to both groups at the beginning of the school year, and were reiterated by the educators whenever they were not followed. educators from the program also gave high importance to establishing and maintaining trusting relationships with the children. we really believe in [establishing a trusting relationship]; that’s the approach we use here. […] we don’t get mad at them for any little thing, we give a lot of chances, we allow them to ... you know, if they’re having a bad day, they can express the fact that they’re having a bad day; we’re not going to say “sit down, be quiet, i don’t want to hear it” […] we try and offer a safe place for the time that they are with us. (interview with an educator) educators considered each child’s individual challenges and were flexible when applying the program rules. they sought to achieve academic expectations while working to help create a space where children could express themselves. however, because the primary focus of the program was to provide academic support for children, educators sometimes felt constrained in their opportunities to address social barriers. to palliate for limited time and resources (e.g., one educator helping multiple children with their homework), educators regularly set time aside in the program’s schedule to address the challenges children encountered. [the academic support program] is very good to help with speaking and understanding french. it helps [my son] more than school […] there is kindness here […] it helps him adapt. (interview with a mother) parents appreciated the academic support program and valued the relationship they developed with the educators. children enjoyed coming to the program, as evidenced by their smiles and laughter when they arrived. children also directly voiced their appreciation, saying they “liked everything from the program” and they appreciated “getting help to do homework [they] didn’t understand.” educators reported seeing changes in children who attended the program for a few years. for example, some children who did not ask for help before no longer hesitated to ask questions when they did not understand, and overall academic standings were reported to improve. children navigate implicit and explicit program rules. in the structured context of the academic support program, ongoing interactions between adults and children from the program, as well as among children themselves, highlighted children’s capacity to navigate implicit and explicit rules. children navigated these rules, showing nuance in their actions. for example, during the activity we conducted with one of the groups, children acted and spoke in ways that accommodated implicit rules or norms such as helping, sharing, and being fair. children were asked what they would do when faced with different situations: in the first scenario, two bystanders witnessed a child whose schoolbag was stolen; in the second scenario, two children witnessed a classmate having trouble doing an exercise because he did not understand what the teacher was asking; in the third scenario, three children were playing together and noticed a child who was alone in the school yard. in the first scenario, children playing the roles of the bystanders decided to pursue the thief and brought the bag back to the “victim.” another child suggested to “tell the teacher” what had happened. one child expressed that it’s good to help other children because “if you help now, then later on they can help you.” in the second scenario, children found creative ways to explain the exercise to their classmate (e.g., miming, writing numbers on an imaginary piece of paper). in the third scenario, children invited the child playing alone to join them. one child mentioned that this was nice, because he did not have friends. one participant said that he would not have dared to ask the child who was alone to come and play with them, because he was too shy. as exemplified above, this activity contributed to the understanding of children’s daily moral experiences and what they consider important and right or wrong to do. a 7-year-old child told me his friend was “cheating” while doing his homework, copying the answers from a page that he hid from me rather than doing the exercise on his own. when i asked him why he volunteered this information even though he was not involved in the situation—and therefore did not have to fear a negative consequence for himself, the child said: “cheating is bad.” i asked him what that meant. he repeated that it was bad. (field notes) children at the academic support program most often acted to accommodate local rules. they also demonstrated self-directed fall/automne 2017 7 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research assessments of the conduct of others, for example, identifying another child’s action (copying answers in his homework) as “bad.” on another occasion, a child asked two of his friends to “speak french please,” encouraging the other children to comply with a rule of the program. however, children also sometimes challenged or disregarded rules. for example, a group of children playing “human tic-tac-toe” during play time tried to communicate with each other to help their team win the game, although educators had explained that communication among peers was not allowed during the game. collaborating to win the game became more important than the possibility of losing a point because rules were not followed. children typically acted in ways to foster friendship relationships with other children in the program, for example, greeting other children they knew by smiling and talking with them before the beginning of each session, while also sharing what they considered as wrong as in the cheating example above. discussion the social barriers identified formed part of the background context in which children’s moral experiences were situated. for instance, within the academic support program, stigmatization was identified by educators and parents as one of the main ethical concerns for the children accessing the program. child participants did not directly disclose their experience with stigma to us, but educators in the program gave specific examples of encounters with children they interpreted as linked to stigma, for example, recalling times where children were labelled as poor or excluded by their peers or by adults around them. educators thus perceived stigma related to poverty as a barrier that needed to be addressed in order to help the children, in their best interests. stigma has been described as “a special relationship between an attribute and stereotype,” characterized by the discrepancy between someone’s self-perception and the way he or she is perceived by others, and related to shame or discredit (goffman, 1963). here, the stigma lived by children was defined in different contexts, such as school and home; it has been previously reported that schools can be a “corrosive and damaging environment” for children living in poverty (brabant et al., 2016; ridge, 2011). educators mentioned helping children navigating the social barriers they encountered in their daily lives by helping them develop their academic capacities. as per the program’s educators, this would empower children to break their own cycle of poverty, thereby actively managing their stigmatization. in the study, the opportunities to discuss with children were limited, because the interactions had to occur during the program sessions. in future studies, an exploration of children’s own perceptions of stigma would greatly contribute to understanding what it means to them and what they consider helpful and in their best interest. research on stigma related to physical disability suggests that children with stigmatic qualities seek to actively manage their social exclusion (carnevale, 2007). poverty was defined by the program educators as encompassing economic hardship and social isolation, which is congruent with the broader definition of poverty found in the literature (united nations development programme, 2014). this broader definition helped us identify common challenges shared by children living in economic poverty, as well as challenges specific to immigrant children (e.g., language barriers). it also highlights that social isolation can contribute to poorer health and well-being for these children. the language barrier was a central preoccupation for new immigrant families. immigrant children who did not speak either french or english struggled with learning a new language and integrating it in schoolwork, especially when they arrived after the beginning of the school year. although unsurprising, academic hardship is an alarming reality for immigrant children arriving in canada; research has shown that they are at higher risk for school dropout (corak, 2011). parents also disclosed events in which their children had been bullied at school and could not report it to their teachers because they lacked the words to explain what had happened. although violence and social exclusion toward immigrant children at school have been reported in the literature (brabant et al., 2016), we found this result surprising considering that immigrant children from our study attended a reception school in which all students were immigrant newcomers and where there was no dominant local ethnic group. these children also demonstrated active agential capacities—they were not passively halted by the barriers they encountered. children modified their actions to adapt to the context of the academic support program, showing that they were attuned to their environment and to the moral implications of their actions and decisions for others. this is congruent with research that shows that young children have the capacity to distinguish moral violations from “conventional violations” (cushman, 2008), and it suggests that navigating program rules was not done arbitrarily. our results thus show children’s capacity to act as agents mindful of moral values and able to navigate both implicit and explicit rules. limitations many methodological challenges arose during data collection, which led to a smaller number of child participants than anticipated. in particular, difficulty communicating with parents to obtain consent limited recruitment. the consent process required the signature fall/automne 2017 8 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of highly formal documents that were not familiar to all. using a verbal consent process for studies such as this one, in which risks for participants are minimal and considered to be no greater than those experienced in the person’s everyday life, could facilitate this process. future studies could look at addressing methodological barriers to have easier access to these children. notably, a longer presence in the field would allow the researcher to gain better access to the population. we used a participatory research approach, in which educators were involved in key stages of the study design and implementation, but we were unable to similarly integrate children’s input. implications for research and practice the group activity was greatly appreciated by both educators and children. educators expressed their intentions to include similar activities in their program on a regular basis in the future. they reported that the activity had helped them gain insight into children’s moral lives. they also appreciated creating a space for children to discuss such matters at the academic support program, thereby furthering the trusting relationship between children and educators. in this sense, this study has generated knowledge that will be useful when exploring the subject of moral experiences in the context of this academic support program. the knowledge resulting from this study could be used to help sensitize educators and other service providers who work with children in poverty, whether in community organizations or schools, to promote a better understanding of the experiences of these children. looking at children from different populations is important, for interventions and policies to be optimally attuned to the specific needs of vulnerable children. conclusion our results highlighted that children living in poverty face many social barriers. the children who participated in this study navigated these challenges with the help of the academic support program, which offered an environment where children could address some of their concerns, for example, through their relationship with people from the program. by having more information about the moral experiences of children living in poverty, we can help make the best interests principle more child informed by better recognizing children’s vulnerabilities as well as their capacities to act as moral agents. acknowledgements we gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of the academic support program staff at the welcome hall mission in montreal, quebec, canada: sophie aubras-gabriel, thierry cherilus, nathaniel nurse, and rodelyne pierre. funding this work was supported by a research development initiatives grant from the social sciences & humanities research council of canada [grant number 239025]. references barrera, m., prelow, h. m., dumka, l. e., gonzales, n. a., knight, g. p., michaels, m. l., … & tein, j. 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(2015). interdisciplinary studies of childhood ethics: developing a new field of inquiry. children & society, 29(6), 511–523. doi: 10.1111/chso.12063 carnevale, f. a., macdonald, m. e., bluebond-langner, m., & mckeever, p. (2008). using participant observation in pediatric health care settings: ethical challenges and solutions. journal of child health care, 12(1),18–32. doi: 10.1177/1367493507085616 chen, e., cohen, s., & miller, g. e. (2010). how low socioeconomic status affects two-year hormonal trajectories in children. psychological science, 21(1), 31–37. doi: 10.1177/0956797609355566 corak, m. r. (2011). age at immigration and the education outcomes of children. ottawa, on: statistics canada. crossley, t. f., & curtis, l. (2003). child poverty in canada. hamilton, on: department of economics, mcmaster university. cui, m., conger, r. d., bryant, c. m., & elder, g. h. (2002). parental behavior and the quality of adolescent friendships: a socialcontextual perspective. journal of marriage and family, 64(3), 676–689. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00676.x cushman, f. (2008). crime and punishment: distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment. cognition, 108(2), 353–380. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.03.006 ecob, r., & davey smith, g. (1999). income and health: what is the nature of the relationship? social science & medicine, 48(5), 693–705. doi: 10.1016/s0277-9536(98)00385-2 ferns, c., freiler, c., friendly, m., & tougas, j. (2015). child poverty, 25 years later: we can fix this: 2014 report card on child and family poverty in canada. toronto, on: family service toronto. fetterman, d. m. (2010). ethnography: step-by-step. los angeles, ca: sage. goffman, e. (1963). stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice-hall. hunt, m. r., & carnevale, f. a. (2011). moral experience: a framework for bioethics research. journal of medical ethics, 37(11), 658–662. doi: 10.1136/jme.2010.039008 montreuil, m., & carnevale, f. a. (2016). a concept analysis of children’s agency within the health literature. journal of child health care, 20(4), 503–511. doi: 10.1177/1367493515620914 morrow, v. (2001). young people’s explanations and experiences of social exclusion: retrieving bourdieu’s concept of social capital. international journal of sociology and social policy, 21(4), 37–63. doi: 10.1108/01443330110789439 muecke, m. a. (1994). on the evaluation of ethnographies. in j. m. morse (ed.), critical issues in qualitative research methods (pp. 187–209). thousand oaks, ca: sage. ridge, t. (2011). the everyday costs of poverty in childhood: a review of qualitative research exploring the lives and experiences of low-income children in the uk. children & society, 25(1), 73–84. doi: 10.1111/j.1099-0860.2010.00345.x robinson, l. m., mcintyre, l., & officer, s. (2005). welfare babies: poor children’s experiences informing healthy peer relationships in canada. health promotion international, 20(4), 342–350. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dai017 united nations development programme. (2014). human development report. retrieved from: http://hdr.undp.org/en/2014-report wall, j. (2010). ethics in light of childhood. washington, dc: georgetown university press. winter/hiver 2017 20 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research clown and fool as voice in earth activism megan hyslop megan hyslop feels grateful to find herself living well with others in beautiful rural nova scotia/mi’kmak’i. megan, who had a great upbringing on the prairies and west coast of canada and is of mixed european ancestry, is an energy worker, artist, naturalist, and phd student with the interdisciplinary individualized program out of concordia university. she is a member of theatre nova scotia and has studied at the manitoulin conservatory for creation and performance, nose to nose, caserne 18-30, and leviathan studio. email: meganhyslop@yahoo.ca the curly-haired little boy who shares my table at the café this warm april morning wears a bright yellow hat and is watching a hockey game beside his mother on an ipad. the café owner in his fedora kneels down to speak to the mother and son. the sunlight streams in the window to my left. the wooden tables and floors, the stone and driftwood decoration, the cotton hand towels in the bathroom, the wool blankets on the window seats give me a calm, grounded feeling in my body. i’m wearing my favourite red tutu. as part of my individualized doctoral program at concordia university, i’ve spent the past four months reading about play theory, and now i’ve set myself the task to explore, through the frame of my work with clown/fool, ways to give them voice in earth activism. inspired by wheatley (2009), carse (1986), and nachmanovitch (1990), i ask: how could play be another path of exploration during the gravity of these times? what might it mean to speak, not against actions of harm (either perpetuated by a vilified they or by a guilt-ridden we), nor for or about earth, but as earth and as action? how might playful dance, playful drama, and playful creative community look through the eyes of these theorists? earth activism is often goal oriented, relying on words to make arguments, convince, persuade. in my experience, it sometimes feels like a battle: staving off a tide of plastic, oil spills, broken water, broken land.… there is no new language here, just pain. however, the playful-serious dance of plato’s eutrapelos archetype, the pure potential of fool, the all-encompassing order-disorder creation-destruction of trickster, offers the possibility to unhinge tired compilations and bewitch new, unlikely unions, healing any seeming discrepancies with love (ardley, 1967; laird, 2001; nachmanovitch, 1990; sutton-smith, 1997). this process is ongoing when we attend to it: the snow that covered the mountain last week in the crystal-winter clarity of white streaming down yesterday over rocks and down the gulleys beside the path, the flight of the first pair of mourning cloak butterflies. the repeating but always different “pointless” and tangential actions of play, the surprise combinations with space for luminous tangents, the curious, wandering, relaxed, roughhewn, and repetitive (bateson & martin, 2013) can provide balance and help us discovery new truths, possibilities, and ways of being. how can the human relationship with the other-than-human be reenvisioned as neither destructive nor redemptive but as dynamic and playful? i explore ways that the archetype and practice of the fool and theatrical clowning could highlight this fundamental connection. this autoethnographic performative study draws on the work of such play theorists as huizinga, carse, nachmanovitch, winnicott, bateson and martin, ackerman, and leadership visionary wheatley. it is a dance between stories and literature that gives examples of play as a way to navigate and imagine a heart, mind, and body engagement with community. key words: earth activism; more-than-human; clown; fool; relationship; dance winter/hiver 2017 21 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research playful movement: back to source entre tus hojas como suave guiso crecieron nuestros graves corazones de niños provincianos y comenzó la vida a desgranarnos (within your husks/like gentle kernels/our sober provincial/children’s hearts were nurtured/until life began/to shuck us from the ear. [neruda, 2013, “ode to maize”]) in clowning, we talk about clowning as return to innocence, to a child-like state, after the experiences of adulthood. last week, feeling cramped and grumpy from my work week, i went to the tam tams drumming and dancing jam at the angel statue at the base of mont royal here in montréal. to my surprise, i stayed almost three hours, shaking my hips and shaking off the winter. my movements at first felt stiff, like i was outside myself watching … dance like no one’s watching … yeah right! everyone is watching! after a time of bare feet on ground, drum vibration, cow bell ting ti-ting ti-ti-ti ting, and the warm sun on my face, i felt a shift to a kind of not-feeling-not-thinking-both-and, a kind of tap-in to the play instinct of movement, action, and body consciousness (bayliss, 1999; nachmanovitch, 1990). i started to goof around in my dance, arms wide up and around, flamenco moves, spinning around, my face got into it, my hands, my knees. minutes afterwards, an artist-activist friend of mine showed up beside me and gave me a hug. “i’m so tired, but i love watching you dance!” she said. i invited her in with my face and eyes, and we started a spontaneous back and forth, make a move, share a move, kind of light-bright dance, facing the sunshine and the trees and the djembes. when it was time for her to go she said, “i’m serious, you know, i’m serious all the time, but it felt so good to see my movements mirrored back to me with humour. it feels good to laugh.” huizinga (1950) wrote that “play and culture are actually interwoven” (p. 5). i imagine a culture that is braided with the complexity of dance, an art form that is both matter/body bound/limited and aesthetically rich/patterned/ moving (p. 166). huizinga called this complexity anomalous, but imagine if it were commonplace and normalized. the moving play of dance, like other forms of play and creativity, is a way to engage the whole person so the big self, or true source self (johnson, n.d.; winnicott, 1971) can emerge. if one function of play is to practice new patterns of beingness, alone or with other people, and, i would add, with the more than human (bateson & martin, 2013), could we dance in response to earth violence, which is, in a sense, violence against ourselves (bramadat, 2015)? one of the more moving responses i have seen to violence and harm is the playful and embodied expression of dance. in the montréal-colombian dance/movement collective salsa descalza manifesto (n.d.), they say that they resist through dancing, to combat the monotony and the cold through movement, to express with the body the pain and the laughter, to assemble the solitudes and to build from the numerous gifts of our full and intense existence. we dance because the possibility of existing is in danger. (para. 1, translated by the author) change is painful, said dance and philosophy professor erin manning in my research-creation class. laird (2001) writes that creative energy “lies buried in the heart of the wound” (p. 87), and that richness and wisdom comes from passing through the affliction, from “the racking pain inflicted by life’s indifference” (p. 86). authentic, creative work is both alight in its liberatory potential and frightening in the shuffle-feeling-forward in the disorientation of winter/hiver 2017 22 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research darkness and through blocks of fear and sadness. laird says we must be willing to be dismantled by these feelings, willing to fail utterly to reach the truth of the work, of the moment, and of the loving relationships around us (wheatley, 2009). such paradoxes, writes johnson (n.d.), tell us we are close to source, to authentic self. rather than resolve them, control them, or parse them (ardley, 1967), we can see them as eternal movement and change (or play) and ultimately transform our relationship to this “mutual and incessant modification” (turner, 1982, p. 108). the little boy and his mother are leaving the café now. as she stands in the sun talking on her phone, he returns to the front door and opens it, calls out a salut to everyone in the café, and points out the small black bear on top of the ice cream cone sign as they walk down villeneuve. i wave back, enchanted. playful theatre: playing with fire “i like your red tutu,” says a customer at the café as i stand up to get a drink of water. “when i worked at a daycare, this was how children would dress when they chose for themselves.” some theorists from this course write that play must be freely chosen and apart and an act of free will (bateson & martin, 2013; caillois, 1958). carse (1987) writes that there is play which is temporally and spatially bound (finite) and play that is ongoing and free of time and space constraints, and that the entirety of life is an infinite game. this assertion reframes caillois’s (1961) proposition of competition, chance, simulation, and vertigo as basic instincts that need to be channelled into games. turner (1982) writes that in more agrarian contexts, work merged gently with play in a rolling rhythm with specific rituals (sacred work) for liminality and communitas. the modern onset of industry created a separation between work and leisure, and that leisure/play has become liminoid, perhaps more free than the obligatory rituals of the past, but also more commodified. other theorists say that play is in the spirit of maya-lila, a primordial performative-creative act of continuous playing, a multitude of changing realities of divine order (bayliss, 1999; huizinga, 1950; nachmanovitch, 1990; sutton-smith, 1997), and that to separate jest and earnestness “frustrates both” (ardley, 1967, p. 231). winnicott (1971) writes that when we live creatively, we see life as infused with potential. because life is fluid, we can lose this creative “this is play” (bateson, 1976) definition of living; at the same time, the act of playing can help us connect to this spirit again. in february, i performed a clown turn, or skit, with two others at the free, vegan people’s potato meal servings at concordia university, ridiculous skits about buying a small bell and wrapping it in ten reusable bags, about oilclowns spilling out from under a line of chair-pipelines. my goal is to see audience reactions, i say. do they open up? do they close down? before we begin the turn, we circulate around the space and engage with students waiting in line. some students blush and avoid eye contact, some continue with their reading or computer work when i approach them. a man arrives to sit with his friends with a tupperware container. i reach my hand toward it, delighted, waiting for his permission to touch the container. he holds it out toward me, and i flip open one of the latches and laugh. nachmanovitch (1990) writes that buddha articulated five basic human fears, one of which is fear of being thought a fool, another, fear of actually being a fool. what might the neighbours think if we give in to a playful life, writes ackerman (1999)? however, i am learning that giving voice to my exuberant, contradictory, and sometimes foolish emotional life and path takes much less energy than trying to control it; it centers and relaxes me. bayliss (1999) says this playfulness can feel volatile (unpredictable), explosive (unexpected and suddenly opening), and dangerous (risky with potential for failure and loss), but that it is a “primary human function” (p. 74). it transforms, winter/hiver 2017 23 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research it strengthens, it revives, it illuminates (pinkola estes, 1992). “but we have to talk about things if they’re going to change … don’t we?” said someone in my clowning class, implying serious talk, planning talk, militant talk. i wasn’t so sure. in my philosophy class we talked about opening space for speaking in the richness of the now, the ever-moving, creative, and often wordless and half-baked modality of intuition and feeling. as we talked about in this play class, this also gives other avenues to expression and response beyond spoken communication, such as metacommunication and body language that signals ongoing dialogue in the form of play (bateson, 1956; nachmanovitch, 2009). carse (1986) writes that the infinite speech of the wordlessness of nature, and, by association, of the body, “bears no claim to truth, originating from nothing but the genius of the speaker” (p. 108). ardley (1967) writes that while just playfulness turns to frivolity, just seriousness to rigidity, and pseudo-seriousness to imprisonment, playfulseriousness allows us to play with the tragi-comedy of life. to invite the fool spirit, said a hospice clown i spoke with recently, is to be vulnerable, to poke fun at self, to risk embarrassment through silliness, to laugh with, not at, people, and to remember the deeper goal of connection and support, of walking with someone through grief (janet stark, spiritual care manager and multifaith chaplain, personal communication, april 15, 2015). in other words, play is a way to stay in the heart of possibility, creativity, and inner source, no matter what the exterior emotional temperature (boven, 2014; johnson, n.d.). landy (1996) writes that we are nothing but roles in an ever-shifting definition of self, and that an intention of health is not to hold on to any one of these roles, but to expand the self outward to include more possibilities of response. as nachmanovitch (1990) writes, we as humans are simultaneously both the greatest enemy and the greatest creators and composers. rather than taking the role of student, activist, social changer, or fool, i can be devotion (wheatley, 2009), action, balance, and creative potential. this, writes carse (1986), keeps the playing dramatic, moving toward an open horizon, vulnerable, and always in play with others. when i saw a friend in line the following week at people’s potato, she said that she and her friend had just been talking about whales and oil tankers, that she had heard of the clown turn, and that she was glad for a way to talk of things in a different way, in a lighter way. playful community: toward the horizon micropolitics as transversal and relational (erin manning). “would you like to talk about a phd as a way to grow into a community?” a colleague asked me recently via email. “often it is the other way around.” i think that what he is talking about is belonging: to be rightly placed, to fit in a specific place or ambience, to pertain. the nomadic life lends a broad definition of home, belonging, and community: basho says it is the open road, the living day, the voyage, and the journeying itself (bureau of public secrets, n.d.). play for me is most beautifully a community connection that is joyful, warm, and fluid in its oscillations and modifications among people, ecosystem, and self. it is a path to dramatic expression and the brilliance of the body in movement, these elegant ships that sail us on the journey. last night my farming friend told me he is taking over his parents’ farmhouse on the land where he farms in nova scotia, that he hopes to create a collective home for his gardener and artist friends on his forested, fertile land. my mind flashed back to our long weeding sessions under the blue of the annapolis valley skies, the words i want to teach permaculture and clowning play and we should start an ecovillage together that flew out of my mouth on two different occasions, and then forward to the image of a bursting-to-the-brim, exuberant, and galumphing house. winter/hiver 2017 24 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research “i feel a yearning for that, but i don’t think i can live in a household of hippies,” i told him brusquely, feeling a slight panic at this advancing potential of what was dreamed. say yes is the first rule of improvisation. in my process philosophy/creativity class, erin manning called this a politics of affirmation. it playfully encourages new ideas to take root while acknowledging that not all ideas will make it to fruition. rather than consensus with others, it asks for commitment to the creative process and attentiveness to the shifting dynamics and emerging energies of the group. like bateson and martin’s (2013) novelty, fluency, and flexibility in affirmative brainstorming, nachmanovitch (1990) calls this “yes! yes! yes!” (p. 55) affirmation of what is before us the simplest devotion to deep play. rather than the shrinking qualities of “no, no, no,” a yes to the beingness of a flower, a person, a brick wall opens the universe of possibilities “in a matter of mere moments” (p. 55). in ackerman’s (1999) and cameron’s (1992) writing on deep play and creativity, they use words like reverence, aliveness, presence, rapture and ecstasy, wholly-holy enthusiasm and love, pleasure and child’s play. in their writing is a marked lack of words like discipline, focus, and restraint. like the cooper’s hawk i have been communing with this spring on mont royal, this “dangerous” (bayliss, 1999) deep play can take us for a ride in its talons as we merge into the experiencing, living moment. the second rule of improvisation, don’t block, comes, i believe, from the fear of losing control, or of appearing out of control, or perhaps imagining that we can impose control (ackerman, 1999) when playing for play’s sake. nachmanovitch (1990) and carse (1986) write that free play flows easiest when neither player nor played seeks to control or be controlled but can dance together in lavish abundant time toward an ever-shifting horizon. wild plants grow on their own accord, in the light that best suits them, in the perishing soils of other seeds and seedlings who have ceded space. yesterday, a redheaded downy woodpecker made me laugh as he popped his head repetitively in and out of a dead tree and chirped for no apparent purpose. i remembered my new nature-mentor’s suggestion to take the time to observe the actions of a bird, not just the first motion, but to look there within for the pattern. after the tenth or eleventh repetition, the woodpecker brought up a beakfull of sawdust every other time, and after the nineteenth or twentieth time, i began to hear drumming from inside the log. ardley (1967) writes that by connecting to a god of ever-changing yet rhythmic and repetitive play, it breaks open our illusions of separateness and opens us, i believe, to interconnectedness and the beauty of relationship. rather than take me off an imagined course, he says, “it matters little where we start and what road we take. if we have the love of truth, we shall reach the summit all the same” (p. 237). today in the café, i find that writing in the definition of play (nachmanovitch, 1990) softens and slows me. i am able to greet and hug a friend who comes by chance for a coffee, admire the small sailboat boots of my table companion, tune in and out to the jazz music playing. at the same time it loosens and releases me into my flow of writing. before i began the course on play, i assumed that risky, volatile play and galumphing were somehow related to creativity and creative living, and that creativity was related to essential self and self-knowledge, connection to spirit, and self-loving. however, life as a rollicking infinite game didn’t always seem sustainable to me (carse, 1986). i also assumed there were different qualities of play, but didn’t have a frame through which to view them. my assumptions were affirmed and articulated in a number of different ways. in the readings, i’ve learned that play comes from divine source (ardley, 1967), leads to creative living potential (winnicott, 1971), and connects us with source self (johnson, n.d.) as an essential human function and evolutionary value (bayliss, 1999; nachmanovitch, 1990). i also learned about different frames of play, particularly the tension (carse, 1986) between finite play as temporally and spatially defined (bateson & martin, 2013; caillois, 1961) and infinite play as infused, ongoing winter/hiver 2017 25 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research play-performance creation (ardley; 1967; bayliss, 1999; nachmanovitch, 1990; winnicott, 1971). curiously, i felt most resistant to ackerman’s approach to play as i began the course and the most affinity to it as i finish. the kind of deep play she writes about with such affection reminds me of campbell’s (2004) encouragement to follow one’s bliss, doing “what you absolutely must do to be yourself ” (p. xxiii). it is a joyful lightening to remember that i can literally play my part in loving the planet and its people and creatures. beck (2012) uses the word “wayfinder,” after ancient polynesian navigators who know how to “read” ocean patterns, to describe the techniques of sacred play, imagination, and personal creation practice used by modern-day “menders” of human nature: “dear humans: save yourselves, i’ll be fine. love, earth” (p. xxii). she writes that these unique expressions of true nature are when we catch ourselves in deep play; in our “wild new world” this deep play is compelling and the kind of technology we need to heal. i received an email this morning about my playful-serious farmer friend’s galumphing escapades over the weekend in halifax, out playing until early morning with his former roommate and sleeping on her too-short couch before a day of rip-roaring sales at the market. i spent a similar, albeit more low-key, weekend writing my heart out, planting lemon cucumber and broccoli raab seeds in cutoff juice containers, and dancing in the ganja-hazy cloud of drumming hippies at the afternoon tam tams at mount royal. after reading the email, i went to the place desjardins mall to speak to an agent about my taxes (double horror!) and found myself calm and breathing, charmed by the blue fountain, shania twain music, and tiki-ming and saint cinnamon food kiosks. somehow my habitual judgments and will to wrangle things into the good or bad box were silent, and the perfection, absurdity, and poetry of my inner and outer surroundings blended together in a soft hum. for me, this shift of heart-mindset feels sustainable as infinite game, more so than play as finite and the rest of life as solemnity, or earth connection as finite and the rest of life as heroic mission. how does/will the spirit of fool infuse my gardening projects and nature awareness sessions as learner and as teacher? might the hippie household be game for movement and clown experimentation as play and healing practice? what will be the responses in different performance venues, in myself and in others, and who will be my collaborators? what happens when i give an enthusiastic yes yes yes as the simplest act of deep play to this work? references ackerman, d. (1999). deep play: harvesting joy from the games of life. new york, ny: random house. ardley, g. (1967). the role of play in the philosophy of plato. philosophy, 42(161), 226–244. bateson, g. (1976). a history of play and fantasy. in r. schechner (ed.), ritual, play, and performance (pp. 67–73). new york, ny: seabury press. bateson, p., & martin, p. (2013). play, playfulness, creativity, and innovation. cambridge, england: cambridge university press. bayliss, a. (1999). playing with words: an exploration of ludic terms and the linguistic permeation of play in a cultural context. research in drama education, 4(1), 73–84. doi: 10.1080/1356978990040106 beck, m. (2012). finding your way in a wild new world: reclaim your true nature to create the life you want. new york, ny: free press. boven, m. (2014). incognito. in krsrr, volume 15, kierkegaard’s concepts, tome iii: envy to incognito (pp. 231–236). hampshire, england: ashgate. bramadat, d. 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(1971). playing and reality. london, england: tavistock. winter/hiver 2017 62 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research supporting young children’s learning in a dramatic play environment janine hostettler scharer janine hostettler scharer, phd, educational psychology from simon fraser university, is a lecturer for university and college-level classes in early childhood education and a former kindergarten teacher. her research interests include learning and development in families and early childhood settings, relationships, and play. her dissertation explored children’s transitions from family to childcare. email: janine.hostettler@gmx.net as an early childhood education lecturer at both the university and college level and a former kindergarten teacher, i have been experiencing, studying, and researching children’s play and have always been fascinated by it. in my graduate studies, i was particularly drawn to vygotsky’s (1978) cultural-historical theory. i explored what vygotsky wrote about mature dramatic play as leading a child’s development and incorporated those views in my lectures. however, when teaching prospective ece teachers and educators about play and learning through play, i faced more challenges than i anticipated. i have observed prospective ece teachers being as fascinated by vygotsky’s play theory as i, and being astonished by the potential for children to learn through play. nonetheless, many prospective ece teachers i have worked with (especially ones teaching kindergarten and elementary grades but also some prospective preschool teachers) hold the preconception that play is something they can allow children to do between blocks of instruction, something that children will do unprompted and that does not need their input, something that gives teachers or educators time to do other things. these prospective teachers’ idea of play was either centre time (playing house, blocks, reading corner) or outdoor play (playground time). i found that even when these prospective teachers learn about the benefits of learning through play, they still worry about parental opposition to playtime in the classroom and that playtime will take away from their ability to complete their curriculum. my objective is to challenge these beliefs. what i am presenting is based on a vygotskian theory of play that focuses on dramatic or make-believe play. i will discuss how play develops, how play is considered the leading activity of preschoolers and early elementary children, how play influences development, and how teachers and educators can foster, enrich, and scaffold mature dramatic play. the preschool period in vygotsky’s terms is the time between a child’s third and seventh birthdays, therefore it includes kindergarten and early primary grades. after presenting this theoretical approach, i will vygotsky and his followers believe that makebelieve play is the leading activity in preschool, kindergarten, and the early primary grades. play-based curricula are common in early childhood classrooms today, but what does this look like in practice? does it mean that children get some time for free play in centres between blocks of direct instruction? what could learning in a play-learning environment look like? prospective ece teachers often show difficulty integrating play for learning. in their experiences, play is often something to do in between their guided instruction. in this paper i challenge those beliefs and show, based on an example, how learning and teaching are possible through play when the whole classroom is transformed into a museum. teachers will not only be addressing curricular goals, but also encouraging imagination, creativity, social development, and many other learning goals at the same time. based on vygotsky’s theory on play, i present ways to enrich, support, and foster play while learning within a play-learning environment. key words: early childhood education; dramatic play; curriculum; play-learning environment winter/hiver 2017 63 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research address some common concerns of prospective teachers and educators by introducing an example of a playlearning environment (ple) and explaining how curricula competencies can be taught and assessed in such a dramatic play environment. a vygotskian definition of play in vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, play is an important part of early childhood. vygotsky believed that play promotes cognitive, social, and emotional development in children. however, the vygotskian view on sociodramatic play is just the opposite of the common belief that play is children’s free activity time in which they do whatever they want while liberating themselves from rules and social pressure (karpov, 2003). in the vygotskian definition, play is limited to the dramatic or make-believe play of preschoolers. vygotsky’s play theory therefore differs from other play theories, which also include object-oriented exploration, constructional play, and games with rules. real play activities, according to vygotsky, include the following components: (a) creating an imaginary situation, (b) taking on and acting out roles, and (c) following a set of rules determined by specific roles (bodrova & leong, 2007). in vygotsky’s play, role-playing and the imaginary situation are planned ahead and there are rules for participating in play. each imaginary situation has a set of roles and rules. roles are the characters children play and rules are the behaviours allowed by either role or play scenario. roles are often explicit and can be seen through the children’s behaviour. in the beginning, rules are often hidden in the play (i.e., they cannot be observed easily), but later the rules become explicit and are negotiated by the children. further, when playing, children place constraints on their own behaviour, which marks the beginning of self-regulation (bodrova & leong, 2007). when children are around 3 years old, they develop a strong interest in the world of adults, and they want to become a part of this world. because this desire cannot be fulfilled directly (i.e., children cannot become a firefighter or a doctor), they enter the world of adults through imitation and exploration of social relationships through dramatic play (karpov, 2003). vygotsky believed that children are able to engage in pretend play because they start to separate the visual field (what can be seen) from the field of sense (what can be implied), or meaning. through pretend play, a child can decontextualize meaning, that is, think about something even when the object is not present or evident (smidt, 2009). in play, thought is separated from object and action starts from ideas and not from things: a piece of wood can be a doll, a stick becomes a horse. acting according to rules begins to be determined by ideas rather than by objects, and the child’s relation to the immediate, real, and concrete situation becomes revealed through play (vygotsky, 1978). vygotsky saw this as the first step for the development of higher mental functions and verbal thinking, which becomes important for children during their transition to school (gajdamaschko, 2011; karpov, 2003; smidt, 2009). how play develops the roots of play lie in object-oriented activities of toddlers. during manipulative situations, children explore an object’s physical properties and how they are used. later, when children use everyday objects in imaginary situations, play emerges (bodrova & leong, 2007). the initial play situation is very close to the real one; it is merely a reproduction of the real situation. a child playing with a doll repeats almost exactly what the mother does with her baby; there is very little imagination. it is an imaginary situation, but only comprehensible through the real situation. therefore, it is more memory in action than an imaginary situation (vygotsky, 1978). initially, play focuses on objects. interactions between players and their roles are of secondary importance. to qualify as play, object manipulation must include symbolic representation. using a stick as a horse is an example winter/hiver 2017 64 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of a symbolic representation (bodrova & leong, 2007; gajdamaschko, 2011). in another step, children act out single activities next to one another without talking to each other. activities can happen in any order; the doll can first be dressed up and then bathed. through action, a child makes meaning (gajdamaschko, 2011). later in play development, children engage in imaginary situations and can remain there. they are using play voices to indicate they are playing a role, and play becomes much more socially oriented. children start to plan their play and set goals before they begin playing. language becomes more important, and children can switch between their role and giving instructions. more and more roles and rules appear in one play situation, and more children can participate in the same play scenario. at the end of preschool and beginning of primary school, children start to only talk about their play and stop acting it out; time is spent negotiating roles and rules. play as a leading activity of preschool starts to die out (gajdamaschko, 2011) and is replaced by the learning activity (kravtsov & kravtsova, 2010). play as a leading activity in preschoolers because a child with no play experience is likely to show deficits in his or her cognitive and social-emotional development (bodrova & leong, 2007), vygotsky’s students leont’ev and elkonin proposed the idea of play as the leading activity for children aged 3 to 6 years. they believed play to have a unique role for children this age which cannot be replaced by other activities, even though children benefit from a variety of other experiences during this age period (bodrova & leong, 2007). the essential characteristics that make play the leading activity of preschoolers are the importance of play for cognitive development and for the development of self-regulation (bodrova & leong, 2007). since children act out synopses of their role models’ actions, they generate a model of reality, something that requires symbolic generalization. children learn to use objects in their symbolic function and to act out symbolic representations of relationships that exist between their role models. according to elkonin (1978, as cited in bodrova & leong, 2003), in both instances the use of symbols is first supported by props and toys, and later is communicated to play partners through words and gestures. vygotsky (1978) described play as the leading activity as follows: though the play-development relationship can be compared to the instruction-development relationship, play provides a much wider background for changes in needs and consciousness. action in the imaginative sphere, in an imaginary situation, the creation of voluntary intentions, and the formation of real-life plans and volitional motives—all appear in play and make it the highest level of preschool development. the child moves forward essentially though play activity. only in this sense can play be considered a leading activity that determines the child’s development. (pp. 102–103) in order to influence personality development, play itself must develop. toward the end of the preschool period, when a child has mastered the main types of play, play becomes a predominant activity, an activity that influences a significant part of the child’s life (kravtsov & kravtsova, 2010). a certain activity is defined as leading for the given age period because mediation within this activity produces major developmental accomplishments in children and provides the basis for their transition to the next leading activity (karpov, 2003). at the end of preschool, children become more and more interested in learning activities, a prerequisite for their transition to school. how play influences development it has already been mentioned how play influences development through facilitating the separation of thought from actions and objects, as well as facilitating the development of self-regulation. self-regulation in play becomes possible because a child needs to follow the rules of the play and children constantly monitor each other. play also winter/hiver 2017 65 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research helps decentering as children learn to take other people’s perspective and look at objects through the eyes of their play partner—a form of cognitive decentering (gajdamaschko, 2011). play also impacts the child’s motivation in that a child learns to set short-term and long-term goals in play. in order to play airplane, tickets and passports need to be created, and play might not start until everything is ready (bodrova & leong, 2007). furthermore, play is creating a zone of proximal development for many areas of children’s intellectual development. concerning play and the zone of proximal development, vygotsky (1978) wrote that play creates a zone of proximal development of the child. in play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behaviour; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself. as in the focus of a magnifying glass, play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form and is itself a major source of development. (p. 102) by the end of the sixth year, children’s involvement in sociodramatic play results in development of a learning motive as their new leading activity. they have overcome their egocentric position toward other people and the external world, are able to self-regulate their behaviour, and are able to engage in symbolic thought, which is crucial for their success at school. therefore, through sociodramatic play, children develop prerequisites for learning at school (karpov, 2003). if, by the end of the preschool age, children have not developed a fully formed activity of play, this will lead to a low level of psychological preparedness for learning in the school setting (kravtsov & kravtsova, 2010). preschoolers can get “stuck,” meaning that their play actually prevents them from developing within the educational setting. further, a lack of physical conditions that allow for the development of play can lead to situations where children do not actually learn while in school (kravtsov & kravtsova, 2010). teaching how to play is the most difficult problem in classical science, because, as kravtsov and kravtsova (2010) explain, “today, children are playing less and worse than in years gone by, and many adults no longer grasp the meaning and importance of the activity of play” (pp. 25–26). there is indeed less time for play in elementary classrooms, kindergarten, and preschools focusing on academic learning. however, it essential for children to learn how to play in a mature way, and teachers and educators need to know ways to foster, enrich, and scaffold play. enriching and scaffolding mature play in mature play, children use objects and action symbolically to represent other objects or actions. children can pretend to have objects or pretend some action without the need to actually have it or do it. in mature play, language is used to create this pretend scenario, and themes are complex and interwoven. children engage in the same play for an extended period of time because they are able to concentrate for a longer duration and they can use more self-regulation, planning, and memory. children play multifaceted roles that are signalled through changes in voice, gesture, or prop (bodrova & leong, 2007). by definition, sociodramatic play is children’s joint activity, but russian neo-vygotskians hold that adults should mediate children’s play and that the major role of an adult is to present and explain different social roles to children. it is not enough to mediate children’s play by giving them different toys, but rather, adults should explain the social roles that go with whatever the children are playing. otherwise, children will not be able to play, and their sociodramatic play will be immature and impoverished (karpov, 2003). how can ece teachers find ways to help children playing in an immature way to engage in play at a higher level? prospective teachers need to differentiate between observation and interpretation of play, between what they see and what they think they see. further, they need to know that play can be influenced through the environment, the winter/hiver 2017 66 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research toys and pivots they are using in play, the amount of time they get to play, their peers, their age, and the teachers themselves. teachers need to find ways to assist and scaffold play processes without taking the lead. observation of children’s play is important for teachers to see a child’s potential. higher levels of play can be fostered through providing ideas for themes that extend children’s experiences and through choosing appropriate toys and props. substitutions, pivots, and pretend actions can be introduced. teachers can help children to plan their play and monitor their progress. this can be done through supporting plots, introducing more scripts, combining actions, and introducing more children into one play situation. children who need help have to be coached to play, and children can be encouraged to mentor each other. a teacher can suggest or model how themes can be woven together and how disputes can be resolved appropriately. narratives and field trips help to uncover the meaning of adult life to children and support the development of scripts. lastly, teachers need to make sure that children have sufficient time for play (bodrova & leong, 2007; gajdamaschko, 2011) as their play develops into more complex and multifaceted scenarios. scaffolding play development can be done by sitting close to a child and playing with the same material(s). this parallel play helps the child to concentrate longer and allows the child to take ideas by observing the teacher’s play (e.g., a teacher can model the appropriate way of using tools while playing alongside a child). another form of scaffolding is when the teacher takes a role in the children’s play and only subtly tries to give input into their play (e.g., a teacher can be a visitor or customer asking questions or adding pivots that encourage children to try something new in their play). a stronger form of influence by the teacher is play tutoring. for example, if a boy wants to play at the hairdresser centre but does not know how to enter the play, the teacher could ask him, “mr. smith, don’t you want to have a haircut? it is so warm outside already and shorter hair is much easier to handle in summer.” another form of play tutoring involves the teacher taking a role in playing with the children and leading (i.e., modelling) their play from the inside. for example, a teacher can be a cook in the restaurant and model how to read a recipe, where to look for the ingredients, and how to follow the recipe (burkhardt bossi, lieger, & von felten, 2009). all these possible interventions are meant to foster play activities for children. most importantly, teachers should only intervene as long as necessary and then leave the play situation. they should not come from outside the play and ask reality-related questions, because this could break the make-believe situation and destroy the children’s play. play versus instruction after considering the benefits of play, how play develops, and how play acts as the leading activity for preschool children, for prospective teachers and educators, these questions remain: how should we transfer this new knowledge surrounding play into practice? is play beneficial enough that we as teachers need to give time for sociodramatic play in preschool, kindergarten, and early primary classrooms? do we provide this time in between blocks of instruction, or at the end of the day? how might play be integrated within the formal curriculum? how do we justify our practice if parents want to know why we are not teaching the children academics instead? where do we take the time? even if the importance of play has been understood, the benefits of play for learning taken into consideration, and our responsibility for play development recognized, prospective teachers, in my experience, are still concerned that giving more time to play will take away time they need to teach curriculum. in the following section, i want to challenge this belief and present an example of how play and instruction can be combined in a preschool, kindergarten, or early primary classroom. in a play-learning environment (ple), learning and instruction happen through play while teachers plan, teach, and assess learning within the theme of the ple. winter/hiver 2017 67 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research play-learning environments there are endless possibilities for play-learning environments that could be enacted in an early childhood classroom: art gallery, travel agency, train station, and restaurant, to name a few (achermann, 2009). as an example, our kindergarten classroom is transformed into a museum. a museum as an example of a play-learning environment in our museum there are different workstations: a reception desk and kiosk, the exhibition, and a coffee shop. some children are staff in these centres, while others are the visitors to the museum. i will describe all these workstations/ centres and explain in detail what could happen there and identify connections to the formal curriculum (i.e., “curricular competencies” within the province of british columbia; see government of british columbia, 2017). i will provide suggestions for ple time, as well as address play-based practices consistent with a more traditional teaching approach still within the theme of the museum. children will circulate through the different roles, and teachers will appoint children into the different centres at different times. therefore, teachers can make sure that all children have the opportunity to experience each role and learning activity happening at each centre. it is important to mention that teachers are not arranging the ple on their own but together with the children. this in itself is a learning opportunity, and can be done with all the children or in smaller groups. exhibition. part of our classroom is going to be the exhibition space. we can start collecting materials with children, give them homework to start a collection (maybe a few weeks prior to the planned start), or we can ask children to bring their collections from home. each child can get their own collection space, or similar artefacts could be exhibited together. picking artefacts to exhibit could be a whole-group activity or done in smaller groups. we can teach children how to do this by bringing many different objects to the classroom and ask the children how to group or sort them. we can talk about similarities and differences of the objects in the big group, but then divide children into smaller groups or pairs and give them pictures of the objects. children can sort them and glue pictures of the ones they choose to exhibit in groups on bigger paper. after this work, all the children can discuss the different solutions to the problem and decide together how the collections should be exhibited. exhibits can be described on cards, and the names of the children should also be written on these cards. this allows children to give tours through the exhibit, to read (in print or pictures) whom this exhibit belongs to, and to give information about where it was found, what it is, or why these things were chosen to collect. working on the collection will probably fill several days. possible curricular competencies we work on while doing this are speaking in front of the whole group, naming objects, comparing objects, counting, sorting, collaborating, problem solving, presenting possible solutions, and writing or drawing names/objects/places (government of british columbia, 2017). once the artefacts are ready, we will need to discuss how they could be introduced in a tour to museum visitors. children giving these tours need to read the cards or symbols, trying to remember what the children said about their exhibits, talk in front of other children, and answer questions. experiencing a museum through a field trip with the class would be a great start for this ple. visitors. visitors to the museum can dress up as such (e.g., with shirts, skirts, jewellery, hats, scarves) and will need money to buy tickets and snacks, pay for tours, and visit the coffee shop. visitors will work on their communication skills (e.g., how to buy a ticket and book a tour, what to ask the guide about the exhibits, how to order at the coffee shop), mathematical skills (e.g., counting, paying, checking change), as well as social skills (e.g., waiting in line, waiting for their turn to speak, taking turns, sharing). reception desk. playing possibilities in the reception area include dressing up for work (a scarf or name tag, or winter/hiver 2017 68 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research similar); selling entry tickets, snacks, gift cards; maintaining statistics on how many tickets and snacks are sold; supplying customers with tickets or wrist bands; hanging up coats and handing out numbers. children working at the reception desk will need to take turns, help each other dress up, use mathematical concepts like addition (multiple tickets), subtraction (customers with gift cards), and counting (money given, return money, things sold); and write or draw (tickets, wrist bands, coat numbers). there is also a lot of communication happening as staff need to address customers, tell them about the exhibition, and tell them about prices, tours, and the exhibition itself. coffee shop. in the coffee shop, children can prepare food and drinks. they need to be able to read the menu and to write or draw the customers’ orders, calculate prices and return money (addition and subtraction), read recipes, collaborate, take turns, and help each other. coffee shop staff can be dressed up too, and there could be different roles (e.g., cashier, barrista, server). the coffee shop can be extended into a full-on restaurant where actual food is prepared (e.g., sandwiches, fruit platters). extensions. play-learning environments can be extended through additional centres (e.g., a gift shop, a workshop to develop new exhibits, or an office to design invitations or flyers, order materials, and keep statistics about materials used or number of visitors) or by inviting other grades or parents as visitors to the museum. a field trip to a museum or to other kinds of museums (e.g., an art gallery) could also be an extension of the ple and could lead to a further ple in the classroom. teaching and assessment in a play-learning environment a play-learning environment is not one big centre where children play between blocks of direct instruction. instruction takes place within the ple and teachers integrate aspects of the formal curriculum. the ideas i provided above as examples cover curricular competencies for kindergarteners in career education, social studies, language arts, mathematics, and science (government of british columbia, 2017). teaching happens within the ple when new concepts are introduced, problems are discussed, and solutions are presented. a teacher can also introduce new concepts or assess children on an individual or group basis while they play in one of the areas of the ple. this can be done through observation or through taking on a role and playing with the children. it is, however, important to note that the ple needs to be introduced slowly and built up in collaboration with the children. new materials and activities should be introduced when children are comfortable in their play. furthermore, children often develop their own ideas on how ples could be extended and improved. every day there should be time to play and work in the ple, and teachers should appoint the roles for the children. as soon as the children play and work independently we can use this time to teach, observe, and evaluate their learning individually or in small groups. the best way to do this is for us, teachers, to take on a role ourselves and teach and assess the children from inside their play, not from the outside. that is, if we want to assess a child’s mathematical knowledge, we could be a visitor and appoint the child to the reception desk. through booking a tour, buying a ticket and snacks, and introducing gift cards, we can assess, not only a child’s ability to add and subtract, but also their communication skills). it is important to note there should also be time for free play every day. this can happen in the ple or in other centres (e.g., art, games, construction). during free play, children should be permitted to pick their role and to choose when, how long, and how often they want to play the same role within the ple. other school subjects can take place within the ple. for example, art education can easily be a part of the museum ple through integrating the children’s art projects in the museum. working in a ple should not limit the activities within a classroom. instead, it should provide a framework for learning and development, supporting my claim that instruction and play do not exclude each other. winter/hiver 2017 69 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research conclusion in summary, in this article i highlighted the importance of sociodramatic play in the development of preschool and early primary children for a successful transition to learning in school. i specified the characteristics of mature play and how teachers and educators can enhance, support, and scaffold children’s play through mediating, coaching, suggesting, modelling, and, most essentially, providing sufficient time for play. further, i discussed prospective teachers’ and educators’ questions on how to incorporate play in the everyday activities in their classrooms, and i gave an example of how sociodramatic play can be used to teach curricula. through this i was able to challenge a belief i have encountered many times from my prospective ece teachers: that play and instruction are separate activities and cannot be brought together. providing references to curriculum should give teachers enough arguments to defend their choice of teaching through play. it is important to explain to parents what children are learning while playing, and that curricular goals are met through play. i acknowledge that playlearning environments require careful planning for learning and assessment, as well as teacher flexibility. i am aware that more questions exist regarding the incorporation of play in early childhood classrooms, and i look forward to many more fruitful discussions about ideas and ways to integrate play in curricula. references achermann, e. (2009). der vielfalt raum und struktur geben. unterricht mit kindern von 4–8 jahren. bern, switzerland: schulverlag plus. bodrova, e., & leong, d. j. (2003). learning and development of preschool children from the vygotskian perspective. in a. kozulin, b. gindis, v. s. ageyev, & s. m. miller (eds.), vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 156-176). cambridge, england: cambridge university press. bodrova, e., & leong, d. j. (2007). tools of the mind: the vygotskian approach to early childhood education (2nd ed.). upper saddle river, nj: pearson. burkhardt bossi, c., lieger, c. & von felten, r. (2009). spielen als lernprozess. zürich, switzerland: verlag pestalozzianum. gajdamaschko, n. (2011). lev vygotsky’s theories in education. educ 879-g001 spring 11 graduate seminar. burnaby, bc: simon fraser university. government of british columbia. (2017). bc’s new curriculum. retrieved from: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/ karpov, y. v. (2003). development through the lifespan. a neo-vygotskian approach. in a. kozulin, b. gindis, v. s. ageyev, & s. m. miller (eds.), vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 138–153). cambridge, england: cambridge university press. kravtsov, g. g., & kravtsova, e. e. (2010). play in l. s. vygotsky’s nonclassical psychology. journal of russian and east european psychology, 48(4), 25–41. doi: 10.2753/rpo1061-0405480403 smidt, s. (2009). introducing vygotsky. a guide for practitioners and students in early years education. london, england: routledge. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. spring/printemps 2017 11 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research huili hong is an assistant professor in the department of curriculum and instruction (cuai) at east tennessee state university’s claudius clemmer college of education. she coordinates cuai’s teacher education honours program and esl endorsement program. email: hongh1@etsu.edu also in cuai at etsu, karin keith chairs the department, renee rice moran co-coordinates k–6 interdisciplinary educational studies, and jodi lashay jennings is a clinical instructor. acknowledgement: this work was supported by a major grant from the research development center of east tennessee state university. using imagination to bridge young children’s literacy and science learning: a dialogic approach huili hong, karin keith, renee rice moran, and jodi lashay jennings integrating children’s learning of literacy and science has become a new focus in today’s literacy instruction and learning (cassidy et al., 2015). children’s acquisition and application of content area knowledge and literacy are fundamental to the work of new and future generations of professionals (pearson et al., 2010; yore et al., 2004). the idea of using imagination in children’s literacy learning and practices has been embraced by numerous educational philosophers, researchers, and practitioners (alcock, 2007; cadwell, 1977; dewey, 1902/1991, 1934, 1938; dyson, 1997, 2003, 2006, 2014; dyson & genishi,1993, 1994, 2009; gallas, 2003; greene, 2001; heath, 1986; isenberg & jalongo, 2014; jalongo, 2004; mcnamee, 2015; paley, 1981, 1990, 2004; rosenblatt, 1982, 2005; vygotsky, 1978). yet the role of imagination has remained marginalized in early childhood education and studies in the field. the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential affordance of imagination in bridging children’s literacy and science learning through a dialogical approach, which we discuss below. conceptualization of imagination: children’s inquiries into play and learning as researchers, teachers, and parents of children, we are always amazed by how imagination drives children’s inquiries into play and various kinds of learning beyond the boundaries of their realistic worlds. as lev vygotsky noted (2004), the creative activity of children’s imagination builds on, retains, reproduces, and constitutes the richness and variety of their personal experiences. therefore, imagination is viewed in this study as an inseparable part of children’s learning experiences. we also understand that children’s imaginative play (or fantasy play) and playful or creative imagination are naturally combined in their daily life (møller, 2015; vygotsky, 2004). by natural combination, we mean children need imagination to make their play playful (alcock, 2007) and to move their play beyond the existing play scenarios (dewey, 1938). meanwhile, children play to externalize and grow their imagination and creativity (vygotsky, 1967). in this article, we link the concept of imagination to play, playful talk, and learning experiences. we focus on a positive role of imagination that can not only create an enjoyable learning atmosphere but also offer a space for transforming children’ fantasy/imaginative play into exploratory learning opportunities. based on the inherent link between children’s imagination, play, talk, and learning experiences (souto-manning & martell, 2016; vygotsky, 2004), we designed this study to capture the promising role of imagination and to explore the ways imagination can be used to bridge children’s literacy and science learning. overall, our research goals are twofold: first, to provide practical resources and empirical evidence from the classroom to help educators draw on children’s imagination in their practice of integrating literacy and science learning; and second, to provide a better understanding of the inherent links among imagination, play, integrating children’s literacy and science learning has become a new focus in literacy instruction. imagination, an integral part of children’s learning experience, remains marginalized in today’s early childhood education curriculum. drawing on a yearlong ethnographic study in a first-grade classroom, this paper explores the potential affordance of imagination in integrating young children’s literacy and science learning. the findings showed that the integration opportunities were organically constructed in and through children’s natural engagement of imagination in their reading process. a dialogic approach is presented as one way to ignite children’s imaginations in their literacy and science learning. keywords: imagination; children; literacy and science; dialogic pedagogy spring/printemps 2017 12 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research creativity, and learning. imagination in children’s literacy learning imagination is “a way of seeing and feeling things as they compose an integral whole and the large and generous blending of interest at the point where the mind comes in contact with the world” (dewey, 1934, p. 267). both vygotsky (2004) and john dewey (1938) posited that imagination as an experience can arouse curiosity, strengthen initiative, and set up desires and purposes. the idea of engaging children’s imagination in literacy learning in both academic and social contexts is not new. children’s experience fuelled by imagination is a moving force for their continuous meaningful and joyful learning (dewey, 1938). this philosophical idea about experience was reflected in vygotsky’s theory of mind (1978), in which imagination was related to the formation of abstract thought. likewise, louise rosenblatt’s (1982, 2005) transactional theory suggests that imagination is an inseparable component of readers’ aesthetic experience in their response to texts and their meaning-making processes. in the ecology of imagination in childhood, edith cobb (1977) noted that “in childhood, the cognitive process is essentially poetic because it is lyrical, rhythmic, and formative in a generative sense; it is a sensory integration of self and environment” (p. 89). this integration, “the perceptual whole” in dewey’s (1938) words, occurs in and through imagination. cobb (1977) further proposed that the poetic voice in our childhood is the root of adults’ creativity, which is naturally tied to children’s imagination. in this line of research associated with children’s imagination, don holdaway (1979) based his classroom experiments in auckland on the proposal that imagination is one of the operational factors affecting children’s learning and use of written language. similarly, louise boyd cadwell’s (1997) early work, which built on the reggio emilia approach (cf. hewitt, 2001), documented the ways that children were more responsive to questions about things tied to their interests and imagination. concentrating on children’s writing, both anne dyson, alone (1997, 2003, 2006, 2014) and with celia genishi (1993, 1994, 2009), and gillian mcnamee (2015) have conducted studies demonstrating how imaginative storytelling can successfully engage children’s personal interests and empower their writing. the integration of literacy and science—the systematic study of the natural world based on facts learned through children’s observation and experiments—not only draws on children’s inborn needs of play and imagination, but also nurtures these needs and epistemological curiosity for new learning and knowledge (campbell, 1957; cobb, 1977). the value of playful imagination and imaginative play lies, not in the temporary affective response or impulse, but in what and where it moves toward and into (dewey, 1938). children’s imagination often functions as a stimulus in their social interactions, causing a “ripple of ideas” among other participants (paley, 1990, p. 21). in this sense, imagination is not only an individual cognitive process or a temporary affective impulse, but also a collective social process that can lead children into a new world of different voices, new visions, and other ways of expressing and exploring ideas (paley, 1990, p. 34). in this way, it can be said that imagination affects children’s ways of learning, using, doing, thinking of, and talking about literacies and science (street, 1984, 1995) and consequently the forms and content of children’s literacy practices (black, 2009). pearson (2014) also points out that science, literacy, and discourse are highly interrelated. science is a contextualized academic language, creating a particular social context where language and literacies are employed as tools to talk, read, and write about the world and to observe, explore, and interact with the world. therefore, the role of imagination can be illuminated in and through analysis of teacher–child interactive discourses in their literacy and science learning. in an imaginative approach to teaching, kieran egan (2005) puts imagination at the heart of effective teaching and learning. in this practice-oriented book, egan introduces cognitive tools and provides a set of lesson plans and specific teaching strategies to help teachers activate children’s imaginations and emotions in their literacy and content knowledge learning processes. however, there is a scarcity of experimental research on the role of imagination in the fusion of literacy and science or in other subject areas. drawing on a yearlong ethnographic study in a first-grade classroom, this article attempts to extend this line of research by exploring opportunities of using imagination to integrate children’s literacy and science learning in and through naturally occurring interactive classroom discourses. logic of inquiry this study is grounded in the application of social constructionism (gergen, 1999, 2001), interactional sociolinguistics (green & wallet, 1981; gumperz, 1982; hymes, 1974; volosinov, 1929/1973), and discourse studies (blommaert, 2005; bloome et al., 2005) to the analysis of instructional conversations (green & wallet, 1981). we also draw on bakhtin’s (1981) theoretical work, especially his assertion about the inherent dialogic nature of language. that is, any utterance is always a reflection and refraction of words that have been said before in and across different social contexts. this article views children’s literacy and science learning not only as a set of literacy skills or scientific concepts but also as interpersonal social practices (heath, 1983, 2012; street, 1984, 1995). the site of spring/printemps 2017 13 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s literacy learning, meaning making, and content knowledge construction is therefore located in children’s ongoing moment-tomoment social interactions, especially interactive discourses, which shape and are shaped by various social, cultural, and political factors (bloome et al., 2005). in and through their social interactions, children often naturally and creatively juxtapose different texts, semiotic systems, imagination, play, and various personal experiences in their literacy learning (bloome & hong, 2012; bloome & robertson, 1993). ethnography of communication in light of our theoretical framework, we adopted an ethnographic approach to study the naturally occurring communications and social interactions between the teacher and children in a first-grade classroom over the course of an academic year. an ethnographic study is designed to allow researchers/observers to understand the studied community (here, the first-grade classroom), focusing on the members’ activities, values, understandings, meaning construction process, and shared cultural models (cf. gumperz, 1982; hammersley & atkinson, 1995; street, 1995). in our study, the teacher–child classroom interactions were guided by their conversational inferences dependent on their perceptions of verbal and nonverbal cues that contextualized their daily literacy practices (gumperz, 1982). with an understanding of their co-constructed contextualization cues and shared cultural models, teachers and students can recognize their interactive discourses as a wider sequence of talk in which the local meaning in a certain social event may be referenced and thematically coherent with other local meanings created in other events (cook-cumperz, 2006). therefore, with a yearlong time commitment, the inferential chain of meanings and understandings constructed in the teacher–child classroom interactions are visible and can be observed, understood, and described by the participant researchers (cook-gumperz, 2006). ethnographic data the yearlong ethnographic data collection took place in a first-grade classroom in green grass elementary school (a pseudonym), a public elementary school in rural east tennessee that serves communities of high poverty. ninety-three percent of its students receive free or reduced-price meals. the study was part of a larger funded research project on the integration of literacy and content knowledge through a dialogical approach. ms. sterling was the teacher, and there were twenty children in her class. ms. sterling had approximately twenty years of teaching experience at the time of the study. she often started the school day with a morning routine of a short circle time for the children to talk about their stories or lives out of school, with some integration of math and science content. for example, they might discuss the weather or the number of days they had attended school so far in the year. their mornings focused on reading and writing, followed by a lunch break. one hour in the afternoon was blocked for math, another for related arts. the children had a recess before the school dismissal. the researchers made two to three visits to ms. sterling’s class each week, usually spending the whole morning observing their reading and writing blocks as participants (dewalt & dewalt, 2010; spradley, 1980). during their observation hours, the researchers often had the opportunity to work with some struggling readers, writers, or english language learners (ell) at the teacher’s or the children’s request. field notes were taken, either during or after their visits. both audio and video recordings were used to document the naturally occurring classroom interactions. the use of audio and video recording was dependent on the dynamics of the classroom activities on each particular day. ms. sterling was interviewed twice. the first interview took place in the first professional development workshop that was offered to all of the teachers who participated in the large research project (including ms. sterling) in the fall semester. it focused on the teachers’ language uses and word choices. the second interview was administered in ms. sterling’s classroom at the end of the academic year. children’s artifacts and classroom documents were collected during the course of the yearlong research project. data analytic and reflection memos were kept during the data collection and analysis processes. data selected for this article included the second interview with ms. sterling about the integration of literacy and science, an audio segment of a routine interactive read-aloud session in the classroom, field notes, and artifacts from the second professional workshop offered in the spring semester. discourse analysis of ethnographic data drawing on the theoretical framework outlined above and the ethnographic approach (bakhtin, 1986; freire, 1970; wells, 1999), we adopted discourse analysis to capture the complexities of children’s orchestration of imagination, play, talk, literacy learning, and various life experiences (bloome et al., 2005). doing so aims to demonstrate imagination as a possible way to engage the children into more creative, meaningful, and joyful learning, to integrate their literacy and science learning, and to alleviate boredom through connecting their schooling and various life experiences (dewey, 1938; fredricks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004; paley, 2004; rowe & neitzel, 2010; schlechty, 2002; smith et al., 2001; vibert & shields, 2003; wholwend, 2015). spring/printemps 2017 14 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to illustrate how opportunities of using imagination to blend literacy and science can be identified and/or constructed in children’s daily schooling, we focused our discourse analysis on the ethnographic data of the naturally occurring teacher–child classroom interactions, especially their natural engagement of imagination (bloome et al., 2005; green & wallet, 1981; gumperz, 1982). more specifically, key literacy events (cf. heath, 1982) that involved the engagement of children’s imagination and/or the existing or potential opportunities of integrating their literacy and science learning were identified as primary analytic units. in this article, two particular literacy events are highlighted based on this rationale. one was part of ms. sterling’s reflection in the second interview about the challenges, opportunities, and benefits of integrating science into her class’s current curriculum; the other was a teacher–child interactive “read-aloud,” which was part of and should appropriately represent the first graders’ daily literacy practices. the teacher–child discourses in the selected key events were transcribed and then microanalyzed (bloome et al., 2005, 2008; green & wallet, 1981) to examine the social interactional functions of their talk and to explore the opportunities of using imagination to blend literacy and science learning in and through their interactive discourses. to incorporate the participants’ understandings of the selected literacy events and the broader social contexts in the inferencing of their meaning making and imagination experience (schiffrin, 1996), the researchers obtained an emic/insider’s perspective of what was really going on in the classroom through their yearlong participant observation (dewalt & dewalt, 2010; spradley, 1980). moreover, discourse analysis was triangulated with qualitative analysis (cf. maxwell, 2004) of the interviews with the teacher, the researchers’ observational field notes, and the children’s artifacts. integration of literacy and science: needs and challenges prior to exploring the opportunities of using imagination to integrate children’s literacy and science learning, we first investigated the challenges the teacher encountered in her teaching practice. in the selected interview data, ms. sterling discussed with us her comfort level in teaching science and mathematics in her class. the following excerpt (1) is drawn from the interview transcript. excerpt 1 ms. sterling: well, you know, math definitely stronger than science, simply because i’ve got the cut, clearcut standards, and, you know, it’s a time during the day that has to be done, you know. the science, i don’t have a problem with teaching it, but quite honestly, i don’t even know if i have a copy of the most recent standards, and we’ve heard, you know, when we had that meeting, that last meeting we did with the activities, i had to say, what is stem again? because i’ve heard of it, but we’ve not been talked to about it. you know, we’ve had no training in it, we’ve not been given, other than the resources you gave us, we’ve not been given any resources. and we flat out have been told: reading and math, reading and math, teach your science and social studies through the reading. which we are doing more of, because of the nonfiction component of common core (the new standards are widely adopted in the u.s.). it is definitely easier to do that, our basal even, i just use it for shared reading, but it lends itself to that, but it’s the hands on, beyond the discussion, finding the time to do that, because it’s certainly not in the day’s schedule, so, um, because i’m not doing as much of the science as math, i’d probably say that my level of comfort is lower... it is revealed in ms. sterling’s response that there have been needs as well as challenges in integrating science into elementary teachers’ (like ms. sterling and our other participant teachers) daily schedule or the curriculum, which has an overt emphasis on reading and math. many teachers, like ms. sterling, have become aware of this new integration trend in literacy instruction, but have not received much relevant professional training. lack of resources and the more stringent curriculum are also obvious factors affecting the integration of science in their daily teaching. meanwhile, ms. sterling saw the importance of the interdisciplinary correlation and proposed the idea of teaching science and social studies through the reading curriculum. integration of literacy and science: professional development and resources in an effort to turn the challenges and the teachers’ ideas into possibilities, we offered a professional development (pd) workshop to our six participant teachers in their school library after school. this pd workshop sought to help the teachers learn how to integrate science with reading / language arts and create a space for their students to engage their playful imaginations into their learning through playful hands-on activities and projects (vygotsky, 1978, 2004). in this workshop, we proposed (a) that the elementary years are crucial for building children’s love of scientific learning and opening their eyes to the possibilities of science (bradbury, 2013; national research council, 2012) and (b) that content knowledge needs to be integrated with reading and language arts so that children can have an idea spring/printemps 2017 15 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research about how reading and writing serve as tools that facilitate thinking and make disciplinary literacy and content knowledge learning visible and feasible. we set up three hands-on activity stations and divided the teachers into three pairs who worked collaboratively and rotated through each station. the teachers were provided with the award-winning picture-perfect science lessons series published by the national science teachers association (ansberry & morgan, 2007, 2010; morgan & ansberry, 2013). we adopted some of the ideas and activities from the books and let the teachers explore the science topics through observing, data recording, and solving the problems. after the workshop, the teachers were provided with a banker’s box that included books of science lessons, a list of all the materials needed in each science station, a set of multilevelled fiction and nonfiction texts on the selected science topics, and some basic materials to start their own science stations. (see the sidebar for resources used in the bubble station.) after receiving the professional training and resources, ms. sterling blocked a time and tried to integrate some science activities into her literacy blocks. in our interview (excerpt 2), when we asked her how the workshop and resources had helped her or the children, ms. sterling mentioned a few times that integration was possible and desirable, and that the children loved the activities. excerpt 2 ms. sterling: oh everybody, yeah, and plus they loved it, and they really, it really helped their cooperativeness and working together too, so it’s definitely something that i want to do again … … ms. sterling: … so if something could be done that went along with the reading and language arts standards so that we’re kind of killing two birds with one stone, that would be really really effective, and to make it even better, if it could correlate somehow with some of our basal reading stories… … ms. sterling: and i correlate as much as i can, but yeah, anything to correlate and bring it together i just think is valuable. based on the findings about ms. sterling’s successful experiment with an integrated approach in her class and her realization of the importance and benefits of it, we then focused our data analysis on how imagination can be engaged and used to organically fuse children’s literacy and science learning in and through the naturally occurring interactive classroom discourses. integration of literacy and science: the role of imagination to explore the opportunities of integrating literacy and science learning in organic and seamless ways, we decided to conduct an in-depth micro-level discourse analysis of the moment-to-moment teacher–child classroom interactions. the following literacy event (excerpt 3) was found to be a powerful demonstration of using imagination to organically integrate children’s science learning and literacy practices. this conversation was audio-recorded in ms. sterling’s routine morning reading block. the learning goals or target reading skills and bubble station resources • bubble blowers (shapes of flowers, hearts, stars, squares, circles, etc.) • cups • measuring cups • straws • cut-outs of books titles • liquid bubbles • two circle platters • books ¯ shapes ¯ shapes in sports ¯ what shapes do you see? ¯ shapes in the kitchen ¯ shapes in music ¯ shapes in buildings ¯ shapes in the garden ¯ the shape of things ¯ bubble trouble ¯ bubble bubble ¯ pop! a book about bubbles ¯ how to make bubbles ¯ bubbles float, bubbles pop • index cards with math sentences on them (ex. 6+5) • construction paper with words in boxes (ex. hat, mat, rat) spring/printemps 2017 16 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research strategies set for that day (summarizing, retelling, sequencing, and asking and answering questions) were written on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. ms. sterling also explicitly stated the goals. excerpt 3 1. teacher: and you are correct. the main character is santa. and the title of our story today is the bubble gum christmas. 2. children: christmas. 3. children: oooooh. 4. teacher: and as you listen, i want you to think about what happens at the beginning, 5. selina: middle and end 6. teacher: or the first of the story. then what happens, next what happens, and last what happens. 7. selina: and next what’s like 8. teacher: in case we had an extra one. it was christmas, tap, tap, tap. the elves worked. they chew, chew, chewed. the elves chewed. they chewed bubble gum. they made bubble gum. chew, chew, chew, the elves chewed. “chew and puff,” said santa. “are you working? are you” .... 9. children: playing 10. teacher: they are playing by doing what? 11. children: blowing 12. teacher: blowing bubbles and they are working by doing what? 13. children: working 14. selina: = and tapping 15. teacher: tapping and building what? 16. joe: toys 17. children: toys 18. selina: maybe they are just testing the bubble gum. 19. joe: yeah probably. 20. teacher: “we are working,” said the elves. “we are making toys. we are playing too. we are making bubbles.” 21. joe: [did i see nutcrackers?] 22. teacher: = so they were doing two things, weren’t they? 23. john: [i thought xxxx, i thought, me too.] 24. teacher: = “look, look,” said one elf. “see my bubble? see my big bubble?” “i like bubbles,” said santa. “i will chew gum. i will make bubbles too.” 25. selina: are there any like= 26. teacher: chew, chew, chew. santa chewed. puff, puff, the bubble was bigger. 27. selina: uh-oh, pop. 28. teacher: puff, puff, pop! santa’s big bubble popped. 29. children: no! ..… 30. teacher: put your hand up if you have gotten gum in your hair. 31. selina: i got it all around my lips xxxx. 32. teacher: it’s very hard to get it out [isn’t it]? 33. children: [oh, yes it is. ] 34. children: [i know! ] 35. christian: ms. sterling, my mom had to cut it. 36. children: ms. sterling! 37. teacher: she had to cut it? 38. emma: my mom had to [cut it too.] 39. children: [xxxx] 40. joe: i just got, i just got some gum on my blanket. 41. teacher: =so who thinks they can make a prediction, how is santa going to get the gum out of his beard? 42. children: inhale. 43. eli: could be cutting 44. children: ooooo 45. children: cutting spring/printemps 2017 17 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research 46. teacher: emma what do you think? do you think he’s going to cut it off? does anyone have a different prediction as to what he might do? jason, what do you think he might do? 47. nelson, what he might do? 48. jason: the reindeers can chew it off. 49. children: [@@@@] eww. 50. teacher: that’s a good prediction. what do you think, alice? 51. alice: hot water get it off. 52. christian: put carrot, put carrots all over it let’s xxx own... 53. joe: reindeer in excerpt 3, ms. sterling started the teacher– child interactive read-aloud mixed with a series of questions that aimed to help the children acquire the target reading skills and strategies (summarizing, retelling, sequencing, and asking and answering questions). the children successfully identified the main character and sequenced the story events in their echoing or immediate retelling. the teacher–child questioning and answering became more enjoyable and seemingly off-task conversations occurred when they began to talk about “testing of the bubble gum” (line 18), chewing gum, and popping the bubble. the opportunity to use imagination to integrate science and literacy learning emerged on line 30, when the teacher asked the children to “put your hand up if you have gotten gum in your hair.” this question obviously excited the children and catalyzed their active sharing of their lived experiences of getting bubble gum all around their lips and into their hair, cutting it off from their hair, and getting it on their blanket. ms. sterling skilfully grasped the opportunity to strengthen the children’s prediction skills (line 41) through asking them to predict how santa was going to get the gum off his beard. the teacher’s question on line 41 indeed sparked the children’s imaginations, which successfully engaged the children in their learning process. the children began to make various connections between their reading and their lived or imagined experiences: they suggested cutting the gum off, using hot water, putting carrots all over it, and letting the reindeer chew it off. their reaction to the teacher’s question and their peers’ sharing of ideas occurred in a way similar to that described by vivian paley (1990): “friendship and fantasy form the natural path that leads children into a new world of other voices, other views, and other ways of expressing ideas and feelings they recognize as similar to their own” (p. 34). what is more important, when children’s ideas find a nurturing environment, they will grow naturally out of the children’s playful imagination, unfold from the children’s imaginative play, thrive, and develop into inquiry learning and actions (dewey, 1902/1991; paley, 1990; vygotsky, 2004). in the above excerpt, the children’s ideas and the images came to them, not by the set purpose or goals, but in intense and illuminating flashes; they can only move closer to actuality by coming up with plans and actions (dewey, 1934, p. 276). therefore, children’s imagination, play, talk, improvised ideas, and science inquiry can and need to be completely fused (p. 276) to move these temporary impulses into deeper learning and exploration. in ms. sterling’s class, the children’s engagement with their imaginations, personal experiences, and ideas that grew out of the interactive read-aloud process were used to construct an authentic task of solving a meaningful real-life problem: how to remove bubble gum from different things mentioned in their conversation or in their further reading of other texts. this scenario encapsulates child-driven inquiry at its best. how to remove bubble gum, as a unique state of matter, can be an interesting, authentic, child-friendly project for the children to explore and negotiate while they construct their understanding of scientific concepts and deepen their academic literacy learning. excerpt 4 teacher: = gum is on your beard, said the elves. alice: oh, my goodness! teacher: = you mu::st transcription conventions = latching (i.e., very short pause, almost overlapped talking) [...] overlapped talking xxxx inaudible talking ↓ falling tone ↑ rising tone capital letters/sounds stressed letter/sound ｜ pause (0.3) long pause (time length) >... < (accelerated speaking speed) ... incomplete talk @ laugh lo::ve: elongated sound spring/printemps 2017 18 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research children: cut it! ↓ teacher: cut it. joe: oh, emma. teacher: so emma’s prediction was right. christian: and mine. teacher: you must cut your beard. santa cut his beard. selina: he hasn’t a beard now. teacher: = does he look like santa? children: no! eli: ms. sterling. teacher: one elf worked. “look!” he said, “i made a new beard. it is your new beard.” “i like it!” said santa. “i like my new beard. will it stay on? will it stay on my face?” children: yeah! teacher: “it will stay on,” said the elf. children: uh-oh. teacher: the bubble gum will work. it will make the beard stay on. it will stay on your face. children: uh-oh. children: oh. teacher: “look at me!” said santa. “i have gum on my face. see how it made little spots of it? it is going to work like glue. i have a new beard too. i will have a bubble gum christmas.” joe: the end. teacher: does he look like santa now? children: yes! excerpt 4 reveals another opportunity for using imagination to fuse children’s personal experience (in and out of school, realistic and imaginative) with literacy and science learning. the second potential opportunity is located between lines 9 and 12 of the excerpt, when the children realized that santa would not look like santa without his beard. this was an opportunity to apply the children’s existing literacy skills and content knowledge in a different situation. the teacher–child dialogic process here can be purposefully geared toward using this opportunity to recontextualize the children’s content knowledge and disciplinary literacy skills through their further investigation of possible materials other than gum that can put santa’s beard back and make him look like santa again. through exploring the potential opportunities afforded by the children’s engagement of imagination in their daily school literacy practices, we demonstrated and confirmed the ideas that the occurrence of impulse (like the children’s natural engagement of imagination) should not be seen as an end in itself but an opportunity and a call for scientific inquiry for new knowledge and learning in and across different disciplines (dewey, 1938; vygotsky, 2004). as teachers and teacher educators, our job is to help the teachers and children see when, where, and how opportunities to fuse literacy and science learning can be discursively constructed and taken advantage of through a new lens to see and understand the role of imagination in the integrated instructional trend. conclusion in this article, we investigated the challenges that the teachers of young children usually face in integrating literacy and science in their teaching practice. based on our findings about these challenges, we provided practical resources and empirical evidence from the focus first-grade classroom to show how teachers may draw on children’s playful imagination and/or imaginative play to identify and construct opportunities to integrate children’s literacy and science learning. analysis of the interview with ms. sterling revealed that the professional training and resources provided in this project made science teaching and “correlating science and literacy together” possible, exciting, and beneficial to ms. sterling’s students. this finding led our data analysis into an in-depth discourse analysis of the teacher–child interactive discourses in their routine reading workshop. the micro-level discourse analysis made visible potential opportunities for using imagination in a more organic integration of science and literacy learning, which is known as whole language learning for children (goodman, 1986; piaget, 1955; weaver, 1990). our overall data analysis results showed and reaffirmed the inherent links among children’s imagination, play, curiosity, creativity, and learning. our findings support the notion that children, through their playful imagination and imaginative play, can naturally bring their various personal and cultural experiences into the integration of science and literacy learning processes and practices (dewey, 1938; spring/printemps 2017 19 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research piaget, 1955; vygotsky, 1978, 2004). to use the children’s predictions of ways to remove gum from santa’s beard or different things as an example, opportunities of integrating literacy and science learning were creatively and discursively constructed through engaging children’s playful imaginations, their natural drive to play and explore, and their memories of prior life experiences. such opportunities need be taken up to support children’s scientific inquiries for new content knowledge and academic learning through their voluntary application of literacy skills in a cross-disciplinary context. this inquiry process, fuelled by children’s imagination, curiosity, and inborn play drive, can not only foster and sharpen their scientific noticing (campbell, 1957) but also scaffold their reading, writing, and disciplinary literacy learning (hong, in press). based on our findings, we argue for the critical importance of a dialogic approach in igniting children’s imaginations. in particular, this dialogic approach highlights the centrality of oracy as well as the importance of oral language and the utilization of oral languages. teachers need to optimize the developing or well-developed oracy that young children bring to early schooling. doing that can make possible a gentle support movement back and forth between children’s oracy and literacy in and across different content areas and life domains. furthermore, this approach can redefine the teacher–child social and power relationship in new ways that can build and strengthen children’s active agency in releasing and engaging their imagination in the acquisition of academic literacies. therefore, we would like to invite teachers to see two things: (1) that opportunities to use imagination to promote children’s academic literacy learning naturally grow out of their daily classroom interactions, where the children can find or be led to paths that connect their current learning with various personal experiences; and (2) if the precondition that the children are able to make meaningful connections between their learning and personal experience is met, imagination can become the driving force for children’s active exploration of interesting unknowns and their voluntary application of literacy skills in different realistic or imagined unknown (“what-if”) situations. thereupon, their active inquiry process will result in children’s more self-directed learning and acquisition of new content knowledge and academic literacies. then, the new knowledge, skills, and experience the children obtained during the inquiry process will, in return, fertilize the ground for the further growth of children’s imagination and influence the formation of their learning purposes and attitudes toward schooling (dewey, 1938, p. 34). that is, engaging imagination in children’s integrated literacy and science learning is a continuous spiral process (dewey, 1938, p. 97). for us and for teachers, it is also important to know the range of our students’ capabilities, which can be scaffolded to construct and reconstruct 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(2004). scientists’ views of science, models of writing, and science writing practices. journal of research in science teaching, 41(4), 338–369. winter/hiver 2017 69 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies news 2016 friends of children recipient mary beth jonz is the 2016 cayc friends of children recipient. she is recognized for her contribution to the well-being of young children in leading others with a vision where all children thrive. her voice has been heard at many forums, in many ways, asking hard questions, opening dialogue on the pedagogical issues of the day, encouraging others to have a say, advocating when needed and supporting those in roles with children and families. mary beth has made a difference in many lives! mary beth’s ability to build relationships through respectful conversations, listen at every opportunity to the stories of administrators, leaders, other system managers, those who support the system, educators, families and children, gave her the strength to influence the day to day lives of all involved, both locally and in the greater ontario community of early childhood education. in a leadership role, mary beth inspired others to achieve greatness. in her role as director of children’s services, mary beth contributed to the development of an ontario provincial early years system that championed high quality supports for children and families. her contribution to many numerous initiatives, including the ministry of education’s transformational journey was exemplary. as one of her many achievements, mary beth co-chaired, and championed a ministry of education advisory group responsible for the implementation of full-day kindergarten and the transfer of child care and family support programs from the ministry of children and youth services to the ministry of education. her commitment to children and their families had a significant impact over the 5 year roll-out. mary beth’s approach was always firmly rooted in partnerships. she has made significant contributions to the early years sector and in supporting provincial initiatives toward ontario’s vision of a seamless, integrated, high-quality and accessible system of early years and child care programs. her contributions helped shape the child care and early years act, 2014 as well as a number of key regulations and policies to support highquality programming, before and after school programs for children and the fundamental role that service system managers play in the sector. retiring in 2016, mary beth’s legacy in ontario as a champion for young children and families will be remembered and celebrated. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 16 vol. 41 no. 1 jennifer heinrichs completed her master of education at the university of saskatchewan in december 2014. she has been an educator for 18 years and has experience teaching kindergarten through grade 8 as a teacher-librarian, core french teacher, music teacher, and vice-principal. she has taught kindergarten for the past 11 years in a small community in saskatchewan where she lives with her husband and three children. email: jennifer.heinrichs@spiritsd.ca the co-creation of a “kinder garden” jennifer heinrichs developing a love for our prairie earth we bundled up one crisp, blustery october morning and set off to inspect the signs that fall had arrived. i had planned to have all 19 kindergarten students sit in a circle under our beautiful poplar tree, pass around a leaf, and describe the sights, smells, sounds, and feelings that they were experiencing. the children, however, had other plans. i could not get their attention. they were constantly lifting up the leaves and throwing them in the air, watching them, and giggling as the wind carried them above our heads and swirled them around. i decided to set aside my plan and invite the children to explore this new phenomenon with gusto—and so they did. over and over, every child threw the leaves up into the air, squealing with delight, crazily running, laughing, and chasing the leaves, finally falling to the ground to make leaf angels, just as they do in the snow. it was a magical, memorable time. at first, so intent on following my lesson plan, i almost missed this very special learning activity. yet, what did the children learn instead? after pondering this, i realized that they learned the wind could lift a leaf and carry it up into the sky. they learned that leaves fall to the ground in abundance around a poplar tree. they experienced the scent of fall in the air, breathing in this mustiness as they laid on the ground making angels. they felt the leaves in their hands and against their cheeks. they heard the crunch of the leaves under their feet and the wind in the branches of our tree. they also heard the shouts of laughter from their friends as everyone experienced the joy of fall and the love of the outdoors together. the kindergarten curriculum outcome “explore features of the natural surroundings” (saskatchewan ministry of education, 2010) was indeed “covered,” despite my abandonment of my lesson plan. escamilla (2013) notes: an effective life science curriculum for young children does not necessarily emerge from a set of materials purchased from a catalogue, or from pre-planned lessons written by experts. instead, as i strongly believe, children’s natural curiosity and their inquisitive minds can be used as catalysts to learn about the natural world in deep and sustained ways. (p. 214) in this moment, i discovered that the outdoors can offer rich and meaningful lessons for young children (louv, 2008). how, then, as a teacher could i facilitate more such outdoor learning experiences? the inspiration for our garden reflecting on the children’s experience in the leaves, i was drawn back to my own childhood experiences with nature. i believe that my connection to our earth grew from my childhood play and enjoyment of the outdoors. i am a prairie girl: the wheat fields, the maple trees, grandma’s garden, the gophers, the bitter cold of winter, the sunlight sparkling on our beloved candle lake in summer are close to my heart. this love for the outdoors grew from my father’s teachings, growing up on a horse farm. he taught us by leading us to the barn to see the new baby foal that had been born in the night. we planted mountain ash, pine, and fruit tree saplings and nourished and tended them to grow taller than our heads. we were never bored because we had many yard and garden chores to attend to every day, as well as central to this paper is the author’s assertion that interacting authentically with the outdoors can connect children to the earth, thus creating in them a heart for the place in which they live (louv, 2008). using narrative inquiry methodology (clandinin & connelly, 2000), the author explored her cocreation of a “kinder garden” with her kindergarten students and their parents. in this article, she reflects on how creating this garden benefited the children and their learning, both at school and at home. she discusses how creating the garden also benefited the families and the community involved. finally, using input from parents, the author imagines new possibilities for the co-creation of such gardens. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 17 vol. 41 no. 1 animals to feed and care for. when we were done, we played in the pasture making forts in the bush. our vacationing as a family also centred on the outdoors. we spent two weeks every summer camping at the lake, swimming, fishing, water skiing, and sitting around the campfire. many winters, we also travelled to the mountains to ski. as an adult having grown up with these experiences with the earth, i think about making careful choices and doing my part to take care of our planet. as a teacher, seeing the children’s joy when they were playing outside in the leaves, i saw within my pedagogical approach the possibility to connect children with the earth. i dreamed of creating a “kinder garden” after reading the article “the best of both worlds: a critical pedagogy of place” by gruenewald (2003). sobel, as cited in gruenewald, stated, “what’s important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to learn to love it, before being asked to heal its wounds” (p. 7). i believe this to be true. i believe that, in order for children to play and interact in a meaningful way with nature, they require the time and opportunity to engage in learning in the outdoors. when they are connected to the earth and they value it, they will want to care for and protect it always. thinking about how, as a parent, i found that i was continually encouraging my children to engage in outdoor activities and i limited their electronic play, i wondered if other parents felt the same way about outdoor play as i did. interested in a “pedagogy of place” (gruenewald, 2003), i invited my students’ families to complete a questionnaire regarding how they spend their family time and how their children engage with the outdoors. seventeen out of 38 families participated in the survey. six families believed their children spent a reasonable time outdoors and did not think it was harder for their children to interact with the outdoors than it had been for them when they were children. the remaining 11 families listed a number of obstacles that they felt made interacting with the outdoors more challenging for their children than for them when they were children. these obstacles included many electronic distractions, children’s preference for electronic play, busy family schedules, harsh winter weather, and fewer open spaces in which to play. parents also shared that a changing world caused them to be leery of allowing their children the freedom they had had as children and resulted in them restricting how far away from home their children could play, lessening their opportunities to interact with nature. in reading the parents’ survey responses, i realized that their families were facing the same struggles my family encounters daily. many of our children prefer to sit indoors to watch television, play video games, or occupy their time on computer devices rather than play outside and discover the wonders of nature. banning and sullivan (2011) state, “in response to this loss, schools and early childhood settings have both an opportunity and an obligation to advocate for children and nature” (p. 12). as educators, i believe we have a responsibility to reconnect children to our earth. through facilitating hands-on, inquiry-based wonder projects, we can teach our students to love the earth and thus create in them an ecological heart. pelo (2013) concurs: we teach children to write and to read and to navigate mathematical systems so that they can access the world of ideas and questions and intellectual exchange. we teach children how to behave with other people so that they can grow joyful and nourishing relationships. we teach children history so that they know where they come from, and we teach them art, so that they can imagine what might be and we teach them science so that they understand the intricate workings of the physical world … just so, we must nurture children’s intrinsic ecological identities with intentional and attentive action. this is our work as parents, caregivers, teachers: to invite children to braid their identities together with the place where they live by calling their attention to the air, the sky, the cracks in the sidewalk where the earth bursts out of its cement cage … when we live this way with children, we align ourselves with the instinct to know the place where we live. (pp. 42–43) by inviting children to know the earth, their home, we develop within them a wish to interact with it, play with it, and care for it, and then, because of these authentic experiences, our ultimate hope is that they will develop a heart for it. the study: beginning the kinder garden the environmental project into which i invited my kindergarten students involved transforming the small, fenced-in outdoor area outside our classroom side door into a green space, a place for children to grow something—vegetables, flowers, herbs, or whatever they decided they wanted to grow. i aspired to create an opportunity in which students could watch these plants growing, tend to them, observe them, and perhaps harvest something from them. i also hoped that in this green space the students might be able to watch visiting insects, butterflies, birds, or bees, experiences which would help them connect to a little piece of their prairie earth. my outcomes were situated in place-based education. smith (2002) explains: the primary value of place-based education lies in the way that it serves to strengthen children’s connections to others and to the regions in which they live … by reconnecting rather than separating children from the world, place-based education serves canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 18 vol. 41 no. 1 both individuals and communities, helping individuals to experience the value they hold for others and allowing communities to benefit from the commitment and contributions of their members. (p. 594) the connections i hoped my students would make with their surroundings were the most important part of this project. however, i also thought that our school community and town would benefit by obtaining a new garden to observe and enjoy as they visited the adjacent playground at our school. lynn’s garden it was through home visits conducted at the beginning of the school year that i met lynn.1 this mom had an amazing yard near the river, covered in flower beds, beautiful shrubs, and trees. along the pathway to her front door was a vegetable patch surrounded by perennials. it definitely caught my attention as i walked by. when i complimented her on the beauty of her place, lynn explained that she had learned about gardening from her mother and she was passing on this knowledge to her son, mark. lynn taught mark about seeds and how to identify flowers, care for them, and tend a garden patch. such an education, learned in the home, is different from what a child learns through formalized schooling. both what is learned at home and what is learned at school contribute to a child’s education. both are important and make up the child’s education as a whole individual. pushor (2013) clarifies that our role as teacher, in this view of schooling as a support to a child’s education, becomes one in which we walk alongside parents for the time we are with them to support them in achieving their life’s work for their child. (p. 9) schooling is one form of education. it does not include the entire learning in a child’s lifetime of knowledge attainment. when teachers truly internalize this differentiation, they can begin to weave together a curriculum that supports learning from the home as well. co-creating a kinder garden i gathered my students inside the chain-link-fenced-in outdoor space and asked them, “what is this area for?” they replied: “it’s a playground.” “it’s nothing.” “it’s only for babies.” others said maturely: “there’s nothing fun for kids.” “there’s nothing in here.” i then asked them, “what could we do with this space to make it better for kindergarten students?” they responded with a wide range of ideas and suggestions, some focused on structures: “put in swings, slides, and monkey bars.” “have a pool.” “make a tree fort.” “build a toy house.” “put the old baby toys away and get new ones.” “maybe a slide.” other students thought about nature: “plant flowers.” “make bushes so we can pick leaves off.” “open the gate.” “add water and fish.” “make a garden with flowers, strawberries, and vegetables.” some of the children were interested in cleaning up the space: “paint some colours out here.” “paint the school.” “pick the weeds.” “cut the grass.” “clean up the windows.” “get the spider webs off the walls and paint the sidewalk.” finally i asked them, “what could we learn about out here?” they offered, enthusiastically: “we could learn how leaves change colour.” “we could learn about butterflies, bugs, ladybugs, caterpillars, and grasshoppers.” “we need to plant flowers for the ladybugs to climb on them.” “we need to make chairs and then we could have lunch out here.” “we could paint out here.” i was inspired and impressed with their ideas. from all their responses, i knew the kinder garden project would be met with enthusiasm and determination. together we decided that we would start with building a garden and later we would add some of the other ideas: tables at which to eat, a water play area, and perhaps some sort of playhouse. we also agreed together to abandon the playground ideas of slides and monkey bars because of the nearby school play structure adjacent to our garden. building the garden we began building our garden at the end of september. we were unable to till the soil in this area because of the many poplar roots from our beloved tree. in consultation with a carpenter and the school’s caretaker, it was decided that raised flower beds would be the best option. we chose cinder blocks because of the ease with which they could be moved and their low cost. together the children and i lifted all 106 cinder blocks into place. needing crushed rock and soil for our garden and knowing that one of the children’s grandparents owned a gravel company, i decided we could write this community member a letter of request. through the class letter-writing process, the children learned that there is a purpose for writing, that what we say can be written down, that jamieson’s grandfather owns a gravel company, and that we could order materials for our garden with the help of an adult. jamieson’s grandfather was so impressed with 1 pseudonyms have been used throughout the article to protect the anonymity of children, parents, family and community members, and teaching colleagues. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 19 vol. 41 no. 1 our letter that he responded by donating all the rock and soil we needed. we were excited to hear back from him so quickly, and we were grateful for his generous donation. later, after our garden was complete, we also wrote him a thank you card. my students made connections with community members in an authentic way, another important life lesson. beyond the literacy outcomes mentioned, many other curriculum outcomes were also addressed as we worked together in our garden solving problems. the children learned the math concepts of more, less, and equal. they learned the physical movements of lifting and carrying and the physical benefits of building muscles and stamina. after the soil was delivered, we worked with sand pails and shovels moving the soil from one side of the garden to the other. after 10 minutes of shovelling i said, “wow, we still have quite a mountain of soil to move, how are we ever going to do this?” devin wisely replied, “we just keep digging.” how smart of him. my wish for him is that he will always have this stamina, developed through his experience of digging and moving soil in our kinder garden. i hope that if he ever encounters difficulties in school—in learning to read or write, or in learning anything new—he will “just keep digging.” the children worked with enthusiasm, and as people passed by, they proudly replied to the question, “what are you doing?” with a very excited chorus of, “we’re building a garden.” one little girl added, “it’s going to be beautiful!” we planted perennials on october 25th, all of which were donations from our classroom families. they included virginia creeper, delphiniums, hollyhocks, irises, daisies, mums, poppies, and tiger lilies. i invited lynn to join us, knowing of her extensive knowledge through my home visit and because of her enthusiastic response to our project, having donated the majority of the perennials. lynn and i worked with 10 children at a time. they were very enthusiastic and continually asked both of us, “can i plant another one?” gavin and i were planting delphiniums and hollyhock seeds along the fence. i was planting the delphiniums because they are poisonous if ingested (which i learned from lynn). as we were planting, i witnessed another extension of our curriculum when gavin turned to me and remarked, “we’re making a pattern: hollyhock, poison one, hollyhock, poison one…” i smiled and answered, “i’m so glad you noticed that. the poisonous one is called a delphinium.” we had finished a patterning unit in september and gavin was making a connection to that schema from his math lessons. snow covered our garden in early november. i marvelled at how the children continued to explore the outdoors. they brought in snow and icicles to melt, they wondered about the hoarfrost on the trees, and they noted the differences in the daylight. they were attuned to what was happening outside. i had never experienced such rich science lessons on the water cycle, the changes of the seasons, and the weather. we planted tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, herbs, and butterfly flowers in little garden containers and placed them on our classroom windowsills in march. when spring came, these seedlings were transferred into our outdoor garden. we also planted strawberries and a few new perennials that i purchased at our local greenhouse, using money from our kindergarten school budget. the children watched with eagerness as little plants popped up. i explained to them that these were the plants that they had carefully placed in the soil with lynn in october. every day there was something new to discover, and the children’s enthusiasm never waned. lessons learned from our kinder garden a year had passed since we began building our little garden. i decided to conduct research on how our garden project had affected the families and children. the methodological approach that i utilized for this research study was narrative inquiry, the focus of which is lived experience—that is, lives and how they are lived (clandinin & connelly, 2000). i wanted to focus on the lived experiences of my students and their families and on my own personal learning from our garden. narrative inquiry considers participants as holders and constructors of knowledge who retell stories, reflecting on past experiences in educative ways, in order to live their lives in the future with new possibility. narrative inquiry has an inherent duality. story is both the phenomenon and the method (clandinin & connelly, 2000). to hear their stories, i invited three parents to participate in individual recorded conversations with me about the garden. i selected parents with diverse stories to share and used recorded conversations as a way to capture their voices. these conversations were then transcribed and the transcripts were brought back to parents for their editing and approval. through this narrative inquiry, i explored the parents’ responses to my research puzzle regarding whether and how the kinder garden had impacted their child’s learning and enhanced their child’s interest in the outdoors. i also wanted to discover what effect, if any, they believed the garden had had on our community. finally, i asked them to offer advice on what i could do to enhance our garden in years to come. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 20 vol. 41 no. 1 impact on children’s learning all three parents agreed that the project helped nurture a love for the outdoors or “brought about a new awareness” (lynn, recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) in their children. anya explained: isaak was interested in everything that he was learning about in the garden and almost every day he would update us on the progress of the garden. in the evenings, when our family would go for a bike ride, isaak would always want us to stop by the school so he could talk about his garden. (recorded conversation, october 9, 2014) the parents were impressed with their children’s attention to details when exploring outside. this was evident in their willingness to help in their families’ gardens, their interest in the kinder garden’s progress, the creatures that inhabited the garden, and their constant remarks about treasures they found while exploring outside. i believe that because of my invitations to wonder, question, touch, feel, smell, see, and hear the outdoor marvels, the children were more open to sharing these discoveries with their families. chalufour and worth (2003) write of this notion of wonder: we’ve created a whole culture of inquiry. it seems like wherever kids are—in the classroom, in the park, or just walking somewhere—they are so attuned to what’s around them, and there’s always a sense of wonder, a sense that there’s something to examine and investigate and discover. (p. 11) the children were able to partake in rich observations and discoveries because we worked in the garden every day, no matter what the weather. we had a deadline, since the winter snows were just around the corner, and so we dressed for the weather and worked. from discovering ladybugs hiding in a curled up leaf against the east side of the school, to inspecting the heavy frost on the trees and wondering if the foggy morning made the frost bigger and thicker, to carrying in huge chunks of snow and ice so that we could see what would happen to them inside, to bringing in mitts full of snowflakes and asking for the magnifying glasses to check this new marvel out, the children were engaged in authentic inquiries. this sense of discovery, i learned, has carried into their grade 1 year. my colleague told me one day after school, you’ve done a great job of nurturing a love for the outdoors with these kids. they sat under their chosen tree and drew about their discoveries for an entire hour today. i was really impressed by that. (personal communication, september 2014) the parents i spoke with in my narrative inquiry noted that their children were completely engaged in our project and that this engagement continued with garden projects at home as well. lynn explained: i know he had more of an appreciation with getting in there and helping me, instead of after the fact when things were coming up. he participated in planting his own rows this year. like the cucumbers were his baby. at first he was a little disappointed. he said, “well, mom, they’re not very big.” and then all of a sudden we got some heat and the flowers [appeared]. he didn’t believe me that the flowers were going to amount to cucumbers, and then he was fascinated with the fact that, well, you could pick cucumbers and like literally overnight, there would be cucumbers the next day. he thought that was unbelievable. (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) this young boy thrived in our outdoor experiential activities. he struggled with sitting still and conducting any task that required a pencil and paper. on the other hand, he absorbed information gathered from our outdoor experiences and had a strong memory. he was always completely engaged and on task in our garden. he amazed me with his knowledge of the flowers we planted. his vocabulary was extensive and he could name and identify each and every flower we planted. this was knowledge that he most definitely learned at home. louv (2008) states, “many parents notice significant changes in their children’s stress levels and hyperactivity when they spend time outside” (p. 102). i have witnessed this “nature therapy” (louv, 2008) many times in our garden. children who are emotionally upset grow calm and focused as they dig, sniff, pull, see, and touch the wonders in our little garden. anya, another parent, concurred that she, too, saw an increased interest in the outdoors with her son, isaak: [isaak] was very interested in helping me at home too. it seemed to me that he cared a lot about the flowers and the worms. he was really into worms this summer. i don’t know if you guys did a lot on worms with the garden, but if he or his sisters found a worm he was taking very good care of that worm because it was important for everything to grow. (recorded conversation, canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 21 vol. 41 no. 1 october 9, 2014) from these comments, it is apparent that the garden project did provide an opportunity for my students to connect to the earth (louv, 2008). this connection transferred to the children’s lives outside of school as many children helped at home in their families’ gardens and their parents witnessed their newfound love of and interest in the outdoors. lynn noted, “when we go for walks he now spots the little purple bluebells, the wild violets, ‘oh mom, look…’ and that to me is the same as stopping and taking in a sunset” (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014). this wakefulness to the natural environment was exactly what i had been hoping for. when i asked lynn what was significant to her about the garden project, in regard to student learning, she shared: gardening or keeping a potted plant, gardening in general, teaches nurturing. girls are taught to be nurturing, boys not so much. so when they grow up to be dads and all of a sudden they’re holding a little baby in their arms, they’re automatically expected to know how to be nurturers, and if it was never taught, you can never expect it. so gardening, i think, helps to teach that. (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) this parent gave me a new perspective on our gardening project. that i was helping teach children to be nurturing was another lesson i learned. the garden was full of life, and life is precious, to be cared for, protected, and loved. these valuable teachings were ones that my students would benefit from forever. as the adult leading this work, i was tempted many times to go out in the garden to complete something on my own, for as adults we know that it is sometimes easier and more efficient to do the work independently of children. however, i avoided this temptation by continually reminding myself that this garden was not mine, it belonged to my students, and whatever work needed to be done needed to include them. by including them in everything, i was able to teach them about creating something from nothing. angela, the third parent, agreed: you can plan something, execute it, involve many people, and then finish it. and end up with a beautiful end product. like you know things just don’t happen, you can’t just have an idea and then it just happens. so i think that part of the learning … just project management i guess. that’s life, right? (recorded conversation, october 10, 2014) i had not thought of this learning before talking with the parents. i was pleased to discover another way our garden project affected my students’ learning for life. the effect of the kinder garden on the community our garden has given our community something beautiful to admire. the fenced-in area is filled with flowers, vines, vegetables, and strawberries and has replaced the dull, tired grass that formally occupied the empty enclosure. anya reflected: i think everyone in the community who saw it was obviously pleased. i mean, it was sure nicer to look at than what was there. it wasn’t being used for anything [before]. just an open space. i always thought [the garden] was inviting and welcoming, just to walk by, it was right by the main entrance there. just to see it, coming along every morning as i dropped off isaak to and from school … i think it only affected us in a positive way. (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) there have been many comments from school staff and community members regarding the beauty of our garden. one teacher even left us a message on our whiteboard telling us how sweet smelling and beautiful our garden was as she walked by it every morning as she arrived at school. lynn remarked: it gave everybody something to look at … and i thought, you know, if there’s fruit or anything poking through the chain-link fence, i’d hope that the kids would know not to rip and tear on it … and that hasn’t happened. they’ve observed it, they’ve come up with their own names for these things … and the times that i’ve come to pick up mark, they’ve been untouched, they’re still sitting there, so the entire school really has been respecting the whole project. (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 22 vol. 41 no. 1 the children could claim the garden as their own: they created it, they tended it, and they knew what was growing in it. their garden became their piece of the prairie earth, their project. it became something to give back to the community, regardless of their being so young. i believe the children felt pride and satisfaction in knowing they were contributing to our town. plans for the future when i interviewed parents, i asked them for future suggestions for our garden. anya proposed: i think it would be interesting if you would have planted some grains. like the stuff that farmers plant around the area. and then possibly getting a farming parent to come in and maybe talk about how it grows in the area and how it is incorporated into the five food groups. (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) when teachers learn about their students’ families they can “learn better ways to connect their child’s home learning and school learning” (allen, 2007, p. 43). families in our community have knowledge about farming and gardening. as gonzáles, moll, and amanti (2005, cited in allen, 2007) point out, “all families have important experiences, skill, and bodies of knowledge—‘funds of knowledge’” (p. 47). these funds of knowledge can be used as resources when the teacher chooses to invite parents to join in developing classroom curriculum projects. planting grains in our kinder garden would help children better understand the phenomenon of growing crops, a process they witness all around them in our small community. i asked lynn if she had any suggestions on how i could improve our garden. she replied: i’m thinking on a grand scale. i suggest you use the current garden area as the greenhouse and growing a row for maybe somebody in town, seniors that are not able maybe? or even encouraging that in the community, grow a row. (recorded conversation, october 24, 2014) this conversation has inspired me to dream further. perhaps i could approach the school community council and propose lynn’s idea. our little garden could definitely be made into a little greenhouse where the schoolchildren could start seedlings. a wonderful connection could begin between the school and the community to create a sustainable garden plot in the playground, where children, adults, community gardeners, and teachers could work together to produce vegetables and fruit to eat and flowers to admire and care for. i think the idea might be well received because one summer night when i went to tend our kinder garden, a grandmother stopped while taking her granddaughter to the playground and asked if she could help me weed the plot. she told me that she had walked by the day before and had thought, “if i had the key, i could help clean up those weeds” (personal communication, july 2014). we live in a community where at one time or another most people have tended a garden. perhaps they would love to help children learn about gardening. they too would benefit from the produce and the beauty of the place. i am dreaming of fruit trees and perhaps some grand trees like a maple or an oak, a tree that when the children from the school have grown, they can return and say, “i remember planting that tree, look at it now.” i am dreaming of children learning about gardens and vegetable growth alongside their parents and the community members. i would love to see a sustainable garden that would grow more and more beautiful and beneficial for all in each passing year. considerations for teachers building a garden on a school property takes planning. school divisions have facility policies and procedures of which one must be cognizant, so research needs to be done prior to beginning any construction. gathering interested people who would be willing to contribute to the garden might be a good place to start. this team could be composed of children, parents, community members, and school staff. it might be beneficial to include an administrator or school division office staff member as well. i believe that many obstacles can be overcome if people work together. budget is not all that important because i have learned that when you ask your community for help they are more than willing to offer their resources. the only costs of building our garden were the cinder blocks (75 cents a block) and a few of the perennials. the rest of the materials were donated by our community, families, school staff, and friends. the children and i cared for the garden together during the school year. in the summer, i tended the garden when i was home and the school administrative assistant, also a community member, took care of the garden when our family went on holidays. families may choose to take turns with this task as well. when teachers work together with the families in the school community, bonds between home and school are formed and there is strength in these relationships. everyone benefits from working together in this way. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 23 vol. 41 no. 1 closing thoughts every kid needs to dig, every kid needs to get dirty without getting in trouble, and every kid needs to discover. whether they find an old marble in the dirt, or a worm, or some kind of freaky bug, whatever. (lynn, recorded conversation, october 24, 2014). it is in the digging, and the getting dirty, that children grow more connected to the earth. all that my “kinder” gardeners discovered made the garden special, wondrous, a source of never-ending fun, and a place of continually new and exciting learning. this garden project has been the highlight of my teaching career. i am awed and humbled by how it has mattered to so many people. its effect on our school and community has far surpassed what i had hoped it would accomplish. references allen, j. (2007). creating welcoming schools: a practical guide to home–school partnerships with diverse families. new york, ny: teachers college press. banning, w., & sullivan, g. (2011). lens on outdoor learning. st. paul mn: redleaf press. chalufour, i., & worth, k. (2003). discovering nature with young children. st. paul mn: redleaf press. clandinin, d. j., & connelly, f. m. (2000). narrative inquiry: experience and story in qualitative research. san francisco, ca: josseybass. escamilla, i. m. (2013). drawing, photographs, and painting: learning about the natural world in an urban preschool. in d. r. meier & s. sisk-hilton (eds.), nature education with young children: integrating inquiry and practice (pp. 194–215). new york, ny: routledge. gruenewald, d. a. (2003). the best of both worlds: a critical pedagogy of place. educational researcher, 32(4), 3–12. louv, r. (2008). last child in the woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder (2nd ed.). chapel hill, nc: algonquin books. pelo, a. (2013). the goodness of rain: developing an ecological identity in young children. redmond, wa: exchange press. pushor, d. (2013). bringing into being a curriculum of parents. in d. pushor & the parent engagement collaborative, portals of promise: transforming beliefs and practices through a curriculum of parents (pp. 5–19). rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. saskatchewan ministry of education. (2010). kindergarten curriculum. retrieved from: https://www.curriculum.gov.sk.ca/webapps/ moe-curriculum-bblearn/index.jsp smith, g. a. (2002). place-based education: learning to be where we are. phi delta kappan, 83(2), 584–594. microsoft word gananathan online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten programs by romona gananathan editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [pages 20 to 35] www.cayc.ca negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten programs by romona gananathan author’s bio romona  gananathan  is  a  phd  candidate  at  the  ontario  institute  for  studies  in   education,  university  of  toronto,  with  a  background  in  law  and  policy  governance.   she  has  been  involved  in  the  early  childhood  community  as  a  researcher,  director  of   nonprofit  early  childhood  programs,  union  organizer,  and  board  member.  her   research  interests  are  focused  on  the  legal  and  policy  perspectives  of  the  labour   implications  in  the  integration  of  early  learning  and  education  programs.  email:   romona.gananathan@gmail.com   abstract this  paper  analyzes  three  union  contracts  as  a  way  to  unpack  the  ways  in  which  the   professional  role  of  the  registered  early  childhood  educator  (rece)  in  full-­‐day   kindergarten  (fdk)  programs  in  ontario  is  recognized  and  constructed  in  policy   texts.  the  paper  examines  what  constitutes  an  “early  learning  professional”   compared  to  a  “teacher”  or  “educational  assistant,”  and  how  the  discourses  of   professionalism  are  constructed  through  policy  texts  to  position  the  role  of  reces  in   fdk.  results  from  this  study  suggest  that  union  contracts  play  an  important  role  in   shaping  the  new  “professional”  role  and  status  of  reces  in  fdk  programs.         canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   overview the professional role of reces is evolving through the integration of care and education through full-day kindergarten (fdk) programs across canada. while unions have historically played an integral role in improving the wages and working conditions of reces in the childcare sector, integration of early learning into the education sector presents a new opportunity to raise the professional profile and working conditions of reces. this paper examines the union contracts of three major unions that represent the reces in fdk programs in ontario, namely the canadian union of public employees (cupe), the ontario secondary school teachers’ federation (osstf), and the elementary teachers’ federation of ontario (etfo). using a comparative text analysis approach, this paper examines how the program and policy intent articulated in ontario’s education act to establish professional early learning pedagogical teams has been realized through policy documents such as union contracts. in particular, the impact of union contracts on the new professional role and status of reces in the education sector is examined, including the material gains and potential losses realized by the reces in fdk based on their union contracts through wages, benefits, and working conditions. for example, while unionization can benefit reces, it is important to understand the differences in union approaches to negotiating rece contracts and the ways in which these influences shape the role and status of reces in fdk programs. the findings in this paper can provide insight to stakeholders in other jurisdictions about union processes to ensure better professional recognition of reces through negotiated union contracts. legislative context primary education has been a universal right in ontario since 1844 under the education act, while explicit support for early childhood education and care was introduced much later under the1945 day nurseries act and the 1971 child and family services act. childcare programs were introduced to support increasing numbers of women moving into the workforce, to provide enrichment to children in need, and later to support dual-income families. these licensed child care programs were primarily staffed by reces and other support staff and for the most part were not represented by union contracts. as of 2007, reces in ontario are now required to be registered with the college of early childhood educators (early childhood educators act, government of ontario, 2007). in 2010, ontario’s education act was amended to include changes related to the implementation of full-day kindergarten (legislative assembly of ontario, 2010). one of these changes was the introduction of a team teaching model in the full-day early learning–kindergarten (fdelk) program, which placed a registered early childhood educator (rece) and a certified teacher in the kindergarten classroom as professional partners with a “duty to cooperate” in designing and delivering a play-based full-day early learning program (education act, 1990, s. 264.1). this new model of pairing a   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   teacher and an early childhood educator was the first of its kind in a canadian jurisdiction. prior to this change in legislation, kindergarten programs were under the purview of certified teachers and ancillary support staff. although reces have previously worked in the education sector, they have occupied support roles as educational assistants in classrooms have had no curriculum planning, assessment, or independent child supervision responsibilities. the recent legislative and policy changes to integrate care and education in ontario’s fdk program recognize the early child development knowledge and expertise of rece professionals, as envisioned by pascal (2009). reces in fdk programs are now required to plan and deliver curriculum together with the teacher, participate in assessments, supervise children (without the need for a teacher to be present in the classroom) and deliver a playbased curriculum (ontario ministry of education, 2010b). elementary teachers in ontario are legislated to belong to a teachers’ union (government of ontario, education act, s. 277.4 [3]). however, the legislative changes made to the education act in 2010 were silent about which union would represent the new rece early learning professional in fdk. as a result of this omission, education sector unions scrambled to organize the reces, resulting in them being represented by a variety of unions and professional associations across the province. unlike elementary teachers, who are represented by one union (in either the catholic or the public sector) and have one collective voice and bargaining power with similar wages and working conditions, reces in ontario are left with a variety of union contracts and a patchwork of wages and working conditions. some of these unions represent support staff, secondary school teachers and professional associations in the education sector, and may not fully appreciate the context of the reces’ new professional role in fdk programs. as a result, the potential gains afforded through the education act amendment may have been eroded in terms of both role and status of reces as well as any material gains in wages and working conditions that might have occurred as a result of these increased roles and responsibilities. union representation in full-day kindergarten in ontario, there are two routes to representation by a union: voluntary recognition or certification of a bargaining unit (government of ontario, labour relations act, ss. 7-15). voluntary recognition is an informal process that allows employers to voluntarily recognize that a union represents a certain category of workers that may include incorporating a new job classification into an existing collective agreement. a more formal and sometimes lengthy process requires a union to apply for certification through the ontario labour relations board (olrb) to represent a group of workers in a newly defined bargaining unit. before a certificate of representation is issued, this process requires the union to show support from the group of employees by way of signed membership cards and winning a vote arranged by the olrb.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   based on the education act amendment, the new early learning professional role of reces in fdk affords the reces in fdk programs higher status as professional partners within the team. unlike previous educational assistance roles that they occupied in the education sector that have no curriculum planning, assessment, or independent child supervision responsibilities, reces in fdk programs are required to plan and deliver curriculum together with the teacher, participate in assessments, supervise children (without the need for a teacher to be present in the classroom) and deliver a playbased curriculum (ministry of education, 2010-2011). despite the significant changes in responsibility for the new rece role in fdk in ontario, two large education sector unions, cupe and osstf, entered into voluntary recognition agreements with many ontario school boards, arguing that they already represented educational assistants with early childhood education qualifications in schools, and that the new rece job category fell within the parameters of their existing collective agreements. they subsequently won the right to represent reces in full-day kindergarten. as a result, a majority of ontario’s 64 school boards took the voluntary recognition approach with respect to reces in fdk classrooms. in contrast to the approach taken by cupe and osstf, the union that represents ontario’s elementary school teachers seized the opportunity to expand its representation through the certification process. etfo launched a large-scale campaign in 2010 to organize as many reces as possible in the education sector. the process entailed several legal challenges at the olrb (see, for example, elementary teachers’ federation of ontario v. york region district school board, globe 24h case law, 2012) to determine whether the reces in question fell within an existing agreement or were an appropriate bargaining unit of their own. interestingly, and despite etfo’s earlier political lobbying against introducing reces into the fdk classrooms as teaching partners (elementary teachers’ federation of ontario, 2009), etfo’s organizing campaign was entitled “one union, one profession,” implying that the reces and teachers should have equal recognition as early educators. etfo president sam hammond strongly supported the reces joining the etfo, stating, membership in the same union will have many advantages both for teachers and for eces: it will facilitate team building, professional learning, quicker problem solving and conflict resolution. a strong, united early learning team is better placed to resist pressure. etfo understands elementary education and elementary educators. this federation is a natural choice for eces. our ece members will be equal partners in our federation. (elementary teachers’ federation of ontario, 2010, p. 4). interestingly, a number of leaders within the early childhood sector and the association of early childhood educators of ontario also endorsed etfo as the most   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   effective and professional union for the new school board reces. as a result of the campaign, etfo was successful in organizing 10 of ontario’s 64 school boards and has won the right to represent reces as separate bargaining units in these workplaces. the differences in representation among the three educational unions presents an opportunity to analyse how a professional role and status is constructed through union contracts and to assess whether there is any material difference in the wages and working conditions in the three contracts. content analysis of union contracts bredeson (2001) suggests that teacher unions have an inordinate amount of influence in schools. he argues that union contracts can provide an “important lens for examining organizational structures and dynamics” (bredeson, 2001, p. 3). this paper undertakes a comparative content analysis of three union collective agreements as one lens for examining the organizational influences and dynamics that these unions bring to negotiating the new professional role and status of reces in fdk programs in ontario. i explore how the language in the three union contracts reflects and constructs the importance that schools, administrators, and unions place on new professional rece roles and analyze the extent to which the roles are explicitly recognized and in what ways the contract language determines wages, hours, preparation time, and other conditions of employment that could influence the reces’ pedagogical practice in the newly designed team teaching model. union contract provisions are negotiated within the context of a variety of formal and informal processes, policies, and practices that can “confound and compound the contract’s power to influence” (bascia, 1994, p. 83). these could include the union’s history, its relationship with its members, and the political influences that shape the negotiation of particular contract provisions, which in turn have a powerful impact on the working conditions and status of the union’s members. this paper thus engages in content analysis of the union contracts within the context of a broader understanding of the discourses that have shaped the specific provisions articulated in the contracts and with a view to contextualizing the union agreements as historic artefacts, or an imperfect record of earlier (or current) issues and decisions. this content analysis forms part of a broader analysis of the legal and policy construction of the new early learning professional in ontario, which investigates the labour policy implications of fdk implementation on the status and working conditions of reces in ontario. rece wages and working conditions in fdk: a comparison of three union contracts the three union contracts reviewed for this paper reflect three large unions representing reces in full-day kindergarten in three ontario school boards:   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   � toronto district school board—cupe unit c agreement and related documents � ottawa–carleton district school board—osstf district 25 educational support professionals agreement and related letters of understanding � toronto catholic district school board—etfo agreement to compare wages and working conditions, i identified major contractual provisions that form the basis of reces’ compensation as well as non-compensationrelated items that contribute to working conditions in the workplace, as detailed in table 1. in addition, i refer to and analyze addenda and memoranda relating to reces in fdk that were either agreements made after the ratification of the existing collective agreement or form part of the union contract with the employer. table 1: comparison of specific provisions in the cupe, osstf, and etfo agreements. contract  provision cupe osstf etfo scope  of  agreement   covers  office,   clerical,  secretarial,   technical  staff,   educational   assistants,  aquatic,   health  care,  food   services  staff,   itinerant  music   instructors,  and   school  support  staff   covers  all   professional   support  staff     addenda:  special   memorandum  of   understanding  for   eces  in  fdk   covers  designated   eces  in  fdk  as  defined   by  the  education  act   size  of  document   188  pages  (including   addenda)   85  pages   (including   addenda  of  8   pages)   75  pages  (including   addenda)   union  representation   80  stewards  from  all   jobs,  negotiation   committee  of  8   members  get  700   hours  off  with  pay   for  negotiations   5  bargaining   committee  reps,  3   labour   management   committee  reps,  3   grievance   committee  reps   with  paid  time  off   for  bargaining,   meetings,  and   grievance   resolution   executive  committee   of  eces  and  20  days   leave  with  pay  for   officials  to  conduct   union  duties   number  of  times  ece  is   1  time  in  schedule  of   none  in  collective   279  times  (designated     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   contract  provision cupe osstf etfo mentioned  in  the   agreement   job  categories   agreement;  16   mentions  of  ece  in   letter  of  agreement   ece  or  dece)   number  of  times  the  word   professional  is  used  in  the   agreement   19  times,  related  to   pa  or  pd,   professional   librarian  and   professionals  or   paraprofessionals   49  times,  related   to  professional   associations,   professional   growth,   professional   training,  etc.   10  times,  related  to   professional  practice,   professional  duties,   professional  activity,   and  professional   training   salary   refers  to  schedule  a   but  not  included  in   document   agreement  for   board  to  post  at  a   starting  salary  of   $19.48,  although   there  was  no   agreement  on  the   salary  schedule   experience  credit  for  4   qualified  years  prior  to   date  of  hire  including   from  prior  employers.   grid  range  $:   $18.54  letter  of   permission   $20.09-­‐qualified  0  yrs   exp   $21.63-­‐qualified  1  yr   exp   $23.18-­‐qualified  2  yr   exp   $24.72-­‐qualified  3  yr   exp   $26.27-­‐qualified  4  yr   exp   (qualified  is  a  member   in  good  standing  of  the   college  of  early   childhood  educators)   hours   ece  hours  based  on   program  needs     between  6.25  and   6.5  hours  per  day   for  core  program.   extended  program   to  be  determined.   7  hours  per  day/35   hours  per  week   preparation  time   n/a   n/a   30  minutes  each   instructional  day  or     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   contract  provision cupe osstf etfo   150  minutes  for  a  5-­‐ day  period,  scheduled   in  blocks  no  shorter   than  15  minutes   lunch  break   unpaid  lunch  of  30   minutes  on  shifts   over  5.5  hours   30-­‐minute  unpaid   lunch  break   unpaid  30  minutes   breaks   combined   rest/lunch  of  15   minutes  per  4-­‐hour   day  and  2  breaks  of   15  minutes  for  days   over  5.5  hours   2  paid  15-­‐minute   rest  periods  each   day  or  1  rest   period  of  15   minutes  for  half   days   2  paid  breaks  of  15   minutes  each  day   (am/pm)   professional  activity  (pa)   or  professional   development  (pd)  days   n/a   union  allowed  to   offer  training  on   site  on  pd  days— time  unpaid  by   employer   6  days/school  year   comp/lieu  time   overtime  paid  at   1.5x  rate;  lieu  time   with  approval   eces  are  not   eligible  for  time  off   in  lieu;  additional   hours  assigned  by   principal  shall  be   paid  at  straight   time     if  ece  works  overtime,   as  authorized  by   principal   travel   .40  cents/km   board-­‐wide  rate  as   approved  by  the   supervisor   .45cents/km   training   employer  shall   endeavour  to   provide  training   opportunities     paid  time  off  and   cost  of  training  for   required  courses   to  upgrade   qualifications     pension  plan   omers  or  teachers’   pension  plan  if   qualified   omers  or  otip  if   10  or  more  month   employees   omers  or  otpp  (for   deces  with  teaching   credentials)   statutory  holidays   8  days,  including   new  years,  family   day,  good  friday,   easter  monday,   11  days  including   easter  monday,   canada  day,  and   august  civic   11  days,  including   easter  monday  +  half   days  before  christmas     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   contract  provision cupe osstf etfo victoria  day,   thanksgiving,   christmas,  and   boxing  day   holiday   and  new  years   vacation   11  days—less  than  1   year   15  days—1  to  9  yrs   20  days—9  to  16  yrs   25  days—17  to  22   yrs   15  working  days   15  days—less  than  1  yr   15  days—1  to  9  yrs   20  days—9  to  16  yrs   25  days—17  yrs     benefit  plan   health,  dental,  long-­‐ term  disability,  life   insurance  up  to   $30,000   health,  dental,   long-­‐term   disability,  life   insurance  up  to   $45,000   register  after  3  months   of  at  least  14   hrs/week;  employer   pays  100%  of   premium,  health,  vision   care—$350/2  years,   orthopedic  $900/yr,   life  ins  of  3x  annual   salary   seniority   seniority  applies— 30  days  notice  to  be   deemed  surplus   first  consideration   for  initial   vacancies  will  be   given  to  qualified   ea  bargaining  unit   members  or  other   osstf  members;   seniority  carried   forward   date  of  hire,  layoff  only   at  the  end  of  the  school   year,  on  recall  list  for  2   years   sick  leave   eligible  after  15   hours/week  up  to  24   days/yr  prorated   based  on  12  months   2  days  per  month   prorated,  to  a   maximum   entitlement  of  340   sick  leave  credits   accumulated  sick  leave     2  calendar  days  per   month   other  leaves   general,  political   activity,  pregnancy,   infant/childcare   leave  of  1  additional   year,  family  medical   leave   no  leaves  of   absence  with   pay—article  19.09   does  not  apply  to   eces   bereavement  5  days,   personal  leave  of   absence  of  up  to  1  year,   jury  duty,  court   appearance,  urgent   personal  business,   family  medical,   compassionate  leave,     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   contract  provision cupe osstf etfo pregnancy/adoption   cupe contract cupe’s collective agreement is the most extensive of the three contracts, covering a variety of clerical, technical, and educational support staff in one 188-page document. the reces in fdk were included in the existing collecting agreement through voluntary recognition by the toronto district school board because educational assistants with ece qualifications were already represented by cupe in this workplace. remarkably, “ece” is only mentioned once in the whole document in the schedule of job categories and there have been no attempts made to differentiate between the new professional role of reces in fdk compared to the educational assistant roles previously represented by the union. the term “professional” is used in relation to training and development in a general sense. interestingly, this is the only one of the three contracts that uses the term “paraprofessionals.” this could be attributed to the expertise of this particular union in representing paraprofessionals and support staff in the education sector. notable in this contract is the fact that reces are considered hourly employees whose hours are based on program needs. this allows for reces to be assigned split shifts and to be laid off in the middle of the school year. the fact that this contract offers only eight statutory holidays to its members—even though there is a minimum of nine statutory holidays a year in ontario under employment standards legislation that generally applies to non-unionized staff—is significant. presumably, the ninth holiday falls within the summer months and is not included in this contract, which may be the result of the temporary nature of reces’ employment. regardless, because of the scope of this contract and the various job categories it covers, it appears that the inclusion of the new professional role of reces in fdk has had little impact to elevate the status of reces covered by the contract, including those previously in educational assistant roles. osstf contract osstf was granted a voluntary recognition agreement with the ottawa–carleton school district board because they represented educational assistants with ece qualifications prior to the fdk implementation. osstf is a union that largely represents high school teachers, but it also represents a significant number of support staff in elementary schools. the language in this contract reflects this mix of professional and support roles throughout, for example, in the use of the terms “professional growth” and “professional associations” alongside “professional training.” although the osstf   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   contract covers a large group of educational support professionals, it has a special letter of agreement that specifically addresses reces in fdk programs. reces are considered hourly staff with a 6.25 or 6.5-hour core day not including an unpaid lunch, which leaves reces open to being assigned split shifts to cover both the early morning and after-school periods of each day, particularly in the extended day program. at the same time, reces are not entitled to lieu time, and they are required to be paid “straight time pay” for any additional work time that is scheduled by the principal. it is unclear whether this provision would extend to overtime hours as defined under employment standards (normally hours over 44 are paid at 1.5 times the regular rate). in this contract, the rece letter of agreement does not allow for any leaves of absence. it is unclear whether this has changed in subsequent agreements with the employer. similarly, the reces are characterized as hourly paid employees rather than full-time permanent contract staff with more job security, which leaves the door open to shorter contracts with no express provisions that layoffs can only occur at the end of the school year. etfo contract etfo won the right to represent the reces in fdk through certification. as a result, the etfo contract covers a dedicated bargaining unit of reces, referred to as designated early childhood educators (deces) as described in the education act amendments. it is not surprising that the term dece is mentioned 279 times throughout the contract. while the term “professional” was only used ten times in the contract, there appears to be a tacit acknowledgment throughout the agreement that the discussion is completely centred on professionals. for example, the term “professional” is used to describe the professional practice and professional duties of the deces and is not just related to professional activity days and professional training that are common to professionals in other agreements. in addition, there is detailed language in the etfo agreement about the specific role of deces in the early learning program, including discussion about functioning in an early learning team teaching environment. importantly, this contract ensures that the dece positions are considered fulltime ten-month contracts, and the deces are given three weeks’ vacation over the december and march breaks. as a result, the contract ensures that deces can only be laid off at the end of each school year, which characterizes their employment as permanent contract staff, with seniority and right of first refusal to return to the same job the following year. it also prevents deces from having to apply for ei benefits over the december and march breaks. sick time, benefits, pensions, and time off in lieu are all modelled after the teachers’ collective agreements. although dece salaries are lower than the teachers’, they are determined by a grid that recognizes prior experience, not only with the same employer, but also from previous employers both in and outside the education sector. this is the only contract that allows for paid time for deces on   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   professional activity days, a clause that allows deces to participate alongside their teacher partners in board-sponsored professional development with pay. also significant is the fact that this is the only contract that provides for 30 minutes of preparation time each instructional day, or 150 minutes in a five-day period. although teachers receive 240 minutes of preparation time each week in comparison, this is a good starting point for deces; it recognizes their new role in planning curriculum, and it sets the tone for increased time in future negotiations. overall, this contract appears to recognize the newly elevated status of reces in the fdk program as teaching partners in the classroom. discussion: the influence of union contracts on the role and status of reces implementing pascal’s (2009) vision of a universally accessible publicly funded early education system shifts the provision of early care and education into the public education sector. this shift to a public system ostensibly creates better wages and working conditions for the rece and elevates their professional role within the education sector in these new professional positions, which include increased responsibilities such as planning and implementing play-based curriculum alongside their teacher partners. in support of this fundamental shift, the ontario ministry of education established a new early learning division with an early learning mandate that includes child care and early education. while these policy changes have the potential to elevate the status of reces in the education sector, analysis of these three union contracts indicates that the historical construction of reces as care providers rather than early educators impacted the existing contracts. for example, contracts with unions that formerly represented reces in support positions within the education sector have continued to reflect the new professional role in similarly constructed positions, while unions that did not previously represent reces in this support capacity have moved from characterizing the new roles as care providers toward a more complex early learning professional status within the teaching team in fdk programs. cupe and osstf contracts reflect no changes to the new role of reces as early education professionals with teaching responsibilities in fdk. in fact, these union contracts group all rece jobs, including educational assistants and childcare workers, under one job category regardless of the role they occupy as support staff in schools or in their new role as teaching partners in the fdk program. there are a number of challenges outlined in the rece contracts that contribute to the precarious nature of reces’ status as professionals. unlike teachers, who are guaranteed a full year salary, vacation plans, and professional development time and funding, rece contracts are characterized by hourly salaries, less job security, and a potential for split shifts. for example, they are the only contracts that characterize reces in fdk programs in ontario as hourly paid staff with less job security and the potential   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   for split shifts. these contracts also include provisions that may erode basic employment standards rights, such as statutory holidays or overtime pay, given that they sometimes reflect fewer entitlements than legislated as minimum employment standards. interestingly, the cupe and osstf contracts also address the issue of travel time between locations independent of the unpaid lunch break, indicating that reces may be assigned to more than one work location each day. this also contributes to a more precarious job arrangement for reces who have to juggle split shifts and different classrooms at multiple school locations and negotiate relationships with teaching partners, supervising principals, children, and families in these different locations. clearly this arrangement does not provide the time or supports required for reces to function in the classroom as a professional partner in the program. given the large numbers of staff covered by these collective agreements and the range of job categories they reflect, it would be difficult for a subset of this group, such as reces in the fdk programs, to put forward any specific provisions related to their role or status in the program as part of future contract negotiations. in contrast, etfo’s collective agreement represents only reces in the fdk program and recognizes the professional status of reces in fdk through specific contract language. this is the only union contract that characterizes reces as full time 10-month contract employees with no mid year layoffs, no split shifts and no erosion of basic employment standards. this is also the only union contract to recognize the professional role of reces as early educators with curriculum delivery expectations through the express provision for planning time. etfo’s contract also affords reces more access to paid training and more paid time off for union-related activities. while cupe and osstf limit seniority to the current job, etfo managed to include prior experience from other employers as a creative proxy for seniority, and allows reces transferring into the education sector from the childcare sector to be compensated for their prior experience. this allows reces to be compensated in a way that recognizes their prior professional experience outside the education sector and improves their overall recognition and status in the education sector. although there is significant variation in how reces are positioned within union contracts, a number of provisions seem to level the playing field between cupe, osstf, and etfo, including access to pensions, unpaid lunches, paid breaks, vacation pay of three weeks to start and deferred salary plans. although explicit salary information was not included in all the contracts, the ontario government legislated the minimum wage for reces in fdk as starting at $19.68 in year 1 and $20.05 in year 2 (ministry of education, 2010a). this legislative provision made a significant difference in wages for reces in fdk programs in the education sector, regardless of the union they are represented by. while individual union contracts can provide for recognition of seniority or prior experience, they apply to specific groups of reces. given the number of reces   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   employed in the fdk programs in ontario, the provincially legislated minimum pay for reces in fdk has been an effective way of improving the wages of reces across ontario and recognizing the new professional role that reces play in fdk. conclusion: professional recognition of reces in fdk the historic dichotomy between the care and education of young children has been well documented (gananathan, 2011; irvine, kerridge, mcphee, & freeman, 2002; wood, 2004) suggest that there are many barriers to interprofessional collaboration, including legal decisions that characterize power differentials between team members, and differences in professional value systems, professional organizations, registration requirements, professional training, and professional identity. wood (2004) argues that while there has been a schism between care and education settings in the past, a contemporary consensus has emerged on the concept of “educare,” which combines both elements. while the implementation of fdk attempts to level the playing field between teachers and reces as early education professionals in ontario (ministry of education, 2010b; pascal, 2009), the failure to legislate reces as professional early educators to belong to teacher unions alongside their pedagogical partners sets up reces to negotiate the contested terrain of their work. it perpetuates the age-old rift between care and education and undermines the policy intent of integrating care and education in ontario’s fdk teaching teams. other jurisdictions facing similar challenges in canada, such as the atlantic provinces, have embraced creative alternatives to develop stronger links between the two professionals, such as training for grandparented reces and teachers in order to establish one early learning professional (moss & bennett, 2006), regardless of whether they were trained as teachers or reces. ontario’s reticence to recognize the professional status of reces in fdk through stronger labour-related legislative provisions is a lost opportunity to do the same. as we have seen, unions can play a critical role in how reces’ new professional role is redrawn in the “educare” context and how the reces’ role and status as early development specialists get recognized. regardless of which union represents the reces in fdk, there needs to be stronger language in union contracts to reflect reces’ team teaching role, their elevated responsibilities of curriculum planning and delivery, and their new professional role in fdk programs. some key considerations for unions include addressing the need for adequate paid time for curriculum planning, full-time stable employment with comparable benefits to provide consistency in the program, and greater opportunities for professional training, such as additional qualification (aq) courses in assessment, literacy, and numeracy with related pay increases (similar to what teachers receive for completing kindergarten aq courses) in order to build stronger collaborations with kindergarten teachers.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   union contracts need to recognize the differences between reces in care roles (such as educational assistants who have a support role in the classroom) and reces in fdk programs (who have program planning, assessment, and curriculum delivery expectations) through express language that describes reces in fdk as early education professionals. for example, reces in fdk should be listed as a separate professional job class in union contracts. given the large number of reces represented by cupe and osstf through voluntary recognition agreements across the province, the potential impact on the role and status of reces is substantial if the role continues to be characterized in a support capacity. it is time for unions to step up to the plate and implement contract language that reflects the team teaching model and policy intent behind the education act amendments. as discussed previously, governments play a key role in legislating minimum pay scales to reflect the professional roles of reces in fdk programs and ensuring recognition for their professional skills and expertise. it would be beneficial for governments to strengthen the role of reces as teaching partners in the fdk program and to consider ways to improve the team teaching relationship and working conditions of both team members. this could be achieved through skills training for reces and teachers with a view to levelling the playing field, and revisiting the notion of legislating reces in the fdk program to belong to a teachers’ union. references bascia, n. (1994). excerpt on reading collective agreements: unions in teachers’ professional lives. new york, ny: teachers’ college press. bredeson, p. (2001). negotiated learning: union contracts and teacher professional development. education policy analysis archives, 9(26), 1–24. elementary teachers’ federation of ontario. (2009). a qualified teacher is key to success in kindergarten: response to the report of the special learning advisor. toronto, on: author. elementary teachers’ federation of ontario. (2010). etfo and early childhood educators: a great fit. etfo voice, 13(1). retrieved from: http://etfovoice.ca/back-issues/2010/v13n1_oct_10.pdf gananathan, r. (2011). implications of full-day kindergarten program policy on early childhood pedagogy and practice. international journal of child care and education policy, 5(2), 31–43. globe 24h case law. (2012). canlii 47356 (on lrb). elementary teachers’ federation of ontario v. york region district school board. retrieved from: http://caselaw.canada.globe24h.com/0/0/ontario/ontario-labour-relationsboard/2012/08/14/elementary-teachers-federation-of-ontario-v-york-regiondistrict-school-board-2012-47356-on-lrb.shtml   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   government of ontario. (1990). education act, rso 1990, c.e.2. retrieved from: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-e2/latest/rso-1990-c-e2.html government of ontario. (1995). labour relations act., so 1995, c1, sch a. retrieved from: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/so-1995-c-1-sch-a/latest/so-1995-c1-sch-a.html government of ontario. (2007). early childhood educators act, so 2007, c 7, sch 8. retrieved from: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/so-2007-c-7-sch8/latest/so-2007-c-7-sch-8.html irvine, r., kerridge, i., mcphee, j. & freeman, s. (2002). interprofessionalism and ethics: consensus or clash of cultures? journal of interprofessional care, 16(3), 200–210. legislative assembly of ontario. (2010). bill 242, full-day early learning statute law amendment act. retrieved from: http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&intranet=&billid=22 69 moss, p. & bennett, j. (2006). toward a new pedagogical meeting place? bringing early childhood into the education system. briefing paper for a nuffield educational seminar. london, uk: nuffield foundation. ontario ministry of education. (2010a). memorandum on legislative changes under bill 242–el6. retrieved from: http://cal2.edu.gov.on.ca/may2010/2010el6_bill242.pdf ontario ministry of education. (2010b). the full-day early learning kindergarten program. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten.html pascal, c. (2009). with our best future in mind: implementing early learning in ontario. toronto, on: queen’s printer. wood, e. (2004). developing a pedagogy of play. in a. anning, j. cullen, & m. fleer (eds.), early childhood education: society and culture (pp. 19–30). london, uk: sage. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front gananathan w2015 gananathan formatted back page w2015 canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 34 vol. 38 no. 2 well-designed menus in child care centres include nutritious meals and snacks necessary for the optimum health, growth, and lifelong healthy eating behaviours of young children. with pending government food and nutrition standards, a need was identified for comprehensive, relevant, user-friendly menu planning resources. therefore, guided by an action research model, this study identified current menu planning practices, determined the needs and expectations for menu planning resources, and developed menu planning resources that incorporate these standards and other relevant factors. menu planners from regulated child care centres in nova scotia (n=330) were invited to participate by responding to an online survey and/or volunteering as a member of a collaboration group. survey respondents (n=83) indicated that they wanted their menus to be more interesting, practical, and cost effective. menu templates, sample menus, and costed recipes were the most requested resources. two-thirds indicated a preference for webbased resources and about one-third expressed interest in an interactive blog. the collaboration group participants (n=21) met twice and provided valuable input for the development of a menu planning model, menu template, sample menus, recipes, and information sheets. the model unified the menu planning considerations and served as a framework for the child care centre menu project website (http://www.msvu.ca/menuproject/). the follow-up evaluation indicated that approximately half of respondents (n=39) had consulted the website and that the sample menus were the most useful resource. the website, blog, and online survey enable ongoing development supported by input from the menu planners. the resources should be transferable, with minor adaptations, to other provincial child care centres, elementary schools, or even licensed senior care facilities. acknowledgments this project was funded by a mount saint vincent university internal research grant and a canadian institutes of health research health professional student research award. approximately 25% of canadian children and 30% of nova scotian children are overweight or obese, conditions that are known to negatively affect quality of life and life expectancy (ascentum for federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of health, 2011; veugelers, fitzgerald, & johnston, 2005). however, there is strong evidence that development of healthy eating behaviours, if established early in life, can be maintained through adulthood, promote healthy weight, and prevent certain chronic diseases (ascentum for federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of health, 2011; briley, jastrow, vickers, & roberts-gray, 1999; briley, roberts-gray, & rowe, 1993; drake, 1992; gubbels et al., 2010; nicklas et al., 2001; nova scotia alliance for healthy eating and physical activity & office of health promotion, 2005; pollard, lewis, & miller, 1999; j. d. skinner, carruth, bounds, zeigler, & reidy, 2002). on average, canadian children spend 27 hours weekly in child care centres, and parents of those who attend full time rely on the centres to provide adequate foods to meet most of the daily dietary requirements and to teach the children about healthy eating behaviours (lynch & batal, 2011; dwyer, needham, simpson, & heeney, 2008; moore et al., 2005). further, as approximately 70% of nova scotian preschool children have mothers or both parents in the workforce (bushnick, 2006), there is an opportunity for child care centres to play a key role in the development of healthy lifestyles. research studies over the past twenty years indicate, however, that nutrition standards of child care centre menus were not being met (briley et al., 1993; briley et al., 1999; fleischhacker, cason, & linda mann is a professional dietitian with a master’s in business administration. she is an associate professor at mount saint vincent university in the department of applied human nutrition. her current research interests are the application of child care centre food and nutrition policies, influences on university student eating behaviours, and food service systems. email: linda. mann@msvu.ca dana power is a professional dietitian with a master’s in education. she is the general manager of caritas residence for shannex nova scotia. her professional practice interests are healthy lifestyle policy development and implementation. vanessa maclellan graduated in 2012 from mount saint vincent university with a bachelor of science in applied human nutrition (honours). her contribution to this study began while she was a dietetic intern and research assistant. she is now a professional dietitian. development of menu planning resources for child care centres: a collaborative approach by: linda mann, dana power, and vanessa maclellan canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 35 vol. 38 no. 2 achterberg, 2006; mcconahy, smiciklaswright, mitchell, & picciano, 2004; nicklas et al., 2001; romaine, mann, kienapple, & conrad, 2007). a pilot study comparing head start child care centres’ menus with the actual food served found that, while 77% (n=92) considered dietary guidelines in menu planning, only 14% provided adequate calories (fleischhacker et al., 2006). studies of portion sizes of foods provided to preschool-age children indicated that they were often over or under the recommended size, which may result in a diminished ability to regulate energy intakes later in life (fox, reidy, karwe, & ziegler, 2006; mcconahy et al., 2004). specific to child care centres in nova scotia, it was determined that the legislative requirement for provision of one-third of daily nutrients was not being met, even though the existing guidelines for menu planning were followed (romaine et al., 2007). in 2007, stemming from an environmental scan of recent research (nova scotia departments of health promotion & protection [now health and wellness] and community services, 2008) and recommendations of the healthy eating nova scotia report (nova scotia alliance for healthy eating and physical activity, 2005), a provincial advisory group to “inform the development of a comprehensive food and nutrition policy for licensed child care in nova scotia” (nova scotia departments of health promotion & protection and community services, 2008, p. 3) was formed. this led to the release of the standards, guidelines, and criteria in the manual for food and nutrition in regulated child care settings (hereafter referred to as the manual; nova scotia departments of community services and health promotion & protection, 2011), as well as accompanying revisions to the day care act (province of nova scotia, 2011). good menu planning for child care centres, however, must consider and incorporate a number of factors that go beyond standards and guidelines that simply interpret nutritional and licensing requirements alone (fleischhacker et al., 2006; marotz, 2009; romaine et al., 2007). to encourage the development of healthy eating behaviours in children, menus must plan for aesthetic appeal and the introduction of new foods (marotz, 2009). weekly menus should be consistent, or based on a pattern, and control for the frequency and intervals of occurrence of same, or similar, food items. the menu is also the primary control for any food service operation, impacting its budget and image (gregoire, 2010; marotz, 2009). this is particularly applicable to child care centres that operate within tight budgetary restrictions and limited resources. a simplistic solution for child care centres could be for all to use a costed standard menu. however, this would negate the fact that menus are unique to the mix of ages, cultures, and backgrounds of a centre’s children, as well as the centre’s access to resources (gregoire, 2010; marotz, 2009). costing also varies by region, season, and economic conditions (romaine et al., 2007). despite the availability of menu planning guides and books, menu planners, whether they have completed training or not, struggle with balancing the multiple factors involved (moore et al., 2005; oakley, bomba, knight, & byrd, 1995). with the development and subsequent implementation of the manual, the need for relevant and user-friendly menu planning resources that encompassed these multiple factors was identified (nova scotia departments of health promotion & protection and community services, 2008). it was also evident that the child care centre menu planners must be engaged in the development of these resources to ensure the needs and expectations of the centres were incorporated and to allow centres to take ownership of the menu planning process. therefore, guided by an action research model to engage the child care centre menu planners, this study set out to identify current menu planning practices, determine the needs and expectations for menu planning resources, and develop relevant, user-friendly, and comprehensive menu planning resources that incorporate food and nutrition standards as well as other relevant factors. method this study received approval from the mount saint vincent university research ethics board in 2010. it used an action research methodology with participants solicited from nova scotia regulated child care centres. participants regulated child care centres in nova scotia were identified from the directory of licensed child care facilities (nova scotia department of community services, 2010). contact information was compiled for all 330 full-day centres, an e-mail distribution list was established, and messages were sent to invite centre menu planners to participate in the online questionnaire and/or to be a collaboration group participant. the criteria for participants were that they be involved in menu planning at their child care centre. procedure the spiral technology action research (star) model (h. a. skinner, maley, & norman, 2006), illustrated in figure 1, guided the procedure for this study. the star model combines technological design and community involvement in the continuous quality improvement process. the star model is based on the principles of action research, health promotion principles, behaviour change theories, and quality improvement and community mobilization practices to create a process that is centred on the user and “grounded in the everyday realities of the target population and organizations that work with the population” (h. a. skinner et al., 2006, p. 408). canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 36 vol. 38 no. 2 figure 1. spiral technology action research model (h. a. skinner et al., 2006). however, because this study required the incorporation of existing standards for food, nutrition, and menu planning, an additional step was added. the customerdriven management model (leebov & ersoz, 1992), which is based on the principles of quality management, as first described by w. edwards deming (1986), informed the addition of this step as it incorporates community expectations as well as professional standards to create the menu planning resources. the listen-plan-do-study-act cycle, again first described by deming (1986), provided an appropriate structure to allow for revisions to incorporate feedback throughout the study process. action research methodology was an important component of this research project. menu planners were able to collaborate and state their menu planning needs, contributing to the development of resources which, in turn, was expected to lead to more control and confidence with the menu planning process (baum, macdougall, & smith, 2006; wandersman & florin, 2003). by means of online questionnaires and collaboration group sessions, the researchers listened to the needs and expectations of the menu planners; ensured the standards were addressed; developed the appropriate resources; consulted, tested, and revised; and implemented the resources using the desired information technology. the following paragraphs outline the procedure (as suggested by the star model with the addition of a step named “standards.” standards identification of the child care centre menu planning standards and best practices was an important step because it formed the foundation of the resources. at the time of this study, the manual was still under development. however, the recommendations from the advisory group provided clear direction for the standards. those that impacted menu planning included requirements for canada’s food guide (cfg; health canada, 2007) food group servings, recommendations for fluid milk to ensure a source of vitamin d, and adherence to cfg best practices regarding food selection. to emphasize the latter recommendation and to limit use of processed foods, criteria for acceptable amounts of sodium, fat, refined sugar, and fibre were developed. the advisory group also addressed the importance of introducing new foods in appealing ways to promote healthy eating behaviours. sensory properties of food, such as colour, texture, shape, and flavour, enhance appeal and therefore acceptance (marotz, 2009). for example, the sensory properties of a menu can be enhanced by having a contrast of at least two of the sensory properties and one item close to its natural form (baby carrots, berries, etc.). the recommendation for family style meal service was intended to allow children to make decisions about what and how much to eat in order to satisfy their hunger cues and establish independence (marotz, 2009). these were all menu planning considerations as they impact the combination and preparation of foods. centres must also consider licensing regulations for administration and record keeping, such as advance posting of the menu and menu substitutions, food safety, budgets, and training requirements for menu planners as defined by the day care act (province of nova scotia, 2011). these standards were summarized and subsequently compared to the results of the questionnaire and collaboration group discussions. listen information about menu planning current practices and the needs and expectations for resources was collected by an online questionnaire and collaboration group meetings. the online questionnaire sought responses about characterization of menus, menu planning processes and factors, experience and training, resources used, and expectations for new resources. some questions were adapted from a previous study (romaine et al., 2007) and others were based on the study objectives. the questionnaire was tested by three faculty members at the university and revised prior to distribution. the link to the questionnaire, which was posted online on surveymonkey™ (palo alto, ca 94301), was distributed by e-mail to all the regulated full day child care centres in nova scotia (n=330). reminder e-mails and phone calls were carried out to increase response rate. the e-mail to the centres also included an invitation to participate in the collaboration group. the first collaboration group session (n=21) utilized a world café format (world café, n.d.). participants were randomly assigned to three discussion groups hosted by a researcher or research assistant. each discussion group, sitting around a table covered with large sheets of paper, focused on specific topics for approximately 30 minutes, recording their ideas on the paper. the groups then each moved to another table to discuss another set of topics, and so on. the topics discussed at each table are outlined in table 1. plan-do-study-act the plan-do-study cycle (see below for the “act” step) was repeated twice in the development of menu planning canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 37 vol. 38 no. 2 resources that incorporated the food and nutrition standards, the information from the participants, and how they should be displayed using the chosen technology platform (website). in the first cycle, the researchers compiled and analyzed the responses from the questionnaire and the world café discussions. descriptive statistics were used for the questionnaire and simple groupings of responses were used for the discussions. based on these analyses and the identified standards, the researchers proceeded through a series of prototypes of the menu planning resources before presenting drafts for review by the collaboration group. the researchers also explored website options for distributing the resources. a second collaboration group (n=17) meeting was then held to review the prototype resources. again, using the world café format and in three groups, participants were asked to critique and test the application of the resources. next, the researchers revised and developed additional resources and distributed them for feedback. a second questionnaire was developed using surveymonkeytm and distributed by e-mail to the same group of nova scotia child care centres. the questions elicited feedback from respondents about which resources had been accessed and which were most useful, as well as any suggestions for ongoing improvements. the “act” step is the ongoing maintenance of the website and its resources, including means used for evaluation and feedback from users. results and discussion participants the response rate for the initial online questionnaire was 83 or 25% (n=330). all efforts were made to ensure the e-mail addresses were accurate; the research assistant phoned those who had e-mails undelivered. an option to respond to the questionnaire by phone was also offered, but no one chose that option. there was representation from centres with varying licensing capacities, ranging from 10– 25 to greater than 101 children, with a median of 26–50; half were from the main urban centre and half from all across the province. by comparison, a previous study (romaine et al., 2007) using a mailed survey to a random sample based on provincial distribution to 101 centres had 35 responses. therefore, it may be suggested that the technology that now allows for electronic surveys played a role in the larger response. it is also expected that the pending release of the manual (nova scotia departments of community services and health promotion & protection, 2011) increased interest in this study about menu planning. fifty-five percent of respondents indicated that they were directors or owners of the centres, 20% were caregivers, 16% had multiple roles, and only 9% were cooks. it had been expected that cooks would have been the menu planners more so than the others; however, 46% of respondents indicated that they consult with their cooks when developing and implementing a menu. in smaller centres there is less likelihood of having dedicated cooks as centre staff likely participate in menu planning and preparation as part of a general, multitasking role. while 25 child care centre menu planners initially consented to be members of the collaboration group, only 15 attended the first session and 17 the second. while the majority were from the main urban centre, there was representation from rural areas. the information from the first world café was made available on surveymonkey™ and the link was distributed by e-mail to all who had consented to be members of the collaboration groups. this allowed those who couldn’t attend to contribute and, for those who were present, to contribute further; six participants responded. current menu planning practices when questionnaire respondents were asked to characterize their menus, the top four responses were nutritious (94%), meets government policies (71%), kid friendly (43%), and practical (41%). less frequently selected responses included cost effective (23%), adaptable to special diet needs (27%), creative (7%), and environmentally sensitive (6%). most (87%) were satisfied with the characterization of their menus but indicated an interest in addressing the less frequently selected areas. while 60% of respondents reported that they revised their menus at least yearly, 40% had not revised their menus for a year or more. reasons for this, gathered from the collaboration discussions, included uncertainty with government policies and guidelines as well as lack of time. regular menu revisions ensure incorporation of the specific needs of the children, current eating trends, seasonal adaptations, and changing centre resources. 1 table 1. world café discussion group topics. group 1 group 2 group 3 what do you think are characteristics of a good menu? are these realistic to achieve? how do you plan your menus? discuss similarities and differences. what menu planning resources or guides do you use? what format do you prefer for these resources or guides? prompt by saying checklist, flowchart, framework, and model and available online (website), on hard copy, or on dvd? other formats? how do you adjust your menus for allergies and special diets? examples? what resources do you refer to about allergies and special diets? what else would you like to have available? show a sample weekly menu. how would you modify it for child with celiac disease (wheat allergy)? what else would you need to consider in feeding this child? show a sample weekly menu. do you think it is a good menu? why or why not? how would you improve this menu? what resources would be helpful to improve this menu? show a sample recipe. the new menu standards will be based on canada’s food guide food groups. for a child-sized serving of this recipe, can you identify the number(s) of food group servings? can you identify how many food guide servings are in this recipe? table 1. world café discussion group topics canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 38 vol. 38 no. 2 menu planning was reported as a collaborative process for the questionnaire respondents. centre staff (71%), cooks (46%), children (24%), parents (15%), and, externally, public health nutritionists (69%) and childhood development officers (19%) all provided input into menus. while parents were the least consulted, they have a large influence on the development of healthy eating behaviours and, as such, there are many unexplored opportunities for engagement (american dietetic association, 2005; gibbons, graham, marraffa, & henry, 2000). when asked to identify factors considered in menu planning, respondents identified cfg (75%), cost effectiveness (71%), specific nutrients in foods (71%), government policies/guidelines (68%), ease of preparation (60%), child preferences (53%), allergies/special diets (53%), and local/seasonal foods (47%) most often. less often selected factors included food availability (35%), sensory appeal of foods (30%), kitchen equipment (18%), cultural needs (15%), and personal preferences (1%). these numbers illustrate that menu planners have a complex array of factors to address (fleischhacker et al., 2006; romaine et al., 2007). needs and expectations for menu planning resources resources most often used for menu planning were cfg (89%), menus from other centres (52%), and nutrition or menu planning books (40%). respondents expressed a need for sample menus, menu templates, and recipes, with associated costs. almost equal numbers of respondents indicated that they would like to have these menu planning resources provided on a website (66%) and in hard copy (62%), similar to other reports (burden, sheeshka, hedley, lero, & marsh, 2000; o’mara & chambers, 1992; romaine et al., 2007). thirty-six percent indicated that they would like to have an interactive website or blog for consulting with other child care centres’ menu planners and/or experts. most (92%) reported that they had access to a computer for menu planning. when asked about other information resources, respondents indicated they wanted to learn more about creative menu planning (79%), recipe and menu costing (65%), allergies/special diets (59%), nutrition (56%), and how to introduce new foods to children (54%). these results are similar to those in other reports (gibbons et al., 2000; romaine et al., 2007). the collaboration group participants responded well to the world café approach. table 2 summarizes the types of responses gathered from the first collaboration group, including the followup questionnaire. see table 2 (next page) to initiate discussion among the collaboration group participants, they were asked to share their suggestions for menu items and recipe modifications that would meet the new standards. some of these creative ideas were to add red lentils to tomato soup to provide both a meat alternate serving and a vegetable serving for a noon meal, serving “deconstructed” casseroles such as chicken cacciatore with the ingredients separated to make the menu item more appealing to children who are reluctant to accept combinations, and replacing the ground beef in spaghetti sauce with tofu to make the menu item suitable for vegetarians. interestingly, the collaboration group participants were not supportive of “hiding” vegetables in menu items, although they did indicate that they would add extra vegetables to soups and sauces, for example. development of resources based on the review of the standards and analyses of the questionnaire and collaboration group discussions, the researchers grouped the menu planning standards and considerations under four main sections to form a menu plan model (see figure 2). it was felt that the pictorial representation would assist menu planners to organize and prioritize the various disparate factors. an explanation of the model was also prepared. figure 2. child care centre menu plan model. to unify the resources, the headings and colours of the model were used for the evaluation form and the resource list; they were also later used for the website design. a menu template that incorporated the proposed standards and repetition control was designed, as was a sample menu. the sample menu included a description of how the standards and considerations were applied, thus building capacity for menu planning and evaluation. a guide for calculating food group servings from recipes was identified. the task of costing recipes and calculating their food group servings was initiated. these draft resources were presented to the participants at the second collaboration group session. feedback about the resources was recorded as they tested the utility of the template and evaluation for menu planning. participants were able to design and evaluate menus using the resources, and they appreciated the opportunity to brainstorm with other menu planners. in a general group discussion, participants suggested that video(s), available on the website, would enhance communication and understanding of how to apply the model. following the second collaboration group session, the resources were adjusted based on participant feedback and experience. additional sample menus were developed based on the ones created during the collaboration group session. the costs and food group servings for a selection of recipes were calculated, and a link to allow menu planners to submit recipes for canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 39 vol. 38 no. 2 costing was established. an instructional video to provide commentary to guide site users through the menu planning process and use of the resources was produced. the website (child care centre menu project, 2010) was established on the mount saint vincent university server. a wordpress blog was created and linked to the website. finally, the website went live, and regulated full-day child care centres in nova scotia were notified. the blog and the recipe costing feature addressed the community involvement ownership component as outlined in the star model (h. a. skinner et al., 2006). six weeks after the website went live, an evaluation questionnaire was distributed to the nova scotia child care centres. the response rate was 48 or 14.5% (n=330). fifty percent had accessed the website and of this group, 83% had viewed the sample menus, 67% the menu plan model, 50% the child food group best practices, and 50% the recipes. eighty-five percent of the respondents indicated that they plan to use the website resources in the future. no one had used the blog even though 40% had requested it be included on the site. it may be that menu planners are interested in the potential of this technology, but without prior experience, are reluctant to be an early user. conclusion menu planning resources, such as the ones developed by this study, was a need identified by nova scotia child care centres in the food and nutrition support environmental scan (nova scotia departments of health promotion & protection and community services, 2008) and again in the public consultations (nova scotia departments of community services and health promotion & protection, 2010) prior to the release of the manual (nova scotia departments of community services and health promotion & protection, 2011). minor revisions were made to the website resources, in particular the model, child food group best practices, menu template, and sample menus, so that they coincided with the final content of the manual. the website resources have proven to be valuable aids for students in the nutrition and child study programs at mount saint vincent university; this was an unanticipated but welcome outcome. as predicted, maintaining and updating the recipes with costs has proven to be difficult. future revision of the website, including a planned migration to the wordpress blog, will involve removal of the costed recipes and replacement with links to recipe sites. the star model, with the addition of the step to identify standards, was well suited for this study. utilizing this action research approach resulted in an ehealth promotion outcome (h. a. skinner et al., 2006): the child care centre menu project website. the principles of action research enabled the researchers to build a trusting relationship with the collaboration group and therefore ensured that the needs and expectations of the menu planners were incorporated in the website resources. in turn, it is expected that incorporating the menu planners’ needs will give them confidence in their ability to plan menus that will appeal to young children, that will meet the food and nutrition standards, and that will be unique to the specific character of their centres. as one participant stated, “menus must be specific to the particular centre and its children; there can’t be one menu that fits all.” the child care centre menu project website and its resources should be relevant and adaptable to child care centres in other provinces, elementary 2 table 2. world café discussion group responses: collaboration group 1 (n=21).* discussion group topics responses what are the characteristics of a good menu? do you think it is realistic to achieve these and why? “menu item variety, challenging, sensory variety, lots of food choices, balancing it with canada’s food guide.” “cost effective, kid friendly, incorporating seasonal foods, appropriate portion sizes, offering choice, de-emphasizing desserts, flexibility.” “yes, it can be realistic to achieve these but it could become too expensive to buy what you want. it is more difficult for the larger centres with so many individual food preferences. it is difficult to control the plate presentation with family-style meal service. having flexibility can be challenging with the regulations and standards in place. child care centres need to continue trying new things and offering foods more than once— even if the children do not like it the first time.” how do you plan your menus? do you use tools or checklists? how do you manage the process? “i plan based on what is on sale in the store. i mentally plan for one vegetarian, one poultry, one beef, one pork, and one fish per week.” “i consider the age of the children, i use the checklists we are given from the nutritionist, and i closely watch what the children like and dislike. i try to incorporate the foods that they dislike into the menu in a variety of ways.” “we use things that have worked in the past. we try out new ideas to see how well they work. we look on the internet and ask parents for recipes. it is frustrating to come up with enough variety for snacks.” “consultation with other centres.” “keep a record of old menus to draw ideas.” “consult with public health nutritionist for menu ideas.” “check government regulations to see if a new item meets requirements.” what format do you prefer for resources? do you prefer a model, a checklist, examples, etc? “anything concrete helps!” “i learn through hands-on approaches. i like checklists and models.” “i would learn the menu planning process best if there was a dedicated website for child care centre menu planning.” “i would like a bank of recipes, a way to communicate with other centres, and costed recipes.” *includes responses to follow-up questionnaire. table 2. world café discussion group responses: collaboration group 1 (n=21).* canadian children child study fall / automne 2013 40 vol. 38 no. 2 schools, and, 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(n.d.). world café method. retrieved from: http://www.theworldcafé.com/method.html canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 36 vol. 41 no. 1 the authors are associate professors in the school of early childhood studies, ryerson university. kathryn underwood’s research interests include early childhood social policy, disability as identity, and inclusive practice in early childhood education and care settings. aurelia di santo researches children’s rights, children’s participation in research and in their early learning programs, transitions to school, and play-based learning. angela valeo has many years of elementary school teaching experience. her areas of specialization and research concern the inclusion of students with disabilities in preschools and elementary school classrooms. the research interests of rachel langford, who is the director of the school of early childhood studies, include early childhood teachers’ work and history, the canadian childcare movement, and professional preparation. partnerships in full-day kindergarten classrooms: early childhood educators and kindergarten teachers working together kathryn underwood, aurelia di santo, angela valeo, and rachel langford full-day early learning programs, where children attend kindergarten every day for a full day, have been gaining support in recent years in canada (e.g., british columbia, new brunswick, nova scotia, ontario, prince edward island, quebec, newfoundland and labrador) and around the world (e.g., new zealand, australia; early childhood learning agency, 2009; flanagan, 2011; ryan & date, 2014; warburton, warburton, & hertzman, 2012). current literature suggests that children could benefit from an integrated system of early childhood education and care programs that acknowledges the learning and care needs of young children (corter, janmohamed, & pelletier, 2012; pascal, 2009). in 2010, the province of ontario began implementation of the fullday early learning – kindergarten program (fdk), a two-year kindergarten program for all 4and 5-year-olds in ontario (pascal, 2009). a critical component of this program is the co-teaching structure, with one ontario-certified teacher and one registered early childhood educator (ece) who share responsibility for each kindergarten classroom. this blended staffing model was articulated as the preferred model to “add to the strengths of the professional preparation and skill sets of both teachers and eces” (pascal, 2009, p. 33). this model followed investigations that indicated that “children benefit and staff satisfaction is enhanced” in full-day programs (pascal, 2009, p. 33). full-day kindergarten programs can benefit children with respect to their holistic development, transition to the primary grades, and academic development (early childhood learning division, 2011; pascal, 2009; ryan & date, 2014). in addition, these programs provide universal opportunities for children and families to access quality early learning environments (early childhood learning division, 2011; pascal, 2009; ryan & date, 2014). however, early analysis of outcomes from ontario’s full-day kindergarten program indicate greater effects for students from low-income families but fewer benefits for children identified as having special needs (janus, duku, & schell, 2012; vanderlee, youmans, peters, & easterbrook, 2012). these differential outcomes may be related to the way in which the program is delivered. one of the strategies to ensure high-quality programs for all children in the province was to implement a team teaching model with one teacher who is registered with the ontario college of teachers and one ece who is registered with the ontario college of early childhood educators. this model is key to the program design and is intended to address the structural issue of adult-to-child ratios and to improve the educational process (kluczniok & roβbach, 2014). however, the model has an inherent power imbalance in the educator partnership. one factor in this imbalance is the difference between a teacher’s and an ece’s qualifications. kindergarten teachers are required to have an undergraduate degree and a minimum of one year of teacher education, and teachers have had a professional college since 1997 (ontario college of teachers, 2014). eces have either a two-year diploma or a four-year degree in early childhood education, and have a long history of working to identify themselves as a professional group. it was not until 2008 that the college of early childhood this study examines the relationship between teachers and early childhood educators in full-day kindergarten classrooms in one school board in ontario. the study uses the theoretical framework of co-teaching models developed in special education to analyze the range of approaches used by the educator teams. findings indicate that the teams primarily engage in a one teach/one assist approach, but they also describe some examples of other co-teaching approaches that are possible in these classrooms. the study concludes that support for the expansion of the co-teaching repertoire could provide a mechanism for integrating the expertise of both educators in full-day kindergarten classes and maximizing the efficacy of this social policy direction. implications for educators and administrators are addressed. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 37 vol. 41 no. 1 educators was established in ontario (ontario college of early childhood educators, 2014). in addition to qualification differences, teachers have historically worked independently in classrooms, whereas eces have often worked in collaboration with other eces in childcare settings. the roles of the two types of professionals in the fdk teaching teams were intentional and are complementary. teachers “have knowledge of the broader elementary curriculum, assessment, evaluation and reporting, and child development” (ontario ministry of education, 2010a, para. 1). they evaluate children’s developmental progress within the context of the program and provide progress reports to parents (ontario ministry of education, 2010a), and they prepare children for the transition to grade 1 (pascal, 2009). eces “have knowledge of early childhood development, observation and assessment. they bring a focus on age-appropriate program planning that promotes each child’s physical, cognitive, language, emotional, social and creative development and well-being” (ontario ministry of education, 2010b, para. 2). in addition to the ece role the ministry outlines, pascal (2009) describes responsibility for implementing extended day activities and summer programming, as well as liaising with community partners. although the roles and responsibilities of both professionals were outlined in the planning, in reality, the province did not implement many of the responsibilities of the eces. the extended childcare components are separate from the kindergarten program, and in many jurisdictions are delivered by third-party organizations. summer programming and broader community engagement through child and family centres have not been adopted as school responsibilities. this study investigated the partnerships between the eces and kindergarten teachers in the first years of implementation of the fdk program. we investigated the nature of the partnerships and possibilities for adapting the partnerships to better capitalize on the expertise and skills of both educators for the benefit of children in the program. partnership and collaboration in early childhood education co-teaching happens in childcare settings quite frequently. by contrast, teachers might collaborate with other teachers for the planning process, or with itinerant teachers or assistants, but prior to fdk it was not common for them to team-teach their classes. dalli (2008) identifies collaboration as one of the core values of the professional identity of early childhood educators. however, collaboration is not necessarily a component of co-teaching and we cannot assume that a co-teaching relationship is collaborative. rose’s (2011) examination of collaborative relationships in early childhood settings found that shared goals and acting for the good of those goals rather than acting as individuals is critical to successful partnerships. she notes that there may be some level of professional self-sacrifice in order for collective goals to be realized, and this may need to happen on the part of the professional with more power (rose, 2011). payler and georgeson (2013) found that the institutions within which professionals work shape their professional identities. as a result of these identities, professionals vary in their ability to be flexible, reactive, and collaborative. therefore, the “potency” of one’s actions can be shaped by the social context. because the fdk classroom is a new context for eces and teachers, it will take time for their potency to become evident and to be felt in the institution. studies of fdk programs have shown mixed results with effective team approaches. finn and pannozzo (2004) examined the presence of a teaching aide (which we might call an assistant) in the classroom as a factor in the efficacy of kindergarten programs. they found that the presence of teaching assistants was either a neutral or slightly negative contributor to outcomes. although our study does not include teaching aides, it is interesting to note that the presence of a second adult in a classroom does not necessarily improve outcomes. further studies are needed to understand how two trained educators might affect children’s experience in early childhood settings. efficacy of co-teaching models in special education co-teaching, the practice of two professionals with varied expertise but with professional parity, has long been used as a model to bring special education teachers into classrooms (scruggs, mastropieri, & mcduffie, 2007; walsh, 2012). thus, co-teaching as an education model has been researched primarily in relation to children in the special education system. the model was developed with the underlying premise that specialist teachers and general classroom teachers should work together in one classroom, drawing on the skills that each brings to support a diverse group of children. the advantage to this model is that students can access the expertise of both educators in one location and therefore do not miss out on the support afforded by one or the other professional. six approaches to co-teaching, first identified by bauwens, hourcade, and friend (1989), are now widely accepted in the co-teaching canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 38 vol. 41 no. 1 literature. the six approaches are as follows: one teach/one assist; one teach/one observe; tag team; station or rotational teaching; alternative teaching; and parallel teaching (see table 1 for definitions). table 1. code definitions and examples found in observations code definition one teach/one assist in this approach, one teacher instructs the class while the other teacher manages behaviour or assists individual students as needed. this approach is possible when both educators share little planning time together. it is recommended that this approach is only used occasionally, and that the two educators alternate in their roles. one teach/one observe in this approach, one individual (generally the stronger of the two teachers in the content or subject being taught) handles all instruction while the other teacher floats or observes the students. this approach requires little joint planning and is seen as valuable when both educators decide which student behaviours should be noted by the observer. tag team in tag team teaching, both teachers plan and deliver instruction together, with each teacher equally responsible for the material in the lesson and for activities around the classroom. this can be scripted or spontaneous. this approach can lead to educators trying innovative techniques in their teaching and requires the greatest level of mutual trust between educators. it is a challenging model for new co-teachers to attempt. station teaching (rotational) in station teaching, each teacher plans and is responsible for a different aspect of the lesson or for a different lesson entirely. there may also be independent work provided for the students. students are divided into two or more groups depending on how many stations are available, and students either travel from centre to centre or stay in one position while a teacher or activity moves to the student group. alternative teaching in alternative teaching, one teacher teaches the main lesson to a larger group of students while the other teacher works with a smaller group of students on an entirely different lesson. this approach can be useful when some students need highly intensive instruction for various reasons, and all students can benefit from lower teacher-student ratios. parallel teaching in parallel teaching, the class is split in half and each teacher teaches the same lesson to half the class. students all receive the same material and benefit from lower teacher-student ratios. this approach requires coordination between educators when planning content, and both educators must be qualified to teach the content. note: definitions derived from friend and cook (2010), cook and friend, (1995), and scruggs, mastropieri, and mcduffie (2007). over the last two decades, many researchers have observed and examined co-teaching partnerships and practices. results from these studies suggest that to maintain effective teaching practices, educator teams should attempt several approaches, and both team members should take on the different roles within each approach (friend & cook, 2010). while co-teaching has been in the literature for several decades, there are a limited number of studies on the efficacy of this model (e.g., hanover research, 2012; murawski & swanson, 2001; scruggs, mastropieri, & mcduffie, 2007; walsh, 2012). scruggs, mastropieri, and mcduffie (2007), in a metasynthesis of qualitative studies on co-teaching, found that the one teach/one assist approach was most common in practice and the special education teacher was often subordinate in the team. they also found that both teachers and students, with and without disabilities, reported benefits of the co-teaching model. however, in scruggs et al.’s study the benefits to students’ academic and skill levels were not clear. by contrast, walsh (2012), in a study of a school-district-wide implementation of a co-teaching model over a six-year period, found improvements on standardized reading and math scores. our study used the co-teaching model canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 39 vol. 41 no. 1 developed in the special education literature to analyze the co-teaching practices of eces and teachers in fdk classrooms. method six elementary schools located in southern ontario participated in the study. the schools are located within one school board, are publicly funded, and are under the jurisdiction of ontario’s ministry of education. at the time of the study, all schools were within the first two years of implementation of fdk. of the ten classrooms represented in this study, nine were staffed by one certified teacher and one registered ece. in the tenth class, one ece worked with two certified teachers (one who taught in the morning and one in the afternoon in a job-share situation). thus, a total of 10 classrooms in 6 schools participated in the study, with 11 teachers and 10 eces. many of the teachers had more experience working in the school setting than the eces, which is not surprising given that the ece position in ontario’s kindergarten classrooms is new. however, all but one of the eces in this study had experience working with young children in childcare programs prior to working in fdk. six eces had worked as substitute eces in fdk prior to being hired full time. overall, the teachers had more years of experience than the eces, with the range for teachers being 5 to 26 years and for eces 1 to 15 years. the teachers all had undergraduate-level education with one teacher having a graduate degree. nine of the eces had a two-year diploma, one had a three-year diploma, and two had bachelor’s degrees. procedure ethical approval for this study was obtained by the researchers’ university and through the school district board of education. semistructured interviews were conducted with the 11 kindergarten teachers and 10 eces. during the interviews we asked for a general description of the educators and children in the class, a description of the educators’ experience with implementing the new team model, and the educators’ own beliefs about the program itself. in addition, we conducted two observations per classroom on two separate occasions (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). examples from the observations were used to develop the definitions of each co-teaching approach as described in table 2 below. table 2. examples of co-teaching approaches found in observations code example from observation one teach/one assist teacher tells ece to keep children quiet. ece responds that the children were not talking. teacher hands picture cards to ece to hold up while she reads a book. teacher sets up a craft and tells ece to supervise and make sure children only put 4 to 8 legs on their spiders. one teach/one observe the teacher is doing a whole group lesson. the ece sits at the back and scans the group. tag team during opening exercises at the front of the class with children on the carpet, kindergarten teacher and ece take turns singing songs, asking about the date, and then they stand together to ask about the life cycle of a butterfly. station teaching (rotational) these examples largely consist of independent work on the part of children. in one example, the ece is working with children at one centre to plant seeds. the kindergarten teacher is working on report cards, with occasional interjections about children’s behaviour. the kindergarten teacher has a “work table” and the ece circulates to all the other centres. alternative teaching the ece enters the classroom and sees that a child is crying while separating from her parent. the ece takes her hand and sits with her while the teacher begins to talk about the calendar and date. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 40 vol. 41 no. 1 parallel teaching the ece takes junior kindergarten students into one room to work on activities designed by the teacher, while the teacher works on similar curriculum with senior kindergarten children in another room. these definitions, along with the definitions in table 1, were used to identify examples of co-teaching approaches in the interviews. two researchers analyzed all of the interviews and a third researcher then reviewed the analysis and worked with the first two researchers to build consensus on the categorization of the interview statements into the co-teaching approaches. findings overall, the teacher and ece interviews yielded similar results. while all approaches to co-teaching were described to some extent, the one teach/one assist approach was by far the most frequently described approach. it should be noted that there are limitations in quantifying the frequency of codes from interview data, since there is variation between subjects in terms of how much they talk and how many statements they use to describe a single phenomenon. however, table 3 shows the overwhelming dominance of the one teach/one assist approach in the interviews. descriptions provided by the participants, particularly of approaches other than the one teach/one assist approach, were sometimes described in hypothetical terms rather than as something that actually occurs in practice. table 3. number of references to co-teaching approaches during interviews co-teaching approach teacher interview ece interview total one teach/one assist 126 125 251 tag team 27 6 33 alternative teaching 61 99 160 one teach/one observe 23 10 33 station teaching (rotational) 46 20 66 parallel teaching 10 7 17 one teach/one assist approach while all of the teams described examples of the one teach/one assist approach, five teams described it as the main approach in their classrooms. of these five teams, the teachers and eces agreed that this was the approach most commonly used. rafaella,1 a teacher, reported that her understanding of ece and teacher roles from the administration is that “i teach curriculum and they [eces] teach the domains, like social, emotional, cognitive. i want to combine those two together because they are meant to be working hand in hand.” rafaella reported that her role is to teach. she claims that because the eces do not get any planning time, “it is very challenging, [to] collaborate with ambrosia, who is the ece in the room.” this lack of planning time for the ece results in a one teach/one assist approach with rafaella always taking the teaching role and ambrosia taking the assist role because rafaella does all the program planning. this co-teaching approach was echoed by ambrosia, who believed that the “roles are not clear to a lot of teachers and principals. the teacher felt that behaviour management was not her job … and that our job was to correct behaviours and do her prep work.” both rafaella and ambrosia gave some examples of the alternative teaching approach, but this may have been a way for the two educators to work independently of each other rather than to collaborate. similarly, lilibeth, a teacher, reported that there’s just not enough time for us to meet during the day, there’s just no time. so i’ll go in or i’ll tell her the day before, “i’m working on this, and you’ll do this; i’ll do this.” and then if she has a suggestion then fine, if not we just follow my model of what i set out to do and she’s very willing. she just accepts what i said. 1 all names used in this article are pseudonyms. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 41 vol. 41 no. 1 dillon, the ece working with lilibeth, also described a one teach/one assist approach for the team: “in the end the last word is from the teacher. i can always say what i feel and she always takes that into consideration.” the one teach/one assist pattern was evident, and the ece deferred to the teacher as the expert. however, the educators in this team both felt that they got along well, and from the teacher’s perspective, there was some give and take. the teacher described the benefits of having two adults in the classroom: “if there’s a child you’re having trouble with and you’ve tried everything, you [can ask the ece:] ‘can you try?’” although this is an example of an attempt at a tag team approach, overall this team used a one teach/one assist approach the majority of the time and did not frequently alternate their roles. likewise, heidi, a teacher, described a tag team approach, but it was limited to the planning process she did with other kindergarten teachers. this approach was not extended to her relationship with emma, the ece in the classroom. heidi stated that her role as the teacher was to implement the program based on curriculum, to team-teach with the other colleagues, and to keep my ece abreast [of] what, on a daily basis, even a weekly basis, what we’re planning to do. i already have the plan in motion from my colleagues and then i ask my ece, “do you have anything to add?” the one teach/one assist approach may be a result of teachers’ and eces’ understanding (or misunderstanding) of each other’s profession. this is evidenced by savannah, a teacher, who said that teachers and eces “come from two different schools, we come from obligations and legalities and they come from a different school of thought.” she tells austin, the ece in the classroom, “this is what we are doing today, or as the periods go i’ll say this is the next thing we are going to do.” austin also thought that there were differences between the two professions. he said, “the teachers, they’ve never done this. as eces we’ve worked like this [full-day with this age group], so we know. i think they’ve also learned from us.” he reported that his role is to “assist the teacher” and that he is responsible for “behaviour management in the classroom, [making] sure that [the] children are playing nicely and listening to instructions and the rules … and also just assisting the children one-on-one on cutting, pasting, anything that they need.” one interesting reflection on the interviews is that the educators’ beliefs may not reflect their practice. in one case, eve, a teacher, said that she believes she engages in a tag team approach, but examples throughout the interviews demonstrate that the one teach/one assist approach is dominant, with eve doing the planning. however, eve does combine outdoor play with another kindergarten classroom so that the children are supervised by the other kindergarten team and she and sienna (the ece) “get a half an hour where we can prep, and discuss and talk about things.” the interviews indicate that both teachers and eces believe that the one teach/one assist approach is the most prevalent approach in their co-teaching practice. the ece is often responsible for behaviour guidance and supervision of play activities. this differentiated role could translate into an alternative teaching approach where each educator has a distinct but equally valued role, but at this stage of implementation, the alternative teaching approach is not prevalent. one teach/one observe approach lena and mia (teacher and ece respectively) were the only team that described the one teach/one observe co-teaching approach. lena had a special education background, and for this reason she was familiar with co-teaching approaches. the one teach/one observe approach was used frequently in this team, with both lena and mia observing and making notes. lena said that as mia gained experience, she would likely do more of the observations on her own. lena acted as a mentor to mia, and as such there were also examples of the one teach/one assist approach. many of the observations that were an important part of this team’s practice happened in centre activities, although these centres were also sites for the station teaching approach. in this partnership the one teach/one observe approach is dominant, but our interviews indicate that lena and mia also engaged in one teach/one assist and station teaching approaches as well, where the two educators were using stations to work with different children on different tasks. this team has the most variation in terms of the range of approaches identified. both lena and mia focused primarily on child outcomes in their descriptions of their team’s approach to teaching. the one teach/one observe approach was done primarily in the context of assessing and documenting students’ work and not as part of instructional practice. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 42 vol. 41 no. 1 tag team approach of the 11 teams participating in this study, only one team described what could be defined as a tag team approach to teaching. dana, the teacher, had transferred schools in order to work in the fdk program. of the 11 teachers participating in the study, dana had the strongest understanding of a tag team approach. she said, “all the decisions have to be made jointly. of course both of us have our strengths and weaknesses, but i think we are really good at pairing our strengths.” dana and misaki’s ece classroom is organized by centres, or stations, but the roles of the educators in this team do not indicate a primarily station teaching approach where they have separate responsibility for different stations. this is because they rotate throughout the room in a team teaching approach, sharing responsibility. misaki, the ece, also has a strong sense of collaboration. she said, “as a whole we pretty much do everything together. we share all of the responsibilities. so, you know, sometimes, i’ll do one thing and dana will do one thing. and then the next day we switch.” dana said, “these are the students and this is their class, and i’m a teacher and yes that’s great, and that’s an ece and that’s great, but we’re, like, we’re here for the kids, right?” her belief that “all the decisions have to be made jointly” helps to set the tone for a tag team approach. alternative teaching approach the alternative co-teaching model was the dominant approach used by two of the 11 teams, but was represented in most of the interviews. robin, a teacher, reported that she and amber, her ece partner, divide responsibilities, with robin explicitly stating that she has responsibility for math and literacy. amber viewed herself as the expert on play and discipline. robin has had experience working in a co-teaching model, albeit with another teacher, and based on that experience she preferred an alternative teaching approach with distinct responsibilities for the curricular domains. she provided the following example to illustrate the approach: i’ll take this group of kids with me and we’ll do the science while you [the ece] focus on the reading assessment with this group of kids. or, during reading centres, how about you [the ece] take these three kids and you do three kids at a time and rotate? the alternative teaching approach is evident when one professional takes the lead in the class and the other focuses on a small group of children for more intensive instruction. parallel teaching approach of the 11 teams, only one team described a parallel approach to teaching, where the class is split in half and each teaches the same lesson to their group of children. in this partnership, chelsea, the teacher, clearly dominated the partnership. chelsea did not agree with the full-day kindergarten model. she said: they use the word team a lot, but clearly it is not a team. it’s only a team from 9:00 to 3:30 and the fact that we’re both in the same room and we’re both working with children. but, aside from that, the planning, the trying to decide how we want this program to look, there’s virtually no connection. chelsea shared that she does 100% of the planning, completes all the children’s assessments, and is responsible for reporting. she stated that she “absolutely [does] not” work together with alexis, the ece, and she believes this is a consequence of undefined ece roles and responsibilities. she says, “it’s still not clear. the role of the ece was never clearly defined from the start. it still hasn’t been defined.” in parallel teaching, the students are divided into two groups and each educator teaches a group. this parallel teaching approach involves alexis carrying out a plan that has been developed by chelsea. discussion a range of co-teaching practices was described in the interviews. however, most of these practices were not described as being a regular part of the daily routine. the interviews indicate that both teachers and eces believe the one teach/one assist approach is the most prevalent in their co-teaching practice. the ece is often responsible for behaviour guidance and supervision of play activities, while the teacher has the management role and defines the lesson plans. this differentiated role could translate into an alternative teaching canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 43 vol. 41 no. 1 approach where each educator has a distinct but equally valued role. however, at this stage of implementation, the alternative teaching approach is not prevalent. both teachers and eces were unclear about their roles in the classroom, and they described this as an important influence on their co-teaching partnership. many of the references throughout the interviews to a tag team approach were actually hypothetical (i.e., this is what they think they are supposed to do), but the concrete examples described illustrate the one teach/one assist approach as predominant. all of the classrooms we observed were organized with centre-based activities; therefore, there is the possibility for the station teaching approach to occur. however, the observations indicate that few of the educators use this type of classroom organization as an opportunity to circulate and divide teaching duties. the parallel teaching approach in this study was an example of how one team that was not functioning well was dividing their work so that they did not have to interact. however, in a high-functioning team, this approach could be effective, with each educator having responsibility for a distinct group of children while working on the same activities and being able to also work on separate tasks. similarly, the alternative teaching approach, where each teacher is responsible for distinct activities, would allow at least some of the planning to be done independently. although the efficacy of co-teaching has yet to be established in empirical studies of the model (hanover research, 2012), qualitative studies have identified factors that educators believe are helpful in co-teaching. these include administrative support, planning time, training, and compatibility of the team members (scruggs, mastropieri, & mcduffie, 2007). most educators in this study identified planning time and professional development as critical to the co-teaching model, with varying degrees of administrative support for their work. for both teachers and eces, the power dynamics in their relationships are important. in order for both educators to be contributors and for the children to be beneficiaries of the expertise of the educators, the relationship requires respect, communication, and, above all, parity in the partnership (scruggs, et al., 2007). for moss (2013), fostering the partners to first develop a shared understanding of the educational goals involved with the emphasis on how the child learns means that both eces and teachers would need to work to combine their respective areas of expertise and knowledge and develop pedagogical practices that are their own. there were indications in this study to suggest that additional partnership supports would help with continued growth in the partner relationships. the co-teaching model provides a framework to both teach educators alternate ways to work in partnerships, and to train teachers and eces in team approaches to support better implementation of the team teaching policy. the findings from this study indicate that there is potential to expand the repertoire of co-teaching practices between teachers and eces. the co-teaching practices explored in this study are adapted from special education models, but future research could explore models unique to kindergarten classrooms. in addition, future research should explore the effects of fdk educator partnerships on children’s experiences in the classroom. in summary, the following recommendations are made based on the findings of this study: 1. co-teaching educators should reflect on their roles and relationship to better understand how they function as a team. 2. co-teaching teams should expand their practice to include other co-teaching strategies. in this study, alternative teaching and parallel teaching were identified as potentially valuable approaches in kindergarten classrooms. 3. clarification and support for acceptable roles from administration would allow a broader interpretation of how these teams can work together. 4. planning time and professional development were identified by both teachers and eces as necessary for co-teaching. it is therefore recommended that these be addressed through administration and leadership. while the partnership between teachers and eces is relatively new, some teams have now been in place for approximately 5 years. now that the fdk implementation is complete, it is important to ensure ongoing support for these teams and to value the contribution of both educators. these recommendations provide opportunities to promote and improve the partnership and expand the ways in which these professionals are working together. acknowledgements: we would like to acknowledge angela lenis for her assistance in data analysis and preparation of this manuscript. canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 44 vol. 41 no. 1 references bauwens, j., hourcade, j. j., & friend, m. 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(2011). developing a provincial early childhood learning strategy. retrieved from: http://www. ed.gov.nl.ca/edu/earlychildhood/literature_review.pdf finn, j., & pannozzo, g. (2004). classroom organization and student behavior in kindergarten. journal of educational research, 98(2), 79–91. flanagan, k. (2011). pei early learning framework: relationships, environments, experiences. retrieved from: http://www.gov.pe.ca/ eecd/eecd_eyfrwrk_full.pdf friend, m., & cook, l. (2010). interactions: collaboration skills for school professionals. old tappan, nj: pearson education. hanover research. (2012). the effectiveness of the co-teaching model: literature review. washington, dc: author. janus, m., duku, e., & schell, a. (2012). the full-day kindergarten early learning program final report. hamilton, on: offord centre for child studies, mcmaster university. kluczniok, k., & roβbach, h. (2014). conceptions of educational quality for kindergartens. z erziehungswiss, 17, 145–158. moss, p. (ed.) (2013). early childhood and compulsory education: reconceptualising the relationship. abingdon, england: routledge. murawski, w. w., & swanson, h. l. (2001). a meta-analysis of co-teaching research: where are the data? remedial and special education, 22(5), 258–267. ontario college of early childhood educators. (2014). history of the college. retrieved from: https://www.college-ece.ca/en/aboutus/ pages/history-.aspx ontario college of teachers. (2014). the ethical standards for the teaching profession. retrieved from: http://www.oct.ca/-/media/pdf/ standards poster/standards_flyer_e.pdf ontario ministry of education. (2010a). full-day kindergarten: who is working in the classroom—complementary skills. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/kindergarten/whoisworkingintheclassroom.html ontario ministry of education. (2010b). the full-day early learning kindergarten program (draft version) retrieved from: https://www. edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten_english_june3.pdf pascal, c. (2009). with our best future in mind: implementing early learning in ontario. toronto, on: queen’s printers of ontario. payler, j. k., & georgeson, j. (2013). personal action potency: early years practitioners participating in interprofessional practice in canadian children articles from research spring/printemps 2016 45 vol. 41 no. 1 early years settings. international journal of early years education, 21(1), 39–55. rose, j. (2011). dilemmas of inter-professional collaboration: can they be resolved? children & society, 25(2), 151–163. ryan, t., & date, g. (2014). reforming ontario early learning: a review. education 3–13: international journal of primary, elementary, and early years education, 42(1), 101–115. scruggs, t. e., mastropieri, m. a., & mcduffie, k. a. (2007). co-teaching in inclusive classrooms: a meta-synthesis of qualitative research. exceptional children, 73(4), 392–416. vanderlee, m., youmans, s., peters, r., & easterbrook, j. (2012). final report: evaluation of the implementation of the ontario full-day early learning kindergarten program. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca walsh, j. m. (2012). co-teaching as a school system wide strategy for continuous improvement. preventing school failure: alternative education for children and youth, 56(1), 29–36. warburton, w. p., warburton, r. n., & hertzman, c. (2012). does full-day kindergarten help kids? canadian public policy, 38(4), 591–603. june 2022 92 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research speculative child figures at the end of the (white) world emily ashton emily ashton (she/her) is an assistant professor of early childhood education in the faculty of education at the university of regina. emily situates her work in the interdisciplinary field of early childhood studies. as such, she is able to draw on speculative fiction, black studies, environmental humanities, and critical feminist theory to think through ideas related to children, childhoods, and climate futurities. email: emily.ashton@uregina.ca an important collaboration of environmental humanities scholars names the anthropocene “a science-fiction concept” that “pulls us out of familiar space and time to view our predicaments as if they belonged to a distant land … as if we were explorers from the far distant future” (swanson et al., 2015, p. 149). chair of the anthropocene working group jan zalasiewicz (2008) travels millions of years into the future in the earth after us to raise concerns about anthropogenic climate change now. in this remote future, alien scientists return to earth and piece together a story of what happened through the fossilized evidence of human impact—something that will only be discernible in a layer of stratigraphic rock many human lifetimes from now. from these brief examples, we can begin to appreciate how the anthropocene invites a speculative thought experiment that engages the future by describing the present and not stopping there. i consider this invitation alongside ruha benjamin’s (2016) description of speculative fiction as apportioning “windows into alternative realities, even if it is just a glimpse, to challenge ever-present narratives of inevitability” (p. 19). the future is not yet written in stone. while some scholars link the anthropocene to the speculative, it is an area outside of traditional academia where i think the relation is strongest. contemporary speculative fiction abounds with imaginaries of climate futurities. this is especially noticeable in the deluge of postapocalyptic films that imagine not whether the end of the world is imminent but how exactly it will play out (colebrook, 2017). these catastrophe stories of climate disaster form a key part of the “public pedagogy of the anthropocene” (sheldon, 2016, p. 150). the typical plotline involves a white, cisgendered, able-bodied male hero narrowly averting planetary disaster through some feat of human ingenuity and techno-fix. the apocalypse in such stories is an opportunity to build a new world, only what happens is usually more of the same world “centered on white male power fantasies in some way” (hurley & jemisin, 2018, p. 470). however, not all postapocalyptic texts follow these trends. many black and indigenous writers are storying otherwise worlds where the systems, subjectivities, and relationships that are tantamount for survival only faintly resemble westernized humanistic values (e.g., dillon, 2012; dimaline, 2017; jemisin, 2015; okorafor, 2011). these are speculative engenderings of not this, as in a refusal of present arrangements, not yet, as in what might be to come, and what if, as in generative possibilities for rethinking the present. many of these speculative stories feature a child figure as the main protagonist. in some ways this is familiar the child-future join is pervasive in childhood studies and popular culture. instead of disavowing the relation, i consider what might be generated if we “stay with the trouble” of its cocomposition in the making of worlds. to do so, i turn to a zombie child named melanie from the girl with all the gifts to grapple with how the end of the world might not be a cause for mourning, how fiery landscapes can allow for species regeneration, and how viruses might incite counternarratives of community amid contagion. key words: child figures; speculative fiction; antiblackness; apocalypse; survival; virus; regeneration; fire june 2022 93 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research territory for the child figure. a dominant image of the child has long been “a redemptive agent ensuring futurity” (sellers, 2013, p. 71). this image also reflects rebekah sheldon’s (2016) noticing, “why, when we reach out to grasp the future of the planet, do we find ourselves instead clutching the child?” (p. vii). the child-future join has been problematized in childhood studies (e.g., barnsley, 2010; kraftl, 2020; taylor, 2017), including how “children of color are not fetishized in the ways white children are in hopeful imaginations of the future” (joo, 2018, p. 5).1 nevertheless, just like the kind of postapocalyptic blockbusters alluded to above, it is “not sufficient to renounce or denounce the child” because the child figure continues to do important work in the making of worlds (sheldon, 2016, p. 21). instead, we might “stay with the trouble” (haraway, 2016) of the child-future relation and see what emerges when the speculative is engaged “as a mode of inquiry” to think-with challenges of contemporary childhoods in anthropogenically damaged worlds (kupferman & gibbons, 2019). in this article, i turn to melanie from the speculative novel and film titled the girl with all the gifts (hereafter gifts) to engage with urgent problems of the present (carey, 2014; mccarthy & carey, 2016). melanie is a zombie child called a “hungry,” who, unlike the prototypical zombie, is both conscious and caring. nevertheless, melanie and her kin-kind are imprisoned and experimented on because their bodies might hold a cure for the pandemic. following an overview of gifts in the next section, i structure the remainder of the article by way of three overlapping considerations. first, i explore how the end of the world for melanie is the end of the racialized and militarized systems of oppression that did her violence (ziyad, 2017b). melanie invites me to consider a series of questions about the end of the world: for whom might the end of the world not be a cause for mourning (wilderson, 2015)? what if the end of the world is a renunciation of anti-blackness and “settler futurity” (tuck & yang, 2012)? what possibilities emerge when “refusal and resistance” are the child figure’s response to saving the world (hartman, 2016, p. 166)? second, the end of the world in gifts also happens to be a world melanie sets on fire. as such, i aim to think with the potentiality of fire to both destroy and regenerate worlds (tsing, 2015). what kind of “piracy future” (taylor, 2020) is possible for melanie and her kin?2 third, as a figure of both child and virus, melanie troubles divisions of life/nonlife, immunity/exceptionality, and innocence/responsibility that govern the present and are put under increasing pressure by the anthropocene (povinelli, 2016). melanie and the pathogen exist in a symbiotic relationship wherein each needs the other to thrive. this seems particularly prescient given the contemporary moment. how might the child-hungries and the pathogen generate possibilities for the kinds of “viral pedagogies fit for these times of covid-19” (flynn, 2020)? i end by offering a final provocation about how speculative fiction might expand our imaginaries of survival in the anthropocene. melanie’s gifts for the most part gifts plots along like any other postapocalyptic zombie film, that is, until the very end. the setting is a world much like this one, london specifically, in the near future. a mysterious fungus has infected nearly everyone on earth, turning them into mindless, flesh-eating zombies. the few remaining humans— mostly female scientists and military men—have gathered on an armoured base where the scientists among them search for a cure. everyone who comes into direct contact with the pathogen becomes a zombie, except for a mysterious group of children who were born to infected mothers. melanie and these other “second-gen” hungries have retained the ability to think and feel. they attend school and are learning to read, compute sums, and write imaginative stories. however, they are also locked in cells at night and have their heads, arms, and legs strapped to chairs when outside solitary confinement. if these child-hungries smell or touch humans they transform into ravenous, instinctual zombies just like the others (there is a blocker ointment that humans smother on their skin to prevent this transformation). they are kept captive because their biology holds the possibility of a vaccine. the research process, however, entails dissecting their bodies in ways they cannot survive. the day melanie is taken for experimentation, a large horde of hungries attacks the base, allowing her to break free from the operating table. dr. june 2022 94 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research caroline caldwell, miss justineau, the sergeant, and a handful of soldiers manage to escape with melanie in tow. the debate about whether or not the child-hungries are human or monster continues throughout the duration of both the novel and the film. never is it considered that there are possibilities of existence outside this constructed opposition. if there is any lingering doubt about the child-hungries’ species status, it is because they outwardly resemble any other young child most of the time. in spite of their appearance, however, the sergeant is keen to remind his colleagues that “not everyone who looks human is human” (carey, 2014, p. 29). the publicity posters for the movie feature melanie wearing a full-faced, clear muzzle type of mask, which the survivors insist she wear for their protection once they flee the invaded base. this mask serves as a persistent reminder of melanie’s nonhuman status. as such, melanie’s “form remains identifiably human, but recognizably monstrous” which is a tactic of “making killable” in contemporary culture (gergen et al., 2018, p. 11). the lead scientist in charge, caldwell, takes a hard-line approach to making killable but disguises it behind the neutrality of science. caldwell exhorts, “the subjects aren’t human; they’re hungries. high-functioning hungries” (carey, 2014, p. 80). anaesthetic is not used for the medical dissections because caldwell does not believe the child-hungries have the physiological capacity to feel pain. for caldwell this is a clear indication “that the subjects’ ontological status is to some extent in doubt” (p. 80). her view is that “the moment of death”—meaning zombification in this context and not metabolic death—“is the moment when the pathogen crosses the blood– brain barrier. what’s left, though its heart may beat, and though it speaks … is not the host” (p. 63). the species battle line is thus drawn between human and fungus, despite their coexistence in the child-hungries. the difference between the firstand second-gen hungries is that their bodies have formed a symbiotic relationship with the pathogen—the fungus and the child body collaborate to survive. melanie and the fungus have found ways to work together, not always in equal or nonviolent ways, but not always in conflictual ones either. child and fungus are a practice of “becoming with” that challenges discourses of bio-ontological purity that delimit figurations of being human / human beings (haraway, 2008). on this note, the last conversation melanie has with caldwell is telling. melanie asks, “we’re alive?” and caldwell responds, “yes. you’re alive” (mccarthy & carey, 2016, 1:36:05). the admission of aliveness from caldwell does not mean she thinks the child-hungries should be exempt from the scientific experiments that end their lives. one can be alive—can be life—without being human, which is why the ability to feel pain is important to keep in mind, especially with regards to anti-blackness and the delimitation of who counts as human. in the transition from page to screen a few characters in gifts “racebend,” meaning the characters’ race changes as the medium does (racebending.com, 2011). this includes the two principal characters of melanie and justineau. their race is reversed in the film: melanie (played by sennia nanua) is black and justineau (gemma arterton) is white. typically, racebending involves casting decisions that have a “discriminatory impact on an underrepresented cultural community and actors from that community” (para. 2). i write typically because, at least in the case of melanie, the change makes gifts something more than a traditional zombie story. novel and screenplay writer m. r. carey repeats in interviews that the casting choices were race-neutral, meaning that the parts went to the best actors for the job (reddit ama & carey, 2016; weisberger, 2017). carey insists that race is inconsequential. i disagree. in the first chapter of the novel are multiple racialized descriptions of the two protagonists. on the first page, melanie is described as “ten years old, and she has skin like a princess in a fairy tale; skin as white as snow. so she knows that when she grows up she’ll be beautiful” (carey, 2014, p. 10). this phrase is loaded with racialized tropes that i think matter a great deal. i sincerely doubt the child-hungries are afforded the movie-going privileges of disney consumption on the military base, yet white-princess power still somehow becomes a point of self and societal worth in a zombie story. a few pages later is a description of justineau from melanie’s point of view: “miss justineau’s face stands out anyway because it’s such a wonderful, wonderful colour. it’s dark brown, like the wood june 2022 95 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of the trees … or like the coffee that miss justineau pours out of her flask” (p. 23). this metaphoric description is how carey alerts the reader to justineau’s blackness without ever having to write out any racially explicit terms. the up-front textual position of both these racialized descriptions—whether positive or negative—conveys to me at least some significance. my stance is that race and racebending, especially in the film, are pivotal to the story’s overall impact. after the military base is attacked, the humans who escape must rely on melanie to guide them undetected through the hordes of hungries in the city centre. while out collecting food for her captors, melanie makes two important discoveries. the first is that fungal seed pods that house the pathogen have grown to cover one of london’s highest and most phallic-shaped buildings. the second discovery is a group of feral child-hungries much like her, only they have not yet learned to speak. returning to the temporary shelter, melanie learns that if the seed pods were to open then the pathogen would become airborne and infect all remaining humans. after some careful thought, melanie decides that she does not want or need to die to save a few remaining humans who have treated her as nonhuman, instrumental other. to quote a particularly powerful moment, melanie says to caldwell: “why should it be us who die for you?” (mccarthy & carey, 2016, 1:36:10). melanie then leaves the lab and sets ablaze the fungal tower of spores. the fire opens the seed pods thus effectively ending the world, or, more carefully stated, ending a world. as the pods burn and the fungal spores take flight, melanie has one last conversation with the sergeant, who has been injured nearby. the sergeant wails, “it’s over. it’s all over.” melanie responds, “it’s not over. it’s just not yours anymore” (mccarthy & carey, 2016, 1:41:05). the end of the (white) world melanie chooses to destroy the world instead of sacrificing herself and her hungry-kin to it. in doing so, she brings possibilities for a new world into existence. hari ziyad (2017b) shares their surprise and delight at the ending: because i am so used to humanity being granted a sanctity it does not deserve, i fully expected melanie … to sacrifice herself for her human captors…. when juxtaposed with the argument put forth by some afro-pessimists that humanity is reliant upon the subjection and enslavement of black people, melanie’s refusal of humanity is in clear contrast to what we are taught about black people’s possibilities. we, the living dead in america (for what else but death is a life that doesn’t #matter?) are told that we can only try (and always fail) to become more human or sacrifice ourselves and our communities for the continuation of human society. (para. 9) instead of a limited form of inclusion in a white-supremacist-militaristic-capitalist-humancentric society, melanie sets in motion a more “liveable world” by “fac[ing] up to the outrage of human exceptionalism” (haraway, 2008, p. 106) and delivering a deadly blow. the liveable world for the child-hungries has to be the end of the humanexceptional world; otherwise, they will remain hunted specimens for a potential cure. if the humans were to find an antidote, all indications suggest that the child-hungries would be eliminated once and for all. they would be of no more use. the humans never considered the coexistence of humans and hungries as a viable option. joy james (2013) offers the black rebel cyborg as a figure that, drawing on franz fanon, “sets out to change the order of the world” (p. 65). to be a black rebel cyborg means to no longer seek inclusion in the white supremacist state. the black rebel cyborg “relinquishes the unachievable goal: striving for a socially recognized humanity” (vargas & james, 2013, p. 200). this was one of the lessons melanie learns. for much of the film, she longs to be accepted by her captors—to be counted as human just like them. in ultimately refusing to sacrifice herself and her hungry kin, melanie comes to understand her captors as a figure of “settler/master(human)” that is never going to be otherwise given the current arrangements of power (wilderson, 2010). in setting fire to the world, june 2022 96 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research melanie comes to “refuse blackness-as-victimization and reconstitute blackness-as-resistance” (james, 2013, p. 68). this refusal adds a layer to sheldon’s (2016) proposal about a slide in the dominant image of the child that has coemerged with the anthropocene: a shift from the one who is protected to the one doing the saving. rather than saving the world, however, melanie generates another option—she refuses, resists, and destroys. tiffany lethabo king (2019) writes about “grammars of suffering” that violently and perpetually unmake black and indigenous lives in the making and sustaining of the human. the human “as an exclusive category demands an outside and requires the death of indigenous and black people” (p. 20). the human is because black and indigenous are not. melanie is able to refuse this grammar and flip it—suffering is not her end story. she repudiates the outside. melanie ends up potentiating a world that, unlike this world, does not require black death in order to exist. melanie puts in motion an end of the world as an end to “humanity as whiteness,” as ziyad (2017a) phrases it, meaning that the end of the world for melanie is the end of the scientific and militaristic systems of oppression that did her violence and that elevated the human above all other forms of existence (p. 143). the end of the world is not the end of life in gifts but its refiguration—it is a regenerative reworlding. kathryn yusoff (2016) argues that the dominant subject emerging from the anthropocene discussion is “a mythic anthropos as geologic world-maker/destroyer of worlds” (p. 5). yusoff ’s figuration understands the human as wielding damaging yet generative force. the use of mythic further alludes to the anthropos as a “genre” of man rather than the human itself (wynter, 2003). when sylvia wynter (2003) writes of “overrepresentation of man as the human” (p. 260), she has a particular referent in mind. in generalized terms, the figure of man is white, colonial, anti-black, capitalist, heterosexist, and techno-arrogant, much like the protagonists of the save-the-world films that i described earlier. while i am quick to criticize the damage man has done to this world, melanie puts a shudder into my singular condemnation of destruction. elizabeth povinelli (2013) insists that potentiation and extinguishment go hand in hand, so what needs to be destroyed in order for the child-hungries to become free? is it possible to create a world without racism, capitalism, sexism, ableism, militarism, and whiteness if this world is not first destroyed (imarisha & maree, 2015)? melanie incites a series of events in which human and planetary extinction do not parallel each other. as i discuss in later sections, the end of man is not the end of the planet or its other-than-human earthbound existents. i am not promoting gifts as some sort of manual for revolution. i share it as a thought experiment. i am not advocating for the genocide of humans—any humans. for me, gifts is not about there being no humans in this world, but it is about humans as an exceptional species and about the structures and institutions of systemic oppression that keep whiteness at the top by way of rendering others inhuman, nonhuman, less-than-human, notquite-human, or any other arrangement that maintains white supremacy as the hierarchical referent (weheliye, 2014). an articulation i am leaning on here is the vision proposed by the black lives matter global network: “we fight for our collective liberation because we are clear that until black people are free, no one is free” (as cited in morrison, 2016, para. 11). this is, of course, much different than #alllivesmatter or some similar white fragility fabrication, but it nevertheless points to how liberation is a collective undertaking. melanie rearranges the world in ways in which man is no longer omnipotent; she is free and so are her fellow child-hungries. in ending the human exceptional world of whiteness, not only does melanie achieve freedom from incarceration and experimentation but so do her kin-kind and some other existents as well. regeneration in the ruins in my reading, gifts subverts the postapocalyptic blockbuster trope in which the destruction of a major city— typically london or new york—equivocates the end of the world. these global centres of capital stand as june 2022 97 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research “synecdoches for humanity” (colebrook, 2019, p. 265). claire colebrook (2019) writes that “when such ‘worlds’ end they depict a life without urbanity, global media, and consumerism as the last of days” (p. 265). in such scenarios, the “end of capitalism is the end of the world” (p. 265). a related interpretive frame that i want to engage is how a “privileged place” of capitalistic excess becomes a fiery “shadow place” (taylor, 2020), or, as i will further explain, gifts illustrates how the distinction between the two place-based imaginaries no longer holds as much weight. instead, the end of capitalism and its related systems in gifts allows for regeneration of multispecies worlds. the fire melanie sets not only releases the pathogen from the seed pods but clears landscapes overdetermined by humans, institutions, and industry. the aerial views that close out the film reveal a nonhuman world reviving. as such, gifts provides visuals of what alan weisman’s (2007) nonfiction bestseller the world without us might look like. weisman’s text is a scientifically based thought experiment where, once there are no longer humans, then grass will poke up through pavement, vines will cover skyscrapers, tunnels will flood, fungus will flourish, and forests will replenish. every building will eventually have the highly sought-after rooftop garden.3 gifts’ fadeout, wide-panned camera shots of a hungry-filled london cityscape show greenery already taking back space in abandoned streets and concrete structures. these images happen to be actual drone footage of the “ghost town of pripyat” near chernobyl—a literalization of weisman’s speculative nonfiction experimentation (imdb, 2016). in alliances in the anthropocene, christine eriksen and susan ballard (2020) map interrelations of people, plants, and fire under conditions of climate crisis. one story they tell is of the red forest near the chernobyl exclusion zone (cez). this is one of the world’s most contaminated areas and humans have long abandoned the place. the bulk of radioactivity is concentrated in the soil, and pine forests have been planted to absorb the nuclear chemicals. the 30-square-kilometre area is now over 70% forest (wendle, 2016). radiation contamination has made adaptation and mutation normal course for the plants and animals that still live there: certain plants grow differently, some birds grow tumours, and several species of small animals no longer grow babies. however, many larger animals have found refuge in the cez, including moose, deer, beavers, and wolves. without humans around to hunt, build, or clear-cut, the przewalski horse has come back from near extinction and much flora and fauna has flourished (wendle, 2016). eriksen and ballard (2020) note that “surreal as this increase in biodiversity may seem, the chernobyl disaster has created what science fiction author and environmentalist bruce sterling calls an ‘involuntary park’—previously inhabited areas that have ‘lost their value for technological instrumentalism’” (pp. 187–188). capitalism and its humans have little place in this radioactive wasteland, and the result has been booming density rates for many nonhuman species. another conceptualization of worlds displaced from capitalistic centres is val plumwood’s (2008) notion of “shadow places.” finding inspiration in plumwood’s writings, affrica taylor (2020) picks up this concept to tell stories about care and commitment for “blasted places” (kirksey et al., 2013). her stories involve first-hand engagements with the bushfires near her home in australia and a road trip to the athabasca tar sands in canada. for the most part, shadow places are physical sites that remain out of sight and out of mind for those who live in capitalist comfort. shadow places are the lands and communities most severely impacted by anthropogenic climate change, exploitative capitalism, and extractive settler colonialism. according to plumwood (2008), shadow places are “the multiple disregarded places of economic and ecological support” (p. 139). yet, while they may be overlooked, sacrificed, and ignored, shadow places are everywhere: “these places are not outside ourselves, but implicated in the very constitution of our embodied, habitual and social lives” (shadow places network, n.d.). shadow places also make privileged places possible. taylor (2020), however, challenges any strict separating off of privileged places and shadow places. she puts forth that anthropocene-related events like mass bushfires have made the division impossible to maintain. the anthropocene is a “tipping point” in “privileged-sacrificial place relations,” even as those communities least june 2022 98 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research responsible for anthropogenic climate change and capitalist exploitation continue to be most negatively affected. in evoking the interconnectedness of place, people, and fire, taylor suggests that the “sacrificial order of carboniferous capitalism seems to be on the rebound.” previously privileged places are increasingly vulnerable to the very forces that were manipulated, extracted, and otherwise outsourced to sacrificial places in the first place. nowhere, and no one, is immune anymore. this year alone, fire has ravaged australia, siberia, the west coast of the united states, and even the arctic circle: “wild, feral and fossil-fuelled, fire lights up the globe” (pyne, 2019, para. 1). this reality leads taylor (2020) to conclude, “our piracy future is now.” with worlds on fire, taylor claims that we have no choice but to abandon the “progress fiction” of human exceptionalism and human insularity from other species and elements. fire demonstrates that “human life is just as vulnerable and tenuous as other life; the fire doesn’t care.” welcome to the pyrocene (pyne, 2015). anna tsing (2015) writes of disturbance as “a change in environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in an ecosystem” (p. 16). mass wildfires are a prime example, as was seen speculatively in gifts and materially in taylor’s stories. disturbance is not inherently negative for tsing either, as it “can renew ecologies as well as destroy them” and, importantly, open “the terrain for transformative encounters, making new landscape assemblages possible” (p. 160). taking gifts seriously, as i have endeavoured here, calls for recognition of symbiotic becomings that transform human and pathogen into hungry, and of new landscapes that potentiate in the ruins of white supremacy. furthermore, disturbance is a problem of perspective in tsing’s formulation, “a matter of point of view” (p. 160). from the point of view of the humans and the scientific, militaristic industrial complex that supported them, the fiery disturbance in gifts was world ending. for melanie, the hungries, the pathogen, and other nonhuman species, the fire was world beginning. the “power of fire” is “life-threatening and life-giving” (eriksen & ballard, 2020, p. 8). as such, “whether a disturbance is bearable or unbearable is a question worked out through what follows it: the reformation of assemblages” (p. 160). this is where gifts does not go—which assemblages endure are unwritten and its audience must speculate on what might be possible in the fiery aftermath. the chernobyl disaster, on the other hand, was a mass disturbance whose effects have not been equally distributed or subsisted. over the last 30 years, the reformation of assemblages in that landscape has brought together forests, plants, and animals in unexpected formations. from the point of view of many humans, the abandoned buildings, businesses, cars, and homes in the cez fits tsing’s noticing of people collapsing disturbance into damage. on the other hand, ecologists understand disturbance as “not always bad—and not always human” (tsing, p. 16). even though they inherit and inhabit a world of radioactive decay, some species in the cez have not only survived but are thriving. community, contagion, and coronavirus while melanie may appear to commit an act of solitary heroism when she sets the seed pod tower ablaze, her each movement and thought depends on a synergetic relation with the pathogen. the melanie-pathogen relation helps me appreciate taylor’s (2013) assertion “that no one stands or acts alone, that all human lives are inextricably enmeshed with others (human and more-than-human) and that all human actions are implicated with and have implication for others (including nonhuman others)” (p. 117). this is especially evident today in consideration of the ravage wrought by the coronavirus, including how marginalized communities have been further disadvantaged and disproportionally infected/affected. covid-19 makes clear that humans are not the only actors on the stage and that survival is difficult, necessary, and never enough (shotwell, 2020). as a mass disturbance, perhaps covid-19 will force us to abandon “the illusion of immunity” (taylor, 2020) once and for all. in this section, i want to linger with the enmeshment of human and virus. all humans, despite purity imaginaries, are part virus—it has always been in our dna (tsing, 2015, p. 143). “everyone carries a history of contamination,” tsing insists, and “purity is not an option” (p. 27). the virus is both “natural and manufactured … alive but incapable of reproduction on [its] june 2022 99 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research own” (vint, 2013, p. 139). the virus is entangled with other species; it needs an other to endure. povinelli (2016) theorizes the virus as a figure of geontology that disrupts and confuses the antagonism of life versus nonlife amplified by the anthropocene.4 for povinelli, the virus is not definable by either term because each uses the other to extend itself. the preeminent pop culture formation of the virus is the zombie, which povinelli summarizes as “life turned to nonlife and transformed into a new kind of species war—the aggressive rotting undead against the last redoubt of life (p. 16).5 to this, gifts adds a complex layer as melanie is not in a state of either existential or corporeal decomposition but is reenlivened through an imaginary i see take form in ashleigh wade’s (2017) theorizing of viral blackness. wade proposes a “theory of world making through viral blackness” (p. 34) that challenges associations of the virus solely with the spread of harmful pathogens. instead, wade figures virality as the transmission of “generative products, such as political movements” like #blacklivesmatter (p. 34). in today’s anti-black and settler colonial world, wade points out, “containment is extremely important for maintaining control, but the viral cannot be contained” (p. 35). the viral moves, it spreads, and it mutates. andrew baldwin (2016) argues that “the guarantee of white supremacy lies in its capacity to contain the excess” (p. 84), and since viral blackness exists as something constantly shape-shifting, it has “world-making capacities” that are in excess of repossession (wade, 2017, p. 38). despite scientific and militaristic efforts in gifts, neither the childhungries nor the pathogen can be fully controlled. thought with current events, this is not meant to suggest that that a viral pandemic is a desirable way to challenge current power structures and distributions of humanness, or that those humans typically associated with the virus automatically achieve liberation. to be the virus, povinelli (2016) explains, is to always be “under attack” (p. 19). for me, the pathogen in gifts is especially intriguing as a figure of contagion because it interrupts the colonizing cycle of virality as something inherently malicious or oppressive. melanie and the pathogen need each other in a relational equation not set on conquest. additionally, wade (2017) importantly moves the figure of the virus from individualized bodies to collective ones. with the protests that followed michael brown’s murder in ferguson as her case study, wade traces how viral blackness moved from online spaces to the streets and back and forth again and again. viral blackness configures community in ways supportive of the viral as a “deterritorializing mode of subversion to white supremacist systems” (p. 36). i read this notion into pricilla wald’s (2008) work on contagion, which reframes the virus as “not inherently about killing but rather about changing” (p. 139). this perspective understands the virus as an embodiment and enactment of “group belonging” (p. 139). the main focus of wald’s (2008) work on contagion is unpacking the taken-for-granted literariness of the “outbreak narrative,” which includes attention to its rhetorical devices and storytelling strategies in the scientific press, news articles, and blockbuster films. wald notes a dominant pattern whereby “conventions of horror and myth” reduce the complexities of pathogenic emergence to “an apocalyptic battle between heroic scientists and the hybrids who embody the threat” (p. 257). the outbreak narrative follows a predictable pattern that includes identifying the virus, naming the disease, outing its carriers, tracing its travel routes, developing prophylactics, and curing the disease and dis-ease. what starts as an “epidemiological horror stor[y]” of human versus pathogen ends as a “timeless and ritualized story of renewal in which humanity is reaffirmed as it is redeemed by science” (p. 260). not all pandemics fit this narrative structure, however, especially epidemics that do not have a cure and/or cannot be easily contained. in these cases, for example sars and hiv/aids, responsibility gets recirculated from “science to society” (wald, 2008, p. 255).6 the dramatic structure of the outbreak narrative is replaying with covid-19: trump repeatedly calling it the china virus, claims of the virus being produced and released from a wuhan lab, the animalization of suspected consumers of bat soup, the global race for a marketable vaccine, increased anti-asian racism, and disproportionate mortality rates in black, indigenous, and poor communities—this is a horror story in real time. june 2022 100 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as documented earlier, gifts has the lab, scientists, and hybridity of the outbreak narrative but also challenges many of the conventions outlined by wald, especially the triumphalism of science. nevertheless, it is from science that part of gifts’ horror emerges. the scientific story of the ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus provides a realistic, scientific frame in which the speculative story in gifts grounds itself. known colloquially as the zombie-ant fungus, ophiocordyceps unilateralis takes over the central nervous system of bullet ants in tropical rainforests, causing the ants to leave their colony, bite down in a “death grip” on a leaf, which induces paralysis, and then sprout fungal stem-like spores from their exoskeleton (hill, 2013). in gifts this real-life fungus has found a way to jump the species barrier, which makes it new yet still familiar (recall the “making killable” discussion). melanie and her hungry friends have similarly broken the species line: both fungus and child have mutated—are mutants. while the child-hungries are pathologized, they are also protected because they are necessary for a cure. like ziyad cited earlier, my film-spectatorship training led me to assume that science would triumph, and humanity would defeat the zombie threat. i fully expected a vaccine to be forthcoming. wald (2008) cites this form of anticipatory confidence as a means of “sanction[ing] the status quo” so that “social existence” does not have to be significantly rearranged (p. 268). both the anthropocene discussion and the outbreak narrative pull on “the promise and authority of science in the heroic service of a threatened ‘humanity’” (p. 257). this is where gifts makes another impact: the status quo is challenged, science fails to provide a solution, humanity does not survive, and a serious refiguration of global existence and existents is set in motion. in charting tropes of contagion narratives, wald reveals a history of racism, xenophobia, and cruelty directed to those figured as strangers. coinciding with an increased alarm about outsiders is a search for something or someone to blame. this is palpable with covid-19 also. sandra hyde (interviewed by neale mcdevitt) voices that “in times of uncertainty” it is “common for people to place blame elsewhere, and to blame people who are different from them, or that they read as different” (mcdevitt, 2020, para. 6). calling covid-19 the china virus is to misleadingly attribute blame to a place and people—it is not as if viruses know or are governed by borders. secretary-general of the united nations antonio guterres (2020) recently released a video recognizing that “the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering” toward the asian community, and he pleads for governments to “act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate.” guterres flips the inflationary language of contagion for social justice purposes: racism is the disease and community is the cure. in response to the uprisings following the murder of george floyd by police, roxane gay (2020) reflects: “eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. we will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy” (para. 22). in another response piece, filmmaker george clooney calls anti-black racism “our pandemic. it infects all of us, and in 400 years we’ve yet to find a vaccine” (para. 8). i am sympathetic to these arguments, and i recognize that the people just cited are differently positioned in the discussion, but i am nevertheless troubled by the equivocation. does racism need euphemisms? racism is not a virus you can catch if someone sneezes, or, in the cringe-worthy sound bite of prime minister justin trudeau, “speaks moistly” (cbc kids news, 2020). i also wonder if disease provides a cover of innocence: can i be accountable for racism if i am sick with it? racism and covid-19 intersect when it comes to mortality rates, treatment availability, prophylactic affordability, social distance accessibility, essential workers, and a host of other issues. while this tangent may seem a diversion from my main argument, my point is that while there are now covid vaccines and related treatments, neither a shot nor a pill will do anything to end racism. that requires a different sort of collective intervention altogether. with these concerns expressed, i am still not willing to completely shut out the generative possibilities of thinking with the virus and contagion. in making apparent the narrative organization of pandemic performances, wald (2008) highlights shared links between communicable, communication, and community, which could be used june 2022 101 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research to “evoke a profound sense of social inter-connection” (p. 12) instead of racialized and sexualized fears and stigmatizations that protect an idealized humanity. neither disease, sickness, nor infection were the original associations with the term contagion. wald points out that contagion literally means “to touch together” and it first “referred to the circulation of ideas and attitudes”; for example, “revolutionary ideas were contagious” (p. 12). this connects again with wade’s (2017) theorizing of viral blackness that moves between virtual spaces and physical places in the constitution of resistant communities. there is a disruptive and transgressive potential inherent to the virus: the virus needs others to endure and ultimately relies on the others for its existence. contagion has similar qualities: transformative, fluid, hard to control, and disrespectful of boundaries. with contagion, human individualism and exceptionalism are challenged. for me, covid-19 isolation has fully and finally debunked any fantasy of self-reliance. to repeat something similar to what i wrote earlier, the coronavirus pandemic is not something i wish for as a driver of change. but covid-19 is here, and how we engage with the virus and each other will have long-lasting consequences. tsing (2015) expresses that we are undoubtably “contaminated by our encounters; they change who we are as we make way for others. as contamination changes world-making projects, mutual worlds—and new directions—may emerge” (p. 27). what might be possible if we grab onto the notion of “contamination as collaboration” in ways that remake community and care for those humans and nonhumans most vulnerable (tsing, 2015, p. 27)? what tentative “alliances in the anthropocene” might allow for “collaborative survival in precarious times” (tsing, 2015, p. 2)? how can these relationships be cultivated in ways that respect difference, diversity, and incommensurably? speculative survival the contaminated collaborations that tsing (2015) theorizes move beyond survival imaginaries defined by “conquest and expansion” (p. 27). survival must be collaborative; survival is never enough; “survival pending revolution” (alkebulan, 2012). “survival should be our starting point, always, but we deserve so much more,” offers alexis shotwell (2020) in a recent blog post about covid-19 and its unequally distributed impacts (para. 9). in this article, i have tried to spotlight how gifts gestures toward what otherwise survival might look, feel, and be like. as explained, this otherwise is not an innocent undertaking in gifts and involves a world on fire. thinking-with melanie and the pathogen has been an effort to grapple with anti-blackness, questions of the human, damaged landscapes, and the coronavirus in this world while staying open to not this, not yet, and what if of speculative possibilities. again, this effort is not without its dangers. while i have tried to highlight melanie’s becoming-with pathogen in ways that trouble the image of the child as an innocent, individualistic hero figure, i am aware of slippages. my worry is that conceiving of melanie as a “brave survivalist” (brown, 2017, para. 4) places undue responsibility on a black female child figure to end the (white) world and ensure the survival of her kin in a new world (cecire, 2015; nyong’o, 2015). a concern emerging from this work that requires sustained pedagogical engagement is how we might think with speculative child figures at the end of the world in ways that grapple with the kinds of conditions, resources, and imaginaries required to capacitate lives actually capable of flourishing in this one. as the covid-19 pandemic ebbs and flows there is a heightened interest in speculative texts about the end of the world (chakravorty, 2020, schwetz, 2020; tennant, 2020). anishinaabe writer waubgeshig rice (as quoted in theriault, 2020) advises turning to indigenous writers for guidance, inspiration, and direction: many communities around the world have already endured apocalypse and they’ve rebuilt. they’ve found ways to start over and i think it’s comforting as well, and maybe a little hopeful, to think about what is possible on the other side…. so it is possible to rebuild. that’s why we need to look to indigenous people and their stories about the end of the world. (paras. 21 & 27) june 2022 102 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research to rebuild is to move beyond survival. it is to emerge from “blasted landscapes” stronger and more response-able than before (tsing, 2015, p. 3). i hope the takeaway from this article is not that speculative fiction (or figures) can “save us—but it might open our imaginations” (tsing, 2015, p. 19). what is most generative about speculative fiction, benjamin (2018) asserts, is its capacity to “experiment with different scenarios, trajectories, and reversals, elaborating new values and testing different possibilities for creating more just and equitable societies” (para. 31). this is an otherwise survival worth pursuing. endnotes 1 important work that troubles the racialized constitution of childhood includes robin bernstein’s (2011) historical work in racial innocence that maps the division of childhood into white and black tracks in the early 19th century. at that time, “black children were libeled as unfeeling, noninnocent nonchildren” (p. 33). additionally, christina sharpe (2016) articulates how “black children are not seen as children” (p. 89). black children are either animalized, objectivized, sexualized, and/or adultized; they are positioned “outside of the category of the child” (p. 89; see also dancy, 2014; dumas & nelson, 2016; ladson-billings, 2011). for a critique of how reproductive futurism distinguishes white childhoods from indigenous childhoods, see andrea smith’s (2010) challenge to lee edelman’s no future. 2 citations marked taylor, 2020 denote a keynote presentation by affrica taylor at the “responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods” colloquium. while no page numbers can be provided for direct quotations, a video of the keynote is now available and can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/embed/iz4kwfygbge 3 audra mitchell and aadita chaudhury (2020) importantly complexify weisman’s contribution to end-of-the-world discourse. they read in his popular texts a racialized nostalgia for “white possessions, including empire, territory, and the biological and cultural capital of whiteness” (p. 314). 4 according to povinelli (2016), geontology is a contemporary mode of governance that breaks with a biopolitical assumption that power works via tactics of making live and letting die and is instead concerned with maintaining the division of life from nonlife. this perceived rift is under increased pressure in the anthropocene, which is to say that geontology is not so much new as newly visible. the three figures povinelli finds illustrative of this modality of power are the desert, the animist, and the virus. for povinelli (2014) these figures are not escapes from power but symptoms of it. povinelli’s three figures “represent the nodal points in contemporary struggles to make sense of a current destabilization of this foundation division” between life and nonlife, including the anthropocene defining proclamation of humans as a geologic force (povinelli, 2016, p. 16). 5 while the pathogen in gifts is fungal rather than viral, that detail is not impactful to the analytical import of my argument that follows. what could be called into question is that the fungus is a living organism and the virus is indeterminate in this way of thinking (e.g., needs a host to replicate), but that is an argument for another time. 6 without a cure or scientist hero, the outbreak narrative pulls on racialized and sexualized imaginaries not based on scientific fact. wald (2008) gives an example from the early days of hiv/aids diagnosis when a persistent rumour circulated, with no scientific basis but big anti-black racist appeal, that the species barrier was broken when africans raped monkeys (p. 260). when scientific success is not forthcoming, the outbreak narrative names and shames particular figures as patient zeros or “superspreaders” (p. 4). the history of hiv/aids again provides a representative case. gaëtan dugas, a canadian flight attendant, was wrongly assumed to be patient zero for many years. in the 1980s the center for disease control (cdc) in california tracked the sexual partners of gay and bisexual men diagnosed with hiv. along the way dugas’ medical chart was misread—the letter o for “out-of-california” was mistaken for the number zero, and patient zero was born. june 2022 103 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alkebulan, p. 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(2017b, july 19). the girl with all the gifts and black girls destroying the world to save themselves. black youth project. http:// blackyouthproject.com/girl–gifts–black–girls–destroying–world–save/ winter/hiver 2016 18 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research ashley do nascimento, ma, child and youth studies from brock university, conducted ethnographical research in rio de janeiro, brazil, in 2012. concerned with child and youth care (cyc) work relationships as they relate to racialized and segregated practices, specifically within the slums of rio, do nascimento focuses on cyc work outcomes and legitimacy. her research looks to the practices and role of cyc work in young individuals’ lives and uses critical theories, specifically postcolonial theories, to ask critical questions regarding the relations between those who execute services (the cyc worker) and those who receive services (the child and/or youth/family). email: ashley.nascimento78@gmail.com rethinking common practice in child and youth care ashley do nascimento it was a hot, sunny afternoon in rio de janeiro in 2013, after a less than productive english class with a group of brazilian children at the community centre where i was doing ethnographic research as a child and youth care (cyc) worker. i sat at a table with a group of other volunteers and two coordinators, feeling frustrated and exhausted. we had sent all the children back into the streets because they were shouting over each other, getting up from their seats, and ignoring instructions. we decided that we needed to develop rules for the community centre to maintain some kind of order. as we discussed the behaviour of the children and our expectations for them, we began to outline a list of rules that would have to be followed by every child who attended the community centre. it was also decided that if the rules were not followed, a child would be punished by losing privileges (e.g., the use of pens, markers, balls, books, etc.), and as a final step, they would be asked to leave. lastly, we agreed that if the children as a group were not behaving according to the rules, they would all be sent home early and the community centre would close for the day. during the development of the rules, we discussed keeping the children safe and the need for them to show us respect by listening to us. we described some of the children as “not knowing better.” we used words like “vulnerable” and “immature.” later, the list of rules with their consequences was presented to the children as nonnegotiable, and the children were told they needed to accept the rules or deal with the consequences. while we felt we were acting in the children’s best interests, what we did not see at the time was how we were reinforcing dominant discourses of childhood. we repeatedly viewed the children as dependent, innocent, naïve, and at risk. our attempt to take care of the children through disciplinary actions (i.e., rules and punishments) felt safe, practical, and responsible. yet our framing of the children as needing protection is precisely the problem this articles seeks to address. mark smith (2003) warns child and youth care (cyc) workers about getting caught up in the protection discourse, arguing that such notions of care draw heavily from developmental psychology. like burman (2008), smith suggests that cyc is rooted in developmental notions of children as immature, unknowing, reliant, and less than adults. these dominant ways of classifying young people condense children’s varying experiences and social contexts, creating a one-size-fits-all model that does little to create real connections between children/youth and adults. while developmental psychology informs the way cyc workers view children and, in turn, how we practice cyc, it universalizes, and thus trivializes, circumstances that instead must be more deeply and contextually understood (bernhard, 1995; burman, 2008; pacini-ketchabaw, 2011; pacini-ketchabaw, white, & armstrong de almeida, 2006; watkins & shulman, 2008). this paper takes a critical approach to the predominantly western way that cyc is practiced. using my experience of cyc work in a slum in rio de janeiro, brazil, i challenge the common perception of children based on the developmental frameworks of innocence and dependence. i argue that this approach neglects to consider context and, in fact, works to reproduce inequalities among children this paper deconstructs the dominant western discourses of childhood innocence and dependence to better understand the importance of cultural contexts in child and youth care (cyc) work. it challenges dominant discourses as they relate to work in cyc settings cross-culturally. exploring her personal experiences doing cyc work in a favela (slum) in rio de janeiro, brazil, the author argues that cyc workers must be flexible and reflexive about the realities of the people with whom they work, or risk reifying the very issues they seek to address. in short, cyc workers can become part of the problem if they are not deeply aware of the ways they might reproduce these dominant discourses. keywords: childhood, discourse, child and youth care work, western, brazil, favela winter/hiver 2016 19 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the global south. further, i argue that a developmental framework has specific consequences for those doing cyc work in brazil (gharabaghi, 2010). if taken as truths, western discourses of innocence and dependency work to further produce inequalities by reflecting a western superiority and way of viewing childhood that does not work for families in the favelas (slums). in fact, cyc programs set up to reflect such frameworks will inevitability collapse, because they will fail to deliver the services necessary to make change in these young peoples’ lives. before exploring my experiences further, i briefly outline the history of childhood as a way of explaining the framework upon which cyc is premised, followed by a complication of the developmentally based approach to western cyc work. i also explore the favela as a specific cultural reference point within brazil in order to more deeply contextualize favela childhoods—particularly childhoods in the neighbourhood where i worked. this context informs my recommendations for cyc practices. i then reflect on my experiences through the field notes i took while working in brazil, and situate them within the dominant western and developmentally framed discourses of childhood as a time of innocence and dependence, arguing that using these frameworks overlook certain aspects of favela life, and therefore when applied by cyc workers, underserve the children whom they are attempting to help. i then suggest how these frameworks, when used in cyc work environments cross-culturally, can create a barrier between worker and child or youth that produces questionable cyc work outcomes. in conclusion, i offer some thoughts that speak to the implications that can arise in cyc settings in which workers are not culturally sensitive to the populations with whom they work. the “new”-er sociology of childhood and its implications for cyc work there are a variety of ways to approach how childhood is conceptualized both historically and currently. historically, in the “old” sociology of childhood, children were understood in relation to socialization and, in turn, to their development (burman, 2008; matthews, 2007). children were never fully viewed as being complete and competent beings, but rather were viewed as individuals who were incomplete and in the process of becoming an adult. matthews (2007) argues that this perspective constricts the ways in which researchers understand children and childhood. he claims that research tends to be solely focused on the child in relation to their dependency on adults who control the ways in which children are socialized. james (2004) proposes a new paradigm for childhood where the experiences of childhood and adolescence do not consist of one universal form constructed through biology, but rather are mediated through culture and through social experiences. as gittins (2004) points out, these social experiences suggest that certain social groups in relation to a historical period have defined the term childhood. childhood has therefore been mischaracterized as being “equal, universal and in some ways, fundamentally identical” (gittins, 2004, p. 35). these assumptions have implications for policy, education, and other public provisions because practices are then framed with assumptions that children should act “like this” or behave “like that” (moss & petrie, 2002; pacini-ketchabaw, 2011). burman (2008) also deconstructs understandings of how childhood has been conceptualized in different cultures and through time, with influences such as religion and scientific discovery causing major shifts in how childhood has been understood. she posits that developmental psychology has been a major contributor to the understandings of childhood, and therefore has had a huge influence on childcare practices. in deconstructing developmental psychology, burman (2008) takes child labour in third-world countries as an example of how failing to understand context and culture can be troublesome in practices. she claims that “the issue here is to proscribe exploitative and dangerous work practices rather than pathologise third world cultures and families for failing to uphold modern western notions of childhood as a period of dependency, play and irresponsibility” (p. 93). while looking at child labour (as an example), she warns against the “abnormaling” of another country’s practices because they do not reflect western understandings of children. instead, she argues that context and cultures are critical components to how childhood should be viewed and how children should be treated. james (2004) states that through seeing childhood as something that is mediated by culture, childhood became “open to interpretation, and thus variation, rather than a simple and unproblematic description of a universal developmental phase” (p. 28). these varying understandings of what childhood should be are often difficult to understand because countries have different “legal, social, and cultural expectations about children” (james, 2004, p. 28) and their competencies, abilities, rights, and health. seeing childhood through stringent legal, social, and political boundaries can limit and prevent a child from being seen for who they really are, and can negatively influence services that are available to them. specifically within cyc work, workers then frame their practices with children and youth around these boundaries, creating potentially negative consequences for the groups they are working with. winter/hiver 2016 20 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research western notions of childhood western discourses tend to value and emphasize innocence and dependency by privileging the idea that children should not be in adult roles. there is a clear distinction between adults and children that works to create dichotomies between the two classifications, placing more emphasis on adults as beings in the present with responsibilities (gharabaghi, 2008; krueger, 2000). children are often left out of adult spheres and adult roles, and when they are included, the roles they assume are often looked down on. for a child to develop into an adult, the child is seen as innocent and must be treated as such, in order to protect them from potentially compromising their development into adulthood. children as dependent also fall under the developmental trajectory where dependency relates to innocence and children need to be under constant supervision and guidance by an older, mature adult (krueger, 2000). therefore, when other cultures depict children in adult roles, they are often “othered” and seen as being abnormal (gharabaghi, 2008). pacini-ketchabaw (2011) claims that “the study and treatment of developmental psychology in cyc need to be contextually specific, critically embraced, and not necessarily treated as one of the foundations of the field” (p. 20). developmentally based understandings of children can reflect a superior race paradigm that often privileges white, western, middle-class values around how children should act and be treated (l. t. smith, 2012). bernhard (1995) cautions against these developmental understandings when she demonstrates how educators struggle to cope with the rapidly changing culturally diverse groups of students. she warns of the dangers of educating these students using developmental theories that have been based on white, middle-class western children. specifically, within the slum in rio de janeiro where i did my research, these ideas around how children should behave and how they should be treated worked to constrict and limit my interactions with children and understandings of childhood within the favelas. instead of working for the children, culturally biased misunderstandings of who these children really are and their reality as children in/from the favela further hinder the children’s and their families’ potential in the favela and in society. they work to keep those individuals in a state of dependence on social services, further distancing them from equal citizenship. the dependence on services is further implicated when the services provided neglect to consider how greater historical, social, and political discourses frame their practices. in my experience, these misunderstandings demanded a better understanding of the favela. locating the favela the favela has historically been linked with the social stigmas around poverty, dirtiness, instability, danger, and diseases that cast its inhabitants as “scum” (richardson & skott-myhre, 2012). it has been reproduced within popular culture, especially within brazilian films such as tropa de elite (elite squad), and sonhos roubados (stolen dreams), to represent an area of chaos, garbage, drugs, and weapons, with streets lined with prostitutes and other social outcasts. richardson and skott-myhre (2012) look at spaces like the favela, or hood, and argue that bourdieu’s theory of habitus relates to the occupied spaces in the favela that have been stigmatized by society but are really only understood and appreciated by their own inhabitants. the favela then becomes a “dwelling place” (robin cooper, 2005, as cited in richardson & skott-myhre, 2012) only having value for those who physically embody it and manoeuvre through its space. when one thinks of a habitus, the authors claim, we often are only able to associate within our own habitus, therefore giving it status. thus hoods, or favelas, only have one main characteristic, which is its “marginalized relationship…with the mainstream” (richardson & skott-myhre, 2012, p. 13). in situating the hood historically, richardson and skott-myhre look to deleuze and guattari’s notion of catastrophe, claiming that catastrophe occurs when there is mistrust created between individuals within a society. they then claim that hoods are a result of the catastrophes of colonialism and slavery and their links to postcolonial settler colonies. it is important to understand this “social birth” of the hood in relation to the favela as it relates to the spaces of the favela in which programs and services are focused and practiced. the favelados (people inhibiting the favelas), and the favelas themselves “were depicted as a problem to be solved, a roadblock on the way to inclusion” (do nascimento, skott-myhre, & skott-myhre, 2015, p. 264). often then programs are created within spaces where notions of individuals in need of liberation are the focus, and not created in spaces that work themselves to produce liberation (richardson & skott-myhre, 2012). taking on adult roles: challenging innocence and dependence i question the notion of childhood as understood through the developmental frameworks of dependence and innocence in relation to the children living within the favelas. i argue that because of the various life circumstances that children are faced with when living in the favelas, children are often found assuming adult roles, contesting what it means to be innocent and challenging ideas around dependency. winter/hiver 2016 21 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research i encountered numerous instances while doing my fieldwork where children were left alone. children as young as 3 were found by themselves wandering the streets, and 5-year-olds were found taking care of their younger siblings. at age 6, they might be at the bakery buying buns or at the pharmacy buying medication for their families. below i provide four different examples from my work in the field that challenge notions of childhood innocence and dependency. after these examples, an analysis of these discourses relative to how they inform cyc services is explored. alone in the streets one morning in may 2013, i was going for a run around the neighbourhood. i remember passing a young boy who couldn’t have been any older than 6 or 7 who was walking alone. i noticed that he had a young baby in a carrier attached to the front of his body, and i immediately began trying to think of ways to justify the young boy’s situation. maybe the baby was his brother and his parents had no other choice but to leave him with the young boy because they had to work. or maybe his mother was ill and his father was dead and so it was the young boy’s responsibility to look after his mother and the baby. either way, i had an uneasy feeling about the situation, so i began to question the way i felt. were the dominant western discourses so instilled in me that the only way i was able to understand and make sense of the world around me was to try and justify the situation through various made-up circumstances that could somehow be used to justify (in my mind) what i had seen? why was it that i even felt uncomfortable with the situation in the first place? was it not appropriate for a boy to be walking by himself in the streets with a baby strapped to his front? all of the questions seemed to attack the dominant, western part of me that was so used to relating to and seeing children from developmental perspectives as beings in need of protection and guidance from adults. was the notion of childhood innocence so firmly framed within a western developmental discourse that it overlooked various ways of looking at innocence socially or culturally? would not seeing children as innocent and dependent be of particular value and importance within brazilian favela cultures, acting like a survival mechanism for young individuals? perhaps in favelas, being innocent would be a disadvantage for those children because they would be less likely to make it in the streets? perhaps lacking innocence was key to understanding the ways in which society marginalizes certain groups of individuals and reproduces inequalities? therefore, to lack innocence might be of great importance to children and their families growing up in the favelas. who is dependent on whom? on another day in june 2013, i was at the community centre where a meeting was being held with a group of residents who were involved in a project run through world vision. the lecture focused on the dynamics of family relationships within the favela. as i sat back observing the talk, there was a group of four toddlers, all under the age of 2, whose parents and guardians were sitting in listening to the talk. i noticed that these young children, who could barely walk or talk, were left alone to play. there were no volunteers from the community centre or other adults left to watch over them and watch their every move. i found this to be interesting. i continued to watch as the infants poked each other and sucked on each other’s soothers until one of the fathers approached me. his daughter, who at the time was 12, had not been spending much time at the community centre because her mother had given birth to a baby girl. she had been given more responsibility to help her mother at home and was often left to take of the infant and her other sisters. the father began talking with me about how children from the favelas were different, and many knew more than adults. he told me that because of the greater life circumstances for those living within the favelas, children were often forced at a young age to take on more responsibilities, often taking on adult roles at ages as young as 5 or 6. what i found to be interesting regarding our conversation was that even though he mentioned that it was due to life circumstances that children had to take on adult roles, he did not seem to feel pity for these children. it seems that this is a common reflection from people living within the favelas. a child taking on adults’ roles was just the way it was, and it was an important and necessary aspect to living within the favelas. but what types of consequences do these notions have for individuals providing child and youth care? if children do not depend on adults as much as we think they do, then what does this mean for child and youth care workers? what type of “care” should be provided, if it is needed at all? if these children at ages 7 and 8 began to take care of their younger siblings, then what does this mean in terms of the care we should be providing as workers? sex, and drugs, and death: oh my! there were many times when i was involved in conversations with the children of the community where we discussed topics that are generally considered inappropriate for children from a developmental perspective. the conversations would certainly not be considered appropriate in the various cyc contexts that i worked in back home in canada. while i never explicitly talked about sex, some of our conversations centred around ideas of sex and sexuality. children at times would talk about baile funk (more specifically, the proibidão winter/hiver 2016 22 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research subgenre) and the associated dance routine. baile funk is a traditional brazilian favela-cultured music and dance. proibidão, more characteristic in the favelas, has very sexual lyrics. proibidão is a specific subgenre of funk music that relates to the gang culture as reflected in that area. proibidão, which translates to prohibited in english, has lyrics that reflect gang culture, including control, power, violence, drugs, and crime, and it often degrades women, in contrast to other forms of funk music, or funk carioca, which can be seen as more pleasant and often reflects the lived realties and struggles of those growing up within the favela. on weekends, the drug lords of the favelas would often hold baile funk parties that went late into the early morning of the following day. these parties were often considered to be dangerous because men with guns would control the influx of people, and there were often many drugs being sold. the way you danced to the music was to suggest that you were having sex—women would be bent over from the hips and men would close the gap with their waist fitting tightly behind them. children were found in the favelas singing along to the newest funk songs that would play from their cellphones, or they were found dancing with their peers, often making up their own versions of the dance moves. although many of the children themselves did not discuss ever going to a baile funk, there were two children who continually showed up late to the saturday morning classes at the community centre. they said that they were late every saturday morning because on friday nights, they had to go with their mother, either to the baile funk or to the bar, and would not return home until late the next morning. in other conversations, the children and i talked about drugs and the drug dealers. these children knew who the drug dealers were, how they worked, and where the drug addicts could be found. the children often told me stories about people being killed, either as a direct result of an issue with a drug dealer or because they got caught up in the crossfire between the police and the drug dealers when the police would enter into the favela. children told me stories about their parents or other close relatives who were killed directly by the drug dealers or who were injured indirectly by bullets from the police who were looking for the drug dealers. other children were directly related to some of the drug dealers, who were either their cousins or brothers. asking the questions that need to be asked how could these children who were faced with so much responsibility and who had to be aware of the ways in which their community functioned be treated as innocent and dependent? in regard to their survival within the favela, wouldn’t being innocent and dependent put them more at risk? how would being innocent and dependent serve the families in which adults had to work multiple jobs to provide for their children? in the favela, where its relationship to mainstream society places the people who live there in complicated political, social, and economic relationships, i argue that the aforementioned developmental discourses located within western frameworks serve as ways of “othering” and complicating childhood in relation to cyc work. in the incidences above—the young boy who had the baby strapped to his front, the conversation regarding a girl taking care of her younger siblings, and the various conversations i had with the young individuals in the favela regarding drugs, sex, and death—all seemed in some way to contradict the notions of childhood innocence and dependence. the young boy with the baby is seen to be challenging the developmental aspects of innocence and need for protection because his parents had perhaps relied on him to look after his younger sibling, which also demonstrates his independent behaviour. the young girl having to take on more responsibilities to look after her younger siblings also challenges notions of dependency and innocence. in north america, ideas of innocence and childhood play can closely be linked (burman, 2008). therefore, one could question the reality of the young girl who had no choice but to assume more responsibility around the house by doing laundry, cooking, and looking after younger siblings. in situations where young people need to be street smart, need to be aware of how life in the favela works, and need to resort to creative ways to occupy their time and manage family responsibilities, how are we to conceptualize their childhoods? perhaps the ways we actualize understandings of innocence are more important than the definition of innocence itself, which means that culture and context become critical pieces in how the discourse of innocence is understood in cyc practice. although being innocent and dependent in north america may serve children and their families well in relation to achieving the american dream and becoming competent adults, being innocent and dependent in the poorest areas of the global south (such as the favelas) actually works to further reproduce inequalities. if it was valued for children to be innocent and dependent, then these families in some of the poorest areas of the global south would need to arrange other ways to have care for their children who are currently left alone at home or in the streets, having to fend for themselves or look after their siblings. these families have no other choice but to work, oftentimes at multiple jobs, meaning that more social services would have to be created to help protect and look after their children. this would therefore further reproduce inequalities because dependence on these services would be increased, making it even more difficult for these individuals to become self-reliant through their own economic means. winter/hiver 2016 23 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research this also becomes complicated when looking to notions of care as an outcome in cyc work. being a white, middle-class female from the west forced me to reflect on my own bourgeois assumptions of care in order to have a more relational approach with the children. child and youth care services: providing help or reproducing inequalities? fewster (2006) argues that within the process or trajectory of development, children are seen as innocent beings in need of shelter from outside corruptions and who therefore rely on adults. as they manoeuvre their way into adulthood, they rely on adults in order to develop their personal autonomy and self-efficacy, and it is not until adulthood that they are viewed as being independent, capable beings. fewster (2006), however, questions how children can develop autonomy when they rely on adults who enforce certain values and beliefs about how they should be raised. how is one able to develop self-efficacy when adults “actively encourage a dependency-based view of the self through contrived strategies of approval for behavioral performances” (fewster, 2006, p. 2)? therefore, the question is, how can children successfully become independent beings who develop self-efficacy and autonomy if children are relying and depending on adults (here in cyc settings) who reinforce and promote certain ways of being that do not line up with the realities of the children’s lives? more specifically, in areas where children’s life circumstances cannot support dependency, and where cyc workers reinforce the developmental discourses of innocence and dependence, how are these children supposed to rely on adults and their guardians to guide them? in other words, if cyc services practice and support method a to guide children and reject method b, while the families in the favelas support method b and reject method a, then the services risk reifying the very issues they seek to address. in getting caught up in the industry of protecting children instead of looking to the reality of how these individuals live, and without practicing their own self-awareness and positionality in the work they do, these workers, and therefore the services, will fail to provide what children need (fulcher, 2014; m. smith, 2003). in offering after-school help and framing success strictly in terms of educational outcomes, and in offering sports or art classes, cyc services get caught up in a need to protect these children and fail to look at the bigger picture of the structural and societal inequalities the children face. while i agree that these services better equip these children with protective factors to help them manoeuvre their ways through the heavily politically, socially, and economically charged world, i argue that cyc workers are only providing band-aid solutions to the larger problems when they fail to understand the reality of those with whom they work. these band-aid solutions appear to reflect colonial relationships where the individuals who provide the services (often white, middleclass individuals) reproduce dominant western practices via trajectories of care and protection, often to an individual who is of minority or lower class standing. therefore, the practices as noted above in relation to cyc work are contested as the workers become part of the problem and therefore provide a disservice to those individuals they are attempting to help. making a change in cyc practices mark smith (2003) notes the importance of a need to “put a stutter into dominant narratives of child care” (p. 1). because many cyc services get caught up in a desire to protect children, to not protect children, on the other hand, would suggest that those offering these services do not care about the child’s welfare. in his analysis of foucault, smith (2003) claims that “we need to ask questions of dominant discourses—to ‘problematise’ them or ‘make the familiar strange’—to challenge taken for granted assumptions by asking awkward questions of them” (p. 2). he argues, much like foucault, that discourses are powerful in the ways that they force us to think and engage with the world. he argues that “rather than question the discourse itself, what so often happens in organizations and at a wider social level, is that they retrench and seek answers in better science and greater logic” (m. smith, 2003, p. 2). this is problematic as organizations look to the science and logic of the west (l. t. smith, 2012) and continue to actively reproduce these discourses through their practices, further creating inequality and distancing themselves from the individuals whom they hope to support. conclusion it is important and in many ways necessary to disrupt normative ways of classifying childhood from mainly western, developmentally framed perspectives. as demonstrated, western ways of viewing children and childhood should be contested so that cyc practices privilege other cultural ways of being in order to avoid colonial practices. western ways of classifying childhood developmentally privilege certain ways of being or conceptualizing childhood that limit understandings of how specific cultural contexts enable or disable children’s capabilities. policies often reflect notions of children winter/hiver 2016 24 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research being innocent and dependent instead of seeing children as adult-like and challenging notions of innocence. these policies inform cyc practices, creating counterintuitive services that do not look to the reality of the groups they serve. as noted above, these services then only provide band-aid solutions that are framed in western notions of care and protection. similar to how zinga (2012) attempts to recentre practices to reflect indigeneity in cyc practices, and how pacini-ketchabaw (2007) pushes toward an ethics of resistance in cyc practices, i argue for the importance of retuning and restructuring practices in cyc work. if we look at shifting the ways in which we think about children’s abilities and look to some of the realities of children who grow up in different areas, we can modify and accommodate other ways of producing childhoods (gharabaghi, 2009). it is important to acknowledge and not dismiss other ways of being a child, and to challenge the dominant discourses of children and childhood that have been reproduced by white, middle-class, western standards. it is imperative that we, as cyc workers, begin to valorize other discourses to deconstruct the hegemonic ways of being a child, or of representing childhood. without doing this, an imperialistic view of how children should be raised will prevail, which will have further implications on policies and services offered to children and will further reproduce inequalities. it is therefore important when doing cross-cultural work that discourses not be taken out of context (gharabaghi, 2010). although dominant discourses serve a purpose contextually and can be used as a lens to view certain aspects of a given society, once removed from their context, the understandings of these discourses need to be reexamined. this reexamination of the understandings of previously implied discourses can often be uncomfortable. as fulcher (2014) states, “it’s one thing to acquire knowledge about race, culture and cross-cultural communication in preparation for practice, but cultural safety in direct practice with young people, family and extended family members involves learning hard lessons outside our personal comfort zones” (p. 5). in conclusion, without rethinking our practices in cyc work, we run the risk of becoming part of the problem as we reify the very issues we seek to address. it is not until we as cyc practitioners become more aware of our practices, take a step back from our commonplace understandings, and challenge our own assumptions that we will be able to truly work with children and youth, and not for them. references bernhard, j. (1995). child development, cultural diversity, and the professional training of early childhood educators. canadian journal of education, 20(4), 415–436. burman, e. (2008). deconstructing developmental psychology. london, england: routledge. do nascimento, a., skott-myhre, h. a., & skott-myhre, k. s. g. (2015). revolutionary entanglements: transversal mappings of disability in the favela. disability in the global south, 2(2), 620–631. retrieved from: https://disabilityglobalsouth.files. wordpress.com/2012/06/dgs-02-02-04.pdf fewster, g. (2006). a postscript from the edge. retrieved from: http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0506-fewster.html fulcher, l. c. (2014). noticing what others see. relational child and youth care practice, 27(2), 46–51. gharabaghi, k. (2008). the relationship trap. retrieved from: http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cyconline-nov2008-gharabaghi.html gharabaghi, k. (2009). a little south africa for everyone. retrieved from: http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cyconline-dec2009gharabaghi.html gharabaghi, k. (2010). international cooperation in child and youth care practice. retrieved from: http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/ cyconline-mar2010-gharabaghi.html gittins, d. (2004). the historical construction of childhood. in m. j. kehily (ed.), an introduction to childhood studies (pp. 25–38). maidenhead, england: open university press. james, a. (2004). understanding childhood from an interdisciplinary perspective: problems and potentials. in p. b. pufall & r. p. unsworth (eds.), rethinking childhood (pp. 25–37). new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press. winter/hiver 2016 25 vol. 41 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research krueger, m. (2000). central themes in child and youth care. retrieved from: http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0100-krueger. html matthews, s. h. (2007). a window on the “new” sociology of childhood. sociology compass, 1(1), 332–334. doi: 10.1111/j.17519020.2007.00001.x moss, p., & petrie, p. (2002). from children’s services to children’s spaces: public policy, children, and childhood. new york, ny: routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2007). child care and multiculturalism: a site of governance marked by flexibility and openness. contemporary issues in early childhood, 8(3), 222–232. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2007.8.3.222 pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2011). rethinking developmental theories and child and youth care. in a. pence & j. white (eds.), child and youth care: critical perspectives on pedagogy, practice, and policy (pp. 19–32). vancouver, bc: ubc press. pacini-ketchabaw, v., white, j., & armstrong de almeida, a. e. (2006). racialization in early childhood: a critical analysis of discourses in policies. international journal of educational policy, research, and practice: reconceptualizing childhood studies, 7, 95–113. retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.847.2316&rep=rep1&type=pdf richardson, c., & skott-myhre, h. a. (eds.). (2012). habitus of the hood. chicago, il: intellect. smith, l. t. (2012). decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). london, england: zed books. smith, m. (2003). questioning “child protection”–1. retrieved from: http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-1103-smith.html watkins, m., & shulman, h. (2008). towards psychologies of liberation. london, england: palgrave macmillan. zinga, d. (2012). journeying with youth: re-centering indigeneity in child and youth care. child & youth services, 33(3–4), 258–280. doi: 10.1080/0145935x.2012.745779 spring/printemps 2017 48 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice briony taylor lives in vancouver and is in her second year of the ecce degree program at capilano university. email: briony. taylor@gmail.com toward reconciliation: what do the calls to action mean for early childhood education? briony taylor as a student and soon to be early childhood educator in british columbia, the act of reconciliation is on my mind. we, as settlers living on the traditional lands of aboriginal peoples11, may be a generation removed from acts of colonialism and cultural genocide, yet we live with the benefits of this shared history. my earlier education did not teach me to be aware of the degree to which these benefits have harmed aboriginal peoples, and it was only in my postsecondary studies that i began to become aware of it. i am learning about the atrocities committed against the aboriginal peoples of north america, specifically the residential schools of canada. at the same time, i am aware and recognize that most non-aboriginal people, myself included, will probably never be able to understand deeply the impact of having one’s land and culture stolen. as an early childhood educator, i want to be able to promote social justice in the classroom with colleagues, families, and children. what follows is my exploration of two sections in particular of the truth and reconciliation commission of canada’s (2015) calls to action and some of the ways that i have been learning to and hope to pursue reconciliation within the early childhood field. as mai nguyen (2011) writes, “early aboriginal childhood education is crucial in the development of self-actualization and self-worth for aboriginal youth” (p. 231). i believe we all have a role to play in reconciliation. background in 2008, the truth and reconciliation commission (trc) arose out of a mandate of the indian residential schools settlement agreement of 2007. in 2015, the trc put forth 94 calls to action “to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of canadian reconciliation (p. 1). call #12 speaks to early childhood education: “we call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for aboriginal families” (p. 2). the call is specifically directed toward multiple levels of government to develop the programs; however, as an engaged citizen and future educator working toward reconciliation, i feel that it is important for me to consider what culturally appropriate means. as a nonaboriginal educator, i will embrace this call in a number of ways. throughout my studies in early childhood education, an idea has been recurring. prior to studying ece, i would not have understood or been exposed to the idea of a pedagogy of listening, that is, listening to children with all of our senses (rinaldi, 2012). i realize that it is through relationships and dialogue with families and colleagues and a pedagogy of listening that i will work toward reconciliation in the space of early childhood education. in addition, the trc’s calls to action provide a framework for thinking about my work in british columbia. as i consider this extensive call to action, #12, i take inspiration from an earlier call to action, #10: 1 in this article, i use the term aboriginal peoples to refer to the indigenous peoples of canada in order to maintain language that is consistent with the truth and reconciliation commission of canada: calls to action. this article focuses on how the truth and reconciliation commission (trc) of canada’s calls to action pertain to early childhood education. the author, who is a student and soon to be educator, traces her understanding of reconciliation within early childhood spaces by considering the trc call to develop culturally appropriate aboriginal early childhood education programs. incorporating her recent learning, she explores curriculum, language, parents, community, and treaty relationships. she questions her own previously held assumptions around dominant discourses of success and reflects on new understandings of reconciliation gained in her program of study. keywords: truth and reconciliation commission; calls to action; indigenous/aboriginal early childhood education; british columbia spring/printemps 2017 49 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice 10. we call on the federal government to draft new aboriginal education legislation with the full participation and informed consent of aboriginal peoples. the new legislation would include a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles: i. providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation. ii. improving education attainment levels and success rates. iii. developing culturally appropriate curricula. iv. protecting the right to aboriginal languages, including the teaching of aboriginal languages as credit courses. v. enabling parental and community responsibility, control, and accountability, similar to what parents enjoy in public school systems. vi. enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children. vii. respecting and honouring treaty relationships. (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015, p. 2) while call #10 speaks to education at the kindergarten to grade 12 level, it would be beneficial to embrace some of its principles within early childhood education. in particular, there are four principles from call #10 that i will consider in relation to call #12. these principles are (iii) developing culturally appropriate curricula, (iv) protecting the right to aboriginal languages, (vi) enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children, and (vii) respecting and honouring treaty relationships. these principles align with the philosophy of british columbia’s early learning framework (government of british columbia, 2008). for example, the provincial framework, which i will be following as an early childhood educator, states: “as many aboriginal communities revitalize their languages, cultures, and traditions, the development of children’s cultural identity is considered a top priority in early learning” (p. 8). given the direction of these two documents, i want to be familiar with specific ways to pursue reconciliation. culturally appropriate curricula: child autonomy what do culturally appropriate aboriginal early childhood education programs look like? philosophically, it means we should endeavour to gain an understanding of an aboriginal view of childrearing. for example, muir and bohr (2014) explain that the aboriginal view of the child may be different from dominant western views of children, thus childrearing practices may be different. child autonomy is valued, as is a respectful attitude toward the child: “aboriginal children are openly recognized and respected as persons and are thus encouraged to make their own decisions about how they wish to explore their environment” (p. 70). children become independent by making their own decisions, a move that promotes democracy and engagement. a culturally appropriate curriculum needs to respect children and have a healthy level of child autonomy when it comes to teaching and learning. in this view of the child as capable, it is also important to recognize the child’s existing life experiences and knowledge. madeleine macivor (1995) writes: “one way to respect this personal power and autonomy is to recognize and honour the knowledge and skills children bring with them into the classroom. aboriginal students bring rich and varied experiences with them, and educators have been recommended to use this [background]” (p. 82). macivor’s statement leads me to think about a number of questions. how do we know what skills children bring with them? are we committed to a philosophy of attunement? that is, are we working in harmony with children? do we take enough time to get to know children? as i have been learning in my coursework and practicum, children construct knowledge together. the more variety in the knowledge base, the more children teach each other and teach us as educators. moreover, with an attitude of respect and humility, inviting families to participate will be a practical step toward building authentic relationships and deepening our understanding of what it means to honour the children’s knowledge and skills. spring/printemps 2017 50 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice culturally appropriate curricula: health and nutrition health and nutrition are important components of ece programs. provincial licensing requirements state that we must “ensure that each child has healthy food and drink according to the canada food guide” and “promote healthy eating and nutritional habits” (government of british columbia, 2007, sec. 48.1). in meeting the call to provide culturally relevant curricula, food is a significant component. many remote aboriginal communities face the struggle of food security. packed and highly processed foods are financially prohibitive, while on the other hand, traditional foods are seasonally available. by incorporating traditional foods into ece programs, elders and knowledge holders can share stories about traditional foods: elders enjoy teaching others about their food customs since their childhood memories about hunting or collecting, preparing and sharing foods with family usually remain vivid with tastes and smells and good feelings. these occasions often provide opportunities for also sharing songs that accompany berry picking or hunting, and stories of rituals and celebrations that marked a child’s growing up. (aboriginal head start association of british columbia, 2012, para. 5) i remember a time when i was a student volunteer at an inuit children’s centre. for many of the families, living in the south meant that northern foods were hard to find. since the centre was composed of such a large community of people, staff members were able to coordinate a community dinner of caribou, with blubber used for the qulliq, a traditional lamp. in british columbia, more information on traditional foods can be found online through the first nations health council. while it may be difficult to provide traditional foods like caribou in centres that are not near aboriginal communities, smaller, more easily accessible foods, such as berries or roots, can be prepared alongside families. when traditional foods are incorporated into the curriculum, it is important to consider the opportunities of evenings and weekends to bring families together to share in traditional meals. we may have to ask ourselves if our programs allow for such flexibility. and, if they do, are we comfortable forming reciprocal relationships? culturally appropriate curricula: artistic explorations my academic program of study places great value on the arts. in experiencing how a studio functions and catching glimpses of how the atelierista (an educator with background in the arts) is a vital part of an early childhood centre, i want art to be a vital part of my work and the life of the childcare centre in which i work. from a healing perspective, culturally relevant curricula could incorporate opportunities to use arts and crafts to engage children and their parents in a healing process. for example, the inspir=ed project in australia has taken this approach. australian educators hanckel and segal (2016) state that “arts activities have been widely documented in helping children deal with trauma” (p. 14). parents join together with their children in “painting, beeswax modeling, and creating with natural materials”; later, parents join with other parents to participate in group “basket weaving, simple doll making, knitting, crocheting, felting, and wood carving” (hanckel & segal, 2016, p. 14). parents learn new skills and become producers, rather than only consumers, of materials such as toys. in these circles parents come together to talk about their feelings and share their perspectives. in the canadian context, elders could join these healing circles, share their knowledge, and create a safe space for parents, educators, and the community as a whole to learn together, share stories of children’s competence, and heal from the legacy of residential schools and colonization. protecting the right to aboriginal languages the principle of protecting the right to aboriginal languages also supports trc call #12, the call for culturally appropriate ece programs. there are over sixty aboriginal languages in canada and dialects within languages. when aboriginal children are exposed to their heritage language, it helps in the formation of their identity and their connection to their land (ball, 2009). when possible, the teaching, learning, and speaking of aboriginal languages needs to be embraced so that children can be exposed to and exist in an environment that supports their aboriginal language. upholding this principle may present more challenges in regions where licensed educators with knowledge and comfort speaking their heritage language is rare. this is why community members are so important as partners in early childhood centres. as jessica ball (2009) argues, community members are “uniquely positioned to identify core features of language socialization, to understand the contexts of child development and care in the community and to offer insights to specialists, educators and investigators about the conditions, needs and goals of a family” (p. 41). in nonurban centres or places that are located near first nations communities, language nest programs are sometimes offered; these are early years childcare programs run entirely in the community’s aboriginal language. developmental psychology tells us that by the age of 3, “most children are putting together multiword sentences” (levine & munsch, 2014, p. 305). as educators, we need to make diligent efforts to support children’s right to be educated in their language. this efforts can include purchasing books, learning key words and phrases, and when possible, spring/printemps 2017 51 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice inviting elders and children’s family members to share stories in the children’s languages. the right to aboriginal languages means the right to transmit language from one generation to another. parents as participants enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children is a vital principle that supports the development of culturally appropriate ece programs (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015, p. 2). this important trc call to action is challenging for aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities alike. in working toward meeting this call, cultural compatibility theory is a valuable lens with which to view education. preston, cottrell, pelletier, and pearce (2011) write that central to cultural compatibility theory is the principle of congruence—the belief that when values and expectations of the classroom are harmonious with those of the school community, student participation and learning improves … [further,] when a child is immersed in an educational environment that is culturally compatible with the values of the community, learning prospects are improved. (p. 7) when i reflect on the idea of improving learning prospects, i caution myself to remember that this is not the same as what we think of as school success. after all, who gets to define school success? and how is it defined? how does it connect to success in life? in contrast to mainstream ideas of school success, learning prospects grow because what is learned is relevant to everyday lived experiences. in working toward reconciliation, centres should be inviting families to participate so that the values of the families are reflected in the environment in which the child learns and grows. moreover, it is important to acknowledge that aboriginal peoples highly value the extended family, while dominant discourses tend to value the nurture and attachment of a sole caregiver, primarily the mother, within the nuclear family. the extended family plays an active role in raising the child in aboriginal cultures; the community as a whole is responsive to the child (muir & bohr, 2014). it is important for educators to understand cultural differences as well as family diversity so that assumptions are not made about children, parents, and families. when the school or centre collaboratively engages with families to understand important family knowledge and teachings, we validate aboriginal truths and ways of knowing, and we move closer toward reconciliation. parents and inclusive education developmental psychology deeply influences early childhood development experts. this influence is seen in academic literature and in early childhood education policy. when educators are working with a team of specialists to support children with individual education plans, it is important that educators think critically about the assessments and interventions that are undertaken. in the report aboriginal early childhood development assessment: issues and insights in a cultural context written for the british columbia aboriginal child care society, educators are called to “support approaches that are more reflective of the traditions and values of aboriginal communities” and to value “cultural and linguistic flexibility, cultural competence, professional sensitivity and reflective practice, empowerment, and strengths based approaches” (bc regional innovation chair for aboriginal early childhood development, 2013, p. 25). to support my learning, i have been volunteering at a local preschool. one practice stands out: the way in which educators support children with special rights. without disclosing confidential details, the educators i have been working with shared with me the parents’ goals for their children. this has been very helpful in our work as a team and a community. as educators, we must recognize that families should have a greater involvement in these plans and that our western knowledge of development is only one way of approaching child development. moreover, when reading glenda macnaughton (2005), i learned that “it has been argued that in the early childhood field, child development knowledge has become a regime of truth in that it regulates and governs what is the appropriate or correct way to understand and organize young children” (p. 33). i am reminded that we must question our assumptions and prevent practices that have marginalized aboriginal children and families. by working in dialogue with families, we will gain understanding of their goals for their children. inviting community participation trc call to action #12 is a call to develop culturally appropriate ece programs. in addition to the principle of enabling parent participation, we should also invite and welcome community participation. as nguyen (2011) writes, “levels [of lower employability] can be attributed to the exclusion of aboriginals from the education policy process, beginning with its creation all the way to the implementation of education policy” (p. 244). it is detrimental to aboriginal communities when communities are not included as active spring/printemps 2017 52 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice participants in the ongoing development of culturally appropriate early childhood education. call #12 encourages educators in the field to invite communities to participate. and, when communities do participate, the call to educators is to humbly embrace the partnership. in accepting that our knowledge is partial, we employ a pedagogy of listening. carla rinaldi (2012) shares that “the task of those who educate is not only to allow … differences to be expressed but to make it possible for them to be negotiated and nurtured through exchanging and comparing ideas” (p. 237). centres are responsible to the community, thus the community should have some level of control over the centre and the centre should be accountable to the community. what this looks like may be different from location to location. on-reserve childcare centres may receive most of their input from the local first nation, while off-reserve or urban centres may receive a variety of input, including from the dominant cultural community and diverse groups of aboriginal peoples. one way of encouraging and moving toward culturally appropriate ece is to work toward inviting the community to have a presence in the childcare centre. the strengthening families initiative, based in illinois, runs parent cafés. an event is organized where parents lead discussions, learn from each other at various tables, and help one another wrestle with tough questions. jor’dan, wolf, and douglass (2012) write that these cafés “are led by parents, for parents, which is what makes them meaningful” (p. 21). an event like this could be used to invite community members to participate in the decision-making life of childcare centres in canada. cafés or other events could be held at the start of the year and throughout the year. different elders and community leaders could host the various tables. community members are the ones generating questions and answers and collectively supporting one another through dialogue. this is one possible way for local aboriginal communities to share responsibility, control, and accountability for culturally appropriate programs. respecting and honouring treaty relationships what does it mean to honour treaty relationships in early childhood education? as a starting point, settler canadians need to acknowledge that many aboriginal peoples have negotiated treaty relationships with the canadian government. a treaty is a formal, ratified agreement between nations. each treaty sets out “promises, obligations and benefits for both parties” (government of canada, 2010). sheila carrstewart (2001) writes of the importance of education as a treaty right: reflecting recent rulings of the supreme court of canada, the royal commission on aboriginal peoples recommended the recognition of education as a treaty right. furthermore, the royal commission stated first nations “want two things from education ... the skills they need to participate fully in the economy ... [along] with the knowledge of their languages and traditions necessary for cultural continuity” (rcap, 1996a, p. 82), a goal similar to what the chiefs and headmen believed they had negotiated as a treaty right to education. (p. 141) as educators, we need to recognize that education is a treaty right. we honour treaty relationships when we acknowledge this right. early childhood education centres may be located on lands with negotiated treaties, as much of eastern canada is, while other centres may be located on unceded traditional territories of local aboriginal peoples. we need to acknowledge the people and their lands. while education, including early childhood education, is regulated and provided to settler canadians by their provincial governments, we need to be aware that the federal government is obligated to provide education funding and programming, as well as other services, to aboriginal peoples. first nations negotiate nation-to-nation relationships with the federal government. educators who take seriously the care component of their field need to stay current with the culturally affirming programs, services, and initiatives that are offered by aboriginal organizations. for example, in british columbia, health services provided to first nations living on reserve are managed by the first nations health authority. becoming familiar with such services provides educators with a more holistic understanding of the early years and exposes them to diverse ways of knowing. conclusion the truth and reconciliation commission has put forth 94 calls to action to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of canadian reconciliation” (2015, p. 2). as a future early childhood educator, call #12 speaks to me personally and professionally. while i realize this call is directed toward four different governments, i also know that i have a role to play in supporting culturally appropriate ece programs. by adopting principles from call #10, i will be mindful of promoting culturally appropriate curricula, protecting the right to aboriginal languages, enabling parent participation, and respecting and honouring treaty relationships. cultural advisor shelley joseph from reconciliation canada, in her compelling keynote address to the capilano university community, told us that we all have a role to play in reconciliation and for many of us that means taking the time to listen to each other (s. spring/printemps 2017 53 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice joseph, keynote address, september 23, 2016). the truth and reconciliation commission’s calls to action are important to the early childhood education field as we seek to work in and toward culturally appropriate ece programs for children, families, communities, and educators. we must each listen to what these calls mean to us, both personally and professionally, and work together to move forward as a community toward reconciliation. references aboriginal head start association of british columbia. (2012). tips and tools for nutrition awareness. retrieved from: http://www. ahsabc.com/index.php/tips-tools/for-nutrition-awareness ball, j. (2009). aboriginal young children’s language development: promising practices and needs. canadian issues, winter, 37–43. bc regional innovation chair for aboriginal early childhood development. (2013). aboriginal early childhood development assessment: issues and insights in a cultural context. retrieved from: https://www2.viu.ca/chairaecd/documents/ childdevelopmentscreeningandassessment_2013.pdf carr-stewart, s. (2001). a treaty right to education. canadian journal of education, 26(2), 125–143. government of british columbia. (2007). child care licensing regulation. victoria, bc: queen’s printer. government of british columbia. (2008). british columbia early learning framework. victoria, bc: bc ministry of health, bc ministry of children and family development, & bc early learning advisory group. government of canada. (2010). treaties with aboriginal people in canada. retrieved from http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/ eng/1100100032291/1100100032292 hanckel, j., & segal, l. (2016). the inspire=ed project: a holistic early childhood program for enhancing parent-child well-being. childhood education, 92(1), 10–21. jor’dan, j. r., wolf, k. g., & douglass, a. (2012). increasing family engagement in early childhood programs. young children, 67(5), 18–23. levine, l. e., & munsch, j. (2014). child development: an active learning approach (2nd ed.). los angeles, ca: sage. macivor, m. (1995). redefining science education for aboriginal students. in m. battiste & j. barman (eds.), first nations education in canada: the circle unfolds (pp. 73–98). vancouver, bc: ubc press. macnaughton, g. (2005). doing foucault in early childhood studies: applying poststructural ideas. new york, ny: routledge. muir, n., & bohr, y. (2014). contemporary practice of traditional aboriginal child rearing: a review. first peoples child and family review, 9(1), 66–79. nguyen, m. (2011). closing the education gap: a case for aboriginal early childhood education in canada: a look at the aboriginal head start program. canadian journal of education, 34(3), 229–248. preston, j., cottrell, m., pelletier, t., & pearce, j. (2011). aboriginal early childhood education in canada: issues of context. journal of early childhood research, 10(1), 3–18. rinaldi, c. (2012). the pedagogy of listening: the listening perspective from reggio emilia. in c. edwards, l. gandini, & g. forman (eds.), the hundred languages of children (pp. 233–246). santa barbara, ca: praeger. truth and reconciliation commission of canada. (2015). truth and reconciliation commission of canada: calls to action. retrieved from: http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/file/2015/findings/calls_to_action_english2.pdf fall/automne 2017 42 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice ginger mullen has been delivering oral rhyme and storytelling programs for young children and their families for more than twenty years in libraries, schools, preschools, daycares, and community organizations. she leads professional development workshops independently and for the parent-child mother goose program™. she holds a master of arts in children’s literature from ubc, which has led to various teaching positions at ubc, mount royal university, and southern alberta institute of technology. email: ginger.mullen@shaw.ca more than words: using nursery rhymes and songs to support domains of child development ginger mullen coming to research traditional english nursery rhymes and songs, also known as mother goose rhymes, have long played a role in early childhood. from the medieval “baa black sheep” to today’s “the wheels on the bus,” the lives of young children have been enriched with a wealth of verse and song orally passed down through generations. my experiences with nursery rhymes are both academic and professional. i integrate them into my teaching practices at the postsecondary level. i have also delivered oral rhyme and storytelling programs for 20 years. my work in the field of early childhood education began at vancouver public library, where i led storytimes for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families. these storytimes usually included interactive rhymes as movement breaks. it was only when i started to facilitate programs with my mentor, jane cobb, that i began to understand the developmental benefits of “language play,” which refers to the oral tradition of stories and nursery rhymes, including songs, enjoyed between an adult and a child or group of children (cobb, 2007). language play forms the bedrock of the nationally recognized parent-child mother goose program™ (n.d.) that brings together parents, caregivers, and children to orally, and repeatedly, share nursery rhymes and stories. i am now a certified pcmg-p teacher-trainer, and i continue this type of work with community organizations in calgary, alberta, such as lead foundation and families matter, where i am fortunate to share my knowledge with parents, children, early childhood educators, and colleagues, including teachers, classroom aides, and therapists. this knowledge concerns the words and cadences/tunes of the rhymes and songs, as well as ways that language play can be used to engage children in various contexts. throughout the years that i have been leading various programs, i have used and adapted rhymes for different age groups to mitigate challenging situations, create emotional bonds, and promote children’s early language development. i am passionate about sharing my knowledge and experience with the professional and academic communities in the field of early childhood education. i hope that this article encourages caregivers and practitioners to effectively use rhymes to promote multiple areas of child development,1 such as motor skills and social skills. research according to the edi website, the early development instrument is a kindergarten teacher questionnaire developed in 2000 by dr. dan offord and dr. magdelana janus at mcmaster university that measures “children’s ability to meet age-appropriate developmental expectations in five general domains” (early development instrument, 2016b, para. 1). while the edi assesses children in the during her 20 years of work experience using traditional nursery rhymes (including songs) across a variety of early childhood education programs, the author has come to realize their versatility in supporting multiple domains of child development. she contextualizes specific rhymes within domains defined by the early development instrument: physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge, social competence, and emotional maturity. by discussing how rhymes can be practised effectively with children of different ages, she aims to highlight the developmental benefits of using them with children and to further promote their use among caregivers and practitioners. keywords: child development; early development instrument; nursery rhymes and songs; caregivers and practitioners fall/automne 2017 43 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice second half of kindergarten, when they are between five and six years, the domains are relevant during the years leading up to this time. the edi is used and discussed in this paper because it has been widely implemented across canada, except for nunavut, and the data are considered valid and reliable by educators, researchers, and administrators (early development instrument, 2016b). the edi categorizes childhood development into five areas: physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge, social competence, and emotional maturity. these domains are further divided into 26 subdomains (see table 1). table 1: early development instrument domains and subdomains edi domain subdomains physical health and well-being •fine and gross motor skills •adequate energy for classroom activities •independence in looking after own needs •daily living skills language and cognitive development •reading awareness •age-appropriate reading and writing skills •age-appropriate numeracy skills •ability to understand similarities and differences •ability to recite back specific pieces of information from memory communication and general knowledge •skills to communicate needs and wants in socially appropriate ways •symbolic use of language •storytelling •age-appropriate knowledge about life and the world around social competence •curiosity about the world •eagerness to try new experiences •knowledge of standards of acceptable public behaviour •ability to control own behaviour •appropriate respect for adult authority •cooperation with others •following rules •ability to play and work with other children emotional maturity •ability to think before acting •a balance between too fearful and too impulsive •an ability to deal with feelings at an ageappropriate level •empathetic response to other people’s feelings in alberta, canada, the most recent edi data published by the early development mapping project alberta (2014) reveals that only 46.4 percent of kindergarten children show appropriate development in all five domains. this troubling statistic underscores that parents and caregivers would benefit from support to further help their children thrive, such as relevant information and programs. research also shows that children learn well in environments “rich in language, joy, and playfulness” (makovichuk, hewes, lirette, & thomas, 2014, p. 105). nursery rhymes and songs can provide this environment as they have long existed as an interactive childhood experience. therefore, i argue that language play can easily serve as an effective medium to foster children’s development in the five domains discussed in the edi. in this paper, i focus on selected subdomains: fine and gross motor skills in physical health and well-being, age-appropriate reading and numeracy skills in language and cognitive development, storytelling and age-appropriate knowledge in communication and general knowledge, the ability to play/cooperate with others and follow rules in social competence, and the ability to deal with feelings at an age-appropriate level and empathetically respond to other people’s feelings in emotional maturity. first, i provide information fall/automne 2017 44 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice about how typically developing children learn the skill outlined in the each of the subdomains and why it is important, using the terms baby (birth to walking), toddler (walking to age 3), and preschooler (ages 3 to 5). i then offer a nursery rhyme that can be used to foster that skill. although these rhymes belong to the oral tradition, i provide useful sources with additional information. finally, in italics, i include suggestions to help readers—parents, caregivers, teachers, practitioners, therapists—visualize how to make effective and interactive uses of each rhyme with an individual child or group of children. physical health and well-being according to the edi, this category’s subdomains include “fine and gross motor skills, adequate energy levels for classroom activities, independence in looking after own needs, and daily living skills” (early development instrument, 2016a, “domains and subdomains,” para. 1). motor skills serve as an obvious point of entry into the relationship between nursery rhymes and child development because we can experientially gauge children’s acquisition of these abilities. we clearly observe when they begin to sit, crawl, walk, and run. we delight when they begin to point at objects, transfer objects from one hand to another, or colour with a crayon. gross motor skills refer to abilities required to control the large muscles of the body: sitting, rolling, crawling, walking, and running. action-oriented language play can support children’s development as they progress through different stages. during the reflexive stage, roughly birth to six months, children rely on their involuntary responses to stimuli, such as sucking and grasping (frost, wortham, & riefel, 2008). they cannot yet move with intention, but we can help their bodies learn and practise movements that they will soon perform by themselves. for example, babies begin to roll over from back to front on their own between three and five months of age (robinson, 2007), but we can use the following rhyme with them as soon as they are born: leg over leg, the dog went to dover. when he came to a style, whoops! he went over. (cobb, 2007, p .159) for this rhyme, lay your baby on her back. grab her legs and march them to the beat. at “whoops!” cross one leg over the other and gently turn her onto her stomach. then repeat the rhyme to help her roll back. this rhyme is also fun to use during a diaper change. the rudimentary stage of gross motor development, about six months to two years, sees children begin to intentionally control their movement. they learn to independently sit, reach, crawl, stand, and walk (frost et al., 2008). crawling is an important yet often underrecognized movement that begins when children are between seven and eight-and-a-half months (robinson, 2007). many people consider crawling simply as the precursor to walking, but it indeed serves several critical functions. for example, through this activity, children strengthen several muscle groups (abdomen, shoulders, hips) that aid movement and stability. this provides them with strong wrists and sensory input to their hands that will also benefit their fine motor skills. their cross-lateral movement (right knee with left hand, vice versa) builds and reinforces neural pathways between the two hemispheres of the brain. and, they hone binocular vision by looking down, away, and back down. this, in turn, stimulates eye tracking and other areas of brain development (personal communication, enns, 2008; also see haring, 2015). here is a rhyme to promote crawling: slowly, slowly, very slowly creeps the garden snail. slowly, slowly, very slowly up the garden rail. quickly, quickly, very quickly runs the little mouse. quickly, quickly, very quickly up into its house. (cobb, 2007, p. 148) you need an open area that allows ample space to creep like a snail. for the first verse, slowly follow your baby. repeat the first verse a few times to get a slow rhythm. then, for the second verse, chase him, catch him, and end with a tickle under his arm. fall/automne 2017 45 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice once children have mastered rudimentary movements, they progress to the fundamental stage. from two to seven years, they learn to run, jump, throw, roll, catch, and kick. these activities build foundational skills that foster later participation in sport and other physical activities (frost et al., 2008). traditional horsie-games serve as a great vehicle for this kind of movement: see the ponies walking, walking, down the country road. (say twice) see the ponies trotting, trotting, down the country road. (say twice) see the ponies galloping, galloping, down the country road. (say twice) see the ponies coming home, all tired out, all tired out, all tired out. (cobb, 2007, p. 187) this rhyme is suited for playing/working with a single child or a group. you need an open space in which to run. then, let the gait mimic the lyrics. you can easily adapt the rhyme by inserting more diverse movements, such as running, cantering, and pacing, based on your group dynamics. suggest nonequestrian actions such as skipping, twirling, jumping, or flying. or, change the subject from horses to fairies, monsters, dinosaurs, or anything else of interest to children. in my experience, most children love this activity and are eager, when invited, to contribute their own ideas. the challenge lies not in getting them to participate, but in toning down their energy once they have begun. i often repeat the final line, speaking very slowly, to bring the group to a calm ending, and then i add, “and they all sat down.” gross motor skills also provide a foundation on which children build fine motor skills involving the smaller movements of hands, fingers, and wrists. for example, in order for preschool children to cut properly with scissors, they first need to control the large muscles used to sit in a stable position (brook, wagenfield, & thompson, n.d.). similar to gross motor skills, children develop their fine motor skills progressively: from the core to the limbs, or from proximal to distal (brook et al., n.d.). they learn to control their arms before their hands, for instance. hand-clapping rhymes are well suited for babies who are beginning to bring their hands together, known as crossing the midline, between seven and nine months (robinson, 2007). the following rhyme is a classic: pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man. bake me a cake as fast as you can. pat it, and roll it, and mark it with a b. and put it in the oven for baby and me. (cobb, 2007, p. 98) when you first introduce this to your baby, hold her hands to help her clap to the rhythm. as she becomes more skilled, she will independently clap and roll her own hands. later, in her preschool years, she will pretend to write a letter of the alphabet on the palm of her hand, or yours. after children have mastered hand control, they turn to their fascinating fingers, those players of early childhood dramas dangling at the end of their hands. between six and nine months, they begin to poke with their index fingers (voress & pearson, 2013). not only does this seemingly simple milestone allow them to communicate their needs and wants, but it also helps them to isolate and move their fingers independently. here is an energetic rhyme for fine motor practice: two little dickie birds sitting on a wall: one named peter. one named paul. fly away peter. fly away paul. come back peter. come back paul. (cobb, 2007, p. 101) when you practise the above rhyme with your baby, he will be delighted to watch your actions. but your toddler will be even more so when he does the actions with you. face him and ask him to imitate you. hold out your index fingers and wiggle them as you say “peter” and “paul.” then, hide your characters behind your back and bring them out again for the last line. your imaginative toddler will wiggle his birds, fly them behind his back, and make them reappear. in addition to small muscle movements, fine motor skills involve the development of hand-eye coordination. when babies first reach for their toes, they are beginning to build a necessary skill that they will hone over many years. from feeding to dressing, reading, and fall/automne 2017 46 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice playing sports, hand-eye coordination and the ability to use two hands together greatly influences children’s overall development. the simplicity of this rhyme makes it very easy for adults and children to learn: johnny, johnny, johnny, johnny whoops! johnny whoops! johnny johnny, johnny, johnny. (cole & calmenson, 1991, p. 44) ask your toddler to hold up her hand and spread her fingers. with your index finger, touch her pinkie, say “johnny,” and then do the same with her ring, middle, and index fingertips. say “whoops” and use the curve between her index finger and thumb as a slide. say “johnny” when you rest on the thumb. say “whoops” and return to the pinkie in the reverse order. adapt this rhyme by using specific names (sally, sam, mummy, daddy). once your toddler is familiar with the rhyme, she can try this on your fingers, or her own. she will be able to master this in her preschool years. i remember my own toddler practising this as he concentrated intently on making his fingertips touch. in summary, gross and fine motor actions that complement language play can effectively help young children to develop areas of their physical health. actions help babies experience age-appropriate movements such as rolling over and clapping. chase games and fingerplays help toddlers to build muscle strength and coordination. and rhymes that require greater levels of hand-eye and motor coordination provide preschoolers with opportunities to practise running, trotting, and using their hands together. language and cognitive development language and cognitive development are immensely sophisticated neurological processes. according to the edi, this domain “includes reading awareness, age-appropriate reading and writing skills, age-appropriate numeracy skills, ability to understand similarities and differences, and ability to recite back specific pieces of information from memory” (“domains and subdomains,” para. 4). many rhymes offer opportunities to informally introduce children to early reading and numeracy skills. to become strong readers, children first need a strong foundation of oral language. in fact, their language skills play a larger role than cognitive ability in literacy acquisition (mcginty & justice, 2010). phonological awareness comprises an important part of this foundation: children need to understand that spoken words are composed of different sounds, or phonemes. exposure to rhyming is an excellent strategy to help children develop phonological awareness (bryant, bradley, maclean, & crossland, 1989; dunst, meter, & hamby, 2011). oral language also builds vocabulary (mcginty & justice, 2010); when children know a word, they will more easily decode it in print materials like books. language play thus offers great aural opportunities for children to learn the meaning of words as well as the sounds with which they are constructed. consider the complexity of sounds and words in this seemingly simple rhyme: the moon is round, as round can be. two eyes, a nose and a mouth … like me! (cobb, 2007, p. 91) hold your baby face to face to face so that he can watch how your mouth creates specific sounds. as you lightly touch his face, he learns to associate the word with the body parts. in your words, he hears a monosyllabic rhyme in lines two and four emphasizing the phoneme “ee.” he also hears the phonemes “b” and “m.” the repeated exposure to the comparison of the moon and your face will help him to recognize, much later, the technique of simile in both prose and poetry. in addition to fostering age-appropriate early reading development, “the moon is round” also addresses age-appropriate math skills. counting and identifying geometric shapes is an important first step in acquiring early numeracy. this rhyme features simple numbers and a simple shape, both of which are emerging concepts that many children understand by age 3 (healthlink bc, 2015). in addition, there is a rhyme scheme of abcb; nursery rhymes often follow patterns, and patterning is the basis for math study (kenney, 2005). conveniently, rhymes can also provide transitions to “teachable moments” in children’s daily environments. for example, a caregiver can extend the concepts in “the moon is round” by pointing out familiar objects and saying, “the ball is round, as round can be.” or, a mother can point to her own body parts and say, “let’s count the other parts of our bodies: two ears, two arms, five fingers on one fall/automne 2017 47 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice hand.” preschool children, who by now have grasped basic cognitive concepts, respond well to rhymes with more sophisticated language structures and complex information, as found in this rhyme: ten galloping horses rode through the town. five were white and five were brown. five rode up and five rode down. ten galloping horses rode through the town. (cobb, 2007, p. 80) bounce your preschooler on your knee to the rhythm of the rhyme, making sure to emphatically differentiate the feeling of “up” and “down.” in contrast to the steady iambic metre of “the moon is round,” she senses a beat that is not uniform. in each line, three trochaic feet are completed with a single stressed foot: ten galloping horses rode through the town ( /u /u /u /), which better imitates a horse. the varied rhythm in the previous rhyme is mirrored by complex concepts. for example, it addresses the number ten. it also features colours and contrasting directions. moreover, it demonstrates the concept of addition: five white horses and five brown horses equal ten horses. even though many children do not fully understand this mathematical concept, they will nonetheless be exposed to the terminology. in summary, language play exposes children to age-appropriate foundational skills on which to build their early reading and math knowledge, fostering their language and cognitive development. rhymes can enhance young children’s understanding of words, numbers, and concepts such as colours and directions. communication and general knowledge according to the edi, this domain “includes skills to communicate needs and wants in socially appropriate ways, symbolic use of language, storytelling, and age-appropriate knowledge about life and the world around” (“domains and subdomains,” para. 5). storytelling is a fundamental human activity that helps children with a number of important functions, such as understanding narrative architecture and sequencing, acquiring knowledge, and learning about others. a child’s experience with storytelling can begin with a simple rhyme shared with an adult. celia lottridge (1995), a cofounder of the parent-child mother goose program™, says that “nursery rhymes are little stories for little people” (n.p.). even if some children do not yet know the meaning of the words, they have been playfully introduced to a short drama and the building blocks of story: characters, plot, and setting. this well-known rhyme offers it all: jack and jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. jack fell down and broke his crown. and jill came tumbling after. (cobb, 1996, p. 82) slowly lift your toddler as you say the first two lines, and then drop him for the last two. this helps his body to feel the contrasting movements. this classic rhyme features a boy and a girl, simple characters with whom he can begin to identify. the hill serves as a familiar setting, and there is a hint of conflict—person vs. nature—as both children tumble and fall. preschoolers are increasingly able to sustain their attention. they also have more experience with narrative conventions and are developing active imaginations (healthlink bc, 2015), which allows them to enjoy longer and more complex stories. this song has a cumulative story structure: i know an old lady who swallowed a fly. i don’t know why she swallowed a fly. perhaps she’ll die. fall/automne 2017 48 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice i know an old lady who swallowed a spider. it wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. she swallowed the spider to catch the fly. i don’t know why she swallowed a fly. perhaps she’ll die. [the song continues with the old lady swallowing a bird, a dog, a goat. and a cow.] i know an old lady who swallowed a horse. she died, of course! (cobb, 1996, p. 99) sing this song slowly with your preschooler so that she is able to join in. if she can’t sing all of the lyrics, pause at the end of the line so that she fills in the word. the repetition in this song quickly introduces her to many tenets of storytelling. she learns to create a story by adding details, characters, and events. she learns about first-person narration. she learns that rhythm and rhyme are memorable and pleasing to the ear. and she learns about the joy of hyperbole. of course a woman can’t swallow all of these animals, but isn’t it fun to imagine? as conduits of image and meaning, the words expressed in stories and rhymes directly relate to the domain of general knowledge. both “jack and jill” and “i know an old lady who swallowed a fly” present information about the world: water can be fetched and spiders catch flies. in fact, all of the rhymes discussed so far offer children opportunities to build their understanding about the world, from labelling body parts (“the moon is round”) to types of movement (see “the ponies”). these latter examples demonstrate ageappropriate knowledge for babies and toddlers. another example for this age group emphasizes the composition of a family: this is my mother. this is my father. this is my brother tall. this is my sister. this is my baby. oh, how i love them all! (cobb, 2007, p. 99) wiggle your toddler’s thumb, and then move to each successive finger, or family member, until you reach the baby (pinkie). finish by kissing his fingertips. adapt this by using the specific family member names. you can also bring in the extended family: grandma, grandpa, uncle, auntie, and cousin. knowledge of animals is also age-appropriate for young children, from babies to preschoolers. take my daughter, for example; “kitty” was the first word she communicated when she was about nine months. numerous nursery rhymes, like the one below, respond to children’s natural interest in animals: old macdonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. and on that farm he had a cow, e-i-e-i-o. with a moo-moo here, and a moo-moo there. here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo old macdonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. (cobb, 1996, p. 89) when you sing this song with a group of toddlers, they join in by imitating your words and sounds, because the sounds and vowels are easy to say and fun to play with. preschoolers demonstrate their knowledge by suggesting their favourite animals. you may not know how to vocalize some of them—dinosaurs, zebras, koala bears—but have fun imagining how they sound. it also works well to pair the song with visuals, such as pictures, toys, stuffed animals, or flash cards, to help children connect the name of an animal and its characteristics, such as its sounds, habitat, and diet. in summary, language play fosters young children’s communication and general knowledge. the narrative techniques and devices found in many rhymes model storytelling strategies. these rhymes also convey age-appropriate information about the world, such as nature and animals, which will be scaffolded in children’s increasingly complex ways of knowing. fall/automne 2017 49 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice social competence the edi’s definition of the social competence domain is broad, including “curiosity about the world, eagerness to try new experiences, knowledge of standards of acceptable public behaviour, ability to control own behaviour, appropriate respect for adult authority, cooperation with others, following rules, and ability to play and work with other children” (“domains and subdomains,” para. 2). because language play requires interaction between an adult and child or group of children, it can gently immerse children in the social expectations about how to play and how to follow rules. the social world of children begins with their families; their experiences predicate how they interact with others outside of the home. language play models mores of social interaction. as babies’ brains are formed to imitate behaviours (hendrix, palmer, tashis, & winner, 2013), they quickly learn conventions. for example, in western culture, we value eye contact, which shows the need for children to participate in joint attention, that “mutual delight shared with another human being” (p. 6). the following rhyme elicits eye-to-eye engagement: two little eyes to look around. two little ears to hear each sound. one little nose to smell what’s sweet. one little mouth that loves to eat! (cobb, 2007, p. 92) cradle your baby with one arm so that you are face to face. with your other hand, lightly touch her corresponding body parts as you say them. you can also lay your baby on her back and give her a little face massage. this positive touch and eye contact foster overall brain development (cobb, 2007). it is also a great rhyme to say while eating. as children grow, their scope of shared attention widens to include activities with people outside their families. between 36 and 42 months, children are able to participate in circle games (voress & pearson, 2013). this interaction, in turn, supports their increasing capacity to understand others’ thoughts and feelings, known as “theory of mind” (robinson, 2007). this social building block is essential for children to successfully play/interact with each other and create friendships. the following circle game has delighted children for centuries: ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies. husha, husha, we all fall down! (cobb, 2007, p. 86) ask everyone in your group to hold hands and walk in a circle and then fall together for the last line. children must work together to smoothly execute this rhyme. i am always delighted by the children’s joy when we “all fall down.” besides joint attention, it is important for children to follow rules, for social and safety reasons. preschoolers are able to follow twoto three-step directions (healthlink bc, 2015), allowing them to take an active role in games that also require them to follow rules. this rhyme works well in the classroom: if you’re wearing red today, red today, red today, if you’re wearing red today, stand up and shout hurray. (cobb, 1996, p. 55) sing this to the tune of “mary had a little lamb.” it is easily adapted to help children transition between activities. for example, change the direction in the last line: “line up to wash your hands.” children must practise selfcontrol during this song. waiting for the appropriate time to do the action may be challenging for those busy kids who like to leap into movement. in summary, the interactive nature of language play supports the building blocks of social competence. babies learn about joint attention, which later helps them, as preschoolers, to play cooperatively with other children. children are also required to follow rules, and rhymes and songs present directions in a fun and engaging way. fall/automne 2017 50 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice emotional maturity the edi states that the domain of emotional maturity “includes the ability to think before acting, a balance between too fearful and too impulsive, an ability to deal with feelings at an age-appropriate level, and empathetic response to other people’s feelings” (“domains and subdomains,” para. 3). any discussion of children’s emotional lives must begin by recognizing the power of attachment, their affectional bond with caregivers (music, 2016). children feel more secure, and they are better able to self-regulate and understand emotions, if their parents/primary caregivers, from infancy, respond quickly and sensitively to their needs (creighton, 2011). thus, children’s abilities to develop aspects of emotional maturity are dependent on how they are treated by the adults who take care of them. language play fosters attachment and, by extension, positive feelings. studies suggest that babies innately respond to others’ emotions. lewis, haviland-jones, and barrett (2013) point out that the “newborn reactive cry,” whereby a baby cries when hearing another baby’s cry, may be “the first instance of empathy without awareness” (p. 444). we can continue to foster this trait by modelling emotionally responsive behaviours that help children to develop self-esteem and prosocial behaviour. an obvious type of rhyme is the lullaby, a slow song to help soothe and calm an upset baby (and adults, too). the following nursery rhyme is popular as an action song, but works equally well as a lullaby: twinkle twinkle little star, how i wonder what you are. up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. twinkle, twinkle little star, how i wonder what you are. (cobb, 2006, p. 28) rock your baby as you sing, letting the warmth and closeness of your bodies provide physical reassurance. because this poem is so well known, it works well in family groups. when a child begins to cry, i start singing, and most parents automatically join in, sometimes adding the actions. the child often stops to listen or join in, soothed by both the song and the collective response to her distress. these actions acknowledge and affirm the child’s feelings. children’s emotional development begins long before they understand and articulate their feelings. at three months, babies start expressing their feeling states through vocalization, facial expressions, and movement. by nine months, their emotions become more nuanced, with differences between joy and contentment, sadness and anger. toddlers are known to be driven by their feelings, yet even though they experience a range of emotions, they do not yet have the ability to express their feelings in words; this ability does not typically develop until children are between 3 and 5 (robinson, 2007). but language play can introduce toddlers and preschoolers to a solid vocabulary with which to start labelling their different feelings. the following song covers some key emotions: if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. if you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. 2nd verse: if you’re sad and you know it, say boo-hoo. 3rd verse: if you’re mad and you know it, stomp your feet. (cobb, 1996, p. 37) when you sing this song with your toddler, exaggerate your facial expressions and gestures to help him connect the emotional label with body language. you can also add feelings and actions to fit the current mood. for example, if your toddler does not want to go into a new place, sing, “if you’re nervous and you know it, hold my hand.” in summary, language play can help children to build emotional maturity. a song or rhyme thoughtfully chosen by a caring adult models empathy for children. as well, specific songs equip them with age-appropriate labels for their feelings. fall/automne 2017 51 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice language play in practice examples of nursery rhymes, to this point, have been chosen to illustrate specific developmental subdomains for particular age groups. for example, “two little dickie birds” can be used to support toddlers’ fine motor skills. nursery rhymes, however, are very versatile, so they can be adapted to suit different age groups for a variety of purposes. for example, “roly poly,” sung to the tune of frère jacques, is a rhyme i use with children up to age 6 in parent-child mother goose programs™, daycares, and preschools: roly poly, roly poly, up up up, up up up. roly roly poly, roly roly poly down down down, down down down. (cobb, 2007, p. 70) “roly poly” with babies during baby programs, i share the benefits of language play with parents. in particular, “roly poly,” used repetitively, can support their babies’ physical, social, and language development. to support their babies’ motor skills, i ask parents to hold and roll their babies’ hands to help them practice crossing the midline and using their hands together. when babies watch their caregivers sing with elongated syllables, they observe how their lips, tongue, and teeth create sounds. regarding social competence, when caregivers look at their babies’ eyes and hands during the song, they model eye contact and shared attention. as well, their babies’ vocabularies grow as they learn words and their meanings, such as up/down and in/out. “roly poly” with toddlers during energetic circle times, i harness toddlers’ need to move and vocalize in order to promote their social, cognitive, and motor skills. when their attention begins to wander, i help them to regulate by singing “roly poly,” even if i am in the middle of a different activity. they redirect their focus, we sing a few verses together, and i then bring the group to a quiet state with “slow ... slow ... slow.” concerning cognition, toddlers now have a basic vocabulary, so the actions help them further expand their understanding of opposites. i include more sophisticated concepts like loud/quiet and front/back. finally, toddlers still have a hard time rolling their hands smoothly, so this song provides a fun way to practice their motor skills. it works well to add movements, as the mood fits: “roly poly, roly poly / jump jump jump, jump jump jump.” “roly poly” with preschoolers preschool classrooms offer children many opportunities to broaden their general knowledge about the world and each other. because the words in lines two and four of “roly poly” do not need to rhyme, the song lends itself to supporting many areas of the curriculum, such as counting numbers one through ten. visuals can be easily integrated as well. i once observed a practicum student cleverly adapt the words to reflect animals: “cat cat cat, cat cat cat / meow meow meow, meow meow meow.” this song also translates easily. i ask parents, caregivers, and educators to teach the group words for “up” and “down” in other languages. for example, arriba and abajo reflect the concepts of up and down in spanish. this helps children learn that words sound different in another language. it also celebrates and validates children who speak a language other than english. they are always very proud to hear their home language voiced in the classroom, if only a word or two. conclusion children benefit greatly when adults interact with them using the nursery rhymes and songs of language play (cobb, 2007). drawing on domains defined by the early development instrument, i have carefully chosen several rhymes and described how adults can utilize them to support children’s development in different domains. when children physically participate in the actions, they practise their motor skills and hand-eye coordination. the content within the rhymes and songs introduces children to words, numbers, and concepts, aiding their language and cognitive development. through simple stories woven into the rhymes, children become familiar with narrative elements and they also gain knowledge about their world. the shared experience of rhyming and singing helps to prepare children to play cooperatively with others, and some of the material also creatively presents them with rules to follow. and, importantly, language play contributes to children’s emotional development. nursery rhymes can serve as a tool to teach children about feelings. furthermore, children who have strong, positive relationships with their primary caregivers experience a world in fall/automne 2017 52 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice which their needs are valued, and so they can become equipped to show empathy to others. early childhood educators and practitioners are in the position to promote, encourage, and model language play with families and children. these centuries-old, tried-and-true nursery rhymes and songs support children’s overall development in meaningful and engaging ways. forms of language play exist in all cultures, plus they are orally disseminated, making them accessible to all families, regardless of their socioeconomic status or level of education. it would be especially beneficial to help parents and caregivers understand how language play can further strengthen emotional bonds, for it is only on a solid foundation of attachment that all children’s relationships and developmental learning are built (cobb, 2007). references brook, g., wagenfield, a., & thompson, c. (n.d.). fine motor development and early school performance. retrieved from: http:// www.fingergym.info/downloads/finemotordevpp1-4.pdf bryant, p. e., bradley, l., maclean, m., & crossland, j. (1989). nursery rhymes, phonological skills, and reading. journal of child language, 16, 404–428. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900010485 cardanay, a. b. (2013). nursery rhymes in music and language literacy. general music today, 26, 30–36. http://dx.doi. org/10.1177/1048371312462869 carroll, a. c. (2005). parents’ perceptions of the effects of the parent-child mother goose program (pcmgp) on their parenting practices (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of british columbia, vancouver, bc. cobb, j. (1996). i’m a little teapot: presenting preschool storytime. vancouver, bc: blacksheep press. cobb, j. (2007). what’ll i do with the baby-o? nursery rhymes, songs, and stories for babies. vancouver, bc: blacksheep press. cole, j., & calmenson, s. (1991). eentsy weentsy spider: fingerplays and action rhymes. new york, ny: william morrow and company. creighton, a. (2011). mother–infant interaction and emotional communication: a literature review. australian journal of music therapy, 22, 37–56. http://dx.doi.org/900792949 dunst, c. j., meter, d., & hamby, d. w. (2011). relationship between young children’s nursery rhyme experiences and knowledge and phonological and print-related skills. cellreview, 4(1), 1–12. retrieved from: http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org/ cellreviews/cellreviews_v4_n1.pdf early development instrument. (2016a). domains and subdomains. retrieved from: https://edi.offordcentre.com/researchers/domainsand-subdomains/ early development instrument. (2016b). what is the edi? retrieved from: https://edi.offordcentre.com/about/what-is-the-edi/ early development mapping project alberta. (2014). how are our young children doing: final report of the early childhood mapping project. retrieved from: http://www.ecmap.ca/images/results/ecmap_final_report_20141118.pdf frost, j. l., wortham, s., & riefel, s. (2008). play and child development. upper saddle river, nj: merrill, prentice hall. haring, h. (2015). what’s so important about crawling? ohio health. retrieved from: http://www.medcentral.org/main/ whatssoimportantaboutcrawling.aspx healthlink bc. (2015). milestones for 3-year-olds. retrieved from: https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/ue5314 hendrix, r. e., palmer, k. z., tashis, n., & winner, m. g. (2013). the incredible flexible you: a social thinking curriculum for the fall/automne 2017 53 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice preschool and the early elementary years. san jose, ca: think social. kenney, s. (2005). nursery rhymes: foundation for learning. general music today, 19, 28–31. doi: 10.1177/10483713050190010108 lewis, m., haviland-jones j. m., & barrett, l. f. (2008). handbook of emotions (3rd ed.) new york, ny: the guildford press. lottridge, c. b. (performer). (1995). parents, kids, & mother goose [training dvd]. toronto, on: parent-child mother goose program & health canada. makovichuk, l., hewes, j., lirette, p., & thomas, n. (2014). play, participation, and possibilities: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta. retrieved from: http://childcareframework.com/ mcginty, a. s, & justice, l. m. (2010.) language facilitation in the preschool classroom. in m. mckenna, s. walpole, & k. conradi (eds.), promoting early reading: research, resources, and best practices (pp. 9–36). new york, ny: the guildford press. music, g. (2016). nurturing natures: attachment and children’s emotional, sociocultural, and brain development (2nd ed.). new york, ny: routledge. nodelman, p. (2008). the nursery rhymes of mother goose: a world without glasses. in a. s. wyile & t. rosenberg (eds.), considering children’s literature: a reader (pp. 129–147). peterborough, on: broadview press. (original work published 1989) opie, i., & opie, p. (eds.). (1997). the oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes (new ed.). oxford, england: oxford university press. parent-child mother goose program. (n.d.) mission, vision, and values: values. retrieved from: http://nationalpcmgp.ca/about/ history/ robinson, m. (2007). child development and behaviour 0 to 8: a journey through the early years. maidenhead, england: open university press. scharfe, e. (2011). benefits of mother goose: influence of a community-based program on parent-child attachment relationships in typical families. child welfare, 90(5), 9–26. terrett, g., white, r., & spreckley, m. (2012). preliminary evaluation of the parent-child mother goose program in relation to children’s language and parenting stress. journal of early childhood research, 11, 16–26. doi: 10.1177/1476718x12456000 voress, j. k., & pearson, n. a. (2013). early childhood development chart (3rd ed.). austin, tx: pro-ed. (endnotes) 1 my endeavours to find scholarly research about nursery rhymes have proven diverse, but limited in scope. folklorists and literary scholars have looked at versions of nursery rhymes across time, exploring their origins and socio-political contexts (opie & opie, 1997; nodelman, 1989/2008). attention has also been given to the illustration of rhymes (nodelman, 1989/2008). while these examples focus on content, a parallel body of work exists that examines the relationship between nursery rhymes and their intended audience of young children. largely, this research explores the connection between children’s exposure to nursery rhymes and their acquisition of literacy skills (bryant et al., 1989; dunst et al., 2011). academic approaches to nursery rhymes are also appearing in the context of music education (cardanay, 2013), parent-child attachment (scharfe, 2011), and parenting strategies (carroll, 2005; terrett, white, & spreckley, 2012). in general, research tends to focus on one developmental domain, such as literacy, or offer a very brief treatment of a few domains (kenney, 2005). however, i have discovered a need for scholarship concerning the relationship between nursery rhymes and multiple domains of child development. winter/hiver 2017 40 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research horse racing with sheep ankle bones: the play of nomadic children in mongolia javzandulam batsaikhan and candace kaye javzandulam batsaikhan has been an early childhood education lecturer at mongolian national university of education, ulaanbaatar, mongolia, since 2010. her focus is teaching action research methodology to undergraduate students. previously, she taught children of herding families in the mongolian countryside and worked with a nonprofit educational project that encouraged mongolian children who had left school to return. she is a doctoral student at new mexico state university with a major interest in the investigation of early education equity for nomadic children in mongolia. email: javzandulam@msue.edu.mn candace kaye, phd, is affiliated graduate faculty at new mexico state university and visiting scholar and research associate at mongolian national university of education (mnue). her scholarly involvement with early childhood education in mongolia began in 1992. since that time, her collaboration with mongolian scholars has included serving as the u.s. fulbright teaching and research scholar in early childhood education in the mnue school of preschool education, foreign consultant for the revision of mongolian national standards of early childhood, and ongoing visiting consultant, lecturer, and researcher at mnue. email: kaye@ nmsu.edu mongolian culture and history has been formed, in large part, by the dynamic forces of nature and the challenges of daily life as embodied in the ancient nomadic existence of the mongol peoples. specifically, the culture and society  of mongolia is  greatly influenced by the central role of nomadism, which remains the way of life for more than one-quarter (986,721) of the country’s 3,063,568 people (national statistical office of mongolia, 2016). mongolia is one of the last nations in the world to have such a high proportion of nomadic citizens. with the collapse of the ussr and thereby the sovietinspired socialist educational system in mongolia in the early 1990s, the country underwent a change from a socialist to a democratic government, which in turn led to the opening of the nation to international educational practices as well as an ongoing commitment to democratic and human freedoms. since that time, the principles and policies of education continue to be revised and reformed. amid these fundamental changes, research into longstanding cultural learning methods, ethics, and manners based on daily practice within the nomadic lifestyle has been limited. to begin to fill that void, as a mongolian, the first author has a personal and scholarly connection to the nomadic lifestyle. she is currently conducting a longitudinal study concerning equity of access for young nomadic children to educational opportunities. the second author, a united states professor, has studied early childhood education in mongolia since the first reforms in the 1990s after mongolia became a democratic nation. both authors continue to have numerous opportunities to explore and record the traditional learning of the play activities of nomadic mongolian children embrace an ancient traditional philosophy of life, connecting families to nature, respecting elders, and encouraging tenacity in daily life. this article discusses the context of this unique form of child play, its meaning, and its functional value. the major focus is on how these play activities have been communicated through centuries within themes of survival, lifestyle, and story. the article first reviews the cultural concept of play within discussions of adaptation, evolutionary process, and a culturespecific phenomenon, proceeds to examine how mongolian traditional play encourages young children to be knowledgeable about nomadic values, and concludes with a discussion of how the context of the play of mongolian nomadic children is situated within an understanding the concept of the ludic. key words: culture; children; play; mongolia; nomads winter/hiver 2017 41 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research nomadic children through their daily practices. as in all cultures, the lifestyle of mongolia’s nomadic children is reflected in the content of their play activities— developed centuries ago by their forefathers, not just to educate their young children, but also to protect them and preserve their cultural heritage (daariimaa, 2011). as an endorsement of these nomadic play activities, today mongolian traditional play is strongly encouraged by mongolia’s national early childhood learning standards (mongolian ministry of education, culture and science, 2013, 2014) and, as a result, may be observed in both public and private early childhood programs in the countryside as well as in the cities. the premise of this article, therefore, is that the play activities of contemporary mongolian children reflect their cultural heritage by embracing the ancient nomadic philosophy of life, a strongly held foundation for this still young democratic nation. play and culture within the field of early childhood education and child development, many definitions and claims have been proposed with regard to the essential role of play for child development within cultural contexts. as such, children’s play has long been recognized as an important contributor to children’s development and learning (hyun, 1998), and play has been viewed as an acculturative mechanism (schwartzman, 1978), meaning that, through play, “children learn societal roles, norms, and values” (roopnarine, johnson, & hooper, 1994, p. 31). the following discussion challenges the notion of a universal definition of play, proposing the addition to traditional definitions of play of specific connections of play to the cultural consideration of adaptation, evolution, and a specific cultural environment. based on a review of the literature, the following three themes are emphasized: (a) limits of a universal notion of child’s play, (b) cultural concepts of play, and (c) universal play theory vs. the influence of cultural environments on play. limits of a universal conventional notion of child’s play while there is tacit agreement among early childhood educators that the values of play are culturally contextualized, researchers such as hyun (1998) have noted that studies about child’s play and subsequent approaches to understanding child’s play (howes, 1980; howes, unger, & seider, 1989; parten, 1932) have been based mainly on cultural perspectives, variously called “western middle-class, european, or euro-american perspective” (p. 79). indeed, roopnarine and johnson (1994) posited that euro-american mainstream ideas about play and early childhood education cannot include specific cultural understandings. as a result, hyun (1998) maintained that “exploring and creating new understandings of child’s play, deconstructing a universal conventional orientation of child’s play in developmental processes, and developing culturally relevant frames of reference for understanding child’s play are urgent tasks for early childhood practitioners and families” (p. 92). cultural concepts of play according to several researchers and educators, understanding the specific and distinct cultural constructs of play is important for understanding development within cultures (roopnarine & johnson, 1994). according to hyun (1998), for example, we all have a culturally shaped frame of mind set. this culturally grounded phenomenon tends to lead people to believe that their ways of looking at things are universally acceptable, which may not be true. thus, we all can become culturally blind. (p. 81) winter/hiver 2017 42 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research universal play theory vs. the influence of cultural environments on play for more than 60 years, researchers in early childhood education have relied primarily on parten’s (1932) and howes’s (1980) conventional theories when deconstructing child development through play. increasingly, however, conclusions drawn from these two theories are not considered acceptable for validating a universal theory of play and development (hughes, 2009). for example, contradicting parten’s theory of cooperative play beginning in the preschool years, toddlers have been observed to play cooperatively already at 18 months in some specific cultural settings (brenner & mueller, 1982; howes & matheson, 1992). additionally, within some sociocultural contexts, cooperative social interaction “is pervasive in the family culture” (hyun, 1998, p. 102). similarly, later in this article, nomadic families mongolia are viewed as having such a highly involved interactive social system. the implied understanding of becoming a “cooperative player,” according to hyun (1998), is as follows: • within a multi-generational and multi-age family environment, developing that kind of sociocognitive schema may be an inevitable developmental phenomenon. in this cultural context, the young child may first explore more about others than about self. • mentally visualizing play with others, observing others’ intercommunicative expressions, being aware of the existence of family members or others in a play context are common phenomena that the young child has been receiving even since birth. • thus, physically visualizing and cognitively realizing others during the early periods of childhood may be more apparent than the realizing of self as a single organism in such a child’s developmental changes. thus, if we follow parten’s theory, we may continuously underestimate or misunderstand the diverse young child’s developmental abilities and potentials. more critically, we may be using some limited or culturally blind hypotheses to interpret the child’s developmental changes and play behaviors. (pp. 22–23) culture and the play framework underlying this article the following discussion describes three major contributions of play within specific cultural environments: (a) supporting adaptive behaviours necessary for survival and social change (survival), (b) contributing to the dynamics of human evolution (lifestyle), and (c) offering opportunities to recreate the cultural environment (story). survival: the role of play in supporting adaptive behaviours within cultural contexts bergen (2014) noted that since ancient times, play has been a means for humans to survive the many uncertainties they have faced based on the fact that the most playful humans continue to be those who demonstrate the greatest range of adaptive behaviours as environments or social conditions change. defining adaptive behaviours in play within cultural contexts. in early childhood, emerging adaptive skills are usually defined within the broad categories of motor skills, communication, personal care, and social behaviour. adaptive behaviour is generally evaluated on the basis of positive achievements presented within developmental tasks (masten, 2001), described by mccormick, kuo, and masten (2011) as psychosocial or physical milestones and accomplishments expected for individuals in a given period of development within specific sociocultural winter/hiver 2017 43 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research contexts. however, these same researchers have noted that, at the same time, some of these developmental tasks are viewed as universal, such as learning to walk or talk, whereas others are common within developed nations, such as learning to read, while others are more specific to a given culture or context, such as learning to weave textiles, fishing, mastering sacred texts or, in the case of nomadic children, herding. more recently, masten and monn (2015) pointed to the importance of child and family resilience as an important consideration in contemporary discussions of adaptive behaviour. however, a review of the literature indicates few efforts to date to systematically integrate the theory, findings, and implications of these two areas. in her studies of “the ordinariness of resilience” masten (2001, p. 227) found that resilience is common and that it usually arises from the normative functions of human adaptational systems, with the greatest threats to human development, therefore, being those that compromise the adaptive systems. it could be argued that this threat could include the steppes of mongolia, especially in the event of a zud—the mongolian term for a severe winter where large numbers of livestock die. this natural disaster is considered unique to mongolia (sternberg, 2010), where one half of the population depends entirely on pastoral farming (jacobs, 2010). lifestyle: the role of play as an evolutionary contribution from another perspective on play, roopnarine et al. (1994) maintained that play is biologically based, kept alive as an evolutionary contribution to human development and changes. hyun (1998, pp. 23–24) agreed, noting that although play can be defined in several ways, it is essentially a daily activity of children in all cultures. considering how young children use play to sample their environment as a means of developing adaptive behaviours, pellegrini, dupuis, and smith (2007) went on to speculate that innovative behaviours developed in play in response to environmental novelty within culture may influence subsequent evolutionary processes. specifically, they posited that (a) play during this period of immaturity is especially important in the processes of development and evolution, because during ludic play, new strategies and behaviours can be developed at minimal cost, and these strategies, in turn, can influence evolutionary processes; and (b) play influences these processes by supporting the development of new strategies in novel environments during the juvenile period. story: the role of play as a reflection of cultural environment the connection between play and culture has received notable recognition for decades. according to gosso and carvalho (2013), “children at play reproduce and also recreate the specificities of their cultural environment” (p. 1). further, huizinga (1955) found that play is present everywhere as a well-defined quality of action, which is different from “ordinary” life (p. 117). lancy (2001) adhered to the theories of sutton-smith (2001, 2009), considering play as reflecting cultural mastery. this, in turn, demonstrates a relationship with cultural values that guide and shape play expressions as narratives of daily life are interpreted and attitudes toward play are continually formed. additionally, roopnarine et al. (1994) emphasized the importance of calling attention to cultural variability in children’s play and pointed to the misinformation that emerges from applying western values and play analysis to non-western settings. play activities of mongolian nomadic children the major focus of this section is how play activities have been communicated to children throughout the centuries within the themes of survival (adaptive behaviour), lifestyle (evolutionary contribution), and story (interpreting daily life). winter/hiver 2017 44 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research survival considering the climatic conditions in mongolia, especially during winter, a nomadic lifestyle may seem very rough. however, over the centuries, mongolians have developed the qualities of strength and resilience that are essential for surviving in this harsh natural environment. nevertheless, in recent years, the number of nomads in mongolia has decreased significantly as many have moved to the capital city of ulaanbaatar in search of subsistence or attracted by the perceived advantages and comforts of urban life. in particular, in recent extra-harsh winters, many nomadic families lost their herds—the source of their livelihood—resulting in large rural-to-urban migration, especially from the west of the country, of both nomadic herders and stockbreeders. traditionally, mongolian nomads have raised five species of livestock: horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and camels. in addition, reindeer are raised by the dukha people known as tsaatan, who live in the northwest areas around lake khovsgol on the border between mongolia and siberia. among their traditional herds, the horse is the mainstay of the mongolian nomads. a special breed of small mongolian horses is incredibly hardy. they live all year in semiwild herds, gathered only by nomads for selling or trading and tended by herdsmen in the winter to defend against wolf packs. nomad families consider themselves an integral part of nature. as a result, nomadic daily life for young children in the countryside of mongolia focuses on developing knowledge and skills necessary for existence within the harsh natural environment while still demonstrating respect for this environment. this informal early education is obtained through observation, collaboration, and involvement in activities necessary for survival (jadambaa, 2010). for example, as part of a belief in the importance of living collaboratively with nature and surviving in the harsh conditions of the mongolian countryside, children are taught from an early age to respect and protect the natural environment with all their actions (bujidmaa, 2001). as two of their first play activities of survival, young children are regularly asked to find dried cow patties to be used for fires and to learn to manipulate the bones of animals in games rather than relying on commercial toys. playing with stones and becoming adept at their use supports the process of learning the nomadic activities of hunting and protecting oneself from predators. lifestyle mongolian nomadic herders’ lives are deeply connected to nature and their animals. to understand nature, an animal herder must be continuously observant of the surroundings and the animals cared for—two actions that are strongly encouraged, beginning at an early age. to train nomadic children, the family elders first assign them small jobs that are deemed appropriate for the early years. for example, children who are five years old begin to take care of lambs. six-year-olds take care of calves, sevenand eight-year-olds take care of young camels, and nineto 15-year-olds are considered be able to shepherd and be responsible for a herd of livestock. taking care of the animals includes giving them water and food, keeping them warm, and guiding them to appropriate pasture. in other words, young children learn daily herdsmen responsibilities as part of their daily activities at an increasingly more responsible rate. additionally, traditional mongolian teaching emphasizes the following areas: winter/hiver 2017 45 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research  observing and moving confidently within the natural environment  taking care of one’s own family members’ health  participating in the nomadic work ethic  showing love and respect for nature and the animals cared for by the family  offering respect for elders. the horse as a friend. any nomad can ride as well as they can walk or run. in their daily lives, mongolians consider the horse as a friend. as a result, there are many songs, poems, praises, proverbs, and sayings about horses, and the mongolian language includes more than 500 adjectives to express the presence of the horse (munkhtur, 2007). the following poem on a subject dear to the heart of most mongolians—horses—is part of that tradition. the stories of my people soar with horses, with wings they reach the golden sun. the wind riffs through their untrimmed manes, and, down the skyroad of khormast, they return to the lake like migrating birds, according to the customs of the golden earth. the poems of the elders soar with horses, with wings they reach the vibrant stars. from the herds of letters formed within the month, we have taken these migrating steeds. and, from the hitching posts of our poets’ horses, we have taken off for distant roads. my horse, fly high, oh my horse. by ochirkhuu, translated by simon wickham-smith (2006) not surprisingly, a large portion of mongolian nomad child’s play is based on the nomads’ daily transportation on horseback, and more than 80 of these play activities involve sheep ankle bones (namjil, 2014). the most common games with sheep ankle bones represent relationships, not only to horses, but to camels, sheep, and goats—the primary animal herds in nomadic families. “shagaa.” the ankle (shagaa) is a four-sided small bone in the hind legs of sheep, camels, cows, deer, and goats. each side represents a nomadic herding animal based on its shape:  dome-shaped side is sheep  alcove-shaped side is goat  horsehair shaped side is horse  inverse-shaped side is camel winter/hiver 2017 46 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research horse racing with anklebones. horse racing is one of the three manly games (eriin gurvan naadam) of the annual naadam festival, the centuries-old traditional annual summer festival of the nomads; the other two games are wrestling and archery. since 2010, sheep ankle flipping has been included in naadam. beginning at age 3, horse racing with sheep ankle bones is one of the most common play activities among mongolian nomadic children. ankle bone play was first mentioned in the secret history of the mongols (sumyabaatar, 1990) and another book written originally on stone 8,000 years ago. play used to be called chiga and chigai. scholars (gereltuya, 2011) explaining the origin and meaning of the word chiga note that chi means “phenomenal” and gaa means “a thing”; therefore, they propose that shagaa meant “phenomenal thing” in the ancient mongolian language. the game involves two or more children, who act as horse race trainers. first, the race horse trainers select their horse (from their shagaa, sheep ankle bone, collection) from their herd of horses. then the children create long lines with sheep ankle bones to serve as the racecourse, measuring distance and lining up their horses to prepare them to race. the horse race trainers throw four ankle bones in turn and move their horses forward along the racecourse, with the number of horse sides turned up in their toss indicating how many racecourse distances they can advance (onishon kindergarten, 2013). at the finish line, the horse-sided ankle bone that reaches the finish line first is the winner of the race. similar to the real horse races, children sing songs praising the winning ankle bone horse at the end of the play. in addition to the immediate enjoyment of playing, this game encourages children to keep the traditional horse racing culture of mongolian nomads. ankle bone (shagaa) play in contemporary early childhood education curriculum. the mongolian early childhood core curriculum encourages and supports collaboration among parents, teachers, and researchers toward the goal of rearing healthy children and providing opportunities for children to develop through their own individuality and creative actions (mongolian department of education, culture and science, 2014). to that end, one of the most common free play activities in mongolian kindergartens today continues to be play with sheep ankle bones (shagaa), as illustrated by the following list of the names of plays/activities with ankle bones, by age, in the mongolian kindergarten curriculum. play becomes more complex as the children grow, although children of any age can play. horse racing with anklebones. horse racing is one of the three manly games (eriin gurvan naadam) of the annual naadam festival, the centuries-old traditional annual summer festival of the nomads; the other two games are wrestling and archery. since 2010, sheep ankle flipping has been included in naadam. beginning at age 3, horse racing with sheep ankle bones is one of the most common play activities among mongolian nomadic children. ankle bone play was first mentioned in the secret history of the mongols (sumyabaatar, 1990) and another book written originally on stone 8,000 years ago. play used to be called chiga and chigai. scholars (gereltuya, 2011) explaining the origin and meaning of the word chiga note that chi means “phenomenal” and gaa means “a thing”; therefore, they propose that shagaa meant “phenomenal thing” in the ancient mongolian language. the game involves two or more children, who act as horse race trainers. first, the race horse trainers select their horse (from their shagaa, sheep ankle bone, collection) from their herd of horses. then the children create long lines with sheep ankle bones to serve as the racecourse, measuring distance and lining up their horses to prepare them to race. the horse race trainers throw four ankle bones in turn and move their horses forward along the racecourse, with the number of horse sides turned up in their toss indicating how many racecourse distances they can advance (onishon kindergarten, 2013). at the finish line, the horse-sided ankle bone that reaches the finish line first is the winner of the race. similar to the real horse races, children sing songs praising the winning ankle bone horse at the end of the play. in addition to the immediate enjoyment of playing, this game encourages children to keep the traditional horse racing culture of mongolian nomads. ankle bone (shagaa) play in contemporary early childhood education curriculum. the mongolian early childhood core curriculum encourages and supports collaboration among parents, teachers, and researchers toward the goal of rearing healthy children and providing opportunities for children to develop through their own individuality and creative actions (mongolian department of education, culture and science, 2014). to that end, one of the most common free play activities in mongolian kindergartens today continues to be play with sheep sheep camel horse goat 8 winter/hiver 2017 47 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research age 2:  recognize four sides of the ankle bone and grab it.  count the number of ankle bones for each animal. age 3:  play durvun berkh—a four-ankle bone game (durvun berkh means four hardships in mongolian). rolling all four sides of the ankle bone on one throw is considered indicative of very good fortune.  learn shapes and numbers of each animal ankle bone. age 4:  play horse racing with ankle bones.  play camel racing with ankle bones. age 5:  crush two ankle bones together. the player who can crush the ankle bones gets to pick one of the ankle bones. the winner is the one who gathers the most ankle bones.  guess ankle bone shape by touch.  create multicoloured turtles with multicoloured ankle bones. it is one of the most common play activities during national celebrations with friends and family members.  collect camel-shaped ankle bones. ulziisuren (2011) found that playing games resulted in improved eye sight, learning to sit or read for an extended period of time, perseverance, being both a good winner and a good loser, respect for other players and the rules of games, and increased perceptivity and speed. therefore, gereltuya (2011) concluded that ankle bone play (a) supports young children’s development in various ways, including comparing, grouping, recognizing colours, counting, controlling one’s behaviour, collaborating with other children, team work, and waiting for others; (b) has a positive impact on eye-hand coordination, which is helpful for school readiness; and (c) not only maintains cultural heritage, but also supports understanding and implementation of rules and mutual communication, speaking skills that prepare children for future learning. story with regard to the third theme, story, mongolian oral literature (ardiin aman zohiol) has played a significant role in preserving the country’s intellectual heritage for the younger generations. the main types of oral literature are winter/hiver 2017 48 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research tales, riddles, blessings, praises, and three of the world. tales (ulger, domog). these refer to narratives that contain fantasy, problem solving in daily life, and explanations of issues encountered in nomadic society. as such, the ancient mongolians told the younger generation stories to express their philosophy of life. riddles (onisogo). riddles are a type of oral poem used to challenge thinking and intelligence based on a problem that expresses an incident in a sarcastic way. blessings (yeruul). blessings are special poems related to civic or public ceremonies that bestow goodness and well-being in the future for such events as a wedding, new deel (a traditional costume for both men and women), or a new ger, the three manly games of naadam (the 800-year-old annual national festival), wool making, a new baby, and birthday celebrations. nomadic children are blessed when they wear their first deel at a very young age; however, they learn to bless others’ new deels by 3 years old. praises (magtaal). praises recognize goodness and accomplishments in the following three areas:  ritual praise: praise for horse race winner, archery, young horse, and mongolian herd animals (camels, cattle, horses, sheep, goats).  praise for mountains and rivers: altai praise, khnagai, khentii, ihkh bogd, gurvan saikhan, gobi, ulaanbaatar, and khan khukhii.  praises related to the way of life: hunter’s praise; mongolian herd animals’ praise, praise for camel, praise for horse. most young children’s first praise will be a compliment for his or her first horse. three of the world (yertuntsiin gyrav). this is a harmonious poem about three common characteristics that express philosophic conclusions from natural phenomena, life, historical events, and so on. here are some examples of three of the world poems that are commonly introduced to nomadic children between the ages of 3 and 5: the three “fars” far is the destination for a tired horse far is the friend for an unsocial person far is the day’s end for a hungry man three white things white teeth has a young man white hair—an old man white bones—a dead man winter/hiver 2017 49 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research a theoretical framework for examining the play activities of nomadic children in mongolia the theoretical framework for this discussion of the play activities of nomadic children in mongolia is based on the following assumptions:  play is biologically based and can be examined as a dynamic force that makes an evolutionary contribution to human development (roopnarine & johnson, 1994; schwartzman, 1978).  although there are numerous definitions of play, it is generally agreed that play is a dominant activity of children’s daily life in all cultures. children’s play portrays and reflects their social values and family ethnic practices (hyun, 1998).  children play out personally meaningful experiences within a specific sociocultural environment (erikson, 1963; vygotsky, 1977).  play can be considered an expression of a specific culture and is an important context for cultural learning, an indicator of developmental changes, and a reflection of experience (schwartzman, 1978).  culture is the major contextual influence enacted in all forms of adult–child, child–child, and child–children play (hyun, 1998). despite these widely held assumptions, gaskins and miller (2009) noted the absence of an overarching equitable treatment of the role of culture in understanding play. as a result, these researchers voiced their support for the criticism that western thinking and western-european children are the standard in play research, noting that this position is responsible for the scant literature on studies that examine the influence of culture on play (see also holmes, 2013). after introducing the cultural play world of the young child in the nomadic culture of mongolia, this discussion examined the connections between the following contributions of play within the nomadic environment: adaptive behaviour play as survival play for nomadic children the conclusion that resilience is the result of ordinary rather than extraordinary processes offers a more positive outlook on human development and adaptation, as well as a direction for policy and practice and specific studies of culture, play, and adaptive behaviours. as such, the study of the role of resilience in development has overturned many negative assumptions and deficitfocused models about children growing up in non-normative societies, such as nomadic ways of life in mongolia (engle, castle, & menon, 1996; fleming & ledogar, 2008; gunnestad, 2006; turner, davidson-hunt, & o’flaherty, 2003; ungar, 2008). evolutionary play as lifestyle play for nomadic children nielson (2012), along with pellegrini et al. (2007), argued that children’s play is critical to the evolution of the human cultural mind. cultural play as story play for nomadic children as lancy (2002) and gosso (2010) noted, children worldwide engage in playful activities, winter/hiver 2017 50 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research including practicing narratives and engaging in cultural games. through such activities, children practice their understanding of cultural values, skills, and abilities that are embedded in their everyday experiences. turkle (2007) wrote: “we think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with” (p. 6). the play activities of contemporary mongolian children reflect a cultural heritage by embracing the ancient nomadic philosophy of life, which deeply connects the people with gratitude to nature, herding animals, hunting, respecting elders, and encouraging tenacity (tegshjargal, 2014). that is, through play, nomadic children in mongolia discover the characteristics of the natural environment, relationship to culture, and creative responses to daily challenges (gereltuya, 2010). thus, in addition to providing fun and enjoyment, mongolian child play is a tool for teaching cultural values, including nomadic philosophy, as well as everyday problem-solving skills, and provides the building blocks with which children rehearse, maintain, and build on the institutional realities that reflect cultural practices. conclusion as illustrated throughout this article, mongolian traditional play is the main way by which young children are encouraged to be knowledgeable about nomadic values while engaging in both the creative and cultural functions of child play. as hyun (1998) noted, we all have a culturally shaped frame of mind set. this culturally grounded phenomenon tends to lead people to believe that their ways of looking at things are universally acceptable, which may not be true. thus, we all can become culturally blind. (p. 81) whether or not cultures acknowledge, condone, support, and set aside time for play, children worldwide engage in playful activities (gosso, 2010; lancy, 2002). nevertheless, there is cultural variability in play (lancy, 2007), and empirical evidence clearly supports a relationship between play and culture (göncü & gaskins, 2006; holmes, 2013). playing with the ankle bones of sheep, as discussed here, reflects the universal functions of play: (a) supporting adaptive behaviours necessary for survival and social changes, (b) contributing to the dynamics of human evolution, and (c) allowing opportunities to recreate the cultural environment. thus, in considering the ludic quality of the play of the nomadic children of mongolia, we see that play is not only a cultural force, but also shares in the universal understanding of what the play of childhood is all about. that is, in their play, these children acquire cultural values, skills, and abilities, which are embedded in their everyday experiences. citing turkle (2007), “we think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with” (p. 6). examining the play of nomadic children in mongolia reminds us that the landscape of play resides in the specific countryside of daily life. references bergen, d. 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(2006). the way of the world. new york, ny: lexington. fall/automne 2017 22 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research ogochukwu chinelo udenigwe is a phd student in the school of international development and global studies at the university of ottawa. she completed her msc in the department of family relations and human development at the university of guelph. her research interests include early learning and child care, child care policies, and family policies. she was a recipient of the josepharmand bombardier canada graduate scholarship, awarded by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc), and the ontario graduate scholarship. email: ocudenigwe@gmail.com donna lero is a professor emeritus in the department of family relations and the jarislowsky chair in families and work, centre for families, work, and well-being at the university of guelph. she is recognized as a leader in canadian research in public policies, workplace practices, and family supports. managing the impacts of full-day kindergarten on rural child care centres in ontario ogochukwu chinelo udenigwe and donna lero acknowledgements ogochukwu chinelo udenigwe was supported with the josepharmand bombardier canada graduate scholarship by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc) during her studies. remuneration for participation was provided by the centre for families, work, and well-being. no funder was involved in the study design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation. the authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of luisa artuso-della croce and laura coulman during the recruitment process. the authors thank the system managers and centre directors/operators for their participation in this study. background early learning and child care (elcc) is defined as a coherent, integrated, and inclusive approach to services delivered to children and parents (friendly & prentice, 2009). a highquality elcc program is appropriately designed both to include care and early learning that prepares children to succeed at school and to provide social support for parents by facilitating parental participation in the job market or pursuit of education (friendly, 2011; friendly & prentice, 2009; mccain, mustard, & mccuaig, 2011). although quality in elcc is most often focused on structural issues, such as staff-to-child ratios and staff qualifications, it has been argued that quality encompasses other equally important matters, such as funding, governance, policies that support elcc programs, and evaluation (friendly & prentice, 2009). beneficial or negative aspects of family policies, including the provision of affordable, high-quality elcc services, have consequences for children and families, because these policies will extend to other aspects of a child’s life, such as family functioning. child care services in canada have been called a “patchwork” of services due to the fragmentation of child care policies across provinces and territories (cleveland, 2008). provincial jurisdictions have “exclusive authority” over child care policies, and each provincial government holds different views about the state of elcc, thereby creating variation across provinces (friendly & prentice, 2009; pasolli & young, 2012). an example of these variations is the enormous differences in child care fees for infants across provinces, from $174 a month in quebec city, to $1,736 a month in toronto (macdonald & klinger, 2015). in ontario, the ministry of education has the responsibility for issuing licences to child care operators and for enforcing the child care and early years act (government of ontario, 2016). furthermore, the provincial government funds, licenses, and develops policy to support licensed child care, while consolidated municipal service managers (cmsms) and district social service evidence suggests that the introduction of full-day kindergarten (fdk) in ontario poses challenges to the child care sector; however, there is a dearth of information on the unique struggles faced by the rural child care sector as a result of the implementation of fdk. furthermore, little is known about survival strategies adopted by rural child care centres. telephone interviews with seven consolidated municipal service managers (cmsms), who are responsible for service planning and support, revealed the actions taken to aid rural communities. telephone interviews with nine rural child care centre directors/operators highlighted their strategies for managing the challenges presented by fdk and revealed the most pressing problems facing the rural child care sector. keywords: rural child care; full-day kindergarten challenges; child care policies; consolidated service managers fall/automne 2017 23 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research administration boards (dssabs) plan and manage child care services at the local level (government of ontario, 2016). funds provided by the government are mostly used to provide subsidies to low-income families and for wage subsidies; however, parent fees account for the majority of centre revenues, and can be very expensive for middle-income families, especially those requiring care for an infant/toddler or for two or more children below school age (friendly, 2011; mccain, mustard, & shanker, 2007). full-day kindergarten in ontario the ontario government envisioned a plan for early learning in ontario and announced it in 2009 in the pascal report, with our best futures in mind. the provincial government’s plan included school-board-operated full-day kindergarten (fdk) programs with extended day programs. fdk was introduced in 2010 with plans for full implementation by 2014 (pascal, 2009). the introduction of fdk to ontario for 4and-5-year-olds was termed the “biggest transformation” in the province’s education system (ontario ministry of education, 2016b). the introduction of fdk in ontario has generally been seen as a positive step. the program, under the leadership of the ministry of education, is delivered by local school boards and aims to provide 4and 5-year-olds with an integrated day of learning, including before and after school care, operated on school premises (ontario ministry of education, 2016b). the resource guide how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early years (ontario ministry of education, 2014) builds on the expectations and pedagogical approaches to learning in fdk settings. fdk intends to give 4and 5-year-olds positive learning experiences through a planned curriculum and a play-based program that recognizes play as a means of a child’s expression of curiosity (ontario ministry of education, 2016b). fdk is intended to allow for universal access to elcc for all 4and 5-year-olds throughout the province. arguments on the fulfilled expectations, or lack thereof, of fdk are outside the scope of this study. our research focuses on the effects of fdk implementation on the child care sector as a result of moving older preschool children out of community child care programs without sufficient planning for system change and additional investments in child care services. we argue that doing so puts unsustainable pressure on the child care sector and creates uncertainty for the parents who rely on child care services (ontario municipal social services association, 2012) and that such impacts are particularly consequential for children, programs, and communities in rural areas. impact of fdk policy on child care policy and quality fdk implementation can impact the affordability of child care. while parents benefit from access to “free” elcc in local schools for 4and 5-year-olds (at least during the school year), the costs for parents of younger children are affected negatively. specifically, the age mix in child care programs when service is provided for infants to 5-year-olds enhances affordability by having the cost of care for 4and 5-year-olds offset that of younger, more vulnerable children, who are more expensive to care for. with 4and 5-year-olds transferring to the fdk program, child care operators must redesign their service model and spaces to provide services exclusively to younger children (ontario municipal social services association, 2012), for whom more staff are required to meet adult:child ratios and provide quality care. an immediate consequence of this change is an increase in child care fees, which makes child care more expensive and less accessible to parents of children under 4 (ontario municipal social services association, 2012). furthermore, the shift of 4and 5-year-olds to fdk programs results in vacant spaces in child care programs, which decreases the programs’ viability and potential to receive funding. the government of ontario did provide some financial assistance to child care centres and to schools as communities implemented the full-day early learning kindergarten program; however, recent ontario funding guidelines prioritize funding to viable child care programs (ontario ministry of education, 2016a). compared to urban areas, rural communities already faced existing issues in child care, such as limited licensed child care spaces and decreased enrollments (ontario municipal social services association, 2011). valued and compensated early childhood educators (eces) are key to maintaining the quality of the child care sector. the implementation of fdk puts schools in direct competition with the child care sector for qualified eces, thereby creating additional recruitment and retention issues in the child care sector. child care operators also face a significant increase in their work load, such as overseeing capital retrofits, developing business plans, applying for grants, and negotiating licensing processes and agreements with school boards, particularly if they wish to operate third-party beforeand after-school programs (city of toronto, 2013). it has been noted that fdk only magnifies the challenges that previously existed in the child care sector, particularly in rural communities, potentially resulting in fewer licensed child care services (friendly, 2011). characteristics of rural communities an abundance of research has shown that designing and implementing an initiative in rural areas presents different challenges than fall/automne 2017 24 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research would be encountered in urban areas (asthana & halliday, 2004; rural ontario municipal association, 2011). it is important to appreciate the characteristics of rural communities, because it aids in understanding why certain policies that work in urban areas are not sustainable in rural communities. the rural ontario municipal association (2011) asserts that the characteristically low population density in rural areas translates into an inadequate number of individuals available to sustain businesses. the lack of businesses also impedes the development of job opportunities. furthermore, the lack of workers increases the cost of providing certain public services, such as transportation, water, and waste removal and treatment. a scattered population where services are utilized by few users further implies that it would be more expensive to provide infrastructure and public services to such communities, because the services might not be utilized to their utmost potential (doherty, 1994; rural ontario municipal association, 2011). similarly, asthana and halliday (2004) report that the costs of operating services are higher in rural areas. one of the many contributors to these higher costs is the lack of accessible services, which translates into service providers incurring high travel costs. transportation costs are also incurred by users of services, and it is particularly problematic for low-income individuals/families and for groups such as the elderly and individuals with physical disabilities. asthana and halliday (2004) also observe a relationship between rural location and service quality. they report that services provided for rural dwellers are often limited, and the services provided are not up to par with services provided in urban areas. furthermore, the predominant work pattern in many rural areas is seasonal; individuals may work for long hours in certain months and have shorter or no work hours in other months. the seasonal cycle results in unique requirements for programs and services such as child care. child care services that respond to such working patterns are necessary; however, they are lacking in most rural areas (rural ontario municipal association, 2011). with these characteristics in mind, the need for social supports cannot be overstated. challenges facing child care centres in rural communities even before the implementation of fdk, the child care sector in rural ontario has always faced challenges due to its unique characteristics (ontario municipal social services association, 2011). such characteristics as seasonal variation in work patterns, variation in child care needs, commuting long distances for work, and sparsely populated areas require child care services that offer seasonal care and emergency or periodic care, as well as care for extended hours. rural child care centres experience major challenges, including unoccupied spaces, limited funding, and staffing difficulties. there are fewer users of services due to the declining population in rural communities; however, this does not dismiss the needs of families who require those services. because the majority of funding for child care centres comes from parent fees, it is important that spaces are filled for centres to remain viable (doherty, 1994). as the ontario municipal social services association (omssa) explained, “the problem isn’t always the lack of child care spaces. sometimes, it’s the inability to fill all the spaces that affects the providers’ ability to stay open” (2011, p. 3). furthermore, having fewer children in a child care centre precludes hiring the required number of staff to operate age-segregated groups (infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children). for this reason, child care supervisors in rural centres are likely to spend more time filling in for the lack of staff, thereby overlooking their administrative and leadership responsibilities (atkinson centre, 2011; doherty, 1994). furthermore, rural child care services face funding challenges. centres cannot rely solely on parent fees to operate. they require stable operational funding to sustain their services; however, omssa (2011) reports that as the enrollment population declined in the child care sector, funding did the same. many reports have shown that child care centres in rural areas tend to lack spaces for infants and toddlers because they are considered expensive to care for (atkinson centre, 2011; ontario municipal social services association, 2011; prentice, 2007). additionally, rural communities find it difficult to attract and retain appropriately trained staff (ontario municipal social services association, 2011). this is because most qualified staff desire salaries that are commensurate with urban child care centres; however, pay scales in rural centres are generally lower. the lack of qualified staff raises concern about the quality of care provided, because centres may be forced to employ underqualified workers (atkinson centre, 2011; ontario municipal social services association, 2011). although the general challenges faced by child care centres in rural communities have been acknowledged, there is a dearth of information on the unique challenges they have faced due to the implementation of fdk. additionally, little is known about survival strategies adopted by rural child care centres. this study was designed to learn about how fdk implementation is affecting rural child care programs and what strategies providers and local cmsms are using to adapt to system change. it incorporates information obtained from both cmsm staff and child care program directors/operators, and it provides an initial analysis of the circumstances that may reduce or exacerbate the difficulties rural child care programs may be experiencing. the specific objectives of the study were: 1. to understand the level of involvement of cmsms in supporting rural elcc services. fall/automne 2017 25 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2. to learn how rural child care operators have been affected by the introduction of fdk and/or how they expect to be affected in the near future. 3. to examine what characterizes situations in which child care centre directors/operators are able to make positive changes to buffer negative effects, and what characterizes situations where centres appear to be more vulnerable. human ecology perspective on rural child care this research employs a human ecology framework that situates the realities of individual lives in the contexts in which they live (bronfenbrenner, 1979). this framework has three main premises. the first is that individuals are not isolated, but interact with their physical and social contexts. individuals are actively interacting with the contexts or environments in which they live (keating, 2008). for the purposes of this research, it is important to situate child care as a phenomenon in a rural context and to understand the experiences of child care operators and the daily challenges they face when providing child care in rural areas. the second premise of the human ecology framework is that environments have boundaries that are permeable, thereby allowing interactions and influences from other environments (keating, 2008). in the context of this research, characteristics of rural communities, such as sparse populations and the challenges of travelling to where services are located, may affect the availability and accessibility of services and service delivery (rural ontario municipal association, 2011). in this way, the physical environment influences existing programs, and for child care operators, maintaining the viability of their business becomes an issue when it is not easily accessible to the entire community. the third premise of the human ecology framework is that individuals are not “passive recipients of their environments” (keating, 2008). individuals have varying capacities to adapt to their environments. in the context of this research, it is imperative to understand adaptive strategies of operators as they combat the many challenges presented by the introduction of fdk. this research seeks to understand if or how rural child care operators are taking advantage of financial or human resources to adapt to changes. it is important to note that the environment of focus includes both the immediate and macro environments, such as policies enacted by the provincial government. methodology this study takes an exploratory approach to research. reiter (2013) explains that in exploratory research, a researcher sets out with a purpose in mind, with a phenomenon to study or investigate. this phenomenon is usually not clearly understood. the researcher therefore uses their imagination, insights, and experience to propose new ways of understanding the phenomenon. this study sought to gain new insights and understanding of the strategies employed by directors/operators of rural child care services and local cmsms for overcoming the challenges of full-day kindergarten. it was important to gain information from the cmsms because, under the childcare and early years act, they deliver financial assistance to and coordinate planning and operation of child care centres. they also help struggling centres maintain viability and effect policy change in the child care centres. the study therefore inferred that cmsms would/should be aware of the needs of the rural child care sector as it adapts to fdk implementation. similarly, under the act, child care centre directors/operators are involved in daily administration and management of centres. this study aimed to understand how centre directors/operators were adapting their programs to mitigate the pressures presented by fdk implementation. ultimately, this study aimed to juxtapose the perspectives of both groups. participant sampling and recruitment the research included 16 participants, seven of whom were cmsms of regional or county child care services departments in southwestern ontario and nine of whom were directors/operators of child care centres in rural communities. centres included both nonprofit and private, for-profit child care centres. sampling involved a purposive sample of cmsms from seven counties in southwestern ontario. the director of childcare services for guelph and wellington county and a senior child care policy analyst facilitated this research by sending out letters of invitation to cmsms on behalf of the researchers. eight cmsms were contacted initially and seven agreed to participate. subsequent correspondence was carried out between the researchers and the cmsms. cmsm participants also facilitated contact with directors/operators of rural child care centres in their areas by sending out invitation letters describing the study on behalf of the researchers. eleven centre directors/operators were contacted initially, but only nine agreed to participate. informed consent was obtained through a written consent form that was signed and returned by all participants prior to interviews. the researchers conducted telephone interviews with the participants. participants dialled into a conference call using a toll-free number. the telephone interviews involved a one-time call scheduled to last for 45 minutes. each interview included the researchers and the participant. fall/automne 2017 26 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the format used for interviewing cmsms and centre directors/operators was a semistructured interview, which allowed the researchers to obtain descriptive information and establish rapport prior to moving to more open-ended questions. this process allowed participants to speak freely. it also allowed the researchers to probe for details and clarifications in a natural way. all interviews were digitally recorded, after permission to do so was granted. following the interviews, each centre director was sent a $50 gift card as a token of appreciation for their involvement in the research. data analysis the interviews from both cmsms and centre directors/operators resulted in about 30 pages of transcribed notes. extensive notes were also taken for all 16 participants by the researchers during the interviews. thematic analysis was selected as the method of data analysis for this study, following the procedures developed by braun and clarke (2006). a theme is part of the data that captures important information in relation to the research question. it is usually a patterned response throughout the data set. the intent in this study was to give a sense of the predominant themes that emerged from a rich description of the entire data set. braun and clarke (2006) explain that thematic analysis is inductive. in this study, the themes that were generated were directly linked to the data, and there was no preexisting framework. coding was performed manually because the data set was of a manageable size. codes, as defined by guest, macqueen, and namey (2012), are the most basic information about the phenomenon that can be accessed meaningfully. pages of text were reviewed in a recursive manner. results were organized and reported separately for cmsms and centre directors/operators. five subthemes were initially generated from cmsms’ responses and further developed to two main themes: awareness of cmsms, and actions of cmsms. similarly, four subthemes and two main themes were generated from centre directors/operators’ responses. the two main themes were challenges and strategies. this paper organizes the findings as they relate to the study objectives. trustworthiness and limitations trustworthiness, or validity of a study, is the truthfulness of “findings and conclusions based on the maximum opportunity to hear participant voices in a particular context” (hays & singh, 2012, p. 192). to achieve credibility, the researchers used triangulation. one form of triangulation involves using a range of informants (shenton, 2004). to understand rural child care, this study gathered information from both cmsms and child care centre directors/operators. participants were encouraged to freely share their opinions from the beginning of the study. to encourage honest, genuine, and willing participation, participants were granted an unconditional right to withdraw at any point. this approach is consistent with shenton’s (2004) suggestions for establishing credibility. this study is not without its limitations, most of which relate to the scope and sample size. the scope of the study was limited to the experiences of rural centre directors/operators and cmsms from southwestern ontario who were able to participate. selection biases are likely, and we do not assume that the findings represent the experiences of all cmsms or rural centre directors/operators in this region or other rural ontario regions. further research could examine how these and other centre directors/operators are affected over time as fdk is fully implemented and as more attention is paid to funding and support issues for licensed child care providers. it would also be valuable to learn more about centres that close as a result of fdk, as well as centres that become more proactive in serving the needs of the children and families in their community. findings pressing problems in rural child care centres the unique characteristics of rural areas present challenges to the licensed child care sector. initially, the interview questions aimed to achieve a general overview of the problems facing rural child care centres that were not necessarily tied to the implementation of fdk. in fact, when asked to identify what they perceived to be the most pressing problems facing their child care centres, directors/ operators referred to some problems that were directly related to the introduction of fdk, as well as issues that were more general. centre directors/operators acknowledged the impact of fdk on their child care programs, and impacts were also anticipated in areas where kindergarten had not yet been implemented. directors/operators reported a mix of positive and negative impacts, although themes of negative impacts were more common. child care directors/operators felt that funding was a main area of concern for their centres. several centre directors/operators commented on the limited funding available to them. some opined that even when funding was available, it was tough to access because public schools were given funding priority. fall/automne 2017 27 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research additionally, several directors/operators reported drops in enrollments as one of the many issues plaguing their centres. over the past year, many directors/operators had experienced fluctuations in the enrollment patterns of all age groups. for example, some centres had more unfilled spaces than they had in the previous year. for many directors/operators, more recent decreases in enrollments occurred within the kindergarten age group (4and 5-year-olds). reductions in enrollment are closely linked to a program’s financial viability. centre directors/operators contended that the change in the number and ages of children had resulted in a less financially viable situation for them. similarly, child care directors/operators mentioned that the cost of child care itself is expensive and that this expense could be discouraging parents from enrolling their children. directors/operators also perceived that parents were unaware of the availability of subsidies. furthermore, as a result of fdk, centre directors/operators reported room closures or impending room closures, such as infant or toddler rooms, in their centres. some directors/operators were considering renovating their centres to avoid room closures; however, structural issues presented a barrier for those directors/operators who would have liked to revamp their building to suit the needs of younger age groups. the introduction of fdk has had an impact on the already existing issues of recruiting and retaining qualified eces in rural areas. for all of the directors/operators, attracting and retaining qualified staff was an immense concern. attracting staff to a rural area is challenging, but retaining them is even more difficult. unlike the school boards, child care centres do not offer competitive wages to eces. additionally, most centres do not offer nonwage benefits to eces, making it easier to lose staff to jobs with more competitive wages and benefits. one director observed a decrease in staff morale and higher rates of absenteeism among staff. centre directors/operators reported making necessary changes in their staffing patterns. they stated that staff retention became contingent on the enrollment patterns of different age groups; some planned on laying off staff of age groups where enrollments were low. for several directors, recruiting qualified eces was problematic. for example, directors/operators reported receiving more job applications from unqualified individuals than from qualified eces. one director mentioned: “incredible challenges. we receive a lot of applications from people with passion, but no licence. when we post job advertisements, it is difficult to get a decent number of qualified staff” (director 8). with the introduction of fdk, licensed nonprofit child care centres can be granted contracts to provide beforeand after-school programs on behalf of the school boards. several directors/operators reported being awarded the contract to offer beforeand afterschool programs in their area. however, they were concerned that recruiting staff to work split shifts might deter from program success. strategies used by rural child care directors/operators all the directors/operators affirmed that it was essential to maintain their child care centres’ viability in the face of the challenges presented by fdk. each director disclosed the strategies they had used or were expecting to use to maintain centre viability. while some were further along or had adapted unique strategies, many directors/operators were responding in similar ways, with the majority focusing on promoting enrollments and trying to stimulate demand through strategic marketing, repositioning themselves to attract younger children, or taking advantage of the opportunity to offer beforeand after-school or extended day programming in partnership with their local board. a dominant theme among centre directors/operators was their use of strategic marketing to promote their centre. some directors/ operators recruited board members who had marketing backgrounds, and their skills were utilized in promoting the centre. directors/ operators used various media to promote their centres. these included community newsletters and websites. in their advertising, many of the directors/operators aimed at attracting parents who already patronized unlicensed child care programs by emphasizing the benefits of licensed child care programs. furthermore, in response to financial strains caused by the introduction of fdk, most directors/operators commented on the importance of having business savvy. some enhanced their managerial skills by enrolling in business courses or workshops aimed at teaching them business resilience and continuity. several directors/operators felt that, as a result of these training sessions, they were in a better position to plan and adjust to any business issues. in response to losing the older children to the public school system, many directors/operators reported reorienting their rooms and centres to accommodate younger age groups. also, some were upgrading their toys and materials to be more age appropriate for younger children. one director’s comment described the changes: “the implementation pulled two years’ worth of development age of our children. we have had to relook and revamp our toys to get age-appropriate toys [for the younger children]” (director 7). however, some directors/operators were unable to make structural changes in their centres due to funding issues. directors/ operators mentioned that, without formal commitment from cmsms and the provincial government, it would be difficult to maintain the viability of programs aimed at younger age groups. similarly, one director mentioned increasing parent fees as a strategy for fall/automne 2017 28 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research sustaining centre viability. a more common theme among directors/operators was offering parents more flexibility in their child care routines. this strategy improved customer service and helped retain the loyalty of parents. one director gave an example: “[we offer] more flexible child care now . . . parents have the option of terminating their child care and holding their spot for when they come back. we cater to the needs of each family” (director 9). directors/operators were also taking action to address staffing challenges through various strategies to retain their staff. specific initiatives included increasing staff wages, offering benefits to staff, promoting the early childhood education field, and offering staff appreciation activities or awards. several directors/operators reported responding to the dire state of ece wages in the rural child care sector. they described plans to increase staff wages or to offer some monetary incentive to staff working in rural areas. one director mentioned receiving wage improvement allocations for their staff from their municipal government for this purpose. in addition, several centre directors/operators commented that they were beginning to offer some form of benefits to their staff. some already had a registered retirement savings plan in effect for their staff, while others were considering it. furthermore, directors attributed the shortage of qualified staff to the low enrollments in ece programs. some directors/operators took it upon themselves to create awareness about the field and to encourage individuals from the community to pursue a career in the field. several directors/operators commended their staff; many stated that they had “great staff.” directors/operators showed commitment to enhancing staff morale through various means, such as celebrating staff accomplishments, being flexible and accommodating staff, rewarding above-average performance with “employee of the month” awards, and treating staff to meals. directors/operators acknowledged the payoff from these inputs. rural considerations by cmsms several cmsms reported that they had tailored implementation plans specific to rural communities. they also mentioned that they were taking actions to aid rural communities. these plans had manifested in different ways, such as funding considerations, soliciting the voices of rural child care operators in the planning phase, and lobbying on behalf of rural child care centres for extended day programs. according to most cmsms, some form of financial consideration was made specifically to rural areas. most cmsms had taken steps toward addressing the financial viability of child care centres. some assisted rural child care operators with financial planning. some cmsms acknowledged the unique service delivery issues for child care programs in rural communities and had therefore provided supplemental funding to rural areas. several cmsms commented on this. for example, one said: “we have allocated additional enhanced funding for rural communities and we recognize that there is unique service delivery for rural communities” (cmsm 6). cmsms considered child care operators as part of the broader child care community; they mentioned the importance of ensuring their voices are heard. for this reason, some rural child care directors/operators were included on planning committees that guided a more efficient delivery of programs to children and families. some cmsms indicated their continuous support for rural child care. most cmsms acknowledged that rural child care was in need of a major change and suggested maximizing space and disseminating information as ways of improving rural child care programs. one cmsm opined: “child care programs need major change. we need to have candid discussions, especially on the use of school space . . . we need to keep everyone informed” (cmsm 3). many of the cmsms reported a more comprehensive use of the schools in rural areas. some cmsms had established partnerships with local school boards that enabled access to low-cost spaces in schools for rural child care operators. moreover, cmsms encouraged nonprofit child care centres to offer beforeand after-school (extended day) programs on behalf of schools because they believed it would increase centre viability, particularly for vulnerable centres. one cmsm mentioned partnering with the school board and undertaking feasibility studies with nonprofit rural centre operators about becoming third-party operators. cmsms also reported that they were taking action to aid rural child care centres with issues related to staffing. cmsms aided professional development for eces through access to career development courses. one cmsm gave an example of a professional development strategy funded by the ministry of education where eces and supervisors participated in a 30-credit-hours course that focused on child care practices. this course updated staff practice. the cost of tuition, as well as the cost for hiring replacement staff for the duration of the training, was covered. discussion funding was a key issue raised by centre directors/operators. limited funds affected their centres’ viability. furthermore, the impacts of decreased enrollments, particularly the loss of 4and 5-year-olds, was another issue raised. staffing issues, including challenges fall/automne 2017 29 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research attracting and retaining qualified staff, were another concern for child care directors/operators. finally, directors/operators expressed concerns about strategies such as offering beforeand after-school / extended day services. these issues are interrelated, potentially affecting both the sustainability and quality of child care services. rural child care directors/operators cited insufficient funding as one of the most pressing problems facing their child care centre in the last year. by contrast, cmsms did not identify funding, as such, as a critical issue for rural child care centre directors/operators. the views expressed by the centre directors/operators in this study were similar to the opinions expressed by focus groups held in waterloo region in 2011 and 2012 (region of waterloo social services, 2012). as reported in the region’s early learning and child care service plan 2012–2015, (urban and rural) operators identified the top four challenges that could threaten their current and future viability. they included (a) insufficient funds for wage subsidies for current staff, (b) the cost of infant/toddler care, (c) insufficient per-diem rates, and (d) lack of wage subsidies for new staff. in addition, elcc directors/operators expressed concern about the limited funding available for renovations and transformation of junior/senior kindergarten spaces to infant and toddler spaces due to uncertainty about the demand for these spaces (region of waterloo social services, 2012). similarly, rural child care directors/ operators in this study suggested that there was limited funding available to them and it was not easily accessible. furthermore, centre directors/operators showed disapproval of the large amounts being doled out to the public school system compared to what is being invested in the child care sector. several directors/operators advocated for community-based child care programs to be treated as full and equal partners in an elcc system (i.e., an integral part of services for children to be funded by the ministry of education). one director summed it up in these words: “there should be more funding within the [child care] system. if child care is part of the ministry of education, it should be looked at as part of it, as a full part” (director 1). additionally, directors/operators were advocating for increased funding for younger children. this study conceptualizes child care directors/operators and their social or political climate within an ecological system wherein independent parts interact. constraints on resources create barriers for adaptation to changes such as the implementation of fdk. both cmsms and centre directors/operators cited declining enrollments as a key issue facing the rural child care sector, although some cmsms opined that this may not be unique to rural areas. centre directors/operators cited the loss of 4and 5-year-olds to fdk programs as the major cause for drops in enrollment. cmsms were also aware of enrollment issues facing rural child care centres and identified low enrollments in infant and toddler programs as the main enrollment challenge facing rural child care. declining enrollments were shown to have a ripple effect: they affected work hours allocated to staff, which could result in the loss of qualified staff to better-paying jobs. the loss of qualified staff, in turn, has a huge impact on program quality. as maher, frestedt, and grace (2008) point out, licensed child care centres in rural areas have a higher number of infants per adult, thereby reducing the quality of care the infants receive. declining enrollments and fewer staff also affects funding and the viability of these rural child care programs. omssa (2011) explains that the loss of quality licensed child care is not beneficial to children’s development, particularly in rural areas, where it has been shown that licensed child care is decreasing and the unlicensed child care sector is growing. quality child care is also essential to impede a decline of the rural population. omssa (2011) explains that new families and businesses are less likely to be attracted to areas without quality child care. cmsms and directors/operators agree that rural child care centres face staffing challenges. cmsms are aware that maintaining qualified staff is a key issue facing rural child care because of low wages and transportation costs. with the introduction of fdk, rural child care centres are losing staff to school boards that can offer higher wages and better benefits. a national study of child care programs in canada (you bet we still care!) acknowledged this challenge faced by child care centres. the study reported that competition from the school system for qualified eces was more of an issue in ontario than elsewhere across canada (flanagan, beach, & varmuza, 2013). furthermore, cmsms were fully aware that unqualified staff were securing employment in some centres. several child care centre directors/operators admitted that they seldom receive job applications from qualified eces and have had to hire individuals with passion but little training. both cmsms and centre directors/operators acknowledged that this is a band-aid solution. similarly, the aforementioned waterloo region’s elcc service plan reported that child care operators listed the lack of registered ece graduates as one of the large challenges facing their centres. centre operators who participated in focus groups in the waterloo region and in the interviews conducted for this study were frustrated that they were losing qualified staff to school boards who could offer better wages and benefits (region of waterloo social services, 2012). likewise, the national you bet we still care! study reported that centre directors/operators across canada are experiencing similar recruitment challenges: 65% reported a lack of qualified applicants for positions, and almost 43% stated that staff were not satisfied with their wages (flanagan et al., 2013). in response to the lack of qualified applicants, 62.6 % of centre directors/operators reported hiring a less-qualified applicant (flanagan et al., 2013). in the presence of these challenges, however, centre directors/operators were not passive recipients of their environment. findings situate centre directors/operators in the ecological framework as they adapt to changes in their environments with varying capacities. fall/automne 2017 30 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research some of them reported promoting the value of licensed, quality child care in their local communities, both as a way of advertising their services and as a means of raising the profile of the ece field. in a number of cases, these practices were encouraged by cmsms, and that prompted directors/operators to develop marketing as a business strategy to remain viable. this was a dominant theme among centre directors/operators, many of whom explained that in this period of transition, they have had to create awareness of the licensed child care sector more than ever. centre directors/operators utilized different media, such as television, community newspapers and magazines, post boards, and word of mouth. besides marketing, cmsms noticed that some rural child care centres were reducing their fees to remain competitive with the informal child care sector. centre directors/operators reported the opposite, although it was a minor theme. some child care centre directors/operators were increasing parent fees to maintain their centres and their capacity to attract and retain qualified staff. clearly, without additional public funding, the trade-offs between charging parents higher fees versus maintaining staff salaries in a time of transition and uncertainty are very difficult. nonetheless, there are growing concerns that both the limited number of infant/toddler spaces and increased parent fees to cover higher costs could put enormous pressure on parents by making child care even more unaffordable for them (friendly, 2011). cmsms noticed that parents often resort to informal care; increasing parent fees may push some parents to the informal child care sector. the report with our best future in mind identified the various roles of municipalities in the introduction of fdk, including service planning to ensure high-quality service provision and support for child care services and school boards during the period of significant system change (pascal, 2009). cmsms are expected to work with school boards to develop plans for fdk implementation. similarly, cmsms are charged with managing and resourcing best start child and family centres to provide comprehensive programs and supports to children and families, ranging from prenatal supports, to nutrition counselling, to early learning and care, to early intervention and care (pascal, 2009). furthermore, municipalities are responsible for ensuring the flow of funds to school boards and best start child and family centres. finally, cmsms are expected to retain responsibility for integrating programs and evaluating them (pascal, 2009). the roles outlined in the pascal report were articulated by cmsms in this study, most of whom mentioned taking on broader responsibilities, developing partnerships with school boards, and supporting service providers to adapt to a different system. most cmsms interviewed in this study indicated that recent changes in responsibilities had increased the complexity of their work and added to their workload. supporting rural child care operators is thus only one facet of their increasingly complex roles. specific to child care, one of the roles of municipalities includes helping child care operators merge with public schools. cmsms can provide transitional funding and capital funding that will be used to restructure buildings and transform spaces. the pascal report cites an example where a school that has a child care centre, a parenting and family literacy centre, or an ontario early years centre, all colocated within it, would merge into a best start child and family centre, providing one-stop access for children and families. findings from the present study showed that while centre directors/operators were cognizant of the benefits of this consolidation, it raised complex and difficult issues in rural settings. for example, colocating with a school was not seen as an ideal fit for some centre directors/operators, who felt that the setting would not be ideal for running a child care centre due to location, ages of children, or other factors; for that reason a stand-alone centre was preferred. some operators of stand-alone centres were fortunate to receive funding to restructure their buildings, while others were still waiting and hoping. privately operated (for-profit) centres reported not being able to access such resources. original plans that envisioned additional funds to allow best start child and family centres serving younger children to attract and retain qualified staff had not materialized. there had been little policy development and limited new funding to support the development and viability of centres that serve more children younger than 4. findings from this study show that rural child care centres have had difficulty attracting qualified eces to begin with, and those who had intentions of raising staff wages lacked sufficient funding to match what was being offered by the school board. the bottom line for centre directors/ operators was that more funding was required. child care centre directors/operators proclaimed that they are not baby sitters; they are a part of the early childhood education and care system, which the ministry of education is responsible for, and should be treated as such. supporting this claim is an explanation from the oecd (as cited by child care advocacy association of canada, 2011) that care and education are inseparable terms and that quality services for children provide both. child care directors/operators explained that the objectives of fdk were already in place in high-quality licensed centres; they had been offering an integrated program of learning and play and did not see the need for the implementation of fdk. several directors/operators felt that funds directed toward the school boards to implement fdk would have been better spent on the child care sector. some directors/operators talked about rebranding their centre names to include an early learning component, while others discussed enlightening the community about their early learning and care programs. these directors/operators were sensitive to perceptions that child care is associated with just supervision of children, rather than being seen as a well-designed program that offers developmentally appropriate learning experiences, rendering it less of a priority to the ministry of education. fall/automne 2017 31 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research while the majority of centre directors/operators expressed concerns about the impacts of fdk implementation, some centre directors/ operators seemed more optimistic and expressed less concern about it. it is important to note that, because fdk had not yet been fully implemented in a number of areas where study child care centres were located, some had an advantage by having more time to plan. having established that, some centre directors/operators who had not yet been directly impacted by the introduction of fdk still expressed concern about the impending challenges they saw ahead. responses from some of these directors/operators indicated that they were taking a proactive approach to dealing with anticipated issues, including planning for the replacement of children who would be lost to fdk upon implementation. others had started promoting their centres and emphasizing the importance of licensed child care in the community. furthermore, several directors/operators took business resilience courses offered by the cmsm or recruited board members with financial expertise. they mentioned drawing up budgets and strategically planning ahead. another similarity among those directors/operators who had fewer concerns was that they all had considerable support from their cmsms. some directors/operators also acknowledged being more fortunate than other centres when it came to attracting funding from the municipality. there were also some centre directors/operators who reported not being concerned about staffing challenges. these directors/operators offered some sort of benefit package to their staff and were trying to stay competitive by increasing staff wages. to some directors/ operators, loyalty was important and they strove to show appreciation to their staff. these directors/operators mentioned having lower staff turnover compared to other centres. one of the directors/operators mentioned that the majority of the staff who had worked in that centre had been there for 10 to 15 years. these directors/operators also mentioned investing in professional development and training for their staff. all centre directors/operators who reported fewer staffing challenges also reported improving their staff wages and offering good working conditions to staff. not all of them offered benefits, but there were plans in place for this. knowledge about these strategies is helpful in understanding ways to retain staff. conclusion as demonstrated by this research, the child care sector has been hugely impacted by the implementation of fdk in ontario. this study pays particular attention to the rural child care sector, which already had a struggling child care system. centre directors/operators in this study call for equal treatment of kindergarten programs and licensed child care services. the challenges of sustaining high-quality, inclusive child care in rural areas remains an understudied area. however, it is a critically important service for rural communities, and it requires careful examination and responsive, flexible support from policy makers and service managers, as well as equitable financial supports from governments. references asthana, s., & halliday, j. (2004). what can rural agencies do to address the additional costs of rural services? a typology of rural service innovation. health & social care in the community, 12(6), 457–465. atkinson centre. (2011). policy monitor # 5: the impact of full-day kindergarten on rural childcare. retrieved from: http://www.oise. utoronto.ca/atkinson/userfiles/file/policy commentaries/ac_policycommentary5_fulldayk_ruralchildcare.pdf braun, v., & clarke, v. (2006). using thematic analysis in psychology. qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77–101. bronfenbrenner, u. (1979). the ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. child care advocacy association of canada. (2011). a tale of two canadas: implementing rights in early childhood. retrieved from: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/ngos/canada_ coalitionofchildcareadvocatesofbc&childcareadvocacyassociationofcanadacrc61t.pdf city of toronto. (2013). full-day kindergarten implementation status update. retrieved from: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/ mmis/2013/cd/bgrd/backgroundfile-59501.pdf cleveland, g. (2008). if it don’t make dollars, does that mean it don’t make sense? commercial, nonprofit, and municipal child care in the city of toronto. report to children’s services division, city of toronto. retrieved from: https://www1.toronto.ca/ fall/automne 2017 32 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research city_of_toronto/childrens_services/files/pdf/cleveland_report_may08.pdf doherty, g. (1994). rural childcare in ontario. occasional paper no. 4. ministry of community and social services. retrieved from: http://www.childcarecanada.org/sites/default/files/op4.pdf flanagan, k., beach, j., & varmuza, p. (2013). you bet we still care! a survey of centre-based early childhood education and care in canada. highlights report. child care human resources sector council. retrieved from: http://www.ccsc-cssge.ca/sites/ default/files/uploads/projects-pubs-docs/en pub chart/youbetsurveyreport_final.pdf friendly, m. (2011). early childhood and care in toronto: funding the future. childcare resource and research unit. retrieved from: http://www.toronto.ca/children/pdf/funding_the_future/ecec_in_to_full.pdf friendly, m., & prentice, s. (2009). about canada: childcare. halifax, ns: fernwood. government of ontario. (2016). child care rules under the child care and early years act, 2014. retrieved from: https://www.ontario. ca/page/child-care-rules-child-care-and-early-years-act guest, g., macqueen, k., & namey, e. (2012). applied thematic analysis. thousand oaks, ca: sage. hays, d. g., & singh, a. a. (2012). qualitative inquiry in clinical and educational setting. new york, ny: the guilford press. keating, n. (2008). rural ageing: a good place to grow old? bristol, england: the policy press. macdonald, d., & klinger, t. (2015). they go up so fast: 2015 child care fees in canadian cities. canadian centre for policy alternatives. retrieved from: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/national office/2015/12/they_go_up_so_fast_2015_child_care_fees_in_canadian_cities.pdf maher, e. j., frestedt, b., & grace, c. (2008). differences in child care quality in rural and non-rural areas. journal of research in rural education, 23(4), 1–13. mccain, m. n., mustard j. f., & mccuaig, k. (2011). early years study 3: making decisions, taking action. margaret and wallace mccain family foundation. retrieved from: http://earlyyearsstudy.ca/media/uploads/report-pdfs-en/i_115_eys3_ en_2nd_072412.pdf mccain, m. n., mustard j. f., & shanker, s. (2007). early years study 2: putting science into action. council for early child development. retrieved from: http://ecereport.ca/media/uploads/pdfs/early-years-study3-2011.pdf ontario ministry of education. (2014). how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for early years. toronto, on: queen’s printer for ontario. ontario ministry of education. (2016a). ontario child care and family support program service management and funding guideline 2016. retrieved from: https://efis.fma.csc.gov.on.ca/faab/memos/cc2016/eycc1_en_attach1.pdf ontario ministry of education. (2016b). the kindergarten program, 2016. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/ kinderprogram.html ontario municipal social services association. (2011, september). report of the forum on rural, northern. and remote child care, may 5, 2011. retrieved from: http://www.ruralontarioinstitute.ca/file.aspx?id=ebf726fc-5a68-4c1c-8f15-84c76dbf14b1 ontario municipal social services association. (2012). moving forward, hand in hand, 1–13. retrieved from: http://everykid.on.ca/ wp-content/uploads/2011/10/moving-forward-hand-in-hand-2012-final.pdf pascal, c. (2009). with our best future in mind: implementing early learning in ontario. retrieved from: http://ywcacanada.ca/data/ research_docs/00000001.pdf fall/automne 2017 33 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research pasolli, k., & young, l. (2012, june). comparing child care policy in the canadian provinces. paper presented to the annual meeting of the canadian political science association, edmonton, alberta. retrieved from: http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2012/ pasolli-young.pdf prentice, s. (2007). rural childcare: childcare as economic and social development in parkland. winnipeg, mb: child care coalition of manitoba. retrieved from: http://www.parklandmanitoba.ca/pdf/2007_parkland_childcare_study.pdf region of waterloo social services. (2012). region of waterloo children’s services early learning and child care service plan 2012– 2015. retrieved from: http://www.tinyurl.com/c439y3p reiter, b. (2013). the epistemology and methodology of exploratory social science: crossing popper with marcuse. government and international affairs faculty publications. retrieved from: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1099&context=gia_facpub rural ontario municipal association. (2011). a voice for rural and northern ontario. retrieved from: https://www.amo.on.ca/amopdfs/reports/2011/2011avoiceforruralnorthernontariofinal.aspx shenton, a. k. (2004). strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. education for information, 22, 63–75. microsoft word ressler et al. online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 55 to 72] www.cayc.ca enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authors’ bios glory  ressler,  ba,  has  been  supporting  the  early  learning  and  care  sector  in   achieving  its  professional,  programming,  and  organizational  development  goals  for   over  20  years.  she  codeveloped  and  managed  the  mentoring  pairs  for  child  care   program  and  has  also  led  several  integration  research  initiatives  in  ontario.  glory   taught  at  the  postsecondary  level  for  over  ten  years  and  is  also  a  well-­‐known  and   respected  conference  presenter  and  trainer.  she  is  currently  the  director  of   mothercraft’s  college  and  community  data  group.  in  2011,  she  was  appointed   eastern  canadian  national  representative  to  the  world  forum  on  early  care  and   education.  email:  glory.ressler@mothercraft.org   gillian  doherty,  phd,  was  the  research  consultant  for  the  mentoring  pairs  for  child   care  project.  she  has  been  involved  in  child  and  family  issues  for  over  30  years  in  a   variety  of  roles,  including  director  of  policy  services  for  the  ontario  ministry  of   community  and  social  services.  she  was  the  project  director  and  one  of  the   principal  investigators  for  the  “you  bet  i  care!”  project  and  was  also  the  principal   investigator  for  two  major  projects  conducted  by  the  canadian  child  care   federation:  the  partners  in  quality  project  and  the  training  for  the  delivery  of   quality  early  childhood  development,  learning,  and  care  services  project.  gillian   has  published  one  book  and  many  policy  and  research  articles  related  to  early   childhood  development,  programming,  and  service  delivery.  email:   g_doherty@sympatico.ca     tammy  mccormick  ferguson,  ece,  ba,  has  been  a  leader  in  early  learning  and  care   for  the  past  27  years.  she  was  the  founding  executive  director  of  the  early  childhood     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   community  development  centre,  leading  its  growth  and  development  for  20  years.   she  codeveloped  partners  in  practice  canadian  mentoring  model,  and  codeveloped   and  led  mentoring  pairs  for  child  care.  she  has  also  codeveloped  a  framework  that   defines  the  role  of  owners  and  boards  in  child  care  and  has  been  involved  in  various   other  initiatives  to  advance  child  care  in  canada.  in  2012  she  was  awarded  the   canadian  child  care  federation’s  national  award  of  excellence.  email:   htpd2@hotmail.com   jonathan  lomotey,  phd,  is  the  executive  director  of  novell  community  development   solutions.  he  has  extensive  experience  in  community  development,  social  research,   and  program  evaluation.  his  research  and  action  interests  are  in  the  areas  of  mental   health,  hiv  and  aids,  and  family,  youth,  and  children’s  programming.  dr.  lomotey   provided  statistical  analysis  for  mentoring  pairs  for  child  care  and  is  also  a  co-­‐ initiator  and  lead  researcher  of  two  ongoing  projects  to  enhance  capacity  for  trauma   treatment,  promote  trauma-­‐informed  practice,  and  increase  access  to  trauma   services  in  the  waterloo  and  guelph-­‐wellington-­‐dufferin  regions.  email:   jonathan@novellcds.org   abstract several  studies  report  an  association  between  administrative  and  program  quality.   research  also  indicates  that  effective  program  administration  requires  a  director   with  leadership  as  well  as  management  knowledge  and  skills.  this  paper  reports  on   the  evaluation  findings  and  lessons  learned  from  a  training  program,  mentoring   pairs  for  child  care,  which  combined  a  formal  curriculum  to  enhance  administrative   and  leadership  knowledge  and  skills,  a  collegial  learning  and  mentoring  process,  and   activities  related  to  professionalism.  the  340  graduates  of  the  2010  program   showed  definite  pre-­‐post  improvement  in  their  self-­‐reported  attitudes  and  activities   associated  with  leadership  and  professionalism.  furthermore,  the  pre-­‐post  global   classroom  quality  and  administrative  knowledge  and  professional  practice  in  a   subsample  of  participating  centres  also  improved.  these  finding  suggest  that  the   program  was  effective  and  provide  some  insight  into  policy  and  professional   learning.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   most of the research to identify predictors of good quality centre-based child care has focused on adult-child ratio, group size, teacher general education, and teacher early childhood education (ece) training. similarly, much of the training discussion about enhancing childcare centre quality “has been about the professional development of teachers and not about those who supervise them” (ryan, whitebook, kipnis, & sakai, 2011, p. 12). yet several studies report that childcare directors’ leadership skills and administrative practices have a significant impact on classroom quality (bloom, rafanello, eisenberg, & talan, 1998; bloom & sheerer, 1992; lower & cassidy, 2007; mccormick center for early childhood leadership, 2010a, 2011; phillips, howes, & whitebook, 1991). furthermore, the best start expert panel on quality and human resources (2007) indicates that the single most critical factor affecting the quality of early learning and care programs is the knowledge, skills, and stability of the early childhood workforce. the panel made a recommendation (2.2) to invest in the knowledge, skills, and competencies of early learning and care directors, supervisors, and pedagogical leaders in ontario (best start expert panel on quality and human resources, 2007). the mentoring pairs for child care (mpcc) program was specifically developed to meet the need for administrative and leadership training for childcare directors and supervisors that was accessible, affordable, and impactful. its development, implementation, and evaluation were funded by the government of ontario as part of a strategy to address gaps in accessible administrative and leadership training and thereby assist in enhancing the quality of the province’s childcare centres. the program was collaboratively developed in 2008 through consultation with childcare providers, community colleges, and other organizations offering early learning and child care training courses or programs and provincial government childcare licensing officials and policy analysts. it was implemented in ontario in 10 communities in 2009 and 28 communities in 2010. the research reported on in this paper focused on the 2010 cohort of mpcc graduates (n=340) and the extent to which that year’s program enhanced (a) graduates’ administrative practices, (b) classroom global quality in the graduates’ centres, and (c) graduates’ professionalism. it should be noted that by the time the 2010 mpcc program was being implemented, the participants were also experiencing significant changes to the service delivery system and practices in ontario. these included the impacts of phased-in fullday kindergarten, the development of best start child and family centres and parent and family literacy centres, and the transfer of childcare licensing and other child and family services and projects (including mpcc) from the ministry of children and youth services to the ministry of education. while initially there was some concern about the capacity of the administrators in the 2010 cohort to complete the program given all the other changes they were facing and needed to implement or address, 340 of the original 403 participants (84.6%) graduated. most of those who left the program did so for   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   reasons such as a change in employers or their own or a family member’s illness. the participants who completed the program anecdotally reported that through the information, ongoing peer support, applied collegial learning, and guidance, the mpcc program was an aid in responding to the changes and resulted in both individual professional and organizational improvements. the mentoring pairs for child care (mpcc) program mentoring pairs for child care was implemented with two cohorts (2009 and 2010). in total, 542 childcare administrators (e.g., directors and supervisors) completed or “graduated from” the program. the program consisted of introductory training followed by 11 months of scheduled 3-hour classes, as well as additional independent study, assignment, and presentation requirements. this approach successfully combined (a) a formal curriculum to increase director administrative knowledge and skills, (b) a mentoring component emphasizing peer support and collegial continuous professional learning processes, and (c) activities to enhance director professionalism. the parameters for the design of mpcc were established by the funder’s stipulation that the program (a) be accessible in all parts of the province, (b) use an administrative curriculum that was accepted by all the community colleges on the project’s advisory committee, and (c) establish mentoring relationships among participants. accessibility was addressed by providing local, no-cost part-time programs in 28 areas across the province, with both francophone and aboriginal-specific programs offered, along with compensation for some travel and staff back-fill costs. web-based meeting software and live streaming were occasionally used to engage remote participants who were unable to attend the in-person study group due to inclement weather or other travel barriers. the content requirements of the program were addressed by using the occupational standards for child care administrators developed by the child care human resources sector council (cchrsc; 2006) as the foundation for the curriculum, supplemented with articles, case studies, and activities related to leadership, professionalism, and administration theory and practice. it should be noted that, in ontario, administrative standards and professionalism are currently defined, promoted, and regulated through the college of early childhood educators. members use the protected title “registered early childhood educator” (rece) and their professional practice is accountable to the college’s standards of practice and code of ethics and enhanced through reflective practice and continuous professional learning. however, at the time that the mpcc program was being developed, the college’s standards of practice and code of ethics were not yet in place. the ece profession in ontario and other canadian provinces and territories was primarily guided by the required level of   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   education, the child care human resource sector council’s occupational standards, and other provincial and local policies, guidelines, and practices, including the canadian child care federation’s (n.d.) code of ethics. the 2006 version of the occupational standards for child care administrators, which was developed with the assistance of practitioners from across canada, broadly defined the acceptable professional behaviour and the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for competent practice by childcare centre directors. its widespread acceptance as a definition of director professionalism at the time supported its choice as the basis of the mpcc course content, which included the following areas of study: child development and care, human resources, finance, facilities, family and community relations, and governance. the mpcc advisory committee added an additional area of study, information technology, to the program curriculum. finally, the canadian child care federation’s code of ethics was built into the program’s orientation training and its reflective leadership journal exercises. the program also was designed to accommodate local needs and expertise and respond to the changing context within the early learning and child care system. the first cohort of mpcc groups in 2009 readily incorporated community-based knowledge and priorities and emerging sector issues and expectations within the assigned curriculum and processes. this occurred again in 2010 with the cohort reported on in this article, and suggests that the mentoring, peer support, and continuous professional learning processes used in the mpcc program could potentially be successfully adapted to accommodate the changing local needs and expertise in a variety of communities. to facilitate the mentoring relationship-building process, participants with less than five years of administrative experience as a director or supervisor were matched with a more experienced participant from the same geographic area as their mentor. in addition to geographical location, mentor/mentee pair matching took into account application form information such as the length and type of childcare-related training, the area in the occupational standards that mentors felt most competent in, the area that mentees most wanted to work on, and the teaching style preference of mentors and learning style preference of mentees. program delivery local facilitators, all of whom had college instruction and childcare education and/or management experience, were hired by the respective college in their geographical area according to standard criteria outlined in a position description. each facilitator was responsible for delivering the program in their area and regularly reporting on attendance, participant progress, implementation challenges, and program adaptation and outcomes. the facilitator’s role was to ensure that the specified processes and materials were used in each training session and to assist participants in analyzing the content they had   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   reviewed, discussing the implications for practice, assessing their own skill/knowledge level in that area, sharing best practices and resources, and integrating new insights on management, leadership, and professionalism into their daily practice. the 2010 facilitators attended two days of preliminary preparation that was delivered by the mpcc program manager and returning 2009 facilitators; it included orientation to mpcc, the facilitators’ role, and the training materials and processes they would use. this preliminary training emphasized how to use the mentoring and collegial learning processes and materials to develop a continuous professional learning culture within their study group by assisting participants in assessing their strengths and needs, planning for improvement, sharing information, best practices, and resources, and reflecting on practice. in order to further assist with planning and implementation, all facilitators were provided with a summary of their mentoring study group’s self-reported strengths and needs prior to beginning the monthly process. this information was based on aggregated application questionnaire responses from the participating directors in each area. participating childcare directors received 21 hours of preliminary preparation across three days during the first month of the program. this included (a) an orientation to the mpcc program; (b) an introduction to key concepts such as leadership, mentoring, reflective practice, career development, and systems thinking; (c) a review and discussion of the eight principles in the canadian child care federation’s code of ethics; and (d) a review of the training processes and content they would be using. those participating directors designated as mentors received an additional seven hours of training in building mentoring relationships and facilitating reflective practice. the directors and facilitator in each area formed a study group, which ranged in size from 6 to 22 participants, and held 11 monthly 3-hour study group meetings. participants were also required to engage in additional independent study and meet assignment and presentation requirements. each meeting focused on one topic area from the occupational standards or information technology. the curriculum content was briefly introduced by the facilitator and then explored more fully through a variety of directed exercises (e.g., case study, article review, cause/effect analysis, expert guest speaker / additional training). participants were then asked to use a self-assessment and planning tool to identify their strengths and weaknesses in the topic area and develop an improvement plan. participants used telephone and email exchanges, site visits, research, and review of provided material to address their improvement plans between the study group meetings. progress was documented and shared with their mentoring partner and study group. they also worked with their mentoring partner or other members of their study group on issues and resources related to the areas of study covered (e.g., pedagogical   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   guidelines, policy development) and their required presentations to the group and community. finally, mentoring pairs were expected to complete, exchange, and discuss their reflective leadership journal entries on a regular basis throughout the training. leadershipand ethics-related exercises were provided each month and time was built into each study group for mentoring pairs or groups to discuss their journal reflections. while not formally analyzed, it was anecdotally reported that this work helped to inform the monthly self-assessment and planning exercises and the overall professional development and practice among participants. as this process was repeated monthly throughout the year, mentoring relationships and a local culture of collegial continuous professional learning were developed, which was sustained by all groups for at least 12 months after the program formally ended. each study group developed and implemented a sustainability plan that expanded their focus to the community’s professional learning and development, often partnering with and integrating their processes with existing local networks and quality initiatives. many graduates also went on to assume new leadership roles at the local and provincial levels. program evaluation the outcome evaluation results reported on in this article pertain to the 2010 cohort only. a two-pronged evaluation strategy was used with the participants consisting of (a) on-site completion of talan and bloom’s (2004) program administration scale (pas) to measure administrative quality, and harms, clifford, and cryer’s (1998) revised early childhood environmental rating scale (ecers-r) to evaluate global program quality; and (b) three self-completed questionnaires, one based on the occupational standards, the second on previously identified effective mentoring attitudes and predispositions and professional and leadership practices that contribute to reflective practice, continuous learning, and enhancing program quality, and the third on graduates’ perceptions of the extent to which mpcc contributed to their professional development. the pas (talan & bloom, 2004) includes 25 items arranged in 10 subscales: (a) human resources development; (b) personnel cost and allocation; (c) centre operations; (d) child assessment; (e) fiscal management; (f) program planning and evaluation; (g) family partnerships; (h) marketing and public relations; (i) technology; and (j) staff qualifications. the final subscale (staff qualifications) was not used in this study due to difficulties converting american terminology for teacher training to that used in canada. administration of the pas requires on-site observation of one or more classrooms, a follow-up interview with the lead teacher(s), a tour of the facility’s indoor and outdoor program areas and any space designed for family or staff, an interview with the director about administrative policies and practices, and a review of administrative documents to verify the information provided. each pas item is ranked using a 7-point scale, with 1   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   representing inadequate, 3 minimal, 5 good, and 7 excellent. although the pas is relatively new, it has been used in other published childcare research (lower & cassidy, 2007; mccormick center for early childhood leadership, 2010a). ecers-r (harms, clifford, & cryer, 1998) has 43 descriptors arranged in 7 subscales: (a) space and furnishings; (b) personal care routines; (c) language/reasoning; (d) activities; (e) interactions; (f) program structure; and (g) parents and staff. administration of the ecers-r involves observation in one or more classrooms supplemented by an interview with the lead teacher regarding items which could not be observed, such as the children’s nap time. each descriptor is ranked using a 7-point scale, with 1 representing inadequate, 3 minimal, 5 good, and 7 excellent. a revised version of the ecers-r by the same authors was released in 2005. the ecers-r has been used in several large studies, including the canadian “you bet i care!” study (goelman, forer, kershaw, doherty, lero, & lagrange, 2006). before the start of the 2010 mpcc program, a subsample of 10 of the 28 participant study groups that represented a range of community types (e.g., urban, rural) and regions in the province was developed in consultation with the advisory committee. all the centres in this subsample were invited to participate in the pre-post on-site evaluation. participation in the mpcc evaluation activities was voluntary, so agreements for the on-site observations, document review, and interviews with centre staff needed to be obtained from the participating director and the lead teacher in the room to be observed. initially 71 centres agreed to participate in the evaluation. however, for reasons such as an influenza outbreak, scheduling difficulties, and director illness or absence for another reason, it was only possible to do both preand postprogram observations and interviews in 57 (80.3%) of these centres. each of the 10 data collectors hired to conduct the on-site evaluation activities had at least a two-year college diploma in early childhood education and several had a ba in child studies or a related discipline. the average length of professional experience in the field was 20.4 years with the range being 9–40 years. all observers signed an observer confidentiality agreement and, before conducting the pre‐mpcc evaluation, attended three days of training that included establishing inter‐rater reliability. inter‐rater reliability was tested again shortly before the post‐test observations were done. in both instances, a minimum standard of at least 80% was achieved by all data collectors on all tools being used (range 80–100%). the pre‐ and post‐mpcc observations in the 10 subsamples each required a full day in the centre and involved direct observation in a classroom, a follow‐up interview with the lead teacher, a tour of the facility’s indoor and outdoor program areas and any space designated for families or staff, an on‐site interview with the participating director   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   about administrative policies and practices, and a review of administrative documents to verify the information provided. additionally, shortly after the end of the program, all of the 340 mpcc graduates were asked to complete two questionnaires that had been developed to assist mpcc to match mentees with mentors and which they had previously completed when applying to mpcc: the occupational standards questionnaire (osq; doherty, ferguson, ferguson, & ressler, 2008a) and the mentoring attitudes and predispositions questionnaire (mapq; doherty, ferguson, ferguson, & ressler, 2008b). the osq consists of 54 statements based on the required knowledge and skills in the cchrc 2006 occupational standards for child care administrators (e.g., “i have a solid understanding of how best to promote young children’s development”). respondents are asked indicate their agreement level with each statement using a 4-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. there is also a box beside each statement that respondents can tick if they found the statement difficult to interpret. the mapq consists of 26 statements based on the characteristics found to be associated with effective mentoring in early learning and child care by the canadian partners in practice mentoring program (ferguson, ferguson, singleton, & soave, 1999) and other childcare mentoring programs (bellm, 1997; whitebook & sakai, 1995). each of its 5 subscales pertains to a specific type of mentor behaviour, as follows: (a) “respectful accommodation” refers to simultaneously respecting and accommodating individual differences; (b) “empathetic listening” refers to active listening based on genuine attempts to understand the speaker’s position; (c) “reflective practice” refers to reflecting on one’s own practice and its impact and then making any changes indicated and also using reflection as part of problem solving; (d) “continuous growth” refers to valuing one’s own growth and that of others, for example, through keeping one’s knowledge and skills up to date; and (e) “support and recognition” refers to valuing the contributions made by others and both supporting and acknowledging them. this questionnaire also asks respondents to indicate their agreement with each statement using the same 4-point scale as used in the osq questionnaire and has a box beside each statement where respondents can indicate that they found the statement difficult to interpret. both questionnaires were pilot-tested with 242 directors before mpcc began, after which adjustments were made to each statement identified by 5% or more respondents as being difficult to interpret. when these two questionnaires were used with the study group, fewer than 5% of the respondents rated any of the statements in either the french or english versions as difficult to interpret. graduates were also asked to rate the extent to which participation in mpcc had supported their professional development and leadership skills by completing a postprogram professional development questionnaire. this questionnaire asked them to rank   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   the extent to which they agreed with each of a series of possible outcomes (e.g., “i have a better understanding of the dual role of manager and leader”) using a 4-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. there also is a box beside each statement that respondents can tick if they found the statement difficult to interpret. the effectiveness of the training model administrative practice and classroom global quality the 57 graduates of the 2010 program who participated in the on-site evaluations showed definite pre-post improvement in their administrative practice, as measured by the pas (t 57 =4.31, p>.001) and in the global quality of their centres, as measured by the ecers-r (t 57 =3.32, p>.01). the greatest improvement in administrative practices occurred in those areas where directors have the most control: human resources development, use of technology, and marketing and public relations. moderate improvement also occurred in the areas of fiscal management, program planning and evaluation, and family partnerships. little change was found in the personal cost and allocation subscale, which includes salary and benefits, or in the child assessment subscale. given that good administration is one aspect of the professionalism associated with program quality, and that some pas subscales also reflect leadership capacity, these improvements are notable. the pre-post global quality improvements of graduates’ classrooms occurred in 4 of the 7 ecers-r subscales, namely space and furnishings, personal care routines, activities, and provisions for parents and staff. there was little change in adult-child interaction, which had already obtained a score of 6.0 out of a possible 7.0 in the pretraining assessment. the lower impact of mpcc on classroom quality compared to centre administrative practices is to be expected given that the link from director administrative training to classroom quality is indirect via the training’s impact on the director’s leadership. leadership and professionalism the 153 mpcc graduates who completed the occupational standards questionnaire (osq) showed overall improvement, as indicated by an increase in their total osq score, and felt that they gained the most confidence in their knowledge of and skills related to managing their centre’s finances, the program’s overall facility, and, to a lesser degree, in developing and maintaining good relationships with children’s families and their community. as anticipated, the extent of these perceived gains was reported at a higher level by mentees. the mentors reported greater confidence, but not to the same extent, in finances, facilities, human resources, family and community relationships, and governance standards.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   a higher post-program mentoring attitudes and predispositions questionnaire (mapq) score indicated improvement, and the mentees and mentors as a group felt that their empathetic listening, continuous growth, support and recognition of others, and reflective practice had been enhanced by their participation in mpcc. however, virtually no change had occurred in their respectful accommodation of individuals’ differences. the mentees reported feeling that their mentoring skills had improved the most in regard to the use of reflective practice, encouraging continuous growth, and supporting and recognizing the contributions of others. mentors reported a definite enhancement of their empathetic listening skills but no significant gains overall or in the other types of mentor behaviours. the complete osq and mapq questionnaires are presented in the appendices of the final outcome report (doherty, 2011, available at http://www.mentoringpairsforchildcare.org/userfiles/final_outcome_report_may2011.pdf table 1 indicates that the majority of respondents believed that mpcc had enhanced both their professional and leadership skills.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   table 1. graduates’ assessment of the impact from participating in mpcc, mentees and mentors combined. variable   questionnaire  statement   strongly  agree   or  agree   (n=171)   professionalism   i  have  solidified  a  personal  philosophy  of  early  childhood  education   to  set  goals  and  guide  my  practice.   92.4%   i  have  gained  knowledge  of  and  confidence  in  seeking  out  various   types  of  information.   94.7%   i  intend  to  seek  out  opportunities  to  further  my  formal  education  in   early  learning  and  child  care.   85.7%   i  have  a  broader  understanding  of  the  issues  facing  child  care.   93.0%   i  have  begun  to  advocate  for  quality  elcc  or  increased  my   involvement  in  this  activity.   76.6%   i  feel  more  confident  in  my  director  role.   88.8%   my  ability  to  analyze  social  issues  that  may  affect  the  well-­‐being  of   children  has  improved.   90.0%   leadership   i  have  a  better  understanding  of  the  dual  role  of  manager  and  leader.   95.9%   i  have  learned  strategies  that  will  enhance  my  ability  to  problem   solve.   95.3%   my  communication  skills,  such  as  active  listening  and  giving  and   receiving  feedback,  have  improved.   94.2%   i  feel  better  able  to  provide  pedagogical  leadership  for  my  staff.   92.8%   summary changes to the early learning and childcare sector in ontario occurred or were planned during the 2010 mpcc program. the associated need to address and/or implement the changes added additional issues related to professional development for the mpcc participants. the requirement to complete the evaluations within three months reduced the time for director training to trickle down to frontline staff. nevertheless, the above findings related to administrative practice and centre classroom quality suggest that participation in mpcc was still effective in enhancing graduates’ professionalism by increasing their managerial and leadership knowledge, use of good administrative   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   practices, and ability to engage in peer-supported continuous learning. the selfcompleted online questionnaire results suggest that graduates felt more professionally connected, confident, leadership oriented, knowledgeable, and skilled upon completing the program. table 2 below provides the preand post-test mean scores, t-values, and levels of significance for all evaluation tool results reported on in this article. table 2. preand post-test scores on reported mpcc evaluation tools, mentees and mentors combined. scale   n   pre-­‐test   mean     post-­‐test   mean     t-­‐value   global  classroom  quality  (ecers-­‐r  scores)   57   4.6   4.9   3.32**   administrative  practice  (pas  scores)   57   2.8   3.3   4.31***   administrative  knowledge  and  skills  (osq  scores)   153   165.2   182.5   9.09***   mentoring  attitudes  and  predispositions  (mapq   scores)   153   83.5   87.0   4.85***     **p  <  .01  ***p  <.001   discussion the evaluation of the mpcc program was neither intended nor sufficiently resourced to meet rigorous research standards. furthermore, a comprehensive search yielded only two examples of rigorous evaluation conducted on similar administrator training programs (mccormick center for early childhood leadership, 2010a, 2010b). that being said, improvements in preand post-program scores and anecdotal reports from mpcc seem to support previous research findings linking effective administration and leadership with program quality and suggest implications for both training policy and an effective process for developing professional childcare administration and leadership practices. limitations of the mpcc evaluation the most rigorous evaluations of an intervention such as a training program, and thus those with the most reliable findings, share certain characteristics: they have a large enough sample of subjects consisting of randomly selected people who share certain key characteristics; from the sample, an evaluation group that receives the intervention and a control group that does not are formed; and both groups are evaluated with the same instruments before and after the intervention and their results are compared.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   mpcc was unable to meet these rigorous evaluation standards due to the realities of having to use a voluntary sample and the limits on the availability of program and evaluation funding. the self-selection and voluntary participation of the directors and their centres resulted in a small sample, which meant that the mpcc participants may not have been representative of all ontario childcare centres but only those whose governing body and participating director were the most self-confident and committed to program quality. the funding limitations restricted mpcc to using only a single-group pre-post design rather than comparing the findings from both an intervention and a control group, and doing evaluation of classroom quality in only one classroom per centre instead of two or more. also, the program was not able to seek information about other possible variables that may have enhanced director professionalism, leadership, and classroom quality in the graduates’ centres. return rates for self-completed questionnaires at or below 50%, such as experienced by mpcc (44.7–50%), are common and make it impossible to tell the extent to which the questionnaire findings represent the opinions of all who were asked to respond. second, even if a self-competed questionnaire obtained a 100% response rate, it is impossible to ascertain the extent to which the answers are accurate. this is especially true when subjective, personal information is sought. given these limitations, it is not possible to conclusively state that the apparent gains made by the mpcc graduates, their practices, and their classrooms were the result of the program and not some other variable (e.g., extra training and support to the lead teacher and classroom involved in the pre-post evaluation, or a participating director having received additional leadership and administration training). they do, however, seem to support the research linking administrator professionalism with program quality, and resulted in both changes to self-assessed knowledge and attitudes and observed practice. implications for policy and practice the pre-mpcc sample finding of low administrative quality, combined with ongoing changes within early learning and child care systems across canada and several studies which report that directors’ leadership skills and administrative practices have a significant impact on classroom quality (bloom, rafanello, eisenberg, & talan, 1998; bloom & sheerer, 1992; lower & cassidy, 2007; mccormick center for early childhood leadership, 2010a; phillips, howes, & whitebook, 1991), seem to indicate an urgent and ongoing need to address director leadership and administrative abilities at both the policy and individual learning levels. furthermore, the limited evaluation findings of post-program improvements combined with self-completed questionnaire responses and anecdotal evidence on the continuing impact of mpcc on graduating directors and their programs and communities   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   suggest that the program can be adapted to differing content and applied to emerging issues. as such, it offers insight into how peer support and collegial learning could be used to enhance professional learning and practice, which is important to quality programming. mpcc staff and partners anecdotally reported that the mpcc program seemed to work best when mentoring relationships were developed and then focused on practical knowledge and skill development and when relevant and achievable plans and goals were identified through individual and group learning, self-assessment, and reflective practice and then implemented with collegial support. several other implementation elements unique to mpcc were considered to be important to the success of the program: � foundational skills training and sufficient time/opportunities to build strong, supportive, and collaborative relationships (pairs and groups) � both pair and larger group mentoring relationships (e.g., learning and growth for both mentors and mentees at the one-on-one and group levels) � well-understood mentoring and peer support guiding principles and processes � ongoing community development activities, particularly in the areas of needs assessment, evaluation, policy and regulatory changes (e.g., systems thinking) and participatory leadership � practical, focused use of widely accepted content along with tools and exercises designed to build knowledge, assess needs, plan for improvements, and report back on results � resourcing and scheduling to compensate for schedules, back-fill staffing needs, and other travel and material-related costs � a supportive sponsoring organization or coordinating body and, for groups, a designated facilitator with access to administrative support childcare administrators can develop mentoring relationships focused on identified development needs within informal training environments, including senior leadership and management teams, community networks, and quality assurance and professional development committees. however, policy is required to provide training and continuous professional learning opportunities, such as those discussed in this article, which enable directors to continue to work full time while participating in effective training that is at low cost to both funders and directors/centres. other possible policy directions might include training directors in the use of reliable and validated evaluation tools that capture data on accepted indicators of quality, professionalism, leadership, and practice standards; supporting more rigorous research in this area; and linking continuous professional learning and quality   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   enhancement planning to reporting requirements and access to resources (e.g., funding). for example, in ontario the college of early childhood educators is currently providing a reflective-practice continuous professional learning process and related resources to its members, and this initiative is anticipated to inform an upcoming new regulatory requirement for their registered early childhood educators in the near future. consideration also needs to be given to compensate through government funding directors who have completed administration and leadership programs commensurate with their knowledge and skills and also to provide resources allocated to documenting and sharing knowledge and best practices with less experienced or aspiring staff. these steps could assist in mitigating any retention issues that may arise from ongoing demands on administrators to implement significant changes in policy and practice across canada and might lessen attrition due to migration to better opportunities or early retirement. references bellm, d. (1997). the early childhood mentoring curriculum: a handbook for mentors. washington, dc: national center for the early childhood workforce. best start expert panel on quality and human resources. (2007). investing in quality. toronto, on: ministry of children and youth services. retrieved from: http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/english/topics/earlychildhood/investing_in _quality.aspx bloom, p. j., rafanello, d., eisenberg, e., & talan, t. (1998). early childhood leadership training: taking charge of change leadership training program evaluation report, cohorts 1–5. wheeling, il: center for early childhood leadership, national-louis university. bloom, p. j., & sheerer, m. (1992). the effect of leadership training on child care program quality. early childhood research quarterly, 7, 579–594. canadian child care federation. (n.d.). code of ethics. retrieved from: http://www.servicesforchildren.ca/aboutus/tabid/74/default.aspx child care human resources sector council. (2006). occupational standards for child care administrators. retrieved from: http://www.ccsc-cssge.ca/ doherty, g. (2010). the mentoring pairs for child care project: final process evaluation report. phase 1. ontario ministry of children and youth services & ministry of education. doherty, g. (2011, may). the mentoring pairs for child care project: final outcome report. ontario ministry of children and youth services & ministry of education.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   doherty, g., ferguson, e., ferguson, t. & ressler, g. (2008a). the mentoring attitudes and predispositions questionnaire (mapq). st. catharines, on: early childhood community development centre. doherty, g., ferguson, e., ferguson, t. & ressler, g. (2008b). the occupational standards questionnaire (osq). st. catharines, on: early childhood community development centre. ferguson, e., ferguson, t. m., singleton, c., & soave, a. (1999). the partners in practice mentoring model: reflection, caring, sharing. halifax, ns: partners in practice, child care connection nova scotia. goelman, h., forer, b., kershaw, p., doherty, g., lero, d. s., & lagrange, a. (2006). towards a predictive model of quality in canadian child care centres. early childhood research quarterly, 21(3), 280–295. harms, t., clifford, r. m., & cryer, d. (1998). early childhood environment rating scale (rev. ed.). new york, ny: teachers college press. lower, j. k., & cassidy, d. j. (2007). child care working environments: the relationship with learning environments. journal of research in childhood education, 22(2), 189–204. mccormick center for early childhood leadership. (2010a). head start administrative practices, director qualifications, and links to classroom quality. research notes, winter. mccormick center for early childhood leadership. (2010b). connecting the dots: director qualifications, instructional leadership practices, and learning environment in early childhood programs. research notes, summer. mccormick center for early childhood leadership. (2011). quality in context: how directors’ beliefs, leadership and management practices relate to observed classroom quality. research notes, winter. phillips, d., howes, c., & whitebook, m. (1991). who cares? child care teachers and quality of care in america. final report of the national staffing study. oakland, ca: child care employee project. ryan, s., whitebook, m., kipnis, f., & sakai, l. (2011). professional development needs of directors leading in a mixed service delivery preschool system. early childhood research & practice, 13(1). retrieved from: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v13n1/ryan.html   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   talan, t. n., & bloom, p. j. (2004). program administration scale (2nd ed.) new york, ny: teachers college press. whitebook, m., & sakai, l. (1995). the potential of mentoring: an assessment of the california early childhood mentor program. washington, dc: national center for the early childhood workforce. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 ressler formatted back page w2015 canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 21 vol. 38 no. 1 using a critical discourse approach (fairclough, 2003; foucault, 1972; luke, 1997, 2002; rabinow, 1984; van dijk, 1993; van leeuwen, 2008) this paper examines the text and embedded meaning conveyed in jean jacque rousseau’s novella émile. this treatise written in the 18th century includes rousseau’s conceptualization of best practices and a set of educational guidelines detailing habits to avoid and the necessary combination of “natural” and “progressive” approaches recommended to raise children as moral citizens. in our analysis we discuss the ways rousseau uses binary descriptions of girls-boys, mothers-fathers, and learners-tutors separately and in opposition. we go on to situate his novella as an early example of expert advice on parenting, where rousseau positions himself as an educational expert by simultaneously defining the maternal role in early education and the role of education in society. we contend that rousseau’s works are founded on particular beliefs about the source of knowledge and construction of meaning that continues to constrain the formation of authentic partnerships among and between parents and early childhood educators. we argue that this discourse—and, importantly, the values, beliefs, and attitudes it conveys— lingers in canadian early childhood education learning communities and that the vestiges of these early ideas truncate and unnaturally shape our ideas of parenting, teaching, and learning by socially positioning families and teachers in ways that make it difficult to engage in co-construction of curriculum. we suggest that by better understanding and deconstructing this discourse we can move our thinking forward and authentically engage in coinquiry. the september 2011 “ready, set, school!” issue of parents magazine featured articles such as “smart learning advice for every age”, and “turn your kid’s ‘i don’t wanna!’ into a ‘yes!’” throughout the magazine, the clothing advertisements are almost indistinguishable from the photographs that accompany the articles. images are created of perfect, neatly dressed children with smiling, open, inquisitive faces. the children hold chalk, books, or stylish backpacks; all are smartly dressed and “ready” for school. the photographic style is reminiscent of anne geddes postcard images where angelic infants are posed amid artificial backgrounds. the flawless staging makes the child model almost indistinct from the background and the props she or he holds. this technique creates an objectified “child as doll” image of innocent perfection. consistent with the magazine advertising, the articles suggest ways the child can be prepared emotionally and intellectually for school. advice is infused throughout the publication, specifically targeting middleand upperclass families, including tips to combat bullying and ways to gain an advantage in learning. this portrayal seems like a marketing dream come true, where the archetype of the perfect child—unruffled, ready for learning, and well adjusted—can be created if parents follow the fashion and educational advice provided by experts and fortify children with the look, knowledge, ego strength, and skills to succeed. in this article we explore the roots of these and other images of children and families by investigating jean jacques rousseau’s 1762 educational treatise émile, in part contrasting his advice for émile with his descriptions of sophie (book v of the novella). our discussion focuses on the images rousseau created, the binaries he presents in the novella, and the link he makes between child development theory and education, including the contradictory construction of a natural yet engineered education. background michael foucault recognized the formative power of systematic or recurrent statements or themes in language and literature as “discourse.” when a discourse appears regularly and persistently, foucault margaret macdonald is an associate professor at simon fraser university. her research interests include intergenerational programs, pedagogical documentation, and curriculum development in early childhood education. email: margaret_macdonald@sfu.ca born in poland, magdalena rudkowski is a graduate of the early childhood education bachelor program and masters of early childhood studies program at ryerson university. she is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in the curriculum theory and implementation program at simon fraser university. her research interests include early childhood direct experiences in nature and conducting and advocating for participatory research with young children. janine hostettler schärer received her ma in educational psychology from the university of zurich, switzerland. currently she is a phd candidate at simon fraser university. in her thesis she examines children’s transitions from family to child care. lingering discourses: jean jacque rousseau’s 18thcentury images of mothers, fathers, and children by: margaret macdonald, magdalena rudkowski, and janine hostettler schärer canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 22 vol. 38 no. 1 contends that it asserts truth and constitutes knowledge that becomes a powerful agent in the creation of social and psychological identities and the formation of social, economic, and political position (foucault, 1972; rabinow, 1984). simply put, these discursive messages become our realities, even if (or especially if) our energies are placed opposing and contesting them. the dominance of these rhetorical positions oblige us to take them up in some way. for example, in early childhood education, the discourse of school readiness has persisted from year to year over the last quarter century and has essentially inculcated our school culture by defining the purpose and meaning of preschool and school and the subsequent roles that families and early childhood educators play in the process of educating children. typically in late august and early september at the start of the new school year, the media is rife with “back to school” messages in advertising and literature (newspapers, magazines, blogs). rhetoric contends that some children aged 4 or 5 years may not be “ready for school” and are not prepared socially, emotionally, and intellectually for the formal educational experiences they are about to embark upon. parents, teachers, and “educational experts” are featured in this discourse as producers and consumers of a dialogue about “preschool skills,” “school readiness,” “red shirting,” “the basics,” “best practice,” “standards,” “canada’s global position in education,” “literacy and numeracy rates” and so on. often embedded in this discourse is a competitive assumption that sees education as a way to advantage the child, family, community, or country. raising these questions raises doubts: is my child ready for kindergarten? should my 4 year old enter school in september when his birthday isn’t until december? what preschool skills should be taught? how can i advantage my child or pupil in school so that she can succeed? these are powerful questions that shape the conceptual images and ways we think about children and their “needs” and simultaneously shape how we see ourselves as mothers, fathers, and educators. when these messages are presented year after year they give families, educators, and, indirectly, children the message that school can be a scary and competitive place where some children may find themselves ill prepared and behind, even unsuccessful. ironically, this message can become self-fulfilling as parents try to gain a competitive edge and teachers try to prepare children for the years to come. less obvious are the secondary messages, or, as lakoff and johnson (1980) suggest, the “conceptual metaphors” that are created discursively. in early learning, even innocent-sounding words such as preschool and school readiness metaphorically suggest that early life experiences are merely a staging ground for formal education and that the role of families and early learning specialists is to make the child “ready” for the more important experiences yet to come. when we take up this discourse uncritically, we are conceptually agreeing with the values, beliefs, and assumptions these assertions are premised on. dangerously, in this context we have lost other ways of viewing learning and other ways of seeing children’s capabilities. our concern is no longer with who the child is at present and what he or she is capable of; our concern becomes preparation and protection, as the child is judged against the expectations of tomorrow. in this view, today’s child is in need of emotional and intellectual fortification and inoculation if she or he is to succeed in the future. critical discourse analysis critical discourse analysis has been described by luke (2002) as a “repertoire of political, epistemic stances: principled reading positions and practices for the critical analysis of the place and force of language, discourse, text, and image in changing contemporary social, economic, and cultural conditions” (p. 97). according to fairclough (2003), the process of critical discourse analysis simultaneously attends to the order of the discourse and the ways in which the language is socially structured. this analysis draws attention to the genre of the text and the styles the author uses. by viewing the discursive processes as social events, we are able to position the author and readers relationally to uncover assumptions, values, practices, and beliefs. this process involves, according to luke (2002), a conscious switching back and forth in the analysis between the normative reading of texts and the normative reading of the social world. in this paper, we take up this approach by attending not only to the words conveyed in rousseau’s text émile, but to the images and deeper conceptual meanings created throughout the text. we do this to better understand and to critically evaluate the relational and pedagogical implications of rousseau’s advice to mothers and educators and to better understand how this discourse continues to preoccupy our educational dialogue. historical context jean jacques rousseau was born in geneva, switzerland, in 1712. rousseau’s mother died in childbirth, leaving him in the somewhat indifferent care of his watchmaker father, who, as a single parent without his wife’s higher social status and endowment, found himself financially restricted and socially marginalized. rousseau sr. taught jean jacques to read and modestly attended to his education until the boy was 10, at which time he fled geneva to avoid the law. jean jacques was left in the care of his uncle, who paid for his formal education until he was 13 and then sent him to apprentice with an engraver. his apprenticeship was unhappy, and within two years jean jacques ran away to the outskirts of the city and eventually to france, where he entered into a series of employment and educational pursuits, including studies of music, religion, and sciences. in 1749 rousseau’s life course profoundly changed when he entered and won a contest in dijon, france, for the best “like all of rousseau’s political commentaries, in its day émile represented radical thought and a progressive set of ideals that threatened both the state and the church.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 23 vol. 38 no. 1 essay written on the topic “has the progress of the arts and sciences contributed more to the corruption or purification of morals?” rousseau argued that civilization had essentially created evil among men. he proposed that, despite advances in the arts and sciences, humankind was no further ahead. rousseau’s critique was timely, given its presentation in an era marked by inequalities of power and privilege and shifts from local feudal systems to political nationalism. this was also an era when fragmentation in the christian church was compounded with the rise of humanism and empirical science. fernand braudel (1982) describes france during this era as a country filled with conquests and clashing civilizations. power was localized among a small number of privileged persons in a hierarchy where “everything invariably falls into the lap of this tiny group: power, wealth, a large share of surplus production” (p. 466). rousseau’s essay on the corruption of civilization was later published as the “discourse on political economy” in the 1755 encyclopédie. it easily found its audience among an industrious, active working class who were critical of the idle, privileged higher echelon. following his initial successes, rousseau worked concurrently on the new héloïse, the social contract, and émile all published in 1762. as ballinger (1965) aptly describes, in these books, rousseau found his place as a social critic by articulating his often contradictory thoughts with a passionate rhetoric that fuelled many revolutionary ideas. rousseau’s émile rousseau’s novella émile is divided into five books: the first three dedicated to the child émile, the fourth on the adolescent, and the fifth on émile’s female counterpart, sophie, as well as to émile’s domestic and civic life. rousseau’s early childhood experience of being raised and educated largely by his father and his uncle (hillesheim, 2002), in addition to the social norms of the day favouring women caregivers, may have contributed to his veneration of motherhood, including his construction of an image of the ideal mother whose sole purpose was to breastfeed, nurture, educate, and protect her young from the corrupt influences of society. in rousseau’s early adulthood he also tutored two boys, an experience which, by his own admission, was a failure, but which undoubtedly shaped his thinking and the advice he later prescribed. in confessions, rousseau (2011b) provides readers with another interesting contrast: the fact that he abandoned his own five children to a foundling hospital, choosing not to raise them himself. as he explained, he abandoned his children for the sake of what he thought would be a proper upbringing and because he felt he would be an incapable father. as he described in confessions, he found the practice [of delivering the children to the foundling hospital] to be “good, reasonable and lawful” (book viii, para. 21). unlike rousseau’s own children who were abandoned to the foundling hospital, the fictitious character émile received doting maternal care and expert tutelage. in the novella, émile was nursed by his biological/natural mother and taught in measured, prescribed, and “natural” ways by a tutor who was constantly available to him. beginning with the assumption that children have “innate goodness,” rousseau built his methods on the belief that parents and tutors should shield children from the potential harm of the corrupt society that surrounds them. the very idea that children are born innocent was so radical that it incensed both the calvinist and catholic communities who perceived humanity, including children, as innately evil, tempted by the devil, and awaiting salvation from god through the church. like all of rousseau’s political commentaries, in its day émile represented radical thought and a progressive set of ideals that threatened both the state and the church. images the notion that an image of children can be conceptually constructed and, importantly, can influence how we think about and teach children was introduced to us by loris malaguzzi (1920–1994). malaguzzi (1994) believed that the image educators and parents hold of the child positions adults to behave in certain ways based on the assumptions and suggestions the image holds. for example, if we hold an image of children as capable and competent, we proceed as educators in a particular way that is qualitatively different than if we begin with a conceptual image of children as needy and wanting. as do the magazine images described in the introduction, rousseau aimed to provide advice for wealthy upper-class citizens. throughout the novella, rousseau built many images as he assumed the voice of expert, raising and immediately answering his own rhetorical questions. this discursive style exudes a force that leaves no space for the reader’s own ideas, values, and beliefs or the views of others, nor does it promote reflection and the ability to construct other ways of thinking about a given topic. although rousseau himself was very disciplined in his self-study and intellectual pursuits and he described the importance of his own reflective practices, the training style he adopted and recommended for the tutor was didactic, simultaneously treating the reader and the novella’s fictitious child émile as intellectually passive and limited in their ability to summon independent thought and reflection. according to the novella, émile, and by implication, all boys his age, need guidance and direction. in this belief, rousseau was much influenced by his predecessor, john locke (1632–1704), who believed that children were tabula rasae (latin for “blank slates”) ready to be filled with information (locke,1989). in this view, children were thought to have no innate abilities to gather their own information or perceptions or direct their own learning. tabula rasa in keeping with locke’s view, rousseau saw émile as an intellectual blank slate, a perspective that leads to a binary tension between the child as empty vessel in need of being filled and the opposite image of adults as experts who are able to fulfil this need. on the surface, this image of child canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 24 vol. 38 no. 1 as tabula rasa may not appear so bad. in many ways it makes the teacher powerful and important, knowing that they might impart, fill, or scribe knowledge upon the child’s mind, but when we examine this image critically, we also see that it is a dangerous image of a passive, disengaged student alongside an omnipotent teacher who doesn’t provide the pedagogical space for children to construct their own understandings, draw their own conclusions, or make connections that might lead to deep, independent thinking and learning. by implication, the image of émile as a passive learner is almost guaranteed by the strength and wisdom of the adults rousseau contrasts him with. this conceptualization is taken farther in rousseau’s discussion of a so-called negative education from age 2 to age 12, when instruction is purposefully withheld from émile so that he can develop his physical qualities and senses without the interference of intellectual or moral instruction. in this view, little room is left for other realities, such as a child’s ability to generate her own early understandings or pursue her own questions. in this thesis there is no room for the social role of peers as co-constructors in a learning process, nor, importantly, for the role of extended family members and learning communities. no alternative moral, intellectual, or social possibilities, are presented. child as naïve and helpless closely following this image of émile as a blank slate is a companion image of émile as naïve and helpless without his mother or tutor. this image extends to mankind, who is in need of the salvation of education. rousseau (1979) writes: we are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgement. everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education. (p. 38) this image is simultaneously posed as a problem and embedded with a solution or advice. although the message that education is a gift that can fulfil us is a powerful and hopeful one, it also implies that education can somehow be separated from other holistic and embedded practices, such as nurturing children and engaging them relationally. by implication, as we strengthen the value and power of education, we start to conceptualize it as something beyond ourselves, that is, as something that can only be given to us formally by tutors or teachers. in this handing over of education, we lessen the active role and our ownership of learning through individual action, reflection, modelling, peer learning, or learning from our community. early childhood educators, mothers, family members, and others recognize that young children are learning all the time, but what rousseau asks us to see as education is something that can only be delivered by those charged with this task. this stance begs the question of the time and location of learning and the curriculum to be taught, as well as if, when, and why we should see education as formal and as separate from other learning experiences. this critique can also be extended to rousseau’s view of “negative education,” where education is purposefully withheld from the child in a contrived fashion that is said to be natural. mother as tender and anxious in émile, mothers are portrayed as tender, anxious, and charged with a duty to care and protect their young. rousseau (1979) wrote: tender, anxious mother, i appeal to you. you can remove this young tree from the highway and shield it from the crushing force of social conventions. tend and water it ere it dies. one day its fruit will reward your care. from the outset raise a wall round your child’s soul; another may sketch the plan, you alone should carry it into execution. plants are fashioned by cultivation, man by education. (p. 6) this image of duty is embedded with the message that if the mother is successful in the care of her children she will be rewarded in her old age: “one day its fruit will reward your care.” by implication, if the mother is unsuccessful, she is to blame. in this scenario the stakes are high and the assumption is that she (or the tutor) is alone in this educational task. émile has no siblings; no mention is made of extended family or community outside his immediate nuclear family and there is no sense of a communal responsibility for the care and education of young children. this stance follows from rousseau’s assumption that society’s influence is corrupt and that the child should be protected and buffered from life outside the home. the danger to families and educators of adopting this position is that it devalues the role of the family and community in the child’s educational experience, with the assumption that the influence of the family and community is antithetic or at best inconsequential to the child’s “true education” delivered by the tutor. in this vignette, educating the child seems to imply protecting him from outside influences or forces, just as we see in the parenting magazine described in the introduction where parents are shown ways to protect their children from bullies. the notion that we can inoculate children from the harsh realities of the world has created a parenting and teaching style where very little intellectual, physical, or social risk is taken, with the result, we would argue, that very little life experience or intellectual growth can occur. father as ambitious and harsh in the 1979 allan bloom translation of émile, fathers are not mentioned at all. this itself is an interesting comment on the translator’s view of fathers’ lack of importance in this era to the early education and nurturing of young children. however, in a later translation by barbara foxley (rousseau, 2011a; 2011b), we find many references to fathers. for example, in one passage of book i we read that fathers are filled with “ambition, avarice, tyranny” and that “the mistaken foresight of fathers, their neglect, their harshness, are a hundredfold more harmful to the child than the blind affection of the mother” (rousseau, 2011a, chapter 2, para. 1–3). here we see the mother’s “blind affection” celebrated when compared to the father’s hard-edged tyrannical approach. in other passages in the same edition, many canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 25 vol. 38 no. 1 references are made to the father’s role in education and guidance of older children and youth, including his role in deciding what is right educationally and morally. rousseau’s descriptions seem to hand off the child from mother to father as the child makes developmental gains. this stance reflects the values and assumptions that mothers are less equipped to care for the intellectual and moral needs of their older children, and conversely, that fathers are ill prepared to engage relationally with the needs of infants and younger children. this perspective also creates a binary with no middle ground for situations where fathers may support mothers in their nurturing role or vice versa. although we could argue that this binary is no longer as dominant, we still see a majority of mothers caring for infants and young children on a daily basis and a majority of women teachers in early childhood education. additionally, no consideration is given to parents’ individual strengths or to the temperament, gender, or other individual differences of the child. the descriptions easily become archetypes of mothers, fathers, children, and tutors, with no perceivable distinguishing qualities and no middle ground for different approaches that might best suit the fit between them. the danger of such archetypes is that we very quickly learn who we should be or what others should be through that archetypical image, and often we are restricted in our ability to learn who others truly are or who we might be outside this dominant image. the parents who drop their children off at school become archetypes of mothers or fathers, not hemakshi or andrew. the children we teach become boys and girls, not christy, james, carleen, or hiêú. can we ever really reach a point of co-inquiry and collaboration with archetypical images lingering? how can we truly get to know these children and families? tutor as selfless expert this sets the stage for a theme taken up throughout émile where rousseau adopts the voice of “expert” through his creation of the archetypical tutor. in émile, the tutor assumes responsibility for the provision of émile’s mental, moral, and physical education and is seemingly omnipresent. this creates the image of education as an impossible-to-attain ideal for the nurse, mother, or tutor given the magnitude of the task. in rousseau’s (1979) words, when education becomes an art, it is almost impossible for it to succeed, since the conjunction of elements necessary to its success is in no one’s control. all that one can do by dint of care is to come more or less close to the goal, but to reach it requires luck. (p. 38). in addition to describing education as an art that is impossible to master or succeed in, rousseau extends the challenge and judgment by advising the reader that the role of mother, nurse, and tutor also requires rational analysis and monitoring. the educators are warned that they themselves must not contribute to a maladaptive education. to guard against doing so, the mother is expected to step outside her practice and evaluate the extent to which she is contributing to the child’s condition. as rousseau (1979) notes, the lengthy tears of a child who is neither bound nor sick, who is allowed to want for nothing, are only tears of habit and obstinacy. they are the work not of nature but of the nurse who, not knowing how to endure the importunity, multiplies it without dreaming that in making the child keep quiet today one is encouraging him to cry more tomorrow. (p. 69). this warning adds to the unattainable qualities the educator should possess. not only must the mother, nurse, or tutor observe, evaluate, or diagnose the child’s needs and react appropriately, she must also know how her reactions may contribute to the child’s misbehaviour. in all of this, the educator has no identity of his or her own. in fact, throughout the treatise the mother, nurse, tutor, and father are all nameless. only émile has a name, needs, desires, and character. put simply, this namelessness leaves the educator and family unnaturally devoid of feeling and form. rousseau’s views on education education as behavioural problem solving several of rousseau’s examples liken early childhood education to behavioural problem solving. in one example, the educator rationally “teaches” émile not to be afraid of masks. in his description, rousseau (1979) writes, all children are afraid of masks. i begin by showing émile a mask with a pleasant face, then some one puts this mask before his face; i begin to laugh, they all laugh too, and the child with them. by degrees i accustom him to less pleasing masks, and at last hideous ones. if i have arranged my stages skilfully, far from being afraid of the last mask, he will laugh at it as he did at the first. after that i am not afraid of people frightening him with masks. (p. 30) in this example, the reader is presented with a rational behavioural approach to solving the “problem” of childhood fears associated with masks. to counter this deficit, we are presented with a lesson in desensitization where the tutor is advised to model the pairing of the mask with laughter so that émile associates the dreaded object with a pleasant response and eventually fortifies himself against the fears and anxiety he associates with it. moreover, this strategy is intended to protect émile and assure the tutor or parent that others won’t be able to take advantage of a weakness that is common in children. this theme of bolstering the individual innocent, naïve young student against a corrupt and evil society is repeated continually, with the assumptions that the role of educator and education in general is to protect the child from the evils of the world. initially the mother or nurse is charged with this task and later the tutor takes on this role. this approach is also reminiscent of the advice given to parents about how to “convince your kid to let you do even the things they hate” (points, 2011, p. 46) by combining the dreaded task with affection. canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 26 vol. 38 no. 1 education as women’s work and a woman’s social security prior to the institutionalization of social security in canada and europe, it was common for one’s family to act as social security for members who had fallen on bad times or were in need (guest, 1985). in émile, rousseau (1979) paints a true picture of society in that era as he writes: the earliest education is most important and it undoubtedly is woman’s work. if the author of nature had meant to assign it to men he would have given them milk to nurse the child. always speak, then, preferably to women in your treatises on education; for, beyond the fact that they are in the position to watch over it more closely than are men and always have greater influence on it, they also have much more interest in its success, since most widows find themselves almost at the mercy of their children; then their children make mothers keenly aware, for good or ill, of the effect of the way they raised their children. (p. 37). this viewpoint extends the idea of family as social security to a notion that family might become social security in a time of need if the mother invests properly in her offspring and has been successful in educating her young. conceptually this seems to imply that care for our mothers in their old age is contingent on how we feel we were educated by them in our early childhood and youth and perhaps how we were treated. this creates an image of a vulnerable mother whose fate is precarious and power limited. this description also continues to associate the duties of care and education with the individual nuclear family in isolation from the larger community. in this way, correctly nurturing and educating her children not only becomes part of the mother’s role, but it also becomes a high stakes proposition. done correctly, it could lead to being cared for in one’s old age; done improperly, one risks being sent to the poorhouse! society as corrupt rousseau saw society as a corrupting influence, even going so far as to denounce the role of books as unnatural and miseducative. he felt that man was born free but soon degenerated in the hands of others. a consistent theme throughout émile was that he found fault in the educational practices of the day including rote memorization and separation of learning from the student’s own direct experience. the 1st half of the book discusses émile’s “natural” development apart from other children and away from the imitation of adult social duties and etiquette (a common practice among the elite). instead, because he believed that young children were predisposed to being good, it was more important to allow their predispositions to emerge and find their natural expression. this could only happen, according to rousseau, away from the corruption of parlour life and other social influences that misshape children. contradictions found in rousseau’s notion of a natural yet engineered education rousseau’s treatise calling for a natural education describes an approach to learning that is individually tailored for émile according to each stage of his development. rousseau also acknowledged childhood as a separate and unique phase in life which should be cherished and appreciated. this perspective has contributed to our understanding of childhood as unique and valuable in and of itself rather than as a holding place prior to adulthood. importantly, this view has also led to the establishment of children’s rights and a disruption of the common view that children are lesser beings. through émile, rousseau contributed the idea of the developmental stages of infancy, childhood (boyhood), preadolescence, adolescence, and young manhood, implying that a natural education would attend to these stages. his theory suggests that one cannot force knowledge, but that we must allow children to naturally develop and enjoy the early years of their life before they are ready to be formally educated. since rousseau’s time, this stage approach has been furthered by evolutionary psychologists and developmental theorists like james mark baldwin, jean piaget, and arnold gesell in their theories of genetics, maturation, and the mental growth of children. these theories have also been used to support the idea of developmentally appropriate learning where formal instruction and activities should be introduced at a timely point in maturation so that we avoid “hot housing” children and treating them as miniature adults. in rousseau’s treatise he illustrates this idea by suggesting that reading instruction should not to be attempted until after the age of 12. children younger than 12 need to exercise their primary senses and directly experience the world around them. such basic sensory experience will become the foundation of later abstract thought. in this way, rousseau viewed experience as prerequisite to reason and abstract thinking, which he believed would come later. he viewed the child’s development before age 12 as best suited for an “education of the senses” that required a “negative education” given his assumption that the child’s verbal and reasoning powers remain latent for the first twelve years of life and shouldn’t be corrupted by moral or intellectual instruction. although there is good reason to see childhood as a qualitatively separate phase in life, rousseau’s stage theory can be problematic and is not necessarily “natural.” seeing obvious flaws in past assumptions like those generated by rousseau, theorists such as margaret donaldson (1978) have since successfully argued that young “uncovering the roots of these images of teacher as expert, learner as passive, and mother as vulnerable, tender, and anxious, and critically evaluating the way we have distanced children and families and separated them from “educational experts” may help us to contest the value and currency of our positions so that they may be collectively reimagined.” canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 27 vol. 38 no. 1 children are in fact capable of abstract thought and reasoning well before age 12, and that when children are evaluated on their ability to think abstractly, it is often a test of language comprehension that takes place. in children’s minds (1978), she also argues against the traditional linking of egocentric behaviour to young thinking, pointing out that egocentric behaviour is often demonstrated throughout adulthood (we would add particularly in western cultures). from age 12 until 15 émile is considered to have developed physically into a tough, resourceful, self-reliant individual whose powers of reasoning emerge and develop quickly. this image of the ideal independent, self-reliant thinker (latent or otherwise) is not a value shared by all cultures, and it also poses a problem if we adopt it unquestioningly. in many collective cultures and/or cultures that acknowledge the necessity and value of interdependence, this separation of the individual from the group is thought of as unnatural. part of the appeal of seeing the individual educated outside the group, from rousseau’s point of view, was that it could offset the social and vicarious learning that would take place and, importantly, the corrupting influences of society. rousseau says nothing in the novella about the value of the extended family, clan, or community. as part of rousseau’s celebration of individual rights, he saw the individual as having the right not to be used as a means toward an end (i.e., the global citizen). the pupil is regarded in this way as an end in him or herself and not part of a national economic or political plan. again, this value has been highly prized in north america, but it is important to note that it comes with a set of assumptions and beliefs about where the learner is situated within the collective. perhaps more importantly, it should be noted that these values are not universally shared. gender when comparing rousseau’s careful articulation of the education of émile to his discussions of sophie (in book v of émile), we see another contrast in educational values, in this case values related to gender. according to jane martin (1985), the majority of interpretations of rousseau’s educational theory have been taken from books i to iv in which he discussed education solely for boys through his fictitious character émile. sophie is introduced in book v essentially to complete or complement émile’s life, given that in rousseau’s (2011a) words “it is not good that man should be alone” (book v, para. 2). in rousseau’s blunt descriptions of the essential social and moral virtues that women should possess, he states: the children’s health depends in the first place on the mother’s, and the early education of man is also in a women’s hands; his morals, his passions, his tastes, his pleasures, his happiness itself, depend on her. a woman’s education must therefore be planned in relation to man. to be pleasing in his sight, to win his respect and love, to train him in childhood, to tend to him in manhood, to counsel and console, to make his life pleasant and happy, these are the duties of woman for all time, and this is what she should be taught while she is young. the further we depart from this principle, the further we shall be from our goal, and all our precepts will fail to secure her happiness or our own. (sophy or woman, para. 32) the subordinate positioning of women described in this passage is only one of many examples throughout rousseau’s writing that illustrate a common view held in that culture and era: that men had proprietary rights to women and children. as explained by martin (1985), while “insisting that she is by nature subordinate to émile’s authority rousseau makes it both necessary for her to remain in the traditional female role and impossible for her to be a citizen of the ideal state” (p. 46). with this view of women and children as property, we can reason that the education of girls and young women in rousseau’s day could never be as freely determined as that of the education of boys and young men. conceptually, rousseau also asserts that any education that women receive is done for the betterment of her offspring, taking us full circle to an image of women as being charged with the selfless education of their young children. overall rousseau’s novella provides a blueprint for “natural” and “progressive” approaches to successfully raise boys as moral beings and buffer them from the early influences of a corrupt society. in our analysis, we see many strong images created by rousseau that continue to linger as discourses in our current educational habits and practices. we also suggest that many of rousseau’s so-called natural approaches are contradictory and deeply embedded with a set of values, attitudes, and beliefs that define education and those who should be educated in a particular way, consistent with the culture and beliefs of rousseau’s era. the images, however, of teacher as expert, learner as passive, and mother as vulnerable, tender, and anxious all seem to linger in our current discourses and truncate our thinking in particular ways. moreover, each of these images brings with it a number of conceptual metaphors that lock us into ways of thinking about children, pedagogues, and maternal roles that should be questioned and examined critically as they relate to our current world views and aspirations. conclusions uncovering the roots of these images of teacher as expert, learner as passive, and mother as vulnerable, tender, and anxious, and critically evaluating the way we have distanced children and families and separated them from “educational experts” may help us to contest the value and currency of our positions so that they may be collectively reimagined. using a critical discourse approach, we can see the archetypical images presented in the photographs and articles in parenting magazines like the one described in the introduction as a measure of the way we have distanced parents and early childhood educators in canada and the way we are inclined to view children. what might happen if we were to view canadian children child study spring / printemps 2013 28 vol. 38 no. 1 children’s competencies as a starting point for instructional practices before other negative images? to see young learners as capable in their engagement with learning rather than perpetually in need or wanting? from this new beginning it may be possible to reimagine what is meant by curriculum and education. in the face of the many contradictions that have been historically created and that tend to linger or replicate themselves in our 21st-century discourse, we might simply begin with malaguzzi’s powerful suggestion that our image of children is where our teaching begins. if we can critically analyze the archetypes that have become our 21st-century discourse, we may be in a better position to forge new relationships with children and families in our learning communities. references ballinger, s. e. (1965). the natural man: rousseau. in p. nash, a. m. kazamias, & h. j. perkinson (eds.), the educated man: studies in the history of educational thought. new york, ny: wiley. braudel, f. (1982). civilization and capitalism: 15th–18th century. volume ii: the wheels of commerce. london, uk: collins. donaldson, m. (1978). children’s minds. london, uk: croom helm. fairclough, n. (2003). analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research. london, uk: routledge. foucault, m. (1972). the archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. new york, ny: pantheon. gesell, a. (1930). the guidance and mental growth of the infant and child. new york, ny: macmillan. guest, d. (1985). the emergence of social security in canada. vancouver, bc: ubc press. hillesheim, j. (2002). rousseau, jean-jacques (1712–1778). in n. j. salkind (ed.), child development (pp. 349–350). new york, ny: macmillan. gale virtual reference library. lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (1980). metaphors we live by. chicago, il: university of chicago press. locke, j. (1989). some thoughts concerning education. london, uk: oxford university press. (original work published 1692) luke, a. (1997). the material effects of the world: apologies, ‘stolen children’ and public discourse. discourse, 18, 343–368. luke, a. (2002). beyond science and ideology critique: developments in critical discourse analysis. annual review of applied linguistics, 22, 96–110. malaguzzi, l. (1994). your image of children where teaching begins. exchange, 3, 52–56. martin, j. r. (1985). reclaiming a conversation: the ideal of the educated woman. new haven, ct: yale university press. points, d. (ed.). (2011, september). get dreaded jobs done! parents. rabinow, p. (ed.). (1984). the foucault reader. new york, ny: pantheon. rousseau, j.-j. (1979). émile or on education (a. bloom, trans). new york, ny: basic books. (original work published 1762) rousseau, j.-j. (2011a). émile (b. foxley, trans.]. kindle edition. (original work published 1762) rousseau, j.-j. (2011b). the works of jean-jacques rousseau: the social contract, confessions, émile and other essays. halcyon classics. kindle edition. van dijk, t. a. (1993). principles of critical discourse analysis. discourse and society, 4, 249–283. van leeuwen, t. (2008). discourse and practice: new tools for critical discourse analysis. new york, ny: oxford university press. it is with the greatest of pleasure that we announce that susan fraser has been given an award for life long achievement of excellence in early childhood education and public service to the province of british columbia. sue is the first recipient of this award. she has been chosen because of her lifelong commitment to young children and their families, not only in british columbia but also in many other parts of canada and the world. many canadian children readers will know sue and understand that she is seen not only as a guide and mentor, but that she is someone who has been instrumental in changing teaching practices in early childhood education throughout canada. sue has been an early childhood educator, a college and university professor, and a staunch advocate for children. she also served for a number of years as the editor of canadian children. understanding that change occurs within a context, sue has quietly and steadfastly worked to transform how early childhood education students are educated for practice; she has been instrumental in helping early childhood educators shift their understanding of how young children learn, and she has taken every opportunity to share all she has learned with governments, professors, teachers, parents and caregivers. sue sees herself as a collaborator but we see her as a catalyst for change and a leader. like all good leaders, she is loved and respected dearly. congratulations sue! life long achievement of excellence submitted by lynda phillips susan fraser receives lifetime achievement award. winter/hiver 2017 53 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice children, outdoor play, and loose parts caileigh flannigan and beverlie dietze caileigh flannigan, macys, is a clinical therapist with chimo youth and family services in ontario. she specializes in play, art, and nature therapies to support children’s mental health. her research interests include outdoor play and early childhood development. caileigh spends her free time promoting unstructured outdoor play opportunities in city spaces. email: caileigh.flannigan@gmail. com beverlie dietze, phd, is the director of learning and teaching at okanagan college, kelowna, bc. her research interests include outdoor play environments for children and early learning and child care professional staff development models. she was educated at sheridan college, the university of new brunswick, st. francis xavier university, and the university of toronto. email: bdietze@ okanagan.bc.ca play, especially outdoor play, is a crucial component of early childhood. play is innate and instinctual for children. play influences children’s learning and development. chakravarthi (2009) defined play as an act that is “meaningful, intrinsically motivating, pleasurable, freely chosen, symbolic, actively engaging and opportunistic” and suggested that it be considered as “episodic, imaginative and creative and fluid and active” (p. 25). according to chakravarthi, both piaget and vygotsky viewed children’s play as encompassing “creativity, exploration, experimentation, adaptation, learning, communication and socialization” (p. 25). despite past and present knowledge of the importance of play to early childhood learning and development, there has been a national trend over the past decade of reducing outdoor play in school and community settings (milteer & ginsburg, 2012). in many countries, including the united kingdom (waller, 2007), denmark, and norway, access to and opportunities for children to engage in long periods of outdoor play in the early years are being promoted and practiced (ernst, 2014). as children’s rates of obesity, diabetes, and depression increase, many communities in canada are rethinking the importance of outdoor play to child development and wondering how to increase children’s time and levels of activity outdoors (tremblay et al., 2015). one strategy that is being promoted is for children to have exposure to outdoor play environments that have a variety of natural and synthetic loose parts. loose parts refers to play objects and materials that are open ended and manipulable (nicholson, 1971). loose parts are moveable, nondictated materials that children can use in a variety of ways (daly & beloglovsky, 2015; maxwell, mitchell, & evans, 2008). when children have exposure to intriguing loose parts, they become curious. children’s curiosity is triggered when they see and experience new things and have unique experiences that may not be possible in the indoor environment. this sense of curiosity is how children become inspired to engage in new explorations and discoveries in an effort to understand how loose parts in early learning environments benefit children’s play and development, through observations of preschool children in a rural outdoor natural environment, this study examined behaviours that children exhibited as they used loose parts. children exhibited a range of positive social behaviours, complex verbal and nonverbal behaviours, and various types of risk taking in their play. the findings suggest that children do not explicitly exhibit stereotypical gender or age-exclusion behaviours while using the loose parts. the results would suggest that increasing children’s opportunities to use loose parts in an early years outdoor environment will support their various aspects of development in positive ways. key words: outdoor play; loose parts; early childhood development; unstructured play; natural environments; play development winter/hiver 2017 54 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice (perry, 2004). the quality and depth of outdoor play experiences can be increased when loose parts are added to the outdoor environment (änggård, 2011; maxwell et al., 2008). loose parts give children the freedom to develop their play experiences based on their ideas and goals, rather than the play being predetermined by the materials or surroundings (änggård, 2011). this means that the materials do not dictate the type of play children engage in. children create play episodes based on their past experiences, curiosity, creativity, and new ideas. loose parts and the fluctuating outdoor environment create affordances for children. affordances are the possibilities that an environmental feature or object provides to an individual. the perception of such possibilities leads children to act on that feature or object (gibson, 1977). therefore, a feature within an outdoor environment may have multiple uses based on children’s perceptions of what could be. for example, a rock could be perceived as something to throw or to climb over. a stick could be perceived as a sword or as a tool for digging. the way children perceive a loose part influences if and how they use it in their play. since loose parts do not have a predetermined use or outcome, with experience, children can adapt them to be used in multiple ways. the theory of loose parts and affordances provides educators with insight into how loose parts in outdoor environments support children in being able to create rich and diverse play experiences. loose parts offer children opportunities for unstructured play that is not dominated by adults (ridgers, knowles, & sayers, 2012; staempfli, 2009). unstructured environments have limited guidelines and rules set by adults, allowing and encouraging children to create their own play activities. outdoor play environments with loose parts that are changed regularly provide children with challenges and a sense of wonder, because the potential play experiences are constantly changing (boldemann et al., 2006; canning, 2010). early learning teachers and programs that embrace the use of loose parts outdoors generally have more flexible schedules, while encouraging children to exercise their freedom to play and develop individual control and self-regulation skills (stephenson, 2002). loose parts promote varied play activities among preschool children (zamani, 2012). we contend that outdoor play environments with loose parts support children in having higher levels of engagement in their play than environments with more stationary equipment or materials with defined purposes. loose parts in outdoor play environments have a positive influence on children’s play behaviours and their development. the study this study focused on examining the children’s play themes, patterns, and behaviours that became evident with the use of familiar loose parts in a natural outdoor environment. the study was divided into two parts. part one focused on observing how children used the preexisting loose parts that were familiar and available to them in their outdoor space daily. part two involved observing children’s play when unfamiliar loose parts were introduced in the outdoor environment. this paper focuses on part one of the study. methodology this phase of the study involved gathering data on how the children played with familiar and frequently used loose parts (part one) in order to compare their play when new materials were provided. this study was guided by bronfenbrenners’s (1979) ecological theory, which proposes that there is a relationship between environmental and social factors and children’s development (dietze & kashin, 2012). these factors influence children through five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (bronfenbrenner, 1979), all of which can contribute to how children execute their play experiences (dietze & kashin, 2012). further, children’s play is influenced by their family, educators, federal and provincial policies, culture and societal ideologies, and environmental conditions. winter/hiver 2017 55 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice initial meetings were held at a childcare centre with the early childhood educators and the families of the children involved in the research. the purpose of the meetings was to discuss the project, examine families’ and educators’ views on loose parts and risk taking, and gather information on the availability of play opportunities within the community. the themes that evolved from these meetings suggested that all early childhood educators at the centre promoted the use of loose parts in the outdoors. however, some parents were unsure as to how such materials benefited their children. structured metal playgrounds, rather than loose parts, were common within their community. a total of 27 preschool children (11 females and 16 males) between the ages of 4 and 5 and four early childhood educators were involved in the research. each part of the project consisted of three naturalistic observations (six total) using a digital video camera that was mounted on a tripod for stability. the video camera was moved around the play space to capture children’s various play episodes. in an effort to answer the question regarding if and how the familiar loose parts influenced children’s play themes and patterns and how they encouraged development, observations were conducted over three weeks on three different occasions. they were completed in an outdoor play green space located at the front of the childcare building. the space is fenced by trees and shrubbery and is approximately 100 by 50 metres in size. digital recordings were made of the play interactions as they occurred from their beginning to their natural ending point. field notes were taken during each observational day as a way of collecting information on weather conditions, verbal language, and notes about particular play episodes. field notes were used to gather ongoing records of behaviours and play to give continuity to the video data. loose part materials children’s play with the loose parts consisted of both natural and synthetic materials. table 1 identifies the specific materials provided for each observation day. table 1. schedule of loose parts day loose parts 1 rope, garbage can, plastic pipes, angled plywood pieces, buckets, buoys, tires, crates, dishes, clay trays, nets 2 shovels, trays, tires, pieces of driftwood, rope, plastic tube, large crate, rocks 3 tire, buoys, pieces of wood, rope, crate, hoola hoop, fishing net, buckets, pipes, tubes, dishes data analysis the video data was transcribed after each daily observation as a way to provide a detailed narrative of the play and developmental behaviours. the narrative transcripts were analyzed to seek out themes related to verbal and nonverbal interactions, social behaviours, physical activity, risk taking, types and patterns of play, as well as age and gender behaviours. coding of the data was conducted after the video footage had been analyzed and was put into categories or recurring themes. the patterns of behaviours observed during play that used loose parts were noted. winter/hiver 2017 56 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice findings play themes the most common theme identified was that of weapon/gun play. this may be due to children enjoying the freedom of outdoor spaces and the openness of the early childhood educators to movement and verbal expression, such as running, chasing, fleeing, climbing, and screaming, which are all common movements of weapon play (rich, 2003). observations noted that children used the sticks, pipe, or other long, skinny objects as weapons and wood pieces and cans as shields. other common themes observed included family roles and dramatic play that included good versus bad roles. for example, children would take on the role of mother, father, and baby. the good versus bad roles included children playing out roles such as devils, intruders, and bad guys. play patterns a common pattern observed was that the play episodes were goal oriented and involved shared activities. most of the play episodes included children working toward achieving common goals, such as finding materials for their home, chasing the bad guy, or making food. each child would have a role assigned and they would work together to execute the play episode. the use of the affordances of the natural environment was also observed as a common pattern. the natural materials afforded by the environment were used frequently during play episodes for functional and dramatic play purposes. for example, children would jump and walk and squat over a pile of logs (functional use). children also considered this same pile of logs to be a “fire” that they had to make bigger by piling on more logs and sticks. the functional uses were associated with the dramatic play as part of the fire. for example, the boys either wanted to get warm by squatting near the pretend fire or they would try to avoid getting burned by jumping over the fire (dramatic play). it seems that when loose parts are available to children, they not only perceive the functional use of the environment or materials, but also view such items as sticks, leaves, and trees as having imaginary qualities that children can incorporate into play episodes. it would appear that children did not view the natural materials as having to be used a certain way; therefore, their imaginations were enhanced by being able to ascribe whatever role they wished onto the materials. social behaviours positive social behaviours were apparent and consisted of turn taking, leadership, cooperation, decision making, assigning roles, assigning tasks, problem solving, curiosity, and the inclusion of others in discussions of tasks or themes. the most prevalent negative behaviours observed were tattling, bossiness, testing of social limits, and exclusion of others. the features of outdoor natural environments that include loose parts appeared to impose less structure on what the children played with and with whom they interacted. this encouraged children to engage in higher levels of social interaction and peer play, due in part to their openness, flexibility, and equity. verbal and nonverbal behaviours children engaged in a number of common verbal patterns: imitation, repetition, stating the theme, expressions of happiness or excitement, crying/whining, making noises that indicated a dramatic role, giving verbal demands or directions, making verbal requests for information or action, and using socially inclusive phrases of “we” or “ours,” such as “we have to go get the bad guys,” “this tree stump is ours and we must protect it,” and “we are going to make smoothies with these pine needles.” it was noted in most digital recordings that children were making loud yells and screams, separate from the verbal communication. this screaming could be attributed to their excitement over the materials, the accessibility of the open field, or simply being in nature. common nonverbal behaviours winter/hiver 2017 57 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice were nodding, handing of materials back and forth to create and build, pointing, turning toward / away from, onlooking behaviours, raising objects or hands, examining materials, displays of distress, cautious behaviours, pushing/pulling, and placement of body on materials. the outdoor environment provides a rich context that supports children in developing language and communication skills. a peaceful area surrounded by nature and free of background noise can motivate children to express themselves. children can use their voice in a variety of ways, including pitches and volumes, without the usual constraints imposed in the indoor environments. the addition of loose parts in an outdoor environment provides further language development through the use of unfamiliar objects, new experiences, and the array of play possibilities. risk-taking behaviours many observations illustrated children’s risk-taking behaviours. for example, children were observed climbing trees, swinging fast on a tree-rope, climbing on a pile of sticks, and walking across a tightrope. the behaviours revealed ways in which the children managed their own risks separate from teacher influence. the children rarely rushed into a risky situation without testing or questioning the action or environment. oftentimes they would take sequential steps as part of completing an entire risky movement. outdoor play provides children with adventure, challenge, and an element of danger that adds to them develop both confidence and skills in self-regulation and problem solving through positive play experience. it is evident that children engage in risk-taking behaviours and are capable of assessing their own tolerance for risk. types of play collecting (the gathering of materials from the loose parts pile), sorting, and placing the loose parts were observed as part of children’s play. generally, the collection of items occurred once a theme was identified by the children, created, and played out. for example, the materials were collected for a dramatic purpose such as weapons, buckets for making food, wood for a campfire, or decorations for their home. the placement of collected materials was usually around a focal point or an important point of reference for the purpose of creating and building areas or homes. for instance, in one situation, a group of children took turns collecting loose parts and placed them next to or around a tree stump inside their pretend home. dramatic and combined play (dramatic and constructive mix) were the second most common play types. dramatic play was evident near the forest called “the monkey jungle.” dramatic roles were also positioned using loose parts, such as sticks becoming guns or a pipe becoming a fire hose. combined types of play also occurred, such as when one boy constructed an obstacle course made out of a variety of loose parts that included tires, wooden boards, rope, and pipes. this construction was later (approximately 10 minutes) used as a boat and then as a surfboard. functional play was apparent, but did not change significantly over the observation period. common functional play behaviours were chasing, jumping, and rolling rocks down sloped areas. there was some evidence of games with rules, such as a made-up hockey game with sticks and buckets. gender behaviour observations of gender differences during this study were limited in scope. the boys and girls played together across many play episodes and used the materials in similar ways. generally, boys engaged in more weapon, rough-and-tumble, and good versus bad themes. however, the girls also engaged in these activities and themes. interestingly, the boys often engaged in play themes such as “house” and “family” that are usually viewed more often in the play of girls. at no time did the children verbalize to their peers that they could not play due to their winter/hiver 2017 58 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice gender. the natural outdoor setting and loose-part materials do not regulate what is and what is not possible. the natural outdoor environment and the provision of gender-neutral loose parts supported gender-inclusive and equitable play. age differences generally, all ages played together in a positive way. for example, both the young and older boys engaged in play that involved chasing the bad guys and saving the other children. they all collected materials to build houses, and all the 4and 5-year-old children engaged in a game of tug o’ war. there were some instances where younger children were excluded from play areas. for example, the older children determined who entered a play theme and how often. they would yell at the younger children upon entering their area or for stealing their items. these behaviours seemed to surface more depending on the dramatic theme that children were engaged in. age differences were apparent when it came to role creation and management, which were conducted by the older children. the younger children took on complementary roles when playing with older children, while the older children assumed the leader or decision-maker roles. the younger children listened and obeyed those decisions or assigning of tasks. the neutrality of the loose parts ensured that materials were not age specific, and therefore age divisions in their use were not observed. the natural outdoor environment promoted age inclusion due to its large area, openness, and lack of play structures; the mixed ages were inclined to play together for these reasons. implications the findings suggest and provide evidence that loose parts within a natural outdoor environment offer children a variety of opportunities for play, social interaction, language use, risk taking, and inclusivity of gender and age. the findings may be used to inform early childhood outdoor play policies, practice, and setting of future research agendas on the influence loose parts have on children’s play in early childhood settings. the value of this research extends beyond the immediate developmental influences that loose parts may have for children. the benefits reinforce the importance of children having access and opportunities to engage in unstructured, natural outdoor play in canadian provinces and territories. extending our knowledge on the importance of loose parts and outdoor play will help to solidify outdoor play regulations for early years programs. research on the benefits of loose parts and outdoor play may help reduce the barriers of risk taking and the negative attitudes that adults may have toward loose-parts play (staempfli, 2009) or about the value of outdoor play to development. with an increased understanding of how children use loose parts in natural environments, we become more accepting of their properties and have a willingness to ensure that they are available. for children to benefit from loose parts in their play, it is necessary for early childhood educators to advocate for unstructured play in natural landscapes. providing professional development to early childhood educators on the importance of loose-parts play and the application of such materials is necessary (leggett & newman, 2017). research on natural outdoor environments and loose parts is important for advancing opportunities for childdirected play spaces. this research illustrated to early childhood educators that the implementation of loose parts in an outdoor environment is easy, affordable, and advantageous for children’s development. early childhood educators can replicate this research in a variety of settings, including early years programs, family spaces, and school environments. providing children with loose parts will expand their imaginations and positively influence their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. winter/hiver 2017 59 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice future research on loose parts in natural outdoor settings may consider having early childhood educators and children report on their own experiences, as this would strengthen the accuracy and depth of the findings. interviews with early childhood educators to understand their thoughts and feelings regarding their observations of children’s play with loose parts may further expand the body of literature on the power of loose parts in outdoor play. interviews with children could be useful in creating a loose-parts material list of items that they wish to play with. having children tell their stories about their play with loose parts may help researchers understand what children think about while using loose parts in their play. linking self-reports with observations would expand the research and create meaningful findings that would support early childhood educators in the implementation of loose parts in outdoor play settings. acknowledgements we wish to thank the children, early childhood educators, and parents of the childcare centre that 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(2015). introducing loose parts to preschoolers. teaching young children, 9(1), 18–21. dietze, b., & kashin, d. (2012). playing and learning in early childhood education. toronto, on: pearson education. ernst, j. (2014). early childhood educators’ use of natural outdoor settings as learning environments: an exploratory study of beliefs, practices, and barriers. environmental education research, 20(6), 735–752. doi: 10.1080/13504622.2013.833596 gibson, j. j. (1977). the theory of affordances. in r. shaw & j. bransford (eds.), perceiving, acting, and knowing: toward an ecological psychology (pp. 67–82). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. leggett, n., & newman, l. (2017). play: “challenging educators’ beliefs about play in the indoor and outdoor environment. australasian journal of early childhood, 42(1), 24–32. doi: 10.1080/03004430.2015.1028394 maxwell, l. e., mitchell, m. r., & evans, g. w. (2008). effects of play equipment and loose parts on preschool children’s outdoor play behavior: an observational study and design intervention. children, youth, & environments, 18(2), 36–63. doi: 10.7721/ chilyoutenvi.18.2.0036 milteer, r. m., & ginsburg, k. r. (2012). the importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent– child bond: focus on children in poverty. pediatrics, 129(1), 204–213. doi: 0.1542/peds.2011-2953 nicholson, s. (1971). how not to cheat children: the theory of loose parts. landscape architecture, 62, 30–35. perry, b. (2004). maltreatment and the developing child: how early childhood experience shapes child and culture [abstract]. the inaugural winter/hiver 2017 60 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice margaret mccain lecture, the centre for children and families in the justice system. retrieved from http://www.lfcc.on.ca/ mccain/perry.pdf rich, d. (2003). bang, bang! gun play and why children need it. early education, 1–6. retrieved from http://www.richlearningopportunities. co.uk/index.php/publications/archive-articles-and-publications ridgers, n. d., knowles, z. r., & sayers, j. (2012). encouraging play in the natural environment: a child-focused case study of forest school. children’s geographies, 10(1), 49–65. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2011.638176 staempfli, m. b. (2009). reintroducing adventure into children’s outdoor play environments. environment and behavior, 41(2), 268–280. doi: 10.1177/0013916508315000 stephenson, a. (2002). opening up the outdoors: exploring the relationship between the indoor and outdoor environments of a centre. european early childhood education research journal, 10(1), 29–38. doi: 10.1080/13502930285208821 tremblay, m. s., gray, c., babcock, s., barnes, j., bradstreet, c. c., carr, d., ... & herrington, s. (2015). position statement on active outdoor play. international journal of environmental research and public health, 12(6), 6475–6505. doi: 10.3390/ijerph120606475 waller, t. (2007). “the trampoline tree and the swamp monster with 18 heads”: outdoor play in the foundation stage and foundation phase. education 3–13, 35(4), 393–407. doi: 10.1080/03004270701602657 zamani, z. (2012). the comparison of cognitive play affordances within natural and manufactured preschool settings. emergent placemaking, may, 162–167. retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/edra.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/docs/studentpaper2ndplace_ zamani.pdf microsoft word berger online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 130 to 147] www.cayc.ca pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger author’s bio iris berger, edd, has been involved in the field of early childhood education in british columbia for over 15 years. she is currently a coordinator and a lecturer with the institute for early childhood education and research (iecer) in the faculty of education, university of british columbia. her research interests include teachers’ agency, educational judgment, pedagogical leadership, ethics, and the practice of pedagogical narrations. email: berger.iris@gmail.com abstract in this article, i draw from a recent research project that examined how a reconceptualized notion of leadership in early childhood education (ece) is enacted through the practice of pedagogical narration. pedagogical narration involves a process through which early childhood educators create and share narratives about significant pedagogical occurrences with children from their early childhood settings with the purpose of engaging others in critical dialogue where construction of children’s identities and the values embedded in ece practices are made visible and open for disputation and renewal. here i present a particular dimension of leadership enactment that is associated with the practice of pedagogical narration, and i relate this leadership to thinking in moments of not knowing. by providing an example of how leadership was enacted, i wish to illuminate the potentiality of the practice of pedagogical narration to orient educators toward complexity and thinking that is triggered by encounters with unexpected pedagogical situations. such encounters have the potential to initiate educational judgment that is inspired by events and not by following known rules and standards. they invite thinking beyond generalizations and clichés and they orient future (more) responsive and ethically rich pedagogical ventures in ece contexts.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   pedagogical practices and relations in early childhood education can easily become sedimented in routinized ways of acting and responding, sinking into what the philosopher hannah arendt (1963/1977) called “habits of thoughtlessness.” in this article i argue that the practice of pedagogical narration, especially when it is attentive to and dwells on unexpected events that unfold in early childhood contexts, opens up a space where new insights about the complexities of teaching and children’s ways of being can emerge. these insights, made visible through the process of pedagogical narration, have the potential to orient the ece community toward thinking that moves beyond generalizations and clichés, because being attentive to unexpected events necessitates creative thought and unprecedented pedagogical responses. here i see the potential of pedagogical narration to contribute to a reconceptualized notion of leadership in early childhood education, in particular, through a dimension of leadership i call thinking in moments of not knowing. pedagogical narration is a term that we use in british columbia to describe a process through which early childhood educators document (by means of photography, video or audio recording, and collection of children’s creations) and then share narratives about significant pedagogical occurrences from their early childhood settings with the purpose of engaging others (children, colleagues, parents) in critical dialogue where assumptions about early childhood pedagogical practices and children’s identities are made visible and open for disputation and renewal. the practice of pedagogical narrations has been adapted from similar pedagogical tools, such as pedagogical documentation (rinaldi, 2006), practiced in the pre-primary schools of reggio emilia, and learning stories (carr, 2001), a practice that is used in early childhood settings in new zealand. recently, practices such as pedagogical documentation, learning stories, and pedagogical narration have arisen, not only as innovative pedagogical practices, but also as a site for resisting universalized and taken-for-granted views of “doing” early childhood education (carr, 2001; dahlberg & moss, 2005; rinaldi, 2006). the study context and purpose the urgency of investigating leadership in the early childhood arena rises due to the fact that the field of ece is presently confronted with unprecedented political attention both locally and internationally (langford, 2010; mctavish, 2012; organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2006). over the last decade, national and provincial governments in a significant number of countries, including canada, have created centralized early childhood curricula documents and have established closer structural relationships between early childhood and the formal education system. the changes that take place at the policy/political level raise new questions about the possibility and responsibility of early childhood educators to enact leadership by taking a canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   stance and becoming active participants in change rather than “just observers of this moment in the field’s evolution” (goffin & washington, 2007, p. 3). yet leadership, when understood conventionally, has had troubled relations with the field of ece. traditional views of leadership, namely, forms of leadership that are associated with administrative approaches, hierarchical structures, and a position that is typically held by a male figure are deemed by early childhood educators as antithetical to the collaborative and relational “nature” of the early childhood profession (hard, 2005; rodd, 1997; woodrow & busch, 2008). an additional challenge to leadership in ece is linked with the gendered nature of the profession. most persons working in early childhood are women (muijs et al., 2004). relatedly, the professional identity of the early childhood educator has been constructed on notions of “caring” and “niceness,” rather than on taking a stance or articulating one’s position in public (fasoli, scrivens, & woodrow, 2007; grieshaber, 2001; hard, 2005; rodd, 1997). therefore, i argue that there is a need to develop and investigate alternative frameworks for ece leadership, frameworks that expand not only the notion of leadership but also the identities of the early childhood professional. the study’s purpose, then, was to explore the possibility of the practice of pedagogical narrations for reconstituting ece educational leadership. more specifically, this research project focused on studying the leadership potential that the practice of pedagogical narration holds because it positions early childhood educators as narrators or storytellers who can instigate (with the narrations) public conversations that complicate and broaden the discussion about early education and the images of young children. the study also explored what new possibilities for leadership identities arise when early childhood educators provoke others to think and talk about narratives that relate significant pedagogical events from their ece settings. the study is anchored in the belief that a different conceptualization of leadership produces different possibilities for action in the world (mackler, 2008). theoretical framework hannah arendt’s (1906–1975) mediation on political theory acted as a rich conceptual reservoir for this study, because arendt associated political action with acts of storytelling or narration in the public sphere. it is important to note that, for arendt, storytelling was not about self-expression or transmission of values and knowledge; rather, “storytelling was about telling a provocative story that stirs people to think what they are doing” (disch, 1994). according to arendt, stories, once they are told and made public, gain the potential to expand the web of human relations by revealing the plurality of perspectives on a common public matter. thus, narratives illuminate the contingency and complexity of our human condition, and as such, they reinstate possibilities for renewal or change. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   from this premise, we can begin to imagine ece leadership that is manifested in the willingness of the educator to speak and act, or to tell a provocative story in a public forum. hence, in the study, acts of leadership were linked with early childhood educators taking on the position of narrators and initiators of dialogue and critical reflection about possible meanings of stories pertaining to significant events from children’s lived experiences. methods a view of leadership as associated with storytelling and dialogue entailed examining acts of leadership in relation to, and within, the context of communities. therefore, i employed a qualitative multiple case study method (stake, 2006). i studied how pedagogical narration and its leadership potential was enacted across four early childhood settings: preschool (private, part time, two educators), childcare (private, full day, a team of educators), strongstart (public, drop in, single educator), and parent co-op (private, part time, single educator working with parents). data sources and analysis multiple data-gathering strategies were used; they included (a) observations of occasions when pedagogical narrations were shared with either children, colleagues, or parents, (b) interviews with six early childhood educators who acted as key participants about the practice of pedagogical narrations, and (c) samples of pedagogical narrations collected from each site. data collection lasted for the period of a school year. in the analysis process i used concepts from arendt’s political theory, especially those related to narration as political action, to deepen and complicate the meanings of themes identified in the data. the generative relation between the themes and arendtian concepts helped me identify significant leadership events. these leadership events illuminated the potential of pedagogical narration for enacting leadership through reconstituting ece as a public space, mitigating habits of thoughtlessness, and pluralizing the identities of children. thinking and ece leadership in this article i focus on one dimension of the leadership enactment identified in the study: leadership enactment that is related to mitigating habits of thoughtlessness. to establish my argument, i begin by discussing the troubled relationships between the act of thinking and the traditional image of the early childhood educator. i continue by elaborating on arendt’s contention that thinking is intricately related to our responsibility to respond to what emerges as “new” and unprecedented, and i introduce her metaphor of “the wind of thought.” i then explain how two themes that i identified in the data— striving for complexity and valuing surprise—are linked with arendt’s view of thinking and with a new way of conceptualizing ece leadership. to ground my argument further, canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   i present an example of leadership enactment from the childcare site, where erin, one of the key participants, provoked her colleagues “to think what they are doing” by creating a pedagogical narration that illuminated the impossibility to know a child. the changing image of the early childhood educator in the realm of ece, a new image of the early childhood educator as a researcher and reflective thinker has emerged in the scholarly literature (grieshaber & cannella, 2001; macnaughton, 2003a; moss, 2006; nimmo & park, 2009), ece research projects (macnaughton, 2005; pence & pacini-ketchabaw, 2010), and, more recently, in ece policy documents (see, for example, the bc early learning framework, government of british columbia, 2008). with the introduction of critical theories into ece pedagogical thought, a shift in the image of the early childhood educator has been advanced with the purpose of contesting traditional, dominant, and gendered images of early childhood educators. these traditional images (which still haunt the field) portrayed early childhood educators as substitute mothers who rely for their practice on “innate” and “natural” “motherly intuitions” (moss, 2006). viewed from this perspective, little attention, expectation, or recognition has been given to the intellectual engagement required on the part of educators who work with very young children (dalli, 2001; grieshaber, 2001; moss, 2006; nimmo & park, 2009). relatedly, early childhood educators have been positioned as consumers and implementers of external theories, especially theories of child development that have been cemented into ece training programs and are required knowledge for ece licensure (langford, 2006, 2008). recently, macnaughton (2003b) and others (e.g., cannella, 1997) have challenged the idea that there is an objective body of early childhood knowledge that educators can use to guide their practice. this critical position opened new paths for thinking about how early childhood educators can make meaningful contributions to understanding ece by raising and responding to questions about their practice while creating new, more complex meanings for themselves and others. in discussing the teacher as a researcher, rinaldi (2006) urges early childhood educators to become searchers of the meanings of teaching and of being a teacher. she defines research in practice as a generative force that mitigates a routinized way of existence through bringing newness and uniqueness to the daily pedagogical work. newly emerging images of early childhood educators as researchers and critical thinkers broaden and extend possibilities for educators to see themselves beyond those who apply theories and policies developed somewhere else. this study contributed and extended these emerging images for early childhood educators by arguing that the notion of the early childhood educator as a thinker can and should be linked with a reconceptualized notion of leadership in ece. in particular, the study demonstrated that educators could stir in others “the wind of thought” with pedagogical narrations that engage with moments of not knowing. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   thinking with arendt’s wind of thought what begins as wonder ends in perplexity and thence leads back to wonder. how marvelous that men can perform courageous or just deeds even though they do not know, can give no account of, what courage and justice are. ~ hannah arendt (1978) thinking, critical understanding, and reflective judgment played an important part in arendt’s political theory. two particular aspects of her reflections about thinking are central to this article: her insight about the danger of thoughtlessness and her insistence on the significance of the experience of thinking—as a critical and inventive activity—in moments of crisis in understanding, or, in what arendt (1990) called moments of notknowing. arendt (1978) felt compelled to write about the activities of thinking as a response to her controversial yet insightful interpretation of the trial of adolf eichmann, one of the leading officers responsible for the extermination of jewish communities during the holocaust. as a reporter for the new york times in 1963, arendt covered eichmann’s trial. she characterized his actions as a manifestation of “the banality of evil” (arendt, 1963/1977). in contrast with the line of argument that the israeli persecutor put forth in the trial, namely, that eichmann was a monstrous, evil man, arendt, who found eichmann to be a shallow, “ordinary” man, posited that it was eichmann’s inability to think, or his thoughtlessness, that enabled him to participate in atrocities of such magnitude. arendt argued that eichmann’s line of defence that he was simply following orders and routine procedures, as well as his consistent use of cliché-ridden language, pointed to a phenomenon that is even more alarming than the crimes of a disturbed, cruel murderer. she postulated that the human capacity to act thoughtlessly (when one acts as a cog in a machine) is a phenomenon that is not only “normal” or “banal,” but can also become prevalent under certain social and political conditions. her shocking realization about the potential consequences of the habit of thoughtlessness propelled arendt (1978) to wonder and write about the relation between the activity of thinking (the habit of examining whatever happens to pass or attract attention) and judgment (an ethical response-ability to whatever happens). relatedly, the concept of “understanding” accompanied arendt’s work since the rise of totalitarianism regimes. arendt saw understanding as a complicated yet necessary, unending process that is “distinctive from correct information and scientific knowledge” (arendt, 1994, p. 307). most significantly, arendt’s own commitment to try to understand the phenomenon of totalitarianism and, more broadly, her commitment to the project of understanding “whatever happened” implied a particular relation with the world, a relation of responsibility for the world through a process of reconciliation with a reality that is always “coming out of order” (arendt, 1994, p. 308). therefore, we may canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   say that arendt insisted on our responsibility to understand an unknowable world, and while understanding produces “unequivocal results,” it creates a kind of resourcefulness as it prepares us for judgment and action in moments of uncertainty. the responsibility to try to understand as a process of reconciliation with and responsibility for the world depends on the activity of thinking. for arendt, thinking, or the “wind of thought,” emerges as a response to an encounter with an unexpected event or the new. thinking is an activity that is demanded when we experience a crisis in understanding—“when the event we try to understand deprived us of our traditional ways of understanding” (arendt, 1994, p. 310) and our “categories and standards of judgment collapse” (p. 313). this necessitates what arendt called thinking “without a banister” or “beyond what we know,” as bernstein (2000, p. 283) put it. in other words, when we give our thinking attention to events that disrupt our understanding, we are confronted with not knowing and we are propelled to seek the meaning of the phenomena and events in their uniqueness and contingency; it is in these moments that thinking gains its ethical and political significance (bernstein, 2000, p. 289), because we do not subsume the particular event under a general rule, and thus we create a possibility for a new understanding. moreover, arendt (1978) argues that thinking is self-destructive: once we think we have grasped something, it dissolves again into perplexities and, as arendt suggests, the best we can do with these perplexities is to “share them with each other” (arendt, 1978, p. 175). thinking is thus a kind of an awakening that orients us back to the world, toward others, and thus it highlights our interdependency. thinking with arendt’s thinking helped me to theorize how and why the practice of pedagogical narration has potential for reconceptualizing ece leadership. more specifically, in what follows, i argue that leadership emerged when educators’ experience of not knowing was conceived, not as a failure but as an opportunity to be stirred by the “wind of thought” and to share “perplexities” with others through pedagogical narratives. when moments of perplexity are offered to the community in the process of pedagogical narration, the community is “forced” to think about the unpredictable and contingent nature of our lives and to find together new meanings, new realities, and new relationships in a world that, for the most part, desires control, predictability, and knowing. pedagogical narrations, surprise, and complexity striving for complexity pedagogical narrations are distinguished from traditional child observation and representation methods that sought to produce an objective account of children’s behaviour, development, and learning (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007). in contrast, pedagogical narrations, as an alternative approach to child’s observation, do not pretend to describe reality or the child objectively. the practice of pedagogical narration involves canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   complex interpretive work on the part of the educator and her community. while the practice of pedagogical narration creates fertile conditions for thinking and complexity, it also burdens educators with the responsibility to make choices about both the content (what to document) and process (how to interpret) of the pedagogical narration (dahlberg et al., 2007). as such, it has ethically laden implications. being aware of the demands that pedagogical narrations make as a practice situated within interpretative and emergentist framework, the participating educators in the study talked about the challenges they encountered while attempting to deepen and broaden their interpretive repertoire about the documented events. in the interviews, the educators emphasized how the practice of pedagogical narrations required a higher level of complexity as they moved from thinking about pedagogical narration as a mere descriptive account of what happened to a more interpretative framework. for example, karen, the key participant from the parent co-op site, discussed how her practice of pedagogical narration had changed from the first attempts, which included placing photos of children with little sticky notes under them on the classroom walls to engaging in extended processes of conversation for a number of months with children, parents, and colleagues about a documented event. through these conversations, readings of contemporary ece scholarly work, writing, and presenting narrations in public events, karen’s understanding of the possibilities of the practice of pedagogical narration widened when she began to see that pedagogical narrations could be part of a bigger political project that sought to shift traditional conceptions of childhood and education. across all sites, pedagogical narration was linked with the act of thinking. erin, a key participant from the childcare site, also saw the process of creating a pedagogical narration as an opportunity to engage more deeply with her practice. for erin, this desire for engaging with complexity in one’s practice involved a demanding and yet exhilarating intellectual work, or, as erin put it, “it is a process of real thinking about what it is that you are seeing [in the documented material].” deep engagement with her practice through pedagogical narrations was important to erin because, not unlike arendt’s concerns about the dangers of thoughtlessness and shallowness, erin was concerned that “we are on automatic pilot all the time, we just move from a to b and you multi-task.” similarly, when i asked camille, a key participant from the childcare site, how working with pedagogical narrations affected her, she said, “i am thinking about what i am doing and why i am doing that. whereas before it was like, this is what we are doing, you get caught in the wheel and you are just going through the motion.” despite the educators’ passion for thinking and complexity, their comments also reflected the difficulty in responding to the demands that the practice of pedagogical narration presented. laura, the key participant from the strongstart site, expressed this powerfully: canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   if you asked me a year ago about pedagogical narration i felt much more sure of myself, whereas now i have more questions and thoughts about the words i am using in my narration. ‘what am i trying to say?’ ‘who is the audience?’ ‘am i reflecting on my own practice?’ rather than taking laura’s comment negatively, i would like to suggest that this quote actually strengthens the argument that the practice of pedagogical narration acts as an ongoing provocation of thought. valuing surprise in relation to the educators’ desire for complexity was the finding that rather than using pedagogical narrations for assessment or representation of children’s development based on predefined outcomes, most of the pedagogical narration samples collected in the study were narratives that were initiated as a response to events that the educators chose to document because of their quality of surprise or unexpectedness and due to their capacity to evoke wonder and questions. by choosing to document unexpected events, the educators participating in this study opened up possibilities to think about education through what osberg and biesta (2008) call the “‘logic’ of emergence” (p. 313). from an “emergentist” (p. 313) conception of education, knowledge does not exist prior to our participatory actions, and every meaning that emerges in these actions can be understood as “uniquely new, something which has not been in the world before” (p. 313). more significantly, osberg and biesta argue that the logic of emergence also applies to human subjectivity. in other words, when the educational space is open to the emergence of unknown meanings, it also opens up possibilities for the unknown uniqueness of the child (and the educator) to emerge. from this premise, ece leadership was enacted when educators complicated the pedagogical scene in ways that kept open the possibility for the event of the emergence of meanings and identities. leadership was also enacted when moments of crisis in understanding (which are abundant in educational contexts due to the unpredictability of learning and the messiness of classroom practice, as osberg and biesta emphasize) were made visible and foci for thought. leadership, from this angle, is about making visible the unpredictability, creativity, and messiness of the lived experience in the classroom as a vibrant context for experimentation, rather than an attempt to mask or conceal them. within the context of this study, being intrigued and surprised by what children had done or said played a significant role in the practice of pedagogical narration and leadership enactment. the key participants in this study described their initial moment of decision to document an event as a response to something that took them by surprise. moss (2006) argues that a view of the early childhood educator as researcher means that the educator “is open to, indeed welcomes, the unexpected, that which takes her by surprise and by so doing provokes new thought that requires valuing doubt and canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   uncertainty” (p. 36). connections between initiating pedagogical narrations and being surprised by children’s actions and words were mentioned during the interviews across all sites. for example, this is how laura, the key participant from the strongstart site, described what prompted her to document an event: i think in all of them [all the pedagogical narrations she had created] it’s been—the child had said something and that is what put me into that space ’cause it made me pause and think something that is different, something that is intriguing for them to say that i wouldn’t normally anticipate … as well as where is this going to go? so that’s where it seems to have been. i have found when children say something or i see them do something different, it puts me in the space of curiosity. it is the connections that laura and the other study participants made between being surprised and thinking that i want to emphasize here. mackler (2010), inspired by arendt, reminds us that “without unpredictability, there is no need to think” (p. 519). for arendt, as we have seen, thinking is something that happens to us—it is stirred by the “wind of thinking” that arises when we encounter the unexpected (arendt, 1978, pp. 174– 175). it is inaugurated in the moment when something new gains the possibility to come into the world and surprise us. jerome kohn (1990) explains this as follows: what arendt demands of everyone is, of course, nonspecialized, noncognitive thinking, stopping whatever we are doing to tell a story, for instance, in order to shed a circle of light on an incident, giving it a point of meaning, and remaining bound to it ‘as a circle remains bound to its focus.’ such an incident is ‘often ordinary and common and … the common and the ordinary must remain our primary concern, the daily food of our thought—if only because it is from them that the uncommon and extraordinary emerge. (p. 118) seen from this angle, thinking cannot be anticipated; it needs a space where the unexpected, the surprise, is welcomed. it is here that a new possibility for leadership with pedagogical narrations emerges when the educator gains the possibility to engage her community in narratives about moments of surprise that make room for disrupting thinking-as-usual. in the following section, i describe how leadership was enacted when erin, a key participant from the childcare site, “put wonder to work” as she initiated thinking-bound-to-an-event in the process of creating pedagogical narrations. “the music of childhood” and leadership enactment as thinking in moments of not knowing the pedagogical narration called “the music of childhood” focused on young children’s unique relationships with sounds. it was initiated by erin, one of the key canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   participants from the childcare site. erin was completely surprised and deeply moved when she accidentally observed neal, a two-year-old boy, creating music through rhythmic movements on the childcare playground. to invent his melody, neal used a shovel to create the sound of gravel patter on the plastic slide, which he then followed by a patterned stomping on the ground with his rubber boots. counter to erin’s expectation that children respond to music or sound when it comes from the outside, neal seemed to have created music from within, in complete silence. because of this encounter with neal, erin began an extended process of research about how the toddlers at the childcare centre, but also human beings in general, interact with and respond to sounds. rather than using a camera to record children’s experiences, erin and her colleagues used a tape recorder to capture sounds that the children encountered and responded to during the day, which they later listened to with the children in order to revisit the sound experiences. this process led to numerous new insights about the role that sounds play in young children’s lives, which were collected into a pedagogical narration. but for erin, the research was not only about sounds or the music of childhood. because the encounter with neal’s musicality was so profound for her, erin talked about this narration as “an invitation to pause and look for meanings about everything.” she became fascinated with “big” questions. in her reflection about neal’s music experience that was at the centre of the narration, and later during discussions with her colleagues, erin brought up questions such as, “what is musicality” “where does it come from?” “what drives us as creative human beings?” and “what are we doing and for what purpose?” by posing these big questions, erin opened up a space for herself and her colleagues to think, and indeed profound insights about children and about themselves as educators emerged, especially during the team meeting erin organized with the other teachers and the centre director to discuss “the music of childhood.” during the educators’ meeting about the narration, erin shared with her colleagues that what she realized from her reflection about neal’s response to sound was that she did not (and probably cannot) know him. in erin’s words: what do i know about neal? what do i know about him? you never know what the child’s potential is. and we think that we are doing one thing and they may be doing something completely different. when erin brought up this complex idea of the impossibility of knowing a child during the meeting with her team, elana, an educator from the childcare site, was deeply moved by it, and she had a profound insight about our inability to fully know “who” the child is: i wanted to say one more thing about the responsibility that, erin, you mentioned. when we observe kids and we learn about them and we want to know when they are doing something, what does it actually mean? and canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   i feel that we will never know, because at some point it is also so private. i mean, we are responsible for them, we have to take care of them, but they also have their inner world that we have to—of course it is important that we speak with them, and we ask them, we teach them how to communicate, but sometimes it’s just things we will never know; it’s mysterious, like all of us (laughs). it will always be a mystery. that’s why in education we always change … because we always try to get to this mystery point. within the space of suspense that the narration had created, erin and the other educators at the childcare centre were granted an opportunity to experience a kind of not knowing, a break with established formulations about how educational responses should be enacted. biesta (2006) maintains that we are trapped in a way of thinking about education as a process through which we predefine what kind of human we want to “produce.” he further argues that for education to be an ethical pursuit, we need to leave the question of what it means to be human “as a radically open question, a question that can only be answered—and has to be answered again and again” (p. 151, original emphasis); this means that we need to recognize that we cannot assume that we can fully grasp or know the child. seeing education from this perspective entails that the “responsibility of the educator is a responsibility for what is to come, without knowledge of what is to come” (biesta, 2006, p. 148). biesta, inspired by arendt, contends that moments of not knowing are crucial if we are to experience education as a political practice, because the experience of not knowing is what gives rise to “seeing” something—children, parents, educators, or a phenomenon—in different and unique ways, inaugurating plurality and multiplicity. dahlberg and moss (2005) similarly note that while pedagogy is constituted in relationships, within this relationship there is a paradox—on one hand, the welcoming and being together with the child, and on the other, holding a space for distinction “to enable the possibility of difference” (p. 93). the child becomes a “stranger,” or “a newcomer,” to use arendt’s term, and “not a known quantity through classifying systems and normative practices” (dahlberg & moss, 2005, p. 93). ece scholar bronwyn davies (2010) writes about pedagogical documentation (a practice similar to pedagogical narration, as noted above) as a “practice of open listening” (p. 124) and a “creative engagement with the not-yet-known” (p. 120). according to davies, the most challenging aspect of the practice of documentation is to sustain it as a force that “facilitates the emergence of the not-yet-known” (p. 124), because all too often pedagogical narration can become simply the “shaping” of something that the documenter/narrator had set out to document in advance. with her provocative questions, erin challenged herself and her colleagues to meaningfully engage with open questions, such as, “what does it mean to respond to a child we cannot know?” and “how do we exist with children?” in doing so, erin enacted leadership by inviting her colleagues to canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   “stay alert” (biesta, 2006, p. 151) and to see and listen to children, to each other, and to their practice in a new way. this “newness” was evident in the way that childcare teachers sonam, uyen, and elana talked about how they all-of-a-sudden thought about children and sounds in a completely different way. elana went as far as saying that now she understood sound “as a new language.” but more profound was the educators’ encounter with not knowing. arendt (1990), referring to socrates, explains that when the statement “i know that i do not know” (p. 437) comes from a state of wonder (not expressed in terms of lack of scientific answers), it loses its dry negativity, because it is from the actual experience of not-knowing, in which one of the basic aspects of the human condition on earth reveals itself, that the ultimate questions arise—not from the rationalized, demonstrable fact that there are things man does not know, which believers in progress hope to see fully amended one day, or which positivists may discard as irrelevant. in asking the ultimate, unanswerable questions, man establishes himself as a question-asking being. (p. 437) thus, awareness of the impossibility of knowing the child is not a failure. erin took this realization seriously and articulated it beautifully. rather than thinking about not knowing a child as a flaw in her ece practice, she saw it as a motivation to come together and dialogue more about how we see children from our different points of view, asking, what do we know? are we just doing something exploratory, repeating it again and again? what do we really know? so the observation is a big part of it and the open-mindedness is a big part and the discussion among us, because we may see things in totally different eyes and this sharing of what you see and what i see is important, it’s essential. and we might see it the next day all of us differently because something came up. so sometimes just talking about an issue creates a shift for something. i noticed that the shift sometimes happens after discussion and awareness. and you don’t even know how to explain it. i cannot imagine a more profound connection between the practice of pedagogical narration and leadership than the process that is articulated so eloquently in the quote above. it is precisely in the moment that we encounter not knowing that responsibility as understanding an unknowable world and an unknowable other is widened by inviting others to think with us in moments of crisis in understanding. in this way, understanding becomes “the other side of action” (arendt, 1994, p. 321), because thinking holds the possibility to make a new beginning, to experience freedom, and to bring out the significance of the new (p. 320). canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   discussion in this article, i proposed that to think about ece leadership in relation to the practice of pedagogical narration means to think about leaders not as those who already know and impart knowledge to everyone else, but rather, as those who alert others to the necessity to think in moments of not knowing. the practice of pedagogical narration triggered in educators an attunement to unexpected events that punctured a hole in ordinary understanding, and thus required complex, interpretive response. while pedagogical narrations have a unique potential to mitigate thoughtlessness, the complexity of the response to an event hinges on the capacity to see its significance, to make it a material for stirring the wind of thought, and to take a courageous step into the unknown. erin enacted leadership when her encounter with moments in which she experienced not knowing (such as the encounter with neal’s musicality) became a site for stirring the wind of thinking in others as a search for meaning and a creative disruptive understanding. moreover, by sharing her perplexities with others and by asking questions of meaning that were inspired by her engagement with pedagogical narrations, erin invited others to reflect with her on the ethical significance of the unexpected events. in doing so, erin awakened others to their responsibility for a world that we cannot know but nonetheless are moved to preserve by thoughtfully responding to the appearance of something new and surprising. her understanding that each one of her colleagues has something valuable to contribute to our collective, albeit temporary, understanding meant that leadership became a process of widening and deepening, not of finding a single answer. rinaldi (2006), a pedagogical leader from reggio emilia, brings an additional dimension into the conversation about the unexpected. she discusses the moment of initiation of pedagogical documentation (or pedagogical narration) as noticing a gap between our expectations and the actual event, or between the inherent (known) meaning and the emerging (unknown) meaning. she conceptualizes this gap as freedom and refers to these moments as “moments of freedom.” rinaldi claims that freedom “lies in this space between the predictable and the unexpected” (p. 70). i am intrigued by rinaldi’s provocative proposition that it is the experience of freedom that lies in the “gap between the expected and the unpredictable,” because in the current neoliberal political climate, where more regulations are put in place for education and teachers (davies & bansel, 2007), we need educational leadership for creating experiences of pedagogical freedom. i wonder if engagement with pedagogical narrations as encounters with not knowing may occasion this kind of thinking/freedom relation. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   references arendt, h. 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(2003b). the possibilities and challenges of “not knowing”: early childhood teachers’ knowledge and thinking in uncertain time. in o. n. saracho & b. spodek (eds.), studying teachers in early childhood settings (pp. 29–42). charlotte, nc: information age. macnaughton, g. (2005). doing foucault in early childhood studies: applying poststructural ideas. new york, ny: routledge. mctavish, m. (2012). troubling government discourse on early learning websites: a critical analysis. canadian children, 37(2), 5–12. moss, p. (2006). structures, understandings, and discourses: possibilities for reenvisioning the early childhood worker. contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(1), 30–41. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2006.7.1.30 muijs, d., aubrey, c., harris, a., & briggs, m. (2004). how do they manage? a review of the research on leadership in early childhood. journal of early childhood research, 2(2), 157–160. nimmo j. w., & park, s. (2009). engaging early childhood teachers in the thinking and practice of inquiry: collaborative research mentorship as a tool for shifting teacher identity. journal of early childhood teacher education, 30(2), 93–104. organisation for economic cooperation and development. (2006). starting strong ii: early childhood education and care. retrieved from: http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/37425999.pdf osberg, d., & biesta, g. j. j. (2008). the emergent curriculum: navigating a complex course between unguided learning and planned enculturation. journal of canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   curriculum studies, 40(3), 313–328. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220270701610746 pence, a., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2010). investigating quality in early childhood care and education policies and practices in canada, in n. yelland (ed.), contemporary perspectives on early childhood education (pp. 121–138). berkshire, uk: open university press. rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia. london, uk: routledge. rodd, j. (1997). learning to be leaders: perceptions of early childhood professionals about leadership roles and responsibilities. early years, 18(1), 40–44. stake, r. e. (2006). multiple case study analysis. new york, ny: guilford press. woodrow, c., & busch, g. (2008). repositioning early childhood leadership as action and activism. european early childhood education research journal, 16(1), 83– 93. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 berger formatted back page w2015 july 2020 67 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research mapping child-animal care relations in shaun tan’s tales from outer suburbia amy mulvenna amy mulvenna is a human geographer currently based at the school of environment, education, and development at the university of manchester, uk. she is invested in arts-based, creative approaches to mapping praxis and participatory research with children and young people. her research considers both mapping and storytelling as predicated along affective, material, and performative lines and further seeks to interrogate and reposition normative geographies of division as have been traditionally framed and mapped in the context of belfast. amy is additionally interested in critical approaches to children’s literature, the focus of her ma, particularly the work of shaun tan, with a theoretical focus on ecocriticism and common worlds pedagogies. email: amy.mulvenna@postgrad. manchester.ac.uk during the past decade, there have increasingly emerged critical spaces for children’s perceptions and experiences to be situated and explored within research studies on children’s relationships with animals, as the theme of this special issue highlights. i draw together the fields of children’s literature and childhood studies to discuss two of shaun tan’s (2009) tales from outer suburbia, centering on the importance of stories for suggesting the complexity and potentials of child-animal caring relations. this article seeks to speculate on what becomes possible for the child reader in terms of relating to the more-thanhuman world beyond normative adultist representations. indeed, across the tales, tan introduces readers to a range of sentient animals and fanciful creatures that have a power to draw child characters to them and relate to them as “kin” (tan, 2002). tan’s choice of language here speaks directly to donna haraway’s (2003, 2008) thinking about humans being but one “companion species” in a world of many others. as haraway (2016) posits, “no species … acts alone” (p. 100). indeed, deborah bird rose (2011) insists that “humanity is an interspecies collaborative project; we become who we are in the company of other beings; we are not alone” (p. 11, emphasis added). as i explore through the article, the concept of companion species is “less a category than a pointer to an ongoing ‘becoming with’” (haraway, 2008, p. 16), which is to say that the children in these tales are not separate from their companion species but rather they “become with” each other through kin relations. in exploring how these relationships are articulated, i take a relational approach, looking to affective and felt dimensions beyond the literal for significance to explore how animal protagonists wordlessly inspire in child subjects alternative forms of directedness—what i term “alternative directedness.” these somewhat surreal processes are enacted through various mapping moments that take place through situated and strange “contact zone” encounters (haraway, 2008, p. 7). these encounters see child protagonists both astonished this article explores caring relations between child characters and sentient animals in two tales by australian author-illustrator shaun tan. each of tan’s 15 tales from outer suburbia are set in an “outer” suburban world replete with curious critters. these include a silent and stoic water buffalo, an unmoving dugong (manatee), and other surprising companion species. in this article, the author unpacks the caring relationships between child protagonists and the sentient creatures they encounter in two selected tales by focusing specifically on those processes that bring these characters together in curious encounters: that is, processes of embodied mapping. emphasis is placed on enchantment and movement, and, in particular, moments given to pausing, lingering, and reflection. the author argues that both the fields of human-animal studies and the social studies of childhood can gain from exploration of the subtleties of these moments. key words: shaun tan; outer suburbia; story; caring relations; companion species july 2020 68 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research by and drawn into relationships with animals which, although initially characterized by displacement, resultantly develop through enchantment (merewether, 2019), more-than-human knowing, and relatedly, care (tipper, 2011). these relationships carry consequences. that is to say, the animals discussed in this article are more-than “natural bridging links” toward children developing caring relationships with a “natural world”—a reading that arguably reduces them to being mere “objects” of human care (myers & saunders, 2002). rather, the relational and social aspects of the child-animal connections within shaun tan’s tales from outer suburbia are permeated by a subtle, crepuscular kind of surreality effected through the author’s careful interplay of text and image. this surreality is compelling in its own right—much like nature itself—but it can also be taken as a lens through which normative, culturally constructed and assumed discourses and orientations toward child-animal caring relationships are queered (haraway, 2008). this queering in turn enriches our understandings of how interspecies caring connections can be realized as uniquely dynamic—being active, reciprocal, embodied, affective, and sometimes uneasily felt (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2017). and more: they are generative of new subjectivities, images, and spatialities that bring about potential for a reanimation of the child characters’ worlds. i thereby argue that tan’s work is far from “simply” playful or amusing; rather, tales from outer suburbia presents to us an enchanted storied realm in which the child characters’ everyday relationships with animals are articulated, not in terms of “adult” discourses “where animals encourage healthy development, teach empathy and children have a ‘natural’ affinity with them” (tipper, 2011, p. 160) but rather, as becky tipper (2011) suggests, “in terms which make sense to them [children] and resonate with their social lives” (p. 160). processes of alternative directedness and attendant estrangement and displacement discussed in this article emerge in continuum with mixed affects and nuanced sense making. i suggest that these in turn might animate the child reader’s thinking and encourage enchanted ways of seeing their own worlds that might foster other ways of living with/in their swiftly changing planet, which, as jane merewether (2019) contends, “needs to be supported, not belittled or dismissed” (p. 234). i begin by providing a theoretical context that informs my critical framework around “care” before moving sequentially through a reading of the two tales, starting with “the water buffalo.” reconceptualizing caring relations: a theoretical background influenced by the “animal turn” within the social sciences over the past decade (kirksey & helmreich, 2010), tipper (2011, p. 149) critiques existing “adultist,” chiefly western discourses around issues of matters of childanimal relations, which she explains as twofold: regarding “nature/development/becoming” on one hand and “nature/innocence/evil” on the other. she explains that, historically, animals have been regarded as “helpful” from psycho-developmental perspectives, that is, helping children to learn about living, dying, and so on, thus helpfully supporting the development of children’s interpersonal skills. in addition to this concern with children’s development, a second view challenged in this article is that of the western romantic idealized (at times even fetishized) childhood-nature relationship. affrica taylor’s (2011, 2013) writings specifically problematize the “childin-nature” romantic discourses, as well as the subject/object cartesian divide promulgated by post-enlightenment western epistemologies. taylor, like many feminist researchers invested in posthuman and poststructural theories and pedagogy, advocates instead an expanded view of sociality to include nonhuman others (common worlds research collective, http://commonworlds.net/). this standpoint is expressly concerned with questions of living together well in a world that is more than peopled. relatedly, taylor and miriam giugni (2012) state that “children’s worlds do not begin and end with exclusively human entities and concerns” (p. 111). this understanding of the necessity of “coexistence with difference” underpins the conceptual framework that taylor and giugni explain as the “generative and entangled notion of common worlds” (p. 111)—a theorization that builds on haraway’s (2003, 2008, 2016) posthuman, relational account of the “worlding” effects of human and more-than-human relations: a networked understanding of “interdependent existence” that would seek to do away with dualist thinking (hohti july 2020 69 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research & tammi, 2019, p. 171) like nature/culture, animate/inanimate, and human/nonhuman, for example. increasingly, scholarship is committed to tracing “common world relations” between human childhoods and animals, that is, the diverse ways in which the lives of children and animals are complexly, noninnocently, and obliquely interwoven across different sites commingling the personal, social, cultural, political, and environmental (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015). as riikka hohti and tuure tammi (2019) put it, “these viewpoints neither group children and animals in a shared category nor place them in opposite ones. rather, they see them always already in relation” (p. 171). issues of matters of care that co-implicate both children and animals are further linked with environmental concerns and challenges (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2019). indeed, human-animal relations are understood to be at the centre of these global environmental challenges (godfray et al., 2018). as i understand it, care matters from relational perspectives (koggel, 1998), that is, “entangled” understandings of care that resist tendencies toward “feminization” (ailwood, 2017, p. 306), as well as paternalism, “in which care givers assume that they know better than care receivers what those care receivers need, and parochialism, in which care givers develop preferences for care receivers who are closer to them” (tronto, 2010, p. 161). correspondingly, understandings of care taken up in this article follow from joanne ailwood’s (2017) theorizations of entangled caring exchanges, comprising models beyond that of the “traditional” dyadic (of mother-child relations, for example), which typically occurs within family settings. ailwood outlines feminist care ethics such as those put forward by joan tronto (2010) that recognize “the physical needs of human and nonhuman bodies, the environment and the ways in which our worlds need to be maintained so that we may continue living within them” (ailwood, 2017, p. 306). likewise, i think about care within human and more-than-human areas that can be “messy,” occurring in other-than-family and other-than-institutional settings. ailwood explains this “messiness” in terms of “ranging from positive to negative and as sometimes oppressive and stressful” (p. 307)—an inherent messiness that is also noted by maria puig de la bellacasa (2017). going beyond emphases on physical needs, and thinking pluralistically about care as both a purposive and morethan-human activity, the kinds of child-animal caring processes discussed in this article can be characterized as follows: nonverbal and affective, practically addressing more-than-physical needs, occurring in other-than-family and noninstitutional settings, and inspiring ongoing reflection. these exchanges of care can be further typified as being crucially open to curiosity in the relating together of different species (van dooren, 2014). to offer some context about this story world, i first want to explore the idea of what outer suburbia can be, focusing on tan’s reflections from his own childhood in western australia. locating outer suburbia: thinking and imagining at the margins the child-animal contact zone encounters discussed in the two selected tales occur at pavement/street level: in front lawns and abandoned parking lots in otherwise grey, excessively classified and structured suburban spaces. these associated subaltern spatial imaginaries sit askance to notional romantic projects of introspection concerning childhood, nature, and the “green imagination”—that is, where the “ideal child” coexists in an intense, isolated, and intimately devoted relationship with nature (taylor, 2013). poster children for this essentializing relationship include rousseau’s emile and the wordsworthian child: children depicted as being set apart from culture, being “innocently” aligned on the side of the animals of nature—a relationship that communicates happiness and freedom on one hand but also sets those children up as being vulnerable to corruption, becoming mired in “adult” culture and society as they mature (hohti & tammi, 2019). this notion of the natural child is understood to be invented and has been problematized from social constructivist viewpoints, as taylor (2011) explains. importantly, tan’s tales from outer suburbia effect a movement away from narrow, anthropocentric framings that emphasize july 2020 70 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research dualistic understandings of nature-culture. outer suburbia is rather a blueprint for posthumanist, new materialist, and more-than-human understandings of childhoodnature assemblages (e.g., somerville, 2018)—those that take animism seriously, and the vitality of “vibrant” matter (bennett, 2010), as i now explain. tan empathizes with lived, material experiences of alienation, displacement, and indifference he experienced as a child (tan, n.d.1), an experience shared by many children and young people globally today. this stems partly from his upbringing: tan grew up in perth, australia, the son of chinese immigrants. he describes perth as “the most isolated capital city in the world … our family home was built at a northern periphery, which at the time was in a semi-developed condition” (n.d.2, para. 1). he further recounts, “my parents pegged a spot in a freshly minted northern suburb that was quite devoid of any clear cultural identity or history” (n.d. 2, para. 1). tan was greatly influenced by the “geophilosophy” of this “universe of bulldozed ‘tabula rasa coastal dunes, and fast-tracked, walled-in housing estates” (n.d. 2, para. 1) and as an (adult) author, he self-identifies as an emigrant thinker, wondering and wandering, as he puts it, “at the edge of consciousness” (n.d.1, para. 1): “outer suburbia” might refer to both a state of mind as well as a place: somewhere close and familiar but also on the edge of consciousness (and not unlike “outer space”). suburbia is often represented as a banal, quotidian, even boring place that escapes much notice. yet i also think it is a fine substitute for the medieval forests of fairytale lore, a place of subconscious imaginings. (tan, n.d.1, para. 1) beyond the banality and quotidian normalcy of suburban perth’s “empty footpaths, shady parks, rows of blankfaced houses, deeply shadowed windows and wide roads,” tan intuits latent possibilities within the suburbs as “medieval forests of fairy-tale lore, a place of subconscious imaginings” (n.d.1, para. 6). his romanticizing of the northern suburbia of his childhood is without irony, as he emphasizes the sheer sense of liberation experienced where he intuited this “edgeland” as a place of mystery and beauty: “northern suburbia did feel at that time like the edge of the world, relentlessly ordinary, yet also liberating in being so quiet and uncluttered, and not without a strange beauty” (n.d.1, para. 6). tan’s emigrant thinker/dreamer status is reflected in the carefully selected title. the term “outer” implies not a demarcation of limits, but rather a going beyond. tan effects a double remove from the city centre: a realm beyond the city, and, and … outer suburbia thus connotes something of an elliptical existence: now here and yet nowhere—“in posse” (potential) but not “in esse” (being there). indeed, nowhere in this collection of tales do we “see” outer suburbia “all at once”: the very name implies the impossibility of achieving a totalizing “world view”—which is indeed a very liberating thought in many ways. in thinking of outer suburbia as a corollary of what is not at the centre but rather that which is always beyond, it is useful to draw on deleuze and guattari’s (1987) concept of the rhizome. this conceptual model promotes nonlinear and nonhierarchical thinking and arguably helps us to cast off the vestiges of the (colonial) “green imagination”—which certainly chimes with common worlds scholarship, as outlined by affrica taylor (2013) and others. to briefly explain: the rhizome has no beginning or end, “but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and overspills” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 21). i take this definition of “milieu” from james corner’s essay on “the agency of mapping”: milieu is the french term that means “surroundings,” “medium” and “middle.” milieu has neither beginning nor end, but is surrounded by other middles, in a field of connections, relationships, extensions and potentials. in this sense … a grounded site, locally situated, invokes a host of “other” places, including all the maps, drawings, ideas, references, other worlds and places that are invoked during the making of a project. (corner, 1999, p. 224) i posit that outer suburbia and its actors, both human and animal, are folded into this open-ended, rhizomatic realm augmented by relational onto-epistemologies (barad, 2007), that is, where children and animals within the july 2020 71 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research tales can be read as relational beings “emerging from naturecultures” (hohti & tammi, 2019, p. 172). within this realm, child-animal encounters throw into relief heterogenous assemblages that are more than human (hohti & tammi, 2019, p. 172). issues of mattering and care therein occur beyond narrow, anthropocentric framings, as i now go on to discuss, beginning with “the water buffalo.” wandering and wondering: “the water buffalo” “the water buffalo” presents an interesting exercise in orientation for both child reader and the child character, but it should be noted that this process is actuated even before we encounter this first tale. opening the book, we discover that the inside cover is densely planted with tiny and seemingly unrelated pencil sketches suggestive of an artist’s notebook crammed full of subconscious and conscious scribblings. but they are sown with care nonetheless, each doodle enjoying its own uninterrupted spacing, evidence of a creative starting point that matters enough to be included. the materialities of journeying are explicitly evidenced by stamps and related paraphernalia that form the peritextual material, following on from the title page. less explicit but no less significant is the sense of interpersonal intimacy these affective details connote. they are quietly evocative of both the materialities and temporalities of communication and handwritten interactions that are important caring practices in themselves, often overlooked in a digitized era. hence, the first tale is already prefigured by subtle caring overtones from an artistic point of view. figure 1. “the water buffalo,” shaun tan, tales from outer suburbia, p. 7. july 2020 72 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research “the water buffalo” marks a setting forth into outer suburbia. as the very first tale, it marks a starting point, and importantly, it is the site whereupon we are introduced to a notional oracle (figure 1), that is, the silent and sage water buffalo that lives “in the vacant lot at the end of our street” (tan, 2009, p. 6). the surprising emergence of the large creature provides the first impetus of a transformation from the isolation of the empty street toward something other: that is, a more companionable spacing. caring relations between child and water buffalo are established through her approaching him to ask for advice. the young narrator explains how, from its grounded site in the overlooked grassy plot, the buffalo would “come up slowly, raise his left hoof and literally point us in the right direction” (tan, 2009, p. 6). in mapping terms, the pointed hoof plays a crucial iconographic function: from the child’s experience we learn that, with a bit of patience, “whenever we had followed his pointy hoof we’d always been surprised, relieved and delighted at what we’d found” (p. 6). the only form of communication the buffalo offers is that of movement, using his hoof as a means to effectuate this “unknown” realm to explore: but he never said what he was pointing at, or how far we had to go, or what we were supposed to do once we got there. in fact, he never said anything because water buffalos are like that; they hate talking. (tan, 2009, p. 6) not only is the presence of the water buffalo intriguing in itself (how it arrived in the vacant lot is never explained), the fact that he can talk but chooses not to imbues him with agency—as does the designation of the personal pronoun “he,” which suggests a familiarity between the child and the creature, a form of relationship building, and further underscores the “enchanted animism” at play here (merewether, 2019). elizabeth merewether (2019) presents enchanted animism as a concept by which we can think through how children’s intimate engagements with nonhuman things (e.g., stones, clouds, and trees) reanimate the world. following jane bennett (2001, 2010), she explains that nonhuman things have a “power to draw children to them; to enchant them” (2019, p. 234, emphasis added). enchantment occurs where one is “struck and shaken by the extraordinary that lives amid the familiar and everyday” (2001, p. 4), and further, it “entails a state of wonder … a momentarily immobilizing encounter; it is to be transfixed, spellbound” (2001, p. 5). enchanted animism explains in part how children can see themselves as “intimately connected with, and part of, elements such as trees, rocks and cloud,” which follows a broader “ontoepistemological framework” that draws humans and other/more-than-human things together (2001, p. 5). indeed, the buffalo’s silence speaks to a lack of predetermination and proscribed meanings regarding how we should or could read and indeed relate to the earth with all its “lively interconnections” (merewether, 2019, p. 247). but why this animal? there is a kind of double displacement being effectuated here. the species was originally imported to australia from asia and farmed on plains. in the 1950s, vast herds were released from the plains at a time that incidentally coincided with the growth of suburbia, which developed as a “bulwark against communism and class conflict,” upheld by strict societal norms and values (may, 1988, p. 20). the mobility of this doubly displaced animal disrupts the supposed human “ordering” of suburbia and invokes a sense of alterity associated with movement, as pile and thrift (1995) outline: ideas of movement and travel are bound up with a sense of something other around the corner, a new image-concept that will produce a new subject position or a new subjectivity. in particular, forging such an image-concept requires the recognition of new spatialities. (p. 21) “image-concept” can be thought of in terms of the shift experienced by, for example, the first travellers who climbed everest, or the generation who viewed the first photograph of the earth from the moon. our image of a “pale blue dot” (to borrow physicist carl sagan’s term) gave us a new understanding of our place in the universe and a renewed subjectivity, for the moment we saw our planet from the moon, not only were the concepts of july 2020 73 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research countries, borders, and nations eradicated, but it seemed silly they had existed in the first place (sagan, 1994). this subjectivity could not have been achieved without that movement upward and outward in space. unpacking the notion of the explorer, historian paul carter (1992) adds an important perspective, stressing that space explorers were different from travel writers because “they travelled without records” (p. 23). “their task,” he says, “is to draw the ‘we’ for the first time, to give space a narrative form and hence the possibility of a future history” (p. 23). using the example of the astronaut again, it could be argued that for the very first time in the history of humankind, we existed as a “we” rather than “us and them.” this realization carries with it ethical responsibilities for planetary care that necessitates “staying with the trouble” of interspecies connectedness (haraway, 2016). as merewether (2019) points out, “in times of unprecedented changes to the earth, loving only humans is what brought us to the trouble in the first place” (p. 247). she explains that in order to heed haraway’s clarion call, receptiveness and responsiveness to enchantment are critical; that is: “an enchanted and lively world is one in which astonishment is part of everyday experience; a lively world which tells us what we care about, what is happening and what can be done” (p. 247, emphasis added). “the water buffalo” offers a crucial orientation toward precisely this kind of enchanted animism and surreality that leads characters to discover things that they come to care about with their suburban realm: “whenever we had followed his pointy hoof we’d always been surprised, relieved and delighted at what we’d found. and every time we’d say exactly the same thing—“how did he know?” (tan, 2009, p. 6, emphasis added). we do not discover what the children’s findings are: they are not objectively quantifiable in any familiar or rational terms, but they are nonetheless affective—if at times unsettling, for these encounters bring “surprise,” “delight,” and “relief ”—all words that coalesce in the concept of enchantment as defined by bennett (2001, 2010). in this respect, tan does not foreclose possibilities for the reader’s imagining as to what may become, which is in keeping with an ethic of responsive modes of learning—one that upholds the centrality of more-than-human others and their ability to enchant human animals (taylor, 2017; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). moreover, this question the children repeatedly return to—“how did he know?”—is key, for it can be mapped onto that broader question regarding “knowing” and “being.” drawing on karen barad’s (2007) feminist materialist onto-epistemology, pauliina rautio (2013) explains knowing and being as inseparable: “there is no knowing without being, nor being without knowing” (p. 399). the buffalo’s embodied being there reminds us that knowing is a more-than-human issue (pyyry, 2017). paying attention with the water buffalo is thus a more-than-rational act of responding to and noticing: it foregrounds wandering as a form of wondering. where they move forward with curiosity, immersing themselves sensuously and intimately with the “liveliness of matter” in outer suburbia, the children in this tale enter into a closer relationship with their material surroundings (merewether, 2019, p. 238). this is a rhizomatic realm that abounds in “lines of flight” as deleuze and guattari (1987) knew them: that is, surprising paths of escape and changefulness enacted through unexpected, everyday encounters. gilles deleuze (1994) posits encounter as “something in the world [that] forces us to think. this something is an object not of recognition but of fundamental encounter” (p. 139). life itself continually evolves through these encounters, which crucially encompass emotion, affect, the unexpected and/or the conflictual. i suggest that the child characters’ initial encounters with the water buffalo in the vacant lot can be read through haraway’s (2008, 2016) uptake of the “contact zone,” which offers a posthuman perspective on encounters that messily entangle humans and nonhumans, the material and the social, the familiar and the other, and that further common world understandings of child-place and child-animal relations. as taylor et al. (2013) explain, contact zones can be thought of as times and spaces of strange encounters that require us to “grapplewith”—they can be transformational. contact zones require active engagement with the other: mutual co-shaping involving someones and somethings; and entanglements across borders and cultures. (p. july 2020 74 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 54, emphasis added) the situated and somewhat tentative buffalo-child relations make very clear how contact zones are “shaped through the giving and receiving, the reciprocity and mutual vulnerability, that cohere together within any contact zone” (land et al., 2020, p. 39). encounters with this less-than-familiar suburban companion frequently lead to unexpected directions of travel and discovery for the children: a reorientation that is generative of new subjectivities and spatialities. as haraway (2008) writes, “the point is that contact zones are where the action is, and current interactions change interactions to follow … contact zones change the subject—all the subjects—in surprising ways” (p. 219). although this tale is short (just two pages long), we are told that the water buffalo repeatedly revealed to child characters in this tale that outer suburbia is replete with wonders, much like our own world. his wordless direction giving is very much a foil to notions of “instrumental instruction and educator expertise,” which land et al. (2020, p. 37) note are contingent on “anthropocentric euro-western ontologies.” conversely, he encourages responsive noticing and attending to place and things therein differently (rautio, 2017), animating in them what val plumwood (2002, p. 175) would call “place sensitivity.” this is a key thread in common worlds thinking concerning the potential for “kin making” (haraway, 2016, p. 103) as becoming with and “learning with others” as a mode of inhabiting our interconnected common worlds (land et al., 2020, p. 32, emphasis in original; rooney, 2016). however, we learn that, for most children, the buffalo’s cryptic guidance was not sufficiently immediate: this was too frustrating for most of us. by the time anyone thought to “consult the buffalo,” our problem was usually urgent and required a straightforward and immediate solution. eventually we stopped visiting him altogether, and i think he went away some time after that: all we could see was long grass. (tan, 2009, p. 6) during a capital-driven era of fast food, faster transport, and instant modes of communication, time is a commodity of which, like many of us, most of the children in this tale apparently do not have enough. this crisis of time and its acceleration, and the attendant panic felt by those who need “straightforward and immediate” solutions to problems, maps more broadly onto very real ecological crises facing our planet today. plumwood (2007) writes: if our species does not survive the ecological crisis, it will probably be due to our failure to imagine and work out new ways to live with the earth, to rework ourselves and our high energy, high consumption, and hyper-instrumental societies adaptively. we will go onwards in a different mode of humanity, or not at all. (p. 1) thinking with the water buffalo requires a reworking of how the child characters come to know and go. it requires an active “grappling with strangeness” as taylor et al. (2013, p. 54) put it, at the point of the contact zone and a reciprocity that takes place in acts of asking for advice and careful listening. going onward from that point, as plumwood (2007) suggests, necessitates an alternative directedness that involves further careful noticing and attending to the complexification of the world beyond assumption of a concrete human social reality, which are forms of valuing and, by extension, caring about the multiplicities of places and spaces around us, as well as the things that coexist in dynamic assemblage therein. given the high-speed nature of our increasingly mobile lives, the buffalo’s pointing toward slowness and the particular—to what is there, and to “what takes place in the moment” (rautio, 2013, p. 399)—is, i argue, a political act: one that displaces the centeredness of humancentric understanding. yet he can only remain “companion” as long as he is consulted. a break occurs where the children fail to reciprocate: when they fail to take time to think and to “consult,” and eventually the buffalo leaves of his own volition (we think). july 2020 75 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the attentiveness apparent in “the water buffalo” is somewhat less playful in “undertow.” this tale of domestic disquiet foregrounds a relationship in the present. the mapping of bodies in this tale shows how a boy and a dugong are brought together in an other-than-common familiarity. not only does this shared human-animal responsiveness eschew sentimentality, it troubles existing “caring” relations in the child character’s everyday life, where adults display ambivalence toward the child in the tale. “undertow” in “undertow,” we discover a situation that confounds residents who are used to living within hyperindividualized picket-fenced suburban boundaries. the tale begins with a short background on “the house at number seventeen,” which is referred to by its specific number several times within the tale. suburbia is numbered, quantified, structured, and controlled by external boundaries. a strange breach of these boundaries occurs in this tale, however, when residents are presented with a less-than-familiar visitor. the unexpected arrival of the dugong on the front lawn at the house at number 17 is alien to the inhabitants of suburbia. a watery “other” encroaches upon their territory: “by midmorning, all the neighbours had spotted this mysterious, gently breathing creature. naturally, they gathered around for a better look” (tan, 2009, p. 37, see figure 2, below). figure 2. “dugong on the front lawn at number seventeen,” shaun tan, tales from outer suburbia, p. 36. july 2020 76 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the dugong is sited on hostile, uncaring ground just outside the house at number 17. we infer this from tan’s description of the house at number 17, which “was only ever mentioned with lowered voices by the neighbours. they knew well the frequent sounds of shouting, slamming doors and crashing objects” (2009, p. 37). the home is presented as a complicated, adult-dominated environment driven by heated parental power-play. yet in the midst of this, the dugong’s presence on the contact zone of the front lawn sets off a chain of events that effect a transformation from the dispute within the domestic sphere toward relations of responsiveness and connection. whereas the landscape in “the water buffalo” is characterized by an untamed grassiness and overgrowth, in “undertow” we discover a kind of darkness as our attention is drawn from the outset to the sounding of a volatile relationship of the couple at number 17. breaking through their angry discourse, however, a child proclaims the surprising arrival of a most unusual creature on the lawn of the warring couple: “it’s a dugong,” said a small boy. “the dugong is a rare and endangered plant-eating mammal that lives in the indian ocean, of the order sirenia, family dugongidae, genus dugong, species d. dugong” (tan, 2009, p. 37). the boy articulates quite an extensive knowledge as he details the animal’s typical location. however, we are not told how this nameless child has come to know the dugong’s identity—we can only assume this formalized description derives from an encyclopedia. furthermore, the child provides this encyclopedic definition without any indication of surprise or expression of delight akin to those children who followed the water buffalo’s direction. indeed, we only have to look to the reactions of the neighbours after the “problem” of the wayward dugong has been resolved to realize the stultifying symptoms of suburban lifestyle: after the creature has gone, we are told that the neighbours “switched impatiently through news channels to see if there was any mention of the dugong, and when there wasn’t, concluded that the whole event was probably not as remarkable as they had originally thought” (p. 38). the neighbours’ impressions are mediated by external discourses that determine that which is significant. and more: despite the strange and unexpected events of the day, the screams and shouts of the quarrelling parents resurface as the “major” or dominant discourse. this family home can hardly be regarded as neutral, much less considerate of the effect such constant sparring may have on the child. the child’s subsequent actions indicate his desire to be free from the domestic disquiet—just as the dugong was freed from his suburban displacement. the unseen narrator describes how: nobody saw the small boy clutching an encyclopaedia of marine zoology leave the front door of that house, creep towards the dugong-shaped patch and lie down in the middle of it, arms by his sides, looking at the clouds and stars, hoping it would be a long time before his parents noticed that he wasn’t in his room and came out angry and yelling. (tan, 2009, p. 38, emphasis added) in this (very long) sentence, the irregular pace measured out by commas is suggestive of the boy’s uneven breathing as he steals across the lawn through the nighttime air. his silent, creeping movement and subsequent lingering under the stars is further reminiscent of the soundless processes of wayfinding in “the water buffalo,” where the child characters are animated in thinking with the buffalo to consider their suburban surrounds anew. and, as with the specific siting of the water buffalo, located in an empty building lot, in “undertow,” the dugong’s legacy is enacted by a very distinct impression on the contact zone front lawn at number 17, which would seem to shift the temporal framing : “the grass that had been underneath the dugong was now unaccountably yellow and dead, as if the creature had been there for years rather than hours” (tan, 2009, p. 38). the significance of this scene is not apparent at first: the parents quickly forget their quarrelling over the state of the lawn and “the discussion became about something else entirely and an object, maybe a plate, crashed against a wall” (p. 38). it is at this point that the son they ignore escapes out to the lawn to lie in the grassy imprint left behind by the dugong. the second and last illustration on the recto (figure 3) is of the child lying on the dugong’s imprint, with no accompanying text, indicative of the inchoate nature of the encounter. july 2020 77 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 3. “boy and dugong,” shaun tan, tales from outer suburbia, p. 39. the soft brushwork portrays the small boy in striking simplicity. only we as readers are onlookers to this most intimate scene. there are no others: human animals or otherwise. this is the child who previously used his encyclopedic knowledge to recognize and label, leaning on a received knowledge that provides him with a way to address the unknown as it appears on his doorstep, to try to make sense of this unsettling situation. however, the encyclopedic taxonomy appears to be insufficient for the child, who seeks a closer encounter. by choosing to linger on the ground as he does, the child engages with a sense of proximity to the animal who had suffered too, being so displaced from its habitat. the child’s experience of suffering occurs not because he is physically displaced but because he feels emotionally unsafe in the less-than-stable and strained domestic environment, an environment from which he feels estranged but in which he feels nonetheless trapped. tan (n.d.3) describes a childhood memory that provided a source for the story, that of a boy who lived near our home and seemed to spend almost all of his time hitting a tennis ball against the wall of a brick shed in our local park. it was a bleak and melancholy sight that remained unchanged for years, as if the boy was trapped in a kind of suburban purgatory. (para. 1) the expression on the boy’s face is unreadable. tan leaves us with ambiguities that resonate with the soundlessness and inscrutability of the water buffalo encountered previously—perhaps as an expression of the child’s feelings of july 2020 78 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research separateness and unresolved longing . but is this really the case? is his experience so unchanged? the mapping of the child’s body on the impression left behind by the dugong enacts a compelling meeting with alterity within the enduring contact zone, that is, between two species that rarely meet, as with the first tale. eagleeyed readers may notice a slight change in the form of the dugong from the live creature depicted in figure 2. figure 3 shows that, now that the child is resting there, its fins seem to have moved into a slightly more marked position of movement. the nose is turned upward, and where the actual body looked limp and lifeless—a creature stranded, removed from its habitat—the imprint looks alive and swimming, as if it were an imprint, not of the stranded creature as it was, but of the rehabilitated creature as it now is (figure 4, below). even subtler is the patch of darker grass just above the boy’s resting head. is the imprint of the dugong’s face smiling at us? figure 4. close-up, “boy and dugong,” shaun tan, tales from outer suburbia. on the contact zone of the neatly manicured lawn, both boy and creature are presented as being still together. tan makes visible a silent drifting away from the familiar, where bodies map into mutual emergence with each other through what we can describe as an “autotelic practice” of the kind described by rautio (2013) in her research on spaces of informal education. that is to say, autotelic practices are those which children (and adults) repeatedly engage in for no extrinsic reward or end goal beyond the act itself—like making snow angels, or watching clouds morph into animals. rautio further notes that it is not just humans but also other agential entities that shape and direct these autotelic activities. that is to say, where the boy leaves the home to carefully and deliberately spread his body on the dugong’s imprint on the front lawn, he is drawn by a lively “thing-power” (bennett, 2010), that is, an affective force that brings him into interconnection with the materiality and spatiality of the flattened grass—a lasting imprint that disrupts and contradicts the supposed normalcy of suburban “nature” as contained and controlled. where the boy compellingly reciprocates by laying his body down, the front lawn becomes a site of companionable connection that further effects an enchanted metamorphosis, that is, the change of the imprinted form that is more than literal, more than rational. as the child seeks solace and contemplation under the stars on the imprint on the lawn—a quiet reminder of the dugong’s presence—mapping his form on the creature’s imprint, readers may intuit a soundless movement from disorder toward coherence, harmony, and balance through the shifting expression of the animal’s face. indeed, the very act of lying down horizontally echoes the horizontality of a calm sea, where we as readers hope the dugong will july 2020 79 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research have reached by this stage. rather than being simply a record of the past, i suggest that this metamorphosis reflects a reflexive relationship between boy and dugong ongoing in the present. his embodied and affective mapping effects a new spacing for the boy that connects with the possibilities of living earth, that is, the possibility to feel and breathe a living relationship in the present, his body cohabiting the form of an “other,” his head on its head, unmoving beyond this grassy boundary. the merriam webster (2020) definition tells us that an undertow is a law imposed by nature: an “underlying current or force” that is created after waves have broken on the shore (or in this case, after the arrival of a dugong four kilometres inland!). alternatively, it is a “tendency in opposition to what is apparent,” which is something altogether more subtle. the obliqueness of tan’s title seems to offer several resonances, the most obvious of which may be the undertow of a wave that drags back from shore toward the sea anything that may be stranded on the sand. further unpacking the second meaning of “undertow”—that is, a “tendency in opposition to what is apparent”—we might read this as a tendency against human (adult) domination, for example, of animals, or indeed children. by moving outdoors to carefully share the space with the dugong, the boy resists the confinement and control of the adult home environment—his assumed “natural habitat.” to this end, i propose that the underlying force in this tale is a troubling one, for it prompts us to question the care the child receives. in the end, both his parents “eventually appeared without a sound, without suddenness … all he felt were gentle hands lifting him up and carrying him back to bed” (tan, 2009, p. 38). both the child and the dugong are subsequently lifted and carried to where they are ostensibly better placed: the dugong should certainly not be on a family lawn four kilometres from sea, nor should the child be lying on a lawn deep in the middle of the night, alone. or should he? through this tale, tan suggests that sometimes adults fail in this duty of care insofar as the child character struggles with the familiar familial forces within his discordant home. this is why the element of surrealism and strangeness made animate by animals is so crucial in outer suburbia: both the inscrutable water buffalo and dugong grant the fictional children freedom within the suburban strangeness to slow down and linger, to attend carefully, to question and reflect. neither tale is about finding “ultimate resolution” or a “final peace” as it were, for life is messy, and ongoing encounters with people and other animals can be awkward, unruly, and conflictual (taylor & paciniketchabaw, 2017, p. 143). the thematic of strangeness within these tales correspondingly troubles categories of childhood/nature/culture (duhn et al., 2017), as i now seek to highlight by way of conclusion. conclusion: staying with the trouble beyond suburbia through my analysis of “the water buffalo” and “undertow,” i have outlined how tan suggests an alternative to rationalized space as being the only way to “see” and “know” suburbia as a general concept. childhood, as he presents it, is neither innocent nor timeless. likewise, he troubles and reimagines that fertile, sticky, and underexplored concept of sub-urban nature as children’s places for learning about self, other, and their interconnected worlds, resisting nostalgia and encouraging thinking beyond humanist ontologies. he presents childhoodnatures that are shifting, unstable, and necessarily entangled. the concept of care in both tales is, by extension, not aligned to human meaning making, morals, and mattering; rather, tan presents the agency of characters within the tales as interrelated (bartos, 2012; hohti & tammi, 2019). moreover, he points to a diversity of species that can be regarded as “kin.” this is crucial given the current ecological crisis that sees the erasure of species on a global scale (williams, 2009, p. 45). central to both tales discussed in this article is the theme of finding a space of/for displacement, strangeness, and surreality within suburbia and childhood, and to this end tan helps readers think in new ways about child-animal relationships that make nuanced the caring relations that emerge between child and creature within each tale. july 2020 80 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research differing elements of displacement link “undertow” and “the water buffalo.” in both, the unexpectedness of the animals’ presence bewilders and beguiles us as readers: tan (2012) explains that this suffusion of surrealism works by “waking us up from the complacency of ordinary recognition” (n.p.). he adds, “it is that through strangeness we arrive at a kind of clarity, like looking at things from a distance” (n.p.). this can only happen, however, when child characters stop trying to make sense of the strangeness, the dislocation, and instead become-with animal, as haraway (2016) suggests. in his role as silent cartographer, the water buffalo bestows alternative directedness on child characters that they otherwise would not have discovered had they adhered to exclusively human ways of knowing and going. importantly, the buffalo’s silence, his refusal to say toward where he was pointing, and his subsequent departure firmly contradict acts of locating and defining as humancentric forms of knowing. indeed, to locate is to survey and define limits, a “process of negation” in the sense that “you know where you are not” (bulson, 2009, p. 24). this concept of location rests purely on spatial relationships, and as bulson (2009) explains, when mapping is restricted to this sense, it is reduced to an “act of translation,” or rather, a mode of “spatial representation” that fails to account for its inherent potential (p. 24). at issue here is the notion of containment, which, considered in relation to the “space” of children’s literature, connotes kimberley reynolds’ (2010) anxieties regarding “a space that is simultaneously highly regulated and overlooked” (p. 3). this space translates to children’s and young people’s everyday lived experiences and often unnecessarily restricted mobilities (cresswell, 1996; tuan, 2001). by contrast, a special kind of movement is animated through child-animal encounters in tan’s first tale, one which foregrounds open-ended engagement and interconnectedness with the children and animal’s material surrounds through wandering as a form of wondering. as bennett (2010) would put it, we do not tread lightly in our environment but rather live “as one of many conative actants swarming and competing with each other” (p. 122). haraway (2008) prefers to articulate this flurry of ongoingness, alterity, urgency, and mutuality as one of shared movement, that is, becoming-with across the contact zone. the young boy in “undertow” is attempting an urgent process of wayfinding as he tries to escape his experiences of suffering within the home, if only for a short time. the changing imprint of the dugong presents to us a strange but significant relationship in the present that offers an alternative to parental relationships as hurt-full records of the past. and it also hints at the difference between the sort of knowledge that can be derived from an encyclopedia of marine zoology as opposed to deeper-rooted embodied place wisdoms and associated autotelic practices that communicate a vital need for attunement and responsiveness to the precarity and changefulness of one’s environment beyond the threshold of the home. dislocation in both tales is a consequence of movement—specifically, movements “off the map” so to speak. through the motif of mapping, tan creates a suburban world that, although it draws references from our own, chiefly draws readers’ attention to dilemmas facing the humans and animals by the use of the surreal. both species in these tales typically belong to a herd, but in outer suburbia they are positioned as being “on the move” in a different way—an unsettling and noninnocent way—and the isolated animals are thus arguably metonymic, standing more broadly for the changing conditions of many species at risk in our troubled world, hence they are more than companion animals in these stories. and yet, neither of these tales—nor any other in this collection— foregrounds that overt message of planetary care. rather, i argue that what is at play here is a more nuanced troubling effort of reconnecting and reimagining in the present, which speaks to duhn et al.’s (2017) proposition, in which they ask: are we already beyond teaching to “care for the planet” (heise 2008), and instead should focus on how childhood/nature/urban as concepts need to be transformed, so to afford a better set of grounds for engagement with the changing conditions our species—as one among many—is facing? (p. 1359, emphasis added) july 2020 81 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in addition to the inherent surreality and strangeness, both tales are further underpinned by slow movements: lingering, pausing, and stopping altogether to lie down, flat upon the earth. through unhurried processes of deliberation, noticing, and attending to that which is present, tan’s characters discover pathways of possibility with/in the strangeness of outer suburbia: pathways that i argue afford precisely what duhn et al. are calling for: a “better set of grounds for engagement with the changing conditions our species … is facing.” caring begins at ground and pavement level, as we see in both stories: it is, quite literally, grassroots, starting from the immediate locale. moreover, although the effects of these caring relations are not realized until the animals in these tales have both gone, the entangled bonds of care endure long enough for the tale to be told: to be remembered, recounted, and passed on. there is an element of responsibility and accountability that underpins the exchanging and telling of stories such as these (an act of care in itself ): tales that possess potential for engaging readers—both younger and older—in thinking with the liveliness of our own more-than-human world that is so full of wonder, and not so unlike outer suburbia. july 2020 82 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ailwood, j. 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(2009). haraway contra deleuze & guattari: the question of the animals. communication, politics, & culture, 42(1), 42–54. https://search.informit.com.au/fulltext;dn=869203196781141;res=ielhss july 2020 98 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article early childhood pedagogy: veronica paciniketchabaw interviews peter moss peter moss is emeritus professor of early childhood provision at ucl institute of education, university college london. he has researched and written on many subjects, including early childhood education and care and the relationship between early childhood and compulsory education; the relationship between employment, care, and gender; and democracy in education. much of his work has been cross-national, and he has led a european commission network on childcare and an international network on parental leave. from 2005 to 2016 he coedited the book series contesting early childhood, whose aim is to question “the current dominant discourses surrounding early childhood, and offer instead alternative narratives of an area that is now made up of a multitude of perspectives.” his books include beyond quality in early childhood education and care (with gunilla dahlberg and alan pence), radical education and the common school (with michael fielding), social pedagogy and working with children and young people (edited with claire cameron), and transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education. most recently he worked with reggio emilia to produce an english-language book of the work of loris malaguzzi, which was published in 2016—loris malaguzzi and the schools of reggio emilia: a selection of his writings and speeches, 1945–1993. email: peter.moss@ucl.ac.uk veronica pacini-ketchabaw is professor of early childhood education in the faculty of education at western university in ontario, canada, and codirector of the british columbia early childhood pedagogies network. her writing and research contribute to the common worlds research collective (tracing children’s relations with places, materials, and other species) and the early childhood pedagogies collaboratory (experimenting with the contours, conditions, and complexities of 21st-century pedagogies). she is the principal investigator of the sshrc insight grant transforming waste pedagogies in early childhood education and the sshrc partnership development grant exploring climate change pedagogies with children. she is the author/coauthor of more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and six books: the common worlds of children and animals: relational ethics for entangled lives (routledge, 2018), encounters with materials in early childhood education (routledge, 2017), unsettling the colonial places and spaces of early childhood education (routledge, 2015), youth work, early education, and psychology: liminal encounters (palgrave, 2016), journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices (university of toronto press, 2014), and flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education curriculum (peter lang, 2010). email: vpacinik@uwo.ca veronica: let me start by welcoming everyone to the ontario provincial centres of excellence exposures series. i’m a professor of early childhood education at western university and one of the codirectors of the provincial centre of excellence for early years and child care, one of three centres that has been funded by the ontario ministry of education. before proceeding any further i’d like to suggest that we all carefully consider the land we are on today. think about the history of the place in which you are—who is there, who is not allowed to be there, who is represented and who is not represented. we meet today, here, to think about pedagogy and specifically to consider european perspectives on early education. and as i think about the place i’m in right now, i wonder how we at the provincial centre might continue to think with these european early childhood education legacies that we’re going to be sharing today, and at the same time address the painful colonial histories present in canada. for those people who are joining the exposures series for the first time, the provincial centre is engaged in the process of orienting pedagogists. although the idea of a pedagogist will be unfamiliar to many of you, it has deep roots in continental europe, and i know that peter [moss] will be sharing with us a bit of this history. it also has some history in canada with the investigating quality project that began in 2007 and continues today in british columbia. this conversation between peter moss and veronica pacini-ketchabaw addresses a wide range of subjects, from moss’s early writings on the ethical and political struggles of early childhood education to the challenging suggestions of pedagogical experimentation. july 2020 99 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article the event today, called an exposure, is part of the orientation of pedagogists. the purpose of exposures is to enrich pedagogists’ pedagogical dispositions and sensitivities, as well as to provide an opportunity to the broader early childhood education community to be exposed to the ideas the pedagogists are thinking with. our twitter handle and hashtag will be shared by andrew shortly. and just in case, it’s @eypedagogists and the exposures series hashtag is capedagogists. the importance of alternative discourses i’d like to begin with a paragraph in my favourite book that peter has co-written, that has stayed with me for a very, very long time and continues to challenge me to this day. the book is from children’s services to children’s spaces and it was published in 2002. the quote goes something like this: “the british pride themselves on being a pragmatic people, with the practical term of mind. problems are stated and solutions found. theory is suspect and an excuse for unwarranted and distorting prejudice. this view is expressed by many. other charges laid against theory include incomprehensibility and distracting irrelevance.” can you comment on this statement? peter: i do not believe there is a choice between “theory” and “no theory,” or, indeed, between theory and practice. nor that somehow evidence or experience can be neutrally produced and interpreted, and that actions selfevidently and inevitably follow. theories shape our understandings and govern our actions, whether we recognize this or not, through the concepts and explanations that provide us with tools for making sense of the world and our experience. veronica: i think it’s such a powerful quote and so relevant today. two other important texts—valuing quality published in 1994 and then beyond quality published in 1999—present the challenging idea that we need alternative discourses in early childhood education. can you speak about the importance of alternative discourses? why, even though they are difficult to think with, they are necessary today? peter: i think we live in a time when we are told that “there is no alternative.” and of course, that phrase “there is no alternative” will forever be associated with margaret thatcher, who would often stand up and tell us there was no alternative to whatever action she was taking. there’s a brazilian writer called roberto unger who i like very much, and he uses the term “dictatorship of no alternative” (unger, 2005a, p. 1). and to some extent this authoritarian way of thinking and talking is a result of living at a time when there is a very strong dominant discourse of neoliberalism, which i see as being a very important political and ideological frame that has shaped so much of our lives in the last 30 or 40 years. and it works very much by saying there is no alternative—no alternative to a world of competition, individual choice, calculation, commodification, and marketization. this is, the neoliberal says, just how things are; we can explain everything in life by applying this particular way of thinking, this totalizing theory about life; the only option is to work within this framework. this clearly is problematic on several levels. on one level, if there’s a big problem in neoliberalism (or whatever other dominant story you’re being told there is no alternative to), if it begins to blow up, then you may be left with nothing to replace it with. i think we’re actually entering a period in which neoliberalism is blowing up, when we can see increasingly clearly that it is a failed project, a story that no longer makes sense. and there’s a necessity therefore to begin to have alternative ideas to put forward, alternative policies. but, of course, to acknowledge and encourage alternatives, to challenge the dictatorship of no alternative, is profoundly democratic, because i think the essence of democracy is that there are different perspectives, different views, different ways of understanding the world, different values. so, if you are to say there is no alternative, then you are really denying diversity, july 2020 100 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article multiplicity, complexity, all of these things. so it seems to me that the whole idea that there is no alternative is really very insidious and very dangerous. and, of course, what’s very encouraging in many fields is that people are coming up with alternatives. there are always alternatives if you care to listen. and that’s true as much in early childhood as in any other field, and the book series that veronica referred to, contesting early childhood, has been a platform where people who are working with alternatives can actually talk about them, tell their alternative narratives, and, equally important, show that they can be put to work, because you want an alternative that you can actually work with in early childhood settings. so my interest has been in arguing that there are alternatives and that—and i think it’s really critical today—having alternatives around is vital and urgent if we are to be ready when the dominant story of neoliberalism blows up. we need to have alternatives. we need to be ready with other ways of thinking and with proposals and experience about how we put them to work, because i don’t think it’s much good just having theories which you can’t actually work with and put into practice. recently i have begun to think and write in terms of stories. so theories—for example, like neoliberalism—are stories that we tell ourselves, stories by which we make sense of the world. and so, rather than just talking about alternative theories, we can also talk about telling alternative stories. i like that idea that we can tell alternative stories, but i’ve become interested, not only in what those alternative stories could be—and of course there are many, many of them—but as i say, what you do with them, how you can put them to work. if you believe, for example, in democracy as a fundamental value, what would that actually look like in a school or nursery? so i think the search for new stories is really important, but it’s also very difficult to do, because the pressures, particularly in the english-language world, are very great, as the english-language world has been so dominated by neoliberalism and this idea that there is no alternative. i think it’s very difficult to break free, because of course what you’re surrounded by are people all talking about the same things, as if there is no alternative, as if it would be crazy to think something else, and that clearly there couldn’t be any other way of talking. so it’s quite difficult to have the confidence and the belief in yourself and in others to actually go with alternatives. veronica: yes, absolutely. one of the alternatives that you have been putting forward through your work has been the shift from seeing early childhood education as a service to seeing it as an ethical political project. and, as you said, that is a very difficult way of communicating this alternative to the english-speaking world. early childhood education as an ethical political project veronica: i wonder if you can speak about this idea of early childhood education as an ethical political project, which elaborate on in your book with gunilla dahlberg, ethics and politics. what do you mean by the idea that early childhood education is an ethical political project? peter: well, i would say, by the way, that we’re talking about all education in fact, even though we’re putting “early childhood” before it in this interview. i think that everything i’m talking about is about the whole range of education, and indeed i think one of the problems we face is the tendency to look at just one bit of education and not the whole range of it. because i would argue that the whole of education—and indeed most other forms of provision that we make for children and young people, indeed adults also—is a political project. what do i mean by that? well, i mean that with education, or whatever else you are dealing with, you need to start with political questions. i can quote loris malaguzzi here when he says that education is “always a political discourse whether we know it july 2020 101 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article or not. it is about working with cultural choices, but it clearly also means working with political choices” (cagliari, castegnetti, giudici, rinaldi, vecchi, & moss, 2016, p. 267). leaving to one side the very interesting idea of education being a cultural discourse calling for cultural choices, i think what malaguzzi is saying and what i’m saying is that actually you need to start by asking political questions and that political questions have no one right technical answer. to give an example, if i’m flying to canada on a plane, i want the plane to be the result first and foremost of technical practice, involving technical choices to technical questions, the result of experts getting together and agreeing there is only one right way to build a plane so that it’s safe and efficient. we might call it a “quality” plane, since it is based on universal and decontextualized principles and standards. i don’t actually want to fly on a plane that’s the result of political practice. however, with education, we’re dealing with something quite different, because there isn’t one right way to “make” education. it is first and foremost a political practice, because there are lots of different ideas and different answers, many of them conflicting, to political questions, because different people will have different positions, views, perspectives. so it seems to me that the basic idea is that education, like similar activities, does not have one right technical answer. it has political answers, and those answers may be in conflict. let me give a few examples of political questions. what is our diagnosis of the times? that’s a term that karl mannheim, the sociologist of education, used. so in other words, what do we think is going on in our world at this time? what are the main issues of the day? because education should be engaging with these issues, with the conditions of the time. so to take an example, you could say that we’re confronting converging environmental crises which are actually putting ourselves, humankind, not to mention other species, very much at peril. so if you think that is one of the issues of our times, then you need to ask, how does education relate to that? a second question, of particular importance to malaguzzi, is, what is your image of the child? who do you think the child is? he says that a “declaration [about the image of the child] is not only a necessary act of clarity and correctness, it is the necessary premise for any pedagogical theory, and any pedagogical project” (cagliari et al., 2016, p. 374). and i would go on to ask, what is your image of the educator?, which is really central to the sort of work you’re presently engaging in. and equally important, what is your image of the early childhood centre or school? is it a kind of factory for producing outcomes, such as learning goals, school readiness, or human capital? is it a business engaging in market activities, selling a commodity to parent-consumers? or do you think of it in some other light? is your image of the centre or the school as a public space where projects can be created by children and adults coming together? or, to give a couple more examples of political questions, without going through the whole list: what are the fundamental values of education? what ethics should education work with?, which takes you into the field of relational ethics. in other words, given that education is a relational practice because it involves people coconstructing knowledge in relationship with each other, then you have to choose what are the ethics that should underpin the relationships that exist in this process of co-construction and working together. so, all of these and many, many more are political questions, and they will generate a wide and diverse range of answers, creating the potential for people to dialogue and indeed confront each other about these answers. through this democratic process it may be possible to find some degree of consensus, but how far that will go is always open to question. the political choices you make provide the basis for constructing the sort of early childhood education that you want—what is considered a good or desirable education. july 2020 102 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article as i say, the alternative which we have today under neoliberalism is to see education as, first and foremost, a technical practice, rather like building a plane, in fact. and this is based on asking and answering technical questions, of which the classic one is “what works?” what does the evidence tell us we should do to get children developing faster, or whatever? now, of course, within the neoliberal narrative, there’s a whole range of implicit political questions and answers. but what you don’t find in the neoliberal system is people actually acknowledging that they have asked and answered political questions and made political choices. they just pretend there is only one way to do things and the only thing you need to ask is “what works?” so that was where gunilla dahlberg and i started our book ethics and politics in early childhood education (dahlberg & moss, 2005). we started by saying that we think today that early childhood education is treated as first and foremost a technical practice. and we wanted to say that it’s actually first and foremost a political and ethical practice. so we are trying to reclaim politics and the political, to say we don’t think they are dirty words, we think they are really important, and that what we want to see—and it’s very difficult—is a democratic politics of education where people are putting forward alternative political choices, alternative stories, about the sort of education they think is important. relational ethics: the ethics of care and the ethics of an encounter veronica: i want to pick up on this discussion on ethics. you mentioned that what you’re talking about is relational ethics. and i think about how most of us in early childhood education have been thinking about following ethical guidelines. can you elaborate on how relational ethics is different from following ethical principles that have already been established and that perhaps might follow those neoliberal values you spoke about? peter: i’m sure there is a place for guidelines to guide how we do certain things in a proper way. the problem with guidelines, as discussed by zygmunt bauman (1993), is the danger of following any ethical rule book, procedures, guidelines, of being told basically how you should behave, of being basically given a list of ethical do’s and don’ts. because bauman says that actually we have to take responsibility for our ethical behaviour rather than fall back on a rule book. but having said that, there is a place no doubt for rule books in certain circumstances, especially if we don’t follow them blindly by taking no personal responsibility for what we do. it seems to me that some of the ethical approaches—i don’t actually know if that is the right word—that gunilla and i were interested in, and that we wrote about in our book, place a big responsibility on individuals in relationship with other people to make their own judgments. so, for example, we were very interested in the ideas around an ethics of care, which is a whole field that has emerged out of feminist scholarship since the 1990s, and which has been raising the importance of care as a political and ethical concept. joan tronto describes an ethics of care as combining two elements: “a practice rather than a set of rules or principles … [involving] particular acts of caring” and a “general habit of mind” to care that should inform all aspects of moral life (tronto, 1993, p. 127, emphasis added). that habit of mind includes several qualities or values: attentiveness (to the needs of others), responsibility, competence, and responsiveness. furthermore, caring, understood as an ethic, should be widely applied: it is, say tronto and coauthor bernice fisher, a “species activity that includes everything we do to maintain, continue and repair our ‘world’ so we can live in it as well as possible” (fisher & tronto, 1990, p. 19)—so care, not only of other people, but also of communities, societies, and the physical environment. so an ethics of care gives you a broad frame, but actually what that means in practice you have to work out for yourself, but always with others. so in an early childhood centre or school, that would be a subject for ongoing july 2020 103 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article discussion and documentation by adults about how they are actually working with an ethics of care—having, of course, first made a political choice that this is an ethical approach you will work with. and to digress, i react very much against terms like “child care service” or “daycare service” because it seems to me that all provisions that we make for children should be concerned with care understood as an ethics of care. we should think of care as an ethics, not as a way of describing a particular service. the other ethics that gunilla and i were very interested in when writing our book was the “ethics of an encounter.” that is very much a reaction against a longstanding western way of relating with other people and other things: the “will to know” in which you seek to know them in your own terms and so grasp them and make them into the same. in other words, you try and understand other people or other things through your own logic, through your own way of seeing the world: “oh yes,” you go, “you’re a bit like this or that, like something i understand already.” so you try and use your way of thinking and understanding things to make sense of somebody else, and doing that, you actually deny their otherness, their singularity. and it becomes quite dangerous, because you end up applying your categories, your classifications, your way of looking at the world onto somebody else, and i think that we probably do that all the time in education and elsewhere. gunilla has described how the ethics of an encounter confronts educators with profound questions, “such as how the encounter with otherness, with difference can take place as responsibly as possible—as something which the so-called ‘free thought’ cannot grasp through categories, classifications, and thematizations” (dahlberg, 2003, p. 270). so these relational ethics—the ethics of care and the ethics of an encounter—are examples of what it might mean to work with ethics in a way that it isn’t a straitjacket, but it gives you a framework for thinking and constantly exploring what it means, because i think that’s what we have to do in life. we have to constantly say, i want to work with this ethical approach, but actually i’m not very good at doing it all the time. i need to constantly question with other people whether what i and we are doing is ethical in relation to, say, an ethics of care or an ethics of an encounter. we need to be constantly questioning these things. veronica: yes, thank you for bringing up that point. it is difficult to engage with an ethics of care or the ethics of an encounter . trying to not take for granted the other with our own framework, whether it’s children or educators . it is just a very difficult task. the problem of language veronica: my next question is around language. and i know you talked in the beginning a little bit about using new language. you said we need new forms of education or alternatives to neoliberalism—even big words like neoliberalism are unfamiliar to our early childhood education discourses, our dominant early childhood education discourses in the western world. yet, at the same time, the alternatives cannot do without it. can you please talk about the importance of shaping language, of not just staying with the language we are accustomed to using in early childhood education. and why is it even necessary? peter: obviously language carries with it, embedded in it, all sorts of cultural ideas, concepts, ways of looking at the world. so it’s the way we make, we build stories; we use words, vocabulary to build stories or theories or understandings, whatever you want to call it. and that language is not neutral; it carries our cultures and our perspectives. i have to say first of all, i’m linguistically incompetent. i only speak english, to my profound shame, but i have done a lot of work involving translation and translators, and that has made me extremely conscious of the importance of language and the problems of actually translating from one language to another. july 2020 104 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article many words don’t translate very well because they carry particular ideas that don’t work well in another language. translation into english is a very big problem because english is so dominant and many things get translated into english. native english speakers are often not curious about the original language. all they want is to have a translation served up for them in english so they can know what has been written or said in another language. but what can happen is that the meaning of a word or concept in another language can disappear, be lost in translation. so, for example, where i work at the london institute of education, some of us have become very interested in the continental european discipline and theory of social pedagogy, which your previous exposé [silvana calaprice] was talking about very interestingly. but social pedagogy often gets translated into english as education, and it’s not education in the school sense at all, and the pedagogue is not a teacher, but the profession often gets translated in that way. (for a fuller discussion, see moss & petrie, 2019.) so, the problem of language is really important. it can lead to people completely misunderstanding or missing something. but if we look at it in another way, the word that doesn’t work in another language can lead to a very interesting conversation, because you can say, let’s talk about this word that does not translate well, try and explain it to me, this word, this concept you have in spanish, italian, whatever it is. so that’s a general observation: that native english speakers i think need to be much more curious about other languages and be very careful that they don’t ignore important ideas by insisting they have to be fitted into some sort of english mistranslation. more generally, one of the pleasures of my last few years has been working with people in reggio emilia on producing a book in english of loris malaguzzi’s writings and speeches, which involved a huge amount of work on translation (cagliari et al., 2016). what strikes me in english about malaguzzi is the language he uses, it’s so light, it’s so poetic, it’s so pleasurable. he talks about joy, he talks about wonder, he talks about amazement, and so on. he uses all these words, and through these words he builds up a quite different set of ideas about children, adults, schools, education, and it’s very obvious that by using those words, by the vocabulary he works with, he’s able to build up a different story, very different to the extremely prosaic language that dominates the english-language world when it comes to education, and which so often makes reading articles or books on early childhood education in english so boring and depressing, with those words like program, outcome, quality, human capital, investment, and so on and so forth. it’s the language of the worst sort of technocrats. but of course, that’s why it’s in use, because it’s about building up an idea of education as a technical practice in which technicians apply technologies. so, what you get in so much early childhood education today is really a manual about how to work the technology. which is why reading malaguzzi—and not only him, but other people in, for example, the contesting early childhood book series—is just so liberating, because once you can free your mind of all these words and open yourself to other words, you can begin to tell and listen to other stories. so yes, that’s why language is absolutely critical, and if you can break old habits of speech, if you can say to yourself that i’m not going to use a word such as “quality” in the next months, but instead i’m going to talk about what i really desire, then you might find that quite liberating, as i have done. veronica: thanks, peter. i think i really resonate with what you are saying. we are often accused of using too many big words, or taking too long to say something when we are drawing on work written in other languages. peter: so can i just say that it’s also a very good example of this ethics of an encounter, because if you are an english speaker and you encounter another language, if what you’re trying to do is to force that language into your english language, you’re trying to make the other into the same, and in that process you will lose the singularity of that other language, the diversity or whatever you want to call it. so it’s a very good example of the danger of trying to grasp the other and make the other into something you can understand, into the same. july 2020 105 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article veronica: and then there is also the language that other theories or other narratives or others’ stories bring. i remember being introduced to the poststructural narrative (that you wrote about in beyond quality, and in other books) and how challenging it was at the beginning... peter: yes, i agree. i suppose unlike some people, i came to a lot of these alternative theories and perspectives quite late in life. i would say that until the 1990s, i was a positivist, and i’m still very familiar with the language of positivism, which is quite useful to know. but then i was quite liberated by being introduced to other theoretical languages, even though i have to say i’ve found them—and i still find some of them—very difficult, partly because i must admit that people don’t always write very clearly in some of the other languages. but the difficulty of understanding is also because you’re being asked to enter a world which you had never entered into before, and to think differently, to see the world in a different way. and i think that’s a large part of the problem in coming into relationship with new theories, because they ask you to actually turn everything on its head and see things in quite different ways. so, i think that is difficult, and i speak from firsthand experience, and i quite often find myself drifting back into more positivistic thinking and language. so actually working with the new theoretical languages, having to struggle to write or talk in a new language, is important. veronica: yes, that is our challenge. as we develop the pedagogist network, how might we sync with other languages, other narratives? situating pedagogy within the conditions of our times veronica: peter, you mentioned the book that you have coedited with your colleagues from reggio emilia. for me this is one of the first books that clearly outlines how the reggio emilia project was situated within the conditions of our times—what you call the diagnosis of our times. what do you think—and you started to think about this above—are the conditions of the times that early childhood education needs to be responding to today? if malaguzzi was alive today, what might he be telling us we need to respond to? peter: i’m sure he would see the issues of environment, and i mean more than just global heating but the many other things that are going on. because in fact, in the years before he died in 1994, he was already talking about the emerging environmental crises. and of course, the environmental crises are also economic crises, because we are facing today the consequences of an economic system that has been built on excessive extraction, consumption, and greed and a lack of care for the world we live in. so, i’m sure he would also be saying the issue today is the creation of new ideas about economy. and by the way, it seems to me it’s impossible to talk about early childhood education without thinking about the environment and without thinking about the economy. because early childhood education today has become so bound up in very instrumental neoliberal economic ideas like human capital and return on investment, which are very much about the idea of exploiting resources and so on and so forth. so i think he would be very interested in that. i think he would have been very interested in the implications of new technologies, artificial intelligence, and so forth. i think the third issue he would be very engaged with would be the state of democracy, because it’s fairly clear that across the world today democracy is in some trouble. and not just the democracy of the ballot box, though that matters, but in lots of different ways. so i think he would be very concerned to engage with how education can be involved in renewing democracy. he probably would remember john dewey’s comment that democracy needs to be reborn in every generation and that education must be the midwife. i think that another issue that he’d be very interested in is the need to restore solidarity, after the damage caused july 2020 106 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article to it by neoliberalism’s drive for competition and individualism. related to that, the importance of recognizing complexity and interconnectedness. all these things are connected, of course. you could say that we can’t address the environmental crises unless we deal with the economy, and the economy is also about issues of solidarity, so the question of rebuilding solidarity in our communities and in our societies is very pressing, i think, today. indeed, as erik olin wright has argued (2019), solidarity, democracy, and equality are three core values that need to be renewed, restored, built up again as the basis for more just and sustainable societies. and i guess malaguzzi would be thinking all the time, what is the role of education in this? what sort of education is going to be relevant to those sorts of challenges to our society? for as he said, “our conception of pedagogy is dynamic, not mummified. either pedagogy—like all the human sciences—is remade, reconstructed and updated based on the new conditions of the times, or it loses its nature, its function, its proper capacity to correspond to the times it lives in, and above all to foresee, anticipate and prepare the days of tomorrow” (cagliari et al., 2016, p. 143). malaguzzi would probably be talking about the need for education, faced by today’s conditions, to be innovative, creative, and experimental, because we have to come up with new ideas if we’re going to survive. so i like to think that these would be some of the issues that he would be working on today. veronica: thanks, peter. that is very provocative to create a connection between the political, the ecological, the social, and the very question of education. because, like you said, education has become more of a technical issue … transformative change i want to talk about your scholarship on transformation. you rethink the idea of change and introduce transformative change, which you put into conversation with the idea of experimentation. i wonder if you can talk about what you mean by transformative change. why do we need to think about transformative change through experimentation? peter: well, i suppose that there is a lot of talk about change, partly because of neoliberalism’s constant restlessness. organizations are constantly changing and arguably far too often and far too much. so, the addition of “transformative” in the title of the book—transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education (moss, 2013)—is trying to qualify change as more than reshuffling the deck chairs all the time. it’s about change as fundamental rethinking. as michel foucault puts it, “as soon as one no longer thinks things as one formerly thought them, transformation becomes very urgent, very difficult and quite possible” (foucault, 1988, p. 155), and that’s what i talk about in the book. so, if we think differently, if we adopt or we work with different stories to the ones that we’ve been working with before, if we see things in different ways, then that leads to “transformative change.” what seemed terribly important before, like human capital or whatever, no longer seems very important, and other things become very important. so rethinking is really, really important. and that comes back to language. and then there’s the question of reforming once you are rethinking, because rethinking gives you an answer to that question “where to?” where do i want to get to, what is the direction of travel? and then the question is, how might we get there, how do we reform to get there? and in the book, and subsequently, i was quite influenced by the american sociologist erik olin wright and his writing about what he called “real utopias.” he thought that desirability is very important when talking about utopias: we need to know what we want. but it is not enough; we have to be able to achieve it. and to do that, we need to address viability and achievability; we need to be able to say how would we get from here to there. wright is also very much in favour of quite incremental changes—that we do a bit of this, we do a bit of that, try this, we try july 2020 107 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article that, and gradually things move. he rejects the idea of revolutionary change or rapid ruptures; he says that really doesn’t have a very happy history. but what we do, as long as we know where we’re trying to get to, is constantly try things out. we do this, we do that, we move gradually towards where we want to get to. now, i guess this is where experimentation comes in. you get ideas; you want to try them out and create something new. you want to produce a new project, whatever it is, and you have to try it and see what happens. so i think experimentation fits into that idea about how things might move in the direction you want. and i come back now to milton friedman, who was a very influential figure in the rise and rise of neoliberalism. he was an economist, and he was part of a whole group of people working on neoliberal ideas after the second world war, and who were waiting for their chance. and he said, back in the 1960s, before neoliberalism became the powerful force it is today, “only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. when that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. that, i believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable” (friedman, 1982, p. ix). and that seems to me to be very good strategic advice, and it fits in, i think, with what wright is saying. because i think my optimistic reading—and i may be completely wrong—is that we are on the cusp of change. neoliberalism may be running its course, though it is by no means dead. it’s got quite a lot of life left in it. but we have to be ready now with alternatives for when “the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” it’s no good waiting for the banks to blow up again or whatever it is that heralds the demise of neoliberalism and then say, what are we going to do? so, in early childhood education, i think it’s important, even though the opportunities to put things into practice are currently limited, to be working on alternative ideas and policies. we need to know what we want, what we think is desirable, and we need to develop ideas about policy and practice, which might make those desirable futures possible. like friedman, we need to be ready when fundamental change happens. veronica: thanks, peter. yes. peter: can i just add that one thing about malaguzzi which is really important was he had very clear ideas about what he wanted, but he and the other people in reggio emilia were, and still are, intensely practical. he was constantly saying, under what conditions can we develop the sort of pedagogy that we want? and they were very good at putting in place conditions that enabled them to achieve what they wanted, pedagogically. so i think that question—“what conditions do we need?”—should be at the forefront of our mind all the time. we must constantly link practice and policy. i’m sorry, i interrupted you. locally situated pedagogy veronica: that’s great, because your comment connects to the question i want to ask. going back to our previous exposure with italian professor silvana calaprice … she shared with us that pedagogy is never about reproducing an educational model. i wonder what your thoughts are on this idea (never reproducing a particular model) in relation to the reproduction of the reggio emilia “approach”? i ask this question because you have been so close to the history of reggio emilia and how reggio emilia has influenced early childhood education. peter: well, i think you talked earlier about reggio as a project and that’s very much how i see it, in fact. i always remember going to another italian city, which had also done very important educational work, and the person directing the schools there said, “we have undertaken a local cultural project of education.” that seems to me a july 2020 108 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article very good description of what has happened in reggio and many other cities in italy, and indeed in other parts of the world. and the point about these projects is that they emerged out of particular historical, political, and cultural contexts. so i am probably in a minority of one in not being very comfortable with the term “reggio emilia approach” because i think it suggests that reggio is a template to be copied and not a singular project. on the other hand, i think reggio emilia is incredibly important, first of all because it shows that alternative projects are possible, and that’s really important, as indeed are other examples of past and present alternatives. but also because i think it constantly acts as a provocation to us, having asked its political questions and made its political choices. it provokes us to ask: what are our political questions? what would our political choices be? and i think, too, they have developed some ways of working that could be or are being worked with in other places. i mean, pedagogical documentation is a very good example that i think now is very widely used. also, some of the roles they have developed, like pedagogistas, could be applicable. so, i think one could take from them some ways of working. and also that question, what conditions do we need? we have a project, what do we need to do to put it to work? so i can’t see that a place with a very different context could actually copy reggio emilia, but it could work with reggio emilia to construct its own local cultural project of education. veronica: thank you for that provocation. democracy in the 21st century veronica: i want to ask about the concept of democracy in the 21st century. you used the term democracy a few times. i wonder what relations are you referring and gesturing towards when you think about democracy? and what do you think democracy has become in neoliberal early childhood education? what might it mean to experiment with transformative democracies or transformative democracy going forward? peter: well, first of all, it’s important to look back and remember that the idea of democracy as a fundamental value in education is not new. it goes back a long way, and it’s a very important idea in the tradition of progressive education, associated with figures such as john dewey, célestin freinet, paolo freire, and of course loris malaguzzi. so we are standing on the shoulders of giants, and to put forward democracy as an important educational idea is not new, though under neoliberalism it has been squeezed out, because i think neoliberalism isn’t terribly enamoured of democracy. it seems to me we can understand democracy as being multifaceted. it is obviously a way of governing, through the ballot boxes and the rule of law and freedom of expression and so on. but dewey talks about democracy as a way of living and relating, as “primarily a mode of associated living embedded in the culture and social relationships of everyday life ... a personal way of individual life” (dewey, 1939, p. 2). so, you could say it’s a relational ethic, about how we should relate to each other, how we should be listening and dialoguing and being open to difference and so on. and of course that means that we can talk about democracy as an everyday practice: how we live with each other in everyday institutions. tom bentley talks about how “building everyday democracy depends on applying its principles to everyday institutions through which people make their choices and develop their identities” (bentley, 2005), and early childhood centres and schools would be good examples of such everyday institutions. another theme is that democracy is something you learn through living it. you don’t really learn it through being given lessons in it. so that means a lot of thought needs to go into the practices, the relationships in everyday july 2020 109 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article life, in the way “minor politics” is conducted, how small things are decided and arrived at. while in pedagogy, reggio emilia practices a pedagogy of listening, which seems to me to be an intrinsically democratic approach to pedagogy. they also have what they call “social management” of early childhood centres, which is an intrinsically democratic approach to the management of these services based on elections of teachers, parents, and other citizens. so i think democracy can infuse education in all sorts of ways, from management through to small questions about eating and food and all sorts of places in between. but i think it’s one of the big challenges we face—repairing democracy after neoliberalism—and quite a lot of people are, and have been, writing about the role of education in that important task. veronica: thank you, peter. you made me think about what democracy might mean as education engages with climate change, or with migration, or with new digital ecologies, and so on and so forth. perhaps these are the very questions we need to continue to ask ourselves in early childhood education. experimentation veronica: one last question before we open for the audience to ask questions. experimentation. one of the books in the series (by liselott olsen) addressed pedagogical experimentation, drawing from deleuze. you also address this concept in your book on transformational change. this is a concept that we have proposed to pedagogists to think with—certainly not an easy task. we already have preconceived ideas of what experimentation is, and quickly conflate it with the idea of experiment. so, can you say a few words about how you use the concept of experimentation? peter: the brazilian philosopher roberto unger talks about democratic experimentation, which he describes as “an innovative collective practice, moving forward the qualitative provision of the services themselves.” he says, “that can no longer happen in our current understanding of efficiency and production by the mechanical transmission of innovation from the top. it can only happen through the organisation of a collective experimental practice from below ... democracy is not just one more terrain for the institutional innovation that i advocate. it is the most important terrain” (unger, 2005b, pp. 179, 182). he’s saying that if we are to be creative and move forward, then we have to tap into ideas coming from below and try them out and do this in a democratic way. so he connects democracy to experimentation. one of the things that interests me is about the potential of the early childhood centre and the school for projects which are not necessarily pedagogical. and they can be projects which come out of local communities, local families, and the response of the centre to the needs and the desires of those communities and families. and i’ve written in transformative change and real utopias about examples from my country, where we have had very innovative centres, community-based centres, which, as well as providing education, have provided a host of other projects. they’ve experimented, you could say, with projects in response to what they see as the needs of their community. to take an example of a centre serving a very poor district with a lot of migrants in it, they provided legal services, language services, a range of other support for families experiencing different sorts of problems and so on and so forth. so that’s experimentation. you’re actually saying, look, this community, this group of families, they need something. let’s see what we can do to actually use our public space, our public resource here to support them. and i believe very strongly that the school and the centre should be places which are seen as public space and public resources. pedagogically, i think it’s very interesting to think about the role of loris malaguzzi. he was a prodigious reader, july 2020 110 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article endlessly fascinated with what was going on in the world, with new ideas, with new theories, with new perspectives. he was really reading into all sorts of things. he would have sessions with teachers, educators, and other staff, and at these sessions he would talk about what he’d been reading, about this new theory or different perspective, and he might talk about this for two or three hours, i am told. and i’ve talked to some of the teachers he talked with, and they say, “we’d go away and we’d say that was something we didn’t really understand very much about, but it was really exciting,” and over time they would come to understand better and become more and more interested. i think we should try to understand more about this role that malaguzzi had in the organization, the school system. he had this very interesting role of mediating between the wider world and the schools in reggio emilia. he was a sort of conduit, a channel for bringing in ideas. and then they would all talk about these ideas, and then they would say, well, what can we do with them? can we try them out? so they would experiment with them, but they wouldn’t stop at that. they would then evaluate or research how that went, and then they would go back and discuss to get a better understanding. how did that experiment go? malaguzzi and other people from reggio use the words “experiment” and “experimentation” all the time, along with “research”—and research for them is, in part, a way of trying to understand better how their experimentation was working out. so experimentation is part of a system which is supported by pedagogistas and where people have time to document and look at what they’re doing and talk about it. so experimentation is not dropped in. it’s actually embedded in how their work evolves, with experimentation as the kind of motor of evolution: bringing in new ideas, trying them out, checking them out, seeing how they work, and then perhaps trying them out in a different way. so i think that’s a very good example of the dynamic role of experimentation, but i think you have to keep reminding people that malaguzzi was actually a local civil servant. he was employed by the municipality. why don’t we have today in municipalities people who have that sort of role—if you like, a kind of intellectual role where they are constantly feeding in new thinking, new ideas, getting things going, getting movement happening, getting movement and experimentation happening? why don’t we have that today? is it because municipalities are reduced today to administration and management? don’t we need something more than that? so i think experimentation can be seen as an extremely powerful force for movement. for getting things moving all the time, relating experimentation and movement to your diagnosis of the times. veronica: thank you. what better place to pass it on to the audience as we think about experimenting. july 2020 111 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational article references bauman, z. (1993). postmodern ethics. blackwell. cagliari, p., castegnetti, m., giudici, c., rinaldi, c., vecchi, v., & moss, p. (eds.). (2016). loris malaguzzi and the schools of reggio emilia: a selection of his writings and speeches 1945–1993. routledge. dahlberg, g. (2003). pedagogy as a loci of an ethics of an encounter. in m. bloch, k. holmlund, i. moqvist & t. popkewitz (eds.), governing children, families and education: restructuring the welfare state. palgrave macmillan. dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. routledge. dewey, j. (1976). creative democracy: the task before us. in j. boydston (ed.), john dewey: the later works, 1925–1953, vol. 14. southern illinois university press. fisher, b., & tronto, j. (1990). toward a feminist theory of caring. in e. abel & m. nelson (eds.), circles of care, work, and identity in women’s lives. suny press. foucault, m. (1988). politics, philosophy, culture: interviews and other writings 1977–1984 (a. sheridan et al., trans.). routledge. friedman, m. (1982). capitalism and freedom (rev. ed.). university of chicago press. (original work published 1962) moss, p., & petrie, p. (2019). education and social pedagogy: what relationship? london review of education, 17(3), 393–405. https://doi. org/10.18546/lre.17.3.13 tronto, j. (1993). moral boundaries: a political argument for the ethics of care. routledge. unger, r. m. (2005a). what should the left propose? verso. unger, r. m. (2005b). the future of the left: james crabtree interviews roberto unger. renewal, 13(2/3), 173–184. wright, e. o. (2019). how to be an anti-capitalist in the 21st century. verso. spring/printemps 2018 1 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies editorial we begin this editorial with gratitude for the reviewers who took the time to generously provide critical, insightful, and generative feedback to all of the submissions. we are also immensely grateful to everyone who submitted articles for consideration. we were particularly excited to receive so many contributions from early childhood educators who are grappling with learning how to respond to environmental challenges within their everyday work with young children. we thank all of the authors for their patience through the review process. as eve tuck and wayne yang (2017) have said, “academic journals and their introductory editorials make for terrible time machines” (p. 1). finally, this special issue would not have come together without the care and attention of editorial assistant dr. nicole land. we are so appreciative of her invaluable help at every step of the process. this call for papers emerged from our interest in highlighting the ways in which early childhood educators and researchers are drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives to situate education in the current environmentally challenging times. as we write this editorial amid political discourse in north america that seems to be fueling, rather than ameliorating, rampant extractivism, we feel a sense of urgency for education to respond to the ecological inheritances facing 21st-century children. at the same time, in this moment of late capitalism, we wonder how these necessary educational responses might also move away from individualized discourses of stewardship and responsibility. this is particularly relevant to early childhood education, where the figure of the individual developing child as future salvation remains a common trope, one that is rooted in instrumental approaches to teaching and learning (blaise, 2013; lenz taguchi, 2010). leanne betasamosake simpson (2013) reminds us of the necessity to shift away from individual responsibility when she states that “the alternative to extractivism is deep reciprocity” (n.p.). in this regard, in composing the theme of this special issue, we have looked toward the potential invigorations of bringing interdisciplinary perspectives into conversation with early childhood environmental education in ways that highlight more-than-human relationality, reciprocity, and plurality (mitchell, 2017; nxumalo, 2018; simpson, 2013; todd, 2016). we have drawn particular inspiration from recent scholarship in early childhood education that has engaged interdisciplinary perspectives that include intersectional feminist approaches, indigenous knowledges, and the environmental humanities to engage with why and how the anthropocene, as an epoch marked by devastating human impacts on the earth, necessitates a turn away from normative romantic conceptions of children and nature (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; ritchie, 2015; taylor, 2017). this scholarship supports an orientation toward critical and generative pedagogies that are firmly situated within the messy anthropogenic worlds young children co-inhabit, while foregrounding the inseparability of nature and culture. some of the particular questions that animated our call for papers around the broad theme of interdisciplinary and situated environmentally attuned early childhood education included these: • how might educational responses to the anthropocene attend to the highly uneven causalities and impacts of environmental precarity on young children along colonial, racialized, gendered, and classed stratifications? how might creative and critical practices foreground indigenous land and communities in present place and time? (see haro woods et al.; saint-orens & nxumalo; and nelson, pacini-ketchabaw, & nxumalo) • what are some possibilities for troubling the ways in which universalizing anthropocene discourses materialize in schools and communities? (see lakind & adsit-morris and nelson, pacini-ketchabaw, & nxumalo) • how might decolonizing movements such as #waterislife meet childhood education? (see saintorens & nxumalo) spring/printemps 2018 2 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies editorial • what emerges from pedagogical efforts to queer childhood-nature relationships? how might perspectives from multispecies studies unsettle anthropocentric early childhood pedagogies? (see molloy murphy; pineda; schoepe; and wapenaar & deschutter) • what kinds of pedagogical interruptions do posthumanist lenses bring to normative conceptions of childhood education? (see murris, reynolds, & peers) tuck and yang’s (2018) words resonate with this collection, which enacts what they refer to as relational, rather than comparative, analysis: paying attention only to the polarity of theories of change, the exterior contours of their shape and definition, can be misleading in terms of thinking about how theories of change can be in relation to each other. instead, we might consider the inner angles created in mapping these poles, the sharp corners, the wide wedges which meet on the inside. if we consider those inner angles for their feature of the way that an angle does not have a length, then we can be concerned not with the distance between ideas, but the small shifts that can cross them… new vantage points, new movements, new somatic possibilities are made through that small shift. (pp. 2–3) following eve and wayne, we invite you to craft your own theories of change and provocations for environmentally responsive early childhood pedagogies as you read these articles on their own, as well as in the inner angles you find in their generative resonances and tensions with each other. spring/printemps 2018 3 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies editorial references blaise, m. (2013). activating micropolitical practices in the early years: (re)assembling bodies and participant observations. in r. coleman & j. ringrose (eds.), deleuze and research methodologies (pp. 184–200). edinburgh, uk: edinburgh university press. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. new york, ny: routledge. mitchell, a. (2017). a politics of worlds. planet politics forum. retrieved from https://worldlyir.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/a-politicsof-worlds-planet-politics-forum/ nxumalo, f. (2018). situating indigenous and black childhoods in the anthropocene. in a. cutter-mackenzie, k. malone, & e. barratt hacking (eds.), international research handbook on childhoodnature: assemblages of childhood and nature. new york, ny: springer. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & taylor, a. (eds.). (2015). unsettling the colonialist places and spaces of early childhood education. new york, ny: routledge. ritchie, j. (2015). social, cultural, and ecological justice in the age the anthropocene: a new zealand early childhood care and education perspective. journal of pedagogy, 6(2), 41–56. doi: 10. 1515/jped-2015-0012 simpson, l. b. (2013). dancing the world into being: a conversation with idle no more’s leanne simpson (by naomi klein). yes magazine, march 5, 2013. retrieved from http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/dancing-the-world-into-being-aconversation-with-idle-no-more-leanne-simpson taylor, a. (2017). beyond stewardship: common world pedagogies for the anthropocene. environmental education research, 23(10), 1448–1461. doi: 10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452 todd, z. (2016). relationships. cultural anthropology website january 21, 2016. retrieved from: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/799relationships tuck, e., & yang, k. w. (2017). journals make terrible time machines. critical ethnic studies, 3(2), 1–11. doi: 10.5749/ jcritethnstud.3.2.0001 tuck, e., & yang, k. w. (2018). introduction: born under the rising sign of social justice. in e. tuck & k. w. yang (eds.), toward what justice: describing diverse dreams of justice in education (pp. 1–17). new york, ny: routledge. microsoft word macdonald et al. online article format w2015.docx   winter 2015/hiver 2015 vol. 40 no. 1 eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editors, special issue: professionalism in ecec dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca published with support from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 [page 100 to 110] www.cayc.ca eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford authors’ bios lyndsay  macdonald,  ma,  early  childhood  studies,  ryerson  university,  is  a  research   officer  at  the  childcare  resource  and  research  unit  and  also  works  as  the  part-­‐time   coordinator  for  the  child  care  advocacy  association  of  canada.  email:   lmacdonald@childcarecanada.org   brooke  richardson,  ma,  teaches  part-­‐time  in  the  early  childhood  studies  program  at   ryerson  university  while  completing  her  phd  in  policy  studies,  also  at  ryerson.   email:  brichard@ryerson.ca   rachel  langford,  phd,  is  the  director  of  the  school  of  early  childhood  studies,   ryerson  university.  email:  rlangfor@ryerson.ca   abstract this  paper  examines  the  commonly  held  notion  that  early  childhood  educators  (eces)  “don’t   make  good  advocates.”  while  most  childcare  advocates  interviewed  in  this  qualitative  study   disagreed  with  this  blanket  statement,  informants  had  reservations  about  the  scope  of   advocacy  in  which  eces  could  and  should  engage.  they  made  clear  distinctions  between   “silent,”  “small  a,”  and  “big  a”—or  micro/meso/macro  level—advocacy.  furthermore,   informants  from  both  manitoba  and  ontario  appear  to  suggest  that  eces  are  best  suited,  able,   and  willing  to  carry  out  “small  a”  advocacy  (though  there  was  some  variation  in  this  finding   by  province).  guided  by  the  political  economy  of  care,  this  paper  critically  examines  the   etiology  and  sociopolitical  consequences  of  advocacy  carried  out  by  eces  primarily  at  the   micro  level.  insights  into  how  eces  may  be  able  to  expand  the  scope  of  advocacy  beyond  the   micro  level  without  compromising  or  undermining  their  professional  identity  are  explored.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   comparisons of early childhood education and care (ecec) policy and services have identified canada as an international laggard (organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2006; unicef, 2008). in 2008, canada met only one of ten benchmarks of comprehensive ecec policy, ranking 25 out of 25 developed nations (unicef, 2008). similarly, the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd, 2006) has described the canadian ecec sector as “in its initial stages” (p. 6). today, in 2014, little progress has been made. accessible, affordable, high-quality childcare services remain elusive for many canadian children and parents. similarly, early childhood educators (eces) remain grossly undervalued for their work, often earning minimum wage or slightly above (flanagan, beach, & varmuza, 2013). while there is overwhelming consensus that “the quality of early childhood education and care depends above all else on the ability of the caregiver to build relationships with children, and to help provide a secure, consistent, sensitive, stimulating, and rewarding environment” (unicef, 2008, p. 23), the supports necessary for eces to facilitate such an environment (i.e., adequate remuneration, good working conditions) are often absent. while the sector continues down a path of instability, there has been and continues to be a heightened focus on “professionalizing” eces. adhering to a code of ethics, establishing minimal training requirements, and encouraging professional development of eces has been strongly encouraged and in some cases mandated. unfortunately, the discussion rarely acknowledges the underlying problem: the funding to recruit and retain a better-educated and compensated workforce does not exist in the market-based system of childcare we currently have in canada. historically, the canadian childcare advocacy movement has been spearheaded and maintained by leaders in the women’s movement, unions, and grassroots community organizations/coalitions (friendly & prentice, 2009). however, a shifting political economy entrenched in neoliberal ideals is increasingly weakening the capacity of government and community organizations to effect progressive ecec policy change in canada. government institutions such as the national action committee for the status of women have been shut down completely. the child care advocacy association of canada, a key national childcare advocacy organization, is still operational but has been defunded and is fighting to survive. as a result, there has been an increasing reliance on unions, which are also struggling to do more with less, to sustain the struggling childcare movement. these shifts are indirectly necessitating the involvement of ece professionals in the struggle for affordable, accessible, and highquality child care. the question becomes “who will be the advocates for a comprehensive, affordable, accessible, publicly funded ecec system where eces are adequately trained and remunerated?” unfortunately, “advocate” and ece “professional” are often viewed as contradictory, rather than complementary, roles. this paper examines whether eces can be advocates from the perspective of childcare movement actors in manitoba and ontario.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   feminist political economy of care and the social reproduction squeeze this study was rooted in a feminist political economy of care framework. this perspective highlights how the downloading of responsibility for social reproduction from the state to individuals has impacted women, particularly mothers and professionals in caregiving roles (bezanson & luxton, 2006). mothers continue to struggle to balance paid and unpaid work (dobrowolsky, 2009), often facing pressures to make their family responsibilities invisible in the workplace (arat-koc, 2006). approximately 3 out of 4 mothers of preschoolaged children are working (vanier institute of the family, 2013), demonstrating a clear need for affordable, accessible, high-quality childcare spaces. in 2001, the oecd recommended that “early childhood services should be recognized, like compulsory schooling, as a public good and as an important part of the education process” (organisation for economic cooperation and development, 2001, p. 58). unfortunately, canadian child care quality, accessibility, and affordability have devolved since that time, moving further into the private, market-based sphere. funding to public and/or not-for-profit childcare operations has been cut significantly, allowing private, for-profit operators to step in and become a significant provider of much-needed childcare spaces (lloyd & penn, 2012). given that the primary goal of for-profit childcare operators is to make a profit and that existing not-for-profit childcare centres are operating on shoestring budgets, ece professionals suffer the consequences in terms of inadequate wages and working conditions. some have suggested that eces are subsidizing child care in canada through their near poverty-level wages (child care human resources sector council, 2009). finally, the downloading of social reproduction from the state to individuals has contributed to the struggling state of the canadian childcare movement. the founders of childcare advocacy in canada are slowly retiring from the movement while a younger generation of women, overburdened with their paid and unpaid responsibilities, struggles to help keep the movement alive. these shifts in the feminist political economy have meant that mothers, early childhood educators, and women more generally are left vulnerable to a state that significantly undervalues care work in both paid and unpaid settings. child care remains a private responsibility provided either by parents (usually mothers) or a commodity to be purchased through the market. what do we mean by “professionalism” and “advocacy”? most definitions of professionalism in the ece field highlight the possession and application of technical and theoretical knowledge (e.g., chandler, 2012). not surprisingly, many concrete steps have been taken in canada to professionalize eces and the child care sector: increased training requirements; a regulatory body protecting the ece title for those with a predetermined level of training (in ontario); mandated professional development; the development of a code of ethics; and the introduction of curriculum frameworks. in contrast, moriarty (2000) has argued for a more inclusive definition of ece professionalism that   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   includes engagement in public debates and policy discussions. such public policy engagement would typically be considered an advocacy activity rather than a professional activity in that one enters public policy discussions from a particular perspective with a particular interest which she or he is attempting to further. such action departs from the technical acquisition and application of knowledge. instead it involves embracing one’s own experiences, opinions, and values—the very antithesis of what is often considered objective and professional. academics confirm that eces do not typically engage in advocacy as such, either for their profession or for an adequate childcare system (moss, 2006; moyles, 2001; woodrow & busch, 2008). this paper examines and questions the often contradictory images of a professional and an advocate. methodology this study used secondary interview data from an ongoing three-year social sciences and humanities research council (sshrc) funded study that is examining the effects of ece workforce sector professionalization on the canadian childcare movement. for this project, interview data from 14 childcare movement actors, seven in ontario and seven in manitoba, were analyzed. informants were associated with one of four organizations: the ontario coalition for better child care (ocbcc), the association of early childhood educators of ontario (aeceo), the child care coalition of manitoba (cccm), or the manitoba child care association (mcca). findings all of the informants from manitoba and ontario, with the exception of one, expressed the opinion that eces could be advocates. however, the conceptualizations of advocacy varied in scope. three overlapping and interacting levels of advocacy became apparent: micro (“silent”), meso (“small a”) and macro (“big a”). micro-level advocacy is defined as simply conducting oneself as a professional (e.g., following a code of ethics, engaging in best practices). some informants considered such behaviour as advocacy in its own right. mesolevel advocacy includes advocating at the program level (e.g., securing services for a child with special needs, fundraising, assisting a family to obtain a subsidy). finally, macro-level advocacy includes challenging the larger sociopolitical order and is consistent with moriarty’s (2000) argument that eces should be engaged in public discussions about ecec policy.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   table 1. three levels of advocacy. scope   description   example/quote   micro     (“silent”)   conducting  oneself  ethically  and  professionally   in  one’s  day-­‐to-­‐day  work  (e.g.,  establishing   positive  and  collaborative  relationships  with   colleagues,  children,  and  families)   “if  you’re  working  in  an  ethical  manner   you  are  promoting  quality  in  every   decision  that  you  make  then  you  are   advocating  for  quality  and  to  me  they’re   one  in  the  same.”   meso     (“small  a”)   actively  speaking  up  for  children  and  families   at  the  centre  level  (e.g.,  helping  families   navigate  the  subsidy  system,  securing   additional  services,  fundraising  for  the   centre/program)   “i  would  say,  am  i  working  within  a  code   of  ethics?  values?  do  i  advocate  on  behalf   of  the  families  and  children  that  i  work   with?”   macro     (“big  a”)   actively  seeking  out  opportunities  to  challenge   the  prevailing  social-­‐political  order  that   negates  the  value  of  eces  and  early  childhood   education  (e.g.,  participating  in  /  organizing   rallies,  writing  to  politicians)   “some  of  our  long-­‐time  aeceo  members   …  they  would  say,  ‘absolutely,  i  can   advocate,’  you  know,  they’re  the  ones   who  on  their  own  will  write  letters  to   their  politicians  and  so  on.”   micro-level (“silent”) advocacy “being professional,” “acting like a professional,” and “professionalism” were frequently included as characteristics of advocacy. an informant from manitoba suggested: if you’re working in an ethical manner you are promoting quality in every decision that you make then you are advocating for quality and to me they’re one in the same. when discussing professionalism and advocacy, an informant from ontario said: you start thinking very small, you start thinking what you can do with the families in your program and the children in your program and how you can deliver the best program for them. another informant from manitoba reiterated the idea that behaving like a professional in one’s day-to-day work could be considered advocacy: sometimes you can be a silent advocate in your work and it can be just as effective as somebody screaming from the rooftops, so it depends on the scenario. so, while all but one informant agreed that professionals could be advocates, advocacy was often limited to a silent form in which behaving professionally was considered advocacy.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   meso-level (“small a”) advocacy the majority of informants identified meso-level advocacy as a common practice. “small a” advocacy was conceptualized as advocating on behalf of the families and children in a childcare environment. a veteran ece and staff member of manitoba’s professional childcare association included advocacy at the program level as a component of one’s professional role: what do i believe professionalism means? i would say, am i working within a code of ethics? values? do i advocate on behalf of the families and children that i work with? am i committed to life-long learning and realizing that this is a career and not just a jumping point to work somewhere else? another informant from manitoba included sharing experiences as an ece within their immediate community as advocacy: i try to tell [eces], just tell your story, and that is advocating. overall, most informants discussed advocacy on the meso level as a suitable and typical form of advocacy for eces. a number of informants offered explanations as to why microand meso-level advocacy are preferred. the sentiment that eces hesitate to engage in macro-level advocacy because they are “overworked,” “tired,” or don’t perceive themselves as “worthy” emerged. an informant from ontario noted that ece advocacy rarely reaches the macro level because eces are putting their energies into stabilizing their immediate work environment: we’ve got centres that are just trying to keep their doors open … so here in ottawa everybody started putting their heads down just figuring out how they are going to keep their doors open. it also became evident that informants felt eces were ill equipped to advocate publicly or speak on bigger-picture issues: we’ve seen good uptake if you give someone a sign and say come to this rally and hold up your sign, they can do that. if you say to them meet with your mla, well that just becomes too much for people and that goes back to a lack of knowledge and a lack of confidence. finally, another informant suggested that a lack of leadership in the field was a reason that advocacy fails to move beyond micro and meso levels: i see that we’ve had a real issue in cultivating leaders … we are such a giving and caring sector, why don’t we do that for each other? we’re so focused on families and children, which is like—of course i believe in that and i idolize it, but why not ourselves?   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   macro-level (“big a”) advocacy informants from ontario were generally more optimistic than informants from manitoba about eces’ ability to engage in “big a” advocacy. an informant from ontario linked eces’ ability to engage in macro-level advocacy to their involvement with the professional childcare association: in some of our meetings that we’ve done around the province i find that, increasingly, eces who are more part of the aeceo are also coming to our meetings and showing that they understand that it has to be a big picture approach, it has to be about a strong, funded, stable system. another informant from ontario provided an optimistic perspective about the future of ece professionals as childcare advocates: there is a renaissance to be seen, we will have ece professionals publicly advocating…. with eces on the ground, they see the impact of social programs or lack thereof or cutbacks or what have you. so they, in fact, can speak with on-the-ground experience of what the needs are. from this informant’s perspective, eces can be involved in all levels of advocacy. two informants from the aeceo similarly identified their own members as likely advocates for larger system issues: i think [ece professionals] make good advocates, but i think it’s difficult, you know, if you were to go out there and you were to interview some of our long-time aeceo members who have always considered themselves professionals … they would say, ‘absolutely i can advocate,’ you know, they’re the ones who on their own will write letters to their politicians and so on. i want to see a viral campaign that just focuses on eces.… there’s 40,000 registered eces in ontario. everyone knows an ece and they know the commitment and they know what they do. i think that we need the best advocates to be the broader society and the ece professionals themselves. among all of the informants, only one stated that ece professionals did not make good advocates specifically because of what this informant described as eces’ personal and professional characteristics: i don’t think childcare people make good advocates because they’re too nice, and you know, our people are first of all caregivers and it’s a challenge to get people to tell their stories publicly…. our people are fixers, they’re quite used to fixing all of their   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   own problems as fast as they can…. to get them to speak up on an issue is very difficult and they’re very shy about it. discussion so can eces be advocates? informants (who are not practicing eces) overwhelmingly agreed that eces have the potential to be strong advocates. on further analysis, however, it became evident that the scope of advocacy referred to was usually limited to micro and meso levels. current engagement of eces in “big a” advocacy challenging the prevailing notion that child care is a private responsibility rather than a public good appeared to be lacking. while a handful of informants were hopeful that eces could become more engaged in “big a” activities in the future, microand meso-level advocacy appeared to be more commonly perceived as realistic across interviews. as mentioned above, it is important to recognize that the identified levels of advocacy are not mutually exclusive categories. one who is able to maintain a professional practice is more likely to be knowledgeable about the various services and systems available to the children and families with whom they work. as a result of these meso-level advocacy experiences, professionals are likely better prepared to mobilize themselves and their peers to make clearly articulated demands of government representatives. at the same time, it is entirely possible and plausible that some “big a” advocates focus their energy mainly on the larger system issues rather than specifically advocating for individual children or families in their program or centre. these categories are simply helpful to better understand the past, current, and future scope of ece-led advocacy efforts by those who have been and/or continue to be engaged in the childcare advocacy movement. it is also important to note the limitations of the “silent” advocacy category itself. some may argue that being silent and advocating are mutually exclusive activities. that informants considered maintaining a professional practice as advocacy at all was one of our most interesting and surprising findings. we in no way mean to obfuscate the importance of professional practice by using the term silent advocacy. however, the data necessitated broadening the conceptualization of advocacy to include this silent category. a feminist political economy perspective suggests that to meaningfully address women’s equity, care work must be reframed as a public good. however, the current social reproduction squeeze has meant that mothers and women more generally are struggling to keep child care in the public eye and on the political agenda. this study has revealed that eces are not currently taking on macro-level childcare advocacy—even though their personal and professional well-being is often at stake. while academics agree that eces must be encouraged to challenge “conceptions of marketization within the early years” (moriarty, 2000, p. 240) and the “privatization and domestication of care” (taggart, 2011, p. 86), the reality is that eces have not yet been able to consistently engage in the political issues that underlie their undervalued role within society.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   several reasons why eces primarily engage in microand mesorather than macrolevel advocacy emerged through this analysis: (1) a lack of understanding or knowledge about larger system and policy issues; (2) a lack of confidence on the part of eces; (3) a lack of time to devote to the broader advocacy movement; and (4) instability of the field, including the immediate work environment. in regard to the first point, ece training programs rarely include ece policy courses that provide preservice eces with the necessary tools to critically question the system in which they work. there has been a focus in many training programs on professionalism, but, like advocacy, this concept is limited. professionalism is too often conceptualized as applying technical knowledge rather than developing the professional autonomy to critically reflect on and discuss the larger political issues around the childcare system (urban, 2010). practical barriers also appeared to prevent eces from engaging in “big a” advocacy. simply put, the day-to-day work of an ece is hectic. daily tasks include not only the direct care and education of young children, but programming, budgeting, communicating with parents, collaborating with a board of directors/owner, and more. all this leaves little time for eces to critically reflect and engage in dialogue with their peers. if eces were presented with flexible opportunities to meet and discuss their work in relation to the broader sector, it might facilitate unity within this ever-fragmented sector. as moyles (2001) points out, “working in partnership with researchers, early years practitioners have shown themselves able to engage in high level, critical reflection on their own practices, to link associated theory and to challenge political prescription” (p. 90). in essence, ece professionalism has the potential to shift from the application of prescribed skills in the classroom to the critical and active participation of eces in the broader sector. fortunately, a handful of informants felt optimistic about eces’ interest, ability, and willingness to engage in “big a” advocacy efforts. according to one informant, the “best advocates are ece professionals themselves.” however, the responsibility of advocacy cannot be yet one more task added to the underresourced ece’s “to do” list. eces must be systematically supported emotionally, financially, and intellectually to overcome these barriers identified by informants. support from childcare centre directors, ece faculty, childcare groups, researchers, unions, and other ecec-related organizations is necessary for eces to be comfortable, confident, and able to engage in “big a” advocacy. in addition to providing support, the movement itself must provide the necessary space for eces to engage in larger advocacy efforts. unfortunately, eces may never be involved in the childcare advocacy movement if its leaders and champions do not see a place for them. as it stands, eces can be seen as an untapped resource for childcare advocacy mobilization efforts—a resource desperately needed to keep progressive childcare policy discussion—and action—alive.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   references arat-koc, s. (2006). whose social reproduction? transnational motherhood and challenges to feminist political economy. in k. bezanson & m. luxton (eds.), social reproduction: feminist political economy challenges neo-liberalism (pp. 75–92). montreal, qc: mcgill-queen’s university press. bezanson, k., & luxton, m. (eds.). (2006). social reproduction: feminist political economy challenges neo-liberalism. montreal, qc: mcgill-queen’s university press. chandler, k. (2012). administering for quality: leading canadian early childhood programs (4th ed). don mills, on: pearson education canada. child care human resources sector council. (2009). portrait of canada’s early childhood education and care workforce. ottawa, on: author. dobrowolsky, a. (2009). women and public policy in canada: neo-liberalism and after? don mills, on: oxford university press. flanagan, k., beach, j., & varmuza, p. (2013). you bet we still care: a survey of centre-based early childhood education and care in canada. highlights report. ottawa, on: child care human resources sector council. friendly, m., & prentice, s. (2009). about canada: child care. halifax, ns: fernwood. lloyd, e., & penn, h. (2012). childcare markets: can they deliver an equitable service? bristol, uk: policy press. moriarty, v. (2000). early years educators in finland and england: issues of professionality. international journal of early years education, 8(3), 235–241. moss, p. (2006). structures, understandings, and discourses: possibilities for re-envisioning the early childhood worker. contemporary issues in early childhood education research journal, 15(1), 5–20. moyles, j. (2001). passion, paradox, and professionalism in early years education. early years, 21(2), 81–95. organisation for economic co-operation and development. (2001). starting strong: early childhood education and care. directorate for education. paris, france: author. organisation for economic co-operation and development. (2006). starting strong ii: early childhood education and care. directorate for education. paris, france: author. taggart, g. (2011). don’t we care?: the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism. early years, 31(1), 85–95.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca   unicef. (2008). the child care transition: a league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries. report card 8. florence, italy: unicef innocenti research centre. urban, m. (2010). dealing with uncertainty: challenges and possibilities for the early childhood profession. in c. dalli & m. urban (eds.), professionalism in early childhood education and care: international perspectives (pp. 4–22). oxon, uk: routledge. vanier institute of the family. (2013). mothers in canada: by the numbers. retrieved from: http://www.vanierinstitute.ca/include/get.php?nodeid=3702 woodrow, c., & busch, g. (2008). repositioning early childhood leadership as action and activism. european early childhood education research journal, 16(1), 83–93.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 40 number 1 2015 www.cayc.ca in this issue: from the editors’ desk special issue: professionalism in ecec guest editors: dr. rachel langford, dr. jane hewes, sonya hooper, and monica lysack beyond professionalism: interrogating the idea and the ideals by randa khattar and karyn callaghan negotiating status: the impact of union contracts on the professional role of reces in ontario’s full-day kindergarten program by romona gananatham the glass ceiling effect: mediating influences on early years educators’ sense of professionalism by stefanie tukonic and debra harwood enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and collegial mentoring by glory ressler, gillian doherty, tammy mccormick ferguson, and jonathan lomotey authoring professional identities: immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in an early childhood teacher education program by christine massing eces as childcare advocates: examining the scope of childcare advocacy carried out by eces from the perspective of childcare movement actors in ontario and manitoba by lyndsay macdonald, brooke richardson, and rachel langford from child-minders to professionals: insights from an action research project on prince edward island by anna baldacchino, ray doiron, martha gabriel, alaina roach o’keefe, and jessica mckenna pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing by iris berger find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca front page w2015 macdonald formatted back page w2015 spring/printemps 2018 60 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice (re)considering squirrel––from object of rescue to multispecies kin angela molloy murphy angela molloy murphy, med, has been an early childhood educator for over 20 years, founding schools of her own, including her current school, rowanberry school, in 2006. she is pursuing her doctoral degree in the curriculum and instruction edd program at portland state university. her current research is focused on defending children’s right to pluralistic thinking from what chimamanda adichie has flagged as the danger of a single story. email: rowanberryschool@mac.com once there was an early childhood educator who did her best to offer the young children in her care “wholesome” childhood experiences. she aspired to bring children “back to nature,” where they would be free from the complications of the digital age and the ubiquitous pressures of consumerism. these hopes came from a good place: an instinct that children, as all humans, crave connection, and that this connection could be fed by fostering a relationship with nature. this educator held her idea of the goal of education close to her heart. the aim of education, she believed, is to help children become “more fully human.” she held a concern that the children she encountered rarely took terrible risks or had great adventures. their lives had been carefully curated by loving, liberal families who wanted everything for them and left them wanting nothing. she felt that the risks provided by “a return to the wild” would offer children a childhood worthy of their abilities and great curiosity. to this end, she planned to open a forest school, a retreat on the outskirts of town where children, families, and educators could engage with beautiful and provocative curriculum. it would be close enough for urban dwellers to commute to, but far enough away that traffic would never have to be dodged on morning walks with the children or airplanes heard overhead during class meetings. most importantly, the children would have much more to explore than they did in her current school, where they were limited to a fenced yard with a little wooden climbing structure. they would have expansive spaces that they would come to treasure, and be afforded the opportunity to explore places large enough that they could imagine what it might like to be lost. i was this teacher, and these were the ideals i cherished. this is the story of how my worldview came to be troubled and eventually transformed. in this paper, i situate common world multispecies kin––a squirrel––in the complex contact zone that is our school’s north portland neighbourhood, and show how this creature offered a powerful challenge to the collective imaginings of our classroom community. second, i show how thinking with donna haraway, bruno latour, and common world pedagogies disrupts “back to nature” narratives and generates opportunities to engage with different perspectives about the intersection of nature and culture, and of human and nonhuman kin. last, i use common world pedagogies to reconsider child-centered pedagogical approaches in early childhood education. this is a story situated in the pacific northwest region of north america, where encounters with a non-native “rescue” squirrel present disequilibrium for an educator and surprises for an early childhood classroom community. thinking with haraway, latour, and common world frameworks challenges the educator’s “back to nature” narrative and generates opportunities to engage with different perspectives about the intersection of nature and culture, human and nonhuman kin, and the limiting quality of anthropocentric, child-centered pedagogies in early childhood education. key words: ece; anthropocentrism; throwntogetherness; contact zone; common worlds spring/printemps 2018 61 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the “rescue” squirrel the home-based early childhood school i founded in 2006 is at the center of my community of practice and is the setting for the events that inspired this paper. one winter day, my daughter’s scouts teacher, victoria, gave me an injured baby squirrel that she had found in the drainpipe outside her house. victoria, an elder, was aware that i was an early years educator who had a history of keeping all variety of animals in my basement classroom. “i did my time with baby animal rescues when my own kids were small. that chapter of my life has closed,” victoria stated simply as she handed me a cat carrier with the squirrel inside. she had done a bit of research and discovered that the squirrel, a non-native eastern gray, would be euthanized if surrendered to the wildlife care centre. we determined that the squirrel was about seven weeks old. i found instructions and fed the squirrel puppy milk, which i had purchased at the local pet shop, with a baby bottle every few hours. i did not know if the squirrel would live or die—there were two open puncture marks on its head—and i did not have time to think through ethical, or even practical, concerns in regard to caring for a wild animal with young children. within about 24 hours of bringing the creature home, the children returned to school, and we were all faced with figuring out how to coexist in the basement space that is our classroom. although i had concern for the fate of this creature, my focus was on the way in which the children would react to the appearance of a squirrel in their classroom. a tried and true social constructivist with a conventional view of the social realm, i was primarily interested in how the classroom community would make meaning from the experience of caring for a rescue squirrel. it was only later, after encountering haraway, latour, and common worlds pedagogies (common worlds research collective, 2015) that i reflected on the relational aspects of the encounter and considered that there might have been other ways to attend to this experience aside from the anthropocentric sociocultural lens i was accustomed to. as was my common practice at the time, i was looking for a tidy narrative to move and inspire our larger school community. to this end, i sidelined complicated conversations that i was not prepared for and focused on “safe” grapplings, such as the question of how we could give this creature what he needed to survive and thrive. the children had an interest in the squirrel’s “non-native” status. they wondered, as did i, how and why this creature came to be in portland and what it might mean to leave home and go to a place where you are not welcome. although i acknowledged the children’s questions, i chose not to dive deeply into these complex conversations because i feared it would take us into messy territories that would complicate the arc of the story that was already forming in my mind. now i see how staying with the trouble (haraway, 2010, 2016) presented by the messy concepts of borders, migration, and the notions of “native” and “non-native” creatures would have situated our conversations about what a squirrel needs to survive and thrive within the worldly concerns of our time and place (iorio, hamm, parnell, & quintero, 2017). in that moment, however, i opted to focus on comfortable colonialistinspired practices of inviting the children to name the squirrel (they chose pt, short for patter), assign it a gender (male), and regard it as the innocent object of our “rescue.” spring/printemps 2018 62 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice complex squirrel identities/histories in the throwntogetherness (massey, 2005) of our school’s north portland neighbourhood, where humans and nonhumans exist in complex and complicated relations with one another, encounters with what are commonly regarded as wild creatures are commonplace. raccoons, opossum, bats, rabbits, and coyotes are all cohabitants of our school neighbourhood. squirrels are particularly visible and play a significant role in the childhoods of urbandwelling portlanders. though squirrels are often fondly regarded by locals, they hold a complicated place in the common worlds of the pacific northwest. when thinking about these complex histories, the first idea to contend with is the popular archetype of the storybook squirrel. this european-inspired image of the chubby, docile, and beloved emblem of the forest is the prevalent cherished notion of squirrelness that persists in the region. illustrations representative of the storybook squirrel can be found in local art, t-shirts, coffee mugs, greeting cards, and popular media. then there are the complicated realities of real squirrel lives to consider. western gray squirrels, native to the northwest, were once the most common squirrel in urban portland. these creatures are now considered endangered due to disease, vehicles, and habitat loss from development, catastrophic wildfires, and overgrazing. our “rescue” squirrel, an eastern gray, was a non-native “invasive” species from the east coast introduced by humans to the area nearly 100 years ago and the type most commonly encountered today in portland (audubon society of portland, 2017). while the nostalgic storybook squirrel is cherished in our collective cultural imaginings, actual squirrels commonly encountered in the region can bite, scratch, and transmit disease to humans. they dig up bulbs, eat produce from urban gardens, and have been known to store their food in exhaust pipes and take up residence in abandoned cars or unsecured attics and garages. local wildlife experts offer wildly varying recommendations about how to approach squirrels found in city limits depending on the season, the species, and the squirrel’s behaviour. epitomizing the conflicted attitudes toward squirrels, neighbourhood garden stores often sell squirrel repellent, live traps, squirrel-resistant bird food, squirrel food, and squirrel feeders side-by side. the complex identities/histories of squirrels in the pacific northwest are not unlike the complicated and entangled histories of some humans in this region. depending on the context, squirrels have been regarded as docile and figure 1. pt’s hutch. figure 2. storybook squirrel. image by arrowyn craban lauer at http://littlegoldfox.com spring/printemps 2018 63 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice friendly, cherished innocents worthy of rescue and rehabilitation, or reviled as destructive and invasive pests, to be poisoned or, in rural areas, shot on sight. these dichotomous perspectives about squirrels hold the same underlying premise: that squirrels come from nature and thus are alien to our urban environment. as beacons of the natural world, a pristine place far from the reach of humans, squirrels in urban settings are viewed as “the other”—either dangerous invaders or magical messengers of nature, depending on the context. in our squirrel encounter, the classroom community, including myself, had to immediately contend with the behaviour of the rescue squirrel that did not fit with the familiar storybook squirrel archetype. neither docile nor friendly, the squirrel moved about in a frenzy and appeared to regard us with fear and aggression. the squirrel’s panicked manner challenged my rescue narrative. did the squirrel want to be rescued? who was this “rescue” really intended for? “back to nature”: reconceptualizing our north portland neighbourhood as a contact zone once there was a tiny squirrel named pt. his mom went walking in the woods to find meat and she got eaten by a bear. then the bear spitted her out but she was already died. ~from “the story of pt” “the story of pt,” a whimsical story my classroom community created about the rescue squirrel, was informed by the pervasive grand narrative of the nature/culture binary, or the great divide (latour, 2005). this narrative dictates that humans exist outside of nature and that nature is an inanimate place somewhere far away (haraway, 1995). wild animals live in nature but are not necessarily a part of it. using this thinking, it follows that squirrels are “from nature” and must undergo a journey from nature (often envisioned as a forest by children in the pacific northwest) to make their way to an urban environment such as our school in north portland. in the collaborative story written by the children, the squirrel came to our school by treetop from the forest to find refuge after his mother was eaten by a bear. [pt] climbed over ten trees to the st. john’s bridge. he fell through a hole in the bridge and landed on the ground. he wandered around portland and he finally found [our school.]. ~ from “the story of pt” the nature/culture divide and human exceptionalism paradigms (malone, 2016) generate a false construct where agential humans act as stewards upon an objectified nature, to damage, preserve, restore, and rescue (taylor, 2017). though our “rescue” of the eastern gray squirrel was well intended, there is a way in which the notion of rescuing both emerges from and reinforces the nature/culture dichotomy and human exceptionalism, disregarding the complex historical, ethical, and environmental factors that contribute to our current environmental predicament. figure 3. tentative encounters. figure 4. the bear. spring/printemps 2018 64 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice latour’s concept of common worlds (2004, 2009) offers a pedagogical tool to reconceptualize nature, culture, squirrel, child, forest, and city as not separate but rather entangled in mutual natureculture (haraway, 2008) becomings. common worlds frameworks (common worlds research collective, 2015) acknowledge that rather than children engaging with a nature that is far away, naturecultures are imminent, and “already constitut(ing) children’s worldly lives” (taylor, 2013, p. 119). furthermore, common worlds researchers veronica pacini-ketchabaw and fikile nxumalo (2015) discuss the opportunities that animals such as “unruly raccoons” present by transgressing false boundaries and troubling the nature/culture binary. drawing on haraway’s reconceptualization of pedagogical places of encounter as “contact zones of more than human relations” (pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2015, p. 165) common world researchers propose a turn to a relational and ethical pedagogy that acknowledges nonhuman kin as our common world constituents and asks us to carefully consider “who and what belongs” (taylor & giugni, 2012, p.114) in these common worlds we share. challenging human/animal binaries through the lens of my conventional social constructivist perspective, i regarded the children as the central protagonists of the squirrel encounter and their (exclusively human) socially constructed meaning-making process as the phenomenon that gave the experience value. however, as affrica taylor and miriam giugni (2012) remind us, we (humans) are not alone in our common worlds, and these worlds are not only about us. additionally, anna tsing (2012) advances the idea that we ought to reconsider what it means to be human; she contends that “human nature is an interspecies relationship” (tsing, 2012, p. 141). these notions offer a powerful challenge to the exclusively human frameworks that are so deeply embedded in early childhood pedagogies. reconsidering the experience through the lens of common world pedagogies (common worlds research collective, 2015), i wonder what might have been possible if we had attended to the squirrel as multispecies kin rather than an object of rescue and a subject of inquiry for our classroom community. as a longtime early childhood educator, anthropocentric childcentered pedagogies are intertwined in my thinking and practice with young children. i believe that in encounters with the rescue squirrel, the children also defaulted to this familiar anthropocentric paradigm. for instance, though the children had a sense of the squirrel’s agentic nature, their desire to understand the squirrel’s will expressed itself in anthropomorphic terms. two children who “spoke squirrel” asked pt if he wanted to come out of the hutch, despite the dangers present in the yard. communicating orally with the squirrel was the children’s immediate way of acknowledging the presence of a sentient being. figure 5. st. john’s bridge. figure 6. child-made nest for pt. spring/printemps 2018 65 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice likewise, the following excerpt from the narrative the children authored gave the squirrel a context they could relate to as humans, as well as a name, a home, a mother, and a best friend. he [pt] walked down the sidewalk one way, and a paragon falcon was walking down the sidewalk the other way, and they bumped into each other. they started talking. after they talked together for a long time they got friends. they both tried to find their moms together. they lived together in a tiny apartment in portland. i wonder: is children’s tendency to anthropomorphize animals instinctive, or is it learned behaviour informed by pervasive anthropocentric worldviews? though i sit in the tension of not knowing, i hope as an educator to “keep the way open” (osberg & biesta, 2008, p. 325) for possibilities aside from the well-rehearsed narrative of the exceptional human and “non-native” animal, the rescuer and the rescued. rather than limiting each other to these roles or rushing to create a story that makes “the other” feel comfortable and familiar, i would invite the children, as well as myself, to explore differences with a sense of curiosity and to embark on “questioning relationships” (haraway, 2008) with nonhumans. as paciniketchabaw et al. (2015) note, “the places of discomfort are the places we need to learn from ... they are signals for us to pay attention” (p. 39)! thus, we might consider attending to the disequilibrium we experience when we set aside our customary roles.1 i was once an early childhood educator who aspired to bring children “back to nature,” far from the concerns of the city, until i recognized “the immanence of naturecultures already constitut(ing) children’s worldly lives” (taylor, 2013, p. 119). now, rather than solely “following the child,” i recognize the complex and complicated multispecies relations (pacini-ketchabaw, taylor, & blaise, 2016) that characterize children’s daily experiences at school and beyond. i am interested in exploring the relational potential that lies in human/ nonhuman encounters and supporting children in learning with, rather than about, the co-inhabitants of their common worlds (taylor, 2018). figure 7. speaking squirrel. figure 8. tiny apartment. figure 9. pt, the rescue squirrel. spring/printemps 2018 66 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references audubon society of portland. (2017). urban squirrels. retrieved from http://audubonportland.org/wcc/urban/squirrels common worlds research collective. (2015). website homepage. retrieved from http://commonworlds.net haraway, d. (1995). otherworldly conversations, terran topics, local terms. in v. shiva & n. moser (eds.), biopolitics: a feminist and ecological reader on biotechnology (pp. 69–92). london, uk: palgrave macmillan. haraway, d. (2008). when species meet. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. haraway, d. (2010). when species meet: staying with the trouble. environment and planning d: society and space, 28(1), 53–56. haraway, d. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. durham, nc: duke university press. iorio, j. m., hamm, c., parnell, w., & quintero, e. (2017). place, matters of concern, and pedagogy: making impactful connections with our planet. journal of early childhood teacher education, 38(2), 121–135. doi: 10.1080/10901027.2017.1306600 latour, b. (2004). the politics of nature: how to bring science into democracy. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. latour, b. (2005). reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford, uk: oxford university press. latour, b. (2009). on the modern cult of the factish gods. durham, nc: duke university press. lauer, a. c. (2018). storybook squirrel. retrieved from http://littlegoldfox.com malone, k. (2016). reconsidering children’s encounters with nature and place using posthumanism. australian journal of environmental education, 32(1), 42–56. doi: 10.1017/aee.2015.48 massey, d. (2005). for space. london, uk: sage. osberg, d., & biesta, g. (2008). the emergent curriculum: navigating a complex course between unguided learning and planned enculturation. journal of curriculum studies, 40(3), 313–328. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & nxumalo, f. (2015). unruly raccoons and troubled educators: nature/culture divides in a childcare centre. environmental humanities, 7(1), 151–168. doi: 10.1215/22011919-3616380 pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. pacini-ketchabaw, v., taylor, a., & blaise, m. (2016). decentring the human in multispecies ethnographies. in c. taylor & c. hughes (eds.), posthuman research practices in education (pp. 149–167). london, uk: palgrave macmillan. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures of childhood. london, uk: routledge. taylor, a. (2017). beyond stewardship: common world pedagogies for the anthropocene. environmental education research, 23(10), 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452 taylor, a. (2018). situated and entangled childhoods: imagining and materializing children’s common world relations. in m. n. bloch, b. b. swadener, & g. s. cannella (eds.), reconceptualizing early childhood education and care: a reader. critical questions, new imaginaries, and social activism (2nd ed.; pp. 205–214). bern, switzerland: peter lang. taylor, a., & giugni, m. (2012). common worlds: reconceptualising inclusion in early childhood communities. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 108. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.108 tsing, a. (2012). unruly edges: mushrooms as companion species. for donna haraway. environmental humanities, 1(1), 141–154. spring/printemps 2018 67 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice (endnotes) 1 i would like to express my gratitude to catherine hamm, my critical peer-review friend, for her support in the writing of this article. fall/automne 2017 54 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies details and registration available at http://ontarioreggioassociation.ca/event/canadian-study-tour/ in collaboration with reggio children, the ontario reggio association is organizing a canadian study week in reggio emilia march 11 – 16, 2018 summer/ete 2016 13 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research rachelle blanchette deans has been involved in the field of early childhood education in ontario and quebec for over 20 years. she is a recent graduate from the university of british columbia’s master of education in early childhood education online cohort program. she is currently a bilingual early years staff person working in the ontario ministry of education and is registered with the ontario college of early childhood educators. her research interests include francophones in minority settings and bilingualism. email: blanchetterachelle@gmail.com lessons from research for les familles exogames: a literature review rachelle blanchette deans within the broader topic of bilingualism, i examine the early childhood research that is relevant to les familles exogames. this expression is used in the french early childhood and education sectors to refer to families where one parent is french speaking while the other has another (predominantly the english) language (ontario ministry of education, 2004). in examining the research relevant to les familles exogames, i focus on how les familles exogames make decisions with respect to the language or languages spoken at home and how these families choose early childhood settings and schools for their children. significance of and rationale for the topic this topic is relevant to me both personally and professionally. first, this topic is personally relevant to me as i am part of a famille exogame. i am french, while my husband’s first language is english. as young parents, we received conflicting advice about the linguistic and educational choices we were considering for our son. this topic is also relevant to me professionally as a bilingual early years professional in ontario, where french is a minority language. professionals working in family support programs, child care centres, and school boards are serving an increasing number of children from familles exogames. given the conflicting advice that i hear as a parent and as an early years professional, it is important to examine what the research says about the linguistic and educational choices of les familles exogames so that it can guide our practice and the information early childhood professionals share with families. since these families speak different languages, they are faced with more choices when deciding which language or languages to speak at in this article, i draw from a recent graduating project where i examined the lessons from research for les familles exogames. this expression is used in the french early childhood education and education sectors to refer to families where one parent is french speaking while the other has another (predominantly the english) language (ontario ministry of education, 2004). the focus of this article is on parental decisions with respect to language or languages spoken at home and choices of early childhood settings and schools. given the focus on parental choice, the inquiry question is: what does the scholarly research say about linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames? the inquiry centres on the linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames from sociocultural and ecological systems perspectives. i examine the extant literature on bilingualism and, more specifically, on bilingualism in les familles exogames, and i share implications from research that are meaningful to parents and early years professionals. cet article est tiré d’un projet de maîtrise où j’ai examiné les enseignements tirés de la recherche sur les familles exogames. l’expression « familles exogames » est utilisée, dans les secteurs de l’éducation et de l’éducation de la petite enfance en langue française pour désigner les familles formées d’un parent francophone et d’un parent s’exprimant dans une autre (habituellement l’anglais) langue (ministère de l’éducation de l’ontario, 2004). ce document s’intéresse notamment aux décisions que prennent les parents relativement à la langue parlée, ou aux langues parlées, à la maison ainsi qu’au choix du milieu de la petite enfance et de l’école. puisque l’accent est mis sur le choix des parents, la question d’enquête est: que disent les chercheurs au sujet des choix en matière de langue et d’éducation pour les jeunes enfants de familles exogames? l’enquête s’articule autour des choix linguistiques et éducatifs pour les jeunes enfants des familles exogames des points de vue socioculturel et des systèmes écologiques. j’ai ainsi passé en revue les ouvrages publiés qui traitent du bilinguisme, et plus particulièrement du bilinguisme dans les familles exogames, afin de communiquer des résultats de la recherche qui sont utiles aux parents et aux professionnels de la petite enfance. keywords: french, bilingualism, culture, familles exogames, early years summer/ete 2016 14 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research home. les familles exogames may wonder what the best choices are for their children. the choices of les familles exogames are within the context of canada’s two official languages: english and french. french is the minority official language outside of quebec, while english is the minority official language in quebec. to ensure the preservation of both languages and cultures in minority settings, these minority groups have educational and linguistic rights. some of these rights are enshrined in section 23 of the canadian charter of rights and freedoms. under the heading “minority language educational rights” it states: citizens of canada whose first language learned and still understood is that of the english or french linguistic minority population of the province in which they reside; or who have received their primary school instruction in canada in english or french and reside in a province where the language in which they received that instruction is the language of the english or french linguistic minority population of that province have the right to have their children receive primary and secondary school instruction in that language in that province. (canadian charter of rights and freedoms, 1982, s. 23) individuals who have the right to send their children to school in the official language of the minority group of their province are called right holders. in comparing 2001 and 2006 census information, landry (2010) noted an increase from 64% to 66% of the proportion of children from a famille exogame in canada. this means that les familles exogames are the largest client base for french-language school boards outside of quebec. given these facts, it is important for early years professionals to understand how these families make linguistic and educational choices for their children. the purpose of this article the purpose of this article is to present what the scholarly research says about the linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames. the inquiry question is: what does the scholarly research say about linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames? as i present the findings, i also make connections to practice through my interpretation and analysis of the theory and research, with the hope that professionals working in family support programs, child care centres, and school boards will use this information to better support les familles exogames in making informed linguistic and educational choices for their children. definitions of key terms several key terms are important to define before examining the scholarly research. these include les familles exogames, bilingualism, and culture. the expression les familles exogames is derived from the word exogamy, which is “marriage outside a specific group” (merriamwebster, 2014), or mixed unions. but when the term is used within the early childhood and educational contexts in ontario, it refers to families where one parent is french speaking while the other has another (predominantly the english) language (ontario ministry of education, 2004). by contrast, the expression les familles endogames is used to refer to families where both parents are french speaking (ontario ministry of education, 2004). throughout this article, i refer to bilingualism as the use of at least two languages in everyday life (ontario ministry of education, 2004, p. 43). two other key terms associated with bilingualism—subtractive bilingualism and additive bilingualism—are useful for examining the impact of the linguistic and educational choices of les familles exogames and the complex interconnections between languages and the sociocultural context. first, subtractive bilingualism (bilinguisme soustractif) is defined: comme étant une situation où l’apprentissage de la langue seconde se fait au détriment de la langue maternelle où les contacts intensifs avec la langue plus prestigieuse d’un group dominant constituent une menace d’assimilation linguistique. le bilinguisme soustractif n’est souvent qu’une phase transitoire menant vers l’unilinguisme dans la langue seconde. (landry & allard, 1990, p. 529) thus, subtractive bilingualism is defined as a situation where learning a second language is at the detriment of the mother tongue, where summer/ete 2016 15 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research extensive contact with the more prestigious language of a dominant group constitutes a threat of linguistic assimilation. subtractive bilingualism is often a transitory phase toward unilingualism in the second language (landry & allard, 1990, p. 529). by contrast, additive bilingualism (bilinguisme additif) is defined: “comme étant une situation où la langue seconde est apprise sans avoir d’effets néfastes sur le développement et le maintien de la langue de la minorité” (landry & allard, 1990, p. 529), which is a situation where the second language learned does not have negative effects on the development and retention of the minority language (landry & allard, 1990, p. 529). these definitions are important within the context of the research question, which seeks to determine which linguistic and educational choices are more likely to lead to additive bilingualism for the children of the familles exogames. this inquiry is explored within the context of a sociocultural perspective because language and culture are inextricably related. i have often explained that french is more than a language: it is who we are and inseparable from our culture. therefore, it is important to define the term culture. the universal declaration of cultural diversity, adopted by unesco in 2001, defines culture as “the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group [encompassing] in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (p. 4). this commonly accepted definition, however, may lead one to view culture as fixed. for the purposes of this paper, i broaden this definition of culture with rogoff’s (2003) proposition to “think of cultural processes as dynamic properties of overlapping human communities, rather than treating culture as a static social address carried by individuals” (p. 63). sociocultural and ecological systems perspectives my inquiry into the linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames is examined from sociocultural and ecological systems perspectives. i draw on vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory and bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory. whereas vygotsky’s (1978) theory recognizes the importance of the social-cultural context, bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory acknowledges the influence of surrounding environments on the development of the child. within the context of these theories, the acquisition of language is understood not only as a developmental process that follows various stages. rather, language acquisition is conceived also as socially, culturally, and historically situated (vygotsky, 1986). therefore, acquisition of language is not merely learning the mechanics of a language, but is also about the cultural attachment and identities that are interconnected with language(s). vygotsky’s sociocultural theory according to vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, learning and development cannot be separated from the social and cultural contexts in which children live. central to his theory is the role of adults and peers in the child’s learning and development, as well as the child’s active participation. vygotsky (1978) explains that “human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them” (p. 88). therefore, learning and development can be understood not only as biological processes, but also as processes mediated by social, historical, and cultural contexts. in addition to general development and learning, vygotsky (1986) also applied his theory to language and thought more specifically. language acquisition is not only about learning the mechanics of a language, but also about communication, forming relationships, and social interaction. vygotsky (1986) explained that children learn to speak from the people around them and that the “earliest speech of the child is therefore essentially social” (p. 34). in fact, he affirmed that the “primary function of speech, in both children and adults, is communication, social contact” (vygotsky, 1986, p. 34). in addition to communication and building relationships, learning a language is also about learning social and cultural norms. vygotsky (1960/1981) explained that “speech plays a central role in the individual’s social ties and cultural behavior” (p. 159). therefore, the linguistic choices that families make not only determine the sounds, signs, and symbols of the language or languages that children will learn, these choices also influence the “social ties” (p. 159) that children will make, as well as their “cultural behavior” (p. 159). to expand the sociocultural framework, i now turn to the second theory that guides my inquiry. bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory, development is examined within the context of the child’s specific environments, as well as the broader environments—how they interact and influence one another. bronfenbrenner (1979) defined development “as a lasting change in the way in which a person perceives and deals with his environment” (p. 3). in this definition are some important summer/ete 2016 16 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research concepts, including lasting change, perception, and the environment. in other words, development occurs when a change of perception with respect to the environment has a significant impact on the individual. bronfenbrenner (1979) conceived of the ecological environment “as a set of nested structures, each inside the next, like a set of russian dolls” (p. 3). the individual is at the centre as an active participant, within immediate and remote environments that are all interconnected. bronfenbrenner called these environments the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. i examine each system below with illustrations from the language development of children from les familles exogames. the first system and the one closest to the child is the microsystem. it is defined as “as a pattern of activities, roles, and interpersonal relations experienced by the developing person in a given setting with particular physical and material characteristics” (bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 22). for children from les familles exogames, the microsystem would include the language or languages spoken at home by each of their parents, as well as the languages spoken by educators in the early childhood setting chosen by their parents. it would also include the languages spoken by their peers in play situations. the second system is the mesosystem, which “comprises the interrelations among two or more settings in which the developing person actively participates” (bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 25). with respect to a child from a famille exogame, it would be the relationship between the home and the early childhood setting. for example, it involves how the english parent from the famille exogame communicates with the french educators from the child care centre. the third system is more remote environments where the individual may not be present, yet it still influences the person’s development. bronfenbrenner (1979) calls this system the exosystem and explains that it “refers to one or more settings that do not involve the developing person as an active participant, but in which events occur that affect, or are affected by, what happens in the setting containing the developing person” (p. 25). in the case of the child from a famille exogame, this would be the languages spoken by extended family, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. it would also include the languages spoken predominantly in the neighbourhood, in particular the attitudes and influence of the linguistic majority environment. the final system, called the macrosystem, is the most removed from the child; however, it provides the context for the other three systems. bronfenbrenner (1979) explained that the “macrosystem refers to the consistency observed within a given culture or subculture in the form and content of its constituent micro-, meso-, and exosystems, as well as any belief systems or ideology underlying such consistencies” (p. 258). for the child from a famille exogame, this would include the historical context of canada’s two official languages, along with cultural beliefs and ideologies. another example of the influence of the macrosystem would be the educational rights of official language minorities under section 23 of the canadian charter of rights and freedoms, which was presented earlier in this article. as a result of the historical and legislative context, les familles exogames can choose to have their children instructed in either english or french. in the next sections, i further connect bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory and vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory with the extant research. review of scholarly literature relevant to les familles exogames what follows is a thematic review of the literature relevant to my inquiry question: what does the scholarly research say about linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames? relevant literature includes scholarly research on bilingualism and, more specifically, on bilingualism in les familles exogames. since research on the broader topic of bilingualism is extensive, priority is given to researchers who have seen the importance of examining bilingualism from sociocultural and ecological systems perspectives, rather than only from a language development perspective. priority is also given to scholarly work on bilingualism that has implications for the linguistic and education choices of les familles exogames. even when researchers examine bilingualism from sociocultural and ecological systems perspectives, i consider the context of the families represented in the studies. for example, it is important to understand whether scholars are speaking to the english majority, such as healy (2004), newcomers to canada, such as cummins (2001), or the french minority, such as landry (2010), and whether the conclusions they draw are applicable to les familles exogames. les familles exogames are unique in that the language of instruction may be in the minority french language rather than the majority english language, and their children may have more than one mother tongue. summer/ete 2016 17 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research finally, throughout the literature review, i share reflections and draw implications from the research that are meaningful to my personal experience as the francophone parent in a famille exogame and to my professional experience in working with early years professionals who support les familles exogames. as i mentioned previously, in my context as a parent and as an early years professional, i hear conflicting advice about linguistic and educational choices for young children from bilingual families. therefore, i examine how the theory and research presented could guide practice and inform early childhood professionals as they communicate with les familles exogames. linguistic choices since parents in a famille exogame have different mother tongues, they are faced with more linguistic choices. first, they must decide whether to expose their child to one or two languages in the home. if they choose to introduce their child to two languages, they must then decide whether to introduce them simultaneously from birth or sequentially once the first language is established. if both languages are introduced, they must then consider whether to continue to expose their child to both languages. for example, they may wonder if it is best to continue acquisition of two languages if their child is identified as having a special need. one or two languages as mentioned previously, one of the first decisions for les familles exogames is whether to introduce their children to more than one language. scholars confirm that, worldwide, bilingualism and multilingualism are the rule rather than the exception (kohnert & medina, 2009; paradis, genesee, & cargo, 2011). in canada, the number of bilingual and multilingual individuals is increasing. statistics canada (2012) confirms that the number of canadian families speaking more than one language at home is increasing. as well, the number of canadians reporting having more than one mother tongue is also increasing (statistics canada, 2013). an increasing body of research demonstrate the benefits of having more than one mother tongue. one of the most significant benefits for bilinguals in comparison to monolinguals is increased cognitive skills in children and adults, specifically in executive functioning (bialystok, 2010). in addition to this cognitive advantage, which is examined in more detail later in this article, there are economic advantages to being a proficient french and english bilingual in canada. those who are bilingual in french and english are more likely to be employed and to have a higher income (canadian council on learning, 2008). this economic advantage is important for les familles exogames to consider. another important advantage to being bilingual is the social and cultural benefits. bialystok (2010) explains that it “has always been self-evident that bilingualism conferred certain social and communicative advantages because of the increased possibility for interacting with groups of people, for an enriched understanding of different nations, cultures, and rituals” (p. 10). this aligns with the sociocultural theory presented earlier in which learning a language is also interrelated with learning sociocultural practices, values, and beliefs (vygotsky, 1960/1981). children from les familles exogames, therefore, have the opportunity to identify with the language, culture, history, and heritage of both of their parents (dalley, 2006). as well as connections to culture, bilingualism allows the children of les familles exogames the opportunity to communicate and form relationships with family, friends, and extended family from both languages. when to introduce a second language if parents have decided to introduce their children to two languages, the next question is when to introduce a second language. since each parent has a different mother tongue, they have the opportunity to introduce two languages from birth. yet, there seems to be some conflicting research findings with respect to recommended age for acquisition of two languages. some literature would lead one to believe that it is best to wait until a child has a strong foundation in a first language before introducing a second language. for example, healy (2004) affirms that “once the grammar of one language is mastered, it is easier to learn others” (p. 202). ball (2010) supports establishing a strong foundation in the minority mother tongue before introducing the majority language. cummins (2001), however, highlights the benefits of developing two languages at the same time: “when children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school years, they gain a deeper understanding of language and … have more practice in processing” (p. 17). summer/ete 2016 18 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to resolve this apparent conflict, i turn to the classic work of american researcher krashen (1982). he seems to agree with healy (2004) and ball (2010) when he asserts that “older children acquire faster than younger children, time and exposure held constant” (krashen, 1982, p. 40). nevertheless, krashen goes on to explain that it is equally true that “acquirers who begin natural exposure to second languages during childhood generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as adults” (p. 40). another way to explain it is that in the short term, adults and older children will generally make more progress, while in the long run, younger children will generally attain higher proficiency. although krashen’s (1982) work dates back a few decades, he affirms in the foreword to the 2009 internet edition that these and other findings are still relevant. benefits and challenges of learning two languages from birth the findings from the extant literature of children who are exposed to two languages from birth establish that there are both benefits and challenges to learning two languages from birth. previously i mentioned that one of the benefits to bilinguals is improved cognitive skills, particularly executive function. executive function involves cognitive abilities such as self-control, working memory, and mental flexibility. studies have demonstrated that early bilingualism leads to improved self-control, focus, and the ability to ignore distractions (bialystok &viswanathan, 2009; carlson & meltzoff, 2008; kovács & mehler, 2009; poulin-dubois, blaye, coutya, & bialystok, 2010). the research demonstrates that this cognitive advantage is present from as young as 7 months when infants are exposed to two languages (kovács & mehler, 2009). further, this cognitive advantage continues throughout early childhood (carlson & meltzoff, 2008; poulin-dubois et al., 2010) and into middle childhood (bialystok & viswanathan, 2009). the cognitive advantage is not only present in childhood. elevated executive functioning continues into adulthood (bialystok, craik, klein, & viswanathan, 2004) and seems to be associated with continued proficiency in both languages (paradis et al., 2011). another interesting study posits that bilingualism may actually be a protective factor against diseases such as alzheimer’s. the study found that from the point of diagnosis for dementia, symptoms appeared four years later for bilingual individuals than for their monolingual counterparts (bialystok, craik, & freedman, 2007). although studies have documented the cognitive advantage in executive functioning for children learning two languages from birth, there are also some perceived challenges. the first is with respect to the vocabulary of children introduced to two languages from birth. there is a significant difference in expressive vocabulary for these children when comparing the vocabulary of one of the languages to their monolingual counterparts (junker & stockman, 2002; pearson, fernández, & oller, 1993; thordardottir, 2011). for example, this difference was noted in three studies: the first for infants and toddlers exposed to spanish and english (pearson et al., 1993); the second for toddlers exposed to german and english (junker & stockman, 2002); and the third for 5-year-olds exposed to english and french (thordardottir, 2011). notwithstanding that there is a difference in expressive vocabulary, researchers found no difference is receptive vocabulary between the bilingual and monolingual children that they studied. further, the pooled expressive vocabulary of both languages was equivalent to that of monolingual children. pearson, fernández, and oller (1993) explain it this way: in our data, the bilingual children’s productive capabilities seemed more evenly split between the languages, and although each individual language showed fewer words than in the monolingual children, measures of the bilingual child’s production in the two languages together indicated comparable vocabularies for bilingual and monolingual children. (p. 113) in other words, children may understand a word in both languages and be able to say it in only one of the languages. a second perceived challenge with bilingualism is with respect to switching between languages. when young children are using their expressive vocabulary, they may actually use both languages in the same phrase. for example, they may say “veux milk” which is “want milk” in english, or “my poupée” which is “my doll” in english. this is called code switching (paradis et al., 2011). some have interpreted code switching as evidence that the child is confused and has only one language system with both languages combined together (volterra & taeschner, 1978). yet, code switching is a common part of the process of becoming bilingual (genesee, 2009; goldstein & kohnert, 2005). in fact, other scholars see code switching in young children as a sign of resourcefulness in communicating by making use of the burgeoning vocabulary of both languages (deuchar & quay, 1998; genesee, 1989). a third perceived challenge with respect to bilingualism is the belief that the child will not be as proficient in the majority language. yet, the research reviewed affirms that bilingualism should not be equated with less proficiency in a majority language such as english summer/ete 2016 19 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research (cummins, 2001; krashen, 1982; landry & allard, 1997). in fact, researchers believe that a bilingual person may actually know the english language better than those who speak only english. cummins (2001) substantiates this when he explains that bilingual children gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively … [t]hey are able to compare and contrast the ways in which their two languages organize reality. more than 150 research studies conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what goethe once said, “the person who knows only one language does not truly know that language.” (p. 17) reflections given the social and cultural benefits of bilingualism presented previously, i am generally surprised with the reservations expressed by some individuals to support bilingualism. bialystok (2010) explains: “it has always been self-evident that bilingualism conferred certain social and communicative advantages … yet for a long time it was believed that these benefits came with a significant cost, especially for children” (p. 10). i call this approach the “yes, but” reaction, where an individual recognizes the advantages, but is discouraged by the assumed challenges. for example, i often hear “yes, knowing two languages is good, but the child’s english will suffer.” yet, this myth was debunked when the research reviewed affirmed that bilingualism and less proficiency in a majority language such as english are not synonymous (cummins, 2001; krashen, 1982; landry & allard, 1997). another “yes, but” assertion i often hear is with respect to introducing two languages simultaneously, rather than sequentially, once the first language is established. it is often said that “bilingualism is good, but the child will be confused if they learn both languages at the same time.” code switching is often cited as evidence of this confusion. yet, the research cited previously confirms that code switching is common for children exposed to two languages (genesee, 2009; goldstein & kohnert, 2005) and may actually be a sign of resourcefulness by making use of the burgeoning vocabulary of both languages (deuchar & quay, 1998; genesee, 1989). my own experience in a famille exogame supports this. when our son was a toddler, we affectionately called the code switching “frenglish” or “franglais.” it seemed to us as if he was trying to make a sentence with the limited vocabulary that he had, regardless of the language. i still remember the day our then preschool-aged son expressed himself in a complete sentence in english to his father, then turned to me and repeated everything in french. i was thrilled with his progress and relieved that our experience countered the perceived challenge to learning two languages simultaneously. i now know that our experience also aligned with the extant research. it is not only important to inform parents that code switching is part of typical development for young bilingual children, but it is also important to familiarize them with the benefits of introducing two languages simultaneously from birth. it is imperative that early childhood professionals be informed by the extant research in order for them to support families in making informed linguistic choices. in addition, families would then be better positioned to defend their choices when faced with conflicting advice and opposing points of view. bilingualism and children with special needs as parents in a famille exogame make linguistic choices, they may also wonder whether it is in their child’s best interest to have two languages if their child has a special need. while the research at the intersection of a particular special need and monolingual children is quite extensive, the research at the intersection of a particular special need and bilingual children is more limited. to illustrate my point, consider the study by kohnert and medina (2009), who conducted a research retrospective of communication disorders and bilingual children. they found that “the number of peer-reviewed empirical studies investigating monolingual children with speech or language disorders in a single year far surpasses the number of studies published at the intersection of bilingualism and communication disorders over five decades” (kohnert & medina, 2009, p. 222). although the research investigating bilingual children with a particular special need is more limited, the findings from the extant research are striking. the research suggests that bilingualism is not a risk factor for young children with special needs such as down syndrome (edgin, kumar, spanò, & nadel, 2011; feltmate & kay-raining bird, 2008; kay-raining bird, trudeau, thordardottir, sutton, & thorpe, 2005; valdivia, 2005), autism spectrum disorder (hambly & fombonne, 2011; ohashi et al., 2011; petersen, marinova-todd, & mirenda, 2012) and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (hermodson-olsen, 2012). in fact, based on initial research conducted with bilingual children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, some scholars wonder if the increased executive functioning found in bilingual children lessens the expression of the disorder (bialystok, 2010; wodniecka & cepeda, 2007). the researchers reviewed for this article have acknowledged that literature is more limited for bilingual children with a particular special need, but given summer/ete 2016 20 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the predominance globally of bilingualism and multilingualism, they have called on others to replicate their studies. while the finding that bilingualism is not a risk factor for certain special needs is one reason for continuing to choose bilingualism when a child has a special need, there are also sociocultural reasons for les familles exogames to consider. as mentioned previously, vygotsky (1960/1981) explained that “speech plays a central role in the individual’s social ties and cultural behaviour” (p. 159). bilingualism can be an integral part of the child’s identity, particularly when the parents have different first languages and cultures and when the child’s mother tongue is other than english. to avoid bilingualism would impair the child’s ability to fully communicate with family and friends from both language groups. as well, avoidance of bilingualism could lead to subtractive bilingualism and ultimately to assimilation in the majority language and culture, not just for the child, but potentially for other family members as well. reflections thordardottir (2006) explains: “traditionally, avoidance of bilingualism was routinely recommended for children with developmental deficits and indications are that this practice is still widespread” (p. 7). as a bilingual early childhood professional, i routinely hear from parents of children with special needs that they are being counselled to focus on english with the rationale that the majority language is needed for their child to function in society, but the minority language is not. early childhood intervention professionals would benefit from awareness of the idea that language is interconnected with culture, history, heritage, and social competence. as such, bilingualism is a legitimate goal for all children, including children with special needs. it is equally important for families with children with special needs to be aware of this information as they interact with early childhood professionals and specialists. to illustrate my point, i recount my experience as a parent of a child suspected of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. given that my brother and sister both have attention deficit disorder, i have carefully observed my son’s high levels of activity and challenges with focusing. when he was 4 years old, i booked an appointment with a social worker at a local children’s mental health agency to see if she had strategies to better support our son. after listening to my observations and experiences with my son, the social worker asked me if i would consider “forgetting the french.” i left the appointment in shock and grief. i called back a week later when i had gained some composure to ask that my file be transferred to the francophone social worker that i knew was on staff. i explained that her comment about “forgetting the french” had troubled me and that i felt the francophone social worker on staff would understand that french is more than a language; it is part of who we are. in addition to the sociocultural argument i was making at the time, the social worker and i would have benefitted from knowing that bilingualism may actually be beneficial for children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder by improving their ability to focus, concentrate, and ignore distractions (bialystok, 2010; hermodson-olsen, 2012; wodniecka & cepeda, 2007). educational choices after determining what languages to speak at home, les familles exogames need to consider early childhood settings for their children. research demonstrating the benefits of early childhood settings, such as family support programs, child care, and kindergarten, are well documented and summarized in reports such as the early years study: reversing the real brain drain (mccain & mustard, 1999) and with our best future in mind: implementing early learning in ontario, report to the premier by the special advisor on early learning (pascal, 2009). one of the research projects featured in pascal’s (2009) report was the piloting of full-day every-day kindergarten programs in french schools in ontario. french school boards wanted to see if full-day kindergarten programs improve outcomes for children attending french schools. however, it was not simply academic skills that interested the school board, it was also the cultural and social dimension of the program (lajoie & masny, 1994). in the early 1990s, french school boards began to offer full-day senior kindergarten programs, although only half a day was funded by the ontario ministry of education. one of the first studies on the impact of these programs was a longitudinal study comparing half-day and full-day senior french kindergarten (masny, lajoie, & pelletier, 1993). the study documented improved french pre-writing and writing skills (masny et al., 1993). once full-day senior kindergarten was implemented in the french school boards across ontario, studies began to emerge with respect to junior-kindergarten-aged children from both les familles exogames and les familles endogames (herry, maltais, & mougeot, 2008; maltais, 2005, 2007; maltais, herry, emond, & mougeot, 2011). one longitudinal study compared half-day and full-day junior kindergarten. at grade 2, improved language and reading were noted in children from the full-day program (herry et al., 2008), whereas at grade 4, “linguistic and academic development in reading and mathematics” in children from the full-day program (maltais et al., summer/ete 2016 21 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2011, p. 67) was enhanced. another important finding at grade 2 was the increased rate of retention of children within the french school system. the study found that while 68% of children in the half-day junior kindergarten program were still with the school board in grade 2, 76% of children in the full-day junior kindergarten program remained in the french system (herry et al., 2008). this transfer out of the french system between grades 1 and 2 has been a concern for french school boards in their mandate to promote and preserve the french language and culture. there are also studies from ontario that examine the effectiveness of family literacy programs for families who are right holders, meaning they are eligible to send their children to french schools (bissonnette, 2009; letouzé, 2005, 2006, 2007). letouzé’s (2005, 2006, 2007) studies were conducted over five years, with five cohorts participating in seven family literacy programs throughout ontario. she found many benefits to the programs, including increased parental engagement with their child in literacy-related activities in the home, both in general and in french. letouzé (2005, 2006, 2007) also found that the programs were most successful when the model allowed parents and their children to participate together, rather than parents only. one of the seven literacy programs that was assessed through letouzé’s (2005, 2006, 2007) studies was the program offered at the french literacy centre in kingston, ontario. bissonnette (2009) credits the success of the program to adaptations that were made in response to cultural, educational, community, and individual literacies of participants from this francophone minority setting. all of the aforementioned studies on the effect of french kindergarten and french family literacy programs in ontario acknowledge the impact of living in english majority communities, as well as the impact of the languages spoken in the home on outcomes for children. this is an example of the influence of the various systems outlined by bronfenbrenner (1979). reflections in reviewing the literature, it has become clear that french early years programs such as child care, family support programs, and kindergarten support the linguistic and educational choices of les familles exogames toward additive bilingualism (letouzé, 2005, 2006, 2007; maltais, 2005, 2007). while full-day kindergarten is universal in several provinces, including prince edward island, nova scotia, new brunswick, ontario, and british columbia, child care and family support programs are not. this is problematic when the current capacity is insufficient to meet the demand for service, given that les familles exogames rely on the support of programs and institutions for the transmission and preservation of the french language and culture. for example, in one of the communities in the region where i work, municipal partners report significant wait lists for child care spaces, including spaces in french programs. i remember as a francophone parent calling the french daycare repeatedly asking where i was on the wait list. i was desperate for my son to have a space in a french environment because i noticed the ever-widening gap between his english and french skills the longer he was in an english child care setting. i also work with partners who operate family support programs. they report that they limit parent and caregiver participation due to limited funding. other family support programs struggle to offer services in french. given the benefits of these programs in increasing exposure to the french language, these situations have implications for system leaders within the early years sector, such as provincial governments, french school boards, and community agencies, in planning for and expanding the availability of french early childhood programs and services. les familles exogames cannot choose french early childhood settings if they do not exist or they cannot access them because of long wait lists. landry (2010) asserts that “la petite enfance est le fondement de l’éducation et que sa contribution essentielle ne peut plus être sous-estimée” (p. 46), meaning that since early years programming is foundational to the education system, we can no longer underestimate its critical contribution (p. 46) in the transmission of the french language. linguistic and educational choices in the ecological systems within an ecological systems perspective, one of the goals of the french early childhood programs highlighted in the previous section is to increase exposure to french, particularly when english is spoken at home, as is the case for some familles exogames, and when english is the majority language in the community. although there is a point where exposure no longer has an effect on language development (gathercole & hoff, 2007), some scholars argue that the exposure threshold is higher for minority languages (pearson, 2007; pearson, fernández, lewedag, & oller, 1997; vihman, lum, thierry, nakai, & keren-portnoy, 2006), including french in minority settings (bournet-trites & reeder, 2001; landry, allard, & deveau, 2007; reeder, buntain, & takakuma, 1999). therefore, examining the interconnectedness between the home, the educational setting, and the community is important in order to understand the linguistic and summer/ete 2016 22 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research educational choices of les familles exogames that lead to additive bilingualism and those that lead to subtractive bilingualism. one of the most significant studies that examined the interconnectedness of the ecological systems for les familles exogames living in minority settings was conducted by landry and allard (1997). this pan-canadian study found that when the francophone parent from a famille exogame speaks french to the child and the child attends a french school, it is strongly associated with high proficiency in both french and english, resulting in additive bilingualism (landry & allard, 1997). where school was the only exposure to french for children living in minority settings, the study found high proficiency in english and moderate proficiency in french. in fact, this study (landry & allard, 1997) found higher french competencies and, most significantly, higher english competencies for high school students attending french schools from a famille exogame where one parent spoke french in the home in comparison to students from a famille exogame where the parents spoke english only in the home. this would be an important finding for les familles exogames if they value having high proficiency in both official languages. using their findings, landry, allard, and deveau (2007) presented “the counterbalance model of bilingual development” (p. 142), where the home and the educational setting counterbalance the linguistic vitality of the majority language in the surrounding community. conclusions from other studies (landry, deveau, & allard, 2006), including longitudinal studies in the early years (chartier, dumaine, & sabourin, 2011; maltais, 2007; patry, legault, lalonde, & rodier, 2014), are consistent with landry et al.’s (2007) counterbalance model of bilingual development. for example, maltais (2007) examined the impact of a french junior kindergarten program for ontario children with high and low levels of french in their home literacy activities. she found that children with low levels of french in their home literacy activities made significant gains in language that were maintained at the end of grade 2, although these children never reached the same level of french-language proficiency as children with high levels of french in their home literacy activities. a study from manitoba also sees the importance of increasing exposure to french in the early years and documents improved language development up to grade 3 as a result (chartier et al., 2011). additionally, patry, legault, lalonde, and rodier (2014) examined the effects of a preschool program combined with a family literacy component specifically designed for children living in french minorities in alberta, ontario, and new brunswick. before publishing the results in 2014, the social research and demonstration corporation (2012) explained the purpose of combining the preschool program and the family literacy component on their website as follows: “because the two components of the program have already been evaluated separately and shown to be effective, the real research question is to find out if, together, the two components make a difference” (“how the project works,” para. 3). patry et al. (2014) found that all children in the program group progressed and continued to progress, with results most significant for children with high exposure to french in their home environment. patry et al. (2014) explain that this “advantage in favour of the children in the program … with high exposure confirms the importance of exposing children to a high degree of french to offset the majority anglophone setting of the community in which the children are being raised” (p. 115). their conclusion aligns with that of landry and allard (1997) on the importance of the home and educational settings to counterbalance the influence of the majority language community setting. this counterbalance model of bilingual development (landry et al., 2007) is not only applicable to linguistic and cognitive-academic competencies, but also to cultural identity, as evidenced by the research of landry, deveau, and allard (2006). the first interesting finding of this pan-canadian study of high school students is that it is possible to have both a strong francophone identity and a bilingual identity. in addition, a strong correlation was found between the percentage of francophones in a community and identification with the french language and culture on a sliding scale, meaning that the higher the linguistic vitality, the stronger the french identity. this same correlation on a sliding scale was found between the level of french oral and cognitive-academic competencies and french identity. yet, just like in the previous study by landry and allard (1997), this study shows “how language socialization in the family and at school compensate for the low ethno-linguistic vitality of the french-speaking communities” (landry et al., 2006, p. 55). in other words, the combination of one parent from a famille exogame speaking french in the home and attendance at a french school was correlated strongly with both a french and a bilingual identity. reflections previously, it was established that a child’s language development is mediated by the collective environments, including the home, early childhood setting, community, media, policy, and societal beliefs (bronfenbrenner, 1979). les familles exogames and early years professionals in french minority settings may not understand how combined linguistic and educational choices impact the bilingualism of young children. summer/ete 2016 23 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in my experience, families generally underestimate the influence of the broader english community on their child’s bilingual development. landry et al. (2007) claim that “a majority of francophone parents believe that the best bilingual program for their child is the 50/50 model” (p. 141). as a young parent, i also believed that my son would be proficient in both english and french if i exposed him equally to both languages. however, i had only accounted for exposure at home and in an early childhood program and had not considered the english majority community where we lived, played, shopped, and attended church. my husband and i had even considered sending our son to a french immersion program rather than a french school. our thought was that there would be more of a balance between the two languages. le centre canadien de leadership en evaluation (le clé) explains the difference between a french immersion program and a french school: a french immersion program is a program offered by an english school board that allows “students to learn french as a second language” (le clé, 2010, para. 2), whereas a french school is operated by a french school board “where students learn and live in a french environment” (le clé, 2010, para. 2). i have often heard it said that french immersion is french as a second language, whereas french school is french as a first language. as young parents, we also came to understand that a french school is not simply concerned with language acquisition, but with creating a space to live and learn in french and to identify with french cultures. although my husband and i chose to speak both languages at home, we quickly learned that for our son to be proficient in both languages, we had to give him more exposure to the french language given that we lived in an english majority community. therefore, we were thrilled when we finally secured him a space in a french child care centre and were able to enrol him in a french school for kindergarten. through my work, i continue to meet other familles exogames with the same misconception about the effectiveness of the 50/50 model. some do send their children to french immersion programs. another variation of the 50/50 model i have often seen among les familles exogames is english at home and french at school or at child care. the reasoning underlying this approach is that the entire family unit speaks the one language that both parents understand: english. the transmission of the french language is left to the school. although the child’s first language is english in this instance, the family can still send their child to french school because the francophone parent is a french minority language educational right holder. in my experience, this scenario is particularly prevalent when the francophone parent has experienced subtractive bilingualism through limited use of the french language in their daily life. when i meet these parents, they often apologize for not speaking french to me, explaining that they have “lost their french” through lack of use. these parents hope that the english at home and french at school approach will lead to high proficiency in both languages. unfortunately, high proficiency in both languages is not as strongly associated with the 50/50 model as it is with the counterbalance model of bilingual development (landry et al., 2007). conclusion i was motivated to review the scholarly literature relevant to les familles exogames because i was hearing conflicting advice, both personally as a parent in a famille exogame and professionally as a bilingual early years professional. all of the research presented in this article helped me to respond to my inquiry question: what does the scholarly research say about linguistic and educational choices for young children from les familles exogames? there were however three findings i consider the most significant. the first significant finding was the cognitive benefits of bilingualism from birth to adulthood. given the perceived challenges that were identified throughout the project, it was significant to discover that research confirms improved executive functioning for bilinguals in comparison to monolinguals. second, the research presented for specific disorders suggested that bilingualism was not a risk factor for children with special needs. these findings are significant because they impact how early childhood professionals and specialists approach intervention for young bilingual children with special needs. the final significant finding was the veracity of the counterbalance model of bilingual development advanced by landry et al. (2007), where the home and the educational setting counterbalance the linguistic vitality of the majority language in the surrounding community. it was important for me to understand the impact of the combinations of linguistic and educational choices of les familles exogames. these significant findings and others from the review of the literature were used to debunk myths that may be contributing to subtractive bilingualism, such as the “english will suffer” myth and “the child will be confused” myth. this inquiry has been beneficial to me both personally and professionally. i am more confident in the linguistic and educational choices my husband and i are making as a famille exogame because of the lessons i have learned from the research. in my work as a bilingual early years professional, i am eager to continue sharing the research with other professionals and les familles exogames. landry (2010) has inspired me to diffuse the lessons from research when he says: summer/ete 2016 24 vol. 41 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research il ne reste qu’une option pour promouvoir le bilinguisme additif des enfants, celle d’une forte sensibilisation/conscientisation des parents et des membres de la communauté. des personnes conscientisées et engagées peuvent exercer une forme d’autodétermination et tenter de vivre en français en dépit des obstacles. 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(2007). beyond the classroom: bilingualism, cognitive skills, and health. mosaic 9(3), 3–8. retrieved from: http://www.yorku.ca/ncepeda/publications/wc2007.pdf july 2021 34 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research what is a child? exploring conceptualization of pakistani adolescents about children azher hameed qamar azher hameed qamar has a phd in interdisciplinary child research from norwegian university of sciences and technology, norway. his research focuses on childcare beliefs and practices and the social value of the child. he is an assistant professor in the department of behavioral sciences, national university of sciences and technology pakistan and a postdoctoral researcher in the school of social work, lund university, sweden. email: azher_hameed.qamar@soch.lu.se “concepts” as tools for analysis (nilsen, 1990) help to dig deeply into the social construction process in specific sociocultural contexts. conceptualizing children in childhood studies is significant to understand childhood in diverse cultures. every child has a childhood that varies depending on social context and differences regarding the conceptualization of children and their characteristics. in the sociology of childhood, research about children in their social context requires an investigation of the conceptualization of children (christensen & prout, 2005; james et al., 1998; jenks, 1996; punch, 2002; sommer et al., 2010). the new sociology of childhood emphasizes studying children as social actors in their social contexts who are conscious, thinking individuals with the capacity to shape their world in a variety of ways by reflecting on their situation and the choices available to them at any given time (james, 2007). being a child is not a universal experience; it is socially constructed and shaped by a range of social, cultural, and historical dynamics (franklin, 1995; james & prout, 1990; punch et al., 2012). in most societies there is a clear distinction between childhood and adulthood, and different norms, values, and expectations are attached to them (franklin, 1995; montgomery, 2003). hence, the question “what is a child?” brings to light people’s understanding of the “child” as a concept that may be useful to investigate parenting practices, children’s lives, and childhood in their social context. the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc, 1989) is considered a successful un convention about children recognized by the whole world (except somalia and the usa). the uncrc defines a child as a human being below the age of 18 (uncrc, article 1). this numerical definition does not include a minimum age; hence, it may extend to considering a fetus as a child (as is seen in several cultures). social research, in general, refers to a group of children (and young people) who are defined as children under uncrc (punch et al., 2012). however, mayall (2012) emphasizes studying children as a social group like other major groups in the society, “not defined by age, but as one defined by social, economic and political class” (p. 348). this emphasis spotlights the contested issue of the universality of numerical age (james & james, 2012) and the tendency to see childhood as a social and cultural construct. the concept of chronological age seems universal when observed by international this study aimed to investigate the responses of university students (late adolescents) about their conceptualization of a child, exploring the characteristics they associate with being a child. the study was conducted in two phases. in phase 1, responses to one open-ended question, what is a child? (n=75), were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. in phase 2, students (n=90) filled in an online closed-ended survey that was derived from the subthemes that emerged from the qualitative data collected in phase 1. findings revealed multiple interconnected aspects of the conceptualization of the child, making it a complex whole. this study is helpful for understanding the concept of the child grounded in various theoretical and mythological categories that portray the complexities of existing dichotomies that often come up as interconnected in traditional societies. key words: child; evil child; innocent child; agentic child; human-being; human-becoming july 2021 35 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research laws; however, in practice, contrary to traditional societies where age is perceived in its biological perspectives, the modern western construct of age links the chronological and social age of the child (halcrow & tayles, 2008). in traditional (particularly agrarian) societies there is a close link between children’s biological age and their social participation. several children’s activities require physical competence to participate in domestic tasks seen as a process of learning cultural and vocational skills to enhance the continuity of the socialization process (abebe, 2007; chant & jones, 2003; priblisky, 2001; punch, 2001, 2002; kesby et al., 2006). similarly, children’s biological growth places them in categories of boys and girls, explicitly segregating them into two different social groups. hence, the biological changes in the body are seen as a standard by which to both measure the child’s physical strength to perform different activities and to assign gender roles and structured boundaries. though these roles and boundaries are context specific, they make a difference in the perceptions about children and childhood, emphasizing the connection between biological and social age. even though the numerical definition of the child is used in legislation and is a part of policy documents about children, i am looking into the conceptualization of a child beyond this general definition. in the following passages, i present important theories about children and childhood that will provide a top-down conceptual stance of the study. i begin with mythological images of children that perceive innocence and evil as “natural” constructs defining the “child” and constituting parenting practices accordingly. later, i present the understanding of children and childhood as theorized in the new sociology of childhood that contests the socialization and developmental theories in sociology and psychology. innocence versus evil: mythological images the innate nature of the child (as perceived by the society) affects the conceptualization of the child and different issues related to parenting and child-rearing practices. for example, considering the child as “naturally good” emphasizes the society’s responsibility to protect the child, particularly during early childhood, from corruption by developing the child according to his or her “natural” needs (cunningham, 1995; fass, 2004). conversely, a child who is “naturally evil” needs strict discipline to get rid of the evil disposition and to become a good adult (jenks, 1996; sorin, 2005). the views about children’s innate nature range from seeing them as sinful, polluted creatures to seeing them as innocent beings born naturally good (hartas, 2008). jenks (1996) described these two (at different times) popular traditions of conceptualizing the child as mythological images and named them dionysian child and apollonian child. he linked these images with the exercise of social control in europe and a shift from an “old european order to the new order of modern industrial society” (p. 74). the two images are contrasted to each other with their descriptions of a child born innately evil (dionysian child) or innately innocent (apollonian child). note that these are concepts leading to subsequent constructions of childhood; they do not mean that a child is necessarily evil or innocent. jenks made it clear that these are powerful images that empower “normal” discourses about children, but they do not contribute to intrinsically different children. dionysian child: evil the dionysian child is associated with the doctrine of adamic original sin, a dominant discourse in christianity (jenks, 1996; sorin, 2005). according to the discourse of original sin, “the new-born baby is full of the stains and pollution of sin, which it inherits from our first parents through our loins” (demause, 1974, p. 10). jenks explains that the concept of the evil child existed in the 16th century when children were vulnerable to corruption and parenting consisted of unfriendly and harsh moral supervision and strict discipline. nevertheless, sorin (2005) points out that current concepts of discipline and punishment in schooling connect with the notion of the evil child. she describes the reinforcement of the “evil child” image in teachers’ disciplinary actions aimed at teaching behaviour as expected by the adults. the disciplinary power that parents and teachers exercise is a mode of socializing the child into a “good” adult. in the school setting, the explicitly decisive adult control and passiveness of the child construct childhood as a stage for learning to be an adult. training through punishment and discipline is a practice that can be found in empirical findings. during my research on primary schooling in rural punjab, pakistan (qamar, 2010), i visited a public primary school and noticed a statement written on the school gate: “no beating, only love.” this was a slogan emphasized by the government to stop corporal punishment in the schools. during an july 2021 36 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research informal discussion with a group of teachers, two children who were fighting came to them with complaints about each other. one of the teachers slapped both the children. when i asked him about it, he told me that these two kids were naughty and always destroyed discipline in the classroom. the teacher’s description discloses an action he engaged in to maintain discipline. however, it shows a conceptual stance that children are naughty and that punishment is a mode of training and teaching discipline. i met several teachers and parents who believed in punishment to correct children, even though they were not clear about “how much” punishment. a general thought was, “it depends on how naughty or disobedient the child is.” “discipline” and “obedience” are two perceived traits of a “good” child that help children grow into successful adult members of punjabi society. hence, punishment (or at least the fear of punishment) is a “useful” parenting and teaching strategy in this context. apollonian child: innocence the apollonian child is a western way of viewing infants as naturally angelic and innocent. an apollonian child does not inherit the original sin but is a descendant of “a humankind before either eve or the apple” (jenks, 1996, p. 73). children, in this image, are born good with natural virtues and disposition; hence, they should be encouraged and facilitated. jenks views the formalization of the apollonian child in line with the manifesto emile, authored by rousseau. in this perspective, children, due to their innate innocence, deserve special care and attention. childhood (for an innocent child) is a pure time of life separate from adulthood when children need protection and care by adults (sorin, 2005). this image reinforces the right to life and the healthy development of a child before birth (jenks, 1996). there are several serious social concerns (such as sexual harassment, molestation, violence) that conceptualize children as being at risk. the concepts of a “sacred” child and a child at risk strengthen the discourse of innocence and the perception that children need adult protection. there are several protective measures that adults adapt to shelter children from the harmful influences of the world. children without adult protection are exposed to violence, molestation, fear, and anxiety. however, adult protection is provided at the cost of limiting children’s participation and agency through an adult view of children as fragile, incompetent, and dependent (sorin, 2005). nevertheless, the notion of weakness and dependence is central to the children portrayed as sick, poor, and hungry in the global south. hence, “what a child should be” resists the idealized notion of the child as an “independent” human being who can resist their “childish” status (burman, 1994). the discourses of evil and innocence persist in different social issues regarding children in society. a child as a victim is seen as innocent, and a child committing a crime may be seen as an evil child. innocence is linked with the vulnerability that leads to the child’s weak social status and gives space for adults’ demand for obedience (meyer, 2007). viewing children as evil or innocent shares a conceptual similarity, and children in both images are dependent on adults (sorin, 2005). in the case of children’s evil nature, adults shape them to learn obedience and submission, and children are required to listen to whatever adults command, advise, and expect. this is seen as a key to becoming a good adult. on the other hand, an innocent child needs adult protection. children, with their innocence, are ignorant and fragile. in both cases, children’s voices are muted in these two mythological images. conceptualization of children in sociology of childhood to study children and their childhood with a sociological lens, a researcher identifies the commonalities of childhood in different societies. a universal understanding of these commonalities that constitutes children as a social group includes the difference of children from adults and their submission to and dependency on adults (mayall, 2012). in the global model of childhood, this distinction between children and adults is seen as natural and universal. children’s smaller, weaker status is defined by the things they “cannot do.” in this model, the notion of “competency” (or lack thereof ) is defined by comparing what children “cannot” do with what adults can do. this adult-centric comparison is tied up with a future orientation of children (jenks, 1996; qvortrup, 2009). hence, the traditional perspective in the sociology of childhood constitutes the “child” as a human becoming who is dependent on adults due to its vulnerability, incompetence, and powerlessness. several developmental and socialization theories support this conceptualization. a taken-for-granted biological immaturity and psychological incompetency imply a stage-like progression of a human becoming (the child) gradually developing into a human being (the adult). moreover, the developmental paradigm informs the early educational system, placing children july 2021 37 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research as underdeveloped cognitive biological bodies and incorporating predetermined pedagogies to shape children as perceived and required by the system (vintimilla & pacini-ketchabaw, 2020). this “colonization” of childhood undermines children’s experiences as individuals in their own right and universalizes the psychological construction of development placing children as human becomings (schraube & osterkamp, 2013). the developmental discourse and adult-child dichotomy “naturalized” the notion of the “incomplete child” and established a formal education system where the child’s perceived incompetence determines the stages of progression towards a complete, finished, and civilized human being who is not a child any more (cunningham, 1995; vucic, 2017). hence, until recently the defining parameters for being a child in almost all fields of enquiry (such as child psychology, child labour, child abuse, child welfare, early education) were restricted to the developmental markers conceptualizing children as physically, psychologically, and socially vulnerable and developing. it is a recent development (at the end of the 20th century) that systematic approaches engaged constructionists’ epistemological position to reexamine the so-called natural boundaries of childhood in connection with the reciprocal relationship between children and social forces that shape children and childhood in sociocultural contexts (see boyden, 1990; corsaro, 2000). before the emergence of the new sociology of childhood, academic experts in different disciplines viewed children as learners to be socialized into adults (montgomery, 2003). in a social world, constructed by adults, children are identified as non-adults, and adults structure their lives as objects of socialization (mayall, 2001). early socialization, in this respect, is a process to shape the child to become a functioning member of society. on the other hand, the universalization of modern childhood has increased the sensitivity about children’s vulnerability, and the line drawn to differentiate between children and adults has become thick and clear. children are seen as a restricted group dependent on adults to protect them from abuse and violence. parents and teachers are provided with skills and knowledge to reinforce children’s appropriate behaviour, and on the other hand, children’s access to knowledge that can corrupt their behaviour is restricted (buckingham, 2009; cunningham, 1995). however, during the last three decades, the social construction of childhood that is the basis of sociology found its place in scholarly debates that were dominated by medical and psychological discourses on the concept of a universal childhood with a stage-like progression toward adulthood. according to nieuwenhuys (2013), these postcolonial theories challenged the eurocentric constructs of “modern” and “universal” childhoods by contextualizing children’s lives in diverse sociocultural contexts. consequently, it exposed the parallels of developmentalism and colonialism, while at the same time it gave voice to children’s perspectives and experiences by reconceptualizing childhood in its diversity and uncertainty (nieuwenhuys, 2013). discourse on the socially constructed child considers the interconnected social realities that may be used to conceptualize children and interpret childhoods by contextualizing the lives of children and how those lives are situated in specific contexts (james et al., 1998; kjørholt, 2004). the interconnected social realities include, but are not limited to, parenting, families, gender roles, and childcare practices. it is noted that the statuses of socially constructed children, who are in no way universal children, should be considered in empirical analyses that use the contexts of children’s lives and examine how children are conceptualized in those contexts (kjørholt, 2004). these discourses encouraged the emergence of the new sociology of childhood and the social construction of childhood as contesting responses to the global model of childhood. the new sociology of childhood challenges the notion of the child as dependent on adults because of its vulnerability and powerlessness. in contrast, it considers children as social actors and social agents who coconstruct their childhood with adults (james et al., 1998; corsaro, 2010). childhood is a variable of social analysis that is not entirely separate from other social variables, such as gender, ethnicity, and class. conceptualizing children as social actors and childhood as a social construct encourages parents and educators to focus on children’s agency. the new sociology of childhood insists on understanding children as active beings who contribute to the social construction of their lives and the lives of others in society. children can negotiate their roles, make social relationships, and present themselves as active human-beings (james, 2007; james & prout, 1990). the neglect of children and their voices in traditional views of socialization and the failure of developmental psychology to consider children in the complexities of social structures gave rise to the new sociology of childhood july 2021 38 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research (corsaro, 2010). this paradigm emerged in the 1990s. however, it has its roots in several theoretical resources, such as 1960s/70s interactionist sociology that problematized the notion of the passive child in socialization; 1980/90s structural sociology (primarily in europe) that saw childhood as a social structure; and social constructionism (in both europe and the usa) that problematized taken-for-granted concepts of childhood (prout, 2005). mayall (2012) identifies other contributing conceptual developments, including identity politics, inclusion and exclusion, and power relations. nevertheless, the new paradigm offers an explicitly distinctive conceptualization of children and childhood contrary to the view of a child as “becoming” in socialization theory and developmental psychology (see jenks, 1996). consequently, the methodological frameworks investigating children’s matters were also emphasized to include child-friendly research methods to give voice to children as human beings. clark and moss (2011), in “listening to young children: the mosaics approach,” conceptualized children as “skillful communicators, experts in their own lives, right holders and meaning makers” (p. 6). hence, the new sociology of childhood offers a shift from a conditioned, controlled, and developing child (child as an object) to an authentic and political child (a child-centered perspective to view children as subjects) who authors himself/herself with an inherent sense of self-growth (barter & renold, 2000; christensen & prout, 2005; james et al., 1998; jenks, 1996; lee, 2001). table 1 compares the new sociology of childhood’s conceptualization of the child as a human being with the traditional “child as becoming” approach. table 1. child as “human being” and “human becoming” new sociology of childhood traditional perspective the child is an individual and childhood is socially and culturally constructed. a child is a minor who goes through a natural process of childhood to become an adult. the child is a contributing member of society and childhood is not a separate entity. childhood is the child’s world before the child becomes a contributing member of the society. children are competent beings. they are active social actors and contribute as capable members of the society. children are incompetent, weak, incapable, and passive. they cannot contribute actively until they become capable to act. there is no comparison of children and childhood with adults and adulthood. children should be seen independent of adults’ perspectives, and their rights, relationships, and interactions should be equally valued. childhood is a phase in the journey to adulthood (i.e., becoming an adult), and children are dependent on adults, thus childhood is viewed from an adult’s perspective. a child as an individual is unique and every child has his or her childhood (depending on the social and cultural context) that cannot be universalized. the child as a “human becoming” is a universal approach, and childhood is a universal category. children do not passively absorb the adult world; they are active meaning makers who contribute with their creative and interpretative capabilities. children learn values as passive learners and contribute later. children’s perspective is very important to understand childhood and their views are valued as much adults’ views. children’s perspective is not respected. children need to learn from adults. conclusively, the new sociology of childhood conceptualizes children as competent social actors and agentic children and values children’s voices (sorin, 2005). considering a child as a “whole” and “complete” human being does not mean a child is indistinguishable from an adult; however, children should have the same value as adults (nilsen, 1990). moreover, competency cannot be seen in terms of age, hence, cannot be differentiated on the basis of numeric age definitions. the social, psychological, and physical competency that a child is born with is affected by different sociocultural factors. the idea of an active child who has their own perspective is neither dependent july 2021 39 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research on chronological age nor is it universally attained (burr & montgomery, 2003; punch, 2002). method i employed a mixed-method approach in this study. primarily, in phase 1, i did a qualitative content analysis of the responses collected through a questionnaire with one open-ended question. respondents (who were undergraduate university students) wrote 4 to 10 sentences to describe a child; of these, 95% wrote more than 6 sentences. all 75 responses included 588 sentences that were coded according to emergent characteristics of the child and clustered in subthemes and themes. in the second phase, i used the subthemes to prepare a closed-ended online survey containing statements describing the child. ninety students (different from the 75 respondents in phase 1) filled in this online survey. the results of the survey were analyzed using descriptive quantitative analysis to extend the validation of phase 1. sampling using a convenience sampling technique, i approached undergraduate university students within the age range of 19 to 23 years (m=20.5) studying social sciences in three universities and requested them to fill in the online questionnaires used in the two phases of data collection. i was interested to know how the students, who themselves were considered to be in late adolescence according to the numerical definition of a child, conceptualized the child. in phase 1, i visited students in their classrooms (after seeking permission from the class teacher and head of the department), and invited them to fill in an online questionnaire. besides basic demographic information (age and gender), the respondents were asked to answer one open-ended question (what is a child?) in an online survey. i briefed them about the topic of the study and the question they were requested to answer. i made sure that respondents understood the question, that is, they were supposed to describe their own understanding of the child. they could write short sentences or a paragraph to describe the child. receiving responses through an online qualitative survey was useful to gain a diversity of young adults’ perspectives. using only one specific question was helpful to narrow down the responses and encourage respondents’ focus on a single idea. i received 75 responses (n=75) including 28 responses from female students (47 male, 28 female). the medium of instruction in pakistani universities is english. therefore, all the participants responded in the english language. only 12 participants included one to four sentences in urdu while responding to the question. however, their answers were similar to those who reported the same words describing a child in the english language. in phase 2, a closed-ended online survey (table 2) was designed using the subthemes that emerged from the qualitative data during phase 1. thirty-one (31) statements were derived from the subthemes with three options: (i) agree, (ii) disagree, and (iii) not sure. during phase 1, none of the respondents mentioned numerical age to describe a child. however, during phase 2 one statement was added to find the respondents’ opinions regarding the numerical definition of the child, with four options: (i) below 18 years, (ii) below 15 years, (iii) below 10 years, (iv) numerical age does not define the child. the survey was sent to student email groups and it was expected that about 200 students would receive the survey in their emails. however, only 90 students (22 male, 78 female) responded and filled in the survey. table 2. what is a child? closed-ended survey the child is a human below the age of -----years. 18 years 15 years 10 years numeric age does not apply agree disagree not sure the child is a physically immature human the child is social and expressive the child learns through imitating (copying) adults july 2021 40 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the child is self-confident the child is energetic and active the child is crying and demanding the child is delicate and fragile the child is a helpless human who depends on adults the child is a curious explorer the child is beautiful and attractive the child is intelligent and sharp the child learns by following adults the child is stupid and nonsense the child is an inexperienced human the child is stubborn and inflexible the child is selective and choosy in his/her matters the child is jealous the child is loving and adorable the child has an imaginary world the child is naughty and wild the child can set goals and follow them the child is a teacher the child is disturbing and irritating the child is sensitive the child is clever and smart the child joyful and funny the child is creative the child is innocent the child is selfish the child is playful the child is cute and sweet data analysis qualitative data collected during phase 1 was analyzed using inductive (bottom-up) qualitative content analysis and theoretically directed categories (top-down). all the sentences used to describe the child were underlined as meaning units. i carefully assigned codes to the meaning units (see table 3) and clustered the codes in subthemes and themes. themes were placed in their corresponding theoretical categories derived from the literature (as described earlier). to improve analytical validity, i shared the codes and clusters with one of my colleagues to get her feedback. her feedback helped to remove ambiguities and refine codes and clusters. table 3. content analysis of the responses. examples of meaning units and emerging codes meaning units codes july 2021 41 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children are naughty and they make too much mess. they become irritating to seek attention. naughty, disorganized, irritating, attention seeker children are easy-going. they play in the mud and do not care how they look like. they enjoy their life. they do not know right or wrong. comfortable, playful, joyful, indifferent, ignorant, innocent children are cute and innocent. when they start talking, they talk too much. sometimes, they are annoying too. cute, innocent, talkative, annoying the children are beautiful and lovely. however, when they start crying they do not stop until they do not get what they want. beautiful, loving, stubborn, demanding a child is a flower, beautiful but can wither if mishandled. children need adults to take care of them. they cannot walk and talk themselves. cute, beautiful, delicate, fragile, vulnerable, dependent, developing before data collection in phase 2, the survey items were examined by the same colleague who provided feedback during phase 1, and a few items were revised for clarity. data collected during phase 2 was quantitively analyzed, and the percentages of the responses were calculated to describe results in connection with the themes and theoretical categories that had emerged in phase 1. findings the findings convey key points to build an understanding of the multiple, interrelated, and contextual aspects of the conceptualization of the child, explaining how respondents view and describe a child. asking only one open-ended question during phase 1 helped to narrow down the data in line with a theoretical understanding of the concept of the child. corresponding to four theoretically directed thematic categories, 12 themes emerged from the data (see table 4), with 31 subthemes. it was an interesting aspect of the findings in phase 1 that none of the participants mentioned any numerical age to define child, whereas all the sentences revealed the child described to be an infant or toddler. it appeared that, contrary to adults (parents or grandparents), who may conceptualize children based on their responsibilities towards children and the value of children in their lives, late adolescents described children as they had observed or interacted with them in their everyday lives. for example, one of the participants wrote: they are innocent but they are also wild. they cry too much and want to play all the time. children are naughty and create troubles for the adults. sometimes it is amusing to play with them, but they can get wild too. they look cute when they are playing. another participant described the child as weak and vulnerable: the child is cute. the child is a beautiful innocent human. the child is weak and sensitive. the child needs adults’ protection to grow strong. the child is a future adult. the child is also naughty, and act smartly sometimes. it was also noted that several participants provided contrasting characteristics of the child in their responses, for example, portraying a child as an idiot and nonsense and at the same time describing it as naughty and clever. similarly, participants described the child as “active” and “passive” simultaneously and did not draw a distinctive line between human-being and human-becoming. table 4 shows themes and subthemes that emerged from the qualitative data analysis during phase 1 and the percentage scores against each subtheme that were collected through the online survey during phase 2. table 4. concept of a child: themes, subthemes, and survey results (%) category themes subthemes agree disagree not sure july 2021 42 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research human becoming immature physically immature 56.5 33.7 9.8 passive learns by following 80.4 12 7.6 inexperienced human 69.2 23.1 7.7 learns through imitating 91.3 4.3 4.3 dependent helpless and dependent 64.1 25 10.9 human being active social and expressive 69.6 17.4 13 energetic and active 50 35.9 14.1 agentic self-confident 41.6 41.6 16.9 sets goals 51.6 39.6 8.8 selective and choosy 64.8 25.3 9.9 curious explorer 74.7 12.1 13.2 competent creative 84.4 8.9 6.7 imaginative 53.3 35.6 11.1 clever and smart 74.7 16.5 8.8 intelligent and sharp 76.9 11 12.1 a teacher 48.4 34.1 17.6 evil child idiot stupid and nonsense 16.5 71.4 12.1 possessive stubborn and inflexible 42.9 33 24.2 crying and demanding 37 55.4 7.6 evil naughty and wild 60 17.8 22.2 disturbing and irritating 33 50.5 16.5 jealous 54.5 29.5 15.9 selfish 27.8 53.3 18.9 innocent child beautiful beautiful and attractive 89 5.5 5.5 cute and sweet 90.1 5.5 4.4 vulnerable innocent 87.9 6.6 5.5 delicate and fragile 83.3 3.3 13.3 sensitive 92.3 4.4 3.3 romantic loving and adorable 92.3 4.4 3.3 joyful and funny 92.3 4.4 3.3 playful 92.3 3.3 4.4 the evil child and the innocent child several responses described the child as “naughty.” however, the word “naughty” as it emerged from the data was not related to “cuteness.” it was linked with irritating behaviour. similarly, describing the child as an idiot (such as nonsense and stupid) and possessive (such as stubborn) were seen as negative characteristics that respondents associated with being a child. interestingly, respondents also described jealousy, selfishness, and wildness as innate behaviours of the child. hence, i clustered the codes representing negative descriptions of the child as an “evil” child who is idiotic, possessive, naughty, and innately evil. overall, this thematic category was comparatively less reported in the data. july 2021 43 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the most-reported words describing the child were cute, beautiful, joyful, loving, and innocent. beautiful and romantic are two subthemes that are closely connected and that give a romanticized image of childhood. however, i clustered the words presenting a physical view of a romanticized “beautiful” child (such as cute, attractive, sweet) separately from the words presenting an interactive view of a romanticized child (such as adorable, joyful, playful). respondents who described the child as “innocent” contradicted the concept of the child as “evil.” the data also showed a close connection between the romanticized image of the child with the notion of fragility and vulnerability of the child. this conceptualization leads to the protective role of adults. comparing the “agreed” and “disagreed” responses in the survey results (phase 2, see figure 1) showed that the majority of the respondents conceptualized children as “innocent,” whereas the number of responses agreeing on the “evil child” was significantly low. interestingly, conceptualizing the child as “innocent” romanticized the image of the child, but also placed them in a fragile and vulnerable group who are dependent on adults for their protection. this idea necessarily draws a distinctive line between adults and children, separating them based on power and strength, as well as the “innocence” that is connected with the romantic world of the children that amuses adults. it was also reflected in the responses as the percentage of responses in favour of conceptualizing children as human-becomings is slightly higher than conceptualizing children as “human-beings.” one reason that i see is that the perception of “innocence” (as disclosed in both phases of data collection) is closely connected with children’s immaturity and their dependence on adults. as i already said that respondents in this study assumed that a “child” is an infant or toddler, their understandings of “innocence” and “human-becoming” seem relative. child as human-becoming and human-being another significant finding in this study is the dichotomy of human-being and human-becoming that appeared in contrasting responses in qualitative and quantitative data analysis. while the difference between the percentage responses of subthemes related to human-becoming and human-being was not significant, it was evident in open-ended responses during phase 1. for example, one participant wrote: the children are good learners. the children are quick in processing information whatever they observe. they copy others’ behaviours. the children are players. they are clever and play with the adults. they can manage their time and tasks while doing different things. another participant views children as passive and active simultaneously. the children are dependent on adults. they are helpless. the children are intelligent and creative. they are expressive. they are naughty but look cute. they are loveable. they are energetic. respondents conceptualized the child as a human-becoming based on the stage-like progression of the child’s development. the child is physically incompetent and lacks several developmental milestones that it can reach over time. a biological immaturity, such as being unable to talk, walk, and eat unassisted is linked with being a child. this biological immaturity upholds the dependence of the “developing” child on adults, particularly at an early age. another aspect of the concept of a developing child is its cognitive passiveness that respondents related to the imitative learning behaviour of the child, describing it as “naïve” and “copycat.” contrary to viewing a child as a human-becoming, respondents also described the child as active, agentic, and competent, which leads the concept of the child to its existence as a human being. however, responses showed that respondents were referring to a child who is not an infant. for example, they described the talkative and expressive child as confident, active, and social. hence, there was a biological competence in terms of language development that they connected with an “expressive” child who seeks attention by acting smartly and setting goals. many respondents pointed out that the characteristics of a child are curiosity, smartness, and creativity, qualities that represent an agentic and competent child. july 2021 44 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. adolescents’ conceptualization of the child. discussion the concept of the child is more complex than the numerical definition of a child that is seen as universal in its legal perspective (see figure 2). even though a universal conceptualization of children is prevalent in international child rights policies (influenced by the uncrc), a distinction among conceptualizations of children (that vary according to the context of the children’s lives) is helpful to examine the successes and limitations of international policies. in this connection, erica burman (1996) emphasized the distinctions between local, global, and globalized conceptions of childhood. she raises concerns about the inadequate conceptual resources that inform international policies on children’s rights and well-being. to understand and manage the conflict that a universal conceptualization of the child (as appears in international legislation) may cause while transcending sociocultural constructs of childhood, it is important to bridge the gap between cultural imperialism and cultural relativism. this is possible if the distinctions between local, global, and globalized conceptions of childhood are explicitly visible and central in policymaking (burman, 1996). the conceptualization of children in different social and cultural contexts situates the value of children, parenting, and childcare practices. the four theoretical themes that emerged in this research (as described earlier) present mythological images of the child as evil or innocent and debated concepts of the child in the sociology of childhood (human-becoming and human-being). in three of the theoretical themes, the child is seen as dependent on adults. the evil child needs to be corrected and disciplined. the innocent child needs to be protected and nurtured. the child as human-becoming needs to be socialized and developed. hence, these three themes present a child as a human-becoming where adults have a role to shape the naughty, fragile, and incompetent child into a civilized, independent, and competent adult. a shift from the christian discourse on original sin and the evil child to the innocent child of the romantic period significantly influenced parenting practices. despite the change in the “natural” status of the child from “devil” to “angel,” children remained dependent in an adult-centered world where adults commanded and controlled the child’s world. on the other hand, both traditional developmental and sojuly 2021 45 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research cialization theories conceptualize a child as a human becoming, an incomplete, biologically immature, vulnerable, and incompetent human. the child as human-becoming needs to be protected and cared for, as well as shaped and moulded by the society for the society. besides several articles of the uncrc (1989) mentioning the fragile nature of childhood and the vulnerability of the child, the aim of education, as described in uncrc (article 29), is to develop and prepare children to reach their full potential and contribute as responsible members of society. the developmental markers place the child as a human-becoming who develops in a stage-like progression. however, the development of children’s capacities corresponding to their numerical age is derived from western models. when they are applied in non-western settings, they will not necessarily produce the same results. similarly, the socialization process in relation to non-western children’s livelihood and education needs (local and academic knowledge) varies significantly when compared to children’s lives in the western context. overall, the rights-based approach (in connection with provision and protection rights that are mostly undisputed) conceptualizes the child as a human-becoming who needs protection and training. an interesting aspect of the uncrc is its recognition of the rights of the individual child in their own perspective and best interest (articles 3, 12). the best interest of the child, as stated in article 3, restricts the power practices of adults towards children through legislative bodies to ensure the protection and well-being of children. at the same time, it recognizes children’s physical incompetence to protect themselves and their psychological incompetence to make decisions in their own best interest. hence, an adult should find out the best interest of the child in different situations. article 12 emphasizes listening to children’s voices, respecting children’s views, and recognizing their right to express their concerns in matters related to them. however, these rights are subject to the child’s “capability” to form views that relate to “age” and “maturity.” the only marker that informs this “capability” is the numerical age of the child that is used to define a child in uncrc. here, the new sociology of childhood questions the universality of the rights-based approach as stated in uncrc and presents the child-centered notion of an “agentic” child whose world is coconstructed with the adult world. the child is a member of the adult world and a “knowing subject” (see james, 2007) who contributes as a social actor in the adult world. the child holds a social value that shifts their powerless position to a self-authored status. the agentic child is a human-being who coconstructs the world as an active participant. however, because the child is not free from biological and psychological developmental stages, the human-being and human-becoming dichotomy is problematic. recognizing a child as a social actor in their sociocultural context and considering their physical and psychological developmental needs does not result in a dichotomy (lee, 2001; prout, 2004). the child is also a human-becoming in connection with child-rearing practices and the socialization process. dominant scientific theories include cognitive development theories and socialization theories. piaget’s work on cognitive development described a universal stage like progression of the child’s cognitive development (from immature to mature thinking) that significantly influenced scientific academia (montgomery, 2008). on the other hand, socialization theories presented a “passive learning” approach that focused on child-rearing practices that are diverse (in different societies) and not natural (lee, 2001; montgomery, 2008). nevertheless, both perspectives conceptualize children as “human becomings” who are in the “learning phase” of becoming an adult. this conceptualization, applied as “natural” and “universal,” presents children in a category different than adults due to their innocence and need to be protected from the adult world. this western model of childhood presented as a global model by international agencies, conventions, and policies could not address the significantly different experiences of children and diverse models of childhood in the majority world (montgomery, 2008; qvortrup, 2009). respondents in my study were students residing in urban areas. the survey results show that 36% of the respondents believed that a child is a human below the age of 10, and 35% thought that numerical age does not define a child. hence, their perception of the child as a human becoming probably revolves around the biologically and psychologically developing child that can be explicitly observed during this age or early childhood. during my ethnographic research investigating infant healthcare beliefs and practices in rural areas of pakistan, i found that people perceive a child as an adult according to their participation in everyday life. for example, a child who can help with agricultural activities, managing livestock, and taking care of domestic chores and responsibilities is perceived as grown up, and the “biological” boundary (based on biological maturity) of childhood is gradually diminished (qamar, 2010, 2019). july 2021 46 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2. the concept of a child – theoretical connections. the uncrc has been criticized for its so-called universalized conception of children’s lives and parents as primarily responsible for children’s upbringing and well-being. however, children in the global south live in extended families, and parenting practices and responsibilities are not limited to parents. the pattern of socialization of children, interdependent households, and multiple caregivers make childhood in the global south significantly different from childhood within the nuclear families of the global north (burman, 1996). childhood in non-western contexts provides a complex picture of economically and culturally contextualized socialization and development of children. school and family are seen as institutions for formal education and traditional socialization respectively. however, besides preparing children to be adult members of society, the traditional socialization (particularly in rural contexts) also includes children’s participation in the domestic economy and their recognition as competent and agentic children. in traditional societies where interdependency is considered the strength of the society (and the community) and children are brought up to maintain this strength, we have to look into the concepts of being and becoming side by side (abebe, 2007; antoniou, 2007; punch, 2001; qamar, 2010, 2015). the codes (subthemes) that emerged in this study provide a variety of words to describe a child that correspond to several conceptual categories. the majority of the responses indicate that the child was conceptualized as “innocent” and a “human-being.” responses also revealed that the respondents conceptualized the child as a human-becoming in terms of early age development, where the child is seen as biologically immature. a few responses were related to the child as “evil,” mostly considering the child as naughty and irritating. the concept of the evil child (seen as jealous, possessive, selfish, demanding, and irritating) suggests an “innate competence” of the child to manipulate and exploit adults. the idea of innate competence also supports the notion of an “agentic” child who has a perspective that should be respected, and whose world should not be separated as a category of passive minors who must be shaped before their membership in the adult world. on the other hand, even though the innocent child is physically and psychologically fragile and vulnerable, the aesthetic aspect attached to a romantic child july 2021 47 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research presents a socially visible and active child who is playful and interactive. in either view, the child is a social actor who actively contributes to the adult world. advances in the new sociology of childhood presented four research approaches and theoretical paradigms (that may overlap) that consider children as human beings and social actors. these four approaches are the socio-structural child, the minority world child, the socially constructed child, and the tribal child (james et al., 1998). the socio-structural child approach views childhood in a structural form that in a wider structure remains uniform despite their varied manifestation across different societies. in this approach, childhood has shared commonalities and remains a phase of life that never disappears. the minority world child is a politicized version of the socio-structural child that views children as active beings. living in the adult-centered world, children are distinguished from adults and marginalized. their perceptions are explored in connection with children’s rights putting them in age-based categories; hence, elements of universality and being “global” are there. in contrast, the socially constructed child approach conceptualizes childhood as historically and culturally varied and focuses on local conceptualizations of childhood with reference to several contextual elements such as class, age, gender, geography, ethnicity, religion, etc. as a relativistic analytical approach, socially constructed childhood (as a historical and social construct) illuminates the particularities of childhood in time and place. the tribal child approach is a politicized version of the socially constructed child. the tribal child approach places children in their own cultural world that is different than adults’ but is not adult-centered. hence, the focus is on the otherness of childhood and children’s everyday lives independent of adult-child relations and adult concerns. childhood is seen as a real social world of children and their autonomous participation in it makes their world unique and distinctive (james et al., 1998; kjørholt, 2004). however, ignoring adult-child relations is not as simple as seen in this approach because of the frequent adult-child interactions between children, parents, and teachers in home and school settings. multiple aspects of the concept of the child provide the diversity of adults’ perspectives on children and childhood that make it too complex to give a single universal definition of the child. this study’s findings provide a broader canvas on which to paint childhood beyond the limitations of numerical age that restricts the conceptualization of children through chronological aging. the diversity of responses revealed in this study places the conceptualization of children in various epistemological domains that presents childhood studies as a field of interdisciplinary inquiry. conclusion mythological images of the child describe children as “evil” or “innocent” and influence parenting and teaching strategies. since both of these images separate childhood from “real” adult life, adults play an authoritative role to discipline and protect children. children are seen as weak, vulnerable, and incompetent. a shift offered by the new sociology of childhood liberates children from the conceptualization of incompetency and vulnerability and positions them as “beings” in their right. the conceptualization of children in this new perspective is undergoing debates about the diversities of children’s competencies in different social contexts and contested chronological perspectives of the majority of legal policies. findings in this study revealed a variety of concepts that young adults associated with children. their descriptions of the child showed a multidimensional yet interconnected image of the child that adds to the complexity of the concept of the child and the nature of childhood in any social context. considering diverse interconnected regional and global conceptualizations of childhood, the new sociology of childhood emerged as a response to wide changes to global political and economic challenges that affected regional contexts. an interdisciplinary childhood study can use diverse theoretical concepts of childhood and children in rich interconnected discussions to develop holistic pictures of childhood. limitations the conceptualization of children significantly affects parenting practices, adult-child relationships, and children’s schooling. the qualitative questionnaire used in this study had only one open-ended question to be answered by late adolescents studying in pakistani universities. the idea was to capture first-hand spontaneous thoughts of the july 2021 48 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research adolescents, narrowing the focus to a description of the child as they perceived it. later, a closed-ended survey derived from the emergent subthemes proved to be a 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(2009). are children human beings or human becomings? a critical assessment of outcome thinking. rivista internazionale di scienze sociali, 631–653. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41625246 schraube, e., & osterkamp, u. (2013). the colonization of childhood: psychological and psychoanalytical explanations of human development. in e. schraube & u. osterkamp (eds.), psychology from the standpoint of the subject (pp. 210–230). palgrave macmillan. sommer, d., pramling samuelsson, i., & hundeide, k. (2010). child perspectives and children’s perspectives in theory and practice. springer. sorin, r. (2005). changing images of childhood: reconceptualizing early childhood practice. international journal of transitions in childhood, 1(1), 12–21. united nations. (1989). convention on the rights of the child. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx vintimilla, c. d., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2020). weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. european early childhood education research journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 vucic, b. (2017). the colonization of childhood: the critical pedagogy of janusz korczak. in a. odrowąż-coates & s. goswami (eds.), symbolic violence in socio-educational contexts: a postcolonial critique. wydawnictwo akademii pedagogiki specjalnej im. marii grzegorzewskiej. winter/hiver 2017 17 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research “of, not for...”: the evolving recognition of children’s rights in a community karyn callaghan, victoria long-wincza, and cheryl velenosi karyn callaghan taught early childhood education at the college and university level for more than 30 years and coordinated a project in hamilton called artists at the centre. she is president of the ontario reggio association, a member of the board of the north american reggio emilia alliance, and a member of the reggio children international network. she is co-author of documenting children’s meaning: engaging in design and creativity with children and families with artist jason avery and colleague carol anne wien. karyn has been a keynote speaker at conferences across north america, in hong kong, and in australia. email: karyncallaghan@gmail.com victoria long-wincza is a visual artist and art educator who is program manager for culture for kids in the arts (cka), a charitable organization in hamilton dedicated to providing access to quality arts programming to children and youth in the greater hamilton region. victoria has worked with cka for over 15 years and is committed to connecting kids to creativity to support a strong and healthy community. cka and victoria are deeply committed to hamilton’s charter of rights of children and youth. cheryl velenosi is the early years project manager for the city of hamilton. she has been a proud member and project manager of the hamilton best start network for 12 years. cheryl was the lead organizer of the noteworthy hamilton’s charter of rights of children and youth, written by children, for children. she is committed to continuing to build awareness of the rights of children, youth, and their parents with the goal of embedding them into practice as we strive to make hamilton the best place to raise a child. why would a city in canada create a charter of children’s rights? the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc) acknowledges that children are a minority group that could be oppressed and exploited by adults, who form the political majority. although there is ample evidence that children around the world continue to suffer in many ways, this declaration that children deserve respect and support because they have inherent rights is regarded as a significant step forward. it allows children to be social participants. in howe’s (2007) words, “children are in a better position with it than without it” (p. 3). rights alone do not guarantee progress, but change is happening (albeit it slowly) for indigenous people and for persons with disabilities, both of whom are subjects of declarations of rights. but if commitment to the uncrc is to be more than symbolic, the issues must be brought to people’s attention and discussed within families, within communities, and in the wider context. the topic of children’s rights provokes a wide range of responses. the uncrc was unanimously approved on november 20, 1989, at the forty-fourth session of the general assembly, and subsequently all but two countries in the world (the usa and somalia) signed it. canada signed in 1990 and ratified it in parliament in 1991, but many canadians, including teachers and parents, are still unaware of its existence. this concern was expressed in the concluding observations related to canada during the united nations committee on the rights of the child this article describes the development of a charter of rights of children and youth in hamilton, ontario. the process involved gathering input from over 1,500 children and youth in the form of spoken and written words, drawings, and other visual representations. a validation process resulted in over 900 more children being directly engaged. the inclusion of participatory responsibilities for both children and adults appears to have increased the level of acceptance of the charter among adults. awareness of the document was aided by its multiple formats of publication and by an exhibit that toured key locations throughout the city, beginning at city hall. key words: children’s rights; united nations convention on the rights of the child; participation; community collaboration; responsibility winter/hiver 2017 18 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research sixty-first session (2012): nevertheless, the committee is concerned that awareness and knowledge of the convention remains limited amongst children, professionals working with children, parents, and the general public. the committee is especially concerned that there has been little effort to systematically disseminate information on the convention and integrate child rights education into the school system. (p. 5) in a 2005 ipsos-reid poll, 61% of the public indicated their belief that children’s rights are already fully realized in canada, yet only 46% were even aware of the uncrc (howe & covell, 2007). our recent conversations with parents and educators revealed that many are still unaware of the uncrc. there continue to be significant gaps between the rights identified in the convention and those that are recognized in our laws, practices, and daily interactions, as evidenced by the report cards that have been issued by the united nations (unicef innocenti report cards 10, 11, and 13). covell and howe (2001; see also howe & covell, 2007) raise serious questions about canada’s commitment to children’s rights. our country tied with ireland for last place among 25 developed nations in the un’s first comparison of early childhood services (unicef innocenti report card 8), meeting only one of the benchmarks described in the report as representing basic minimum standards: having 50% of staff in accredited early education services with relevant tertiary education qualification. our criminal code continues to include section 43, which provides a legal defence for the use of corporal punishment of children, making them the only canadians who are deprived of full legal protection from physical assault. we are only beginning to address the damage done by over 100 years of residential schools, where indigenous children were isolated from their families, stripped of their language and culture, and often abused. despite the federal government’s 1989 all party commitment to eradicate childhood poverty by the year 2000, 18.5% of canadian children live in poverty (campaign 2000, 2017), and the rate is dramatically higher (almost 60%) for indigenous children. according to unicef innocenti report card 10, we ranked 24th of 35 industrialized countries on child poverty, and on report card 11 on child well-being in rich countries, canada ranked 17th out of 35. these facts unsettle the general complacency canadians may have about our overall treatment of children. the uncrc is not without its critics. canadians are not unanimous in the view that children should have rights, let alone in recognizing that they do have inherent rights (howe, 2007). the predominant image we hold of the young child is one of innocence and weakness, needing protection, although this has not always been the case and is not a universal image. as children enter adolescence in our culture, their image often shifts to one of “barely rational, unsocialized, and unlawful” (howe & covell, 2007, p. 405), needing to be controlled and punished. these views are socially constructed. there is also a view that acknowledging rights for children inevitably diminishes adults’ rights. among those who support the idea of recognizing children’s rights, some argue that the uncrc does not go far enough in recognizing children’s inherent rights, because adults are still given sovereignty, particularly when there is seen to be competition between rights to participation and protection (e.g., gadda, 2008; handley, 2005). others (e.g., burr, 2004; stephens, 1995) raise concern that, regardless of the fact that the majority of the world population of children lives in non-western communities, the uncrc’s fundamental grounding in individual rights is contextualized in dominant western concepts, and it is unable to accommodate societies in which communal rights are the norm. despite controversy, the document is widely respected, canada is a signatory, and we are far from “there” in living up to our commitment. as howe and covell (2008) state: we are a long way from achieving a unitary conception of children as rights-bearing citizens. for canadians to appreciate the status of children as rights bearers and the status of parents, other adults, and governments as duty bearers, there will need to be a fundamental shift in their winter/hiver 2017 19 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research attitudes toward children. (p. 407) there would appear to be a solid rationale for a city to take up the issue of children’s rights and create a context that allows sustained and direct engagement and dialogue that involves children. the context: a confluence of factors hamilton is a city of over 500,000 people whose identity is changing. formerly known for manufacturing and steel production, between 1998 and 2013 there was a drop of about 45% in the share of hamilton workers employed in manufacturing jobs (statistics canada, 1998, 2013). the impact of this loss of good-paying jobs will be felt for years to come. hamilton is a culturally diverse city: according to the 2011 national household survey, more than 25% of the local population was not born in canada (statistics canada, 2011). the city also has a vibrant francophone community and, with its proximity to six nations and the mississaugas of the new credit reserves, a significant indigenous population (social planning and research council, 2015). hamilton is known for its gritty spirit and generosity, even when faced with considerable challenges. in 2014, city council voted to declare hamilton a sanctuary city, offering municipal services to undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation. interest in children’s rights at the local level is not new. in 1999, the city formed a working group with representation from several sectors to create a charter of children’s rights. a respectable document resulted. however, as so often happens, it became part of an archive, and few people were aware it existed. significantly, children had no voice in the development of that document. in december 2007, city council declared its intention to make hamilton “the best place to raise a child.” nevertheless, challenges prevail (carter, 2015). many initiatives have been undertaken to improve conditions for children. seldom are the views of children invited in the development of those initiatives, though. for several years, one of this article’s authors (karyn callaghan) taught a course called “rights of the child” to university students. the students conducted surveys and focus groups involving parents and non-parents, teachers and non-teachers to explore the uncrc. they often found that, consistent with the un’s criticism, there was little to no awareness of the convention. after they provided information, the reactions ranged from support to antagonism. acceptance was strongest on rights associated with provision (i.e., ensuring that children have adequate shelter, food, education, health care), mixed on rights associated with protection (which would include absence of corporal punishment), and generally negative on rights associated with participation (having a voice in decisions that affect them in families, schools, communities). the students concluded that many adults feared their control would be usurped if children knew they had rights. two other projects may have contributed to a context that was more prepared to enact practices in recognition that children can and should have a voice – a voice that may be spoken, but that also may be drawn or constructed using a variety of materials as languages. the artists at the centre project began in hamilton in 2001, bringing professional artists into early learning and child care programs to support children and educators to make the children’s thinking visible by supporting the children’s intentional use of materials such as markers, paint, wire, and clay as languages for communicating ideas. inspired by the infant-toddler centres and preschools in reggio emilia, italy, this project was based on a view of the child as capable of complex thought and communication. (for more information, see www.artistsatthecentre.ca.) culture for kids in the arts (cka), an arts education organization, produces an annual community arts project that was influenced by artists at the centre, called artasia. in 2011, children were invited to engage with and create artworks that described visions of their neighbourhoods transformed. hamilton’s neighbourhood action strategy director invited one of the children to present these messages at a city council meeting, where they were well received. winter/hiver 2017 20 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in 2005, the best start network was formed in hamilton. this multisectoral network meets several times a year, bringing together representatives from a wide range of education, health, and social services to streamline and effectively design supports for children and families. one committee that formed under this umbrella focused on parent engagement with their child(ren) and with family supports in the community, and drafted the hamilton parent charter of rights (hamilton best start network, 2014). once it was launched, the idea of resurrecting and reviewing the charter of children’s rights arose, and an ad hoc committee was formed. an early years project manager for the city of hamilton assumed the role of chair, bringing not only organizational skills, but also a breadth of knowledge of the city and ability to make connections with youth leaders, licensed child care centres, elementary and secondary schools, parks & recreation playground supervisors, the library system, child and family centres, camps, and social justice event organizers. the fact that the city was enthusiastically backing this project, not only philosophically but also through dedicated time from a few employees over a sustained period, was significant for the success of the project. it also increased the chance that the resulting document would be widely distributed and endorsed. representatives from the indigenous child care community, local school boards, and youth program managers joined the ad hoc committee that met monthly over a 20-month period. from the inception of this committee, there was a shared recognition that young children understand and have much to teach adults about the notion of rights. in keeping with the sociology of childhood, we embraced the view of young children as effective and knowledgeable persons and key witnesses to their own lives (mayall, 2002), and recognized that a commitment to inviting children’s perspectives is not an option or a gift to be given by adults but “a legal imperative which is the right of the child” (lundy, 2007, p. 931). putting the evolving plan into motion the ad hoc committee, aware of the challenges inherent in creating a context wherein children can freely and meaningfully express their ideas in a way that can be understood (spyrou, 2011), realized that it would be essential for educators and facilitators to engage in their own discussions of children’s rights before they could comfortably introduce the topic to young children. we organized a meeting at the local community college, and a capacity crowd of educators from across the city came to learn more about children’s rights, explore their own feelings, and discuss approaches to inviting children to share their ideas about their rights. they heard a brief overview of the uncrc and canada’s track record and saw a demonstration of how several classic children’s books, such as peter’s chair by ezra jack keats and red is best by kathy stinson, could be discussed through the lens of rights. a book of the words and drawings of 5and 6-year-old children from reggio emilia provided compelling evidence that young children are more than capable of understanding and communicating about this seemingly abstract topic (reggio children, 1995). the artasia projects were also highlighted, and examples of children’s work were shared. we discussed the subtleties of distinguishing between a want, a need, and a right. we also offered examples of how educators could respond to classroom situations using the lens and language of rights, so that children could have a context for the concept. this introduction of the concept of rights was expected to take several weeks. to support this ongoing work, we created a list of books about children’s rights for educators to access, as well as resource kits that could be borrowed through the local ece resource centre. thirty copies of a journey into the rights of children, a book about rights written and illustrated by children in reggio emilia, were made available for the community to borrow. winter/hiver 2017 21 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research support materials examples of classic storybooks that can be discussed through the lens of children’s rights: baldacchino, c. (2014). morris micklewhite and the tangerine dress. toronto, on: groundwood books/house of anansi press. keats, e. j. (1967). peter’s chair. new york, ny: harper & row. kraus, r. (1971). leo the late bloomer. new york, ny: windmill books. stinson, k. (1982). red is best. toronto, on: annick press. zolotow, c. (1972). william’s doll. new york, ny: harper & row. books for children and adults about children’s rights reggio children. (1995). a journey into the rights of children. reggio emilia, italy: reggio children s.r.l. serres, a. (2009). i have the right to be a child. toronto, on: house of anansi press. unicef. (2002). for every child: the rights of the child in words and pictures. london, uk: red fox books. resource for educators of young children hall, e. l., & kofkin rudkin, j. (2011). seen and heard: children’s rights in early childhood education. new york, ny: teachers college press. when the educators felt the children were ready, they were asked to invite the children to complete the statement “i have a right to …” and to communicate their thoughts by drawing with fine black markers on white paper, a method that is aligned to children’s demonstrated capacities to express their understandings of the world around them (harcourt & hägglund, 2013). although this was not a research study, we wanted to respect children’s right to give or withhold informed consent, consistent with approaches used when children participate in research (e.g., dockett, perry, & kearney, 2012). samples of child-friendly consent forms were created and made available to the educators (see excerpts in figures 1 and 2) so that the children could just point to the illustrated face that reflected their response to the invitation to participate and to have their ideas shared with others. the children were then invited to draw a picture to illustrate a right that was important  to them. the child’s “i have a right to …” statement was included on the drawing. the child’s first name and age were written on the back of the paper in pencil. we encouraged organizations/ educators to make a photocopy of each piece of artwork by children who consented to share their work before it was submitted, so that an exhibit could be created in each of their locations for the children, youth, parents, and community members to appreciate. many of the preparatory ideas were also relevant for school-aged children, but rather than drawing, cka invited children ages 6 to 12 to fold origami cranes from recycled paper with ideas about children’s rights tucked inside. the “1,000 cranes” project  was inspired by the traditional japanese belief that anyone with the patience and commitment to fold 1,000 paper cranes will be granted their most desired wish. youth aged 12–18 created a winter/hiver 2017 22 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research mosaic of artwork to communicate their ideas about rights. we originally set a time frame of four months for the submission of work, but we extended it based on feedback from the centres. the extension also allowed work to be gathered from summer camps and playground groups, as well as from a group of teen parents who were, by legal definition, children themselves. as we reviewed their submissions, it was clear that youth did not want to be referred to as children, despite the uncrc definition of a child as being anyone under the age of 18. figure 1. excerpt from the child-friendly consent form. figure 2. excerpt from the child-friendly consent form. winter/hiver 2017 23 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research gathering, interpreting, writing, and validating we received over 1,500 submissions. the words of the children and youth were documented to identify what they expressed as their rights. a wordle™ using all the words collected from the artwork revealed the words and phrases the children used most often. their responses were not frivolous or self-serving: the three that came up most were the right to education, family, and social justice. this is consistent with other findings that children stress interdependence and reciprocity, rather than selfish autonomy (mayall, 2000), although certainly the dominant discourse of the society in which they are living would affect these values. in order to invite multiple perspectives to identify the themes, all submissions were viewed and categorized by different groups of various ages (e.g., a university class studying children’s rights, the children’s charter working group, the high school and university-aged offspring of the working group members, youth, artists). there are challenges inherent in reading visual representations, particularly when adults and youth are attempting to interpret drawings created by young children, although in our culture, we may be overly confident in our belief that we understand words when others use them. in the few cases where there were no accompanying words, interpretations were tentative and were made collaboratively. each group engaged in the categorizing exercise independently, without being informed of the categories that had been suggested by other groups. in each case, in order to give us a starting point, the hundreds of pieces of work were initially organized using the categories that are often used to discuss the uncrc: provision, protection, and participation (howe, 2007, p. 3), but either within each of these, or from pieces that did not really fit into these categories, subcategories arose from the clusters of the children’s ideas, and these became more informative and robust, ultimately informing the 18 rights in the charter. while many submissions resonated with the rights in the uncrc, others did not. for example, the right to care for living things and the right to have friends were not really addressed in the un document, nor was the right to be proud of who they are. the right to have friends included the right “to argue with my friend and then make up again.” some were more specific than the uncrc rights, such as the right to live in a home, in a neighbourhood. within that grouping, children had added their own specific details: it included having the right “to live in a house with a bird house, grass, and trees,” and “in a house that is mould-free, bug-free, and asbestos free,” and “for my neighbourhood to accept and respect children’s rights.” included in the right to live with and be cared for by family, a specific inclusion was “the right to make something with my mom.” a selection of these statements is included in the booklet version of the charter. we realized that some of them may have been reflections of what the individual child valued about his or her life, and others may have reflected what was acutely missed. we were aware that the work could possibly be categorized differently by different people, or even by the same people at a different point in time, and hoped that our subsequent validation process would provide us with a measure of confidence that children were satisfied that their main ideas were captured. the children’s work was passed on to the hamilton best start network’s research and evaluation team to record data regarding which centre or school the work came from, which medium was used, the children’s ages, the theme, and any subcategories. the work was then collected and prepared for the exhibition phase of the project. based on the experience of the university students’ focus group discussions with adults, the working group engaged in dialogue about including participatory responsibilities for children and adults with each right, with the intention of increasing the level of acceptance among adults and supporting active engagement with the charter. although responsibility must always bear the weight of the individual, participatory responsibility emerges from a disposition or sensibility that situates one in a broader interdependent context; in short, participatory responsibilities are relationally driven. (r. khattar, personal communication, july 29, 2017). including these responsibilities fits with o’neill’s (1994) proposal of a “covenant society” where people recognize civic obligation to each other. it was important to choose suitable words to capture the big ideas that arose in the children’s drawings and to frame winter/hiver 2017 24 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the participatory responsibilities in a way that would be clear and at the same time would lower resistance and contribute to a context that can honour rights within social relationships that recognize interdependence. we invited a community focus group to engage in dialogue one last time before finalizing the draft. a significant decision was made at this meeting: to honour their art and words, we changed the provisional title from “rights for children and youth” to “rights of children and youth,” giving proper attribution to those who generated the ideas. the decision to include participatory responsibilities warranted discussion, as declarations of rights are not typically accompanied by lists of responsibilities (although we recognize that rights generally are countered by laws). we also recognize that this document reflects views at a particular time and place, and it will need to be revisited every few years. it is our hope that, over time, there will be greater acceptance of the fact that children have inherent rights, and we may not need to list the responsibilities in future versions. we went back to the community to seek validation of the draft charter of rights and responsibilities at two large family-oriented public events that happen in september every year. each of the 18 rights was printed on a separate vertical banner hanging in a tent (see figure 3), and children were invited to indicate which one resonated with them by attaching a dot sticker to that banner, a process we referred to as “dotmocracy” (see figure 4). by the end of these events, every right had many vote-dots on it (see figure 5). over 900 children and youth validated the charter. figure 3. culture for kids in the arts staff member cornelia peckart supporting the “dotmocracy” process. winter/hiver 2017 25 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 4. a parent and child consider the rights prior to the child’s voting. figure 5. a selection of the banners early in the voting process, each already with many dots and stickers chosen or created by children to indicate what they thought were the most important things for all children to have or to be able to do. winter/hiver 2017 26 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research dissemination once the rights were presented and received full endorsement from the hamilton best start network, the draft was sent to a designer, along with selected drawings, to be prepared for printing. he made a significant suggestion: to change the wording from “children and youth have the right to…” to “i have the right to…” the document was printed in three formats in english and french: a glossy booklet containing the expression of children’s rights by children aged 5 and younger through their drawings and words (including some of the specific examples to illustrate each right), a passport-sized fold-up flyer with the poster on one side and the responsibilities on the other, and a glossy poster for agencies to hang on their walls (see figure 6). one thousand books (an additional 250 in french), 20,000 flyers, (1,000 in french), and 1,000 posters were printed. all child care centres and schools received posters, flyers, and books. other groups who requested copies have received them. in response to the children’s right to a healthy earth to live on, recycled paper was used. winter/hiver 2017 27 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 6. hamilton’s charter of rights and responsibilities of children poster. winter/hiver 2017 28 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research hamilton’s charter of rights of children and youth, and participatory responsibilities i have the right to be heard. children are responsible for listening to others and respecting their opinions. adults are responsible for asking children for their opinions on all matters that affect them, and seriously considering their views. i have the right to live in a home, in a neighbourhood. children are responsible for helping to take care of the place where they live. adults are responsible for making sure our community is providing good quality affordable housing, in neighbourhoods that have access to green space and that support our citizens. i have the right to live with and be cared for by family. children are responsible for respecting and caring for their family. adults are responsible for respecting and caring for children and families in their diverse forms, and responding to children’s right to feel loved in their family. i have the right to have friends. children are responsible for caring for, respecting, and including others. adults are responsible for making it possible for friends to feel welcome and included, and to respect children’s ability to settle their own disagreements. i have the right to good food and warm, clean clothes. children are responsible for learning about and eating healthy food and helping to care for their clothing. adults are responsible for ensuring that children are aware of healthy and ethical food choices and of where and how food and clothing are produced, and for ensuring that healthy food and suitable clothing are available to all children and their families. i have the right to a healthy earth to live on. children are responsible for caring for their environment and reducing waste. adults are responsible for supporting and nurturing children’s relationship with the natural environment and working to provide a healthy environment through fixing what is wrong, protecting what is right, and making good decisions for the future of our environment, to build capacity to think in terms of “forever.” winter/hiver 2017 29 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research i have the right to play. children are responsible for including all children in active exploration, enjoyment of movement, and imaginative play at appropriate times. adults are responsible for providing both structured and unstructured time and environments for children to play with friends and trusting children to take some risks. i have the right to learn more things. children are responsible for being curious and thoughtful about what is around them, making the most of learning opportunities and respecting the abilities of others. adults are responsible for nurturing children’s curiosity, supporting their learning by respecting their interests and ways of learning in all contexts, thoughtfully reflecting on their own interventions in children’s explorations, actively removing/reducing barriers to full participation in learning, providing stimulating materials and experiences for learning, and building communities that recognize children’s competence and intelligence. i have the right to express myself, my personality and thoughts without judgment. children are responsible for communicating respectfully and appreciating the ways others express themselves. adults are responsible for providing children with opportunities to express themselves fully, to engage in creative activities, and to stay silent if they choose. i have the right to privacy. children are responsible for respecting the privacy of others. adults are responsible for respecting children’s belongings, spaces, and need for time alone. i have the right to make choices. children are responsible for considering their decisions carefully. adults are responsible for seeking out and seriously considering children’s views on all matters that concern them, to help them to make informed decisions, and to recognize the importance of relationships and making a meaningful contribution to their own financial security and independence. i have the right to special help like a wheelchair if i ever need it. children are responsible for including and helping children who need support. adults are responsible for working with children to define what meaningful participation is for them, and to accommodate and reduce barriers to full participation for all children. winter/hiver 2017 30 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research i have the right to know about and practice my culture. children are responsible for respecting other people’s language and celebrations. adults are responsible for modelling respect for people of all backgrounds, supporting learning about diverse cultures, and learning how to listen in many ways. i have the right to care for living things. children are responsible for caring for animals and contributing to community gardens. adults are responsible for supporting children’s empathy and care for all living beings and making meaningful contributions to gardens using sustainable methods. i have the right to be safe, secure, and healthy. children are responsible for caring for themselves and others by taking steps to reduce hazards and by avoiding dangerous situations. adults are responsible for supporting children’s assessment of risk, refusing to inflict pain or emotional harm on children, protecting and strengthening our social safety net, and building communities that are safe for all citizens. i have the right to be free from discrimination. children are responsible for respecting and being empathetic to others. adults are responsible for building inclusive communities that welcome and support all people. i have the right to rest. children are responsible for learning about and taking care of their bodies. adults are responsible for ensuring a child’s time is not overscheduled, and that they have a place to rest. i have the right to be proud of who i am. children are responsible for working to the best of their ability. adults are responsible for recognizing children’s efforts without comparing them to others, and cultivating spaces where children are able to demonstrate their particular competence. the educators’ experience of having ongoing meaningful conversations with young children about challenging issues and inviting them to communicate their thoughts in different ways may have lasting impact on their practice. the charter and accompanying responsibilities should contribute to a change in how we view children, respect their intelligence, and invite their involvement in decisions that affect them in child care programs, schools, families, hospitals, and other organizations. winter/hiver 2017 31 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research we met our goal of having the charter published before universal children’s day, november 20, in the year that marked the 25th anniversary of canada’s signing of the uncrc. to honour the city’s endorsement of hamilton’s charter of rights of children and youth at a council meeting in november 2015, we created large replica pages of the charter for all to see (figures 7 and 8). an exhibition intended to spark dialogue on rights and responsibilities was launched at hamilton city hall in november 2015. it included a large-scale sculpture constructed of a recycled airplane part, later affectionately referred to as “the wing,” and staggered branches with suspended strands that held all 1,000 paper cranes, each inscribed with rights from children aged 6 to 12 years (see figure 9). the youth component of the exhibition featured a collage of artwork and words from youth aged 13 to 18 years. this installation included submissions from teen parents. the three-dimensional nature of the exhibit invited people to walk among the panels and the cranes. the exhibit also featured the children’s original work in two binders that visitors could look through. the exhibition toured to over ten civic centres, libraries, hospitals, and recreations centres over a 15-month period, reaching a large cross-section of audiences across the greater hamilton region. figure 7. panels on display at hamilton city hall. winter/hiver 2017 32 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 8. close-up of panels in exhibit. figure 9. installation of “the wing” and cranes. winter/hiver 2017 33 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research impact both the children’s charter and the parents’ charter have been identified as foundational documents for hamilton’s early years community plan 2016–2020, which outlines the strategic priorities for the hamilton early years system. overall, the charter has been positively received. it is on display in schools and other organizations throughout the city. we are beginning to witness evidence of change in attitudes. at some exhibit venues, the space that had originally been designated for the display was not in a high-visibility location, but once the work arrived, significant accommodations were made to ensure that it was highlighted. we have also seen that some educators are learning about how to have richer conversations with young children as work about rights from individual classrooms is displayed in schools, although we realize this is an area for further growth. this project has also sparked conversations about how we view children. at the first few locations, the exhibit was cordoned off to prevent damage by children, but at one venue, this practice was questioned. from that time on, the exhibit could be fully accessed, and no damage was done. we were particularly hoping to see change in opportunities for children to participate and have a voice in decisions that affect them. we feel encouraged that city councillor jason farr consulted with children in his ward regarding such safety issues as the location and type of bike lanes to be introduced into their neighbourhoods. he noted: “their votes held equal weight to the votes of adults … because kids can identify safety problems with local streets as much as anyone” (as cited in craggs, 2016). and in april of 2017, a 14-year-old boy got a standing ovation when he presented his views on light rail transit to hamilton city council (craggs, 2017). a start. learning we have identified six factors that we believe contributed to the success of this project: engaging local experts to participate in developing the charter of rights. this step provided critical information about the uncrc and canada’s poor track record. sharing the local learned experience of how the rights of children are perceived negatively by some adults motivated us to come up with a constructive response. tapping into the local expertise of artists and educators to support and document the voices of children and youth. the adults involved had to believe in the competence of children to engage in thinking about and communicating about a complex topic, and to support them in doing so. having someone to manage resources, timelines, and budgets, deal with unexpected situations, and otherwise keep the project on track. this was essential to completing the charter on time. it helps when that person is invested/ engaged in/with the project. taking the time needed for a change in thinking to happen. rushing leads to superficial change. initially, the city thought this project would take 7 or 8 months. it took 20 months, and we know we could have continued. engaging adults and youth from a variety of sectors. schools and early learning centres are obvious choices when seeking participation of children and youth, but teen parents and marginalized youth are two examples of groups with valuable perspectives that might get overlooked. conscious effort is required to be inclusive in the broadest way possible. additional data could be gathered about participants to ensure there is representation of diverse groups. listening. youth clearly told us they did not want to be called children, so the name of the charter was changed to hamilton’s charter of rights of children and youth. we have also developed our ability to listen to other languages winter/hiver 2017 34 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research beyond the written and spoken word. the children’s drawings contributed immensely to our understandings. we do not know if we were successful in balancing children’s perspectives with adult perspectives. learning how to listen to spoken, written, and visual languages is an ongoing quest. children’s rights lawyer jeremy roche (1996) reminds us that, “critically, once we allow children to exercise their right to speak and be heard, we might have to participate in new conversations” (p. 33). there was also one key area where changes might have improved the charter. in hindsight, we realized that educators were still wrestling with their own understandings of rights and how to engage young children in deep discussion about such an abstract topic. we did not provide actual questions for educators to ask children, and we began to wonder if this had been the best decision when some of the submissions centered around children’s wishes. we realized as we started the process of seeking validation that perhaps we should have offered a question that everyone could have used for this first endeavour. at that point, we started to ask the children, “what do you think are the most important things for all children to have and to be able to do?” that question elicited thoughtful responses. it is our hope that these conversations will be ongoing, that educators and families, coaches and youth leaders, and everyone working with children will engage with them as citizens with rights and will enact the accompanying participatory responsibilities. critical interrogation of our dominant image of the child as needy, weak, and incapable of grasping a concept as abstract as rights is long overdue. this is just the beginning... before 2015 was out, we were already making plans to increase awareness of the charter, imagining that children could send copies to notable canadians from a range of backgrounds and experience to ask them to identify the right that resonates the most with them. cka has turned this “over the dinner table” discussion into a proposal that received funding and was part of a canada 150 project. the resulting exhibit of responses have been on display at the art gallery of hamilton since november 2017. we recognize that to honour children’s rights, we must create the context in which those rights can be exercised and respected. a new committee has been struck to continue to build awareness of the charter and to embed the rights into policy and practice. we will be able to cite the participatory responsibilities to ask schools, hospitals, organizations, families, and others what has changed and what we need to do differently now that we have the charter. this project set out to advocate for the rights of all children, including their right to communicate in a way that may be more suitable for them than speaking or writing. artists have long understood and worked with the idea of art as a language. loris malaguzzi’s concept of the hundred languages of children (edwards, gandini, & forman, 1998) has highlighted children’s ability to construct meaning and learn, and to communicate complex ideas through graphic representations, movement, music, and other languages, but as rinaldi (2006) notes, “above all it is a declaration of the equal dignity and importance of all languages, not only writing” (p. 175). we believe the aesthetic experience and expression of ideas in multiple forms, both for participants and audience members, can contribute to the power of captivating and enriching engaged citizenship. we also believe that the charter not only contributes to hamilton’s aspiration to be the best city to raise a child, but also helps it incline toward being the best city in which to be a child. because ontario’s pedagogy for early years (how does learning happen?, ontario ministry of education, 2014) is based on an articulated view of the child as competent and capable of complex thinking, there should be congruency for educators to respect and advocate for children’s rights and to continue the dialogue about children’s rights. the hamilton charter does not supersede laws, but it can serve to open conversations and help us to interrogate our winter/hiver 2017 35 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research assumptions about children. to borrow words spoken at the scottish civic forum (2006, as quoted by kathleen marshall, scotland’s commissioner for children and young people), “change happens when those who do not usually speak are heard by those who do not usually listen.” the participatory process of creating hamilton’s charter of rights of children and youth invited children to speak. it acknowledged their right to be heard. and it gave adults the opportunity to truly listen. references burr, r. (2004). children’s rights: international policy and lived practice. in m. j. kehily (ed.), an introduction to childhood studies (pp. 145–159). new york, ny: mcgraw-hill education. campaign 2000. (2017). campaign 2000 end child and family poverty pre-budget submission. retrieved from https://campaign2000.ca/ wp-content/uploads/2016/03/campaign2000_2018prebudgetsubmissionaugust3_17.pdf carter, a. (2015, october 13). hamilton: not the best place to raise a child. cbc news. retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ hamilton/news/hamilton-not-the-best-place-to-raise-a-child-1.3263090 covell, k., & howe, r. b. (2001). the challenge of children’s rights for canada. waterloo, on: wilfrid laurier university press. craggs, s. (2016, september 15). kids vote on how to spend $1m on hamilton street projects. cbc news. retrieved from http://www. cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/kids-voted-on-how-to-spend-1m-on-hamilton-street-projects-1.3762867 craggs, s. 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(1998). hamilton wentworth regional municipality – profile of census divisions and subdivisions, 1996 census [table]. retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?lang=e stephens, s. (ed.). (1995). children and the politics of culture. princeton, nj: princeton university press. united nations committee on the rights of the child sixty first session. (2012). consideration of reports submitted by states parties under article 44 of the convention: concluding observations: canada. retrieved from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ crc/docs/co/crc-c-can-co-3-4_en.pdf unicef innocenti research centre. (2008). the child care transition: a league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries—innocenti report card 8. florence, italy: author. retrieved from https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/ pdf/rc8_eng.pdf unicef innocenti research centre. (2012). measuring child poverty: new league tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries— innocenti report card 10. florence, italy: author. retrieved from https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc10_eng.pdf unicef office of research. (2013). child well-being in rich countries: a comparative overview—innocenti report card 11. florence, italy: author. retrieved from https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc11_eng.pdf unicef office of research. (2016). fairness for children: a league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries—innocenti report card 13. florence, italy: author. retrieved from https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc13_eng.pdf winter/hiver 2017 4 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s responses to different types of teacher involvement during free play juana gaviria-loaiza, myae han, jennifer a. vu, and jason hustedt juana gaviria-loaiza is a phd candidate in the department of human development and family studies at the university of delaware. her research interests include (1) adult-child interactions, specifically, how teachers and parents foster children’s language and socioemotional development, (2) cultural differences in parenting and teaching practices, and (3) hispanic children and families. she has participated in multiple research projects, including an early reading first project and a parent-child interaction intervention into early head start home visits. juana is from medellin, colombia. email: jgaviria@udel.edu myae han is an associate professor in the department of human development and family studies at the university of delaware. dr. han’s research interests include (1) an early intervention for at-risk children to support early language and literacy and play, (2) implementation process and coaching in applied and translational research in early childhood settings, and (3) culturally and linguistically diverse children. dr. han is a current president of literacy development in young children (ldyc) sig at the international literacy association and a past president of the association for the study of play (tasp). she has codirected various federal and state-funded grant projects, including three early reading first projects funded by the u.s. department of education. jennifer a. vu is an assistant professor in human development and family studies at the university of delaware. dr. vu’s research interests focus on young children’s affiliative relationships and on professional development and early child care quality. she has expertise conducting research in diverse low-income early childhood and care programs. she also has experience in training and supervising data collectors on standardized and observational measures, most recently as a co-pi of one of the buffering toxic stress consortium grants funded by the u.s. department of health & human services. dr. vu holds a phd from the university of california, los angeles, in psychological studies in education, with a focus on social and emotional development. jason hustedt is an associate professor in the department of human development and family studies at the university of delaware and research director for the delaware institute for excellence in early childhood. his research involves three main lines of scholarly work: (1) research on parent-child interactions in low-income families with infants and young children, (2) research on school readiness and the outcomes associated with early childhood programs, and (3) research on state and federal early childhood policies. he is principal investigator of the starting at home project, which incorporates a parent-child interaction intervention into early head start home visits. teacher involvement in play has been a long-time debate in early childhood (han, 2009; johnson, christie, & wardle, 2005; tarman &tarman, 2011). some researchers believe that adults should not interfere in children’s play because it disrupts free play and disempowers children (brown & freeman, 2001; spielberger & mclane, 2002), while others support adult involvement in play to enhance learning and the quality of play (bodrova & leong, 2003; vygotsky, 1967). recent studies support more positive views on teachers’ involvement in play and emphasize the importance of teachers’ role in facilitating children’s learning in play (enz & christie, 1997; weisberg, hirshpasek, & golinkoff, 2013b). as a result of these studies, researchers have found that teachers take on various roles during play. some teachers are more successful at facilitating children’s play; others struggle to engage children in play or support learning through play. it is useful for teachers to know what kinds of roles they can adopt to support children’s play. this calls for more this qualitative study uses secondary data from videos of 11 teachers in community childcare settings to explore the different roles that teachers use to facilitate play and the way children respond to teachers’ behaviours within these roles. results suggest that specific teacher behaviours within the roles they adopt elicit three types of children’s responses: ignore/reject, evaluative, and acceptance behaviours. the coplayer and play leader roles were often associated with children’s acceptance behaviours and were considered more appropriate for teachers to support children’s development. key words: play; teachers’ roles; teacher–child interactions; childcare winter/hiver 2017 5 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research research on teachers’ roles in play and children’s responses to the teachers’ roles. the current study expands the previous literature by examining the children’s responses in depth in relation to the different functions of the teachers’ roles during play. theoretical framework the present study was guided by vygotsky’s (1978) theory of the zone of proximal development and wood, bruner, and ross’s (1976) concept of scaffolding. vygotsky (1978) states that the zone of proximal development consists of the difference between what children can do on their own and what they can accomplish with some support. the guidance that a child receives from adults or more competent peers to reach their maximum potential is known as “scaffolding” (wood et al., 1976). when a child is able to perform elements of a task alone, the adult gradually withdraws support and lets the child act more independently. this kind of adult intervention and guidance can be helpful for children to expand their knowledge and learning during play. these concepts set the stage to better understand the process of teacher–child interactions during play. play and early development play represents the core of young children’s activities during childhood. it is a universal activity that has been categorized by the united nations (1989) as a right for children under the convention on the rights of the child. play has been studied in diverse contexts, and the importance of play in the early years has widely been documented in different developmental domains (fromberg & bergen, 2006; johnson, christie, & wardle, 2005; vygotsky, 1930/2004). researchers have stated that play promotes social competence, academic performance, confidence, self-regulation, and management of emotions and behaviours (hirsh-pasek & golinkoff, 2008). it is also an important vehicle for developing language, cognition, and social competence (national association for the education of young children, 2009). consistent with vygotsky’s notion of the zone of proximal development, roskos and christie (2011) argue that play itself becomes a tool that children use on their own to reach greater levels of cognitive functioning. likewise, during play children have opportunities to spontaneously express specific needs that arise during the preschool years and is important for their development (vygotsky, 1967). play, free play in particular, has been shown to offer valuable opportunities to cognitively challenge children (gest, hollandcoviello, welsh, eicher-catt, & gill, 2006). all these aspects highlight the importance of play in the early years and place it as one of the principles of developmentally appropriate practice, as defined by the national association for the education of young children (2009). however, in the current era of standards-driven education, the role of play in the classroom is a topic of debate. on one side of this argument, play is conceived as essential for children to learn and develop, while an opposite view argues that learning has its basis in different influences, such as direct instruction and adult modelling. according to the latter point of view, play should not be an important focus at school and should be left to entertain children at home. a third perspective tries to reconcile these two positions by supporting the notion of equifinality, which means that different paths can lead to the same outcome; proponents of this perspective argue that play is one of multiple processes that influence learning and development (lillard et al., 2013; roskos & christie, 2010). although experts agree that play is important for development across a variety of domains, there is less agreement about the mechanisms through which play has an impact. lillard et al. (2013) conducted a comprehensive literature review on pretend play and its relationship to different domains of development (e.g., language, executive function) that generated a debate among play researchers. lillard and colleagues reported that play most likely has a causal relation with language and a possible causal link with reasoning, emotion regulation, and narrative. winter/hiver 2017 6 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research these researchers also discussed a number of methodological flaws in previous research, and argued that further research is needed to clarify this relationship. different play scholars have since critiqued their literature review. for instance, bergan (2013) states that their choice of studies that used dramatic play to draw conclusions was questionable, since many of these studies did not use pretend play in a genuine way. likewise, weisberg, hirshpasek, and golinkoff (2013a) argue that, given the complexity of the play construct, it should be studied through different methodological approaches, including qualitative studies, and should not be limited to experimental studies. walker and gopnik (2013) also argue that lillard et al. (2013) did not provide the basis for future research on the relationship between pretend play and development, and suggest that “counterfactual reasoning” (i.e., related to causality learning) was related to pretend play. to better understand the relationship between play and development, more research is needed, particularly studies employing a greater breadth of methodologies. teachers’ role in children’s play vygotsky (1967) viewed play as a context for socially assisted learning and scaffolding where children, with adult assistance, can perform on a higher level than their current developmental level. teachers not only have an important role in promoting and supporting children’s play activities in the classroom by defining different contexts and activities children will be exposed to, but also have the opportunity to use play to enhance children’s development. researchers have examined teacher–child interactions during play and have identified different roles by which teachers enhance or disrupt children’s play (johnson et al., 2005; kontos, 1999; meacham, vukelich, han, & buell, 2013, 2014; vu, han, & buell, 2015). johnson et al. (2005) divide these roles into two groups: precarious roles (e.g., uninvolved, director, and redirector) and facilitative roles (e.g., onlooker, stage manager, co-player, and play leader). the facilitative roles seem to generate positive responses from children, while the precarious roles are either uninvolved or disrupt children’s play (johnson et al., 2005). vu, han, and buell (2015) examined the effects of the teacher roles on the quality of children’s play. they found that higher levels of teacher engagement as a co-player or play leader were linked to more cognitively complex play (e.g., sociodramatic play) and a higher level of social play (e.g., cooperative play). trawick-smith and dziurgot (2011) also examined teachers’ support to children’s needs during play. they found that a good fit in adult–child play interactions often led to children’s independent play, but a poor fit in adult–child interactions did not. these studies highlight the need to inform teachers how to facilitate children’s play. a few other studies have also looked at teachers’ facilitative roles during play (kontos, 1999; meacham et al., 2013); however, to date, there is little research on children’s responses to teachers’ roles. the current study tries to expand the literature by studying in more depth the functions of teachers’ roles in relation to the child’s responses. the purpose of the present study was to explore the functions of different roles that teachers assume to facilitate children’s play and to examine children’s responses to teachers’ behaviours within different roles. our study was guided by the following research questions: 1. what roles do teachers adopt during children’s free play, and how are these roles used? 2. how do children respond to teachers’ facilitation during free play, and what kinds of teacher behaviours elicit those responses? method participants the study used video data collected from an earlier project (see vu, han, & buell, 2015, for original study winter/hiver 2017 7 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research description). participants were 11 teachers working in three different childcare centres and the children in their classrooms. two private centres were located in a suburban area and one nonprofit childcare centre was located in an urban area in a mid-atlantic state in the us. the 11 teachers were randomly selected from the 30 original participants to be videotaped in their classrooms. of the 11 teachers, six were lead teachers in their classrooms, two were administrators who were certified teachers and were also teaching at the time, two were teaching assistants, and one was an intern. participants had between three and 28 years of experience teaching in an early childhood setting, and were all female. the children observed in these classrooms were preschool-aged boys and girls between 3 and 5 years of age. procedure this study was approved by an institutional review board, and both teachers and parents signed the appropriate consent form before the videotaping. teachers were videotaped indoors during free play and/or free centre time, and were asked to behave as they normally would. teachers wore a wireless microphone to better capture their speech and the voices of the children they were interacting with. approximately 30 consecutive minutes of video were analyzed for each teacher. although the number of children present in each classroom when the videotaping took place ranged from four to over 15, teachers often interacted with four or fewer children at any given time. all videos were transcribed verbatim by the first author and later reviewed by two graduate students for accuracy. in cases where audio content could not be understood, utterances were transcribed as inaudible content. data analysis the current study used qualitative analysis and was guided by glaser and strauss’s (1967) grounded theory approach, where different research procedures (e.g., coding phases) were followed to allow new conceptual categories to emerge from the data. given that little is known about children’s responses to teachers’ involvement and roles during play, grounded theory was suitable for this exploratory study. the coding process is described below. teachers’ roles. an event-sampling technique (reis & gable, 2000) was used to capture the events in which teachers interacted with children during play. each video was broken into play and nonplay events (e.g., academic or routine activities). a play event consisted of a period of time that met two criteria based on the work of johnson, christie, and wardle (2005): (1) the episode presented a combination of indicators of play (i.e., nonliterality, free choice, process orientation, and positive affect); and (2) the teacher assumed one of the categories of teachers’ roles during play (i.e., onlooker, stage manager, co-player, play leader, director, and redirector). a play event started when the teacher assumed a specific role and ended when the teacher transitioned to a different role or if the play indicators were no longer present. the nonplay events consisted of periods of time in which there were no indicators of play (e.g., academic activity taking place), and/or the teacher was doing a different activity and was not engaged in children’s play. once the videos were broken into events, the teacher’s role codes were assigned to each event and the main teachers’ characteristics in each role were identified. the first author was in charge of the coding process. a trained graduate student also coded 25% of the data (i.e., identifying play events and assigning teachers’ roles). to ensure consistency in the coding, a process of intercoder reliability was performed, and a kappa value of .83 was obtained. this value met the standards for good agreement (i.e., .65 or higher) as suggested by landis and koch (1977). if there were discrepancies in the coding process between the researcher and the graduate student, they discussed the case until a consensus was reached. children’s responses. audiovisual data were analyzed through the constant comparative method of analysis (glaser & strauss, 1967), as well as through open, axial, and selective coding (corbin & strauss, 2008). in the open coding phase, videos were observed to identify teachers’ behaviours and children’s responses when interacting with the winter/hiver 2017 8 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research teachers. the identified children’s responses included behaviours such as resisting teachers’ input, accepting and incorporating teachers’ ideas, and ignoring teachers’ comments, among others. this list of responses constituted the initial concepts from the open coding process (corbin & strauss, 2008), and was followed by a categorizing process that consisted of grouping similar concepts, developed from different teacher–child interactions, into categories. three different behaviours (i.e., ignore/reject behaviours, evaluative behaviours, and acceptance behaviours) were identified as the main categories. in the axial coding phase, data from the videos were coded with the categories that emerged from the open coding. while in this process, subcategories were developed from the data to better capture the details of the children’s different behaviours when they interacted with teachers during play. some of these subcategories included ignore, reject, resist, and build on, among others. see figure 1 for the list of original concepts, categories, and subcategories from the open and axial coding phases. in the selective coding phase, the results of the two previous phases were compiled in an illustrative category (i.e., a continuum). children’s responses were conceived as a continuum of receptiveness toward the different behaviours teachers adopted when involved in their play. figure 1. categorization process of child’s response during play.  no response/ignores (verbal or nonverbal) teacher’s questions, comments  rejects teacher’s ideas, comments  resists teacher’s ideas/comments (verbal)  questions teacher’s suggestions/choices  follows instructions  builds on teacher’s ideas  proposes alternatives  accepts/incorporates teacher’s ideas (verbal or/and nonverbal)  answers teacher’s questions ignore/reject behaviors evaluative behaviors acceptance behaviors original concepts final categories reject ignore resist question respond incorporate build on subcategories axial coding open coding figure 1. categorization process of child’s response during play winter/hiver 2017 9 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research results functions of teachers’ roles a total of 261 play events and 78 nonplay events were identified. on average, teachers spent 66.9% of the coded 30 minutes involved in children’s play. all 11 teachers engaged in nonplay activities (ranging from two to ten nonplay events) at some point during the 30 minutes. the nonplay events included episodes in which teachers were observed talking to another adult (e.g., talking to a parent who came into the classroom), doing academic activities (e.g., patterns at a centre table), helping children with routine activities (e.g., washing hands), organizing material and planning activities, talking on the phone, eating, or doing paperwork. in the play events, teachers assumed one of the play roles (i.e., onlooker, stage manager, co-player, play leader, director, or redirector). two kinds of play were observed within the play events: sociodramatic and constructive play. the number of events and the amount of time teachers spent in each role showed a consistent pattern (see table 1). the most popular role among the teachers was the onlooker (42.5% of the events, n = 11), followed by the stage manager (24.2%, n = 10), the co-player (15.3%, n = 7), the director (8.8%, n = 6), the play leader (6.5%, n = 6), and the redirector (2.7%, n = 4). table 1. total number of play events and amount of time teachers spent in each role role number of events % of events duration of events in seconds % time of play events onlooker 111 42.5% 5701 43.1% stage manager 63 24.2% 3616 27.3% co-player 40 15.3% 2070 15.6% play leader 17 6.5% 599 4.6% director 23 8.8% 1079 8.1% redirector 7 2.7% 169 1.3% total 261 100% 13234 100 onlooker. when assuming the onlooker role, teachers were not actively involved in children’s play although they assumed an observer position. some of the functions within this role included teachers monitoring children’s play, commenting or giving directions to children such as “don’t touch that” or “be careful” (usually from a distance and related to safety), and engaging in verbal interaction with children by getting close to them and asking questions about the play. for example, while observing children play, ms. elise got closer to the group. without entering the children’s play, ms. elise was able to find out about what children were doing by asking, “what are you guys making?” after children told her they were making ice cream, ms. elise provided positive comments validating their play: ms. elise: “ice cream? very cool, very cool! […] it looks like a yummy ice cream.” in many events, verbal interactions between teachers and children started with children approaching the teacher to ask play-related questions, seek her approval, or ask her to join them in the play. winter/hiver 2017 10 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research stage manager. unlike the onlooker role, teachers who assumed the stage manager role played an active role by helping the children without being involved in the children’s play itself. while in this role, most teachers helped children prepare play props and materials and introduced theme ideas. for instance, in a play event ms. kelly helped the children make tickets to go to the carnival. after a child asked her to spell “ferris wheel” and to write it on the ticket, they started discussing what tickets should be used for. when in this role, teachers also dealt with conflicts between players or helped a child resolve a problem. for example, one conflict occurred while ms. gabrielle was helping the children find the right pieces for playing house. gia asked lara multiple times if she could have a person, and lara did not want to share. it was at this point when ms. gabrielle intervened: “is [sic] there other people? lara, you can’t have all the people. can you share a couple people with gia? … lara, you can’t have all four. wouldn’t it be nice if you share?” after going back and forth for a little while, lara finally shared with gia. multiple conversations between children and teachers happened while teachers were serving as stage managers. conversations usually were related to the play material or play theme and in many cases were transferred outside the play context to real-life situations. co-player. this type of role was most frequent in sociodramatic play in which teachers played a minor role, such as being the customer in a restaurant setting or the patient when playing doctor’s office. teachers did not control the play plots but rather followed the children’s lead. in manipulative pretend play, they often adopted equal roles with the children by being similar characters (e.g., students and teachers were all dinosaurs, or trucks). the following excerpt illustrates how a teacher adopted a co-player role in sociodramatic play while playing restaurant. ms. deb was sitting on a table and rose was cooking for her and serving the food. after ms. deb finished eating, rose brought her a drink and went back to the kitchen. when rose came back to the table she asked, “where is the tea?”: ms. deb: i don’t know. where did my sweet tea go? rose: you get sweet tea. [grabs a new cup, and looks at it in detail] it’s a coffee cup! do you want coffee? ms. deb: umm rose: that’s the only thing we have. ms. deb: well, can you put ice in it? rose: we don’t have any ice. ms. deb: you don’t have ice? all right, i’ll drink it hot. in the above excerpt, ms. deb was actively involved in children’s sociodramatic play, taking on a minor role (the major role in the scene was being played by the child). although the child led the episode, the teacher took an active role and made comments and demands within her character. in some other cases it was possible to see teachers breaking character to provide some suggestions for the play, which the children either accepted or rejected. however, most of the time they were engaged in conversations within the play context. it was also observed in some events that as soon as the teacher stopped engaging as a co-player, children engaged in fewer verbal interactions and the level of social and cognitive play was also lower. when teachers assumed a co-player role, they usually caught the attention of other children who were not interacting with them, who asked to join the play or tried to get the teacher involved in their play. winter/hiver 2017 11 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research play leader. in this role, teachers tried to influence children’s play by providing ideas and themes that helped their play. in many cases, teachers still adopted a minor or equal role in the play. usually the ideas suggested by the teachers were novel and attractive to the children, and in many cases were related to real-life experiences (e.g., being stuck in traffic, going through a drive-thru, doing an x-ray). by doing this, teachers were able to introduce specific vocabulary that was soon used by the children. the following example shows how teachers adopting the play leader role introduced a little twist to the play that opened the possibilities of a new plot, and therefore kept the play alive. the children and ms. lauren were pretending the chairs were cars. they had been playing for a while when ms. lauren transitioned from the coplayer role to the play leader role. cait: we have to go past the gate so we can go back home. ms. lauren: oh! we’re going back home? okay, good, ‘cause i’m hungry, i’m hungry. who’s cooking? who’s cooking tonight? cait: me! ms. lauren: cait, you’re cooking for us? oh, good! ‘cause we’re coming over. [to cynthia] i hope she makes something good. cynthia: she is gonna make cupcakes. ms. lauren: are you making cupcakes? oh! thank goodness! i love cupcakes. cynthia: that’s good! we can take a piece of the cupcake. ms. lauren: i wonder what kind she is making. cynthia: we’re making yellow cupcakes. in this episode, the teacher followed the child’s lead but added a new idea that changed the course of the play and got the children excited again. as seen with the co-player role, the teacher’s play leader role was observed most often in sociodramatic play. in a few events, teachers adopted the play leader role to suggest interactions among children. director. teachers who adopted this role were often overinvolved in children’s play. they tended to control children’s actions, and sometimes the play scripts, by telling them exactly what to do or say. for instance, in one of the events, ms. danielle was asking michael to come on the table to play with her: “i need you to come and sit with me, buds, you have to help me build a roller coaster. let me get these pieces over here.” in this case, the teacher explicitly told the child what to do, therefore limiting his “free choice” options. redirector. in this role, teachers usually interrupted children’s play by shifting their attention to other topics or activities. in some cases, teachers tried to reinforce academic concepts, such as numbers, colours, language, or other concepts in a way that was not opportune for the moment. for example, while building a roller coaster with a child, a teacher started reviewing prepositions by emphasizing up and down with the marbles, not the roller coaster cars, and breaking the pretend context (i.e., marbles were no longer roller coaster wagons) to reinforce academic concepts. in this case, the child’s play was disturbed and they did not go back to the original plot. winter/hiver 2017 12 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s responses to teachers’ behaviours within different roles some of the general teachers’ behaviours that elicited a response from children were identified through an initial screening of the data. in such cases, teachers were usually asking questions; providing comments, suggestions, and directions; evaluating children’s behaviours and ideas; introducing new material; helping children organize their play; or resolving conflicts. these behaviours were linked to one or multiple roles as described in the previous section. children’s responses were identified and grouped in three major categories: reject/ignore, evaluative, and acceptance behaviours. reject/ignore behaviours. these behaviours implicated the lowest level of receptiveness from the child toward a teacher’s behaviours or suggestions. children either showed no response to the teacher or turned down the teacher’s input or actions. based on the events observed, some of the possible reasons for these responses include teachers asking multiple different questions in a short period of time, not being physically close to the child when making comments or asking questions, being overinvolved in children’s play, giving directions and commands that required children to stop playing in the way they were doing it, presenting materials or ideas that were not of the child’s interest, and providing inputs that had no apparent relevance for the children. two different types of behaviours were identified within this category: reject and ignore behaviours. reject. these behaviours consisted of children verbally turning down teachers’ input or disapproving of teachers’ actions. for example, a child verbally rejected the teacher’s suggestions when playing potato heads. ms. kelly said: “we need more pieces, don’t we? like mouths and stuff.” ryan responded, “no we don’t.” some nonverbal expressions of rejection, such as saying “no” with head shaking, were also observed. ignore. children who presented these behaviours often continued playing without paying attention to what the teacher was doing or saying. this occurred even if the teacher was asking questions or making comments directed to the specific child. although reject/ignore behaviours were observed in response to all the teachers’ roles at some point, most of them occurred when the teacher was adopting the onlooker role, asking questions or making comments from an observer perspective. these types of responses were also frequent in the directive role, when teachers were trying to convince children to do something. teachers approached various children who either rejected or ignored their input. however, they often ended up finding a different child who did not engage in reject/ignore behaviours with whom they could start an active interaction. it was also seen that teachers did not give up easily when children ignored them; they tended to keep repeating questions or comments until a child answered them. rejection was sometimes accompanied by anger and frustration from children. evaluative behaviours. children who presented these behaviours were more receptive to the teachers’ involvement than children with reject/ignore responses. however, they still did not completely accept teachers’ input or actions, or it took them time to incorporate teachers’ suggestions into their play. some of the possible observed reasons for these children’s responses include teachers giving ideas that were not related to children’s play plot and did not seem to convince the children, or teachers providing multiple different inputs in a short period of time. evaluative behaviours were frequently observed when the teacher took an active role, especially in the co-player and director roles. two subcategories were identified for this category: children either resisting or questioning teachers’ behaviours. resist. children with this type of response resisted doing what the teacher asked or suggested they do. resistance behaviours often were resolved through subsequent acceptance or rejection behaviours. in the case of resolving as acceptance behaviours, some children provided a negative verbal response to the teacher’s input but still performed winter/hiver 2017 13 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the action suggested, though with some level of initial resistance. in the case of resistance behaviours resolving in rejection behaviours, the initial resistance later turned into a clear rejection. for instance, while playing dolls, ms. diana asked rachel if she put some sunscreen on the doll’s face. rachel touched the doll’s face and paused for a minute, then said “no” to the teacher. even though ms. diana kept insisting, rachel continued to resist the teacher’s idea. question. children sometimes questioned teachers’ ideas by responding to the teacher’s idea with a question (e.g., repeating the teacher’s idea in a tone that was actually a question). the next example illustrates the case of a child who was questioning the teacher while she adopted the directive role: ms. amy: come here, brick, let’s make your elephant a house. brick: oh! we … we got to make him a house? ms. amy: yeah. brick: this is the house we’re gonna make? ms. amy: yeah, put it on the [inaudible] instead of rejecting or accepting the teacher’s idea, brick started asking questions, with a tone that suggested he was not convinced about what the teacher was suggesting. resistance behaviours usually resolved with children adopting either rejection or acceptance responses. acceptance behaviours. in these behaviours, children showed a high level of reception by following teachers’ directions, responding to their questions, comments, and suggestions, and incorporating their ideas. in some cases, they went even further by building on the teachers’ input and proposing new ideas, or assuming roles connected to the teachers’ input. some of the teachers’ behaviours that were often linked to these responses included teachers showing interest in children’s play; taking an active role in children’s play; providing ideas, questions, comments, suggestions, and materials aligned with the play; incorporating real-life experiences related and pertinent to the play; letting children take an active role; or catching children’s interest and attention. these types of responses from children were present across all the teachers’ roles, but were observed more frequently in the co-player and playleader roles. three subcategories of acceptance behaviours were identified: respond, incorporate, and build on. respond. children provided either a verbal answer or a nonverbal expression accepting or validating teachers’ input or behaviour. this response was not followed up by an action related to the input. an example of this subcategory included children expressing that the teacher’s idea was a good idea, but not subsequently incorporating it in their play. incorporate. the child could either provide or not provide a verbal answer, but they responded to teachers with actions. these children often incorporated teachers’ ideas into their play and followed teachers’ directions. for instance, while playing with houses and little people, emma was looking for furniture for her house. ms. amy was helping the children to find the different elements for their play. when emma grabbed a chair, ms. amy asked: “why don’t you try one of your persons to sit on that chair, emma? see if one of your people could sit in that chair.” winter/hiver 2017 14 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research emma, without looking or saying anything to the teacher, grabbed a person and sat it on the chair. build on. in this subcategory the children accepted the teachers’ input or behaviour and went beyond that with a proactive response. for instance, based on the teachers’ input, children provided new ideas for their play or came up with alternative uses for the material. it was often the case that children not only adopted the roles implied by the teachers, but also incorporated novel vocabulary. the following situation is an example of this subcategory. while playing cars, the teacher introduced a new truck, a tow truck. ms. lilly: does anybody need a tow? pete: i need a tow. ms. lilly: i’ll be right back to get your car. ryan: i’m a tow truck. ms. lilly: all right, it’s parked right here. oh, there’s another tow truck out here. where is your car, ryan? i came to get it. ryan: now i’m a tow car. ms. lilly: okay. ryan: we’re tow cars. ms. lilly: john, i’ll look and see if your car is fixed and i’ll bring it back to you. ryan: here, i’m bringing that one. ms. lilly: oh! you wanna bring it back to him? all right, go ahead. ryan: i’m bringing the car back to you. in this case, ryan not only accepted the teacher’s idea in the play, but he also incorporated it into his own role and built on it. he adopted the tow car role and was able to assume its functions while using the appropriate vocabulary. continuum of receptiveness toward teachers’ behaviours the identified children’s responses were conceived as a continuum of receptiveness, from most resistant to most receptive toward the behaviours of teachers during play (see figure 2). on the highly receptive end of the continuum, children not only accept teachers’ behaviours, but also extend teachers’ input and build on it. in the centre of this continuum are evaluative behaviours in which children neither reject nor accept teachers’ behaviours right away. rather, children first take some time to process and evaluate teachers’ inputs and behaviours. the reject/ignore behaviours represent low levels of receptiveness toward teachers’ input. figure 2. continuum of receptiveness toward teachers’ behaviours. build onincorporaterespondquestionresistignorereject reject/ignore behaviours evaluative behaviours acceptance behaviours 20 winter/hiver 2017 15 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research although each of the teachers’ roles elicited different responses along the continuum at some point, certain child responses were observed more often when teachers adopted certain roles. for instance, the acceptance behaviours were observed more often when teachers adopted the play leader and the co-player role, while the onlooker role seemed to be linked to more ignoring behaviours from children. table 2 summarizes teachers’ behaviours (i.e., behaviours that elicit children’s responses), children’s behaviours (i.e., the three categories of responses identified), and the roles in which these were observed more frequently. it is important to note that although certain behaviours are associated with specific roles, it does not mean that they were not present in the other roles at some point. table 2. teachers’ behaviours within roles and children’s responses onlooker stage manager coplayer play leader director redirector reject/ignore asking many questions x x not being physically close to the child x being overinvolved x providing multiple directions and commands x x x providing ideas of no interest to the child x x x evaluative providing ideas not convincing the child x x providing substantial input in a short period of time x x acceptance showing interest in children’s play x x x x x taking an active role x x x providing input related to children’s play x x x x incorporating real-life experiences into play x x x x letting children take an active role x x catching children’s interest and attention x x x x x x discussion the present study supports the idea that play should constitute a main context where children can learn and develop skills in the classroom. although we recognize the importance of children having free play time without any adult winter/hiver 2017 16 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research intervention in different contexts, including the classroom, we consider that adults’ participation in children’s play can be very beneficial for both the child and the adult if the appropriate setting and goals are identified. the current study focused on looking at teachers’ different roles during children’s play within the classroom, putting a special emphasis on children’s responses to the teachers’ involvement. this study builds on previous literature on the different roles of teachers during play. we found that the teachers use different roles for many different purposes. in the current study, teachers spent more time involved in roles that were considered to facilitate children’s play, engaging in specific behaviours that supported children’s play. for instance, teachers in the onlooker role were able to monitor children’s play and switch to an active role when necessary in order to support children’s play. teachers in the stage manager role assisted children with their play props, themes, and materials and helped resolve conflicts between players. johnson et al. (2005) present these teachers’ roles in a continuum of engagement, with the onlooker role being the role with least engagement in the involvement category. in the current study, most teachers spent the majority of their time in the onlooker role. this might suggest two different interpretations which need further research to unpack. one simple interpretation could be that teachers had a relatively low level of engagement in children’s play. on the other hand, it might mean that teachers are more careful not to intervene in children’s play when the children do not need support from the teacher. these results differ from kontos’s study (1999), which reported that head start teachers spent most of their time in the stage manager role during free play time. perhaps this variation between findings might be linked to changes in educational context, such as the standards movement in early childhood education, lack of emphasis on play today, differences between community childcare centres and head start, or personal characteristics of the teachers in this study. furthermore, fleer (2015), although she did not refer to the teachers’ roles described in this study, found that teachers spent most of their time outside children’s imaginary play but often focused on learning outcomes in the play context. it appears to be common for teachers to not enter children’s imaginary play episodes. however, our findings suggest that when teachers assumed the co-player and play leader roles (i.e., being inside the play), children tended to have more social interactions with peers, shifting from solitary and parallel play to higher social levels of play, such as cooperative behaviours. vu, han, and buell (2015) found similar results in regard to teachers’ roles. when teachers assumed the play leader, stage manager, and co-player roles, children showed higher social levels in their play, as well as greater cognitive complexity, reflected in more sociodramatic play episodes. this type of play, along with games with rules, requires children to achieve a level of representation and abstraction that is not necessary for higher levels of play (national association for the education of young children, 2009). there seem to be benefits for children when teachers take on an active role inside their play, as children tend to use certain cognitive and social skills linked to their learning processes. furthermore, the literature suggests that when teachers adopt a role in children’s play, they are able to model children’s play episodes by adding complexity to the narrative of the play, extending stories, helping children resolve conflicts within the play plot, as well as supporting specific learning goals and skills aligned with the play episode from within the play (fleer, 2015; hakkarainen, brėdikytė, jakkula, & munter, 2013). nevertheless, it is also known that inappropriate or too much teacher engagement can disrupt children’s play (johnson et al., 2005). teachers need to understand children’s zone of proximal development (vygotsky, 1978) and provide scaffolding when they need it. in the current study, teachers adopted the director role more than the play leader role, often being overinvolved and disrupting the play when they tried to participate. higher levels of engagement are not necessarily the best way to support children’s play. the current study also found a continuum of children’s responses toward teachers’ behaviours that ranged from winter/hiver 2017 17 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research low receptiveness (i.e., reject/ignore) to high receptiveness (i.e., acceptance and building on). the highest level of receptiveness in this continuum involved children going beyond the teachers’ input to accomplish something specific (e.g., engaging in more socially and cognitively complex play). these behaviours were often observed when the teacher took on play leader and co-player roles. this finding suggests that when teachers adopt the roles linked to play-sensitive behaviours (e.g., providing verbal interventions related to the play plot, showing interest in children’s play, helping with materials and ideas), they are able to advance children’s zone of proximal development (vygotsky, 1978). the teacher’s role during play is helping the child reach levels that they might not be able to achieve without this guidance. findings from this study are partially aligned with the results from trawick-smith and dziurgot (2011) in recognizing the importance of adequate involvement in children’s play in order to elicit specific behaviours from children, since in their study, when teachers responded to children’s needs, children were able to engage in more independent play as a result. implications, limitations, and future research our findings indicate the need to educate teachers about the different ways they can interact with children during play and the roles they can take on to better support children’s play while enhancing their learning. when participating in children’s play episodes, it is important for teachers to know when and how to get involved. teachers’ interventions should be genuine and aligned with the dynamics of the play and with children’s interests in order to elicit more positive responses from children and to be able to scaffold their learning and development through play. providing professional development opportunities, such as play-focused training, would help inform in-service and preservice teachers of the importance of the different types of interactions and the roles they can assume with children during play in the classroom in order to elicit positive responses from children and maximize the benefits of these interactions. such is the case of adopting facilitative roles without intruding and overstepping in children’s play. if children show more positive responses to teachers’ facilitative roles, it could strength their interactions with teachers and peers and could help bring the complexity of the play to a higher level, given that the interests of all the people involved are aligned. the results of the current study could therefore provide more evidence to help teachers consider play as an optimal scenario within the classroom to support the skills needed for children’s school success. the current study also comes with some limitations. for instance, this study was conducted with a relatively small sample of teachers from childcare settings, and the data represent only a single observation of the teachers. having more than one observation would be ideal to ensure that the behaviours found to characterize the teachers were not specific to the day these videos were recorded. the potential for reactivity could also be a limitation. the fact that teachers were conscious that they were being recorded may have affected their behaviour. there was also variation in the type of teachers’ qualifications, which may have influenced teachers’ knowledge and the roles they adopted when interacting with children during play. further, children’s personalities and temperaments are additional considerations that could be addressed in future studies. future research should consider the development of an instrument to identify and classify teachers’ behaviours and children’s responses in a natural setting. a replication of the study in a different context, such as a head start centre, may help provide clarity to the particularities of the community childcare setting. differences and/or similarities found across distinct types of childcare settings would help generalize findings and provide insights into the unique needs of certain centres. given the important role that play has in the classroom and the different types of teacher–child interactions that can take place during play episodes, it is important to continue to explore this area of study to help teachers identify distinct ways of enhancing children’s learning through play. 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(1989). the convention on the rights of the child. retrieved from: http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ crc.aspx vu, j. a., han, m., & buell, m. j. (2015). the effects of in-service training on teachers’ beliefs and practices in children’s play. european early childhood education research journal, 23(4), 444–460. doi: 10.1080/1350293x.2015.1087144 vygotsky, l. s. (1930/2004). imagination and creativity in childhood. journal of russian and east european psychology, 42, 7–97. vygotsky, l. s. (1967). play and its role in the mental development of the child. journal of soviet psychology, 5(3), 6–18. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind and society: the development of higher mental processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. weisberg, d., hirsh-pasek, k., & golinkoff, r. (2013a). embracing complexity: rethinking the relation between play and learning: comment on lillard et al. (2013). psychological bulletin, 139(1), 35–39. doi: 10.1037/a0030077 weisberg, d., hirsh-pasek, k., & golinkoff, r. (2013b). guided play: where curricular goals meet playful pedagogy. mind, brain, and education, 7(2), 104–112. spring/printemps 2018 87 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources book review: eben kirksey’s multispecies salon reviewed by vera schoepe vera schoepe is a hybrid multimedia artist, teacher, and budding multimodality researcher in the curriculum and instruction department at the university of texas at austin. she holds a master’s with honours from école nationale supérieure de la photographie in arles, france, and has produced multimedia installations and directed intercultural workshops for children and youth internationally. in her pedagogical and artistic practice, she uses photography and other art media to document questions of memory, identity, and borderland territories, with emphasis on hybrid communities’ enduring environmental challenges. her multimedia cartographies are created in conversation with locals through interviews, oral history recording, and writing and art workshops. with her teaching, she seeks to explore the poetry and politics of shifting hybrid identities in public and private spaces and, ultimately, encourage young students to assert and cocreate their bearings in an ever-changing set of world variables. email: veraschoepe@gmail.com thinking/playing/living with other species: unsettling the western ontological status quo multispecies salon presents a body of transdisciplinary inquiry that disrupts the western academic status quo and blurs the seemingly fixed human/natural interactions in the context of posthuman-era research. anthropologist eben kirksey edits a compilation of essays that document a series of emerging multispecies encounters that openly reject apocalyptic ideologies and revindicate biocultural hope in blasted landscapes. this flourishing multimedia project, which includes a companion website (www.multispecies-salon.org/), brings together conferences, exhibitions, environmental activist parades, art performances, and thought-provoking multispecies ethnographies. these hybrid practices span from san francisco to new orleans, new york city, and beyond. they also blur ontological categories and center the study of emerging multispecies encounters in the context of dystopian ruins affected by metastasized neoliberal capitalist policies. attending to entanglements of subject and object, nature and culture, human and nonhuman, this audacious group of researchers unsettles normative research practices and replaces them with hybrid and experimental strategies. the book includes essays by a myriad of creative agents, including multispecies ethnographers, artists turned biological scientists, and environmental activists, who all conduct critical research and cocreate provocative experiential projects. all project participants transgress ontological categories and explore new avenues of collaborative research, while “illuminating the workings of capital and power, nature and culture,” as kirksey writes (2014, p. 7). they write, morph, explore, make art, discuss what happens within and without their bodies, neighbourhoods, and regions. they “poach” theories by bringing together cultural and scientific research, weaving stories, and building art manifestations. these subversive researchers become-with germs, nonhuman beings, and the ecosystems they share. generative and hopeful interruptions might seem hidden within the work, but they are ever present. for example, jacqueline bishop’s work trespass contains latent seeds of biocultural hope, such as seed pods, mushrooms, and bird eggs, all cleverly hidden in detritus soil seemingly drowned in oil. months before hurricane katrina in 2005, bishop created a series of assemblage pieces using artificial birds, baby shoes, bird nests, and toys “coated in a black patina, a dark, glossy finish like crude oil” (kirksey, 2014, p. 31). the dark shapes lay entangled and dormant on strands of hay, creating an unexpected network of scavenged waste. light colourful markings depicting seed pods, leaves, bird eggs, flowers, fruits, and mushrooms emerge from dark iridescent shapes that prefigure the overwash of hurricane katrina and the bp oil flood in the gulf of mexico. such seemingly hidden traces speckle gleanings with latent organic hope. the book is divided into three sections: “blasted landscapes”; “edible companions”; and “life and biotechnology.” the sections cover exterior multispecies interactions, inner comminglings, and biotechnological happenings. spring/printemps 2018 88 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources across sections, each project offers unique and provocative approaches for engaging in multispecies encounters and hybrid experiences that creatively respond to anthropogenic landscapes. in the first section, ro mayer creates a custom parade to speak for the rights of animals and mourn the 2010 oil spill in the gulf of mexico; elizabeth acevedo resituates herself in a recovered landscape and documents her dystopian wanderings through photography; karin bolender undertakes a walking journey with a donkey, then after the donkey gives birth, traces the pollution that the donkey has been exposed to across multiple landscapes by containing it in donkey milk soap; and anna l. tsing documents the persistent flourishing of matsutake mushrooms in contaminated or torn-up landscapes. in the second section, myrtle von damitz iii depicts humans as paella bites; heather paxson further disturbs antiseptic peace with her germ questioning; miriam simun stories microbe-human collaborations by making human cheese; lindsay kelley makes plumpiñon—a play on a branded form of food aid, to bring attention to the entanglements of food and global neocolonial and neoliberal hegemonies; indigenous pomo elders of northern california discuss recipes and varying degrees of bitterness and share how making acorn mush is a form of connection to oaks, places, memories, and traditions; and caitlin berrigan sets up a symbiotic transfusion of fluids between humans and dandelions as an exchange of nutrients that simultaneously gestures to multispecies reciprocity while unsettling regulatory approaches to human-microbe relations. in the third section, andre brodyk paints with alzheimer’s disease bacteria; praba pilar questions the god of biotechnology; karen barad explores how “brittlestars challenge disembodied epistemologies and traditional notions of embodiment” (kirksey, 2014, p. 228); and patricia piccinini sculpts toy-size stem cells and turns them into playful, disturbing critters that complexify biotech-onto-ethical boundaries. these hybrid practices are uniquely messy and unsettling. however, the researchers succeed in cocreating unexpected hope by dispelling purely anthropogenic interferences, engaging in reciprocal gestures and lingering in (dis)comfort. tsing (2012), in her project unruly edges, proclaims that “human nature is an interspecies relationship” that replicates symbiotic ties within and without human bodies and ecosystems (p. 144). the vibrant transdisciplinary approach embedded in the project takes myriad multifaceted shapes at the “fingereyes” of ethnographers, artists, and other living organisms, making them entangled kin (kirksey, 2014, p. 14). it encourages a multiplicity of multispecies comminglings, all emerging from novel experiences and seemingly posthuman vanguard encounters; it sets loose parasites and encourages frenetic germinations with no specific outcome. by gathering a growing archive of observations, experiments, recipes, and ethnographic vignettes, the project gleans/trespasses, making use of excess (kirksey, 2014, p. 17). as bolender claims in her project, by the time we finish reading the book and immerse ourselves in the companion multimedia website, we are “in the meshes of otherness where we find ourselves” (quoted in kirksey, 2014, p. 83). this piece of collaborative transdisciplinary research aims to (de)center and question human presence in dystopian ruins in late capitalism. it seeks to unsettle preconceptions of human domination and engages in collaborative research that avidly grafts a multitude of voices that think, play, and commingle with other species in a rampant crescendo of willingly tainted collaborations. it investigates the question “which beings flourish, and which fail, when natural and cultural worlds intermingle and collide?” (broglio, 2011, p. xvii). far from surrendering to manmade disaster, the multispecies salon researchers revindicate active roles as agents, tinkerers, collaborators, and creators of experience. they seek to disrupt the perceived hierarchy of human-natural order. the book’s contributors document shifting multispecies relations and puncture anthropocentric ontological theories; they systematically seek to unsettle the human element. however, rather than weave an apocalyptic tale or sing a posthuman requiem, the researchers choose to join the human mess and enter in playful conversation with human and nonhuman others. throughout the project, “[the noise of becoming] invades and occupies” (serres, 2007, p. 253); it hybridizes the experiential inquiry of all agents involved, regardless of their species or condition. spring/printemps 2018 89 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources the projects outlined within the book require the viewer to dig deeper and look beyond toxic surfaces or seemingly apocalyptic circumstances. engaging in emerging collaborations, the researchers seek to enter into open conversation with other species, thus subverting expected outcomes and pushing for unpredictable results. they sublimate obstacles and transform them into opportunities, thus overflowing oil spill sites, dry lands, sick bodies, and postcatastrophic urban wastelands become places for ingenious embodied responses. priming a multitude of voices, this multimedia project that is the multispecies salon challenges the academic status quo by repositioning nonhuman entanglements in the context of the anthropocene era (kirksey, 2014, p. 4). by digging deep and beyond the commonly adopted western binary system, the book encourages the use of hybrid practices that experiment with multispecies becoming. this cathartic piece of literature seeks to activate the conjoined work of social researchers, educators, and artists through these very practices. in this collaborative research initiative, kirksey and company call on humans to refuse to engage in defeatist apocalyptic conclusions. they encourage play and the cocreation of new reciprocal relationships with nonhuman beings, and in hopes of rebirthing ideas and practices that defy both extinction and human exceptionalism. the projects within the book furthermore redefine the role of ethnography as a discipline and invite the reader to participate in the poaching of emerging theories and practices, as well as the reweaving of shared experiences. donna haraway echoes bruno latour when she affirms that “who and whatever we are, we need to make-with—become-with, compose-with—the earth-bound … we are all compost” (2015, p. 161). ultimately, the multispecies salon proposes a new sense of aesthetics that seeks to comingle, question, and live with less beautiful beings such as viruses, often-ignored animals, and ever-quiet plants, thus inciting unsettling multispecies encounters that persistently challenge and subvert the euro-american ontological canon. the contributors embrace uncomfortable multispecies encounters in order to breach openings that provoke dialogue, action, subversion, and awareness. they choose to create and document uncontrolled becomings to disrupt seemingly barren human ruins. their aim is to awaken a highly disengaged audience that suffers from a postmodern state of anxiety and fear. the work by kirksey et al. reads as a becoming text that seeks to infect humans with resourceful multispecies tactics that critically examine and change future worlds. moreover, the project provokes a creative awakening that refuses to surrender to pervasive neoliberal tendencies in the domains of science, art, and cultural research, which directly affect education. the multispecies salon defends the need for symbiotic cooperation across species, thus promoting the cocreation of a new “compost-ist” order that is rooted in complex entanglements with animals, ecosystems, and technology through critical, cathartic, hybrid actions (haraway, 2015, p. 161). in the light of multispecies ethnographic research, i am intrigued by the notions of using “more-than-human geographies” in the classroom, as mentioned by thom van dooren et al. (2016) in cultivating arts of attentiveness. the work of van dooren and his colleagues echoes the many thought projects in the multispecies salon in that both profess a joint interest in “better understanding what is at stake—ethically, politically, epistemologically— for different forms of life caught up in diverse relationships of knowing and living together” (van dooren et al., 2016, p. 5). i join van dooren et al. in their advocacy of a “passionate immersion” (2016, p. 6). i want to pose these questions to parents, students, and fellow teacher-researchers: how can we be more present to emerging multispecies encounters and learn to become-with others inside and outside of our classrooms? how can we work across multispecies worldlings and pollinate our experience and understanding? (van dooren et al., 2016, p. 17). how can we pay careful attention to what matters to others and craft “shared lives and worlds in multispecies communities” (van dooren et al., 2016, p. 8)? in other words, how can we learn “to be affected” together (despret, 2004, p. 131)? affrica taylor and miriam giugni (2012) write that “learning how to world is the charter of our early childhood spring/printemps 2018 90 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources common worlds framework,” which includes how to be responsible in and for our common worlds; how to bring others into our common worlds; how to form ‘questioning relationships’ with these others; how to negotiate common interests in common worlds; and how to practice a relational ethics. (p. 117) to become immersed in healthy commingled living and learning, it is necessary to become “curious and so entangled and so perhaps to understand and care a little differently” (van dooren, 2014, p. 6). as i intimately develop my environmental education pedagogical practices, i realize, as van dooren and colleagues (2016) write, that “life cannot arise and be sustained in isolation … relationships also have histories” (p. 2). i question how to decenter my own presence as educator, artist, and human in order to witness/listen/participate/cocreate ongoing multispecies encounters where otherness can emerge. as van dooren (2014) notes, “the specificity and proximity of connections matter” (p. 60). while considering how to apply this groundbreaking multispecies research to environmental education, i would like to encourage my readers to consider these questions: how might children’s learning journeys be supported in ways that are open to multispecies encounters and thus observations and experiences outside of constrained institutional settings? how can teachers and parents address anthropocentric colonial tendencies when teaching environmental science in myriad settings? to what extent can teachers adjust pedagogical strategies to include multispecies encounters in multiple geographic foci? what different kinds of pedagogical tools and strategies might be needed to do this? furthermore, is it possible for environmental educators to promote care for the natural world through pedagogical multispecies encounters without falling prey to preconceived human-centered conclusions? last, to what extent can environmental science educators disrupt “eco-edutainment” solutions and provoke meaningful student engagement that is critical of pervasive colonial human-centered legacies? it is a good start to admit grossly human-centered inclinations when teaching environmental science. by engaging with more-than-human beings, educators can cocreate authentic learning and becoming through multispecies encounters. i strongly believe that environmental science educators need to “stay with the trouble” as haraway (2016) recommends. she further writes, “it matters which stories tell stories, which concepts think concepts” (2015, p. 160). if educators are going to provoke, support, and facilitate learning experiences with nature, why not take inspiration from these multispecies projects in seeking different ways to respond, play, create, and attune to more-than-human others and our shared habitats? when rethinking animal-focused environmental science education, we might consider what teresa lloro-bidart and constance russell (2017) remind us: environmental education pedagogies that rely on the one-way transmission of depoliticized facts are problematic. critical environmental education research demonstrates, for example, that when teachers or interpreters explicitly engage the political aspects of environmental learning (such as policies guiding animal treatment), learners emerge with greater sense of responsibility for caring for other animals…. further, the hidden curriculum in both cases contains anthropocentric elements that undermine stated conservation goals. as commodities packaged for our viewing pleasure ... there is very little attention to them as individual subjects of their own lives. (p. 6) to make visible shared worlds that are woven with lively stories, we must learn how to enter into conversation with more-than-human companions. in learning environments, it is important to address hidden curricula and find ways to subvert neoliberal colonial agendas. as educators, we can seek possibilities for building interspecies networks where new connections flourish over an extended period of time. only then can lessons inspired by spring/printemps 2018 91 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources the multispecies salon multimedia project germinate and displace human-centered thinking. by rejecting notions of human isolation and of self-sufficiency through extraction, exploitation, and consumerism, we embrace the “other” in ourselves and other species. when we choose to embrace the unknown and stay with the trouble, as haraway (2016) explains, we begin to think, play, and inhabit shared spaces with others. only then can we hope to finally blast the notion of a posthuman era through shared action, stories, and experiences that cocreate potentially life-changing relations across species. spring/printemps 2018 92 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references broglio, r. (2011). surface encounters: thinking with animals and art. minnesota scholarship online. retrieved from https://doi. org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816672967.001.0001 despret, v. (2004). the body we care for: figures of anthropo-zoo-genesis. body society, 10(2–3), 111–134. doi: 10.1177/1357034x04042938 haraway, d. (2015). anthropocene, capitalocene, plantationocene, chthulucene: making kin. environmental humanities, 6(1), 159–165. doi: 10.1215/22011919-3615934 haraway, d. j. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in chthulucene. durham, nc: duke university press. doi: 10.1215/9780822373780 kirksey, e. (ed.). (2014). the multispecies salon. durham, nc: duke university press. doi: 10.1215/9780822376989 lloro-bidart, t., & russell, c. (2017). learning science in aquariums and on whalewatching boats: the hidden curriculum of the deployment of other animals. animals and science education: ethics, curriculum and pedagogy, 2, 41–50. doi: 10.1007/978-3319-56375-6_4 serres, m. (2007). the parasite. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. taylor, a., & giugni m. (2012). common worlds: reconceptualising inclusion in early childhood communities. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 108–119. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.108 tsing, a. l. (2012). unruly edges: mushrooms as companion species. for donna haraway. environmental humanities, 1(1), 141–154. doi: 10.1215/22011919-3610012 van dooren, t. (2014). flight ways: life and loss at the edge of extinction. new york, ny: columbia university press. van dooren, t., kirksey, e., & münster, u. (2016). multispecies studies: cultivating arts of attentiveness. environmental humanities, 8(1), 1–23. doi: 10.1215/22011919-3527695 spring/printemps 2018 73 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice mama spider monica pineda monica pineda is a graduate student completing her master’s degree in early childhood education at the university of texas at austin. she is salvadoran american and has been an early childhood educator for eight years. in those eight years she has worked with latino children identified as english language learners in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. email: m.pineda@ utexas.edu common worlds affrica taylor and veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2015) define a common world pedagogy as one that focuses on the collective manners and means through which children learn from engaging with other species, entities and forces in their immediate common worlds” (p. 508). taylor and her colleague miriam giugni (2012) suggest that we must allow young children to learn how to “world.” worlding entails many things, such as how to be responsible in and for our common worlds; how to bring others into our common worlds; how to form “questioning relationships” with these others; how to negotiate interests in common worlds; and how to practice a relational ethics. (taylor & giugni, 2012, p. 117) this approach is not to be confused with an idyllic, happy, peaceful ending, but rather is a space where we humans and more-than-human others can “flourish together in difference” (taylor & giugni, 2012, p. 109). taylor (2011) suggests that it is important to look past the romanticized view of childhood and nature generated by rousseau’s ideas: “rousseau produced a romantic conflation of nature/childhood/primitivism that immediately evoked an originary higher order state of purity and innocence” (p. 423). accepting rousseau’s dualistic view is to place value on nature and to see culture in opposition to nature. this problematic and limiting view has influenced the way we understand childhood. there is more to be discovered by looking past nature/culture dualisms. taylor and giugni (2012) support a “critical place pedagogy that does not shy away from the power relations and struggles that manifest in place” (p. 115). it is a challenge to decenter the child in the classroom, because for educators it is almost an automatic response to focus on what the child is doing and learning. common worlds pedagogies suggest that educators also focus on the human and more-than-human collective. in doing so, we become aware and responsible for the common interests of human and nonhuman others that are part of communities. to be able to do this work, educators have to think differently about their practice. it suggests a movement away from traditional ways of evaluating and observing young children. the early childhood space is complex and requires that educators be attentive to events that may not seem important. iris berger (2015) suggests that a purposeful response and attention to unexpected events can create new understandings about teaching and how young children learn. this knowledge can “orient the ece community toward thinking that moves beyond generalizations and clichés, because being attentive to unexpected events necessitates creative thought and unprecedented pedagogical responses” (berger, 2015, p. 131). in this paper i share how i, an early childhood educator, respond to the challenge of the anthropocene. there is a greater need for pedagogies of relationality and a focus on webbing ethical and ecological responsibility with practice. through a series of pedagogical narrations i restory the coconstruction of the place and space that spiders, young children, and i shared. key words: anthropocene; common worlds; witnessing; early education spring/printemps 2018 74 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice in this study, i respond to a common worlds pedagogy by thinking differently about the relationships between spiders and the children in my kindergarten class. my intention was to be more attuned to more-than human presences and respond to a web of encounters with spiders and place. with common worlds in mind, i began to situate myself in relation to nature and not in opposition to it. instead of “protecting” young children from spiders or learning about the dangers and reasons to stay away from or “be careful” of spiders, i wanted the children and myself to relate to spiders. this meant we were responsible for learning more than “fun facts” about spiders—a typical kindergarten approach. responding to a common worlds pedagogy required that the children and i learn with spiders. through the practice of common worlding, the students and i experienced a journey into the unknown. we learned to build relationships with nonhuman life and the spaces we think we know. what follows is a series of pedagogical narrations i use to document how the children and i built and nurtured new ideas and relationships. berger (2015) describes pedagogical narration as a “process through which early childhood educators document and share narratives about significant pedagogical occurrences” in their own classrooms (p. 131). the objective is to generate “critical dialogue where assumptions about early childhood pedagogical practices and children’s identities are made visible and open for disputation and renewal” (p. 131). pedagogical narrations allow us to think differently about young children and early childhood practices. these narrations have the potential to disrupt traditional ways of thinking with and relating to living and nonliving others. pedagogical narration is one way of documenting relationships with our common worlds and our witnessing of young children and nature. there is no prescriptive formula for educators to follow in documenting or enacting a common worlds pedagogy. this is important to note because this idea was not clear to me until the final stages of the inquiry and as i reflected and wrote about my experience. blaise, hamm, and iorio (2016) point out that pedagogical narrations “are another way to make children’s learning visible and like pedagogical documentation can be done through anecdotal observations, collecting children’s work, audio and video recordings, photos, and ideas documented by children or teachers” (p. 8). my students and i used pedagogical narration to make visible the relationships and connections among spiders, children, and educator. it became visible to me that my role as the classroom teacher was one of authority and control. i was in charge of “controlling” the children and their knowledge. through our inquiry with spiders, i was able to transform my role as educator to one of coconstructor of knowledge, countering my role of knowledge holder. as coconstructors of knowledge, children were encouraged to lead, teach, build, and relate with one another and their surroundings in ways we had not done before. while it was challenging to alter my role and to find myself in situations i had not planned, i also found it liberating that this project allowed me to embrace the idea that “the teacher does not have the answers. instead, she exposes what she does not know and how she is thinking” (blaise et al., 2016, p. 8). i began reflecting on my current practice. i observed the children and listened to their conversations during science instruction. i started to write in a journal. in the journal, i wrote things that i said to the children during the instructional day. when i read my reflections, i thought about who or what was silenced through my words and everyday interactions. it became obvious that the human was at the centre of everything i did and said. i slowly began to see areas of my practice that demanded questioning. my reflections allowed me to shift my practice to one that sought to relate to nonhuman others, and i attempted to decenter myself and the children. i brought these reflections and wonderings to the children, and together we began to think with spiders. i documented this process through the use of pedagogical narrations. i used pictures, student work samples, audio recordings, and journal writing. i arranged my documentation in chronological order to restory experience. it is not my intent to speak for spiders, young children, or the place and space we shared. my intention is to bring spring/printemps 2018 75 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice others into the relationships that were coconstructed in hopes that they may feel inspired to think with this work. what follows are three pedagogical narrations of our experiences. spider hunt after daddy long legs has been gone for several days the children begin to wonder and think about spiders more than before. they are interested in knowing where they live. they want to see them and “catch” them. we go on a spider hunt. reflecting on the spider hunt, i realized how humancentric and colonial this activity was. the children and i (the colonizers) were looking to trap and catch spiders in order to put them in small containers for observation. i was frustrated that i did not initially realize the implications of this practice. however, i came to see this activity as an opportunity to engage with common worlding. i became motivated to grapple with the tensions of trying to uphold a common worlds perspective. my natural impulse was to center the children and myself and demand that spiders serve our curiosity. i countered this impulse by centering the spiders, and i challenged myself to think about how to relate to spiders. i wanted to listen, connect, and respond to spiders, not command them to do as we said. in bruno latour’s words: the insistence that we live in not just exclusively human societies but in common worlds with other species runs counter to the human-centric impulse to divide ourselves off from the rest of the world and re-enact the self-perpetuating nature/culture divide. (2004, as cited in pacini-ketchabaw, taylor, & blaise, 2016, p. 150) i pivot our attention by imagining what thinking with spiders might look like in practice. i decide that we must elevate the existence and the life of a spider. i acknowledge that i do not know much about spiders, nor have i respected and honoured our interconnectedness before. working with the children to disrupt human-centered practices, we play games and pretend to embody spiders. we walk, move, and talk in ways we imagine a spider would. as we move away from human-centeredness and explore common worlding with spiders, i generate questions to pose to the children. my goal is to provoke them to think with spiders. for example: if you were a spider where would you live? what would be the ideal home for a spider? what would a spider house look like? i document the students’ answers on chart paper (see figure 1). during our discussion, the children generate many ideas about what might be important in a spider’s home. some of the children decide to put their ideas in writing. this activity provokes a shift from a desire to trap or catch spiders toward a sense of care. the children wonder if they can make the spaces around them more spider friendly. they collectively decide that the best place for a spider to live might be the “little park.” the little park is the school playground we visit every day for recess. it is between the school building and the teacher parking lot. it is enclosed by a fence and a stone wall. in the centre of the park is a yellow playscape. between the stone wall and the playscape are empty garden beds that are unattended (see figures 2 and 3). the beds are filled with soil, overgrown shrubs, and trash. the children decide it would be a good idea to clean out one of the garden beds figure 1. this chart shows the children’s answers and thoughts as we attempted to think with spiders. spring/printemps 2018 76 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice and create a welcoming space for spiders. the children and i build a spider garden. i decide to offer my help and they give me instructions. at times they request that i cut or remove overgrown grass and they dig their hands into the soil. they find worms and small insects. some children want to get a close look at the worms while others touch them, pick them up, and pass them around in damaging ways. i realize in that moment that i do not want them to do that, because they are not being careful. i feel uncomfortable, because i can see our curiosity has resulted in dead insects and worms. i had not anticipated this result, and i feel that this activity has failed. i try to interfere, without really knowing how or what to say. i remind the children that we are hoping to make this a welcoming space for spiders, that life exists here, and we should be careful not to destroy it. it is a difficult tension. i can see that we are building relations with spiders, yet we are still insensitive to other more-than-human life. before we go inside for the day, the children place a heart-shaped leaf in the garden bed, saying that it will be a “pillow for spiders to rest” (see figure 4). the following day when we visit the little park, the children remember creating a space for spiders to inhabit the empty garden bed. they run with excitement toward the garden bed. they are disappointed when they do not see spiders. the children wonder where the heart pillow went and why the spiders did not visit the home they built. the children head home for the day, and i reflect on that day’s events. i was excited that the children had moved away from wanting to trap spiders. i now realize that manipulating the land and directing them to a certain place for our viewing and learning pleasure may not be such a good idea. am i teaching them subtle ways of colonizing nature and not holding ourselves accountable for our actions? how is this spider garden any different if we are killing and disrupting the life that exists there to attract spiders? figure 2: this stone wall surrounds one side of the little park. figure 3: empty garden beds located in the little park that seem to be unattended. figure 4. heart-shaped leaf placed by children to serve as a pillow for spiders. spring/printemps 2018 77 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice noticing and listening i challenge myself and the children to listen and connect to a place we think we know. we visit the playground daily. we have stepped into every possible space encompassed by the stone wall, the school building, and the fence. i want us to witness and notice with spiders. this requires attending to the more than-human, which involves understanding that “we are entangled with all sorts of forces, elements, and species beyond” ourselves (blaise et al., 2016, p. 9). i invite the children to reconnect with their spider senses and thus notice with attentiveness. the students notice many things in the very space they have played in and explored for three months. there is evidence in their conversations that our lives overlap with other nonhuman life. as thom van dooren, eben kirksey, and ursula münster (2016) write, “paying attention can and should be the basis for crafting better possibilities for shared life” (p. 17). the children seem to be confusing spider webs with spiders, but nonetheless they are aware of other life. every time they see a spider web they scream for my attention and carefully walk me over to all the things they are noticing. they warn me to be gentle with my feet because spiders could be walking underneath my feet. they are aware that spiders walk on the same ground we step and run on as we play in the little park. they urge me to take pictures of the spiders and wonder if they are afraid of us since we must look like “giants” to them (see figures 5 and 6). the children begin to pay attention to their surroundings and seem to have a heightened awareness. they are thinking with spiders. they notice spiders and spider webs in their homes, in books, in movies, in cartoons, in songs, and on their clothes and shoes. they want to learn how to draw spiders and spider webs. some children persuade their parents to buy them toy spiders to bring to class for show-and-tell. since the visit from daddy long legs, they have not had any encounters with real spiders in school. figure 5. the children find spider webs and refer to them as spiders and request i take pictures of them. figure 6. the children find more spider webs around the park. spring/printemps 2018 78 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice mama spider after several weeks of careful noticing, the children encounter a real spider! the children are very excited about their encounter, and some journal about it. after finding the spider, day after day the children check the spot and find that the spider is still there. we notice a round white object that seems to be stuck on the spider web. the children are sure it was not there yesterday. we decide that we think it looks like an egg sac. the children are so excited about their encounter with the spider and the egg sac that they share the news with friends from other classrooms. walking back into the building, i hear the children wonder how long it will take for the babies to come out of the egg. they seem more curious and thoughtful. the children begin thinking of names for the babies and they are eager to see what will happen tomorrow (see figure 7). the children quickly learn about the loss of life when one curious friend picks the egg sac out of the web to show it to someone else. this destroys the egg sac and troubles the children. when they ran over to tell me what had happened, i was upset. i felt their expectation was that i would “fix” the situation. in the moment i froze, their voices were full of urgency and concern, but i did not say a word. i did not know what to say or do. i knew the egg sac was gone and there was nothing i could do about it, but i could not bring myself to say that to the children. i thanked them for informing me of what had happened. i told them we would talk about what had happened when we were back in the classroom, and i encouraged them to go back to their play. once we were back in the classroom, we started talking about mama spider and what had happened to the egg sac. they expressed feeling confused, “mad,” and “sad.” many could not understand why it was necessary to remove the egg sac to observe it. they worried about mama spider and her babies. they worried about friends who destroy the things they love and care about. through whole-group discussion, we talked about how mama spider and the babies may have felt. the children extended well-wishes to the spider and also to the friend who removed the egg sac. the children decided it was important to teach friends to not hurt spiders and spider babies. children wrote letters of encouragement to each other and to the friend who destroyed the egg sac. some children chose to write to mama spider. they thanked mama spider for stopping by and said they hoped that “one day she can come back.” although mama spider is not visible anymore, the children are still thinking about her and other spiders. the children create a “spider community” of wooden sticks, which they think makes a good home for spiders. they tell me the sticks are hard and will protect the spiders, who will be able to hide under the sticks if they need to. the children play, walk, jump, and run around the spider community. they are careful and warn their friends when they get too close. as they play and become interested in other aspects of their surroundings, they continue to be aware of the spider community and express their desire to protect it. figure 7. the children find a spider and name her “mama spider.” spring/printemps 2018 79 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice conclusion this project aimed to disrupt rousseau’s romanticized nature-child pedagogies that view “nature as the child’s best teacher” (taylor & giugni, 2012, p. 114). i wanted to employ a common worlds pedagogy and steer away from perpetuating colonial ways of thinking and being with nature and place. latour’s notion of common worlds (as cited by blaise et al., 2017) is a way to not separate children and adults from nature. blaise et al. (2017) explain that it “takes an inclusive understanding of the world where past, present, and future lives are entangled” (p. 2). the children and i began by attempting to build a spider garden as a meaningful response to the children’s interest in spiders after the visit from daddy long legs. i researched which plants and what conditions were best to attract spiders. the children and i thought about the available outdoor space, and we decided that the empty garden beds along the edge of the playground where the children played every day was an accessible area. i was, however, troubled by the humancentric approach of manipulating the land and the spiders. i was troubled by not having a clear answer or method to approach the project. i was committed to noticing and remaining open to what the project might become through a willingness to “refigure and complicate what is considered present in everyday child-educator community garden encounters” (nxumalo, 2016, p. 131). my hope was to disrupt my practice and my own ideas of environmental education in the early childhood classroom. instead of viewing my practice and our encounters with spiders and nature in isolation and without implications, i understood that i make pedagogical decisions that are intentional, political, and filled with tensions. i made a conscious effort to be more reflective and to accept that i did not have control nor answers. i made efforts to decenter humancentric practices through common worlding. as taylor and giugni (2016) suggest, place is an important concept in understating common worlds because it is the “locus of human and more than human differences and relations” (p. 108). i began to shift the way i see the place we play in every day, and i wanted to convey that to the children. i was more thoughtful about what questions i asked and which stories we were paying attention to. i was uncomfortable with this, because i was worried about silencing important voices. i did not want to speak for the spiders, soil, spider webs, insects, grass, trees, children, or the place we called the little park. the destruction of mama spider’s egg sac was troubling for me. i understood that i had to be honest with myself and the children. i knew there would come a time when the project would end and i would not have the answers children sought. i knew i would not be prepared because i did not know how learning events would unfold. i also knew we were going to have to face a difficult situation at some point, and i was committed to grappling with the implications of our actions. however, when mama spider’s egg sac was destroyed, i was not ready. i was speechless and offered no comfort to the children. it was uncomfortable, but it was reality. it certainly was not romantic, idyllic, nor a happy ending. reflecting on the project, i still question whether my reaction was fitting. i know worlding is not an easy alternative. instead, it requires a “continual grappling” (taylor & giugni, 2012, p. 113) that can mean we simply “stay with the trouble” (potts & haraway, 2010, p. 327) that emerges as we learn with our common worlds. there are no promises or concrete solutions in practices of worlding. however, within uncomfortable situations that challenge our thinking, there is potential to learn otherwise. mama spider continues to guide my practice in ways that are attentive to more-than human worlds. i see the potential of worlding in shaping an attentive environmental education that responds to the unexpected moments of teaching and learning with children and more-than human others. through continued reflection, i know that mama spider will continue to teach me otherwise. spring/printemps 2018 80 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references berger, i. (2015). pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing. canadian children, 40(1), 130–147. retrieved from https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/jcs/article/download/15215/6856 blaise, m., hamm, c., & iorio, j. m. (2017). modest witness(ing) and lively stories: paying attention to matters of concern in early childhood. pedagogy, culture, & society, 25(1), 31–42. doi: 10.1080/14681366.2016.1208265 nxumalo, f. (2016). touching place in childhood studies: situated encounters with a community garden. in h. skott-myhre, v. paciniketchabaw, & k. skott-myhre (eds.), youth work, early education, and psychology (pp. 131–158). new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137480040_8 pacini-ketchabaw, v., taylor, a., & blaise, m. (2016). decentring the human in multispecies ethnographies. in c. a. taylor & c. hughes (eds.), posthuman research practices in education (pp. 149–167). london, uk: palgrave macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137453082_10 potts, a., & haraway, d. (2010). kiwi chicken advocate talks with californian dog companion. feminism & psychology. doi: 10.1177/0959353510368118 taylor, a. (2011). reconceptualizing the “nature” of childhood. childhood, 18(4), 420–433. doi: 10.1177/0907568211404951 taylor, a., & giugni, m. (2012). common worlds: reconceptualising inclusion in early childhood communities. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 108–119. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.108 taylor, a., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2015). learning with children, ants, and worms in the anthropocene: towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. pedagogy, culture, & society, 23(4), 507–529. doi: 10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050 van dooren, t., kirksey, e., & münster, u. (2016). multispecies studies: cultivating arts of attentiveness. environmental humanities, 8(1), 1–23. doi: 10.1215/22011919-3527695 spring/printemps 2018 4 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research rethinking nature-based approaches in early childhood education: common worlding practices narda nelson, veronica pacini-ketchabaw, and fikile nxumalo narda nelson is a master’s student in the school of child and youth care, university of victoria, located on the traditional territories of lekwungen-speaking peoples. drawing on her background in gender studies, narda takes an interdisciplinary approach to rethinking young children’s relations with animals, plants, and landscape forms. she works as a pedagogista with uvic child care services, with a particular interest in thinking with processes of rot (compost), death, and waste-flows as a conduit for promoting sustainable and ethical futures with children. email: nelsonn@uvic.ca dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw is a professor of early childhood education in the faculty of education at western university in ontario, canada. she is co-director of the ontario centre of excellence in early years and child care and the british columbia early childhood pedagogies network. her writing and research contributes to the common worlds research collective (tracing children’s relations with places, materials, and other species) and the early childhood pedagogies collaboratory (experimenting with the contours, conditions, and complexities of 21st-century pedagogies). email: vpacinik@uwo.ca dr. fikile nxumalo is an assistant professor of early childhood education at the university of texas at austin, where she is also affiliated faculty with african and african diaspora studies and native american and indigenous studies. fikile’s research interests are centered on environmental and place-attuned early childhood studies that are situated within and responsive to young children’s uneven inheritances of anthropogenic, anti-black, and settler colonial worldings. this scholarship, which is published in journals including environmental education research, contemporary issues in early childhood, international journal of qualitative studies in education, and environmental humanities, is rooted in perspectives from posthuman, indigenous, and black feminisms. email: fnxumalo@austin.utexas.edu south park family school is located in victoria, british columbia, a city that is renowned for its proximity to abundant green spaces and surrounding “natural beauty.” for the second year in a row, in early january of 2015, the school’s nature kindergarten admission process became a greatly anticipated social event. program enrollment was scheduled to open on a monday morning. but in a move more often associated with efforts to secure concert seating or meet celebrities, families started lining up the friday before in the hopes of acquiring one of twenty spots available in the program. people pitched tents and brought provisions and local press reported a festive atmosphere over the wet and cold three-day wait for registration to begin (bell, 2015; lam, 2015; petrescu, 2015). a variety of reasons were cited as motivating factors for camping out on a cold, wet winter weekend, but going to such lengths takes on different proportions when seen as enmeshed in an intensifying societal drive to capitalize on the promise that nature-based education signals in terms of delivering “something different, something better” for children’s futures. while competing for access to coveted educational programs may not be uncommon in any number of north american cities, this event is symptomatic of a much larger and far-reaching contemporary phenomenon. for more than a decade now, nature-based education has been a growth industry in canada, the united states, and the united kingdom, as witnessed through the proliferation of forest preschools, nature or coastal kindergartens, garden schools, tinkergarten©, and other ecocentric curricular options from which predominantly urban families this paper introduces common worlding approaches in early childhood education as possibilities for situating educational practices within current times of environmental precarity. particularly, it offers new questions to early childhood nature education practices that reinscribe settler colonial and euro-western binary logics. key words: early childhood; environmental education; common worlds; settler colonialism spring/printemps 2018 5 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research can choose (cairns, 2017; depenbrock, 2017; dunu, 2016; ward, 2014). this trend reflects an increasing desire to reap cognitive, emotional, mental, and physical health benefits associated with putting children “back into nature” (cox et al., 2017; louv, 2008), while promoting better stewardship of nature (russ & krasny, 2017; sdg academy, 2017). however compelling, these desires also sit within the paradox of what acclaimed scientist and environmental activist david suzuki (2012) describes as the failure of over fifty years of environmentalism to make significant enough change in the way we relate with the world to stave off the global ecological crisis we now face with other creatures who call this planet home (heise, 2016). these desires for returning children to nature tend to reinscribe, even if inadvertently, anthropocentric and idealized binary views of children existing in a separate sphere from a so-called natural environment (taylor, 2013a, 2017b). it is also important to pay attention to the exclusions that make these programs largely inaccessible to historically marginalized communities (pacini-ketchabaw, 2013). thus, a question that is of interest to us in this article is, what are some ways toward firmly situating early childhood education (not just specialized and privileged ecocentric programs) within current ecological challenges and their unevenly distributed impacts? we engage the question, first, by articulating the entangled relations between nature-based programs and settler colonial relations, and second, by offering a brief account of how common world frameworks might address these relations by challenging nature/culture and other imagined conceptual binaries that tend to underscore dominant contemporary environmental educational approaches. looking within pedagogical practices of course, encouraging sustainable futures is of central concern to educators, practitioners, and researchers working in the field of environmental education (russ & krasny, 2017). this article is not intended to criticize ongoing efforts to work toward positive change with young children. nor are we against spending time with young children outdoors, growing food together, or attuning ourselves to our relations with plants, animals, and others we share places with. rather, we are deeply concerned with what we see as a refusal to step back from the field’s dual obsession with recreating a(n) (imagined) state of environmental sanctity and enhancing children’s developmental progress. we are interested in the potentials of looking within our pedagogies and practices and attendant complicities in promoting the very conditions we seek to change. in particular, we are concerned with the persistent colonialist and capitalist values that continue to permeate popularized early childhood environmental education frameworks in north america. these frameworks perpetuate the construction of early education as a market to compete for scarce resources; “resources” that include dwindling “nature spaces” to cultivate a “closeto-nature” child (louv, 2008). what taken-for-granted attitudes and beliefs might be normalized through early childhood education practices? and, have we stopped to think about the way such approaches might shore up colonial and capitalist worldviews? in this article, we interrogate some of the deeply embedded exclusions and anthropocentric hierarchies in mainstream environmental education to invite consideration of several questions, including these: what else might be possible in pedagogy and practice with young children? what might happen when educators risk trying new ways of doing and thinking environmental education with young children in ways that refuse the binary logics underlying colonial ways of seeing and doing in the world? how might pedagogical practices move away from positioning plants, animals, and landscape forms as static resources for human benefit? what might it look like to take seriously the need for different kinds of pedagogical relationships with children, families, and more-thanhuman others with whom we co-inhabit the places and spaces of early childhood education? actively challenging the euro-western epistemological bedrock, including the hierarchical binaries used to justify the violent removal of indigenous peoples from their homelands for settler colonial expansion and resource extraction, feels like an spring/printemps 2018 6 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research imperative part of this process. this extractive worldview paves the way for continued cultural and racialized injustices and is an intrinsic force behind the alarming pace of narrowing ecological and cultural futures for all of earth’s inhabitants (davis & todd, 2017). better for whom? we wonder about the worldview perpetuated through dominant framings of contemporary nature-based education. if, as van dooren, kirksey, and münster (2016) suggest, the point of shifting attunement in educational practice is to “[craft] better possibilities for shared life” (p. 9), we feel it is vital to ask ourselves if we have adequately addressed the question of “better for whom?” indigenous techno-science scholar kim tallbear (2015) argues that modern eco-anxieties, such as those deployed through the proliferation of nature education programs, are a moment of settler colonial awakening to what indigenous peoples in north america have experienced over the last 150 years of colonization. our concern about the persistence of euro-western colonial logics in mainstream environmental educational frameworks is more than simply “abstract” or “theoretical.” we see these logics as actively undermining everyday possibilities for radically reimagining what it means to live in relational reciprocity with one another and the plants, animals, water, and landscape forms that we are, in fact, dependent on for our very existence. whose futures might we be diminishing in the processes of privileging some bodies and not others through early learning pedagogies and practices? we are interested in exploring what happens when we locate our pedagogical intentions at the crossroads of colonial relations and environmental education (pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, sanchez, & elliot, 2015). the momentum generated by nature-based education’s growing popularity is striking. we see the tendency to frame nature-based pedagogies as a curative means for optimizing childhood development and promoting ecostewardship (louv, 2008) as symptomatic of an increasing desire to make hopeful connections in an era rife with negative messaging about humanity’s role in creating catastrophic times. however, we wonder what other connections are being overshadowed by preoccupations with child-centered benefits? an awareness of the way we tell stories about children’s engagements with the land and its more-than-human inhabitants is necessary to avoid promoting nature-based education as a codified means for achieving transcendence from material, historical, and socioeconomic connections to inequity and injustice. for example, katie cairns (2017) calls attention to the way socioeconomic privilege shapes dominant school gardening stewardship and salvation narratives: the stewardship narrative centres on a lush school garden that has the support of well-resourced institutions and affluent parents’ councils. in this context, gardening is constructed as enriching children’s learning and providing opportunities for them to “give back” to the community. this privileged space is constructed differently from a stateor foundation-funded initiative to bring school gardens into poor, inner-city communities, where students are labeled “at-risk” and in need of saving from their local circumstances. in both these settings, the benefits of the garden are celebrated, but they are defined in relation to a different set of perceived problems, and with the support of different material resources and cultural narratives about childhood, food, and futurity. (p. 315) according to cairns, promoting urban gardening as a conduit for realizing a child’s individual transformation obscures a cultural tendency to valorize middleand upper-class children “getting their hands dirty” while neglecting connections between their privileged location and the way they continue to benefit from the marginalization of racialized migrant labourers, “lunch ladies,” and others who grow food, prepare healthy meals, and serve these same children (p. 311). spring/printemps 2018 7 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research in our view, settler colonialism is also profoundly damaging to both indigenous and non-indigenous children and their families in its utilization of racism, sexism, classism, hetero-normativity, and other tools to shape the world in accordance with white supremacist and neoliberal values (pacini-ketchabaw, 2013; pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2015. thus, ethico-political educational practices need to build better understandings of the devastating effects caused by the ongoing processes of colonization on indigenous lands and the way these processes undermine indigenous communities’ rights to self-determination and abundant futures. further to this point, referring to the entanglements of pervasive anti-blackness and settler colonialism, kristen simmons (2017) powerfully makes visible what she calls “settler atmospherics” as “the normative and necessary violences found in settlement— accruing, adapting, and constricting indigenous and black life in the u.s. [and canadian] settler state[s]” (para. 4). for instance, as witnessed recently on the traditional territories of the tsleil-waututh, squamish, and coldwater first nations and the dakota and lakota peoples at standing rock sioux reservation, indigenous peoples have led major resistance movements to government and industry attempts to build large-scale pipeline, mining, and damming projects, including putting themselves on the front lines of defending water, land, and air. anishinaabe author and activist winona la duke (2015) points to state-sanctioned attempts to militarize indigenous lands as manifestations of behaviours that are indicative of an oil-addicted society that relies on a willingness to retool the infrastructure of the north american continent for settler colonial gain. within this context, have we paused to ask ourselves how being part of a fossil-fuel-addicted society might be manifesting itself in early childhood nature pedagogies? how might these pedagogies, for example, rely on colonial discovery narratives of empty “nature spaces” devoid of indigenous cultural, economic, and spiritual connections? what counts as nature in settler colonial spaces and places (collard, dempsey, & sundberg, 2014)? how is settler colonialism embedded in dominant discourses of putting “innocent children back into nature” (nxumalo, 2015; taylor, 2017b)? furthermore, how are constructions of childhood innocence racialized in these so-called return to nature discourses (nxumalo, 2018)? how might some of the narratives we nurture in early childhood education be implicated in processes of normalizing continued resource extraction? perhaps it is possible to interrupt underlying assumptions about land as an inert resource for corporate profit. what does it mean to take seriously the responsibility of foregrounding the places we now live and learn with young children as indigenous lands? while we offer no easy answers to these questions, we suggest that thinking collectively about such issues in early childhood education might create movement beyond preoccupations with individual children’s well-being or some imagined idealized future state of improved eco-stewardship. common worlding frameworks taking inspiration from isabelle stengers’ (2008) example of experimenting with “refrains,” we work with this historical moment in environmental education as an opportunity “to make perceptible the ‘working forces’” that “the modern [colonial] territory shelters” (p. 42). we hope to move beyond the trappings of “eco-absolution” or the belief that being on the “right” side of serious ecological debates inoculates our practices from the possibility of perpetuating harmful patterns of relating. in the face of ongoing indigenous resistance in north america to the intensified push to build pipelines, big dams, and other highly destructive industrial projects, we feel that now, more than ever, it is vital to confront some of the deeply ingrained colonial preoccupations within our field. in other words, it is timely and increasingly urgent that researchers and educators in early childhood education engage in crafting new ways of responding to these colonial and ecologically challenging times. we find a common worlds framework productive and generative to begin this creative process. common worlds consist of the full range of complex relationships, traditions, and legacies that we inherit in the specific places in which we live. these include our relationships with our immediate natural and built environments, with the spring/printemps 2018 8 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research other human and nonhuman beings that share these same environments, and, in settler societies such as canada, with complex cultural, racialized, colonial, and environmental historical traditions and legacies (taylor & paciniketchabaw, 2016). common worlds frameworks are characterized by an attempt to move beyond pedagogical practices that confine themselves to exclusively human (or social) concerns and interests. instead they assume that human becomings and even sociality itself are entangled in complex, often asymmetrical ways with the being and becoming of other species (taylor, 2017a). it is the lively connections among species (often, but not always, including humans), their collective effects, and their ethical implications that provide pedagogical focus (taylor, 2013, 2017a). as our colleague affrica taylor (2013a, 2017a) explains, within the context of early childhood education (where we are located), common worlds are the actual, messy, unequal, and imperfect worlds children inherit and co-inhabit along with other human and nonhuman beings and entities. thus, this framework challenges the concepts of childhood innocence, purity, and protection that are premised on a belief that childhood can be separated off from the rest of the world. within this framework, childhood is approached as situated, collective, and relational rather than as a universal developmental life stage that is experienced individually. children do not just grow up in a society, but they grow up in a world, and the world affects and acts on them—even as they act on it (taylor, 2017b). the first major publication promoting a common world approach to childhood was taylor’s 2013 reconfiguring the natures of childhood. in this text, taylor suggests common worlds as a framework to move beyond humancentric concerns—and to resist the nature/culture divide that separates us (and children) from entangled human and nonhuman issues and concerns. the central question within a common worlds approach has clear political and ethical framings. it asks: how do we live well together in the more-than-human common worlds we inherit? it responds to the considerable challenge of finding ways in which all (the human and the more-than-human) can flourish in the face of incommensurable differences, confronting losses and uncertain ecological futures (taylor, 2013a, 2017b). importantly, within common worlds, the category of human is not a flattening of human difference; it includes an attunement to the stratifications of the human, including the ways in which racialized people continue to be dehumanized both within and outside of early learning contexts (nxumalo, 2018). because the lives and futures of 21st-century children are affected by the entwined ongoing social and ecological impacts of colonialism, racisms, and the excesses of capitalist modernity, common worlds researchers agree that it is imperative to rethink humans’ place in the world and human’s relations with earth others—particularly in pedagogical discussions on the anthropocene (taylor, 2017b). rather than foreclosing on what might constitute common worlds, we put forward a generative understanding of common worlds as always in the process of composition (taylor, 2013a). central to the notion of common worlds is the recognition that humans are not the sole composers or caretakers of the commons. this is very similar to donna haraway’s notion of “worlding,” or the more-than-human process of making worlds that she describes as a process of becoming worldly with other species (haraway, 2008; 2016). drawing on haraway’s notion of worlding, taylor’s common world pedagogies challenges educators to learn to inherit and co-inhabit our entangled, colonial, and unequal multispecies worlds and to respond and act in these worlds in ways that allow humans and morethan-humans to flourish (taylor, 2013b). unlike nature-based education, common world framings promise no salvation from, nor techno-fixes and grand solutions to, the ecological challenges we face (taylor, 2017a). instead, inspired by feminist practices, common worlding involves attending to the small, mundane, seemingly insignificant everyday relations in our immediate common worlds and staying with the trouble that these entangled worlds bring (taylor, 2015). over the last few years, we have been collectively experimenting with modes of attunement to children’s entangled, messy, and spring/printemps 2018 9 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research uneven relations with more-than-human worlds in particular places and spaces of early childhood education (haro woods et al., 2018; nelson, 2018; nelson, coon, & chadwick, 2015; nxumalo & pacini-ketchabaw, 2017; pacini-ketchabaw, taylor, & blaise, 2016; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). we approach our research practices as political acts of common worlding, as collective and compositional practices that not only account for the other species with whom we live but acknowledge that these dynamic entangled multispecies relations gestate our common worlds and bring them into being. common worlds methods are characterized by an attempt to move beyond research practices that confine themselves to exclusively human (or social) concerns and interests. our attempts to interrupt binaries, colonialisms, racisms, and other “isms” using common worlding framing have had their own challenges that we are always aware of and try to work with. however, it is not about “getting it right.” for us, the challenge continues to be to keep common worlds framings open to a range of articulations, a range of challenges, a range of relations, and a range of not-yet possibilities. how might we compose pedagogies that attend to human and nonhuman constituents, all exercising agency? what might pedagogies need to look and feel like to make them capable of resisting an anthropocentric frame of reference? or, of creating ones that consider the limits of human perception and communication? how might we compose pedagogies that take risks and stay open to interdeterminacies and resist human control (tsing, 2014)? it is important to note here that while increasingly being taken up by scholars in a variety of disciplines, many of these ideas are not new. in particular, indigenous knowledges for millennia have recognized the inextricable reciprocal entanglements between human and more-than-human others (tallbear, 2015). therefore, our focus on relationality is resonant with indigenous relational onto-epistemologies that have never separated nature from culture and that foreground reciprocal relations with more-than-human others (todd, 2015; tuck & mckenzie, 2014; watts, 2013). how might educators compose pedagogies that focus on uneven relations rather than on individual children? for example, what might it look like to respond to the absenting of indigenous life and connectedness with more-than-human relations with young children within settler colonial contexts? one possibility is to seek out ways to actively foreground specific indigenous presences and land relationships in the specific places and spaces of early childhood education. drawing inspiration from the decolonizing potentials of presencing (simpson, 2011) as modes of countering indigenous erasure can take early childhood practices in multiple generative directions. this includes careful attunement to what and whose stories of particular place are seen to matter in children’s encounters with the natural world (nxumalo, 2015). speaking to the need for ethical inclusion of indigenous theories, stories, and experiences in anthropocene contemporary environmental discourse, red river métis (otipemisiw, michif ) scholar zoe todd (2015) is helpful to think with in regards to thinking about how and whose stories matter in our early years pedagogies and practice. todd writes: as an indigenous scholar working in both canada and the uk, i am intensely aware of how discourse is deployed within and between geographies, disciplines, and institutions. whenever a term or trend is on everyone’s lips, i ask myself: “what other story could be told here? what other language is not being heard? whose space is this, and who is not here?” ... and, finally, who is dominating the conversations about how to change the state of things? (p. 244) educators within their particular context can work to challenge settler colonial discourses of the “wild” outdoors as empty land on which children inscribe their meanings and learning. they can pose the question of what it might look like in practice to take seriously that “indigenous land, life and futures are deeply entangled and coconstitutive” (todd, 2017, n.p.)? one mode of engagement is to seek out marginalized human and more-thanhuman stories of the places educators encounter with children, to carefully consider who can tell certain stories spring/printemps 2018 10 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research and to avoid and challenge stories that perpetuate indigenous erasure. compost, pipelines, and childhood: common world narratives returning to the earlier question of how we might interrupt colonial assumptions about land as an inert resource for corporate profit in our pedagogies and practice, we offer the following as a moment of reflection from everyday practice from a west coast early childhood centre compost inquiry project. within the wider context of climate change and fossil fuel debates in contemporary north american society, this moment from practice foregrounds pipelines as an ongoing area of contention on the unceded territories of the tsleil-waututh, squamish, and coldwater first nations, as well as other coast and straits salish peoples in what is now british columbia, canada (nxumalo, 2017; rowe et al., 2017). recently approved pipelines to transport unrefined oil from alberta’s tar sands (mcleod, 2016) that would put indigenous lands at risk have sparked resistance from several groups of people: indigenous water and land protectors, environmental activists, faith groups, federal, provincial, and municipal government officials. to date, 176 people have been arrested at the burnaby mountain kinder morgan terminal site, with many local residents joining the protests because they do not want the pipeline to pass near their homes (anderson, 2018). amid some divergent interests, these different groups are allied by mutual concerns about the potential environmental effects of an oil spill both along pipeline routes and at ocean inlets that would see a large increase in tanker traffic. the specificities of kinder morgan pipeline debates reflect the wider contemporary context of proposed major infrastructure projects that have been igniting public debate and large-scale acts of resistance by some indigenous groups in defense of their lands and by non-indigenous environmental activists as well. dakota access pipeline, muskrat falls, site c, and the now defunct northern gateway project all come to mind as part of the intensified attempts to push through heavily contested projects despite the outcry of countless people. sometimes, these political and, indeed, moral debates surface through practice in quite explicit ways. for example, one day, children and educators in one of the centres we work with were shredding newspaper to help make bedding for a worm composting bin. one of the educators later described a moment she shared with the children wherein they wanted to know what the newspaper they were ripping up said. she made the decision to read some of the paper with the children, including stories about pipeline strife, which led to a brief conversation, questions, and sharing of the children’s opinions about what was happening in their wider common worlds. connections to our wider political implications are also made more implicit through the process of pedagogical narration and personal reflection, as seen in the following piece: a few children and educators separate the last of the food remnants and castings from the concentrations of lying-at-the-bottom-of-the-bin worms. sherri-lynn (educator) and a large group of children tear long strips of newspaper to make new bedding. this “menial” task turns political when a child asks what the newspaper says. sherri-lynn reads the headlines: kinder morgan decisions, dapl debates, standing rock acts of indigenous resistance… in this moment, the inquiry intention to think of compost-cum-soil communities as more than resources for our curiosity and benefit moves into a wider political realm. more questions are raised, opinions expressed, while the newspaper shredding resumes. what might paying attention spring/printemps 2018 11 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to new, even deeply unsettling modes of relating that invite discussion about the politics and power inherent in the processes and practices of our ways of relating open up for/with young children in practice? temporary closings these are, without a doubt, unsettling times to be living and teaching in. while coupling romanticized notions of children in nature with the richness of nature-based experiences may soothe eco-anxieties, the demand for land-based education cannot be separated from ongoing settler colonial processes in what is currently canada. thus, we foreground our concerns with “back to the land” approaches to early childhood education in stewardship discourses. in particular we ask, whose land are we getting back to, and who is the “we” that gets to return to the land? colonial forces forcibly removed indigenous peoples from the places where we now situate a new generation of eco-stewards-in-the-making. images of predominantly white, middle-class children situated in “pristine nature” used to promote nature-based programs inadvertently serve as a neocolonial repackaging of the notion of terra nullius and settler colonial emplacement (taylor, 2013). this violent erasure and settler replacement, even as it emerges in seemingly benign ways, is fundamental to the contemporary workings of settler colonialism (tuck & gaztambide-fernández, 2013). in this paper, we have introduced some of the ways we have been thinking and acting with common worlding frameworks as potential challenges to the colonial assumptions that underpin normative environmental approaches in early education. there is no prescriptive “how-to” for this work, and we continue to work toward new understandings of what this looks like in our everyday practices with young children. nonetheless, our hope is that thinking with common worlds approaches might be an opening toward unsettling conversations in environmental education for young children. spring/printemps 2018 12 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references anderson, d. 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(2014). place in research: theory, methodology, and methods. new york, ny: routledge. van dooren, t., kirksey, e., & münster, u. (2016). multispecies studies: cultivating arts of attentiveness. environmental humanities, 8(1), 1–23. doi: 10.1215/22011919-3527695 ward, l. (2014, may 13). how can teachers introduce forest school principles to their curriculum? the guardian. retrieved from https:// www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/may/13/teachers-forest-school-principles-curriculum? watts, v. (2013). indigenous place-thought and agency amongst humans and non humans (first woman and sky woman go on a european world tour!). decolonization: indigeneity, education, & society, 2(1), 20–34. winter/hiver 2018 58 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice supporting emergent writers through guided play in a kindergarten classroom nicola friedrich, kristen wishart, and shelley stagg peterson nicola friedrich is a postdoctoral fellow at the university of toronto. she is participating in the research partnership project to assess and support young children’s oral language and writing development through play. she previously worked as a classroom teacher, reading clinic teacher, and special subject tutor. email: n.friedrich@utoronto.ca kristen wishart is an early childhood educator with the rainy river district school board, where she co-teaches in a kindergarten classroom. a former elementary teacher, shelley stagg peterson is a professor at the university of toronto and principal investigator of a research partnership project, collaborating with kindergarten and grade 1 teachers in northern school divisions and first nations communities to conduct research on children’s oral language and writing in play contexts. recent research in early childhood education has identified teacher-guided activities that support emergent writers in the classroom. these research-based activities include writers’ workshop and dictation within storybook reading (e.g., dennis & votteler, 2013), interactive writing (e.g., a. hall, 2016), and using content-specific props (e.g., byington & kim, 2016). research has also identified specific teacher actions that support young children’s development as writers, including scaffolding strategies such as modelling, guiding, and extending (quinn, gerde, & bingham, 2016), stocking all areas of the classroom with writing materials, and making available to children opportunities to engage in meaningful writing (gerde, bingham, & wasik, 2012). literacy researchers have suggested that, in early childhood, play relates to literacy in that, according to nigel hall (1991), it “provides a context within which the emergence of literacy can be manifested and explored” (p. 20). drawing largely from lev vygotsky (1978), they understand a specific form of play in preschool and primary classrooms, dramatic play, as a meaning-making and narrative-building practice (wajskop & peterson, 2015) during which children engage in symbolic thinking and become avid sign makers (peterson, 2015). they suggest this form of play also provides a motivating and authentic context in which children can write (peterson & portier, 2016; worthington & van oers, 2017). other educational researchers conceptualize play as a pedagogical tool available to teachers for developing mathematical concepts (e.g., fisher, hirsh-pasek, newcombe, & golinkoff, 2013) and fostering and extending children’s language (e.g., wasik & jacobi-vessels, 2017). scaffold (wasik & jacobi-vessels, 2017) or guided play is a blend of adult-initiated and child-directed activity during which children are understood as being decision makers directing their form of response and determining suitable next steps. the teachers’ role in guided play includes in this paper, we describe a teacher-initiated imaginative-play scenario that took place in a kindergarten classroom in a small northern town in ontario, canada. the fairy door scenario afforded the 3to 5-year-old children the opportunity to become writers in order to communicate with and make sense of an elusive visitor to the classroom. it presented the teachers with opportunities to scaffold the children’s writing attempts and provided them with valid assessments of the children’s understanding of texts and writing. we offer this unique form of pedagogical practice as a means to fulfill the play-based learning mandate of the ontario provincial curriculum. keywords: emergent writing; rural education; guided play; kindergarten; pedagogical practice winter/hiver 2018 59 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice preparing the physical space beforehand and scaffolding the children’s participation during the child-directed activities by asking them questions while they play, providing meaningful feedback, or introducing objects or ideas as a means to redirect or extend the activity (weisberg et al., 2015). however, much of the research on guided play is situated within the preschool context. we understand guided play as an appropriate pedagogical practice in kindergarten. our purpose in writing this paper is to describe guided play in the form of a teacher-initiated imaginative scenario within a kindergarten classroom. we begin by setting the context in which the scenario took place. next, we describe both the children’s and adults’ roles during the month-long scenario. we conclude by discussing the guided-play-inspired imaginative scenario as a pedagogical practice to support young children’s emergent writing in kindergarten. context joan and leslie’s (all names are pseudonyms) kindergarten class is located in an elementary school in a small northern town in ontario, canada. in ontario, the kindergarten program is a two-year program. a typical kindergarten class includes year 1 (ages 3–4) and year 2 (ages 4–5) children and is co-taught by a teacher and an early childhood educator (ece). the curriculum is play based. teachers are expected to provide for children a safe and resource-rich environment for play and allow such play to unfold without adult interference (peterson et al., 2016). fairy door: an improvised imaginative scenario initiating the scenario joan and leslie wanted to create opportunities for students to direct their own learning within their classroom. on a whim, they placed a miniature door under a table in a corner of the room. one day, as the children filed into the classroom, joan and leslie stood near the door and talked quietly to each other about the door’s unexpected appearance. in no time, the children noticed the door and began to ask questions. rather than providing them with answers, joan and leslie encouraged the children to come up with suggestions as to how they might discover the identity of what or who might be living behind the door. some of the children suggested laying a trap just outside the door. then, working collaboratively, many of the children designed and constructed a number of small traps and placed them on the floor in front of the miniature door. one child soon voiced her objections to the construction of the traps. after the children had gone home for the day, joan and leslie sided with the protester and removed the traps. taking on the role of a fairy named lily, leslie then wrote a letter to the children, saying that she would make her home in the classroom so long as they stopped trying to catch her. she placed the letter in front of the door. the next morning, after hearing of lily’s request, many of the children wrote letters of apology to lily. extending the scenario during the weeks that followed, to create the illusion that lily actually lived behind the door, leslie made small accessories (e.g., a fence, a mailbox) and left them around the door. in response, many children initiated the writing of their own notes or letters to lily to comment on or ask questions about the items. joan and leslie often assisted individual children in the act of writing by scaffolding their writing of individual words. for example, leslie made a miniature bike out of wire and propped it up on the wall next to the door after school hours. one year 2 student had a question about the bike and decided to write a letter to lily for the answer. the following is an excerpt from a conversation between the student (g1) and leslie (t1) as she wrote the letter: winter/hiver 2018 60 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice g1: … bike for us? t1: what are you writing? g1: is the bike, dear lily, is the bike for us? t1: it’s for /u/ /s/. you can stretch that word out. g1: (positions pencil in order to write) /u/, /u/, /u/. t1: what do you hear? g1: (makes individual sounds) /u/ /s/ t1: /u/ /s/. g1: (writing word as “uas”) /u/ /s/ in this example, the student initiated writing a specific genre of text, a personal letter, to ask about the bike. leslie scaffolded the student’s attempt at writing the word “us” by asking her a question. the student then read what she had written, questioning the word she was attempting to write. in response, leslie first modelled and then suggested a strategy for identifying the individual sounds in the word. the student attempted to apply the strategy to the word she was writing. leslie further prompted her to listen to the individual sounds and then stretched out the word as a way to affirm the sounds the student had identified. the student repeated the sounds she heard as she wrote the word. her inclusion of the letter “a” suggested she was unclear as to which letter to associate with the /u/ sound. by composing the text within the imaginative scenario, the year 2 student provided joan and leslie with a valid assessment of her understanding of texts and writing. for example, while observing the student as she wrote, leslie made note of the fact that the child had produced a specific genre of text, the personal letter, using conventional letters and that she intended these letters to represent sounds in words. as such, leslie chose not to correct the student’s spelling of the word “us”. furthermore, she noted that the student wrote in a complete sentence with appropriate punctuation and included a feature specific to a personal letter, the salutation (see figure 1). at other times, joan and leslie assisted the kindergarten students with reading their notes and letters. the following is an excerpt of a conversation between leslie (t1) and a year 2 student (b1) after he had finished composing and writing a letter to lily: b1: dear lily, i like your door (student’s fingers can be seen hovering over individual letters and words) dear lily … b1: i … no. dear … dear li, lily t1: what are you doing today? b1: what are you doing today? t1: awesome! in this example, since the student had completed writing his letter to lily, leslie prompted him to read his message. figure 1. letter to lily winter/hiver 2018 61 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the child read the text out loud, hesitating on and repeating individual words. leslie prompted him to continue by reading the next sentence of the text. the child then repeated the sentence on his own. as was the case in the first example (see above), the imaginative scenario provided joan and leslie with a valid assessment opportunity of the year 2 student’s writing. in this second example, joan and leslie observed that the student had composed a specific genre of text, a letter, using conventional letters and intended these letters to represent sounds in words. they noted that he had included a feature specific to this genre of text, the salutation. however, his repeating of the salutation within the text suggested he was unclear as to the purpose of this feature. joan and leslie further noted that the student had written his message to lily in complete sentences and had attempted to incorporate correct punctuation (see figure 2). as the month progressed, joan and leslie initiated other fairy-related activities to support the imaginative scenario. for example, after they overheard the children talking about fairy gardens, they initiated an activity in which the children designed and built their own fairy gardens. similarly, after the children indicated that they would like to do something with lily outside of the classroom, joan and leslie set out craft materials and invited the children to design and construct their own fairy to take home. following the home visit, joan and leslie initiated and directed a writing activity by providing the children with a template for writing a narrative about an experience they had shared with their fairy at home. the following is an excerpt of a conversation between leslie (t1) and a year 1 student (b1) as he completed his narrative: t1: what did you write? can you read it to me? b1: i am playing mario kart with, with t1: with my b1: with my fairy. (b1completes writing the word “fairy.” he repeats the word slowly to himself as he writes each letter.) t1: write what you can. prior to this particular writing event, joan and leslie provided each student with a printed template that included space for a picture and lines for a narrative. in this example, the student had played the video game mario kart at home with his fairy. joan and leslie observed that he represented this experience as a picture using identifiable images, intending these images to represent a character (i.e., the fairy) in a setting (i.e., the race car). they understood that the year 1 student further communicated meaning in his picture by including details such as wheels and a frame in order to create the setting and by drawing the character in a seated position with outstretched arms. the year 1 student wrote the accompanying text as a complete sentence using inconsistently sized conventional letters. although he intended these letters to represent complete words (e.g., i, my, fairy) or the salient sounds within words (e.g., pring, mreo), the student did not leave spaces between the words. finally, joan and leslie noted that he began the sentence with a capital letter and ended it with a period (see figure 3). ending the scenario by the end of the month, joan and leslie noticed the kindergarten children’s interest in lily had waned. leslie, in the role of lily, wrote one final letter to the children. in it, she thanked them for letting her live in the classroom and wished them well in the year ahead. she then told the children she was heading out to see the world. as a figure 2. letter to lily winter/hiver 2018 62 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice means to keep their options open for next year, leslie, as lily, suggested she might return to the classroom one day. pedagogical practice our purpose in writing this paper was to share a teacher-initiated imaginative scenario within a kindergarten classroom in a small northern community in ontario. we described what the teachers called the fairy door scenario, an improvised imaginative scenario that motivated the children to direct their own responses within teacherand child-initiated activities in order to establish and extend the plotline within the scenario. we offer this imaginative scenario as an example of a guided-play-inspired pedagogical practice to support children’s literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. although joan and leslie participated in the fairy door scenario, we suggest this unique form of pedagogical practice fulfills the play-based learning mandate of the ontario kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016). joan and leslie’s decision to use the miniature door to engage their students in an improvised imaginative plotline involving a mysterious visitor who makes a home in their classroom embodies the spirit of guided play (weisberg et al., 2013). for example, joan and leslie initiated the plotline by placing a miniature door under the table and then talking about the door as the children filed into the classroom. as the day progressed, they followed the children’s direction and provided them with the time, space, and materials to design and build traps. after listening to a fairy door protester, they decided to intervene in the developing plotline and steer the children away from the idea of trapping the visitor. instead, they initiated the idea of writing a letter as an alternative method for discovering the visitor’s identity. overall, the children directed their own responses to teacher-initiated activities within the scenario. as described above, they began by collaborating with others to plan and build traps. after receiving lily’s letter, they participated in the plotline by writing their own letters. throughout the month-long scenario, the children chose to extend the fairy plotline through written communications with leslie (in the role of the fairy lily). thus, rather than introducing a teacher-directed activity such as dictation within the context of storybook reading (e.g., dennis & votteler, 2013) or an interactive writing lesson (e.g., a. hall, 2016) to support the children’s emergent writing development, joan and leslie assisted the children as they directed their own natural/authentic interactions with print, interactions that engaged their interest in sign making (myhill & jones, 2009; peterson & portier, 2016; worthington & van oers, 2017). then, during individual childinitiated writing events, joan and leslie scaffolded the children’s writing of individual words by asking questions, modelling strategies, and prompting the children to apply these strategies in their writing. at the end of the writing events, they acknowledged the children as writers by encouraging them to read their notes and letters. by the time the fairy door scenario ended, joan and leslie had collected multiple samples of written texts from each of the children. these texts provided them with valid assessment opportunities. based on their observations of the completed texts, the teachers learned about the graphic forms the children used to represent meaning (e.g., letters and/or words, identifiable images), what the children intended these forms to represent (e.g., individual sounds in words, complete sentence(s), characters), and how the children conveyed their message (e.g., subject and verb phrases, more complex information, positioning in picture). furthermore, by working one on one with the children, they gained insight into the hypotheses the children made about print and their cultural knowledge about human relationships and interactions and how print can influence them (rowe, 2009). figure 3. narrative. winter/hiver 2018 63 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice final thoughts imaginative play scenarios within kindergarten classrooms require minimal resources to set up and present young children with multiple occasions to engage in meaningful writing. although this scenario was teacher initiated, the children’s interests determined subsequent events within the scenario, with the teacher adopting a supporting role. by introducing an imaginative scenario in which a mysterious visitor established a home in the classroom, joan and leslie afforded the children in their kindergarten class the opportunity to direct their own learning by engaging in purposeful writing to extend the scenario’s plotline. we offer the fairy door scenario as an example of how an imaginative scenario that embodies concepts within guided play can be used as pedagogical practice to support young children’s emergent writing in the kindergarten classroom, while also providing educators with meaningful in-context opportunities to assess children’s emergent writing. winter/hiver 2018 64 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references byington, t. a., & kim, y. 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(2017). children’s social literacies: meaning making and the emergence of graphical signs and texts in pretence. journal of early childhood literacy, 17(2), 147–175. doi:10.1177/1468798415618534 september 2019 1 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor between, across, and beyond disciplinary divides: conceptualizing, expanding, and exploring “childhood” rebecca raby, shauna pomerantz, christine tardif-williams, voula marinos, dawn zinga, and camille rousseau, guest editors we are excited to present this special issue that emerged out of the conceptualizing childhood conference hosted by the department of child and youth studies at brock university in october 2017. the conference was aimed at embracing crossand transdisciplinary engagements with childhood studies. this collection thus includes the work of scholars working across diverse disciplines, including childhood studies, youth studies, digital anthropology, sociology, psychology, theatre studies, girlhood studies, history, kinesiology, communication, and education. the papers are unified in their cross-disciplinary engagements, their attention to children as embedded and interactive, and their navigation, expansion, and exploration of the concept of childhood and its intersections. the authors of these papers are working across, between, through, and beyond specific disciplines and associated theories, evoking movement toward a transdisciplinarity that aims to create new, innovative thinking. for example, julian burton navigates the fruitful intersections of child and youth studies, media studies, subcultural studies, and digital anthropology to ethnographically explore youth agency, coconstruction, and participation in digital spaces with a particular focus on memes. dawn zinga, danielle sirianni molnar, maureen connolly, and natalie tacuri explore girls’ competitive dance through examining the rules and guidelines of dance competitions and drawing on interview data with young women involved in competitive dance. their analysis incorporates self-determination theory, a foucauldian focus on the production of docile (and resistant) bodies, and bourdieu’s notion of habitus, thus works across disparate theories and their associated disciplinary connections. ashley do nascimento’s posthuman reflection on water politics and environmental education considers our collective entanglements with water and water-related weather in the anthropocene, thus shattering disciplinary and conceptual boundaries of ecology, sociology, and education. do nascimento highlights the importance of recognizing the “the intra-activity between the child and the more-than-human environment.” anthony volk, richard mitchell, and tauhid khan describe and embrace transdisciplinarity as they advocate for bringing “epistemic humility” and an ethos of civility to the study of adolescent bullying. both individually and as a collection, these papers showcase the potential to produce new knowledge in child and youth studies by working between, among, and beyond theoretical and disciplinary approaches. throughout this special issue there is a focus on how children and youth are embedded and interactive participants in their worlds. the papers explore children’s engagement in a range of contexts, including online, in workplaces and educational settings, within research environments, and when engaging in extracurricular activities. across these contexts, children and youth are actively involved in the relationships around them. burton sees young people’s agency and resistance in the creation of online memes, zinga et al. consider how young dancers navigate adult regulation, and volk et al. contend that adolescents must be directly involved in strategies to address teenage bullying. young people’s participation in research has been particularly important to many child and youth studies scholars. sarah barriage and darcey searles’ methodological paper on young children’s engagement with video cameras during observational research works across child and youth studies, family studies, and communication studies. they illustrate children’s awareness of the camera and its functions, and that children are participants in research as they interact with adults and command attention. heather fitzsimmons frey brings together girlhood studies and theatre history in her innovative performance-based historiographical work to advocate for listening to girls. she enlists 21st-century girls to participate in 19th-century historical theatre productions and to reflect on their experiences. her paper offers a glimpse of how girls in the past might have seized opportunities for power september 2019 2 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor through participation in at-home theatricals, even if these moments reproduced gender and racialized stereotypes. together, papers in this issue recognize young people’s engagement with the world around them; they also gesture toward the question of how we conceptualize agency and participation in relation to young people. the final theme unifying these papers is their engagement with the broader concept of childhood and its contested meaning across contexts, ages, and scholarly theorizing. for instance, zinga and colleagues look at how the governance and regulation of girls involved in competitive dance reflects conceptualizations of childhood, and fitzsimmons frey examines the borders between girlhood and womanhood in different time periods. these explorations also necessarily focus on intersections of gender, race, age, and power to highlight the complexity of childhood. lindsay sheppard, rebecca raby, wolfgang lehmann, and riley easterbrook reflect on interviews with young people about their first part-time jobs to illustrate how gender intersects with notions of growing up and becoming workers, complicating unitary conceptualizations of childhood, adulthood, and work. dan cui’s paper draws on interviews with chinese immigrant students to argue that model minority discourse prevents academics and others from seeing discrimination against chinese students. cui expands bourdieu’s notion of habitus to argue that the racialized habitus many canadians have grown up with fosters discrimination as chinese students are problematized as overly academic, antisocial, outsiders, and obedient. as a whole, the papers in this special issue move across methodologies, disciplines, theories, constructions of childhood, and various intersections toward fostering new thinking in current scholarship on childhood. we are thrilled to see these thought-provoking papers assembled, and would like to thank all of our contributors for sharing their work. we also extend a wholehearted thank-you to the reviewers for their thoughtful and thorough feedback. spring/printemps 2017 23 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research tina bonnett is a faculty member in the school of community studies at fanshawe college in london, ontario. her master’s work focused on the interconnectedness between primary care and infant-educator attachment relationships. she has recently published a research study focusing on transformations that unfold for early childhood postsecondary students who engage in field work abroad. she is currently completing a doctorate in education with a vision to explore the linkage between leadership and infant specialization. email: tbonnett@fanshawec.ca krista ly is a fourth-year student in the honours bachelor of early childhood leadership degree program at fanshawe college. she actively participated in the data collection, analysis, and writing of this study as a research assistant secured through a sshrc grant. krista’s capstone research project has a similar theme and is titled a qualitative study investigating the role of mentoring programs among novice and seasoned educators in an early childhood education and care environment. leading the way in early childhood education and care through a mentor/protégé program tina bonnett and krista ly research exploring mentor/protégé programs for professionals in the early childhood education and care (ecec) domain is an area of study that is gaining increasing attention. scholarly literature identifies benefits and challenges associated with mentoring across varying professions (eby & lockwood, 2005). literature focusing on the most fitting and advantageous contributors to mentoring in the early childhood sector is limited, however. granted that many ecec organizations are incorporating mentoring into their professional practice repertoire, it is essential that elements that effectively foster meaningful mentor/protégé relationships are appraised to gain a deeper understanding of these elements. practice grounded in research and a movement toward continuous learning for early childhood educators also warrant examination in the context of mentor programs in early years settings. developing a concrete understanding of mentor/protégé initiatives for both those new to the field and seasoned practitioners who are seeking advancement in their early childhood career has potential to bestow positive benefits for the ecec sector. related research mentoring is a widely explored topic, both as general concept and in linkage to diverse occupations. as previously noted, a modest body of research focusing on ecec and mentoring exists. review of mentor/protégé literature for this study therefore concentrated on the preservice teacher. formal mentoring, as in the case of this research study, is described by eby and lockwood (2005) as an “organization’s initiated efforts to match mentors and protégés” (p. 443). the seminal work of kathy kram (1985) suggests that mentorship exists when there is a relationship between a younger adult and an older, more experienced adult, whereby the more seasoned individual supports the younger to navigate the adult and work worlds. wong and waniganayaka (2013) purport that “mentoring is a facilitated process involving two or more individuals that have a shared interest in professional learning and development” (p. 163). particular knowledge, skills sets, and characteristics have been found across literature to be associated with mentorship. angelina ambrosetti’s (2014) proposition that mentoring is a complex and individualized process is a consistent theme proposed by scholars. the relationship between a mentor and a protégé has been noted to be at the heart of the mentoring experience. many factors can influence a mentor-protégé relationship, including having emotional support, open communication, adequate feedback, someone to mentoring is an approach utilized by many professions because it has been deemed to be advantageous, most notably for entry-level practitioners, those in search of career advancement, and students engaged in service learning. research exploring elements that inform meaningful mentor/ protégé relationships in the canadian childcare sector is, however, lacking. this qualitative research study seeks to unearth attributes that influence a formal mentor/protégé experience. fourteen professionals participated in a one-year program in ontario. applied thematic analysis was employed to explore journals, focus group discussion transcripts, and researcher field notes. predominant themes uncovered include structures that support the pairing, reciprocity, outcomes, goals and motivators, and recommendations for delivery of future mentor/protégé programs. keywords: mentor; protégé; mentoring programs; qualitative research spring/printemps 2017 24 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research turn to when in need of advice, and compatible personalities (gilles, carrillo, wang, stegall, & bumgarner, 2013). reciprocity is an idea that is beginning to surface in literature. according to pavia, nissen, hawkins, monroe, and filimon-demyen (2003), mentorship should consist of a collaborative, bidirectional relationship where both partners learn from one another. some literature also suggests that mentoring should be considered as a necessary component of an educator’s role, not as an additional task to their existing workload. mentoring should be viewed as an important responsibility and provided with adequate allocations of resources and time (morrissey & nolan, 2015). mentoring has been discovered to provide various benefits for both the mentor and the protégé. mentoring can help to support seasoned educators to stay in the field by validating and confirming their experience, expertise, and knowledge (cummins, 2004). administrative practice, classroom global awareness, leadership, and professionalism have also been connected to mentor/protégé relationships in director training programs (ressler, doherty, mccormick, & lomotey, 2015). mentoring has been linked to encouragement, guidance, and support for the novice practitioner, and it has been found to empower and validate skills and expertise in professionals (cummins, 2004). research also suggests that mentoring relationships can reap benefits for postsecondary students in field practicum settings in areas of satisfaction, commitment to their academic program, and scholastic performance (blake-beard, bayne, crosby, & muller, 2011). challenges in mentor/protégé programs have also been identified. for example, jackie walkington (2005) asserts that although mentoring provides many proven benefits, mentors may encounter barriers due to the various roles they are required to undertake. it may be challenging for mentors to effectively balance their workload with providing their protégés with adequate time, resources, and support. the ability to dedicate time and energy to mentoring another educator (puig & recchia, 2008), the short duration of programs, whereby mentors are unable to gain comfort in their roles (pavia et al., 2003), unclear expectations and role confusion (walkington, 2005), inadequate communication (graves, 2010), lack of continuous feedback (izadinia, 2015), and lack of compatibility (hellsten, prytula, ebanks, & lai, 2009) have also been deemed to negatively influence the experience. in an effort to eliminate or minimize these challenges, ambrosetti (2014) recommends preparation training whereby clear expectations are set, roles and responsibilities are defined, possible outcomes are discussed, and strategies to actively engage in the experience are explored in advance. while these findings are important to note, little is known about the mentor/protégé experiences in early childhood education and care. as such, this study is aimed at elucidating mentorship programs in this expanding field. research design a qualitative case study was conducted to investigate elements that effectively influence meaningful mentor/protégé relationships in an ecec environment. this body of research sought to uncover (1) the elements that best foster meaningful relationships within the early childhood educator mentor/protégé pairing, (2) if and/or how the mentoring program enhances knowledge base, skill set, and professional and/or personal life in any capacity, and (3) recommendations for future mentoring programs within ecec environments. lev vygotsky’s (1980) social constructivist theory was the theoretical framework used to analyze this study, integrating three foundational concepts. referencing vygotskian theory, graves (2010) proposes first that knowledge is constructed by learners (protégés) who are often novice educators. protégés carry their personal attitudes, values, and beliefs, which are influenced by their individual experiences. second, learning involves social interaction, which is a significant component of constructing knowledge. the interactive processes that occur between a mentor and protégé are essential, not only to the protégé’s learning, but to the mentor as well. third, learning is situated in particular frameworks. for mentors and protégés, learning occurs within the setting of a mentoring program or classroom using an active learning approach. kerka (1998) validates the function of an active learning approach, stating that mentors, “functioning as experts … provide authentic, experiential learning opportunities as well as an intense interpersonal relationship through which social learning takes place” (p. 4). walkington (2005) mirrors this notion and suggests that having opportunities to collaborate and co-learn with a mentor enables both mentors and protégés to engage in feedback and reflection. receiving feedback builds confidence and promotes trusting and supportive mentor/protégé relationships. methods recruitment this research study was initiated when a community college was asked to partner with a local childcare organization to gather and spring/printemps 2017 25 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research analyze formal data for the initial one-year trial of the lead (learn, encourage, accomplish, & determination) mentor/protégé program. a foundational goal of this study was to formally analyze the structure of the newly designed mentor program, with intent to strengthen future delivery. a primary motivator to establish this program was to support professionals new to the field, as well as those who aspire to move into leadership positions. this study did not focus exclusively on mentorship as a means of initiating novice practitioners or as a path to career advancement, but instead saw mentorship as a richer and deeper experience for all ece professionals. opportunities to engage in dialogue surrounding pedagogy, current practice, and quality in delivery of care and education were an additional focus. aiming to promote and strengthen relationships among educators was a central objective in this mentoring program. the lead program purpose statement incorporated concepts such as retaining professional staff, continuous growth and learning opportunities, strengthening of program quality, development of professional relationships, and individual career growth and development. the potential to share a solidified mentor/protégé model with other nonprofit organizations within the community was a secondary goal of this mentor program and research study. institutional ethics approval was obtained prior to recruitment of participants. a letter of informed consent defining the focus and boundaries of the study was reviewed and signed by all participants. early childhood educators (eces) were invited to participate if they (1) were currently employed by the childcare centre that partnered for the project (2) had formally applied in writing, on their own initiative, to enroll in the one-year lead mentoring/protégé program at the childcare centre, (3) had been screened by the childcare centre’s mentor/protégé committee and deemed as a fitting candidate for the lead mentoring program, and (4) were in sound employment standing with the childcare centre. the childcare organization that partnered for this study has five locations across southwestern ontario and employs approximately 100 full-time employees. a total of 14 participants, which represents all eces in the initial implementation of the lead mentor/ protégé program, committed to engage in the research study. seven participants were in the role of mentor and seven were in the role of protégé, thus culminating in seven pairings. all participants were female, ranging from 22 to 49 years of age. employment in the ecec sector varied from to one year to 25 years. duration of employment with this specific childcare organization ranged from two months to 24 years, and participants held varying roles, including executive director, supervisor, and newly hired staff working directly with children and families. one participant was actively enrolled in an early childhood diploma program at a community college, 12 participants had obtained an ece diploma, and one participant possessed a bachelor of arts degree. all participants attended training sessions throughout the duration of the one-year project. areas of focus for the training included observation and documentation, human resources, engagement, relationships, self-reflection, goal setting, and performance reviews. evaluation of these sessions was not a part of this research study; however, participants did reflect spontaneously on these group sessions in their journals. the principal investigator of this study is a fanshawe college honours bachelor of early childhood leadership (ecl) faculty member. a fourth-year ecl student was hired, via a sshrc grant, as a research assistant. data sampling in this study was purposive. data were acquired from diverse sources of evidence to enrich rigour. data collected included reflective journals, transcripts from semistructured focus group discussions, and the principal investigator’s field notes. participants also completed a demographic questionnaire at the onset of the study. reflective journals each of the 14 participants were issued a journal at the launch of the program. mentor and protégé journals were different in content and structure. journal content was developed to prompt documentation and dialogue between the mentor and protégé surrounding topics such as early childhood pedagogy and philosophy, practice and ethics, goal setting and action planning, and leadership values. earlychildhood-based literature and case studies were also embedded in the journals. both structured and nonstructured self-directed journal reflections were incorporated. focus groups two 55-minute focus groups were conducted at the end of the one-year study. one focus group was held for mentors and a separate one for protégés. both groups were asked the same five questions. focus group questions were developed to explore (1) why the participant applied to partake in the program, (2) initial anticipated outcomes of the mentor/protégé experience, (3) elements that proved to be helpful in the role of mentor or protégé, (4) if and/or how the mentor/protégé program experience enhanced knowledge, skills, and personal or professional life, and (5) recommendations for future delivery of the mentor/protégé program. spring/printemps 2017 26 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research principal investigator field notes field notes of the principal investigator, gathered as unstructured journal entries, were analyzed. documentation commenced at the onset of the study and continued for the full duration of the one-year trial of the lead mentor/protégé program. field notes included information gathered at collaborative meetings held with the principal researcher, research assistant, and administrative members of the affiliated childcare agency. data management and analysis reflective journals completed by all 14 participants were collected at months 3, 6, 9, and 12 of the one-year project. the two focus group discussions, which totalled 110 minutes, were manually transcribed by the principal researcher (36 pages). approximately 43 pages of field notes were also reviewed. applied thematic analysis (ata), whereby induction is utilized to “identify and examine themes from textual data in a way that is transparent and credible” (guest, macqueen, & namey, 2012, p. 15), informed the examination of data in this study. ata was deemed as a fitting methodology to conduct this research study because it values the perceptions, feelings, and lived experiences (guest et al., 2012) of the mentor and protégé. upon collection of mentor and protégé journal data at month 3, the principal investigator and research assistant manually coded the data to uncover themes that resonated across the samples. three themes were initially identified, with two supplementary themes added at the third collection of journals at month 9. a total of five themes, which proved to transpire across all four journal collections and both mentor and protégé focus groups, were explored to contribute to cumulative findings of the study. the five themes are as follows: (1) structures to support the pairing; (2) formal acknowledgement of reciprocity in the mentor/protégé relationship; (3) positive outcomes; (4) transparent articulation of goals and motivations to enroll in the program; and (5) challenges and recommendations. these five themes are discussed below. findings each of the mentor/protégé pairings shared insight into what made these relationships particularly meaningful. they were also able to identify solutions to potential relationship deterrents. structures to support the pairing the first theme that emerged related to the program structure. many of the participants brought attention to structures of the lead program they found beneficial. specifically, time to meet, journalling, application and matching, maintenance, and formal acknowledgment were identified. the most prominent structure that emerged was the importance of preplanned dedicated time for the mentor and protégé to meet. participants disclosed that time to meet in their individual mentor/protégé pairings, as well as in a large group including all 14 participants in the program, was critical to relationship development and to personal and professional growth. a formal orientation unfolded at the first meeting and was reported to be a time of increased clarity surrounding the lead mentor/protégé program. these group meetings continued for the duration of the one-year study, on average once per month. one mentor shared: for me it was the time away from the childcare program spent with coworkers at our monthly mentoring days. to be able to be in a small group setting and listen to others and share my own stories helped me to validate my mentoring role. another participant echoed this notion in the mentor focus group when she described an interaction that unfolded in a mentor/protégé group meeting: you could see the warmth, you could see the pride, you could see the friendship, and it was just wonderful. those group times where everyone came together, there was no level, at least i didn’t feel it, and it might be unique to my position, but i didn’t feel that there were any levels at all. i just saw caring and friendships, relationships. a focus on all seven pairings coming together on a monthly basis as a full group, as opposed to individual meeting time for each mentor/protégé pairing (which was noted to occur in varying increments in each pairing, ranging from weekly to monthly), proved to spring/printemps 2017 27 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research be instrumental to the participants in this study. a blend of structured early-childhood-based content and unstructured time for both mentors and protégés to discuss relevant challenges and successes also transpired as relevant to this theme. off-site meeting places, which included the local public library, city hall, coffee shops, affiliated childcare sites, and an outdoor park, were acknowledged as environments that promoted the individual pairings and full group mentor/protégé relationships. another structural element identified as one that fostered the mentor/protégé relationship was journalling. participants reported that in the initial stages of the program the mentor and protégé journals supported pairings to connect and discuss topics relevant to early childhood education and care. the inclusion of both prescribed journal tasks and blank journal pages with no predetermined content was reported to be useful in the formative stages of the program. in later phases of the program, when mentor/protégé relationships were established, the open journal format was found to be the preferred method to process the experience. flexibility to document journal reflections using diverse formats such as handwriting, word processing, or voice recording was additionally noted to be a factor that contributed to meaningful use of the journals. the application process to enroll in the lead mentoring/protégé program also surfaced as a structural element that contributed to the cultivation of the mentor/protégé experience. in focus groups, participants described the application and matching of mentors to protégés as an effective procedure. prior to formally applying, prospective applicants were issued an information package containing content surrounding the purpose, objectives, and training involved in the program. typical characteristics of mentors and protégés, an outline of the selection process, key elements of successful mentor/protégé relationships, and procedure if a fit was not found to exist in a mentor/protégé pairing were supplemental components of this package. each participant’s formal application was reviewed by a mentoring committee comprised of leaders and front-line educators at the agency, as well as community representatives, and this process was deemed by participants to be an effective strategy to match mentors and protégés. the use of a feedback form for applicants who were not chosen to participate as a mentor or protégé in the program was identified as a necessary component of the application process. maintenance of the mentor/protégé relationship at the conclusion of the one-year program cycle was addressed by participants. some mentors and protégés communicated in the focus groups that they desired ongoing contact with their partner and intended to continue to informally maintain their connection. some participants shared that they had begun the process of setting up social media tools to ensure that they could sustain the relationships they had developed with their counterparts, as well as with the full group of 14 participants in the lead program. participants also communicated that they intended to include the next cohort of pairings in their social media group so that they could answer questions and offer guidance about the program. formal acknowledgement of reciprocity in the mentor/protégé relationship program structures that allowed participants to formally acknowledge and discuss reciprocity in the relationship presented as a consistent theme. in journal entries and focus groups, both mentors and protégés expressed the importance of intentional recognition of the relationship as being mutually beneficial. a mentor reflected: my preconceived notion was i was going to give background of the company and be able to help her get acquainted to the centre, where i had the exact opposite experience. i feel that a lot of times i was able to go to my protégé and she was my mentor. we really have a good connection. we are always back and forth asking for different input, and she is able to offer me just as much as i was able to offer her. other mentors and protégés reaffirmed this notion as they articulated how they switched roles, helped and supported one another, and solved problems together. participants shared their belief that deliberate recognition and discussion exploring how mentor/protégé relationships can be mutually beneficial is key to the framework of a program of this nature. positive outcomes positive outcomes of the program were evidenced in journal entries, focus groups, and the principal investigator’s field notes. participants voiced that the program enabled them to grow in both personal and professional respects. leadership skills, time management, ability to self-reflect and journal, better listening skills, being more tactful and assertive, and a more solidified understanding of the history and vision of the childcare organization were elements of this theme unearthed. an increased sense of confidence was confirmed to be the most commonly reoccurring concept in this theme. a mentor communicated in a journal entry: personally i feel that i have grown into my mentor role and could describe my growth as a progression spring/printemps 2017 28 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research from coworker to a listener and confidant. i am a sounding board for my protégé, a safe place to vent. hopefully i had some valuable advice and gave her self-confidence. a protégé mirrored the idea of increased confidence when she reflected on some of her personal growth: i believe that i had a great relationship with my mentor and i felt comfortable coming to her with any struggles i encountered. i gained confidence in myself through this relationship because my mentor believed in me and praised my successes. having a mentor made me push myself professionally in ways that i wouldn’t have pushed myself. relationship building between those in leadership positions and front-line staff also surfaced in the study. protégés disclosed that having opportunities to connect with mentors who held management roles at the centre strengthened their understanding of the organization and reduced their apprehension about interacting with those in leadership positions. a protégé disclosed that in interacting with the executive director (ed) in the monthly mentor/protégé meetings, people got to see us (protégés) when we opened up, and we got to see her (the ed) open up. she is human, just like the rest of us. she holds this leadership role and has confidence in a lot of the things she spoke to us about. this quote demonstrates the value of leaders and newer or less experienced employees having opportunities to interact and develop relationships in a mentor/protégé program. transparent identification of motivations and goals to enroll in the program another theme that arose was clear identification of motivations and goals for all who enroll in the program. participants articulated that understanding their partner’s rationale for becoming a mentor or protégé was an essential, yet sometimes overlooked, facet of the program. participants had various goals and motivations, including a desire to advance in the company, develop relationships, set and attain goals, offer or receive knowledge or experience, gain a deeper understanding of the childcare organization, become better acquainted with policies and operating protocols, enhance confidence, and learn about diverse pedagogical approaches. both mentors and protégés suggested that having familiarity with their counterpart’s anticipated outcomes and aspirations for the mentor/protégé program was critical to their success or lack thereof. one participant, when sharing her ideas around goal setting in the mentor focus group, revealed: i thought that (formal goal setting) was what my protégé was seeking out. that is where i was going, and it took about two and a half months to realize that wasn’t her focus at all. it was totally something different. this participant extended this idea by sharing that until she and her protégé developed a clear understanding of one another’s vision of the program, their relationship did not develop to its potential. challenges and recommendations the final theme reflected solutions to challenges identified by the mentor/protégé pairs. various barriers surfaced in the data, including ambiguity about roles and responsibilities, the need for a supply educator to cover mentor and protégé meeting time, and re-pairing for those whose partnership ended prematurely due to maternity leave or other circumstances. to overcome these challenges, participants recommended more comprehensive information in the orientation session focusing on roles and responsibilities, preplanned meeting time with predetermined coverage by a supply educator, and a formal system for repartnering when partnerships terminate prematurely. participants in the focus groups also proposed that the centre could purchase a validated technology pairing program to complement manual matching of mentors with protégés. participants endorsed performance appraisal reviews as a venue to discuss potential the fit of educators for the mentor/protégé program. participants felt strongly that pairings should not be made between members where one member of the dyad has supervisory responsibility, such as performance appraisal, for the other. although self-reflective journals were highly regarded, participants recommended the following measures to strengthen the journal component of the program: spring/printemps 2017 29 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research 1. the use of two journals: one to be utilized collaboratively in mentor/protégé meetings and one to record personal thoughts surrounding the mentor/protégé experience. 2. matching journals for mentors and protégés. 3. fewer prescribed journal entries and more self-directed, open journal entries. 4. clearly framed dates of completion for the prescribed elements of the journal. 5. formal training and/or review of competencies associated with self-reflection and journal writing. 6. secure and confidential storage of journals. a final recommendation related to lack of collegial support. participants expressed frustration and sadness with educators within the organization who did not enroll in the mentor/protégé program and who lacked interest in the experiences of those who actively participated in it. a protégé ruminated: “when i come back i am excited. not everybody will share my excitement because they’re not at that place or they don’t care.” other participants confirmed this notion and verbalized their struggles with colleagues who did not demonstrate an appreciation for the work, time, and dedication they offered to the mentor/protégé experience. participant recommendations to buffer these effects included increased promotion of the program and continued collaboration with participants who experienced the benefits of the program and who held positive energy around the mentor/protégé initiative. participants disclosed that they believe some of the lack of enthusiasm is based on an absence of active involvement in the program, which they felt is likely to shift as more educators have opportunities to enroll in this initiative in subsequent years. limitations of the study the most significant limitation that arose in this study was the premature termination of the relationship of one of the pairings due to a participant moving away from the area. another participant received fewer opportunities to interact with her mentor because the mentor was on temporary leave. a second limitation was mentor and protégé disclosure, at the month 9 interval, that reflective practice training was needed. some participants shared that documenting in their journals led to discomfort because they had not received formal training in their postsecondary studies or had not journalled for an extended period of time and felt they lacked currency with what and how to document using a reflective practice model. if this information had been disclosed earlier in the study, training sessions on reflective practice could have been integrated into monthly meetings and the experiences of the pairings might have been enhanced. discussion findings of this study highlight specific elements that influence meaningful mentor/protégé relationships in an ecec environment. it is critical to first note that this study’s concept of mentoring differed from kram’s (1985) seminal characterization. the concept of mentoring as being tied to the ages of the mentor and protégé was irrelevant in this study, because in some instances the protégé was older than the mentor. wong and waniganayaka’s (2013) philosophy, which suggests that mentoring is a facilitated process where two or more people hold a mutual interest in professional learning and development, resonates as being aligned with this study. the inclusion of personal growth that may transpire for the mentor and/or protégé may warrant consideration, however, because it is not embedded in wong and waniganayaka’s philosophy. this prompts query regarding whether traditional definitions of mentoring continue to resonate as relevant in current practice and mentoring initiatives. as anticipated, this study found that mentoring programs can prove advantageous for both novice and seasoned practitioners. benefits validated in other studies, such as reciprocity (pavia et al., 2003), enhancement of expertise and knowledge (cummins, 2004), increased confidence (walkington, 2005), and leadership skills (ressler et al., 2015) were also identified in this study. challenges such as lack of time to commit to the program (puig & recchia, 2008) and unclear expectations (walkington, 2005) were also confirmed in this research. short program duration, which was reported by pavia et al. (2003) to influence participants’ comfort in the mentor or protégé role, did not surface in this study, likely due to the one-year length of the program. inadequate communication (graves, 2010), lack of emotional support, inadequate feedback, not having someone to turn to, and incompatible personalities (gilles et al., 2013) did not spring/printemps 2017 30 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research emerge in the data analyzed. the importance of preparatory training for both mentors and protégés, as recommended by ambrosetti (2014), was validated in this study. the centrality of training in reflective practice and journal writing in the preparatory phase of a mentoring program was highlighted by research participants. this study is distinct in the early childhood sector because mentors and protégés were not paired by status. participants included the executive director, supervisors, seasoned practitioners, and practitioners new to the field or organization. novel to this study are themes embodying the importance of mentor/protégé experiences away from the childcare centre, the desired blend of structured and nonstructured journalling opportunities, and the recommendation to enhance traditional methods of pairing with technology tools designed to match mentors with protégés. the desire for opportunities for pairs to informally maintain their connections and eces’ aspirations to learn more about the history and vision of the childcare organization are also findings unique to this study. protégé disclosures that the mentoring program supported them to feel more comfortable and connected to the ece management team prompts further consideration in relation to the multitude of benefits that are associated with mentoring programs. participants’ intentional focus on reciprocity within the mentor/protégé relationship also requires deeper consideration. in reflection of this study, it may prove valuable to investigate whether findings translate across other ece environments or other professional disciplines. further research may also be warranted with the childcare organization affiliated with this study, involving a different cohort of mentor/protégé pairs. all of the participants in this study were female. given that blake-beard, bayne, crosby, and muller (2011) propose that gender can impact mentor/protégé outcomes, further research is needed to understand these effects. more fundamentally, further research is essential to determine how mentorship programs impact the quality of early childhood education and care in canada. conclusion early childhood education and care in canada is becoming increasingly recognized as a vocation that utilizes mentor programs to enhance the practice of early years professionals. this lead mentor research study is unique in that no other studies, to our knowledge, expressly explore factors that foster effective mentor/protégé programs in the early years sector. overwhelmingly, research participants endorsed this formal mentorship program and were able to concretely articulate how it impacted them in diverse ways. this study also posits strategies to minimize challenges that may surface in mentor/protégé relationships. the vision of this article is to enhance an uncultivated domain of research, specifically facets that strengthen mentoring programs in ecec environments, with the ultimate intent to enrich the experiences of children, families, and early childhood professionals. references ambrosetti, a. (2014). are you ready to be a mentor? preparing teachers for mentoring pre-service teachers. australian journal of teacher education, 39(6), 30–42. blake-beard, s., bayne, m., crosby, f., & muller, c. (2011). matching by race and gender in mentoring relationships: keeping our eyes on the prize. journal of social issues, 67(3), 622–643. cummins, l. (2004). the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: mentoring in early childhood education. childhood education, 80(5), 254–259. eby, l., & lockwood, a. (2005). protégés’ and mentors’ reactions to participating in formal mentoring programs: a qualitative investigation. journal of vocational behaviour, 67, 441–458. gilles, c., carrillo, l. t., wang, y., stegall, j., & bumgarner, b. (2013). “working with my mentor is like having a second brain/hands/ feet/eyes”: perceptions of novice teachers. english journal, 102(3), 78–86. graves, s. (2010). mentoring pre-service teachers: a case study. australasian journal of early childhood, 35(4), 14–20. guest, g., macqueen, k., & namey, e. (2012). applied thematic analysis. los angeles, ca: sage. spring/printemps 2017 31 vol. 42 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research hellsten, l. m., prytula, m. p., ebanks, a., & lai, h. (2009). teacher induction: exploring beginning teacher mentorship. canadian journal of education, 32(4), 703–733. izadinia, m. (2015). a closer look at the role of mentor teachers in shaping preservice teachers’ professional identity. teaching and teacher education, 52,1–10. kerka, s. (1998). new perspectives on mentoring. eric digests, 194, 1–7, ed418249. kram, k. e. (1985). mentoring at work. glenview: il. scott foresman. morrissey, a.-m., & nolan, a. (2015). just another meeting?: investigating mentoring for early childhood teachers in victoria. australasian journal of early childhood, 40(2), 40–48. retrieved from: http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/du:30073718/nolanjustanothermeeting-2015.pdf pavia, l., nissen, h., hawkins, c., monroe, m. e., & filimon-demyen, d. (2003). mentoring early childhood professionals. journal of research in childhood education, 17(2), 250–260. puig, v. i., & recchia, s. l. (2008). the early childhood professional mentoring group: a forum for parallel learning. journal of early childhood teacher education, 29(4), 340–354. ressler, g., doherty, g., mccormick, t., & lomotey, j. (2015). enhancing professionalism and quality through director training and mentoring. journal of the canadian association for young children, 40(1), 55–72. vygotsky, l. s. (1980). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. walkington, j. (2005). mentoring preservice teachers in the preschool setting: perceptions of the role. australasian journal of early childhood, 30(1): 28–35. wong, p., & waniganayaka, m. (2013). researching leadership in early childhood education. tampere, finland: tampere university press. spring/printemps 2018 68 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice engaging with living waters: an inquiry into children’s relations with a local austin creek lene saint-orens and fikile nxumalo lene saint-orens is the founder and executive director of wholesome generation, a nonprofit educational institute. through partnership-based programs at her five-acre community school, lene engages youth and families in holistic and sustainable learning experiences including outdoor education and community engagement. email: lene@wholesomegeneration.org dr. fikile nxumalo is an assistant professor of early childhood education at the university of texas at austin, where she is also affiliated faculty with african and african diaspora studies and native american and indigenous studies. fikile’s research interests center on environmental and place-attuned early childhood studies that are situated within and responsive to young children’s uneven inheritances of anthropogenic, anti-black, and settler colonial worldings. this scholarship, which is published in journals including environmental education research, contemporary issues in early childhood, international journal of qualitative studies in education, and environmental humanities, is rooted in perspectives from posthuman, indigenous, and black feminisms. email: fnxumalo@austin.utexas.edu water movements and pollution at our community school, nestled on five acres of land in austin, texas, and surrounded by a large creek bed, the children regularly engage with the creek water, searching for and inquiring about living species, the environmental impact of local weather changes, and pollution by the waste that is washed in with the change of seasons and weather. on a warm fall day, soon after we arrive, children begin to notice the changes in the creek since our last encounters. “the water looks dirty today,” a. notices. l: “is the water dirty, or are we moving the dirt when we walk in it?” during these morning walks through the landscape, the children notice the waste that is in the water and along the creek bed. the children are concerned about the waste, which includes glass and plastic bottles, cans, and clothing, among other discarded household items. we regularly collect this waste, filling up multiple garbage bags, but it seems never ending. often the children express concern about what the waste is doing to the crawfish and deer that co-inhabit this area. for example, after we find deer prints along the creek bed, one child expresses that the deer is “happy that we cleaned up the garbage.” the impacts of climate and water are intimately entangled with children’s lives in texas. for example, the class recently experienced the local impact of hurricane harvey. harvey was this article focuses on the inclusion of local environmental education for a class of kindergarten children in austin, texas. the purpose is to inspire educators to include local waterways as a compelling source for children to learn alongside environmental challenges in their immediate contexts, to learn how to live in reciprocal relations with water, and to care for water as essential to all life on earth. key words: water inquiries; reciprocal relations figure 1. children’s inquiries with water. photo credit: wg educator libby berg. spring/printemps 2018 69 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice a devastating tropical cyclone that occurred in august of 2017, causing widespread flooding in the houston, texas, metropolitan area. here in austin, located just a few hours west of houston, we also experienced very heavy rains and areas of severe flooding. during this time, children inquired about the rise in water level at the creek (which we had to observe from afar at times) and wondered about what would happen to the deer that frequent the creek. they also closely watched educators raise the bee hives that we keep at the school higher off the ground so as to avoid potential flooding of our bee friends. they also noticed how the heavy rain increased the waste in and along the creek, and how it changed the look of the creek. we wondered alongside children about whether the rains brought more pollution to the creek. one day, the children and educators noticed with concern that alongside some areas of the creek there was a shiny oily-looking liquid. we continue to grapple with ways to make connections with the children on the entanglements of climate change and water events, but the children are already experiencing these events, being affected by them, and learning how they affect other human and more-than-human life. the hurricane event also led the children to ask many more questions about the water cycle and especially around the accumulations of waste at the creek after heavy rains. “where does the trash come from?” asks a. we wonder aloud with children if the creek is connected to other waters where people place trash in the water. we wonder about creek water movements with rain. we wonder how we might respond to this trash that never goes away. “we should always pick up anything that could harm the creek,” suggests n. while there are several areas of concern to the children in this inquiry, the creek is also a source of pleasure and wonder to the children. some children are interested in searching for leeches, while others are interested in collecting leaves or swinging on a tree limb. one day one of the children found a spider web built into an abandoned cement brick alongside the creek, and we all slowed down and stopped for a long time to admire the beautiful web. life within water every place is tended to by waters that cycle through the earth’s hydrological systems and make their way back continuously to the ocean. and these watery arteries link us explicitly to the oceans that cover the majority of the globe. it is crucial, in times of environmental / socioecological upheaval, to underscore and impress the interconnectedness of lands, waters, space, people, and time. (todd, 2017, para. 4) after the waters have receded following the heavy rains, we return to the creek. the children carefully analyze the water flow and depth, using their bodies and the objects we find floating in the creek. for instance, some children become interested in following an empty plastic milk jug as it floats down the creek, eventually removing it from the water when it is stopped by a log. the milk jug is added to the waste we pick up that day. as they wade along the creek, at certain points water quickly fills the children’s rubber boots, while at other points the water swirls around the bottom of their boots. at other times, it is the crawfish that invite children’s watery inquiries. on figure 2. children swing on tree limb. photo credit: lacey marie photography. spring/printemps 2018 70 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice one day, they admire a small crawfish they caught at the creek bed, and a dialogue ensues about who the crawfish belongs to. “i think it belongs to our earth and the creek, and we should safely release it to be with his friends,” says l. all the children agree and two children gently release the crawfish back into the water. “i wonder if we’ll see him again?” says a., as they observe the crawfish under water for a while. the educators wonder with children about the persistence of life amid the waste and pollution in the creek. water drawing as a part of the water inquiries, educators often bring journals for the children to express encounters with the creek and creek bed area. we have included the journals in the inquiries because we see them as invitations to the children to slow down and closely notice their embodied relations to this place, as a way for children to document their own learning, as a lively trace of these everyday creek encounters, and as a way to make visible, revisit, and critically reflect on intentional and emergent learning experiences in the creek encounters. due to an abundant presence of poison ivy alongside the creek (which the children recognize and point out several times), if children are engaging with the journals as a group (for instance, sometimes we will read an inquiry-related story by the creek and then invite children to respond to the story in their journals), we place a rug on the ground to sit on. when we first introduced the journals, which we call water journals, we invited children to draw anything they wished. l. drew an octopus and wondered: “how will we be sure that the water stays clean for our friends?” “we will come back to check often and always clean up trash,” n. answers. figure 3. children releasing a crawfish back into the water. photo credit: wg educator libby berg. spring/printemps 2018 71 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 4. journalling. photo credit: wg educator libby berg. closing reflections early childhood environmental education scholar affrica taylor (2017) brings some important questions for us to think with in this inquiry. she is challenging the pervasive human-centeredness of responses to the current time of unprecedented environmental damage, also known as the anthropocene: what lies beyond environmental stewardship responses and pedagogies? how might we reconceptualise our place and agency in anthropogenically-altered and inextricably entangled natureculture world? how might such reconceptualisations inform new kinds of environmental pedagogies that circumvent the traps of always reverting to the script of humans to the rescue?” (p. 1454). in our pedagogies, we continue to grapple with these provocations alongside children’s questions and realizations pertaining to the human impact on the health of the creek and its inhabitants. we are in the midst of responses that include science (water testing), geography (encounters with creek maps), and learning with local indigenous water relations. for example, we are beginning to learn with marleen, an indigenous educator and researcher, about reciprocity, mutual care, and responsibility with water as she generously shares with us the inextricably entangled relations between coahuiltecan indigenous people in central texas and yanaguana (water of the spirit / spirit of the water). our pedagogical responses are imperfect, always shifting, emergent, and ongoing. nonetheless, we remain hopeful about learning alongside children to live in more relational and less human-centered ways in these environmentally challenging times. spring/printemps 2018 72 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references taylor, a. (2017). beyond stewardship: common world pedagogies for the anthropocene. environmental education research, 23(10), 1448–1461. todd, z. (2017). protecting life below water: tending to relationality and expanding oceanic consciousness beyond coastal zones. american anthropologist (public anthropologies section). retrieved from http://www.americananthropologist.org/2017/10/17/ protecting-life-below-water-by-zoe-todd-de-provincializing-development-series/   producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke 08  fall         editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editor, special issue: neoliberalism dr. luigi iannacci, trent university, peterborough, ontario publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 54 introduction daily life in the twenty-first century is deeply entangled in neoliberalism. some scholars refer to a “neoliberal imaginary” (e.g. urciuoli, 2010) by which they mean that neoliberal economic imperatives such as enterprise, competition, faith in market processes, and a author’s bio rosamund stooke is an assistant professor in the faculty of education at western university in london ontario where she teaches courses in children's literature, language arts, and curriculum studies. rosamund has also worked as an elementary teacher, family literacy facilitator, and children's librarian. her research interests focus on early childhood education and care (ecec) work, and in particular, the institutional technologies that currently organize ecec in canada. she can be reached at rstooke@uwo.ca abstract this paper employs the foucauldian notion of governmentality and actor-network theory’s notion of translation to propose that and show how a neoliberal imaginary permeates the everyday lives of ontario families with young children. the paper traces the unfolding of school readiness as a dispersed policy network in canada since the 1990s. drawing on observational data collected in one ontario-based, parent-child program, it then presents and discusses a series of vignettes that show how ostensibly supportive actions between practitioners and parents can also enrol parents in actor-networks oriented toward the realisation of neoliberal goals. the analysis corroborates iannacci’s observation that neoliberal assemblages produce both possibilities and limitations for children, their parents and the educators who work with them.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 [page 56 to 80] www.cayc.ca producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke faculty of education, the university of western ontario, london, ontario     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 55 preoccupation with strategic planning, accountability and monitoring systems, are being mobilized in areas of life formerly considered well beyond the scope of economic policy making. [n]eoliberalism has become a free trade faith. as such, its tenets go beyond privatization and profit maximizing into a reimagining of one’s very condition. the impact of neoliberalism, most strongly articulated in the corporate sector, has since the 1980s come to saturate all other sectors, including government, non-profit, health, and . . . education. (urciuoli, 2010, p. 162) these scholars also argue that as neoliberal economic policies gather momentum in people’s working lives, they are shaping subjectivities. writing of education policies, stephen ball (2003, p. 215) asserts that “this epidemic of reform . . . does not simply change what people, as educators, scholars and researchers do, it changes who they are.” in fact, people from all walks of life now align their aspirations and desires with economic principles; we are daily invited to (re)imagine ourselves as bundles of skills and “elements whose primary function is . . . making profit for oneself and/or one’s organization” (urciuoli, 2010, p. 162). this (re)imagining has taken place gradually and without the imposition of legislation, for as richard edwards (2008, p. 26) puts it, neoliberal governmentalities rely less on legislation than on people accepting “a regulation which is self-imposed through the internalizing of the regulating gaze.” my paper explores the mobilization of neoliberal subjectivities among parents of young children living in ontario. it pays particular attention to the mobilization of neoliberal parenting subjectivities in the context of informal programs for parents and young children, but situates those programs within the larger social project of promoting children’s readiness for school. a plethora of such programs sprang up in ontario in the early 2000s as constituents of provincial and territorial initiatives such as ontario’s early years (see e.g. mccain & mustard, 1999) and the best start programs that replaced them. policies that invest in neighbourhood networks of support for parents rather than access to high-quality, affordable child care spaces have been roundly criticised in canada (e.g. friendly & prentice, 2009), but the program curricula -what actually happens during programs -have attracted relatively little critical attention. pamela mckenzie and i examined social interactions in program settings such as public libraries and community centres. we found that a great deal of education and social support was embedded in numerous, routine social interactions (mckenzie & stooke, 2007; stooke & mckenzie, 2009; 2010), but we also presented evidence that practitioner-parent interactions were sometimes sources of unintended exclusions, especially when a parent’s purposes for attending a program were not well aligned with program goals (mckenzie & stooke, 2012). here i take a different tack. where the earlier papers critically examined interactions to reveal barriers to participation, this one troubles the notion of participation and critically examines practices in which practitioners, parents and children are invited to participate.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 56 the analysis draws on actor network theory (ant), in particular the notion of translation (callon, 1986). informed by hamilton’s (2011) analysis of recent adult literacy education policies in the united kingdom (uk), i conceptualize children’s readiness for school as an evolving and dispersed policy network and like hamilton have employed callon’s (1986) four moments of translation, problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization, to frame a discussion of its unfolding over time. observational data collected for a small case study of practitioners’ work in one informal parent-child program are employed to show how routine and ostensibly supportive interactions between practitioners and parents entangle them in “mundane, quotidian neoliberalisations” (ball & olmedo, 2013, p. 85). to contextualize the analysis i present an overview of school readiness as a policy network and propose some ways in which informal programs for parents and young children are positioned within that network. central to the analysis are ideas about the foucauldian notion of governmentality and ways in which governmentalities participate in the formation of subjectivities. actor-network theory (ant): an overview ant is a socio-material research approach informed by the theoretical writing of foucault (kendall & wickham, 1999). developed during the 1980s by researchers in science and technology studies, most notably bruno latour, michel callon, and john law, the approach is now employed in other areas of social research, including early childhood education (e.g. heydon, 2013). there is no orthodox way to conduct an ant analysis. as hamilton (2011, p. 56) puts it, “[t]he world as proposed by ant is a fluid one and a similar flexibility is claimed by the theorists who use it.” i am a newcomer to ant and rely primarily on descriptions found in two educational research texts by tara fenwick and her colleagues (fenwick & edwards, 2010; fenwick, edwards, & sawchuk, 2011) and on mary hamilton’s (2011) article, unruly practices which elaborates callon’s (1986) four moments of translation. in ant, an actor-network is conceptualized as an “assemblage of materials brought together and linked through processes of translation” (fenwick & edwards, 2010, p. 12). an actor-network includes both human and nonhuman actors, all of which are considered to be active in forwarding the goals of the network. a parent-child program for example, can be viewed as an actor-network that assembles people, educational policies, parenting discourses, classrooms, and a host of material resources such as puppets and puzzles, to perform a curriculum. actor-networks do not exist in isolation (fenwick, edwards, & sawchuk, 2011). neither are they fixed. each actor-network temporarily assembles “multiple, overlapping worlds that may be lashed together as temporary stabilizations in the process” (fenwick, edwards, & sawchuk, 2011, p. 95) such that any assemblage can simultaneously be an effect of one actor     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 57 network and an actor in others. individual parent-child programs can be viewed as actornetworks in their own right, but i also view them as actors in a large, dispersed actor-network oriented toward the mobilization of parent subjectivities for children’s school readiness, a project that has been gathering momentum since the 1980s and which is, itself, entangled in a larger actor-network powered by the neoliberal economic policies introduced at the end of the 1970s. as the above example suggests, actor-networks can seduce and resist one another; they overlap, intersect, and sometimes even gobble one another up. the early childhood education community’s concerns about the potential schoolification of school-based early learning programs recognizes this assimilative power of large and relatively stable actor-networks. it is not schooling per se that disturbs early childhood educators, but the extent to which k-12 schooling in canada is enmeshed in a reform agenda aligned with the neoliberal economic imperatives listed in the introduction. governmentality and the formation of neoliberal subjectivities the term governmentality refers to self-conduct, especially the ways in which individuals such as parents and young children engage in “the practices of government” (nicoll & fejes, 2008, p. 13). government is, of course, a widely used term whose meanings vary according to the context of use. for the purposes of this paper, i have adopted a definition proposed by dean (1999) that well accommodates a discussion of neoliberal government. government is any more or less calculated and rational activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and forms of knowledge, that seeks to shape conduct by working through our desires, aspirations, interests and beliefs, for definite but shifting ends and with a diverse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects and outcomes. (dean, 1999, p. 11) as does classical liberalism, neoliberalism celebrates individual freedoms. the challenge for authorities is to govern with minimal recourse to force or regulations. neoliberalism responds to this challenge by creating an “enabling state” (nicoll & fejes, 2008, p. 13) in which government is exercised through “social norms and institutions and distinctive forms of knowledge rather than sovereign authority”(jessop, 2007 cited in nicoll & fejes, 2008, p. 10). in an ideal enabling state people freely choose to govern themselves and align their desires and aspirations with those of the state. a growing number of critical social researchers (e.g. ball, 2012; fejes & nicoll, 2008; kaščák & pupala, 2011; olssen, 2008; rose, 1999) argue that people’s willingness to align desires and aspirations with neoliberal goals is less indicative of agency than a sign of neoliberal governmentalities at work. governmentalities are social technologies that work “on the choices and self-steering properties of individuals, families, communities, [and] organizations” (rose, 1999, p. xxiii). to use foucault’s words, they are “an     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 58 ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics, that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power” (foucault, 1991, p. 20 cited in edwards, 2008, p. 25). a key understanding shared by liberalism and neoliberalism is that market processes are “efficient ways to organize human life” (devault, 2008, p 10). however, where classical liberalism eschews state intervention in economic life, neoliberalism intervenes in market processes indirectly “by providing the conditions, laws and institutions necessary for its operation” (kaščák & pupala, 2011, p.148). neoliberal economic policies were first implemented in the united states and britain more than thirty years ago. exchange rates were floated and capital controls were abolished, giving money and capital the freedom to move across national boundaries. far from being a necessary process . . . neoliberalism must still be understood as the deliberate policy of those in power. . . . it was public policy, not market pressures that led to the deregulation of capital markets and the removal of exchange controls in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (olssen, 2008, p. 38) given neoliberalism’s celebration of individual freedom and small government, its power to govern is breathtaking. neoliberal economic policies severely limit the powers of even the wealthiest nations to set unique and locally-responsive social policy agendas (devault, 2008). in education, for example, standardized measures of achievement are routinely employed to compare education systems at international, national, and local levels and scores are often used by lobbyists and pundits to predict a region’s economic prospects. these highly visible comparisons serve as powerful policy levers. witness the ways in which canada’s poor showing on a report released by the united nations children’s fund (unicef) in 2008 has been cited by politicians, child care advocates and numerous other members of ecec’s professional and research communities. ten years ago the british sociologist of education, stephen ball, drew educators’ attention to an “unstable, uneven but apparently unstoppable flood of closely interrelated reform ideas” (2003, p. 215) which were “permeating and reorienting education systems in diverse social and political locations which have very different histories” (2003, p. 215). in schooling, assessment and accountability requirements are now major sources of anxiety for teachers, children, and parents (ball, 2003; ball & olmedo, 2013; griffith & andré-bechely, 2008; parkinson & stooke, 2012). ball and olmedo (2013) argue that a preoccupation with assessment and accountability is reorienting the goals of education, “producing new kinds of teaching subjects” (p. 85) and changing what it means to be an educated person. ideas about lifelong learning have also kept pace with neoliberal reforms. formerly understood as a means of selfactualization, lifelong learning is now thought to be a necessity and the lifelong learner, envisioned by liberal humanists as an autonomous, self-actualized     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 59 individual, has been replaced by neoliberalism’s “enterprising and competitive entrepreneur” (kaščák & pupala, 2011, p.148). lifelong learners must commit to a lifetime of selfimprovement, yet be cognizant of the fact that no credential, however prestigious and however expensive, can guarantee “sustainable employment” (devault, 2008, p. 12). in short, the mobilization of subjectivities for neoliberal ends is well underway in diverse educational spaces and it is slowly but surely shaping practices in spaces formerly thought to be of little interest to educational policy makers, including the informal spaces in which families with young children gather to play and socialize. mobilizing parenting for school readiness it is well recognized that parent involvement in school-initiated activities contributes to children’s achievements at school. it is not well recognized that parents’ work is increasingly caught up in neoliberal educational reforms although a study by griffith and andré-bechely (2008) found that parents were investing substantial amounts of time and resources helping their children to prepare for standardized tests. griffith and andré-bechely argued that standardized tests are among the many institutional technologies that “are changing the relationship between professionals and nonprofessionals and directly affecting the lives of those people who fall within their institutional mandate” (p. 44). griffith and andré-bechely’s comment raises a thorny question for the current discussion. if parents of school-age children fall within an education mandate, to which institutional mandate does the parenting of young children belong? canadian governments tend to equivocate on this issue, but they do agree that the parenting of young children is an issue that requires government attention. if schools are to prepare children to compete in the global economy, early childhood education and care (ecec) policies, programs and services must ensure that children arrive at school well prepared to meet the school’s expectations. conversations about school readiness predate neoliberal reforms. readiness was first discussed by pestalozzi in 1898 and it entered ece professional discourse during the 1920s (kagan & rigby, 2003, p. 1). those early meanings of readiness were strongly associated with maturational theories, most notably the theory of reading readiness (morphett & washburn, 1931) which held that readiness cannot be taught. for this reason, throughout much of the twentieth century parents of young children were discouraged from pursuing any form of academic teaching at home. the maturationist perspective has lost ground to an understanding of readiness in which “development is stimulated by learning and is not a prerequisite for it” (kagan & rigby, 2003, p. 2). in canada, readiness usually means readiness to succeed academically and socially in grade one. children who are ready for school “come to school healthy, well-rested, and well-fed;     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 60 curious, eager to learn from new experiences, able to follow their teacher’s instructions, and to work co-operatively with other children” (the learning partnership, 2008, p. 1). full-day early learning kindergarten programs are widely available now, which means that kindergarten teachers and other early childhood educators are deeply entangled in the promotion of school readiness. yet there remains an assumption that getting ready for school takes place largely at home, and this idea is reinforced by studies linking success at school to an “enriched home environment . . . where parents talk with their children, engage them in conversation, read to them, and engage in forms of discipline such as time-out that encourage self-discipline” (rafoth, buchenauer, crissman, & halko, n.d., p. 2). parents who access texts such as the learning partnership’s (2008) report are advised to use a plethora of online resources to inform themselves about the important roles they play in promoting early child development. they are encouraged to be involved in their children’s schooling, and to advocate for early learning programs in their local schools. less “involved” parents may be targeted more directly by parenting programs such as one australian initiative that openly stated its intention to “smarten up the parents” (millei & lee, 2007, p. 208). the challenge, however, is to convince all parents of young children that it is in their interest and their children’s interest to adopt parenting practices that promote future success at school. in an enabling state, parents must freely choose to take that responsibility, but a universally available and well-coordinated network of programs and services for families with young children affords opportunities to enrol parents in the school readiness project. parent-child programs and parenting for school: a case study i use the term parent-child programs to refer to a diverse array of neighbourhood-based programs that aim to create learning opportunities for young children along with social support and parenting education for their parents and caregivers. the programs are positioned at intersections and overlaps among institutions such as education, healthcare and social welfare. program leaders design physical environments and select resources to foster curiosity, support learning and facilitate socializing among children and adult participants. they rarely engage in explicit instruction although they may encourage participating families to interact with program resources in school-like ways. some programs schedule group activities such as story circles for children and discussion groups for adults, but most programs embed most information, education and support within intentionally informal and supportive interactions. parent-child programs existed prior to the 1990s, but there were fewer of them then and they were only loosely connected to one another. for example, a program for new parents might be sponsored by a health authority and located in a public library. in the late 1990s, however, powerful advocacy efforts successfully linked the establishment of neighbourhood-based resources for familiesi to children’s well-being and to a society’s future economic prosperity. in ontario, mccain and mustard’s (1999) early years study identified “child development and     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 61 parenting centres in communities” (p. 20) as a top policy priority. subsequently, child development and parenting centres were centrepieces of the conservative government’s early years initiatives and those centres were later integrated into the liberal government’s best start initiatives. recently, the ontario government’s most visible initiative for young children has been school-based, full-day, early learning kindergarten programs, but in keeping with an agenda laid out by charles pascal (2009) in his report to the premier, the government is implementing strategies to coordinate and integrate neighbourhood-based programs and services for families with young children. since parent-child programs do not provide preschool education programs or child care services, it is worth asking what benefits they offer to families. some advocates cite large-scale program evaluations to argue that the benefits of living in a resource-rich neighbourhood extend to all children, not only the children who participate directly in programs (evangelou, brooks, & smith, 2010, p. 606). others cite evidence from large-scale population-based studies to argue that some detrimental effects of living in a resource-poor neighbourhood during early childhood can persist into adolescence, even if the family has moved to a richer one (lloyd, li, & hertzman, 2010). individual program leaders are less confident about the benefits of their programs and they sometimes struggle to answer the question: what difference does your program make? as one reviewer of the first draft of this paper pointed out, there is a dearth of evidence that links specific benefits to individual programs. yet practitioners employed in programs seem to be aware that the task of supporting young children’s education and development is distributed among a diverse array of programs and services. the practitioners who participated in my study described their program as an entry point to a broader network of supports and noted that they worked hard to link parents to that support network. the study data corroborate their comments; however, they also show how connecting parents to a network of supports creates opportunities to perform parenting subjectivities associated with neoliberal educational reforms long before children take their first tentative steps onto the school yard. the program the program i observed was located in a retail space, one of several vacant spaces in a suburban shopping mall. in addition to general goals such as provision of social support for families and creation of learning opportunities for young children, the program aimed to promote awareness of literacy learning opportunities in the everyday routines of family life. in keeping with the funder’s approach to community development, the program leaders were also expected to partner with other local organizations and to promote integration of services. furniture and materials for the program were owned by the sponsor organization. these included puzzles, games and other materials purchased during the previous year for a literacy     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 62 program and they tended to reflect the alphabet focus of the earlier program. the program was staffed by two leaders and coordinated by a senior member of the sponsor organization. although neither of the program leaders was able to attend every session, one of them was usually on site.ii an alternate leader and two settlement workers attended regularly and also participated in the study. the intended audience for the program was residents of the neighbourhood whose children would attend junior or senior kindergarten that fall. the actual audience was made up of local families and small groups of children accompanied by home child care providers who drove to the program from other neighbourhoods. several caregivers regularly brought up to seven children to the program and caregivers and parents occasionally brought children whose ages ranged from infancy to eight years. no registration was required for the program. parents and caregivers signed a register and indicated how many children they were accompanying, but they were expected to be responsible for the children they accompanied. parents were invited to give consent to participate in the study and to allow program leaders to use photographs of their children in documentation panels, but no other paperwork was completed by families or leaders and the leaders did not conduct any formal assessments of children’s development or behaviours. the program was in-session at least two full days per week throughout june, july and august. i attended 12 half-day sessions. as a participant observer i composed observational field notes, conducted informal interviews with practitioners and parents at the program, took photographs, and collected samples of print-based texts created in and for the program. these included two texts that i discuss later in the paper: a menu planner and a brochure that listed locally available programs. following hamilton (2011) i created a series of narrative vignettes derived from field notes which feature literacy events embedded in interactions between practitioners and parents. the vignettes and surrounding commentaries are intended to provoke a “conversation between theory and data” (hamilton, 2011, p. 56). during the following six months i facilitated a follow-up focus group and conducted individual interviews with parents, leaders, the program coordinator, and one settlement worker. my field notes contain numerous descriptions of literacy events. as noted earlier, the program goals included the promotion of authentic family literacy practices, that is, practices arising out of genuine purposes such as seeking to learn the show time for a movie, using a map to plan a journey, sharing a storybook, and posting an advertisement online. all literacy practices are embedded in events (barton & hamilton, 2000), a term first used by heath (1983) to denote “any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes” (p. 93). the notion of a literacy event is now much broader and my notes contain references to drawing, speaking and listening, but in keeping with the program’s goals and in light of the near absence of digital resources being used during sessions, i     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 63 stayed close to heath’s early, print-based definition of a literacy event. iii it came as no surprise that the observational data contained numerous descriptions of literacy events. a majority of the games and material resources available to the children encouraged them to play with letters and sounds and they appeared to welcome the opportunities. neither was it surprising that leaders’ attempts to introduce everyday life literacy activities into the program were not received with similar enthusiasm by the adults. the form and tempo of parent-child programs varies little across programs and the activities may have felt out-of-place and inauthentic. indeed, the leaders themselves voiced doubts about how this new component of the program could be coordinated with existing routines. however, the adults’ lack of engagement in the activities is less relevant to the current discussion than the social practices that everyday life literacy events, both planned and spontaneous, appeared to be promoting. these included planning healthy meals using canada’s food guide, budgeting for groceries, strategically planning family activities to include participation in a variety of educational programs, and accessing parent support groups and specialized services such as speech-language assessments. such events can be examined as moments in which parents are invited to perform parenting subjectivities aligned with a neoliberal imaginary and in the next section i discuss several of them as moments of translation in which parenting subjectivities are being mobilized to promote children’s school readiness. the events selected do not constitute a representative sample of literacy events observed during site visits, but they bring into view how easily an intentionally supportive interaction can become entangled in neoliberal governmentalities. they are “no more than the steady drone of the mundane and the normal” (ball & olmedo, 2013, p. 85) but it was their very ordinariness that compelled me to pay attention. by refusing to ignore them, i hope to demonstrate that what passes for normal may be worthy of close examination. school readiness: four moments of translation following hamilton (2011), i have organized the discussion using callon’s (1986) four moments of translation: problematization, interessment, enrolment, and mobilization. hamilton illustrates callon’s four moments in reference to the uk government’s skills for life policies in adult literacy education. adult literacy education policies in the uk might seem far removed from early childhood education and care policies, but i believe they have much in common. each aims to shape a “diffuse and informal area of educational practice” (hamilton, 2011, p. 57) whose employees are “positioned within complex and competing political agendas including those addressing inequalities, stigma and racism, social inclusion and economic development” (p. 58). adult literacy programs and early childhood education both facilitate learners’ access to formal educational experiences yet live in tension with formal education systems. finally and most importantly, both adult literacy and early childhood education are entangled in discourses surrounding lifelong learning and twenty-first century skills. consequently, they are more     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 64 vulnerable to neoliberal reform technologies than their positioning relative to public schooling would suggest. translation refers to processes “whereby the messy complexities of everyday life are ordered and simplified for the purposes of the project at hand” (hamilton, 2011, p. 59) and it is central to ant analyses. translation often occurs through processes of classification which filter out some experiences, highlight others, and smooth out differences. in a medical consultation a patient may describe experiences in a narrative form, while the doctor assembles certain experiences as symptoms and others as risk factors. at a bank, people’s interactions are translated into credit ratings, risk tolerances, and so on. while much translation of experience in contemporary life is mediated by online and printed forms, translation also happens in subtle and routine labeling practices. a young child’s expressions of anger can be labelled as tantrums. a mother’s decision to sit on a chair during circle time rather than take a spot on the floor with her child may label her as an uninvolved mother. however, translation is not inherently good or bad. as the following vignette demonstrates, it all depends on the orientation of the actor-network. welcome to canada: a translation story the playroom was almost empty when ms. da and boiv cycled up to the door. it was not a great first meeting. we had no idea what language ms. da spoke and much of the afternoon was spent trying to figure that out. finally we borrowed an atlas from the local library and opened it at a world map. i pointed to ontario and said, “we are here.” then i pointed to china and ventured a guess. i said, “are you from here?” ms. da smiled. she seemed to know what we were asking. she pointed to her home city in china and spoke its name. she pointed again and said, “daughter – twenty-one.” we smiled and shook hands. we were both exhausted. i was surprised that ms. da came back – but that’s another story. the second time i saw her she was deep in conversation with a vivacious, spanishspeaking woman. it was embarrassing to see how relaxed the two of them seemed to be when i thought about my own stressful first encounter, but ms. da caught my eye and smiled and then she reached out and shook my hand warmly. how had these two women made friends so easily when the rest of us had struggled to learn just two facts? the short answer is that they had by-passed the need to use words. instead they were using gestures and taking turns drawing on a scrap of paper -the back of the program brochure (see figure 1).     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 65 welcome to canada: an co-constructed, authentic literacy event later i spoke to the other woman and learned that she was a settlement worker whose role was to help newcomers to canada access services. in a follow-up interview, the settlement worker described how she and ms. da had co-constructed the story of ms. da’s coming to canada using the scrap of paper mentioned above. this rich, multimodal conversation had served several purposes for the settlement worker. first, it provided a way to welcome ms. da. second, it allowed the settlement worker to administer an informal but standardized triage protocol. in order to figure out ms. da’s eligibility for english language classes and other services, she needed to know her marital status, her immigration status, and her legal relationship to bo. was she his mother? or was she his grandmother? she might be eligible for free english classes, but not if her husband was travelling on a student visa. third, the conversation allowed the settlement worker to share information about services for families with young children. by a process of elimination, she discovered the name of bo’s school and was able to tell ms. da the days that she would personally be on-site at the school.   figure 1 (names are masked to protect privacy.)     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 66 callon’s four moments of translation provide a framework for tracing the mobilization of parenting subjectivities for the school readiness project. moments of translation are not synonymous with developmental stages. rather hamilton explains that “moment implies both a freezing of chronological time sequence to hold up an event to close scrutiny and also ‘moment’ in the sense of a fulcrum of forces around which events turn” (2011, p. 60). an important aspect of the framework is that translation is not considered complete until mobilization has been achieved. problematization problematization refers to processes through which a vision, problem, goal or agenda is identified as a problem-to-be-solved. for example, although ideas about school readiness have been part of educational discourse in canada and the united states since the 1920s, school readiness was not represented as a problem to be solved through policy making until the end of the 1980s when it became part of america’s national education goals. [s]chool readiness moved more visibly onto the national agenda in 1989 when president bush and the nation’s governors announced six national education goals, the first being: by the year 2000, all children in america will start school ready to learn.. . . giving rise to much activity, the goals also served as the foundation for president clinton’s and secretary of education riley’s goals 2000 legislation. (kagan & rigby, 2003, p. 2) problematization is an act of imagination, but it may require work to sustain interest in the problem. to this end, advocates for parenting programs such as mccain and mustard (1999) linked “what good mothering has done for centuries” (p. 6) to canada’s future economic prosperity at a time when the main topic in ecec literature was the need for a national child care system (pence & benner, 2000). in the face of such a compelling problem, advocates for parenting programs needed a good story and mccain and mustard provided that story. armed with numerous findings from neuroscience and public health studies – most of them originating outside of canada –mccain and mustard worked with a team of researchers – many of them in fields other than education -to assemble a set of recommendations that lashed together modern public health success stories, communitarian philosophy, neoliberal public sector reforms, the private sector and a “patchwork of disjunctive programs” (friendly & prentice, 2009, p. 9). but the central problem remained. how might governments make the “magic elixir of good parenting available to all?” (stooke, 2003, p. 93).     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 67 interessement mccain and mustard successfully problematized the idea that parents needed more support and guidance if they were going to participate in the school readiness project, but that alone could not guarantee mobilization. interessement and enrolment must also take place. interessement is the term given to socio-material processes that stabilize an actor-network. as already stated, actor-networks cannot be fixed, but successful networks achieve a measure of stability as long as the identities of the actors in a network can be stabilized. interessement requires persistence and hamilton (201, p. 61) notes that “history is littered with failed policy initiatives that for a variety of reasons were not able to create or stabilize a strong enough network.” while the ontario early years cannot be described as a failed policy initiative, it was never stabilized. ten years after mccain and mustard (1999) released their early years study, charles pascal (2009) reiterated their main complaint that programs and services for families with young children were no more than an uncoordinated patchwork. in his report, with our best future in mind, pascal introduced ontarians to full-day early learning kindergarten programs for fourand five-year-olds, but he also foreshadowed the current reorganization of informal parent-child programs. through a series of moves sometimes called “system reengineering” the ontario government is assembling actors from the existing “patchwork” with new actors, most notably schools themselves. the goal is integration of education and care services for children from birth to four years “under a single municipal system manager” (pascal, 2009, p. 5). the centres would provide: • part-time and full-day/full-year early learning/ care options for children up to 4 years of age; prenatal and postnatal information and supports; • parenting and family support programming, including home visiting, family literacy, and playgroups; • nutrition and nutrition counselling; • early identification and intervention resources; • links to special needs treatment and community resources, including libraries, recreation and community centres, health care, family counselling, housing, language services, and employment/training services. (pascal, 2009, p. 5) in retrospect, it seems that the early years initiatives formed an unstable network from the very beginning. the actor-network was the best that could be assembled by one provincial government given the federal government’s ideological objections to a national child care     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 68 system. school readiness, on the other hand, has proven to be more resilient. information posted to the website of mcmaster university’s offord centre for child studies ominously declares that “[a]ll children are born ready to learn, but not all children arrive at school ready to learn” (n.p.). similarly, a program blurb featured in figure 4 asks readers: are we doing enough to improve learning outcomes? as the authors of an article published by the learning partnership (2008) put it: school readiness is “a marker that matters” (p. 1) and ecec programs constitute “an issue with stubborn sticking power” (p. 14). enrolment enrolment “involves assembling elements and devices, forms of social interactions which will enable the actors to perform the identities required of them within the network” (hamilton, 2011, p. 61). by locating the new child and family centres in school buildings, the government is assembling elements of the school readiness actor-network to facilitate their enrolment, that is, assembling them in a way that invites informal parent-child programs to perform identities required of school programs. at a more concrete level, it is easy to conclude that coordinating early learning program curricula with full-day early learning kindergarten curricula will be easier once the majority of the actors are located onsite. the translation story in which a settlement worker welcomed ms. da to the program is also a story of enrolment since it shows that ms. da was invited to perform identities that would enrol her in a network oriented toward the integration of newcomers into canadian society. more important for the current discussion, however, are the ways in which interactions between ms. da and the settlement worker strengthened the link between ms. da and her son’s school by informing ms. da that she would be at bo’s school on certain days and explicitly inviting ms. da to seek her out. the program i observed facilitated the enrolment of parenting subjectivities for school readiness in obvious and subtle ways. it assembled print literacy games and other learning resources, scheduled a story circle, and involved parents in bookmaking projects. it facilitated parents’ access to a host of other programs and services, thereby inviting parents to perform certain parenting identities on a regular basis. it is worth noting, however, that almost all the parents i observed at the program already appeared to be parenting for school. ms. da, in particular, needed no encouragement. her regular attendance under stressful circumstances and school-like use of materials suggested that she had been parenting for school prior to her arrival in canada. ms. da had worked as a primary teacher in china and used program toys and games to further bo’s academic learning.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 69 ms. da performs first teacher as residents of the neighbourhood and newcomers to canada, ms. da and bo fit the program’s target audience. yet bo seemed to be in no danger of school failure and ms. da’s parenting practices were well aligned with the expectations of school. ms. da and bo were ideal program participants and star performers. ms. da and bo obviously enjoyed being in the program space. bo would run to the snack table on the first signal. he appeared to like sitting with the other children even though he rarely spoke to anyone except his mother. i have photographs taken during almost every observation session that show ms. da and bo working and playing with the alphabet materials, usually in school-like ways. bo was not always interested in playing with the literacy materials. he enjoyed the toy cars and the parking garage and he loved to pull a little dog on a string around the playroom. but ms. da was persistent in her efforts to engage bo in learning to read english words and in playing with the many alphabet puzzles and games available. she used these resources to support her own english language learning too. one day ms. da and i gave one another a reading lesson while bo played independently. i had brought a number of dual-language picture books to show ms. da and she used her finger as a pointer to match the mandarin characters with their english equivalents. later i learned that she had visited the public library to borrow more dual language books, but of the books i had brought, it was the one that contained a story about starting school that she selected to take home.   figure 2: ms. da learns and teaches the alphabet     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 70 while no participating parent appeared to be as intensely involved with the literacy materials as ms. da, most adult participants spent some time engaged in playful and directive interactions with their children. that kind of involvement elicited many positive comments in post session conversations. ms. da was praised for her courage and commitment to participation; another mother was praised for the way in which she emulated a leader’s interactional style. one father was especially well liked because he appeared to be so relaxed with his children. he always talked quietly and respectfully to them and allowed them to initiate their own games. the leaders agreed that this father would be an asset to any parent support group because of his accepting and gentle disposition. as i grew familiar with the program routines, i speculated that enrolling parents in an actor-network oriented toward school readiness was a goal that leaders took seriously, but they generally addressed the goal by facilitating access to other (sometimes formal) programs and services, including but not only clinical services. in spite of the wealth of learning resources they assembled, it seemed that the practitioners felt their program existed to connect families to a network of supports rather than to explicitly teach academic skills. this tacit agreement to refrain from direct teaching was noticed by at least one practitioner who told me the goal of school readiness might be better addressed by more leader-led activities and that the presence of parents made it more difficult for leaders to initiate such activities. leaders did initiate literacy activities with the children and their efforts met with enthusiasm. literacy activities aimed to involve adults were less successful, but rather than dwell on reasons for the lack of enthusiasm, the following vignettes examine events and the conversations surrounding them as invitations to perform parenting subjectivities aligned with the goals of neoliberalism. everyday literacy practices: two enrolment stories story #1: the menu planner it’s lunchtime. the practitioners are engaged in a discussion about the general lack of enthusiasm parents expressed toward an activity presented that morning. they had distributed a laminated menu planner based on canada’s food guide (figure 3) and encouraged adults to take a planner home to prepare menus, grocery lists and budgets. several parents had said they would be unlikely to use the planner for those purposes and when i commented on the lack of interest, the topic of conversation turned to the characteristics of an appropriately involved parent. there was a consensus around the idea that an appropriately involved parent is one who plans and structures family time to allow for regular participation in programs, someone who looks ahead to the expectations of school, and someone who     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 71 appreciates the value of program resources and actively engages in program activities with their child(ren) rather than sitting on the sidelines. later i reflect on my feelings about the conversation. i thought of myself as an involved parent back in the early 1990s, but i wouldn’t have used the planner and still feel alienated by its direct “do this” tone and images of supermarket-style loaves of white bread. but even if the food images had been reflective of the cultural diversity of ontario families, i wouldn’t have wanted to use a planner for meal planning. i concluded that it would take more self-regulation than i mobilized as a parent. budgeting as literacy practices story #2 scheduling participation a practitioner and parent are seated at one of the child-size tables. they are perusing a brochure that lists and describes an array of local programs for families. as the two women look it over, the practitioner takes a sheet of paper and draws up a weekly schedule of programs, explaining to the mother that at least one program can be found locally on any weekday morning or afternoon. later i look at the brochure. the first thing i notice is how similar the program blurbs are to one another. several have the same wording, suggesting that those blurbs may have been composed by one person. clearly the programs are not in competition with one another. they share   figure 3: menu planning and budgeting as literacy practices     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 72 a purpose. but one blurb stands out from the rest. it relates school failure statistics and asks parents to consider if they are “doing enough to help children succeed.” it shocks me to note that parents of preschoolers are being invited to consider the consequences of their parenting for ontario’s grade 10 literacy test which is at least ten years in the future. where the planned everyday life literacy activities enjoyed only limited take up, informal and authentic literacy practices appeared to be more effective in achieving their purposes. i was struck by the number of events that featured the use of planners, calendars and schedules. the settlement worker, for example, always appeared to have a program brochure in her hand. she told me that newcomers can feel very isolated. she wanted people to know that they could be out and about in the neighbourhood every day of the week. she said that the days of the week are among the first english words that newcomers learn and she was using the brochure to reassure people that they did not need to feel isolated because any day of the week they could find a program that would welcome them. yet there was little variety in the programs and they undoubtedly privileged monolingual approaches to literacy. an invitation to participate was therefore also an invitation to be assimilated in an english speaking community. here was a quintessential illustration of iannacci’s observation that neoliberal assemblages create both possibilities and limitations.     figure 4: a resource-rich neighbourhood provides access to programs       canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 73 neoliberal reform technologies, most notably marketization, performativity, and accountability regimes, are designed to enrol subjectivities in the neoliberal practices described in the introduction. informal parent-child programs have escaped the most draconian aspects of the education reform package, but being accountable for parent participation when participation is voluntary creates stress and anxiety for practitioners and can shape practices in ways that maximize participation. the practitioners who participated in my study tried to attract “hard-toreach” families to programs. they felt obliged to “reach out” to them even when the program was oversubscribed, yet strategized to limit the “over-participation” of other families. moreover, reporting attendance statistics, referrals and partnership activities entered their work into a “monitoring system” (ball, 2003, p. 220), an institutional technology that works on employees’ subjectivities by motivating them to “recognize and take responsibility for the relationship between the security of their employment and their contribution to the competitiveness of the goods and services they produce” (willmott 1993, p. 522 cited in ball, 2003, p. 220). it is not surprising, then, that program leaders seemed preoccupied with enrolling parents. mobilization callon’s final moment of translation is mobilization. mobilization is never complete, but an actor-network achieves a measure of stability when the actors are to some extent regarded as self-evident (hamilton, 2011). school readiness has been mobilized successfully among some groups of parents, but the fact that program leaders were so concerned to enrol parents they considered to be hard-to-reach suggests that not all parents participate in school readiness discourse. in any case, the transitory nature of parenting young children ensures that work will be necessary to sustain the network and in countries such as canada that actively support immigration, the ongoing immigration of families from across the world ensures a diversity of attitudes toward parent involvement in education. from a government’s standpoint, one way to ameliorate these destabilizing effects is to increase government involvement in the school readiness project. efforts to integrate services for families, decisions to locate services for young children and their families in schools, and to create administrative structures under an education auspice are enacting a new actor-network in which parenting subjectivities can be more easily shaped and one in which diverse parenting practices are less threatening to the stability of the network. conclusion for more than thirty years, neoliberal reforms have being gathering momentum in public sector workplaces. one result has been a corporatization of institutions such as education. where some social researchers argue that neoliberal reform technologies are producing new types of     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 74 worker subjectivities (ball, 2003), i have claimed that a neoliberal imaginary increasingly permeates the everyday lives of families with young children. the preparation of children for school has been a policy goal in canada since the 1990s, but the ongoing intensification of accountability practices in primary education is changing the nature and quantity of school readiness work required of families. nowadays, even parents of very young children are invited in myriad ways to engage in parenting practices positively associated with children’s future school success. informal programs for young children and their parents are also entangled in the school readiness project. formerly construed as places for families to be, they too are being asked to think about who children will become. for example, a participant in an earlier study of programs for very young children (mckechnie, mckenzie & stooke, 2005) observed with pride that the public library functioned as a living room for local families. by contrast, the practitioners who participated in my recent study often commented that the program was “not just another playgroup.” i employed callon’s (1986) four moments of translation to trace the unfolding of the school readiness project in ontario as an actor-network and to show how several planned and spontaneous literacy events acted as nodes on that network. taken together, the vignettes presented in the paper constitute an unanticipated theme in the study data. by documenting literacy events, i had set out to bring visibility to educational work, with a view to refuting the idea that the informal parent-child programs are not educationally relevant. i did not anticipate that some of that educational work would be oriented toward the promotion of neoliberal governmentalities, but in bringing visibility to everyday life literacy practices, i glimpsed some “backroom workings of social technologies in the making” (hamilton, 2011, p. 56) and that troubled me. my intention is not to dismiss the obvious pleasure and enjoyment afforded by parent-child programs, or to cast doubt on the professionalism of program leaders. indeed, my interest in parent-child programs has deep roots in personal experiences as a parent and as a program leader. but as iannacci makes clear, “[n]eoliberal arrangements, linkages and assemblages can simultaneously create limitations and possibilities” (2012, n.p.).  in doing our professional best, any of us can be enrolled into social projects not of our own making. it goes without saying that the enrolment of parents in an actor-network oriented toward school readiness has profound implications for family life, for children’s lives, and for the ways in which childhood is understood and practised. my greatest concern is that the idea that parents need to devote a child’s first four years to the school readiness project is in danger of being “black-boxed” – an ant term that means “taken-for-granted”. the problem posed by this analysis is how practitioners should respond, both as individuals and as a community. writing to teachers, ball and olmedo (2013) advise practitioners not to equate professionalism with the well-being of one’s organization or profession. they urge teachers to “think in terms of what     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 75 they do not want to be, and do not want to become” (p. 86) and they contend that “[b]y acting ‘irresponsibly’, [educators] take ‘responsibility’ for the care of their selves and in doing so make clear that social reality is not as inevitable as it may seem” (p. 85). yet educators employed in informal ecec programs may feel that their participation in actor-networks such as those described in this paper is inevitable. a trend away from providing funding to organizations in favour of short-term funding for projects means that any organization that does not enrol in the school readiness project could find it difficult to secure funding. my closing words, then, are to the ecec community as a whole. courageous individuals will always speak out, but it would be unwise and unfair to depend on individuals. the ecec community has worked long and hard to direct government attention and resources to the education and care of young children, but it must keep in mind that an enabling state is always “[a]ctively seeking subjects” (edwards, 2008, p. 21). in seeking increased access to and coordination of programs and services for families, the ecec community must continue to advocate for programs and services that honour children’s right to live in the present. references ball, s. j. 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(re)visioning the ontario early years study: almost a fairy tale – but not quite. journal of curriculum theorizing, 19(2), 91-102. stooke, r. & mckenzie, p. (2011). under our own umbrella: mobilizing research evidence for early literacy programs in public libraries. progressive librarian, 36/37, 15-29. stooke, r. & mckenzie, p. j. (2010). attending to the small stuff: notes from an observational study of neighbourhood programmes for very young children and their caregivers. canadian children, 35(2).     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 78 stooke, r. & mckenzie, p. (2009). leisure and work in library and community programs for very young children. library trends, 57(4), 657-676. unicef. (2008). the child care transition, innocenti report card 8. florence, italy: unicef innocenti research centre. accessed july 20, 2013 at http://www.offordcentre.com/readiness/ the learning partnership (2008). let’s go: the importance of action. the quality of public education in canada, 4, 14-15. urciuoli, b. (2010). neoliberal education: preparing the student for the new workplace. in c. j. gennhouse (ed.), ethnographies of neoliberalism (pp.162-176).philadelphia, pa: university of pennsylvania press.                                                                                                                           endnotes i see e.g. from neurons to neighbourhoods (shonkoff & phillips, 2000) ii the leaders’ absences were the result of a medical emergency and a family bereavement. iii i employed heath’s definition of a literacy event, but included drawing as well as writing. i did not intentionally exclude digital texts, but there were no computers or wireless internet available in the program space and leaders did not use mobile devices in their interactions with participants. iv all names are pseudonyms. canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca   08  fall     in this issue: from the editor’s desk special issue: neoliberalism guest editor dr. luigi iannacci, phd, trent university, peterborough, ontario i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, fikile nxumalo producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education by cristina d. vintimilla radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by kim atkinson call for contributions: ‘the visual arts in early childhood education’ find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca canadian-children-vol-39-1-r-stooke in-this-issue june 2019 55 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources new research on discourses of childhood marja sorvari marja sorvari is an assistant professor of russian language and culture at the university of eastern finland, joensuu campus. her current research interests include children and childhoods in post-soviet contexts, multilingual literature, and border studies. she has published book chapters and journal articles on autobiographical studies and feminist and gender studies in russian literature and culture. her recent publications include articles on how childhood is imagined and remembered in post-soviet (autobiographical) fiction. email: marja.sorvari@uef.fi book review: childhood, literature, and science: fragile subjects jutta ahlbeck, päivi lappalainen, kati launis, and kirsi tuohela, editors london and new york: routledge, 2018 260pp. isbn: 9781138282407 children and childhoods are the object of a variety of academic disciplines, from medical and social sciences to historical and literary studies. countless studies explore childhood and children in education, health care, the welfare state, politics, media, culture, and so on. but how do cultural representations and scientific discourses meet in their ways of portraying children? this is one of the questions that the editors, finnish scholars jutta ahlbeck, päivi lappalainen, kati launis, and kirsi tuohela, put forward in childhood, literature, and science. the task the editors and 13 researchers from various disciplines set out to fulfill is to study the concepts of childhood and the child as discursive constructions in western modernity. the volume consists of the editors’ introduction and 16 chapters divided into five parts investigating child figures—”notions, constructs, representations, discourses, memories” (p. 7)—in the fields of cultural imagination, autobiographies and life-writings, as well as scientific discourses and expert knowledge on children. the key theoretical concept and analytical tool of the volume, the child figure, is a “fragile subject,” as ahlbeck, lappalainen, launis, and tuohela note in their introduction: it is portrayed “in need of intervention, guidance, and protection” (p. 7) and it is disciplined by different power relations associated with gender, class, and race. part i, titled “the ideal and subversive child,” delves into the norms and ideals set by societies on children and childhood at different times and shows how different, even opposing, perceptions of children and childhood have been brought up in children’s literature. päivi lappalainen demonstrates how the child figure is seen as becoming a citizen of a nation-state to serve and find its rightful place in society in the 19th-century finnish writer zacharias topelius’s works for children, läsning för barn. according to lappalainen, this becoming was entangled with a gender bias: in topelius’s stories boy figures were allowed more freedom and were more active than girl figures. by contrast, maria laakso’s article discusses how in the early 20th century the finnish writer jalmari finne’s humorous and popular books for children on the kiljunen family represent “burlesque anarchy” (p. 39) and naughty children who undermine the adult world’s norms. in finne’s books, both boys and girls behave badly, “which, according to laakso, makes the humor even more subversive” (p. 42). finne’s books on the kiljunen family thus represent a break with the topelian tradition in finnish children’s literature. in jenniliisa salminen’s article on the soviet russian author lazar lagin’s novel the old man hottabych (1955/1992), the roles of the child and adult seem to have changed places: paradoxically, the adult figure is imperfect whereas the child figure is perfect. the character old man hottabych is a genie released by a schoolboy named volka. when the genie wants to reward his liberator, it turns out that “no magic makes a positive impression on soviet children, because in their world, everything is already perfect” (p. 49). june 2019 56 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources in part ii “the ‘normal’ child” is scrutinized in three chapters discussing the rise of child sciences, especially the theories of mind and psyche from the late 1800s to the 20th century. in her chapter, kati launis argues that narrative fiction of the late 19th century offered early ideas of the child’s mind. the child was a “mystery” (p. 61) that was scrutinized by artists and scientists alike. in finland, the realist writers juhani aho, minna canth, and teuvo pakkala offered in their works representations of the modern child, and especially of girlhood. it is notable that these writers were aware of the contemporary psychological and pedagogical studies. launis argues that “at the turn of the century, the mystery of childhood was discussed at the same time by scientists and writers, in different countries” (p. 69). karin zetterqvist nelson’s article discusses the child figure in swedish child psychotherapy literature during 1945–1975. in this literature, the figure of the child was understood to be “at constant risk of being disturbed in its developmental psychological processes” (p. 81). therefore, the professional child therapist was at centre stage interpreting the “inner drama” (p. 82) of the child. the chapter by shaul bar-haim discusses two important scholars of interwar child psychoanalysis, anna freud and melanie klein, and the child figure in their thinking. bar-haim notes that anna freud, along with sigmund freud and sandor ferenczi, considered the psyche as a developmental whole (an infant becomes a child, then an adolescent, and finally an adult), which stressed the concepts of process and growth. by contrast, melanie klein’s concept of “position” does not differentiate between a child’s and an adult’s mind, but instead “some major dimensions of the childish mind are always there from the beginning, essentially non-developed and resilient to any change” (p. 93). a similar idea—although with no reference to klein’s work—on the co-presence of the child in the adult mind, comes up again in the discussion of literary works in saara jäntti’s article on women’s madness narratives, as will be noted below. part iii “the sick and disabled child” contains four intriguing articles on representations of children with illnesses or disabled children. the articles convey ways of representing emotions and empathy through various media. maria nikolajeva’s article discusses young adult fiction from the viewpoint of cognitive poetics and argues that fiction representing experiences of disabled children may potentially increase understanding of this experience among able-bodied youth. letitia fernández-fontecha rumeu’s chapter shows how photographs of sick children shaped the way the sick child was perceived in victorian society: the photographs not only gave greater visibility to sick children, but also emphasized the role of medical practitioners in managing children’s health and diseases and created emotional affect. as the author argues, “photography is a fruitful way to penetrate the embodied emotional experiences of the past” (p. 125). karen lowton in her chapter investigates how children with severe liver disease, who could potentially survive through liver transplantation during the 1980s–1990s, coped with their experiences and how they were portrayed through various texts and images. the data includes, for example, interviews with the now-adult patients and survivors. lowton notes that the case of liver transplantation shows “the intertwining of science, medicine, policy and media with the public imagination of what can become possible” (p. 138). the fourth chapter in this part brings us back to the investigation of young adult fiction. sarah hardstaff explores the figures of the “sick young adult,” the “working young adult,” and the “young adult caregiver” in two texts: mildred taylor’s the road to memphis (1990) and cynthia voigt’s seventeen against the dealer (1989). both novels picture illness as a means to bring to the fore social themes and ideas, especially barriers to professional medical care, and the role of informal care and love. hardstaff argues that “neither informal (‘love’) nor formal (‘expert’) care are sufficient for recuperation on their own—both must be in place” (p. 143). the fictional constructions of the failure of formal care bring to the fore ethical questions about healthcare provision. part vi “the evil and victimized child” discusses child figures who transgress boundaries of normality and how they were perceived by their contemporaries. eleanor f. w. betts discusses press representations of children who had committed a willful murder and shows that these representations employed existing scripts to make deviant deeds more comprehensible in victorian england. the investigation shows that towards the end of the 19th century the imaginary changed; as child psychology contributed to a different understanding of child psyche, press june 2019 57 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources representations started emphasizing some damage experienced by the child who murdered, instead of describing them as monsters. in her chapter, jutta ahlbeck notes that the figure of the nervous child became an emblem of the emerging nation-state at the turn of the 20th century in finland. this figure was both classed and gendered; nervousness was seen as essentially feminine and a threat to the social order. on the other hand, it was women who, as mothers, had the “potential of ‘saving’ the nation from nervousness and further degeneration” (p. 180). ahlbeck’s chapter forms an interesting parallel with päivi lappalainen’s chapter on child figures and nation building in children’s literature in finland (see above). although there are notable differences between the child figures, it is interesting how gender forms a constant element in this discourse. child figures reflect anxieties also in 21stcentury poland, when babies conceived through in vitro fertilization (ivf) are perceived either as “monsters” or “innocent babies” (p. 185) in mass media representations. ewa maciejewska-mroczek and magdalena radkowskawalkowicz argue that ivf children are used as “rhetorical figures, metaphors or disembodied symbols” (p. 192) appearing in two opposite discourses: the discourse of fear and the discourse of hope. there is no space for the “actual experience of children and their families” (p. 193) in these two opposing views. part v “the lost child” explores women’s autobiographical constructions of childhood and the figure of the child ranging from early 19th-century finnish autobiographies to 1990s’ women’s madness narratives and 21st-century neoliberal parenting culture. kirsi tuohela argues convincingly that in the early-19th-century autobiographies written by fredrika lindqvist and fredrika runeberg, childhood played a central role in the “tracing and creating” (p. 208) of the autobiographer’s personal human interiority, because it was the space where the concept of “heart” was seeded, and “heart” was the key to the truth of the inner “i.” roberta garrett, on the other hand, shows the public “mothershaming” (p. 211) that two autobiographical books, amy chua’s memoir battle hymn of the tiger mother and julie myerson’s the lost child, received in media. the two books, according to garrett, show how the neoliberal model of mothering is intensely child centered but also promotes “intense parental competitiveness” (p. 222), which are incompatible philosophies. the figures of child and mother are combined in saara jäntti’s chapter on women’s madness narratives, which discusses, among others, lauren slater’s prozac diary (1998) and bessie head’s a question of power (1974). in these autobiographical madness narratives, the mad protagonists, contrary to the understanding of psychiatry, do not blame their mad mothers or childhood for their mental illness, but “illness becomes a way to identify with them [mad mothers]” (p. 227). it seems that the mother-child dyad is a source of vulnerability for both: being a mother of a child may cause mental disturbances, as well as being a child of a mad mother. however, as jäntti argues, the child can also pull their mother out of madness. garrett’s and jäntti’s chapters suggest that it is necessary to think about how to promote shared parenting instead of an individual model of controlling, caring, and cultivating mothering. as we can see, childhood, literature, and science brings different understandings and approaches into dialogue and offers a compelling study on how the figure of the child and childhood talk to us about our understanding of modernity and subjectivity. it is noteworthy that the chapters represent a multitude of various cultural and linguistic contexts (e.g., nordic, east european, english, american, asian american) of childhood studies. thus, it would have been interesting to read reflections on differences and similarities between, for instance, concepts of childhood in finnish and (soviet) russian children’s literature, or between media representations of children in english and polish contexts. in this respect, a summarizing concluding chapter discussing the theoretical and empirical insights of the individual chapters and parts would have been useful. in addition, a summary could have opened novel perspectives on the intercultural understanding of children and childhoods. nevertheless, the reader can find interesting parallels and transformations of how child figures and childhoods have been used as discursive constructs by comparing the chapters and their findings. for example, the volume offers fruitful parallel discussions on how children’s literature and children’s writers have worked in different social and cultural contexts and created un/suitable child characters, and on how young adult fiction can serve as an important means for june 2019 58 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources young people to learn empathy and tolerance and see how damaging inequality can be. from an interdisciplinary perspective, the volume is a unique blend of literary, cultural, sociological, and psychological research on the child figure and childhood. the chapters bring to the fore many links between literature, media, and psychological theories and how they nourish each other in childhood studies. the abundance of themes, materials, and theories, as well as the detailed analyses of literary figures, media representations, and scientific discourses in childhood, literature, and science make this volume of utmost importance to those who want to have a better understanding of the discursivity and cultural constructedness of childhoods and children in western modernity. june 2019 59 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references ahlbeck, j., lappalainen, p., launis, k., & tuohela, k. (eds.). (2018). childhood, literature, and science: fragile subjects. london, uk: routledge. chua, a. (2011). battle hymn of the tiger mother. london, uk: bloomsbury. head, b. (1974). a question of power. london, uk: heinemann. lagin, l. (1992). starik hottabych. moscow: reteks. (original work published 1955) myerson, j. (2009). the lost child. london, uk: bloomsbury. slater, l. (1998). prozac diary. new york, ny: penguin books. taylor, m.d. (1990). the road to memphis. new york, ny: penguin. topelius, z. (1901/1903). läsning för barn i—ii. barnlitteratur. zacharias topelius skrifter. retrieved from http://www.topelius.fi/index. php?docid=92 voigt, c. (1989). seventeen against the dealer. new york, ny: atheneum books. winter/hiver 2018 31 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research quiet kindness in school: socially and emotionally sophisticated kindness flying beneath the radar of parents and educators john-tyler binfet & camilla enns john-tyler binfet is a kindness researcher at the university of british columbia. an associate professor in the okanagan school of education, his research examines how kindness is understood and facilitated within the context of public schools. he is the lead author of the school kindness scale and his previous work on kindness has been published in the canadian journal of school psychology, psychology in schools, the international journal of emotional education, and the canadian journal of childhood studies. email: johntyler.binfet@ubc.ca camilla enns recently completed her ba at the university of british columbia with a double major in psychology and geography. a search of the extant psychological and educational literature on the topic of kindness reveals three distinct trends: (1) the majority of studies on kindness have involved adult participants (e.g., aknin, sandstrom, dunn, & norton, 2011; chancellor, margolis, jacobsbao, & lyubomirsky, 2017; trew & alden, 2015); (2) the bulk of intervention research has assessed the pre-topost effects of having participants engage in kind acts to identify possible benefits to well-being (e.g., curry et al., 2018; dunn, aknin, & norton, 2014; layous et al., 2012; layous, nelson, kurtz, & lyubomirsky, 2017; o’connell, o’shea, & gallagher, 2015; otake et al., 2006; rowland & curry, 2018); and (3) there is emerging work exploring how, when asked to be kind, individuals enact kindness (e.g., binfet & passmore, 2017; cotney & banerjee, 2017). complementing kindness intervention research is research identifying how children and adolescents demonstrate kindness, particularly within the school context. understanding how students demonstrate kindness is important because it informs the adult agents responsible for fostering and guiding the development of children’s prosocial behaviour, providing insights into how children understand and express kindness as part of their repertoire of school-based behaviours. the aim of this paper is twofold: first, to draw attention to the different ways in which students demonstrate kindness and, in particular, to illustrate quiet examples of students’ kindness—kind acts that do not draw attention to the initiator and in which the initiator is anonymous, where recipients remain potentially unaware of the act, and acts that are not likely acknowledged by external agents whose role within the school might be to reinforce students’ prosocial behaviour; and second, to explore the developmental implications of quiet kind acts given their relative social and emotional sophistication vis-à-vis other, more commonly performed acts of kindness. using examples from surveys of over 3,000 canadian elementary and middle school students to illustrate how children enact kindness, it is our intention to increase the awareness of educators and parents around the variety of kind acts taking place within school communities. this paper profiles the different ways in which elementary and middle school students report on their acts of kindness and introduces the concept of quiet kindness, a socially and emotionally sophisticated form of kindness that does not draw attention to the initiator, where the recipient remains potentially unaware of the act, and the kind act is not likely acknowledged or reinforced by external agents. examples from surveys of over 3,000 canadian elementary and middle school students help illustrate how children enact kindness in school. the developmental implications of quiet kindness for children are discussed alongside implications for parents and educators. keywords: kindness; children; prosocial behaviour; educators; parents winter/hiver 2018 32 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research defining kindness recent work by lee rowland (2018) has initiated discussion about “what is kindness?” and disentangles our understanding of kindness vis-à-vis altruism and compassion. “the essence of kindness,” rowland suggests, “is more nuanced than we often consider. it is not a single thing, does not perfectly overlap with altruism and compassion, and has both behavioural and affective components” (p. 33). distinct kindness definitions are not readily reported in the literature (for a recent summary of published definitions, see binfet, 2015). certainly, the bulk of definitions of kindness reflect broad definitions (i.e., kindness outside of the school context) and comprise adult interpretations of kindness (i.e., not kindness as understood by children themselves). within the context of this article, kindness is defined as follows: “kindness, from the perspective of young children, is an act of emotional or physical support that helps build or maintain relationships with others” (binfet, 2015, pp. 36–37). given that most schools’ mission or vision statements embrace some aspect of this definition combined with the collective educational importance we place on students’ prosocial interactions in school, it may help educators and parents to understand the different ways in which kindness is expressed by students. kindness research intervention studies it is not surprising that the majority of studies of kindness to date consist largely of interventions in which participants are asked to complete kind acts; across studies, doing so has proven effective in augmenting participants’ wellbeing (rowland & curry, 2018; post, 2017). with few exceptions these studies have sampled adult participants (e.g., kerr, o’donovan, & pepping, 2014; otake et al., 2006) and there is a distinct lack of research on the effects of being kind in children. in one of the few studies in which children were asked to perform kind acts, layous and colleagues (2012) had 9to 11-year-olds perform three kind acts each week for four weeks in an effort to boost their well-being. pre-to-post assessments of well-being indicated significant boosts for students who participated in the kindness intervention and significant increases in their social acceptance by peers. conceptualizations of kindness studies the focus of the empirical work above on kindness has come, perhaps, at the expense of understanding how participants conceptualize kindness, that is, how kindness is understood and manifested by participants. the emerging work in this area is limited and includes burgeoning work by researchers in canada (binfet, 2016; binfet & gaertner, 2015; binfet & passmore, 2017) and the uk (e.g., cotney & banerjee, 2017) who have asked children and adolescents to describe the kind acts they either generated or received. it warrants mentioning that when children are asked to provide examples of kindness they have done, especially acts done within a school context, children might be reporting kind acts arising from explicit instruction as part of the social and emotional curriculum taught in schools. across participants and across studies, commonalities in the themes of kind acts done by children have been found (binfet, 2016). young children have been found to enact kindness through physically (e.g., “i helped someone get up who fell”) and emotionally (e.g., “i played with a new girl who was lonely”) helping others. young students also were found to show kindness by sharing (e.g., “i gave him half of my snack”) and including others (e.g., “my friends and i were playing and he was alone so we said ‘hey come join us!’”). the repertoire of kind acts done by older children and adolescents is broader and includes themes such as showing respect (“i could have budged in line but i waited”), advocating for others (e.g., “i stood up for him when he was bullied”), and complimenting others (e.g., “i told him i liked his skateboard”). findings in recent research on winter/hiver 2018 33 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research kindness in adolescents by jessica cotney and robin banerjee (2017) identified 10 thematic categories of kind acts: emotional support, helping, generosity, positive sociality, honesty, forgiveness, complimenting, proactive support, formal kindness, and social inclusion. variations in children’s kind acts those of us who research kindness and practitioners who encourage kindness in children recognize there are different approaches to encouraging and enacting kindness within school contexts. though not much has been written on differentiating the approaches to fostering kindness, it warrants discussion, certainly as parents and educators seek ways to support young people in their academic, social, and emotional development. further, as children’s developmental needs vary, so too does the level of support or structure they require surrounding how to be kind. what follows next is an overview of the principal ways through which children might be encouraged to be kind and the different pathways through which they might express kindness. random acts of kindness the origins of the phrase “random acts of kindness” lie in anne herbert’s 1982 placemat slogan “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty” and subsequent coauthored book of the same title (herbert & pavel, 1993). certainly this phrasing has garnered much lay attention, with online organizations arising in response to the public’s interest in fostering spontaneously performed kindness. a random act of kindness might be considered an emotional, social, or physical response that offers support to someone in their immediate moment of need (e.g., a student drops their books in the hallway and a passing fellow student stops to help gather them). random acts of kindness are certainly evident in schools. the examples below illustrate early (grades k–3) and older (grades 4–5) students’ demonstrations of kindness in response to the needs of others. figure 1. random act of kindness, early elementary example. winter/hiver 2018 34 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2. random act of kindness, early elementary example. figure 3. random act of kindness, intermediate example. figure 4. random act of kindness, intermediate example. figure 5. random act of kindness, intermediate example. winter/hiver 2018 35 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research intentional acts of kindness in contrast to random acts of kindness in which kindness is perhaps more reactionary (i.e., in response to a perceived need), the notion of a more structured approach to being kind has been proferred (binfet, 2015). being intentionally kind involves planning, gathering resources, identifying recipients, scheduling, and execution—all factors that, combined, do not typically characterize being randomly kind. researchers (e.g., layous et al., 2012) have employed a structured or intentional approach to having participants perform kindness (e.g., “plan and perform three kind acts over the course of the next week”). when asked to plan kind acts (i.e., to be intentionally kind), children manifest kindness in a variety of ways, and this emerging area of kindness research, whereby participants are asked to be intentionally kind, is gaining ground in both psychological and educational literature (rowland & curry, 2018). below are illustrations of how children typically demonstrate intentional kindness in school. these examples are shared to allow a comparison to what we postulate is a more sophisticated version of kindness—quiet acts of kindness. across each of these examples of intentional kindness, the initiator is known to the recipient, the delivery of the act involves some sort of interaction between the initiator and the recipient, and there is a certain a priori planning that precedes the kind act. figure 6. intentional kindness, early elementary example. winter/hiver 2018 36 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 7. intentional kindness, early elementary example. figure 8. intentional kindness, intermediate example. figure 9. intentional kindness, intermediate example. winter/hiver 2018 37 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 10. intentional kindness, middle school example. figure 11. intentional kindness, middle school example. quiet acts of kindness as mentioned, the first author has undertaken several studies to understand how kindness is conceptualized in school, querying, to date, over 3,000 public school students about how they are kind. these studies include asking kindergarten to third graders to draw acts of kindness they have done in school (binfet & gaertner, 2015). older students in grades 4 through 9 have been asked outright to describe kind acts they have done in school (binfet & passmore, 2017). across participants, much has been learned about how young people understand and demonstrate kindness. though the key themes of children’s kindness have already been reported, what emerges from this body of research is a subset of kind acts, termed here “quiet kindness,” that stand apart from the kindness typically performed by school children. as introduced at the outset of this paper, quiet kindness comprises kind acts that do not draw attention to the initiator (i.e., the student initiating this kind act is likely unmotivated by seeking recognition for being kind), the kind act is not announced to the recipient, an individual who may very well remain unaware of the kind act performed on their behalf, and the kind act does not garner the attention of any adult agents who might typically encourage or reinforce kindness within the school context. quiet kind acts contrast what gustavo carlo and brandy randall (2002) termed “public prosocial behaviors” which are conducted in front of an audience to gain approval. what follows are six illustrations of children’s quiet kind acts. it is our hope in sharing these examples of quiet kindness that parents and educators and, in turn, students themselves, can see the nuanced and complex ways in which kindness might take shape within a school. winter/hiver 2018 38 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 12. quiet kindness, early elementary example. figure 13. quiet kindness, early elementary example. winter/hiver 2018 39 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 14. quiet kindness, middle school example. figure 15. quiet kindness, middle school example. figure 16. quiet kindness, middle school example. figure 17. quiet kindness, middle school example. winter/hiver 2018 40 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research quiet acts of kindness reflect social and emotional sophistication the study of kindness in children falls neatly within the framework of the broader field of social and emotional learning (sel), a field of study whose aim is to illuminate the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive competencies children learn across varied settings (collaborative for academic and social and emotional learning, 2015). such competencies include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making (see https://casel.org/ for a detailed description of each competency). although it can be argued that performing any act of kindness requires or draws on these core sel competencies, might quiet acts of kindness illustrate a more sophisticated mastery of these competencies? as the above examples of quiet kindness illustrate, children who demonstrate this type of kindness appear to embrace, to a greater extent, the pillars of sel. this might be evident in children’s perspective-taking abilities and ability to recognize the need for kindness to be directed to others (i.e., selfand social awareness), the ability to gather resources and plan acts of kindness (i.e., self-management and responsible decision making), and the social skills needed to deliver kind acts to others (i.e., relationship skills). it merits noting that each of the over 3,000 participants in the above-referenced studies generated between two and 12 acts of kindness. given the volume of this data, a calculation of the frequency of kind acts by the new kindness categories described in this paper has yet to be determined. the coding of children’s kind acts by the three kindness categories discussed here is currently underway. the role of reinforcement in shaping children’s behaviour children develop in complex social and emotional environments and thus may act prosocially for a variety of reasons. in a review of the motivations behind prosocial behaviour, maayan davidov and colleagues (2016) describe the socialization processes that take place throughout childhood development. although infants appear to show altruistic kindness (e.g., helping to reach an object) within their first year, positive experiences associated with kind behaviour help to reinforce continued kind behaviour among children. positive experiences include receiving praise or a reward, having a pleasant interaction with a trusted adult, feeling a positive emotional state, and the satisfaction of adhering to social norms (davidov, vaish, knafo-noam, & hastings, 2016). however, children receive widely varying levels of reinforcement depending on their social environment (bower & casas, 2016). it is argued that reinforcement by respected adults in children’s lives has an influence on children’s prosocial behaviour (dahl et al., 2017; grusec, goodnow, & kuczynski, 2000; hastings, utendale, & sullivan, 2007; taylor & biglan, 1998). within both family and school contexts, interventions designed to increase kind behaviour in children typically use reinforcement as a cornerstone strategy (biglan, flay, embry, & sandler, 2012). a common example is giving children a weekly allowance for helping around the house (warton & goodnow, 1995). dahl (2015) argues that encouragement and reinforcement from parents shapes children’s prosocial behaviour by providing knowledge, allowing children to practice social skills, and promoting habits. although parents are thought of as the most influential factor in children’s development (parke & buriel, 2006), educators also play an important role in shaping children’s behaviour (jennings & greenberg, 2009). readers curious to understand the nuanced nature of how children perceive kindness in school and, in particular, in teachers, are directed to a recent publication by binfet (2016). because students come from diverse family contexts, with some students being undersocialized at home and arriving to school lacking the requisite social and emotional skills needed to thrive (ashdown & bernard, 2012; rimm-kaufman, pianta, & cox, 2000), educators increasingly find themselves teaching children skills historically winter/hiver 2018 41 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research taught at home (jennings & greenberg, 2009). in a long-term study, sheppard kellam and colleagues (2008) identified that teachers could increase the prosocial behaviour of first and second graders using a team-based game in which students received rewards for displaying prosocial behaviour, with effects lasting until age 21. further, asha spivak and dale farran (2012) studied 124 first-grade classrooms to see which teacher behaviours were most associated with student kindness. these researchers found verbal encouragement of prosocial and empathetic behaviour strongly associated, whereas emotional warmth, positive behaviour management, and instruction on their own were not influential in shaping children’s behaviour. they concluded that deliberate reinforcement from educators holds power to encourage kindness in children. however, it should be noted that results of these studies are typically correlational. reinforcement can be difficult to measure in isolation as it occurs in dynamic and multifaceted social situations. not everyone is in agreement with the use of reinforcement to shape children’s behaviour, with some researchers arguing that using material rewards can harm the natural motivation to do good (biglan, 2003; dahl, 2015). this certainly is evidenced by research by felix warneken and michael tomasello (2014), who assessed three reinforcement conditions (social praise, material reinforcement, or no reinforcement) in promoting prosocial behaviour among toddlers. their research illustrated that the use of material rewards did not encourage subsequent prosocial behaviour in this age group. despite these cautions regarding the use of reinforcements, audun dahl (2015) acknowledges that reinforcement may play a key role when motivation is especially low. reinforcement can take many different forms. alicia bower and juan casas (2016) asked parents of young children how they respond upon witnessing their children engaging in various kind acts. the parents’ answers ranged from giving their child a wink to a statement such as “that was very nice of you to sit with that child when they were hurt. you were very kind.” parents were most likely to give general praise (62%), defined as praising the act only, as opposed to praising the child’s character, giving physical affection, communicating their approval, or giving physical gifts or treats. nevertheless, not all reinforcement is equally effective. jennifer henderlong and mark lepper (2002) explain that giving praise is beneficial to a child when it does not convey the message that the child has low ability, when self-efficacy is acknowledged, when it does not involve social comparison, and when expectations are realistic. researchers also agree that certain types of reinforcement vary in effectiveness based on the age of the child, as kindness becomes more complex with maturity. for example, reinforcement is most successful for young children when they are asked to perform something more difficult than they would naturally (dahl et al., 2017), for 8-year-olds when their character or motivation is acknowledged (grusec & redler, 1980), for adolescents when they expect their parents to respond fairly (hardy, carlo, & roesch, 2010), and overall when implemented early on and maintained throughout childhood and adolescence (flannery et al., 2003). empathy education within reinforcement has also been consistently shown to increase children’s prosociality. encouraging children to think empathetically about the needs and feelings of others increases kind behaviour (howard & barnett, 1981; kalliopuska & tiitinen, 1991). discussion the examples of quiet kindness shared in this article illustrate how children are kind in ways that others cannot always see. it has been argued here that acts of quiet kindness require the mastery of advanced social and emotional competencies—a relative sophisticated mastery of social awareness, of perspective taking, of self-regulating and self-management, and of responsible decision making. certainly, children who demonstrate quiet kindness are less inclined to receive praise or reinforcement from the adult agents within their home or learning context whose responsibility it is to encourage prosociality. in this regard, their acts of kindness might be considered less externally driven than other forms of kindness which may generate praise for the kind-doer. quiet acts of kindness winter/hiver 2018 42 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research may reflect more sophisticated attachments to others, with the acts themselves carrying particular meaning for a relationship between the kind-doer and the recipient. one aim of this paper has been to sensitize adult agents who hold the power to shape children’s behaviour to be aware that children do enact kindness quietly and moreover that adults in varied learning contexts are likely unaware of the extent to which children are, in fact, kind. it might be argued, however, that children who engage in quiet kindness, given their relatively sophisticated social and emotional skills, are less in need of reinforcement. our discussion of the different ways kindness can be enacted within a school context draws attention to the inherent biases that might exist in schools to encourage children to be kind in predetermined ways. that is, might our efforts in schools to date have overlooked the variety of ways in which children might express kindness to others by focusing on narrow definitions of kindness evident in prepackaged curricula? this, in turn, impacts how the adult agents in the lives of children discuss, encourage, and reinforce kind behaviour. related to this, might we be conditioning students to seek reinforcement for being kind within school and family contexts, losing sight of the intrinsic value of kindness itself ? our hope in introducing the concept of quiet kindness is to initiate and broaden the dialogue among parents, educators, and researchers around the possibilities of expressions of kindness that could take place in schools. certainly, heightened awareness is needed around the variety of kind acts taking place in schools as we seek to shape school cultures that celebrate students’ prosocial behaviour. the identification of quiet acts of kindness generates questions for educators, parents, and researchers striving to understand the role that kindness plays in children’s lives. for example, might quiet kindness be, to a greater extent, characteristic of shy or introverted students? certainly, given the social and interaction demands inherent in performing random and intentional kind acts, quiet kindness allows the initiator to play a relatively unassuming role. further, the identification of quiet kindness holds implications for parents and educators seeking to reinforce kindness in children. by virtue of their low-profile presence, children’s quiet kind acts go largely unacknowledged by the adult agents who typically reinforce such behaviour. certainly an area of research warranting further discovery is the link between sel and kindness. how does social and emotional competence influence children’s abilities to enact kindness? extending further, future research might explore how children’s social and emotional competencies impact their demonstrating random, intentional, and quiet kindness. as well, researchers and practitioners collectively might explore the linkages among the different forms of kindness. might children first be instructed on how to be intentionally kind, then encouraged to enact random acts of kindness, and subsequently be encouraged to perform quiet acts of kindness? might this sequencing help foster quiet acts of kindness? further still, given their reliance to date on well-being interventions that have participants plan and do a series of kind acts, might researchers encourage a variety of kind acts as part of interventions? conclusion this paper presented an overview of three categories of kindness performed by children—random acts of kindness where children spontaneously respond to others’ needs, intentional acts where kindness is planned a priori, and quiet kindness, acts that quietly demonstrate a care and concern for others but in ways that largely go unnoticed by anyone but the initiator. it has been argued here that this latter version of kindness represents a more socially and emotionally sophisticated form of kindness and, resultingly, a kind of kindness that might fly beneath the radar of the reinforcing agents within children’s learning communities. winter/hiver 2018 43 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aknin, l. b., sandstrom, g. m., dunn, e. w., & norton, m. i. 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(1995). money and children’s household jobs: parents’ views of their interconnections. international journal of behavioral development, 18, 335–350. doi:10.1177/016502549501800209 spring/printemps 2018 30 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research future child: pedagogy and the post-anthropocene alexandra lakind and chessa adsit-morris alexandra lakind is a doctoral candidate at the university of wisconsin–madison in curriculum & instruction in the school of education and environment & resources at the nelson institute for environmental studies. she is a fellow at the holtz center for science & technology studies, a graduate affiliate of the center for culture, history, and environment, and cofounder of terra incognita art series. she is currently focusing on human/environmental futures, arts integration, and educational pedagogy. through implicit and explicit, academic and performative routes, she hopes to foster supportive communities prepared to process unanswerable dilemmas together. email: llakind@wisc.edu chessa adsit-morris is a curriculum theorist and assistant director of the center for creative ecologies. she is the author of restorying environmental education: figurations, fictions, feral subjectivities (palgrave macmillan, 2017). she is pursuing a phd in visual studies at the university of california, santa cruz. she has worked with universities, ngos, school boards, and municipal authorities across the world to translate complex scientific research into approachable, teachable theory, creating strategies and resources that help to guide policies and practices toward creating a healthy and more sustainable future. there’s something uncanny about the very word anthropocene. perhaps it is in the way it seems to arrive too early and too late.... perhaps it is that it seems to implicate something about the “human” but from a vantage point where the human would be over and done with, or never really existed in the first place. ~ mckenzie wark, molecular red at the un-convened rio+20 conference on sustainable development, hosted in rio de janeiro, brazil, in 2012, a short film was screened for all 45,000 participants: welcome to the anthropocene.1 the film opens with the iconic image of earth-from-space snapped by members of nasa’s apollo 17 mission in 1972, spurring the beginnings of the mainstream environmental movement. yet the image in the video is overlaid with a graph—a straight line constantly moving upwards, soon to be out of frame, off the charts, unpredictable. the line follows the linear trajectory of man’s increasing impact on earth, from the invention of the steam engine, to the great acceleration, to the capitalistic globalization of material processes and technological networks. the image morphs into a digital illustration of the earth as a vast, interconnected technological system2, and the narrative shifts to one of hope for future generations, concluding with the statement “we have shaped our past, we are shaping our present, we can shape our future” (gaffney & pharand-deschenes, 2012, n.p.). the globe: a singular shape floating in the dark, vast uncertainty of space, now conceived as a unified network of relations, illustrating a unifying global perspective—we are in this together—one planet, one species, one anthropocene. this icon, and the accompanying voiceover in the video, uses this “all one” universality to flatten and dissolve difference: it is hard to be all one without being the same. the anthropocene, a geological epoch defined by human impact on earth, may be a productive concept; however, for many, the anthropocene foreshadows the apocalypse: a fertile terrain to speculate about the future, which can displace the now. we aim to reconceptualize this era, drawing inspiration from those working to imagine possible eras for the post-anthropocene—imaginaries that do not deny the material histories and urgencies of the present. in particular, we seek to transform the ways children are figured in this epoch. in this conceptual essay, we (re)consider the anthropocene, explore how figurations of the child tap into environmental futurism, and call for a pedagogy of the post-anthropocene which rejects future-orientations that negate children as bearers of their own experience and agents of their own purpose. key words: children; pedagogy; futurity; postanthropocene spring/printemps 2018 31 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research it may (as we and others argue) function as an all-encompassing ideology—what jedediah purdy (2015, para. 12) describes as an “all-purpose projection screen” amplifying preferred (capitalistic and techno-scientific) narratives of human exceptionalism, provoking heroic thinking and high stakes rhetoric “of the human mind pressed up against the wall of apocalypse.” the anthropocene is a universal call to humanity, rather than a focused critique of the vast inequalities regarding who uses resources, who is most at risk, and who is privy to this concept. the anthropocene comes from the global north, a geographical designation disproportionately responsible for both the creation and exacerbation of environmental issues and their framing, affecting how we come to know the crisis, imagine it, and respond to it. the anthropocene, akin to mainstream environmentalism in the united states, invokes visions of universal risk and vulnerability wherein everyone is implicated. yet everyone is too often depicted as white and middle class, erasing the complex and intertwined histories of colonialism and capitalism that manifest in present-day issues of inequality and social/environmental injustice (dunaway, 2008, p. 69). as rob nixon (2014, p. 3) reminds us: “we may all be in the anthropocene, but we’re not all in it in the same way.” the concept of the anthropocene has taken hold in academic and popular culture (schneiderman, 2015), but for those who fear a universalizing species narrative or eurocentrically framed conversation, the term has given pause (see, for example, demos, 2015, 2017; haraway, 2016; moore, 2015, among others). bruno latour (2013, n.p.) remarks that there is no “global globe,” no unified container to hold the multitude of concerns that have assembled to replace the politics of nature. in response, then, we must start asking what métis scholar zoe todd (2015, p. 244) asks: “whose space is this and who is not here?” the following pages invite a reconceptualization of this era, drawing inspiration from those working to imagine possible eras for the post-anthropocene—imaginaries that do not deny the material histories and urgencies of the present. to cease our continued culture of environmental destruction, this paper argues for a reconceptualization of childhood and a transformation of childhood pedagogy. we begin by unpacking our figurative methodological approach. subsequently, we probe the child-as-idea to examine how our conceptions of child3 are tied to understandings of nature, normativity, and futures premised on unsustainable and unjust expectations. we aim to challenge the complex and contradictory conceptions of child in the anthropocene, the child-in-need-of-saving and the child-who-saves. second, we probe conceptions of childhood pedagogy in order to shift long-held assumptions about nature, culture, and development to open unrealized possibilities and nonlinear trajectories. the resulting conception of a post-anthropocene pedagogy resists certain discourses of responsibility and the linearity of growth to combat an over emphasis on predetermined ends conceived of in advance. this requires dismantling the allegedly clear boundaries between children and adults (halberstam, 2011), unchaining normative connections between nature/culture and past/present/future to envision a pedagogy that obliges everybody to “take a detour, find a limit, lose our way,” as halberstam (2011, p. 121) advises. in other words, this post-anthropocene pedagogy is not about what we do with/to children; rather, it hinges on (re)conceptualizing childhood and the associated norms we uphold or dismantle. it is about, as hesoon bai (2009, p. 147) explains, the logics with which we approach and enact whatever we are doing or not doing. response-able methods of inquiry for “after” the anthropocene we engage isabelle stengers’ (2010) appeal to slow down by using a concept-as-method approach (st. pierre, 2014, p. 7)—that is, using concepts to slow down and reorient one’s thinking. the anthropocene, as a theoretical concept and as a representation of material urgencies, calls into question our most fundamental, “most cherished” structures: nature, time, reproduction, child. it brings to light what kathryn stockton (2009, p. 3) has described as “child-as-idea” signifying a host of contradictions, including reproductive futures, purity, revolution, incapacity, and becoming (meiners, 2016). this paper argues that imagined environmental futures are fused with reproductive futures, intricately connected to heterofutures, based on underexamined assumptions that instrumentalize children spring/printemps 2018 32 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research toward the perpetuation of a selfsame future. we move from the concept-as-method, utilizing the concept of child in the anthropocene, toward the figuration of child.4 we follow lines of interest (or, in deleuze and guattari’s [1987] terms, lines of flight) rather than a territory partitioned into domains of study (ingold, 2013)—drawing on interdisciplinary postcolonial, poststructural, and feminist understandings—taking us to figurations of child and the pedagogical implications therein. following donna haraway, we utilize figurations—tropes or figurative metaphorical beings found within specific cultural traditions—to challenge existing taken-for-granted notions and habitual practices of thought. as opposed to concepts, figurations are where the imaginary meets the ordinary everyday; figurations are not “didactic illustrations, but rather material-semiotic nodes or knots in which diverse bodies and meaning co-shape one another” (haraway, 2008, p. 4). figurations have agency, history, and a life of their own. the anthropocene narrative has also spurred what mark grief, in his study the age of the crisis of man (2015), calls a “discourse of responsibility”—which purdy (2015, para. 13) defines as a strain of language that responds to geopolitical and environmental threats “with a blend of urgent language and concepts (or pseudo-concepts): responsibility, the fate of man.” yet, this responsibility is displaced onto future generations, which justifies actions that take responsibility from and for future generations. thus, this paper is calling for a shift from an overemphasis on responsibility, to encourage response-ability. in staying with the trouble (2016), haraway writes of responseability as a call to be responsive and directed toward justice and sustainable belonging. for many, the anthropocene foreshadows the apocalypse: a fertile terrain to speculate about the future, propelling predictions of an emergency in the making. contrasting this, we argue for an energizing urgency, which haraway (2016, p. 37) contends has different temporalities than emergency, because it no longer connotes narratives of oncoming apocalypse or crisis. in an emergency, we rush to secure what we have deemed important: we aim to preserve our health, protect our property, determine safe passage for women and children. however, as haraway (2016, p. 1) extrapolates, crisis “does not require a relationship to times called the future.” drawing on these understandings, we began to speculate a post-anthropocene pedagogy, inspired by haraway’s notion of response-ability envisioned in her first explicit references to education, specifically in her book chapter “the camille stories.” we hope to inspire, as haraway (2016, p. 149) imagines, the circumstances under which children might foster the creation of complex subjectivities, become response-able multispecies collaborators, and initiate creative interdisciplinary practices aimed, not only at learning to live (and die) on a damaged planet, but at imagining and creating spaces of refuge for a future we cannot predict. reproductive futurism, nature, and child children are enmeshed in our conceptions of time. childhood (for adults) is at once future oriented and nostalgic, composed of imaginaries replete with underexamined assumptions, as adult anxieties—ontological insecurities— fixate on creating determinable pasts and futures. childhood is already an always-incomplete state (castañeda, 2000). children are perceived as not fully formed (pre-adults) outside the normative (adult) subject, which is perceived as complete and fixed. its indeterminacy and plasticity, as cindi katz (2008, p. 7) explains, “opens it as a tremendously fertile figuration.” to adults, children are repositories for adult fantasies (james et al., 1998; steedman, 1985). intensified via anthropocene narratives of past, present, and future loss, adults cope with anxiety by “securing children’s futures and producing perfect childhoods” (katz, 2008, p. 6). adult desires to protect children (from adulthood) or prepare children (for adulthood) employ notions of childhood as it should be to protect authentic nature in the lives of real children (taylor, 2011). yet, notions of nature are historically situated and unsettled. by the end of the 18th century, rousseau had inspired the notion that children were representatives of a nature spring/printemps 2018 33 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research that was true, neutral, and universal: “the locus of essential goodness” (taylor, 2011, p. 422). while pagans saw nature and the divine as united with the human and not necessarily as purely or innately good, the rise of urban society sparked new moral concerns which justified the separation of nature and the divine from humans, and reimagined nature as good, absolute, and pure (bell, 2018). in contrast to puritanical notions of children as sinful, for the romantics, children offered a way back to this version of nature. importantly, these influential aristotelian and neo-aristotelian perspectives saw children as qualitatively different from adults. according to andrew stables, differentiating children from adults shifted the way child is included, excluded, and implicated in the allencompassing categorical. child came to mean not yet ready, or classified by an age when rights are not conferred. within this distinction, as stables (2008, p. 89) writes, child is understood to be “insufficiently developed for immersion in society, or (on the romantic account, still popular among child-centred educators), as too good for it.” throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, children became an important political site submerged within the term natural (baker, 2001; fausto-sterling, 2000). the presumed separation between nature and culture reconfigured childhood as something that could be influenced by the outside environment. as carolyn merchant asserts, capitalism wrought newfound hopes of controlling destiny. nature became conceived of in mechanistic terms, as resources to assemble and dominate (merchant, 1980). children represented another natural resource: empty vessels waiting to be filled, resilient yet innocent, like virgin soil yet to be corrupted, polluted, or sexualized. they were no longer smaller versions of adults, but future adults (baker, 2001). contemporary scholarship across disciplines has challenged notions of the natural as absolute, ongoing, and sublime, elucidating ways in which humans perceive the natural environment to erode the categorical distinction of nature/culture (see cronon, 1995; denevan, 1992). yet, the legacies of complex and often contradictory beliefs remain. as questions of modification, labour, and activity collide with materiality, so too does the nature/culture divide, yet the wilderness debate rages on (2008), and 19thand 20th-century notions of childhood linger in ideas of “human control over the future” (baker, 2001, p. 64). in the 21st century, tethered to a future that we cannot predict, children are a resource to rescue us from the “future we (adults) threaten” by functioning as “the connection to nature we (adults) have corrupted” (sheldon, 2016, p. 39). to envision (or make) an imagined future safe, children are figured as denizens of nature—and more so of naturalization—naturalizing futurism to provide an uncertain future with orderliness and meaning. entangled with views of reproduction as the basis for life, children symbolize the natural order, normalizing (and regulating) the boundaries of personhood, as judith butler (2014, p. 426) reasons, “making persons according to abstract norms that at once condition and exceed the lives they make—and break.” drawing on lee edelman’s (2004) no future: queer theory and the death drive and rebekah sheldon’s (2016) the child to come: life after the human catastrophe, this paper extends from edelman’s critique of the universal politics of “reproductive futurism” and sheldon’s analysis of child as a symbol (and tool) for humanity, framed as the answer to environmental catastrophe, the force that will “coordinate our safe passage into the future” (sheldon, 2016, p. vii). children, linked to species survival, might be conceived of as the mechanism to overcome planetary threat—a shift in perspective historically coincides with the anthropocene’s first articulation, as sheldon (2016) asserts. edelman’s invective against heterofuturity highlights how imaginaries of the sacrosanct child disadvantage the queer, who are framed as antithetical to the essentialist assumptions upholding nature and children as natural and good. edelman, as a queer person, situates himself outside such supposed social and biological norms upheld as “good,” occupying an athwart (probyn, 2016) vantage point to perceive the political processes that beguile children into maintaining social norms. thus, while edelman rejects this figuration of child, he may see himself aligned with actual children who are also not able to choose for themselves what they represent. for edelman, spring/printemps 2018 34 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research futurism itself—the drive to guarantee that our social reality will persist even after we’re gone—is the underlying culprit aiming to maintain civilization as is. the future is not for everyone child (like “science” or “nature”) is widely understood as “race neutral,” concealing how contemporary configurations of childhood are highly racialized. as robin bernstein’s racial innocence: performing american childhood from slavery to civil rights (2011) details, racialized childhood was central to the 16thto 19th-century movements that shaped representational democracy in the united states. child, defined as unable to consent in relation to the rational adult male, came to represent everything that should prohibit a subject from citizenship (duane, 2010). during this time, child became the embodiment of innocence, distinctly envisioned as white: as robin bernstein (2011) writes, “the doctrine of original sin receded, replaced by a doctrine of original innocence” (p. 4). innocence negates experience, while a figure free of a past undergirds educable heterofutures (stockton, 2009). likewise, to sustain a future predicated on the white, able-bodied man of humanism (braidotti, 2013), environmental futurism often relies on imaginary pasts filled with pure and pristine conceptions of nature, displacing untidy or disordered histories that might conflict with maintaining (western) civilization. yet, the united states was not an untouched wilderness, but the result of a violent restructuring of indigenous ways of life (rifkin, 2011). natives were assessed as childlike (i.e., incapable and underdeveloped) to justify the united states as “parent” nation in order to normalize, naturalize, and enable claims on land, property, and inheritance (smith, 2010; zaborskis, 2016). moreover, compulsory colonial models of kinship dismantled preexisting collective decision making and multispecies relationships to serve white settler communities. indeed, the united states conceptualizes and partitions resources to maintain white heteronormative futures. as a white privilege, innocence is systemically denied to brown bodies (meiners, 2016). this structure guarantees failure of nonwhite bodies to become part of a desired and/or imposed reproductive future and to transition into civic and economic personhood: to vote, own a home, etc. as jose muños (2009) notes, if childhood is countered by an adulthood of white futurity, many children of colour are never able to “grow up.” goaded by increasing environmentalist calls to forestall catastrophe for the sake of the children, child in the anthropocene relies on prescriptive, unsustainable, and unjust ways of relating to the future. placed within white supremacist colonial ambitions, reproductive futurism preserves exclusionary ideologies alongside extractive and propriety relationships to the land and one another. anchored to notions such as “generational shifts” (e.g., father to son), reproductive futurism maintains norms organized around historical (settler) conceptions of progress and change. adults instill children with stability to carry them into the future through deep-rooted (hetero)normative and racialized logics. as haraway (2016, p. 1) describes, the present and past are cleared to make futures for coming generations, drawing lines of flight through settler colonialisms’ temporal elimination tied to relations of erasure between the past and future, employing what eve tuck and ruben gaztambide-fernandez (2013, p. 73) call the “curriculum project of replacement.” tuck and gaztambide-fernandez draw on andrew baldwin to illustrate how futurity relates to the ways that the “future is rendered knowable through specific practices (i.e., calculation, imagination, and performance) and, in turn, intervenes upon the present through three anticipatory logics (i.e., pre-caution, pre-emption and preparedness)” (baldwin, 2012, as cited in tuck & gaztambide-fernandez, 2013, p. 80). growing futures in the field of education, particularly early childhood and environmental education, the garden as a metaphor for growth has been widely and historically used to foster practices that manage, nurture, cultivate, tend, and plot spring/printemps 2018 35 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s growth into the future. while it is not new to compare children to plants, as rousseau did, emergent critiques link plant/animal control with human control (bonnett, 2009) to demonstrate how the desire for “perfection in gardens and people [is] rooted in an ongoing struggle against ‘difference’” (subramaniam, 2014, p. 6). gardens are employed to maintain civilization: citizens grow food to prepare for survival; national parks uphold empire; wilderness is preserved on behalf of protestant notions of the pure and pristine; and public and private lawns regulate decency and decorum (see burns, 2009; cronon, 1995; denevan, 1992; robbins, 2007). as julia ostertag (2015) detailed, there has been a long history of gardens being used in colonial, military, and political regimes, including in nazi germany, the canadian residential schooling systems, and so-called victory gardens grown in many countries during world war i and ii (also called “war gardens” or “food gardens for defence”). natasha myers (2016), through her research on gardens and plant/people involution, discusses how the aesthetics and politics of gardens perpetuates the extractive and colonial logics of capitalism and fosters apocalyptic imaginaries. while there is much to learn from gardening—relating to the material and more-than-human world, including ways to encourage anticolonial resonances (nxumalo, 2016) and the open embrace of caring, aesthetics, and learning by doing—the history of gardens is tied to domination over land/place/people and an erasure of nomadic/alternative practices. landscapes can become the catalyst for activities, challenging the dominant perception that adults must predetermine how and what materials inform learning. the children’s museum in santa fe, new mexico, has a beautifully designed garden that includes a tree house and an interactive compost heap. a large open pit was located at the edge of the garden. it was full of spare construction parts used around the property, including a pile of spare tires. several years ago, as the interim director of an outdoor summer camp for children 5–11, author alexandra lakind observed how children were drawn to the pit. they would run directly to the pit, bypassing the garden entirely. they loved to bounce tires and watch them tumble. the children were not predesigning a space for play; they were responding to one another and the materials around them. soon games, characters, and collaborative roles took shape. intuitively, the children started to answer questions: how tall might a stack of tires get? could you arrange enough tires to jump along so that you didn’t sink into the imaginary ocean? rather than responding by closing the pit off to the public, the museum embraced the newfound play space and stepped in to support the site. with supervision, children painted the tires, built tunnels encased with adobe, and created paths to carry tires uphill and roll them down. these designs were created in conversation with the tires, the dirt, and the steep inclines that surrounded the site. this mode of creation as reciprocal and responsive invited objects and histories to the fore. it worked against methods of design that project future (safe and humancentric) imaginaries onto the landscape. the inclines contrasted flattened sites that clear away their past and present sedimented materializations to build projects for a predestined future. the gardens were landscaped as part of a forward-thinking, progressive curriculum. a carefully tended space to fuel development—what myers (2016) would describe as designing for the anthropocene—a space that hides the aestheticized histories of colonialism, labour, and capital. the garden was constructed as a playground, thought through in terms of safety and developmental needs—threats already managed, skills already envisioned. a natural and safe space for children to learn and grow. yet, as we have already elaborated, perceived risks and perceived outcomes are caught up in predetermined hypotheses. at the museum, such predetermined (predesigned) blueprints were deprivileged, as were the naturalized normative conceptions of beauty. instead, museum staff valued the aesthetic potential of the tires and the relational activities (games) that emerged from the landscape. the museum took their cue from children and were unconcerned that the garden often remained spring/printemps 2018 36 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research abandoned because of the lure of the tire pit. “wild” connotes something lacking direction, unruly (bekoff, 2014). yet in this case, by following the interests of the children, a process of rewilding was created; human intervention restored spontaneity emergent from ecological systems (monbiot, 2013). it entailed the abandonment of conventional justifications that educators place on top of these interactions. this outcome did more than simply train children in engineering, present a safe place to play, or become an example of a collaborative effort. it was a project done in the direction of interest, with materials deemed worthy by the children themselves. the museum didn’t decide what to share with children, but rather allowed children to come to their own conclusions, sharing them with the museum. a post-anthropocene pedagogy in a pedagogy for the post-anthropocene, we reconfigure what is considered under threat, challenging what dictates “emergency” response. in the unites states, the educational system collapses future threats into present configurations designed to manage, measure, and anticipate risk. indeed, we manage concerns that america is “falling behind” with stem education; we create standardized strategies for kindergarten readiness; we implement patriotism by requiring students to repeat the pledge of allegiance.5 in these systems, children become increasingly oriented toward the future, intertwined with the reproduction of social norms. children are presumed to need training to sync with adult temporal logics. pedagogies of linear lines, to borrow from tim ingold (2007), convert “paths along which life is lived into boundaries in which it is contained” (p. 2). education becomes a cypher for planning, supervision, assessment, and evaluation of predefined objectives (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007; lenz taguchi, 2009; masny & cole, 2009). time and space are fixed as we teach children to become the adults we want them to be: to marry and reproduce, to attain careers and enlightenment, acquire behaviours, write thank-you cards, recycle, perform chivalry. we educate for a better tomorrow. we do it for the children, for those who will supersede us, overshadowing them with what we want them to be. toward this end, “teaching” is captured by time: the present becomes a mirage of a fantasized past and dream of a future by sentimentalizing stasis. a pedagogy for the post-anthropocene does not deny this worrisome future, nor the resultant affects. rather, it aims to unsettle the constraints placed on children to fulfill, preserve, or save futures they have yet to name, imagine, and create. the post-anthropocene rests on a process of unlearning practices of methodological individualism to relearn practices of collective development. we are not managers, engineers, or stewards of a passive earth, nor are we the unwanted detritus of a morally righteous planet. we are entangled in an assemblage of collective vulnerability. to reorient toward a post-anthropocene pedagogy, embracing the fluidity of naturecultures (see haraway, 2013) can help problematize humanism’s binary divides, such as nature/culture, child/adult, and theory/practice, to trouble child subjectivity, queering the nature of identity and individual existence (murris, 2017). instead of being answerable to our norms and pregiven codes, a pedagogy for the post-anthropocene encourages the ability to answer, openly and in accordance with the complexities and indeterminacies of unpredictable affective conditions. in other words, it is a situated practice of cocreation that invites new ways of relating, a vision of environmental education where, as lucie sauvé (2009, p. 325) writes, “being here” is situated “now.” this resistance to futurism and a predetermined future is not to follow edelman down the pessimistic path of “no future,” but to avoid preemptively orienting toward it, and to avoid “the tyranny of a life already represented as ‘is’” (rotas & springgay 2013, p. 6). the key, pedagogically, is to stay open “to the surprising possibilities that emerge from the constant, undetermined nature of reality” (pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2013, p. 19). the shapes of desire can be infinite, but if one plot dominates the scenes of proper fantasy, children lose agency to follow their desires and orient toward something they find meaningful. this pedagogy is not a disavowal of the future, but of future-orientations that negate children as bearers of their own experience and agents of their own purpose. spring/printemps 2018 37 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research emily beausoleil (2015) succinctly explains the difference between a responsibility embedded in our punitive approaches to accountability and a responsibility of responsiveness—response-ability. rather than a system wherein people are “held to account” and assessed in relation to fixed terms, response-ability is “enacted in the pulse and pause of attentiveness” (p. 2, emphasis in original). this is about looking to the future without having an answer of what it holds. as karen barad (2012, p. 69) says, “responsibility, then, is a matter of the ability to respond”; it is about correspondence with the world: a model of seeing into the future by looking where you are going (ingold, 2013). haraway (2015, p. 257) describes response-ability as “that cultivation through which we render each other capable.” to render children able, we need to abandon the tropes of “mother nature” needing protection/taming, corresponding to justifications of control over children conceived of as innocent, weak, unpredictable, and/or undisciplined. sianne ngai (2012) asks if “cute” is a way to aestheticize powerlessness. the cute object is most fully itself when weak and in need of protection, and is often politicized through propaganda regimes—the helpless starving child, the vulnerable polar bear cub, and the clumsy baby penguin. to render cute as capable, instead of being infantilized (drawing on conceptions of infants and baby animals as incapable beings), we might instead intimate ongoing care and learning together. in a pedagogy for the post-anthropocene, preparedness is not the concern; rather the concern is the rigid and fixed way in which we prepare, and for whom we prepare, and toward what end. a post-anthropocene pedagogy invites postcolonial and postdevelopmental perspectives to reject universal stages of childhood and examine how the effects of colonization are deeply intertwined with our understandings of nature and what’s “natural” (cannella & viruru, 2004; pacini-ketchabaw, 2014). in the pedagogy we’re proposing, predictable adulthoods are not the goal, regardless of the approach. children, whether managed or left alone, refigured for the post-anthropocene, become response-able collaborators toward living (and dying) on a damaged planet. once again, this is a reminder to learn from children, whose everyday life is, as katz (2008, p. 9) describes, “suffused with social relations that can exceed commodification, evade colonization, and recreate the means of existence and subjectivity in new registers.” we, like edelman, make a firm distinction between philanthropy and love, where love is not driven by obligation. we are not obliged to “help” children, but rather to codevise alternative life narratives and new forms of kinship. in the post-anthropocene, the emphasis is on relationships of reciprocal care, always more than one way, and never self-sufficient, because as rosi braidotti (2006, p. 93, emphasis in original) reminds us, “‘we’ are indeed in this together.” speculative imaginaries for the post-anthropocene welcome to the anthropocene closes with a warning: “we must find a safe operating space for humanity for the sake of future generations.” the film’s oral and visual narrative deploys a performative imagery of earth that reduces the complexity and urgency of our present moment. the earth appears whole, still, and isolated, making life itself seem fragile, vulnerable, and in need of protection. in this setting, children are reasoned in relation to the future and depicted as the basis for hope, a symbol for humanity. as logical necessities to extend species survival, children (and their reproduction), when conceived (theoretically), become a focal point for planetary futurity. as the film continues, the narrator states: “we are the first generation to realize this new responsibility” (gaffney & pharanddeschenes, 2012, n.p.). it seems that the anthropocene, following mckenzie wark (2016), is a term that arrived too early and a warning that arrived too late. following myers (2016), we believe we need not wait for the ledge for the after: the “after” in this formation does not circumscribe a time-bound era, some later epoch or period on the other side of apocalypse or ruination. rather the “after” [or “post”] marks what might come in the wake of anthropocene thinking, once this concept has been set in motion. (p. 5) spring/printemps 2018 38 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research this paper engages with thought and theory after the concept of the anthropocene has done its job of troubling the waters. in the wake of the anthropocene, we imagine and foster response-ability, encouraging exploration, a chance to “venture off the beaten path to meet the unexpected, non-natal kin, and to strike up conversations, to pose and respond to interesting questions, to propose together something unanticipated” (haraway, 2016, p. 130). this is an ethical refiguring, not about a right way, but about—as barad (2012, p. 69) extrapolates—“accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming, of which we are part.” for, to make a livable world, a backward glance at human impact on earth and a hopeful glance toward future generations is not enough. we need new imaginaries and new collective practices. we subscribe to an energizing urgency, envisioning a pedagogy that obliges everybody to venture off the beaten path to meet the unexpected. in other words, this post-anthropocene pedagogy is not about what we do with/to children. rather, it hinges on (re)conceptualizing childhood and the associated norms we uphold or dismantle. we need alternative imaginaries for the near term (i.e., within the next 100–200 years), when humanity will be in the midst of dealing with the effects of climate change and the struggle against capitalism, instead of the postapocalyptic “doom-and-gloom” stories that don’t include imaginaries for grappling with these crises. haraway (2011) illustrates such an imaginary in her sf6 book chapter “the camille stories,” through which she explores “oddkin and multispecies reproductive justice.” the camille stories take up the task of addressing multispecies environmental and reproductive justice, particularly the challenge of reducing human population levels. she aims to do this without perpetuating the legacies of malthusian and neo-darwinian stances—regulation of sexuality through perceived evolutionary truth and overpopulation seen in terms of socio-political conditions—which remain problematic (gosine, 2010). in the name of population control, people in the united states (particularly poor, disabled, and/or nonwhite women) have been sterilized and denied reproductive and parenting rights (see roberts, 1997). furthermore, developmental logic positioning the global south as immature has storied overpopulation as a problem caused by people in countries that have yet to industrialize who might “push us over the brink” (sturgeon, 2010, p. 124; gosine, 2005). both in the united states and abroad, reproductive nonwhite sex is suspect, embroiled in a complex dance around environmental concerns and evolutionary narratives. haraway does not propose answers, but attempts to address this taboo territory by imagining one particular possible worlding. the story traces five camilles from 2025, when human populations reach ten billion, to 2425, when human populations have dropped to three billion and biodiversity on earth has been reduced by half. each new child born is paired with a species symbiont and genetically modified to take on biological aspects/features of that species. haraway’s (2016, p. 6) call to address the “great acceleration of human numbers,” when combined with multispecies reproductive justice, could become a catalyst to reenvision childhood (and life) outside of a reproductive futurism tied to human exceptionalism and support forms of extended kinship networks that care for humans and nonhumans alike. it can resist what mortimer-sandilands and erickson (2010) see as the anti-child stance of mainstream environmentalism that still privileges western modes and forms of (re)production and family as normal, natural, and divine (sturgeon, 2010). the camille stories function as string figure plots, an elaborate storyboard, a creative provocation for others to develop their own camille stories, contributing to the collective task of imagining practices of partial flourishing on a damaged planet, practices that involve what deborah bird rose (2014) calls “taking care of country”—not of an abstract future but of what haraway describes as the “thick present”—a practice of being accountable to the past in order to find ways of living together in partial flourishing and partial healing now. the task is to learn to take care of times that don’t work as past-present-future but require accountability, response-ability, and creative speculation. spring/printemps 2018 39 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references bai, h. 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(endnotes) 1 the film welcome to the anthropocene (2012) was commissioned by the planet under pressure conference. the film is “part of the world’s first educational web portal on the anthropocene,” developed and sponsored by anthropocene.info. 2 this visual shift is also described by t. j. demos (2015) in his blog post “welcome to the anthropocene!” in which he describes how the film “offers an authoritative voice-over commentary that narrates a shifting data visualization of the globe, showing schematic networks of light trajectories that reference energy, transportation and communication systems” (https://www. fotomuseum.ch/en/explore/still-searching/articles/27011_welcome_to_the_anthropocene). the schematic network image of the globe used in the video is also the same as the image demos uses on the cover of his new book against the anthropocene: visual culture and environment today (2017). 3 following murris (2017, p. 16) we have written “child” as opposed to “the child” to write about the concept of child while distancing ourselves from writing about the child as a contained “bounded entity in space and time with a set of essential and universal characteristics (often resulting in the marginalization of children).” 4 figurations, a literary tool introduced/used by donna haraway, are tropes or figurative metaphorical beings found within specific cultural traditions. haraway (2004, 2008a) creates new powerful figurations (e.g., cyborg, dogs, oncomouse™, and other companion species) to work/think/play with in order to challenge existing taken-for-granted notions and habitual practices of thought. this conception of child we critique in this article is western, drawing on culturally situated tropes that do not represent the multiplicity of notions within and across geographical and temporal boundaries. for haraway (2004, 2008a), figurations are where the imaginary meets the ordinary everyday. 5 in 1892, the pledge was written with the hope that it could be used by citizens in any country. in 1923, “the flag of the united states of america” was added. in 1954, in response to the threat of communism, the words “under god” were added. public schools require children to stand, face the flag, and put their hand over their heart to recite “i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 6 as haraway (2011, p. 12) writes, “sf is that potent material-semiotic sign for the riches of speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, speculative fiction, science fact, science fantasy—and, i suggest, string figures.” haraway playfully uses multiple meanings of sf games to dismantle the fact/fiction binary, drawing connections through the various practices of creating and imagining reality/stories/worlds, “practices of scholarship, relaying, thinking with, [and] becoming with” (haraway, 2011, p. 15). haraway (2011, p. 12) adds: “in looping threads and relays of patterning, this sf practice is a model for worlding. therefore, sf must also mean ‘so far,’ opening up what is yet-to-come in protean entangled times’ pasts, presents, and futures.” fall/automne 2017 10 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research kerry-ann escayg is an assistant professor of early childhood education in the department of teacher education, college of education at the university of nebraska–omaha. her research interests include children and race, antiracism in early childhood education, antiracist pedagogy, critical race theory, racial socialization, caribbean early childhood education, and whiteness studies. email: kescayg@unomaha.edu rachel berman is an associate professor and graduate program director of early childhood studies at ryerson university. her areas of expertise include mothering, parenting, race in early childhood settings, feminist and critical race theory, social research with children, and critical qualitative inquiry. email: rcberman@ryerson.ca natalie royer is an adjunct faculty member in the school of early childhood studies at ryerson university. email: natalie.royer@ gmail.com canadian children and race: toward an antiracism analysis kerry-ann escayg, rachel berman, and natalie royer “race” and racism are fundamental organizing principles of both canadian and american society, and many scholars have focused on how they influence young children’s perceptions of themselves, others, and their social worlds, especially in the united states. a large body of psychological literature focusing on children and race has explored the recognition of racial criteria (termed racial awareness), identification with racial traits and group labels (referred to as self-identification), and ingroup and out-group attitudes. many early studies (e.g., clark & clark, 1947; fox & jordan, 1973; hunsberger, 1978) assessed children’s competencies in all three dimensions, but more recent studies have tended to focus on racial attitudes, with a new but related inquiry examining children’s implicit bias (e.g., baron & banaji, 2006; dunham, baron, & banaji, 2006; newheiser & olson, 2012; rutland, cameron, milne, & mcgeorge, 2005). in both the american and the canadian context, some research on children’s racial attitudes has explored how children in eurodominated societies engage in the racialized discourse of their specific social context by using socially constructed meanings of difference to interpret and evaluate (positively and negatively) white and non-white racial identities. for example, psychological research asserts that young white children, especially between the ages of 3 and 5, prefer, and have more positive attitudes about, the dominant white group; conversely, data on minority children (and black children in particular) reveal a pro-white bias, while other studies indicate more positive in-group attitudes (aboud, 1987, 1988). it is important to note that the finding of a pro-white bias, for example, among racialized children, has been critiqued in the scholarly literature. for example, researchers (e.g., banks, 1976; cross, 1985; spencer, 1984) have cautioned against conflating african american children’s pro-white bias with low self-esteem. stated another way, an african american child can exhibit a positive attitude toward white identity and yet still hold or maintain a positive self-concept (spencer, 1984). scholars have also highlighted the methodological limitations of clark and clark’s (1947) “doll study” technique (e.g., baldwin, 1979; brand, padilla, & ruiz, 1974; byrd, 2012). in light of these criticisms, canadian researchers developed a multiresponse measure (e.g., doyle & aboud, 1995), while other canadian scholars (along with scholars from australia, the uk, and the us) have moved away from the quantitative study of racial attitudes and from developmentalist and positivist approaches altogether. they have instead taken up critical and postfoundational theories and qualitative approaches to rethink children’s understandings of race by exploring psychological research on canadian children and race has shown that young white and racialized children generally have a pro-white bias. while scholars have utilized developmental or social psychological explanations for this finding, none have used an antiracism lens to interpret children’s racial attitudes or to develop an antiracism pedagogy. to address this research gap, this article uses antiracism theory as an analytical tool to explore the social-historical processes that have affected how children evaluate racial differences and white identity. it also briefly proposes antiracism teaching practices specific to early childhood education settings. keywords: antiracism; canadian children; early childhood education; race; racial attitudes; young children fall/automne 2017 11 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s lived experiences with race and, by extension, racial discourses (e.g., see brown, souto-manning, & laman, 2010; macnaughton & davis, 2009; macnaughton, davis, & smith, 2010; macnevin & berman, 2016; pacini-ketchabaw & berikoff, 2008; rosen, 2015). a key researcher in the area of children’s attitudes about race in canada, frances aboud (1988, 2008), used a socio-cognitive developmental framework to argue that racial attitudes among white children younger than 7 derive from primarily age-based cognition, which restricts their ability to attend to internal characteristics, thereby giving rise to negative attitudes about persons who are racially different from themselves. other researchers have applied different frameworks, such as social psychological approaches, to clarify the meaning and development of racial attitudes among white and racialized children, but to date, none have used an antiracism lens to explore the socio-political nature of children’s racial attitudes in the canadian context. in other words, an antiracism exegesis continues to be sorely lacking in the extant literature on canadian children’s racial attitudes. as well, few scholars have conceptualized or offered a clearly defined antiracism teaching pedagogy for early canadian childhood educators. therefore, this paper accepts the findings that a pro-white attitude bias exists and addresses this research gap by situating children’s racial attitudes within an analysis of key antiracist principles. furthermore, unlike previous research conducted in the united states, the present study explores multicultural discourse in canada to illustrate how the conceptual underpinnings (and social practices) of such narratives are operationalized in canadian society, allowing young children to construct meanings of white and racialized identities. we deconstruct, interrogate, and analyze the available data on canadian children and race, drawing on themes from the antiracism literature. employing antiracism to interpret racial attitudes our process of using antiracism as an analytical tool can be summarized as follows. in the course of our literature review, we identified patterns in the data specifically regarding the findings about racial attitudes among white and racialized children. then, we interrogated the main themes in the empirical literature by engaging with specific precepts of antiracism. in other words, while analyzing the data, we posed the following questions: 1. from a more general perspective, how can antiracism explain such findings? 2. what specific feature of antiracism can account for such a finding? 3. in regard to the statistical data, what do these selections signify? why did the participants ascribe specific features to one racial group and not another? what discourses in the larger societal context enable the child to encode specific meanings to specific bodies? building on pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, and sanchez (2015), we problematized the data further by investigating how the data on canadian children and race may reproduce dominant social constructions of race. using a more race-centered analysis, we also considered what “material, linguistic, and discursive elements might come together to shape” (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 53) which racialized elements young children value in the canadian context. our approach can be characterized as iterative because it included multiple readings and exegeses of the data. guided by our research questions and relevant antiracism features, we identified key interpretations which, upon further probing, provided the conceptual basis for articulating an antiracism pedagogy in canadian early childhood education. in the end, we move beyond a definition of antiracism in early childhood education, proposing a brief list of practical suggestions on how to enact antiracist practices in the early childhood classroom. rationale for an antiracism analysis scholarly investigations on canadian children and race tend to use a developmental perspective to explain children’s racial attitudes. this section explores how antiracism theory provides fundamental tenets that are in stark contrast to such interpretations and can provide new ways to deconstruct and problematize empirical findings related to canadian children and race. by applying an antiracism perspective, the following discussion engages with and supports the works of early childhood reconceptualists who continue to challenge dominant discourses in early childhood education (e.g., bloch, 1992; cannella, swadener, & che, 2007; swadener & fall/automne 2017 12 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research kessler, 1991; yelland, 2005) and have advocated for antiracism pedagogy in early learning contexts (e.g., pacini-ketchabaw, berikoff, elliot, & tucker, 2007). we will demonstrate that specific precepts of antiracism can be applied to clarify how children in the canadian context construct meanings of their identities and those of others through the process of racialization. specifically, we will focus on the “saliency of race,” whereby race plays a role in perpetuating inequities among dominant and racialized groups while also legitimizing the lived experiences that derive from one’s racial positioning in the social order (dei, 1996, 1999, 2017). antiracism theory can also help clarify and critique the power relations that are embedded in whiteness and knowledge production (dei, 2000), as well as the historical processes, such as colonization, that have contributed to present-day white power and privilege (dei, 1996, pp. 28–29). we will demonstrate that an antiracist analysis of white power, privilege, and knowledge production in the context of children’s knowledge of and experience with racism is a counter-hegemonic approach to early childhood theory and practice. this kind of analysis can reveal how the dominant perspectives of children, especially “developmentally appropriate” practices, frame not only the interpretations of children’s racial understandings, but also pedagogical approaches to addressing issues of race and racism in the classroom. therefore, we will apply an antiracist analysis of canadian children and race as a counter-narrative to the prevailing theoretical orientations and assumptions that currently constrain antiracism pedagogy in the early years. we will focus on the specific dimensions of antiracism theory and show how its precepts can offer a more nuanced and critical perspective on racial attitudes among canadian children. while considerable research has focused on children and race in the american context, our discussion explores the canadian context and discourse about multiculturalism, specifically how it relates to issues of difference and diversity. discourses of diversity: multiculturalism in canada and antiracist and anticolonial critiques canada prides itself on its commitment to multiculturalism, but the origins (and purposes) of canadian multiculturalism policy tend to be overlooked. chazan, helps, stanley, and thakkar (2011) note that “the initial impetus for a multiculturalism policy did not stem from an expansive understanding of canada’s manifold diversity. rather it came from attempts to solve long-standing tensions between french and english canada” (p. 1). such dissent was a significant contributor to the development of a multicultural policy. an initial response, however, was the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism, implemented in 1963 by prime minister lester b. pearson (kymlicka, 2015; wong & guo, 2015). while the multiculturalism policy was established in 1971, it was not until 1988 that the federal government approved the multiculturalism act (wong & guo, 2015). over the years, scholars have offered various critiques of canadian multicultural policy, and a considerable body of literature has focused on its limitations (see e.g., fleras & elliot, 1992; st. denis, 2011). one significant theme in antiracist analyses of multiculturalism is that such discourse “elides both race and racism” (srivastava, 1997, p. 117) while accenting “cultural differences,” and these differences are confined to, and imputed on, racialized bodies (james, 2001). in essence, multiculturalism relegates difference and culture to non-white bodies and in the process normalizes whiteness. apart from operating as a method of reinscribing white identity as “not raced” and the “norm,” multiculturalism has also been criticized for failing to acknowledge and disrupt unequal power relations that are largely demarcated along racial lines (e.g., salojee, 2004; simpson, james, & mack, 2011). overall, the deliberate omission of articulating how power and privilege function in the multicultural discourse maintains the status quo, reinforcing the state serving as a hegemonic apparatus to maintain white supremacy in the canadian context. for example, historical evidence reveals that the inclusion of the multiculturalism act in canadian law was certainly not based on the moral intent to redress past injustices committed against indigenous and racialized peoples or to foster an antiracist or anticolonial state. some scholars have suggested that the multicultural policy has worked to subvert indigenous peoples’ resistance to ongoing political and social colonization (e.g., st. denis, 2011). for instance, based on her work with indigenous teachers, st. denis (2011) indicated that within the school context, multiculturalism limits the inclusion of and engagement with indigenous worldviews and knowledges (st. denis, 2011). from a more political perspective, bannerji (2000) writes that multiculturalism “also sidelined the claims of canada’s aboriginal population, which had displayed a propensity toward armed struggles for land claims” (p. 9). a constitutive element of multiculturalism is tolerance for cultural diversity, but the articulation of culture allows the canadian state not only to reduce indigenous ways of being and knowing to merely another expression of difference (thobani, 2007), but also to dismiss their distinct positioning as people who occupied the land prior to the advent of european colonization (st. denis, 2011; thobani, 2007). we argue that it is within such discourses that work to “other” non-white bodies that canadian children develop particular understandings/meanings of race. fall/automne 2017 13 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research canadian children’s racial attitudes: research overview in contrast to american research about racial attitudes among children, which began in the late 1930s, research on racial attitudes among canadian children began in earnest in the 1970s. aboud (1977) used picture books containing images of fictional characters from different racial groups and found that among her sample of kindergarten and grade 1 chinese canadian, white, and indigenous children, all participants preferred the white character. she also found differences by age: indigenous first-graders had more positive attitudes about their own group and “eskimo” characters (although problematic by today’s standards, this was the word used in the 1977 study). george and hoppe (1979) conducted a study with indigenous and white school children from integrated and nonintegrated schools and observed similar results: when asked “which person has the nicest colour of skin,” data showed that female students in the second grade selected the white stimuli most frequently. this same pattern of white preference was also found among the grade 2 indigenous students. interestingly, with respect to the friendship question (i.e., “which one of these men/women would you like to have as a friend when you grow up?”), data representing all grade levels revealed that white children in the integrated setting did not choose their own group with the same frequency as those in the nonintegrated school; they selected other racial groups as well. crooks (1970) conducted a doll-test study with african canadian and white children ranging in age from 4 to 5. the author found that when exposed to an interracial program, african canadian children expressed more positive in-group attitudes. crooks also found that, similar to the african canadian participants, white children also responded more favourably to the black doll after taking part in the interracial program. this interracial program included a balanced representation of white and african canadian children, as well as african canadian and white teachers. in describing the program, crooks (1970) asserted that “a great deal of emphasis was placed upon the development of self-respect, especially in negro children” (p. 143). such approach is a particularly salient feature of antiracism education, whereby teachers, through pedagogies and other activities, affirm children’s respective racial identities. it is important to note that crooks observed a pro-white bias in the control group. overall, research on racial attitudes among canadian children has established a number of central findings that are consistent with american research. first, from an early age, white and racialized children demonstrate favourable attitudes toward whites. bagley and young (1988), using the color meanings test (cmt) and the preschool racial attitude measure (pram), found that in comparison to other caribbean children tested, jamaican children in toronto exhibited the most pro-black attitudes; however, the authors further indicated that “between one-quarter and one-fifth of the black children in toronto rejected their own ethnic identity and color in favor of whiteness” (p. 53). these results parallel hunsberger’s (1978) findings of pro-white bias among “native” canadian children, as evidenced by their preference for the white doll. second, scholars have argued that age influences racial attitudes among white children: after the age of 7, they express less negative racial attitudes than their younger counterparts (aboud, 2008). for example, doyle and aboud (1995) explored how white children aged 6 to 9 evaluated whites, blacks, and “native indians.” based on the results from the pram ii (williams, best, boswell, mattson, & graves, 1975), they found that kindergarten children tended to be more prejudiced than third-graders. another significant finding was that both age groups showed more prejudice toward blacks than toward “native indians.” based on the multiresponse racial attitude measure, data revealed that while positive attitudes about blacks and “native indians” increased with age, such changes did not alter white children’s overall positive evaluation of their own group. thus, while participants’ out-group attitudes became more positive, findings showed that bias oriented toward the in-group remained relatively stable. more recently, aboud (2003) found that among children aged 4 to 7, negative out-group attitudes were most pronounced among the younger cohort (5-year-olds). phomphakdy (2005) also discovered that preschool-aged white canadian children had positive attitudes about their own group and negative attitudes about african canadians and asians. in contrast, minority children preferred the white group more than their own, and exhibited higher levels of prejudice toward other racialized groups. turning the lens: an antiracism analysis this section focuses on an important issue that is sometimes neglected in scholarship about children and attitudes about race: antiracism. an antiracism framework can help broaden the scholarship about children and race and offer an alternative exegesis on how issues of race and racism play out in the lives of young canadian children. first, it is important to critically examine the main themes in the data on canadian children and race: the positive evaluation of white identity by white and racialized children and racialized children’s in-group racial attitudes. this section will explore how antiracism theory, with its critique of whiteness, can explain the processes (such as power and privilege) that allow white children to develop particular meanings about race in the canadian context. many scholars have explored the defining features of antiracism/antiracist education in the canadian context (e.g., dei, 1996, dei & simmons, 2010; thomas, 1984) and particularly the goal of social transformation through approaches that lay bare, interrogate, fall/automne 2017 14 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and ultimately disrupt institutional practices that maintain and support a social order marked by racial inequities. for example, we know that environments that do not support children’s racial identity lead to black and biracial children being placed in remedial classes and teachers having lower expectations of their ability to succeed in school (wang & huguley, 2012). further, antiracism employs an intersectional lens insofar as other axes of differences and oppression are considered using a race-centered analysis (dei & mcdermott, 2014). antiracist education examines the role of social institutions in creating pathological meanings/representations of non-white groups (rezai-rashti, 1995). an antiracism discourse is also informed by analyses of whiteness in relation to both privilege and power (dei, 2000). whiteness and its defining characteristics is an important part of a comprehensive analysis of racial attitudes among white and minority canadian children. to contextualize this discussion, it is necessary to first define whiteness. levine-rasky (2013) conceptualized whiteness as “not as a people, but as the quality of a set of social relations defined by differential access to power, resources, rewards, meaning, status, and futures” (p. 18). in other words, whiteness as a system of racialized power (see bonilla-silva, 2003, p. 271) operates across various social spheres, and the outcome is referred to as white privilege (see mcintosh, 1990). material and psychological rewards associated with white privilege (termed “wages” of whiteness; see du bois, 1935) derive not only from an ideology of race, where white identity is represented as superior to other racial groups (agnew, 2007), but also from white supremacy (leonardo, 2009). indeed, the belief in white superiority is a key characteristic of white supremacy (bonds & inwood, 2016). yet, while such a view points to a foundational premise, white supremacy has also been defined as “a political, economic, and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources” (ansley, 1997, p. 592). concomitantly, white privilege as a corollary of white supremacy “allows the dominant group to define and articulate difference” (dei, 2000, pp. 27–28). such a process is not only characterized by the imputing of specific meanings to non-white bodies, but also involves the obscuring and normalizing of whiteness. in effect, whiteness becomes a social location of racialized privilege, which, along with its positive representations on both structural and cultural levels, might explain the deeper meanings behind white children’s racial perceptions and attitudes. inherent in the construction of whiteness, that is, as racial privilege, is its “normal” or “invisible” status. the process by which whiteness takes on such characteristics is complex, and it involves historical, social, political, and economic factors, all of which are shaped by power relations between dominant and nondominant groups. such privilege, working in tandem with white power, then allows white identity to function as the norm because, as part of its construction, the process of racialization has marked non-white bodies as “other.” consequently, racial meanings, further enhanced and buttressed by racial imageries, texts, and practices, position and associate white identity as a unifying symbol of power and human worth. for young white children, this discourse of whiteness, along with the privileges it brings—an individual and institutional sense of belonging (which may be likened to psychological safety in the context of self-identification) and positive representation of one’s group—may give rise to their awareness of their favourable position in the canadian social context and, by extension, their positive in-group attitudes. however, we can extend the analysis a bit further: white children’s positive evaluation of their own group is not solely related to a recognition of white positive representation: in comparison to other groups, they are not perceived as the “other”—and are not treated as such. indeed, we argue that young white canadian children have psychologically benefited from the wages of whiteness, and their pro-group attitudes reflect these benefits. in short, whiteness secures positive in-group attitudes for young white canadian children. apart from all of the cultural messages and influences, white children play an active role in performing their racial understandings. scholars have found that white canadian children, especially those aged 4 to 6, have positive racial attitudes about their own racial group and tend to rate out-groups more negatively than their own (doyle & aboud, 1995; johnson & aboud, 2013). this enactment is a powerful display of white privilege and power. by utilizing an ideology of race that sustains the dominance of their own racial group, these children demonstrate their privilege to engage in a process of racialization that engenders psychological and symbolic benefits to themselves, as well as their privilege to “exclude” others from such advantages. moreover, such benefits derive from the construction of whiteness as property, that is, the institutionalized value assigned to white identity (harris, 1993). indeed, from an antiracism perspective, using whiteness as an analytical tool is critical to uncovering how larger structural forces (e.g., cultural and social institutions), along with their historical antecedents, shape white and minority children’s racial attitudes in the canadian context. conversely, for some minority canadian children, empirical data suggest that whiteness influences the construction and content of their inand out-group racial attitudes. specifically, it is the “elevation of whiteness through the racialization of others” (agnew, 2007, p. 18), to which minority children are exposed in the canadian context, that impinges on their evaluation of their own and other racial groups. this process is ideological in nature. dei (2000) writes that “it conjures images, conceptions and promises that provide the frameworks through which dominant and other groups represent, interpret, understand and make sense of social existence” (p. 28). fall/automne 2017 15 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in essence, whiteness as power (bonilla-silva, 2003; levine-rasky, 2013) scripts and informs a child’s view of race and racialized identity, including the worth such differences signify. another important part of an antiracism analysis of racial attitudes among canadian children is the recognition that race produces “real effects” for racialized persons. while race carries no biological validity, considerable evidence supports the argument that racialized persons experience white-dominated societies quite differently from their white counterparts (dei & simmons, 2010). for young canadian non-white children, lived realities sometimes take the form of exclusion by white peers (e.g., macnevin & berman, 2016), as well as the internalization of a racial hierarchy that purports the superiority of the dominant white group. macnevin and berman (2016) used participant observations of children’s play as one method of data collection about children and race in the canadian context and reported the following: sarah (age 4, egyptian) and ruby (age 3.5, half european and half afro-trinidadian) were playing in the dramatic play centre. ruby was holding a white baby doll while sarah was holding a black baby and rummaging through a basket of clothes. she uncovered a white baby in the clothes basket, picked it up and dropped the black doll on the floor. sarah told ruby the babies were hungry and needed to be fed. the two girls laid their babies on the table and pretended to feed them carrots; they did not pretend to feed another black baby that was also lying on the table. ruby and sarah then brought all three dolls from the table to an empty bookshelf adjacent to the dramatic play centre, and said they were putting the babies to bed because they were sick. they placed the two white dolls together on one shelf and the black doll on another shelf. i pointed to the black doll and asked why that baby was sleeping by herself; ruby responded, “she didn’t fit.” sarah soon announced that the babies were awake. both children picked up a white doll and left the black doll on the shelf. while the children selected some new clothes and began dressing their dolls, i pointed to the black doll that was still lying on the floor, where sarah had dropped it earlier. i asked, “whose baby is this?” sarah replied, “i dunno. i’m not having that one.” (p. 831) this scenario illustrates the children’s preference for the white doll. such preference is clearly linked to their recognition of power differentials and how these accord with race and privilege in canadian society. macnevin and berman (2016) built on foucault’s concept of discourse and offered a similar interpretation of the play episode, writing that “children are active agents who draw on the discourses available to them in the historical, social and political context in which they live. the discourses they draw upon may be observed in their play” (p. 829). aboud and doyle (1995) assessed racial attitudes among kindergarten and third-grade black canadian children using the pram ii and the mra (multiresponse racial attitude measure). while their data revealed pro-black attitudes, these findings were most pronounced among third-grade students; kindergarten-aged children’s evaluations indicated lower levels of in-group bias (aboud & doyle, 1995). these results are consistent with earlier (see bagley & young, 1988; corenblum & annis, 1987) and more recent (see phomphakdy, 2005) investigations that revealed racialized children’s positive perceptions of the majority white racial group. it is important to note, however, that a comprehensive analysis of such racial evaluations cannot be divorced from a critical understanding of both ideological (e.g., dominant constructions of racialized difference) and institutional forces (e.g., school settings, the media)— and how these converge to secure white racial domination—that allow children to simultaneously value one identity while denigrating the other. indeed, these results suggest that children can also partake in the unequal power relations that characterize the shaping of racial identities, including the meanings superimposed on racialized bodies. simply stated, an internalization of whiteness suggests that the power differential between minority and majority group members constrains the individual agency of some children, in the sense that it distorts how they come to see, appreciate, or value their own racial identity. based on this premise, it can be argued that the “effect” of race, particularly in the lives of some minority children, manifests in the racial perceptions they use to evaluate white identity, such as desirability or superiority, and the ways in which such beliefs guide their understandings or judgments of non-white groups. although research has demonstrated a pro-white bias among minority children, it is important to note that parents and teachers can play integral roles in promoting a positive racial identity in children. some american research has explored parental practices that center on building racial pride and teaching children about the meaning of their racial identity, referred to as “racial socialization” (hughes et al., 2006). while data regarding racial socialization practices among canadian parents are somewhat sparse (for notable exceptions, see calliste, 2003; hall, 2016; lalonde, jones, & stroink, 2008), overall, the antiracism literature supports educational fall/automne 2017 16 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research efforts aimed at cultivating a positive racial identity by acknowledging students’ lived experiences and valuing their cultural and indigenous knowledges (dei, 1996). teaching implications: using antiracism practice in the early years classroom one of the most common approaches to addressing difference and inclusion in the early years is the application of an antibias curriculum (see derman-sparks, 1989; derman-sparks & edwards, 2010). an antibias approach encompasses all the necessary components of an effective early childhood program that shares a vision of inclusion and equity (derman-sparks, leekeenan, & nimmo, 2015). this approach is rooted in the united nations convention on the rights of the child (1989), which encompasses the right to freedom from discrimination of all children. such an approach “includes addressing issues of personal and social identity, social-emotional relationships with people different from oneself, prejudice, discrimination, critical thinking, and taking action for fairness with children” (derman-sparks et al., 2015, p. 3). derman-sparks developed this approach in 1989 and has written extensively on the antibias curriculum, but she is also an advocate for antiracist practices, which she links to a developmental perspective (see e.g., derman sparks & ramsey, 2006). antibias curricula, though widely supported for providing resources that can encourage and assist children in accepting and valuing all types of differences, have received some criticism over the years. vandenbroeck (2007) notes that antibias education builds on the work of developmentalists, and that using this approach may contribute to the avoidance of political discussions about racism. despite this kind of limitation (which may not be widely discussed), antibias education is used in ece circles and is taught in a number of preservice ece courses and programs across canada (janmohamed, 2005). in contrast, an antiracism approach builds on the idea that addressing issues of race and racism is central to any educational practice aimed at transforming the social order (see husband, 2012, for a discussion of using such an approach in an early years setting in an american context). in the context of early childhood education, it calls for learning activities that encourage children to reflect on the processes inherent in the construction of racial difference: how power differentials structure relationships between white and nonwhite groups; the racialized nature of institutional power; racial imageries attached to racialized persons and how these signify power imbalances; and the material effects such symbolism creates for racialized persons in the canadian context. within the play-based approach to the early years, teaching from an antiracism perspective requires educators to critically reflect on how they construct their play-based environment, the activities they allow (and how they interpret these), and the types of play materials present in their classroom. as macnevin and berman (2016) point out, it is critical that educators do not rely primarily on so-called diverse materials as a means of addressing racial identities/difference in the classroom. in other words, a more effective strategy—and one that is consistent with an antiracism pedagogy—entails including play materials that are representative of different racial backgrounds (e.g., a black doll or drawing materials such as markers or crayons in different skin tones) and critical discussions concerning race and racism. additionally, antiracism pedagogy calls for educators to interrogate the conceptual underpinnings of playbased learning. in other words, teachers should critically assess play-based learning, particularly in relation to how such an approach may not only reinforce monolithic understandings of children but also marginalize non-eurocentric forms of play. more pointedly, antiracism critiques whiteness and knowledge production; therefore, deconstructing and reconceptualizing the knowledge base of early childhood education (as others scholars have shown) can serve as a significant starting point for developing a decolonized and critical antiracism praxis in the early years. conversely, because research has demonstrated that children also express their racial preferences and attitudes in peer contexts, teachers must also pay careful attention to how children form their play groups (especially in the dramatic play areas), the interactions between peers, and the language children use to describe not only racial criteria but also non-white groups. a play-based curriculum grounded in the tenets of antiracism, while attributing saliency to race, recognizes the intersections of other markers of difference, such as class and gender, and creates a learning environment in which stereotypical constructions are challenged through not only providing alternate images, but also thoughtfully discussing with children the origins of these symbols and the reasons for their creation (which can be linked to power differentials). it is also vital that teachers supply a range of evidence that counters racist representations of non-white groups. to conclude, the process by which children come to understand the meaning and social significance of race and the values associated with persons belonging to the dominant group and non-white bodies has been attributed to developmental cognitions and, to a lesser extent, parental influence. from a social-political perspective, scholars have argued that children’s racial attitudes are mediated by fall/automne 2017 17 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research discourse, namely race discourse, to which they are exposed in their respective social contexts. this paper has extended their findings by using antiracism theory as an analytical tool to explain the consistent finding of pro-white bias and preference among minority and white canadian children. to demonstrate the pedagogical significance of the empirical data, this paper has also provided a brief overview of an antiracism approach specific to the early learning context. such suggestions, while not exhaustive, build on the idea that it is essential to equip all young children, regardless of social positioning, with the moral imperative to reveal, disrupt, and actively challenge racism. negating the place of race and racism, or denying the lived realities for some children and their families that derive from structural oppression, only limits the educational experience for all children and supports the many and varied racial injustices prevalent in contemporary canadian society. references aboud, f. e. 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(2005). critical issues in early childhood education. maidenhead, england: open university press. winter/hiver 2017 53 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research medical clowning: an embodiment of transgressive play matthew allen wilson matthew allen wilson is a candidate for the masters of arts degree in performance studies at new york university. his research interests include biopolitical performance; sideshow, medicine, technology, and the body; abjection, collective joy, and the politics of play; and architectures of participation. a graduate of vassar college, matthew became a clown doctor with the big apple circus clown care program, the first professional hospital clown program of its kind in the united states. he won an emmy award for his contribution to the pbs kids family favourite math mystery television series cyberchase. email: maw728@nyu.edu author note this paper draws from the author’s artistic praxis as a medical clown, and begins with a quote to frame this investigation taken from an autobiographical live performance called clown baggage, first presented at the magnet theater, and ars nova in nyc in 2010/2011. support for clown baggage was provided by ars nova, the new york state council on the arts, the new york foundation for the arts, the bindlestiff family cirkus, and the magnet theater. acknowledgements special thanks to dr. john travis gossey, glen “dr. bovine” heroy, prof. amr kamal, prof. jessica a. krug, prof. erin b. mee, prof. amnon raviv, jarden stern, and prof. wendy a. suzuki. my clown baggage what did you want to be when you grew up? i vacillated among several occupations, but two vocations always prevailed: i wanted to be a doctor … but i also always wanted to be a clown. i was pre-med at vassar college, and i started a juggling group. i was a licensed new york state emergency medical technician, and i would respond to campus emergencies on my unicycle (and i always arrived faster than the ambulance). i applied to med school, i applied to clown college, and in 2004 i joined the big apple circus clown care unit and became a clown doctor. i use medical clowning to investigate the playful mechanisms underlying human connection, disruption, and collective joy. in this article, i shed light on the potential of medical clowns as embodied players trained to initiate play encounters in hospitals with the objective of empowering the patient. the presence of the medical clown, in concurrence with treatment in real time, acknowledges the duality of the child-patient’s realities: the desire for play and companionship amidst their very real and quite regular suffering. the impact of these encounters may extend beyond the patient to other participants, and maybe even beyond the encounter itself. this occurs through interactions with three intersecting circles of audience: clown with patient, clown with family, and clown with staff. i propose that participant empowerment and the rediscovery of agency is an effect of medical clowning that happens through play with each audience, and requires more investigation. why distinguish these three audiences? each audience has very different stakes invested in a hospitalization, “medical clowns” are part of a growing field conducting play encounters in hospitals throughout the global community. one intention for a medical clown encounter with a pediatric patient is empowerment, or restoration of agency. this paper explores these encounters through the lens of performance studies, play theory, and the author’s personal praxis as a medical clown to investigate the impact on the multiple audiences involved in a hospital encounter: patient, family, and staff. medical clown encounters evoke bernie de koven’s notions of a “well-played game” and “play community,” and warrant further research to ascertain the impact beyond the initial encounter. key words: medical clown; well-played game; play community winter/hiver 2017 54 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research which influence their agency within the hospital. the patient is the one hospitalized. family members are present and impacted by the hospitalization. the staff facilitates the hospitalization. the medical clown has access to, and is an interlocutor between, all three, which presents a unique position for the medical clown. the philosophy of empowerment is based on the understanding that patients have limited agency while undergoing medical treatment (haque & waytz, 2012), so clown doctors present an opportunity for patients to exercise some form of control over their experience. in this context, medical clowns attune to and engage the three audiences—patients, family, and staff—in play encounters, evoking bernie de koven’s “well-played game.” these encounters have the potential to affect relationships and power dynamics for all stakeholders in the medical care system through the building of play communities (de koven, 2013). my introduction to medical clowning what is a clown doctor, or medical clown? it sounds like a potentially terrible idea. a lot of people are afraid of clowns. of course, a lot of people are afraid of doctors. as much as i was always intrigued by clowns, and even wanted to be one, i didn’t always enjoy my encounters with them. my earliest recollection occurred in preschool when a clown bounded into our halloween party, jingling, smiling, and unwittingly scaring all the children. i hid behind the teacher’s aide. clutching her levi-clad thighs, i peered around her from my place of imagined safety. i was dressed up like dracula, and i was scared. a monster had appeared, way more physically imposing than my mini-vampire. the party swiftly soured until the clown spoke: “it’s okay! it’s just me! ms. amy!” my preschool teacher was totally unrecognizable in her patchwork motley of colour, with her face caked in greasepaint. her sweet, honeyed voice expressed confusion and concern. i liked my preschool teacher. i felt safe with her. but not today. my initial shock was replaced with shame and embarrassment. i was dracula. and dracula was not supposed to be afraid of clowns. that incident may have launched a life-long investigation into how to reconcile my fear of clowns with my fear of doctors, because once i got to college, i discovered this article in the washington post: when a young patient recently needed a nasogastric tube—a plastic device that is threaded up the nose, down the throat and into the stomach to provide food—doctors, nurses and the child’s parents coaxed, pleaded, and finally threatened the child to get his help in having it inserted. they were at the point of forcibly holding him down, when one of the nurses recruited the help of [medical] clown todd robbins. the child was crying, but robbins engaged him by asking where the tube had to go. “does it have to go in your eye?” robbins asked and the boy shook his head no. “does it have to go in your ear?” the child again said no, and pointed to robbins’ nose. robbins, who happened to be a former sword swallower, then took the tube, put it up his own nose and threaded it down his throat to his stomach. “like that?” he asked. the child nodded yes, and then to everyone’s surprise, reached for another nasogastric tube and inserted it himself. (squires, 1996) this!!! this made sense to me. something about the playful encounter between this skilled clown, the staff, winter/hiver 2017 55 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and the patient transformed the circumstances. the play of the medical clown provided an alternative course of action for the staff, replacing forceful compliance with patient empowerment and agency. i was profoundly moved by this story, and spent hours in my bathroom with a copy of gray’s anatomy, teaching myself the ancient sideshow art of the human blockhead (or how to stick objects in my nose), because one day, i might find myself in similar circumstances, and i wanted to be prepared. this became my vision for hospital clowning: legitimate circus and theatre skills, coupled with high emotional intelligence and improvisation, all in the guise of an eccentric, european-style clown persona working with patients, families, and medical staff. the play of the medical clown the field of contemporary hospital clowning, or medical clowning, got its “official” start through the big apple circus clown care unit in 1986 (citron, aronson-lehavi, & zerbib, 2014). what does a big apple circus clown doctor encounter look like? typically, teams of two performing artists are assigned per shift at a participating hospital. they conduct “clown rounds,” designed to parody and mimic the ritualistic doctor rounds most patients encounter in a hospital. my work included clown rounds at new york-presbyterian morgan-stanley children’s hospital, harlem hospital center, yale-new haven hospital, mt. sinai hospital, and ultimately as the supervising clown doctor at memorial sloan kettering cancer center. the clown doctors dress in the tradition of a european circus or theatre clown, emphasizing eccentricity of dress, with minimal make-up, a red nose, and a white-doctor’s coat. this guise immediately distinguishes a clown doctor from the rest of the hospital staff, in the same manner as the dress of a clown in the circus transgresses societal conventions with the intention of conveying a sense of “otherness” (bouissac, 2015, pp. 22, 30; raviv, 2014, p. 4). they have medical identification credentials granting them access throughout the hospital. wherever a pediatric patient may be found, the clown doctors may go. although perceived as “entertainment,” the main emphasis of the work is empowerment of the patient. once permission is granted, the artists share the space with the patient (and family members and staff members) and an improvisational encounter unfolds. there is usually an attempt to create a beginning, middle, and an end before the clown doctors move on to their next visit. multiple overlapping, intersecting, and interacting audiences experience each performance in this hospital setting. this includes the medical clown team and three levels of audience: the patient, the family, and the medical staff (linge, 2013; raviv, 2012). play in the hospital there is risk playing in a hospital. schechner (1988) defines dark play as play where some of the players don’t know they are playing. it subverts order, dissolves frames, and breaks its own rules (harding & rosenthal, 2011; schechner, 1988, 2013). life or death stakes might be involved. this affects how each audience engages with the medical clown and how the work of the medical clown is perceived. a hospital is a space where people come for treatment, seeking healing. people undergo painful and invasive procedures, and they emerge changed. people are born in a hospital. people die in a hospital. a hospital is a singular space where birth, death, and a myriad of life transitions occur every day. as raviv (2014) states, the hospital is a site where life meets death. how incredible, and unique! this is the space in which a medical clown is searching for bernie de koven’s (2013) well-played game, creating play communities that range from two members (the clown and her partner), to three members (clown, partner, and patient), to five (clown, partner, patient, parent, and staff member) or more in any number of combinations. stenros (2015) extends the notion of dark play to transgressive play. in a medical clown encounter, the clown requires permission from the patient, but at any moment, a staff member might enter the space and not know winter/hiver 2017 56 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research play is occurring, another example of the overlap between the three audiences. this is a risky proposition in a hospital environment where medical assistance is often requested with a sense of urgency. when amnon raviv, a performance studies scholar and a medical clown with the dream doctors program in tel aviv, shouted for a nurse to “come over quickly!” she rushed in. at first, she was alarmed, but “relaxed when [raviv] told her [he] was in love with her” as he incorporated her into the encounter (raviv, 2012). play is often idealized as a positive experience, though it encompasses both “good” and “bad” play (stenros, 2015). play is ambiguous (sutton-smith, 2009). play requires permission, is pleasurable or enjoyable, and is purposeless (brown, 2009). absence of play, or play deprivation, particularly in children, has a negative impact on health and health outcomes (gray, 2011; lafreniere, 2011; pellis, pellis, & bell, 2010). research conducted in the first half of the 20th century recognized the impact of sensory and play deprivation during extended hospitalization, and led to the creation of child life programs and the beginning of what pruitt (2016) describes as “the medicalization of play.” medicalization refers to a process of transferring play from recreational pursuits guided by volunteers into play activities designated as therapy or therapeutic by professionals. the association of child life professionals (2017), a nonprofit professional organization for child life specialists, formed in 1982 as the child life council. four years later, the big apple circus started the clown care unit, introducing teams of specially trained performers to parody doctors and conduct “clown rounds.” these clown rounds, or “encounters,” start by asking permission of the patient: “can i come in?” this question is an invitation to play, and play can only begin if implicit or explicit permission is obtained. thus the medical clown encounter is a play encounter, though not necessarily a medicalized play encounter. ideally, there is a beginning, middle, and an end. this play encounter has a narrative, linking it to winnicott’s (1992) notion of “total happenings” and the field of narrative medicine (charon, 2006). total happenings help babies (or older pediatric patients experiencing psychological regression due to anxiety or fear of death during a hospitalization) master time. masetti (2012) surmises that introducing total happenings into the hospital experience can help a patient developmentally, particularly with the idea that this hospitalization will eventually end. it starts with eye contact what’s the least effort required for a moment of human connection while passing in the hallway of a hospital? i mention hallway because that is a common space in a hospital shared by each circle of audience. what’s usually the first level of interaction as two people pass in a hallway of a cancer centre? it starts with eye contact. eye contact is asking permission to engage. if there is no eye contact, there is a decreased likelihood of interaction. sometimes, even if there is eye contact, there is no interaction. there must be a breath, a moment of recognition, a physical call-and-response: “hello. i see you. do you see me? aha! you see me, and i see you. we are now sharing this moment.” and then it is gone. i’m looking for moments. eye contact. permission to engage. recognition and disruption. when i say disruption, i’m referring to the moment that occurs after eye contact: recognition that the person is now in the present moment with you. their current thought is now “you,” just as your current thought is “them.” now “us.” there is not necessarily a joke, gag, or laughter just yet. it’s too early, and entirely unpredictable, and not necessarily up to you. the moments that compose an encounter are cocreated with complicité, or agreement, between medical clowns and audience. back to the hallway. what makes me different from anyone else they might pass in the hall? it starts with what i wear, and what’s on my face. i do not look like someone you would normally find in a hospital (unless you’re in a facility that supports medical clowning). i wear a doctor’s lab coat, because people with doctor coats are associated winter/hiver 2017 57 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research with a hospital environment. underneath the coat: red plaid pants, a red long-sleeve oxford, and a clip-on straight black tie. nothing too outlandish. the pants are “loud,” but the outfit is tied together through a coordinated colour scheme and a typical conservative professional code of attire: tie, shirt, pants with a doctor’s coat. on my face, i use base and powder to form an even foundation for my blush and eyebrows. i use a black grease pencil to stylize my eyebrows. light powder blush for my cheeks and chin, with a small red clown nose and a moustache made from a twisted black pipe cleaner, topped with a red flat cap, turned backwards. the goal with the makeup is to highlight expressive features and heighten my appearance, without creating an alienating effect. the pipe cleaner moustache is clearly fake. i also carry extra pipe cleaners in my pocket. if someone admires my moustache, i offer to make them one. when they wear it, we take pictures, as if we’re long-lost family members. i’m in the hallway, with a partner. partners are important, because one person who “others” themselves through dress or gestures sends a different message than two people who choose to other themselves. there is more intention in two. that is why design is important. you have to imbue a sense of safety and trust to play in a hospital. you’re inviting strangers to accept a certain amount of social risk. by engaging with strangers in a hospital, you invite them to question their identity and place within that institution. you’re inviting them to step out of social roles and identities. where does this begin? in the hallway. how? with eye contact. when i walk down the halls of a hospital as a medical clown with my clown partner, we have chosen to distinguish ourselves with a set of characteristics that indicate “i am here to play.” it’s an interesting hybrid of fact and fiction. there’s a sense of eccentricity, absurdity in the dress and use of makeup, clown nose, and pipe cleaner moustache. this is all the fiction. the factual is my official medical id. this grants me access throughout the entire medical facility. the picture and name on the id is dr. berpundfährt. fact and fiction collide in this official identification document, which grants me agency and permission to search the hospital to initiate a well-played game. my initial approach towards pursuing play in a hospital is to identify the smallest gesture i can enter with that might evoke a response, the tiniest invitation. an invitation can be a physical gesture, like nodding the head in acknowledgement or greeting. it can be clothing: the choices of colours and styles worn on the body evoke inquiry and delight, like an embodied playground of fashion. it is in makeup: the red nose, the bold eyebrows. and you constantly ask yourself, “what gestures can i employ to initiate interaction, where the receiver of the gesture can accept or decline?” the act of declining an offer can also be empowering. why these design choices with my apparel and my makeup? my eyebrows and moustache are part of a playful persona called manolo, who was inspired by my first teacher of clown. i enjoy playing manolo, and i can usually count on it evoking a positive response. it helps me create an invitation for engagement, and it helps hold attention. so, dr. manolo berpundfährt is walking down the halls of a hospital. first, establish eye contact. if there is recognition, then maybe a “hello” or similar greeting is offered. if the “hello” is acknowledged and returned, you have permission for another interaction. every piece of my wardrobe, my makeup, my props—each item is essential for communicating and instigating play with anyone at any time anywhere. my obligation is to assess opportunities for playful encounters with any individual in the hospital environment. rule number one when engaging with the patient is “the patient is in charge.” you ask permission of the patient before you enter the room: “can we come in?” in that moment, the patient can initiate or terminate the encounter. sometimes the patient might say yes, but the parent might say no or exhibit some form of resistance, which could be due to any number of factors: protecting their child, exhaustion, stress, apathy, distraction. so now the winter/hiver 2017 58 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research medical clown team is balancing the needs of the patient with the needs of the second level of audience: the parent. typically, if the child’s needs are being met, the parent will often recognize that, and engage with the performance. if the staff enters the scene (which could happen at anytime), now there is potential for new tension. do they have a task that must get accomplished? do they need to chat privately with the parent? do they need to examine the patient? this presents the third audience the medical clown team is engaging with. sometimes all three audiences can be interwoven, forging a momentary play community composed of clowns, patient, family, and staff. sometimes the parent and the staff step back, and the play remains between the medical clowns and the patient. sometimes the patient engages with the staff and observes while the medical clowns continue playing with the family. the encounter is fluid, and finite. in practice i remember an encounter that truly clarified my role as a clown doctor. i, dr. berpundfährt, and my associate dr. bovine were invited to accompany a young patient to have his port cleaned. the team requests permission from the pediatric patient before they enter a patient’s space. this space could be a clinic, an exam room, a private patient room, the intensive care unit, the emergency room, and so on. permission to enter a space could also be equated with the permission required to begin a play encounter (brown, 2009; huizinga, 1949; sutton-smith, 2009). the young boy, around 6 years old, sat on his mom’s lap while the nurse prepped his skin where a needle would be inserted to flush the subdermal device that had been implanted near his collarbone to provide easy access for chemotherapy and other intravenous treatments. flushing the port was not the most comfortable procedure, and merely one of many painful interventions that a pediatric cancer patient experiences over their lengthy hospitalization. we began our interaction with amiable greetings and dialogue. the details are fuzzy, but i’m sure it involved introductions (bovine knew the boy, i was meeting him for the first time) and a display of our medical ids, which were attached to our white coats with retractable cords. these id cords were one of several simple tools, possessed by almost every staff member in the hospital, that we could access to create moments of physical comedy, or lazzi, by getting tangled in them, displaying them repeatedly to everyone who passed us to confirm our official status as medical professionals, or getting slapped by their unruly pull. clown doctors have a myriad of backgrounds that draw significantly from corporeal theatre (mime, dance, improvisation) and variety entertainment (magic, object manipulation, juggling, music). using these skills, they craft an encounter attuned to the patient’s developmental needs and physical condition. in this encounter, the mood was light as the nurse approached the boy with a needle. that’s when he let out a tirade of obscenities: “f@#k you you b@#ch i hate you get away from me!” it was clear he was afraid and preparing for pain, and that maybe we should leave. i asked, “do you want us to go?” his demeanour immediately shifted. in his soft, southern drawl, he said quite plainly, “oh no, you’re fine, i want you here.” so dr. bovine and i pulled out some playing cards to attempt a magic trick, staying out of the way of the procedure, but still within eye-line of the boy, all of us in relatively close quarters with a curtain drawn around us: the boy, his mom, the nurse, dr. bovine and me (three levels of audience invested in one encounter). the nurse slid closer on her wheeled stool, and the boy erupted: “i hate you g@#d@#nit i hate you you ugly b@#ch!” it wasn’t the words that startled me. it was a combination of their vehemence and the abruptness with which our patient could shift, from focusing on us as a 6-year-old chatting with his clown doctor friends, to the bloodcurdling, terrified ululations of a child under assault. we checked in again: “we can go, if you’d prefer us to come winter/hiver 2017 59 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research back later at a better time…” as clown doctors, you’re constantly balancing the agenda of the child (which is paramount) with the needs of the medical staff and improvising accordingly to create some sense of completeness in the encounter. and sometimes the best thing you can do is abandon the game, or the bit, and revisit later to complete the visit. “no, stay, it’s okay. i want you here,” he assured us. and that’s critical: we take our cues from the patient. you honour the parents and the staff, but ultimately the focus is on empowering the patient and restoring agency. recognizing patient agency during hospitalizations has been linked to improved well-being and desirable long-term health outcomes (haque & waytz, 2012). dr. bovine pulls out his recorder, and i retrieve a whoopee cushion. we begin a musical interlude, which our friend appears to enjoy, until the nurse makes contact and once again: “i hate you i hate you get the f@#k away from me!” reflecting on that interaction, i truly learned that a clown doctor or medical clown is not there to distract, or to make anything better, or to decrease anxiety or lighten the mood. the presence of the medical clown acknowledges the duality of the child-patient’s concurrent realities: the desire for play and companionship amidst their very real and quite regular suffering. well played play is considered “ambiguous” (sutton-smith, 2009). this brute, biological state that appears to cross species, gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status is ambiguous (brown, 2009; panksepp & biven, 2012; suttonsmith, 2009). yet through training and integration into an institution, the medical clown embodies this ambiguous state and makes it concrete. the trained medical clown, indoctrinated in physical theatre, le jeu, and improvisation, embodies transgressive play. the encounters transform relationships through the building of play communities, as defined by bernie de koven. de koven (2013) emphasizes the play community over the play itself when he says: the nature of a play community is such that it embraces the players more than it directs us toward any particular game. thus, it matters less to us what game we are playing, and more to us that we are willing to play together. (p. 12) trained medical clowns have the tools to catalyze play communities and construct “the well-played game” (de koven, 2013). so what is a well-played game? “well” implies some sense of positive health and well-being. “played” is the act of playing. “game” is the container for play. a well-played game is a game we (the players) agree that we can all play together. the pursuit of a well-played game creates a play community. elevator music so how does medical clowning impact the relationship with the staff audience? medical clowning appears to reside at an intersection of play, narrative medicine, and arts programming, all occurring within the hospital space. one of my favourite games to play is called “elevator music.” the elevator is a major point of intersection in a hospital (as it is in most buildings). people come together for a shared aim: transit through the facility. when the doors close, “the girl from ipanema” on hammond organ starts playing (on my personal electronic music device, hidden in my pants), and the elevator starts to move. this occurs in an elevator that is typically silent, where there is never elevator music. so for anyone used to using the elevator, it’s a moment of surprise, disruption. folks have permission to acknowledge (or not) this disruption. and the game grows with every stop. because when the elevator stops, the music stops. when new passengers get on, the current passengers are now witnesses to the winter/hiver 2017 60 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research surprise of the new passengers when they hear the elevator music. it’s simple, wonderful, and full of potential for collective joy. the audience for this interaction is often hospital employees, particularly in the staff elevators, but can include patients and family members. it’s interesting to witness the shift, from “silent strangers in an elevator,” to “adults attempting to suppress their mirth,” to “is this a party or an elevator?” filled with full-out laughter. arts programs in clinical environments have proven beneficial to patient outcomes and staff experiences (sonke et al., 2015). an interesting correlation elucidated by sonke and colleagues indicated that the presence of an arts program affected the nursing unit culture, which affected the nursing practice, which affected the quality of care. this interrelatedness parallels the impact the medical clown performance has on each circle of audience within the hospital space (linge, 2013; raviv, 2012, 2014). conclusion medical clowns are playful disruptors, deploying rehumanizing strategies and practices within an institution. trained clowns maintain a critical, interdisciplinary, multimodal artistic practice whose success hinges on design, function, and experience (bouissac, 2015, pp. 63–65, 105). they train to deploy communication through a myriad of channels: dress, makeup, gags, gimmicks, props, language, physical vocabulary, and corporal expressiveness (hendriks, 2012). medical clowns are expressive and attuned to the sensitive body, communicating across divides and through frames (hendriks, 2012). the centre, the touchstone of this communication is play. medical clown encounters take place within the frame of the hospital, where permission is requested to engage with three audiences: the patient, the family, and the staff. the initiation of a medical clown encounter shares characteristics of bernie de koven’s well-played game, the pursuit of which is almost more important than the game itself. the play communities that form as a result of a medical clown encounter have the potential to impact patient agency and audience relationships beyond the actual encounter, and this warrants further investigation. references association of child life professionals. (2017). history of aclp. retrieved from: http://www.childlife.org/about-aclp/history-of-aclp bouissac, p. (2015). the semiotics of clowns and clowning: bloomsbury advances in semiotics rituals of transgression and the theory of laughter. new york, ny: bloomsbury. brown, s. l. (2009). play: how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. new york, ny: penguin. charon, r. (2006). narrative medicine: honoring the stories of illness. new york, ny: oxford university press. citron, a., aronson-lehavi, s., & zerbib, d. (2014). performance studies in motion: international perspectives and practices in the twentyfirst century. new york, ny: bloomsbury. de koven, b. (2013). the well-played game: a player’s philosophy. cambridge, ma: the mit press. gray, p. (2011). the decline of play and the rise of psychopathology in children and adolescents. american journal of play, 3(4), 443–463. haque, o. s., & waytz, a. (2012). dehumanization in medicine. perspectives on psychological science, 7(2), 176–186. doi: 10.1177/1745691611429706 harding, j., & rosenthal, c. (2011). the rise of performance studies: rethinking richard schechner’s broad spectrum. new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. winter/hiver 2017 61 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research hendriks, r. (2012). tackling indifference: clowning, dementia, and the articulation of a sensitive body. medical anthropology, 31(6), 459–476. doi: 10.1080/01459740.2012.674991 huizinga, j. (1949). homo ludens: a study of the play-element in culture. london, england: routledge. lafreniere, p. (2011). evolutionary functions of social play: life histories, sex differences, and emotion regulation. american journal of play, 3(4), 464–488. linge, l. (2013). joyful and serious intentions in the work of hospital clowns: a meta-analysis based on a 7-year research project conducted in three parts. international journal of qualitative studies in health and well-being, 8. doi: 10.3402/qhw.v8i0.18907 masetti, m. (2012). clown’s solutions. pressbooks: simple book production. retrieved from: https://clownssolutions.pressbooks.com/ panksepp, j., & biven, l. (2012). the archaeology of the mind: neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. new york, ny: w. w. norton. pellis, s. m., pellis, v. c., & bell, h. c. (2010). the function of play in the development of the social brain. american journal of play, 2(3), 278–296. pruitt, l. (2016). the medicalization of children’s play in american hospitals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. international journal of play, 5(3), 262–276. doi: 10.1080/21594937.2016.1231882 raviv, a. (2012). still the best medicine, even in a war zone: my work as a medical clown. tdr: the drama review, 56(2), 169–177. raviv, a. (2014). the clown’s carnival in the hospital: a semiotic analysis of the medical clown’s performance. social semiotics, 24(5), 599–607. doi: 10.1080/10350330.2014.943460 schechner, r. (1988). playing. play & culture, 1(1), 3–19. schechner, r. (2013). performance studies: an introduction. new york, ny: routledge. sonke, j., pesata, v., arce, l., carytsas, f. p., zemina, k., & jokisch, c. (2015). the effects of arts-in-medicine programming on the medical-surgical work environment. arts & health, 7(1), 27–41. doi: 10.1080/17533015.2014.966313 squires, s. (1996, april 23). a funny kind of doctor. the washington post. retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ lifestyle/wellness/1996/04/23/a-funny-kind-of-doctor/25412f43-f5f4-44a7-bb9a-3fd7c0e268b5/ stenros, j. (2015). playfulness, play, and games: a constructionist ludology approach (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from: http://tampub. uta.fi/handle/10024/96986 sutton-smith, b. (2009). the ambiguity of play. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. winnicott, d. w. (1992). the child, the family, and the outside world. new york, ny: perseus. fall/automne 2017 34 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research kelly-ann macalpine is a phd student in the curriculum studies program at the faculty of education, western university. with particular attention to early childhood education and care, she is curious about the posthumanist perspective that shifts the conversation from universal truths to boundless possibilities in the blurring of knowing and being. her area of interest focuses on a pedagogy of listening and the ethics of the encounter through attending to the presence of multiple perspectives. by understanding the ever-evolving and complicated entanglement of human and nonhuman relationships in the process of meaning making, she seeks to research the emerging role of pedagogical documentation as it intersects curriculum and pedagogical practice. email: kmacalp2@ uwo.ca through the looking glass: interpreting growing success, the kindergarten addendum, ontario’s assessment, evaluation, and reporting policy document kelly-ann macalpine in the continued discourse surrounding the reconceptualization of early childhood education and redefining curriculum and pedagogical practices, i suggest that the place and purpose of assessment and evaluation are naturally affected. with the unveiling of ontario, canada’s, new kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016b), there is a unique opportunity to study how its new assessment document growing success, the kindergarten addendum: assessment, evaluation, and reporting in ontario schools (ontario ministry of education, 2016a, hereafter referred to as growing success) fits within this discourse. this article seeks to offer the potential for alternative interpretations as represented by competing perspectives. i posit that the potential for differing interpretations of the growing success policy document may contribute to confusion in the purpose and vision of ontario’s new kindergarten program. the research presented in this article is preliminary. it focuses on a portion of a larger project that analyzes the content of ontario’s three guiding documents with respect to the concept and utilization of pedagogical documentation (how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early years; the kindergarten program; and growing success). although my main research focuses on pedagogical documentation as represented in multiple theoretical perspectives within the same guiding documents, the purpose and meaning of assessment appear to be following a similar trend. this article addresses how assessment is understood from constructivist, social constructivist, and posthumanist perspectives. it asks how the content of the growing success policy document offers the potential for multiple interpretations of how it utilizes the concept and practice of assessment within its text: 1. constructivist perspective: how is assessment utilized as proof and “product of learning”? 2. social constructivist perspective: how is assessment utilized for “meaning making” in the “process of learning”? 3. posthumanist perspective: how is assessment utilized within the “process of being and knowing”? i contend that the assessment policy document is dominated by the constructivist perspective, offering limited representation from transforming the early years program to reflect changing perspectives is not an easy task, particularly in the context of assessment, evaluation, and reporting. this article explores the interplay of alternative perspectives in a critical look at ontario, canada’s newly released policy document growing success, the kindergarten addendum: assessment, evaluation, and reporting in ontario schools (ontario ministry of education, 2016b). as the kindergarten program calls for transformation in pedagogical approaches, its assessment policy seems to stutter as it attempts to keep pace. through unpacking the assessment addendum, this article introduces potential alternative interpretations of the purpose of assessment from constructivist and social constructivist perspectives, illustrating key challenges in the transformation process. this muddled cojoining of perspectives highlights a lack of clarity in purpose of the kindergarten program which has the potential to negatively affect both child and educator, while leaving parents and community confused and befuddled. keywords: early childhood education; kindergarten; assessment; policy; constructivist perspective; social constructivist perspective fall/automne 2017 35 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the social constructivist perspective, and retaining no reference to a posthumanist perspective. it leaves no clear direction toward utilizing any of the theoretical underpinnings. there is a potential tension as educators reconcile their practice in order to adhere to the provincially mandated policies and procedures while acknowledging the coconstructive nature of learning and children’s rights as confident, capable, and competent learners (pence & pacini-ketchabaw, 2008, 2010). further, this muddled cojoining of perspectives contributes to a lack of clarity in purpose, and therefore has the potential to negatively affect both child and educator, while leaving parents and community confused and befuddled. background lewis carroll’s novel through the looking glass offers the reader a glimpse into the “playfulness” of multiple meanings of words. while the characters alice and humpty dumpty engage in a back and forth banter, a friendly dispute arises over who has the “right” meaning of a word. “the question is,” said alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” (carroll, 1897/2011, p. 142) much like the words uttered by alice, i too wonder whether you can make words have multiple meanings, and what impact multiple meanings have when occupying the same space. considering the exploratory nature of my research, i have chosen interpretive hermeneutics to frame my analysis. as “the interpretive act of understanding” (kinsella, 2006, p. 1), interpretive hermeneutics is used to discover meaning and understanding of text (kinsella, 2006; mantzavinos, 2016; rennie, 2012; skodol wilson & hutchinson, 1991). particularly important is the concept of continuous shifts in understanding of text and its effect on future understandings in an ever-evolving “hermeneutic spiral” (bradley, 1993, p. 434). i do not seek to disclose, nor is it possible to fully understand, the author’s intended purpose of a text, but i will reconstruct the relationships of meaning to fit within my alternative objectives. i am looking to understand assessment within differing perspectives that may not necessarily reflect the author’s intentions. this appropriation of meaning involves “inventing interpretations as reconstructions of nexuses of meaning with respect to different aims” (mantzarinos, 2016, “aims of text interpretation,” para. 7). in other words, i will be deconstructing parts of the growing success policy document to illustrate potential meanings within particular phrases that represent different theoretical perspectives and their ensuing purpose of assessment. multiple meanings of assessment multiple meanings pose a challenge when developing an understanding of a concept. continuing with my example from through the looking glass, the nonsensical banter between the two characters, humpty dumpty and alice, gives readers a humorous look into the dilemma whereby multiple meanings compete to occupy the same space. alice argues that “‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’” (carroll, 1897/2011, p. 141), but humpty dumpty disagrees, responding emphatically that “when i use a word … it means just what i choose it to mean … [for] you see, it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word,” leaving alice all the more “puzzled” (pp. 142–143). although fictitious, lewis carroll’s fantasy novel seems to capture how perspective impacts the interpretive nature of meaning making. multiple interpretations based on perspective affect conceptual and contextual meanings (anward, 1994; stables & semetsky, 2015). it is the utilization of alternative meanings that i am most interested in, particularly how a word or phrase, within the same context, might encompass different meanings. for example, the place and purpose of assessment is understood differently from a constructivist, social constructivist, and posthumanist perspective, as discussed below. assessment from a constructivist perspective based on the positivist theory of universal truth and the stable, predictable, and linear order in learning and meaning making, assessment has come to reflect evidence of learning (cannella, 2008; curry & cannella, 2013; dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013; lenz taguchi, 2010). from a constructivist perspective, assessment is often times associated with meeting predetermined objectives, with teacher practices “focus[ed] on judging individual achievement in relation to pre-set goals and outcomes” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 9). the purpose of assessment places proof of, or product of, learning at the forefront. the constructivist perspective identifies “education and learning as being about children attaining normative development and knowledge, and achieving a set of predetermined outcomes … [utilizing assessment to determine] whether children achieve the required and defined standards” (dahlberg & moss, 2005, p. 95). fall/automne 2017 36 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research as identified within a constructivist perspective, assessment is often associated with developmental checklists and with determining whether a child meets or fails to meet predetermined levels of growth as “proof of learning.” assessment from a social constructivist perspective with the reconceptualization of early childhood education, there has been a “rethinking” that “emphasizes more socially just and diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing” (curry & cannella, 2013, p. ix), leaving open a route for shifting pedagogical practices. from a social constructivist perspective, assessment focuses on the process of learning. as dahlberg, moss, and pence (2013) note, although both the constructivist and social constructivist perspectives “see an active and problem-solving child” (p. 59), assessment shifts from the constructivist perspective of the “child existing within a context of standardized, stable and objective concepts” to the social constructivists’ emphasis on assessing the process of learning (p. 59). by acknowledging the coconstructive nature of learning and children’s rights as confident, capable, and competent learners, the meaning and purpose of assessment, as in the context of the kindergarten program, changes (cannella, 2008; curry & cannella, 2013; lenz taguchi, 2010). rather than “proof of learning,” the focus shifts to the process of learning and the use of documentation, or, more aptly, pedagogical documentation, to reflect on and inform an educator’s pedagogical practice (pence & pacini-ketchabaw, 2008; wien, 2013; wien, guyevsky, & berdoussis, 2011). assessment from a posthumanist perspective as the posthumanist perspective blurs knowing and being, there is a call for a complete shift in thinking, from “judging individual achievement in relation to pre-set goals and outcomes” to “engage[ing] in collaborative knowledge-production with children that challenge their and our own possibilities and potentialities beyond what we already think we know” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 9). although both the social constructivist and posthumanist perspectives emphasize the process of learning and the notion of making learning visible, highlighting the “complexities and diversities of learning and knowing” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 8), the posthumanist perspective takes the complexity of learning farther. it emphasizes the entangling of knowing and being, whereby “discourse is just as much produced by way of the agentic qualities of the material world around us as it intra-acts with us, as it is produced by the limitations of our perceptive, intra-acting and conceptualising mind” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p. 49). the documentation of the assessment becomes a provocative influence as it becomes active in the process of knowing and being. educators are seemingly challenged as they try to navigate the theory/practice interdependence as necessitated within the study of education and learning (cannella, 2008; lenz taguchi, 2010; yelland, 2012). within the theoretical frameworks of the constructivist, social constructivist, and posthumanist perspectives, there are unique interpretations of the meaning and purpose of assessment. it is important to note that each of these perspectives is philosophically and theoretically different, and aligning to one would affect one’s practice, including the purpose of assessment and utilization of pedagogical documentation (cannella, 2008; dahlberg et al., 2013). interpreting the growing success policy document will depend on the perspective with which you align and the lens you use. but what effect would there be if these different perspectives were reflected in the same policy document? current research as i began my research on the utilization of pedagogical documentation within the context of ontario’s new kindergarten program, i noticed a trend emerging in the literature, whereby educators were struggling to fit pedagogical documentation and assessment together in their practice (basford & bath, 2014; blandford & knowles, 2012; macdonald, 2007; pyle & bigelow, 2015; pyle & deluca, 2013). basford and bath (2014) note a similar quandary as they discuss the notion of “competing assessment paradigms” (p. 123), problematizing “whether it is possible to apply a conforming, subverting binary to practice that can nevertheless still be transformative in the hands of practitioners” (p. 128). in other words, transformation may be impeded when competing perspectives occupy the same space. on a provincial, national, and international stage, current research looks at how the purpose of assessment affects pedagogical documentation (basford & bath, 2014; buldu, 2010; knauf, 2015; macdonald, 2007; pyle & deluca, 2013; rintakorpi, 2016). an example, found in a recent canadian study, concluded that pedagogical documentation is defined within the context of assessment, and that regardless of the teacher approach or curricular stance, documentation is “construed in relation to an overall framework of educational accountability” (pyle & deluca, 2013, p. 232). although my research has been focusing on the utilization of pedagogical documentation as bounded within constructivist, social constructivist, and posthumanist perspectives and positioned within the same guiding kindergarten curriculum and policy documents, it is worth noting the strong connection between pedagogical documentation fall/automne 2017 37 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and assessment. within the context of ontario’s call for “transformational changes in pedagogical approaches” (ontario ministry of education, 2016b, p. 4), understanding the purpose of assessment becomes an important component affecting these changes. ontario context the current kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016b) and its corresponding policy document growing success (ontario ministry of education, 2016a) offer a unique landscape to explore how alternative perspectives compete to occupy the same space. with the kindergarten program, educators are guided by three leading documents: how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early years (ontario ministry of education, 2014); the kindergarten program; and growing success. with the pedagogy policy document supporting change in pedagogical practice and the curriculum document calling for transformation, one might expect a complete shift from past traditional developmental pedagogies toward the reggio-inspired pedagogies of listening. in fact, the curriculum document (ontario ministry of education, 2016b) states that the intention is to move “from a traditional pedagogy to one centred on the child and informed by evidence from research and practice about how young children learn” (p. 4) and that “the insights of educators in the field, along with knowledge gained from national and international research on early learning, have informed the development of [this] document” (p. 4). the growing success policy document lays out the provincially mandated policies and procedures from which educators are to assess, evaluate, and report on students’ achievement in meeting set expectations. the policy document defines assessment as the process of gathering and interpreting information that accurately reflects the child’s demonstration of learning in relation to the knowledge and skills outlined in the overall expectations of the kindergarten program (2016). the primary purpose of assessment is to improve learning and to help children become self-regulating, autonomous learners, with children’s growth and learning in relation to the overall expectations within each frame … evaluated on the basis of specific expectations. (pp. 6, 10) reporting on student progress is to be conducted on an ongoing basis, as well as recorded within three formal reports to be distributed to parents and retained as part of a child’s permanent ontario student record. broad sweeping statements found within both the curriculum and assessment documents leave open the opportunity for the readers to interpret what is meant by statements such as “centred on the child” or “evidence from research.” for example, the concept of child centeredness is “very abstract and rather problematic” (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013, p. 46), therefore leaving it open to a multitude of interpretations. problems begin to surface when analyzing the context of the assessment policy document to reflect “transformational changes in the pedagogical approaches (ontario ministry of education, 2016b, p. 4). within the deconstruction process, interpreting key phrases offers conflicting messages, and i would argue that “centred on the child” could fit within the boundaries of a constructivist and social constructivist perspective; the difference lies in what each defines as the meaning of the words. the structure of the reporting system is ambiguous, creating mixed messages in the purpose of assessment. by defining assessment in the growing success policy document as the “process of gathering and interpreting information that accurately reflects the child’s demonstration of learning in relation to the knowledge and skills outlined in the overall expectations” (p. 6), it is possible to interpret its meaning within a constructivist perspective. i would argue that, by providing this particular phrasing to define assessment, the document indicates the necessity for educators to gather evidence and for students to demonstrate levels of competency in prescribed expectations in order to provide proof of learning. the primary purpose of assessment is to improve learning and to help children become self-regulating, autonomous learners, with children’s “growth and learning in relation to the overall expectations within each frame … evaluated on the basis of specific expectations” (p. 10). from my point of view, there is a clash between reporting on “meeting the success criteria [and] documenting successes of learning” (p. 7) with the provision that educators “develop and maintain a collaborative, complementary, and reciprocal relationship with children and their families” (p. 5). the question becomes whether it is possible to make room for two competing perspectives. is it possible to collaborate in the coconstruction of learning when set objectives have already been identified as specifics to be taught? for example, within the “notice and naming” section, the document gives a somewhat ambiguous description by stating that “children come to understand what growth in their learning ‘looks like’” (p. 7), leaving the text open to interpretation. from a constructivist perspective, naming and labelling concepts such as patterning affords the teacher the opportunity to provide the description of the skill the child is to demonstrate. alternatively, from a social constructivist perspective, the statement affords the child an opportunity to actively fall/automne 2017 38 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research contribute to the process of learning. although comprised of strategically placed rhetoric that indicates shifting perspectives, there are points within the policy document that have the potential for mixed meanings. as stated previously, within the assessment “for” and “as” section of the policy document, growing success places assessment as “the process of gathering and interpreting information that accurately reflects the child’s demonstration of learning in relation to the knowledge and skills outlined in the overall expectations of the kindergarten program” (p. 6) and states that “the primary purpose of assessment is to improve learning and to help children become self-regulating, autonomous learners” (p. 10). the debate becomes whether the statement indicates the social constructivist perspective, which views the child as a coparticipant actively involved in the learning process, or the constructivist perspective, which views the child as a passive participant who is directed toward learning goals that have been predetermined. from my perspective, when interpreting this phrasing, assessment is based on “evidence” or “proof of learning.” using terminology such as “demonstration of learning” and “overall expectations” indicates a traditional constructivist perspective whereby goals are predetermined (basford & bath, 2014). with the presence of mixed meanings, the policy document may be subject to alternative interpretations. the fundamental principles make use of assessment for learning, as learning, and of learning (ontario ministry of education, 2016a). interestingly enough, the document defines assessment, in part, as “the process of gathering and interpreting information that accurately reflects the child’s demonstration of learning” (ontario ministry of education, 2016a, p. 6). this quote, when taken out of context, could be indicative of the purpose of assessment being learner driven. but again, with deeper analysis, it becomes muddled as it gives reference to “knowledge and skills outlined in the overall expectation of the kindergarten program” (ontario ministry of education, 2016a, p. 6). i find it difficult to reconcile the use of the term “learner driven” when objectives are set prior to any learning event. within growing success, it notes that assessment is used for eliciting information about children’s learning, providing descriptive feedback, developing children’s self-assessment and peer-assessment skills, developing individual goal-setting skills, and developing self-regulation skills. i would agree that, as in the example of providing descriptive feedback, assessment does “help children to progress in their learning” (p. 8). in this context, assessment fits within the social constructivist approach. therefore, it does meet its own objectives of transforming its pedagogical approach because it acknowledges the active process of learning. since the descriptive feedback is clearly directed toward how the student must meet the overall expectations of the ministry’s preassigned outcomes and goals, it seems to straddle the two perspectives. indicative of how these mixed meanings impact practice, a recent study indicated that, although educators acknowledged an understanding and need for pedagogical documentation, difficulty arose when they tried to reconcile its use over traditional observations to record “proof of learning” that the teachers felt was needed for reporting on meeting government-mandated objectives (pyle & deluca, 2013). this particular study took place in ontario and was subject to the previous government policy on assessment; however, i would suggest that both policies (ontario ministry of education, 2010, 2016b) have been governed by similar mandates. further, within the discussion section, the authors of the study noted great divides in assessment approaches, stating that although “all teachers were using the same curricular documents, meeting the same academic standards, and working within the same school district … assessment programs within the local kindergarten classrooms differed widely” (pyle & deluca, 2013, p. 379). this observation suggests that multiple varying meanings were used within the interpretation of the policy document and ultimately in educators’ pedagogical approach. when considering pedagogical approach, the policy document set out seven fundamental principles to ensure validity and reliability in reporting (ontario ministry of education, 2016a). on the surface, these principles seem to describe assessment as fair, supportive, individualized, and inclusive, but on closer inspection, contradiction can be seen between supporting the “interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences” of the student and “carefully planned [assessment] to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals” (ontario ministry of education, 2016a, p. 4). although these principles are in place to give clarity and purpose to assessment, they do not reflect our emerging understanding of the child as an active contributor and constructor of learning (cannella, 2008; prochner & pacini-ketchabaw, 2013), because they fail to identify the learner’s needs, instead focusing on prescribed future needs as set out by others. this clearly indicates a constructivist perspective. while focusing on the learner becoming a competent future member of society by assessing success or failure to meet objectives, it fails to recognize the child as a competent being and a rightful citizen today (dahlberg & moss, 2005; hall & rudkin, 2011). as noted in how does learning happen?, “when we recognize children as capable and curious, we are more likely to deliver programs and services that value and build on their strengths and abilities” (ontario ministry of education, 2014, p. 6). but, with the continual referencing to predetermined learning goals and “children’s growth and learning in relation to the overall expectations within each frame [which] are evaluated on the basis of specific fall/automne 2017 39 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research expectation associated with the overall expectations, [and which] must be accounted for in instruction and assessment” (p. 10, italics added), the policy document stifles the educator’s and student’s voice and agency as active coconstructors. evaluation the policy document divides its evaluation domains to reflect the kindergarten program’s four frames of learning (belonging and contributing; self-regulation and well-being; demonstrating literacy and mathematics behaviours; and problem solving and innovating). children are evaluated on objectives within these frames to determine whether they are “ready to learn.” what is interesting in this case is what could be the implied meaning of ready to learn and its counterpart, “what learning looks like” (p. 7). is it a skill that needs to be taught in an orderly way, or is it a disposition that is already present? in describing teacher strategies for extending learning in its “noticing and naming” piece, the goal seems to be to identify a particular set skill, such as patterning, in order to make learning visible to the child and provide “the link to more formal approaches in the use of learning goals and success criteria in the later grades” (p. 7). does patterning become a necessary skill required to meet the demonstration of mathematics behaviour? does this skill secure a child’s success in a traditional top-down model of education? evaluation, in its use in education, has been defined as a process that “involves the judging and interpreting of evidence of learning to determine children’s growth and learning in relation to the overall expectations outlined in the kindergarten program” (ontario ministry of education, 2016a, p. 10). in a sense, evaluation reports on whether a child meets or, implicitly, fails to meet expectations. this understanding of evaluation is very much removed from its latin origin, meaning to strengthen or empower, with it now being (re)defined as being “largely about the measurement of things [so that therefore] in the process [it] can easily slip into becoming an end rather than a means” (smith, 2001/2006, para. 3). although it states early on in the policy document that the child is “actively engaged in the assessment process” (p. 3) it does not provide the context for this statement. further, in my opinion it focuses not on the child’s active participation in the assessment process, but rather identifies what is necessary for children to display within the parameters of assessment criteria the educator is required to observe. for example, within the noticing and naming the learning section, the policy document indicates that “children come to understand what growth in their learning ‘looks like’ … [and educators] make the children’s thinking and learning ‘visible to them’” (p. 7). the policy thus places evaluation within the constructivist perspective. reporting with evaluation comes reporting. starting in september 2016, the kindergarten program will be mandated to document and report. this mandate offers a strong indication that the kindergarten program becomes part of the formal top-down reporting system seen in grades 1 through 12. i wonder if this is a contradiction in policy intentions? the policy document describes itself as having “a profound, positive impact not only on children’s learning but also on their motivation to learn and their confidence in their ability to do so” (p. 4), and highlights that “[documenting] the evidence of learning is the most important aspect of assessment in kindergarten and is, indeed, an integral part of all assessment approaches” (p. 8). thus one might argue that it does indeed transform its approach to a social constructivist perspective. however, although introduced as the next step toward ensuring a child’s growing success, i am left with concerns. this policy document seems to provoke many different interpretations of what the roles of the educator and learner are, leaving me with an impression of what might be a shaky foundation for lifelong learning for these young children, especially as is illustrated with the continuous reiteration of “meeting expectations” and providing “evidence of learning.” i would argue that having set expectations in place leaves little room for active participation by the learner as a cocontributor and coconstructor of the ongoing learning process. concluding remarks is it possible to meet provincially mandated policies and procedures while acknowledging and incorporating notions of the coconstructive nature of learning in pedagogical practices? the question becomes whether the growing success policy document is viable when related back to the original intention of ontario’s new kindergarten program. in short, i would suggest that a lack of cohesion fails to support either the educator or the child. this critique offers a different interpretation to what has been described by the ontario ministry of education (2016a) as providing a “profound, positive impact not only on children’s learning but also on their motivation to learn and their confidence in their ability to do so” (p. 4). from my perspective, this policy document does not reflect the original call for transformational changes, as highlighted in the kindergarten program, but rather reflects a struggle between two dominant perspectives. if i were to assess, evaluate, and report on the growing success policy document, i would offer up a “fails to fall/automne 2017 40 vol. 42 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research meet” in its attempt to create a foundational policy that fully meets the expectations it sets out to accomplish. on one last note, this article was scribed for the sole purpose of problematizing existing policies. although its critique is harsh at times, the intent was not to strike down an existing policy document but rather to provoke continued dialogue and action as we navigate this journey of transformation. references anward, j. (1994). semiotics in educational research. international encyclopedia of educational research, 9, 5411–5417. retrieved from: https://liu.se/ikk/medarbetare/jan-anward/filarkiv-publikationer/1.209695/ja-1994a-semiotics.pdf basford, j., & bath, c. (2014). playing the assessment game: an english early childhood education perspective. early years, 34(2), 119–132. doi: 10.1080/09575146.2014.903386 blandford, s., & knowles, c. (2012). assessment for learning: a model for the development of a child’s self-competence in the early years of education. international journal of primary, elementary, and early years education, 40(5), 487–499. doi: 10.1080/03004279.2010.548818 bradley, j. (1993). methodological issues and practices in qualitative research. library quarterly, 63(4), 431–449. buldu, m. 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(2013). beyond quality in early childhood education and care: languages of evaluation (3rd ed.). new york, ny: routledge taylor & francis group. hall, e., & rudkin, j. (2011). seen and heard: children’s rights in early childhood education. london, on: althouse press. kinsella, e. (2006). hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics: exploring possibilities within the art of interpretation. forum: qualitative social research, 77(3), art. 19. retrieved from: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/ view/145/319 knauf, h. (2015). styles of documentation in german early childhood education. early years, 35(3), 232–248. doi: 10.1080/09575146.2015.1011066 lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. new york, ny: routledge taylor & francis group. macdonald, m. 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(1991), pearls, pith, and provocation: triangulation of qualitative methods: heideggerian hermeneutics and grounded theory. qualitative health research, 1(2), 263–276. doi: 10.1177/104973239100100206 smith, m. k. (2001, 2006). evaluation. the encyclopedia of informal education. retrieved from: http://infed.org/mobi/evaluationtheory-and-practice/ stables, a., & semetsky, i. (2015). edusemiotics: semiotic philosophy as educational foundation. new york, ny: routledge taylor francis group. wien, c. (2013). making learning visible through pedagogical documentation. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/ wien.pdf wien, c., guyevsky, v., & berdoussis, n. (2011). learning to document in reggio-inspired education. ecrp early childhood research & practice, 13(2). retrieved from: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v13n2/wien.html yelland, n. (2010). contemporary perspectives on early childhood education. new york, ny: mcgraw-hill. winter/hiver 2017 27 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research creating children’s spaces, children co-creating place nicole green and michelle turner nicole green is a senior lecturer in the school of teacher education and early childhood at the university of southern queensland, australia. nicole draws on international experiences in canada and singapore and national projects across australia to inform and sustain her research interests, including children’s active participation in research, space and place theories, and rural and remote teacher experiences. nicole’s most memorable experiences have included relating and learning with exceptional young children and colleagues in early years education and exploring alternative discourses and theoretical frameworks for enacting curriculum. email: nicole.green@usq.edu.au michelle turner is a lecturer in early childhood education in the school of teacher education and early childhood at the toowoomba campus of the university of southern queensland. her research interests include the development and continuance of professional identity, early childhood leadership and advocacy, and early childhood literacy. her phd research is around the impact of reform on early childhood educators and the implications of this for their professional practices. scholars from many disciplines, including history, cultural geography, sociology, philosophy, and environmental studies, have noticed the importance of using place as a useful conceptual lens in understanding human experience. we begin with an overview of the space and place concepts. a childhood narrative then highlights the dimensions of the meaning of place, as well as the notion of place as a significant medium through which human identity is created (green, 2006; green, noone, & nolan, 2013). gallagher (1992) writes, “understanding is not an abstract mental act; it is a linguistic event. language has a central role to play in understanding the world” (p. 5). using place as a guiding concept, source of questions, and interpretive lens, it becomes more challenging to evaluate and plan early play environments with criteria drawn from traditional classroom models embedded in the discourse, practice, and theoretical perspectives of environment, the taken-for-granted discourse by which early childhood educators conceptualize the space for learning. an analysis of the first narrative explicates the way in which we draw on place as a conceptual lens. a second narrative exemplifies how place, as a lens, enables a perspective past the four walls, the environmental print, the resources and the positioning of tables and chairs to the experiences and meanings of the pedagogic situation, “a lived situation pregnantly alive in the presence of people” (aoki, 1991, p. 7). the concluding section invites consideration for further interpretive work and place creation. in this article, we respond to fleer’s (2003) challenge for the need to continue to critically examine the discourses, the codes of practice, the theoretical perspectives and conceptual lenses of early childhood and “question what we have inherited, the histories that we re-enact with each generation of early childhood teachers, and to deconstruct the ‘taken-for-granted’ practices that plague our field” (p. 65). although we are drawing on fleer’s scholarly writing from more than 10 years ago, this special issue of the journal suggests that critical examination is ongoing and remains important at the forefront of our work in the early childhood field. our focus is the environment, the space for play in early childhood education. rather than add to the numerous definitions of play, this article aims to offer place as a conceptual lens through which to consider the early play environment, and exemplifies alternative possibilities when researching and/or teaching and learning with children, their families, and the community. key words: place; play; environment; early childhood winter/hiver 2017 28 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research space which has meaning: place in contrast with the abstract physicality of space, place is the result of experiences “from the inside, the resonance of a specific location that is known and familiar” (lippard, 1997, p. 7). place is lived, constructed, interpreted, conceived, or imagined through habitual human activity (brey, 1998), through the ways in which people inhabit space (ashcroft, 2001), and through coming to know it better through lived experiences (tuan, 1977). most importantly, place is about meaning. relph (1976) expresses the idea that a given physical locality becomes place when human consciousness creates and attaches meaning to it. similarly, humanistic geographers, such as tuan (1977), and environmental psychologists, such as heft (1988), explain that as one gradually experiences a space, certain meanings are attributed to it and certain values are endowed on it. helfenbein (2006) also states that the transformation from space to place results from humans investing meaning in the space they spend time in. he writes, “space, constructed through discursive, interpretive, lived, and imagined practices, becomes place” (p. 112).williams (1995) also argues that meanings are not just situated or distributed in space but in fact define and create place. place is continually and dynamically formed from, and out of, the process of spending time in it. people and a place dynamically define and transform each other over time (williams, 1995). for example, basso (1996) and gruenewald (2003) insist that as much as we are part of places, places are also a part of us. in asking “how does where we are help make us who we are, and how does who we are help make where we are?” helfenbein (2006) resonates with ashcroft’s (2001) and gruenewald’s (2003) premise that place is the woven web of language, memory, and cultural practice, a discourse in process bound up with the culture and identity of its inhabitants. similarly, relph (1993) states that “a place is above all a territory of meanings. these meanings are created both by what one receives from and by what one gives to a particular environmental context” (p. 36). lippard (1997), too, expresses that “our personal relationships to history and place form us, as individuals and groups, and in reciprocal ways we form them” (p. 9). a number of scholars have worked to clarify the dimensions or attributes of places that distinguish the ways in which they are experienced. i discuss some of these here to illustrate the variety of analytic tools and insights that have been developed. fournier (1991), for example, identified three categories of attributes for places: tangibility, commonality, and emotionality. canter (1977), as another example, recommends that any characterization of place refer to physical attributes, activities, and conceptions—the three dimensions of place he believes are responsible for meanings and associations. stokols and shumaker (1981, as cited in williams, 1995) suggest that the meanings associated with a place are related to content, structure (e.g., complexity or diversity), clarity and consistency. to explain how some places work well or do not, seamon (1979) uses the following six criteria as analytic tools: attraction, diversity, comfortableness, distinctiveness, invitation, and attachment. perhaps some of the most intriguing aspects of place has to do with emotional or symbolic meanings and associations. fournier’s (1991 term tangibility, for example, refers to the extent to which “meaning is primarily objective, tangible, and verifiable through the senses or whether it is primarily subjective, interpreted through experience and dependent on associations” (p. 738). as williams (1995) notes, gibson’s (1950, as cited in williams, 1995) description of a continuum of meaning from concrete to abstract is similar to fournier’s ideas about tangibility. concrete meanings refer to functionality, that is, the manner in which an object or place is used. “by contrast,” williams (1995) writes, “abstract meanings tend to be symbolic. the symbolic meanings carried by some object or place may be assigned to it by a culture, social group or an individual” (p. 10). giddens’s (1991) sociological perspective, for example, assigns more prominence to symbolic meanings, such as describing place winter/hiver 2017 29 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as “home” or as a site of companionship. these meanings are structured socially or are learned interpretations of objects, events, or places (williams, 1995). the sociocultural perspective values built or natural environments, not only for instrumental intentions, but also as places that people become attracted to and even attached to because they hold emotional, symbolic, and spiritual meaning (williams, 1995). reviews by ellis (2002, 2003, 2004) also underscore that place is a source of security, comfort, stability, nurturance, belonging, meaning, and identity. tuan (1974, as cited in williams, 1995) believes that the emotionality dimension of place varies in intensity, from instantaneous sensory pleasure to enduring and deeply rooted attachment. similar to fournier’s emotional characteristic, such as feelings and moods associated with experience of a place, gussow (1971, as cited in relph, 1976) describes the emotional or affective bonds which transform a space to a place as “the process of experiencing deeply. a place is the piece of the whole environment that has been claimed by feelings” (pp. 141–142). williams (1995) considers emotionality to be “an indication of the depth or extent of meaning with symbolic and spiritual meanings often associated with high levels of attachment to an object or place” (p. 11). while tuan (1974), gussow (1971), and williams (1995) discuss the depth of emotional attachment, hay (1988) draws attention to the amount of time spent in a place as contributing to a “sense of place.” hay explains that a personal connection results from both the duration of residence and community involvement: the collage of memories and meanings perceived over time forms a gestalt, a whole that represents one’s life in a place. a sense of place helps to order that whole, giving one a locus, a place from which to feel the earth and be connected to it. (p. 163) rivlin (1990), too, asserts that the bonds that develop between people and places take time and contribute to a sense of stability, caring, and concern for a setting. derr (2002) defines sense of place as “a relationship to place, a dialectical way of thinking of and experiencing a biophysical and cultural place” (p. 125). lippard (1997) reports that the last twenty years have seen much written about sense of place, which she defines as “a virtual immersion that depends on lived experience and a topographical intimacy that is rare today both in ordinary life and in traditional educational fields” (p. 33). sense of place or place attachment may or may not be held at a conscious level of awareness (hay, 1988). studies by fried (1963) and stokols and shumaker (1981) have demonstrated that when people are forced to leave familiar residential places, they can experience grief reactions. along with the phenomenological approach to place, these relocation studies have contributed to an understanding of place attachment. basso (1996) observes that it is not until people are separated from significant places that awareness of sense of place may assert itself in pressing and powerful ways. childhood narrative of place 1 i was a little girl growing up in a close-knit neighbourhood. from my perspective as a child, each family was the same, and all the children belonged together in this neighbourhood as friends. i realize now, from an adult’s perspective, that our families were different. some fathers were labourers or construction workers; one father was a doctor, one a pharmacist; some of our mothers worked, while most mothers stayed at home and worked. there was a reason why our friends next door didn’t receive presents at christmas or chocolate at easter. we asked why, received our answer, and went on with our childhoods and friendships together. there was a reason why the mother and father of one family spoke with a thick accent. we asked why, received our answer, and went on with our childhoods and friendships together. there was a reason why one dad moved out of his house. we asked why, received our answer, and went on with our childhoods and friendships together. nothing was a big deal. perhaps it should have been, but it wasn’t. boys winter/hiver 2017 30 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and girls played together … my gender didn’t mean i could only play with dolls or do craft work. on reflection, i was a tomboy at times and a real girl’s girl at others. i didn’t think of it that way, though…i was happy being me. i was a girl who loved meeting her best friend each afternoon to find a quiet place to share our different school experiences: friendships, boys, teachers. my best friend attended a different primary school than i did, and the excitement of catching up after school was sometimes too much to bear. a small valley separated us, with four houses in between. some days we would call out to each other over this small valley: “would you like to come over and play?” some days when our voices could not be heard, we would call each other on the telephone: “hello, i was wondering if you would like to come over and play.” of course we would like, but it seemed our way to ask anyway. i wonder why we didn’t make a certain time and place to meet? perhaps we were dependent on our mothers’ plans once we were collected from school. i was a girl who worked with her older brothers and friends to build a cubby house in the bush land surrounding our home. we made use of tree logs and a lot of dedication from our older siblings for our project. the cubby house was finished, but it seemed a small group of us preferred to continue to meet for our secret club meetings underneath the shelter of the trampoline of one of my neighbours. i’m not sure exactly about the purpose of the meetings, but i remember taking attendance and having to ask my mum to sign a letter saying that i would be missing out on one of the meetings! we had undefined spaces to live our childhoods in, as long as we were home by dark. were my parents ever worried? i presume so, but the only advice we received was to “be careful,” “stay together,” “stay off the road,” and “don’t talk to strangers.” the only time i felt in danger was when a bushfire swept through parts of the bush land surrounding our homes. my home was my friends’ home; my friends’ homes were my home. i knocked to enter, but once i was inside i felt right at home. it was common to eat meals in different homes and have sleepovers every weekend. in our neighbourhood, we had unstructured time to play unsupervised and in our own way. i went to jazz ballet on friday afternoon and netball on saturday morning. this left just over 25 hours a week for walking, talking, playing in our family’s boat parked in the garage, board games, jumping on the trampoline, doing homework, playing basketball and cricket, making crafts, and being silly. i was a child who did not have one difficulty in school. i loved school, schoolwork, teachers, and my school friends. however, i loved my neighbourhood more. i always felt excited at the end of the school day to be going home to my neighbourhood, where i remember learning to ride my bike. it was such a magical moment making it to the end of our long driveway without the feel of my brother’s hand on the seat underneath keeping me balanced and upright. a feeling of pure joy and excitement … a sense of freedom. i now wouldn’t need to wait for my brothers to arrive home from school to help me ride. i certainly didn’t need training wheels anymore. i was so proud of myself, of my accomplishments. of course, i had many mishaps perfecting my skills, but i had overcome the biggest challenge—that first solo ride! my neighbourhood was a place where i also learned that work could be difficult and time consuming. where i learned that some friendships last forever and some last for as long as they are needed. where i learned that confidence in a friend could encourage you to do a back flip off the side of the pool. where i learned to write for meaningful purposes—to write a menu for the restaurant we created for our parents—and to read books to find out how we were going to keep the silkworms alive. where i learned north from south, east from west when we became lost on a bush walk. i learned the power of friendship when a childhood trouble was overwhelming me and the feeling of peace when fights would be resolved between friends. thinking back, the only time there were arguments was when one of the neighbourhood kids brought friends from their primary school over to stay. many of us went to different primary winter/hiver 2017 31 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research schools because many families moved to the neighbourhood when the children were already settled in another school. could this strong sense of place and identity as insiders have been at the root of our disgruntlements? when i was 13 years old, this wonderful chapter of my life journey ended. our family sold our house and moved … moved far away from my place, my childhood place, my neighbourhood growing up. i remember my last day at the house. all the furniture was removed, all my belongings packed in boxes and now travelling in the back of a removal truck to an unknown place … the next chapter in my life. some of my friends came over because we had planned to have this wonderful game of hide and seek in all the places which were once filled with material things. we were too sad to play this game, though, so we went for a walk to all the places of our childhood and my friends helped me say goodbye, to stand in the cubby house one last time, to visit their homes one last time. we did many things that day, one last time. (nicole green childhood memories) understanding narrative 1 through the lens of place the childhood place in narrative 1 shares memories of everyday life in a neighbourhood. the following discussion draws on the discourse of place previously outlined to gain further insight into, and understandings about, the childhood experiences and the positive memories, associations, feelings, and meanings recalled in narrative 1. one way narrative 1 can be understood through the discourse of place is by drawing on eyles’s (1989) ideas about the importance of the rules, resources, routines, and available relationships for everyday life in a place. in narrative 1, the neighbourhood rules and resources supported everyday life activities which, in turn, served to enhance relationships. many of the activities and learnings were made possible through relationships with others—among the children and between the adults and children. the relationships gave a sense of security and feelings of belonging, of being integrated into a community, and of having status and a positive identity. as hay (1992) has explained, bonds to place enable relationships which are a source of meaning, security, and identity. the “rules” and “resources” for the children in the neighbourhood in narrative 1 provided rich space and material for the development of relationships. it was an unspoken rule that children could make themselves “at home” in each other’s houses. the spoken rule of being home by dark, supplemented by other rules, such as staying together, away from strangers, and off the road, provided much latitude for play together in their free time. the resources of bush land, a trampoline, a pool, and other open areas for games and play offered space and material for many forms of active or imaginative play, as well as hangout places for private talk. the children in narrative 1 had many places and activities they enjoyed within and outside of their homes. these places supported the development of self-identity, both by affording opportunities for the children try out predefined roles in conventional settings and by offering unprogrammed space (chawla, 1992). the neighbourhood place afforded security through social affiliation and opportunities for creative expression and exploration. unstructured time and the availability of natural environments and undeveloped waste spaces were well used by the children. the children intensified their friendships and enjoyed their autonomy as they explored the bush land and engaged in many forms of active or imaginative play together. chawla (1992) writes that children’s personalities and perspectives are shaped by the experiences they are able to have in the places available to them. eyles (1989) explains that values, motivations, and roles are built and maintained through actions in everyday life. these aspects of identity then give direction to further actions. ashcroft (2001) emphasizes that, like culture itself, place is in a continual and dynamic state of formation, a process intimately bound up with the culture and identity of its inhabitants. above all, place is a result of habitation, winter/hiver 2017 32 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research a consequence of the ways in which people inhabit space. (p. 156) the children in the neighbourhood in narrative 1, through the routine activities of their everyday lives, established roles, motivations, and values related to being friends, siblings, and welcoming neighbours. thus, the ongoing development of their identities, which shaped ways of seeing and acting in subsequent everyday life, contributed to the kind of place the neighbourhood became, or, as ellis (2005) would say, to “the whole experience of being there” (p. 60). the neighbourhood in narrative 1 provided the children spaces, which were typically natural environments, undeveloped waste spaces, or small leftover spaces in the home or outdoors. such spaces gave the children the opportunity to create their own worlds and find themselves in them. in reflecting on the creation of programs for young children, fleer (2003) suggests, we have further removed children from the day-to-day world and placed them in an artificial world—one geared to their needs, where they are central, but separated from the real world. we have created an artificial world—with child-sized furniture and home equipment, materials such as thick paint brushes, blocks and puzzles, and an outdoor area with carefully designed climbing equipment for safety. (p. 66) in the neighbourhood place, there were real dangers and consequences. all of the experiences were enabled by the nature of rules, resources, and available relationships. through the routine activities of their everyday lives, the children established roles, motivations, and values related to being friends, siblings, and welcoming neighbours. many of the “learnings” were aspects of the identity the children were constructing through their activities in their everyday lives. using all of the understandings about place presented above, the following sections will suggest the ways in which place can offer broader perspectives and alternative possibilities for researching, teaching, and learning within early childhood contexts. re-looking at early childhood practices close to 30 years ago, greenman (1988) challenged those who work with children in formal settings to consider the identities and aesthetic sensibilities of adults who, as children, were expected to engage in artificial worlds of plastic, bold, bright colours, and predetermined spaces and activities. in comparison, he also challenged us to consider adults who, as children, were expected to engage in natural, airy, open places reflected of and embedded in the real world: places in which, when they arrived, the children were encouraged to go their own way. greenman suggested that, “as places and as institutions, centres and schools shape future visions of what society is and should be” (p. 44). greenman’s writing reflects a focus on the importance of children’s places, as opposed to places for children. more recently, reconceptualist scholars in the field of early childhood have also recognized the need to rethink children’s formal care and education environments. dahlberg and moss (2005), for example, stress that “we are at a historical moment when it has become urgent to raise the question, what are the possibilities for institutions for children and young people?” (p. 2). such scholarly work advocates a move away from deep historical roots such as “the institution as first and foremost a site for technical practice” (dahlberg & moss, 2005, p. 2) and “as a site for the efficient processing of children by workers-as-technicians” (p. 28). not only do we need to look critically inward at early childhood practices, fleer (2003) suggests that the field of winter/hiver 2017 33 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research early childhood would benefit from critically looking outward and sideways to other disciplines: our profession, with its own codes of practice, its own discourse and its own theoretical perspectives, has built itself into an institution that has taken on a life of its own. anecdotal evidence suggests that our specialised field will only allow newcomers in when they have mastered the language and have understood the codes of practice. (p. 65) drawing on the discourses, language, theoretical perspectives, and practices of other disciplines enriches, broadens, and opens up alternative possibilities for researching, teaching, and learning with children and families in early childhood environments. when we ask student teachers and in-service teachers specializing in early childhood higher education courses to share their responses to the term environment with regard to early education and care contexts, our experience has demonstrated that the majority of responses relate to the physical environment. early childhood educators focus on the arrangement of the room and the aesthetics of the space, including colour and light. this notion that the environment is a third teacher, with teaching occurring through the strategic organization of material, furnishings, and design, has been part of early childhood programs in the western world for the past two centuries. early childhood predecessors have also instilled in our work the discourse of “doing” and its importance in children’s learning (fleer, 2003). access to teacher-established learning centres or corners, such as the book area, the writing centre, or the home corner, and the availability of resources and materials are also common responses to thinking about environment and reflect this notion of “doing.” while these aspects of the environment are important, place facilitates other ways for imagining early childhood programs (fleer, 2003). place provokes an examination of the dominance of space and time (gruenewald, 2003). guided by a discourse of place, planning, implementation, and reflection refocus on nurturing the positive feelings, meanings, memories, and associations with place that contribute to place attachment. children and place attachment as a way of defining children’s place attachment, chawla (1992) suggests that children are attached to a place when they show happiness at being in it and regret or distress at leaving it, and when they value it not only for the satisfaction of physical needs but for its own intrinsic qualities. (p. 64) in her broadly based 1992 review of literature related to children’s place attachment—the first one ever undertaken—chawla concluded that children’s favourite places were those that afforded security, social affiliation, and opportunities for creative expression and exploration. chawla examined prior research in four main areas: modern psychology and place attachment; remembered places; behaviour mapping; and favourite place analyses with youth and children on their preferred places. her review emphasized children’s appreciation of undefined space—places that were free from adult authority, not specifically planned for children, and malleable both physically and imaginatively. she wrote: at every age there is a need for undefined space where young people can formulate their own worlds: for free space where preschoolers can manipulate the environment and play “let’s pretend” in preparation for middle childhood demands; for hideouts and play-houses indoors and out where school-age children can practice independence; and for public hangouts and private refuges where adolescents can test new social relationships and ideas. (p. 69) winter/hiver 2017 34 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research chawla also noted that children also cherish private places, such as their own room or other hideouts that can serve as a refuge or a place where they can simply be alone. similarly, in sobel’s (1990) research with adults about their childhood memories and with children about their favourite places, he also concluded that making and having a special place gives power to children, supporting a sense of self and their belief that they can influence their own thoughts and behaviour. in a more recent review, langhout (2003) similarly concluded that there are consistent findings from children and place research that autonomy, social support, and positive feelings are associated with children’s place attachment or sense of place. childhood narrative of place 2 narrative 2 was told by remy (pseudonym), a 5-year-old child in preparatory (kindergarten), at intermittent times throughout his first year of formal schooling. as this article joins the conversations in the field of early childhood education, it will support more useful ways of thinking about spaces and environments. we have intentionally avoided analyzing narrative 2 in depth; rather, remy’s narratives are offered to educators and researchers to prompt possible responses to the list of questions following the narrative. additionally, the narrative explicates the conceptual lens which can be considered in implementation in early play environments. when we arrived at the prep room my mum was worried that there did not seem much for me to do there. some tables and chairs were there, but they were pushed against the wall with a big space in the middle for us all to sit, including my mum. miss m said hello and then said that the room was our space for the year to make friends, to create, and to explore. miss m. assured me that outside was our space also to make friends, to create, and to explore. from then on over the next few weeks we created places to learn and play with miss m. miss m even organized mums and dads and the cleaners to come and talk with us about their ideas for places in our room. we had to talk about the furniture and things around the room and think whether they were safe to move and put in different places. we used the bookshelf to put the books in, keep our home stuff safe, and make a quiet area for reading and listening to stories. some friends used the large colourful scarves to dance with, and other friends used the scarves as sails on their boat. we set up a special display with all of our family photos so we could get to know everyone’s mums and dads and brothers and sisters. this was my friend mack’s idea. we talked about keeping everyone safe. we worked out what roles and responsibilities we needed to do in the day. we all had turns at doing the different jobs. because our space changed so much, sometimes we had to change how things were done, and we talked about this with miss m. we had to come up with new roles and responsibilities. i felt very important when i took these jobs because i liked to keep everyone safe and happy. we just finished a book about all of our families. we all had a turn to take it home, and mum helped me read it and we wrote about our family. we put in a photo of our family and a photo of me playing with spotty, my dog, because i like playing with him best. i kept the book a few nights so that i could do some stuff with my dad, who lives in a different house. when the book was finished by all the children, we all had a page and we kept it in a special place in our reading corner. we read it over and over and over again. my friends and i discovered lots of boxes and sheets. we made cubbies with these, and we also used some chairs and tables. miss m put up a tent with cushions and sleeping bags for us to go into. my friends and i made private plans for our plan in the cubbies and only shared these with miss m if we needed her help. there is a great big area at the back of our block of land that is bush scrub. there is a fence to keep us safe. the space has rocks and trees for climbing. we use fallen down branches and twigs to design race tracks, build hideouts, bridges, and forts. we have magnifying glasses to investigate the beetles, butterflies, cocoons up close and other creatures. winter/hiver 2017 35 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research we collect all sorts of things and take them inside to watch closely. we saw the butterflies come out of their cocoon. we use the leaves and twigs and rocks and stuff to make things. i made a necklace with leaves for my mum. harry found an old birds’ nest and used the twigs and leaves to make one the same. i collected rocks, and our project on leaves in the autumn was led by my friend lucy. (on the first day of spring) miss m shared with us that the outdoor play area needed renovating. miss m asked us to think about places we liked to “be” in and what we would like to be “in” at school. we talked about smells, sounds, touch, things we could see and things we could taste in these places. i liked thinking about my friends and family. we thought about what we liked about those places, what we could do there, and what we would like to do in those places. we put our ideas in drawings, paintings, and construction and clay designs. miss m recorded our voices talking about our ideas. our families were also asked to talk about their ideas about what we could put in the outdoor area. they had to do drawings, designs, explanations, and voice memos. joe’s mum and dad built a veggie garden in the corner. we were responsible for weeding the vegetable garden and when it was time we picked the tomatoes and beans. we made a tomato and bean salad to share with everyone for lunch. we always collected the food scraps from lunch to feed the worms in the worm farm, and we used the compost on the garden. we kept the garden watered and played with and in the water when the plants were soaked. peter’s grandpa made some benches for us to move around the yard to sit on. susan’s dad brought in his big digger and made a deep sandpit. we had more talking and added things to the space when we had new ideas. … we have been having great fun making up a puppet play. we made the puppets at the design table using all sorts of materials and then we created a puppet theatre. we had lots of time to practice our story, and when it was ready we put it on for the whole class. miss m invited the year one children and teachers to come down and see our puppet play. it was my friend sam’s idea to create invitations and tickets for the other children and our families to come. we made a poster about our puppet play and put it up at the front door, and when we found out how many people were coming, we had to arrange the chairs so that everyone had a seat. … yesterday was a windy day and we did lots of outside play, rough and tumble, running, chasing, tumbling, climbing, and then we rested. i heard miss m tell my mum that then, and only then, were we ready to do our numeracy projects creating games for us to play with our elderly friends in the aged care home. inside our place we made space for painting. indigenous painters came in and helped us paint our building blocks in their way. they made some books with us which we put into our library. grandmas and grandads, our own and from the aged care home, would come in and sit with us and read stories when they had time. … a great memory of my first classroom was that we could go inside and outside whenever we wanted. one day i played inside all day because i had a big project going about my aeroplane. i was so excited i got it finished. when we were working on projects, miss m helped us solve our problems when we asked her. she had some good ideas. she helped us find answers to our questions and brought some things from her home to help us. i liked the way miss m let us choose what we wanted to do each day even if we didn’t want to do the things she had on the table. all of the stuff was easy to get and we just had to know how to put it away when we were finished with it. winter/hiver 2017 36 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research we even had a table that we could go and have a snack at if we were hungry in the morning. miss m said we did not have to wait until recess to have something to eat. i liked that because i always got hungry. we always had lots to talk about and miss m always listened. i loved to share about my family holidays. at group time we had sharing circles. we had three friends in the circle and we got to share our story with them. we also had the chance to record our stories on the ipads and the computer. it was fun listening to them, and i liked to hear the other kids’ stories. when we felt cross with each other, miss m would ask us if we were caring for our friend by listening to them and being respectful. … during our project on cameras, miss m showed us how to take photos of what we were doing and we helped her write about it in the book. she got us to use some big words and showed us how to write them. i got to write some of the words into the book myself. i shared what i was learning and how i felt about my learning. it was fun working with my friends on projects because we could all do different things. harry was good at drawing the life cycle of the butterfly that we saw come out of the cocoon, and i could write the word butterfly and write the numbers when we measured how long the cocoon was with unifix blocks. during the day we would come together and miss m would celebrate our play and work by talking about how we worked together, and we could show which things we were good at and which things we were still learning. i wonder what next year will be like… understanding narrative 2 through the lens of place the discussion following will highlight how narrative 2 can be understood through the conceptual lens of place. cultural geographers (e.g., basso, 1996; gussow; 1971; hay, 1988) use the term sense of place to refer to an individual and personal connection with place. with a focus on place, identity, and meaningful relationships, cultural geographers ask, “what is the meaning of place, and how is human identity structured through place?” critical humanist geographers (e.g., helfenbein, 2006; tuan, 1977) focus their research and scholarly work on identifying the many ways that place shapes identities, particularly in relation to race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. philosophers (e.g., smith, light, & roberts, 1998) recognize that place fundamentally structures human experience, and it is deeply human to make places and to think in terms of places. ethnographers (e.g., nespor, 1997) discuss space, time, and intersections, raising questions about how we draw the boundaries of school, about how school fits into the lives of children, and about what we mean when we talk about educational environments. as remy’s recollections in narrative 2 demonstrate, children’s formal learning experiences can not be well understood in isolation from the network of the other places and experiences in their everyday lives. place guides a reorientation that, first and foremost, recognizes the intimate connections between the early childhood environment and the various social, cultural, and community contexts in which it is embedded. the boundary of the early childhood environment extends beyond the four walls of the indoor space and the outdoor fencing, into the community. there exists a reciprocal relationship between people (early childhood educators, children, families) with place. place evolves like “a discourse in process” (ashcroft, 2001, p. 155). this idea is consistent with eyles’s (1989) discussion about how the routines established in everyday life in a place become additional structures supporting or constraining further everyday life. eyles notes that people create and re-create their identities through their actions in everyday life. ashcroft states that the way in which a place evolves is bound up with the culture and identity of its inhabitants. winter/hiver 2017 37 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research in addition, malaguzzi (1993) claims, in his notion of a pedagogy of relationships, that the pedagogical relationship is what makes a place a “learning place”—knowledge is co-constructed in relationship with others. helfenbein (2006), too, states that place “must be seen possible only in its interactions” (p. 112). the notion of place guides early childhood educators to pay attention to the quality of the relationships and social interactions available to children within the learning context and the ways in which children’s experiences in the learning context are similar to or different from their experiences in other places. hence, remy’s educators understood relationships available to the children in other places of their everyday lives and ways in which these could serve as a backdrop of meaning for the children’s interpretations and behaviours within the formal context of early childhood education. ellis (2005) distinguishes between “sense of place” and “place attachment.” writing about children’s experience in classrooms, she states: if their experiences in these places are filled with familiar routines that build their confidence, if they know and become known by others, acquire intimate local knowledge, and learn the norms of the culture, then sense of place may be well established. however, be it positive or negative in nature, the classroom and school will acquire an emotional significance for them. (p. 60) ellis (2005) reiterates hay’s (1988) thesis that sense of place develops with time, but place attachment typically depends on affiliation with like-minded inhabitants. relph (1976) explains that “our relationships with places are just as necessary, varied, and sometimes perhaps just as unpleasant, as our relationships with other people” (p. 141). importantly, as evident in narrative 2, the early play environment held a positive emotional significance for remy and one can conclude that there was place attachment rather than just the establishment of sense of place. the place literature helps us to understand remy’s recollections in narrative 2. the following questions assist us in reflecting on the ways in which the play environment provided remy with opportunities for self-development, social affiliation, creative expression, exploration (chawla, 1992), social support, autonomy, positive feelings (langhout, 2003), malleable environments, imaginative play, and unprogrammed space. the questions can also be asked of other play environments. who is invited to be involved in the creation of the early childhood learning spaces and places? what are the authentic ways in which children and families can be consulted? in what ways are the early childhood environments created with a community orientation in mind? what spaces are truly unprogrammed? are there naturalistic spaces available rather than those that are highly landscaped natural outdoor spaces? how are children’s identities reflected in the curriculum? what methods are used to understand holistically children’s ways of knowing and being? is there a shared understanding of rules, routines, roles, and responsibilities within the shared context? in what ways are fear, ridicule, and harassment addressed? how can unstructured time be provided for in the everyday life of a busy early childhood environment? how are creative expression, exploration, and imaginative play nurtured? where are the spaces for privacy, adult-free authority, and private talk? what opportunities are there for sharing and listening of narratives and experiences? in what ways can autonomy and agency be honoured and promoted? in what ways are power relations between adults and children continually examined? who are viewed and valued as teachers, as leaders, and as learners? what opportunities are provided for children to try out predefined roles or responsibilities within real-world contexts? what considerations are given to providing for positive social affiliation and peer interactions? are educators aware of the interfaces and discontinuities between places for children and children’s places as an important concept integral to the sociology of childhood (rasmussen, 2004)? how do we come to know what children regard as their learning spaces and/or meaningful places, and what places do adults value for learning? why do the children gravitate to certain places? would the children’s need to own space be reduced, if all the rest did not belong to the teacher (greenman, 1988). winter/hiver 2017 38 vol. 42 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research concluding thoughts the sharing of childhood place narratives, the presentation of theoretical ideas, and the posing of questions is an invitation for educators, researchers, and scholars to consider place as a conceptual lens in their thinking about early play environments. the place ideas and questions in this article model the analysis required to ensure the continual investigation of our frameworks and practices to ensure that play environments are still appropriate and not just “social reproduction” (fleer, 2003). attending to ideas about place provides educators and researchers with a coherent structure, not only as an accommodating perspective for what is seen, heard, felt, and experienced, but also as a non-narrowing perspective facilitating holistic planning, relating, learning, interpreting, and understanding in early play environments. references aoki, t. 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(1995). mapping place meanings for ecosystem management. retrieved from: http://www.icbemp.gov/science/williamd. pdf winter/hiver 2017 1 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s views of the learning environment: a study exploring the reggio emilia principle of the environment as the third teacher kelsey robson and sonia mastrangelo kelsey robson, rece oct med, is a doctoral student in the faculty of education at lakehead university. she began her career as an ece with the district school board of niagara in the full-day early learning kindergarten program while completing her bachelor of early childhood education, with a focus on the primary/junior divisions, at brock university. the focus of her med was on the reggio emilia approach, and she hopes to travel to italy to visit the reggio schools this fall. her areas of research include early learning environments, play, and the reggio emilia approach to education. email: karobson@lakeheadu.ca sonia mastrangelo is an associate professor in the faculty of education at lakehead university orillia. dr. mastrangelo began her career with the dufferin peel catholic district school board in the area of kindergarten and special education. her areas of research include early learning, developmentally appropriate practice, self-regulation, and autism spectrum disorder. she is co-editor of the international journal on holistic early learning and development, and she travels internationally facilitating workshops and conducting clinical work in the area of self-regulation and autism early intervention. email: smastran@lakeheadu.ca the early years of life are a time of rapid growth and development (arseven, 2014), and the positive experiences a child has early in life set the foundation for lifelong learning, behaviour, health, and well-being (ontario ministry of education, the kindergarten program, 2016). more specifically, a stimulating learning environment leads to higher levels of thoughtful learning experiences for children, which in turn better prepares them for adulthood (steglin, 2005). strong-wilson and ellis (2007) explain that “childhood is often the first place where we begin to see and use the environment imaginatively [and where] we can begin to notice how our surroundings can take on a life of their own that contributes to children’s learning” (p. 40). makin (2003) defines the term environment in early education settings as “an aggregate of conditions and influences on learning, including both the physical environment (layout, range of resources, access, and use) and the psycho-social environment (interactions between staff and children, among peers, and between the setting and its wider context of homes and communities)” (p. 327). the environment stimulates our senses and contributes to synaptic brain connections that fuel further growth and multiple learning pathways. it is well documented that a high-quality, positive environment successfully supports students’ learning and their holistic development (hewes, 2006; makin, 2003; shipley, 2008; sylva et al., 2006). shenk (2010) supports the idea of high-quality learning environments and explains that “children develop only as the environment demands development” (p. 35). rinaldi (2001) stresses that, when preparing the school environment, it cannot be copied, only created, as it needs to reflect the children, families, educators, and community encompassing the school. she believes that the learning environment should become more than just a space—it should become a part of this research study explored the concept of the environment as the third teacher and how kindergarten children in a school inspired by reggio emilia viewed their classroom as a space to help them learn. a qualitative analysis of the research data reveals that children perceive their environment as a space that contributes to their learning and acts as a third teacher in the classroom. in summary, the children in this study described the specific ways they were able to learn with the materials located within the centres of their classroom, the ways they engaged in imaginative or pretend play, making real-life connections and communicating with peers, and the learning that developed through exploration of the documentation on the classroom walls. key words: reggio emilia; environment as third teacher; kindergarten; early learning; children’s views winter/hiver 2017 2 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research life, which does not substitute for family but creates a new place for culture. the physical characteristics of an educational environment reflect the educator’s philosophical beliefs about how children are regarded and the value put on the process of teaching and learning (makin, 2003; new, 1998). the kindergarten program cites gandini (1998) who emphasizes the reggio perspective of the environment as a third teacher in the classroom, next to the adults and children in the room (ontario ministry of education, 2016). the purpose of this research study was to explore the concept of the environment as a third teacher and how students in a school inspired by reggio emilia viewed their classroom and its ability to help them learn. a qualitative phenomenological approach was chosen as the research design for this study in order to give power to the participant’s voice—namely, the child. the participants in the study were 16 students from a senior kindergarten classroom. the data was collected using observational field notes, photo elicitation, and photo interviewing with the children. the children served as both researchers and participants in this study, since they selected what they deemed valuable and necessary in the environment to help them learn. analysis of the research data was done using inductive reasoning. using children’s voice in the research process as the world continues to evolve and the pace of life accelerates, educators need to be aware of the increasingly diverse population of students in the education system and ensure they are providing education that is responsive to the demands of the 21st century (cook-sather, 2002; ontario ministry of education, 2016). as changes and enhancements are made to the approaches used in education, such as the emphasis on child-centered learning approaches and inquiry-based education, one needs to ensure the learning environments provided support these approaches to education. researchers argue that children’s perspectives on the quality of their education are rarely explored, which can be troubling given that children are most directly affected by the education system (cooksather, 2002; montandon & osiek, 1998). by taking the time to work with and listen to children throughout the research process, one is better able to see the world through their eyes, notice what sparks their interest, and develop a holistic understanding of what childhood looks like. to create learning environments responsive to the 21st century, researchers and educators need to collaborate with students to ensure their needs are being met. students feel empowered and motivated to engage in their education when their voices are heard and when they are seen as knowledgeable co-participants and decision makers capable of contributing to discussions related to their learning. a barrier to conducting research with children is their vulnerability. most children will be excluded or denied participation in research on sensitive topics since they would be exposed to these sensitive elements throughout the research process (harcourt, perry, & waller, 2011). greig, taylor, and mackay (2012) talk about the benefits and challenges of having children as co-researchers. the benefits of children serving as researchers include a more equitable power balance between adult researchers and young participants, children’s possession of insider knowledge about childhood that adults do not have, and the effectiveness of young researchers as role models for their peers (greig, taylor, & mackay, 2012). some of the challenges for children as researchers is that their lack of experience could result in discomfort when encountering sensitive issues, they may lack confidence when working with agencies, and they may give poor responses to questionnaires and interviews. pinter and zandian (2015) discuss the importance of including children’s voice in all aspects of the research process, including keeping them informed about the results of a study and listening to their post hoc interpretations of the research. a reconceptualization of children as powerful social agents is needed (stephenson, 2009), along with a perspective whereby they “are regarded as experts on their own subjective experience” (grover, 2004, p. 91). winter/hiver 2017 3 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research there is a growing amount of research stressing the importance of children’s voice in the research process (grover, 2004; lansdown, 2004, 2011; schiller & einarsdottir, 2009), as well as including their perspectives on their education (cook-sather, 2002; einarsdottir, 2005; montandon & osiek, 1998; smith, duncan, & marshall, 2005). smith, duncan, and marshall (2005) explain that children’s perspectives are missing in a large amount of psychological and educational research. when educators and researchers take the time to listen to children’s perspectives, they are better able to support their learning and development (cook-sather, 2002). unicef (2014), in a fact sheet about the convention on the rights of the child, interprets article 12 as follows: “when adults are making decisions that affect children, children have the right to say what they think should happen and have their opinions taken into account” (p. 2). over the past 15 years, older children have been increasingly involved in research through the work of ngos, but researchers tend to have less contact with children under the age of 8 (lansdown, 2004). lansdown (2004) explains: the convention extends participation rights to all children capable of expressing a view. it embodies no age restrictions. there is a pressing need, therefore, to explore approaches which address the rights of younger children to participate, and in so doing, to review the culture, attitudes and practices prevailing in those environments where young children spend their time. (p. 4). children are important participants in research, but surprisingly few attempts have been made to understand their perspectives on the quality of their education, even though they are the ones most affected by the environments they learn within (einarsdottir, 2005). the research emphasizes that engaging learning environments are essential to children’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development, and that they “allow children to connect concepts and ideas as they create new schema” (klefstad, 2015, p. 147). as stated in the kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016), “children become more engaged in their learning when the environment is planned and designed in negotiation with the children—that is, when ‘the children’s voice’ is heard in planning the environment and organizing and selecting materials for learning” (p. 32). an environment that values risk, includes multiple reflections of diversity, and includes educators who “observe, document, and reflect on children’s engagement with the environment” becomes a partner in learning with the children (callaghan, 2013, p. 4). the study described in this article honoured children’s voice. it entailed documenting matters that directly affect children. the study also explored children’s views about their learning environment in order to develop a deeper understanding of children’s perspectives to ascertain whether they viewed their environment as a third teacher. the aim of this research was to unpack how a child’s classroom environment can support children’s learning by sparking their natural curiosity to explore. the reggio emilia approach in the past decade, the reggio emilia approach to learning has significantly influenced the world of early childhood education with its holistic approach to the education of young children (wexler, 2004). at the end of the second world war, classrooms in reggio emilia, italy, were set up to support highly collaborative partnerships among parents, educators, and children (edwards, gandini, & forman, 2011). the 12 guiding principles of the reggio approach to learning are collaboration, the image of the child, environment as a third teacher, relationships, transparency, documentation, pedagogical documentation, provocation, progettazione (term used to describe curriculum), one hundred languages of children, respect, and reciprocity (fraser, 2012). when considering the holistic development of young children, it is important to understand the interconnectedness of reggio emilia’s 12 winter/hiver 2017 4 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research guiding principles, which collectively provide rich learning experiences and contribute to optimal growth. reggio emilia school settings are well known for their rich environments that foster student learning because they are both aesthetically and intellectually stimulating and also reflect a respect for the rights, interests, and needs of the individuals who use the space (new, 1998). to create a learning space that acts as a third teacher, invitations for learning that do not require teacher intervention are needed. fraser (2012) notes that “a classroom that is functioning successfully as a third teacher will respond to the children’s interests, provide opportunities for children to make their thinking visible and then foster further learning and engagement” (p. 67). educators in the reggio approach can spark their students’ interest in learning by introducing “provocations” meant to excite students and spark discussion (strong-wilson & ellis, 2007). some examples of provocations could be bringing in realistic objects for children to use, positioning small mirrors around the classroom, or placing easels close to windows for natural sunlight and inspiration from the outdoors (strong-wilson & ellis, 2007). the reggio learning environment is unique in how the space is co-created by the students and the educators in the classroom. this collaborative relationship consists of reciprocal exchanges between the children and adults about appropriate adjustments that can be made to ensure optimal growth and learning within the classroom setting (hewett, 2001). in conversation with gandini (2011b), loris malaguzzi compared the relationship between the teacher and the children to a game of ping pong. he explained that both players need to contribute to the game to allow for optimal growth and learning, otherwise a single player would be unable to participate (gandini, 2011b). the environment as third teacher the way reggio emilia accomplishes a high-quality environment is by considering the environment as the third teacher. the reggio emilia approach is built on a socio-constructivist model that views knowledge as constructed through interactions with both people and the environment (dodd-nufrio, 2011). in reggio-inspired schools, the physical environment holds great importance because it reveals a lot about how children are regarded as well as the value assigned to the process of teaching and learning (new, 1998). in a reggio emilia setting, the environment is the third teacher, and it is believed that “the spaces that teachers create for children seem to hold enduring memories for them that have a powerful influence on what they value later in life” (fraser, 2012, p. 112). in ontario’s kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016), the importance of the learning environment is expressed as follows: “the learning environment is often viewed as ‘the third teacher’: it can either enhance learning, optimizing students’ potential to respond creatively and meaningfully, or detract from it” (p. 29). callaghan (2013) also reminds us to view children as able communicators, collaborators, and meaning makers who are forming relationships every day with people and materials. callaghan states that children are “capable of empathy, whimsy, sensitivity and joy” and the classroom should reflect this through “thoughtfully organized, aesthetically rich, open-ended materials that invite children to communicate their ideas in many ways” (p. 2). including children in the creation of the classroom setting will help spark their interest and engagement in the play experiences. furthermore, as ontario’s how does learning happen? states: children thrive in indoor and outdoor spaces that invite them to investigate, imagine, think, create, solve problems, and make meaning from their experiences—especially when the spaces contain interesting and complex materials that children can use in many ways. in addition, when the schedule allows for long periods of uninterrupted play, with few transitions, children are calmer and more engaged. when the environment supports children’s growing autonomy and independence, challenging behaviours are reduced and educators can focus more fully on observing, interacting, and extending children’s learning and development in meaningful ways. winter/hiver 2017 5 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research (ontario ministry of education, 2014, pp. 20–21). the work of bronfenbrenner (1979) stresses the importance of considering the environment as more than just an inanimate object, but rather one of bi-directionality, where the child impacts the environment and in turn is impacted by the environment. therefore, for every action there is a reaction, and it is this constant interplay that allows development to occur (darragh, 2006). in a kindergarten context, becker and mastrangelo (2017) emphasize that the environment should be filled with many play experiences and a focus on the four frames of belonging and contributing, self-regulation and well-being, demonstrating literacy and mathematics behaviors, and problem solving and innovating (from the kindergarten program, ontario ministry of education, 2016. katz’s (1987) framework for learning includes four categories that can also be applied to the concept of the environment as third teacher. darragh (2006) invites us to reflect on these four categories and reveals that childhood environments should support children’s learning by (1) providing information for the senses, (2) supporting the unique needs and preferences of children, (3) offering experiences that are content-rich and (4) giving feedback through bidirectional exchanges. when creating an environment that acts as the third teacher, there are eight principles espoused by fraser (2012) that need to be addressed: aesthetics, active learning, collaboration, transparency, bringing the outdoors in, flexibility, relationship, and reciprocity. the aesthetics of a reggio environment come from the amount of detail put into the creation of every aspect of the space. the principle of active learning can be achieved by providing a rich, stimulating environment that offers many choices and provokes children to discover a variety of materials while actively exploring, investigating, and solving problems. collaboration is achieved by providing opportunities for children to work individually as well as a part of a group with other children and adults. transparency is achieved through the use of such materials as mirrors, windows, internal glass walls, glass objects, transparent film, large plastic sheets, etc., throughout the space. transparency can also be used metaphorically to describe the reasoning behind the documentation of children’s work on the classroom walls and entranceways of the school. bringing the outdoors in helps children connect with their roots and build respect for their community by strengthening the children’s sense of belonging in their world. flexibility can be achieved in a reggio environment by being accommodating and creative with space, time, and materials. reciprocity is achieved by ensuring the environment is open to change and responsive to the children, parents, and community. lastly, relationship in the reggio environment refers to how objects are shown in relation to other materials in the room (fraser, 2012). when exploring these eight principles of creating an environment that acts as a third teacher, it is essential to understand their interconnectedness within the classroom setting. methodology the research design chosen for this study was a qualitative phenomenological approach in order to allow the participants to express their understandings without having their thinking altered in any way (grover, 2004). this qualitative phenomenological research study followed a framework for listening and responding to young children’s perspectives called the mosaic approach (clark, 2007). the mosaic approach was developed with children aged 3 and 4 and aims to contribute to the voice of a child and recognize young children’s perspectives of their early childhood environment (moss & clark, 2011). it is a multimethod approach where children and adults work together to use children’s photographs in conjunction with conversations and observations to gain a deeper understanding of the children’s views (moss & clark, 2011). the process allows children and adults to be involved in making meaning together by giving them both a chance to step back and reflect on their experiences (moss & clark, 2011). the site selected was a reggio emilia school in a large city in ontario to allow for an in-depth analysis of the concept of the environment as third teacher in the classroom setting. the research participants included winter/hiver 2017 6 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research 16 female children in the senior kindergarten program at the reggio-inspired school who were divided into four focus groups. the study consisted of three visits to the participating classroom where observations and focus groups took place with the children who were the participant researchers in this study. the first visit to the school consisted of a tour of the grounds and the senior kindergarten classroom, where observations and interactions with the children took place. prior to the photo elicitation process, there was a discussion in each focus group about different areas of the classroom and how they contribute to the children’s learning. the students were then given an ipad and asked to photograph five areas of the classroom that help them learn. the data was collected using this photo elicitation process with groups 1 and 2 of the four focus groups. photo elicitation is a tool used with children whereby they communicate their ideas both visually and verbally on a topic by first taking pictures and then explaining the pictures to support their thoughts (pyle, 2013). prior to the second visit, the photographs taken by groups 1 and 2 during their photo elicitation period were printed. during the second visit, these photos taken by groups 1 and 2 were analyzed using photo interviewing analysis in their respective groups. photo interviewing analysis allows the participants to examine and analyze a set of visual images to construct meaning while the researcher records these descriptive findings as results (johnson & christensen, 2012). the children’s photos were laid out on the table and the children discussed the photos, why they took them, and how the things they photographed are important to their learning. during the second visit to the classroom, data was also collected using photo elicitation with the remaining two focus groups, group 3 and 4. during the third visit to the classroom, groups 3 and 4 analyzed the photos they took using photo interviewing analysis. this time was also used to meet with students who were absent during one of the visits so that they could analyze the photos they took. each meeting with the focus groups was video recorded on an ipad to allow for a more in-depth analysis at a later date. analysis the data that was collected in this study came from observational field notes, photo elicitation, and photo interviewing analysis. the video data collected from the photo elicitation and photo interviewing analysis was transcribed. inductive reasoning was used to analyze all of the available data, which was coded to support the research question which areas within the classroom do children believe help them learn? how? when coding, the children’s photos were separated into categories that they identified during the photo interviewing analysis part of the study. these categories were the different learning centres in their classroom environment and included mathematics, building, communication, art, light, and drama. the transcribed video data was then examined and the pieces of dialogue that described the children’s photos were exported and attached to each photo. the data was then mined for common themes that emerged from the children’s dialogue. results and discussion the objective of this study was to develop an understanding of how children perceive their classroom environment and to identify areas of the classroom that children believe help them learn. to acquire an in-depth understanding of children’s views of their classroom and how it helps them learn, the children served as co-researchers in the study. when asked how their classroom helps them to learn, the children chose to photograph the different centres within the room and then explained how each centre might help them to learn. as a result, their responses were coded according to the centres they labelled. of the 85 photos, 20 were taken of the math centre, 15 were taken of the communication centre, 15 were taken of winter/hiver 2017 7 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the building centre, 11 were taken of the art centre, 10 were taken of the light centre, 6 were taken of the drama centre, and the remaining 8 photos were taken of various different spaces in the room, such as the nature centre, the resting station, the learning garden, the reading centre, and the office (see table 1). each of the 16 children took between 4 and 7 photos of their room. since the math centre was emphasized during both the photo elicitation and the photo interviewing analysis, there appeared to be a strong association among the children that the math centre is an area in the classroom that helps them to learn, followed by communication and building, art, light, and drama. table 1: number of photos taken at each centre centre number of photographs taken math 20 communication 15 building 15 art 11 light 10 drama 6 other 8 total: 85 in most cases, once a learning centre was identified, the children then went on to explain how different materials within that centre aided in their learning. when asked how the math centre helps them to learn, the children talked mainly about the supporting materials in the centre, such as the hundreds chart, puzzles, tools, lego, and “balancing stuff.” the children in focus group 3 explained how puzzles helped them learn: researcher: what is this? amy: math again. researcher: what is going on in this picture? emma: we can play puzzles. nicole: (whispers to emma) puzzles, yep. researcher: play puzzles? emma: yeah. researcher: and how does that help you learn? emma: helps us learn lots of things and we know which way is the right way. amy: it helps you get smart and it helps you learn how to put things together. it’s like putting different words together to make sentences, except you are putting different pieces together. drew and rankin (2004) also support the idea of materials enhancing children’s learning; they explain that winter/hiver 2017 8 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research “children extend and deepen their understanding through multiple, hands-on experiences with diverse materials” (p. 3). the light centre was another area in the room where the children identified different materials that helped them to learn, such as a light table, x-rays, magnetics, and jewels. the children described how they manipulated the materials to build different “decorations” and “light things.” elizabeth explained how the light table can help you to learn. researcher: what about this one? elizabeth: this could help you do shapes and stuff if you don’t really know. researcher: wow! what’s that place called? elizabeth: light. this light table helps you do shapes. it makes a big light because it is really dark in there. the addition of open-ended materials such as tools, art materials, and blocks in the room enhances learning because they have no predetermined use (drew, ohlsen, & pichierri, 2000). drew and rankin (2004) conclude that “we can learn a lot from children who show a natural affinity for materials, gravitating to them without fear or intimidation” (p. 4). imaginative or pretend play was also a concept brought up by most of the children as a way they can learn in their classroom while others did not make a connection between playing and learning. the building centre was an area where the children identified many different pretend play activities that helped them to learn, such as building castles, houses, a boat, or other structures and playing games, like family. in the drama centre, the children talked about how they play family, pretend to be babies, take care of pets, and build forts with friends. in the light centre, the children talked about playing doctor or family doctor. mandy and andrea from focus group 1 explained how you can learn through playing in the drama centre. andrea: drama! researcher: why did you take a picture of drama? andrea: because you can dress up and play family. mandy: how to be a parent, and how it would work if you were a parent. andrea: how to take care of a baby! mandy: and how to take care of pets and babies, and how when you’re an adult you’re not really interested in eating candy and that kind of stuff. samuelsson and carlsson (2008) explain that in the reggio approach, play is integrated as a dimension of learning. it is interesting to note that when shannon was asked “do all of the centres help you to learn?” she responded by separating play and learning. researcher: why did you take that photo? shannon: i wanted to take a picture of almost all the centres so i could see if all of them look different or the same. researcher: do all of the centres help you to learn? winter/hiver 2017 9 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research shannon: not really all. light doesn’t, and i am in light right now. usually people play doctor or family doctor. that’s why i like it so much, because you get to play so much and not learn. she explained that not really all of the centres help you to learn, and that she likes the light centre because you get to play doctor and not learn. although some of the children concurred with shannon that they are playing and not learning, they actually are learning, but are just separating the two ideas in speech. samuelsson and carlsson (2008) explain that “when young children act they do not separate between play and learning, although they separate them in their talk” (p. 626). when asked how reading helps her to learn, zoe contradicted herself and explained that it doesn’t help you learn, it helps you learn how to read. researcher: so why did you take a picture of that? zoe: because when you are reading with our teacher and we are reading some stories, it doesn’t really help us learn, but it does help us learn to read. in kangas’s (2010) study asking children to describe their ideal learning environment, the children separated the ideas of playing and learning, and explained that they want to learn math and other subjects in a more “pleasant way.” the children in kangas’s (2010) study separated learning into two different categories: traditional learning methods, such as reading books, and learning under play-like conditions, such as studying through games. pramling samuelsson & johansson (2006) looked at the idea of playing and learning through a child’s perspective; they assert that we need to question the idea that play is a concept that belongs to the child while learning is more concerned with teachers. they explain that, for a child, these dimensions may be separated, but not in the teacher’s point of view (pramling samuelsson & johansson, 2006). the idea of play and learning was supported when the children in group 3 were asked how playing puzzles helps them to learn. amy said that playing puzzles helps you get smart and learn how to put things together. samuelsson and carlsson (2008) explain that when children talk about play and learning, there are many similarities in the thoughts they share, and they describe both play and learning as activities that are joyful and transformative. in ontario’s kindergarten document (ontario ministry of education, 2016), play is described as a vehicle for learning, and play and academic work are inextricably linked for children. the statement on play-based learning released by the council of ministers of education in canada (2014) explains that play paves the way for learning because it nourishes every aspect of children’s development, from intellectual skills to social, emotional, and physical skills. additionally, mastrangelo (2017) emphasizes that researchers have discovered that the experience of play actually changes the connections of the neurons in the prefrontal cortex, and that without play experiences, those neurons remain the same. it is those changes in the prefrontal cortex during childhood that help wire up the brain’s executive control centre, which has a critical role in regulating emotions, making plans, and solving problems (pellis & pellis, 2014). a narrative that supports the idea of pretend play was revealed when the children made real-life connections about how their classroom can help them learn to become different people in the community. in the building centre, the children talked about how if they practice building they could become builders or learn how to build a house (see figure 1). researcher: what about this one. what is this? shannon: building. i like building because you get to learn how to build stuff, and soon if you practice so much you might be able to build a house. winter/hiver 2017 10 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. shannon’s photograph of the building centre. in the art centre, mandy talked about how she was learning to become a kid artist by practicing her poses. in drama, the children said that they can learn how to be a parent and discussed the work that is involved. vygotsky (1967) supports the idea of real-life connections in play and explains that, “as play develops, we see a movement toward the conscious realization of its purpose” (p. 17). he explains that play is a “recollection” of a situation witnessed by children that sparks their imagination and ultimately influences their play. the children also discussed how talking and working with their peers in the classroom environment helps them to learn (see figure 2). mandy talked about how you can talk to one another while working at the communication centre. researcher: tell me about this picture. mandy: it’s communication, where we draw stuff and make stuff. different things. we talk to each other and we make different things. figure 2. mandy’s photograph of the communication centre. winter/hiver 2017 11 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research olivia explained that you get to meet new people while you are working at the light centre (see figure 3). olivia: that one is light. researcher: what happens in light? olivia: i took a picture of andrea pretending that was my cake. researcher: any more about light that helps you to learn? olivia: i get to see new people working light and i was in that centre with amy. figure 3. olivia’s photograph of the light centre. michelle remarked that when you are in the light centre, people often come to see what you are doing. researcher: so, tell me about light. what can you learn in light? michelle: people often come to the see light centre to see what they are doing. researcher: what can you learn? michelle: we learn about how we play games in there. malaguzzi, in conversation with gandini (2011b), discusses the importance of building relationships and explains that it helps children build autonomy and understand that they are individuals part of a larger group. the children also spoke about how the documentation on the walls of their classroom helps them learn. melissa and zoe took pictures of the books the children made that were displayed on the wall in the communication centre (see figure 4). zoe explained that the books were written by her peers and were about their research. malaguzzi, in conversation with gandini (2011a), explains that the walls of reggio schools “speak and document” and can be used by children to revisit and expand on their previous learning experiences. winter/hiver 2017 12 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 4. photograph of child-made books displayed on the wall in the communication centre. scope and limitations of the study the purposes of this study were to explore the concept of the environment as a third teacher, to document children’s views on their learning environment, and to unravel how the environment sparks children’s natural learning curiosity. a major limitation of this study was the large size of the focus groups. the children were divided into what appeared to be manageable groups of four; however, the focus groups were too large and participants were unable to address all of the photos within the allotted timeframe, resulting in a shortened discussion and quick analysis. perhaps groups of two or three children would have spurred a richer discussion and would have provided more time for each group member to contribute. the daily schedule only allowed for three research visits. a total of five and half hours was spent in the classroom observing the children and conducting the focus groups during each of the three research visits. although the study adopted the mosaic approach (moss & clark, 2011) for listening and responding to children, there was insufficient time allotted by school staff to engage in deeper conversations and provocations about the children’s photographs. parkinson (2001) explains that when working with young children, small groups are necessary because children spend most of their day interacting with small groups of children. to interview children in context, one needs to ensure that a social setting that supports their memory is being provided. while waiting for their peers to examine and discuss their photographs, the children became restless. due to the restlessness of the children, some of them chose to leave the focus groups early, thus limiting the amount of group discussion. their restlessness also limited the discussion because the children only discussed the photos they took. it would have been interesting to hear the children reflect on and comment about one another’s photographs. douglas (2009) explains that practical concerns can limit the amount that can be measured during a study. furthermore, since this particular reggio-inspired school is for girls only, differences in responses between genders could not be investigated. although a same-sex school limits the variety of data collected in research, mael (1998) explains that single-sex schooling leads to higher academic achievement and educational aspirations, especially for girls. winter/hiver 2017 13 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research summary by employing a phenomenological approach to this qualitative study that involved children as co-researchers, the study was able to give voice to children in research. this research study explored 16 children’s ideas about how they perceive their learning environment and the environment’s ability to help them learn. the children were given voice in this study by having them first photograph the areas in their classroom that they believed helped them to learn. then, the photos were used to spark a discussion during the photo interview analysis stage within small focus groups. after careful analysis, we determined that the children in this study perceived their environment as a place that helped them learn and therefore acted as a third teacher. the math centre was the most photographed area of the classroom, followed by the communication and building centres, the art centre, the light centre, and the drama centre. the children described how, within the centres, they were able to learn by using the materials provided, engaging in imaginative or pretend play, making real-life connections, communicating with their peers, and exploring the documentation on the walls of their classroom. the following themes summarize what the children expressed as important to their learning: learning centres, materials, pretend play, communication, and documentation. each of these is discussed below. learning centres. during the focus groups, the children referred to the different learning centres within the classroom when discussing how different areas help them to learn. the children view the learning centres and the other identified areas within the classroom as important places that help them to learn. materials. the children explained that the materials located at the various learning centres supported and enhanced their learning experiences. the children identified a wide array of materials within the learning centres and how they manipulated the materials to help them learn. for example, in the math centre, the children highlighted the hundreds chart as an item that helps them to learn how to count by different intervals. pretend play. pretend play was seen as a learning experience by most of the children, yet some of the children did not make the connection between play and learning. the children identified many different play experiences they had at the various learning centres (e.g., playing family in the drama centre and building structures like boats, houses, and castles in the building centre). the children also connected their pretend play with real-life learning experiences. they explained that when at the building centre they can learn to become a builder and build a house one day when they are older and while in the drama centre they can learn to be a parent while playing family. these are poignant examples of learning through play. communication. the children expressed the importance of communication in their classroom as part of their learning process and cited talking and working with their peers as an example. they explained that while working at the different centres, they were able to talk to the other children in the centre and also had the opportunity to share their work with the whole class. the reciprocal nature of conversations taking place in the centres supports the importance of building relationships during the learning process. documentation. the children confirmed that the reggio idea of documentation on the walls aids in the learning process by allowing them to revisit and expand on their previous learning opportunities. the children photographed the research books they created that were displayed on the walls in the communication centre. they explained that they developed the books based on their own research while working in the centre. through classroom observation and interpretation and analysis of the children’s responses during the focus groups, the learning environment explored in this study supports all of fraser’s (2012) eight principles in determining whether the environment acts as a third teacher. lastly, the research results were shared with the children in this study through the creation of a photo scrapbook that included quotations they shared in the focus groups. the winter/hiver 2017 14 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research scrapbook was gifted to the children in this senior kindergarten class as a way to thank them for their participation throughout the research process. the book was also created as a conduit for the children to explore the findings because the published research would not be in an accessible format for them. conclusion epstein (2003) reminds us that there is empirical and practical evidence that the development of thinking and reasoning in children can be promoted by having them reflect on and consider what they are doing and what they are learning. this research study set out to explore children’s ideas and perspectives about their learning environment and how it helps them to learn. although the study lacked an in-depth reciprocal conversation through questioning and responding, the data that was collected confirmed that the children believed their classroom environment helped them to learn. a deeper exploration of concepts would have been possible if there had been greater time allotted in the classroom setting for conducting this research. additionally, greater time would have also allowed for further follow-up questions to children’s responses, and perhaps would have given them a space to more deeply and critically analyze their photos and ideas. epstein (2003) explains that children between the ages of 3 and 6 years are able to make careful observations about their environment. the children in this study were able to effectively reflect on their environment and identify areas they believe help them to learn. references arseven, a. 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(2004). a theory for living: walking with reggio emilia. art education, 57(6), 13–19. doi: 10.2307/27696039 winter/hiver 2017 61 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice an uncertain tale: alternative conceptualizations of pedagogical leadership kim atkinson and lexie biegun kim atkinson is an early childhood educator and pedagogical facilitator at the university of victoria’s unit for early years research and development. email: klatkins@uvic.ca lexie biegun is an owner/pedagogical facilitator and visionary leader of lexie’s little bears child care inc. in beautiful victoria, bc. this article tells a tangled tale of pedagogical leadership. we, kim and lexie, are early childhood educators, working in different roles who, with some trepidation, are taking up the term pedagogical leader. our trepidation is rooted in an unease with pervading images of leadership as something that happens “out there” in government or academia, and with assumed characteristics of leaders as experts that seem antithetical to the collaborative caring practices of the work of early childhood educators. in sharing the tale of our work together, we hope to offer alternative images of pedagogical leadership as grounded in dialogue, situated in daily practice, and always becoming. a troubled tale of pedagogical leadership within the landscape of early childhood education, leader is a word alive with contested meanings, a word which educators in the field are often reluctant to own. multiple and sometimes conflicting conceptions of leadership abound. traditional understandings of leadership framed within images drawn from the predominately male business world (woodrow & busch, 2009) that imply hierarchical models of power and control (krieg, davis, & smith, 2014) do not sit well with many early childhood educators. more specifically, the term pedagogical leadership is fraught with its own troubled conceptualizations. workshops and professional development sessions are offered by a “pedagogical expert” who offers tips for “quality” child care. pedagogical leadership is often considered to be the domain of those who work in governmental spheres of policy development or academia who determine what constitutes “best practice.” moreover, pedagogical leadership is conflated with administrative or managerial roles that ensure correct application of rules and procedures (krieg et al., 2014; murray & clark, 2013) and are often situated within discourses of masculinity (woodrow & busch, 2009). these dominant conceptualizations of pedagogical leadership place the leader as an expert, someone with the “right knowledge” who has the power to dictate indicators of quality to which others must defer (murray & clark, this article draws on the experiences of two educators to reimagine traditional framings of pedagogical leadership. in the field of early childhood education, pedagogical leadership carries conflicting conceptualizations and is often associated with an “expert” who will dictate indicators of quality, suggesting certainty and fixed ways of practicing. educators are often reluctant to take on leadership roles that seem antithetical to their collaborative caring practices. in our work together in the investigating quality project and in using pedagogical narration as a tool for generating critical dialogue, we explore alternative images of pedagogical leadership. through sharing our stories, we offer a mode of thinking about pedagogical leadership that embraces relationality and uncertainty and invites a culture of dialogue. key words: pedagogical leadership; pedagogical narration; critically reflective practice; pedagogical facilitator; culture of dialogue; early childhood education winter/hiver 2017 62 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice 2013; woodrow & busch, 2009). further, these images of leadership suggest certainty, fixed ways of practicing, and mastery of particular knowledges. leaders are seen to be charismatic individuals who will take charge and lead the way, ultimately placing leadership in a leader/follower binary, negating possibilities of collective leadership to occur in daily practice (krieg et al., 2014; woodrow & busch, 2009). while the traditional role of the leader is heavily gendered in masculine discourses, early childhood educators are often positioned as a substitute mother. this gendered maternal image assumes characteristics such as nurturance, care, happiness, and passion (langford, 2006) that are diametrically opposed to conventional images of leadership, where attributes such as authoritativeness, drive, and assertiveness are valued. in other words, the act of working as an early childhood educator summarily precludes leadership potential. broadening the conversation around pedagogical leadership in the early years sector is more urgent than ever as the need for child care expands in canada (sinha, 2014). child care has become the focus of unprecedented political attention as governments create frameworks and policy documents to establish parameters for “quality care” (canadian council of ministers of education, 2014; government of canada, 2017; government of ontario, 2017; strongstart bc early learning programs, 2008). these documents are well intended; some promote ideas of educators as co-learners with children and identify children as competent and full of potential. however, quality programs in these documents remain conflated with modernist understandings of objective “truths” that define best practice to ensure children become the “right” kind of future citizen (dahlberg & moss, 2005; osgood & giugni, 2015; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliott, & sanchez, 2014). within these agendas, quality is framed by developmental theories that position children in need of adult intervention to acquire emotional, cognitive, social, and physical skills (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2014). growth and development is described as linear, with predictable stages that can be applied to all children, universalizing them through concepts of readiness and isolated skill assessment (osgood & giugni, 2015; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2014). these dominant discourses of childhood impose particular ways of thinking about children that deny multiple cultural beliefs, values, and practices (osgood & giugni, 2015). educators are stripped of the space and opportunity to grapple with complexity, diversity, and other ways of being, doing, and be(com)ing with children (osgood & giugni, 2015). as osgood and giugni (2015) tell us, these discourses underpin the idea that “quality remains a quantifiable, recognisable and measurable thing that can be objectively assessed and ultimately attained” (p. 1). as we will describe further, rethinking pedagogical leadership as a situated, collaborative endeavour is critical in challenging these top-down approaches and may offer more localized and diverse perspectives of quality in early childhood spaces. despite some of the limiting, managerial perceptions of pedagogical leadership in early childhood education, there is movement to reconceptualize leadership. early childhood scholars and professional organizations (berger, 2015; young, 2007) are working toward imagining different dimensions of early childhood leadership that include activism, collaboration, critical thinking, and a professional identity that embraces plurality. this reimagining opens spaces for leadership to be enacted on the large stage of the public sphere but also, and perhaps more importantly, in the small moments of daily practice. with the hope of contributing to these reimaginings, we offer our imperfect, questioning, and ongoing tale of pedagogical leadership. we share this tale, not to suggest a specific trajectory of pedagogical leadership to be applied elsewhere, but as an invitation to dialogue toward more possible futures in early childhood education. working together in the investigating quality project we, kim and lexie, began working together within this landscape of competing and contradicting images of pedagogical leadership. we came to this work in positions of leadership; however, our leadership roles were entirely different: lexie as owner/director of a large, multiage centre and kim as pedagogical facilitator (pedagogista) winter/hiver 2017 63 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice with the investigating quality (iq) project at the university of victoria (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2010). beginning in 2006, the iq project promotes the active engagement of early learning and child care practitioners in discussions that lead to the formation of sustainable and innovative early years environments. the project aims to create communities of practice by engaging practitioners in collaboratively reflecting on their knowledge, values, experiences, and practices and exploring the meanings and practices of quality care (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2010). in 2011, a second phase of the iq project was implemented with the creation of the role of pedagogical facilitators. facilitators visit child care sites weekly to engage in reflective dialogue, discuss theoretical perspectives, and support new ideas and thinking. kim, as pedagogical facilitator, began working with lexie and the educators in her centre in 2013. kim visits lexie’s centre weekly, bringing questions, different theoretical perspectives, and reflective dialogue. through ongoing email communication and sharing of resources, we explore possibilities for reconceptualizing early learning and care and critically reflect on quality. together we think with postfoundational early childhood theorists (dahlberg & moss, 2005; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2014) and challenge taken-forgranted assumptions of what early years practice can be. once a month, we gather for learning circles with other educators from the community to discuss and reflect on moments of practice collected in pedagogical narrations. pedagogical narration is a term we use in british columbia to describe a process of writing, photographing, or documenting moments in the daily lives of children and educators that are then shared to generate critical dialogue and complexify practice (berger, 2015; pacini-ketchabaw, et al., 2014). pedagogical narration makes daily practices open to interpretation and negotiation and is thus is an important tool to challenge narrow, prescriptive understanding of quality. as educators work and think with pedagogical narrations, they are enacting pedagogical leadership by engaging in democratic politics. dahlberg and moss (2005) explain: pedagogical documentation makes learning visible: but it goes beyond this and by so doing enters the political sphere, making what is visible subject to interpretation, critique and argumentation. by taking this vital second step, by becoming minor politics, pedagogical documentation can enable dominant discourses to be challenged rather than reinforced, normative frameworks to be transgressed rather than more tightly drawn, governmentality to be undermined rather than applied. (p. 157) in the next section, we share individual and collective stories of our work that highlight the imperfect, discomfiting moments, as well as the joyful openings that emerged in our explorations as pedagogical leaders. what kind of leader can i be?: lexie i’m grappling with a new title: pedagogical leader. i’m feeling raw and open, unworthy of what seems to be (in my eyes) this extremely respected role. i have been an early childhood educator for more than twenty years, and i realized a long time ago that best practice, according to my beliefs of what best practice is, is not typically offered in most settings. in 1997, i opened my first nature-based centre with a clear vision of what i wanted to provide to children and their families. what began as a small program with seven children and one educator has now grown into many larger centres with a total of 57 licenced spaces, 17 amazing educators, and two neighbouring locations. the dreams i have been visualizing are now my reality. with nearly four acres of forest to explore, my nature-based programs are thriving! shifting from being an early childhood educator to a director and pedagogical leader feels new and scary. i can feel the shift; i will embrace the pull. my new role is complex and honestly a bit uncomfortable, but i am excited winter/hiver 2017 64 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice by the possibilities. participation in the iq project has allowed me to continue my research as an educator, and has provoked me to ask myself: why do i do what i do as an educator? as a leader? are there other ways of “being” that i can explore? how can i inspire a culture of reflective practice? how do i share my vision with my staff in a way that is uplifting, inspiring, and noninvasive? being in question, putting into question: kim my role as a pedagogical facilitator is not to be the expert, to be prescriptive, or to instruct educators on “getting it right.” rather, as vintimilla (2016) tells us, the pedagogical facilitator’s role is to be-in-question and put-intoquestion. in this way, the pedagogical facilitator “tries to pose reverberant questions that open space for educators to put-into-question and, indeed, to put the educators themselves into-question” (p. 4). this concept of putting into question challenges concepts of transferring knowledge in a hierarchical model of learner/knower. inherent in the idea of putting into question is acknowledgment of the complex nature of the work of early childhood educators, and the idea that daily practice is complicated and intensely relational. thus, a pedagogical facilitator’s role is to engage others in ongoing, dynamic, and transformational dialogue about learning, teaching, and living together. but how might i as an outsider, a stranger, begin dynamic dialogue that might incite complications, questions, and unsettlings? how might i provoke thinking without offending? is it even possible to provoke without offending? in 2013 we, kim and lexie, began meeting weekly at lexie’s child care setting. our coming together was resplendent with uncertainty, each of us seeking to know the other. questions hovered around us as we tentatively stretched the bounds of polite conversation to find spaces of commonality and difference. we were inspired by unspoken questions: who are we in this work? who might we become? what is possible? what already exists? what might we bring into existence? how do we think-be-do with one another? what are the questions yet to be articulated? can we be uncertain, imperfect, uncomfortable in these encounters? can the dissensus we will surely be confronted with be generative? pedagogical narration as a tool for collaborative dialogue the following describes a moment in which we began to put these questions to work: kim, lexie, and the children step into a small room where walls and floor are draped in swaths of white canvas that glow with sunlight streaming in from a small window. in the centre of the room is a cedar stump upon which sits a large block of clay. this room is new to all of us, having winter/hiver 2017 65 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice undergone a dramatic transformation from the “zoom room,” where animated posters lined the walls and shelves were filled with tubs of cars and trucks. we are all curious about this new space, this atelier, this canvas, this clay. lexie and kim sit against the wall, lexie with clipboard and pen, kim with camera, watching, listening. the clay, the stump, the children, the canvas, the sunlight mingle, transform. clay breaks apart, comes together. arms and hands and clay pound, struggle, strain, push, pull. time slows, sunlight ebbs. child sounds, clay sounds, stump sounds, pauses, silences … it is done. the children are gone, and lexie, kim, clay, canvas, stump, clipboard, and camera are left with the waning light. we notice the silence and are unwilling to shatter it. as we sat in the atelier with camera and clipboard, we became co-researchers, noticing, listening, attending to the small gestures, the motion, the stillness, the sounds. we were mesmerized by this clay/stump/canvas encounter; the room reverberated with intensities even after the children had left. the tools we each used, camera and pen and clipboard, provoked different ways of seeing, different ways of thinking. revisiting our notes and photos invited new conversations, new kinds of questions, and disrupted old habits of thought. this vignette depicts a coming together, a moment in which we, kim and lexie, sensed new understandings of who we could be. we continued to discuss this encounter for months, and the reverberations of our collaborative reflections seeped into our pedagogies. our questions and wonderings led to further questions, inspiring us into further research and experimentation. our work together as pedagogical leaders began. pedagogical leaders as co-researchers: kim prior to these moments in the atelier, we had focused on what an atelier could look like, what materials it might hold, what engagements might take place. after this clay/stump/canvas encounter, space opened in which to discuss materiality and the intersections and interconnections of child/bodies/clay/voice. we explored gender, routines, and more. i could pose new questions: what are the children doing? what are the materials doing? what happens when we shift from focusing only on what the child does, says, or learns and begin to attend to what happens between the child, the material, the space? what questions do we have about this encounter? how do our questions shape what we see? how can we be more intentional with our questions? how do discourses of gender and power contribute to how the children acted? how might we challenge normative understandings of early years pedagogy to examine and complexify our perceptions of gender and power? my role as pedagogical facilitator took on a vibrancy as i was no longer the stranger. “putting into question” was now a dynamic push and pull between trusting colleagues. we delved into new dialogues, examining practices that were habituated, digging into histories and assumptions of childhood and who/what educators could be. the process of documenting the clay/stump/canvas/child encounters and creating a pedagogical narration was central to this opening for dialogue. winter/hiver 2017 66 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice creating a culture of dialogue: lexie i began sharing narrations of moments in the atelier with educators in my centre, and in doing so, opened myself to vulnerability. by taking on the role of director/leader as researcher, i put aside the role of director/leader as expert and opened spaces for uncertainty and reflective dialogue. i tried to resist conventional ideas of leadership that presume i ought to have all the answers. in being vulnerable and rejecting certainty, i hoped that what had previously been unspoken could now be discussed and we could dig deeper, take risks, engage in dialogue, and challenge our pedagogy. one of our biggest tensions was around the communication books in which educators wrote an entry for every child on sleep and toileting, along with an anecdote about the child’s day. educators were required to write during nap time, which was also their time to clean and eat. there were mixed feelings among educators. they knew how important the books were to families, but were frustrated that the books were focused only on tracking bowel movements and sleep schedules. they wanted to begin writing pedagogical narrations which they felt might make visible the complexity of their work. however, some educators and most families placed great value on the books and were adamant that they should continue as they were. being able to talk with me about what they were feeling, and their tensions, was not easy for them. i worked to create a safe place for everyone to voice their thoughts and opinions without consequence, and proposed a vote. the communication books were voted out, and i supported the decision. some hard feelings ensued, and some educators remained disappointed with the decision. however, deeper conversations and collaboration gradually started to occur. i feel that through this process, mutual respect has emerged, allowing both me and my staff to ask questions and consider possibilities. the educators seem to feel safe to make mistakes without the consequence of losing their jobs. i have noticed that they are more open to challenging the “shoulds” of the daycare by trying out new ideas and pushing boundaries. once the communication books were gone, educators used the quiet time to chat and make notes while cleaning. they took turns doing chores to allow their colleagues to work on the computer. conversations and collaboration started to happen as educators began to research more about their observations. they started remembering moments that they shared throughout the day, each giving input and creating more and more dialogue. the educators were going home and writing at night! they sent me their narrations to print, and started producing one a week, two a week, sometimes more! they were sharing their work with their colleagues and at the learning circles we attended every month with kim. outside the entrance to the toddler centre, i installed a sandwich board on which to post narrations. i planted wisteria bushes beside the boards. i brought in potted plants, and my husband made two curved wooden benches where families could sit and read the narrations. the educators could not wait to display what they had been so carefully working on, and quickly one board became two boards. a buzz began to grow among the families. parents wanted copies of the narrations, and educators were excited to share their work and talk about their observations. setting aside the image of the director as the person with all the answers and instead engaging in open dialogue alongside educators in my centre was, at first, unsettling. it requires me to share my vision with the educators but remain open to their visions as well. i invite dialogue, yet these dialogues bring tension, discomfort. however, i believe these dialogues and tensions have worked to strengthen the bonds among all of us, educators and myself. our care, trust and respect run deep. thinking together is part of our culture, and my role as pedagogical leader is rich with possibility. living in question: kim the role of the pedagogical facilitator is to be the outsider who poses reverberant questions (vintimilla, 2016). as winter/hiver 2017 67 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice an outsider, i am not an expert, but neither am i a colleague or a peer. my questions do not have to be acted upon: they may be pushed aside or taken up; they may provoke anger or disruption; they may be welcomed or shunned. but whatever the response, the questions hover and aim to defamiliarize the familiar. questions have the potential to crack certainties and, once cracked, these certainties may slowly, gradually crumble. i noticed the communication books very soon in my visits to the centre. the concept of writing daily about children’s sleeping and eating habits seemed to me to reduce educators to custodians who simply managed children. however, i understood that the books had a long history in the centre and that some educators and most families placed great value on the books. to pose questions about the communication books was to cast doubt on a tradition cherished by many. i began the process of defamiliarizing that which is familiar by asking: what if ? what else might be possible? i left these questions to hover, then posed them again. months went by without discussion of the communication books, and we discussed other ideas, other questions. then i would ask about the books again. question, pause, question again. my intention was not to instruct educators on the “right” way of communicating with families, nor did i have a specific outcome in mind. rather, i was interested in questioning the meanings implicit in writing in the communication books. i wondered if the communication books might be placing children as passive receivers of care and placing educators in positions of simply managing bodily functions. the conversation around the communication books entwined with other questions, other practices, other shifts. a culture of research began to emerge, and two years after i posed the first question about the books, the educators chose to eliminate them. the process by which the communication books were eliminated was not linear, prescriptive, or a predetermined goal. rather, it was one thread in ongoing conversations about possibilities for thinking differently. eliminating the books was one shift among many shifts, as questioning and critical reflection became a way of being. practices that had been assumed to define quality came into question, and certainties were unsettled. reimagining pedagogical leadership throughout our work, we continue to consider how pedagogical leadership might be imagined and how this leadership might be enacted in ways that resist hierarchical relations and embrace an ethic of uncertainty. by putting moments of daily practice into question and by acknowledging this process as enacting leadership, we resist the leader/follower binary. in this way, leadership becomes an everyday event through the work of educators. our, kim and lexie’s, work together has been dialogic, relational, and informed by lived experience. questions flourish in spite of the discomfiture they draw, because we have established trust and a willingness to be imperfect. dissensus is perceived, not as a barrier, but as an asset to generate further conversation. having brought into existence a mode of relations that valued the push and pull of ideas and a willingness to be uncertain, we could then extend this mode with educators. hierarchies became flattened as educators recognized that dialogue, experimentation, and dissensus were not only accepted, but welcomed. new ideas about practice could be imagined, acted upon, and discussed. some of these ideas created tensions, rifts, and complaints or drew the ire of families and educators, resulting in intense and uncomfortable dialogue spanning weeks or months. other ideas opened joyful and lively conversations and deepened relations among families, educators, and children. there was always a sense that the door was open for discussion. time is of consequence in these processes of pedagogical leadership. we have allowed time for ourselves to build trust, time to simmer with questions and theoretical perspectives. we know that we all come to this work with histories, certainties, and understandings, and we need time to share these, to deconstruct them, and to trust that risking experimentation can be generative. our work together has been rich and satisfying, difficult and tense. we winter/hiver 2017 68 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice have stumbled and faltered, and have thrilled and flourished. there were times when nothing seemed to happen and times when everything was bursting with promise. this tangled tale of our pedagogical leadership is not done: we continue to wonder, hope, and experiment, yet we really do not know what will happen next. we live with questions, and we cannot predict where they will take us. for us, it is enough to live with the joys and tensions that questions invite, the delight of “what ifs” in our always becoming roles as pedagogical leaders. references berger, i. (2015). pedagogical narrations and leadership in early childhood education as thinking in moments of not knowing. canadian children, 40(1), 130–147 canadian council of ministers of education. (2014). cmec early learning and development framework. retrieved from https://www. cmec.ca/publications/lists/publications/attachments/327/2014-07-early-learning-framework-en.pdf dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. new york, ny: routledge. government of canada. (2017). multilateral early learning and child care framework. retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/ employment-social-development/programs/early-learning-child-care/reports/2017-multilateral-framework.html government of ontario. (2017). ontario renewed early years policy framework. retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/ renewed_early_years_child_care_policy_framework_en.pdf krieg, s., davis, k., & smith, k. a. (2014). exploring the dance of early childhood educational leadership. australasian journal of early childhood, 39(1), 73–80. langford, r. (2006). discourses of the good early childhood educator in professional training: reproducing marginality or working toward social change. international journal of educational policy, research, and practice, 7(1), 115–125. murray, j., & clark, r. m. (2013). reframing leadership as a participative pedagogy: the working theories of early years professionals. early years, 33(3), 289–301. doi:10.1080/09575146.2013.781135 osgood, j., & giugni, m. (2015). reconfiguring “quality”: beyond discourses and subjectivities to matter, bodies, and becomings in early childhood education. in g. s. cannella, m. s. pérez, & i. f. lee (eds.), critical examinations of quality in childhood education and care: regulation, disqualification, and erasure (pp. 139–156). new york, ny: peter lang. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliott, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood education practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & pence, a. (2010). investigating quality early learning environments project, phase ii, 2009–2010: final report. retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55ab27f3e4b048cfac1c647a/t/58bfbda1f7e0abb09 dd89660/1488961018413/100727_iqp2_maint_report_june_2010.pdf sinha, m. (2014). results from the general social survey: child care in canada. retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/89652-x2014005-eng.pdf strongstart bc early learning programs. (2008). operations guide. retrieved from http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/educationtraining/ administration/kindergarten-to-grade-12/early-learning/strongstart-bc vintimilla, c. d. (2016). encounters with a pedagogista. contemporary issues in early childhood, 1(1), 1–11. doi:10.1177/1463949116684886 woodrow, c., & busch, g. (2009). repositioning early childhood leadership as action and activism. european early childhood education research journal, 16(1), 83–93. doi:10.1080/13502930801897053 young, c. (2007). professional leadership in early childhood education: a summary of university of victoria, british columbia, investigating quality (iq) early learning framework proposal and three international models: new zealand, united states, united kingdom. a discussion paper for ecebc board of directors. retrieved from http://www.ecebc.ca/leadership/files/discussion_paper.pdf winter/hiver 2019 68 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research finding community: an exploration into an induction support pilot project laura k. doan dr. laura k. doan is an assistant professor in the faculty of education and social work at thompson rivers university in kamloops, bc, where she teaches in the early childhood education and master of education programs. laura’s research interests include how best to support new early childhood educators as they enter the ece field, as well as what sustains experienced educators. currently she is involved in a peer mentoring program for new and experienced educators. email: ldoan@tru.ca the teaching profession, including the profession of early childhood education (ece), has been referred to as “the profession that eats its young” (carlson, 2012). in british columbia, it is estimated that 50% of all early childhood educators leave the field within the first five years of work (early childhood educators of british columbia, 2012), but does this have to be? this research challenges the predominant perspective that the work early childhood educators do is simple and that experienced early childhood educators do not require additional support (pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015). the purpose of this pilot project was to support the ongoing development of both new and experienced early childhood educators through a project that involved peer mentoring, professional development, online support through a wordpress site, visits to early learning programs, and access to university faculty. the project evolved out of previous research with beginning early childhood educators across bc who had indicated a strong desire for induction support (doan, 2014). induction refers to both the time period when an early childhood educator is first in the field, usually the first year, as well as specific induction activities, such as mentoring, feedback, observations, and professional development (aitken et al., 2008; winstead fry, 2010). peer mentoring was a pivotal part of the project and was based on the idea that both new and experienced educators have strengths and it is not just new educators who need support. the project itself was set up to allow for as much participant input as possible. for example, professional development was organized based on what participants indicated they wanted. the project sought to increase collaboration and connection between and among new and experienced early childhood educators; educators and university faculty; and early childhood educators from a variety of workplace environments. context educators in bc are certified through the province after completing a certificate, diploma, or degree in early childhood education. in addition to completing several practica during their coursework, educators are required to fulfill an additional 500 hours of work experience. currently in bc, when it comes to title and work assignment, this induction support pilot project involved 22 early childhood educators in the interior of british columbia who had a range of experience, from just beginning to 29 years in the field. participants in the project were offered opportunities for peer mentoring, professional development, access to university faculty, visits to early learning programs, and online support. the results from the study include greater awareness on the part of participants of the value of peer mentoring and connection to community, increased knowledge, and increased sense of efficacy. at the end of the project, participants reflected on their experiences in semistructured interviews and focus groups. they also shared ways the pilot project could be improved, and the project is being revised based on their feedback. key words: induction; peer mentoring; early childhood education; professional development winter/hiver 2019 69 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research there is no distinction between a newly certified early childhood educator and an educator with significant experience. in other words, the ratios (number of educators to children) are the same, the expectations are the same, and the shifts are the same, with little time for transition. for example, the educator-to-child ratio in a program for 3to 5-year-olds in bc is one educator to eight children, regardless of the educator’s level of experience. contrast this perspective of being fully certified with the theory of professional identity development, which rests on the idea that it takes time for professional identity to develop (katz, 1972; vander ven, 1988). for example, lilian katz (1972) describes the first year as being one of “survival.” given this reality, is a new early childhood educator fully ready to take on all of the demands of the job? and if not, are there supports in place to help them? currently in bc there are no such formal supports. a review of the literature suggests that while some new early childhood educators receive support, it is haphazard and not something they can count on (doan, 2014). previous research the support early childhood educators receive as they enter the profession varies and the literature for canadian programs is shallow. recent analysis of online data showed that there is very little formal support for new educators in canada. in prince edward island, the bridges program is mandatory for all “designated early years centres” (government of prince edward island, 2017). its purpose is to support planning and successful implementation of curriculum and the program; it “supports supervisors, staff, administrators and owners of early childhood development centres to enhance learning environments and provide training and mentoring” (government of prince edward island, 2017, para. 2). in bc, the community early learning and child care facilitators pilot project, which emerged out of the investigating quality project, involved learning circles, critical reflection, and learning how to do innovative work, including the creation of pedagogical narrations, which were shared in the learning circles and with families (mirau, 2015). the learning circles acted as forums where educators had opportunities to “share their established and emerging practices” (unit for early years research and development, n.d., p. 6). the facilitators’ project was not specifically directed at beginning educators because it was assumed that both new and experienced educators would benefit. in ontario, the mentoring pairs for child care program paired experienced and inexperienced supervisors and offered training sessions on facilitation and coaching skills and how to implement the occupational standards (doherty, 2011). however, the program, which was funded by the provincial government, has not run since 2011. induction support has a more robust presence internationally. in new zealand, for example, early childhood educators are assigned a mentor who provides professional development, observation, feedback, and assessments during a twoto five-year period prior to educators applying for fully registered teacher status (aitken, ferguson, mcgrath, piggot-irvine, & ritchie, 2008). early childhood educators viewed the program as being valuable to the profession and helpful in becoming fully registered. in the united states, the kentucky teacher internship program offers a one-year mentoring program for new teachers to support them as they create their professional identities (mccormick & brennan, 2001). in this team-based approach, teachers are supported through observation, selfreflection, and feedback on areas of strength and growth. a mentoring program in worcester, england, is based on the premise that mentoring supports adult learning in the workplace by facilitating experiential learning (murray, 2006). recognizing the shortage of mentors, the organizers of the worcester program identified the role of a “professional critical friend” who may be a peer with the same qualifications. while new zealand has an induction program available to all early childhood educators, in contrast, in canada, where education is a provincial responsibility, there is no defined structure to support early childhood educators at the beginning of their careers, a time when they need it the most (rodd, 2006). this, however, does not mean there is a lack of interest in supporting new educators. for example, the early childhood educators of bc reported that “a mentoring framework is needed to help people to take steps to be mentors” (gay, 2007, p. 18). winter/hiver 2019 70 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research while there is little in the way of consistent support for early childhood educators working in either provincially regulated k–12 schools or nonprofit early learning programs in canada, there is considerably more induction support for teachers, including programs in the northwest territories, nunavut, ontario, alberta, and bc. the northwest territories has a teacher induction and mentoring program to support new teachers in their first year; it involves an orientation to the community, the school, and the role; mentoring, which includes time for observations and meeting together; and access to professional development (government of northwest territories, 2017). a similar program exists in nunavut, with an aim to increase teacher retention while supporting the teacher in understanding inuit culture (government of nunavut, 2017). in ontario, the ministry of education has a new teacher induction program that involves both mentoring and professional development for a full year (government of ontario, 2017). the alberta teachers’ association (2017) also has a mentoring program to support teachers that involves pairing the new teacher with an experienced teacher who is teaching the same grade level. in bc, the provincial teachers’ federation and the university of british columbia, with support from the ministry of education, have partnered to create a mentoring project for school districts across the province who do not have a structured mentoring program (british columbia teachers’ federation, 2014; university of british columbia, 2017). while there are many induction programs in canada for teachers in the school system (kutsyuruba, godden, & tregunna, 2013), there is a distinct lack of support specifically for early childhood educators. in bc, since there are no formal ways to support new early childhood educators, there is a paucity of research in this area. the research from this pilot project contributes to the induction research, as well as to research into professional identity development for early childhood educators. theoretical framework the theoretical framework for this study draws on current theories of learning in professional workplaces as well as general theories of learning. knowles, holton, and swanson’s (2012) adult learning theory provides a theoretical context to how adults learn and, more specifically, what motivates them and how professional development can be structured in a way that is responsive to their needs. the theories of professional identity development put forth by katz (1972) and vander ven (1988) are pivotal to this work, because the study participants are in varying stages of their career and are developing their professional identities. jean lave and etienne wenger’s (1991) community of practice concept fits well given the ece workplace and educational context, where educators do not receive consistent professional development and/or ongoing training. lave and wenger asserted that practitioners within communities were at work helping to bring more practitioners into the community by way of apprenticeship. their research was based on the premise that practitioners are naturally drawn to communities of practice, and their work came out of the apprenticeship experiences of tailors who became skilled master tailors through informal learning within communities of practice. wenger and snyder (2000) defined communities of practice as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise” (p. 139). this concept provides a theoretical base from which workplace support can be considered. teacher efficacy, which comes from albert bandura’s (1997) work, is a term that refers to a teachers’ belief in their own ability to carry out teaching tasks with success (tschannen-moran, woolfolk hoy, & hoy, 1998). it informs the study in a variety of ways, including understanding why some educators remain in the profession and why others choose to leave (doan, 2014). this research challenges the traditional discourse of training and delivery, where educators are viewed as passive vessels waiting to be filled (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015), and views the educator as an active, contributing agent, participating in the coconstruction of knowledge. this perspective on continued learning within a community of practice supports the image of the educator as being “in process” (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 64), which winter/hiver 2019 71 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research challenges the current notions of professionalization and competencies. research design the overall purpose of this research study was to create a pilot induction program based on what new early childhood educators in bc had previously indicated they wanted. it was hoped that the pilot project would support early childhood educators in their development of professional identity (katz, 1972). the research questions were as follows: is it possible to design a project that supports the development of both new and experienced early childhood educators? what (if any) aspects of the program are most effective? what changes need to be made to improve the effectiveness of the support program? these questions were answered through participant feedback by way of interviews and focus groups. components of the pilot project as mentioned previously, the pilot project was based on research with beginning early childhood educators in bc (doan, 2014). the project had five components: peer mentoring, professional development, access to faculty, online support, and visits to early learning programs. participants could access what they were interested in throughout the project. they were supported in finding peer mentors through an introductory meeting, an email listserv, a peer mentoring café, face-to-face meetings, and individual support. participants were invited to share their ideas for professional development and from there, workshops were organized. topics included supporting children and families experiencing separation and/or divorce; how to mentor new students/staff; how to give feedback; leadership: how to be a team leader; and how to support toddler development. like other aspects of the project, visits to early learning programs were participant driven. online support included a wordpress site and an email listserv. methods participants the pilot project involved 22 early childhood educators with varying experience, ranging from being a beginning educator to having 29 years of work experience. the educators were from eight different early learning programs. all of the participants were bc-certified early childhood educators with a certificate, diploma, or degree in early childhood education. participants heard about the pilot project during professional development opportunities and/or through their colleagues and self-selected themselves to participate. interviews individual semistructured interviews took place with 12 participants at the end of the study. the interview questions were based on previous work with beginning early childhood educators (doan, 2014). in addition, the questions focused on the experiences of the participants in the pilot project. examples of questions include: tell me about the support you received. what activities did you take part in? what was most helpful? how can the induction program be improved? all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in full. participant summaries were completed. focus groups eleven participants chose to take part in one of two 2-hour focus groups that took place at the close of the study. the principal investigator facilitated the focus groups, while the graduate research assistant video-recorded and winter/hiver 2019 72 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research observed. the questions were focused around the five components of the pilot project: peer mentoring, professional development, online support, access to faculty, and visits to early learning programs. the focus groups were transcribed verbatim. data analysis the 12 interviews were transcribed in full by the graduate research assistant. in addition, participant summary sheets were completed for each interview. the two focus groups were 120 minutes each and the transcriptions totalled 56 pages. the interviews and focus groups were analyzed separately using a robust coding process to identify key themes. in qualitative research, coding involves a process of seeking out concepts, ideas, themes, and categories for the purpose of organizing and interpreting the data, and this takes time. the process of coding is dynamic, where the researcher is involved in the process of grouping similar and different experiences shared by the participants (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). the principal investigator and the research assistant worked separately to analyze the interview questions, coming together to review the codes and the analysis process. the initial process of coding the data resulted in many different codes because the researchers were open to what the data was saying and did not want to miss anything. additional codes emerged from the second level of coding. the focus group data was analyzed in a similar way. findings of the five kinds of activities participants took part in—peer mentoring, professional development, online support, access to faculty, and visits to early learning programs—peer mentoring and professional development were ranked the highest, followed by visits to early learning programs, online support, and faculty support. four themes emerged from the data: awareness of the value of peer mentoring, connection to community, increased knowledge, and sense of efficacy. what follows is an in-depth look at the themes. awareness of the value of peer mentoring participants indicated that through participating in the project, their awareness of the value of peer mentoring increased, as did their awareness of the needs of new educators. for some there was also a recognition of their own need for peer mentoring. participants realized that they could both call on their peers for help and act as a mentor to those around them. in one situation, after realizing her workmate was in the same pilot project, a participant saw her colleague in a new light and realized that she too was interested in peer mentoring: i often feel like i don’t want to bother people because usually those extra things have to be done on our own time, and getting to know those people [in the pilot project] and knowing they were all interested in mentoring and being mentored helped me to feel more confident to reach out. this quotation speaks to the reality of the ece field, where there is little time in the work day for connecting with colleagues, asking questions, and discussing the day. in contrast to school teachers, early childhood educators may not even get regular breaks. despite the fact that having collaborative time to plan is considered highly valuable, it is not something early childhood educators can count on. participating in the project allowed this participant to feel like she had “permission” to ask a colleague for support. one can assume that new educators want to appear competent and knowledgeable, but according to katz (1972), the first year is considered “survival.” how will one be perceived if they need help in the beginning? the culture of an ece workplace is such that one is doing the same work as everyone else, despite one’s novice status. one week you are being interviewed and are trying to winter/hiver 2019 73 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research demonstrate your skills and abilities, and the next week you find yourself working in a position that is no different than what is expected of experienced educators. for example, in one study a new educator was put on the opening shift on his second day on the job, meaning he was responsible for opening up the centre, starting the morning routines, and greeting families and children, whom he did not yet know (doan, 2014). the ece field is one where educators often find themselves in a “sink or swim” type of situation (nicholson & reifel, 2011), which is in direct contrast to what katz suggested as necessary for new educators: “during this period the teacher needs support, understanding, encouragement, reassurance, comfort and guidance. she needs instruction in specific skills and insight into the complex causes of behaviour—all of which must be provided on the classroom site” (1972, p. 4). given this need, one can understand the significance of peer mentoring. another participant shared how her confidence as a mentor changed as a result of the project: in my own personal situation now that i’m a little bit older and more experienced, i’m realizing that, you know, i can be a mentor, but i can also be mentored, and i like that. we can learn from another, and i think that is something to be really intentional about. results from this study demonstrate that it is not only new educators who can benefit from mentoring and support. experienced educators may find themselves in a new position, perhaps working with unfamiliar age groups, and they may have mentoring needs related to these new areas of challenge. for example, educators in this study had various roles, including leadership within early learning programs as well as in the profession. furthermore, some of the postsecondary educational experiences that experienced early childhood educators took part in were very different than what new early childhood educators learned and/or experience. for example, the bc early learning framework, which was published in 2007, supports the practice of pedagogical documentation, so while it is assumed that most beginning early childhood educators are well-versed in creating pedagogical narrations, this practice may be unfamiliar to some experienced early childhood educators who were trained in traditional methods of observation. this difference can result in a lack of shared understanding among educators, and may create tension when it is assumed that the experienced educator should know more than the new educator. projects like this one, which included both new and experienced early childhood educators, recognize that the professional development needs for educators are ongoing, just as they are for teachers in the public school system. connection to community participants in the study talked about their increased connection to people, knowing they could call on others for help, and feeling part of a community of support. one participant shared the perspective that it was important to connect and hear from others, beyond the workplace: “i think that in our field it’s really important to have connections with other educators, and especially outside of your workplace. i think it’s important to have other perspectives and opportunities to connect with people.” and it was not just new educators who appreciated the connection to community. experienced educators spoke about the importance of having someone to call on in situations such as being in a new role. one participant said: “i was opening my own business and [through the project] had the support from other more experienced directors or administrators.” this connection to community is highly important given the nature of the work. the ece workplace can be one where isolation exists due to several reasons. sometimes new early childhood educators are viewed as being “licensed and ready to go” (doan, 2014). other times, early childhood educators are so busy that there is little time for interaction or planning among educators. this kind of pace can result in burnout if the needs of the educators go unnoticed (manlove, 1993). the work of an educator is both rewarding and incredibly taxing, and the work itself is always changing in its complexity (urban, 2010). this constant change is a rationale for the need for winter/hiver 2019 74 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research support. feeling a part of something, that one is not completely alone, can do a lot to sustain individual educators, as well as the ece field. this is a case of value. in one study, an educator recognized a system of “triage” where children’s and family’s needs are first and educators’ needs are last (doan, 2014). while one can understand the importance of an ongoing commitment to meeting the needs of children and families, when are the educators’ needs met? who addresses their need for professional development? being part of a community of support is hugely important, especially when one considers the reality that some workplaces are not places of support. some participants spoke about their experiences in workplaces that were anything but supportive. some participants described managers who reportedly did little to build up the staff, relying instead on belittling and negativity. while schools within a community are connected through the school system, which includes a particular school district, many early learning programs operate independently, so where does an early childhood educator go if there is an issue? add the complexity of educators living in a small community and there can be worry about the educator’s reputation. additionally, the wages are low and the cost of education is high, all of which can add up to pressure to either stay in a challenging situation or leave the field. increased knowledge as mentioned previously, the professional development that was offered in the pilot project was based entirely on what participants said they wanted. this included topics such as how to support children and families experiencing separation and/or divorce; how to be a mentor to new students/staff; how to give feedback; leadership: how to be a team leader; and how to support toddler development in a safe environment. this responsiveness of the professional development was something participants reported as important and appreciated. i think there is something significant about the way the professional development was chosen and offered. in a field where early childhood educators do not have a lot of power or control due to regulations, government, licensing, parent perceptions and societal expectations or perceptions, this project indicates the importance of valuing their expertise and recognizing their ability to determine and ask for what they need and want with regard to professional development. the participants identified practical needs, and through the professional development, new knowledge was learned that could be applied directly. one participant described it this way: “the professional development and especially the group discussions are resulting in talking about and implementing more positive ways of guiding certain behaviours.” another participant spoke about the importance of the professional development being responsive to what they wanted: “i really enjoyed the professional development because she really listened to what we wanted and she followed through on what we were asking.” malcolm knowles and colleagues (2012) advocated for learning to be offered at a time when people are motivated to learn, and this seems to have been important to the participants in this study. further, the project itself was with a closed group of educators who had agreed to conditions of confidentiality, something that was in place to ensure a sense of safety for educators and allow for open sharing of opinions. moreover, the structure of the project was intended to ensure the educators felt both respected and connected, which is important in terms of adult learners’ motivation (wlodkowski, 2004). one participant shared her experience of working at a grocery store, where she received five full days of training and support. she contrasted this with her experience in her first days on the job as an early childhood educator, where she was left on her own to do the job, with little support and no on-the-job training to speak of: i am working at grocery store, too. i get five orientation trainings. i have orientation, then i have five shifts for my training, right? but here, when we go in the field, we are not getting any training. they orient us on the first day that this is the system. this is the opening. this is closing. this is going like this, follow this. and you need to learn every kid’s name, you need winter/hiver 2019 75 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to talk to their parents, you need to make relationship with those kids, and then you make relationship with them, you move to another room, and make relationship with them. so this is like this, this is ongoing process. this participant’s experience speaks to the overwhelming nature of the work with early learning programs. this finding resonates with a study by shelley nicholson and stuart reifel (2011) where educators were left to figure things out on their own. new educators are rarely given the opportunity to ease into the workplace, nor are they provided with a mentor. while every province is different, in bc, once an early childhood educator has completed the required postsecondary training and completed 500 hours of work experience, they can apply to receive their early childhood educator certificate. this title is the same as what an experienced early childhood educator will hold. therein lies the difficulty: according to the province and licensing requirements, the new early childhood educator is “licensed and ready to go,” but looked at from a perspective that professional identity development takes time, the new educator is “qualified” but still needs support. in new zealand, for example, before receiving their full licence, new early childhood educators receive their “provisionally registered teacher status,” at which time they are also assigned a mentor who is charged with supporting them in meeting all of the expectations to enable them to receive their “fully registered teacher status.” this process takes two to five years. while i would argue for the need for more support from the province for new early childhood educators, induction projects like this one make a difference for new educators who continue to have learning needs while stepping into full-time positions of responsibility. teacher efficacy participants identified isolation and/or a negative work environment as factors related to teacher efficacy, and they spoke of the importance of having a community of support that can offer different perspectives. one participant shared her view about the importance of educators feeling valued: “one of the reasons why eces burn out so quickly [is] they are overworked and they are not valued. and i think that peer mentorship will, having those constant valuing comments and support, it would sustain us a lot in this field.” participants also spoke about the way a negative work environment can lower educators’ confidence, but that being part of a community of support can make a difference: “you can become very, feel defeated after a while … it begins your burnout. it eats away at your confidence as an educator … so i think having a community like this … having a place on facebook you can go to and say ‘i really need an online hug today.’” the results of this study suggest that participation in a community of support has the capacity to impact educators positively. self-efficacy is related to an individual’s beliefs about their own power to create change (bandura, 1997). teacher efficacy refers to a teacher’s belief in their own ability to carry out teaching tasks with success (tschannen-moran, woolfolk hoy, & hoy, 1998). early childhood educators who have a strong sense of teacher efficacy are open to new ideas, are better able to plan, demonstrate greater enthusiasm for teaching, have a strong commitment to teaching, and are more likely to stay in the profession (ozgun, 2005). bandura (1997) claimed that mastery of an activity is one of the most powerful influences on efficacy because it provides “authentic evidence” about whether the person has the skills necessary to be successful or not (p. 80). this finding concurs with a study by knoblock and whittingdon (2002) who found that beginning teachers who received “positive feedback, support, guidance, and encouragement” were more confident and had higher efficacy (p. 332). further research into this impact would be useful. for example, do teacher efficacy, mentor efficacy, and community connections help to sustain practice and avoid burnout? recommendations for improvement participants offered many suggestions for ways the project could be improved. these included such ideas as winter/hiver 2019 76 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research increasing the online support through the use of a closed facebook site, using a private platform for discussion, and using facebook live to video professional development, which would allow participants to access when and where they are able. in addition, it was suggested that the project be opened up to the wider ece community in the area, including those in management. finally, participants shared a desire for a more structured setup for peermentor matches. the project is currently being revised to include all of the above suggestions. limitations of the study because this study investigated a small pilot project, the findings, while useful, are not generalizable to other contexts. furthermore, this study used a small number of participants who self-selected themselves for participation. further research is advisable. discussion the results from this study suggest that both new and experienced early childhood educators can benefit from a peer mentoring program of support. similar findings were shown in a program in worcester, england, where participants were supported by critical friends (murray, 2006). furthermore, the professional development offered in this pilot project was successful in part because it was chosen based on what participants wanted. this is significant because it shows the importance of the program being responsive to individuals. this demonstrates the importance of ensuring adults are motivated to learn, as articulated in knowles et al.’s adult learning theory (2012), where adults “become ready to learn when their life situation creates a need to know” (p. 192). moreover, this professional development happened within the context of an induction program, so the people attending the professional development opportunities continued to be involved with one another in what could be described as a community of practice. the professional development opportunities allowed the participants to form a community of practice outside of the workplace where they gained competence in the ways of acting, speaking, and being in the community. rather than taking part in a workshop with educators one is unfamiliar with, all of the components of the pilot project took place with the same people, and relationships developed over time. some participants shared examples of how they took the learning from a particular workshop or discussion to the workplace for further dialogue. the same occurred for visits to early learning programs; in one case participants shared how coworkers talked about the ideas they saw on the visit and then made changes to their outdoor environment because of it. this result supports the notion that professional development should not be a stand-alone event, but may be more effective if it is revisited over time with colleagues (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). in this project, the community of practice was modelled after an apprenticeship model (lave and wenger, 1991) where early childhood educators could learn what it means to be a practicing early childhood educator. it was hoped that through participation, educators would develop their professional identity and gain a sense of belonging. communities of practice like the one that developed in this pilot project are described as being participant driven, with educators choosing to participate. this approach contrasts with top-down approaches often found in professional learning communities (dufour, 2004). in this project, the participants were the ones who suggested the professional development, and they were in the driver’s seat in terms of what was discussed. the structure of the project was built on the premise that early childhood educators know what they need and should be valued, and, as mentioned previously, are seen as active, contributing agents participating in the coconstruction of knowledge. another implication from this study is the concept of increased teacher efficacy and mentor efficacy. both of these concepts, which originate from bandura (1997), have to do with one’s beliefs about one’s abilities to teach or to mentor. participants spoke about their confidence increasing as they participated in the peer mentoring project: confidence in their role as an early childhood educator and confidence to both ask for and give peer support. winter/hiver 2019 77 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research further research into the effects of teacher efficacy and mentor efficacy on educator retention is advised, especially given that participants suggested the importance of being connected to supportive educators in a profession that can be isolating due to working independently and/or in an environment where they do not feel supported. the results from this project indicate that it does not take a lot to support educators. early childhood educators need time and space. this is not complicated, nor does it have to require a lot of money. but sadly, it is not something that early childhood educators can assume they will receive. while school teachers receive time to plan and have access to paid professional development, early childhood educators typically do not. while much needs to change, not a lot has to change to make a big difference. one participant said it this way: i am very grateful for this project. you know, i feel from my perspective it’s kind of a bit of a catalyst perhaps to bringing some change into our practice, as far as mentorship goes and supporting new educators and students, whomever, one another. conclusion research into the continued professional development of early childhood educators is of value to new and experienced early childhood educators. within a work environment where one cannot assume access to professional development or adequate support, a pilot project like this demonstrates a way to make a positive difference, which is particularly important at this moment in bc given that the new provincial government is on the cusp of providing “additional investments in the early childhood educator workforce through training, education, and fair wages” (john horgan, personal communication, july 18, 2017). more work is to be done in this area, and i hope to replicate the project in a larger community. collaborative work like this, among early childhood educators, university faculty, and early learning program directors, helps to build both research capacity and connection between research and early childhood educators. i will end with the words of a participant: i think that the experiences in this pilot project is another way to reinforce that community of educators, and the support for one another, and to be creative and talk about ways to have self-care, and have sustainability, and overcome some of those structural barriers…. i think it’s a very valuable project. winter/hiver 2019 78 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research acknowledgements i wish to thank the early childhood educators who took part in this pilot induction project, without whom this research would not have been possible. in addition, i offer my thanks to my graduate research assistant, aksa mughal. references aitken, h., ferguson, p. b., mcgrath, f., piggot-irvine, e., & ritchie, j. 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(n.d.). investigating quality project. retrieved from http://www.web.uvic.ca/~eyrd/ images/pdfs/iqproject.pdf university of british columbia. (2017). the new teacher mentoring project. retrieved from http://teach.educ.ubc.ca/the-new-teachermentoring-project/ urban, m. (2010). dealing with uncertainty: challenges and possibilities for the early childhood profession. in c. dalli & m. urban (eds.), professionalism in early childhood education and care: international perspectives, (pp. 4–21). abingdon, uk: routledge. vander ven, k. (1988). pathways to professional effectiveness for early childhood educators. in b. spodek, o. saracho, & d. peters (eds.), professionalism and the early childhood practitioner (pp. 137–160). new york, ny: teachers college press. wenger, e. c., & snyder, w. m. (2000). communities of practice: the organizational frontier. harvard business review, 78(1), 139–146. winstead fry, s. (2010). the analysis of an unsuccessful novice teacher’s induction experiences: a case study presented through layered account. the qualitative report, 15(5), 1164–1190. wlodkowski, r. j. (2004). strategies to enhance adult motivation to learn. in m. w. galbraith (ed.), adult learning methods: a guide for effective instruction (3rd ed.; pp. 91–112). malabar, fl: krieger. winter/hiver 2019 111 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research learning collectives with/in sites of practice: beyond training and professional development kathleen kummen and b. denise hodgins kathleen kummen is both an instructor in the school of education and childhood studies and chair of the centre for inquiry and innovation in childhood studies at capilano university on the unceded territorial lands of the squamish and tsleil-waututh first nations. she has worked in the early years field for over 25 years holding a variety of positions, including early childhood educator, child life therapist, and child care licencing officer. kathleen’s work draws on the reconceptualist movement in early childhood education, postfoundational theory in early childhood, and exploring theory and practice in the education of preservice educators. email: kkummen@capilanou.ca b. denise hodgins is the pedagogical consultant for the ontario centre of excellence for early years and child care, a co-director in the bc early childhood pedagogy network, and the pedagogist and lead researcher at university of victoria child care services on the unceded territorial lands of the lkwungen-speaking peoples. her research interests include gender and care as materialdiscursive phenomena and the implications that common worlds research and pedagogy hold for early childhood. email: denise.hodgins@uwo.ca this article shares the practice conditions and experiences of educators and student educators in a collaborative initiative that extended a professional development project in british columbia called the investigating quality (iq) project, which began in 2005. in one of the iq project’s sites, formal involvement in the project grew to include a partnership between an early childhood education (ece) program and their educators’ ongoing professional learning and an ece training institution and its preparation of student educators. as the iq project’s coordinator/evaluator (denise) and the university ece program’s coordinator (kathleen), we share the iq project’s model of pedagogical development—and the specificities of the collaborative initiative that emerged within the project—as an example of professional learning that is embedded in local contexts and works to challenge bounded, linear hierarchies (i.e., of the ece student, educator entering practice, and experienced educator). drawing on a report published by eurofound, michel vandenbroeck and colleagues peeters, urban, and lazzari (2016) list four factors for successful continuous professional development: • a coherent pedagogical framework or learning curriculum that builds on research and addresses local needs • the active involvement of practitioners in the process of importing education practice enacted within their settings this article describes an initiative that extended the investigating quality (iq) project’s model of pedagogical development to a partnership between local ece programs and their ongoing professional learning and an ece training institution and its preparation of student educators. we begin with an overview of the project and pedagogical development model, describing how it conceptualizes and promotes professional learning as coconstructed in socio-material-historical-cultural-political contexts. we follow this with an analysis of the model’s three key conditions: inquirybased learning, making learning visible, and pedagogical facilitation support. we conclude with considerations for what this model of pedagogical development might mean for the ece profession. key words: early childhood education; professional development; early childhood teacher education; pedagogical practices; collective learning winter/hiver 2019 112 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research • a focus on the practice-based learning taking place in constant dialogue with colleagues, parents, and local communities • the provision of enabling working conditions, such as the availability of paid hours for non-contact time (e.g., for professional development) and the presence of a mentor or coach who facilitates practitioners’ reflection in reference groups. in this article we present the iq project’s model as an example of an initiative that has aimed to facilitate these four factors in local communities of practices. second, we examine the collaborative initiative that developed within the larger iq project as a possible pathway for moving beyond training and professional development as isolated, single events completed over a set, singular period of time. this collaboration highlights how bringing ece training programs and ongoing professional development together within a situated collective of learning enhances the professional learning of students and educators at diverse places in their practice, which consequently contributes to children’s lives and futures. we begin with an overview of the iq project to provide a detailed description of how professional learning is conceptualized, promoted, and facilitated through the project. this is followed by an analysis of the collaboration between the ece program and the ece training institutions to demonstrate the iq project’s model for promoting and implementing pedagogical development as coconstructed becomings situated in socio-material-historicalcultural-political contexts. in this analysis we look at three key conditions for living such a practice: inquiry-based learning, making learning visible, and pedagogical facilitation support. we conclude with some considerations of what this model of pedagogical development might produce when we move beyond the training and professional development of early childhood educators as a defined, finite period of time or a single, isolated event. overview of the investigating quality project the investigating quality (iq) project in british columbia began in 2005 in an effort to broaden and deepen discussions about quality in early learning and care (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2005, 2011; pence & paciniketchabaw, 2006). the project has grown a model of pedagogical development based on international theories and research that promotes the active engagement of early childhood educators in critical reflection and actions as integral to the formation of sustainable and innovative ece environments (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013; rinaldi, 2006). this model utilizes monthly learning circles (lcs) in each site for groups of educators in the community to come together to critically reflect on their established and emerging practice through pedagogical narrations (government of british columbia, 2008b; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliott, & sanchez, 2015). pedagogical facilitators lead lc discussions about contemporary theoretical perspectives related to the field and various approaches to curriculum and pedagogy (e.g., experimental, situated, innovative, responsive). pedagogical facilitators connect and share resources with the participating educators in regular centre visits and through online spaces to support the educators’ process of enacting their ongoing critical reflections and the lc discussions in practice. this model has been shaped by 12 years of iq project practice and research (paciniketchabaw & hodgins, 2017; for evaluation reports see http://www.veronicapaciniketchabaw.com/reports/). during the 2016–2017 academic year, the iq project took place at sites in three locations in bc, with a pedagogical facilitator supporting a cluster of ece programs in each site. one of these sites is made up of a cluster of programs within a large nonprofit child care society. at the time of writing, three of the society’s 3to 5-year-old classrooms had participated in the iq project for six years, and a fourth classroom (a toddler program) had participated for the last three years. this society also supports student educators through practicum placements for a local university’s ece program, and in 2016 an opportunity arose to bring these two pedagogical development pathways winter/hiver 2019 113 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research together in a more concerted way. the pedagogical facilitator who works in this site is also teaching faculty within the university’s ece program, and for the 2016–2017 academic year the university contributed to the iq project by financially supporting the pedagogical facilitator role as a teaching section over two terms. with the support of the university, the ece program was motivated to participate because the project’s practices are consistent with the department’s belief that student educators should be learning with/in, not learning about, pedagogies (kummen, 2014; lenz taguchi, 2010). to move toward this goal, the department piloted having a consistent faculty member in the role of pedagogical facilitator who works with educators in the field and student educators over the course of an academic year. the society contributed to this new relationship by taking two of the university’s practicum students in each of the project’s participating four centres, and by creating space for 10 students to be in the centre one morning a week as a part of an observing and recording course and 26 students to be in one of the centres once a week for five weeks to participate in a short-term project as part of a curriculum course. for consistency, these courses were also part of the pedagogical facilitator’s teaching load. the analysis that we share focuses on this iq project site with the university-community partnership. the qualitative data we draw on in this article is from the project’s end-of-year evaluation surveys and focus group discussions with participating educators for this site, as well as the university’s student feedback as part of their completed course assignments and unsolicited emails to the ece program coordinator and the faculty dean. (re)conceptualizing professional learning as noted, the iq project developed as an initiative to broaden and deepen discussions about quality in ece, which included the promotion and active engagement of educators in critical reflection and situated (localized) pedagogical actions. the project leans on the reconceptualizing early childhood movement, which brought postfoundational theories to ece that challenged the existence of singular truths and the notion of universality (dahlberg et al., 2013; pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2005). this work to rethink early childhood not only reimagined childhood itself, but critically challenged the role of ece institutions and professions, and ultimately the image and role of the early childhood educator, in upholding particular, narrowly defined notions of quality pedagogical practices. grounded in a reconceptualist framework, the project is built on the understanding that quality ece is the result of the interaction of diverse physical, pedagogical, and cultural forces and factors. the iq project draws on scholarship that views quality beyond dominant quality indicators (e.g., regulations that set standards for structural factors such as group size, adult-child ratios, and training levels of caregivers, as well as levels of literacy, numeracy and school preparedness in young children). leaning on this scholarship that positions quality as understood historically and across local contexts and diverse cultures, the project is designed to open up spaces to consider local voices and contextual factors as integral influences on quality in early years programming (dahlberg et al., 2013; osgood, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2011). with an understanding that quality involves the ongoing shaping of positive early childhood environments, it is critical to develop educators’ pedagogical learning that addresses these diverse forces and factors. this approach to educators’ pedagogical development and practice corresponds with social constructivist conceptualizations of professional learning where (a) learners are recognized as bringing prior learning and experience to any “new” learning opportunity, (b) learning is understood as taking place over time rather than in isolated moments, and (c) learners are supported to critically reflect on their current and developing knowledge (bowne, cutler, debates, gilkerson & stremmel, 2010; cochrane-smith & lytle, 2001). utilizing a social constructivist lens, the iq project recognizes the education of young children as a political, situated, complex, and always emerging practice. learning to teach, both initially and continuously, is more than acquiring winter/hiver 2019 114 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the technological skills that help children reach predetermined goals; it is to continuously explore what it means to teach/live/practice in an unstable, unpredictable, always emerging world (hodgins, 2014; kummen, 2014; lenz taguchi, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015; thompson, 2015). building on their previous writings, cochransmith and lytle (2006) argue strongly that “the model of teacher development as training and retraining is retrograde and is inconsistent with contemporary understandings of teaching and learning” (pp. 687–688). they assert that teacher education should not be a training event, but that the focus should be on learning, which includes attending to the beliefs, values, attitudes, and knowledges that student teachers bring to teacher education and educators in practice bring to their early learning classrooms. they write that students and teachers need to see that teaching requires the intentional forming and reforming of frameworks for understanding practice. it is about how students and their teachers construct the curriculum, commingling their experiences, their cultural and linguistic resources, and their interpretive frameworks. teaching also entails how teachers’ actions are infused with complex and multilayered understandings of learners, culture, class, gender, literacies, social issues, institutions, “herstories” and histories, communities, materials, texts, and curricula. (p. 691) with such an understanding, conditions for professional learning as an action research process to be carried out within educators’ situated contexts of learning are needed (vandenbroeck et al., 2016). the iq project has endeavoured to generate such conditions within learning-collective spaces. with the project’s collaboration with the university and community ece programs in one of our geographical sites, this learning collective has been extended. it is imperative to stress that we use the term learning collective, not as a label for a group of individuals (a noun) but rather as an ongoing knowing, being, and doing (a verb) of collaborative pedagogical practices. in the analysis that follows, we explore conditions for living professional learning as a situated collaborative pedagogical practice. becoming educators with/in learning collectives veronica pacini-ketchabaw and alan pence (2011) strongly argue for early childhood education to make space for more contextually situated curricula and pedagogies that reflect the lives of 21st-century children. many of the educators who participated in the iq project indicated that being a part of this project had strengthened their pedagogical and curricular choices (pacini-ketchabaw & hodgins, 2017). participants noted the importance of being a part of an ece learning collective, where they can share practice moments and think with innovative ideas together with other educators, to keep them engaged in their own pedagogical development. as one of the university-community partnership site participants described, “being in the project has helped me to discover my own values and beliefs and in turn i am able to be open to hear others’ perspectives and ideas, deepening my knowledge and understanding of quality ece” (educator participant survey response). the educators who participated in the university-community collaboration also reported that this new formalized collaboration was very successful and that there were tremendous benefits to bringing together what are often separate entities in the ece profession. in the sections that follow we explore the success of the iq project’s pedagogical development model by attending to three key practices the model supports within a collective of learning: inquiry-based learning, making learning visible, and pedagogical facilitation support. in these subsections we primarily focus on the project engagement and feedback of the participants within the university-community collaboration to highlight that (a) the model is as relevant for early professional learning as it is for ongoing professional learning, (b) bringing together educator training and professional development enhances everyone’s winter/hiver 2019 115 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research professional learning, and (c) there is value in creating conditions for pedagogical development within learning collectives as part of the culture of ece practice. inquiry-based learning as described in the introduction, vandenbroeck and colleagues (2016) identified four factors for successful continuous professional development initiatives. the first two factors they included put forward as necessary conditions “a coherent pedagogical framework or learning curriculum that builds upon research and addresses local needs” and “the active involvement of practitioners in the process of importing education practice enacted within their settings” (p. 4). they summarized that “professional development initiatives based on research-based enquiry or action research can help staff reflect on their pedagogical practice and therefore contribute to its ongoing development” (p. 4). the iq project’s pedagogical development model supports the continued implementation of the province’s early learning framework (government of british columbia, 2008a, 2008b) and uses a participatory action research model to engage early childhood practitioners to reflect on knowledge, experiences, values, and pedagogy (macnaughton & hughes, 2008). the framework outlines key goals within four areas of early learning, but because “there are no preset ways to promote” these, educators are not provided with a step-by-step blueprint for practice. rather, they are provided “questions for reflection to guide people who care for and educate children” (government of british columbia 2008a, p. 17). this reflective process generates a richer, contextually meaningful and relevant curriculum for early childhood educators that supports diverse understandings of quality care for children in bc. in the iq project model, educators are supported to design, execute, and evaluate inquiries or projects within their practice settings as an integral part of their contextually meaningful and relevant curriculum. these are initiated and implemented by educators in collaboration with their program. in bc, the ministry of education promotes project-based learning for both early and school-age learning, and several other provinces in canada so the same (e.g., alberta, ontario, saskatchewan). glenda macnaughton and patrick hughes (2008) explain that “the roots of inquiry-based learning lie in john dewey’s problem posing approach to learning in education; and to constructivist and socio-constructivist theories of learning that emphasize our capacity to construct our own knowledge about the world and to make new meanings about it” (p. 51). in reggio emilia the term project, or progettazione, rather than inquiry, is used “to describe the multiple levels of action ... that are carried out in the dialogue between children and adults” (rinaldi, 2006, p. 132). educators in the iq project are encouraged to explore, experiment, and learn together through collaborative inquiries lived in their practices. inquiry work is shared and discussed in the programs (e.g., with the children and families, in team meetings) and at the project learning circles. inquiries/ projects are intended to support both children’s and adults’ learning (for examples, see hodgins, 2014; kummen, 2014; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015; thompson, 2015). participants reported that their practice with inquiry-based learning, being a teacher-as-researcher (rinaldi, 2006; lenz taguchi, 2010), was strengthened. one participating educator described that her involvement in the project had shifted her understanding of quality in ece by giving her “a better understanding on how projects open up more avenues to children’s learning” (educator participant survey response). another noted, “now i think ‘quality’ must include engaged teacher-researchers who reflect together (not just about enviro, curriculum, etc.)” (educator participant survey response, underline in participant response). educators pointed out that this approach is as much about learning more about and supporting children’s learning as it is about investigating educators’ own. one educator commented: “for me the quality in ece is consistently and continually looking to grow our understanding of children’s learning and how we can expand their and our own thinking; a culture of inquiry” (educator participant survey response). winter/hiver 2019 116 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research adding the university ece students into the project’s participating programs changed the collective thinking. having the student educators join the educators’ inquiry work with the children opened up new spaces to extend curriculum activities. one of the program’s educators commented that they “could have another thread of the inquiry going and gain more perspectives” (educator participant survey response), while another said: “i try more new things, we are extending projects longer, we get more new ideas” (educator participant survey response), as a result of having the student educators join their projects. student educators brought their understandings and curiosities, including their postsecondary classroom readings, activities, and discussions, to the ece program. as one educator reported, the “student-educators always bring their own, unique perspectives to the centre, which helps us keep in touch with the latest practices as well as to see things from their point of view” (educator participant survey response). intentionally bringing the student educators into the project’s inquiry-based learning collective is congruent with avgitidou, pnevmatikos, and likomitrou’s (2013) argument that the “opportunities for preservice teachers to systematically observe children in educational settings, followed by discussion of specific examples from the observations and reflection on their thoughts, assumptions, and interpretations, [are] crucial for a transformation of framework theory to take place” (p. 402). one student educator participant eloquently and succinctly summed up her experience by stating, “i saw theory making in motion” (student educator feedback). another student educator articulated that practicum was more than practising technologies of teaching in the comment “to me, doing practicum is a process of learning” (student educator feedback). making learning visible the third key factor identified by vandenbroeck and colleagues (2016) for successful professional learning is a focus on practice-based learning that takes place in constant dialogue with colleagues, parents, and local communities. both the iq project model and the bc early learning framework (elf) are predicated on the understanding that investigating, experimenting with, and extending children’s and adults’ learning through inquiry-based curriculum and pedagogies in their own programs generates contextually relevant ece environments. these investigations, experimentations, and extensions are supported through pedagogical narrations, a tool for engaging in critically reflective dialogue about pedagogical practice that is often referred to as pedagogical documentation (government of british columbia, 2008b; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). described as an “ongoing, cyclical process that occurs in and with a community of learners,” it is a process that involves observing and documenting moments of practice; interpreting documentation individually and collectively to make learning visible; deepening the interpretation through sharing and making public the description; linking the narration to pedagogical practice; and evaluating, planning, and starting the process again (government of british columbia, 2008b, p. 13). pedagogical facilitators in the iq project encourage and support participating educators to produce, reflect with, and discuss pedagogical narrations within their practice. student educators who participated in the universitycommunity collaboration produced and engaged with pedagogical narrations as part of the project programs’ practice of inquiry-based learning, and as part of their university ece program’s course readings, assignments, and classroom discussions. while often described as a process for making children’s learning visible, pedagogical narration is also an avenue for making educators’ professional learning visible (hodgins, 2014; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015; thompson, 2015) and student educators’ learning visible (bowne et al., 2010; kummen, 2014; lenz taguchi, 2010). bowne and colleagues’ (2010) three-year research study with ece students, which explored collaborative dialogue and documentation as tools of pedagogical inquiry, strongly put forward that ece teacher education needs to provide opportunities for students to “talk with one another to exchange ideas, work on problems, revise thinking, share understanding, accommodate when differences arise and create documentation pieces to make learning visible” (p. 57). by making aspects of a program’s inquiry work visible, student educators and the pedagogical facilitator could (more easily) be brought into the program’s collaborative inquiry. in the winter/hiver 2019 117 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research words of a participant, “it was great that students picked up on current interests in our program and extended our explorations on a long-term basis” (educator participant survey response). by engaging in pedagogical narrations, participants reported an increased understanding of their own and each other’s practice choices. one educator stated: the project has helped me to listen to others and to reflect on future actions before jumping in. having an understanding of those around me and how decisions affect them, as well as the work around me, changes the way i move forward. (educator participant survey response) these opportunities for dialogue (e.g., during lcs, centre visits, and team meetings) enhanced educators’ abilities and comfort levels to speak about their pedagogical practice. one educator said, “i feel a lot more comfortable when sharing/expressing my thoughts/ideas. i feel that our team has become a lot closer and we have been able to work together/reflect upon ideas/discuss challenges/assist one another” (educator participant survey response). another educator described “definitely asking educators more questions in their projects & contributing more of [her] thoughts ” (educator participant survey response). making pedagogical understandings and choices public within a learning collective not only supports student educators’ and educators’ ongoing pedagogical development and practice, but is integral to building a culture of practice that can articulate, deliver, and advocate for rich, contextually meaningful, and relevant curriculum and pedagogies that support diverse understandings of quality care (dahlberg et al., 2013; lenz taguchi, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). pedagogical facilitation support the fourth factor for successful continuous professional development initiatives that vandenbroeck and colleagues (2016) identified is “the provision of enabling working conditions, such as the availability of paid hours for noncontact time and the presence of a mentor or coach who facilitate[s] practitioners’ reflection in reference groups” (p. 4). a key feature of the iq project’s pedagogical development model is the community pedagogical facilitator position. pedagogical facilitators are responsible for helping to create and sustain situated quality ece programs through supporting educators to (a) continue to implement the bc elf; (b) design, execute, and evaluate inquiries/ projects within their practice settings, and (c) engage in critically reflective dialogue about pedagogical practice through pedagogical narrations. pedagogical facilitators play a role similar to that of pedagogistas in the centres of reggio emilia, italy: immersing themselves in the centres, supporting the educators’ efforts to engage with children and families in innovative, critically reflective practice, and extending the practice of the educators and the children by introducing new ideas and materials (rinaldi, 2006). one of the ripple effects of the iq project’s work since 2005 is the take-up of the pedagogical facilitator role in some larger institutional settings in bc (e.g., university of victoria child care services, ubc child care services, capilano university’s children’s centre) and the development of university ece courses for student learning about this role (i.e., capilano university educ 379 and educ 380, and university of victoria cyc 481). participant educators in all three of the project’s geographical sites commented that the pedagogical facilitator was instrumental in supporting their practice, helping them to deepen their critical reflection and confidence and think on a deeper level (pacini-ketchabaw & hodgins, 2017). within the university-program initiative, one participant educator described it thus: having the pedagogical facilitator / university instructor helped us adopt an inquiry stance along with the children and create a culture of inquiry. she helped out and taught us how to observe and document the children’s thinking, ideas, and learning and how to interpret and analyze what we’ve noticed, how to express our own thinking and ideas as we interact with winter/hiver 2019 118 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research children. (educator participant survey response) many of the participating educators expressed how valuable this pedagogical facilitator role was in supporting the children’s, student educators’, and participating educators’ learning in the classroom. several educators in the university-community collaboration pointed out that because the pedagogical facilitator had been deeply involved in their classrooms, she could better prepare students who were joining their environment. for example, one said: “i felt the students got a lot of support from her and they come in with background history of what the children have already been exploring. therefore, we were also able to work with the students right away” (educator participant survey response). another participating educator wrote that this enabled student educators to better “engage with our current curriculum explorations [and] more deeply connect with what we were doing” (educator participant survey response). participating educators also described that the “dual role” of the pedagogical facilitator in the university-community collaboration helped facilitate educators and student educators in the program learning from each other more than if they were working in a practicum on their own. when asked how this collaboration with the university’s training program impacted their practice, one educator responded that it “encourages reflective practice among our team as we observe student-educators and a facilitator practicing the latest research and learning tools. it also enhances our program and staff ’s professional development as we support students in their learning” (educator participant survey response). another wrote: i liked that there was a dual role and felt that i was learning alongside of her and the students. having a pedagogical facilitator in these roles enabled me to really be open to new ideas as well as be open to the perspectives of others too. (educator participant survey response) student educators also commented that being part of the learning collective with educators and the pedagogical facilitator (their university instructor) was integral to their professional learning. one student educator noted, “they guided me to make wise decisions that reflected my values and beliefs. i would not have survived my practicum without the support and guidance from my mentor teachers and [the pf/student’s instructor]” (student educator feedback). one student educator shared this letter in an unsolicited email to the coordinator of the department and dean about her experience in the learning collective: through this learning environment, i was able to explore my potential as an educator. this meant i experienced first-hand the struggles and immense satisfaction that comes with being involved in project based learning with children. i am sharing this experience with you because of the importance the pedagogical facilitator played in the process. her role was important for two reasons. first, she provided support to the [site] educators by helping them develop a curriculum congruent with [the training institution’s] pedagogical approach to early childhood educations. second, she provided weekly constructive feedback with regards to the direction of my educational development and future project explorations. her presence and influence made it possible for myself and the other educators to work alongside each other in a cocollaborative learning environment. there was no hierarchical system our role as educators [was] to learn with and from each other and to work together to further the children’s learning. in seeing the positive impact this experience has had on my practice, i strongly encourage [the training institution] to continue investing in having pedagogical facilitators at practicum placement sites. (student educator feedback) the university-program collaboration extended the role of the postsecondary instructor in ways that respond to winter/hiver 2019 119 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the calls made by researchers to provide student educators with intentional and guided opportunities to reflect on their observations of and practices with young children in ece settings (avgitidou et al., 2013; bowne et al, 2010). the value of extending the learning collective to more intentionally include student educators with educators and the pedagogical facilitator/instructor in practice settings is summed up by the following feedback from one of the educator participants in this initiative. the relationship between the facilitator/educators and students was a positive change in the way we look at students and the support we receive from the university. being in the field of ece for 20 years i have had many opportunities to observe the relationships between educators and students. these observations were mainly negative with feelings of resentment, not being supported, no educator given to being a mentor educator for students and lack of student preparedness were concerns of the educators. the implementation of this project has changed the way students and educators work within the program and with children. some things we did to create change: facilitator working w/programs and with students; dialogue w/educators about their concerns limitations, understanding of working w/students, met to talk about what it could look like and how they could be supported; implementation of process from university to centre, and centre to program and student. this has created a collaborative environment where educators are feeling supported, students are welcomed and included for the value and learning they bring to the program, and the society feels as if they are gaining from the experience. win, win, win for all involved. (educator participant comment written on the back of the survey) conclusion we have presented a model of pedagogical development for educators’ professional learning where pedagogical facilitators support a cluster of community ece programs and their educators and practicum students. it is a model grounded in a social constructivist conceptualization of learning, a conceptualization that recognizes all learning as coconstructed with/in socio-material-historical-cultural-political relationships and contexts. with this understanding, professional learning, both initially and continuously, is understood as more than acquiring technological skills to help children and educators reach predetermined goals. it is an approach to pedagogy that hillevi lenz taguchi (2010) refers to as ethics of immanence and potentialities, an approach that aims to “transform educational practices so that they can be about challenging children’s, students’ and teachers’ potentialities and capacities to act and be inventive in the process of collaborative experimentation and production of concepts and knowing” (p. 177). engaging in pedagogical practices with this approach “does not treat pedagogical work as being exclusively about trying to get children, students, and teachers to reach pre-set goals or pre-set learning contents” (p. 177). rather, the concern for professional learning is how to support educators’ becoming-pedagogies in an unstable, unpredictable, always emerging world. we shared the iq project’s model of pedagogical development through learning collectives as an avenue to support becoming-pedagogies with/in sites of practice. with the university-community partnership that more deeply connected ece programs and their educators’ ongoing professional learning with an ece training institution and its preparation of student educators, the model’s extended learning collective reaches beyond traditional understandings and practices of educator training and professional development. in line with vandenbroeck and colleagues’ (2016) presentations of key factors for successful continuous professional development, we detailed the impact of the model’s three key conditions—inquiry-based learning, making learning visible, and pedagogical facilitation support—on educators and student educators who participated in the project. the participant responses winter/hiver 2019 120 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research speak of relationships and commitments that were strengthened as a result of their experiences doing early childhood education within this model of pedagogical development. through our analysis we have argued that the model is as relevant for early professional learning as it is for ongoing professional learning, and that bringing together student educator training and professional development initiatives enhances everyone’s professional learning. the project’s success is reflected in its accruing waitlist for participation and the university partner’s commitment to support a second pedagogical facilitator/instructor who will work with another cluster of programs and group of student educators. we have also presented the iq model as a provocation to consider how learning collectives can be(come) part of ece culture. over the past 12 years, the iq project has grown and researched a model of pedagogical development to foster professional learning as an ongoing action research process to be carried out within situated contexts; it has also demonstrated the value of supporting professional learning through local learning collectives (see http://www.veronicapaciniketchabaw.com/reports/). however, current conditions are such that access to such professional learning in bc is sporadic, limited by resources, and dependent on the goodwill of individuals or institutions. despite the best intentions of educators, advocates, and researchers, ultimately innovative initiatives are limited in scope without a cohesive, robust and fully integrated ece system (dahlberg et al., 2013; osgood, 2010; rinaldi, 2006; vandenbroeck et al., 2016). the iq project demonstrates the need to move beyond ece training and professional learning as individual responsibilities and single events to a collective culture of ece practice that is truly committed to the values espoused in the frameworks it creates and endorses. it is not our suggestion that this model is a panacea for early years practice. we recognize that the profession faces enormous challenges within piecemeal and underfunded ece systems in this province and beyond. yet, we believe that a commitment to learning collectives is a step in the right direction for creating conditions of possibility for professional becomings and flourishing 21st-century childhoods. winter/hiver 2019 121 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references avgitidou, s., pnevmatikos, d., & likomitrou, s. (2013). preservice teachers’ beliefs about childhood: challenges for a participatory early childhood education? journal of early childhood teacher education, 34(4), 390–404. doi:10.1080/10901027.2013.845633 bowne, m., cutler, k., debates, d., gilkerson, d., & stremmel, a. (2010). pedagogical documentation and collaborative dialogue as tools of inquiry for preservice teachers in early childhood education: an exploratory narrative. journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning, 10(2), 48–59. retrieved from http://josotl.indiana.edu/index cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. (2001). beyond certainty: taking an inquiry stance on practice. in a. lieberman & l. miller (eds.), teachers caught in the action: professional development that matters (pp. 45–58). new york, ny: teachers college. cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. l. (2006). troubling images of teaching in no child left behind. harvard educational review, 76(4), 668–697. dahlberg, g., moss, p., & pence, a. (2013). beyond quality in early childhood education and care: languages of evaluation (3rd ed.). new york, ny: routledge. government of british columbia. (2008a). british columbia early learning framework. victoria, bc: crown publications, queen’s printer for british columbia. retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/early_learning/pdfs/early_learning_framework.pdf government of british columbia. (2008b). understanding the british columbia early learning framework: from theory to practice. victoria, bc: crown publications, queen’s printer for british columbia. retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/early_learning/pdfs/ from_theory_to_practice.pdf hodgins, b. d. (2014). playing with dolls: (re)storying gendered caring pedagogies. international journal of child youth and family studies, 5(4.2), 782–807. kummen, k. (2014). when matter in the classroom matters: encounters with race in pedagogical conversations. international journal of child, youth, and family studies, 5(4.2), 808–825. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. new york, ny: routledge. macnaughton, g., & hughes, p. (2008). doing action research in early childhood studies. london, uk: open university press. osgood, j. (2010). reconstructing professionalism in ecec: the case for the “critically reflective emotional professional,” early years, 30(2), 119–133. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & hodgins, b. d. (2017). the community early learning and child care facilitators project: evaluation 2016–2017. retrieved from http://www.veronicapaciniketchabaw.com/reports/ pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliott, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: complexifying early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & pence, a. (2005). contextualizing the reconceptualist movement in canadian early childhood education. in a. pence & v. pacini-ketchabaw (eds.), canadian early childhood education: broadening and deepening discussion of quality (pp. 5–20). ottawa, on: canadian child care federation. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & pence, a. (2011). the postmodern curriculum: making space for historically and politically situated understandings. australasian journal of early childhood, 36(1), 4–8. pence, a., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2006). the investigating “quality” project: challenges and possibilities for canada. interaction, 20(3), 11–13. rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia. new york, ny: routledge. thompson, d. (2015). caring, dwelling, and becoming: stories of multiage child care (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from http://hdl. handle.net/1828/5939 winter/hiver 2019 122 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research vandenbroeck, m., peeters, j., urban, m. & lazzari, a. (2016). introduction. in m. vandenbroeck, m. urban, & j. peeters (eds.), pathways to professionalism in early childhood education and care, (pp. 1–14). london, uk: routledge. winter/hiver 2018 1 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research (re)encountering walls, tattoos, and chickadees: disrupting discursive tenacity pam whitty, jane hewes, sherry rose, patricia lirette, and lee makovichuk dr. pam whitty is a professor in the faculty of education at the university of new brunswick and co-director of the early childhood centre. she teaches graduate and postgraduate courses in early childhood, literacies, and critical studies. much of her curricular and literacies work over the part 27 years has been community-based action research informed by reconceptualist early childhood perspectives. email: whitty@unb.ca dr. jane hewes is associate dean in the faculty of education and social work at thompson rivers university. as co-principal investigator on the research team that wrote and developed flight: alberta’s early learning and care framework she brings expertise in participatory research methodologies, interest in critical, postfoundational early years pedagogies, and a commitment to valuing the knowledge that childcare educators bring to professional learning. dr. sherry rose is an associate professor at the university of new brunswick. she teaches graduate and postgraduate courses in the areas of early childhood, assessment, curriculum, critical literacies, and critical studies. she cocreates curriculum documents, materials, and workshops on a range of ece topics, and is committed to working collaboratively with ece educators across new brunswick. dr. patricia (tricia) lirette is a long-time faculty member in the early learning and child care diploma program at macewan university and currently holds the position of department chair of human services and early learning. she is co-principal investigator on the alberta curriculum framework research team. her other research interests include child and family policy and applying the lens of institutional ethnography to inquiry in elcc. lee makovichuk, med, is assistant professor with the department of human services and early learning at macewan university. her work as a co-writer and co-researcher of flight: alberta’s early learning and care framework and pedagogical mentoring work with early childhood educators has been inspiration for her doctoral studies. in this article, we describe our processes and findings as we theoretically reconceptualize three pedagogic encounters. working within a scholarly curriculum partnership across two canadian universities, we initiated our joint theoretical reconceptualizing of each encounter through the idea of a meeting place. a meeting place, as conceptualized by gunilla dahlberg and hillevi lenz taguchi (1994) and taken up by peter moss (2013), is theorized as “a place of encounter … a new space for participatory democratic practice” with possibilities for “democratically co-constructing new understandings—of the child, the educator, the school, learning and knowledge” (moss, p. 45). each of these encounters we share with you—“encountering the wall,” “encountering young tattooed parents,” and “encountering chickadees”—held significant meaning to children and adults in particular settings and programs. each encounter was initially theorized and enacted from within early childhood literature in areas that included multi-age groupings, parental engagement, and nature pedagogy, and then reconceptualized with alternative in this article, three pedagogic encounters— “encountering the wall,” “encountering young tattooed parents,” and “encountering chickadees”—conceptualized as curricular meeting places, are theoretically reconceptualized within alternative bodies of literature. theoretical reconceptualization revealed complexities of early childhood pedagogies and the tenacity of dominant discursive practices of developmentalism, constructed, in these instances, through age-segregated settings, parenting programs, and nature pedagogy. theoretical reconceptualizing of these encounters worked to disrupt embodied subjugations of age-segregated children, mothers and fathers, chickadees, educators, families, and researchers. key words: theoretical reconceptualization; meeting place; early childhood curriculum frameworks; pedagogical documentation; discursive tenacity winter/hiver 2018 2 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research bodies of literature. theoretical reconceptualizing for us, theoretical reconceptualizing within and across these encounters initially centred on collections of documented artifacts that detailed each encounter. as we jointly reengaged with these collections, we moved outside pedagogical research and into literature offering possibilities for us to see differently. for example, with “encountering the wall”—originally a project on citizenship, we looked to political and social literature on the meaning of walls themselves; for “encountering young tattooed parents” we moved out of the parent engagement literature and into literature on the meaning of tattoos; and with “encountering chickadees” within the forest, we moved away from nature pedagogy for young children and into literature on common worlding. our deliberate seeking out of other disciplinary theory worked to help us confront what we have come to call discursive tenacity—established, pervasive ways of thinking, acting, and being. in the case of these three encounters, the discursive tenacity of developmentalism can be seen with constructions of age segregation, parental engagement, and humancentric nature pedagogy for young children. with different theorizings, we came to see more clearly how particular practices worked to sustain developmental discursive practices in our everyday lives with young children, their families, the natural environment, and each other. we share these encounters and processes with you in this article. curriculum frameworks as productive spaces over the past decade, early childhood scholars within canada have been rethinking approaches to curriculum in the early years, situating canada within an international body of scholarship (ashton, 2014; hewes, whitty, et al., 2016; heydon & iannacci, 2008; pacini-ketchabaw, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015; pacini-ketchabaw & prochner, 2013). the production and implementation of provincial early learning and child care curriculum frameworks opens critical spaces for educational debate and democratic participation. and, as rachel langford (2010) points out, provincial early learning curriculum frameworks have opened up new directions in early childhood care and education in canada. while keeping in mind that pedagogical frameworks “cannot be thought of as innocent tools” (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2011, p. 6) we concur with emily ashton’s thinking that “recent pan-canadian uptake of curriculum frameworks and pedagogical documentation may incite counter possibilities and provocations with those of us working with young children” (abstract, p. 3). for us, our work with the ongoing uptake of curriculum frameworks and pedagogical encounters across two provinces entails an ethical responsibility to contest dominant discourses (moss, 2007). our efforts to theoretically reconceptualize each of these encounters made it possible to confront the tenacious thinking that sustains dominant discourses in our everyday work with young children, their families, and each other. in each of these encounters we question taken-for-granted practices and reimagine other relationalities. our hope is that these everyday examples may illuminate and inspire your practice and theorizing to think otherwise. with “encountering the wall,” early childhood faculty and educators took up the experimental movement of traversing and disrupting specific linguistic and material practices and their subsequent pedagogic effects. these particular effects contribute to fixing developmental identities of toddlers and 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. through close observation, dialogue, and critical revisiting of pedagogic documentation, faculty and educators uncovered assumptions within pedagogic practices that act to govern multi-age experiences. as a consequence, our collective framing of very young children shifted, from “troublesome toddlers” to active agentic citizens. in the case of “encountering the wall,” the wall is located within a university-based child care centre where partitions winter/hiver 2018 3 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research or walls typically divide children by age. this practice reiterates, very early in a young child’s life, the long-standing developmental rationale that children reach physical, cognitive, and/or emotional milestones at certain ages and therefore derive most collective benefit from being together with similarly aged peers. typically, walls are highly contested spaces. international walls that many of us are familiar with include the great wall of china, the berlin wall, the israeli west bank barrier, and the peace walls of northern ireland (hartwich, 2009; major, 2011). these walls are/were the material results of political and ideological decisions, often involving previous and ongoing conflict that effectively separate peoples. as well, different encounters with these same walls often result in graffiti and art making that speak to resistance and peace (mcatackney, 2011). the wall we encounter here in the child care centre was both a dividing wall and, prior to its removal, home to creative productions of the children on either side. although not as public as the great wall of china, the berlin wall, or the newly constructed migrant partitions that are being erected in parts of europe, walls in child care centres have their own politics and histories. “encountering young tattooed parents” draws on everyday practices that challenged educators’ beliefs about teenage mothers, fathers, and tattoos. theoretical reconceptualizing of this encounter centred on the affect produced by tattooed bodies and its intersections with views of particular groups of parents. patricia maccormack (2006) writes that “tattooed skin provokes response…. it demands engagement, whether the interlocutor is critical or celebratory of inked flesh” (p. 65). tattoos evoke a range of contradictory meanings, calling forth images of nazi germany and the holocaust, tribal cultures, the punk music scene, and gang culture. they may be associated with freedom and liberation, domination and terrorization, resistance, transgression, and belonging (johncock, 2012; langman, 2008; maccormack, 2006). tattoos and tattooing are growing in popularity among mainstream western youth and are often characterized as a transgressive act, or an expression of individual independence and self-identity, or “a way of claiming agency to resist domination” (langman, 2008, p. 657). sonja modesti (2008) claims “tattoos can be a disconcerting performance of ferocity, can signify conscientious radical self-definition, may signify sexual independence for women, and ultimately help people reclaim their physical bodies” (p. 202). maccormack (2006) argues that through tattooing, the “silenced” female body can “speak itself,” talking back to normative notions of the female body as defined by lack (pp. 66–67). in deepening the meaning of tattooing with this particular group of young mothers and fathers, we are drawn to theories that reach beyond the expression of individual agency toward the idea that tattooing is a “concurrent individual and social co-constitution” (johncock, 2012, p. 241). the body is a canvas for young people to “do identity,” and the act of tattooing is a “performative narrative” that embodies a story (modesti, 2008, p. 209). will johncock (2012, p. 242) challenges us to think beyond binary classifications of body modifications as natural or denaturalizing and to rethink tattooing as “inherently natural,” part of the “fluidity” of being bodied in the postmodern world. taken together, these notions open a space for listening differently to tattoos. “encountering chickadees” materialized from theoretical reconceptualizing of a classroom nature journal alongside a series of chickadee-child documentations. this particular encountering aims to imagine pedagogic shifts from humancentric thinking toward common worlds thinking. we draw on the work of affrica taylor and veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2015) in their articulation of moving toward a common world pedagogy of multispecies. these authors, working with/from donna haraway (1997, 2008) and others (bennett, 2010; rose, 2011; rose et al., 2012), name the anthropocene as a moment of pedagogical opportunity. this transformational opportunity disrupts pedagogy as usual (p. 4), creating a space where we can reimagine what it means to be human, including rethinking agency and reenvisioning children’s, adults’, and more-than-human relations with/ in the world. reimaging our complex interspecies relationships is critical at this particular moment, in part due to winter/hiver 2018 4 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the irreversible impacts humans have had and are having on the earth (nxumalo, 2016). in reconceptualizing this encounter, we consider constraints of humancentric practices, and possibilities of learning from a more-than-human perspective. doing so shifts the gaze of early childhood pedagogy from a preoccupation with individualized humancentric learning, resituating children and ourselves back within ethically entangled interspecies common worlds. in this encounter, we investigate with children how our lives are already entangled with other species, including the black-capped chickadee, and the university forest. what does it mean to embrace the common worlding as a pedagogical opportunity within the processes of pedagogical documentation? how is it possible to decentre the human when human watching and human doing is inherent to early childhood pedagogic documentation? how can we as educators rethink our learning relationships with other species, including our ethical interspecies and intergenerational responsibilities? in each of these encounters, we strive to demonstrate how invigorating localized curriculum productions and participations, and troubling dominating discourses that govern educational relationships, helps us collectively to shift our pedagogic gazes (foucault, 1991). our intent is to make way for reimagining childhoods, relationships, and learning in our daily work, recognizing that our representations are partial and contestable and our responsibilities to one another are always transforming. “encountering the wall” walls can be both positive and negative entities: they allow communities to maintain their identity and security but they also produce self-containment and isolation that deny multi-perspectives and acknowledgment of shared and parallel narratives. (mcatackney, 2011, p. 95) setting the child care centre at grant macewan university was established as a demonstration school in 1970 by a group of women advocating for a qualified early childhood workforce. the centre was conceived and continues to operate as a year-round, full-day child care centre for children 19 months to 5 years. early childhood educators at the centre are active participants in teaching and learning in the two-year early learning and child care (elcc) diploma program. the centre is recognized as a place of pedagogical leadership and innovation in the broader community. university demonstration schools are positioned as meeting places where children, their families, educators, and early childhood faculty have multiple opportunities to question particular pedagogic theories and practices. as langford and her colleague aurelia di santo (2013) note, “early learning lab [demonstration] schools play a unique role—educating and caring for young children, mentoring early childhood education students, engaging in innovative curricula practices, and participating in research” (p. 1). provocation in 2005, a study tour to reggio emilia, italy, provoked faculty and educators at grant macewan university to critically question children’s democratic participation. this shift in our thinking produced new opportunities for collective experimentation. “encountering the wall” emerged from a series of diverse explorations of the image of the child as citizen ( lirette, grove, & macdonald, 2014). we undertook to open a “dividing” wall between a toddler room and a classroom for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. removing the wall resulted in many “multi-age moments” (edwards, blaise, & hammer, 2009, p. 59). we witnessed children’s expanding participation and relationships with space, materials, and people. although multi-age grouping has a long history in early childhood education, it is rarely enacted in child care. grouping by age is a developmental/industrial practice built into most licensing regulations in north america, assumed to be a “best practice” and rarely questioned (corson, 2005). research on winter/hiver 2018 5 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research multi-age grouping tends to recount benefits based on a developmental framing of children’s social interactions, citing gains in cognitive, language, and social development (increases in sharing, turn taking and self-regulation) in multi-age classrooms (see logue, 2006). for example, educators in one study “understood multi-age grouping as supporting children’s learning, assisting children in management of peer group relations and reducing the stress associated with working in chronological groupings” (edwards et al., 2009, p. 61). the action of opening the wall between the two rooms provoked difficult conversations among the children’s educators, faculty, and families. multiple perspectives and dissenting voices resonated within our meeting place. we experienced an ongoing embodied struggle to avoid predicting the children’s reactions beforehand (olsson, 2009, p. 14). for example, both faculty and educators were concerned that the larger space might be dangerous for toddlers. would toddlers feel lost in this space? would families be concerned about safety and lack of individual attention in a larger space and a mixed-age group? another perceived challenge was that “unruly” toddlers might knock over play creations or run through carefully created play spaces of the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. how do we reconceptualize space—beyond the traditional structures of same-aged relationships and normative ageist constructions of education and childhood (lenz taguchi, 2010)? as we continued to question how walls and spaces normed our pedagogical practices and constructions of children, we invited families into the conversation. we started to look more closely at how children explore and represent their agency in/through daily experiences in their families and early childhood communities. we troubled the notion of citizenship as an end product, shifting toward a notion of citizenship as a continuous process of becoming in the here and now (jans, 2007). with insights from families and our previous work on children’s participation, we reimagined the possibilities of the new space, coming to recognize our actions as political, embedded in what dorothy smith (1987) names as “relations of ruling.” anne grove, a lead educator in “encountering the wall,” recognized that “how we gather and group children is a political act.” with the wall open, children were actively negotiating the complexities of living with/in this multi-aged community. the politics had changed. for example, as the toddlers flooded into the room for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds, they were motivated and intrigued by the new space, where they had access to different materials and daily rituals, like the morning meeting. at first, the toddlers watched the morning meetings from the comfort of their own room, often lining chairs up along the now invisible border between the classes. educators paused to observe this response and intentionally waited to see what would happen. after a couple of days, the toddlers took their chairs off the previously walled border, acting with agency and self-determination, and arrived at meetings ready to contribute, expecting the right to participate in classroom decision making. through our pedagogical conversations, we, as educators and faculty, gained new awareness of the limitations of age-segregated classrooms and how we contributed to a particular image of toddlers as less able and, conversely, an image of the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds as more able. we could see “the wall” as a governing and disciplinary tool (foucault, 1991), disciplining children and adults alike (fendler, 2001). we could now recognize how walls classify, normalize, exclude, and surveil (gore, 1998). pedagogical narration: movement and experimentation encountering the wall through pedagogical narration processes, faculty and educators uncovered assumptions and opened up alternative readings of children’s peer group relations. gilles deleuze and félix guattari (1987) frame children’s growth as occurring congruently across a series of domains as an irregular, diverse, and everchanging process. instead of envisioning development as constantly moving forward and upward, educators and faculty observed the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds going “back” to the toddler classroom space to revisit/play in a way that winter/hiver 2018 6 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research reframed their former experiences: younger children reminded older children of the sensory joys of water and sand, and older children returned to their past. “this is where i came from,” is how they describe the toddler room. “i used to be here, now i am there.” (makovichuk, hewes, lirette, & thomas, 2014, p. 27) educators were intrigued by how the open wall revealed this historical and relational dynamic, and were confronted by their assumptions that the toddler space would hold no further challenges for the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. this “experiment in movement” (olsson, 2009) provided educators, faculty, and families with deeper views of children and childhood. we observed how the children worked to “learn about the complexities of acting on diverse ideas and perspectives in a democratic environment” (macnaughton & smith, 2008, p. 40). what became apparent was the messiness and complexity inherent in children’s agentic subjectivities. educators discussed the ongoing tensions involved for children expressing themselves and considering the ideas of others. this story remains full of possibilities, continuing to challenge traditional notions and normative practices as we rethink space, place, curriculum, and democratic participation. “encountering young tattooed parents” listening to parents, we learn we cannot construct an image of the child without an image of the parent. it is not possible to respect the child without respecting the parent. the reciprocal negotiation with parents, however, is a risky adventure, as we expose some of our dearest assumptions to questioning. (vandenbroeck, de stercke, & gobeyn, 2013, p. 191) setting “encountering young tattooed parents” is based on pedagogic encounters that took place over several months in a community-based child care centre, one of four programs participating in action research projects (macnaughton & hughes, 2008) to develop the alberta provincial curriculum framework. one of the curriculum framework co-authors (lee makovichuk) was on site regularly documenting curriculum making in action with educators. working alongside educators in a community child care centre raised many questions about family participation. how did we hear families’ perspectives—their hopes, desires, and dreams for their children? how did we find meaning in these perspectives for our everyday interactions with young children? provocation during a weekly planning meeting. jody and meghan (educators) and lee makovichuk (curriculum coauthor) were discussing observations of a student educator who had been calling out children’s names from across the playroom to get their attention. reflecting on this episode provoked the action to consider the power of a child’s name and the story of how their name came to be. several months later, in a new team, jody and katelyn documented their inquiry into families’ stories of naming their children. jody first talked with parents and then invited them to write down their stories. jody’s desire to learn the children’s name stories positioned the families in a place of knowing, with jody as a learner. this shift to parent as knower is significant. while many educators may desire equitable relationships with families, pervasive underlying discourses frame parents and parental knowledge as inadequate (hughes & macnaughton, 2000). these discursive assumptions operate as a regime of truth, limiting opportunities and underestimating families’ desire to participate. such embedded assumptions also act as a barrier to the rich “funds of knowledge” that families carry (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzalez, 1992). jody’s learning from the families disrupts prevailing discourses of “parent as spectator” (vandenbroek & peeters, 2014) and “parent as other” who possesses less important knowledge of the child (hughes & macnaughton, 2000). winter/hiver 2018 7 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research one mother wrote about her treasured relationships with family members, now deceased, whose names were merged to form her daughter’s name: i finally thought of ilyanna mae rose…. llyanna is a mix between my dad ian and my little sister iana, mae is my late sister’s middle name, she meant a lot to me, and rose is after my middle name. another mother wrote an eloquent three-page story about naming her child. jody recalls encouraging the mother to pursue her writing, asking if her teachers recognized her talent for the written word. a third mother shared a tattooed poem—a promise to her infant daughter (see figure 1). pedagogical narration: the richness of family stories photos of tattoos and written narratives of the children’s name stories, contributed by both mothers and fathers, produced pedagogical narration that reveals the relationships forming between the educators, the children, and parents. for jody, these stories and tattoos helped her to see the deeply felt relationships that these parents have with their children. through this storytelling and retelling, jody created narration that highlighted her learning of/ from the mothers and fathers, many of whom revealed body tattoos representing their deep emotional connections to their child. jody works in a program that provides child care for the infants and toddlers of teen parents attending high school. this program is surrounded by discourses of parent education that focus on the “good” parent. these discourses construct teen families as vulnerable, at risk, and shameful (shoveller & johnson, 2006) and often lead to the subordination of parental knowledge to expert professional knowledge. as noted earlier, the result is that parental knowledge is viewed as inadequate, supplemental, and unimportant (vandenbroek & peeters, 2014; hughes & macnaughton, 2000). through close listening and revisiting pedagogical narrations of children’s name stories, jody developed deeper respect for the young parents and their use of body art, disrupting her assumptions about tattoos. this opportunity to coconstruct curriculum with children and families made visible beliefs that are often invisible yet guide our dare to dream dare to fly my baby girl will touch the sky dare to love dare to soar my baby girl won’t fear anymore i am here and will forever be you are my beautiful, my life my everything figure 1. tattooed promise. winter/hiver 2018 8 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research practice and interactions with children and families (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007). jody’s desire to learn about the children’s name stories values aspects of a child’s life that only a parent knows, and in this encounter led to more meaningful opportunities for families to participate. through pedagogical narrations, jody and these young mothers and fathers made visible a strong image of young parents. what transpired was surprising and unexpected, and strengthened relationships between the educators and these young families. jody noted that the trust cultivated through the name project has been helpful in resolving day-to-day issues that arise in the care of young children. the pedagogic work continues, as educators research the history of tattoos across cultures and question their practices. how do we respond when family perspectives challenge our professional knowledge and values? how might pedagogical narrations open a meeting place with families about things that matter to them? “encountering chickadees” we cannot maintain an open, dynamic practice without further theoretical insights; neither can we create theories without extending them through moments of practice. (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 6) setting the children’s centre in the faculty of education at the university of new brunswick was established in 1974. over these past forty years, pedagogical work at this site has contributed to provincial policy, curriculum, and family literacy programs. family-educator relationships have been a fundamental part of the centre’s work. early childhood educators from universities, community college programs, child care centres, and schools visit this demonstration site. the educators and professors together have a long-standing history of critical reflection and complexifying early childhood pedagogies (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015) through video and photo narrations of pedagogic encounters. this space was designed strategically so that we work across the hall and around the corner from each other. throughout any one-year period, hundreds of conversations take place between the classroom educators and the early childhood professors. provocation “encountering chickadees” became a theoretical meeting place as we revisited documented pedagogical documentations of child-chickadee relations. in revisiting these documented encounters, many of which were included in the classroom nature journal, we were provoked to think with common worlds theorizing and to think against oversimplified romantic linkages between childhood and nature (taylor, 2013). inspired by taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2015), we consider how we can “deliberately reposition children (and ourselves) within the full, heterogeneous and interdependent multispecies common worlds in which we all live” (p. 507). living in a world fundamentally changed by human behaviour, we are faced with interspecies and intergenerational challenges that call us to shift from human dominance and act with relational and environmental ethics. as taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2015) elegantly theorize, common worlds thinking and pedagogies can take us beyond the social or exclusively human, helping us to think critically about dominant discourses in early childhood. to work with this theoretical meeting place, we were guided by three questions from taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2015): what possibilities reside in the different forms of relating and intersecting within multispecies encounters? how are we deepening the curiosities that children articulate in their actions through science, histories, and biographies? and how are we enacting a caring obligation (puig de la bellacasa, 2010, as cited in taylor & paciniketchabaw, 2015)? in this work, we move across a range of texts, including partial narrations with photographs, winter/hiver 2018 9 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research video clips, related prior experiences, pedagogic conversations, questions and reflections within the classroom nature journal, and common worlds theorizing. the children and educators in this faculty-based program for young children regularly visit a small wooded area centrally located on the university grounds. these woods, and the university itself, sit on the traditional lands of the wolustoquy people, yet no cultural markers of these shared and troubled colonial histories and their entanglements are visible to children, educators, faculty, or anyone who visits this land and the occupying university buildings. this lack of representation continues to erase shared colonial histories of settlers and indigenous peoples. pedagogical narration: complexifying what we know each time the children visit this piece of retained woods in the midst of university buildings and parking lots, they encounter and feed handfuls of seeds to black-capped chickadees and squirrels. typically, chickadees frequent a bird feeder or perch on a child’s patiently held out hand for a sunflower seed treat. educators and children, together, observe the chickadees with quiet delight. in the process of creating multiple documentations, the educators enthusiastically document a child patiently sitting still long enough for a chickadee to land on her palm. the documentation highlights the child’s capacity to control her body, and her quiet joyful concentration as a black-capped chickadee landed to feed from her fingertips. the child’s desire to connect with the bird is evident. what is less evident are the long-lived theories and practices in early childhood education that link innocent child to innocent nature, what taylor (2013) names as a romantic coupling, one that holds in place habitual enactments of humanistic pedagogies. the taming of the child’s body as she awaits the chickadees—trusting or risking her body as a human perch—is palpable in conversations that surround the documentation. in another instance, a boy draws the flight path of a chickadee as he observes them flitting down from the treetops and up from the bird feeder. an educator scribes words that appear to match both his gestures and drawing: “the chickadees fly to the sky and down to the seeds.” his drawing, paired with photographs taken of the chickadee and of him at the feeder observing the little black-capped birds are placed in the classroom’s nature journal. in this journal children’s ordinary, everyday outdoor discoveries, observations, and experimentations are documented. through documentation the educators acknowledge the children’s intense curiosities about chickadee flight and feeding. educators use the classroom nature journal to carefully detail children’s first-hand encounters in the woods (see figure 2). chickadees join with pill bugs, centipedes, inchworms, dandelions, violets, lilies of the valley, tree rubbings of insect tunnels, slug tracings on paper, sketches and photos of caterpillars, chipmunks, squirrels, and scat of various animals. the journal reads beautifully as a respectful, child-centred document honouring children’s observations, sketches, transcribed dialogues, and theories about the flora, fauna, and creatures that they come across. children, families, and educators delight in these documentations that detail children’s relationships within the woods and their created symbolic representations of these relations. these tellings are delightful and we delight in them ourselves; however, we realize, as with any telling, they remain partial. in their partiality, chickadee biographies, for example, are biographies in the interest of serving the children’s learning in the moment. in an effort to shift ourselves into comfigure 2. “in the woods” image from nature journal. winter/hiver 2018 10 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research mon world thinking, we ask what narratives remain to be told that situate children, and ourselves, alongside “earth others as respectful, related guardians and caretakers” (ritchie, 2012, p. 86). how can we work to include the biographies and histories of the woods chickadees prior, during, and after children’s encounters? what might doing so mean for the children, and for us as teacher-educators? keeping these questions in mind and working between common worlding and children’s curiosities as they emerge in this case, we ask, where is the biography of the black-capped chickadee? what are children’s impacts on the chickadees and the chickadees’ effects on the children? what habitats are necessary for chickadees to flourish? what impacts have people had on chickadee habitats? what are the vulnerabilities of chickadees? what historic relationships exist between the wolustoquy peoples, the chickadees, the woods, and settlers? with these common world questions in mind, we encouraged the educators to invite a scientist and a first nations elder into the woods. prior to the visit of the forest bird ecologist, the children generated a list of questions. when the chickadees don’t eat our seeds, what do they eat? where do they live? do bears hunt chickadees? do they get food at nighttime? how many eggs do chickadees have? how long do chickadee babies stay with their mom? how do they fly? do dad chickadees look after the babies too? tony diamond, the forest bird ecologist, was passionate about chickadee biographies. he explained that chickadees can hide and remember 1,000 different places where they put their seeds, that a mother can carry half her weight in eggs before she lays them, that chickadee eggs are white with red dots, that chickadees usually lay 6 to 8 eggs in a nest, and that the dad chickadee helps with caring for the eggs and the babies. when the university elder-in-residence came with us to the woods, she introduced herself as nuhkomos, meaning grandmother in wolustoquy. prior to entering the woods, she stopped momentarily to ask permission to enter. this was her first teaching for us—a deep respect for the forest as a living companion, and one we must respect as we enter. she explained that when we are sad we could tell our troubles to the trees spirits. she spoke of the two-legged, four-legged, and winged and water ones with whom we share the forest. as we sat on the forest floor, nuhkomos spoke about the significance of each carefully selected natural object she had brought to the forest with her: hides, shells, basket, drums, and clothing made from various animals’ skins, such as the fox—her family clan. each of these items carried deep symbolic meaning. she described how hunters say a prayer and thank the animals for their gifts of hide, meat, medicine, and bones. the elder shared her medicine bag, explaining the uses of muskrat root, bear fat, and cedar. as she prepared a smudge ceremony for us, she spoke about picking sweetgrass, “the hair of mother earth,” and the critical need for leaving roots behind for seven generations. each of us joined in singing with the elder her honour song as we sat in circle together on a blanket she had brought and placed upon the deep snow. as we critically reflect on our intentional acts of inviting a scientist and a first nations elder into the woods in an effort to be affected by biographies, histories, and contradictory entanglements, we realize how difficult it is to engage with common worlds thinking. engaging western sciences with first nations knowledges opens up common world pedagogic possibilities. these two very different ways of entering the woods were shared through western science and indigenous science and ceremony. these encounters raise questions, such as, how do we deepen our sustained engagement with differing forms of relating and knowing? how might sustained engagement help us enact a caring obligation allowing us to author different kinds of relationality and ethics to better care for our common world, and the flourishing of each other, human and more than human? the challenge for us, as teacher-educators, is how to more fully engage so that we might grapple with our colonial histories, our entangled coexistences and unequal differences. how do we become “more at ease with difference than we are” (taylor, 2013, p. 112)? winter/hiver 2018 11 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in closing: creating spaces to think differently in this article, our intention has been to take up the vision of a meeting place as a means to reimagine early childhood pedagogies and thus open up possibilities for “transformative change” (moss, 2014) in early childhood practices. extending our theoretical reconceptualizing within meeting place encounters, we confront the discursive tenacity of developmentalism as lived within age-segregated settings, parent engagement, and humancentric nature pedagogy: the grand narrative of developmentalism played out in these ever-widening circles. drawing from theorizing on walls as political objects, tattooing, and common worlding, we worked to disrupt the subjugation of age-segregated children, young tattooed mothers and fathers, and the taming of children and chickadees. in so doing, we disrupt the subjugation of ourselves, as educators and researchers, as we learn to respond otherwise. working theoretically within and across these encounters revealed bureaucratic, schooled, cultural, and colonial inheritances, provoking us to ask different questions. what if we opened the wall in-between the toddler room and the preschool room—would we see toddlers differently? what if the tattoos were a representation of deep and abiding love between the parent and child, rather than of transgression and disgrace? and, what if we invited an elder to come with us into the woods? could the children, and could we, listen to the forest differently? in “encountering the wall,” toddlers’ agency and capacity to contribute to community was tangible, challenging traditional developmental expectations in profound and unexpected ways. in “encountering young tattooed parents,” the shift in focus from “parent as too young to know” to “parent as knowing” inspired new possibilities for family participations based on more inclusive and equitable relationships. in “encountering chickadees,” we were transformed by the spirituality of the wolustoquy elder entering the forest while being reminded of our postcolonial inheritances. we were equally and quite differently captivated by the scientist’s deep knowledge of chickadees’ complex biographies and how chickadee lives have become entangled with our human lives. in these “collective experimentations between theory and practice” (olsson, 2009, p. 51), we came to different questions. in our efforts to think beyond discourses of developmentalism, we were drawn to pedagogical responses that were more “open-ended (avoiding closure), open-minded (welcoming the unexpected) and open-hearted (valuing difference)” (moss, 2014, p. 132). for us, this “close working relationship between research and practice” (olsson, 2009, p. 28) reinvigorated the relationship between ourselves as scholars/teacher-educators and practicing early childhood educators. these stories helped each of us to understand how privileging particular sets of beliefs or forms of knowledge, “grand narratives” that typically reflect western or eurocentric values, creates power for certain groups of people while oppressing others. echoing reconceptualist approaches, these stories evoke for us, in the words of lourdes diaz soto (2000), “hope and possibility as we move toward a newly evolving, liberating ‘third space,’ and early childhood dreamscape of social justice and equity” (p. 198). nonetheless, we remain keenly aware of the need for concrete support in using pedagogical dialogue to reconstruct traditional pedagogies, and of the promise of curriculum frameworks in creating productive space for dialogue. as langford notes: in introducing an innovation—an early learning curriculum framework—the governments of british columbia, saskatchewan, ontario, new brunswick, and quebec have opened up new directions in early childhood care and education in canada. to sustain the promise of these directions much is required in supports, evaluations and analyses by governments in collaboration and consultation with those most affected, early childhood educators, children and families. (langford, 2010, p. 30) finally, as we continue with this work, we are reminded by jane bennett (2010) that “we need both critique and positive formulations of alternatives, alternatives that will themselves become the objects of later critique and reform” (p. xv). in learning to work with reconstructing particular pedagogic discourses, we understand these winter/hiver 2018 12 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research relational encounters as mutual ontological acts, and we acknowledge our need to be vigilant to the limits and possibilities of differing ways that we make sense of children, practices, and learning (macnaughton, 1997). winter/hiver 2018 13 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ashton, e. (2014). i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance. canadian children, 34(1), 3–24. bennett, j. 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(2012, march). children as citizens. paper presented at the second national early learning lab school conference “leading the way,” ryerson university, toronto, ontario. logue, m. e. (2006). teachers observe to learn? differences in social behaviour of toddlers and preschoolers in same-age and multiage groupings. young children, 61(3), 70–76. maccormack, p. (2006). the great ephemeral tattooed skin. body and society, 12(2), 57–82. macnaughton, g. (1997). feminist praxis and the gaze in the early childhood curriculum. gender and education, 9(3), 317–326. macnaughton, g., & hughes, p. (2008). doing action research in early childhood studies: a step by step guide. maidenhead, uk: open university press/mcgraw hill education. macnaughton, g., & smith, k. (2008). engaging ethically with young children: principles and practices for consulting justly with care. in g. macnaughton, p. hughes, & k. smith (eds.), young children as active citizens: principles, policies, and pedagogies (pp. 31–43). newcastle, australia: cambridge scholars. major, p. (2011). walled in: ordinary east germans’ responses to 13 august 1961. german politics and society, 29(2), 8–22. makovichuk, l., hewes, j., lirette, p., & thomas, n. (2014). flight: alberta’s early learning and care framework. retrieved from http://childcareframework.com/play-participation-and-possibilities/ mcatackney, l. (2011). peace maintenance and political messages: the significance of walls during and after the northern irish “troubles.” journal of social archaeology, 11(1), 77–98. modesti, s. (2008). home sweet home: tattoo parlors as postmodern spaces of agency. western journal of communication, 72(3), 197–212. moll, l. c., amanti, c., neff, d., & gonzalez, n. 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(2009). movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: deleuze and guattari in early childhood education. london, uk: routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v. (ed.) (2010). flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education curriculum. newyork, ny: peter lang. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. pacini-ketchbaw, v., & pence, a. (2011). the postmodern curriculum: making space for historically and politically situated understandings. australasian journal of early childhood, 36(1), 4–8. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & prochner, l. (eds.). (2013). resituating canadian early childhood education. new york, ny: peter lang. ritchie, j. (2012). early childhood education as a site of ecocentric counter-colonial endeavour in aotearoa new zealand. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 86–98. rose, d. b. (2011). wild dog dreaming: love and extinction. charlottesville, va: university of virginia press. rose, d. b., van dooren, t., chrulew, s., cooke, s., kearnes, m., & o’gorman, e. (2012). thinking through the environment, unsettling the humanities. environmental humanities, 1(1), 1–5. retrieved from https:// environmentalhumanities.org/arch/vol1/eh1.1.pdf rose, s. (2013). putting narrative documentation to work: a search for educational abundance (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of new brunswick, fredericton. shoveller, j. a., & johnson, j. l. (2006). risky groups, risky behaviour, and risky persons: dominating discourses on youth sexual health. critical public health, 16(1), 47–60. smith, d. (1987). the everyday world as problematic: a feminist sociology. boston, ma: northeastern university press. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures of childhood. london, uk: routledge. taylor, a., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2015). learning with children, ants, and worms in the anthropocene: towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. pedagogy, culture & society, 23(4), 507–529. winter/hiver 2018 16 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research vandenbroeck, m., de stercke, n., & gobeyn, h. (2013). what if the rich child has poor parents? the relationship from a flemish perspective. in p. moss (ed.), early childhood and compulsory education (pp. 174–191). abingdon, uk: routledge. vandenbroek, m., & peeters, j. (2014). democratic experimentation in early childhood education. in g. biesta, m. de bie, & d. wildemeersch (eds.), civic learning, democratic citizenship, and the public sphere (pp. 151– 165). the netherlands: springer. retrieved from http://www.childcarecanada.org/documents/researchpolicypractice/14/10/democratic-experimentation-early-childhood-education 1 as the creation of curriculum frameworks for our youngest children continues, curricular work in one province or territory informs curricular work within other provinces and territories. in addition, pan-canadian forums such as the association of canadian deans of education, the council of ministers of education, national and international institutes and forums, and the long-standing contributions of the canadian childcare resource and research unit also inform national/provincial and territorial discussions. recent changes to the child tax benefit and the federal-territorial-provincial bi-lateral agreements keep ece in the foreground. winter/hiver 2019 1 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor innovative professional learning in early childhood education and care: inspiring hope and action joanne lehrer, christine massing, and alaina roach o’keefe dear colleagues, it is with great pleasure that we present you with this bilingual special issue of the journal of childhood studies focused on innovative professional learning in early childhood education and care. this special issue arose out of the canadian association for research in early childhood’s post-conference on the same theme, presented following the society for studies in education’s 2017 conference at ryerson university in toronto. not only is professional learning conceptualized as critical for increasing educational quality and enhancing children’s learning and developmental outcomes (e.g., lazarri, picchio, & musatti, 2013; munton et al., 2002; peleman et al., 2017; penn, 2009; vandenbroeck, peeters, urban, & lazarri, 2016), but specific elements of professional learning (in both initial and continuing education, or preservice and in-service learning) have been identified as essential to transforming early childhood educators’ and preschool teachers’ professional identities and practice. for example, critical and supported reflection (thomas & packer, 2013), learning experiences that target entire teams (vangrieken, dochy, & raes, 2016), collaborative and empowering practice (helterbran & fennimore, 2004), long-term interventions (peleman et al., 2017), and competent leadership (colmer, waniganayake, & field, 2008) have all been found to be effective means of supporting professional learning. while there appears to be consensus in the literature around what needs to be done, and even around how it should be done, numerous constraints prevent the implementation and maintenance of sustainable and transformational professional learning in ecec. michel vandenbroeck and his colleagues (2016) go beyond the focus on individuals and childcare teams, identifying two further levels necessary for competent systems of professional learning: partnerships between local early childhood programs and social, cultural, and educational institutions (such as colleges and universities); and governance regarding vision, finance, and monitoring. in the canadian context, the canadian child care federation (2016) also stresses the importance of a system-wide strategy to strengthen the childcare workforce. however, early childhood services in canada are under the purview of provincial and territorial governments, and therefore the conditions, regulations, certification requirements, curriculum documents, and educational systems vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. the educational requirements for certification, for example, may include no formal training (in northwest territories and nunavut), one entry-level short course, one-year certificates, or two-year diplomas. some provinces also offer threeor four-year bachelor-level university programs. this diversity of pathways complicates efforts to define who the early childhood professional is and what opportunities are constitutive of professional learning (prochner, cleghorn, kirova, & massing, 2016). while these disparities within the field may impede the development of a cohesive strategy, much can be learned from sharing and appreciating the rich diversity of approaches to professional learning both within and across provinces and territories, as carol campbell and her colleagues (2016) assert. in addition, examples from other countries serve to broaden the discussion and expand our understanding of what is possible (peleman et al., 2017; vandenbroeck et al., 2016). this special issue, then, is dedicated to sharing stories of hope and coordinated action, linking theory with practice. the articles present research at the individual, team, partnership, and governance levels (vandenbroeck et al., 2016), focusing on both preservice and in-service professional learning. winter/hiver 2019 2 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor claire moreau, nicole royer, and chantal royer recount narratives of educators registered in an online university certificate program. their analysis traces the stages the educators encounter as they embark on this learning journey, from being intimidated by the university and attempting to find balance between work, study, and family, to reflecting on their learning and their learning community, and finally to personal and professional transformation they attribute to their experience. specific challenges relating to the online nature of the program are discussed, such as access to virtual resources once each course is over and not being able to physically recognize their online instructors. the process is presented as a story, with each new stage unfolding through the participants’ voices and deep conceptual analysis. the discussion targets program directions and puts forward practical suggestions to better meet the needs of nontraditional university students. alaina roach o’keefe, sonya hooper, and brittany jakubiec explore how experienced early childhood educators from prince edward island define their professionalism in a context where new initiatives and policy changes have contributed to corresponding shifts in roles and expectations. they contend that system changes, such as the schoolification of kindergarten and a push for increased documentation learning, had both positive and negative impacts on these educators, but ultimately caused some of them to lose their professional confidence. the findings suggest a need for workplace resilience and wellness initiatives, professional recognition, and professional learning opportunities around topics such as leadership and pedagogical documentation. in “animating a curriculum framework through educator co-inquiry: co-learning, co-researching, and coimagining possibilities,” jane hewes, patricia lirette, lee makovichuk, and rebekah mccarron share ongoing participatory research that explores pedagogical mentoring and educator co-inquiry as an approach to transforming early childhood educator practice and “reinvigorating” relationships in the early childhood field. storytelling is central to meaning making in this project that renewed curiosity and critical pedagogical reflection, empowering educators to bring curriculum frameworks to life through their work with young children. fundamental notions of critical reflection on emergent curriculum, documentation, and the cyclical process involved in co-inquiry are conceptualized as paramount to the field. joane deneault and odette lefebvre focus on a partnership established in the bas-st-laurent region of québec that includes community organizations, representatives of various government ministries, and institutes of higher learning. their article tells the story of how the partnership supported a continuing education program aimed at early childhood educators and kindergarten teachers and focused on children’s emotional well-being. in it they describe the tensions among discourses of deficit when it comes to child development, programs that aim to instill a pedagogy of listening, and relationships between adults and young children, as well as how the partnership coped with budget cuts in order to maintain the project. in “finding community: an exploration into an induction support pilot project,” laura doan shares the perspectives of new and experienced early childhood educators in british columbia, noting that peer mentoring programs can create a professional learning community of practice that fosters connections to the community, increased knowledge, and a sense of efficacy. the program’s success was attributed to the educators’ active involvement in co-constructing the program structure and to their long-term engagement with one another to dialogue about important issues in their own practice. in “navigating power and subjectivity: cultural diversity and transcultural curriculum in early childhood education,” carolyn bjartveit and cheryl kinzel dialogically reflect on how they might interrogate and disrupt the dominant discourse through their involvement in a professional learning community (plc) in alberta. the authors acknowledge their own privilege and subjectivities in their professional roles, situating themselves in the context of this discourse to envision ways for their plc to foreground diverse perspectives that are typically winter/hiver 2019 3 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor marginalized or excluded in the field. hélène larouche, diane biron, and julie vaillancourt relate a three-year journey of professional learning with kindergarten teachers focused on a community of practice around active learning, which was designed not to “fill gaps or lacks in teacher knowledge, but to affirm and consolidate the act of teaching by focusing on their reflexive capacities.” their retrospective analysis of the teachers’ engagement in the professional learning process identifies both strengths and challenges of the experience focused on creating a culture of collaboration. they conclude by reflecting on the difficulties of the process for both the teachers and the research team. in “learning collectives with/in sites of practice: beyond training and professional development,” kathleen kummen and b. denise hodgins share their research grounded in social constructivist learning on pedagogical development. the article describes an initiative that extended the investigating quality (iq) project’s model of pedagogical development to a partnership between local ece programs and their ongoing professional learning and an ece training institution and its preparation of student educators. grounding the study in investigating how it conceptualizes and promotes professional learning as co-constructed in socio-material-historical-culturalpolitical contexts, they analyze the model based on three conditions: inquiry-based learning, making learning visible, and pedagogical facilitation support. they argue the model is equally important and pertinent to both early and ongoing professional development in the field, and that a commitment to learning collectives is essential as we move forward in professionalizing the ec field. drawing on their own experiences, michelle jones, brooke richardson, and alana powell describe how their experiences have motivated them to become student leaders engaged in the childcare advocacy movement at the grassroots level. in “reconceptualizing our work: the connection between early childhood education students and political action,” they argue that sustaining student movements requires not only interest on the part of students, but also an academic culture and structure that supports advocacy groups. to produce sustainable student advocacy groups, institutions must guide students in identifying and problematizing the systemic neoliberal policies that function to devalue educators’ work. in “professional knowledges for early childhood education and care,” verity campbell-barr challenges a hegemonic discourse of professional knowledge that includes technocratic discourses relating to quality, “selective representations of neuroscience,” and the economic investment narrative. instead, she draws on bernstein’s conceptualization of vertical and horizontal knowledges, as well as aristotle’s three forms of knowledge—episteme (pure knowledge), techne (skills) and phronesis (practical wisdom)—to reconceptualize a pluralized concept of professional knowledges in ecec, with a particular focus on the reflexive and considered nature of practical wisdom. she also critiques “rogue theories,” such as the gendered ideal of women as innately caring. we hope this collection of articles provides fruit for reflection, inspiration, and new questions about professional learning at multiple levels and in diverse contexts. we extend our appreciation to all of our reviewers, who generously shared their time and expertise with us and with the authors. we also thank editorial assistants dr. nicole land and meagan montpetit for their patient and invaluable assistance throughout the process, as well as leslie prpich and marie-christine payette for their copyediting assistance. winter/hiver 2019 4 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references campbell, c., osmond-johnson, p., faubert, b., zeichner, k., hobbs-johnson, a. with s. brown, p. dacosta, a. hales, l. kuehn, j. sohn, & k. steffensen (2016). the state of educators’ professional learning in canada. oxford, oh: learning forward. canadian child care federation. (2016). an early learning and child care framework for canada’s children: #togetherwecan. retrieved from http://www.cccf-fcsge.ca/wp-content/uploads/cccf_framework-eng.pdf colmer, k., waniganayake, m., & field, l. (2014). leading professional learning in early childhood centres: who are the educational leaders? australasian journal of early childhood, 39(4), 103–113. helterbran, v. r., & fennimore, b. s. (2004). early childhood professional development: building from a base of teacher investigation. early childhood education journal, 31(4), 267–271. lazarri, a., picchio, m., & musatti, t. (2013). sustaining ecec quality through continuing professional development: systemic approaches to practitioners’ professionalization in the italian context. early years, 33(2), 133–145. munton, t., mooney, a., moss, p., petrie, p., clark, a., woolner, j., et al. (2002). research on ratios, group size, and staff qualifications and training in early years and childcare settings. london, uk: university of london. peleman, b., lazzari, a., budginaite, i., siarova, h., hauari, h., peeters, j., & cameron, c. (2017). continuous professional development and ecec quality: findings from a european systematic literature review. european journal of education, 53(1), 9–22. doi:10.1111/ejed.12257 penn, h. (2009). early childhood education and care: key lessons from research for policy makers. brussels, belgium: nesse. prochner, l., cleghorn, a., kirova, a., & massing, c. (2016). teacher education in diverse settings: making space for intersecting worldviews. rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. thomas, s., & packer, d. s. (2013). a reflective teaching road map for pre-service and novice early childhood educators. international journal of early childhood special education, 5(1), 1–14. vandenbroeck, m., peeters, j., urban, m., & lazzari, a. (2016). introduction. in m. vandenbroeck, m. urban, & j. peeters (eds.), pathways to professionalism in early childhood education and care (pp. 1–14). london, uk: routledge. vangrieken, k., dochy, f., & raes, e. (2016). team learning in teacher teams: team entitativity as a bridge between teams-in-theory and teams-in-practice. european journal of psychology of education, 31(3), 275–298. doi:10.1007/s10212-015-0279-0 winter/hiver 2019 37 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research animating a curriculum framework through educator co-inquiry: co-learning, co-researching, and co-imagining possibilities jane hewes, patricia lirette, lee makovichuk, and rebekah mccarron dr. jane hewes is associate dean and associate professor in the faculty of education and social work at thompson rivers university. as co-principal investigator on the research team that is writing and developing play, participation, and possibilities: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta, she brings expertise in participatory research methodologies, interest in critical, postfoundational early years’ pedagogies, and a commitment to valuing the knowledge that childcare educators bring to professional learning. email: jhewes@tru.ca dr. tricia lirette is a long-time faculty member in the early learning and child care diploma program at macewan university and currently holds the position of department chair of human services and early learning. she is co-principal investigator on the research team that is developing the alberta curriculum framework. her other research interests include child and family policy and applying the lens of institutional ethnography to inquiry in elcc. lee makovichuk, med, is assistant professor with the department of human services and early learning at macewan university. her work as a co-writer and co-researcher of play, participation, and possibilities: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta and pedagogical mentoring work with early childhood educators has been inspiration for her doctoral studies. rebekah mccarron graduated from the macewan university early learning and child care diploma program in 2014. as an educator at the university child care centre society in calgary, alberta, she works with a group of kindergarten-aged children and their families. together, they have been exploring the theories of physics using loose parts (including large loose parts outside). in 2012, the government of alberta, inspired by the ground-breaking work in new brunswick, invited researchers at macewan university in edmonton and mount royal university in calgary to create an early learning and child care (elcc) curriculum framework. the framework was intended to guide the everyday practice of early childhood educators working with children from newborns to age 5 in centre-based child care and family day home programs. leading the development of the framework, the research team at macewan university began with the understanding that early childhood curriculum is shaped by the pedagogic decisions educators make on the ground and in the moment, and focused on broad holistic goals rather than the delivery of predetermined content (bennett, 2004). we knew that engaging practicing educators in co-creating the framework would be critical to its relevance to the field and its success over time. taking up the methodology of participatory action research (macnaughton & hughes, 2008, p. 154), we invited over 50 educators in four local early childhood programs to co-author stories of teaching and learning (carr, 2001) to include as sample narratives in the framework. this dialogic, participatory process of documenting curriculum meaning making in action brought with it great hopefulness and the possibility that academics and early childhood educators might create a “pedagogical meeting the shift toward a pedagogical foundation for professional practice in early childhood along with the introduction of curriculum frameworks in early learning and child care, calls for approaches to professional learning that move beyond transmission modes of learning towards engaged, localized, participatory models that encourage critical reflection and investigation of pedagogy within specific settings. in this paper, we describe ongoing participatory research that explores educator co-inquiry as an approach to animating a curriculum framework. a story of curriculum meaning making that opened a hopeful space for critical pedagogical reflection and changed practice serves as a basis for deeper reflection. key words: professional learning; pedagogical dialogue; early childhood care and education; coinquiry; curriculum framework winter/hiver 2019 38 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research place” (moss, 2013), going forward together as co-learners, co-researchers, and co-imaginers of curriculum meaningmaking possibilities. play, participation and possibilities: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta1 took shape over two years and is organized around five core concepts, four broad holistic goals, and five dispositions to learn, as shown in figure 1. the image of the child as a mighty learner emerged in the process of co-creating the framework and captured the imaginations of educators, families, and policy makers alike. figure 1. play, participation, and possibilities. the framework is firmly grounded in sociocultural pedagogies and gestures toward the postfoundational, introducing notions of equity, social justice, gender, and diversity. following the initial development, multi-year government funding (2012–present) afforded an incredible opportunity to explore the process of animating the curriculum framework in everyday practice, with the active participation of educators alongside researchers. the holistic goal of well-being—focused on nurturing emotional health and positive identities, creating a sense of belonging, and promoting physical health—was an entry point for many educators working with the curriculum for the first time, and it features in the story of curriculum meaning making in this paper. building on international scholarship about professional learning in early childhood education and care (edwards & nuttall, 2009; eurofound, 2015; pacini-ketchabaw, kocher, sanchez, & chan, 2009), we searched for theoretical frameworks that moved beyond transmission modes of learning toward engaged, localized, participatory models that encourage critical reflection and investigation of pedagogy within specific settings (patterson, mcauley, & fleet, 2013). using pedagogical documentation as a provocation to question, challenge, validate, and theorize practice, we engaged with participating educators in co-inquiry processes (perry, henderson, & meier, 2012) to deepen and complexify thinking about co-constructing curriculum in the here and now with young children and their families. in this paper, we describe co-inquiry as a strategy for animating early childhood educators’ use of play, participation, and possibilities in curriculum planning and meaning making, for creating supportive social contexts for pedagogical winter/hiver 2019 39 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research conversations that invite multiple and diverse perspectives, and for considering critically and thoughtfully what it means for families to be meaningfully engaged in children’s learning. valuing the notions that educational theory is embedded in and emerges from educational practice and that curriculum is already happening in early childhood programs, our intent, as researchers and educators, is to explore processes of professional learning that theorize practice and deepen understanding of early learning pedagogy, using the common language of [curriculum framework]. we draw inspiration from marg sellers’ (2013) notion of children “curriculuming” and liselotte olsson’s (2009) view that the continuous shifting, combining, and transforming of materials, time, space, and participation of children, families, and educators produces assemblages full of potentiality for curriculum meaning making. we draw on a story of educator meaning making that emerged early in the process of animating the newly created framework as an opportunity for deeper reflection on the co-inquiry processes, practices, and tools that support curriculum meaning making in action. we work with the understanding that curriculum in early childhood is socially co-constructed with children, families, and educators and that this process of making meaning is messy, iterative, deeply theoretical, and informed by both individual and collective intuition. the value of professional learning that begins educators’ everyday practice through talking, thinking, listening, pausing, imagining possibilities, and reflecting on what is seen, individuals access the data of their own experience and contribute to knowledge generation. given supported structural contexts, caring, thoughtful and knowledgeable collaborators can use stories of experience as the yeast of professional learning. (fleet & patterson, 2009, p. 17) according to curtis, lebo, cividanes, and carter (2013), professional learning in the early childhood field has been “dominated by short, fragmented one shot workshops on a variety of topics delivered by experts who offer strategies and techniques outside the context of the daily teaching and learning with children” (p. 13). deb curtis and her colleagues call this approach “drive through professional learning” ( p. 13, italics in original). another perspective is added by linda mitchell and pam cubey (2003), who call for professional learning that is grounded in practice and provides opportunities for educators to: • consider their own work as a starting point “investigating real life examples of pedagogy within their own settings” (p. xi) • work on issues that can make a difference in their practice • reflect critically on taken for granted practices, questioning, and challenging taken for granted practices in ways that encourage new insight and shifts in thinking • consider multiple, diverse perspectives and theories through pedagogical dialogue about their work • gain awareness of the value of their work. similar to the process of learning for young children, professional learning can be understood as “a process of meaning-making or theory building in relationship with others who are called on to listen to the theories” (moss, 2013, p. 39). inviting educators to explore and revisit ideas over time leads to what alma fleet and catherine patterson (2001) refer to as “professional empowerment through spirals of engagement” (p. 10). winter/hiver 2019 40 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the value of an outside voice in facilitating pedagogical dialogue pedagogical dialogue (rinaldi, 2006) requires “active, open, and sensitive listening” (abramson, 2012, p. 154) that is enhanced through facilitation by a pedagogical leader. this role is described in various ways in the literature, including as an external or outside voice (fleet & patterson, 2001), a facilitator (abramson, 2012), and a critical friend (curtis et al., 2013; fleet & patterson, 2001). in reggio emilia, the role is played by the pedagogista. in this research, we have adopted the term pedagogical mentor. shareen abramson (2012) describes a facilitator as a “coach, model and catalyst” (p. 154) who is interested in growing and learning along with the teachers; the facilitator’s role is to lead a collaborative inquiry process, “doing action research with documentation,” and creating a space where educators grow in their ability to “demonstrate an attitude of acceptance for divergent interpretations, raise new questions, and suggest alternative viewpoints regarding a child or situation” (p. 154). according to arthur costa and bena kallick (as cited in curtis et al., 2013), a critical friend is “a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critique of a person’s work” (p. 19). critical friends raise new questions that challenge or expand thinking and provide positive feedback in a process curtis and her colleagues call “a dance of challenge and support” (p. 19). engaging educators as researchers: professional learning as teacher research teacher research, or practitioner inquiry, is increasingly recognized as a valuable source of professional learning and a tool for educational change (fleet, de gioia, & patterson, 2016; henderson, 2012; patterson et al., 2013; stremmel, 2007). teacher research contributes to our understanding of teaching and learning in early childhood settings, improving the likelihood that educators’ voices will be heard and respected (hatch, 2012). describing teacher research as “the engine of professional development,” henderson (2012) found that engaging teachers as researchers results in “immediate and specific strategies for action” and an increase in teachers’ ability to “relate their findings with voice and confidence” and reflect critically on “emotional reactions and pedagogical intentions” (p. 2). teacher research is also described as a strategy for resisting the typical transmission mode of professional development. there is increasing understanding that a linear conception of professional development (individuals in isolation moving along a predetermined sequence of steps toward development) is overly simplistic and fails to prioritize socially constructed knowledge (fleet & patterson, 2001). barbara henderson (2012) argues that “when early childhood teachers undertake teacher research as collaborative action at their sites, it changes the nature of professional development and shifts teachers’ identities as professionals … up-ending the way professional development is traditionally organized” (p. 1). positioning the educator as a researcher can result in a “socially constructed space where professional development happens continually” (henderson, 2012, p. 2). further insight comes from gunilla dahlberg and hillevi lenz taguchi’s notion of the “investigative teacher” who has a divided yet integrated professional responsibility, which partly has to do with joining in a dialogue and in communicative action with the child or the children’s group, and partly has to do with a reflective and investigative attitude towards the child’s working process and their own work. (as cited in moss, 2013, p. 25). in this paper and in our research, we emphasize the importance of children remaining at the forefront of teacher research. children’s voices are heard and made visible through their own words and gestures, photos, drawings, and other artifacts collected by teacher researchers. this rich data, in the form of documentation, reminds us that winter/hiver 2019 41 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research children are not just the subjects of the research, they are agentic participants and co-researchers (makovichuk, hewes, lirette, & thomas, 2014). we encourage educators to investigate focused research questions arising from collaborative reflection on documentation. in this way, we strive to enact teacher research as participatory, democratic, and inclusive in nature (henderson, meier, perry, & stremmel, 2012, p. 5). pedagogical documentation as a starting point for curriculum meaning making there is growing recognition in the early childhood literature that narratives produced by teachers in the form of pedagogical documentation, learning stories, or pedagogical narratives are a productive material form of teacher research (carr, 2001; carr & lee, 2012; henderson et al., 2012; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015; rinaldi, 2006). pedagogical documentation is a recognized and viable tool for sustained collaborative and dialogic practice, a process, alice wong (2009) asserts, that “makes visible, legible and sharable traces of children’s learning, which becomes tangible material that can be shared and interpreted by others” (p. 26). multiple readings of pedagogical documentation make teachers aware of the partiality of their own theories, and can precipitate the kind of crisis that motivates change and creates openness to the unexpected and uncertain (rinaldi, 2006, pp. 181–183). through critical reflection and intentional practice, pedagogical documentation creates openness to change, making it possible for educators to participate in generating new knowledge about practice. in the words of dahlberg and lenz taguchi: through documenting what the child does and what one as the teacher does together with the child, one can see an increase in consciousness about the consequences of their [teachers’] actions, and thereby also gain a basis for change and development in their own work. (as cited in moss, 2013, p. 26) pedagogical narrations (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015) invite multiple views of the child, multiple voices, and multiple interpretations. according to veronica pacini-ketchabaw and her colleagues (2015), educator stories can be “intimately connected to curriculum making” (p. 123) through a discourse of meaning making. the importance of an active, engaged educator who can accommodate diversity, complexity, and multiple perspectives is becoming increasingly evident. the discourse of meaning making encourages individual judgments and uncertainty and views consensus and unanimity as neither necessary nor desirable (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). it requires that individuals draw on concrete experiences and make ethical, philosophical choices and judgments that involve critical, reflective thinking about pedagogies. in this research, we take up this notion of pedagogical documentation as a discourse of meaning making, a process that calls on us to contextualize everyday practices within a particular social location and time and to make meaning of our experiences in dialogue with others (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 123). we focus our efforts on educator research that intends to produce transformation, enabling early childhood educators to develop an understanding of themselves, their classrooms, and their practice through the act of reflective inquiry (stremmel, 2007). animating play, participation, and possibilities in practice through collaborative (co)inquiry john dewey first introduced the notion of teaching as inquiry in 1933, believing that educators construct knowledge socially, “through inquiry, with the assistance of colleagues and faculty who help them refine and clarify their ideas about their learning and teaching experiences” (abramson, 2012, p. 149). processes of co-inquiry have proven effective as a source of professional learning and improving practice (abramson, 2012). as a low cost and practical winter/hiver 2019 42 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research strategy, co-inquiry helps educators see the significance of their work, gaining fresh insights and further skill in articulating their practice and explaining their curriculum decisions (abramson, 2012, p. 154). participation in a co-inquiry process supported by a pedagogical mentor results in educators feeling more passionate about their work (abramson, 2012, p. 156). educator testimony from our research confirms that co-inquiry supported by pedagogical mentoring was often accompanied by educators’ growing sense of pride in their daily work and feelings of being reaffirmed and reignited in their role. educators felt that their work was more visible, and in turn, more valued by others. following the release of play, participation, and possibilities in 2014, phases two and three focused on introducing co-inquiry processes (perry et al., 2012) for animating the framework with the four programs that participated in its co-creation during phase one. phase three expanded to include four additional child care programs in small communities in northern alberta. the research team recruited ece faculty from local colleges as onsite pedagogical mentors. the process of onsite pedagogical mentoring included regular weekly visits to observe and document educator practice for purposes of reflection and dialogue. pedagogical mentors engaged individuals and teams of educators in planned and spontaneous pedagogical conversations about pedagogical documentation and curriculum meaning making, providing diverse entry points and opportunities to engage with the concepts, holistic goals, and dispositions to learn in the framework. they helped each program to host a professional community of learners event and a family event featuring their work with the framework. pedagogical mentors came together monthly for pedagogical dialogue with one another and the research team, both in person and with the support of an online platform. as the project unfolded, early childhood educators in leadership roles in several participating centres stepped forward, eager to take up the role of pedagogical mentoring. inspired by louise thomas and jocelyn nuttall (2014), who remind us that educators will engage in active negotiation of this new subject position in multiple ways, we set out to leave the possibilities of this new position open. hoping to explore the relationality and complexity of the role as the project progressed, we asked those who volunteered to play this role to “find their own way in” and to “walk alongside educators” as they explored the use of play, participation, and possibilities in everyday practice. stories as a provocation for curriculum meaning making consistent with the notion that meaningful professional learning begins with educator practice, we quickly found that using sample narratives and learning stories (carr, 2001; carr & lee, 2012) contributed by participating educators was a provocation to deeper pedagogical conversations and a source of professional learning among all of the project participants. these “little stories” (cotton & griffiths, 2007) of children’s care, play, and learning in specific early childhood communities began to circulate widely. they sparked one-on-one conversations as well as team dialogue, and were used by the research team at conferences and professional learning events to open a space for multiple readings using the curriculum framework concepts, holistic goals, and dispositions to learn. the processes of “story living and telling, and reliving and retelling” (henderson et al., 2012, p. 8) and revisiting pedagogical documentation served to bring educator decision making into focus for critical reflection. the working model of co-inquiry shaping our research with educators is an investigative cycle that involves three intertwined, recurring, and overlapping dimensions of educator practice: • co-learning (observing and documenting) alongside children, families, and colleagues • co-researching (reflecting and interpreting) through making connections to the curriculum framework and external sources of knowledge and theory winter/hiver 2019 43 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research • co-imagining possibilities for further experiences (planning and taking action) and engaging playfully with children. the model, inspired by the work of abramson (2012), is a flexible frame for emergent, organic, and nonlinear curriculum planning and meaning making. we draw on the notion of the “missing middle” in emergent curriculum planning (stacey, 2009). typically, educators observe for interests and plan next steps, often in the moment and without taking the time to reflect. taking time to “muck about” in the middle has proven inspiring for researchers and educators alike. in this model, curriculum evolves from children’s everyday experiences and relies on educators’ skillful observation and close listening to what children are doing, or wanting to do. educators are active, reflective, critical thinkers in this planning process. figure 2 is a working model of the co-inquiry processes we are using to support curriculum meaning making with play, participation, and possibilities. figure 2. co-inquiry: a working model. as we engaged with educators in the co-inquiry process, we introduced two tools into the cycle to support curriculum meaning making: talking the documentation and curriculum cross-checking. talking the documentation was shared with us by the research team at the university of new brunswick and emerged from the co-creation of the new brunswick curriculum for early learning and child care (2008). taking it up in our work with educators has supported participants to practice articulating and making visible their localized tacit knowledge of children’s play and learning and to consider the diverse perspectives that others might bring to the conversation. talking the documentation begins with educators’ documented observations of children engaged with ideas, others, and materials. revisiting these ordinary moments of children’s active exploration in a collaborative dialogue with others provides a forum for thinking deeply, asking questions, and being tentative about reflections and interpretations. the goal of talking the documentation is to build a broad repertoire of possibilities—to expand our thinking winter/hiver 2019 44 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research about the range of possible meanings that this experience might have for children, as well as our theories about what meaning these experiences might have for children, what children might be doing, and what children might be wanting to do. within the project, we explored talking the documentation in several ways, sometimes as an open, free-flowing process and often with the following set of guiding questions adapted from a reflective protocol developed by project zero at harvard (see cadwell, 2003) designed to structure dialogue about pedagogical documentation: • what do you see? • what questions does this play raise for you? • what do you think the child (or children) is working on, trying to accomplish or communicate? the second tool we used extensively in animating the curriculum framework with educators was curriculum crosschecking. dorothy strickland describes curriculum cross-checking as a strategy that allows children’s “needs and interests to guide instruction and then uses the curriculum documents to reference particular goals, expectations or standards that have been met” (as cited in heydon & iannacci, 2008, p. 166). in this project, we introduced curriculum cross-checking as a tool to interpret children’s playing and learning in relationship to curriculum framework goals and dispositions. curriculum cross-checking begins with educators’ observations of children. it is a way for educators to draw on the curriculum goal descriptors to describe what they see the children doing using a common language. curriculum becomes a living, evolving process that invites educators to think further about ways to extend and explore ideas, thoughts, and feelings. in rachel heydon and luigi iannacci’s (2008) words, “cross-checking repositions curriculum as something co-created and negotiated … whereby curriculum emerges from relationships rather than from requirements” ( p. 166). beginning with tea next, we offer a story, to borrow iris berger’s (2010) words, “as an inspiration and a possibility to enlarge our shared thought and our shared understanding of what early childhood education is and what it can be about” ( p. 72). as a source of participatory curriculum meaning making, the story affords multiple vantage points from which to view practice and children. following berger, we offer it not as a story of “best practice,” but as an instance of how beginning with children as a source of curriculum inspiration in daily work can lead to practice transformation. as berger reminds us, each story of children’s actions “offers a possibility to meet a new child … it affords a kind of listening that allows children to appear” (p. 71, italics in original). this story took place early in the second phase of the research project in the tanager room in the macewan university child care centre lab school2, a community made up of 12 toddlers and their families and a team of three educators (rebekah, jennifer, and bejuna). it involved the lab school educators, in particular rebekah mccarron, and a member of the research team, lee makovichuk, who was acting as a faculty pedagogical mentor to the university child care educators. at the time, the centre had an established practice of pedagogical documentation and provided regular weekly time for educators to work on documentation, which tended to focus on creating portfolio entries for individual children. the curriculum framework research provided resources to support collaborative pedagogical dialogue, with regular opportunities for educators to step out of ratio and meet with lee makovichuk to revisit pedagogical documentation in relationship to curriculum framework goals and dispositions. engaging families in curriculum meaning making was a priority, and we were intentional about seeking their winter/hiver 2019 45 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research participation in creating the learning story samples during the development of the framework. by this time in the project, families in our lab school were familiar with the positive orientation of the learning story and looked forward to receiving stories about their child. valuing the co-creation of the stories by educators, children, and families and the relationship between the learning story and the learner’s identity (carr & lee, 2012), we were reluctant to anonymize the stories. we received ethics approval to use children’s first names and images in scholarly publications and professional learning events. families’ participation in making meaning of the stories was linked to their explicit consent and ensured that families, educators, and researchers alike were comfortable with the images, dialogue, and interpretations. choosing a starting point for a story is always difficult. we begin in early fall, just after the centre had been freshly painted. the empty walls provoked conversations about how children experienced the long, narrow hallway entrance into the centre. the centre director, educators, and faculty mentor began to talk about what they could do to set up points of interest for children coming and going. thinking about the toddlers, they hung mirrors at the children’s eye level and put a tea set on a small table under the director’s office window as a provocation to see what children might do. the director had a perfect vantage point and became fascinated with watching the toddlers as they stopped to play on their way in and out of child care. meanwhile, the educators noticed pieces of the tea set were finding their way into the toddler room in the morning. following conversation about how the children might be using play with the tea set as a transition into child care each day, the team decided to bring a tea set into the tanager room. rebekah begins: when we the brought the tea set into the room, we also brought in a small stove and set them up together by the sand box, and this was quickly noticed by children. tea parties began happening soon after! children all engaged in moments of pouring sand, also known as tea, into the small cups or into bowls. the toddlers engaged immediately in sustained social pretend play. lee noticed these interesting interactions, and the deep and rich play in the toddler room, when she came to observe. she saw these moments as rich in potential and as fertile ground for curriculum meaning making with children, but was unsure about whether the educators were noticing these moments or seeing them in the same way. she was finding it difficult to arrange to meet with this team of educators outside of the playroom to talk about the connections between their work and the curriculum framework. “we have to get to the diapering routine” rebekah remembers: as a new educator, my entry into the tanager room created a new team dynamic. half of this group was new to the program in september. it took several months to feel as though we came together as a team and as a community with the children and families. just as we began to feel this group cohesion, i recognized the weight i was feeling about the daily routines with toddler-age children. at the time, i felt that the efforts that we put into planning play and learning experiences seemed to get lost in the work of relationship building and routines. lee remembers inviting the team out to talk about what they were doing and hearing “we have to get to the diapering routine”: i spent a lot of time observing in that room. they spent time in the routines, they offered winter/hiver 2019 46 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research choices. they were in the moment with children in diapering, changing, getting ready for outside. she would hear comments like “we get to meet today, i’m so excited” and then it wouldn’t happen. lee brought this dilemma to the research team. together, we wondered if their hesitation was brought on by the intensity and weight of daily routines. lee wondered how she could support them in conceptualizing the curriculum in the tanager room more holistically. when the children were playing with the tea set, i was feeling that this team of educators were caught up in the daily routines. as much as the educators need to be in the room with the children, i wanted them to take a moment to really see what was happening, to make sense of what the children were doing. they were talking about routines in a different way than planning for play. i wanted them to see that what they were doing in routines was curriculum. that’s when i said to myself, “we have to make this happen.” following the conversation with the research team, lee wondered if a conversation about the holistic goal of well-being, focused on providing “safe and caring environments where emotional and physical health, positive identities, and sense of belonging are nurtured and protected” (makovichuk et al., 2014), would open a space for deeper discussion. she went to the centre director to ask for help in getting both rebekah and jennifer out of the room. jennifer surprised lee by arriving at the meeting with a video clip of the tea party play. as part of the co-inquiry process in curriculum meaning making, the educators in this room were using photos and video documentation to revisit ordinary moments of care, play, and learning for reflection and further planning. this short video became a provocation for co-inquiry over the next several weeks. lee writes: i invited rebekah and jennifer to discuss their observations, their feelings, and the tensions between the importance of their daily work with children and the value of taking a step back to reflect. in a 30-minute meeting, we looked at the holistic goal, well-being, in play, participation, and possibilities in relationship to jennifer’s video documentation of the children and the tea set. as we talked the documentation, and cross-checked with the goal, we discussed what the children might know and could do. it was an “aha!” moment for the tanager room team! “what you were seeing changed and how you saw yourself in it changed” the opportunity to reflect and interpret with others using the common language of the curriculum framework produced new insights, and reenergized practice. as lee describes it: i could see a visible change in both rebekah and jennifer after the conversation, an excitement that i had not seen in months. i remember jennifer saying that she knew curriculum was happening already.... i wondered what would transpire from this opportunity for them to revisit, reunderstand, what the children were doing in their play. the educators began to talk about what they were seeing in relation to the goal descriptors (e.g., “children develop a sense of self, growing in their capacity to express feelings, concerns, and needs; children develop a sense of other, caring for others, [and] experiencing trust and compassion with children and adults” [makovichuk et al., 2014, p. 94]). rebekah writes: watching the video together, right away we noticed the children negotiating different roles and winter/hiver 2019 47 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research rules; the children were showing us their abilities to problem solve, work together, and share. our observations led us to change one aspect of the lunch routine: we introduced communal serving bowls on the lunch table. we decided as a team that we would begin by serving each child a small portion, then place the communal food bowls in the centre of the table and see what unfolded. this small shift in the lunch routine led to a big shift in thinking that resonates with the notion that collaborative reflection on documentation can produce change in practice. rebekah recalls: a story about ainsley reveals just how mighty these children already are. it was the first day using the communal serving bowls. upon hearing noah ask for blueberries, ainsley pulled the bowl of blueberries close to her. jennifer momentarily paused, holding her breath, waiting, and wondering: would ainsley keep the berries for herself? would she share the berries with noah? in amazement, jennifer watched as ainsley reached all the way across the table, offering the bowl to noah, saying, “here blueberries!” later, rebekah reflects: this small change to the lunch routine has made a significant shift in how we think about our participation at lunch, from overseeing and serving, to modelling and supporting children’s lunchtime interactions. the children’s use of communication, team work, how they are developing awareness of one another’s food likes and dislikes, and especially how much they already know about the social conventions of serving and sharing food with one another has really surprised me! the connections to the framework deepened as educators found more and more language in the goal of wellbeing to describe and validate the significance of these small everyday experiences with young children. rebekah continues: we’ve also noticed children eating more food and staying at the lunch table longer. it has become a more communal and social time, an opportunity to share our stories and ideas together while also experiencing a sense of belonging. it has also opened avenues for communication with families as the educators are learning more about each family’s social and cultural practices around sharing food. “it was already there, we just had to look at it through a different lens” as the educators continued to reflect on the goal of well-being, multiple possibilities for expanding and extending curriculum became visible to them. rebekah adds: after the initial excitement with the change in our lunch time i began wondering: what’s next? are they done with this, or is there another direction they want to go? i continued observing and documenting, but really took some time for reflecting. through that reflection i started noticing shifts in myself as an educator. this change to our lunchtime routine has made me really slow down more during a busy transition time in our daily schedule. i have become much more aware of how much learning is happening during one of our most mundane daily tasks. through ongoing pedagogical conversations, revisiting documentation, further curriculum cross-checking, and more time spent reflecting and mucking about in the middle, the educators began to make multiple links between winter/hiver 2019 48 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the concepts in play, participation, and possibilities, their new lunchtime routine, and the environment, materials, and experiences they were selecting for the classroom. rebekah describes what happened next: during the new lunch routine, jennifer, bejuna, and i recognized that the children were having some difficulty negotiating the larger serving spoons. we added spoons of all sizes and bowls into the sand area. one day i noticed maude cooking. she had bowls of sand lined up and was taking sand from one to the other and mixing it together. “it’s cake!” she said, as she took a pinch of sand from a third bowl. later on that week, selina and stanley both made cookies from rocks and wood rings. noah made some spaghetti with meatballs and zucchini using sand, ribbon, rocks, and wooden rings. the ideas of cooking, or preparing food, began to be very prominent during children’s play in the sand box and kitchen. “i began seeing their family life in their play—i didn’t see those connections before” the children’s imaginary play with preparing, serving, and sharing food led naturally to experiences preparing real food. rebekah describes how: we started by cutting bananas for lunch. a group of us peeled, cut, and sliced bananas with plastic knives and then put them into a large bowl. after cleaning up, we put the big bowl of bananas with the rest of our lunch. while cutting the bananas we shared a conversation about how we all open and eat our bananas differently. experiences with real food opened further opportunities to communicate with families. rebekah developed a new research question: “how do i work with families in the education and care of their children?” in pursuit of this question, and inspired by the well-being goal descriptor “children learn about food and nutrition, exploring a range of cultural practices of eating and sharing food” (makovichuk et al., 2014, p. 96), she actively sought out knowledge from the families about their social and cultural practices of preparing and sharing food. it became possible to open up conversations with families at the end of the day using anecdotes from their child’s play (e.g., “i noticed your child pretending to drink tea at the sand table, do you do this at home?”). this led to planning for toddlers to participate in food shopping, as well as expanding the children’s play through offering locally relevant cultural artifacts, such as chopsticks, and various types of tea sets. as an extension of this play, the educators and children prepared cookies and invited their families for a tea party. “i really didn’t know i had anything to say” rebekah was asked to share her story at several professional learning events. she continued to have pedagogical conversations with lee as they progressed through a writing and rewriting process to prepare the story figure 3. “it’s cake!” figure 4. cutting bananas. winter/hiver 2019 49 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to be shared with other educators. lee comments that “working through the story repeatedly meant revisiting our co-constructed meaning of the story to articulate what unfolded to others.” reflecting on the process and recognizing its partiality, lee comments: “you can’t pay attention to everything in the moment.” rebekah reflects: in my education, i have learned that i hold an image of the child, and that it should be—is—a strong, resourceful, and capable child. but, what does that truly mean? now in experiencing this notion, it has changed for me; my image of the child and what that means has deepened. the children surprise me every day with their capabilities to seemingly “act older than their age” when in truth, they aren’t acting; they are simply being who they are. and they are amazingly capable beings as they communicate their ideas and feelings, as they care for one another and themselves, and as they explore with such focus and genuine interest. as researchers, we noted the meaning of this experience for rebekah’s sense of professional identity and her ability to articulate practice. she continues: while i noticed my evolving image of a child, i feel that i also experienced a major change in my image of myself, as an educator. i make many decisions each day. i make decisions in how i communicate my messages to children, the tone i use, the words i draw on to respect them as people in the room. when i chose new or familiar materials for the children’s play and learning, these are decisions that communicate how i view them as learners and players. when children encounter problems and i offer them time and space and close observation, i communicate that i view them as strong, resourceful, and capable people, who sometimes need my help, or not. what i do does matter, and this realization has forever changed me. educator insights and reflection make visible some of the many ways possible to make meaning of this story, keeping curriculum alive and open (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015, p. 128). lenz taguchi (2007)reminds us that “in the very ‘textualizing’ of practice, it is, in fact, talked and written into existence—both as practice and as theory— and in that sense made accessible and even palpable, for being rewritten, retalked, and thereby re-performed and transformed” (p. 279). retalking this story for this article once again foregrounds the educator’s ability to observe, listen, question, and make connections that inform curriculum planning and change practice through the team’s collaborative study of the documentation. through her telling and retelling, rebekah creates new meaning— seeing herself beyond the metaphor of the “labourer” (coulter & wiens 2002, as cited in berger, 2010, p. 73) as a thinker, actor, and storyteller (berger, 2010)—and embraces her life in the classroom as a co-learner, co-researcher, and co-imaginer of curriculum possibilities (makovichuk et al., 2014). closing animating the use of a curriculum framework in everyday practice is not a “tick box” process. it is nonlinear, messy, figure 5. a tea party for families. winter/hiver 2019 50 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research iterative, deeply theoretical, and yet highly intuitive, drawing on local, situated knowledges and relationships. it is about living with curriculum as always already happening with/in the daily experiences of young children and their families in child care. it is not about “training” in specific competencies. our preliminary findings suggest that this approach to curriculum requires an initial period of intensive, responsive, sustained pedagogical mentorship provided by well-educated, experienced mentors with expertise in early childhood pedagogy, as well as dedicated time for educators, outside of the playroom and also outside of their program setting, for dialogue and reflection with supportive pedagogical mentors, colleagues / team members, and the broader professional community. this process of pedagogical mentoring and co-inquiry led to productive reflection, concrete changes in practice, a growing sense of pride in daily work, and an enhanced sense of affirmation, valuing, and visibility of the work. the co-inquiry process has helped us to move beyond program planning to working with curricular resources informed by early learning pedagogies in a way that has the potential to transform practice and reinvigorate relationships. we continue to explore how critical reflection on taken-for-granted notions of the image of the child and childhood, and our own work, has material results for daily practice and the ongoing social organization (smith, 2005) of work with young children. following carla rinaldi (2006, p. 184), we seek to better understand the conditions that invite dialogue with the power to transform practice and to set curriculum meaning making in motion. winter/hiver 2019 51 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research acknowledgments the authors thank the children, families, early childhood educators, and program directors at macewan child care centre lab school, terra child and family support centre, jasper place child and family resource society, child development dayhomes, and intercultural child and family centre, who contributed so generously to co-imagining new possibilities for animating curriculum in early learning and child care. we acknowledge our faculty colleagues and co-researchers – nancy thomas, margaret mykietyshyn, rebecca dupont, and mary lynne matheson – for their thoughtful participation as pedagogical mentors. we are grateful for the support of pam whitty and the early childhood research team at the university of new brunswick and for permission to use the goals from the new brunswick framework for early learning and care in the alberta framework. references abramson, s. (2012). co-inquiry: documentation, communication, action. in g. perry, b. henderson, & d. meier (eds.), our inquiry, our practice: undertaking, supporting, and learning from early childhood teacher research(ers) (pp. 147–157). washington, dc: national association for the education of young children. bennett, j. (2004). curriculum in early childhood education and care. unesco policy brief on early childhood. retrieved from http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001374/137401e.pdf berger, i. (2010). extending the notion of pedagogical narration through hannah arendt’s political thought. in v. pacini-ketchabaw (ed.), flows, rhythms, & intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 57–76). new york, ny: peter lang. cadwell, l. (2003). bringing learning to life: the reggio approach to early childhood education. new york, ny: teachers college press. carr, m. (2001). assessment in early childhood settings: learning stories. london, uk: sage. carr, m., & lee, w. (2012). learning stories: constructing learner identities in early education. london, uk: sage. cotton, t., & griffiths, m. (2007). action research, stories, and practical philosophy. educational action research, 15(4), 545–560. doi: 10.1080/09650790701 curtis, d., lebo, d., cividanes, w. c. m., & carter, m. (2013). reflecting in communities of practice: a workbook for early childhood educators. st. paul, mn: redleaf. early childhood research team, university of new brunswick. (2008). new brunswick curriculum framework for early learning and child care ~ english. retrieved from http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/education/elcc/content/curriculum/ curriculum_framework.html edwards, s., & nuttall, j. (eds.). (2009). professional learning in early childhood settings. rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. eurofound. (2015). working conditions, training of early childhood care workers, and quality of services: a systematic review. retrieved from https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2015/working-conditions-social-policies/early-childhood-careworking-conditions-training-and-quality-of-services-a-systematic-review fleet, a., de gioia, k., & patterson, c. (2016). engaging with educational change: voices of practitioner inquiry. london, uk: bloomsbury. fleet, a., & patterson, c. (2001). professional growth reconceptualized: early childhood staff searching for meaning. early childhood research and practice, 3(2), 7–19. fleet, a., & patterson, c. (2009). a timescape: personal narratives, professional spaces. in s. edwards & j. nuttall (eds.), professional learning in early childhood settings (pp. 9–25). rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. hatch, a. (2012). teacher research: questions for teacher educators. in g. perry, b. henderson, & d. meier (eds.), our inquiry, our practice: undertaking, supporting, and learning from early childhood teacher research(ers) (pp. 117–125). washington, dc: national association for the education of young children. winter/hiver 2019 52 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research henderson, b. (2012). teacher research: effects on professional development and professional identity. voices of practitioners, 7(1), 1–6. henderson, b., meier, d. r., perry, g., & stremmel, a. j. (2012). the nature of teacher research. in g. perry, b. henderson, & d. meier (eds.), our inquiry, our practice: undertaking, supporting, and learning from early childhood teacher research(ers) (pp. 3–10). washington, dc: national association for the education of young children. heydon, r. m., & iannacci, l. (2008). early childhood curricula and the de-pathologizing of childhood. toronto, on: university of toronto press. lenz taguchi, h. (2007). deconstructing and transgressing the theory-practice dichotomy in early childhood education. educational philosophy and theory, 39(3), 275–290. macnaughton, g., & hughes, p. (2008). doing action research in early childhood studies: a step by step guide. maidenhead, uk: open university press/mcgraw hill education. makovichuk, l., hewes, j., lirette, t., & thomas, n. (2014). play, participation, and possibilities: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta. retrieved from http://childcareframework.com/ mitchell, l., & cubey, p. (2003). characteristics of professional development linked to enhanced pedagogy and children’s learning in early childhood settings: best evidence synthesis. wellington nz: government of new zealand ministry of education. moss, p. (ed.) (2013). early childhood and compulsory education: reconceptualising the relationship. abingdon, uk: routledge. olsson, l. m. (2009). movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: deleuze and guattari in early childhood education. london, uk: routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v., kocher, l., sanchez, a., & chan, k. (2009). rhizomatic stories of immanent becomings and intra-activity: professional development reconceptualized. in l. iannacci & p. whitty (eds.), early childhood curricula: reconceptualist perspectives. calgary, ab: detselig. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. patterson, c., mcauley, e., & fleet, a. (2013). leading change from the inside: a braided portrait. reflective practice, 14(1), 58–74. doi: 10.1080/14623943.2012.732938 perry, g., henderson, b., & meier, d. (eds.). (2012). our inquiry, our practice: undertaking, supporting, and learning from early childhood teacher research(ers). washington, dc: national association for the education of young children. rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia: listening, researching, and learning. new york, ny: routledge. sellers, m. (2013). young children becoming curriculum: deleuze, te whariki, and curricular understandings. abingdon, uk: routledge. smith, d. (2005). institutional ethnography: a sociology for the people. lanham, md: altamira. stacey, s. (2009). emergent curriculum in early childhood settings: from theory to practice. curriculum in action. st. paul, mn: redleaf. stremmel, a. j. (2007). the value of teacher research: nurturing professional and personal growth through inquiry. voices of practitioners, 2(3), 1–9. thomas, l., & nuttall, j. (2014). negotiating policy-driven and state-mandated expectations of leadership: discourses accessed by early childhood educators in australia. new zealand research in early childhood education journal, 17, 101–114. wong, a. c. y. (2009). dialogue engagements: professional development using pedagogical documentation. canadian children, 34(2), 25–30. winter/hiver 2019 53 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (endnotes) 1 in june 2018, play, participation, and possibilities: an early learning and child care framework for alberta was renamed flight: alberta’s early learning and care framework. 2 in 2017, the macewan university child care centre lab school was renamed early learning at macewan (elm). spring/printemps 2018 81 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice becoming garden kelsey wapenaar and aideen deschutter kelsey wapenaar and aideen deschutter are early childhood educators residing in victoria, british columbia. their work is rooted in thinking critically with children in a common worlds framework that acknowledges the entanglements we are within. email: kelseywapenaar@uvic.ca we, kelsey and aideen, are educators who work in a child care centre situated within a university campus on the west coast of british columbia, offering full-day care to children aged 3 to 5. the university is situated on the traditional territory of the wsáneć (saanich), lkwungen (songhees), and wyomilth (esquimalt) peoples of the coast salish nation. we have recently acquired a plot, or small square of land, at the campus community garden. it was already late spring when we heard we would be given a space after patiently waiting for some time. we eagerly arrived to see the new plot, which was to be an extension of our classroom—a space that was public and connected with a larger community. it was lush with dandelions, lambs’ ear, overgrown brassica, and various grasses. children walked through it, trying to disappear in the thickness of the plant life commonly known as weeds (see figure 1). touching the lambs’ ear, marvelling at how soft the leaves were, we had to carefully think about what was growing there already. what had grown here before? troubled by the constant binary of good/bad, we grappled with questions: how do we encounter this piece of land? how do we meet these resilient plants, which have somehow survived, regardless of their lack of water? how can we become with this place? fikile nxumalo (2016) troubles the history behind the aesthetics and practices of eurocentric gardens. she says, “these imaginaries and gardening practices come together to help shape what belongs, lives, and grows inside certain gardens, and what becomes classified as a weed or an “invasive pest” (p. 140). we tried to navigate how we were going to respond to the plants that were already growing in our plot in a way that disrupted seeing them as only weeds. or, as one child said, “bad, baaaad, bad plants. they take all the water from the plants.” this “messy” garden, which was not pruned or by any means contained, was alive: it was already growing. the plants that were growing were not ones often wanted or desired in colonialstyle gardens (nxumalo, 2016). in a way, the garden lacked an order to the plants. we were mystified at times where the garden began, as figure 2 shows. the garden lacked a clear division this paper is composed of a series of moments that evolved from an inquiry with our community garden plot. this inquiry involved children’s, educators’, and families’ experimentations and processes of “coming to know” the garden. we attempt to grapple with the messiness of a “garden” and the assemblages and binaries that exist within it. we experiment with sitting in our garden as a space not yet defined. through this process, we found that a community garden is open to a plurality of possibilities. this entangled process of coming to know speaks to the imaginary and involves layers of touching, hearing, seeing, drawing, talking, writing, and storying our garden. key words: garden inquiry; common worlds; becoming; experimentation; community figure 1. garden plot. spring/printemps 2018 82 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice between the grass and the edge of the plot. nxumalo (2016) troubles the colonial history surrounding a community garden plot, questioning, “how do the vibrancies of place restoried through multispecies relations sit alongside the borderlines of the garden? what might we learn by paying attention to not only colonial framing enacted by lines, but also to leaks, cracks, and ruptures in these lines?” (p. 143). we began to plant seeds for various vegetables and fruits, but not many grew. at times we wondered: is this space a garden? what does a garden consist of ? one child drew the elements she imagined to be critical in the garden (see figure 3). her drawings of rain, sunshine, bugs, her own hand, the soil, plants provoked us to think about how we were entangled with this garden. being with this garden as it was, in all its messiness, provided an opening—a pause—a space for something else to become. we were tempted to cultivate a garden that was fertile in production of fruits and vegetables; however, we met resistance in this initiative. the children were imagining where the seeds went and asking why they didn’t grow into “big plants that reached the sky.” instead, they grappled with the plants that were there. what is possible in this space between? how do we think with the other possibilities of gardens? it was within this messy place that the opening for possibilities from the children emerged. in a way, the undefined element of the garden lent itself to a plurality of possibilities. we had to pause and listen. it was these entanglements of binaries, unknown plants, and a new space that led our inquiry of how to “become garden” (haraway, 2003). imaginative possibilities in this process of coming to know our garden, and as our questions about what a garden is continued to grow, we thought about what we did not know. how were we imagining the garden to be? as we worked with this idea, the children also developed their own theories for what happened in the garden. we wanted to think with maxine greene’s (1995) ideas about the possibility of what else could be: to tap into imagination is to become able to break with what is supposedly fixed and finished, objectively and independently real. it is to see beyond what the imaginer has called normal or “common-sensible” and to carve out new orders in experience. doing so, a person may become freed to glimpse what might be, to form notions of what should be and what is not yet. and the same person may, at the same time, remain in touch with what presumably is. (p. 19) we have wondered, how do we respond? children’s imaginative ideas are often dismissed by educators, researchers, and other adults. rather than responding with curiosity about the origin of their ideas, children’s theories are often romanticized as cute. however, we wanted to think about what these ideas could become. what kinds of dialogue could they generate? troubling the perception that the garden had to become classified as only figure 2. pathways—spaces in between our garden / the neighbour’s / planted grass. photo by keegan, age 4. figure 3. drawing of garden entanglements sunshine–raindrops–hand–ladybugs–seeds–rain– sunflower–worms–rainbow. spring/printemps 2018 83 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice a plot that produced a bounty of vegetables and fruits, we hoped to invite multiple perspectives and ideas around its becoming. what could the seeds that did not germinate (in this plot) also set into motion? the towering sunflower that peers over the rest of our garden plot certainly evokes a flurry of conversation, but we also wonder about how we respond to the dandelions that grow with it. mysterious seeds from last year’s brassica that self-seeded or the seeds from our apples we shared at snack that we planted in hopes of growing an apple tree—these moments have become entangled in our relationship with the community garden. marshmallow seeds we decided to start some seeds indoors as we waited for the fluctuating spring weather to steady. after debating about what type of seed to plant, we decided to start a mixture of edible seeds because we felt there was a strong interest in growing plants we could also taste. we invited families to share with us seeds from their previous harvest. with an assortment of seeds, soil, pots, and multiple hands we gathered around an outdoor table. opening each packet with curiosity and interest, we closely examined the shape, texture, and colour of the seeds. holding a pea seed between their fingers, one child exclaimed with confidence, “a marshmallow seed!” how can we see the children’s theories about the pea seeds, shrivelled and square in their shape, as possible marshmallow seeds? with their declaration that they will “grow a marshmallow forest,” how do we acknowledge these seeds as something other than the pea seeds they (presumably) are? how do we take seriously children’s theories for imaginative possibilities? instead, could it be a provocation to think about “what if ?” and “what else?” what other possibilities exist within this assemblage of plants-seeds-soil-rain-sun-hands-worms-birds that we do not know? we danced between spaces of our own understanding, of tangible experiences of our own gardening histories and the imaginative stories the children told. ted aoki (1993, in aoki, pinar, & irwin, 2012) draws on this space in between knowing and not knowing. possibly, just possibly, there might be a new language in the making—growing in the middle—a language with a grammar in which a noun is not always a noun, in which conjoining words like between and and are no mere joining words, a new language that might allow a transformative resonance of the words paradigms, practices, and possibilities. (p. 214) thinking with aoki, we continued to question how we could respond to the becoming-garden in a way that recognized the complexities involved. traveling seeds there have been a few moments where we have been puzzled at where the seeds we planted have gone. stories have been told by the children of a mysterious bear with pink fur that sneaks around the centre and garden at night eating all the ripe strawberries. other possibilities—the bunnies made off with them, a lack of water, the wind blew them away, the birds took them—have been among our theories of why they didn’t grow. but perhaps they did grow, just not in this garden. perhaps they travelled somewhere else. we often discovered fragments of the plants that grew, such as the beans in figure 4, showing evidence that this garden is shared. or perhaps some of our surprise plants could be attributed to one child’s statement: “do you know how some trees grow? the birds eat the berries and then the trees grow from the birds’ poop.” multiple layers exist within our garden. various seeds left over from last year have made an appearance, and there have been surprises of potatoes, chard, squash, and a growing amount of tomato plants. spring/printemps 2018 84 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice acknowledgement how does the way we speak about soil-seeds-plants-birds and so on change the way we interact with the world? robin wall kimmerer (2015) weaves an indigenous way of knowing plants with her experience as a botanist. she reminds us of the importance of language and the power that it holds. our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion—until we teach them not to. we quickly retrain them and make them forget. when we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. (p. 57) similarly, in our inquiry one child stated, “i’m going to read to the seeds so they grow” as she tended to the newly planted seeds. this gesture imagines other ways of tending to seeds that complicate the expected assemblage of water–sunshine–soil. how can we think with kimmerer’s (2003) thoughts on language as we grapple with the life in our garden? how can we respond to gestures such as reading to the seeds so that we acknowledge what their stories and language set in motion? could the way we tell stories and speak about the life of these plants disrupt the colonial histories embedded within unwanted plants and euro-centered gardening practices? storying garden(s) elements in the garden are not static; they hold incredible agency. one afternoon, a group of children and educators sat beside the garden plot drawing the changes we noticed and thinking about the life in the soil. one child drew worm tunnels (figure 5) and explained that they “help the carrots grow” and “be the plant’s friend.” as these conversations occurred, soil from the garden beds travelled to the paper. soil blowing around the paper invited our fingers to spread it (figure 6), leading us to discover the ability to mark. discovering this led us to be intrigued by how we could draw with the other plants growing in the plot. rubbing the pungent yellow dandelion petals and green kale leaves left vibrant streaks of colour on the paper and our fingers. this reminded us of how donna haraway (2015) draws on jim clifford, stating, “we need stories (and theories) that are just big enough to gather up the complexities and keep the edges open and greedy for surprising new and old connections” (p. 160). with haraway (2015), we continue to question what could be possible within this assemblage. soil from the garden often follows us throughout the day, stuck in the crevices of our boots and under our fingernails. how do we get to know the soil? how can we get to know the soil through touch? as we rub it between our fingers, looking closely at its composition, we notice tiny, broken-down fragments, or “remains” and intricacies of the “web of living organisms” (puig de la bellacasa, 2014). we notice differences in the soil from different locations in the forest figure 4. beans—shrivelled–half-picked–picked–gone– not picked. photo by keegan, age 4. figure 5. drawing of the carrots growing with the worms’ help. spring/printemps 2018 85 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice and the community garden. what is soil and how does (s) he live? in terms of taking care of soil in this colonized place, what does soil do (or not do) in regards to worlding new possibilities with seeds, water, manure, worms, and so many others—including our human selves? encounters among children, educators, worms, beetles, seeds, soil, shoes, wind, families, bunnies, deer … all intra-act (barad, 2007) with each other. this garden assemblage is always becoming. it is these relations that connect us in multiple ways. conclusion is this a garden? kimmerer (2003) encourages us to think about the importance of relationships: the revelation of suddenly seeing what i was blind to only moments before is a sublime experience for me. i can revisit those moments and still feel a surge of expansion. the boundaries between my world and the world of another being get pushed back with sudden clarity, an experience both humbling and joyful…look in a certain way and a whole new world can be revealed. (pp. 9–10) with kimmerer (2003), we continue an ongoing dialogue about the “tangled tapestry threads” of our ongoing relations with the garden. we continue to (re)story our relationship with this place and grapple with how to respond with a becoming-garden. beyond conventional ways of thinking exists children’s innovative concepts and perceptions that thread unlimited possibilities of garden(s). figure 6. soil and pastel rubbing. spring/printemps 2018 86 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references aoki, t. t., pinar, w. f., & irwin, r. l. (2012). curriculum in a new key: the collected works of ted t. aoki. new york, ny: routledge. barad, k. (2007). meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. durham, nc: duke university press. greene, m. (1995). seeking contexts: releasing the imagination. essays on education, the arts, and social change (pp. 9–16). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. haraway, d. (2003). the companion species manifesto: dogs, people, and significant otherness. chicago, il: prickly paradigm press. haraway, d. (2015). anthropocene, capitalocene, plantationocene, chthulucene: making kin. environmental humanities, 6, 159–165. retrieved from http://environmentalhumanities.org/arch/vol6/6.7.pdf kimmerer, r. w. (2003). gathering moss: a natural and cultural history of mosses. corvallis, or: osu press. kimmerer, r. w. (2015). braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants. minneapolis, mn: milkwood editions. nxumalo, f. (2016). touching place in childhood studies: situated encounters with a community garden. in h. skott-myhre, v. paciniketchabaw, & k. skott-myhre (eds.), youth work, early education, and psychology (pp. 131–158). new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137480040_8 puig de la bellacasa, m. (2013). encountering bioinfrastructure: ecological struggles and the sciences of soil. social epistemology, 28(1), 26-40. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2013.862879 winter/hiver 2019 5 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research il était une fois des éducatrices en petite enfance engagées dans une formation continue en ligne : histoires d’apprenantes / once upon a time, there were early childhood educators engaged in an online continuing education program: learner narratives claire moreau, nicole royer, chantal royer claire moreau, ph. d. spécialiste en pédagogie universitaire claire.moreau@uqtr.ca claire moreau a obtenu son doctorat en sciences de l’éducation (ph. d.) à l’université du québec à trois-rivières. sa recherche a permis de comprendre l’expérience d’éducatrices de jeunes enfants inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue en ligne. d’abord chargée de cours en ligne et en présence auprès d’éducatrices de jeunes enfants et de futurs enseignants, puis conseillère pédagogique en milieu universitaire, ses intérêts de recherche portent notamment sur les étudiants aux parcours non-traditionnels. nicole royer, ph. d. professeure, département des sciences de l’éducation université du québec à trois-rivières nicole.royer@uqtr.ca nicole royer est professeure au département des sciences de l’éducation de l’université du québec à trois-rivières. elle enseigne depuis de nombreuses années aux intervenantes en services de garde préscolaire et s’intéresse notamment à la qualité de vie au travail de ces intervenantes, aux sources de stress et de bien-être, ainsi qu’aux stratégies bienfaisantes. chantal royer, ph. d. professeure, département de loisir, culture et tourisme université du québec à trois-rivières chantal.royer@uqtr.ca chantal royer est professeure au département d’études en loisir, culture et tourisme de l’université du québec à trois-rivières où elle enseigne les méthodes de recherche. elle a été présidente de l’association pour la recherche qualitative de 2002 à 2006 et, de 2002 à 2018, elle a assuré la direction de la revue recherches qualitatives. sur le plan méthodologique, elle s’intéresse aux différentes approches qui fondent la recherche qualitative, à leur statut dans l’univers de la science, à leur valeur, à leur évolution et à la façon de les transmettre et de les enseigner. par ailleurs, ses travaux de recherche portent sur les valeurs des jeunes dont elle analyse différentes facettes. winter/hiver 2019 6 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research les recherches sont peu nombreuses à mettre en lumière le développement professionnel d’éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites dans une formation continue en ligne. toutefois, deux s’illustrent. en nouvelle-zélande, une formation hybride offerte à des éducatrices en petite enfance (cherrington & thornton, 2013) aurait permis à des petits groupes d’apprenants de régions éloignées et isolées de réfléchir individuellement et collectivement à leurs pratiques, d’identifier leurs actions quotidiennes et de développer une communauté de pratique grâce aux interactions asynchrones véhiculées par le courriel, les forums de discussion ou le clavardage. aux états-unis, une enquête a dévoilé les perceptions sur les contenus, les compétences technologiques exigées et l’accessibilité à la formation en ligne de 231 éducatrices et de 28 de leurs enseignants (stone-macdonald & douglass, 2014). les principaux résultats font état de la bonne utilisation des technologies par les éducatrices sur le plan plus personnel, mais d’une certaine difficulté à les utiliser dans une perspective éducative. cette recherche soulève la pertinence d’aider les éducatrices à développer leurs compétences et leur sentiment de compétence à utiliser adéquatement les technologies pour apprendre. le dernier résultat de cette recherche atteste que la présence en ligne de l’enseignant est essentielle pour aider les éducatrices à faire des liens entre leur pratique professionnelle quotidienne et leurs apprentissages. il semble nécessaire de poursuivre les recherches sur les formations qui permettent aux éducatrices en petite enfance de se développer professionnellement. ainsi, mieux comprendre l’expérience des éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites dans une formation continue en ligne constitue le but général de la présente recherche. au fil d’une recherche qualitative, six éducatrices en petite enfance ont pu s’exprimer sur leur cheminement personnel et professionnel au sein d’une formation continue en ligne les menant à un diplôme universitaire (certificat de 30 crédits). une analyse par catégories conceptualisantes a permis à leur histoire de prendre forme à travers différentes dimensions ayant influencé leur développement professionnel. de leurs débuts comme apprenantes jusqu’aux différents enjeux vécus pendant leur formation continue en ligne et leur perception de la pédagogie, l’article met en lumière l’histoire de ces éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue en ligne. key words: apprenants non traditionnels, formation continue en ligne, développement professionnel, éducatrices en petite enfance through a qualitative research study, six early childhood educators shared their personal and professional journeys in an online in-service training program leading to a university diploma (30 credit certificate). analysis by conceptual categories allowed their narratives to take shape through the different dimensions that influenced their professional development. from the beginning as new learners to the different challenges they experienced during the online program, and their perceptions of pedagogy, this paper highlights the story of early childhood educators registered as learners in an online inservice training program. key words: non-traditional learners, online training, professional development, early childhood educator winter/hiver 2019 7 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research les éducatrices en petite enfance dans le rôle d’apprenantes adultes : un éclairage théorique teinté par les enjeux de la formation à distance comme apprenantes, les éducatrices en petite enfance se distinguent de l’étudiant inscrit en formation initiale universitaire entretenant un rapport aux études dit «  traditionnel  » parce qu’il s’investit exclusivement dans ses études et suit un « cheminement ininterrompu, linéaire et collé à la structure éducative nationale » (cse, 2013, p.12). en effet, la plupart des éducatrices en petite enfance suivant une formation continue en ligne sont engagées sur le marché du travail, ont des responsabilités familiales et diverses obligations qui les contraignent, souvent, à étudier à temps partiel. elles ne sont pas exclusivement engagées dans leurs études universitaires et ont donc un rapport aux études dit « non traditionnel » (cse, 2013, p.7). les apprenants au rapport non traditionnel aux études se différencient de par leur parcours discontinu, leur motivation ou encore le choix de leur formation. ils ont minimalement terminé leurs études secondaires, voire obtenu un diplôme d’études collégiales ou universitaires, eu une expérience professionnelle plus ou moins longue, et ce, avant de se réinvestir dans une formation universitaire (acdeaulf/icea, 2013 ; cse, 2013). de plus, ils aspirent plus souvent à se développer d’un point de vue personnel ou professionnel, sans obligatoirement souhaiter obtenir un diplôme universitaire (acdeaulf, 2012 ; cse). ce sont, généralement, des professionnels souhaitant acquérir des connaissances et des compétences (moskal, dziuban et hartman, 2010), visant un certain enrichissement personnel et professionnel ou cherchant à se réorienter professionnellement (cse, 2013). pour ce faire, ils choisissent, le plus souvent, des formations offrant des horaires flexibles ou des activités se déroulant les soirs et les fins de semaine par souci de conciliation entre leurs obligations personnelles et professionnelles. l’un des défis majeurs des formateurs est donc de pouvoir répondre à l’ensemble des besoins de ces apprenants adultes. les bâtisseurs de théories entourant l’apprentissage des adultes (dewey, 1916/2011 ; lindeman, 1944, 1945 ; knowles, 1977, 1978, 1981 ; schön, 1994) ont permis de mieux comprendre l’adulte en tant qu’apprenant ainsi que ses besoins. ceux-ci ont également contribué à rendre plus explicite le rôle de l’enseignant comme andragogue, soit un enseignant qui s’assure de répondre aux besoins spécifiques d’adultes en situation d’apprentissage. à cet effet, pour favoriser l’apprentissage, l’enseignant-andragogue pourra : • faire référence aux expériences professionnelles, sociales et personnelles de l’apprenant ; • créer un climat d’apprentissage respectueux de l’apprenant en tant qu’adulte autonome avec une certaine expérience de vie ; • valoriser un climat d’apprentissage détendu, égalitaire, convivial, centré sur l’estime de soi, le désir de collaboration et les besoins de l’apprenant adulte ; • créer des activités d’apprentissage permettant à l’apprenant adulte de transférer rapidement ses apprentissages à son milieu de pratique ; • orienter ses interventions pédagogiques sur l’accomplissement de tâches, la résolution de problèmes, la discussion en groupe, les études de cas, les démonstrations, les jeux de rôle, les projets d’action et les mises en situation développant des habiletés comportementales et relationnelles plutôt que sur la rétention d’informations (depover & marchand, 2002 ; dominicé, 2004 ; kellenberg, schimdt & werner, 2017 ; marchand, 2001 ; ota, dicarlo, burts, laird & gioe, 2006 ; todd, ravi, akoh & gray, 2015). winter/hiver 2019 8 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research la formation continue en ligne des éducatrices en petite enfance au québec : un contexte particulier au québec, les éducatrices en petite enfance (diplômées ou ayant une expérience dans le milieu des services de garde préscolaire ou scolaire) souhaitant poursuivre leur développement professionnel peuvent choisir parmi plusieurs programmes universitaires. elles peuvent notamment suivre un programme de premier cycle entièrement en ligne sanctionné par un diplôme universitaire (certificat de 30 crédits offert par une université au québec), peu importe leur situation géographique et à tout moment de leur carrière professionnelle. pour être diplômées, les apprenantes doivent compléter 10 cours parmi les 12 que propose le programme. tous, sans exception, sont entièrement supportés en ligne et dispensés en mode asynchrone (différé dans le temps et dans l’espace). dans ce programme, les participantes sont invitées à s’approprier les contenus de différentes manières : • lecture des écrits de différents ordres (professionnels, scientifiques ou écrits de l’enseignant) ; • visionnement de séquences vidéo dans lesquelles des experts s’expriment sur un sujet donné ou de présentations filmées des enseignants. toutefois, dans presque tous les cours, les éducatrices sont placées en situation de communication. à cet effet, elles doivent répondre à plusieurs questions dans les forums de discussion ou encore préparer des travaux en équipe malgré la distance. ces situations de communication font d’ailleurs presque systématiquement l’objet d’évaluations, qui portent parfois sur l’ampleur de la participation, d’autres fois sur le contenu même de la participation. par ailleurs, les contenus des forums de discussion servent régulièrement à rédiger un travail final dans lequel les éducatrices vont commenter les meilleures interventions et mettre en mots une réflexion à partir de propos qui ont marqué leur cheminement dans le cours. la grande majorité des évaluations se fait donc avec des travaux réflexifs dans lesquels il est demandé aux éducatrices de faire des liens entre les théories vues dans les cours et leur pratique professionnelle. la présente recherche entend répondre à la question de recherche suivante : quelle est l’expérience d’éducatrices de jeunes enfants inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue en ligne ? l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance : une recherche qualitative l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites dans un certificat de premier cycle dispensé en ligne a été mise au jour grâce à l’étude de leur expérience comme apprenantes. pour ce faire, cette recherche s’inscrit dans une démarche de recherche qualitative dont l’objectif est de conceptualiser l’expérience de ces apprenantes au parcours non traditionnel. le portrait des protagonistes : six éducatrices en petite enfance les participantes à la recherche ont été recrutées parmi les étudiantes inscrites dans la formation continue en ligne universitaire susmentionnée en novembre 2014. avec le concours du responsable de programme, les étudiantes ont été sollicitées par courriel. sur une centaine d’étudiants, six ont accepté de prendre part à l’étude. les étapes du recrutement ont permis (1) que nul doute ne subsiste sur le fait qu’aucune récompense ne serait offerte en échange d’une participation à la recherche, (2) que le consentement des participantes soit libre, éclairé et continu, et (3) qu’aucun des membres du comité de programme et aucun enseignant ne puissent savoir qui, parmi l’ensemble des apprenantes inscrites dans le programme, a participé à l’étude.  winter/hiver 2019 9 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research la figure 1 résume le portrait des six participantes selon le nombre de cours qu’elles ont suivis dans le programme, le milieu professionnel dans lequel elles évoluent et le nombre d’années d’expérience qu’elles ont. afin de préserver l’anonymat des participantes, leur prénom a été modifié. figure 1 : portrait des participantes à la recherche1 la principale caractéristique des six participantes est qu’elles concilient toutes leurs études et leur vie professionnelle. plusieurs concilient également leurs obligations scolaires et professionnelles avec la charge d’une jeune famille. par ailleurs, elles ont toutes une expérience professionnelle de 5 à 20 années comme éducatrices en petite enfance et ont suivi de 2 à 9 cours dans le cadre de la formation continue en ligne à laquelle elles sont inscrites. six entrevues semi-dirigées et quatre récits de vie : les données collectées chacune des participantes a été rencontrée lors d’une entrevue semi-dirigée structurée autour des interactions asynchrones et de leurs rôles dans la formation continue en ligne. ces entrevues ont donné accès à plusieurs dimensions de leur expérience, notamment les connaissances acquises, leur vécu et leur ressenti comme apprenantes. pour approfondir certaines de ces dimensions, une entrevue de récit de vie (bertaux, 2014) a ensuite été réalisée avec quatre participantes. adeline, béatrice, caroline et danielle ont été contactées au fur et à mesure de l’avancement de cette seconde phase de la collecte des données parce qu’elles montraient des profils contrastés lors de l’entrevue semi-dirigée. structurés autour de leurs propres parcours, les récits de vie ont laissé aux participantes le soin de dévoiler les différents détours qu’elles ont empruntés. ainsi, sous une forme narrative, les quatre participantes ont pu nommer les différents acteurs de leur récit, expliquer leurs relations réciproques et émettre, parfois, quelques jugements sur leurs actions, voire sur les acteurs eux-mêmes (bertaux, 2014). les entrevues semi-dirigées ont été recueillies entre novembre et décembre 2014. leur durée a varié de 45 minutes à 1 heure. les quatre récits de vie, quant à eux, ont été recueillis entre février et avril 2015. chacun des récits de vie s’est étendu de 1 heure à 1 heure et 30 minutes. toutes les rencontres (entrevues semi-dirigées et récits de vie) ont été enregistrées sur bande sonore et chaque verbatim a été ensuite transcrit dans un logiciel de traitement de texte. 1 cpe signifie centre de la petite enfance. sdgmf signifie service de garde en milieu familial. winter/hiver 2019 10 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research l’analyse des données : l’histoire mise en mots pour conceptualiser l’expérience des apprenantes, une analyse par catégories conceptualisantes (paillé & mucchielli, 2012) a été privilégiée. ce type d’analyse nécessite d’«  aborde[r] conceptuellement son matériau avec comme objectif de qualifier les expériences, les interactions et les logiques selon une perspective théorisante » (paillé & mucchielli, 2012, p. 316). identifier des phénomènes dans les propos des participantes a permis de définir plusieurs catégories, qui, une fois regroupées, ont fait émerger huit  catégories conceptualisantes. l’ensemble a permis de produire la conceptualisation de l’expérience d’éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue en ligne. c’est donc par une démarche de questionnements que l’analyse par catégories conceptualisantes s’est construite au gré des lectures successives de l’ensemble des données et de retours constants aux sources. la première phase de l’analyse a été celle du classement, non pas par rapport à des thèmes, mais par rapport à des phénomènes. les phénomènes identifiés se sont principalement exprimés au travers les ressentis des participantes. pour chaque phénomène, des définitions ont été travaillées, des propriétés trouvées au sens entendu par paillé et mucchielli (2012). la deuxième phase a été celle des questionnements, ceux-ci ont amené plusieurs retours aux données brutes pour s’assurer d’avoir identifié correctement les phénomènes. la troisième phase a été celle des définitions. enfin, la dernière phase a été celle d’un retour aux données brutes pour affiner et poursuivre le travail de conceptualisation. toute la démarche de conceptualisation a été observée, questionnée et évaluée par un jury d’experts (un comité de direction et d’évaluation de thèse). l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance : les résultats de la recherche au terme de l’analyse, huit catégories conceptualisantes ont émergé. grâce à elles, les participantes racontent leur histoire, portent un regard sur elles-mêmes, sur leurs choix, sur leurs parcours et sur leur évolution comme apprenantes, mais aussi sur les différentes structures dans lesquelles elles naviguent, sur leurs relations avec le corps enseignant ou leurs pairs et sur la pédagogie dans un contexte de formation en ligne. cette histoire est conceptualisée comme un système, un ensemble d’éléments interdépendants formant un tout dans lequel évoluent les éducatrices en petite enfance dans la formation continue en ligne (figure 2). winter/hiver 2019 11 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2 : conceptualisation de l’expérience d’éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue en ligne. au centre de cette conceptualisation se retrouvent les apprenantes. de nombreuses dimensions gravitent autour d’elles, rendant ainsi compte de la complexité de l’expérience dans laquelle elles sont immergées. la figure 2 reflète le mouvement, la construction et l’évolution, soit l’histoire de ces apprenantes comme vécu articulé autour de plusieurs dimensions qui se manifestent tant de manière positive et agréable que de manière négative et inconfortable. huit catégories conceptualitisantes sont explicitées dans les trois prochaines sections. la première section met en lumière le début de l’histoire des apprenantes et leur initiation au milieu universitaire grâce aux quatre premières catégories conceptualisantes  : (1) un monde hors de portée  ; (2) les tribulations du début de parcours  ; (3) les premiers pas vers des études universitaires et (4) la bulle professionnelle et familiale. la deuxième section met en perspective la tension créée par les défis à relever et le dépassement de soi visé et ressentie par les apprenantes. cette tension se retrouve dans trois catégories conceptualisantes  : (5) au cœur du parcours universitaire  ; (6) les enjeux de la communication à distance et (7) la pédagogie dans la distance. enfin, la dernière section est un moment d’introspection pour les apprenantes, ce moment est explicité par la dernière catégorie conceptualisante, (8) regards sur soi. chacune des sections et des catégories conceptualisantes sous-jacentes est détaillée dans les prochains paragraphes. l’initiation au milieu universitaire les quatre premières catégories conceptualisantes : (1) un monde hors de portée ; (2) les tribulations du début de winter/hiver 2019 12 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research parcours ; (3) les premiers pas vers des études universitaires et (4) la bulle professionnelle et familiale marquent le début de l’histoire des participantes, mais aussi une évolution dans leur expérience comme apprenantes. en préambule, les éducatrices en petite enfance voient dans le milieu universitaire « un monde hors de portée ». essentielle pour contextualiser l’histoire des participantes, cette première catégorie conceptualisante montre la vision initiale des participantes quant au milieu universitaire, et ce, à travers leur perception de ce milieu (hostile, élitiste et exigeant), les circonstances familiales dans lesquelles elles ont vécu (scolarité peu valorisée) et les vicissitudes ayant marqué leur passage à la vie adulte (jeune famille et entrée rapide sur le marché du travail). issue d’un environnement rural très éloigné des réalités familières, adeline précise pourquoi elle n’envisageait pas d’aller à l’université : pas du tout, tellement pas, c’était trop gros pour moi. je ne sais pas si c’est la crainte… même le cégep, quand t’arrives là, c’est l’inconnu, c’est gros, il y a beaucoup de monde, c’est peutêtre juste ça. je viens de la campagne. de plus, elle préférait se concentrer sur sa vie professionnelle et entrer de plain-pied dans le monde du travail dès la fin de ses études collégiales. en effet, elle « avait un diplôme, [elle] pouvait travailler alors pour [elle] c’était suffisant », c’était alors une situation satisfaisante compte tenu de la prépondérance accordée à sa vie familiale et professionnelle à cette étape-là de sa vie. cette première catégorie conceptualisante permet de situer l’histoire des participantes dans un processus au cours duquel celles-ci vont se transformer graduellement en apprenantes universitaires. positionner ce processus en préambule est nécessaire pour saisir l’authenticité et l’originalité de l’expérience des participantes devenues apprenantes malgré une vision initiale du milieu universitaire représentant « un monde hors de portée ». viennent ensuite « les premiers pas vers des études universitaires ». ceux-ci sont initiés par la décision d’entreprendre des études universitaires sous l’angle du désir de progression professionnelle pour combler, notamment, un besoin de connaissances ou d’habiletés. parallèlement, les «  premiers pas vers des étudies universitaires  » sont aussi freinés par les défis appréhendés par les apprenantes, comme la performance escomptée, les tâches demandées et l’utilisation des outils technologiques. certaines sont des apprenantes anxieuses devant les tâches anticipées en début de formation en ligne : je me sens beaucoup mieux. au début, j’étais stressée, dès que j’avais du temps, je ne faisais que les cours en ligne. les gens m’appelaient pour souper et je disais que je ne pouvais pas pour faire le cours, faut que je sois en forme. il n’y avait rien que ça qui existait. là, ça va mieux. (béatrice) les premiers pas des apprenantes vers les études universitaires sont teintés d’une certaine appréhension, mais aussi d’éléments qui permettent au processus de se mettre en marche, comme leur désir intrinsèque de changement et de valorisation professionnelle. dans l’ordre des choses, « les premiers pas vers des études universitaires » marquent le commencement d’une transformation, le début d’un parcours universitaire qu’elles seules peuvent décider s’il aboutira ou non. les appréhensions s’estompent lorsque les apprenantes commencent leur formation. ce sont alors « les tribulations du début de parcours ». différents éléments venant de l’institution comme du programme du milieu universitaire les font trébucher. les participantes sont surprises par ce qu’elles ne peuvent pas contrôler. les insatisfactions et contrariétés semblent exacerbées par leur vision initiale du milieu (cf. un monde hors de portée). dès lors, une partie de l’histoire des participantes est teintée du déplaisir ressenti au regard des obstacles sur lesquels elles winter/hiver 2019 13 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research trébuchent en début de parcours. par exemple, dès leur deuxième cours, les éducatrices semblent éprouver de l’injustice devant le fait de ne plus pouvoir accéder aux cours qu’elles ont suivis dès la fin de la session. de plus, elles se rendent compte qu’elles ne peuvent pas garder le matériel utilisé (textes, vidéos, notes de cours, etc.) : je trouve ça plate de ne pas pouvoir avoir accès à mes anciens cours via la plateforme. je n’ai pas sauvegardé tous les pdf, ni toutes les pages, ni les liens. des fois, j’ai envie d’aller chercher certaines infos et je n’ai pas accès. avoir su, j’aurais tout sauvegardé. je pensais que j’allais pouvoir tout récupérer, mais je n’ai plus accès à rien. je trouve ça décevant. on n’a pas de livre, pas de manuel, rien, donc nos seules infos sont sur le net. mais là on n’a plus accès. (danielle) au demeurant, la catégorie conceptualisante «  les tribulations du début de parcours  » met en mots des orages passagers puisque les participantes finissent par relativiser, sachant qu’elles tirent profit de leur succès dans la formation continue en ligne. le début de leur parcours leur permet de prendre conscience du fossé entre leurs attentes, idéalisées à travers leur vision initiale du monde universitaire, et la réalité. les participantes ne sont pas inscrites dans la formation continue en ligne parfaite et le milieu universitaire est un milieu accessible dont les participantes finissent par accepter les défauts pour avancer. ces tribulations ne sont donc qu’un moment dans leur expérience d’apprenantes puisqu’il semble que les participantes fassent leur deuil de la perfection pour se concentrer sur d’autres dimensions de leur expérience d’apprenantes. les participantes rêvent également d’une conciliation idéale de leur vie familiale et professionnelle avec leur parcours d’apprenantes. plus encore, « la bulle familiale et professionnelle » doit être préservée compte tenu de l’importance que celles-ci accordent au fait de ne pas subir et faire subir de stress à leur entourage. les participantes prennent donc soin de respecter leur équilibre professionnel et familial malgré le poids de leurs études universitaires sur leurs épaules. par exemple, caroline mentionne que « [l] e premier cours que j’avais choisi, il y avait un examen, alors j’ai annulé parce que ça tombait pendant nos vacances  ». les apprenantes s’assurent donc de poursuivre leur cheminement tout en protégeant leur «  bulle familiale et professionnelle  » et usent de différents moyens de conciliation, par exemple en choisissant des cours en fonction de leur horaire familial et professionnel, en réduisant leur horaire de travail ou grâce au soutien de leur conjoint. la tension entre les défis et le dépassement de soi la cinquième catégorie conceptualisante situe l’histoire des participantes à travers les émotions qu’elles vivent une fois pleinement engagées dans la formation, « au cœur du parcours universitaire ». elle met l’accent sur les émotions des participantes touchant à la fois la déception quant à un manque de défis cognitifs, la sensation d’être vulnérable par l’impossibilité d’identifier physiquement le corps enseignant, l’impression d’être seules compte tenu du peu d’interactions qu’elles ont avec les pairs, mais aussi le désir de se dépasser personnellement et professionnellement en poursuivant leur formation. par exemple, fabienne trouve le tout « facile, donc [elle] ne met pas autant d’heures qu’il faut dans l’étude. [elle] lit une fois et pour faire ses travaux, [elle] relit un peu. [elle] ne [se] sent vraiment pas comme une étudiante qui doit faire un horaire de travail ». il semble alors que les apprenantes s’accomplissent lorsqu’elles ont la sensation d’avoir dépassé les difficultés rencontrées. bien qu’elles choisissent de préserver leur vie familiale et professionnelle (cf. la bulle familiale et professionnelle), il n’en reste pas moins que les participantes considèrent leur parcours d’apprenantes comme une entreprise très sérieuse qui mérite d’être jalonnée de défis. en effet, le désir de dépassement de soi met en lumière la manifestation d’ambitions plus profondes des apprenantes autant sur le plan personnel que professionnel. de plus, la sensation de vulnérabilité ressentie reflète les craintes des participantes autant à l’égard du corps enseignant et de leur winter/hiver 2019 14 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research identité qu’à l’égard des compétences à mettre en œuvre pour réussir leurs cours. l’impression de solitude dans la formation, quant à elle, révèle la difficulté dans le cadre d’une formation spécifiquement en ligne d’entretenir des relations avec les autres apprenantes. il appert que ces relations sont fondamentales pour les participantes qui vivent une certaine frustration en ne se sentant pas membres à part entière de leur institution universitaire. pour compenser ces manques, les apprenantes ont, de leur propre initiative, créé un groupe d’apprenantes sur un réseau social qu’elles connaissent bien (facebook). à l’initiative d’une apprenante, une page a été créée et est administrée par et pour les apprenantes inscrites dans la formation. ce moyen leur permet de communiquer autrement que par l’intermédiaire des forums de discussion qu’elles retrouvent dans leurs cours et qui sont supervisés par les enseignants. grâce à leur page sur le réseau social, elles peuvent donc échanger librement sur tous les sujets qui les préoccupent comme apprenantes. les participantes mettent également en mots des émotions et des ressentis autant à l’égard de leur parcours qu’à l’égard de la communication à distance. la catégorie conceptualisante « les enjeux de la communication à distance » met en lumière le fait que les participantes oscillent entre divers ressentis tantôt positifs et agréables, tantôt négatifs et frustrants lorsqu’il est question des forums de discussion et des échanges par courriel avec le corps enseignant. par exemple, dans les forums de discussion, les échanges avec les pairs sont autant une source de soutien qu’une source de frustration sans qu’une ligne claire ne se dessine. en effet, les propos des apprenantes sont estimés et respectés, mais parfois un manque flagrant d’implication de certaines contamine la communication : « on dirait qu’ils ne se lisent pas, ils font juste écrire. certains vont répondre, mais d’autres écrivent juste pour répondre au forum et passent à autre chose » (emmanuelle), elle ajoute : « […] et on sent que certaines personnes répondent pour répondre et pas pour faire un échange. on est toujours 4 ou 5 participantes où il y a un échange, mais on sent qu’il y en a qui traînent la patte ». ainsi, le manque d’authenticité des propos des apprenantes ne les aide pas à apprécier pleinement leur participation dans les forums de discussion. toutefois, un soutien social semble exister. par exemple, pour caroline, dépourvue de collègues de travail, les forums de discussion sont une source importante de valorisation de sa pratique professionnelle : des fois juste se faire dire : « waouh c’est bien ce que vous faites ». c’est plaisant de voir que ce qu’on a fait ce n’est pas dans le vent, c’est plaisant de ce côté-là. ça peut être académique ou personnel. c’est comme une tape dans le dos. des fois... je suis en milieu familial toute seule, ce n’est pas comme quelqu’un qui travaille en installation qui en a souvent […], mais quand t’es toute seule, c’est bien se taper sur nous autres mêmes, mais ce n’est pas pareil. des fois, le forum ça peut servir à ça. t’écris un commentaire, tu te fais dire « c’est l’fun que tu fasses ça », c’est plaisant. (caroline) l’expérience des participantes est aussi teintée par «  la pédagogie dans la distance  » et les gestes pédagogiques mis en œuvre par le corps enseignant. ces gestes pédagogiques se traduisent par des rétroactions stimulantes, une participation proactive dans les forums de discussion, mais aussi par un accompagnement de qualité offert aux apprenantes tout au long de leur formation en ligne. toutes ces actions ont une grande valeur aux yeux des participantes puisqu’elles semblent pallier le manque représenté par l’absence d’une entité physique à laquelle elles peuvent se référer. à travers tous les gestes pédagogiques du corps enseignant, les participantes se sentent soutenues et encadrées dans leur cheminement malgré la distance. les participantes expriment le besoin d’avoir un référent suffisamment proche pour qu’elles se sentent encouragées tout au long de leur parcours d’apprenantes. béatrice l’apprécie d’ailleurs beaucoup : « là, ça va mieux parce que je peux poser mes questions et dire que je suis sur la bonne voie, je me faisais répondre oui, ça enlève une grosse partie du stress ». finalement, que ce soit «  au cœur du parcours universitaire  », à travers «  les enjeux de la communication à winter/hiver 2019 15 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research distance » ou lorsqu’il est question de « la pédagogie dans la distance », les émotions sont fortes et le questionnement des pratiques du corps enseignant est présent. déception, sensation, impression et désir semblent déterminer l’expérience des participantes vraisemblablement préoccupées par la qualité des apprentissages effectués et par la place que prend le programme dans leur vie d’apprenantes. le temps de l’introspection la dernière catégorie conceptualisante est la plus réflexive. par leurs « regards sur soi », les participantes posent les yeux sur elles-mêmes, à la fois comme apprenantes, comme professionnelles et comme personnes. le développement de la confiance en soi est ce qu’il y a de plus tangible dans le discours des participantes et démontre bien l’étendue de leur enrichissement personnel et professionnel. en effet, les apprenantes mentionnent les découvertes qu’elles font sur elles-mêmes, marquant une transformation achevée ou en cours, et ce, grâce à différentes situations d’apprentissage. leur expérience leur aura permis d’aller à leur propre rencontre et de se découvrir sous un autre jour, notamment au regard de leur être apprenant. les éducatrices développent d’ailleurs peu à peu leur autonomie et tentent de respecter un horaire de travail auto-imposé. il est également question de découvertes sur soi omniprésentes à travers le cheminement effectué, parfois difficile, mais souvent initiatique. adeline a des propos très éloquents à ce sujet : […] j’ai vécu une délivrance. je n’ai pas besoin d’aller voir un psychologue. je me suis déballée sur les forums de temps en temps, mais surtout dans les travaux. j’avais l’impression que pour livrer quelque chose qui me rejoignait et qui collait avec le contexte des demandes, j’allais chercher des choses que j’avais vécues et ça me remettait en question. ok, j’ai vécu ça, mais là, je suis rendue là. il ne faut pas oublier que les apprenantes sont, pour la première fois, engagées dans une formation continue en ligne. leur vision initiale du milieu universitaire et leurs frustrations sembleraient se déconstruire lorsqu’elles apprivoisent leur milieu et leurs réussites. elles finissent par apprécier pleinement les fruits de leur cheminement à divers niveaux. comme apprenantes, celles-ci prennent conscience de leur efficacité. comme professionnelles, elles portent un regard nouveau sur leur profession, sur leur milieu de pratique et sur les habiletés professionnelles qu’elles développent. en se révélant comme personnes, les participantes tendent à mettre en mots le sens de leur expérience dans une formation continue en ligne. finalement, de ces «  regards sur soi  » résulte la découverte d’un soi plein de ressources qu’elles peuvent mettre en œuvre pour mener à bien l’ensemble de leurs projets dans différentes sphères de leur vie. le dénouement d’une histoire inspirante : une discussion à la lumière de l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites dans une formation continue en ligne, la représentation du milieu universitaire (cf. un monde hors de portée) et de ce que devraient être les défis cognitifs proposés aux éducatrices en petite enfance dans leur rôle d’apprenantes (cf. au cœur du parcours universitaire) est marquante. la représentation du milieu universitaire d’apprenantes inscrites dans une formation en ligne spécifiquement asynchrone fait l’objet de peu de recherches scientifiques. l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance permet donc d’en questionner certains aspects, notamment le manque d’accès à un milieu physique identifiable et les discussions virtuelles que les apprenantes entretiennent avec le corps enseignant et leurs pairs. la représentation du milieu universitaire tend à se modifier au fur et à mesure que l’histoire des apprenantes suit son cours. en effet, celles-ci finissent par ressentir un manque de défis cognitifs suggérant ainsi que leur vision winter/hiver 2019 16 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research initiale pourrait être faussée par une méconnaissance du milieu et des a priori véhiculés par leur milieu familial ou que les apprenantes auraient finalement pris la pleine mesure de leur rôle et gagné confiance en elles grâce à leur réussite au sein de la formation. d’un point de vue pratique, ces deux éléments supposent que les directions de programme et de département universitaire ont tout intérêt à connaître les représentations initiales des apprenantes qui suivent leur formation. que ce soit par une journée d’accueil en présence, par une présentation vidéo de chaque enseignant ou par la création d’une association étudiante propre à ces apprenantes (qui pourrait administrer la page facebook et créer des occasions de réseautage social), les milieux universitaires ont l’embarras du choix pour aider les apprenantes à connaître davantage leur milieu universitaire et peut-être ajuster leur vision initiale. toutefois, puisque cette vision initiale prend forme avant l’entrée formelle à l’université, il serait intéressant que les milieux universitaires se fassent connaître des apprenantes alors qu’elles fréquentent les milieux collégiaux, les centres de la petite enfance ainsi que dans les bureaux coordonnateurs des services de garde du québec. d’un point de vue scientifique, une question peut encore se poser. la perception du milieu universitaire a-t-elle évolué au fur et à mesure de l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance ou leur image d’elles-mêmes comme apprenantes dans un monde qui leur semblait inaccessible a-t-elle changé ? les regards que les éducatrices finissent par porter sur elles-mêmes (cf. regards sur soi) démontrent une certaine prise de conscience de leurs apprentissages et de leur transformation au sein du programme. cette transformation se traduit à la fois au niveau personnel et professionnel. l’analyse du contenu des travaux et des différents moments d’interactions asynchrones aurait pu contribuer à éclairer la question de la transformation professionnelle grâce à la valeur réflexive des échanges soulevée par d’autres résultats de recherche (allaire, 2015 ; al-samarraie, teo & abbas, 2013 ; legault, 1999 ; martinez de monarrez & korniejczuk, 2013 ; sowan & jenkins, 2013). une autre partie de l’histoire des apprenantes met en lumière des éléments déclencheurs (cf. les premiers pas vers des études universitaires) permettant de comprendre les aspirations professionnelles des apprenantes qui décident de s’inscrire dans une formation continue en ligne. à cet effet, ces aspirations pourraient être qualifiées d’extrinsèques et permettraient aux apprenantes de persévérer davantage que si elles n’avaient eu pour motivation que l’envie d’acquérir de nouvelles connaissances sur un sujet sans lien avec leur pratique professionnelle (dussarps, 2015). la présente recherche, si elle ne peut pas confirmer cette assertion, permet toutefois de mettre en perspective le fait que les éléments ayant incité les apprenantes à s’inscrire dans la formation sont de l’ordre d’aspirations professionnelles et que malgré les obstacles rencontrés (cf. les tribulations du début de parcours), les apprenantes poursuivent leur cheminement estudiantin en tentant au mieux de concilier l’ensemble de leurs obligations. jusque-là abordé dans quelques recherches (dussarps, 2014, 2015), le soutien des proches est d’ailleurs identifié comme élément essentiel pour favoriser la persévérance des apprenantes. il permet également de réfléchir à l’influence de la bulle familiale et professionnelle sur les émotions ressenties par les apprenantes à l’égard de la conciliation études, famille et travail. en effet, le mode de formation en ligne choisi initialement pour permettre une certaine flexibilité, n’ôte pas aux apprenantes l’obligation de travailler et ne les empêche pas de ressentir l’influence de leur vie estudiantine sur leur vie familiale et professionnelle. pour faciliter la conciliation travail, famille et études des apprenantes, les milieux universitaires pourraient offrir le soutien nécessaire à ces apprenantes, notamment en les aidant à faire des choix éclairés sur leur programme et le nombre de cours à suivre par session, mais aussi en les aidant à développer des stratégies efficaces de gestion de toutes les dimensions de leur vie étudiante, familiale et professionnelle. les directions de programme et de département pourraient également collaborer avec le service aux étudiants afin d’offrir des ateliers préparatoires sur les bonnes habitudes de travail à mettre en place pour une conciliation travail, famille et études idéale ou encore sur l’utilisation d’outils (p. ex., agenda électronique, modèle winter/hiver 2019 17 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research de présentation des travaux) pouvant faciliter leur parcours universitaire. l’histoire des apprenantes en formation continue en ligne confirme l’importance de gestes pédagogiques comme les rétroactions émises par le corps enseignant (rodet, 2000). pour favoriser le développement professionnel des éducatrices en petite enfance, ces rétroactions pourraient être tournées vers l’action et l’application pour que ces dernières perçoivent la valeur d’enrichir leurs compétences professionnelles grâce à des points de repère concrets. les directions de programme et de département pourraient donc encourager le corps enseignant à donner régulièrement des rétroactions en lien avec la pratique professionnelle des apprenantes. enfin, qu’il s’agisse d’obstacles, d’éléments déclencheurs ou de conciliation idéale, l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue en ligne ouvre la voie à de nouvelles réflexions sur la persévérance des apprenantes au rapport non traditionnel à l’université, mais aussi sur leur développement professionnel à l’intérieur d’une formation continue en ligne. conclusion connaître l’histoire et l’expérience des apprenants à qui les formations sont destinées, éducatrices en petite enfance ou autres, en ligne ou non, permet de saisir l’importance de la communication entre apprenants, corps enseignant et milieu institutionnel. ces apprenants aux parcours atypiques sont de plus en plus nombreux à s’engager dans des études universitaires (clifad, 2013 ; cse, 2013). pourtant, les milieux universitaires les connaissent encore peu ou mal et les enseignants semblent peu ou mal outillés pour les soutenir dans leur démarche d’apprentissage. cette recherche permet donc d’offrir un éclairage sur ces apprenants atypiques vivant des réalités familiales différentes. de plus, elle contribue à renforcer l’idée qu’il est nécessaire, voire essentiel, que les directions d’établissement dressent un portrait de leurs apprenants et sensibilisent leur communauté universitaire à cette diversité de profils et de parcours. toutefois, cette recherche a des limites, la principale réside dans le fait que la recherche n’a pas permis de comprendre la transition s’opérant entre la vision initiale des apprenantes quant au monde universitaire (cf. un monde hors de portée) et leur décision d’entreprendre des études (cf. les premiers pas vers des études universitaires). de plus, l’histoire des apprenantes ayant abandonné la formation continue en ligne n’a pas été recueillie. ceci pourrait faire l’objet d’une future recherche. finalement, l’histoire des éducatrices en petite enfance inscrites comme apprenantes dans une formation continue contribue au débat théorique entourant autant la formation des adultes que la formation en ligne. en ce sens, les retombées de la recherche profiteront aux enseignants et aux concepteurs qui dessinent cours et formations destinés aux éducatrices en petite enfance ou à toute population peu étudiée lorsqu’elle est en situation d’apprentissage. somme toute, leur histoire est importante pour nourrir les réflexions pragmatiques, sociales et scientifiques dans le domaine du développement professionnel des éducatrices en petite enfance. winter/hiver 2019 18 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research références association canadienne d’éducation des adultes des universités de langue française (acdeaulf). 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(2015). an online adult-learner focused program: an assessment of effectiveness. online journal of distance learning administration, xviii(3). récupéré de https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall183/todd_ravi_ akoh_gray183.html june 2019 39 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research doing research with children: making choices on ethics and methodology that encourage children’s participation krystallia kyritsi krystallia kyritsi recently completed her phd studies at moray house school of education, university of edinburgh, scotland. her research interests include creativity, power, children’s relationships and participation, intersectionality, methodologies of research with children, and ethical issues arising in research with children. email: kyritsi.edu@gmail.com this paper sits in the broader context of doing research with children and relates to issues of children’s participation in research and the importance of respecting children’s rights. children’s participation and active involvement in research have been extensively discussed and debated by authors in the childhood studies field. it is argued that children should be able to contribute to the decision-making process (powell & smith, 2009) and that researchers should value children’s roles in research (scheffel, 2009) and research for and with children (gallacher, gallagher, & keynes, 2008). this paper contributes to these debates by describing how children were encouraged to be actively involved in the data generation process in an ethnographic research project that aimed to identify different perspectives on creativity in scottish primary1 education. this paper also relates to debates on ways of doing research with children, in terms of both ethical challenges and methodological choices, as mentioned below. the main aim of this paper is to show how children were invited to participate in shaping the research process in the areas of both ethics and methodology. to pursue this aim, i begin the paper by providing an overview of conflicting arguments on children’s participation in research. i then present the research context that encouraged children’s active involvement in research. the first section discusses the findings on the use of the boxes system for obtaining informed and ongoing consent (a process whereby children could repeatedly select a “yes” or “no” option on a piece of paper and put this paper in a plastic box, indicating their preference to opt in or opt out of the research at any time). the second section discusses the rationale that led to the design of the interview process and elaborates on its implementation in practice. children’s rights and children’s participation in research traditional practices in childhood studies saw children as “less than fully human, unfinished or incomplete” (jenks, 2005, p. 19) and thus did not involve children in the decision-making process of the research (kellett, 2010). in such practices, children were represented by adults, who were responsible for interpreting children’s lives and views (christensen & james, 2000). nowadays, there are approaches that recognize children as human “beings” rather than human “becomings” (qvortrup, 1994), and children’s rights have been officially recognized the aim of this paper is to discuss examples of ethical and methodological choices that respect children’s rights to participation by encouraging them to be actively involved in the data generation process. the paper introduces the boxes, a model for confidentially obtaining ongoing and informed consent. it also discusses the use of cultural artifacts, chosen by the children themselves, to communicate with the researcher during the interview process. this paper concludes by emphasizing the need to design and cocreate open, flexible approaches in research that encourage children to obtain control and ownership of the research process. key words: research with children; research ethics; informed consent; methodology; children’s participation june 2019 40 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research by the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc, 1989). recent approaches view children as active social agents (james, 2010) and as rights holders (farrell, kagan, & tisdall, 2016) and recognize the “plurality, complexity, multiplicity and the diversities of childhood” (james, 2010, pp. 487–488). thus, children are seen as subjects and not as objects of research processes (christensen & james, 2000). it is also argued that children should be informed and contribute to the dialogue about important decisions throughout the research process (christensen, 2004; powell & smith, 2009). following the new tensions surrounding research within childhood studies that suggest that researchers should research for and with children (gallacher et al., 2008), children’s participation in research has been given considerable attention by many scholars (hill, davis, prout, & tisdall, 2004; percy-smith, 2010; powell & smith, 2009) and is described by many and diverse definitions (tisdall, 2016). key aspects of these definitions promote the encouragement of children’s active involvement in the research process, with attention paid to valuing children’s voices, views, and experiences (moss, clark, & kjorholt, 2005; tisdall & punch, 2012). researchers have used various approaches to encourage children’s participation, some arguing that children can be engaged as researchers themselves (gallacher et al., 2008). for example, kellett (2010) carried out child-led research in which children were involved in the stages of designing and carrying out research and disseminating the findings. on the other hand, participatory approaches have been discussed critically by researchers. for example, gallagher (2009c) points out the danger for children in being seen as powerless while adults, as power holders, share some power with them through participatory approaches. by criticizing arguments that view participation as driven by power, gallagher (2009c) prompts us to view power from a foucauldian perspective as a dynamic, productive, ambivalent notion, and also to pay attention to the power dynamics among children themselves. furthermore, as tisdall (2012, p. 187) highlights in a similar vein, “there is a risk that children are treated as a homogeneous group, with a too-simplified dichotomy of childhood versus adulthood,” which does not prompt us to take into account the diversities of childhood. other criticisms involve concerns such as the possibility that children may not want to participate actively (tisdall & punch, 2012) and also that children may choose more silent ways of being involved, which are viewed as alternatives to participation by the children (gallacher et al., 2008). finally, it is argued that there is a danger of uncritical use of participatory methods which claim to be emancipatory but which, in reality, promote adults’ ideas, agendas, and strategies (gallacher et al., 2008; kim, 2016). the aforementioned debates demonstrate the complexity of doing research with children and raise the following question for this paper: how can we create a research context wherein children can choose the level at which and the way in which they want to participate in research processes? research focus and methodology this paper draws on my ethnographic study that explored children’s perspectives on creativity within a scottish primary school classroom and consisted of 25 children (aged 11–12), and two teachers. the data generation process for this research involved participant observation (4 months, 3–4 days per week for 3–6 hours per day) and interviews with children and teachers. in terms of ethics, every effort was made to respect children’s right to confidentiality and to guarantee their anonymity. this research followed the eric ethical guidelines (graham, powell, taylor, anderson, & fitzgerald, 2013), an approach that pays particular attention to children’s human rights (graham, powell, & taylor, 2015). as argued by graham and fitzgerald (2010), recognizing children’s human rights when doing research with children means that “participation is more than just a powerful interest and envisages that children have rights to be listened to and their views taken into account” (p. 135). more specifically, from a human rights perspective, the june 2019 41 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research eric ethical guidelines highlight the need to develop an ethical research strategy, one that acknowledges children’s right to be properly researched along with the basic human rights principles of dignity and respect, as well as the children’s rights to protection and to participation (graham et al., 2013). this paper analyzes the use of ethical and methodological choices that aimed to provide children with flexibility on the level at which and the way in which they wanted to participate in research processes. having addressed the focus of this article, i am now going to discuss how it was applied to my ethnographic research project with 11to 12-year-old children. the use of the boxes for negotiating informed consent obtaining informed consent has been viewed as an important part of doing research with children (gallagher, haywood, jones, & milne, 2010). for this research, i followed gallagher’s (2009b, p. 15) definition of informed consent, which specifies that “consent involves some explicit act” (in this research it involved a written signature), “participants can only consent if they are informed about, and understand, something of the nature, purpose and likely consequences of the research,” “consent must be given voluntarily, without coercion,” and “consent must be renegotiable.” similarly, davis (1998) categorizes ethics in research with children into three groups: informed consent, confidentiality, and protection. yet, he argues that ethics and participation are a process, not a one-off moment. following davis’s (1998) argument, that is, viewing ethics as a process that includes children in every stage of the research, i became aware of a paradox (see also konstantoni & kustatscher, 2016): namely, that children were the main participants in this research, but the last to be asked to provide their consent. this fact indicates children’s unequal position (in the sense that it depends on the outcome of the previous decision layers) within the structures of procedural ethics (gillam & guillemin, 2004). additionally, this paradox raises an important question as to whether ethics mainly protect adults or are used as a procedure to enable children’s participation (davis et al., 2011). similar concerns are raised by iannacci (2015), who reflects on the dynamics of negotiating entrance to a research site. in his case, unequal power dynamics between the advisory committee and the researcher raised barriers to the acquisition of consent to conduct research, so that in the end, the study never happened. after gaining ethical approval from the university’s ethics committee, i then negotiated access with the head teacher and the teacher at the school before negotiating access with all the parents by distributing leaflets and consent forms. when i first entered the field, i had a discussion with the children about my research, their right to choose whether they would like to participate, and other ethical issues. being influenced by literature that suggests that informed consent needs to be a reflexive, ongoing, and renegotiable process (gallagher, 2009a; hammersley, 2015), and by arguments supporting the idea that researchers should reflect on the power dynamics in the field (gallacher et al., 2008), i decided to develop a system that would enable children to renegotiate their consent, opting in and out at any time. such systems have also been developed by other researchers. for example, gallagher (2004) used coloured stickers that children could stick on their clothes, indicating whether or not they would like to take part in the research. children made much use of the stickers, but this usage served various purposes that were not linked to the researcher’s aim, which was to use the stickers as a means of renegotiating consent. instead, children were playing with the stickers, sticking them on different objects, and also using them as status symbols. therefore, gallagher argued that “the stickers did not enable children to make an informed decision about whether to participate in the research or not” (p. 86). kustatscher (2015) introduced a new visual system that children could use for renegotiating consent. using a magnetic board, children could move their pictures to the opt-in and opt-out parts. june 2019 42 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the use of the magnets enabled children to engage with the process of informed consent and was particularly useful for visualizing power dynamics and relationships between children and the researcher while creating space for discussion around such issues. on the other hand, children’s decisions to opt in and out were “publicly visible and debated” (kustatscher, 2014, p. 692), and this “brought some inherent power differences to the fore” (p. 694). reading about these techniques, i felt the need to develop a system that would not only promote ongoing consent, but also respect children’s right to confidentiality in the sense that their decisions to opt in or out would not be based on their friends’ choices or on attempts to portray to others that they were participating in the research, even if they didn’t want to. for these purposes, i introduced the system of the boxes. during the first day of my visit to the school i introduced the idea of the boxes to the children. i used two plastic boxes of the same size but of different colours, one empty (pink colour) and one full of small, square papers that included a “yes” and “no” option, as well as a space for the children to write their names in (that box was blue). the idea was that children would grab one piece of paper from the blue box, select the “yes” or “no” option, write down their name, and then put this paper in the pink box, in that way informing me of their choices without letting anyone else know about them. in my next visit to the school the children informed me of their decision to put the boxes in a space of their own choice in the classroom. this space was in the back-middle of the classroom and was visible from most angles, which allowed me to check the boxes not long after a message was put into the pink box. the system of the boxes was discussed between me and the participants and everyone agreed that it was an option that children could use for renegotiating consent. although i regularly reminded the children of this option, i didn’t try to make the process obligatory. so, children had flexibility as to how they wanted to inform me about their ongoing consent. during the time i spent in the field, i realized that children had created their own understandings of how to use the boxes. i also became aware of factors that influenced their decisions to opt in or out of the research. some of these examples are described below. the idea of using the boxes was not always clear to the children. sometimes, children were trying to understand why they should use the boxes and for what purposes, as in the example below: isa (a pseudonym—all the names are pseudonyms): can i ask you about the boxes? krystallia: of course you can! isa: how often do we have to write yes or no? every day? krystallia: anytime you feel you want to change your option. you don’t have to do that, only if you want to. isa: can we also write yes? krystallia: i know that you have said yes in the beginning, but if you want to indicate this again, then, you can. isa: i am asking that because i want to talk to you. (she tries to find a way to grab my attention “officially.”) krystallia: then, you can either put a message in the box or talk to me. however you feel like. isa: (she didn’t write anything, she just started talking to me). we want to help you with your work! (excerpt from field notes, 30 april 2015) june 2019 43 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research on a similar occasion, calum told me that he didn’t think it was necessary to have boxes, as the children had already said yes to me at the beginning by completing the consent forms (excerpt from field notes, 27 april 2015), which indicates that ethical procedures and procedural ethics are not always helpful and meaningful for the children. the boxes were also perceived as a method that provided confidentiality and gave the children some degree of choice. on one occasion, calum mentioned that he liked the boxes, because “it is like saying to people help yourself and they can do it if they want and when they want” (excerpt from field notes, 30 april 2015). in a similar vein, gillean said that she liked the system of the boxes because children could choose what they wanted to do in terms of their participation in research. for some children, the use of the boxes was very important because of the confidentiality it provided. as laura mentioned, the boxes system “was a good idea because it’s not like you have to put your hand up because it was kind of private to you … no one will notice” (interview with laura, 3 june 2015). confidentiality issues were of high importance to more introverted and shy children, but also to children who preferred to express their choices in indirect ways, as described by dorothy during the interview process: i think it is good because it doesn’t put people on the spot so much as if you ask the whole class of people. because i know that even though i am very loud, i can be very nervous if i am put on the spot of something.... it gives us more freedom if we are nervous about doing it, it means we could say no. and we wouldn’t feel guilty about it. (interview with dorothy, 8 june 2015) the use of the boxes and of children’s decision to participate in the research were also influenced by children’s emotions and by the number of their daily school tasks. during the interview process, arisha mentioned that the idea of the boxes was good because it gave people who were not “in a mood” the chance to decide not to take part. she also mentioned the positive impact of the opt-in/opt-out process, arguing that feelings change, so people might need to change their decision on that basis. furthermore, for some children, taking part in the research was related to school tasks and was a kind of additional task. during our discussion in the classroom, jonathan observed: “i think it is nice [the boxes system], because we can say no if we are very busy.” alastair also mentioned that if he had a day off he would probably use the boxes to say no, which also showed that participation in the research was perceived by some children as another school-related task. overall, the use of the boxes generated various understandings of what research participation meant to the children. for example, research participation was perceived by some as a fluid process, in which the children themselves could actively and flexibly decide when to participate by using the opt-in and opt-out system, and by others as another school-related task that needed to be fitted into the child’s daily schedule. children’s responses enable us to conclude that the boxes system provided flexibility in its use and space for children to actively make decisions about ongoing consent and research participation. research in the childhood studies field has highlighted the importance of building spaces for dialogue where children and adults are able to discuss solutions (davis et al., 2011) and where children’s active participation in research is valued and enabled (scheffel, 2009). the use of the boxes system is an example of children’s involvement in decision-making processes and of how consent can be implemented as a process in practice. finally, the use of this system illustrates the way that viewing consent as a fluid process acknowledges and enables children’s differing needs in relation to participation in research. however, very few children actually used the boxes, and this raised a question as to how meaningful the boxes system was, besides a more general question about the degree to which it is possible for researchers to gain truly informed consent. june 2019 44 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s ability to shape their participation in the research process was also encouraged during the interview process, as discussed in the following section. how children’s decisions shaped the interview process before conducting the interviews, i informed the children about the voluntary character of the interview process and about their right to end our discussion at any point. we then had a discussion in the classroom during which more details of the interview process were clarified. the children were also aware that the interviews would be recorded; consent for this was sought from children, parents/caregivers, the teacher, and the school. a flexible interview process was created using a semistructured approach (mukherji, 2015). also, following the suggestion that researchers should conduct the interviews in a “comfortable, quiet, private space that has positive associations with the children” (gallagher, 2009a, p. 75), i encouraged children to choose the space that they preferred as the site of our discussion. children’s participation is seen as a significant aspect of doing research with children (graham, powell, & taylor, 2015). other work in the childhood studies field has proposed and used a variety of methods for doing research with children, such as the use of photographs, diaries, and drawings (backett & alexander, 1991; barker & weller, 2003), persona dolls (konstantoni, 2011), puppets (cameron, 2005), and so on. however, such studies have been critiqued on the grounds that not all children are interested in using specific methods to express their meanings (tisdall, 2016). in an attempt to consider children’s individual choices, i encouraged children to actively contribute to the research process by bringing with them cultural artifacts or other prompts that were related to our discussion. this practice sought to involve children in the research process by enabling them to decide how they would prefer to communicate their messages to me. the links that children made were not only practical ones, such as artifacts and prompts that they brought with them, but also more abstract ones, such as ideas and thoughts; however, all these modes had the common characteristic of being linked to children’s experiences and social spheres. the aim of this ethnographic research was to explore the children’s and the teacher’s perspectives on creativity within one primary school classroom in scotland, exploring how creativity is perceived and can be fostered in this classroom. gaps that i identified in the literature highlighted a lack of research that examined children’s own views on creativity or obtained a greater understanding of classroom life in relation to creativity. therefore, the focus of the interviews was to understand children’s views on creativity, as well as to explore the ways that creativity was implemented in practice in their classroom. an example of negotiation surrounding the process of children using artifacts for communicating their meanings is offered below. isa was very happy to be interviewed. we were walking down the stairs, moving towards the sofas—the location that she chose for the interview. she was explaining to me that most children preferred the sofas for our discussion, because this is a space that makes them feel calm and comfortable and, moreover, is a space to which children are not allowed access on a normal school day. then, i asked her if she wanted to bring any activities or other prompts with her. june 2019 45 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research isa: what kind of things can i bring? krystallia: anything you feel like it is related to creativity for you. this could be an activity or anything else from the classroom. isa: has anyone else brought anything? krystallia: not yet. they preferred to explain to me. it is not obligatory to bring something; only if you want. isa: okay, i will explain to you then. because i don’t want to talk to you about any specific activity, i mostly prefer things that we do outside. (excerpt from field-notes, 3 june 2015) in the above-mentioned example, although isa did not actually bring any artifacts with her, she explained the necessary factors in defining something as creative. on other, similar, occasions when children preferred to share their views without bringing any artifacts, creativity was linked to outdoor play, collaboration with younger children, and the process of learning together, improvisation of individual work, and so on. on the other hand, children who brought cultural artifacts and prompts with them usually chose to bring projects that they had worked on; they defined creativity by explaining to me the process of pursuing this particular activity, the general context, and their feelings. one of the main findings of this ethnography was that creativity can be perceived differently by different people, so that the production of a single definition may restrict children’s experiences of creativity (kyritsi, 2018). one can therefore conclude that the flexibility that underpinned the design of the interview process enabled children both to shape the way they participated in research and to express multiple and diverse views on what creativity is and how we can best promote it in the primary classroom. additionally, during the interview process, i adopted the role of reflective listener and learner (hammersley & atkinson, 2007) and children were also encouraged to pose questions to me, following christensen’s (2004) suggestion of shifting the traditional roles in the interview process. this decision strengthened children’s active involvement in the research process and also provided me with the opportunity to see what topics interest children and their links to creativity. this approach also enabled me as a researcher to create a flexible research practice and a space in which children could express their perspectives on what creativity meant to them, without being influenced by my ideas. as children sometimes try to please the interviewer (mayall, 1994), i tried to make clear to them that there are many different perspectives on creativity, so there is not a right or wrong way of thinking about it. by contrast, if i had chosen to use specific research techniques, such as creative methods of interviewing, children might have associated those methods (e.g., writing, photographs, drawings) with what creativity should be. thus, creating a more open and flexible interview process enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of children’s views. for example, children were encouraged to reflect on questions related to what creativity is for them, and were asked to give examples of creativity’s practical implementation. in turn, the children asked me questions about the nature of schools in greece, where i am from, including the disciplinary mechanisms and adults’ power over children in that context. listening to their questions about greek schools was also a valuable learning experience for me, giving me insight into what subjects mattered to them the most. this section discussed children’s participation during the interview process. it argued that the flexible design of the process encouraged children to participate actively by using prompts linked to their own collective and individual social worlds, rather than following structured guidelines preset by the researcher (see also davis, watson, & cunningham-burley, 2000). the interview process was an exploratory one in which the researcher and the participants learnt from each other. this flexible process enabled children to feel more comfortable about sharing june 2019 46 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research their views with the researcher and thus avoided unintentional silencing caused by unacknowledged power within the interviewer-interviewee relationship, as has been noticed by other researchers (see scheffel, 2009). another key aspect that emerged in this section was related to children’s broad understanding of the notion of prompts/artifacts, which was not necessarily restricted to objects but could also apply to spaces and emotions. these conclusions further link with findings of my research on creativity, showing that children’s feelings, interactions, and space were interconnected and influenced their experiences of creativity (kyritsi, 2018). considering the above, one can notice that discussions on doing research with children can influence but also be influenced by discussions in the field of creativity regarding the importance of paying attention to a plethora of parameters that include, but are not limited to, feelings, interactions, space, and materials. the main conclusion of this section affirms the importance of creating less strict and more flexible research practices that provide the space for children to contribute in ways they feel comfortable with. as we saw above, children could choose the space, the materials, and the way in which they wanted to express their views. children’s ability to be involved in coconstructive approaches to research participation and to find the preferred balance between freedom and structure are at the core of my overall research findings on what creativity meant for the children (kyritsi, 2018). these links enable us to conclude that viewing research participation as a flexible process means that children can actively shape parts of the research practices depending on their needs. it also means that the focus of the research can influence the way children participate in it. conclusion this paper has analyzed choices on ethics and methodology that encouraged children to actively participate in the research process, specifically, during the stage of obtaining ongoing informed consent and during the interview process. the paper introduced the boxes system, which was used for ongoing, renegotiable consent and enabled consent to be enacted as a process; it provided children with flexibility in terms of how and how often to use it and it kept their responses confidential. additionally, the interview process was based on the use of prompts/artifacts linked to children’s social worlds, which encouraged them to express their own meanings of creativity in their own ways and to decide how they would prefer to communicate these meanings to me. both stages (that is, the consent and interview processes) invited children to take part in shaping the research process, which enabled their differing needs for participation in research to be realized and enacted. the contribution of this paper lies in its presentation of how children’s participation occurred in my study, with a particular focus on the creation of flexible research processes through all the research stages. in a broader sense, the concept of flexibility that was applied to research methods in this paper was very much linked to my research findings on creativity, which indicate the importance of balancing freedom and structure within an environment where children can develop their own understandings of what creativity is and how we can best promote it in the primary classroom (kyritsi, 2018). therefore, the focus of the research and the ethical and methodological processes influenced each other in creating a flexible, exploratory process that aimed to enable children’s active participation. overall, this paper analyzed a case of encouraging children’s active involvement in research during an ethnographic research project. its key argument was that creating a flexible research design enabled children both to shape the way they participated in research according to their preferences and to express their views on creativity in the way they found most efficient, without being influenced by the researcher’s views and expectations. june 2019 47 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research this paper invites reflections on building spaces of dialogue in which children and adults can discuss how best to explore different research topics. every research setting is different and there may be numerous ways to develop research practices that respect children’s rights of participation. however, as suggested by davis and colleagues (2011), “we should not assume that any other approach will work best or can be parachuted in (e.g., from another country)” (p. 127). therefore, this paper wishes to open up space for dialogue on how we as researchers can build practices that acknowledge the complexity of researching with children and draw on this complexity to find means of fostering children’s participation in research in ways that the children themselves find comfortable, preferable, and appropriate. june 2019 48 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research acknowledgments i would like to thank my supervisors, prof. john m. davis and dr. kristina konstantoni, for their support and guidance during my phd studies, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and their comments that 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(1989). convention on the rights of the child. retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc. aspx (endnotes) 1 primary school in scotland lasts for seven years. children start primary school when they are aged between four-and-a-half and fiveand-a-half years old. all scottish primary schools follow the curriculum for excellence, a national curriculum that was implemented in 2010 and is used from nursery to secondary school (from age 3 to 18). september 2019 146 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies a tribute to sue fraser pat tarr and carol anne wien pat tarr is associate professor emerita in the werklund school of education, university of calgary. she has been inspired by the reggio philosophy since 1990 when a presentation by lilian katz about a project from reggio caused her to rethink her image of the child and her role as an early childhood art educator. her research and publications focused on implications of the reggio philosophy for canadian contexts, art education, classroom environments, and documentation. although retired, she continues to be involved in the calgary reggio network association that supports professional development for educators from preschool through higher education, while focusing on her second career as a fibre artist. carol anne wien is professor emerita and senior scholar in the faculty of education, york university, toronto. she is widely known for her work on emergent curriculum and pedagogical documentation, inspired by the reggio emilia experience, and is author of the power of emergent curriculum and several other books, editor of emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: interpreting the reggio emilia approach in schools, and co-author, with karyn callaghan and jason avery, of documenting children’s meaning. she speaks frequently at conferences and workshops across canada and in the usa. she loves the arts—traces of the creative spirit—and constantly attempts to build them into daily life. september 2019 147 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies september 2019 148 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies we were startled and saddened to learn that our dear colleague, friend, and mentor sue fraser had died april 30, 2019, in ireland, having embarked on a much-anticipated trip to europe. we offer our tribute to her as an expression of gratitude for all the ways the spirit of her living intersected with ours. we trace both our intersections with her professional life and our relationships with her, because they were interwoven, not compartmentalized. pat: i met sue on galiano island, british columbia, in 1970 where she and hugh had set up camp in a small cabin while they built a house. we drank tea by the ocean overlooking a small cove, with children and dogs (a labrador retriever and an old english sheepdog) scrambling over the rocks. this was the first of many visits to galiano, with picnics on the beach, picking blackberries, fishing for rock cod, with children, dogs, family, and friends merging in memory under the warmth of the summer sun. we connected on a professional level after i began courses in early childhood education at the university of british columbia and i discovered that sue had a preschool in the basement of her home in west vancouver, established not so long after she and hugh had immigrated from africa. i spent a day at west bay playschool being welcomed into a community of teachers and children that reflected the values i was studying; her values for outdoor play resulted in a natural environment filled with sand, water, mud, chickens, and even an old car. inside there were opportunities to explore art materials, blocks, and all the traditional materials of a quality early childhood program. we began a friendship based not just on family connections but also on mutual professional interests. our careers were parallel over many years—teaching courses for early childhood students through adult education programs, later teaching at douglas college, and our mutual interest in the reggio emilia philosophy and its implications for canadian contexts. sue and cathleen smith were part of the first canadian study group to visit the preprimary schools in reggio emilia in 1993 and were fortunate to work with loris malaguzzi during that visit. i was torn because i was committed to a lifelong dream of visiting japan at the same time; hence i missed the opportunity to spend time with loris malaguzzi. sue mentored me when i taught early childhood art courses for adult education programs, and later at douglas college. at that time, we were grounded in a developmental view of young children’s art making and a strong desire to support children’s creativity through their use of materials. we railed against teacher-directed and precut craft activities and, heaven forbid, colouring books! we were well grounded in viktor lowenfeld, rhoda kellogg, and other art educators of the 1970s and 80s. after our introduction to the work coming from reggio emilia and our visits there, we were challenged to question our previous reliance on developmental stages in art and our more hands-off approach introducing art materials to young children. painting, beyond children’s art, comes to mind as well, for we shared an interest in watercolour painting and in the watercolour paintings by the german expressionist artist emil nolde. the 1998 naeyc conference session by sue, cathleen smith, and elvira reid carol anne: in 1998, sue, cathleen, and elvira presented their innovative work in the early childhood education program at douglas college, vancouver. these three women were pioneers in canada, the first to consider the challenges to our early years practice that the reggio emilia experience offers us and the first in canada to create something new—an integration of several traditional courses and an opening up of the structure of time—in a large institutional setting. they created a day-long experience, occurring each wednesday in the term, called “children teaching teachers.” in that program, they combined several courses and broke down conventional uses of time and space in institutional settings, bringing children and their educators into the university to engage with students. at the 1998 conference, their presentation was in the last time slot of the last day. nonetheless it was crowded, people spilling into the hall, and for many of us across canada, it was our introduction to sue fraser in september 2019 149 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies person. after the session, many of us recognized we had heard something unique. how was it unique? not simply in its content, which was radical enough, but in reflecting a different quality of experience, a different tone or disposition. this disposition was one of humility about what they had done, and enormous yet thoughtful respect for the educators of reggio emilia and attempts to learn from them. they were so very careful about what they said about those educators, so considered in their responses to questions, so humble. it was extraordinarily different from any other conference session we had ever attended, and this fact was recognized widely by many of us in attendance. sue and elvira were both retiring the following june 1999. i was so stimulated by their approach in that conference session that i visited them at douglas college to explore their work and interview them about it. when i visited in june of 2000, sue had just submitted her manuscript for the first edition of authentic childhood (fraser, 2000), which brought this work, and her visits to reggio emilia, into the wider public domain of education in north america. authentic childhood is now in its third edition (fraser, 2012). fraser’s provocation in that 1998 conference session, and in her book, and in an article written on her work for canadian children, sue argued, “we’ve missed the boat [in north america] in putting play at the core of our programme, and educators of reggio emilia put relationships at the core”; sue was “still thinking about that” (wien, 2000, p. 21). her work with four different early childhood contexts—the ece program at douglas college, a child care and a preschool program on quadra island, and the vancouver child study centre—demonstrated alterations to educators’ thinking and practice in ways inspired by reggio emilia. learning to create documentation that makes learning visible and shows why that learning is important, to collaborate in ways that develop teams (rather than divisions of labour), to create provocations (rather than activities with set outcomes), and to remove piecemeal schedules and allow time to be unhurried (rather than timed and heavily scheduled) were some aspects of practice that changed for educators in these settings after working with sue as mentor. sue on play in north america and in reggio carol anne: sue talked in our interviews (wien, 2000) about a difference in thinking about play between our north american view and that of educators in reggio emilia. she noted that our view of play is to see it as pretense, a symbolic stance in which one thing stands in for another—children pretend to be something else (p. 22). she thought that play, for the reggio educators, was influenced by gianni rodari and john dewey. rodari (1996) treated play as the generation of creative ideas in response to hypothetical situations (suppose the birthday party is for a house). dewey treated play as creation of a product in response to “playing with” ideas and emotions and producing something that reflected that play. [this was sue’s way of putting it in 2000.] in my opinion [carol anne], although both north american and reggio views support imaginative thinking and both support generating new connections and new relationships, the reggio view is larger, wider, as it engages both children and educators in thinking (and feeling?) that goes beyond the known and engages a wider world. and the adult is part of the interaction in the reggio view and removed in the north american, in which children are left uninterrupted. the key idea here is the difference between our idea of play as looking back into the world of childhood and the idea of play as building relationships that look out into the world. “the [north american] focus on play was consistent with a child development focus on the individual child … a focus on relationship, however, requires us to look out into the world and consider children’s dynamic responses” (fraser, as cited in wien, 2000, p. 26). september 2019 150 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies “i really feel,” said sue, “that if we could put relationship at the core of our programme, we’d get a better quality programme, and a higher profile in society” (p. 26). she offered these thoughts 20 years ago. sue as a home of safety for others carol anne: from the first moment i heard her speak, then met her in vancouver six-months later, i found i felt absolutely safe in her presence. safe in the sense of being accepted as i was, that there was no judgment but a genuine sense of welcome. it strikes me she was not cautious: she took me into her home on that trip without question, took me to quadra island to visit the centres and meet educators there. she fed me, housed me, for at least five days. i think those of us who knew her felt her love for us, and our work, her trust in us, and her support for what we were attempting to build for children, families, and educators. this sense of belonging and psychological safety is what we understand must be offered to young children, and it was so lovely to receive it ourselves. pat: sue mentored me. i have a vivid memory of sue trying to explain piaget to me during a talk by eleanor duckworth at what i believe was the first canadian association for young children (cayc) conference in vancouver in 1976. piaget’s theories of cognitive development were beginning to have a major impact on early childhood education in canada at this time. later, mentoring became more reciprocal as we discussed her book and she read book chapters that i was writing or discussed issues in teaching early childhood education students. in 2002 we collaborated on a piece for innovations, “trees dotting the landscape,” in which we described current reggio-inspired work in canada but the difficulty of collaboration due to the distances that separated us across the country. multicultural education pat: sue began her work in the area of multicultural early childhood education with research at sexsmith preschool for her ma degree, which she completed in 1984. during the 2002 canadian study delegation to reggio emilia, sue was invited to speak to a professional development session for reggio educators because the preprimary and infant schools were experiencing an influx of immigrants from other countries, something new to a region where families had lived for generations. in her quiet, unassuming manner, sue spoke about her work in multicultural settings and what she had learned from these experiences. sue brought her reggio-inspired lens to mentoring work at the marpole preschool in vancouver. this was a multicultural program and sue wrote about and presented this later work until 2007. editor pat: sue edited 12 issues (1993–1999) of canadian children, the journal published by cayc with the technical assistance of her husband, hugh. this peer-reviewed journal was the journal that represented canadian early childhood education across the country. contributors included academics and practitioners, and in this way she contributed to our sense of ourselves in the field of early childhood education and challenged us to consider new directions in the field. she published one of my first articles on japanese kindergartens in 1996. carol anne: she published my first article, too, in 1995. this gave me the sense that i could have a place in the canadian landscape of writers for early childhood. she was so welcoming. september 2019 151 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies a risk taker? or one who believed in building for others? carol anne: sue often extended herself for the good of others. in my 1999 visit, sue told me she “was questioned by police, as a high school student in south africa, for teaching black girls (when education was forbidden them)” (wien, 2000, p. 21). she did so at the encouragement of a local priest, and perhaps he was the one the police were after. but during a visit with her in 2015 i asked her how she got to england. she told me that after this questioning her parents sent her there, as a 16-year-old; they felt they had to get her out of the country. the police, during the questioning, had sat around a table; they made sue stand in her dress on top of the table for the questioning, where they could all see up under her skirt. generosity without bitterness carol anne: women of her generation were seldom accepted into doctoral programs, actively discouraged by men—it was all men then—in positions of authority around them. women’s interests did not match those available to supervise or were not seen as serious. this also happened to sue following completion of her master’s degree. given the fact she herself was not permitted to do a doctorate, i found her frequent support of other women, in later years, who were completing dissertations remarkably generous and without rancour. she had much to offer and did not seem to mind that she had never won a prestigious professional position that would give her serious academic credibility. pat: i last saw sue via skype, on february 28th. she was an audience member supporting a phd candidate through an oral defense, having read her thesis three times. as the external examiner, i could only wave. so i followed up a week later with a phone call. she was looking forward to her trip to ireland and portugal. the shells carol anne: sue said she was packing up to return to vancouver from quadra island once and put a big cloth bag of wrapped shells in the trunk of the car for a workshop she was giving upon her return. when she got to the workshop, she lifted the bag of shells onto the table and dumped it out and was shocked to find that she had brought her bag of dirty laundry instead of the shells. horrified, she swept it all away as fast as possible, and had to make another quick plan for the workshop. without guile carol anne: another time she was to give a workshop for a head start program across the canada/us border in seattle and had decided it should be on working with wire. unfortunately, this was shortly after 9/11. she had, in her car, all sorts of materials for the workshop—types of wire, scissors, and wire cutters, and so forth. had this unassuming grandmotherly woman been duped into transporting dangerous goods into the us? sue found it quite difficult to convince the border guard of her innocence. the garden carol anne: somehow her surroundings reflected something of her personality in a rich, abundant way. i remember the climbing roses, up the back wall of her home with its magnificent view facing the bay. somehow the view into a far distance reflected the way sue could look beyond the obvious and think in a bigger, more expansive way, and the creamy, soft-coloured roses reflected the beauty and sense of belonging she conveyed to those in her presence. hugh was part of that, too, and ready to welcome and be interested in us. september 2019 152 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies colour pat: when i picture sue, i see her dressed in blue, usually light blue or aqua, sometimes navy, or maybe pink, possibly in a liberty flower print blouse. these colours brought out her blue eyes. i have an image of softness, reflecting her gentle and quiet nature. sue and her colours connect her in my mind with her garden, especially the roses and hydrangeas. yet in recent photos, she is dressed in a red sweater. the right arm carol anne: the last time i was with her was in 2015, when karyn callaghan, jason avery, and i were in bc for presentations, and sue and hugh invited us for lunch. two years earlier, at another conference, she had told me her shoulder was bothering her a lot, and now in 2015 she could not use her right arm. she treated it as one would treat a mosquito bite or small cut covered with a band-aid, as needing little concern beyond the help required to serve her food. in other words, she kept her engagement with life bigger and more significant than her problems with a physical body in decline. when i learned she had died in ireland on her way to europe, a trip she was very much anticipating, i thought about how she sustained this huge involvement with life—no diminishing what she did— in spite of affliction. to me it is the stance of a warrior woman, someone with enormous courage and enormous attachment to living richly. pat: when sue lost the use of her right arm due to cancer, she continued to draw and paint, teaching herself to do so with her left hand. talk about tenacity! sue read widely and was a member of a book club. over the years we shared many favourite recommendations. in my last conversation with her, she was looking for a book for her book club discussion. i had just finished reading the gown by jennifer robson. my description of the book, a fiction account of two young women who embroidered queen elizabeth’s wedding gown, struck a chord with sue. she launched into a story of being in london for queen elizabeth’s coronation. she had not eaten all day and was beginning to feel rather faint. there was a tent with the most appetizing sandwiches. she grabbed a sandwich to discover prince philip giving her a dirty look! it is a cliché to say sue was an exceptional and special person who accomplished much with little fanfare and less ego. her reach was broad, from across north america through her writing and presentations, to lectures in taiwan, beijing, and abu dhabi. she received recognition for the important contributions she made, receiving the friends of children award from the canadian association for young children in 1991, the child care award of excellence for lifetime achievement from the b.c. ministry of children and family development in 2013, and the north american reggio emilia alliance lifetime achievement award in 2014. she was simply a blessing to us in every way. acknowledgements we would like to express our gratitude to hugh fraser, their daughter sally, and their granddaughter heather for their comments and support in writing this tribute. september 2019 153 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies references fraser, s. (2000). authentic childhood: experiencing reggio emilia in the classroom. scarborough, on: nelson. fraser, s. (2012). authentic childhood: experiencing reggio emilia in the classroom (3rd ed.). toronto, on: nelson. rodari, g. (1996). the grammar of fantasy: an introduction to the art of inventing stories (j. zipes, trans.). new york, ny: teachers and writers collaborative. (original work published 1972) tarr, p., & fraser, s. (2002, winter). trees dotting the landscape. innovations in early education: the international reggio exchange, 9(1). wien, c. a. (2000). a canadian in reggio emilia: fraser’s provocation. canadian children, 25(1), 20–27. june 2019 13 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research sympoetics of place and the red dust of india alex berry alex berry is a phd student at western university, located on the lands of the anishinaabe, haudenosaunee, and lenape peoples. situated at the intersection of childhood studies, the feminist environmental humanities, and the arts, alex’s research focuses on the liveliness of waste materials in early childhood spaces. centering the studio (or atelier) as a site for research and curricula making, alex is interested in how collaborative artistic processes may propose new ways of relating with waste materials in times of advanced capitalism. email: aberry28@uwo.ca red dust is always in motion and thus is never wholly known. its form is eternally moving, momentarily composing shape and shifting to another. red dust reconfigures the linguistic properties of its collective signifier, “form,” to inventively perform as both noun and verb. disrupting colonial notions of traditional ethnographic form, this paper uses sympoetics to center the form(-ations) of india’s red dust in childhood studies. borrowing from haraway (2016), sympoiesis means “making-with,” where making is a fundamentally co-compositional act within “collectively-producing systems that do not have self-defined spatial or temporal boundaries” (p. 61). thinking beyond poetic writing as a purely reflective, individual pursuit, sympoetics offers an orientation to writing that notices, suspends, and holds together relations with materials and place in the midst of ambiguity that exists beyond the self. using sympoetics to attend to anticolonial stories told through my relations with the red dust of india, this performance aims to stir up and settle into discomfort toward more affectual, contradictory, and contingent understandings of place relations in childhood studies research. experimenting with forms that lie outside the boundaries of traditional ethnographic research, in this paper i think with haraway’s (2016) notion of sympoiesis as a platform to reimagine my engagements with place after recently returning home from my pedagogical work as visiting artist-researcher-teacher at a school in goa, india. i imagine sympoetics as methodological engagement that conceives poetry, not as a purely individual, reflective practice, but rather a co-compositional performance that attends to the polymorphic, often contradictory relations of humans and materials as they are entwined with place. following the ephemeral movements of india’s red dust, i attend to the intersections of seemingly disparate materials, specifically a child’s pencil and waste materials, and the ways in which they gather meaning together/apart among local/global red dust assemblages. by highlighting and decentering colonial undertones in ethnographic methodology with children and attending closely to anticolonial stories told through my relations with the red dust of india, this paper works to both sit with—and stir up— discomfort, toward more complex, contentious, and responsive accountabilities with place. using sympoetics to trace the movements and impermanence of red dust, this performance is intentionally partial and aims to situate research in the midst of “not yet” and unknowability. key words: childhood; sympoetics; materiality; place; methodology june 2019 14 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research i empty out a bejewelled bag of goan trinkets and handmade gifts— scarves, journals, bookmarks, earrings and small fabric packages of indian spices. items made by hands much smaller than mine —carried a long way to be shared with others, to places i used to know. laid over my bed, a mix-matched quilt of two worlds. the pieces of who i used to be. the new, the parts of me that have changed—hovering over the scene like oil and water. after taking out the last spice capsule of chana masala, i shake the bag upside down over my bed. red dust particles fly over my sheets, sprinkling the crevices of my pillows with tiny footprints. the familiar smell of goa dances around the room. a polymorphic composition of freshly baked breads, jasmine trees, cinnamon and cumin spice, of pigs and cows, vanilla incense, burning petrol, the delicacy of gulab jamun and the unparalleled artistry of fine indian sweets. its fragrance is a sensational choreography that can only be understood from the experience it offers, a vibrant sort of ordinary whose aroma is so multitudinous it can never be truly identified. like the pungent memory of my great-grandmother’s perfume, it overwhelms my senses. genuine, warm—it feels like coming home. … my stomach reaches her hands and traces her fingers over the bottom of my heart. as blood pools to my core, it becomes heavy—full with memories of another life. adjusting to its weight, i sit on my bed. laying back into speckled sheets, i close my eyes and swallow hard— pushing down on dry beads that tickle my throat. the ephemeral red dust of india. back on the unceded soil of the musqueam, squamish, and tsleil-waututh first nations, in what is also known now as vancouver, canada, i revisit my seemingly never-ending web of data, a desk overflowing with sticky notes, photos, art clippings, video files, penciled quotes and anecdotes—fleeting memories and endless curiosities—the colliding traces of my existence as a visiting artist-researcher-teacher at a school in goa, india.1 the data ripples with lively stories of place that spill off its edges—the vibrant art pieces that unfolded with the children at the school where i worked, the people and materials i encountered, and the tensioned moments i provoked as a whitebodied visiting artist-researcher-teacher. entering this desk of data is affectively overwhelming. i roll the wheels of my chair closer as i lean over its surface, my eyes scanning through its intricate pieces. but when i reach my fingers out to touch them, i sense a growing intensity in my body—beginning with a heavy pull at the bottom of my stomach. an unease that comes with the anticipation of “what next” in a troubled research process, problematic and paradoxical in its very nature as i aim to unsettle colonial, anthropocentric research logics whose histories enable me the position to challenge them now. slowly at first, she crawls up my torso, sinking her hands into the walls of my innermost flesh as she thrusts herself higher, through my esophagus, sliding across my tongue and expelling boisterously from my mouth. swollen with affectual sensations of place, thick memories of india fill the air—particles of vibrant red dust that move beyond any solidified account of data, analysis, or qualitative research. i cannot see through the haze. following law (2004), if “methods produce realities” then my hope in staying in this hazy place of trouble is that perhaps i might honour india’s red dust as always becoming, with a methodology that is grounded in complicated, “unfinished configurations of places, times, matters and meanings” (haraway, june 2019 15 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2016, p. 1). within the field of childhood studies, research is unsurprisingly often focused on children. situating my pedagogical work within a posthuman research ethic, i am inspired by feminist common worlding methods by nxumalo (2016), pacini-ketchabaw, kind, and kocher (2017), taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2019), and taylor and blaise (2014), who propose that it is not only humans who matter in the making of worlds. in this paper, i propose a methodological orientation that decenters the human (researcher and child) and highlights possibilities that emerge when research is conceived as an act of making-with. disrupting anthropocentric and neoliberal logics of predictable, homogenous, self-making processes, making-with involves a reliance on sympoetic relations of multiple, interdependent components whose trajectories are entangled within “complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems” (haraway, 2016, p. 58). paying attention to materials that exist beyond human selfmaking practices, making-with offers a radical reconfiguration in the construction of knowledge and subjectivities by situating meaning within ineffable, irregular, and impermanent moments with others. the purpose of this paper is to disrupt what haraway (1988) refers to as the “god-like trick” of qualitative research, where longstanding ethnographic methodological legacies signify and appropriate complex worlds into a transcendental myth of knowability in the service of an ongoing euro-colonial rational. tentatively tracing the movements and emerging storylines of my encounters in india, i attend to the intersections of seemingly disparate materials, specifically a child’s pencil and waste materials, and the ways in which they come together/apart and gather meaning among local/global red dust assemblages. in paying attention to how these materials might come to matter in relation with each other (barad, 2007) and particularly with india’s red dust, i highlight the active histories/presences that shape their ontologies with/in this particular place as deeply permeated by colonialism. moreover, i argue that familiar ethnographic constructs of researcher objectivity separate humans from their relational, felt accountabilities to the places in which they live and, under the guise of political impartiality, reinforce research practices that allow for disconnection and ecological exploitation. here, i aim to trouble neutralizing research conventions where, as m’charek (2013) so cogently states, “the factness of facts depends on their ability to disconnect themselves from the practices that helped produce them” (p. 436). using sympoetics as an entry point toward an anticolonial methodological commitment that foregrounds partial, situated knowledges (haraway, 1988), i highlight the affectual movements of materials within temporal place stories to begin mapping out a research process that is felt, implicated, and messy. unsettling ethnographic methods and the ethics of red dust within the context of childhood studies, ethnographic methodologies have often accounted for place as the definable site of research, where naming and ordering phenomena is centralized in the validity of field work. yet, place has also been reconceptualized as materially discursive (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015a), negotiated with felt value (tuan, 1977), and imbued with sociocultural and political tensions (tuck & mckenzie, 2015), tensions that may be unwittingly obscured in the doings of cross-cultural ethnographic research. criticisms of the colonial nature of ethnographic research are not new. it has been widely argued that systematized ethnographic methods reinforce a positivist desire to attain and disseminate the “truth” of a particular place and are extensions of a colonial desire to manage and control land/bodies (said, 1978; smith, 2012). these methods dissolve possibilities for multiple ways of knowing by appropriating difference into existing western frameworks of study (argyrou, 2017). following nxumalo and cedillo (2017), these “grand narratives” of eurocentric action that “center a universal human subject” are particularly common in research within childhood studies (p. 101). while many qualitative methods encourage researchers to suspend their judgments to eliminate human influence june 2019 16 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and understand the true essence of a lived phenomenon, sympoetics relies on a writer’s implication and situated theorizations with/in an event. these theorizations are not simple reproductions of the author’s understanding, inherent creativity, or an isolated image of thought (mclure, 2011). rather, as ingold and hallam (2007) write, these artistic resonances are the temporal manifestations of culturally imbued relational movements with others. in this sense, writing, reading, and research are never done alone. thus, sympoetic thought lives within temporal events that are intimately co-composed with place. disrupting the colonial gaze of explanatory qualitative writing, tuck and mckenzie (2015) have described this sort of living research practice, not by means of method, but of “resonance: a continual process of crafting” (p. 92) that uses theory as a tool to sculpt and (re)sculpt the formation of concepts as they emerge, as opposed to a set of formalized methods. these formations are never whole, stable, or separate from the researcher, and so are permeated with multiple overlapping histories. yet, noticing and becoming vulnerable to these histories requires a particular onto-epistemological orientation in research. as haraway (1988) writes, both the researcher and her emerging conceptualizations are eternally partial as both are in part and a part of the world she studies. this partiality is not meant to be controlled or regulated; it is a central quality of sympoetic writing which disrupts ethnographic legacies of a knowable, generalizable subject serving a single story. sympoetics invites a collision of multiple parts where materials and ideas flow together, fill with intensity, spill, and drop a ripple in the world that provokes us to think. attuning to the sympoetics of place requires a researcher’s embodied implication in all facets of study. as such, researchers must closely attend to sensorial affects of movement with materials and the multiple storylines that come together in ways which unsettle taken-for-granted assumptions about the places in which we live. sympoetics then, like red dust, becomes a meeting place (kind, 2010) where past-present-future stories bump up against each other, temporarily settle, and open possible worlds that were previously unimagined. despite/with anthropocentric regulatory boundaries, the red dust of india moves in every direction, with multiple others and varying speeds. red dust moves as an assemblage, an open whole—a relentless ravelling and unravelling of multiple components emerging both within a situated place and among larger subterranean roots that inventively co-configure its movements in relation with others (colebrook, 2006). the red dust of india is a complex web of contingencies, temporalities that move with the rhythms of its connections. multiple forms are in constant negotiation within its many paths, and while some may strengthen certain connections at a larger scale, these formations are simultaneously interceded by seemingly small or mundane encounters within situated spaces (tsing, 2015). within localized encounters, red dust has the potential to collide with unfamiliar forms in ways that enact novel responses, producing a momentary essence of difference within shifting patterns. red dust is always in transition and holds no wholly definitive attributes as it mediates among the local/global. compacted red dust marks paths of automobiles—a visual distinction of human trajectories from neighbouring jungle terrain. here, red dust lies heavy on the ground, sedimented by the weight of petrol trucks. lines are well worn and signal familiar routes—from a to b and back again. compacted red dust holds its form. it tells stories of a long past-present history of transportation that performs with many others across a global stage. red dust does not exist in isolation. traced by the imprints of infinite tire tracks, the patterns of its trajectories are a gesture of a complex relation with singapore, the united arab emirates, and the movements of crude oil. here, compacted red dust is part of a million-year-old storyline that holds no true beginning or end. across borders and below the earth’s surface, animal and plant bodies are also compacted. beyond the scope of human vision, and with the help of sedimented red dust, they compress, heat, and liquify. extracted-distilled-sold, red-dust-animalplant bodies fuel the livelihoods of many people in june 2019 17 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research goa and beyond and are skillfully mediated with/in the rhythms of worldly markets. red dust relations blur the illusion of a divide between nature and culture and tell contested stories of how humans live entangled lives with red dust assemblages. when i arrived home from india, the discomfort of signifying red dust with a single story and extracting “findings” among its relations pushed me to abandon my messy desk of data for over two months. like a cantankerous child, discomfort pushed me away but cried for my attention. my trails were marked with footprints smaller than my own, a tell-tale sign she was following. always in the back of my mind, she would call me to remember her, regardless of whatever distraction i tried to find in a bustling vancouver summer. at the end of each day, i returned to my apartment, where i knew she would be waiting—owning her space in the farthest corner of my living room. she named me a trespasser in my own home. i imagined collecting the fragments of data spread over my desk and organizing them into colour-coded files. perhaps then i could think logically about this research. perhaps then she might be quiet. i could find patterns, synthesize my understandings, and present findings in a coherent way. i could return to my composed, scholarly self. in taking up this practice, i learned more acutely about the formations of writer’s block. through honest conversations with my mentors, veronica pacini-ketchabaw and sylvia kind, i was encouraged to go back to the data and this time pay special attention to my encounters with place—to stay with discomfort— to locate the histories that inform her and notice her affects. what might discomfort instruct of me if i sat with her tension? what might happen if instead of thinking about, i think with place—close my eyes, open my palms, and feel for flakes of red dust?2 returning to my desk, i try to set aside my more traditional academic intentions and attune myself to the materials that are invoking such intensity. i wonder about what risks might emerge if i relinquish my struggle to see through the haze of red dust. as my fingers trace the contours of relocated matter that blankets my desk, i sense a familiar tugging from the deepest hollow of my body. what are the implications of attempting to pave red dust’s transversal movements into readable, linear pathways? following pacini-ketchabaw, kind, and kocher (2017), materials are not empty. before human encounter, they hold lives and purposes. as i hold on to the eclecticity of the scattered pieces across my desk and become informed by the sensations they create, these materials tell lively stories of the places from which they hail. in this sense, materials are never outside of the place they come from or arrive to—just as every idea i gather in touching them is like a place i have visited (ingold & hallam, 2007). as ingold and hallam (2007) write, i may arrive through many different paths, circle around, stay awhile or leave, but each time i revisit an idea, and a material, it is a bit different. shaped by memories and experiences of my previous visit, it changes, as the world—and i—do not stand still. each piece of data i hold carries rich histories of the places it has grown from, and its ontology is continually reworked through its relations with others. figure 1. red dust is a global traveller. june 2019 18 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research wrapping my hand around a pencil i received from an educator in goa, its wood painted yellow and heavy with weight—a child’s name etched along its side—i am all of a sudden carrying with it stories of its place. pastpresent histories of british colonialism in india and the situated particularities of portuguese rule in goa reinforce the structures and processes through which this pencil gathers meaning. these histories play out in the daily lives of materials and their ontological significance. this pencil has scribbled through english tests, deciphered mathematical problems, and sketched portraits of the catholic saint francis xavier. it traces euro-western stories of children’s psychological development—of ages and stages and fine motor control. yet, this pencil also scribbles through one-way lines sketched from the global north to south and draws attention to goa’s sustained legacy of local artisanry, traditional drawing practices, and calligraphy. this pencil enacts potential in the brilliantly ordinary moments of children’s resistance—of margin doodlings, passed notes, and the hidden artistry of textbook “graffiti.” when its work for the day is complete, it rests in a small plastic pencil case decorated with justin bieber stickers and tucked inside the cubby of a small wooden school desk. this pencil’s marks are of graphite. extracted from metamorphic rock compound after millions of years of intense sedimentary carbon reduction—solidified dust (collective land/animal/waste particles)—and mechanically recomposed with clay, yellow pencil stories affirm that there are no loose parts within red dust assemblages. the seemingly benign aesthetics of the life of this pencil matter. they are relentlessly mediated among local/global discursivities, colliding with and shaping the formations of the ecologies in which they are situated and, as such, are lively performers in relation with india’s red dust. materials such as this pencil are not passive or static as if they are merely waiting for humans to act on them; rather, their movements are performed in relentless relation and indeterminacy within human and more-thanhuman worlds (barad, 2007). continually regenerating within the socio-political and ecological conditions in which they are positioned, materials do not exist within neutral or solidified spaces. the ways in which this child’s pencil lives amid red dust assemblages are highly political as its possible movements are interdependent on its social value within a neoliberal landscape. following ahmed (2008), “how we are touched by what comes near” is contingent on the value materials hold within the social configurations in which they are positioned (p. 124). thus, the histories, presences, and political circumstances of a specific place are manifested in material-encounters. these affects inform how materials come to matter, what they do, and, with this, how humans respond to them. in this way, attuning to the material discursivity of this pencil provokes an attention to the structures and stories which enable it to exist and perform in particular ways. this attention to materials and movements poses ethical obligations that become visible when research is imagined as living, not outside of, but within the flows and poetics of deceptively ordinary everyday life. materials are always becoming, forming and reforming amid sticky histories and improvisational gestures of inthe-moment encounters (ingold, 2013). despite an anthropocentric imaginary that separates humans from the life of material and natural worlds, humans and materials continually affect and are affected by each other (barad, 2007). yet, noticing these affectual entanglements requires that we consider ourselves as vulnerable to and with materials, across shared yet unequal spaces of precarity (hird, 2012). this onto-epistemological commitment to collective ecological life with others has been central in indigenous knowledges for millennia (hunt, 2014; tuck, 2010) and continues to unsettle colonial dichotomies of nature/culture that reinforce human superiority and land exploitation. following tuck and mckenzie (2015), if researchers are to pay attention and respond to ongoing colonial histories at play in encounters with materials, then place must first be rethought beyond methodological june 2019 19 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research frames that subjugate its passivity: place is not merely a neutral backdrop, a bounded and antiquated concept, or only a physical landscape … place is mobile, shifting over time and space and through interactions with flows of people, other species [and] social practices. at a more localized level, place both influences social practices as well as performs and (re)shapes through practices and movements of individuals and collectives. place is interactive and dynamic due to time–space characteristics. disparate realities determine not only how place is experienced but also how it is understood and practiced (e.g., in relation to culture, geography, gender, race, sexuality, age, or other identifications and experiences). (tuck & mckenzie, 2015, p. 635) humans are in perpetual relation with place, and thus place is integral to colonial practices. methods which distance humans from their connections with place disregard past-present histories, possible futurities, and the socio-political tensions with which place is entwined. this positioning of place as merely a vacant stage for human activity perpetuates a dichotomy of active humans / inactive nature that is embedded within colonial rationalities of human control and conquest over natural worlds (taylor, 2017). |in this sense, meaning is extracted from ecological origins and appropriated into easily digestible fragments. the multiple others who once nourished it are wrung out and deemed excessual. these logics of fragmentation allow for continual settler exploitation and appropriation of indigenous lands and erasures of indigenous bodies (nxumalo, 2016; simpson, 2014). under the mask of methodological neutrality, the banality of this violence becomes possible when knowledge is conceived within euro-western research measures that pacify the liveliness of more-than-human worlds and the political discourses at play in humanplace relations. thus, movement toward more ethical, politically conscious research accountabilities in the field of childhood studies necessitates that methodologies “grapple with, interruptively respond to, as well as work through the doubts, complicated frictions, discomforts, knots and silences” (nxumalo, 2016, p. 641) that already live in everyday encounters with place—if we choose to notice them. connections with place are deeply imbued with/in colonial systems. therefore, it is impossible to remember my experiences with place, and the red dust of india, without also remembering the colonial histories/presences whose intersections position me now to think and write against them. sympoetics may offer a possible yet risky entry point to writing with place in ways that are situated within paradoxical and contingent storylines and insistent on the irreducible difference of local knowledges. in rethinking place as discursively alive with particular histories and presences with which i am entangled, my research process becomes explicitly informed by its intensities, sensations, and the multiple stories its materials provoke. in this way, my positionality here as a settler-researcher is implicated, imperfect, and attentive to poetics which aim to disrupt the knowability of childhoods and place. this approach requires a place-specific, relational ethic that moves beyond commonly accepted institutionalized thought in academia (berry, do nascimento, & pacini-ketchabaw, 2018) whereby the researcher maintains a clean distance from the messiness of lived experience. following haraway (1988), this situated partiality decenters the positivist illusion of a researcher’s objectivity and names her as vulnerable to and with place. at this location, the myth of the innocent, all-seeing researcher is no longer available, and as haraway (1988) writes, is where “the knowing self is partial in all its guises, never finished, whole, simply there and original; it is always constructed and stitched together imperfectly, and therefore able to join with another, to see together without claiming to be another” (p. 586). in this way, grounding the construction of knowledges in partial material encounters calls on researchers to become accountable to research that is contaminating to, and contaminated by, place. this work is nontranscendental and nonneutral, specific to felt values of a particular place and subsequently lives with/in what are often tensioned, uncomfortable spaces of difference. june 2019 20 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research approaching my data with linear thought processes that seek to extract, codify, and analyze place relations not only enacts violent assumptions of knowability but also effectively enhances a distance from lived accountabilities to materials and place. enacting this separation makes it possible to disregard the existence of indigenous peoples whose epistemologies, ontologies, and cosmologies are so intricately braided here. under the veil of objectivity, qualitative research processes are better able ignore red dust assemblages as mediated among racialized, gendered, socio-political power axes—relentlessly spilling past even the most sealed boundaries of cartesian categorical thought. in relinquishing discomfort and finding ease in an assurance of clean, controlled bias and measurable findings, the consequences of my work are no longer mine. rather, they live within institutionalized mechanics of modern research procedure. despite my supposed sterility and superiority, their effects linger. in this way, an ethical obligation to research with place demands much more than methodological logics that are steeped in anthropocentric separation, as the affectual livelihoods of materials move far beyond any human-conceived form. with this said, my messy desk of data is oozing with reverberations from india and their aftershocks throb with a provocation: how might i grapple with/in/out-of place in a response that is both inventively ephemeral and consequential? the ephemeral red dust of india finds its way into every crevice. the bottoms of my feet, deep in my nail beds, coating my nostrils, ear canals, eyelids— between my teeth. riding my bike, it sweeps into my eyes, and as tears fall down my cheeks, the red dust of india rolls with salty droplets. clinging to my chin, and letting go. falling back to the earth, where it is swept up again into bodies of the next. red dust is a global traveller and carries strained stories of its journeys with human others—of who we are and what we do. crossing borders and settling in spaces that defy illusive barriers regulating globalization. the red dust of india ingeniously moves in pathways beyond human control—a lively swarm of porous particles which carry billions of microbes across land, air, and water. microbial bacteria, fungi, pollution, skin cells, and flora, red-dust-organisms are the moving in between of life and death among vibrant global ecologies. instructed by discomfort, i notice past-present histories alive in my encounters with red dust. sympoetics allows me the space to better hear discomfort, hover in in-between spaces, and pay attention to the training i have received as a settler-colonial subject to inertly exempt myself from my entanglement with these more-than-human ecologies. as i struggle to reimagine where this sort of research process might take me and what ripples it may produce, i cannot help but wonder, how have past-present colonial dreams of production and social efficiency separated me from my entanglement and accountabilities with place—and to what consequence? growing up in a dominantly western culture, rooted in the coproduction of capitalism and science (smith, 2012), i have been nurtured with an ideological sense of social separation from the land i walk on. neoliberal descriptions of the place i live in might infer that i am indeed existing in a sort of bubble—the human world, a place that is disconnected, even superior, to the organic spaces around it. in my vancouver home, i live with walls around me, i walk on a floor suspended from the earth, and i look outside through the protection of glass windows. my skin is warm, my feet are clean, and i hold an assurance of safety in a man-made isolation. beneath my kitchen sink, swept dust and household garbage are kept in a plastic bin. i seal its lid, hiding the pungent smell of rotting waste, thrown out materials and my accountability to their violence. i wonder, where is “out”? living within neocolonial structures that reinforce the illusion of a divide between nature and culture, i become quickly detached from the grounding histories of place and the socio-political conditions that allow me the privilege of benefiting from the myth that i am indeed separate, even superior. with concrete and glass framing my experiences, dust buried at the bottom of my garbage bin and waste materials out of sight in darkened cupboards, how have i been engaging with place, and to what capacity? june 2019 21 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research as hird (2012) highlights, “nature relentlessly flows, but not in ways that are necessarily compatible with human flourishing” (p. 464). while some humans have the ability to ignore these flows in ways that maintain consumptive logics and preferred neoliberal lifestyles, waste materials continue to thrive in lively, interdeterminate relations that effectively leak past the boundaries of waste containers and human imaginaries. hird’s (2012, 2013) studies of the microbial underground of landfills illuminate that most of the transformative action of waste materials happens well beyond human engineering capacities. following systems’ bacterial undergrowth, hird demonstrates how waste materials engage in complex processes of making with others—of sympoiesis. collectively metabolizing discarded objects and producing leachate, microbial bacteria cogenerate compositions of liquid, often toxic, constituents that seep into surrounding water, soil, plant, and animal bodies. despite human attempts to control leakages, these vigorous waste ecologies continue to coproduce inventive social forms that exist in the inhuman domain of “geobacteria liveliness” (hird, 2012, p. 458). these inventive social formations initiated by capitalist modernity are not new phenomena, nor are they geographically contained. more than halfway across the globe, children in goa often hold visibly intimate relationships with waste materials. the discourses of global consumerism manifest here as an intricately designed and expansive system of slums made entirely of reimagined wastetreasures. here, the vibrant life of waste holds a visible ontological livelihood in relation with human and more-than-human others, demonstrating the “inherent indeterminacy of the world rendered determinate, by human and inhuman alike” (hird, 2013, p. 465). community-built and ever-evolving, the slums are bustling with people and materials from every corner of the subcontinent. human and waste materials live here in contingent and contradictory relationships that continue to push the gravitational limits of horizontal and vertical space—a never-ending game of waste-based jenga. mountains of plastic bottles and colourful bits of trash that line the streets here are more than merely human excess, they take shape in this place as playgrounds for school children and troughs for wild pigs and dogs—among infinite other uses. a close friend who is local to this place would often tell me, “anything is possible in india.” while the global distribution of wealth allows western countries such as canada to afford solid waste management systems that place garbage “out of sight and out of mind” (hird, 2013), families in goa often have little access to regular trash collection. their lives become intimately entangled with the physicality of waste materials and the toxicity they bring. many of the families i spent time with in india live in homes with aluminum-sheet walls and holes where the sun and wind peek through, the kitchen floor is compacted dust, and the windows are recycled meshed wire. a home is shared with an ecology of uninvited local critters and changing weather—the lines distinguishing human and natural worlds are inevitably blurred. here, both red dust and waste move beyond boundaries of inside/outside and are a visual indication of common worlds where there is no “out” there. in figure 2. attention to materials and movements poses ethical obligations. june 2019 22 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research noticing the movements of red dust, its global blockages and flows among humans, waste, and other worldlings, it becomes apparent that encounters with red dust are strongly mediated by race, gender, and socioeconomic geographies. “nothing is free in india.” “but ... it’s garbage.” “even if it’s trash on the side of the road, it usually belongs to somebody. broken pipes, old coconut leaves, rope and wire. someone will use these things. you think it’s dirty, but somebody wants it. especially if you do.” as an emerging scholar situated in western mechanisms of educational progress, i exist in a neoliberal social landscape that tends to look ahead rather than around. i consider what it means to be “forward thinking” as i research with place in the context of childhood studies. i wonder what might happen if i shift my gaze, notice place, its materials—and pay intimate attention to the contingent, uneven natures of the where of research (tuck & mckenzie, 2015). attuning to the lively doings of the place in which i am a visitor and the violent histories heavy in its materials, i am learning that being critically informed by the place i am engaging with requires me to pay attention to “spatialized processes of settler colonialism … and extend beyond considerations of the social to more deeply consider the land, materials, non-human inhabitants and their characteristics as they determine and manifest place” (tuck & mckenzie, 2015, p. 635). moving away from research methods that seek to regulate my experiences as separate and superior to the dynamic happenings of place, sympoetics attunes to affective, contradictory, and partial readings of data as events that move beyond human reason. with this conceptualization of place, seemingly disparate materials—red dust, a pencil, and waste materials—come to matter because of their relationalities within common worlds and the ongoing colonial histories/presences that inform their ontologies. in this way, researchers are called to pay attention to their implication with/in movements of past/present, local/ global assemblages and the lively performances of more-than-human others. thinking with sympoetics of place, i am better able to situate my knowledge as eternally fragmented and teased up in white-bodied, settler-colonial past/present trajectories and attend to the politically contested and transformative possibilities of materials and place in research. thinking with red dust formations india’s red dust is so much more than tiny particles of land and waste matter. it has an unparalleled ability to move in-between solidified forms. situated in the space between one and other, between is often a taut, non-neutral physical location of difference. a research ethic that embodies an ethos of red dust requires a responsiveness to the unfamiliar that is sparked in these in-between spaces, where research must stay with the trouble of an unanswerable question (haraway, 2016). these encounters between one and other cultivate an affectual pulse that reverberates in suspended conjunction, where one and other meet with sustained distinction. in this way, the unknowability of the other is the basis of artistic engagement (cinquemani, 2018) and of the sympoetics of place. through the use of sympoetics, i do not seek to relay “what happened” in india, explain phenomena or moral judgments; rather, i aim to allude to “a condition” in which i find myself while doing, making, and creating within a particular place and time (phelan & rogoff, 2001, p. 34). attuning to this condition provokes a careful attention to others and the past-present histories that inform their movements. like red dust, sympoetics is never stable or knowable. rather, it tentatively gathers form through a composition of words, rhythms, their collective imperfections, and the subjectivities of those who read it across locations of difference. june 2019 23 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research haraway (1988) writes that as researchers we ought to make room for “surprises and ironies at the heart of all knowledge production” (p. 594). she asserts “we are not in charge of the world. we just live here and try to strike up noninnocent conversations by means of our prosthetic devices” (p. 594). as i think with the sympoetics of red dust, i foreground that this writing is not complete; it is not to be taken as a whole story or direct translation of experience. saturated in my own partiality as i encounter the ever-dynamic happenings of materials and place, my presence is entangled, not only with the place where i live, but also with the places where i have lived—the multiple histories and sensational geographies of my existence up to this point, as well as the potential for beyond. i situate sympoetics as temporal, messy, and in many ways intentionally incoherent, to make space for affectual resonances that fall beyond solely textual accounts. i aim to twist the spirit in new and unfamiliar directions (springgay, 2008), wrenching the body’s affectual response and disallowing the comfort of a familiar thought. i play with words and rhythm to shape my experiences with india in a tentative body. in no way are sympoetics able to capture india as a place—that is not the point. more so, sympoetics allows me to craft meaning as tentative, becoming, and eternally co-compositional. it gives me a platform to notice, to grapple with, and to complicate what it means to be a visiting researcher on lands likely colonized by my own european ancestors, as i continue to benefit from the position i have gained through these histories. this is my untidy attempt at making sense of pedagogical work in ways that highlight the banalities of settler colonialism at play in ethnographic research and the troubles of common sense. through artful attentiveness and processes of sympoetic interpretation, my intention is to attune to the very possibility of relations across un/common worlds and my accountabilities toward thinking research as otherwise. swaying the wheels of my chair back and forth, hearing them roll across my wood floor, i sit at my desk with discomfort and notice a change in our project. merely inviting her, sitting with her, is not enough, it risks my eventual acceptance and her ultimate disappearance. thinking sympoetically with place requires me to actively contribute to her irregularities, and provoke a perpetual unease that dances alongside her temporal formations. to notice and attend to place in ways that move like red dust. slow, twisted, and tentative, i start to etch out a map of my data. this is merely a place for beginnings. india is a kaleidoscope that never stops turning she is a bag of marbles that makes her own probability a tipped over paint truck whose colours seep into every crevice a force of smells of bread, of sewage, of metal, and sweets of life, death, and everything in between she tastes of humidity—thick, wet flavours of cumin, of chili, of cinnamon and sweat dry red dust that speckles every body upon her land she is a 500 pound load upon a rusty 2 wheeler figure 3. like red dust, sympoetics is never stable or knowable. june 2019 24 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the seemingly impossible, inventive and able a fast-forwarded race through a maze with no end a concert orchestra in the disjointed swells of their warm up every instrument in the throes of a score —existing in time, never on it a short straw among others, a tossed coin that never lands she begins from the middle and tells of no end she is the grey, the sticky, the messy between a magical fall down a rabbit hole and an honest slap of reality she is not a picture to be taken, or destination on a map she is a series of combustions, of conflict and confusion strung with beads of temporal clarity she is an event colourful and vibrant in her happenings she rests only for a second, in places beyond the familiar she is a sister’s smack and a mother’s hug a child’s giggle and a father’s belt a grandmother’s stare and a neighbour’s honest wave she is the wildness of impulse held together by duty a climb to the top, the familial pursuit of survival she is the anomaly of a moment from chaos—hovering in pause she gives a million reasons to pull it all apart, and one love to keep it together she is a winding ride on a coastal highway a salty taste of air, of skin she is the sweat on my brow and the dust in my nails the scrapes on my legs and the hope in my heart she is the curiosity of a million lost pieces and the glue that holds them in hand loud, ravenous, and present in her quarrels she is a quiet mind in the busiest of places she is the city, the desert, the mountains and the plains a bengali morning and an arabian night— she is calm, but never asleep she is the clanging of tin cups and the smoothness of masala chai she is a tight grip on the doors of a rail cart, and the freedom of the body that sways outside she is the heartbeat that echoes through car horns, market calls, and charging animals the comings and goings of 3 oceans that meet at her base a mix-matched quilt of 29 states and 150 languages she’s made of cows, of pigs, 30 pound rats and a billion human lives she is the law of the people, the morally criminal the malice of some, and the passion of many the ill, the grieving, the ones who give up the lost, the cheated, the unspoken code of love, of hate and of the ways in which things get done june 2019 25 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the inexplicable coherence of millions of lines dancing in every direction with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings she is the sweat between bodies, the fluid in pathways that lubricates movement never seen and always felt she is the generosity, the forgiveness, the love that holds space the heart of the universe and the mind of its creatures he is the inherent potential that lies in every single molecule of this place and the movement that will keep them going her colours never contained her probability never made and her kaleidoscope eye never 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(2015). the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton, nj: princeton university press. tuan, y. (1977). space and place: the perspective of experience. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. tuck, e. (2010). breaking up with deleuze: desire and valuing the irreconcilable. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 23(5), 635–650. doi:10.1080/09518398.2010.500633 tuck, e., & mckenzie, m. (2015). relational validity and the “where” of inquiry: place and land in qualitative research. qualitative inquiry, 21(7), 633–638. doi:10.1177/1077800414563809 (endnotes) 1 this paper is based on my master’s thesis research (berry, 2017), which explored children’s entanglements with waste materials through a series of art events at a school in goa, india. 2 reframing my research approach toward thinking with, versus about, place is inspired by affrica taylor and veronica pacini-ketchabaw’s writings on thinking-with (2015b, 2017) and a working paper by my doctoral colleague kelly macalpine. november 2020 35 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research gender disrupted during storytime: critical literacy in early childhood education cayley burton cayley burton is a master’s student in early childhood education at the university of british columbia. her research is committed to social justice, anti-oppressive, and inclusive pedagogies within childcare and early learning settings. email: c.burton@alumni.ubc.ca storytime and sociocultural gender norms storytime plays an instrumental role in western early childhood education (ece). according to crisp and hiller (2011), “a primary means of transmitting cultural values from one generation to the next is through the telling of stories and, in the united states [as in canada], this commonly comes in the form of children’s literature” (p. 197). storytelling through picture books is used to teach children about social norms and boundaries, including regulations and expectations about gender performance, identity, and expression. although picture books are diverse in content and representations of reality, influential messages about gender are imparted through the sharing of stories. in this way, gender is a story in and of itself through which children are socialized. legacies of what i refer to as the victorian sex-gender binary (vsgb) continue to shape cultural understandings of gender today. a bodily linkage, the vsgb refers to the medicalized and social processes of categorizing children as gendered. since the victorian era (1837–1901), binary sex designation at birth (as male or female) carries with it social expectations for binary gender identity (as a boy or girl) expressed in a binary way (masculine or feminine). however, the boundaries of social constructs like the vsgb are limiting for children who do not identify with— nor experience their bodies according to—dichotomies of sex or gender. featuring picture books about gendernonconforming characters during storytime therefore makes ece more inclusive, and empowering, of gender diversity. since, as katarina filipović (2018) writes, “traditional stereotypical gender patterns still prevail in children’s books used in … early childhood setting[s]” (p. 319), this essay argues that a critical reading of picture books—referred to here as “disruptive storytime” (earles, 2017; yeoman, 1999)—is necessary for the cultivation of gender-affirming ece learning processes by calling into question hegemonic expectations for children based on their sex-assignedat-birth (saab). through an analysis of three picture books and a discussion of judith butler’s (2004) theory of recognizability, this essay provides educators with a rationale for the importance of disrupting gender during storytime. by sharing texts such as jacob’s new dress (hoffman & hoffman, 2014), from the stars in the sky to the in western early childhood education, cultural expectations about socially acceptable gender performance too often divide young learners along the victorian sex-gender binary, erasing the beauty of childhood gender diversity. this essay advocates for the development of children’s gender literacy skills through the use of picture books. building on judith butler’s theory of recognizability, i argue that gender is a sociocultural construct that can be actively disrupted during storytime activities. texts featuring gender-nonconforming characters and corresponding pedagogical strategies for deconstructing gender portrayals in children’s literature are analyzed and offered in this essay. key words: early childhood education; gender nonconformity; gender diversity; picture books; critical literacy november 2020 36 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research fish in the sea (thom, ching, & li, 2018), and i am jazz (herthel, jennings, & mcnicholas, 2014) with young learners, the complexity of gender as a culturally situated social construct and performance (butler, 1990) can be explored in ece. through a literature review, i first explain the connections reiterated in the academic literature between early literacy practices and childhood gender socialization. following this, i outline my methodology for spotlighting particular picture books in my accompanying analysis. this justification is led by a deconstruction of a two-page spread from each text, examining to what extent picture books for young learners challenge western discourses of binary gender performance (in which masculinity and femininity are positioned as exclusive from each other vis-à-vis the biological characteristics of children’s bodies). the purpose of unpacking snapshots of these texts is to demonstrate the ways in which even excerpts can incite critique about and empowerment of gender during storytime. in this way, gender as a sociocultural construct can be disrupted during storytime, leading to greater support and inclusivity for childhood gender diversity in ece. literature review: unequal gender representation and picture books gendered scripts (keenan, 2017) are presented to young readers through picture books and children’s literature that mirror north american sociocultural norms. ya-lun tsao (2008) argues, “everything that children read contributes to the formation of self-images that help to construct children’s self-identity” (p. 109). storytime shapes children’s developing views of themselves, their peers, and the adults in their lives. as mattix and sobolak (2014) explain, “the messages contained in children’s books … have immense importance: the stories told within their pages influence the ways in which children see and react to the world around them” (p. 229). gender is symbolically represented in picture books depicting the gender performances children observe in daily life. embedded in the words and images of children’s literature are salient messages about the social expectations connected to particular times, places, and identities. as kristine gritter and colleagues (2017) explain, “in picture books, gender may be indicated through action, including acts of reading and writing, in both words and illustrations” (p. 571). through the pedagogical practice of read-alouds (meller, richardson, & hatch, 2009), picture books are instructional mediums through which the transmission of gender norms occurs. in fact, crisp and hiller (2011) write, “by the time children enter kindergarten, they readily differentiate between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ roles and have a firm understanding of the types of behavior deemed ‘appropriate’ for males and females” (p. 197). this classification of roles and behaviour is premised on the vsgb, leaving little room for children’s experimentation with gender creativity or fluidity beyond the dualistic positioning of male/female and masculine/feminine. furthermore, as mattix and sobolak insist, “the stories … shared with young children have a profound impact on how they develop their perspectives and ideas on gender and gender roles” (p. 231). challenging gender norms through the use of picture books builds awareness about the ways in which identities are socioculturally understood, shaped, and constricted. in order to promote acceptance for childhood gender nonconformity, it is crucial that gender diversity be represented within storytime texts. storytime is not a value-neutral activity. picture books are biased in the ways in which these stories are written, illustrated, and presented in ece. although typically authored by adults, picture books are written to appeal to young audiences. megan friddle (2017) explains that this genre has particular socializing and instructional power because picture books illustrate “the kinds of identities, identification, and narratives that are possible in adult conceptions of children’s lives” (p. 117). considering the adult-centrism within children’s literature, many scholars advocate for a critical reading of texts between adults and children in ece (crawley, 2017; crisp & hiller, 2011; filipović, 2018; gritter et al., 2017; kim, 2016; mcclung, 2017; sciurba, 2017). this literacy practice includes discussing those aspects of picture books that resonate, are taken for granted, or neglect children’s perspectives by november 2020 37 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research asking children to share their perspectives on the texts. a dialogical approach of this kind during storytime allows for children’s voices to be better heard and understood (colliver, 2017) through a teacher-guided conversational exploration of the sociocultural messages and life lessons being communicated through particular stories. a critical reading practice where gender is questioned—rather than essentialized—through text-inspired discussion is necessary because gender norms are internalized early on through children’s schooling. because, as mindy blaise (2005) asserts, gender is often “regulated by the children themselves as they take an active part in the gendering process” (p. 21, original emphasis), it is especially important that gender-based counternarratives are presented to children during early childhood. what problematic reiterations of the gender binary are children relying on to make sense of picture book stories? how do children react to the gender performance and recognizability of certain characters? what if characters are not easily “read” as boys or girls but identify as neither and/or in-between? a critical reading of text also promotes the development of empathy between children and fictional characters who are different from them, a lesson that extends to children’s daily interactions with peers regardless of their gender identity and/or expression. through dialogue stemming from read-alouds, children and teachers in ece can problematize the vsgb in children’s literature. when gender is understood as, and taught to be, a construct that governs systems of social organization at the same time that it’s an important aspect of individual identity development, gender-nonconforming children’s experiences are valued and validated as much as their cisgender peers’. using picture books to discuss binary gender norms with young children is important because of the sensitive nature of the early years for gender identity development (golden & jacoby, 2018); perpetuating a binary through ece pedagogies can limit children’s gender expressivity in harmful ways, negatively influencing their sense of self and understanding of others. to foster inclusive, empowering learning environments, stephen crawley (2017) writes, “gender-nonconforming children, children who may be questioning their gender identity, and children who have transgender friends and/ or family members must have access to diverse representations of such individuals” (p. 39). using picture books to initiate conversations about the vsgb—and the ways in which this ideology continues to shape children’s gender socialization in western-dominated societies—leads to meaningful representation in ece. by thinking critically about the messages and images within picture books, discussions with children about the complexity of gender nonconformity can take place in early learning settings. theoretical framework: the (un)recognizable child’s gender performance according to butler (2004), “recognition is at once the norm towards which we invariably strive … and the ideal form that communication takes when it becomes a transformative process” (p. 133). through the lens of the vsgb, gender performances of masculinity (for boys) and femininity (for girls) are recognized as “a normative ideal” (butler, 2004, p. 132) in early childhood. this is contingent, of course, on the saab of the child(ren) in question. if a female-assigned-at-birth child expresses themselves in a masculine way, they may very well be deemed “unrecognizable” (butler, 2003, p. 30) to their peers on account of western, eurocentric societies’ preoccupation with the vsgb. butler (2004) argues that there are two possible outcomes when a child subject is interpreted as unrecognizable. first, the shift to recognition from a previous lack of recognition involves “a reciprocal process that moves [a self ] … towards an understanding of another self whose difference from [the self ] is ethically imperative to mark” (p. 144). difference is important; it is what makes each child unique in who they are, including their gender, race, sex, (dis)ability, ethnicity, and cultural background. the process that butler (2004) specifies here is a self-reflection mechanism that can be learned in early childhood, encouraging children to examine their initial reactions to those they encounter who might be expressing gender in ways that defy expectations. while the onus to honour a child for their unique gender identity is indeed a responsibility of the teacher, it is also up to children, november 2020 38 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research as young citizens, to extend respectful recognition of all gender identities to all of their peers. the process of recognition between teachers and students of diverse gender identities prioritizes the intellectual and emotional value of saying, i see that this person is different from me, and i also see what we have in common. this is empathy. or, in butler’s (2004) words: “recognition implies that we see the other as separate, but as structured psychically in ways that are shared” (p. 132). thus, equitable representation of gender diversity can promote positive, supportive, empathetic, and empowering engagement with gendered differences among members of ece communities. picture book characters who do not conform to the gendered expectations associated with their saab transgress the boundaries of normative sociocultural performativity within the context of their stories. narratively speaking, these so-called boundary-crossings often render protagonists unrecognizable to other characters. because of this, when read aloud during storytime, main characters whose gender expressions challenge the vsgb may even become unrecognizable to adult and child audiences. this is where the second outcome of sociocultural unrecognizability comes into play, causing potential harm. butler (2004) discusses the ways in which “aggression forms a break in the process of recognition” (p. 134). as i explain later, this response is demonstrated in jacob’s new dress. one child’s hostile response to another on account of being unable to recognize their gender performance communicates the sentiment i see your difference but i refuse to respect it because of how it seems to threaten my understanding of myself. this is a fear-based response to difference. it can be scary when new information, a new person, or a new way of being is introduced to children that conflicts with their current picture of the world and themselves. through a storytime-based “pedagogy of discomfort” (boler, 1999), ece teachers can intervene by teaching children about the validity and diversity of the gender spectrum, eschewing the sociocultural construct of the vsgb. for “if one does not respond to that recognition with aggression,” butler (2004) writes, “… then one is in a position to recognize difference as such and to understand this distinguishing feature of the other as a relation of ‘negation’ (not-me) that does not resolve into destruction” (p. 146). put another way, certain differences between children are not more or less important or valuable; differences between children are important and valuable in and of themselves. in ece, tsao (2008) argues, “the use of picture books that portray non-traditional gender roles … provides an important contrast to the commonly popular cultural messages often seen and heard by very young children” (p. 113). for characters in books like jacob’s new dress, who confront normative conceptions of gender and actively resist them, their advocacy, in crawley’s (2017) view, “also alludes to political stances within queer theory that demand change and a reconceptualization of what is accepted as normal” (p. 35). in from the stars in the sky, miu lan shares a comparative experience of being “made strange” (ahmed, 2000, p. 50) at school due to their nonbinary gender expression and identity. meanwhile, the protagonist of i am jazz becomes (un)recognizable to her family and peers through self-advocacy: “i never gave up trying to convince them” (herthel et al., 2014, p. 14). each of these picture books contains important messages about gender as a sociocultural construct that shapes the ways in which gender-nonconforming children are perceived by others. by loosening the binary assumption that one’s gender identity and expression ought to always conform to one’s saab, children are given the freedom, safety, and support to be their authentic, creative, multifaceted selves. through critical reading of the following texts, gender can be effectively disrupted during ece storytime. methods: selection and analysis of gender-inclusive picture books as a queer, cisgender, white-settler canadian early childhood academic, caregiver, and educator, i bring a particular lens to this picture book selection. i am biased by my subjectivity and privileged social position. although my methodological criteria for the selection of texts mitigates some of my bias, i still selected and write about three picture books for which i feel a particular appreciation and, based on my experiences of working with young november 2020 39 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research children, believe to be pedagogically useful in disrupting gender expectations associated with the vsgb. the stories presented in this essay briefly explore the critical reading of text which i argue is central to creating more gender-inclusive ece spaces; these books have the potential to inspire much-needed critical considerations with young children in early learning settings. through this approach to shared book readings (anderson et al., 2004), storytime is remade into an affirming activity for children of all genders. while not exhaustive, this essay’s selection of picture books provides examples of children’s literature that challenge western ideals of binary sex-gender performativity in early childhood. the picture books featured in this essay were selected through a process of elimination, based on criteria i determined prior to the physical and online searches conducted within university and public library collections of children’s literature. each text explores the intersection between the socializing context of western schooling and children’s gender identity development. in other words, only picture books that reveal the protagonists’ formal schooling environments to be powerful socializing contexts for their gender performance are discussed here. my analysis of the following three books is meant to provide an entry into developing a critical reading practice between educators and students so as to better support gender diversity within early learning environments. relying on the accessible language and narrative structure of picture books will help teachers guide storytime in productively disruptive ways during storytime through a critique of the sociocultural construction of gender. the centering of a protagonist who remains true to their gender identity for the duration of the story is the other methodological criterion for the inclusion of the following picture books into my analysis. put another way, the main characters in these texts do not temporarily transgress the gendered social boundaries associated with their saab only to “return” to normative gender performance at the end of the story (friddle, 2017). this methodological requirement significantly narrowed down potential texts from which to build my inquiry, as it is common for female protagonists in children’s literature to “begin as tomboys, morphing into proper young ladies late in the text” (friddle, 2017, p. 118). within the picture book genre, gender nonconformity is frequently and problematically portrayed as a fleeting or short-lived excursion into misbehaviour for cisgender characters. furthermore, the majority of children’s books featuring transgender characters rely on a troublesome trope of “emphasized femininity” (blaise, 2005, p. 21), with “little recognition by the trans female characters … that there are numerous ways to identify, perform identity, and exist as a female” (crawley, 2017, p. 32). while the main character of i am jazz often expresses herself in this characteristically “feminine” way, this portrayal does not make this expressivity somehow less authentic or valid than other ways of expressing one’s female gender identity, whatever that looks like. what’s more, this particular text remains an important contribution to any picture book library, being one of the few illustrated stories for young readers featuring a transgender protagonist of celebrity (and therefore role model) pop culture status. representations of transgender and intersex characters in children’s literature unfortunately remain peripheral. in these respects, the picture book genre has much farther to go in representing gender diversity. what’s more, ann travers (2018) writes, “the circumstances under which children experience gender—both the gender that is imposed on them and the gender they feel themselves to be—are complex and difficult to unpack” (p. 16). as a cisgender educator and caregiver, this caveat is a necessary consideration for contextualizing my analysis. gender as symbolic in jacob’s new dress gendered markers are visually symbolic objects, clothing, and valences that discursively carry gendered meanings within and through their presence on children’s bodies. the symbolic significance of these markers is socioculturally derived, with these “objects” often representing an extension—and key part—of gender performance. however, it cannot be overstated that, under this definition, body parts are not gendered markers but sex characteristics. november 2020 40 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in this way, my application of “gender as marked” builds on butler’s (1990) theorization of it (p. 16) to suggest that one of the ways in which childhood gender is made visible is through clothing and costuming. children’s gender expression is made recognizable through, and is partially defined by, the presence of certain (non)gendered markers on or near their bodies. in western contexts, dresses are an example of a gendered marker with a long history of feminine association. in response to this gender marking, jacob’s new dress, written by sarah and ian hoffman and illustrated by chris case, tells the story of a child assigned male at birth who loves to wear dresses. this book contains what katie sciurba (2017) refers to as a “discernible pattern” whereby “the [story] revolves around a ‘problem’ associated with the young male protagonist’s gender variance” (p. 281). as represented in the selected image, jacob, during a show-and-tell activity at school, proudly displays a dress he made with his mother while his peers speculate about his gender-nonconforming expression. the familiarity of “circle time” (hoffman & hoffman, 2014, p. 25) is narratively juxtaposed with the disruption to gender norms that jacob’s dress represents; his chosen gendered marker challenges the ways in which the vsgb tends to be surreptitiously reproduced in early learning spaces. although he is confident in his dress, the personal validation he experiences from sharing it with the class is diverted by an outspoken classmate’s refusal to accept jacob’s gender expression as legitimate. through this public display of denial, christopher discriminately renders (or tries to render) jacob unrecognizable because of his gender nonconformity. jacob is discursively placed under the scrutiny of the vsgb and is faced with the realization that his gender expression conflicts with the “masculine” expectations associated with his sex. as a coping strategy, jacob dissociates from the classroom setting: “he could hear ms. wilson and the other kids talking, but their words sounded far away” (hoffman & hoffman, 2014, p. 26). this is not a gender-affirming classroom moment. and—while i appreciate the teacher’s linguistic manoeuvre in response to christopher’s first question (ms. wilson shifted the attention away from jacob to a wider sociocultural, gendered phenomenon)—a critical reading of this text during storytime demands more of all educators and children within the ece context. recognition of gender identity is at once an individual and group sociocultural responsibility. this recognition is a basic human right that all involved in the learning process must respect and uphold in order to make ece spaces inclusive and empowering (bill c-16, parliament of canada, 2017). figure 1. jacob shows off his new dress at school, demonstrating self-advocacy (crawley, 2017) and pride in his gender-nonconforming expression (hoffman & hoffman, 2014, pp. 25–26). november 2020 41 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research this picture book excerpt shows the social mechanism behind what jennifer earles (2017) refers to as “presenting the disruption of normative gender as a process characters must endure to overcome diversity,” which earles believes “subsequently ask[s] children to identify some as normal and others as not” (p. 370). due to their positions of authority, educators have a special responsibility to step in and stand up for marginalized children before those children dissociate from the sociocultural context of the classroom. tsao (2008) writes that “gender identity is a pervasive social classification that is established early in childhood and is an important aspect of self-esteem” (p. 109); therefore, teachers must field children’s curiosities about gender nonconformity with conscientiousness and compassion. this is where strong boundaries in response to intolerant comments from cisgender children who (un) intentionally perpetuate discriminatory gender-based ideologies is required of educators. an example of a more inclusive response to christopher’s insistence that “my dad … says boys don’t wear dresses” (hoffman & hoffman, 2014, p. 26) is something like, “it’s good you’re asking questions, christopher, but let’s remember to be respectful towards the differences between all of us. there are many ways to be. anyone can wear a dress in my classroom if it makes them feel good. if you or your dad want to talk about this, maybe the three of us can discuss it after school.” at the same time this kind of response avoids antagonizing a parent (christopher’s father), it also makes clear that teachers like ms. wilson are actively shaping their classrooms to be welcoming and affirming—rather than restricting—spaces for diverse gender expressions and identities. feedback along these lines works to validate both christopher’s and jacob’s experiences by acknowledging and building off of the understandings about gender that each child brings to the classroom. because why is it only up to jacob to do the work of disrupting gender in the classroom? crawley (2018) discusses the ways in which self-advocacy plays an important role in the lives of many gendernonconforming children (p. 35). additionally, sciurba (2017) critiques similar storylines to jacob’s new dress as too reliant on a particular narrative framing: “although these characters’ families and/or peers do not (fully) embrace them,” sciurba writes, “… the protagonists all achieve much-needed self-acceptance and end their stories valorized” (p. 289). although the lesson in jacob’s new dress is one of self-acceptance and authentic gender expression, jacob is also positioned as nonnormative in ways that isolate him from other children, especially the boys, in his class. jacob’s disruption of gender norms is presented as a social obstacle that he semi-successfully overcomes as a result of self-advocacy. however, gender-nonconforming children like jacob would not be required to validate their gender expression to others, sciurba asserts, “if society did not so strictly adhere to assumptions about what boys and girls are and what they can/should do” (p. 291). when exploring this book with young learners, educators can initiate conversations about the myriad ways that everyone’s—adult and children’s—gender identities are expressed differently in different situations. too, discussions about the ways in which cisgender children can be allies to their gender-nonconforming peers can be inspired by this book. for example, jacob and christopher express their gender identities differently—but what did readers witness these two characters having in common? what could christopher have done to show friendship and acceptance towards jacob? for children, whose social networks widen once they begin formal schooling, the external validation tied to “having others acknowledge and support” (crawley, 2018, p. 35) one’s gender identity and expression at a young age is very important. storytime discussions about this book can explore what makes children feel safe, accepted, and loved for who they are by the people in their lives, an activity prompt that will perhaps lead to craft opportunities. this text teaches children about the sociocultural (and restrictive) meanings attached to certain gendered markers, such as dresses, in western contexts. jacob’s new dress offers opportunities for discussions about how kindness towards others is a social skill that children of all genders can develop and practice in peer relationships. in these ways, jacob’s new dress is inclusive in its message about childhood gender nonconformity. november 2020 42 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research “why do i have to be just one thing?”: breaking beyond the binary from the stars in the sky to the fish in the sea, written by kai cheng thom and illustrated by wai-yant li and kai yun ching, stands out for being one of the only picture books currently published that uses they/them pronouns. in this story, the protagonist, miu lan, is born “when the moon and the sun were in the sky, so the baby couldn’t decide what to be” (thom et al., 2018, p. 4). this is why the pronouns they/them are more representative of miu lan as a nonbinary character. this framing of miu lan’s birth represents the fluidity of expression and complexity of identity that exist beyond the dualism of the vsgb. when miu lan asks, “why do i have to be just one thing?” (thom et al., 2018, p. 29), the vsgb is directly challenged. this child refuses to be categorized based on a dichotomous positioning of gender because it does not accurately capture how they know themself as gendered being. thom et al. (2018) are intentional about using gender-neutral markers, such as shells and feathers (p. 24), as part of miu lan’s gender expression, situating miu lan’s performativity as beyond the binary of traditional notions of masculinity and femininity. put another way, miu lan’s clothing choices in these illustrations are symbolic of their gender nonbinary expression. miu lan sports red mary janes (traditionally worn by female bodies) with a baseball cap over closely cropped hair (discursively marked as male). the stylistic combination of these gendered markers offers a visual disruption to western binary gendered expectations, especially in comparison to the gender-normative clothing worn by the other children in these illustrations. strategically positioned on the opposite page from (perhaps in opposition to) miu lan, there exists a marked gendered division between the characters’ performativity, with many of the other children presenting according to the vsgb (such that long hair is paired with skirts or the colour pink, for instance). thus, based on miu lan’s nonconforming gender markers, and in contrast to their peers’ expression, they are made unrecognizable through the lens of the vsgb. figure 2. at school, miu lan’s peers treat miu lan unkindly, as a response to their own inability to recognize miu lan’s gender according to the vsgb (thom et al., 2018, pp. 24–25). as much as miu lan’s story is about self-acceptance and expression, this text also demonstrates the ways in which peer socialization influences children’s gender development (reich & vandell, 2011). schools as sites of gender socialization, particularly through the inclusionary and exclusionary politics of the playground, are explored in this children’s book, tracing the social ups and downs experienced by a young nonbinary protagonist who possesses visible differences in childhood gender expression from their peers. while their gender identity and expression are ultimately configured as a gift, miu lan still experiences mistreatment and rejection from their november 2020 43 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research peers, a school-based experience that is far from fictional for many gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, gendercreative, and transgender children (meyer & leonardi, 2018). on these picture book pages, miu lan is rendered unrecognizable by their schoolyard peers on account of their gender-nonconforming performance. because miu lan identifies and expresses themself as nonbinary—meaning that they do not conform to “either” male or female gender designation and/or presentation—their peers demand miu lan to explain themself in order to become recognizable: “what are you supposed to be?” (thom et al., 2018, p. 25). certainly, this is a very rude question to ask someone of any age and gender presentation. however, this text-based moment reveals children’s complicity in maintaining the vsgb through the social policing of gender nonconformity among their peers. due to the pervasiveness of the male/female binary in western culture, miu lan’s peers are unable to recognize miu lan’s gender performance, pressing miu lan to categorize themself into one of two gendered options: “are you a boy or a girl, anyway?” (thom et al., 2018, p. 24). for miu lan, this question is impossible to answer; this binary does not fit the ways in which they know themself as a gendered being. they like playing hopscotch but they aren’t a girl; they wear feathers sometimes but they’re a human child, not a bird. sara ahmed’s (2000) theorization about the ways in which strangers are socioculturally interpolated through unfamiliarity and otherness applies to miu lan’s dilemma, particularly as they struggle to meet their peers’ gendered expectations for them: “the knowing of strangers is, in this way, linked to the production of hybridity” (ahmed, p. 52). this definition of hybridity applies to the in-between space wherein miu lan resides as a child encountering external gender expectations; miu lan’s gender identity is much more fluid than binary social classifications such as male/female or masculine/feminine. as a protagonist who moves between victorian distinctions of “boy” and “girl,” miu lan embodies a powerful sense of gender hybridity—whether or not this nonbinary expression is fully understood by, or recognizable to, others. yet thom et al. (2018) spin the narrative so that this character’s perceived unrecognizability is not something that ought to be feared or made “strange” (ahmed, 2000, p. 50) by young readers but admired instead. miu lan’s special skills (they can fly) and gender-creative expression end up being the very qualities that transform miu lan’s peer relationships, especially when their classmates realize they unfairly and solely judged miu lan as a potential playmate based on their gender nonconformity. by sharing from the stars in the sky as a storytime text, gender-nonconforming children will be able, as sciurba (2017) writes, “to see themselves in stories with or without happily-ever-after resolutions, but in stories that prove their lives are important” (p. 291). this picture book communicates that support and understanding for gender nonconformity is both deserved and imaginable from their social communities. moreover, miu lan’s story offers entry points into conversations about the bystander effect (plötner et al., 2015) as well as activities that encourage children to artistically identify their own special gifts. engaging children with this text during storytime disrupts the assumption that gender operates according to a binary while also showcasing the role that the school context plays in promoting childhood gender equity. knowing one’s gendered self: a picture book coming-out story with words by jessica herthel and jazz jennings and illustrations by shelagh mcnicholas, i am jazz tells the true story of a transgender female child, jazz jennings. jazz describes her childhood transgender identity as having “a girl brain but a boy body” (p. 8). because of her saab, jazz’s parents and teachers expect her to perform gender in traditionally masculine ways: “they’d always thought of me as a boy” (p. 11). however, this ascription of the vsgb onto jazz’s body does not represent her felt sense of gender (stachowiack, 2017). as dana stachowiack (2017) discusses, “the social construction of our gender and felt sense are not the one and the same, but are connected november 2020 44 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research and also in tension” (p. 536). jazz, as a trans child, both challenges the vsgb through asserting her gender identity as female while also manipulating this hegemony as a means of defining the direction of her transition. this text tells the story of how jazz makes the internal understanding of herself outwardly recognizable to others through the expressed embodiment of “emphasized femininity” (blaise, 2005, p. 21). as part of her social transition, jazz explains how wearing “girl clothes at school” and changing her name “felt much more like being me” (herthel et al., 2014, p. 17). for jazz, the previous incongruity she experienced between her gender identity (her brain) and the gender expression assumed by her saab (her body) is addressed through her feminine performativity. in this, jazz’s narrative teaches young readers about the sociocultural construction of gender by making visible the moments in which her gender identity is often stifled as a result of biological assumptions other people make about her gender performance. figure 3. jazz, a transgender child in the book i am jazz (2014), expresses her gender identity through “wearing girl clothes at school” (herthel et al., pp. 17–18) following her social transition. according to travers (2018), “the relationship between ‘transgender’ and ‘childhood’ is a troubled one given that children are not typically credited with the ability to authenticate their own gender identities or to know themselves” (p. 41). jazz’s story reminds readers that children are not born as gendered beings; gender develops in early childhood. gendered meanings are attached to particular children’s bodies and, in western culture, children are socialized to perform gender according to a binary that, in part, presupposes male body parts to indicate exclusive masculine performance. jazz continually confronts this assumption prior to, during, and after her social transition. this is portrayed through the image of jazz and her mother discussing the potential misunderstandings jazz may experience at school after coming out as transgender (herthel et al., 2014, p. 18)—a sociocultural process that directly confronts the vsgb as an organizational and categorical discourse within early childhood and elementary school spaces. this illustration is accompanied by another that shows jazz thriving and smiling during extracurricular activities as a result of finally being able to express her authentic gender identity at school. this contrast is indicative of transformation and presents an empowering message to young readers. through the intimate awareness of her self as a gendered being—even in early childhood—jazz proves herself to be a child capable of self-promotion (crawley, 2017; friddle, 2017; sciurba, 2017) through her resistance of sociocultural norms limiting her self-expression: “pretending i was a boy felt like a lie” (herthel et al., 2014, p. 14).this speaks to the role of the adults in transgender children’s lives. when it comes to transgender children’s social transitions, meyer and leonardi (2018) write, “it’s crucial to follow their lead, not encouraging social or public transitions november 2020 45 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research unless/if they are ready/desire to come out” (p. 460). as jazz’s story shows, we must listen to, learn from, and believe children when they speak up about their gender identities. sullivan and urraro (2019) assert that “understanding and advocating for this vulnerable population is a critical role of early childhood educators” (p. 5), particularly if trans children do not have supportive guardians at home. one of the most important takeaways from i am jazz is that no one knows jazz as well, or as intimately, as she does. yet this picture book contains only one child’s coming out story. many transgender children’s social transitions look very different from jazz’s. in fact, meyer and leonardi write, “there is much diversity within individuals who identify as trans” (p. 460). stories like jazz’s help readers to learn from the lived experiences of trans people, but filipović (2018) asserts that educators and other adults must remain “aware of gender representation issues and critically reflect on the content of children’s books and the messages they are conveying” (p. 311). for instance, crawley (2017) points out that “currently available representations of trans individuals within picture books are predominantly female” (p. 32). teachers can reflect on which sociocultural factors are limiting diverse representations of transgender characters in picture books by asking: what is significant about transgender representation in children’s literature in this moment in history? whose stories are being shared and whose are missing? this story is affirming of transgender children’s identities through jazz’s self-representative steadfastness as well as the acceptance and support she receives from her community. nevertheless, when sharing stories like i am jazz in ece spaces, special attention must be taken to avoid placing “the focus of the problem on the transgender body” (meyer & leonardi, 2018, p. 454), instead situating instances of gender disruption as occurring within “schools embedded in a culture of cisnormativity” (p. 454). western early learning settings are situated within overlapping social systems of stratification that shape children’s and educators’ lived experiences in complex, nuanced, and individuated ways. cisnormativity, the hegemonic supposition emboldened by the vsgb (that all children identify with the gender associated with their saab)—is one of these systems. the circulation of cisnormativity is something that educators must take into consideration when reading books like i am jazz during storytime, addressing head-on any instances of dead-naming (i.e., referring to a trans or nonbinary person with a name they no longer use) or other bullying behaviour. meyer and leonardi advocate for “early changes and efforts to promote respect and affirming for gender diversity and students’ identities writ large” (p. 460), and a critical reading of this book during storytime would be one way to implement such efforts. limitations, considerations, and directions for future research the main limitation of this essay is that, at the time of publication, these texts have yet to be “tested” in an early learning setting. what’s more, integrating these picture books into ece learning contexts where policies around nondiscrimination of sexual orientation and gender identity—such as sogi 123 in british columbia (the arc foundation, 2020)—are not fully drafted, supported, or implemented may prove challenging. as meyer and leonardi (2018) remind us, “the space that is created when people engage in these conversations is not an easy one, oftentimes making it difficult to navigate participation” (p. 457). yet, in responding to the canadian human rights act (2017), it is crucial that these books to be incorporated into ece curriculum as part of antisexist and antidiscrimination efforts. picture books provide conversational starting places; children can take the lead in discussions about gender-nonconforming texts, and educators can rely on students’ visceral reactions and comments to guide critical readings of picture books during storytime. this pedagogical approach requires a willingness on the part of educators to discuss, support, and defend the sociocultural construction of gender with children as an individual’s performance (butler, 1990) of their gendered self. by responding openly and honestly to children’s curiosities—while simultaneously encouraging attitudes of empathy, inclusion, and respect—educators can better support and discuss the validity and diversity of gender nonconformity with young students. more picture books about the diversity of childhood gender nonconformity must continue to be shared, written, and november 2020 46 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research illustrated for young audiences, in order to promote empowerment in ece spaces. a gender critical reading practice has the potential to increase representation of gender diversity in ece even as these texts “function in limited vehicles for a socially-just education” (sciurba, 2017, p. 281). the messages in picture books can be powerful and lead to transformative thinking, but these texts only come alive as catalysts for social change when accompanied by critical discussions about gender. future research could examine other ways in which ece settings are challenging the vsgb either through play-based learning interventions, curriculum design, or teachers’ commitment to inclusive-language choices, as well as the tendency of sex-segregated activities to continue to shape classroom activities. conclusion: making ece more inclusive by disrupting gender during storytime storytime is laden with sociocultural messages for children about “acceptable” ways of being gendered. yet disrupting gender through literacy practices is one way to “celebrate” queer texts (earles, 2017, p. 372). to disrupt gender during storytime, earles (2017) asserts, educators must “consider, as a central aspect of critical or feminist pedagogy, how to expand children’s narrative resources of race … and gender through the … promotion of desirable disruptive texts” (p. 439). while conformity to the vsgb is indeed one way to be and move through the world, it is certainly not the only, nor the most valid, way to perform one’s gender identity in early childhood. although children’s literature in many ways has evolved beyond stereotypical gender roles to offer more diversity and equity (mattix & sobolak, 2014), a collaborative, critical reading of picture books in ece will lead to a more empowering, accepting community of practice. through educator awareness of the ways in which children learn about, internalize, and are socialized to perform gender, analytical literacy skills can be taught in early childhood through a mutually beneficial and dialogical learning process. gender literacy through picture books therefore empowers children to learn important social skills such as self-confidence, self-advocacy, and empathy towards difference. the books presented in this essay resist the vsgb to varying degrees, but taken together, this collection makes a valuable addition to any early learning library. by sharing picture books such as jacob’s new dress, from the stars in the sky to the fish in the sea, and i am jazz in ece, more inclusive spaces are created for children of all genders. these books are important to feature in ece because when children are recognized for who they are as gendered beings, they also become better learners and community members, eager to share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas with their peers and teachers. a critical disruption of gender during storytime is therefore a necessary, identity-affirming activity that recognizes and honours the braveness, breadth, and beauty within the spectrum of childhood gender diversity. november 2020 47 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ahmed, s. 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(1999). “how does it get into my imagination?”: elementary school children’s intertextual knowledge and gendered storylines. gender and education, 11(4), 427–440. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540259920492 winter/hiver 2019 92 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research miser sur l’engagement mutuel pour contribuer au développement professionnel continu : le modèle d’une communauté de pratique au préscolaire (copp) hélène larouche, diane biron, julie vaillancourt hélène larouche (ph. d.) est professeure au département de l’enseignement au préscolaire et au primaire de la faculté d’éducation l’université de sherbrooke. ses domaines de spécialisation sont, principalement, l’éducation préscolaire, le développement professionnel des enseignants et l’intervention pédagogique. ses thèmes de recherche collaborative portent, entre autres, sur les récits de pratique des enseignants, les pratiques favorisant l’apprentissage actif chez les enfants de maternelle et sur la reconnaissance du savoir d’expérience des praticiens. diane biron (ph. d.) est professeure au département de l’enseignement au préscolaire et au primaire de la faculté d’éducation de l’université de sherbrooke. son domaine de spécialisation est la didactique des mathématiques et ses principaux thèmes de recherche portent sur le développement de la pensée mathématique chez l’enfant de 4 à 8 ans ainsi que sur le rôle du jeu, du questionnement et de la manipulation dans l’apprentissage des mathématiques. de plus, elle s’intéresse à l’apport de la littérature jeunesse dans une perspective interdisciplinaire, au processus de résolution de problèmes et aux pratiques qui favorisent l’apprentissage actif de l’enfant. julie vaillancourt (b. éd.) est étudiante à la maîtrise en enseignement au préscolaire et au primaire à l’université de sherbrooke. après l’obtention de son baccalauréat en enseignement au préscolaire et au primaire, elle a choisi de poursuivre ses études au deuxième cycle afin de mieux comprendre comment une enseignante de maternelle peut soutenir et enrichir le jeu des enfants. présentement, ses intérêts de recherche portent principalement sur les interventions de l’adulte à l’éducation préscolaire. cet article traite d’une démarche de développement professionnel continu fondée sur la théorie des communautés de pratique de wenger (2005). elle s’est déroulée sur trois ans auprès de douze enseignantes du préscolaire de la région de sherbrooke au québec. le concept d’engagement est approfondi en tenant compte d’un point de vue individuel et collectif afin de documenter une culture de collaboration. les dispositifs mis en place sont précisés ainsi que les forces et les limites observées. les données collectées, par observations, par comptes rendus, par questionnaires et par entretiens individuels permettent de dégager a posteriori certains constats sur les moments porteurs et rassembleurs de la démarche ainsi que sur les moments critiques qui peuvent influencer l’engagement des enseignantes et leur participation au sein d’une communauté de pratique. key words: développement professionnel continu, communauté de pratique, préscolaire, apprentissage actif this article discusses an ongoing professional development approach based on wenger’s community of practice theory (2005). it took place over three years with twelve preschool teachers from the sherbrooke region of quebec. the concept of commitment is deepened by taking into account an individual and collective point of view in order to document a culture of collaboration. the devices set up are specified as well as the forces and limits observed. the data collected, by observations, by reports, by questionnaires and by individual interviews, provide a posteriori with some observations on the carrying and gathering moments of the approach as well as on the critical moments can influence the commitment of teachers and their participation in a community of practice. key words: continuing professional development, community of practice, preschool, active learning winter/hiver 2019 93 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research miser sur l’engagement mutuel pour contribuer au développement professionnel continu : le modèle d’une communauté de pratique au préscolaire (copp) dans cet article, une démarche de recherche-formation menée en collaboration entre les milieux scolaire et universitaire est décrite. d’entrée de jeu, la problématique expose les principales embûches qui entravent la formation continue offerte aux enseignants et enseignantes. elle s’attarde de manière plus spécifique sur ce qui est souvent perçu comme un manque de pertinence des pratiques de développement professionnel continu. celui-ci est examiné sous l’angle du «  long life learning  », soit l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie (unesco, 2015). une fois le problème posé, l’étude propose une perspective prometteuse : miser sur l’engagement afin de favoriser une culture de collaboration. le cadre conceptuel, pour sa part, puise ses fondements dans les travaux de wenger (2005) sur les communautés de pratique (cop). vient à sa suite la méthodologie de la recherche qui poursuit l’objectif suivant  : identifier les dispositifs favorisant l’engagement des enseignantes participantes à la démarche de développement professionnel continu. enfin, les résultats apportent un éclairage sur les moments porteurs et rassembleurs ainsi que les moments critiques liés à l’engagement afin de documenter les conditions favorisant une culture de collaboration au sein d’une cop. la problématique : explorer de nouvelles avenues en formation continue l’évolution de la société québécoise a conduit le ministère de l’éducation du loisir et du sport du québec (gouvernement du québec, 2002) à élaborer, au début des années 2000, la politique gouvernementale de l’éducation des adultes et de formation continue qui rejoint le paradigme du « long, life, learning », soit l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie dont fait mention l’unesco (2015). dans une approche résolument centrée sur la personne, il est recommandé de miser sur des modèles partenariaux pour accroître et valoriser les compétences professionnelles (gouvernement du québec, 2002). parmi tous les acteurs visés, un accent est mis sur les enseignantes et enseignants afin de faciliter et de rendre accessible la formation continue. cette politique a invité explicitement les établissements scolaires à assurer ce type de service. par ailleurs, une récente étude canadienne montre que 90 % des enseignantes et enseignants sont engagés dans différentes formes de formation professionnelle continue (campbell, osmondjohnson et faubert, 2016). l’objectif étant ici non pas d’uniformiser les approches ni de les comparer entre elles, mais bien de comprendre et de valoriser les différentes expériences d’apprentissage professionnel dans les provinces et territoires canadiens. parmi les résultats, certains éléments communs sont associés à l’apprentissage professionnel efficace, dont le besoin d’expériences d’apprentissage pertinentes, pratiques et collaboratives à l’école et à l’extérieur de l’école. plusieurs écrits soulignent que la formation professionnelle continue offerte au personnel enseignant ne correspond pas toujours à leurs besoins (beaumont, lavoie et couture, 2001 ; csé, 2014 ; hargreaves et fullan, 2013 ; helterbran et fennimore, 2004 ; li, 2008). les enseignants et enseignantes repartent des journées de perfectionnement remplis de bonnes intentions par rapport à des contenus diversifiés mais, de retour en classe, la mise en œuvre de nouvelles winter/hiver 2019 94 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research pratiques est vite dépassée par la réalité et les défis quotidiens (beaumont, lavoie et couture, 2001). il y a donc lieu de se questionner sur les approches favorables au développement professionnel des enseignantes et enseignants. selon la définition adoptée par le conseil supérieur de l’éducation (csé, 2014), le développement professionnel englobe la formation initiale, l’insertion professionnelle et la formation continue. c’est principalement sur cette dernière étape du continuum que porte le projet du présent article qui concerne essentiellement des enseignantes de maternelle. ce niveau correspond à des besoins exprimés dans les milieux scolaires et à nos champs d’expertise comme chercheuses. une des priorités identifiées dans l’étude de campbell et ses collègues (2016) indique que les enseignantes et enseignants souhaitent mieux comprendre comment soutenir les divers besoins de leurs élèves. dans les composantes clés du développement professionnel, ces auteurs soulignent certains aspects structurels, dont une approche personnalisée où la collaboration et la mise à profit de l’expérience sont privilégiées. il apparaît aussi qu’une des conditions essentielles d’un changement effectif de pratique réside dans les interactions entre pairs : « la valeur de l’expérience partagée entre enseignants constitue un des outils les plus puissants en terme d’apprentissage entre pairs et donc de développement des capacités professionnelles » (rey, 2016, p. 10). de notre point de vue, la formation continue se définit comme un acte professionnel demandant une capacité d’analyse et de jugement. dewey (1947) considère l’acte de penser comme un engagement exercé en contexte. nous reviendrons sur le concept d’engagement dans le prochain point, car il représente une pierre d’assise de la démarche entreprise dans la présente recherche. dans un avis publié par le csé (2014), les formations de développement professionnel misant sur les pratiques collaboratives connaissent un engouement dans le contexte québécois. ainsi, plusieurs formations offertes s’inscrivent dans la lignée du praticien réflexif (csé, 2014). dans cette perspective, on reconnaît que les enseignantes et enseignants ont la capacité de réfléchir dans et sur leur action et de tirer profit de leur expérience autant que des savoirs théoriques (csé, 2014). enseigner est un acte complexe, qui se déroule dans un contexte fait d’incertitudes et d’imprévus (csé, 2014). afin d’évoluer dans un tel contexte, les enseignantes et enseignants ont la possibilité de s’engager dans des démarches collaboratives afin de développer, entre autres choses, leurs compétences professionnelles. ces dernières années, des études ont souligné l’importance de l’engagement des acteurs dans les démarches de développement professionnel (rey, 2016 ; savoie-zajc, 2010). ils deviennent les principaux agents de leur propre développement professionnel. de telles démarches représentent non pas une façon de combler un manque ou des lacunes sur des objets de formation prédéterminés, mais une façon de réfléchir à des pratiques adaptées à leur contexte. le modèle de développement professionnel à mettre sur pied doit miser sur la compétence des acteurs, on reconnaît ainsi la capacité réflexive des enseignants et enseignantes (giddens, 1987). rey (2016) soutient que les formations de développement professionnel innovantes se réalisent à petite échelle, elles ne sont pas prescriptives, elles requièrent une structure souple propice aux initiatives. cet auteur identifie la conjonction de trois aspects favorisant le développement professionnel et qui engendre un changement de pratique  : 1) l’action stimulante des ressources des acteurs de référence, 2) un travail collaboratif intense, et 3) une orientation pédagogique. bien winter/hiver 2019 95 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research que le changement de pratique ne soit pas une visée de notre projet, les aspects soulevés par rey (2016) orientent les balises conceptuelles sur lesquelles nous souhaitons fonder notre démarche. notre projet mise sur un espace commun pour des praticiennes et des chercheuses1 dans le but de réfléchir et de coconstruire des interventions favorisant l’apprentissage actif (aa) des élèves de maternelle 5 ans. le modèle de développement professionnel continu retenu puise principalement dans les principes de la théorie des communautés de pratique (cop) telle que définie par wenger (2005). notre intention est d’illustrer de manière empirique, à partir de l’expérience que nous en avons vécue, les aspects prometteurs et ceux moins fructueux de cette entreprise. autrement dit, cet article vise à mettre en relief les forces et les faiblesses que nous avons observées ainsi que celles identifiées par les enseignantes en lien avec les dispositifs mis en œuvre et inspirés du modèle de wenger (2005). la prochaine section définit la cop et se penche sur certaines dimensions de la théorie de wenger (2005), dont le concept d’engagement qui représente la pierre d’assise de notre démarche de développement professionnel continu. le cadre conceptuel : miser sur l’engagement pour entretenir une culture de collaboration au sein d’une cop wenger (2005) identifie trois principales dimensions d’une cop : 1) l’engagement mutuel, 2) l’entreprise commune, et 3) le répertoire partagé. nous souhaitons interpréter les dispositifs de la démarche de développement professionnel continu au regard de ces trois dimensions. tout d’abord, l’engagement mutuel définit l’essence même de la coconstruction et de la culture de collaboration. la complémentarité des enseignantes et des chercheuses est mise à profit dans leur expertise respective pour réfléchir sur un objet commun. l’engagement qualifié de mutuel indique une relation d’interdépendance entre l’individu et le groupe. par son appartenance et sa participation, il contribue à la négociation de sens (réfléchir sur les pratiques favorisant l’aa) et il en est également bénéficiaire. l’engagement ne se définit pas par le statut professionnel, ici le fait d’être enseignante de maternelle, il se concrétise par la participation et l’interaction dans le groupe. l’entreprise commune assure une source de cohérence au sein de la cop, une cohésion résultant d’un processus collectif de négociation pour analyser les pratiques favorisant l’aa. les membres d’une cop partagent leurs ressources, leurs histoires, leur expérience en se penchant sur des problèmes liés à leur pratique quotidienne. la négociation de sens est reliée aux activités individuelles à partir desquelles les membres interagissent en groupe. le sens ne peut se dissocier du contexte dans lequel il se réalise et l’interaction en groupe contribue à l’émergence de nouvelles connaissances. l’entreprise commune représente une retombée directe de ce qui est convenu de nommer le transfert de connaissances (le sens négocié sur l’aa afin de mieux comprendre comment un jeune enfant apprend). rappelons que le propos de notre article est d’éclairer les dispositifs mis en place pour cette entreprise commune et se concentre sur la démarche. quant à la troisième dimension d’une cop, soit le répertoire partagé, il comprend la production de ressources coconstruites par les membres. ce répertoire résulte du sens partagé et des pratiques mises en œuvre grâce aux différents dispositifs proposés tout au long de la démarche. de notre point de vue, les pratiques enseignantes ne winter/hiver 2019 96 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research s’imposent pas même si elles créent des occasions de mettre au jour certaines conceptions pédagogiques qui les fondent. à ce sujet, nous expliquerons dans les résultats la production qui a été réalisée par les enseignantes d’un répertoire de vignettes d’apprentissage actif (vaa). tel qu’annoncé, attardons-nous au concept d’engagement qui se décline à la fois d’un point de vue individuel et collectif en prenant appui sur les travaux de wenger (2005). pour s’engager, on doit disposer de certaines conditions. tout d’abord, on doit évoluer dans un contexte où il est possible d’agir et d’interagir. le concept d’engagement tel que le conçoit wenger (2005) est notamment associé à l’idée de « se mettre en projet ». l’engagement individuel, pour sa part, invite à la mobilisation, à l’appropriation d’un projet que l’on fait sien et qui engendre un processus transformateur consistant à donner du sens à l’expérience. l’engagement d’un point de vue collectif apparaît, quant à lui, comme un élément constitutif d’une communauté de pratique (cop). à ce sujet, on en conviendra, la participation des membres ne signifie pas nécessairement une adhésion à un projet commun. l’engagement émerge d’un sens partagé à partir des interactions entre acteurs. c’est par la négociation du sens que l’engagement collectif façonne et transcende l’engagement individuel. la dimension sociale représente un fondement de l’apprentissage chez wenger (2005). avant d’aborder la méthodologie, traçons à grands traits deux autres notions de la théorie de wenger (2005). l’auteur explique que le fait de partager autour de pratiques donne lieu à un processus qui comprend deux aspects complémentaires : 1) la participation et 2) la réification. la participation se définit par l’action de prendre part à une activité en relation avec d’autres personnes. la personne devient élément constitutif de la communauté en transcendant son expérience individuelle pour en négocier le sens en groupe. dans la présente cop, comme il s’agit d’enseignantes œuvrant à l’éducation préscolaire, nous avons choisi de qualifier en abrégé notre communauté de pratique au préscolaire la «  copp  ». la réification se définit par le fait de traiter une idée, une abstraction, un concept, comme quelque chose de tangible. cette notion est essentielle dans la perspective du modèle de cop souhaité, la réification contribue au processus transformateur. la réification consiste à donner une forme à l’expérience. elle agit comme la résultante d’une idée transformée concrètement pour donner du sens à sa propre expérience à partir de la négociation en groupe. la variété des expériences et les interactions engendrent une légitimité et une valorisation de nouvelles pratiques. nous portons un regard a posteriori sur les dispositifs élaborés au fil des trois années en fonction des contextes des participantes et de leurs conceptions de l’apprentissage actif (aa). l’analyse, essentiellement descriptive, met l’accent sur les effets des dispositifs en prenant comme cadre interprétatif les trois dimensions suivantes  : 1) l’engagement mutuel, 2) l’entreprise commune, et 3) le répertoire partagé, de wenger (2005). la prochaine section apporte quelques précisions sur l’analyse afin de documenter cet aspect et retrace les grandes étapes du déroulement du projet. winter/hiver 2019 97 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research la méthodologie : proposer différents dispositifs pour soutenir l’engagement telle que définie précédemment, la copp que nous avons constituée se veut à la fois une approche de développement professionnel continu (un modèle structurant évalué tout au long de la démarche) et un lieu d’investigation sur les stratégies favorisant l’aa. dans le cadre de cet article, il sera question principalement du modèle proposé pour développer une culture de collaboration. en réponse à la problématique décrite, nous souhaitons identifier les conditions favorisant l’engagement des enseignantes dans une démarche de développement professionnel continu et celles qui peuvent s’avérer un frein, voire les forces et les limites des dispositifs mis en œuvre en lien avec le modèle de formation professionnelle continue retenu. la recherche-formation, d’une durée de trois ans, a été subventionnée dans le cadre d’un programme nommé chantier 7 soutenu par le ministère de l’éducation, du loisir et du sport du québec (mels) (gouvernement du québec, 2011). ce programme s’adressait aux universités intéressées à mettre en œuvre des projets de formation continue en partenariat avec le milieu scolaire. la collaboration devait s’instaurer dès la conception du projet et se poursuivre tout au long de sa mise en œuvre. la conseillère pédagogique responsable du dossier préscolaire à la commission scolaire a été sollicitée dès le départ, lors de la rédaction de la lettre d’intention. quand le projet a été subventionné, elle a collaboré à toute la démarche. l’équipe de formatrices était composée de deux chercheuses, deux assistantes de recherche et de la conseillère pédagogique. douze  enseignantes ont été recrutées selon les trois critères suivants : participation sur une base volontaire, diversité des expériences selon le nombre d’années à l’éducation préscolaire et intérêt pour l’objet d’investigation, soit l’aa. le projet est intitulé «  comment rendre l’enfant actif dans ses apprentissages  : des enseignantes du préscolaire se penchent sur la question  ». le tableau  1 présente un aperçu des visées de chacune des années en lien avec chacune des trois dimensions du modèle de wenger (2005), des objectifs spécifiques poursuivis ainsi que des dispositifs mis en œuvre au cours des trois années du projet afin de soutenir l’engagement des enseignantes dans leur développement professionnel continu et développer une culture de collaboration. dans la section qui suit, nous présentons pour chacune des trois années, les moments critiques et les moments porteurs ou rassembleurs à partir des dispositifs mis en œuvre. winter/hiver 2019 98 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research tableau 1 dispositifs mis en œuvre durant les trois années du projet en lien avec les trois dimensions du modèle de wenger (2005) visées en lien avec le modèle de wenger (2005) objectifs spécifiques dispositifs an 1 réfléchir et expliciter ses conceptions de l’aa pour s’approprier une entreprise commune 1. identifier les conceptions initiales 2. partager nos pratiques 3. réfléchir sur la démarche de l’enfant • quatre journées de rencontre collective • carnet de traces et évaluation formative • livre de référence • experts invités et activités participatives an 2 coconstruire des projets individuels d’intervention favorisant l’aa pour alimenter un engagement mutuel 1. se mettre en projet 2. documenter l’impact des interventions 3. prendre confiance dans sa pratique professionnelle • planification de projets individuels • observation et accompagnement en binôme • visites dans la classe de collègues • présentation en copp des projets individuels an 3 rendre compte de l’aa et évaluer l’impact de ses interventions pour élaborer un répertoire partagé 1. observer les enfants en action 2. rédiger des vignettes d’apprentissage actif (vaa) 3. partager avec les collègues • proposition d’un canevas pour les vaa • rétroaction et soutien sur la rédaction • rencontres en binômes et comptes rendus • bilan final en copp une précision s’impose sur l’analyse inductive qui se concentre autour des trois dimensions du cadre conceptuel et qui ont orienté les trois années du projet : l’entreprise commune, l’engagement mutuel et le répertoire partagé. bien que l’intention de documenter les effets structurants du modèle retenu (la cop) fût prévue dès le départ du projet, l’objet de recherche, l’aa, représente le cœur de la démarche d’analyse et a déjà fait l’objet d’autres communications (larouche, biron et vaillancourt, 2017). a posteriori, il nous est apparu que les données collectées tout au long winter/hiver 2019 99 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research de la démarche par le recours à des observations, des questionnaires, des entrevues, des comptes rendus et un bilan final, nous invitaient à porter un regard rétrospectif sur l’impact des dispositifs proposés tout au long des trois années. les résultats descriptifs que nous exposons dans cet article représentent un regard critique sur ces dispositifs en dialogue avec les trois dimensions du cadre conceptuel. les résultats : identifier des moments critiques et des moments porteurs ou rassembleurs la première année du projet visait à réfléchir et à expliciter les conceptions de l’apprentissage actif des enfants (aa) des membres de la copp. quatre journées de rencontre collective ont été élaborées en collaboration avec la conseillère pédagogique afin de négocier le sens de cette entreprise commune. lors de la première rencontre, les enseignantes ont discuté de leur fonctionnement par ateliers en classe, une pratique largement utilisée en maternelle et qui représentait l’occasion de mettre au jour leur conception initiale. elles ont partagé leur compréhension des aspects favorisant l’apprentissage de leurs élèves. un livre de référence, partager le plaisir d’apprendre de hohmann, weikart, bourgon et proulx (2007)2, a été proposé par les chercheuses afin d’alimenter la réflexion et la discussion. dans cet ouvrage, les auteurs exposent de manière pédagogique leurs fondements de l’aa. également, à chacune des rencontres de la première année, des personnes reconnues pour leur expertise en éducation préscolaire ont été invitées afin d’alimenter la réflexion autour de l’aa et des activités participatives étaient proposées aux participantes dans le but de faciliter les échanges en petites équipes. rappelons que c’est par cette négociation de sens partagé que les membres d’une cop s’approprient le projet, mettent en commun leur expertise individuelle et s’approprient l’entreprise commune. afin de s’assurer que le contenu de ces rencontres répondait aux attentes des participantes et dans le but de soutenir leur engagement, celles-ci étaient invitées à remplir un petit questionnaire à la fin de chaque rencontre. ce questionnaire investiguait les aspects suivants : ce que je retiens, mon coup de cœur, une proposition pour la prochaine rencontre, ce que j’aurais le goût d’essayer dans ma classe. un ajustement de notre démarche a ainsi été possible d’une rencontre à l’autre afin d’adapter le contenu aux besoins et aux intérêts des membres de la copp. par ailleurs, les réponses aux questionnaires ont permis d’identifier certains indicateurs de leur engagement : elles ont mentionné vouloir partager leurs coups de cœur sur des albums jeunesse, elles ont proposé de créer une plateforme électronique afin de déposer des documents intéressants pour partager leurs idées et elles ont également souligné leur appréciation de la place faite aux échanges. enfin, mentionnons leur appréciation du carnet de traces qui leur permettait de noter leurs réflexions, leurs questions, les idées qu’elles souhaitaient mettre à l’épreuve. parmi les éléments porteurs ou rassembleurs de cette première année, les formatrices ont observé lors des échanges que l’ouvrage de référence proposé a pu soutenir la conceptualisation de l’aa, et ce, en permettant de l’adapter au contexte d’action des participantes. si l’on en juge par le temps de prise de parole des participantes, l’engagement s’est notamment manifesté au fil des quatre rencontres collectives par des échanges de plus en plus longs consacrés à partager les pratiques mises en œuvre entre les rencontres et les effets observés. ces moments d’échanges ont pu contribuer à créer un contexte dynamique propice à l’exploration. tout en participant à une prise de recul sur winter/hiver 2019 100 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research leur pratique, ces discussions empreintes d’ouverture et sans jugement ont certainement soutenu un fort sentiment d’appartenance et le sens de l’entreprise commune au sein de la copp. d’un point de vue critique, bien que le dispositif d’un livre de référence représente un choix pédagogique judicieux, certaines participantes ont nommé explicitement leur déstabilisation lors des discussions sur les extraits de lectures proposés. il ressort de cela que ces lectures les ont amenées à sortir de leur zone de confort et ont entraîné une certaine résistance. malgré la pertinence des contenus abordés par les experts invités, qui ont été appréciés tel que mentionné dans les fiches, il apparaît que cette diversité a engendré une compréhension floue de la démarche d’aa. le tableau 2 résume les principales observations des formatrices et les principaux commentaires exprimés par les participantes en lien avec les forces et les limites des dispositifs prévus lors de l’an 1 de la copp qui consistait à mettre en place la première dimension du modèle de wenger (2005), soit l’entreprise commune. tableau 2 an 1 l’entreprise commune aspects positifs, obstacles ou difficultés des dispositifs mis en œuvre visée de l’entreprise commune indices positifs observés et exprimés obstacles ou difficultés observés ou exprimés l’entreprise commune assure une source de cohérence au sein de la copp, une cohésion résultant d’un processus collectif de négociation pour analyser les pratiques favorisant l’apprentissage actif (aa). • appropriation du livre de référence • contexte dynamique, propice à l’exploration • satisfaction exprimée • ouverture, sans jugement • renforcement d’un sentiment d’appartenance • déstabilisation par la lecture du livre de référence • résistance à de nouvelles façons de faire • compréhension floue de la démarche d’apprentissage de l’enfant (l’aa). la deuxième année de la copp visait la coconstruction de projets individuels pour favoriser l’aa. le terme de coconstruction mérite quelques précisions. après la première année, au cours de laquelle un ouvrage de référence a été proposé afin d’assurer une plus grande cohérence à l’entreprise commune de notre copp, il nous fallait faire un pas de plus. la construction de sens se fonde ici sur l’interaction, d’où le préfixe « co ». cette interaction vise aussi bien les échanges entre collègues que l’accompagnement avec les formatrices. selon la théorie de wenger (2005), le sens est affaire de négociation et nous avons établi qu’un changement de pratique ne s’imposait pas. c’est de l’intérieur de leur contexte d’action que l’engagement des participantes serait favorisé pour réifier l’entreprise commune et donner forme à leur expérience. pour ce faire, quatre dispositifs ont été prévus lors de la deuxième année : 1) la planification d’un projet personnel, 2) un accompagnement en binôme par l’équipe de formatrices (les binômes ont été pairés de manière aléatoire), 3) un calendrier de visites dans la classe de collègues et 4) une présentation des projets en copp. l’accompagnement et la visite dans la classe d’une collègue représentent winter/hiver 2019 101 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research deux éléments clés qui ont soutenu l’engagement mutuel des participantes. pour documenter les retombées de ces dispositifs et favoriser l’engagement mutuel, un entretien individuel a été mené à la fin de l’an 2. l’engagement mutuel implique que l’on s’intéresse à ce que les participantes font. nous souhaitions les entendre sur leur projet et sur leur participation à la copp. afin d’identifier les éléments porteurs ou rassembleurs ainsi que ceux plus critiques, nous avons analysé le contenu des entretiens menés à la fin de l’an 2. ceux-ci ont été menés sous forme d’entrevue semi-structurée autour de trois aspects : 1) un retour sur les intentions de la copp, 2) les retombées auprès des enfants et 3) leurs propres apprentissages. pour fins d’analyse, deux questions ouvertes sont retenues : 1) depuis deux ans, tu participes à notre copp, qu’est-ce que cela t’a apporté ? 2) qu’est-ce qui a changé dans ta pratique ? un constat fait l’unanimité chez les participantes, elles apprécient fortement apprendre les unes des autres : « se former à même d’autres collègues », « on s’est contaminées », « je suis enrichie des idées des autres », « le partage de nos différentes pratiques », « ça nous fait tellement réfléchir et cheminer, partager notre vécu… voir comment elles s’y prennent  ». faire une large place au partage d’expérience renforce indubitablement l’engagement et la confiance dans son agir. l’ouverture à l’autre engendre une reconnaissance de sa singularité tout en s’exposant avec authenticité. dans cette veine, la visite en classe, que ce soit d’accueillir une collègue dans sa classe ou se rendre dans la classe d’une collègue, représente un moment significatif pour réfléchir sur ce qui fonde son agir. l’interaction est l’occasion de clarifier sa pratique. en se comparant, elles prennent conscience de leurs ressemblances et de leurs différences, et surtout − elles sont nombreuses à le nommer explicitement − elles se rassurent sur leur pratique : « ça m’a rassurée, ça m’a aussi déstabilisée, ça m’a fait évoluer », « j’ai fait des essais qui n’ont pas fonctionné, mais je me suis permis de reculer, de m’ajuster », « ça m’a fait tellement de bien d’entendre qu’elle aussi était insécure, une enseignante qui est pourtant expérimentée », « la copp m’a permis d’aller au fond des choses et de confirmer que ma vision était bonne ». en plus de l’interaction comme noyau central de l’engagement mutuel, les participantes ont entrepris une démarche concrète dans leur classe pour négocier le sens de l’aa. l’expérience entraîne une meilleure compréhension et une transformation de l’action (penser et agir). les différentes façons de s’engager traduisent différents niveaux de participation. pour certaines, le pairage en binôme et l’accompagnement ont offert un soutien bienvenu : « le côté équipe a amené une rigueur à tenir mon projet chaque semaine », « les fois où les accompagnatrices sont venues dans ma classe, c’était très aidant, ça m’a donné l’élan pour partir comme il faut, j’étais comme bloquée, elles sont venues au bon moment ». un grand souci du respect du rythme de chacune a teinté l’accompagnement : « c’était à mon rythme aussi avec mon contexte de classe », « vous – les accompagnatrices – nous poussiez plus loin avec des défis différents pour chacune ». se mettre en projet nécessite une prise de risque pour sortir de sa zone de confort ce qui ressort par exemple des propos tenus lors de l’entretien : « ça nous fait essayer d’autres choses en classe et ça fait réfléchir sur la façon dont les enfants apprennent », « j’essaie de sortir de ma zone de confort tranquillement ». pour plusieurs participantes, l’entretien a été l’occasion de nommer que leur participation à la copp est arrivée à winter/hiver 2019 102 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research point nommé dans leur trajectoire professionnelle. ces effets apportent une nouvelle compréhension empirique au concept d’engagement que nous souhaitons documenter. les propos recueillis sont éloquents : « j’étais dans un down, je tournais en rond, en remise en question… la flamme est rallumée », « je ne réalisais pas trop le fait d’être toute seule au préscolaire dans mon école », « je voulais approfondir le programme et le maîtriser, je veux finir ma carrière en maternelle », « ça répondait à ce que je cherchais, à un questionnement que j’avais », « il me reste 10 ans, j’avais le goût d’essayer de nouvelles choses ». malgré l’effet de groupe, le soutien des pairs et l’accompagnement qui entraînent l’adhésion à la démarche, le niveau d’engagement individuel est très variable. parmi les douze participantes, trois d’entre elles mentionnent des difficultés ou des réserves : « j’ai senti un peu de réticence de la part de certaines, parfois ça prend du temps », « il y a beaucoup de choses dont j’avais entendu parler ou que j’avais essayées », « pour la copp, je ne sais pas quoi dire, qu’est-ce que les autres veulent savoir ? je n’avais pas le goût d’expliquer ce que j’ai fait ». pour cette dernière participante, tout au long de l’entretien, en dépit des efforts répétés pour faire expliciter concrètement le projet réalisé, elle formulera surtout des exemples spécifiques autour d’élèves ayant des besoins particuliers. il est possible que la difficulté à expliciter sa pratique relève, dans ce dernier cas, du fait qu’elle ne s’est pas vraiment mise en projet. toutefois, son engagement s’est traduit par une présence assidue et une participation qu’elle qualifie de plus personnelle. une mise en garde s’impose dans ce que nous qualifions ici comme un moment critique. l’engagement mutuel ne s’impose pas, celui-ci se développe quand les membres d’une copp réifient et en font leur l’entreprise commune. il apparaît que les différents niveaux d’engagement dont nous témoignons ici rendent compte de la liberté d’adhésion à la démarche que nous ne souhaitions pas imposer. quant au dernier dispositif proposé, celui qui vient clore cette deuxième année par la présentation des projets, nous y prêtons une interprétation plus mitigée. en effet, les propos de quelques participantes laissent croire à un éparpillement dans la diversité des projets présentés : « j’ai trouvé que les présentations n’étaient pas en lien », « j’étais nerveuse de présenter, mais j’ai vu que d’autres aussi ont fait complètement autre chose, comme si on était libres de faire ce qu’on veut ». par ailleurs, elles étaient réticentes à présenter : « finalement j’ai aimé faire ma présentation même si au départ ça ne me tentait pas, ça m’a forcée à me recentrer », « mon but n’était pas de présenter un projet pour épater la galerie ». ces remarques recueillies en entretien individuel témoignent que ce dispositif représente un moment critique de la démarche. nous observons qu’aucun commentaire n’a été formulé lors des présentations en copp. l’évitement de la confrontation est-il un signe de respect ou une peur du jugement ? chose certaine, en conviant les participantes à présenter leur projet nous les invitions à poser un regard analytique sur celui-ci. audelà du niveau descriptif visant à rendre compte de ce qui a été réalisé, c’est sur leur capacité réflexive à porter un regard distancié sur l’entreprise commune que ce dispositif a porté fruit. la responsabilité assumée de se mettre en projet vient ainsi consolider le sentiment d’appartenance de la copp et une meilleure compréhension de l’aa. le tableau 3 qui suit résume les principaux aspects observés par les formatrices ou explicités par les participantes en lien avec des moments porteurs et des moments critiques au regard des dispositifs prévus lors de l’an 2 de la copp. ces éléments sont en lien avec la deuxième dimension issue des travaux de wenger (2005), soit l’engagement winter/hiver 2019 103 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research mutuel. tableau 3 an 2 l’engagement mutuel aspects positifs, obstacles ou difficultés des dispositifs mis en œuvre visée de l’engagement mutuel effets positifs observés ou exprimés difficultés observées ou exprimées les participantes s’engagent et se mettent en projet. non seulement elles adhèrent à l’entreprise commune, mais elles contribuent à la recherche de solution de par leur projet individuel. • partage d’expérience • individualité reconnue • respect du rythme • responsabilité assumée • éparpillement, diversité • différents niveaux de participation • difficulté à expliciter sa pratique • évitement de la confrontation l’an  3 concerne l’évaluation de l’impact des interventions favorisant l’aa. alors que l’an  2 a permis de dégager comment les actions individuelles sont au service de l’entreprise commune, cette troisième année misait sur la constitution d’un répertoire partagé. wenger (2005) explique que le répertoire partagé combine les éléments de réification et de participation pour rendre compte des interprétations des membres de la copp. le répertoire les amène à produire des réalisations qui concrétisent l’entreprise commune, à consolider l’engagement mutuel et une façon de se donner des ressources dont ils vont tirer profit. le répertoire reflète les façons particulières, mais n’impose pas une signification d’emblée. ici encore, le sens n’est pas donné d’avance, il se négocie de l’intérieur de l’expérience. pour produire un répertoire, un dispositif a été proposé aux participantes : la rédaction de vignettes d’apprentissage actif (vaa) dont il sera question plus loin. ce dispositif nous semblait répondre à la double finalité d’un effet structurant pour élaborer un répertoire partagé tout en faisant appel à la compétence des participantes pour rendre compte de manière contextualisée des pratiques favorisant l’aa. en cohérence avec la perspective compréhensive et interprétative endossée par notre équipe de recherche, ce dispositif se voulait suffisamment souple et adapté aux différents contextes des participantes. par ailleurs, la conseillère pédagogique voyait la rédaction des vaa comme un outil utile et convivial de consignation des observations sur les démarches des enfants et un moyen pertinent de communication aux parents. ce dispositif a toutefois été perçu par plusieurs participantes comme une contrainte et elles ont manifesté plusieurs réticences dans l’exploitation qui en a été faite tout au long de l’année. avant d’en dégager les avantages et les limites, voyons plus en détail ce que nous avions prévu par ce dispositif. en début de l’an 3, lors de la première rencontre de la copp, une proposition a été présentée par l’équipe de formatrices d’élaborer un répertoire à partir de vignettes d’apprentissage actif (vaa). ce dispositif s’inspire des travaux de margaret carr (2001, carr et lee, 2012) sur les « learning stories ». en quelques mots, voici ce dont il winter/hiver 2019 104 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research est question quand on parle de vignettes. les vaa sont de courtes descriptions accompagnées de photos d’un ou de quelques enfants en action dans une situation précise en interaction avec l’environnement. elles permettent de décrire et de reconnaître l’apprentissage qui se déroule à travers le jeu ou dans l’activité. les vaa montrent comment l’enfant est « en train d’apprendre à apprendre ». plus précisément, nous souhaitions à l’aide de ce dispositif insister sur la démarche d’apprentissage des enfants3. lors d’une rencontre en copp, les participantes ont pu se familiariser avec ce dispositif à l’aide d’un canevas qui leur a été proposé. sur place, elles ont pu s’exercer à partir de trois photos prises dans leur milieu respectif. la rédaction de vignette se réalise en six étapes. la première étape concerne une mise en contexte pour expliquer l’activité dans laquelle l’enfant est engagée. la deuxième décrit la démarche de l’enfant en lien avec les photos. la troisième concerne l’interprétation de l’enseignante. la quatrième suggère des réinvestissements possibles pour soutenir l’enfant dans ses apprentissages. la cinquième livre quelques commentaires qui ont été recueillis auprès de l’enfant, des pairs, des collègues ou des parents. enfin, à la sixième étape, il s’agit de trouver un titre évocateur, car il est souvent plus facile à trouver à la fin de la rédaction. la figure  1 illustre un exemple visuel du format d’une vaa. pour les premières vaa qu’elles ont eu à rédiger dans le mois suivant la rencontre, une rétroaction a été acheminée par une assistante de recherche à chacune des participantes pour les aider à étayer leur description. elles devaient rédiger deux vaa par mois pendant trois mois. trois pairages en binôme étaient prévus au calendrier pour qu’elles se présentent mutuellement leur vaa. afin de les soutenir plus étroitement dans cette analyse réflexive, une formatrice s’est associée à chacune de ces rencontres en binôme. winter/hiver 2019 105 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1− exemple visuel d’une vaa d’un point de vue empirique, le répertoire représente un matériau de recherche très riche pour analyser la conception de l’apprentissage actif du point de vue des enseignantes, entre autres, sur le rôle qu’elles exercent pour favoriser l’apprentissage de leurs élèves. par contre, nous constatons une limite : le fait de prendre les enfants en photo a peut-être influencé les participantes en posture d’extériorité. dans les vaa, elles témoignent de l’action de l’enfant et non de leurs pratiques pour soutenir l’aa. les retombées de ce dispositif sont nombreuses sur le plan du développement professionnel et d’une pratique réflexive sur l’aa. tout d’abord, les vaa constituent un outil relativement simple de consignation et d’évaluation des apprentissages des élèves. les participantes ont su saisir des situations authentiques d’apprentissage qui mettent canevas pour les vignettes d’apprentissage actif (b2) un titre : un mariage très spécial une mise en contexte : j’ai mis à la disposition des enfants des foulards aux couleurs variées lors des ateliers libres. une description de la démarche : clara a décidé de créer quelque chose, mais elle a dit que c’était un secret. elle a utilisé divers matériaux. au début, il me semblait qu’elle ne savait pas tellement vers où elle allait. elle m’a dit qu’elle préparait quelque chose de très spécial elle a fait des essais / erreurs. elle faisait et défaisait. rien ne pouvait laisser croire que sa création ressemblerait à quelque chose. elle travaillait ardemment sans relâche. elle a convoqué toute la classe pour venir voir son projet. elle était en contrôle de la situation. elle nous a expliqué que c’était un lieu de mariage. elle nous a expliqué en détails tout ce qu’elle avait créé. tout y était. elle avait même pensé aux sièges pour les invités ! une interprétation : je dois dire que j’ai été très impressionnée par le travail de clara. elle a démontré beaucoup de détermination. le travail de création s’est bâti au fur et à mesure dans sa tête et a pris forme. elle était en contrôle de la situation puisqu’elle a su répondre spontanément à toutes mes questions et à celles des enfants. des réinvestissements possibles : à partir de ce projet, clara n’a pas cessé de nous inviter à venir voir ses créations tout aussi impressionnantes ! elle pourra investir dans la création d’un plan de départ avant de se mettre en mode action. des commentaires : les enfants ont été très attentifs lors de la présentation de clara. elle y a mis tout son cœur. c’est beau à voir ! winter/hiver 2019 106 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research en valeur les «  dispositions  » de l’enfant. elles mentionnent que le choix des situations les a incitées à observer certains enfants qui passent souvent inaperçus dans leur groupe. de plus, elles ont pu identifier les forces de leurs élèves et garder des traces de leur évolution. dans les étapes de rédaction, notamment celle portant sur les réinvestissements possibles, cela leur permettait de projeter des défis adaptés aux élèves ciblés afin de nourrir leur motivation. par ailleurs, ce dispositif a provoqué de nombreuses résistances chez les participantes. une première réaction s’explique par le rapport à l’écrit. alors que nous nous attendions à constituer un répertoire d’au moins une soixantaine de vaa, le répertoire partagé comprend seulement 35 situations. il a fallu diminuer nos attentes des deux vignettes mensuelles à une seule par mois. lors du bilan, les participantes ont mentionné que la sélection de la situation, la prise de photos sur le vif et la rédaction de la vignette était une entreprise très exigeante. cette tâche leur a demandé plus de temps que celui qui leur était alloué. elles ont préféré se concentrer sur une seule situation et en discuter plus en profondeur en binôme. de leur point de vue, il est plus facile d’expliquer oralement la démarche d’un enfant plutôt que d’avoir à la mettre par écrit. ces rencontres ont suscité des interactions stimulantes entre pairs et avec les formatrices. dans le bilan que nous dressons du dispositif, il apparaît clairement qu’un accompagnement étroit est nécessaire pour en permettre l’appropriation parce que cela exige de développer une certaine aisance à décrire le contexte, les actions de l’enfant et l’interaction qui émerge de la situation décrite. livrées à elles-mêmes, les participantes ont plus de difficulté à analyser et à interpréter la démarche de l’enfant en vue d’en faire une synthèse. le questionnement d’une collègue et de la formatrice encourage, en outre, une description plus fine dans l’analyse pour nommer les stratégies et le processus d’apprentissage de l’enfant. le tableau  4 résume les grandes lignes des moments porteurs et des moments critiques au regard du dispositif prévu lors de l’an 3 de la copp en lien avec le répertoire partagé sous forme de vaa. winter/hiver 2019 107 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research tableau 4 an 3 le répertoire partagé aspects positifs, obstacles ou difficultés des dispositifs mis en œuvre visée du répertoire partagé avantages observés et exprimés limites observées et exprimées le répertoire partagé comprend la production de vignettes (vaa) pouvant être réinvesties dans les milieux scolaire et universitaire. • matériau riche de situations authentiques • observation de situations concrètes • attention portée à certains enfants plus discrets • interactions stimulantes entre pairs • accès aux conceptions individuelles • réflexion sur l’action • légitimation et valorisation exprimées • motivation observable chez les enfants • posture en extériorité par la prise de photos • résistance pour la rédaction des vaa • accompagnement plus étroit nécessaire • dépasser la description pour interpréter les aa • difficulté à nommer le processus d’aa de l’enfant, ses stratégies conclusion : nourrir une culture de collaboration en soutenant l’engagement la démarche de développement professionnel continu de trois ans que nous venons de décrire et qui s’est vécue auprès de douze enseignantes du préscolaire montre notamment l’importance de l’engagement des enseignantes au sein d’une copp. nous avons fait part de certains dispositifs qui convergent sur l’importance de l’engagement des acteurs de terrain comme facteur clé de l’évolution des pratiques (rey, 2016). ainsi, c’est en plaçant les enseignantes comme principal agent de leur propre développement professionnel, c’est-à-dire en favorisant les échanges sur leur pratique et l’expérimentation de nouvelles, qu’elles acquièrent la confiance et le regard critique sur leur agir. par contre les trois dimensions issues du cadre de wenger (2005), l’engagement mutuel, l’entreprise commune et le répertoire partagé, nous incitent à porter un regard critique sur notre propre démarche et sur le rôle exercé au sein de la copp. est-ce que ce cadre que nous voulions souple et respectueux des pratiques a atteint ce but ? rappelons que la copp ne visait pas à combler un manque ou des lacunes, mais s’inscrivait dans un effort pour affirmer et consolider l’acte d’enseigner en misant sur leur capacité réflexive. la collaboration entre praticiens et chercheurs prend parfois une forme prescriptive, top-down. l’expérience de pratique ne prend souvent sa légitimité, dans la culture de formation professionnelle à l’enseignement, qu’en tant qu’elle constitue ou devrait constituer un lieu d’application de savoirs prescrits (desgagné et larouche, 2010, p.7). winter/hiver 2019 108 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research ces auteurs conçoivent la recherche collaborative comme une entreprise de légitimation du savoir d’expérience qui offre aux praticiens un espace dit réflexif pour faire entendre leur voix. en ce sens, bien que singulière et documentée a posteriori, la démarche dont nous voulions rendre compte dans cet article veut contribuer à cette perspective collaborative, un fort désir de rapprochement entre milieux de pratique et de recherche. une limite importante réside dans la difficulté à se distancier de nos propres pratiques de recherche et nécessiterait un effort de théorisation pour en valider la rigueur scientifique. toutefois, force est de constater que non seulement les participantes ont été actives dans les échanges et ont remis en cause leur pratique, il en fut de même pour les personnes formatrices-chercheuses engagées dans le processus. bien que cet aspect puisse paraître inhérent à une copp, il convient de souligner combien cela peut être exigeant pour la personne formatrice parce que cela exige notamment de mettre parfois de côté des savoirs issus de la recherche et qui peuvent entrer en conflit avec certains propos ou points de vue issus de l’expérience singulière d’une classe. bref, cette question gagnerait certainement à être approfondie et mieux documentée, car il s’est avéré précieux et enrichissant, voire selon nous essentiel, que tous les acteurs du projet s’ajustent et remettent en question leurs convictions tout au long de la démarche afin de nourrir la réflexion et ne pas imposer une vision particulière de l’aa. à ce sujet, la capacité réflexive des formatrices afin de s’ajuster et de s’adapter lors de la mise en œuvre des différents dispositifs s’est manifestée à différentes occasions, comme dans les moments d’écoute et de soutien individuel, ou encore en allant rencontrer les enseignantes dans leur milieu afin de mieux saisir leur réalité. en terminant, rappelons que le développement professionnel continu défini comme un véritable acte professionnel demandant une capacité d’analyse et de jugement exercé en contexte a aussi le potentiel de contribuer au développement de l’identité professionnelle, tel que le soutient wenger (2005). winter/hiver 2019 109 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research références beaumont, c., lavoie, j. et couture, c. (2011). les pratiques collaboratives en milieu scolaire : cadre de référence pour soutenir la formation. québec, qc : université laval, centre de recherche et d’intervention sur la réussite scolaire (crires). campbell, c., osmond-johnson, p. et faubert, b. (2016). the state of educators professional learning in canada. oxford, oh : learning forward. carr, m. (2001). assessment in early childhood settings. learning stories. londres, royaume-uni : sage. carr, m. et lee, w. (2012). learning stories. constructing learner identities in early education. londres, royaume-uni : sage. conseil supérieur de l’éducation (2014). le développement professionnel, un enrichissement pour toute la profession enseignante. québec, qc : gouvernement du québec. dameron, s. et josserand, e. (2007). le développement d’une communauté de pratique  : une analyse relationnelle. revue française de gestion, 174(5), 131-148. desgagné, s. et larouche, h. (2010). quand la collaboration de recherche sert la légitimation d’un savoir d’expérience. recherches en éducation. hors série no 1, 7-18. http://www.recherches-en-education.net/spip.php?article130 dewey, j. (1947). expérience et éducation. paris, france : éditions bourrelier. donnay, j. et charlier, e. (2008). apprendre par l’analyse des pratiques. initiation au compagnonnage réflexif (2e éd.). namur, belgique : presses universitaires de namur. giddens, a. (1987). la constitution de la société. paris : presses universitaires de france. gouvernement du québec (2002). politique gouvernementale des adultes et de formation continue. québec, qc : ministère de l’éducation, du loisir et du sport. gouvernement du québec (2011). programme de soutien à la formation continue du personnel scolaire. guide pour l’appel de projets. québec, qc : ministère de l’éducation, du loisir et du sport. hargreaves, a. et fullan, m. (2013). the power of professional capital. the learning forward journal, 34(3), 36-39. helterbran, v.r. et fennimore, b.s. (2004). collaborative early childhood professional development: building from a base of teacher investigation. early childhood education journal, 31(4), 267-271. hohmann, m., weikart, d., bourgon, l. et proulx, m. (2007). partager le plaisir d’apprendre. guide d’intervention éducative au préscolaire (2e éd.). montréal, qc : gaëtan morin. larouche, h. biron, d. et vaillancourt, j. (2017). décrire et valoriser l’apprentissage actif chez les jeunes enfants au moyen de « vignettes ». communication dans le cadre du congrès de l’omep et du symposium « les relations de la petite enfance : les fondations d’un avenir durable », opatijia, croatie, juin. li, y.-l. (2008). teachers in action research: assumptions and potentials. educational action research, 16(2), 251-260. ouellet, s., caya, i. et tremblay, m-p. (2011). l’apport d’une communauté d’apprentissage de personnels scolaires. éducation et formation, e-293, mai, 207-226. rey, o. (2016). le changement, c’est comment ? dossier de veille de l’ifé, 107, 1-18. savoie-zajc, l. (2010). les dynamiques d’accompagnement dans la mise en place de communautés d’apprentissage. éducation et formation, e-293, mai, 9-20. wenger, é. (2005). la théorie des communautés de pratique (trad. par f. gervais). saint-nicolas, qc : presses de l’université laval. winter/hiver 2019 110 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (endnotes) 1 les participantes au projet sont toutes des femmes, nous adopterons le genre féminin pour rendre compte de l’échantillon. 2 ce livre est une traduction et une adaptation des travaux du programme highscope. 3 ce dispositif, qui prend appui sur les travaux de margaret carr (2001, carr et lee, 2012) sur les « learning stories », fera l’objet d’une description détaillée dans une publication de nos travaux. dans le cadre de cet article, nous souhaitons nous concentrer sur la démarche et l’impact des dispositifs. november 2020 61 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice wrestling with “will to truth” in early childhood education: cracking spaces for multiplicity and complexity through poetry chenying wang chenying wang is a med student in early childhood education at the university of british columbia. email: educchenyingwang@ gmail.com listen to an early learning classroom, a room filled with laughter, giggles, and squabbles over toys. watch your step in an early learning classroom, a floor where crawling kids chase light-up shoes worn by running kids. pay attention to an early learning classroom, a space where multiple pots of aromatic plants thrive, where a puddle of spilled milk is drying. then, feel an early learning classroom. put yourself in this room as an early childhood educator, so that you can feel how this room is calling on you to respond—to what you hear, see, smell, and feel— carefully and thoughtfully. then you fall into waves of complex decision-making processes. you wonder: when children squabble should i step in and model conflict resolution skills that are suggested by that influential professional magazine for early childhood educators? you think: or maybe i should step back and let the squabbling ones develop their own ways of handling conflicts through trial and error as my well-respected colleague often does in this classroom? you question: shall i remind the running ones to slow to the “inside speed” to maintain a safe space for themselves and those chasing after them? you reflect: or maybe i can turn this moment into a learning opportunity for beneficial risk-taking practice? you hesitate: is it better to tell the child who spilled milk to clean up after themself to foster a sense of responsibility? or is it more reasonable for me to clean it as i can do it very quickly and nap time is approaching? put yourself in an early learning classroom as an early childhood educator. you find yourself overwhelmed by these countless waves. the waves of decision making. these waves are followed by waves of tangled feelings—unsettlement, uncertainty, and weakness. the waves come one after another. your energy drains as you wrestle with so many possible decisions from minute to minute. you are exhausted. so, you struggle to find a way to deal with the waves instead of being overwhelmed by them. you think to yourself: i must find the truth about young children, which will inform me on how to make the right decision. you tell yourself: i must find the most authentic and best ways to think, act, feel and practice as an early childhood educator. you close your eyes and wonder if, in that way, you could free yourself from the labour of wrestling with waves of pedagogical decision making. this article intends to provoke ongoing conversations in the early childhood education context about “will to truth,” which glenda macnaughton regards as the intent to know and determine the “normal” and “preferred” ways to think, act, and feel as early childhood educators. the pervading existence of will to truth amplifies concerns over fixed and determined ways to think and act as early childhood educators because “truth” and systems of power are closely linked to one another. to honour complexity and fluidity in thinking and acting as early childhood educators, the author argues for moving beyond will to truth and offers poetic practice as one possibility to reinvent habitual understandings. key words: truth; power; poststructuralism; poetry; practices in early childhood education november 2020 62 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the opening is a story of me as an early childhood educator struggling to make the decisions—the “good,” “best,” and “authoritative” ones. it is an autobiographical story, but it could also be a story of many early childhood education colleagues and friends, as we have all encountered the difficulty of making decisions in an early learning classroom. we struggle to arrive at the decision because we want our pedagogical decisions to optimize young children’s experiences of exploring and developing. this struggle is an example of how “will to truth” (macnaughton, 2005) is entrenched in the early childhood education (ece) context. to glenda macnaughton, the will to truth is about the intent to find certainty in “how to think, act and feel as normal early childhood educators” (p. 39). it is understandable that we educators have this intent to find certainties of what should be done, but we need to be cautious since these certainties shape (and constrain) how we think and act as early childhood educators. thus, i hope this story serves as an invitation—to early childhood educators and those working in other disciplines—to pay close attention to will to truth. i want to invite readers to examine how will to truth is pervasive in daily ece practices, to explore why it is necessary to move beyond it, and to experimentally wrestle with it. this paper unfolds as follows. first, i explain the concept of truth and discuss its relationship to power from a poststructuralist perspective. next, i build on the discussion of the relationship between truth and power to problematize will to truth within the context of early childhood education. finally, i propose the process of creating poetry as both a tool and a condition to move beyond will to truth. the desire to make “the” decision: how is it tied to power? the metaphor of waves in the opening narrative describes the numerous moments of making pedagogical decisions. this metaphor illustrates the intense and challenging nature of working as an early childhood educator, and it also highlights how will to truth pervasively exists within the context of ece. to explain what will to truth is and why it is problematic, it is necessary to make clear what is meant by truth. the discussion about truth is premised on michel foucault’s understanding of truth. foucault was a french philosopher who is often associated with poststructuralism, which challenges what comes to be normalized and accepted as “natural truths” and overturns the hierarchical relationship between the “truth” and its alternatives (benozzo, 2018). drawing on foucault, macnaughton (2005) points out that the “truths” in ece discipline are produced, and these “truths” are “culturally biased norms about how children should be” (p. 19). macnaughton claims that “a truth is authoritative” and its authority “lies in its claim to be a statement about a phenomenon that is factual and, therefore, correct” (p. 23). that is to say, a poststructuralist educator would understand that the so-called truths about children are constructed consensus or norms rather than universal facts. jennifer gore (1993, as cited by macnaughton, 2005, p. 30) indicates that disciplinary “truths” generate authoritative norms about “what needs to be done” and “how it should be done” in the early childhood field. macnaughton (2005) further proposes that these truths (re)produce inequity since certain knowledge of young children (i.e., ways to think, act, and feel about young children) is privileged and alternative ways are othered. for example, when i was a practicum educator, i always handled quarrels over a toy by first observing for a minute, and if the quarrel was not solved or no one came to me for help, i would step in to instruct the children about certain social skills. i might say, “avery, you can use your words and tell jordan ‘sorry, i am not done with using it yet. i will let you know when i am done so you can take a turn’” to instruct a “preferred” way to handle quarrels. how i acted and what language i chose to use in responding to this situation were influenced by the training i received during practicum. i treated what i learned from the training as authoritative and rarely attended to alternative approaches. over time, this specific approach turned into my default response to children’s quarrels. my view of quarrels began to be settled and fixed. i saw quarrelling as a behaviour that should always be discouraged, and i overlooked november 2020 63 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice alternative understandings of quarrelling (e.g., seeing quarrels as learning opportunities for children to develop negotiating skills or social interaction skills). making pedagogical decisions involves consumption and construction of truth. our pedagogical decisions—all the choices we make about language, materials, environments, and routines—are motivated by our understandings of young children and how we should educate them. through our pedagogical decisions, we transmit our particular understandings. over time, as macnaughton (2005) has pointed out, certain understandings or knowledge become “settled so firmly into the fabric of early childhood studies” that their familiarity generates the norms in the discipline of ece (p. 1). when any particular pedagogical knowledge is established as a norm (i.e., produced as a truth), it assumes power and determines what pedagogical decisions are “correct.” in other words, this “truth” governs what should be said or done. in turn, pedagogical decisions that are motivated by a particular “truth” endorse the authenticity given to the truth, and thus the power effects of truth are reinforced. this complex connection between pedagogical decisions, produced truth, and power is what foucault (1980) meant when he described truth as “linked in circular relations with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it” (p. 133). how will to truth affects ece: problematizing will to truth the will to truth affects how educators’ practice because it generates the production of truth in ece. “truth” in ece governs what educators should say and do and limits ways to think, feel, act, and practice (macnaughton, 2005). without intentionally questioning the authority in what is normalized as truths, the dominant ways to think and act in the ece context continue to govern our thoughts and acts and lead to constrained responses that can lack fluidity. for instance, cooke, wong, and press (2019) found that the current conceptualization of beneficial risk in ece mainly focuses on children’s experiences of outdoor physical play. cooke et al. (2019) argue that these predominant views of risk narrow educators’ understanding of risk and constrain their pedagogical decisions. for example, educators may overlook emotional and cognitive risk taking which would benefit children’s “holistic learning and development” (p. 9). as the will to truth governs how we think and act, complexity and diversity are then dishonoured. complexity— the complexity in children’s acts and thoughts, the complexity in the ways to understand and feel about young children, and the complexity in our pedagogical decisions—is ignored. encouraged by carl leggo, a canadian scholar who influences and inspires scholarship of arts-based inquiry, i regard the “tangled complexity” (2014, p. 99) in human beings’ experiences as something beautiful that should be recognized and honoured. i believe that complexity enriches our dialogues and experiences, and the uncertainties that come along with complexity motivate us to question and create. when our thoughts and actions are limited to norms, where shall the beauty of complexity exist and flow? the will to truth also reinforces the right/wrong binary to consume and construct meanings in ece. the will to truth—the intent to determine what is true or not—is embedded in binary oppositions (e.g., true/false, good/bad, desired/undesirable). these binaries derive more distinctions in the understandings of ece, such as included/ excluded and empowered/disempowered (kocher & pacini-ketchabaw, 2011). kocher and pacini-ketchabaw (2011) indicate that binaries are “packed with certainties, applicable knowledge and regulated spaces” and empower certain groups of people as the holders of knowledge (p. 49). as one binary opposition is more valued, the opposing binary is then “othered” and silenced (kocher & pacini-ketchabaw, 2011; macnaughton, 2005). dahlberg, moss, and pence (2013) suggest thinking in a both/and way, rather than either/or, to disrupt the hierarchical relationship between the privileged binary and the disadvantaged binary. november 2020 64 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice wrestling with will to truth: employing poetry as a tool and a condition what does it mean to move beyond the will to truth? to macnaughton, moving beyond the will to truth is a deliberate practice for liberation to “create new and multiple meanings” in the ece community (p. 199). she proposes several approaches to move beyond the will to truth, all of which are built on the idea of revealing the politics of the truths and unsettling their normalized meanings. drawing on macnaughton, i offer my own suggestions for moving beyond the will to truth by (1) intentionally disrupting the certainties of what is “best” or “true”; (2) refusing to unquestioningly adopt normalized pedagogical thoughts and actions as “what should be done and needs to be done”; and (3) attentively exploring both the dominant and alternative understandings of young children instead of seeing them in an either/or way. i aim to challenge the authority that is given to widely held “truths,” and i regard the claim of truth as problematic. yet, my argument for moving beyond the will to truth is about wrestling with will to truth rather than competing with it. to me, wrestling differs from competing in that wrestling involves moves in various directions instead of in the opposite direction only. the idea of wrestling emphasizes that our relationship with truth is not limited to either moving toward it or escaping from the systems of power that are associated with a truth. we may also move close to the constructed truths to carefully examine how they become norms over time and how they affect how we think and act. we can move away from truths by refusing to naturalize the existing hierarchical relationship between the constructed truth and its alternatives. we can also move around the constructed truths by means of attentively exploring alternative ways to think, act, feel, and practice as early childhood educators. because wrestling with the will to truth does not argue for a move solely in opposition to the constructed truths, the idea of moving beyond the will to truth does not aim to encourage educators to radically disapprove of what are (or have been) widely held as truths. rather, the suggestion to wrestle with the will to truth encourages various interactions with constructed truths, continuously and experimentally. through a combination of various moves, a space is created where alternative, unexpected, and multiple ways to understand ece continuously emerge. the aim in highlighting wrestling instead of competing with the will to truth is to avoid creating new uneven power relations in the process of normalizing opposite voices against “truth.” i chose to experiment with poetry because i am intrigued by the unlimited meanings packed into the succinct, yet thoughtfully selected, words that poetry invites. i use poetry as a tool and a condition to crack spaces for multiplicity and to disrupt singular truths. my purpose in sharing this experiment of moving beyond the will to truth with poetry is to illustrate one approach. i have no intention to claim poetry as the best approach, and i understand there are various ways and/or processes to move beyond the will to truth. before presenting my example of using poetry to move beyond the will to truth, i want to give some background about how i created this poem. the poem is made up of two monologues representing two imagined narrators. these monologues are inspired by conversations that arose from observing parents helping their young child to put on a jacket and the child was fully capable of doing this alone. some colleagues shared their concerns over this scenario because they saw it as parents actively discouraging young children from becoming independent. i have conflicting thoughts and feelings toward this concern. on one hand, i understand my colleagues’ view of independence because it is one of the characteristics my family values. on the other hand, as an asian growing up in a cultural context where parents helping young children is not uncommon, i understand that this scenario could also be interpreted as a message of care and love. for years i struggled to decide what should be done in responding to this scenario, and i gave myself a vague answer: “it depends on the context.” but i was still dissatisfied with this either/or answer, as i felt trapped by the complexity embedded in complicated contexts. through the process of november 2020 65 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice creating this braided poem, surprisingly, i was able to appreciate the complexity in the different understandings. this braided poem captures the parallels, overlaps, differences, and conflicts between the two perspectives, all at once. thus, this poem offers me an opportunity to think with these understandings in a both/and way. braiding two narrators’ stories invites us to understand their different perspectives in a both/and way, rather than either/or. although i visually merged these two stories by degrees, i do not aim to build a consensus on how this scenario should be understood. instead, i want to foreground the complexity in our understandings. ruminating on this article i raised the question at the beginning of this article, does knowing the truth in ece free us from the labour of wrestling with waves of pedagogical decision making? my answer is no! the intent to know the truths of early years pedagogy only leads us to endless struggles with the power effects that are generated from truths. one might november 2020 66 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice ask, “then what should we do with these waves?” i would say to live with them. we can embrace the complexities that are inherent in pedagogical decisions and creatively discover the potential learning opportunities hidden within them. as we live with the waves, we keep the conversations, questions, and experiments flowing. as one who has been searching to know and determine what is “right” and “good” and who is still wrestling with truths, i recognize the difficulty in reinventing our habitual understandings. nevertheless, like macnaughton (2005), i believe that by continuously working to move beyond the will to truth, we can free ourselves from “asymmetrical relations of power and their effects within specific regimes of truth” (p. 44). by wrestling with our will to truth, we can reestablish our relationship with the “truths” in ece. the process of wrestling with the will to truth is challenging, but it can also lead us to serendipitous encounters that may enrich and expand our understandings of ece. for example, while writing this poem, i consistently moved back and forth between two imagined narrators based on my background and previous experiences. this experience enabled me to understand this scenario more holistically because i can see how the two perspectives are connected (both/and) rather than separated (either/or). by inviting experimentations to wrestle with the will to truth, we can create a space where stories about ece are not constrained by normalized truths. by embracing complexity, we provoke conversations that are “ongoing, always in process, and never definitive” (leggo, 2019, p. 9). and these continuous and fluid conversations can crack stabilized ways of thinking and acting and enable us to live with the waves—the waves of pedagogical decision making that are part of the intense and challenging nature of working as an early childhood educator. november 2020 67 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references benozzo, a. (2018). poststructuralism. in c. cassell, a. l. cunliffe, & g. grandy (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative business and management research methods (pp. 86–101). sage. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526430212 cooke, m., wong, s., & press, f. (2019). towards a re-conceptualisation of risk in early childhood education. contemporary issues in early childhood, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949119840740 dahlberg, g., moss, p., & pence, a. (2013). beyond quality in early childhood education and care: languages of evaluation (3rd ed.). routledgefalmer. foucault, m. (1980). power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977 (c. gordon, trans.). pantheon. leggo, c. (2019). challenging hierarchy: narrative ruminations on leadership in education. in r. irwin, e. hasebe-ludt, & a. sinner (eds.), storying the world: the contributions of carl leggo on language and poetry (pp. 38–49). routledge. macnaughton, g. (2005). doing foucault in early childhood studies. routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & kocher, l. (2011). destabilizing binaries in early childhood education: the possibilities of pedagogical documentation. in p. danaher (ed.), beyond binaries in education research (pp. 46–59). routledge. winter/hiver 2017 37 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research well-being in the kindergarten eating environment and the role of early childhood educators japji anna bas japji anna bas is a phd candidate in the faculty of environmental studies at york university. she is a research and policy analyst with an interest in food policy, school food, international development and environmental politics. her research explores the ways that public policy shapes social environments and thereby impacts personal well-being. email: japjiannabas@gmail.com the full-day kindergarten (fdk) program in ontario was implemented gradually over a five-year period beginning in the 2010–2011 school year and reaching completion the 2014–2015 school year. prior to fdk implementation, 3to 5-year-olds in full-day childcare in ontario would have been covered under ontario’s day nurseries act (dna). first implemented in 1948, ontario’s dna was canada’s first provincial legislation specifically intended for child care. while the dna was still in effect the year this study was completed, 2014–2015, it has since been replaced by the child care and early years act (cceya), which has incorporated all previous nutrition-related policy and has added regulations to accommodate allergies, special dietary needs, and special feeding arrangements, along with “eating well with canada’s food guide—first nations, inuit, and métis” (health canada, 2010). the act integrates an understanding of children’s developmental needs into the regulatory system, and has refined age-specific criteria in all relevant areas, including eating and nutrition. by contrast, there are no age-specific regulations whatsoever for food and nutrition in the ministry of education’s school food and beverage policy. during the initial years of the fdk program, parents and teachers in the toronto district school board (tdsb) reported a number of distressing cases of inappropriately structured eating environments for very young children. in one of the motivating cases for this study, red mulberry school1, which implemented fdk in year 3 of the rollout (2012–2013), had 100 to 120 junior and senior kindergarten students aged 3–5 years eat lunch in one room under the supervision of only five untrained adults. these children had 20 minutes to eat lunches, often in packaging that the youngest could not even open, in a very loud and chaotic room. some children could cope, while others simply did not eat, hid under tables, “acted out,” or were sent to the office for, for example, hiding under the lunchroom tables (personal communication with jb2, november 22, 2014; as, december 1, 2014; mab, april 13, 2015; cb, february 22, 2017). teachers reported that many children were “difficult to handle” in the afternoon (mr, personal communication, april 24, 2015) and parents expressed concern for their children’s wellbeing during lunchtime (personal communication with dk, november 17, 2014; jb, november 22, 2014; as, december 1, 2014; mab april 13, 2015). it was this case, along with other similar accounts, that provided the initial stimulus for this study. in ontario, kindergarten children have recently begun to eat lunch at school with the implementation of the full-day kindergarten program. to date, there are no regulations to address the particular needs of young children in the school eating environment. drawing on a year-long three-phase study that followed a cohort of 21 children as they transitioned from full-day childcare to full-day kindergarten, this study explores the impact of staff training and staff relationships on the well-being of kindergarten students. findings suggest that the presence of an early childhood educator (ece), a minimum staffing of two adults per room, and a collaborative approach between teacher and ece have a positive impact on child well-being. key words: full-day kindergarten; early childhood education; well-being; eating environments winter/hiver 2017 38 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research method this study is a qualitative research study using a mixed methods approach to assess the impact of kindergarten eating environments on children’s well-being. research directly with child participants was based on the mosaic approach (clark & moss, 2001) to facilitate a participatory process. specifically, the participants introduced the researcher to their space and the people in the room, engaged in multiple loosely structured interviews, defined the meaning of the faces on the well-being chart3 used in the study, and drew pictures of their experiences of eating in the various study settings.4 these findings were triangulated with field notes detailing participants’ activities, attentiveness, and apparent mood throughout the day, supported by commentary from the immediate staff describing, for example, whether the classroom dynamics on a given day were typical or atypical, and interviews with key informants.5 conducted in the fifth year of the fdk rollout, 2014–2015, initial site selection was guided by a range of publicly available data in an effort to consider sites that were as structurally similar as possible. the criteria were as follows: the school was within a particular geographic area bounded by postal code, the school had to have a city-run childcare centre eligible for toronto children’s services subsidy, the quality ranking of the childcare centres’ preschool rooms were all moderately high, the schools’ fraser report rankings and learning opportunities index (loi) were relatively similar, and average parental incomes at all schools in the first round of review were not more than $5000 over the poverty line for a family of four. all 17 childcare–school pairings that met the first two criteria were considered. within this set, four childcare–school pairings met all five criteria. two of these four childcare centres agreed to participate. the director of the third childcare centre was enthusiastic, but their supervisor declined participation for reasons not made clear to the director. both the director and supervisor of the fourth childcare centre were enthusiastic, but further investigation revealed a potential conflict of interest. at that time, the supervisor offered that another of the childcare centres they supervised would be able to participate. this centre met four of the five criteria, but exceeded the average parental income stipulated in during the first review. nonetheless, this site was included to facilitate triangulation of results across the three sites (see table 1). table 1: site criteria (2014 data) site “preschool room daycare quality rating” (city of toronto) “school ranking” (fraser institute) “learning opportunities index” (tdsb) “average parental income” at school (fraser institute) blueberry 3.51/5 7/10 224 $41,000 raspberry 3.78/5 7.2/10 324 $53,400 huckleberry 3.68/5 7.2/10 394 $72,000 within each site, only children attending the childcare centre on a full-time basis and intending to attend the fdk program at the same school were eligible to participate. participation rates were 72.72%, 62.5%, and 100% of eligible children at the blueberry, raspberry, and huckleberry sites respectively, for a total of 20 participants at the inception of the study. over the course of the study, one child declined verbal assent, one child switched schools, one was not available for the third phase, and another, who intended to change schools but returned, contributed to participant interview data, such that ultimately there were a total of 21 participants—17 for the full course of the study and 4 who participated in one or two thirds of it. the study was conducted in three phases. in phase i, through the spring and summer of 2014, full-day observations winter/hiver 2017 39 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research of each participant were taken in the childcare setting with detailed note taking for 5 of every 15 minutes. in addition, participants were asked to situate themselves on an age-appropriate well-being chart consisting of 5 faces once every 90 minutes (with the exclusion of during the scheduled afternoon nap), were invited to draw a picture relating to eating at child care and engaged in a short semistructured interview at the end of the day to discuss their experiences of eating in the childcare centre and at home, along with other areas of interest to the child. during phase i, the parents of child participants were asked to complete a short survey including both demographic information mirroring that available in school board statistics about the school and questions regarding the child’s eating habits. in phase ii, child participants were interviewed twice—once in september and once in october 2014—about their experience of transitioning to kindergarten and were asked to situate their eating experiences on the well-being chart used in phase i. these interviews were conducted in the after-care setting which, for many participants, was also their daytime classroom. phase iii, much like phase i, consisted of a full day of observations for each participant, this time in the classroom setting. between january and june of 2015, child participants were observed for one day each and were interviewed as they situated themselves on the well-being chart once every 90 minutes on their observation day. additionally, 18 key informant interviews (see table 2) helped to provide further context and analysis. table 2: key informant interviews name* role kerry mccuaig early childhood policy fellow at the atkinson centre for child development, oise fidelia torres instructor at the school of early childhood education, george brown college beverley crossdale early childhood consultant with community living toronto r in-house cook at raspberry childcare centre e ece at raspberry childcare centre and beforeand after-school program cb lunchroom supervisor at red mulberry school ms oise student teacher at blueberry school and former ece with kindergarten-aged children prior to fdk ec tdsb kindergarten teacher and former ece dk tdsb kindergarten teacher and parent of child at red mulberry school mr tdsb kindergarten teacher at red mulberry school ic tdsb kindergarten teacher at huckleberry school winter/hiver 2017 40 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research md tdsb kindergarten teacher mrb tdsb kindergarten teacher at raspberry school gt health and physical education teacher at raspberry school jb tdsb special needs teacher; parent of allergenic child at red mulberry school as parent of children at red mulberry school, moved to raspberry school mab parent of children at red mulberry school jj special needs assistant at tdsb school in study area *note: only the names of interviewees whose work is in the public domain are included. all other names have been altered to protect the anonymity of the children they work with. the study explores the impact of the lack of age-specific school food policy on the well-being of the participants. well-being, here, is evaluated according to a model for well-being developed primarily based on amartya sen’s capabilities approach6 (1999), diener and seligman’s work on well-being7 (2004), and martin seligman’s work on flourishing8 (2011). my model for well-being offers three domains—material security, engagement, and relationship—with meaning at the core, underlying each domain (see figure 1).9 figure 1: well-being model. ec tdsb kindergarten teacher and former ece dk tdsb kindergarten teacher and parent of child at red mulberry school mr tdsb kindergarten teacher at red mulberry school ic tdsb kindergarten teacher at huckleberry school md tdsb kindergarten teacher mrb tdsb kindergarten teacher at raspberry school gt health and physical education teacher at raspberry school jb tdsb special needs teacher; parent of allergenic child at red mulberry school as parent of children at red mulberry school, moved to raspberry school mab parent of children at red mulberry school jj special needs assistant at tdsb school in study area *note: only the names of interviewees whose work is in the public domain are included. all other names have been altered to protect the anonymity of the children they work with. the study explores the impact of the lack of age-specific school food policy on the well-being of the participants. well-being, here, is evaluated according to a model for well-being developed primarily based on amartya sen’s capabilities approach6 (1999), diener and seligman’s work on well-being7 (2004), and martin seligman’s work on flourishing8 (2011). my model for wellbeing offers three domains—material security, engagement, and relationship—with meaning at the core, underlying each domain (see figure 1).9 figure 1: well-being model. relationship meaning material security engagement 4 winter/hiver 2017 41 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research these domains align easily with existing assessment categories for school food (brown, beardslee, & prothrowstith, 2008), konu and rimpela’s (2002) conceptual model for well-being in schools, and the ontario ministry of education’s (2011) student well-being research framework, rendering research findings readily available for both practical and academic applications (see table 3). table 3: well-being model and existing assessment categories for school food my model for well-being assessment categories for school food conceptual model for well-being in schools student well-being research framework material security health related benefits school conditions & health physical engagement cognitive and educational benefits means for self-fulfillment cognitive relationship behaviour and psychosocial benefits social relationships psychosocial this article focuses primarily on the relationship domain in phase iii, specifically exploring how staff training and staffing relationships in the school and school eating environment impact classroom dynamics and children’s experiences of their eating environments.10 in the classroom as originally proposed in our best future (pascal, 2009) and elaborated in the early years study 3 (mccain, mustard, & mccuaig, 2011) the full-day program would seamlessly integrate teachers and early childhood educators (eces) throughout a community hub where children would “spend their day in a consistent environment, with the same adults, all with the same expectations” (p. 10). in ontario, the fdk program was deliberately structured with intended complementarity in the roles of the classroom teacher and ece, wherein the former brings knowledge of elementary curriculum and the latter brings knowledge of early childhood development (underwood et al., 2016). however, implementation has not lived up to this standard and, in the tdsb in particular, the structure of contracts and union relationships has, in many cases, relegated eces to a secondary status which, in turn, has excluded them from contributing to planning and class design (k. mccuaig, personal communication, may 6, 2015; langford et al., 2016). at the same time, this study reveals that some individual school principals who have recognized the value of eces and their developmental education skills have managed to cultivate a collaborative atmosphere between classroom teachers and classroom eces. regardless of class size or other factors, in this study, it was those classes in which the teacher and ece work together to plan and structure both the day and the classroom that functioned the most smoothly, pointing to the central role of the ece for the well-being of the children in this study. the study involved childcare-centre–school pairings at blueberry, raspberry, and huckleberry schools, with participants in two classrooms at blueberry school, three classrooms at raspberry school, and three classrooms at huckleberry school (see table 4). winter/hiver 2017 42 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 4: participant distribution in kindergarten classrooms site classroom # of students # of full-study participants lunchtime supervision blueberry east 26 4 untrained blueberry west 24 3 untrained raspberry north-east 33 2 ece raspberry north-west 33 1 untrained raspberry south-west 32 1 untrained huckleberry north 28 1 ece (b&a*) + classroom ece and teacher huckleberry east 28 1 ece (b&a) + classroom ece huckleberry north-west 14 4 1st**: ece (practicum incomplete) 2nd: classroom teacher 3rd & 4th: untrained * b&a= staff in beforeand after-school care program **1st= first observation day, 2nd= second observation day, etc. at raspberry school, the principal helped to foster a solid collaborative approach between the teachers and classroom eces and, despite having by far the largest classes in the study, these were the smoothest running classes in the study. classroom eces were observed having opportunities to lead activities, classroom teachers were observed collaborating on in-the-moment decision making, teachers described how implementing ece strategies at snack time, for example, had been effective, and both teachers and eces were observed working with the students in small groups. in contrast, at blueberry school, the eces functioned as teacher assistants. one of the two classes functioned fairly smoothly when the student teacher was present as a contributing member of the teaching team. this student teacher was a former ece who had worked full-time with preschooland kindergarten-aged children in a toronto childcare centre. unlike the classroom ece, the student teacher was given opportunities to guide the classroom and, in fact, was observed to engage a participant who appeared disinterested in teacher-led activities. the student teacher attributed the ability to engage the children to previous ece training (ms, personal communication, march 5, 2015). in the other class at blueberry school, the presence of a strong teacher was often insufficient to keep the class engaged, and during centre time many of the typically popular stations—like the water table, science centre, and crafts table—remained entirely vacant while the students’ attention was drawn to the promethean board, an interactive white board which showed children’s music videos and cartoons. at one point the teacher had given a participant a “double time out” for reasons he could not recall. the participant described feeling “super sad.” in this class, too, the classroom ece functioned as a teacher’s assistant, setting up materials but not contributing to decision making or meaningful opportunities to engage with the students as a group. winter/hiver 2017 43 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the importance of the ece was, perhaps, never more evident than in the one classroom in the study with no ece. at huckleberry school, four participants were in a class with only 14 students, one teacher, and no ece. this was the smallest classroom in the most affluent of the three schools, and it was also by far the most chaotic classroom in the study. on observation days, the three male participants in this classroom each initiated two to four violent interactions with their peers every hour and were described as “behavioural” by both the classroom teacher and other teachers, like the drama and library teachers. because there was only one trained adult in this classroom, the teacher spent large portions of her time managing the particular needs of these students. though she did employ a range of techniques in her attempts to engage the students, such as starting each day outdoors all year long, teaching lessons outdoors, offering leadership roles, incorporating games like simon says into routines, and using both breath work and visualization mindfulness practices, each of these children was sent to the office at least once during observation. it is worth noting, however, that none of the three boys described as behavioural by the school staff had demonstrated a similar level of aggression in the childcare setting. during phase i, one of the boys demonstrated deep sadness over separation from family members, sometimes crying throughout the day, consoled only by the close nurturing of one of the eces, and another cried easily and often throughout all phases of the study, showing a profound emotional concern for the natural world and animals. while both of these children were observed to be frequently physically violent and threatening to their peers in the school setting, neither one of these children had engaged in a single violent altercation during observation days in the childcare setting just a few months earlier. the third of these boys had demonstrated aggression in the childcare setting, but it was sufficiently infrequent that it did not receive special attention. the fdk program is meant to provide students with fluidity of care in an educational setting where the teacher offers curriculum and the ece offers “age-appropriate program planning that promotes each child’s physical, cognitive, language, emotional, social and creative development and well-being” (ontario ministry of education, 2010). the stark contrast in the “behaviours” of these three children suggests that the absence of an ece to support emotional and social well-being may have a more significant impact on some children than on others. the other two classrooms at huckleberry school, each double the number of students (28 students), were staffed with both a teacher and an ece. in the east classroom, the ece was observed tending to a participant’s wound from a fall in the playground, spending well over 10 minutes with him to ensure that he felt better both physically and emotionally before he returned to play with his peers. this same ece was later observed to advocate for children during gym class, engaging a male participant when he was reluctant to participate and advocating for other students when the physical education teacher denied them water and washroom breaks. in the north classroom, the ece was observed helping the students and the supply teacher follow classroom routines on a day when the regular classroom teacher was involved in a training program. in fact, on multiple occasions, this ece soothed distraught children and helped the supply teacher better understand the needs of the particular group of children in the class. full-day observations, included in the study to gain a better understanding of participants throughout the day when they were hungry, eating, sated, or otherwise, revealed the essential role of eces for child well-being in fullday care settings. in classrooms where the ece played an active role in planning and structure at both raspberry and huckleberry schools, children engaged in activities and were well supported when they could not. in the one classroom observed where the ece was employed as a support staff, at blueberry school, centre time appeared dominated by screen time rather than experiential learning, and a participant described receiving a punishment to which he could not ascribe meaning. finally, in the one class with no ece whatsoever, three of the four participants demonstrated ongoing signs of distress and exhibited a level of violence inconsistent with their behaviour in the winter/hiver 2017 44 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research childcare setting. the full-day observations within the classroom setting revealed both the eces’ unique ability to promote the children’s overall well-being and the importance of having two trained adults who are familiar with the children present at all times. the lunch hour during the lunch hour at school, there are no minimum training requirements for staff. key informants noted that because lunchtime is not instructional time, it was sometimes viewed as an “afterthought” because “it’s only an hour” (personal communication, md, october 29, 2015; as, december 1, 2015; cb, february 22, 2017). additionally, because it is “just an hour” in the middle of the day, the lunch hour can be very difficult to staff (md, personal communication, october 29, 2015). this, however, is a significant departure from what was intended by the architects of fdk. indeed, the policy recommendations for staffing clearly outline that “the schedules of the (two classroom) eces should overlap during the children’s lunch period to allow for lunch breaks for the staff while maintaining a learning environment for the children” (pascal, 2009, p. 61). far from an afterthought not included in instructional time, lunchtime in the fdk program was meant to be supported entirely by trained staff to support the children’s well-being and mealtime socialization. in the childcare setting, current regulations require that staffing ratios are 1 staff member for every 8 children, with a maximum of 16 children per room in a preschool room (children ages 2.5 to 6 years) and 1 to 13 with a maximum of 26 children in a kindergarten room11 (children ages 3.5 to 5.5 years). during phase i, study participants were in preschool rooms at their respective childcare centres with a 1:8 staffing ratio and a maximum of 16 children. at blueberry childcare centre, attending staff sat and ate with children at two u-shaped tables while other staff brought food into the room. while staff “sequenced” the food, serving a course of vegetables first, followed by a course that included starch, a protein, and finally fresh fruit at the end, children were offered choice, had the opportunity to serve themselves, and engaged in conversation with their peers. staff offered guidance, such as reminders to ask to pass dishes rather than reach across the table. child participants unanimously reported feeling “super-happy” during lunch, and parents reported that their children ate a wider variety of “healthy” foods than they did at home. similarly, at raspberry childcare centre, staff who were not the attending staff brought the food to the room while children sat at two rectangular tables, each with an attending staff member standing nearby, serving food, and reminding the children to eat. child participants at this site reported feeling “in the middle,” “happy,” and “super happy” during lunch. at huckleberry childcare centre, staff were responsible for final-stage food preparation and, as a result, primarily interacted with the children to serve food and to separate “disruptive” children when necessary. in this setting, child participants reported feeling “angry,” “nothing,” and “super happy” during lunch. phase i findings suggest that, within the childcare setting, child participants most enjoyed the opportunity to share a meal with staff while being offered both choice and guidance, as was the case at blueberry childcare centre. in the school setting, in the absence of guiding policy, lunchrooms of up to 33 children were staffed by a single adult. in some cases, the lunch supervisor was an ece and in others, lunch hour staff were untrained adults. during phase iii, the setting was so often a loud and chaotic one in which the children had difficulty eating and where disruptions and altercations sometimes became violent that the question of optimal eating environment, so present in phase i, was superseded by the questions “are the children able to eat?” and “are the children safe?” at raspberry school, one of the lunchrooms was supervised by a trained ece who was also a staff member in the beforeand after-school care program provided by the childcare centre on site. though this ece described challenges due to being the only staff member and because the children only had about 20 minutes for the lunch winter/hiver 2017 45 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research portion of the hour, the room she supervised was without incident on observation days. the ece explained that there had been a steep learning curve in the fall for both herself and the students. however, as she got to know the children, she was able to implement her training to establishing seating arrangements which paired children who had an easy time with the routine with those who did not, focusing guidance on those children who had the most difficulty or were the most likely to disrupt their peers, structuring calm activities for those children who tended to eat very quickly (so that those who were still eating were not drawn to play in lieu of eating), arriving early to structure toileting time, and maintaining an even and instructive tone during emergent incidents. the child participants in this room reported feeling “in the middle” and “sad” during lunch, though within the context of other kindergarten lunchrooms observed, it is noteworthy that children were both safe and able to eat. on the other hand, the other two classrooms were supervised at lunch by untrained adults. in one case, the lunch supervisor (ls) was the parent of a child at the school, and in the other case, the ls was the grandparent of a student at the school. the former ls explained that, feeling very overwhelmed at the start of the school year, she had independently undertaken to read as much as she could about child development of 3to 5-year-olds and strategies for “managing” classroom dynamics. of the lunchrooms supervised by untrained adults, this was the most effective insofar as while the room was messy and loud, the children were safe. that said, the ls was observed to manage the lunchroom in this way at the expense of assisting opening containers and offering children guidance—the room was not dangerous, but the children did receive the adult attention they required. the ls in the other room was both kind and hardworking, but during observation the lunchroom descended into chaos when one child had a toileting accident in the washroom requiring the full attention of the one staff present. over a short period of time, mounting numbers of children became distressed at not being able to use the rest room. at the same time, two separate altercations among a total of five students distracted other students, most of whom were then unable to eat. the one participant in the room joined a group of her peers rearranging the furniture, dragging the children who were still eating around the room in their chairs. the participant in this room reported feeling “super happy” and appeared more energetic than she did at any other time that day, perhaps indicating a need for more unstructured play time. that said, she ate less than a quarter of her lunch. in fact, few children ate that day and, later, the classroom ece noted that the children were “always more hungry for afternoon snack,” while, in classrooms where the lunchroom environment was conducive to the children eating lunch, few children participated in afternoon snack. neither of the two kindergarten classes at blueberry school had trained staff supervising the lunch hour. in one class, the lunchroom was supervised by a parent of a child at the school, and the other class was supervised by someone who lived nearby. in addition, both rooms had students from older grades in the kindergarten lunchrooms who were meant to assist the younger children. in the east classroom, supervised by a parent, there were no significant safety issues, but the majority of the children were not able to eat even half of their lunch during the allotted time frame, and child participants reported negative feelings about this. in fact, while this was not among the most challenging lunchrooms in the study, the ls in this room engaged me in a lengthy conversation, eager to express concern over the functioning of the lunchroom, centered around the belief that “it is essential that there be better staff-to-student ratios during the lunch hour.” in this room, the older children sat together in a corner of the room and were of no assistance whatsoever. while there were no noteworthy safety concerns, students’ inability to eat enough food during the allotted time is problematic. the ls in the other lunchroom was not able to effectively communicate with students because of limited english skills and instead spent the time in the lunchroom cleaning. based on observations, it seems that the staff at the school was aware of this situation and made efforts to supplement the formal supervision, though there was no verbal confirmation of this. on observation days, both the classroom teacher and the classroom ece were winter/hiver 2017 46 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research observed giving up their own lunch break to assist in supervision. another teacher from the school came to relieve the classroom teaching staff on two separate occasions. additionally, the school principal spent part of the lunchtime with this classroom on each observation day. when asked, child participants reported that these adults were in the classroom at lunchtime “always,” “mostly always,” “most of the time,” and “it’s always like this.” the older students in this classroom actively engaged the kindergarten students, though this engagement seemed to increase in the presence of the principal and classroom teacher. all of this suggests that the school staff were working together to manage what appeared to be a suboptimal staffing arrangement. unfortunately, even with this level of oversight, the classroom ls offered me chocolates with nuts on three separate occasions in a school with a kindergarten student having an anaphylactic nut allergy. the seriousness of this failing cannot be overstated, especially because it is part of the lunchroom supervisor’s job to ensure adherence to the tdsb’s “peanut-free zones” policy when there are children with severe allergies present. at huckleberry school, both of the classrooms with only one participant were supervised at lunch by an ece, whereas the small class with four participants was supervised for the first six months by a supervisor who had completed the ece program coursework but had not yet completed the practicum and for the last four months by an untrained adult. in the north classroom, both the classroom ece and the classroom teacher joined the ls ece to ensure that the students had a strong team and continuity during the lunch hour. this was by far the best-staffed room in the study, as the ls ece was also a staff member in the beforeand after-school care program run by the childcare centre in the building and the teacher was sufficiently dedicated to even donate her time on a day when she was engaged in training elsewhere in the building. the “seamless care” approach was seen in action here, and the lunch hour in this classroom was relaxed and comfortable, though this came at the expense of both members of the teaching team donating their lunch break to the students. the other kindergarten classroom which was also staffed with an ece-trained lunchroom supervisor (who was also a staff member in the before and after school care program) and the donated time of the classroom ece, was similarly calm and without incident, as compared to the lunchrooms with untrained staff. again, the one class of only 14 students offers an interesting case because it was the only lunchroom in which the same students were observed with both (partially) trained and untrained staff. there was one observation day in february, while the trained ls was still in place. on this day, while there were significant challenges during the regular class hours, the lunchtime ran smoothly. the ls explained that initially, “lunch was crazy. i can’t explain it, it was just crazy.” the ls went on, however, to explain that they had established a seating arrangement (with as few as two students to a table and none of the challenging students seated together) and a handwashing and washroom routine that staggered the children based on each child’s pacing, as observed. the ls described that “it took about a month and a half to get it sorted” (personal communication, february 11, 2015). on that observation day, there were no incidents during the lunch hour and, in fact, the lunchtime was calmer than it had been during instructional time and offered students a relaxed eating environment. the observation days when the lunchroom was supervised by an untrained adult show a different picture. on one of the three other observation days, two of the challenging students were absent and the ls was late enough that lunch was almost entirely supervised by the classroom teacher. while this lunch hour was relatively smooth, the classroom teacher described that day as atypical, repeatedly telling me, “it’s so quiet today because two of the major players aren’t here. this never happens!” (personal communication, may19, 2015). according to the classroom teacher, the relative calm could be attributed to the absence of two of the “disruptive” children, though lunch had also been quite calm in the presence of an ece-trained lunch supervisor. the lunch hours on the other two observation days were described as typical for that room and were both consistent with the classroom challenges and with the other lunchrooms supervised by untrained adults. in other words, there was an escalation winter/hiver 2017 47 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research of disruptive and dangerous behaviour during the lunch hour. for example, on one day a male participant aggressively chased a female student around the room, and when he caught her, he pulled her to the ground by the back of the neck, mounted her, and searched her pockets. he explained later that he believed she had stolen candy from his backpack. this was not the only violent altercation this student initiated during the 20-minute lunchtime supervised by an untrained adult, but it was the only one the lone staff member observed. on the other observation day, the participant being observed had a very difficult time coping in the absence of a familiar adult. though he was slightly less aggressive with his peers than he had been during instructional time, he did not eat anything at all, he knocked other children’s food to the ground, he knocked down the building structure a peer had left to work on after lunch, and he cried deeply and could not be consoled by the lunch supervisor. it was clearly an extremely difficult 20 minutes for this child. the lunch hour findings from a typical day in this atypical classroom support the findings from the other lunchrooms in the study: that kindergarten children require support from familiar trained staff during the lunch hour. overall, regardless of class size or the typical functioning of the students in the classroom, those lunchrooms supervised by a trained ece functioned much better than those supervised by an untrained adult. that said, it is imperative to note that every ece-trained lunchroom supervisor underscored that the lunchrooms are severely understaffed, based on the needs of children aged 3 to 5 years old. the lunchroom ece at raspberry school elaborated that they were unable to properly implement their training due to excessive numbers of children in a small space, inadequate staff-to-student ratios, and insufficient time for children to eat (personal communication, january 29, 2015). nonetheless, when compared to lunchrooms supervised by entirely untrained staff, eces were at least able to create a safe environment in which the children could at least eat. there is a structural suboptimality to lunchtime, which the eces are able to partially mitigate, but this by no means represents a best practice. child participants, at the age of 3 or 4, were understandably unaware of the staff ’s level of training and, additionally, had no basis for comparison. with respect to the kindergarten eating environment, the children did, however, independently12, repeatedly, and consistently note that (1) there was not enough time to eat, (2) they were reprimanded for talking, and (3) it was often too noisy to eat. nonetheless, most participants still felt positively about lunch because (1) they liked to eat, and (2) they liked being able to talk to their friends. the fact that the children both complained about being reprimanded for talking with their peers and pointed to talking with peers as one of the reasons they like lunchtime indicates that offering a lunch setting where they have the time to eat and socialize would be appreciated by children of this age. indeed, it is noteworthy that children independently identified the lost opportunity for socializing as a concern and the possibility for socializing as an asset, because key informant interviews also identified the lost opportunity for mealtime socialization as one of the problems with the school eating environment. setting the tone both the nature of the relationship between the teacher and the ece in the classroom and the structure of the lunchroom setting are significantly impacted by the direction set by the principal. according to the literature, the principal is the single most important factor in school effectiveness (bartoletti & connelly, 2013; smith, 2016). additionally, key informant interviewees underscored the central role of the principal (personal communication, mrb, june 25, 2015; gt, june 25, 2015; e, june 23, 2015) and suggested that principals have considerable leeway in structuring both the budget and the timetable for staff, with considerable direct impact on the classroom environment (personal communication, lb, april 27, 2015; md, october 2015; jb, november 22, 2015), thereby establishing the parameters of staffing and staff-to-student relationships (personal communication, lb, april 27, 2015; md, october 2015; as, december 1, 2015 ). as the librarian at blueberry school noted, “the whole winter/hiver 2017 48 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research school culture reflects the principal’s leadership” (personal communication, april 27, 2015). this is consistent with observations throughout the study. while this is a qualitative study with a small sample size, because there were participants in multiple classrooms at each school it was possible to gain a sense of what kind of teacher–ece relationship each of the three principals fostered. children benefitted from the input of the classroom ece in those settings where a balanced teacher–ece relationship was fostered. this finding is consistent with the literature (corter et.al. 2007; gibson & pelletier, 2010; mcginty, justice, & rimm-kaufman, 2008). throughout the course of the study, key informants described the benefits of the fluid care model, and one key actor described how this model was implemented during the lunch hour at their school. kerry mccuaig, fidelia torres, and the student teacher and former kindergarten-age ece all echoed the importance of seamless transitions and fluid care that were outlined in pascal’s (2009) with our best future in mind (personal communication, k. mccuaig, may 6, 2015; f. torres, june 18, 2015; ms, march 5, 2015). the student teacher explained that during their years as an ece, the staff closely monitored what children ate (as is required by regulation) and would gain a sense of “how they [the children] would be able to manage in the afternoon” (personal communication, ms, march 5, 2015). through developing close relationships with the children and always having a trained staff person well known to each child in the room, the staff in the childcare centres could better anticipate and respond to the children’s needs. another key informant, a kindergarten teacher whose assignment was to be the relief staff for all five kindergarten teachers at their school, described a solution to the lunchroom staffing challenge employed at their school. based on concerns about the safety of the children during the lunch hour, the kindergarten teachers at their informal weekly lunch hour meetings came up with a proposal that classroom teacher and ece lunch breaks be staggered so that every day, every kindergarten lunchroom would be staffed by both a lunch supervisor and one member of the regular classroom teaching team. the principal agreed, and the teaching staff reported that the situation had “improved” (md, personal communication, october 29, 2015). this third-party report suggests that kindergarten students at this school benefitted from the principal’s willingness to implement this teacher-driven strategy. that said, this is but a single case within a much larger system. additionally, whether assessing the impact of principals, teachers, eces, or lunchroom supervisors, it is important to bear in mind that great people can sometimes transcend structural weaknesses. consequently, it is important not to conflate the efficacy of an extraordinary individual working in a poorly designed system with programmatic success. indeed, the goal here is to identify the problem areas and best practices in order to benefit all students. one challenge, as both the teacher from the small classroom at huckleberry school and the teacher from the aforementioned example have noted, is that parents remain unaware of what the problem areas are, and consequently cannot contribute to dialogue advocating for programmatic change. indeed, one parent of a child participant described enquiring about the lunch hour, finding staff responses evasive, and feeling that “the whole thing is shrouded in mystery” (personal communication, bmp, october 2014). what is frightening, is that this secrecy may be intentional. one interviewee, a kindergarten teacher in the tdsb, described someone from the ontario ministry of education early years branch specifically instructing the kindergarten teaching staff at their school to “not be too specific” in response to parent concerns about the lunch hour, explaining that “we want this to sound good.” the interviewee when on to say “why don’t the parents know? because the school knows it’s bad.… i don’t think it’s okay. i want parents to understand that it is hard to keep them [the children] safe with these parameters” (md, personal communication, october 29, 2015). these sentiments—that it is up to the parents to lobby for change, on the one hand, and that parents are kept, or are intentionally kept, in the dark, on the other—echo throughout the key informant interviews. it is clear is that there is a need for both further research and greater transparency in order to have a meaningful dialogue and establish best practices for the kindergarten eating environment. winter/hiver 2017 49 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research conclusion the study was initially designed to examine the well-being impacts of the kindergarten school eating environment and to identify best practices for age-specific regulation in this area. the childcare setting offers a useful basis for comparison, because children of this age have been in full-day care in childcare centres for decades, often in school buildings, and the regulation of this care is mandated through the ministry of education. among the three sites, blueberry childcare centre offered the eating environment with the highest approval rating among child participants and the most positive impact on both mealtime socialization and food choices, based on study observations and parent reports. the structure of the school lunch hour, with expectations that children will eat and play outdoors in one hour under the supervision of single, often untrained, adult, raised questions of basic safety and whether or not the children were able to eat. excluding rooms where staff donated their time out of concern for the children, the best kindergarten lunchroom in the study was the one at raspberry school staffed by a single ece. this room, however, can be described as effective but not optimal, because while the children were safe and could eat, the lunchroom operated with an institutional efficiency and child participants expressed negative feelings about this. throughout the first and third phases of the study, participants were observed for a full day. classroom observations demonstrated that the most effective classrooms were those staffed by two adults, a teacher and an ece, who had the opportunity to cultivate a collaborative approach to running the classroom. while in these cases the collaborative approach was supported by a strong principal, this needs to be supported through policy, as was intended by the architects of fdk (pascal, 2009). both key informants and the literature suggest that structuring planning time for both members of the teaching team promotes co-teaching (k. mccuaig, personal communication, may 6, 2015; underwood et. al., 2016). furthermore, study findings suggest that best practices in eating environments were only found in the childcare setting, that the safest school lunchrooms are staffed by trained eces, and that some lunchrooms staffed by untrained adults can only be described as dangerous. in fact, teaching staff, eces, and untrained lunchroom staff all expressed concern for the welfare and well-being of children during the lunch hour under the current conditions. observations show that many staff members are sufficiently concerned about lunchroom staffing that they volunteer their time to support their students during that time, in some cases even in the presence of an ecetrained lunchroom supervisor. the rooms in which ece lunchtime supervision is supplemented with classroom ece and/or teacher supervision represent the closest example of a best practice in the school setting and most closely align with the original design for fdk. while it is clear that the students in these classes benefit from this volunteer work, the risks evident in some of the classrooms demonstrate that a policy response is necessary to ensure better supervision and care during the lunch hour for all students. references bartoletti, j., & connelly, g. (2013). leadership matters: what the research says about the importance of principal leadership. national association of elementary school principals. retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/document/218001537/leadershipmatters brown, j. l., beardslee, w. h., & prothrow-stith, d. (2008). impact of school breakfast on children’s health and learning. commissioned by the sodexo foundation. clark, a., & moss, p. (2001). listening to young children: the mosaic approach. wiltshire, uk: national children’s bureau & joseph rowntree foundation. corter, c., bertrand, j., pelletier, j., griffin, t., mckay, d., patel, s., & ioannone, p. (2007). toronto first duty phase 1 final report: evidencebased understanding of integrated foundations for early childhood. toronto, on: toronto first duty. winter/hiver 2017 50 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research diener, e., & seligman, m. (2004). beyond money: toward an economy of well-being. psychological science in the public interest, 5(1), 1–31. gibson, a., & pelletier, j. (2010). can we work together? preliminary findings from an examination of ece and teacher dynamics in full-day early learning-kindergarten. retrieved from https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/atkinson/userfiles/file/events/2011-06-01%20-%20 summer%20institute/si2011_poster_eceandkteacher.pdf health canada. (2010). eating well with canada’s food guide: first nations, inuit, and métis. retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/ health-canada/services/food-nutrition/reports-publications/eating-well-canada-food-guide-first-nations-inuit-metis.html konu, a., & rimpela, m. (2002). well-being in schools: a conceptual model. health promotion international, 17(1), 79–87. langford, r., di santo, a., valeo, a., underwood, k., & lenis, a. (2016). the innovation of ontario’s full-day kindergarten teams: have they reproduced the split systems of care and education? gender and education, 1–18. mccain, m. n., mustard, j. f., & mccuaig, k. (2011). early years study 3: making decisions, taking action. toronto, on: margaret & wallace mccain family foundation. mcginty, a. s., justice, l., & rimm-kaufman, s. e. (2008). sense of school community for preschool teachers serving at-risk children. early education and development, 19(2), 361–384. ontario ministry of education. (2010). the full-day early learning kindergarten program (draft version). retrieved from https://www.edu. gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/kindergarten_english_june3.pdf ontario ministry of education. (2011). student well-being research framework. retrieved from http://www.tcdsb.org/board/documents/ student%20well-being%20research%20framework.pdf pascal, c. (2009). with our best future in mind: implementing early learning in ontario. toronto, on: queen’s printers of ontario. seligman, m. e. p. (2011). flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. new york, ny: free press. sen, a. (1999). development as freedom. new york, ny: anchor books. smith, b. (2016). the role of leadership style in creating a great school. retrieved from https://selu.usask.ca/documents/research-andpublications/srrj/srrj-1-1-smith.pdf underwood, k., di santo, a., valeo, a., & langford, r. (2016). partnerships in full-day kindergarten classrooms: early childhood educators and kindergarten teachers working together. canadian children, 41(4), 36–45. (endnotes) 1 site names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the children. 2 with the exception of three professionals in the field of early childhood whose views are in the public domain, anonymity was offered to all key informants to protect the privacy of the children they work with. 3 the well-being chart used in this study included 5 faces including super happy/wb5, happy/wb4, neutral/wb3, sad/wb2 and super sad/wb1. the neutral face was referred to as “kind of in the middle” and some participants referred to it as “bored”. additionally, some participants identified wb1 as “angry”. winter/hiver 2017 51 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research 4 the initial study design included children taking photographs, as in the original mosaic study, but the ethics research review committee at the school board declined the use of photography. 5 staff commentary during observation days was documented in field notes, whereas key informant interviews were recorded and were not conducted on site. 6 in development as freedom (1999), nobel laureate amartya sen builds on aristotle’s understanding of human flourishing, arguing that “development has to be more concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms we enjoy” (p. 14). sen outlines that an emphasis on human capability, rather than human capital, leads to “the expansion of human freedom to live the kind of lives that people have reason to value” (p. 295). ultimately sen posits that a person’s ability to lead a good life is based on valued beings and doings, such as being healthy and having loving relationships, and this capabilities approach contributes to a new set of social indicators, including the united nations human development index which embodies this approach to well-being. 7 similarly, in “beyond money: toward an economy of well-being” (2004), diener and seligman argue that “well-being should become a primary focus of policy makers” because, once basic needs are met, social relationships and work satisfaction emerge as key indicators for well-being, which, in turn, produces positive outcomes like improved work performance and good health. 8 more recently, in flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being (2011), seligman outlines five elements of well-being—positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning, and accomplishment (pp. 13-29). 9 because my model is eudaimonic (focusing on meaning and self-realization to evaluate functioning), not hedonic (focusing on feeling pleasure), positive emotion, or affect, is not among the domains. 10 the comparison of children’s eating experiences in the childcare setting and the kindergarten setting is addressed in an article in review for social indicators research and overall policy recommendations are detailed in an article in review for canadian association of food studies. 11 preschool room regulations under the child care and early years act remain the same as they were under the day nurseries act (in its final year at the time of the study), though kindergarten room regulations have gone from a ratio of 1:10 with a maximum of 20 children to 1:13 with a maximum of 26 children. winter/hiver 2017 52 vol. 42 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research 12 in response to general questions, such as “how do you feel about lunch at school?” children identified these areas of concern without prompting or suggestion in conversation with the reviewer. september 2019 56 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research grill guys and drive-thru girls: discourses of gender in young people’s part-time work lindsay c. sheppard, rebecca raby, wolfgang lehmann, and riley easterbrook lindsay c. sheppard is a graduate student in the department of child and youth studies at brock university. her specific interests include intersections of girlhood and activism in online and offline spaces, activism through art, conceptualizing agency, and young people’s participation. her undergraduate thesis examined how teenage girls use self-generated blogs/websites to mobilize their activism and activist identities, and the implications of this activism for better understanding teenage girls’ online political engagement. email: lsheppard@brocku.ca rebecca raby is a sociologist and professor in the department of child and youth studies, brock university. she studies constructions of childhood and adolescence; theories of agency, resistance, and contestation; inequalities in young people’s lives; and child and youth participation. her research and publications include school rules: discipline, obedience, and elusive democracy (2012, university of toronto press) and (with shauna pomerantz) smart girls: success, school, and the myth of post-feminism (2017, university of california press). email: rraby@brocku.ca wolfgang lehmann is associate professor and undergraduate program chair in the department of sociology at western university. he conducts research and publishes on working-class first-generation students’ experiences at university, school-work transitions, vocational education, international student mobility, and earliest part-time work. his publications include choosing to labour? school-work transitions and social class (2007, mcgill-queen’s university press) and the edited volume education and society: canadian perspectives (2016, oxford university press). email: wlehmann@uwo.ca riley easterbrook is completing a master’s degree in family relations and human development in the department of family relations and applied nutrition at the university of guelph. riley’s present research focuses on how lgbtq+ parents discuss sex and sexuality with their children. riley’s previous research focused on a wide range of topics including young people and their first work experiences, autism education, and working with primary care physicians to address poverty with their patients. email: reasterb@ uoguelph.ca early, part-time work experiences as cashiers, drive-thru attendants, and short-order cooks are common for youth1 in north america, and sometimes popularly constructed as a way to keep youth “out of trouble” and prepare them for future employment (e.g., raby, lehmann, easterbrook, & helleiner, 2018; usher et al., 2014). however, most literature on youth and work is focused on either health and safety risks (e.g., breslin, koehoorn, & cole, 2008; tucker & turner, 2015) or the potential for early, parttime work to lead to negative academic and psychosocial outcomes (e.g., lee & orazem, 2010; mortimer & staff, 2004; post & pong, 2009). it is also largely quantitative in nature. more limited qualitative research has examined young people’s experiences at work, mostly focused on how they balance school and work, their work tasks, and how they deal with workplace issues (e.g., cohen, 2013; raby et al., 2018; zierold & mcgeeney, 2016). while gender is sometimes addressed in such studies, it is rarely a central focus; more is needed on gendered processes, inequalities, and experiences around early we engage with poststructural feminism to examine how 32 young workers in ontario and british columbia perceived, replicated, navigated, and challenged gendered discourses. we discuss three related emerging themes. first, girls positioned themselves and other girls who work as “go-getters,” resonating with “can-do” girlhood narratives. second, many participants engaged in and embraced gender-typical work, while others raised critical, feminist concerns. third, some participants experienced diversions from gender-typical work, and their reflections both reproduced and challenged dominant gender norms. we demonstrate that contradictory discourses of gender, gender inequality, and growing up shape young people’s early work experiences in multiple ways. key words: young people; gender; work; part-time jobs; inequality september 2019 57 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research work (besen-cassino, 2018). while many young people do work before they are 15 (e.g., see breslin et al., 2008), north american research about youth and work also tends to focus on the experiences of youth over 15, overlooking younger people in jobs such as babysitting, lawn care, and newspaper delivery. this paper enhances the north american literature on young people’s earliest job experiences and illustrates the ongoing saliency of gender and gender inequality in shaping these experiences. most of our participants were positive about their early work as a way to earn money and develop skills, echoing observations made by others (besen-cassino, 2018; herrygers & wieland, 2017; hobbs et al., 2007; levine & hoffner, 2006), although they also faced challenges around transportation, scheduling, and safety (raby et al., 2018). in this paper we specifically focus on how gender shaped our participants’ very first job experiences and their reflections on them. unexpectedly in our analysis, many girls’ comments reflected and reproduced a “go-getter” narrative (harris, 2004) that positioned girls as more likely to work, whereas the boys we spoke to did not see equivalent gender narratives shaping young people’s work. overall, we focus on three themes: the girls’ use of “can-do” and “future girl” narratives that position girls as “go-getters” (harris, 2004; pomerantz & raby, 2017); the gendered nature of our participants’ work and how participants discussed related gender inequality in their work; and how some participants managed diversions from gender-typical work. before addressing these themes, we review literature on young people’s gendered work, with a focus on north american research; discuss “can do” girls, postfeminism, and poststuctural feminism; and explain our methods. literature review: gendered work and “can-do” girls gendered work meanings and expectations of work are shaped by various intersecting social factors, including, but not limited to, gender (besen-cassino, 2014, 2018; chan & ng, 2013; damaske, 2011; francis, archer, moote, dewitt, macleod, & yeomans, 2017; harris, 2004; raby et al., 2018). drawing on several quantitative studies and interviews with young adults about their recollections of early work, besen-cassino challenges the frequent focus on adulthood in research on gender inequality and work, and also controls for variables such as marriage and childcare that are typically used as factors to explain the ongoing gender wage gap. besen-cassino (2018) highlights that workrelated gender inequality begins in earliest work. for instance, unlike boys, many girls learn that asking for a raise or a change to work terms is negative, a finding reinforced through a smaller research project besen-cassino conducted with parents employing babysitters. unlike boys, girls are also told that brand discounts they receive should be enough compensation for their work, rather than getting a raise (besen-cassino, 2018). further, gender expectations significantly shape the kind of work that young people engage in and the tasks they complete in workplaces, which relates to gender inequality (besen-cassino, 2018; blackstone et al., 2014; clampetlundquist, 2013; good & cooper, 2016). gender segregation begins in informal jobs (i.e., snow removal, lawn care, babysitting), which young people typically engage in before they are of legal working age (besen-cassino, 2018). although some boys babysit, very few girls do snow removal and lawn care (besen-cassino, 2018). further, boys tend to transition into formal work settings earlier than girls, in part because girls are often encouraged to carry on as babysitters (see also besen-cassino, 2018), preventing them from gaining the experience and higher pay that can come with formal work. more broadly, girls are frequently in positions that involve more direct interaction with customers, whereas boys frequently work in jobs that are seen as physically demanding and having more safety risks (besen-cassino, 2018; breslin et al., 2007; clampet-lundquist, 2013). gender and dominant gendered expectations have been reported to influence the perception of safety risks, the reporting of workplace injuries, and the experiences and reporting of workplace sexual harassment (e.g., breslin, september 2019 58 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research polzer, maceachen, morrongiello & shannon, 2007; fineran & gruber, 2009; sears, intrieri, & papini, 2011). for instance, more feminine, female-dominated tasks (e.g., cashier) are perceived as having fewer safety risks, and both boys and girls are less likely to report injuries in more masculine, male-dominated workplace settings (breslin et al., 2007). notably, both young men and women experience sexual harassment at work, although gender shapes the frequency, intensity, form, and outcomes (e.g., breslin et al., 2007; cohen, 2013; fineran & gruber, 2009; sears et al., 2011). for example, research with youth aged 14 to 19 has found that young women are harassed more frequently than young men, and young, single women who are new to their jobs are more likely than established workers to experience sexual harassment (e.g., cohen, 2013; fineran & gruber, 2009). further, previous research on service-sector work notes that age and experience influence the reporting of workplace sexual harassment (e.g., blackstone et al., 2014; good & copper, 2016; mcvittie, goodall, sambaraju, elliott, & trenjnowska, 2015). younger workers in the service sector may feel less welcome to report instances to management, and may be less likely to perceive certain instances as examples of gender discrimination or sexual harassment or to naturalize these instances as “part of the job” (e.g., see besen-cassino, 2018; breslin et al., 2007; good & cooper, 2016; walters, 2016). early gendered work is also shaped by intersections of class and race (besen-cassino, 2014, 2018; chan & ng, 2013; clampet-lundquist, 2013; damaske, 2011; harris, 2004). specifically, it has been argued that class shapes young people’s expectations around work and growing up, wherein middle-class families tend to emphasize education and future high-skill employment, while working-class students, especially working-class boys, are frequently streamlined into apprenticeship programs for manual labour that are associated with working-class masculinities (e.g., damaske, 2011; ward, 2018). further, young, white, middle-class people are often constructed as ideal workers, especially in high-end or brand-focused retail settings and restaurants, while in other retail settings, young black women are often preferred workers compared to young black men (besen-cassino, 2014, 2018; clampet-lundquist, 2013). as a result, young people of colour, boys of colour, and those from poorer neighbourhoods are less likely to get “desirable” jobs and are frequently assigned to low-skill, invisible tasks in the workplace (besen-cassino, 2014, 2018; clampet-lundquist, 2013). “can-do” girls, “future girls,” and postfeminism discourses are socially constructed units of meaning and expectation that create “truths” in contextual settings (st. pierre, 2000). poststructural feminism, which recognizes the significant role of language in creating our social worlds, posits that gendered identities cannot be understood outside of our gendered discursive frameworks, which in turn produce our gendered subjectivities (st. pierre, 2000). individuals take up, refine, and sometimes disrupt dominant discourses of gender to create and recreate their gendered identities in shifting contexts (davies, 1990; pomerantz, 2008; pomerantz & raby, 2017). dominant gendered discourses thus create standards for normative, “popular,” and “cool” gendered identities, which young people strategically negotiate and navigate in their social worlds (see also pomerantz & raby, 2017). discourses of girlhood shape how girls think about and experience early, part-time work. in their study with teenaged self-identified smart girls, pomerantz and raby (2017) draw on harris’s (2004) work on “can-do” and “future girls,” concepts that evoke “girl power” discourses of teenage girls as confident and keen to seize opportunities. such narratives of girlhood, while empowering, problematically reflect a postfeminist framework that situates girls as unfettered as they strive for success because gender inequality is no longer seen to be an obstacle. harris argues that “can-do” or “future girls” are constructed as ideal working subjects within a neoliberal society that emphasizes individual choice, independence from the state, consumerism, and self-improvement, constructing girls as capable of independent success and thus worthy of investment. september 2019 59 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research there are two opposing sides of “future girl” success, however: “can-do” girls who are described as girls with “the world at their feet” (harris, 2004, p. 14) and “at-risk” girls who are made “vulnerable by their circumstances” (p. 25). harris asks how the challenges faced by “at-risk” girls are neglected by an exclusive focus on “can-do” girls. indeed, she contends that “can-do” girlhood represents an elite girlhood identity that is elusive for most girls, especially girls marginalized on the basis of gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability (harris, 2004). further, girlhood discourses that celebrate “can-do” self-improvement and empowerment efface the ongoing relevance of gender inequality, complicating how many girls understand their experiences of sexism (crofts & coffey, 2017; pomerantz & raby 2017). for example, because both feminist and postfeminist narratives are prominent simultaneously, girls often explain that they are both empowered with “choice” and frustrated with sexism (pomerantz & raby, 2017). similarly, such tensions may complicate how girls who work think about and respond to gender inequality in their workplaces. alongside addressing discourses evoking “can-do” girlhood, researchers discuss the equally problematic “failing boy” (pomerantz & raby, 2017; ringrose, 2013) and “slacker boy” (brown, lamb & tappan, 2009) gender narratives that have arisen in the media (brown et al., 2009) and around schooling (e.g., martino & rashti, 2012; epstein, elwood, hey, & maw, 1998). homogenizing within gender, popular commentators have worried that while girls as a group are excelling in academics and beyond, boys are falling behind and/or uninvested in schoolwork (pomerantz & raby, 2017). related to school, the “slacker boy” narrative suggests that boys can be smart, but that it should seem effortless, which some researchers connect to idealized traits of hypermasculinity such as toughness and resisting authority (dekker, krabbendam, lee, boschloo, de groot, & jolles, 2013; platts & smith, 2018). while others have addressed the “failing boys” narrative in relation to school, we are interested in how this characterization carries over into how young people talk about their gendered engagements with early work. we discuss the portrayals of “can-do” girls and “slacker” boys to challenge the notion that gendered patterns are adopted naturally, homogeneously, and easily in a postfeminist world (raby & pomerantz, 2015). while our subjectivities are produced within specific and shifting discursive contexts (pomerantz, 2008), pe ople al so participate in power relations by embracing and challenging dominant discourses (raby & pomerantz, 2015; st. pierre, 2000). young people are subject to discourses, including those that reflect and reproduce gender stereotypes and inequalities (davies, 1990; st. pierre, 2000), but they are also subjects when they negotiate and navigate these discourses. poststructural feminism thus seems well suited to understand the gendered stories and views our participants shared with us that reflect, reproduce, and challenge dominant discourses of gender, including those connected to the “can-do” girl and “slacker boy” narratives. we are interested in how young people’s early work experiences are shaped by intersecting and contradictory discourses of gender and their effects, including gendered inequality, and related discourses around growing up and becoming workers. data collection although official statistics on youth employment in canada focus on youth between the ages of 15 and 24, as we have indicated, many young people work before they are 15. our general call for participants who were working in their very first jobs led to open-ended interviews with 23 participants from two cities in ontario and 9 from two cities in british columbia about a wide range of early, part-time jobs (see raby et al., 2018). many participants also talked about earlier work experiences, such as babysitting, that they had not previously recognized as jobs. for this pilot study, we were not seeking to compare job types, but rather to get a sense of the breadth of young people’s working experiences across three different research sites. following university ethics board clearance, participants were recruited using snowball sampling techniques, wordseptember 2019 60 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of-mouth, flyers, and sharing information with youth service organizations. in addition to the initial 32 interviews, 12 participants agreed to a follow-up photo-elicitation interview (e.g., bӧӧk & mykkӓnen, 2014; cappello, 2005). our participants were mostly between 12 and 16 years old, the ages when most young people work their first jobs, although one was 11 and one had just turned 17. our sample is comprised of 19 girls and 13 boys, most of whom were white, with class backgrounds ranging from working class to upper middle class. while broadly understanding class as relational and cultural, for this project we more categorically approximated participants’ class backgrounds based on their answers to questions about their parents’ jobs, education, and house ownership, as well as their own contribution to household expenses. all interviews were transcribed verbatim and then two researchers independently coded the initial interviews to develop descriptive codes, which were then refined by the research team. the team created a list of 59 codes, which were used to systematically code the remaining transcripts, and then common patterns within specific codes were identified. for this paper, we have concentrated on the specific codes related to gender and gender inequality. these codes were analyzed for key patterns, which we have organized into three related themes. first, we consider how participants’ narratives reflected the “can-do” and “future girl” narratives, positioning girls as hard workers who were more committed to work than boys. next, we discuss how much of the work that our participants engaged in and embraced was gender typical (with consequent effects) and how participants spoke about workplace gender inequality. finally, we report on how diversions from gender-typical work were experienced and navigated. analysis and discussion “can-do” and “future girls” many of the girls in our sample perceived that more girls their age work in comparison to boys. some saw girls collectively as more eager and ambitious than boys and suggested that girls are more likely to prioritize some benefits of early work, for example, for future education and career planning, but also for leisurely spending. a third of the girls in our sample saw boys as having a more laid-back attitude than girls towards working, although some noted that boys’ attitudes might change once they need money or finish high school. for example, amanda, who worked as a busser, echoed the “can-do” discourse: more girls work (right) ’cause we’re like, go getters, like we just want to get everything done, like we want to have money for university. boys are like, more laid back and chill and they’re like (right) “i’ll make money when i need to, like i want to enjoy (right), like my high school experience.”2 other girls shared similar stories, positioning themselves and other girls as “go-getters,” which they saw as connected to being ideal workers, echoing observations made by others (harris, 2004; pomerantz & raby, 2017; ringrose, 2013). although some girls suggested that scheduling and balancing the various demands of school, work, and family could be challenging (raby et al., 2018), they saw girls as capable of managing and thriving. jane, for example, explained how many girls “are focused on a job and school work and are at the top of their classes” while the boys are more focused on taking it easy in high school. jane thus reproduced both the narrow “slacker boy” discourse (pomerantz & raby, 2017; ringrose, 2013) and the problematic expectation that girls should be able to do it all, which can be linked to significant stress and pressure (see pomerantz & raby, 2017). at the same time, jane overlooked the more complicated intersections of race, class, sexuality, and ability that make “can-do” girlhood an elusive ideal for most girls. in addition to constructing girls as “go-getters,” a small number of participants explained that their families expected them to seamlessly transition from a “can-do” girl into a successful, career-oriented woman. for instance, september 2019 61 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research olivia spoke about her plans for postsecondary education: “i’m going, obviously. it’s kind of like not really an option in my house.” olivia mentioned that her family had already created a savings account for her tuition fees, echoing observations by harris (2004) and damaske (2011) about the role that certain families play in priming and supporting girls for “can-do” and “future girl” status. on the one hand, this is an exciting support for girls’ careers; on the other hand, it points to the relevance of class inequality and can fail to recognize the challenges of sexism and perfectionism that girls may continue to face. in contrast to olivia, amanda was from a single-parent household with a mother who worked as a cleaner. amanda was less sure about her future education plans. she thought her mother might “[give her] a little bit of money for school but, like, focus more on [her] sister, ’cause, like, she wants to go to university.” although amanda positioned herself as a “go-getter,” she seemed less sure about the feasibility of her future plans, aligning her more with the “at-risk” narrative (harris, 2004). she was also quite heavily involved in part-time work, potentially undermining her schooling. amanda’s story points to the implications of the “can-do” narrative for girls who may not be able to meet this ideal because of circumstances or resources. emma was one of our few participants who noted this issue. emma pushed back against the expectation that girls should be able to effortlessly succeed in school, work, and extracurriculars, asserting that school is her top priority. emma recognized that postponing or cutting back on work is not something that all girls can do, however: “if you don’t have money at all and you’re broke [laughs], then as a kid then you probably want some more babysitting to get money.” again, reflecting the importance of class inequality, emma noted that some young people may not be in a position to cut back on hours or quit their jobs when there are school-work conflicts (see cohen, 2013; entwisle, alexander, & olson, 2000; purtell & mcloyd, 2013; raby et al., 2018). the girls’ stories highlight the pertinence of harris’s “can-do” and “future girl” narratives in girls’ perceptions of themselves as being workers and becoming women, and of other girls and boys their ages who work (or not). their stories also pointed to salient cracks in the “can-do” narrative. girls’ reproduction and reflection of “future girl” narratives simultaneously positioned boys as “slackers,” a characterization that both emphasized girls’ need to work hard and denigrated boys, which we did not see reflected in the boys’ comments. in fact, the boys we spoke to did not raise “slacker boy” or “failing boy” narratives in relation to working at all, nor did they see girls as more ambitious or hard working. for example, when asked whether girls are more likely to be working than boys, ginger argued: “i have not noticed any sort of difference, it’s really just 50/50.” other boys positioned themselves as hard workers as well, but without suggesting that boys who work are “go-getters” or comparing their work ethic to girls’. gender-typical work and questions of gender inequality despite the “can-do” portrayal that girls are now doing it all, most of our participants engaged in what we characterize as gender-typical work. specifically, 15 of the 19 girls in our study most often worked as babysitters, peer mentors, or hostesses or in other frontline retail and fast food roles. similarly, we characterized 10 of the 13 boys in our sample as working in gender-typical work, such as lawn care and snow removal, and in the kitchens of fast food restaurants. overall, dominant gender expectations often shaped where our participants worked, their job tasks, and the organization of their workplaces. ginger, one of our few boys who worked as babysitters, explained gendered patterns in early teenage work quite matter-of-factly: “like, the two stereotypical teenage jobs that you can think of are like paperboy for guys and then babysitter for girls.” alexander also talked about these gendered patterns and how they are linked to gendered beliefs: “you’re not gonna find a lot of males who are babysitting. it’s [a] very stereotypical thing (hmm) that all boys are gonna hurt the babies, whereas the girls [are] softer, gentle with the baby.” further, many of our participants explained that girls who worked in fast food settings frequently took orders at the counter or the september 2019 62 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research drive-thru window. michelle explained that she was placed at the drive-thru window and the sandwich station before she was formally trained to do so, which may be linked to the perception that girls are naturally able to manage customers or make sandwiches, echoing others’ findings (besen-cassino, 2018; breslin et al., 2007; clampet-lundquist, 2013). as michelle observed, “if a guy went on sandwich or something, it was just kind of like weird ’cause there was always a girl on sandwiches (right). so it just kind of felt like, […] making a sandwich, like was a girl’s job.” zach also noted that “there was a lot more girls in drive thru.” patrick explained, “it’s basically girls up in the front. guys are in the back making food.” he suggested this division made sense because girls “have like an open personality (mm) and they’re really inviting to all the customers, which is ... almost a need for people that work in the front.” like patrick, many participants naturalized the gendered division of workplace tasks by suggesting that girls’ personalities made them better at certain jobs. although some may see this as a compliment because it suggests girls have refined interpersonal skills, it overlooks the possibility that girls may be good at other tasks a s well (besen-cassino, 2018), reinforces the idea that girls need to be in a position of pleasing others, and neglects boys’ social skills. the gendered division of labour was also frequently naturalized based on participants’ bodies. amanda, who had positioned girls who work as “go-getters,” justified the idea that sweeping is a boy’s job, for instance, arguing that “[girls], we’re smaller, we’re daintier, i guess.” in another example, alexander explained that there was not a gendered division of labour in his workplace “ ’cause there’s not a lot of heavy, manual labour that (right) so it’s mostly just everything, everybody can do,” implying that if there was heavy labour then that would be something that would require a gendered division of labour. others expressed similar justifications for a gendered division of labour based on assumptions about girls’ relative weakness. angela explained that her boss asked the boys to lift boxes because “[he] didn’t want someone getting hurt,” although she was quick to add that if she could lift a box, she was “not going to go get one of [the boys].” the boss’s justification for the gendered division of work as a way to minimize injury naturalizes gender-typical work, while covertly constructing girls who work as less capable of safely engaging in more physically demanding jobs. although some participants naturalized the gendered division of labour, others, like angela, offered more critical evaluations, suggesting that girls could also adequately complete more physically demanding jobs. in contrast to girls who frequently worked in customer-oriented positions, boys in fast food settings were commonly called “grill guys” and worked the grilling stations. michelle explained that she was trained as a fill-in to work on the grill after one of the “grill guys” quit. she suggested that the position involves lifting and managing hot oil, and as the only girl working on the grill she “just felt like [managers] gave [the grill position] to the guy ’cause [they thought] ‘oh, he can take it.’” michelle critiqued this assumption by somewhat proudly sharing that she also had gotten burns and bruises from working on the grill. she may have been suggesting that she is a unique girl because she worked the grill, or alternatively that other girls could also handle the task and its associated risks. other participants sometimes critiqued the gendered division of tasks and its effects within their workplaces, arguing that all young people could complete many diverse tasks if they were provided with the right training and opportunities to practice and improve. these stories provide glimpses of critical commentary and feminist insight (see also crofts & coffey, 2017; harris, 2004; pomerantz & raby, 2017). for instance, when olivia was asked to explain the logic behind the gendered division of tasks at the golf course she worked at, she replied: i have no idea, honestly, [it] doesn’t really make sense to me (yeah). i don’t know what the boss is thinking ’cause i think guys, a guy would do a perfectly fine job serving a table (yeah) and bartending, and a girl would do fine riding the golf cart. ginger also critically noted that “stigma[s] that a certain gender can’t do that job would withhold you from getting september 2019 63 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research experience, from getting money and getting your foot in the door for life: that’s kind of stupid.” there were also occasions where participants would shift between denying inequality and noting discrimination, highlighting the complexity of navigating current gendered discourses (see pomerantz & raby, 2017). in one example, amanda first explained that “there’s not really discrimination, but um, you can do a banquet (yeah). so you’ll have to set up, drag large tables down hallways and stuff. females aren’t allowed to do those, only males can.” this policy alludes to the relevance of physical strength for justifying a workplace division, a policy which amanda did not at first see as discriminatory, but then she changed her mind: “i think females should be allowed to do them too. because you get a lot of hours from that (ah), and i don’t think it’s fair that we’re not given the opportunity.” here, amanda noted the unequal effects of this seemingly natural gendered division of labour and suggested that the policy should change. in addition to a pervasive gendered division of labour that was often linked to gender inequality in early workplaces, some of the girls talked about concerns with sexual harassment at work. amanda had “felt unsafe at work because someone [she knew] was um, almost raped by an, a coworker.” when she was asked if her coworker formally reported the instance, she explained: no. no one knows about it. she didn’t want to report him to hr (yeah) because like, [pause] she didn’t want him to lose a job. she would’ve felt bad (yeah), like no one said anything and it’s happened to more than one person (yeah) that i’ve heard of. amanda also explained that she was nervous to take out the recycling to a dark and secluded area outside of the restaurant where she worked at the end of her shift because she was “like […] pretty vulnerable. like, i’m just a 15-year-old girl.” amanda noted that her coworkers were trying to protect each other instead of filing formal reports of sexual harassment, which might be thought of as a buffering strategy (see good & cooper, 2016) but also suggests discomfort addressing issues directly with management. similarly, lana explained that when she was sexually harassed by a customer, her female coworker supported her by telling the harasser to leave. while lana was uncomfortable and nervous, she felt she could “handle it” in the future by not going near the customer, or telling the customer to “back off.” lana did not mention formally reporting this instance. in another example, while angela did not see instances of gender inequality where she worked, she said that she would respond to an instance of discrimination or sexual harassment with some acceptance, “because i […] i love my job and i think […] i would probably be a little more like ‘it’s okay.’” amanda, angela, and lana made strategic choices around how to handle possibilities of sexual harassment, but their stories also indicate that young people, especially young women, feel unwelcome or ill equipped to formally report instances of sexual harassment (blackstone et al., 2014; cohen, 2013; good & cooper, 2016) or see this solution as risking their employment or affecting their workplace morale. further, angela’s disinclination to report possible future sexual harassment or discrimination may resonate with other researchers’ concerns that young people, and especially young women, might be likely to put up with discrimination and sexual harassment as “part of the job” (besen-cassino, 2018; blackstone et al., 2014; breslin et al., 2007; good & cooper, 2016; sears et al., 2011; walters, 2016). beyond the need for training on workplace sexual harassment or discrimination, our participants’ stories draw attention to risks of sexual harassment and even assault in the workplace and the need to provide young workers with supports and spaces to talk about and address sexual harassment. finally, in addition to discussions of workplace-based inequalities, some of our participants spoke about sexism in how their student peers treated them based on their work. mia, who worked as a babysitter, explained that when she would pick up the children she babysat from school, peers thought “[she was] um ... gonna drop out of school september 2019 64 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research [...] and become a mother too early.” mia’s comment provides an example of the scrutiny that some girls who work as babysitters may face and relates to earlier discussions of the “can-do” and “future girl” girlhoods wherein mia seemed concerned that others might think of her as an “at-risk” girl (harris, 2004). she then noted further judgment from a boy at school: i haven’t had any like real problem with [sexism] but it’s been hard to be a 14-year-old girl working, and a lot of the guys kind of think it’s stupid and bad […] one thought […] girls shouldn’t be making money. ridiculous idea. mia was proud that she had recently become comfortable responding to sexist comments from boys about girls who work at school, although she saw herself as “pretty much the only girl out of all [her], like, girlfriends that stick up for themselves.” however, mia felt less confident speaking up to her employers about how their other babysitter’s laid-back attitude towards childcare seemed linked to how he saw babysitting as feminine (and therefore not needing to be taken seriously). mia feared being called sexist and did not want him to get in trouble. notably, mia’s discussion of this boy’s laid-back approach also reflects the “slacker” boy narrative and positions herself as a competent “can-do” girl. in this section we have illustrated how our participants’ stories highlighted ways that gender and gender inequality shaped their earliest jobs (see also besen-cassino, 2018; blackstone et al., 2014; breslin et al., 2007; clampetlundquist, 2013; good & cooper, 2016). this p attern has effects. fo r instance, gi rls ar e oft en loc ated in mor e caring work roles, which can be undervalued, and boys are more likely to do heavy physical work, which can bring added risk of injury. some participants downplayed these gendered differences at work o r a sserted that people are given tasks based on naturalized gender or body type. other participants challenged and critiqued gendertypical work, although they seemed more hesitant to link it directly to gender inequality in the workplace. we also observed how some of the girls navigated concerns about sexual harassment at work by addressing it informally and playing it down. our participants’ stories suggest that they were entrenched in jumbled, contradictory discourses of gender essentialism, postfeminist freedom from inequality, and feminist critique of gender inequality, as well as intersecting discourses around growing up and becoming workers that complicated how they thought about and responded to gender inequality (see also besen-cassino, 2018; crofts & coffey, 2017; harris, 2004). these tensions were set within the context of part-time, precarious, low-income early work, adding layers of vulnerability and uncertainty. our final, related theme considers how young people experienced diversions from gender-typical work. diversions from gender-typical work although most of the young workers in our study engaged in gender-typical work, some spoke of experiences with gender nontypical work, or imagined what it would be like. the most commonly discussed diversions from gender-typical work were boys who babysat and girls who completed paper routes or worked in fast food restaurant kitchens. specific participants’ navigation of diversions from gender-typical work were linked to their broader ability to challenge dominant gender expectations, and boys and girls experienced these diversions differently. the boys who babysat spoke about how they felt about engaging in a job that is traditionally associated with girls. for example, billy pilgrim spoke about himself and his brother ginger as babysitters, explaining that “all our friends know us as very feminine boys, i’d say […], so they don’t care.” ginger added: if i tell [my friends] i’m a babysitter they won’t blink. if i tell them i’m going to wear a dress the next day they won’t blink. it’s, it’s not something that my friends ever bug me about really. and it’s a job, so, i mean, i was a paperboy and that was worse. september 2019 65 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research ginger and billy pilgrim saw themselves as outside of discourses of dominant or popular boyhood, thus they seemed less pressured to draw on aspects of popular or dominant gender expectations in their navigation of early work. further, ginger’s preference for babysitting over delivering papers may be linked to his flexibility around gender, perhaps implying that more “stereotypical” boys, unlike himself, might be better suited to newspaper delivery. ginger and billy pilgrim’s stories evoke questions about how and why they were able to so comfortably challenge dominant gender expectations. the two boys were growing up in a wealthier area with professional parents, and ginger noted that he was involved in the music scene, contexts that might have allowed for more gender flexibility. further, their class background may have led others to perceive them as compelling babysitting candidates.3 in contrast to ginger and billy pilgrim, who argued that they babysat as gender-independent boys, bob explained that he was especially well suited to babysit several young boys because he was athletic, noting that “they love spending time with me because they’re both boys too, so we get along, like they like playing sports.” reflecting doucet and merla’s (2007) work on stay-at-home fathers, bob strategically drew on aspects of popular masculinity (i.e., sports) to position himself as both a masculine boy and an ideal babysitter. bob’s tactic allowed him to embrace what is often considered more feminine work without compromising hegemonic masculinity. jane spoke about her previous experiences with newspaper delivery, highlighting how there were both benefits and drawbacks to engaging in gender nontypical work and how people’s reactions to girls who deliver papers, although positive, still reproduce dominant gender expectations. jane explained: you know, you’d see a guy doing his paper route and he’d kind of be looking at you like “oh, is she covering for, like their sibling or something?” people would actually come up to me and complain about the boy paper, paper carriers and say, […] “oh, they just kind of throw it everywhere (right) they don’t really care […] but however you have a really good attention to detail.” in this example, even though girls are positioned as outsiders and substitutes for paperboys, the customers see jane as a “good” worker and are favourable towards her. their reactions position jane as a “can-do” girl and ideal working subject (harris, 2004), reinforce the common association between femininity, carefulness, and attention to detail, and simultaneously position boys as reckless and not caring (pomerantz & raby, 2017; ringrose, 2013). like bob, jane’s disruption of expected gender norms around work is reframed, through these comments from others, to reinforce gender stereotypes. this was also the case when michelle spoke about her aforementioned experiences working in the kitchen of a fast food restaurant when one of the grill guys had quit. it was considered unusual that a girl would work the grills because of the safety risks. she explained that “it was just really weird ’cause all the rest of the guys like, they were all guys who were on grill, and then i was like the only girl and everyone just kind of found that strange.” these participants’ stories point to how young people who engage in early gender nontypical work both stand out and strategically navigate dominant gendered expectations. the stories largely highlight how hegemonic gendered practices are reproduced in young people’s workplaces: by the managers and supervisors that delegate tasks, by customers’ expectations of and responses to young workers, and by young workers themselves, even when they are involved in work that disrupts gender expectations. conclusion in this paper we have drawn on the stories our participants shared about gender and gender inequality in their experiences as workers in ontario and british columbia and considered how their stories reflect, reproduce, and september 2019 66 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research challenge dominant discourses of gender and gender inequality, as well as intersecting discourses related to growing up and becoming workers. our analysis contributes to research that extends the conversation about young people and work from the frequent focus on the benefits and weaknesses of early work experiences, providing insight into how young people think about themselves, and are positioned by others, in terms of gender. our analysis moves the discussion of “can-do” girls and “slacker” boys beyond the school and illustrates that boys and girls comment and reflect on these narratives and their implications differently; indicates the ongoing prevalence of significant gender divisions in early work; and suggests that even disruptions to such normative gender divisions are often discussed in terms of dominant gender discourses. in relation to the topics and themes in this special journal issue, we have also illustrated how canadian young workers’ experiences blur any lines that separate children and teenagers from the worlds of adults, work, and workplace gender inequality. we have illustrated how young people are active in their experiences as workers as they relate to, reproduce, and rework discourses of gender and gender inequality. the patterns we have noted, while located in two provinces in canada, are helpful for thinking about gendered aspects of young people’s early work more broadly. in terms of limitations, our sample was predominantly white, from three urban locations in canada, making it challenging to consider how intersections of race and place influence young people’s gendered experiences with early, part-time work. further, it was unexpected that many girls would talk about themselves as eager “go-getters” and position boys as less invested in their work, nor that boys would not reflect on these narratives when asked about the saliency of gender in their work experiences. future qualitative research should ask young people more directly about these gendered narratives in relation to their work, to consider how boys who work also relate to, reproduce, and/or push back against such assumptions. it would also be valuable to look at the relevance of gender across various specific jobs. further, longitudinal research might consider how gendered perceptions and experiences of teen employment are shaped as young people change jobs and grow up. by listening to the stories of young workers, we have learned that young people experience gender stereotyping and inequality in their earliest jobs. their stories remind us that gender inequality is not limited to adult work, and that early patterns of inequality have ramifications in the young workers’ present and future lives. their stories also point to the need for accessible and meaningful health and safety education that acknowledges how gender inequality shapes young people’s earliest work experiences and provides young workers with skills and tools that equip them to respond to workplace gender inequality and sexual harassment. ignoring the significance of gendered discourses in shaping the types of work that young people engage in, the organization of their workplaces, and instances of sexual harassment in young people’s work environments overlooks the complex realities and inequalities of young people’s earliest work experiences. september 2019 67 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references besen-cassino, y. 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(2018). acceptable masculinities: working-class young men and vocational education and training courses. british journal of educational studies, 66(2), 225–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2017.1337869 zierold, k. m., & mcgeeney, t. j. (2016). communication breakdown: how working teens’ perceptions of their supervisors impact safety and injury. work, 54(1), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.3233/wor-162290 (endnotes) 1 youth is a broad category that has been used to refer to a wide range of young people. much of the literature on youth and part-time work concentrates on those who are over 15, so that is the literature we draw on in this paper. our data, however, focuses on younger youth who were in their teens and a few participants who were 11 and 12. 2 the comments in parentheses in the excerpts indicate the researcher’s voice in the conversation. comments in square brackets note when a word was changed by the researchers in the writing stage to improve clarity/flow. 3 although besen-cassino (2018) found prospective parents to distrust male babysitters who seemed feminine. spring/printemps 2018 15 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research reggio emilia inspired philosophical teacher education in the anthropocene: posthuman child and the family (tree) karin murris, rose-anne reynolds, and joanne peers karin murris is full professor of pedagogy and philosophy at the school of education at the university of cape town, south africa. grounded in philosophy as an academic discipline, as a teacher educator her main research interests are in posthuman intraactive pedagogies such as philosophy with children and reggio emilia, school ethics, and postqualitative research methods. she is principal investigator of the decolonising early childhood discourses: critical posthumanism in higher education research project funded by the south african national research foundation (nrf). her articles can be downloaded from https://uct.academia.edu/ karinmurris. email: karin.murris@uct.ac.za rose-anne reynolds is a doctoral candidate in the school of education, university of cape town. she holds an med in applied language and literacy studies. rose-anne is a guest lecturer at the university of cape town for postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) foundation phase students. her current research interests include philosophy with children, the philosophy of child and childhood, and critical posthumanism. she is co-researcher in the decolonising early childhood discourses research project, funded by the south african national research foundation (nrf). email: rlawrencereynolds@icloud.com joanne peers is the head of inclusive support at pinelands north primary school, a public school in cape town. she is passionate about inclusion and disrupting the definitive notion of quality education. joanne is a guest lecturer at the university of cape town for pgce foundation phase students and currently completing her master’s in education. she is co-researcher in the decolonising early childhood discourses research project, funded by the south african national research foundation (nrf). email: joannepeers@ gmail.com discriminatory animal:human and child:adult relations the work reported on in this paper involved three lecturers, all teaching the postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) foundation phase in the school of education, university of cape town. over a period of six weeks (september–november 2017) karin murris, rose-anne reynolds, and joanne peers planned their lectures together by regularly returning to the shared documentation in a google.doc folder (audio and video tapes, photos, field notes, lesson preparation, our comments, etc.). our students are be(com)ing foundation phase (5to 9-year-olds in south africa) teachers, and we show, mainly through visual images, how one picturebook can be used as a provocation for an e/ mergent curriculum in teacher education. central in our assemblage is the changed relationality among human, subhuman, and more-than-human that should be at the heart of environmental education in the anthropocene, and how this de/colonizing shift is brought into existence through collaborative reggio-emilia-inspired pedagogical documentation across three university courses. in particular, we focus on discriminatory animal:human and child:adult relations in segregated in this paper, we give a flavour of how, against the odds, reggio-emilia-inspired pedagogical documentation can work in reconceptualizing environmental education, reconfiguring child subjectivity and provoking an ontological shift from autopoiesis to sympoiesis in teacher education. working posthuman(e)ly and transdisciplinarily across three foundation phase teacher education courses at a university in south africa, we situate our teaching within current environmental precarities. we show how we stirred up trouble in and outside our university classroom and provoked our students to “make kin” with children, each other, other animals, and the more-than-human, but also to stay with the trouble, that is, to learn to be truly present in colonized spaces. key words: posthuman child; reggio emilia; autopoiesis; sympoiesis; environmental education; teacher education spring/printemps 2018 16 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research and enclosed spaces for children, adults, animals, and plants that are regulated through various inside/outside binaries that include and exclude, keeping the “other” at a distance. schools, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, etc., are colonizing material-discursive spaces. these spaces assume nonegalitarian power relations between adult and child, humans and animals, and humans and plants. to move beyond colonizing ontological relationality in-between humans of a certain age, race, gender, or class (and where they intra-sect) and between humans and more-than-humans, students need to be able take up an activist position seeking material and social transformation. moving beyond notions of individual flourishing to multispecies flourishing is provoked through our use of picturebooks. we show how they are central to our innovative, philosophical work and, as material-discursive bodies, have brought new posthuman practices into being. joanna haynes and karin murris argue that contemporary picturebooks are post-age philosophical texts (haynes & murris, 2012, 2017). they can constitute an e/mergent curriculum in schools as well as teacher education, and through an assemblage of mainly visual images we offer a modest imaginary of how we can—against the odds— teach differently in teacher education. in this paper we show how julia donaldson and alex scheffler’s picturebook the stickman (2008) provoked a project that embraced a nonrepresentational, rhizomatic exploration of concepts across three university courses, rather than using a transmission approach of giving fixed definitions of concepts. human exceptionalism to design and teach a posthuman teacher education curriculum in south africa is challenging, for various, entangled reasons: the hegemonic developmental orientation of childhood education in higher education institutions, student teachers’ own expectations of what amounts to a good education based on their own experiences of schooling, and the government’s solutions to the current educational “crisis” (very low scores on international benchmark tests in mathematics and literacy) by introducing a new revised national curriculum: the curriculum and assessment policy statement [caps]. since caps, teachers are under pressure to work with standardized national workbooks, including highly prescribed, specified, sequenced and paced guidance regarding the content that should be taught in schools with scripted lessons and worksheets. these interventions by the government reinforce the already existing focus in teacher education on strengthening the teaching of school subjects (mathematics and literacy) in their programs. less value is attached to the subject of life skills in the foundation phase, which includes a mixed bag of, for example, the natural and social sciences, the creative arts, and physical exercise. although not explicitly mentioned, environmental education is part of life skills and is theoretically framed by the human-(child)centered drive to reach the global sustainable development goals (sdg) and focuses on children’s rights and their holistic development based on scientific evidence (jamieson, berry, & lake, 2017). so the official and hidden curriculum of south african schools is human centered. like elsewhere, one of the aims of education is to socialize learners (and student teachers) into particular kinds of relationships that assume human exceptionalism. the concept “family” needs to be taught as part of life skills. reconfiguring relationality with the subhuman and the more-than-human fields as diverse as, for example, environmental humanities, the performative arts, cultural theory, education, organizational studies, critical geography, architecture, anthropology, political theory, childhood studies, and literary and literacy studies are now questioning human-centered figurations of the subject. some argue that anthropocentrism and a focus on identity rather than difference is the main reason for present struggles with respect to race, gender, class, and the environmental problems in the controversially termed geological period of the anthropocene1 in which we now live. critical biologist and feminist philosopher donna haraway (2016) explains our current predicament passionately: spring/printemps 2018 17 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research these times called the anthropocene are times of multispecies, including human, urgency: of great mass death and extinction; of onrushing disasters, whose unpredictable specificities are foolishly taken as unknowability itself; of refusing to know and to cultivate the capacity of responseability; of refusing to be present in and to onrushing catastrophe in time; of unprecedented looking away. (p. 35) haraway’s writings include a passionate plea to cultivate “response-ability” and to resist “looking away” at our present time of “the great dithering” (2016, pp. 144–145). our task, she urges, is not only to stir up trouble and “to make kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present,” but also to stay with the trouble, that is, “to learn to be truly present … as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings” (p. 1). a plethora of terms has emerged that describe this “new” (for western thinkers) philosophical orientation with implications for ethics: posthumanism, new materialism, vital materialism, relational materialism, sociomaterialism, object-orientated ontology, and so forth. there are more or less subtle differences among these philosophies. our own inspiration for doing education differently is inspired mainly by the complex critical posthumanism developed by haraway, karen barad, and rosi braidotti (who, in turn, draws heavily on gilles deleuze and felix guattari, who also in turn have developed their ideas in dialogue with the writings of western philosophers plato, leibniz, kant, nietzsche, and especially spinoza). although haraway (2016) prefers the term “compostist” (p. 101) to posthumanist, her writings have been and still are very influential on the development of critical posthumanism, especially karen barad’s influential strand of posthumanism. haraway makes a useful distinction between seeing human animals as autopoietic systems and sympoietic systems (p. 176, note 13). in the former, humans have “self-produced binaries,” they are “organizationally closed,” “autonomous units,” centrally controlled (e.g., through a human will or intellect), orientated around growth and development with “evolution between systems,” and are “predictable” (p. 176, note 13). in contrast, sympoietic systems lack boundaries, are “complex amorphous entities,” have “distributed control” with an “evolution within systems,” and are “unpredictable” (p. 176, note 13). haraway explains: sympoiesis is a simple word; it means “making-with.” nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organizing. in the words of the inupiat computer “world game,” earthlings are never alone. that is the radical implication of sympoiesis. sympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems. it is a word for worlding-with, in company. (p. 58, italics in original) earthlings are “never alone.” theorizing subjectivity as an existential event is a paradigmatic shift from the discursive to the material-discursive and expresses a relational posthuman ontology salient for multispecies flourishing. the ontological fact that earthlings are “never alone” means that teachers are always part of, and situated in (as haraway points out), complex, dynamic, historical, and responsive systems that are both material and discursive at the very same time. teaching and learning are, therefore, “worlding-with” practices that disrupt power-producing western humanist binaries, such as mind/body, culture/nature, cognition/emotion, theory/practice, and adult/ child, because categories that involve binaries, such as “subjects, objects, kinds, races, species, genres, and genders” are all products of relationships “between” significant others (haraway, 2003, pp. 6–7). similarly, barad’s neologism intra-action at the heart of her agential realism also emphasizes an ontological shift in how humans and morethan-humans relate with and influence each other (barad, 2007, 2013). intra-action is different from interaction in that nature and culture are never pure, are never unaffected by each other, but are always in relation—a sympoietic system for haraway; an “entanglement” for barad; and an “assemblage” for deleuze. spring/printemps 2018 18 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research staying with the trouble: reggio emilia and philosophy with children key to our de/colonizing2 work is the use of reggio emilia and philosophy for children (p4c) as intra-active intragenerational pedagogies (murris, 2016, 2017). it involves wondering about the established meanings of concepts through philosophical questioning and provoking projects (progettazione3) by taking the concepts that emerge in philosophical inquiries further into other intra-ventions through pedagogical documentation. this type of documentation demands that teachers are response-able for their observations, descriptions, interpretations, and explanations and dare to see the ambiguities (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013, p. 155)—always selective, partial, contextual, and situated. a willingness to be open to surprises and the unexpected is key. the documentation brings into the world a material-discursive expression of students’ learning and their intra-action with more-thanhuman things, thought, affect, concepts, and environment (edwards, 1995). the pedagogical documentation of our teaching contains many images of the students’ work, of them working together, sometimes on their own, often in small groups, and regularly as a whole class. the constant reworking of the documentation is a form of listening through annotated visualization of selected events in class, bringing energies and forces to the project work that open up new possibilities (olsson, 2009, p. 41). in that sense, the posthuman pedagogy reworks the past across spacetime (barad, 2007, 2014) as re-turning changes the in-between of what is documented and how it is “read” and the infinite possibilities created in this way. the conceptual focus seemed the key to such a dynamic, evolving curriculum: provoking new thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions. in particular, we focused at the end of last year on the concepts “family” and “family tree”—generated partly by the students themselves. resisting the temptation to define these concepts and treat them as representations of an independently existing reality “out there,” we worked with them transversally, that is, they cut across the binaries of the objective (nature) and the subjective (culture). they not only stirred our minds, but also struck our bodies (massumi, 2015, p. x). they constrain as well as express desire and freedom. switching “languages” transmodally thickened the sedimented understandings of concepts and the relationships they are always part of (in our teaching this was, for example, stick–tree–wood–land–conservation-laws–colonization–country–earth– universe–the-humans-who-created-the-concept). transmodality we regard transmodality as the creation of new understandings of concepts through the switching of one hundred languages (and a thousand more) to project forward as part of a process of intra-action in-between human and nonhuman bodies (which is different from self-expression). the famous metaphor of “the hundred languages” is from a poem written by loris malaguzzi. a powerful critique of the privileging of the dominant two languages in (higher) education, reading and writing, the metaphor refers at one (practical) level to the introduction of materialdiscursive tools for meaning making in schools, such as visual arts, physical movement, video, digital cameras, augmented realities, and computers. at a symbolic level, the hundred languages are, as carlina rinaldi (2006) puts it: a “metaphor for crediting children and adults with a hundred, a thousand creative and communicative potentials” (p. 175). before showing how we have used the concept family transmodally, adopting the hundred languages of reggio emilia we first explore further why human-centered figurations of the subject are troublesome. posthuman child and learning about posthumanism experientially posthuman teaching is a radical shift from a cartesian substance ontology to an intra-active relational ontology. it moves discussions about relationality from the sociological to the ontological—the so-called ontological or material spring/printemps 2018 19 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research turn in the history of ideas. this turn sits uncomfortably with pedagogies informed by scientific realism, social constructivism, postmodernism, or poststructuralism which all assume that linguistic or other semiotic systems mediate between nature and culture (murris, 2016, chapter 3). the power of these systems has been not only substantial but also “substantializing,” allowing linguistic structure to determine our understanding of the world (barad, 2007, p. 133). take, for example, the standardized educational practice of giving definitions of concepts to capture the essence or meaning of concepts, also in higher education, including attempts to define what child is by nature. curiously, neither barad nor braidotti nor haraway explicitly refers to adult:child relationality. however, our transmodal work with student teachers across three preservice education courses (childhood studies, life skills, and special studies) in the university of cape town’s school of education shows how the ontological shift from autopoiesis to sympoiesis denaturalizes child and childhood. students’ material-discursive expressions evidence a philosophical distancing from the figuration of the developmental child of psychology (child as ‘i’), the self-contained, autonomous child of the children’s rights discourse (child as ‘i’), and the child-in-socioculturalcontext of sociology (child as ‘ii’) (murris, 2016). we start with the neologism child as ‘i’ (figures 1 and 2). figure 1. child as ‘i’ by robyn martin. figure 2. child as ‘i’ by jacqueline graham. spring/printemps 2018 20 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research when we started teaching the three preservice teacher education courses we draw on in this paper, we began by returning to their feedback halfway through their second teaching practice (tp). karin teaches childhood studies. she had put large sheets of flipchart paper on tables in the middle of the room and each student drew, wrote, and used playdough and other materials. they then walked around the large rectangle of paper-tables and intra-acted (diffracted4) with other students’ expressions. after tp, our first lecture started with revisiting the large sheets of paper and intra-acting with the visual images and writings on it (figure 3). we had previously discussed the impact of these pages and the effect they had on them. the students expressed deep disappointment in what it means to be a teacher in practice, and there was a heavy atmosphere in the university classroom. many felt invisible in their school as student teachers. not really being taken seriously themselves, they also expressed concern about the children, who were not learning much and were often shouted at, or worse. there were deep sighs and much silence. one student wrote and drew a powerful image: invisible child … who is education for? (figure 4), with transparent plastic expressing the lack of visibility and respect for children in south african schools. our task as teacher educators seems overwhelming in teaching our students how we can respect children as knowledge producers by introducing a different relationality that does justice, not only to the subhuman, but also to other animals and the more-than-human. in her childhood studies course, karin asked the students to create narrative characters of her neologisms child as i, i, ii, and iii 5. kieran egan (2006, p. 3) argues that successful teaching depends on engaging feelings. one cognitive tool he suggests is to create characters (from numbers, commas, phonemes, etc.) and stories with them in order to—as egan puts it—make “within yourself an emotional connection with the topic” (egan, 2006, p. 3, emphasis in original). personifying characters and making stories helps in being affected by concepts. karin speculated that it might also help the students engage with different figurations of child and childhood. it was striking that the students struggled with the “child as i” character. they could not quite imagine what it would be like for children in schools to be treated, for example, as having participation rights. tristan barrett created the following qr code to express the “child as i” character, which although “competent,” is still a developmental one with adulthood as ideal. figure 3. a map of students’ teaching practice experiences. figure 4. tannagh pfotenhauer’s invisible child … who is education for? spring/printemps 2018 21 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research karin also invited the students to read out loud in a circle and discuss loris malaguzzi’s your image of the child: where teaching begins (1994). this powerful article by the founder of the reggio emilia approach to education seemed the right choice in the context of their disturbing teaching practice experiences. what stood out for the students as an expression of “child as iii” (posthuman child) was this: we need to define the role of the adult, not as a transmitter but as a creator of relationships—relationships not only between people but also between things, between thoughts, with the environment. it’s like we need to create a typical new york traffic jam in the school. (malaguzzi, 1994, n.p.) this discussion, in turn, inspired student teacher tannagh to express child as ‘iii’ as shown in figure 6. student teacher nadia woodward beautifully expressed her entire interconnected family: “child as i, i, ii, and iii” (figure 7). with posthumanism as our navigational tool, we use the concept child, not to depict a singular entity in the world of competencies, voice, agency, and so on, but to express human and more-than-human intra-active relationality. individuals materialize and come into being through relationships, and so does meaning. the neologism child as iii (murris, 2016) expresses posthuman child: a subject (an inhuman becoming) that is part of the world and not an object in space and time (as container concepts). importantly, it does not follow, as is often assumed, that the subject does not matter epistemically or ethically. as liselott olsson (2009) strikingly puts it, what is talked about is in no way whatsoever a “dead” subject. on the contrary the ideas of subjectivity that are put forward … concern a subject that is more alive than ever. but it is also a subject that is constantly in the making, a becoming subject, and this subject is much more than an individual subject; it is a totally unique and singular subject that is never repeatable, not even to itself. (p. 127) the ontological shift in subjectivity also means in a sense that “adult has become child … a being who is incomplete, always on-the-way, who is never finished developing” (kennedy 2006, p. 10). this postdevelopmental shift in figure 5. child as i: the competent child with children’s rights, by tristan barrett. figure 6. child as ‘iii’ by tannagh pfotenhauer. spring/printemps 2018 22 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research child subjectivity opens up further explorations with our students about posthuman subjectivity more generally. posthumanism not only disrupts the adult:child binary, but profoundly democratizes the playing field in many directions—nothing is considered to stand outside or above or to take a true, privileged, transcendental position, and this is critical for de/colonizing environmental education in the anthropocene. it understands the human body of any age as an unbounded organism that exists in an entangled network of human and nonhuman forces, opening up a nonhierarchical kind of being and knowing by queering human-made categories (e.g., nature/ culture) that include and exclude. early childhood educator fikile nxumalo (2014) points out that indigenous knowledges have for millennia taught that “human subjectivities are inseparable from their more-than-human relations and responsibilities” (p. 54). both critical posthumanism and indigenous knowledge systems encourage educators philosophically and practically to engage with more robust and complex accounts of the relationality involved in pedagogical encounters, reconfiguring adult-child and animal-human relationships in schools, the material world, the environment, and the relationship between theory and practice (olsson, 2009; lenz taguchi, 2010; murris, 2016; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015; pedersen, 2016; snaza & weaver, 2015; taylor, 2013; taylor & hughes, 2016). however, despite the urgency of a shift to a relational ontology for sustainability education (malone, truong, & gray, 2017), the nitty-gritty of how to prepare student teachers in higher education for alternatives to hegemonic figure 7. nadia woodward’s figurations of child as i, i, ii, and iii using clay and a light box. spring/printemps 2018 23 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research western binary logic in our understandings of the world is slow coming forward. for student teachers to embrace practices of staying with and stirring up trouble and making kin in their own future classrooms, they need to experience different ways of relating, not only to the subhuman (child), but also to other animals and the more-than-human. they also need to experience themselves, as students, how their own teachers plan for teaching differently, rhizomatically6, and collaboratively. these experiences are not holistic, but dis/embodied in the sense that they are “transindividual.” bodies are not bounded by a skin as units in space and time, but are in/determinate subjects and produced involving contradiction and multiplicity (hence: dis/ embodied). posthuman pedagogies assume “nomadic subjects” (braidotti, 2006, 2013), selves who are not only epistemologically homeless, but also dis/continuously (barad, 2014) becoming. the philosophical shift in subjectivity poses profound challenges in teacher education as student teachers need strong systems of support and mentoring through carefully designed preservice education. considering our program is primarily designed as a quick preparation for becoming a teacher, how does one teacher-educate posthuman(e)ly? in what follows, we share one example of our collaborative work. the stickman and the family (tree) the stickman (2008) is an illustrated poem about the toy of the gruffalo’s child—a character in another picturebook by julia donaldson and alex scheffler—who gets involved in a terrifying journey when he takes a jog away from his family tree, inhabited by “stick lady love and their stick children three.” before using the picturebook, karin had asked each student to draw their own family tree. some had drawn hierarchical ones, and one student had made a rhizomatic drawing. we explored in depth the reasons for who or what was on their tree (are genetic “blood” lines necessary?). some students had included their pet animals (see figure 8). when intra-acting with the pedagogical documentation, we noticed that the concepts family, belonging, and alive/dead kept returning in our work with the students. to thicken the sedimented understandings (barad, 2007) of these concepts, karin offered students the opportunity to intra-act with the embedded augmented reality isolar system book (carlton books, 2013). through a downloaded app on their smartphone, the planets come alive and circle around each other (see figure 8). a conceptual connection was made with the stickman’s belonging to his family tree, and karin stirred up trouble by asking “is the earth part of a family?” the students expressed deep puzzlement about the hierarchy between human and nonhuman, about anthropomorphism by prioritizing human needs over animals and objects, and powerful links were made with the field trips rose-anne organized as part of the course special studies7 to the two oceans aquarium and arderne gardens in cape town. we used the outings to the aquarium and a botanical garden to further explore, figure 8. two students’ family trees, one including pet animals. spring/printemps 2018 24 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research posthumanly, the question, “how does the concept of family work?” on arrival at the aquarium, we were struck by a poster welcoming visitors with a hermit crab saying, “join the family” (see figure 10). by implication, we were not already members of this family. joining this family would involve a hefty financial transaction, and the students were troubled by how expensive it was to visit the aquarium, which meant it excluded groups of people who could not afford to pay the entrance or joining fees, which in turn would then impact who could be a part of the “family.” one student asked, “is the aquarium a private school?” and this led to a discussion about inclusion and exclusion and access to resources. during apartheid, resources were deliberately limited and access to schooling was limited to specific groups of children and people. these inequalities still exist today in a two-tier education system. the tanks in the aquarium are meant to be homes for the various sea creatures. their material-discursive presence raised questions that stirred up trouble for our class of 21 student teachers. the tanks are designed for particular groupings of fish, so the aquarium ended up being a “family” with tanks as rooms with no interleading doors because all the tanks were separate, so which “family,” therefore, was to be joined? after all, only humans could voluntarily join the family; the fish and sharks had no say in whether they wanted to be there or not. one student expressed her concern that the fish in the tanks had been removed from their larger families in the ocean to be available to be looked at by the aquarium visitors: “fish in tanks are also part of a family—never thought of that before.” is family then a human concept, and how does the concept work to include and exclude? how does it prevent making kin with other animals and the more-than-human? figure 9. planets coming alive in the isolar system book. figure 10. poster at the two oceans aquarium in cape town inviting visitors to become a family member. figure 11. divers feeding the obese turtle. spring/printemps 2018 25 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research animals on life support in the aquarium on the day we were in the aquarium, there were a lot of schools visiting. in figure 15, you can see how the educational intra-vention had been set up. the idea is for the children to sit still, be quiet, and listen to the presenter (with the mic), while the divers and different fish are on display in the tank behind them. this is the way fish and their lives are presented to the children. an ideal ocean—no destruction, no evidence of the harm humans inflict on the ocean—those messages are conveyed separately and differently. here, the presenter recites a script about what he (or/and his line manager) thinks the humans and children want to and should know about the fish in the tank behind them. the children in the audience raise their hands to ask questions or to tell others what they already know or are experiencing as they watch the sea creatures in the tank. most hands are not answered—the knowledge and knowing about the fish is firmly located in the adult human with the mic. education here presupposes subjectivity as an autopoietic system with “selfproduced binaries” (haraway, 2016, p. 58), positioning child as ‘i’ with a developmental orientation and without surprises or opportunities for dis/embodied learning. as part of this event, the students asked: “is it ethical to watch fish?” and “are fish comfortable being watched by strangers?” these unexpected, complex, dynamic, responsive, and situated questions are part of learning as a sympoietic system—a “worlding-with, in company” and being “truly present” (haraway, 2016, pp.1, 58) in colonized spaces. rose-anne was particularly struck by the advanced forms and use of technology necessary to keep the fish alive. in every tank, tubes were needed to pump oxygen to enable sea creatures to breathe and survive. it is a form of life support that would not be necessary if creatures had been left in the ocean. the fish are kept alive in these artificial conditions for the benefit of the human “family” who come to visit (see figure 13). not only are the fish kept alive by oxygen that filters into the tanks, but their food is given to them by the divers. ironically, the environmental education leaflet at the aquarium promises visitors to connect “a wide audience with nature.” but “nature” and “culture” always intra-act, are never “pure” or unaffected by each other. they are always entangled and part of a sympoietic system (haraway, 2016). figure 12. the biggest exhibit at the two oceans aquarium in cape town. figure 13. tubes providing oxygen to the fish in a tank in the aquarium classroom. spring/printemps 2018 26 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research not just family as defined by and only for humans one way to respond to haraway’s (2016) passionate plea to cultivate response-ability and to resist “looking away” at our present time of “the great dithering” (pp.144–145) is to move our primary place of learning and teaching to the outdoors. after returning to our documentation of the aquarium, we decided to visit arderne gardens a couple of weeks later with the aim of stirring up more trouble with the concept family tree. the choice of that particular botanical garden was deliberate: it is the home of alien trees and plants whose reason for being in the park is that they were “exotic” to south africa. these trees do not “naturally” “belong” there. they are not part of the flora indigenous to south africa and were planted by white settlers (the arderne family). one particular tree called the moreton bay fig demanded our attention. it is one of the oldest exotic trees in south africa (around 165 years old), but of course not as old as the indigenous trees. the tree was not background or context, but part of the reading: a reading-with, a thinking-with. we suggested to the students that they take up the invitation by the tree’s huge roots on top of the soil, creating contained spaces, and read the picturebooks we had brought along in small groups to each other. these picturebooks all featured trees and forests. at the time, we had no idea that this fig tree is also interestingly called the “wedding tree” because so many couples have their wedding photos made in between the roots and in front of the tree. angela webb, leaning against and supported by the giant roots, read anthony browne’s hansel and gretel (2008) to fellow student teacher zukile ncube. without being able to articulate it fully in words, we are struck by the materialdiscursive entanglement of figure 14, making kin between human and nonhuman, transversing gender, race, class, and age: soil-paper-blanket-hands-concentration-texturestripes-blue-bark-bedtime-fairytale... so how then do we think about family, and not just family as defined by and only for humans? our philosophical teaching disrupted the colonizing, power-producing, western humanist binaries—the assumptions that picturebooks are only for children, that reading in educational institutions happens inside buildings, that a human family is more important than fish or tree families, and that these families cannot exist beyond human-created binaries. our collaborative work with the students dis/continuously raised questions about what it means to belong to a family. figure 14. student angela webb reading anthony browne’s hansel and gretel to zukile ncube. spring/printemps 2018 27 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research we “end” with powerful questions posed by haraway (2016, p. 2), questions that will continue to stir up trouble in our teacher education program: making kin as oddkin rather than, or at least in addition to, godkin and genealogical and biogenetic family troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually responsible. who lives and who dies, and how, in this kinship rather than that one? what shape is this kinship, where and whom do its lines connect and disconnect, and so what? what must be cut and what must be tied if multispecies flourishing on earth, including human and other-than-human beings in kinship, are to have a chance? acknowledgements we would like to thank all the students of the pgce foundation phase 2017 at the university of cape town for our inspiring journeying together and angela webb and zukile ncube for giving permission for the photos in figure 14. in particular we would like to thank tristan barrett, jacqueline graham, robyn martin, tannagh pfotenhauer, and nadia woodward for their permission to publish parts of their formative assessments for childhood studies and tristan for the qr code. funding this writing is based on research supported by the national research foundation of south africa [grant number 98992]. figure 15. entanglement of the human, subhuman, and more-than-human. spring/printemps 2018 28 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references barad, k. (2007). meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. durham, nc: duke university press. barad, k. (2014). diffracting diffraction: cutting together-apart. parallax, 20(3), 168–187. braidotti, r. (2006). transpositions: on nomadic ethics. cambridge, uk: polity press. braidotti, r. (2013). the posthuman. cambridge, uk: polity press. browne, a. (1981). hansel and gretel. london, uk: walker books. carlton books. (2013). isolar system [application]. retrieved from https://www.carltonbooks.co.uk/isolar-system-ar-hb.html deleuze, g., & guattari, f. (1987/2014). a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia (b. massumi, trans.). london, uk: bloomsbury. donaldson, j., & scheffler, a. (2008). the stickman. london, uk: alison green books. edwards, c. (1995). democratic participation in a community of learners: loris malaguzzi’s philosophy of education as relationship. lecture prepared for an international seminar. university of milano, october 16–17, 1995. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl. edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=famconfacpub egan, e. (2006). teaching literacy: engaging the imagination of new readers and writers. thousand oaks, ca: corwin press. haraway, d. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. durham, nc: duke university press. haynes, j., & murris, k. (2012). picturebooks, pedagogy, and philosophy. new york, ny: routledge. haynes, j., & murris, k. (2017). intra-generational education: imagining a post-age pedagogy. educational philosophy and theory, 49(10), 971–983. jamieson, l., berry, l., & lake, l. (2017). south african child gauge 2017. cape town, south africa: children’s institute. kennedy, d. (2006). changing conceptions of the child from the renaissance to post-modernity: a philosophy of childhood. new york, ny: edwin mellen press. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education. london, uk: routledge. lipman, m., sharp, a. m., & oscanyan, f. s. (1977). philosophy in the classroom (2nd ed.). philadelphia, pa: temple university press. malaguzzi, l. (1994). your image of the child: where teaching begins. exchange, 3(94). malone, k., truong, s., & t. gray. (2017). reimagining sustainability in precarious times. singapore: springer nature. massumi, b. (2015). politics of affect. cambridge, uk: polity press. murris, k. (2016). the posthuman child: educational transformation through philosophy with picturebooks. london, uk: routledge. murris, k. (2017). reading two rhizomatic pedagogies diffractively through one another: a reggio inspired philosophy with children for the postdevelopmental child. pedagogy, culture, & society, 25(4), 531–550. doi: 10.1080/14681366.2017.1286681 nxumalo, f. (2014). unsettling encounters with “natural” places in early childhood education (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/bitstream/handle/1828/5772/nxumalo_fikile_phd_2014.pdf ?sequence=1&isallowed=y olsson, l. m. (2009). movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: deleuze and guattari in early childhood education. london, uk: routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. spring/printemps 2018 29 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research pedersen, h. (2016). animals in schools: processes and strategies in human-animal education. west lafayette, in: purdue university press. rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia: listening, researching, and learning. london, uk: routledge. seghal, m. (2014). diffractive propositions: reading alfred north whitehead with donna haraway and karen barad. parallax, 20(3), 188–201. snaza, n., & weaver, j. a. (2015). posthumanism and educational research. new york, ny: routledge. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures of childhood. london, uk: routledge. taylor, c. a., & hughes, c. (eds.). (2016). posthuman research practices in education. basingstoke, uk: palgrave macmillan. (endnotes) 1 for example, donna haraway (2016, pp. 49–57) decenters the anthro in anthropocene, because even a humananimal never acts alone. she offers eight reasons why she prefers to distance herself from the word anthropocene and proposes chthulucene—a tentacular thinking that disrupts the human exceptionalism of the anthropocene discourse. 2 our work is de/colonizing in the ontological sense by disrupting the nature/culture binary and including the nonhuman and more-than-human in the relational ontology that informs our pedagogy. moreover, our teaching work de/colonizes in the epistemological sense in that our teaching disrupts human exceptionalism, age discrimination (misopedy), misogyny, and racism. finally, we write de/colonizing because the slash expresses a changed relationality toward truth. 3 according to carla rinaldi (2006, pp. xi, 206), progettazione cannot really be translated. it is a strategy, a daily practice of observation-interpretation-documentation—an emergent curriculum developed by the preschools in reggio emilia. italy. 4 building on haraway’s work, barad (e.g. 2007, 2014) shows how diffraction works in writing and how it disrupts understandings of difference that are based on taxonomies that locate subjects according to natural kinds (barad, 2014, p. 172). diffraction means “to break apart in different directions” (barad, 2007, p.168)—a cutting together-apart (one move) in the (re)configuring of spacetimemattering (barad, 2014). for barad, diffraction is not a metaphor as it was for haraway, but it denotes phenomena of matter itself (seghal, 2014, p. 188). waves and particles are not closed and bounded objects but disturbances, and the same holds for a human body—not bounded and isolated from other human and nonhuman bodies. 5 using different shades of grey and black for printing, iii indicates that a self is not a bounded singular organism and that a posthuman analysis is not the same as simply adding the material to the discursive (e.g., adding ‘i’ to ‘ii’ = ‘iii’). describing child as such is not an attempt at a definition. 6 unlike arborescent systems of thought and binary logic that have dominated western epistemological concepts (e.g., root, foundation, ground), rhizomes (e.g., ginger, couch grass, rats) are multiple and move dynamically and unpredictably, ceaselessly establishing connections (deleuze & guattari, 1987/2014, pp. 5–7). 7 special studies is a course that enables experiential learning about teaching, for teaching, and through teaching in schools, on outings, and through community-based practice. september 2019 18 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research “okay okay okay, now the video is on”: an analysis of young children’s orientations to the video camera in recordings of family interactions sarah barriage and darcey k. searles sarah barriage is an assistant professor in the school of information science in the college of communication & information at the university of kentucky. she recently completed her phd in the school of communication & information at rutgers, the state university of new jersey. her research focuses on the everyday information practices of children and youth in diverse contexts, with a focus on child-centered methods of data collection and analysis. email: sarah.barriage@uky.edu darcey k. searles is a postdoctoral teaching associate in the department of communication studies in the college of arts, media, and design at northeastern university. she recently completed her phd in the school of communication & information at rutgers, the state university of new jersey. her research focuses on family interactions with young children in mediated and in-person contexts. her recent work has examined shows in remote family facetime conversations, as well as young children’s updates in copresent family interactions. email: d.searles@northeastern.edu greene and hill (2005) argue that understanding children’s experiences “demands the use of methods that can capture the nature of children’s lives as lived,” as opposed to approaches that make use of artificial or contrived situations (p. 3). naturalistic observation is one such method that many researchers assert is particularly valuable in examining children’s social interactions (dunn, 2005; mckechnie, 2000; moylett, 2014; pellegrini, 2013; tudge & hogan, 2005). naturalistic observation can be conducted in person and/or via video recordings. the latter method has been noted for its usefulness in capturing the intricate embodied behaviours that make up much of young children’s interactions (kidwell, 2013), as well as its “unobtrusive” nature when compared to inperson observation (given et al., 2016, p. 2). due to the noted advantages of naturalistic observation via video recordings, we used this method in a study examining 3to 6-year-old children’s information and communication practices in everyday family interactions in the home (barriage & searles, 2015; searles & barriage, 2018). these video recordings were analyzed using conversation analysis, the goals of which are to “describe the organization of ordinary social activities” (sidnell & stivers, 2013, p. 33). as we began analyzing the video recordings collected for that study, we noted many instances of the children orienting to the video camera. although not originally our research focus, we decided these instances of participant reactivity warranted further investigation. literature review researchers who use video recordings as a means of observing social interactions have noted many benefits of this technology in collecting and analyzing data. video recordings are purported to provide a more detailed and accurate record of interactions than what could be obtained by a human observer (knoblauch, schnettler, & raab, this paper explores 3to 6-year-old children’s orientations to the video camera in video recordings of everyday family interactions. children’s orientations to the video camera in these recordings were identified and analyzed using the constant comparative method. types of orientations to the video camera included talking about the camera, engaging in cameradirected talk and/or action, and interacting with the camera. in some cases, these orientations occurred after a parent or sibling first oriented to the video camera; however, in other cases no prior orientation was evident. theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. key words: early childhood; family interactions; qualitative research methods; participant reactivity; video recordings september 2019 19 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2012). recording interactions allows for repeated examination of talk and actions, affording the researcher the opportunity to examine minute details of the interaction (heritage, 1989; laurier & philo, 2006; sidnell & stivers, 2013). video recordings have also been cited as a means of increasing the reliability (elder, 1999; knoblauch et al., 2012), validity (elder, 1999) and transparency (heath, hindmarsh, & luff, 2010) of research concerned with interpersonal interactions, because the raw data can be made available to and analyzed by others. this in turn increases opportunities for research collaborations, since multiple researchers can take part in intense observation of the same interactions (heath et al., 2010). these benefits have caused some to call video recordings “the microscope of social science” (aarsand, 2016, p. 91). however, as with any method of data collection, naturalistic observation via video recordings is not without its drawbacks. one disadvantage associated with this method is that of participant reactivity (heath et al., 2010). specifically, the presence of recording equipment has the potential to influence the talk and actions of interactants, who may feel self-conscious or uncomfortable being recorded (e.g., semeniuk & riesch, 2011; speer & hutchby, 2003). as speer and hutchby (2003) note, this reactivity causes some researchers to call into question whether recorded interactions can be considered natural or authentic reflections of everyday interaction. worries about participant reactivity have led some to conclude that natural interactions are impossible to capture via video or audio recording, because the very introduction of recording equipment and resulting participant reactivity fundamentally change the nature of the interaction (lomax & casey, 1998; speer & hutchby, 2003). conversely, other researchers contend that participant reactivity is “often exaggerated” (heath et al., 2010, p. 48), with participants’ awareness of the video camera occurring primarily at the onset of recording and subsiding once participants become accustomed to its presence (heath et al., 2010; knoblauch et al., 2012). these researchers argue “that within a short time, the camera is ‘made at home’” (heath et al., 2010, p. 49), with minimal impact on the authenticity of the recorded interactions (lomax & casey, 1998; rosenstein, 2002). in research with adults, there is much variability in reported frequency and duration of participant orientations to the video camera, as well as variability in the ways adult participants orient to the camera (heath et al., 2010). for example, heath et al. (2010) noted in their work that participants’ orientations to the video camera occurred in “occasional moment[s] of awareness” (p. 48), such as when recording commenced, when a new participant entered the room, or during lulls in activity. in medical settings, adult orientations to the video camera were more likely to occur at the beginning of the interaction, as well as when the physician was out of the room (penner et al., 2007). these orientations to the video camera were both infrequent and short in duration (penner et al., 2007). ways in which adults orient to the presence of recording equipment include looking at the camera (laurier & philo, 2012; penner et al., 2007), waving and making faces at the camera (laurier & philo, 2012), gesturing to the camera (penner et al., 2007), and talking about the recording equipment (penner et al., 2007; speer & hutchby, 2003). similar variability is evident in the small body of research concerned with participant reactivity in children. for example, some researchers assert that children typically only attend to the video camera when recording commences and quickly resume normal activities, but do not provide empirical evidence for this assertion nor specify the age range of the children on which their assertions are based (e.g., häggman-laitila, seppänen, vehviläinen-julkunen, & pietilä, 2010; o’shannessy, 2014; rosenstein, 2002). other researchers have been more specific about the participant reactivity encountered in their research with children. for example, antal et al. (2015) reported that children oriented to the video camera at least once in 74% of their recordings of visits with pediatric health care providers. children displayed more orientations to the camera than did their parents or health care providers, with 5to 7-year-old children displaying orientations six times more often than children over age 13 (antal et al., 2015). overall, these orientations made up a very small proportion of the total behaviours coded by the researchers (antal et al., 2015). talking about the recording equipment was the most frequent type of september 2019 20 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research orientation to the camera displayed by children in this study (antal et al., 2015), and has been identified in other studies with children between 3 and 8 years of age (e.g., given et al., 2016; speer & hutchby, 2003). other types of orientations to the camera identified in prior research include staring or briefly glancing at the camera, waving or pointing at the camera, and performing for the camera (antal et al., 2015; given et al., 2016). in research with both children and adults, most systematic, empirical considerations of participant reactivity draw on video recordings of medical interactions (e.g., antal et al., 2015; penner et al., 2007). there is little evidence of such investigations focused on the reactivity of young children in studies using video recordings of family interactions in the home, with discussions of participant reactivity in such settings including assertions that such reactivity was minimal (e.g., häggman-laitila et al., 2010) or considered as one of several challenges encountered in home-based video recordings (e.g., given et al., 2016). as such, there remain many unanswered questions about the reactivity of young children in this setting, including the prevalence of participant reactivity, the types of behaviours displayed when such reactivity occurs, and the events precipitating participant reactivity. the current study addresses these gaps. research questions this paper explores young children’s orientations to the video camera during video recordings of everyday family interactions. specifically, this paper seeks to address the following questions about the talk and actions of 3to 6-year-old children: 1. how prevalent were the children’s orientations to the video camera? 2. in what ways did the children orient to the video camera? 3. what, if anything, preceded the children’s orientations to the video camera? method participants video recordings of family interactions were collected from 20 families with at least one child 3–6 years of age. participants were recruited from the northeastern united states and southern ontario, canada, by posting flyers in local libraries, university buildings, businesses, and daycare centres. snowball sampling was also used. a total of 23 children (14 girls and 9 boys) in the target age range (m = 4.26 years, sd = 1.18) participated in this study, as well as the children’s parent(s) and/or sibling(s). in four families, the child in the target age range was an only child; in three families, both children were in the target age range; in four families, the target child had a sibling under 2 years of age; and in nine families, the target child had one or more older siblings. the youngest sibling in this data was eight months and the oldest 17 years of age. in all but one family, a parent (typically the mother) was present in at least one of the video recordings. data collection parents were provided with two black flip ultra pocket camcorders (2nd generation), which are 6x3 inches in size, include a playback screen, and can be attached to a small tabletop tripod for stability. parents were also given a checklist of suggested steps for obtaining quality video recordings (such as ensuring the television or radio was not playing in the background, and that all interactants could be seen in the video) and a list of potential interactions that might be communication rich, such as mealtimes, playtimes, and bedtime routines. parents were asked to use september 2019 21 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the video cameras to record three interactions lasting 30–60 minutes that included their child(ren) in the target age range and at least one other family member. a total of 100 videos were collected from these 20 families, totalling 30 hours 42 minutes 20 seconds. the video recordings averaged 18 minutes 25 seconds in length, with each family recording an average of 92 minutes 7 seconds of video. some families completed more than the requested three video recordings. reasons cited by the parents for additional recordings included the video cameras shutting off mid-recording, either inadvertently due to issues with the camera battery or the record button being hit, or purposefully, such as when a child needed to use the bathroom, as well as concerns about providing the researchers with communication-rich interactions long enough in duration to satisfy the research purposes. a variety of interactions was captured in these recordings, with the children and their families engaging in play, eating and preparing meals, reading stories, engaging in bedtime routines, completing homework, and participating in arts and crafts. most families recorded videos in their homes; one family completed the video recordings at their church, and one family completed one video recording in their vehicle. in the majority of the video recordings, parents placed the camera in a fixed position (heath et al., 2010), at times adjusting the angle of the camera or moving the camera to another location. in other recordings, parents elected to make use of what heath et al. (2010) term the “roving camera” approach, following their children with the camera as they engaged in activities in various locations in their homes. data analysis all video data were coded by the researchers for instances of orientation to the video camera exhibited by the children in the target age range. orientation to the video camera was defined as any instance in which a child explicitly displayed through their talk or their actions that they were aware of the presence of the video camera. instances in which children simply glanced in the direction of the video camera were not included in this analysis, since the researchers were not present during the recordings, it was not possible to determine if the child was indeed looking at the video camera or if they were looking at a person or object located behind or near the camera. an instance of an orientation to the video camera was considered to begin when a child displayed his or her awareness of the video camera and was considered to end when the child engaged in some other talk or action that was unrelated to the presence of the video camera. the video recordings collected from one family included three short videos during which the parents allowed their child the opportunity to use the video cameras and tripods in order to understand how the equipment worked. these three videos were omitted from subsequent analyses of the children’s orientations to the video camera, because interaction with the video camera was the primary focus of these three recordings. the family id number, video name, timestamp, child’s pseudonym, age, and gender were recorded for each instance of a child’s orientation to the video camera. the presence of parent(s) and/or sibling(s) was also noted. each instance of a child’s orientation to the video camera was transcribed using the jeffersonian transcription system (hepburn & bolden, 2017) and then analyzed inductively using the constant comparative method (glaser & strauss, 1967), with an initial open coding scheme developed based on the talk and actions displayed by the children, followed by axial coding. each orientation could be composed of a single or multiple types of talk and/ or action, and each of these were coded for every orientation. each instance was also analyzed to identify any talk or action related to the presence of the video camera displayed by the child’s parent(s) or sibling(s) prior to, after, and during the child’s orientation to the camera. september 2019 22 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research findings prevalence of orientations to the video camera a total of 102 instances of young children orienting to the video camera were identified in the video recordings analyzed for this study. the average number of orientations per child was 4.43 (sd = 4.71), with 17 of 23 children (73.91%) orienting to the video camera at least once. as rideout (2014) notes, “averages mask big differences” in the behaviours of individual children (p. 11); in our data, six children did not display any orientation to the video camera in any of the recordings collected from their families, while one child displayed 18 orientations to the video camera. orientations to the video camera averaged 21 seconds in length (sd = 23 seconds). the longest orientation was 1 minute 51 seconds, and the shortest 1 second. for children who did orient to the video camera, the average total time each child oriented to the camera across all recordings was 2 minutes 16 seconds (sd = 1 minute 50 seconds), with a minimum total time spent orienting to the camera of 2 seconds and a maximum total time of 6 minutes 59 seconds. orientations to the video camera did not occur in every video recording. specifically, in 58 of the 97 (59.79%) videos, there were no instances of the child(ren) in the target age range orienting to the video camera. the number of times a child oriented to the video camera in the remaining 39 videos is displayed in figure 1. figure 1. frequency of orientations to the video camera by video. types of orientation to the video camera the children oriented to the video camera using three main types of talk and/or action: they talked about the camera, engaged in camera-directed talk and/or action, and interacted with the camera (see table 1). each of these three types of orientation to the video camera consists of similar subtypes of talk and/or action that are related to the video camera. for example, the “camera-directed talk/actions” type of orientation includes such subtypes of talk and/or action as talking to the camera, singing, making faces, putting one’s face or an object close to the camera, waving, and dancing. each instance of a child’s orientation to the video camera could include any number and type of these orientations, and so the totals given in table 1 should not be considered summative. september 2019 23 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 1 types of children’s orientations to the video camera type of orientation description of orientation number of orientations talks about camera 77 mentions camera says something or asks about the camera (including embodied actions) 68 mentions research says something about the research or the researcher(s) 6 asks to watch video asks to watch the video recording 3 camera-directed talk/actions 75 talks to camera says something to/for the camera 25 sings sings to/for the camera 14 makes faces makes faces to/for the camera 13 puts face close to camera puts face near the camera lens 9 puts object in front of camera puts object in front of camera lens 7 waves waves to/for the camera 4 dances dances to/for the camera 3 interacts with camera 40 looks in viewfinder looks through the camera’s viewfinder 16 looks at self in viewfinder puts part of own body (e.g., arm, hand) in front of camera lens while looking through viewfinder 6 commentary talks about what is seen through viewfinder 5 moves camera moves camera to another location 5 touches camera touches camera (without moving it) 5 adjusts camera adjusts camera angle/positioning (without moving it) 3 other 3 september 2019 24 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research each of the three main types of orientation to the video camera identified in the data is described below, with the clearest examples of several of the subtypes provided. talks about camera. the most frequent type of orientation to the video camera was when the children talked about the camera (77 orientations). this type of orientation includes talk and/or action about the camera, such as mentioning the camera, mentioning the research project and/or the researcher, and asking to watch the video recording currently being generated. within this type of orientation, and overall by far the most frequent child-displayed orientation to the camera, were those in which the child mentions the camera. in these instances, the child says something or asks about the camera, indicating their awareness of the presence of the video camera. for example, in extract 01, abby1 (5) and libby (3) are playing a game with their mom. abby orients to the camera with, “okay okay oka:y .hhh now the video:: is o::::n.” (lines 10, 13) after mom has moved towards the camera (lines 06–08) and is adjusting it (line 11). extract 01 vc5_001_playtime 2.2_12.25_the video is on 01 (3.0)/((mom puts down tiles)) 02 lib: no i have one. 03 mom: oh. 04 (0.7)/((mom sits back)) 05 mom: >go ahead,< 06 (10.0)/((mom moves chair near camera)) 07 (3.0)/((mom moves behind camera)) 08 (0.3)/((sound of chair moving)) 09 abb: ((turns to look towards mom)) 10 abb: okay [okay oka:y ] 11 mom: [((adjusts [camera))] 12 lib: [( )] 13 abb: .hhh now the video:: [is o::::n. ] 14 lib: [this is not much.] 15 (.) 16 lib: this not [mu:ch. ] 17 mom: [°that’s better.° ] 18 (0.2) 19 mom: you’re not in it though >#you gotta 20 move over a little bit (.) abby.#< september 2019 25 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research this orientation to the camera occurs after mom has gotten up and moved a chair behind the camera out of view (lines 06–08). in line 08 the chair makes a noise and abby then turns to look at the source of the noise (and thus at mom and the camera; line 09). abby then says “okay okay oka:y .hhh now the video:: is o::::n.” with this turn abby announces the presence (and activity) of the camera recording. additionally, in overlap with abby’s line 10, mom adjusts the camera view. here, abby’s orientation to the camera is prompted by mom’s actions (approaching the camera and adjusting the camera). abby’s orientation simply mentions the camera: by announcing that the camera is on she shows her awareness of the camera’s placement as well as that it is currently recording her. within the orientation type of “talks about camera,” there are also instances in which the child asks to watch the video that is currently being recorded, and those in which he or she says something about the research or the researcher, including greeting one of the researchers by name. these orientations also demonstrate children’s emerging and ongoing awareness of the video camera and its function, including their understanding that the video recordings can later be viewed by both themselves and others. camera-directed talk/actions. the second most frequent type of orientation to the camera was “camera-directed talk/actions” (75 orientations). in these instances, the children’s orientations to the camera exemplify how the presence of the video camera may affect these everyday interactions in that the children are performing something specifically for the camera, most often by doing something silly and/or funny, such as singing or making faces. in these instances, the orientations consist of talk and/or action that appear to be performed for the camera itself. within this orientation type, the most common subtype were those instances in which the child talks to the camera, such as telling the camera about his/her action(s) or information about him/herself. in extract 02, mom has just turned on the video camera (it is stationary) and eddie (7) and timmy (5) are eating breakfast. in lines 02 to 04 timmy looks directly at the camera and says, “hello, we’re eating breakfast and this is french toast” as he holds up a piece of french toast (see figure 22). extract 02 v61_014_valentines_00.00_eating breakfast 01 edd: we’re eating breakfast ( ). 02 tim: hello, we’re eating breakfast and 03 [this is french toast. ] 04 [((holds up french toast))] 05 (1.0) 06 edd: ha ha::, 07 mom: so what are we gonna do after 08 breakfast. in this extract, we can see that timmy announces what he is doing for the camera. he greets the camera with “hello” and then states what he is doing (eating breakfast) as well as what he is eating (french toast; lines 02–04), figure 2. timmy talks to the camera and puts an object in front of the camera lens. september 2019 26 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research providing a commentary3 (heritage & stivers, 1999) of his current ongoing activities. in this subtype of orientation to the video camera, the child is doing something specifically for the camera, either describing ongoing activities or, as in other instances, explaining why something has happened. another example of camera-directed talk and/or actions occurs in extract 03, where amanda (6) and nathan (10) are working together to make a blanket. in lines 05 to 06 amanda puts her face close to the camera lens, makes faces towards the camera and sings loudly. extract 03 vc17_003_craft time_13.25_people at the university 01 ama: missin’ one of the stripes. 02 (0.8) 03 ama: ((crawls on floor toward nathan)) stripy 04 stripy stripy stripy kkhh 05 (0.2)/((amanda faces camera)) 06 ama: alululululululululululullll:::::. 07 nat: people at that university will see you 08 doing that. 09 ama: what? 10 nat: the people at that university will see you 11 doing that. 12 (1.0) 13 ama: oh 14 (0.2) 15 nat: they’re pretty much just wa:tching °you do 16 all that.° here we can see how amanda transitions from the ongoing activity of making the blanket (lines 01–03) to an orientation to the camera that becomes an activity in and of itself. these orientations are not relevant in the course of amanda and nathan’s ongoing activity (i.e., making the blanket), but are directed towards the camera and not any co-present person. thus, they truly are directed towards the camera, and it is possible to see how the presence of the video camera has the potential to impact children’s everyday interactions. although we cannot know if amanda would have danced, made faces, or sang without the presence of the video camera, it is clear that these orientations are directed specifically to the camera itself.4 interacts with camera. the third most frequent type of orientations to the video camera are those in which the child “interacts with the camera” (40 orientations). in these instances, the child manipulates the camera in some september 2019 27 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research way, by either physically handling it or looking through the viewfinder. in extract 04 eden (4), mom, julie (8), and lucas (10) are having dinner while lucas does his homework. in line 09, eden looks in the camera’s viewfinder and issues commentary on what she can see through the viewfinder. extract 04 vc34_008_dinnertime_06.05_mommy’s face 01 jul: °like (0.2) she [goes up there° ] 02 luc: [(what’s zero pl-)] 03 mom: mm. 04 (0.2) 05 mom: ( ) 06 ede: can i see one more? 07 (2.0)/((mom whispering, ede walks towards 08 camera, goes behind camera)) 09 ede: hah>hahah< (0.6) i can see mommy’s face. 10 in the picture .hh hh. 11 luc: is this (good)? at the beginning of this segment julie is “telling” on eden for having touched the camera a few minutes before (line 01), which mom responds to with a minimal “mm.” (line 03), thereby not taking up julie on her previous turn. eden then requests permission to look at the camera again with “can i see one more?” (line 06). she does not wait for permission from mom, but then walks towards the camera (line 08) and then provides a commentary (heritage & stivers, 1999) of what she can see with “hah>hahah< (0.6) i can see mommy’s face.” while presumably looking through the viewfinder of the camera (line 09). here we can see how children’s orientations to the camera can be focused on how the camera works, including what the camera can and cannot see. when eden goes to look behind the camera, what is pertinent to her, and what she announces to the others, is what she can see by looking through the camera’s viewfinder. within this type of orientation are also several subtypes in which children physically manipulate the camera in some way. in extract 05, lacey (4) and her mom have been making crafts and now mom is preparing lunch. lacey adjusts the camera angle in line 12. extract 05 vc90_007_craft time 3_01.55_moves camera 01 mom: you want (that) cheese? 02 lac: yea. 03 (0.2) 04 mom: cuz i don’tokay. september 2019 28 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research 05 (1.2) 06 lac: cott(age) chee:se. 07 mom: it’s called feta. 08 lac: i want feta:, °°pl-°° (0.2) and yogurt 09 please. 10 lac: (4.5)/((looks at camera, walks across the room)) 11 lac: [°°ri:ght the:re.°° ] 12 [((adjusts camera angle towards sofa))] 13 (.) 14 lac: °°record over there.°° 15 (0.2) 16 lac: °°okay°° 17 lac: ((sits down on sofa)) 18 lac: °°now sit.°° 19 lac: ((colours in book)) after they discuss what lacey will eat (lines 01–09), lacey looks at the camera (line 10), walks across the room and then towards the camera (line 10). she then adjusts the camera angle towards the sofa (line 12) as she whispers “°°ri:ght the:re.°°” (line 11), engaging in self-talk as she adjusts the camera angle. next, lacey whispers a directive to the camera with “°°record over there.°°” (line 14) and then “°°okay°°” (line 16; presumably treating the camera angle as now being sufficient) and sits down on the sofa (line 17), talking to herself with “°°now sit.°°” (line 18). here we can see how lacey’s orientation to the video camera demonstrates an awareness of both the fact that she is being recorded as well as the limitations of the video camera (it can only record what is in front of the lens). by adjusting the angle of the camera so it is focused on the sofa, she is then able to complete her activity in the view of the camera (see figure 3). figure 3. lacey adjusts the camera (left), then sits on sofa while checking camera angle (right). when the children orient to the video camera by interacting with it, they demonstrate their awareness of the camera’s presence and, in some cases, its limitations. by moving and/or adjusting the camera to ensure that it september 2019 29 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research captures a particular scene, children not only show they are aware that their current actions are displayed to the camera, but also that the camera might not capture everything. when the children look through the viewfinder, they are also interacting with the camera’s capabilities by attempting to see what it sees. other. finally, there were three orientations to the video camera that did not fit within the three types of orientations identified in the data. since there were so few of these instances, and they were dissimilar to the other orientations, they were not included in the typology. others’ talk and action preceding children’s orientation to the video camera in 64 of the 102 (62.75%) instances of a child’s orientation to the video camera, a parent and/or sibling first oriented to the video camera in some way. these orientations appear to have brought the video camera to the forefront of interactions and thus triggered the children’s orientation to the camera, much as how something someone says may trigger a subsequent story by another interlocutor (jefferson, 1978). that is, with these orientations, there is a clear prior orientation to the video camera by another participant that then brings about the child’s own orientation. sibling orientations. siblings oriented to the camera in very similar ways as the children in the target age range: talking about the camera, interacting with the camera, and engaging in camera-directed talk/action (see table 2). table 2 types of sibling orientations to the camera preceding child’s orientation types of orientation description of orientation number of orientations talks about camera 8 mentions camera says something about the camera 8 interacts with camera 8 looks in viewfinder looks through the camera’s viewfinder 3 moves camera moves camera to another location 2 adjusts camera adjusts camera angle/positioning (without moving it) 2 camera-directed talk/action 3 talks to camera says something to/for the camera 2 puts face close to camera puts face near the camera lens 1 sings sings to/for the camera 1 other 2 parent orientations. parents also exhibited the same three main types of orientation to the video camera. they engaged in similar talk and actions as their children, such as adjusting the camera, moving the camera, mentioning the camera, mentioning the research study, and waving to the camera (see table 3). however, parents september 2019 30 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research also displayed orientations to the video camera that were not exhibited by the children in the target age range. these included using a roving camera approach to recording, turning on the camera, approaching the camera, and issuing directives to their children related to the presence of the video camera. the orientation types that are unique to parents are discussed below. table 3 types of parent orientation to the video camera preceding child’s orientation types of orientation description of orientation number of orientations interacts with camera 46 adjusts camera adjusts camera angle/positioning (without moving it) 16 moves camera moves camera to another location 14 roving camera holds camera while recording 8 turns on camera begins video recording 5 approaches camera moves toward camera 3 talks about camera 29 directive issues directive to child related to presence of video camera 16 mentions camera says something about the camera 11 mentions research says something about the research study 2 performs for camera 3 waves to camera waves to/for the camera 2 talks to camera says something to/for the camera 1 interacts with camera. in the orientation type “interacts with camera,” parents exhibited three subtypes of talk and action that were not exhibited by the children within the target age range: using a roving camera approach, turning on the camera, and approaching the camera. the roving camera approach involved the parent following the child with the video camera, as opposed to setting the camera on a stable surface to record. in extract 06, mom follows zara (4) with the video camera as she leaves the kitchen / dining room area and goes to the bathroom to wash her hands. september 2019 31 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research extract 06 vc86_017_lunchtime_04.55_why 01 (3.0)/((zar washes hands)) 02 mom: rinse of all the soap please. 03 (1.2)/((zar starts to move towards sink 04 then holds out hands)) 05 zar: it is all the soap, 06 mom: it’s all off? 07 zar: (think.) 08 (8.0)/((zar dries off hands with towel))/ 09 ((mom walks backwards)) 10 (2.0)/((zar leaves bathroom, walks down 11 hallway))/((mom follows)) | 12 zar: [why you ] videotaping me. | 13 [((looks back at mom))] | 14 mom: kay can you get your lunch no:w?= | 15 (.)/((zar turns towards kitchen)) 16 mom: from thecuz dad packed you some for s17 [from school? 18 [((aims camera towards kitchen)) in lines 01–07, zara washes her hands at the bathroom sink while mom stands in the doorway holding the camera. in line 08, zara moves from the sink to dry her hands with a towel, and mom moves backward in order to keep zara in the frame of the camera (line 09). in line 10 zara leaves the bathroom and walks down the hall, and mom follows her with the camera (line 11). in lines 12–13, zara looks back at mom, who is still holding the camera, and asks “why you videotaping me.” mom does not answer zara’s question, but instead in line 14 prompts her with the request, “kay can you get your lunch no:w?=”, sequentially deleting zara’s inquiry and attempting to move her back into ordinary activities. zara then moves toward the kitchen in line 15 as mom specifies her request in lines 16–17, aiming her camera towards the kitchen (line 18). in this extract, we can see how mom’s interaction with the camera precedes zara’s orientation. it is mom’s roving camera approach that appears to trigger zara’s orientation to the video camera. children also orient to the camera after a parent turns it on. in extract 07, mom turns on the camera (line 01) and walter (3) subsequently orients to it (lines 04, 10, 12, 14, 19, 21). september 2019 32 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research extract 07 vc99_020_trains_00.30_put it up here 01 ((mom turns camera on)) 02 wal: (stairs) 03 (4.0)/((wal steps towards camera)) 04 wal: 05 06 mom: mo:m, (0.2) yes¿ 07 08 wal: 09 mom: 10 wal: 11 mom: 12 wal: 13 14 wal: 15 mom: 16 17 mom: (0.2)/((wal walks towards camera)) ( )/((reaches towards camera)) let’s go put>>no no no<< don’t touch. no no wgo play with the train okay¿ what if you put it up he:re. (0.2) it can see us. [i think that >this is a good spot.< [((adjusts camera)) go: over to the trains 18 [so i can see ( )] 19 wal: [no right here. ] 20 mom: 21 wal: 22 wal: 23 mom: 24 mom: 25 26 mom: walter g(h)o(h):. that’s a [perfect spot.] [((turns to]wards trains)) [heheheh ] t(h)hank you. (.) .hhhh alright (0.2) you got your train? walter’s orientation to the camera starts in line 04 when he summons his mom, “mo:m,” mom responds with “yes ¿” (line 06) and walter then walks towards and reaches for the camera (lines 07–08; see figure 4). mom issues a directive about the camera in line 09 with “let’s go put>>no no no<< don’t touch.” with this turn she first attempts to return to play by starting a play-related directive, but then self-repairs and issues a directive concerning september 2019 33 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the video camera. walter protests in line 10 with “no no w-”. mom issues another directive in line 11 with “go play with the train okay¿”, in an attempt to get walter to not orient to the camera and instead start playing. walter then mentions the camera by giving a suggestion about its placement with “what if you put it up he:re.” (line 12), and after no response “it can see us.” (line 14). mom and walter then negotiate the placement of the camera (lines 15–24) and then begin playing with the trains (lines 25–26). in this instance, mom’s action of turning on the camera triggers walter’s orientation to it. in all of the instances where a child’s orientation occurs after a parent turns on the camera, the children’s orientations to the camera are almost immediate, demonstrating that it is the action of the parent orienting to the camera (by turning it on) that triggers the child’s orientation. instances in which parents approach the camera were also included in this type of orientation and were those in which the parent moved or reached toward the camera. these three subtypes of “interacts with camera” are a result of the parent acting as a co-researcher (given et al., 2016) and having responsibility for setting up the video camera in order to capture their children’s interactions. talks about camera. parents also issued directives to their children related to the presence of the video camera. for example, in extract 08, jackson (8) and shyla (5) are playing with playdough at the kitchen table while mom is nearby but not in view of the camera. mom issues a series of directives to shyla in lines 05–06 and 10. extract 08 vc44_013_play doh_16.15_pointing to me 01 jac: 02 03 shy: 04 05 mom: 06 07 08 mom: 09 10 mom: 11 shy: 12 13 mom: 14 can i use your pho:ne¿ (1.0)/((shy turns towards jac)) °i don’t have a phone.° (6.5)/((both play with play dough)) hey shyla can you get in the (frame) closer to jackson. (0.5) can’t see you. (0.5) move over please. [but it’s pointing to me:. [((moves head towards camera)) it’s no:t. listen to me when i talk to you. figure 4. walter reaches for the video camera. september 2019 34 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research 15 (.) 16 mom: move over. 17 (5.0)/((shy adjusts in seat)) 18 shy: i already mo:ved. 19 (6.0)/((shy makes faces towards mom)) 20 mom: get u:p, stand closer to your brothe:r, 21 stop being drama:tic. 22 (0.2)/((shy leans over)) 23 mom: one, 24 (0.3)/((shy shifts [chair over))] 25 mom: [two, ]=thank 26 you. in lines 05–06, mom issues a request to shyla for her to move into the frame of the video camera with “hey shyla can you get in the (frame) closer to jackson.” with this request mom makes the presence of the video camera relevant in the interaction; it is because of its presence that she makes the request. after no response, mom explains that the video camera cannot see shyla (line 08) with “can’t see you.”, referring to the video camera’s inability to capture shyla at that moment. after no response, in line 10 mom issues a directive to shyla with “move over please.” this functions as an upgrade from her previous request (craven & potter, 2010). in lines 11–12, shyla then orients to the video camera, arguing “but it’s pointing to me:.”, while gesturing towards the video camera (see figure 5). here she treats mom’s directive as unnecessary, arguing that if the camera is pointed at her, then presumably it can see her. in lines 13–23 mom and shyla argue about shyla moving, to which she finally concedes in line 24. this subtype of orientation is also unique to parents, due to parents’ role as co-researchers with responsibility for ensuring that the children are in view of and not playing with or disregarding the presence of the video camera. since all parents were given the cameras and recording instructions, these orientations are a reflection of the parents’ awareness of their responsibility as a coresearcher and providing adequate data for the researchers. no preceding sibling or parent orientation. in 37 of the 102 instances of a child’s orientation to the video camera, there were no evident orientations to the video camera by the other family members present immediately preceding the child’s orientation. in these instances, the children oriented to the video camera seemingly independently of the actions of others. for example, in extract 09, mom, dad, valerie, nathan, and amanda are eating dinner. after looking at the camera for some time (lines 11–21), amanda mentions the camera in line 28. figure 5. shyla orients to the camera after mom issues a directive. september 2019 35 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research extract 09 vc47_extra 003_14.45_staring at me 01 dad: are you over your cold yet? 02 (1.0) 03 val: mmm [no.] 04 dad: [not] quite yet¿ 05 val: kkeh kkeh no:. 06 (.) 07 val: [heh] 08 dad: [°oh] no.° 09 (1.2) 10 val: might get be:tter (but), 11 (0.4)/((ama looks towards camera)) | 12 nat: i think i’m [gonna (get a) cough,] | 13 val: [it’s not over yet. ] | 14 mom: maybe when the snow melts. | 15 ama: mom[my:, ] | 16 val: [hehheh][.hhh ] | 17 mom: [eh heh ] | 18 dad: [so like] | 19 [ma:y or ju:ne?] | 20 val: [i hope (no:t.)] | 21 (0.2)/((ama turns to face val)) 22 val: heh 23 (1.2)/((ama turns to face mom)) 24 ama: [momm:y, 25 [((taps mom’s shoulder)) 26 (1.0)/((mom turns to face ama)) 27 [((turns towards camera)) 28 ama: [why is the camera staring at me,= 29 val: =[hahahahah ].hheh september 2019 36 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research 30 mom: [hmhmhmhmhm] 31 (2.0)/((mom smiles and looks at ama)) 32 mom: because sarah wants to see how you 33 eat. 34 (0.2) 35 mom: say hi to sarah 36 (1.5)/((ama looks at mom)) 37 mom: eheh >heheheheh< 38 (0.6)/((ama turns towards camera)) 39 ama: [hi::, 40 [((waves to camera)) in line 11, amanda looks toward the camera (continuously until line 21), while the rest of the family talks about valerie’s cold. in line 15, amanda summons her mom with, “mom[my:,” but the family continues talking. in lines 24–25, amanda summons again with “momm:y,”, this time tapping mom on the shoulder. in line 26 mom turns to face amanda and in line 27 turns to face the camera. in line 28 amanda asks, “why is the camera staring at me,=”. mom responds with “because sarah5 wants to see how you eat.” (lines 32–33), giving an explanation for the presence of the video camera. in this case, there is no preceding orientation to the video camera by any of the other family members, thus amanda’s orientation appears to be unprompted. children’s orientations to the video camera that are not preceded by a sibling or parent orientation challenge the assumption that children are not aware of or influenced by the presence of the video camera during recordings. although they represent a minority of the instances of child orientations in our data, the fact that they exist demonstrates that there may be an ongoing awareness of the video camera during recordings of everyday family life, or at the very least moments in which the mere presence of the video camera can cause children to outwardly speculate about its presence. discussion this study analyzed 3to 6-year-old children’s orientations to the video camera in a corpus of recordings of everyday family interactions. although the majority of video recordings did not include young children’s orientations to the video camera, the majority of children in the target age range oriented to the video camera at least once. the average number and duration of children’s orientations to the video camera were low, and the average total time spent orienting to the camera was short in comparison with the average length of video recordings families provided. consistent with prior research (antal et al., 2015), these findings support the assertion that participant reactivity is common in video recordings of young children but in most cases does not make up a substantial portion of the recorded talk and action. contrary to what other researchers have asserted (e.g., häggman-laitila et al., 2010; o’shannessy, 2014; rosenstein, 2002), the children in this study did not quickly become accustomed to the presence of the video camera. instead, we found that orientations to the video camera occurred not only at the beginning of videos, but also throughout the recordings. furthermore, while some children oriented to the video camera infrequently, for others, orienting september 2019 37 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research to the video camera was not an “occasional moment of awareness” (heath et al., 2010, p. 48) but instead a recurring activity throughout the recordings, becoming an activity in and of itself. for example, one child oriented to the video camera 10 times in a single video recording. the variety in the prevalence of children’s orientation to the camera reinforces the need for researchers to examine participant reactivity in their own data in order to determine the extent of its influence (heath et al., 2010). our findings demonstrate that children and their parents oriented to the video camera in a variety of ways: they talked about the camera, engaged in camera-directed talk and/or action, and interacted with the camera. while these higher-level categories of orientations to the video camera are consistent with those previously identified (e.g., antal et al., 2015; given et al., 2016; speer & hutchby, 2003), our analysis offers a more in-depth categorization of the subtypes of orientations displayed by children than that offered by prior research, based on our inductive analysis of the data. that is, our analysis has revealed a broader variety of talk and/or actions that children engage in related to their awareness of the presence of the video camera than those discussed in prior research. this expands our understanding of the ways in which young children orient to the camera, creating a more comprehensive picture of participant reactivity in video recordings used in research. consistent with antal et al.’s (2015) work in medical contexts, the most common type of orientation to the video camera exhibited by the children was talking about the camera. however, in our study this was closely followed by camera-directed talk and/or actions, a type of orientation that occurred infrequently in antal et al. (2015). additionally, interacting with the camera was not identified as an orientation in antal et al. (2015). cameradirected talk/and or actions and, to a lesser extent, interacting with the camera were identified in given et al.’s (2016) work, which, like the present study, involved video recordings collected by parents in the home. this indicates that the types of behaviours children engage in when orienting to the camera may be different depending on the setting in which the video recordings take place. we also found that in the majority of instances of a child’s orientation to the video camera, a parent and/or sibling first oriented to the video camera in some way. thus, it appears that the majority of the children’s orientations to the camera were triggered in some way. however, in just over a third of the instances of a child’s orientation to the video camera, there were no evident orientations to the video camera by another present family member immediately prior to the child’s orientation. these orientations that seemingly occur “out of the blue” offer additional support for the assertion that the video camera does not necessarily fade from participants’ attention as they become used to its presence, as some researchers have argued (e.g., heath et al., 2010; knoblauch et al., 2012), but that some children may maintain an ongoing awareness of its presence. limitations the findings of our analysis of young children’s orientations to the video camera in recordings of family interactions are limited by the way in which the data was collected. that is, our findings are applicable to video recordings obtained in the home, with parents choosing when and where to collect such recordings with minimal researcher guidance. thus, our findings may not be generalizable and/or transferable to other contexts in which young children’s interactions are video recorded, such as when the researcher is present during video recording, or when such recordings are undertaken in a lab setting where the presence of the camera might be less noticeable. additionally, there was variation in the children’s prior awareness of the presence of the video camera and/or its purpose as part of the research study. in some orientations to the video camera, it is clear that the child is not aware of either the presence and/or purpose of the video camera (e.g., extracts 6 and 9), whereas in other orientations the children appear to be aware of both the video camera’s presence and purpose of recording their activities september 2019 38 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (e.g., extracts 2, 5 and 7). differences in children’s awareness of the presence of the video camera and its research purpose may have influenced participant reactivity and may also limit the generalizability/transferability of the findings. implications for researchers projects that make use of parents as co-researchers may need to address head-on issues of parents recording “constructed activities designed to meet the project’s needs” (given et al., 2016, p. 4). in moving forward in research on families and children, some practical future implications have arisen out of this study. for example, it may be useful to give parents explicit instructions about how best to record family interactions in such a way as to reduce children’s orientations to the camera, including suggestions for reducing their own orientations to the video camera while recording is underway, as parent and sibling orientations preceded children’s orientations in the majority of cases in our data. it may also be prudent to provide parents with a script or set of suggestions for explaining the presence and purpose of the video camera to their children, which may help to reduce children’s orientations to the video camera that involve questioning its presence. additionally, it is important to consider what implications orientations to the video camera have when analyzing video-recorded data. for instance, in our own analyses drawing on this collection, it is important for us to consider how orientations to the video camera may affect the other types of talk and action present in the data. researchers who, along with heath et al. (2010), assert that participant reactivity subsides once participants become accustomed to the video camera have advocated for discarding the first few minutes of a recording or, when a series of recordings are possible, the first few recordings in their entirety, to avoid the effects of participant reactivity on the remaining data (e.g., elder, 1999; gross, 1991; happ, sereika, garrett, & tate, 2008). however, in cases such as ours where participant orientations to the video camera occur throughout some video recordings, alternative approaches must be used. for example, researchers may want to consider excluding portions of relevant data that occur in close proximity to orientations to the video camera. future research the factors influencing young children’s orientations to the video camera are not fully explored in this study. future investigations should include a consideration of characteristics such as children’s age. for example, antal et al.’s (2015) study found that younger children oriented to the video camera more often than older children. although analysis of orientations to the video camera by age is outside the scope of this study, it is interesting to note that five of the six children who did not orient to the video camera at all in our data were 3 years of age. future work should also examine other factors that might have an impact on children’s propensity to orient to the video camera. for example, it might be fruitful to examine if asking parents to provide children with a detailed explanation of the presence and/or purpose of the video camera and/or allowing children to play with the camera to reduce its novelty have an impact on participant reactivity. additionally, future work could focus on those orientations that are not immediately preceded by a family member’s orientation to the video camera. these specific orientations could be analyzed in more detail in order to understand more about these seemingly serendipitous orientations to the camera. such orientations could be analyzed sequentially; that is, in cases where the child’s orientation to the camera did not immediately follow another’s orientation to the camera, the video recordings could be analyzed in full to determine what else, if anything, might have caused the child’s orientation. september 2019 39 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research conclusion researchers who make use of naturalistic observation via video recordings are divided on the influence the video camera has on the authenticity of the talk and actions these recordings capture (lomax & casey, 1998; speer & hutchby, 2003). in our data, not all children oriented to the video camera, and those who did, did so briefly. however, orientations to the video camera were displayed by the majority of the children in our study and included a wide variety of talk and actions. these findings indicate that while video recording may be less obtrusive than the presence of a researcher conducting in-person observation, the act of video recording may still influence children’s interactions with their family members in the home. the orientations to the video camera analyzed in this study consisted entirely of talk and actions that would presumably not have occurred if the camera were not present. instead of viewing these orientations as evidence of the inauthenticity or unnaturalness of our data, we choose to consider such orientations part of the “ordinary social activities” (sidnell & stivers, 2013, p. 33) of young children and their families that our work seeks to describe. by treating these orientations to the video camera as we would any other observable phenomenon of interest, we have provided evidence, not only of children’s ongoing awareness of the video camera’s presence in their homes, but also their understanding of how the camera works. this unanticipated area of inquiry was only made visible by the affordances of video-recorded data, demonstrating the power of this “microscope” (aarsand, 2016, p. 91) in studying young children’s social interactions. september 2019 40 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aarsand, p. 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(endnotes) 1 all names are pseudonyms. 2 screenshots of video recordings are included with permission. 3 heritage and stivers (1999) discuss the use of “online commentary” in medical consultations. 4 although nathan’s orientation to the video camera is not our focus because he is not in the target age range, it is interesting to note his orientation to the video camera in this extract. he treats amanda’s actions as something that the “people at the university” will see, and implicitly then, something that she might not want them to see. 5 here mom is referring to one of the researchers. june 2022 74 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research dis/orientating the early childhood sensorium: a palate making menu for public pedagogy alex berry, jo pollitt, narda nelson, b. denise hodgins, and vanessa wintoneak alex berry is a phd candidate with the faculty of education at western university on the lands of the anishinaabeg, haudenosaunee, lunaapeewak, and attawandaron peoples in ontario, canada, and a pedagogical facilitator in cuenca, ecuador. her research is interested in how collective artistic processes may propose new ways of relating with plastic waste materials in ecuadorian andean early childhood spaces. email: aberry28@uwo.ca jo pollitt is a postdoctoral research fellow at edith cowan university in western australia. as an interdisciplinary artist and researcher, jo’s work is grounded in improvisation practice, and her work as dancer, dramaturg, and writer has been presented locally and internationally. her research applies choreographic thinking, expanded embodiment, experimental writing, and creative response in thinking with more-than-human worlds to explore children’s relations with common worlds. she is cofounder of big kids magazine and artist-researcher with #feas feminist educators against sexism. narda nelson is a pedagogist and researcher with the university of victoria child care services. drawing on her background in gender studies, narda takes an interdisciplinary approach to research and practice with a particular interest in reimagining ethical futures with plant, animal, and waste flow relations in early childhood. she is a phd student with western university’s faculty of education, pedagogical communications coordinator for the bc early childhood pedagogy network (ecpn), and a member of the common worlds research collective. b. denise hodgins is the deputy director of the bc early childhood pedagogy network and the lead researcher and pedagogist at university of victoria child care services. denise gratefully acknowledges that she lives and works on the unceded traditional territory of the songhees, esquimalt and wsáneć peoples, whose relationships with the land continue today. her work is rooted in feminist material theoretical perspectives. vanessa wintoneak is a phd candidate and early childhood lecturer at edith cowan university. she is a settler living and working on whadjuk noongar boodja. in her research with a river-child-walking collective she is experimenting with theories, concepts, and practices that attend to a politics of radical relationality in early childhood pedagogy. savour (v.) from old french savorer “taste, breathe in; appreciate, care for” this paper shares a multilayered retrospective story of an international exhibit, dis/orientating the early childhood sensorium: micro-interruptions for alternative climate futures (hereafter referred to as the exhibit), curated by the climate action childhood network (can). the exhibit took place at the london children’s museum following a three-day interdisciplinary colloquium on climate pedagogies in february 2020 on the lands of the anishinaabek, haudenosaunee, lūnaapéewak, and attawandaron peoples, and featured a decaying food-waste chandelier (figure 1) that framed a dining table setting (figure 2). it is at this table that we think through the fissures and junctures of our this paper shares a multilayered retrospective story of an international exhibit curated for the climate action childhood network colloquium as part of a commitment among exhibit curators to reveal the complexities of unpalatable climate futures. in the format of a tasting menu, we offer a sampling of the exhibit installations as a menu of potential alterpolitics in the making. facing intensifying inequitable climate presents and futures, our intention is that this invitation might create openings for the intersection of local and global concerns. we gesture toward collective but tentative responses for thinking climate action pedagogies through the metaphor of a troubling meal. key words: research-creation; early childhood education; climate; pedagogy; children’s museum june 2022 75 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research encounters with the colloquium and exhibit as cocurators / research colleagues who are situated in victoria (lekwungen territory, canada), perth (whadjuk noongar country, australia), and guayaquil (huancavilca territory, ecuador). inspired by alexis shotwell’s (2020) reminder in her colloquium keynote address that we are “ethically entangled with more distant others,” we locate our exhibit retrospect as a potential alterpolitics in the making that moves across multiple and incommensurable times, distances, and places. centered around a menu created from our curatorial discussions and experiences of colloquium events and the exhibit, this paper continues the colloquium’s call for speculative and pedagogical responses to climate issues in early childhood education. we begin with a three-part introduction: a brief overview of the exhibit’s emergence, the exhibit’s call for otherwise sensoria that subsequently frames our retrospective story, and the theoretical orientations that shape our menu provocation. this introduction is followed by the menu, an ensemble of six recalled exhibit micromoments told as stories à la carte, which aims to provoke indigestives and inedibles. finally, before clearing the table, we sit with the mess and grapple with the unpalatable through expanded sensoria, not as a resolution but as a lingering indigestion—one that takes up gert biesta’s (2014) assertion that “‘beginning’ is only half of what action is about, as everything depends on how others take up our initiatives” (p. 134). in this case, how the reader digests what is on offer through this colloquium exhibit retrospective put into an experimental article form, we hope might set something in motion in terms of sparking new pedagogical considerations in early childhood education to emerge. now, more than two years after the colloquium, our slow and differential digesting of the exhibit’s six installations has produced, among other things, this paper on offer, which takes place in worlds profoundly changed from the ones lived in then. these worlds have been marked by intensifications of existing settlerand neocolonial conditions, such as the deadly fires and floods along the west coast of canada and throughout australia, and the immense acceleration of toxic waste from the north into the coastal lands of ecuador. as global climate crisis realities intensify and profound inequities are amplified by the covid-19 pandemic, cultivating an ability to attune ourselves to a plurality of situated perspectives feels increasingly urgent in this time of rapid narrowings. what happens distinctly in one place matters to another. thus, our retrospective exhibit story aims to blur divisions between the local-global without erasing difference by sharing climate stories as already both/and: both local and global, both heterogeneous and common.1 june 2022 76 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. food-waste chandelier. photograph by alex berry. june 2022 77 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2. setting the table. photograph by adrianne bacelar de castro. exhibiting can the exhibit installations we drew on in creating our menu offering emerged from two sshrc-funded international research initiatives between 2018 and 2020: climate action network: exploring climate change pedagogies with children (can) and rethinking the r’s: transforming waste practices in early childhood education. to date, these initiatives have developed 18 collaboratories, each with a situated area of focus, as generative pedagogical spaces for experimenting with human-climate relations in distinct early childhood contexts. fourteen collaboratory sites across canada, the united states, the united kingdom, australia, and ecuador were brought together through a collective and interpretive rendering in the london exhibit through six common threads: energy, food, plastics, ruins, water, and weather. these six collaborative installations were enacted as a series of openings—small, tensioned portals—that invited visitors into the curated research projects’ evocations and interpretive resonances (climate action childhood network, 2022). the exhibit was launched alongside can’s sister exhibits conversations with rain (perth, western australia, australia) and sensorial becomings: climate pedagogies with children (victoria, bc, canada). the exhibit was, and continues to be, an act of colabouring (vintimilla & berger, 2019), where both virtual and material labour june 2022 78 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research was generated across thousands of kilometres between collaboratories, committees, visitors, and authors. pedagogical colabouring with children, educators, families, students, community partners, and researchers within each unique collaboratory provoked initial conceptual propositions that were enlivened anew through the exhibit’s installations. important to highlight is that these installations did not act as coherent representations or showcasings of the distinct can collaboratory projects but rather as creative responses to them. we recognize that this paper and the menu at its heart are indebted to our relations with the food(ing) collaboratory (seneca early childhood centre: gagliardi, 2018; khattar et al., 2019) and the food waste collaboratory (capilano children’s centre: kind et al., 2018), two collaboratories that have been thinking otherwise food relations with young children well beyond the dialogues that shaped this paper. food relations are also currently being rethought at the new reimagining waste collaboratory (london children’s centre: macalpine & pacini-ketchabaw, 2021). our table (figure 2) is set as a pedagogical proposition that situates researching-creating and thinking-doing as interdependent events. that is, it considers research as a speculative practice in the making that seeks to do theory as performative, experimental, and bodied (pollitt, 2019; truman et al., 2019). central to its purpose and premise is the notion that art (including the art of tasting) constitutes research in its own right (barrett & bolt, 2010; manning, 2014, 2015; massumi, 2011), an orientation conducive to experimenting with early childhood education’s prevailing sensory developmental baseline, which we address further in the subsection that follows. while turning to art as a vehicle for “unsolidifying” tasteful neoliberal forms (phillips, 2015), we recognize the importance of being careful not to perpetuate notions of art creation and curation as neutral pursuits. as such, by taking on the form of a culinary event, this paper thinks with what bishop (2005) calls an “activated, relational spectatorship” (p. 119) that depends on impurities, contradictions, and interactions of multiple ingredients that arrive in already political forms and processes. our curatorial intention with the exhibit was to create a permeable frame where gallery walls could act as discursive thresholds within which the resonances of multiple can projects could diverge and be held (fournier, 2021). as a curatorial committee looking back on the exhibit, we are inspired by the sticky liminal spaces of fournier’s (2021) transnational exhibit series fermenting feminisms, which offer audiences opportunities to encounter the simultaneity of local and global decompositions via a series of heterogeneous, contaminating microbial happenings. provoked by fournier, this paper attempts to keep a multifaceted narrative going, one that began well before the exhibit at the children’s museum, which gave shape to the exhibit’s initial design and installations and continues to metabolize and reform itself across multiple projects and places. this paper’s menu making includes multiple curatorial voices that travelled across/between virtual and in-person encounters with, and constituted, this exhibit. our created menu invites readers to sample micro-moments from the exhibit to contribute to what gert biesta (2014) might call “a specific form of doing educational ‘work’, one in which pedagogy operates in a public way” (p. 131). early childhood sensorium(s) drawing on the scholarship of natasha myers (2018), we set a rhythm and tempo within this menu to inhibit colonial sensory receptors, such as a thirst for consistency, control, and linearity, and to awaken alternative sensoria. working with myers’ sensorial attunement, we attend to the generative power of multiple temporal rhythms that cut against dominant sensory narratives in early childhood, including the persistent sensory paradigm of optics/representation (nelson et al., 2020). here, we are reminded of donna haraway’s (1988) call to reclaim the sensory system that has been used to “signify a leap out of the marked body and into a conquering gaze from nowhere” (p. 581). in thinking tasting sensitivities as situated and heterogeneous, we aim to resist what haraway describes as the gluttony of the objective transcendental gaze that sees but cannot be seen, that june 2022 79 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research “represent[s] while escaping representation” (p. 581) in the service of unquestioned progression. playing at the edges of sensory attunement with myers (2018), we also interfere with the prevailing developmental story of the individual child, with five distinct and intrinsic senses, who is educated through consumptive pedagogies designed to serve children’s happy, free sensory explorations (nelson et al., 2020; vintimilla, 2014). we invite the reader to resist simplified divisions between sight/taste/touch/smell/sound and put tasting to work as more-than, through what we hope is a productive vehicle for pushing past child-centered framings that dilute and divide children’s sensitivities to the complicated, uneasy climate relations they are embedded in. just as each of the exhibit’s six installations immersed spectators in a multisensational encounter with energy, food, plastics, ruins, water, and weather performances, our menu seeks to engage the listening body toward different ways of sensing the urgent calls of child-climate stories. continuing the colloquium and exhibit’s intentions to disorient familiar practices in early childhood education and distort our settler sensoria, our troubling exhibit story tries to unsettle mainstream desires of tasting virtue or satiating cravings to feel superior as humans. affrica taylor (2017) asserts that grandiose settler colonial narratives of environmental heroism dominate in early childhood education. such narratives often take shape through developmental discourses of stewardship and childhood purity in a harmonious nature, through which children’s situated experiences are depoliticized in the process of universalizing places differentially marked by climate disaster. leaning on taylor (2017), we respond pedagogically to the dominance of such universalizing narratives as exhibit curators and research colleagues by pursuing minor heterogeneous stories that endeavour to answer to children’s uneven climate inheritances. following claire bishop (2005), we understand curation as the creation of a public experience that activates involvement within a particular socio-political arena. in varying ways, each can collaboratory activated involvement—where pedagogy operates in the interest of creating conditions for new publics and forms of togetherness to emerge (biesta, 2014)—within the arena of early childhood education (hodgins et al., 2022; pollitt, blue, & blaise, 2020; pollitt, kind, vintimilla, & blue, 2021). so too, the exhibit curation aimed to gesture toward speculative pedagogies for early childhood education through aesthetic installations to “set ideas into motion” and cause us to inhabit the world slightly differently (bishop, 2005, p. 104). some of the exhibit’s entangled encounters—including the small and mundane—are brought to our menu offering aimed at decentering the human subject to make spaces for the emergence of minor shifts in subjectivity. we invite readers to open our menu as tasters, to try out flavours that might help to shape pedagogical sensibilities capable of making, performing, and inventing otherwise climate futures. menu making invoking the table motif to tell a multimodal, multilayered exhibit story anew, it feels critical to ask ourselves on whose terms the invitation to come to the table is extended. who is missing? as white settler scholars, we recognize that our curatorial storying begins from a place fraught with unevenness, as we tell it from a table preset with whiteness and its exclusions. with this in mind, we offer this menu as a metaphor with an intention to amplify classist, colonial rituals of eating to unsettle the assumed purity of so-called fine dining and artistic consumption (figure 3). using the metaphor of a menu to rethink human-climate relations is not something we cultivate exclusively. climavore is another example of a series of culinary responses by museum restaurants across the united kingdom that experiment with forms of eating that take seriously human alterations of a planet’s climate. akin to the exhibit’s pedagogical intention to disorient developmental depictions of early childhood’s sensory palate that reduce climate disaster as unpalatable for some versus a catastrophic global event that is still in the making, in this menu we exaggerate classist fine-dining tasting experience motifs to complexify june 2022 80 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research palatability as more-than-human and, importantly, as a pedagogical obligation.2 our work is anchored in feminist common worlding dispositions. following hodgins (2019), we “grapple with the complexities of being deeply embedded in neoliberal and settler colonial capitalism … [while] experimenting with methods that are receptive to and gesture toward the sensorial, the affective, the historical presences that haunt” (pp. 4-5). in storying this exhibit through a menu of inconvenient climate tastings, each menu course is in response to a particular exhibit installation. for example, the soup du jour, plastic boullion, makes indigestible the exhibit’s installation titled plastic worlding and the ephemeral resonances of plastics’ slow violence across two research sites in ontario, canada and azuay, ecuador. the menu item speaks to how plastics’ violences are at once distinct and shared, and to how learning to sense them in new ways in early childhood education is uneasy, unhurried work. written as a pedagogical provocation for early childhood that attempts to draw in and disorient readers from extractive quick consumptions of the exhibit, the menu invites slow reading. thinking with isabelle stengers (2008, 2015, 2018), we extend this tasting menu invitation as a metaphor that experiments with the refrains of modernity’s sensorial traditions by making them felt, and by failing to satisfy them. refusing to contribute to the overwhelm of unsituated anthropocene stories in circulation that center a universalized but “nowhere man” as the culprit in creating serious global challenges (haraway, 2016), we follow taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2019) to “eschew the heroic tales of major individuals on the big stage and seek out alternative, minor, but powerful polyphonic stories of multiple small players, quietly changing worlds together on the margins” (p. 4). attempting to become receptive to what exists on the peripheries of dominant sensory categories that figure mainstream early childhood discourse, we take seriously erica violet lee’s (2020) commitment “to choose the things to map, not just the map-able.” our not-just-palatable menu comes with a warning—that not everything is up for dominant, colonial tastings. palates are made over time. they embody histories of diverse pedagogical perspectives that continue to shape/ enable/deny future sense-abilities. the menu that follows is situated within forms of violence that continue to inform everyday affective realities of colonialism in early childhood education. stewed in a commitment to interrupt dominant conceptualizations of the (white, male, middle-class) human as the sole focus of education research and pedagogy, a common worlds framing calls on us to attend to the movements, impermanence, and multiplicities of others across shared, uneven worlds (hodgins, 2019; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2019). this attention includes an acknowledgment of dominant framings of the human as a projection of colonial white masculinity that continue to violently exclude, exploit, and erase black, indigenous, and other racialized peoples (nxumalo, 2019; wynter, 1995, 2003), as witnessed through recent anti-black and indigenous murders by the hands of american, canadian, and australian colonial institutions (al jazeera, 2020; pashagumskum, 2020). the reality of this colonial violence is also visible in the destruction of indigenous lands that cultural food systems are dependent on, creating uneven access to fresh food in many indigenous communities in canada and australia (see kaartdijin noongar, 2022; todd, 2016). june 2022 81 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 3. menu du jour. photograph by alex berry. note: menu card designed by dana lee, maira n. ramirez-lazo, lisa-marie gagliardi, aja papp, sara sutherland, nicole pierce, tanya andrejas, laura salau, randa khattar and veronica pacini-ketchabaw. menu photos by sylvia kind. opening the menu: our connoisseured swirlings of the exhibit installations taste (n.) from the modern french tât “a small portion given” / “faculty or sense by which the flavour of a thing is discerned” / “aesthetic judgment, of discerning and appreciating” taste as an active noun: deciding, choosing, changing, arranging this menu is inspired by stengers’ (2018) conceptualization of a connoisseur. one who savours an idea, swishes it around in their mouth, and dwells with contradictory flavours, not despite but because of an instinct to spit (berry, 2020). paying attention to the (un)palatableness of slow rhythms and particularity to the specific in early childhood education, we resist the habit of transcendentalism and general authority (stengers, 2018) of education research that continues to extract and appropriate knowledges in the service of relentless progress. thinking through stengers’ image of the connoisseur in our roles as dinner hosts / researchers, we reconsider ourselves and our dinner guests (readers) as “unprotected against doubt” (stengers, p. 8) and implicated within the questions we are asking. in putting this image of the connoisseur to work, we propose a differential, messy engagement with the colonial sense-abilities this menu highlights and responds to, an invitation that does not seek to satiate but rather to chew slowly and stir a hunger toward pedagogical dispositions that resist the quick consumption of too-singular stories. as we work up an appetite for experiencing catastrophe otherwise through june 2022 82 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research this dining experience, we think about the ways in which we differentially affect and are affected by that which is brought near (ahmed, 2010). attending to the uneven reach of ecological devastation in canada, australia, and ecuador, this menu takes seriously a pedagogical commitment to presence the specificities of difference that inform the act of tasting. embroiled by feminist expectation at an uneven table, we ask: what does this fare make tasteable? for whom, and under what conditions, does it become palatable? beverages cascading cocktail what water moves installation ingredients: a7 photograph cards, black and white. card holder. tablet with headphones. song: aptzāi yana wana (ajehuac yana, spring lake-san marcos, texas). tall black box. when making your selection for what to drink with this meal, you are presented with a blend of ajehuac yana, derbarl yerrigan, and lake ontario waters. dead and dying blowfish carcasses are floating in the carafe of waters from near and far. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight ... some even lock eyes with you as you shuffle from card to card. by pouring the waters into your glass you summon a water song that begins to fill every gap in your watery body. a gentle rhythm builds as a chorus of voices moves the waters from carafe to glass—from distant places directly to you. as you take a swig, your throat becomes a vessel for waste, death, life, and possibility, stirred with humming sounds of children’s sung water relations. it settles in your belly where it will gurgle and swish for the rest of the meal. hors d’oeuvres / aperitifs soup du jour: polymer bouillon plastic worlding installation ingredients: insects: cabuya grass, woven plastic fibres, saquillo cocoon. two large glass specimen jars. woven plastic whale. fishing wire. gallery lights—shadows. flip-through card stack: “the logics of plastic.” plastic card holder. soup arrives quickly. steam lingers behind as it is carried to the table—a distinct waft that carries slow, airy micro-remnants of a petroleum stew. stomach hollow. hunger insatiable. but plastic is a trickster. a paradoxical polymer, this bouillon will fill you up and leave you empty. stirring with rising tides and temperatures, this bowl experiments with the liquid borders of the body. plated warmly in a hand-woven cocoon of filmy fibres from an andean plastic-forest in ecuador, gathered 5,104 kilometres from your table, broth melds local and global fares with the rarest cuts of whale offal from a landfilled plastic ocean in london, ontario. slow-cooked polyethylene ligaments slide from a silver spoon, slipping down your throat. broth smooth and filmy, tangling effortlessly through insides—binding and tightening in the crevices of organs. malleable, june 2022 83 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research inventive, efficient. you, too, are becoming a synthetic creature. an aftertaste intensifies once the dishes are cleared. ethylene hunger. swelling ephemeral residue, post-bouillon glow that comes from inside blinds synthetic memories. the body perspires, a few degrees higher. a belly of methane gases in the unright. synthetic vocal cords hum: “another bowl?” entree food-waste fondue an invitation to dinner installation ingredients: one small table. white linen cloth. gold, woven table mats. white cloth napkins. napkin holders. royal albert china dinner plates. crystal glasses. silverware. menu card and holder. food-waste-resin chandelier hooked from above. spotlights. a layered medley of decaying berries—assortment of legumes infused with lively fungi, more-than-ripened citrus—all encapsulated in a synthetic polymer glaze and carefully hung above your table. arriving to this dining room from a small tropical fruit farm in the exacerbated coastal oil basin of guayas, ecuador, this food-waste fondue is growing sticky with not-so-palatable storylines. from rural lands across highways to city market stands, small hands participate here in the careful arrangements of storefront offerings. they hustle with the experienced movement and survival of/for their elders, now more than ever, in some of the harshest socio-ecological conditions this lively growing port city has endured. opening wide, you are encountering layers of market childhoods in the hillscape barrios of mapasingue, the absences of a generation now publicly marked by a microbe, and the socio-political conditions that activate inequities across borders. joy and love exist here too; eating is a practice of generosity and hospitality, a gathering of foods, families, and others together in the heat. who sits at the global table? an intense vibrancy of rotting tropical flavours begins to settle in closely shared spaces, between teeth and gums. dying cells open up new forms, and decay is embodied as an acute awareness of life, resurgence, and becoming. one is always of many in the industrial city. designs begin with a pencil and paper—numerous sketches imagining possible formations. small wooden boxes are built as molds for slowly sedimenting layers of resin and food waste. resin is demanding and beckons late nights of waiting for each layer to dry before drizzling over the next. delicate chain links and hooks are sized and painted. resin is stubborn—sticky—and more unpredictable than usual as it attempts and fails to encapsulate a living assemblage of rotting food. design plans change in response to decay transformations. resin sets and the wood is peeled off. crystallized parcels of food resin are packed tightly with paper and plastic shopping bags in preparation for 26 hours of carry-on travel time: guayaquil—houston—toronto—vancouver—toronto once more, a train and a bus to the london children’s museum. berries are active along the journey, with juices that meld through resin barriers, seeping into paper-plastic shielding. despite a desire for containment, fruit flows and generates risky conditions as worry simmers among museum staff. is it appropriate for children? is it safe to be hung above small bodies and hands that grab? we hang it with care. a few hours before the exhibit opening, it falls. it fails. hooks break and resin cracks. we scramble to repair and rehang it in time. it holds, swaying slowly suspended from ceiling pipes as the dining room opens and dinner guests pass by. chemical relations of food fibres and resin intensify. gallery lights illuminate small droplets of translucent, slow-motion syrup dripping from the chandelier onto goldrimmed porcelain plates. june 2022 84 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research accompaniments / side dishes rainforest soufflé weather wandering installation ingredients: projector. 2 x 1.5 metre projection. sound file. small stools. high-definition speakers throughout gallery. the sound of listening. a canopy of trees in a tiny urban forest sways to the pulse of a chainsaw orchestra on lək̓ʷəŋən family lands. the same canopy sways to the filmic score of child-made rain on whadjuk noongar boodja country (countryperth). forest shrinks in the force and scale of anthropogenic clearing. weather states change bodies, reinvent imaginations, reorient which way is up. weather weathers. where are the trees stretching/disappearing to? what kind of weather sways in and informs your imaginary? occupies the waterways under your skin? do you hear rain, fire, undergrowth, overstories, resurgence, destruction, burnt leaves falling from unanchored disintegrating roots? listen. you are entering an unstable weather continuum, a presencing of trees and a choose-your-own-adventure soundtrack shaped by the absence of rain, histories of presence. the sounds continue to loop and trees continue to sway on screen. for now. spiral vermicelli energy spirals installation ingredients: black wire coils suspended. 22, 5 x 5 photographs. small stones. long, shredded typewritten paper. lights and shadows. shadows dance in the furthest corner of the dining room, reverberating with twirls of copper wire that hang from above and a mountain of long, tangled paper below. sifting your fork through endless spirals. a rustling of leaves. a cemetery landscape, tides wax, spiralled lines of ants rush over your glass, metal-fan wings spin, hammered paints splatter, marble tombstones—marks of cremation, cracked egg yolk—seeping, spilling, radioactive currents, apple core melts into dewy earth and the moon wanes on. energy flows in spirals. no straight lines, only waves, lit hard from above and light below. rhythmic cycles of spiral energy pulse across the table. where does one end and another begin? fork spins in circles around your plate, slow screech, wirepaper assemblages twirled up with birmingham (uk) industrial energy networks and hyper (de)composition of london (canada) burial grounds. energy waves throb, whirling up with big-city energy and microbial regeneration that hums below the earth. your pulse echoes their waves, beating with the vibrations of spiral energy transformations. dessert crusted layer sponge witnessing ruins installation ingredients: a5 soft cover book. gloss paper. stapled at spine. june 2022 85 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research laptop. headphones. presented on a black box. just when you think you cannot possibly fit in anymore, the final course is served. in the photographs it presents as wide-open fields and a winter forest. as you pick up your dessert fork the gas is slowly building in your body just as it is beneath the ground from decades of waste being buried and layered in the earth’s crust. as you take the first bite of your layered dessert you hear an awful crunching and punching accompanied by long, sharp beeps that are there to supposedly help you swallow. the layers include dried leaves, goose feathers, dandelions, bones, snails, pumpkin, and floppy disks. you close your eyes and imagine the path that these are about to take. inhale, exhale. pause. the gas well pipes match the length of your intestine, which you can feel being filled with waste as you take bite after bite. as your body digests, it is tracing pasts, presents, and futures. (in)digestion digest (v.) etymologically “to carry apart” from dis“apart” + gerere “to carry” we continue to be provoked by the colloquium’s food experiences, particularly the invitation extended to colloquium participants to craft pedagogies that begin with haraway’s (2016) call-cum-feminist-mantra of staying with the trouble of telling complicated, situated, and sympoietic stories. biesta’s (2014) articulation of public pedagogy, as a specific pedagogical form that is characterized by its connection with a public, is helpful to think with here. for biesta, public pedagogy conjugates the educational and the political, embedding both firmly in the public sphere. with hannah arendt (1958), we understand this public sphere as “a space of appearance” that “comes into being” and is created by a particular manner of gathering and togetherness (p. 199). public pedagogy is interested in this form of publicness, a particular quality of being together that gives shape to a political existence (biesta, 2014). this pedagogical orientation seeks to make a public, as a condition for difference to emerge and to be nourished and sustained, further implying the necessity and value of the cultivation of a sense of collectivity defined by plurality within the field of education. biesta (2014) describes how this form of public existence becomes threatened when its interests are tied to the market and private self-interest. he uses the metaphor of a set menu to articulate this idea, whereby the menu proposes to consumer-citizens an illusion of freedom and choice through a prearranged selection, eroding public interest and decision making in the service of a private self and its value-driven immediate wants. biesta’s notion of public pedagogy as one “that (re)connects the educational and the political and locates both firmly in the public sphere” (p. 131) invites deeper consideration of what is on offer here through our menu and the invitation to slowly digest its contents. by inviting readers to sample exhibit installations anew and emphasizing the importance of disrupting dominant, hyperindividualized modes of sense making and consumption, we hope to sustain the colloquium’s pedagogical intention to draw attention to early childhood education’s implication in perpetuating dominant approaches to sense making about the world and our place in it. furthermore, we invite tasters (readers) into new possibilities for opening up collective understandings through the enactment of situated, political pedagogical approaches in early childhood education. in so doing, we resonate with arendt’s (1958) conceptualization of the public, not as a physical space or a particular location, but rather a certain quality of exchange between people who gather toward the purpose of a collective life. as early childhood scholars, we cannot think of this purpose without cristina delgado vintimilla and veronica pacini-ketchabaw. vintimilla and pacini-ketchabaw (2020) ground our orientations to pedagogy in early childhood education as “a body of knowledge that thinks educational practice” (p. 630), one that actively engages the question of how this practice might enable particular modes of existence and understandings within the project of collective life-making. june 2022 86 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (in)satiable paying attention to situated heterogeneous climate stories is a doing and a thinking that necessitates moving beyond a human of the enlightenment (haraway, 2016; taylor, 2017). we propose this requires not a blueprint or application that appeases but rather a particular manner of being at the table. how does a connoisseur come to savour what they are already eating yet may be able to ignore? it is in this destabilizing manner of tasting that we attempt to make perceptible what separates thinking from the lived consequences of climate catastrophe, or, as stengers (2015) articulates, the prefabricated categories of common “sense” that continue to produce amnesia. our menu du jour is a response to neoliberalism’s temporal pulse, refusing the seemingly endless illusions of choice at the table. with this in mind, the menu is a modest proposal for helping evoke alternative visions of subjectivity within the material-semiotic folds of tasting and (in)digestion. particularly, it offers a speculative metaphor to stimulate attention to existing power relations mediated among those who digest, the digested, and the indigestible (cutler, 2019). rather than offering early childhood education a script for enacting public pedagogies, our menu prompts minor perceptual cues that stimulate sensations and sensibilities of digesting that are situated in more-than-human sensory relations. what is beyond the initial taste response? what kinds of grappling are being experienced at the table? what does this fare make sense-able? what are the legacies/labour that produce that which we come to consume? as we think with the poetic and metaphoric potential of the dishes on offer here to nourish an appetite for thinking child-climate relations beyond prefabricated sensors (myers, 2018), we remain attentive to transcendent romanticism or attempts at emancipatory escape through the sensational. with stengers (2015), cultivating a just “palate” for climate catastrophe requires an attentive venturing into what she describes not as “a friendly world, but an unhealthy milieu” (p. 104), one that is perceptive of, and vulnerable to, the differential pain of a mutual poisoning. a noninnocent endeavour, we recognize that the dishes we offer, too, are susceptible to becoming poisons. in taking this creative risk—with recognition that we are able to choose it—we situate our retrospective story as figured within “our own involvements in perpetuating dominant values rather than retreating to the sheltered position of an enlightened outsider who knows better” (puig de la bellacasa, 2017, p. 10). alongside stengers (2015), we wonder if it is in considering catastrophe anew, cultivating fuller and more complex palates for the times, that we might generate the capacity to notice illusory capitalist refrains and think toward what could exist beyond them. this menu is intended as an occasion for this manner of situated attention, a tasting event that might provoke thought with/in a damaged story and in earthly conditions that are no longer hospitable to the status quo. opening the menu, choosing a dish, risks engagement over a wobbly table. we have attempted to magnify consumptive practices rooted in settler colonial logics, not to cement them but rather to destabilize and make felt the sensibilities they refuse. in savouring we ask, what happens to the “sensible”? within the sensorial archives of early childhood education that seek cohesion and certainty, what becomes unswallowable/leftover? recognizing this menu experiment as potentially hard to swallow, and knowing that we may fall short in realizing the goals set out in this paper’s experimental approach, we also embrace pedagogical experimentation as part of the process of making ourselves vulnerable in attempting to get somewhere new. these experimentations are of a noninnocent pedagogical endeavour that intends to gesture toward particular forms of subjectivity that might be capable of savouring slow, inconvenient climate flavourings. our situated and partial responses are an attempt to interrupt the capitalist operandus of food production, consumption, and waste that perpetuate impossible logics of a “global table.” instead, our metaphor of this table, and the menu that prompts it, are imbued with decay, more-than-human transformations, and tensioned stories that dance in and between capitalist refrains so that we might sense a permeability to their consequence. we offer these tastings as a pedagogical provocation for interrupting humanist sensory categories that seek division and control, june 2022 87 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and for resensitizing early childhood education’s sensory palate toward dispositions capable of inheriting the complexity and contradictions of more-than-human relations. we propose this resensitizing as a modest but crucial shift toward making a public in early childhood education that senses a collective urgency that is at once differential and common. the menu we have offered functions as a creative score for educators to think with; its performative structure enables creative writing, and metaphor, as a minor responsive act that might initiate disruption to overpracticed sensoria and palettes in early childhood education. aftertaste figure 4. a liquifying chandelier. photograph by alex berry. the reality of this dining room is that there was no actual food served at the exhibit. one of the focal pieces of the exhibit, the food-waste chandelier centrepiece that consistently leaked from the inside out (figure 4) and came crashing down twice during installation, posed relentless interruptions to set and reset our table. revisiting the food-waste chandelier now, over two years since the exhibit, we learn it has continued to decay, with the resin activating a syrupy mess. while we may have left the exhibit on the very cusp of covid-19, the exhibit’s mattering has not left us; the work of (de)composition keeps going. this consistency suggests the ongoing work and responsibility of the connoisseur to notice a world already tempered and “ticklish” in movement beyond human reason (stengers, 2015), a connoisseur who works with multiple bodies and relational palates in which indigestion is the overt destabilizing reminder, offering bitter clues and more questions at a table we may not yet know. june 2022 88 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 5. untitled. photographs by veronica pacini-ketchabaw. plastic-wrapped in the basement, food-waste-resin stories live long after dinner. tasting them now, displaced/ replaced across hemispheres—in and out of capitalist rhythms. small chain-links move with unease—lethargic in the pull as syrupy insides drizzle through and across metal loops (figure 5). extending them long, small flakes of white, acrylic paint fall, sticking to fingertips and clinging under nails. the chandelier is slippery, sluggish as its accordion layers expand outward, sticky to what comes near. still inside but leaking through, food-waste bodies are dissolving with each other and beyond the boundaries of resin skin. it is difficult to mark their forms. the view is blurry, rotting juice crystals tacked with mix-matched pieces of paper and plastic. coming from the inside out. residue lingers in mouth, the aftertaste is tart, the flavour uncertain. bruises are slow to swallow. we percolate in this inhospitable moment when instinct calls to spit. how does climate catastrophe taste? endnotes 1 we thank veronica pacini-ketchabaw for conversations that help us to complexify relations between the local and global in early childhood education. 2 we thank the editors and our reviewers for their generous attention to this paper. their provocations help us to think about more-thanhuman palatability as a consistent interruption to humanist sensory paradigms and their pedagogical consequences. june 2022 89 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ahmed, s. 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(2016). “this is the life”: women’s role in good provisioning in paulatuuq, northwest territories. in n. kermoal & i. altamiranojiménez (eds.), living on the land: indigenous women’s understanding of place. athabasca university press. truman, s. e., loveless, n., manning, e., myers, n., & springgay, s. (2019). the intimacies of doing research-creation. in n. loveless (ed.), knowings and knots: methodologies and ecologies in research-creation (pp. 221–249). university of alberta press. vintimilla, c. (2014). neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education. journal of childhood studies, 39(1), 79–87. https://doi. org/10.18357/jcs.v39i1.15246 vintimilla, c. d., & berger, i. (2019). colaboring: within collaboration’s degenerative processes. in b. d. hodgins (ed.), feminist research for 21st-century childhoods: common worlds methods (pp. 187–196). bloomsbury academic. vintimilla, c. d., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2020). weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. european early childhood education research journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 wynter, s. (1995). the pope must have been drunk, the king of the castle a madman: culture as actuality and the caribbean rethinking of modernity. in a. ruprecht & c. taiana (eds.) reordering of culture: latin america, the caribbean and canada in the “hood” june 2022 91 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (pp. 17–41). carleton university press. wynter, s. (2003). unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation: an argument. cr: the new centennial review, 3(3), 257–337. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41949874 june 2019 51 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources from teaching to thinking to situating practice narda nelson narda nelson is a pedagogist and researcher at university of victoria child care services and a member of the common worlds research collective and early childhood pedagogies collaboratory. drawing on her master’s in child and youth care and her background in gender studies, narda takes an interdisciplinary approach to early childhood research and practice with a particular focus on reimagining ethical futures with plant, animal, and waste flow relations in early childhood. email: nelsonn@uvic.ca book review: from teaching to thinking: a pedagogy for reimagining our work ann pelo & margie carter lincoln, ne: exchange press, 2018 402 pp. isbn: 978-0-942702-03-3 from teaching to thinking. from instruction to inquiry. how do we support the development of an investigative attitude towards life? what does a culture of inquiry look like? how do we begin telling a new story that will transform how we think and work? (pelo & carter, 2018, p. 52) from teaching to thinking makes a thoughtful new contribution to the field of early childhood education (ece). in it, seattle-based teacher-educators, pedagogical consultants, and authors ann pelo and margie carter (2018) invoke 30 years of experience to weave stories from practice with questions aimed at unsettling the authority of assessment-driven approaches in the field of ece. central to their project is a call for educators and pedagogical leaders to cultivate a culture of inquiry with young children beyond prescriptive narratives promoted through standardized educational discourse. pelo and carter take an emergent, reggio-inspired approach to reimagining the role of the educator, pedagogical facilitators, professional learning, planning, and other subjects in ece. their desire to think expansively in pedagogy and practice in early childhood is a welcome departure from the field’s overwhelming impulse to reach toward theme-based learning and scripted curricular engagements. it will appeal to early childhood educators, administrators, pedagogical facilitators, and practitioners who are interested in challenging prescriptive approaches to curriculum and pedagogy through self-actualization and reflective practice while retaining a child-centered focus. the book is comprehensive (402 pages long) and divided into 14 chapters. the authors strike a conversational tone throughout, using an active engagement structure wherein “ann offers theory, story, and core concepts in her writing, and margie offers a response that speaks to the ideas that especially stand out to her, and the questions for practice with which she wants us to engage” (p. 29). grounded in the authors’ shared commitment to cultivate an ethos of “justice and joy” while supporting educators to develop their full thinking-innovating potential, from teaching to thinking opens with existential questions we might do well to ask ourselves in these precarious times: “what kind of people do we want to be? what kind of world do we want to live in? ... what is the purpose of education, and how do we go about achieving it?” (p. 32). the first three chapters explore “the heart of education” (p. 32), “creating a culture of inquiry” (p. 52), and “rethinking professional learning” (p. 72), asking pedagogical leaders to reconsider their purpose through explorations of taken-for-granted terms and responsibilities in ece, such as what it means to be reflective versus reactive in pedagogical practice. pelo and carter write: the focus of the work of pedagogical leaders is to help educators become researchers who watch and listen to children with delight and curiosity, noticing the details of children’s play and conversation in order to plan responsively.… pedagogical leaders invite reflective, contextual thinking, and a willingness june 2019 52 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources to linger in questions and not-knowing. pedagogical leaders view teaching as experimentation. they encourage educators to seek out divergent points of view in order to increase complexity. pedagogical leaders engage questions of ethics, emotion, and imagination as surely as they do matters of intellectual learning and skill development. (p. 60) as the subtitle “a pedagogy for reimagining our work” suggests, the book provides a methodology for realizing the transformative practice pelo and carter espouse. this becomes more pronounced in the middle section of the book as they share “principles for reimagining our work” and “thinking lens,” which are written through more of an instructional or “how-to” approach in the subsequent ten chapters. developed in conjunction with their colleague deb curtis, the thinking lens is a tool applied through the book that ann describes as “the thinking protocol” she has used in her teaching practice (p. 164). stories from practice are presented throughout and the reader is asked to step back, think deeply, and apply the thinking lens to move forward. their protocol includes the following guidance: 1) know yourself. open your heart to this moment. 2) take the children’s point of view. 3) examine the environment. 4) collaborate with others to expand perspectives. 5) reflect and take action. (pp. 165–166) one of the strongest applications of this protocol, for me, is in chapter 12, where pelo and carter issue a challenge to reimagine pedagogical documentation as a vital and political part of practice: documentation is not reporting on what children know, or can do, or have learned; documentation is making visible how we educators think about a moment of a child’s life that we’ve witnessed, and the insights and questions it holds for us. we do this in service of expanding our awareness and our capacity for responsiveness. (p. 261) pelo and carter employ a sort of pragmatic idealism in promoting their “thinking lens” method by combining inspirational quotes from an array of childhood scholars (e.g., peter moss, loris malaguzzi), public figures (e.g., zen master thich nhat hanh), and feminist advocates and authors (e.g., bell hooks, arundhati roy), with stories from practice and how-to suggestions for creating protocols to support the process of significant change in pedagogy and practice. from teaching to thinking closes with a collection of testimonial “voices from the front lines” to reinforce their central point that reimagining pedagogy and practice in ece is a transformative process worth pursuing. from my perspective as an emerging canadian pedagogist, the book’s most valuable contribution is the politicized intentions it offers. particularly salient is the authors’ dedication: we write this book for those who refuse to betray themselves or to betray children by adhering to marketplace outcomes and assessment-driven configurations of teaching and learning. we write this book for those who will not be complicit in the narrowing of education to the too-easy formula that says “quality” is achieved by lists of learning goals or by rating scales. we write this book for those who are ready to reimagine our work, and write a new and renewing story of early childhood education. (p. 29) with these words in mind, the question, for me, becomes one of how this intention gets taken up—or not— june 2019 53 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources within particular canadian contexts. the authors’ call for an expansive, visionary approach to early learning comes at an intensely paradoxical time within the field in canada. on one hand, child care has been the focus of great attention over the past few years, thanks in part to the yet-to-be-realized liberal federal government promise of delivering on a “fully inclusive” national childcare system (cossette, 2017). at the same time, we see the ontario conservative government roll out deep cuts to education as they aspire toward more of a market-driven, service-based model of child care provision (canadian press, 2019), while in british columbia, the minority ndp government has increased ece funding and revised its early learning framework (elf) in what early childhood scholar fikile nxumalo (2018) describes as a hopeful step toward “radically re-imagining the kinds of curriculum and pedagogy that are needed for young children inheriting ecologically challenged lifeworlds” (para. 13). the canadian educational landscape is complex and varied, requiring an added layer of self-reflection as to where and/ or how we position ourselves as pedagogical leaders and educators within specific community contexts before this book’s potential can be realized. indeed, what is the purpose of education? and, what is required to cultivate the conditions necessary for that purpose to flourish within a particular community of practice? because pelo and carter employ a generalized conceptualization of “humanity” throughout the text, engaging the book’s ideas as canadian educators and pedagogical leaders requires further effort to pay particular attention to the way we are situated within cultural, geographical, and historical contexts in order to avoid perpetuating the myth of an “anywhere childhood” in ece. for example, in alignment with the truth and reconciliation commission of canada’s (2015) calls to action, are we asking ourselves what our role has been within a colonial educational system and what is required of us to break with the habit of perpetuating erasures and ongoing violences that have been implicit in this and other canadian systems before engaging with pelo and carter’s self-reflective question of “who do we want to be?” from teaching to thinking’s child-centered approach also raises questions for me in regard to how we might think expansively together to challenge instrumental and extractive modes of thinking in early childhood pedagogy and practice, for example, in the way landscapes, plants, and animals are often positioned as part of an enriching backdrop for childhood development in the field. although addressing these questions would exceed the parameters of this review, i raise them here as part of a situated response to pelo and carter’s invitation to think deeply with the book’s provocative questions. in conclusion, pelo and carter approach educators and pedagogical leaders with deep respect, seeing them as vital players in creating a transformative societal shift with children and families. their call to reimagine roles and responsibilities in early childhood is a timely one and a positive jumping-off point for those of us in the canadian early childhood field to reconsider our own role and responsibilities in co-creating transformative change within a rapidly changing landscape. june 2019 54 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references canadian press. (2019, may 1). “fees are going to go up”: ontario cancels $50m child-care centres fund. toronto sun. retrieved from https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/fees-are-going-to-go-up-ontario-cancels-50m-child-care-centres-fund cossette, m.a. (2017, june 12). ottawa and provinces sign deal to create “fully inclusive” child-care system. cbc news. retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-government-unveils-child-care-framework-1.4156348 nxumalo, f. (2018, december 24). how climate change education is hurting the environment [editorial]. the hill. retrieved from https:// thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/422720-how-climate-change-education-is-hurting-the-environment pelo, a., & carter, m. (2018). from teaching to thinking: a pedagogy for reimagining our work. lincoln, ne: exchange press. truth and reconciliation commission of canada. (2015). truth and reconciliation commission of canada: calls to action. retrieved from http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/calls_to_action_english2.pdf september 2019 3 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research look at us, we have anxiety: youth, memes, and the power of online cultural politics julian burton julian burton is a former teacher with a background in anthropology, media studies, and educational psychology and a recent graduate of the phd program in childhood studies at rutgers university–camden. his work focuses on the intersection of young people’s participation rights and online culture, particularly the ways in which online communities enable flexible and informal politically relevant expression among youth. along with his ongoing independent research, he works as a science and technology education consultant. email: jtd.burton@gmail.com much work in the field of childhood studies is based on an understanding of childhood as a marginalizing status and on an awareness that contemporary society reserves many basic rights and even the full recognition of personhood for individuals deemed sufficiently adult (qvortrup, 1993). not long after childhood studies emerged as a discrete field, ennew (1994) raised a question that has remained fundamental to our approach: that of “how individual children surmount the obstacle of childhood” (p. 125). this “surmounting” does not imply “developing” out of childhood’s supposedly intrinsic limitations, or escaping the social category of “child,” but rather overcoming the socially constructed barriers that childhood confers. this question is perhaps still undertheorized in the context of a field and approach that have often focused on recognizing the cultural and social agency of young people without, as spyrou (2011) argues, sufficiently problematizing the structurally difficult proposition of presuming that young people can speak with “authentic” voices within adultist systems of social and political power. understanding how young people overcome their marginalized status to participate in shaping their societies requires an examination of how they speak and act outside of those systems, working against established power structures and norms of discourse and changing the shape of the public sphere through the creation of new forms of participation (mejias, 2006; schultz, 2012). this paper is specifically concerned with how young people confront and circumvent marginalization childhood is often defined by social marginalization— by a denial of access to public space and voice, and the circumscription of what interests, issues, and discourses are open to young people. the internet, as a space of expression that has lowered barriers to entry and confounded attempts at social control, is one of the primary spaces in which 21st-century youth are able to resist adult efforts to regulate their agency and expression. however, it is not only the technological tools of the online world that help them to resist marginalization from public discourse in these spaces, but also its symbolic and cultural resources—shared ideas, practices, and vocabularies particular to online communities. as part of larger projects on teens’ and young adults’ use of online communities to engage with cultural politics, i have been investigating the use of memes—patterns of formulaic content that rise and fall in popularity in short periods of time—in social critique, ideological discourse, community building, and identity representation. this paper examines the impact of memes on cultural discourse and, indirectly, on institutional politics, exploring their potential as an empowering channel of expression as well as their ongoing use as a tool of manipulation by larger political forces. i argue that understanding the cultural power of memes and other aspects of online remix culture is vital to theorizing contemporary politics, to analyzing the experiences and identities of contemporary youth, and to preventing the worst eventualities the increasing significance of online cultural politics may enable. key words: youth political participation; media remix culture; cultural politics; memes september 2019 4 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the realm of political participation. “political participation” is not taken here to refer solely to engagement with electoral politics and conventional institutions of governance, or to involvement in discourse on questions and issues broadly recognized as political in nature. i instead take a broad view of politics as concerning, in hanley’s (2010) terms, social interactions, relationships, and activities that “have a common purpose [and] involve the pursuit of goals and values in conjunction with others” (“conclusion,” paras. 1–2). this encompasses patterns of “actualizing citizenship”—increasingly prioritized among youth and young adults—focused on direct engagement with cultural foundations of power rather than with representative institutions (bennett, 2008). most research on the political potential of digital media focuses on the benefits conferred by technological affordances of new communications technologies—the lack of gatekeepers, easy dissemination of information, lower barriers to access, and so on (bennett, freelon, & wells, 2010). while the impact of these features of emerging media is certainly significant, i would argue that in many cases they merely provide basic conditions of possibility. it is often the culture of digital media spaces that enables them to be mobilized to significant cultural and political effect: the shared practices, vocabularies, and frames of meaning users construct through their actions and interactions. this paper will examine the trend of cultural resistance among youth in digital spaces within a broader context of youth subcultures and political participation in recent history, examine some examples of specific ways in which elements of internet culture have been utilized by young people to combat their exclusion from political participation, and discuss broader implications of patterns like this for understanding youth and cultural politics in the digital age. approach and methodology my analysis here is primarily derived from a long-term ethnographic study i conducted between 2014 and 2017 of teen and young adult users of the multimedia blogging site tumblr. my approach to this space, conceptually and methodologically, took the form of a digital ethnography in the tradition of work by scholars like boellstorff (2015). rather than seeing tumblr’s digital content as a collection of cultural products or discrete communications, i frame the platform itself as a collection of public “spaces” in which cultures form and human interactions and experiences play out; this follows a longstanding academic tradition stretching back to early descriptions of “cyberspace” as “the place between the phones”—an electronic landscape generated by connected devices which is “real” and “strangely physical” to its users despite having no measurable substance (sterling, 1992). i perceive tumblr as a meaningful place that is produced by interaction and provides a context for interaction, a framing that foregrounds processes of collaborative meaning making and the formation of community. my definition of a specific anthropological “fieldsite” within tumblr was consciously amorphous and flexible. unlike facebook, tumblr has no groups with explicitly defined membership, and interaction is not separated cleanly into specific semipublic channels of audience and purpose; group memberships are flexible, implied, contextual, and subjective. it is therefore impossible to clearly delineate a subcommunity of users as subjects of study. on the other hand, attempting to conduct an ethnography representative of the platform as a whole, with its hundreds of thousands of active daily users, was of course an equally unrealistic proposition. meanwhile, attempting to confine observations to young people alone is fraught with challenges in a space that is for the most part “disembodied.” however, my intent was to focus on young people’s experiences, and this obviously could not be done without somehow prioritizing their inclusion over that of adults. in many ways, these difficulties mirrored the situation faced by anthropologists attempting to define coherent fieldsites in traditional, offline ethnographies—and in fact, epistemological discourse in the field has, in recent years, begun to take note of the fact that all fieldsites are deliberate, arbitrary locations, defined (consciously or unconsciously) by the researcher as a framework for study september 2019 5 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (candea, 2007). conscious of these issues, i elected to focus on tumblr’s media fandom community—a group united by shared appreciation for books, films, television shows, and other texts. this community skews demographically young to begin with, particularly among the most active users, and i further limited the scope of my project by only following the blogs of, and directly interacting with, users who clearly stated on their personal pages that they were under the age of 21. many of these users exhibit very high levels of engagement in this space, often spending significant amounts of time on tumblr on a daily basis, and characterize the fandom tumblr community as highly meaningful in their lives. i chose the fandom community as a focus because it uniquely addressed my interest in unconventional public voice and political participation. though it is not explicitly defined as a space of political discourse, users frequently engage in both in-depth social-justice-focused critiques of popular media and complex, involved discourse on social issues unrelated to media fandom entirely, particularly those related to gender, race, and economic inequality. i conducted two years of participant observation on tumblr for this project, following and interacting with a sample of about 2001 young people’s blogs. in the second year of the project, i also conducted 27 interviews with users aged 13 to 21. my choice to treat tumblr itself as a cultural context led me to decide not to limit my sample by any other criteria regarding background, so i ended up with a geographically and culturally diverse sample of users, including young people from canada, the united states, england, scotland, poland, india, and brazil. digital ethnography presents unique ethical challenges that are not accounted for in conventional ethical approaches in anthropology or media studies. i have elsewhere written at length about these challenges and my responses to them (j. burton, 2018). in general, the digital context and, in particular, the publicly accessible nature of tumblr posts necessitate significant precautions in the cause of protecting participants’ privacy, particularly if pseudonymous online identities are to be taken as “real” identities as deserving of protection in research as offline identities. specific approaches to addressing this that have been used in all published work based on this project include the following: • tumblr usernames have been replaced with pseudonyms. i have attempted, as far as possible, to maintain a similar structure and style to users’ real usernames and to retain references to specific identities and personal interests. • certain kinds of posts (in particular those explicitly tagged as “personal” by users) were considered “off limits” for direct reference to their specific content. • direct quotes from posts have been minimally edited (e.g., by changing word order or replacing words with synonyms) to prevent quoted users from being identified via web searches; this practice can be considered a form of “ethical fabrication,” an approach that digital media scholars such as markham (2012) advocate as increasingly necessary due to the decreasing reliability of data privacy. while the majority of this paper is based on my research on tumblr, it is, in places, further informed by observations from similar research i am currently undertaking on youth political action on twitter, particularly the #neveragain movement led by teenaged mass shooting survivors. the conceptual framework i employ here is similar, but this research was in its earliest stages as i wrote the conference paper that later became this article, and as such i am not able to give the same detail on background or research practices. september 2019 6 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research cultural politics and digital space the term cultural politics refers to the way that attitudes and perspectives, as expressed through channels like media, art, and everyday interpersonal discourse, give rise to socioeconomic realities (newell, 2014). it describes how shared concepts and perceptions that do not seem on their surface to be “about” political concerns can have far-reaching consequences for governance and power, as they may serve either to legitimate the status quo or to empower the struggle to transform society (glick schiller, 1997). it serves as a recognition of culture as, in hall’s terms, “the arena of consent and resistance” (1981, p. 239), a space in which systems and structures of power and hegemony are not merely expressed and represented, but built and maintained. cultural politics can be influenced and mobilized for many purposes, and efforts to turn the new public sphere of the internet to political purposes through large-scale, informal cultural movements have had impressive impact on the institutions of conventional political power in recent years, not only increasing donations and voter turnout, but shifting conversations around key political issues (garcia-castañon, rank, & barreto, 2011; hall & sinclair, 2011). it is important to consider, however, that while research on online political discourse has tended to focus on its use as a tool for achieving clear-cut electoral and legislative goals (kahne, middaugh, lee, & feezell, 2012), it can have far more insidious impacts. the rise and normalization of reactionary and fascist politics in various parts of the world in recent years has been, in part, the direct result of the concerted efforts of fringe groups who have been quietly waging an explicitly declared online “culture war” for years, working to normalize ideas of ethno-nationalism, authoritarian rule, christian theocracy, and violent heteropatriarchy (nagle, 2017). within the broad scope of cultural politics, cultural resistance refers specifically to marginalized groups’ and individuals’ use of shared meanings and symbols to contest dominant discourses and power structures by finding new ways of making sense of the world (duncombe, 2007). it is not direct, overt opposition, but subversion through ways of thinking, speaking, and being that diverge from what is normative and accepted at the “center” of society and public discourse. hooks (1990) describes the spaces and shared practices of marginalized groups as fruitful sites of this kind of resistance, arguing that marginality itself is “a central location for the production of a counter-hegemonic discourse that […] offers one the possibility of a radical perspective from which to see and create, to imagine alternatives” (p. 156). it is a site and state that is excluded from a certain kind of power, but also one that nourishes the capacity to resist and to define and express oneself outside of dominant frames of meaning. youth subcultures are among the marginal spaces that nurture the capacity to resist in this way. they provide alternative cultural and symbolic resources for young people to construct meaning and identities outside of mainstream cultural interpretations (brake, 1985; warner, 2002), and thus “oppose or negotiate the dominant meaning system” (murdock, 1974, p. 213). in the 20th century, it became common for this kind of youth resistance to be associated with recreational and social spaces and activities, such as dance halls and arcades, and with emerging styles and forms of media, such as rock music and video games (t. burton, 1983; krinsky, 2008). the line between media and social space has blurred in recent years as digital media has increasingly provided “spaces” for social interaction that have been particularly popular with young people. this shift online among youth is itself characterizable as a form of resistance and rebellion, as it has occurred in large part as a direct response to increasing adult restriction of teens’ ability to go out and engage with friends and peers in more conventional public spaces (boyd, 2014; herring, 2008). at the same time, it has also enabled the mainstreaming of new patterns of engagement with media which themselves offer opportunities for cultural resistance. patterns of pure consumption have steadily given way to “prosumption” and remix in which ordinary users actively create and edit media rather than acting as passive audiences (ito et al., 2008), enabling forms of social participation and resistance that range from direct engagement with specific political issues, to creative reformulation of individual and group identities, to work aimed at fundamental cultural reconfiguration (hands, 2011). september 2019 7 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research many of the young tumblr users i spoke to in the course of my research on the platform described their experiences of the online world—and, more specifically, particular corners of it not frequented by parents, teachers, and adult community members—in ways that echoed hooks’ discussion of marginality and possibility, and pointed to the particular importance of remix culture and creative production. they described their digital communities as spaces in which they could “be themselves” in ways for which they would be judged in their homes and schools, from relatively mundane and low-stakes aspects of identity such as hobbies and fandom interests to things like gender identities and fundamental moral and humanitarian values. they also frequently spoke of their ability to create for themselves and each other as central to forming a community with its own norms and values. memes as symbolic resources digital subcultures, like those centered around offline spaces and activities, produce and mobilize symbolic resources that their members use to define their individual identities and engage with or confront dominant cultures. remix culture makes these symbolic resources more mutable, however. unlike in subcultures which, for example, may invest radical cultural meaning in mass-distributed music, in remix-heavy communities, cultural products produced or edited by ordinary individuals with no particular social capital or advantages in access can quickly reach large audiences. one of the most pervasive forms these cultural products take for young people in online communities is that of internet memes—small cultural elements in the form of images, text, audio, video, or some combination thereof that are repeated and remixed on a large scale, usually becoming intensely popular and then fading into obscurity in relatively short order. it is perhaps because of their fleeting nature and minimal scale that, despite increasing understanding of the transformative importance of digital media as a whole, it still remains for media studies scholarship at large to take the broader cultural impact of memes seriously. their potential impact on social discourse and conventional politics is increasingly recognized, however, particularly in light of the highly successful coordinated campaigns that have mobilized internet culture to affect the course of institutional politics, including in the cases of the u.s. presidential election and brexit referendum votes in 2016 (ross & rivers, 2017). in my own research, i have found that young people in particular are consistently using the popularity and rapid spread of memes, as well as the inbuilt meanings and cultural shorthand they lend to expressions of ideas, to engage with one another on topics of societal importance outside of conventional channels of communication and frames of meaning. their political communication through memes exemplifies a kind of engagement that has been described as “political talk” in contrast to political voice. where claiming voice implies “speaking to power,” often by necessity in spaces and times approved of by that power and through frames of meaning constructed by that power, “talk” is “horizontal” dialogue and discussion with those with whom one shares experience and status (shor, 1980). it may be outwardly idle and without clear purpose, lacking direct links to immediate action and change, but it is a key practice of freedom because it builds empowering social ties, engenders critical thinking, and helps people form and interrogate views and opinions (kim & kim, 2008). memes’ closer affinity with everyday talk than with clear, directed voice has perhaps contributed to their remaining under the radar for so long as a form of political expression, but it has also contributed to their surprising cultural power. i generally characterize engagement with cultural politics through memes as divided into three categories: construction and expression of individual identity; construction and maintenance of community and shared ideologies; and reframing of history, context, and social norms. september 2019 8 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research identity the most obvious recent example of memes’ capacity to be used for individual identity expression is the “tag yourself ” (also often spelled “tag urself ”) meme, which originated on tumblr in january of 2016 and remained popular until late 2017. tag yourself memes present the viewer with a selection of characters or objects, either entirely made up or based on existing media texts, real-life personalities, or objects, and asks them to choose one to identify with. the first example of the meme (figure 1) used pictures of birds and established a visual style involving colourful, deliberately poorly drawn graphics and simple, point-form text. descriptions of characters in these memes often combine dark imagery and depressing emotional commentary with self-effacing comedy and mundane positivity. though they tend to be very tongue-in-cheek, tag yourself memes still manage to provide a meaningful array of useful shorthand symbols for both outward self-identification and inward reflection. one twitter user remarked in 2017, as the popularity of this meme was starting to dwindle, that “tag urself memes are really old but i hope they never die [because] deciding if i’m a bagel or eggs just helps me put life into perspective.” other memes provide more flexible scripts for identity expression. the “prize wheel” meme (figure 2), for instance, uses an image of a large spinning game-show-style wheel and variations of the phrase “get to know me” as shorthand for the concept of presenting “random” interests, habits, values, and past experiences that characterize a person’s thoughts and expression. users add text to the sections of the wheel to name topics and ideas that are regularly on their minds, usually in a manner that gives an impression of both surreal humour and deep personal honesty. one 15-year-old tumblr user i interviewed described the power of making and sharing memes like this by saying that seeing them collected on others’ blogs was “like looking into the minds of people, rather than anything else.” if the engagement with cultural politics is not immediately clear in examples such as these, which focus strongly on individual self-making, it is worth noting that self-representation can be as much a matter of resistance to outside expectations and perspectives as one of independent expression. as buckingham (2008) asserts, “identity is not merely a matter of playful experimentation or ‘personal growth’: it is also about […] life-or-death struggles for self-determination” (p. 1), often against significant social forces. defining oneself through ways of communicating or in reference to ideas that are outside those preferred by mainstream society, in other words, is an act of cultural resistance because it involves pushing back against the inscription of dominant frames of meaning onto one’s experiences, choices, thoughts, and beliefs. when these practices are shared among members figure 1. the first tag yourself meme. figure 2. a “prize wheel” meme. september 2019 9 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of a particular subculture or marginalized group, this individual resistance to outside circumscription of identity representation becomes a form of cultural reconfiguration on a larger scale. in the case of memes representing politicized youth identities, both the message and the medium can become channels of resistance; the creator of the prize wheel meme on the previous page has used this piece of personal expression to explicitly declare themself a communist, but the way this is expressed is as disruptive as publicly identifying with an ideology derided as radical within the political mainstream. contemporary online youth culture, and particularly the memes and varieties of humour it tends to employ, has been described by the young people of tumblr as “neo-dadaist,” an echo of the early-20th-century art movement that deliberately abandoned logic and coherence as a statement on the effort it takes to make sense in a world that does not (bruenig, 2017). the tumblr post that popularized this term on the platform specifically describes memes filled with nonsense, obscure cultural references, and comments about suffering depression as an inescapable response to the socioeconomic conditions young people are subject to in the 2010s. mentioning a catalogue of issues from growing income inequality and perpetual overseas war to “being called lazy and self-absorbed by the generations that gave us these problems in the first place,” the post concludes, “of course we make nonsense.” a similar argument is applied to frank representations of depression and anxiety among online youth: as one teenaged tumblr user i interviewed explained, in a world that sometimes seems specifically orchestrated to put young people under unmanageable pressure yet continues to treat mental health issues as shameful, the most radical response is for young people to speak openly about the issues they face and downplay the gravity of the topic. the representation of identity seen in memes like “tag yourself ” and “prize wheel,” while at first glance often seeming like low-stakes personal commentary, can thus be seen as a way in which young people use a shared cultural framework of cultivated senselessness and irreverence to define themselves and their experiences in relation to specific perceptions of the state of the world around them. one tumblr user commented directly on the success of this cultivated senselessness as resistance to capitalism, pointing out that many big brands’ social media marketing campaigns have failed because “they assumed the combinations of images were totally random and tried to market themselves to the new generation by deliberately creating nonsense with no deeper meaning.” community this leads to the second purpose memes serve in the cultural politics of online youth culture: maintaining communities and establishing shared experiences and ideologies. sometimes the community involved is small and specific, often connected by specific interests or identities. a recent mutation of the tag yourself meme, for instance, presents users with a two-axis chart from which to choose an identity; many examples of this format (see figure 3) place marginalized gender identities and/or sexual orientations on one axis, resulting in choices such as “distinguished gay” or “disaster lesbian.” other tag yourself memes i have encountered that are primarily relevant to specific communities include examples based on orchestral instruments, dungeons & dragons classes, star trek characters, and 19th-century philosophers. in each case, while the meme is still primarily employed as an opportunity for individuals to represent their personalities through the various captions, the source of humour in the meme as a whole is based on knowledge associated with a specific interest and membership in a specific subculture, and so sharing and figure 3. a community-specific tag yourself meme. september 2019 10 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research responding to it becomes a way of signaling association with that subculture. the meme from which this paper takes its title provides an example of how this pattern can apply to, and contribute to building solidarity within, larger social categories. in october of 2015, a user on twitter posted a tweet reading: god: i have made mankind angels: you fucked up a perfectly good monkey is what you did. look at it. it’s got anxiety as this post gained popularity, users on various social media platforms began to remix its text, usually changing the words “god,” “mankind,” “angels,” and “monkey” to refer to the experiences (especially those that contribute to anxiety and other mental health concerns) of other groups or individuals. one tumblr post made in early 2016 took this formula and used it to humorously remark on the increasing stress young people are put under by the education system, a common topic of conversation through which teens and young adults bond online: university: i have made a graduate. student counsellor: you’ve ruined a perfectly good young adult, is what you’ve done. look at it. it’s got anxiety. depending on the example in question, this community identification and recognition of shared experience may often involve identifying oneself with groups (like the lgbtqia community) whose existence and visibility is clearly politicized, or discussing issues facing particular groups (such as stress and mental health among high school and postsecondary students) in a way that explicitly identifies a political, social, economic, or cultural problem. i have spoken with several users, for instance, whose first tentative steps out of the closet came in the form of sharing “obscure gay memes.” in other cases, as with tag yourself memes that refer to media fandoms or activities like playing in an orchestra, the engagement with cultural politics may not be as obvious, yet there is still an element of the normalization and celebration of communities and ways of interacting that are misunderstood or maligned in wider society. the young people i spoke to ascribe clear importance to the existence of spaces in which they can share niche interests and create cultures that depart from framings imposed on them from without, and they also recognize the political work seemingly nonpoliticized subcultures do through this process. one young woman told me that “we [tumblr users] are bound by our memes,” describing these bits of shared expression and meaning as tools for bridging gaps of understanding and experience—and one of the reasons the communities that form around fandoms and shared interests feel, to many young people, more broadly accepting of difference and diversity than other social spaces. cultural reframing the work of cultural politics done through identityand community-focused memes tends to be implicit and secondary or even incidental to the main intent being communicated. in contrast, some uses of memes are directly and explicitly intended as cultural commentary, mobilized to express opinions on issues of social significance. this obviously can and often does take the form of expressing support for electoral candidates or partisan positions on acknowledged controversies—for instance, a tag yourself meme of the 2016 presidential candidates figure 4. knock knock. it’s the united states. september 2019 11 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research referred to bernie sanders as “humanity’s last hope” and captioned donald trump “do not approach under any circumstances.” more interesting in the context of a discussion about cultural politics, however, is the use of memes to engage in more radical discourse: to make arguments about issues not commonly debated in the halls of government, to advance positions outside the range of those acceptable in conventional political discourse, or to express perspectives on events or issues that diverge from mainstream understandings. in february of 2016, a youtube user named bill wurtz uploaded a video called “history of japan.” the video quickly went viral thanks to its combination of thoroughly researched historical analysis, irreverent tone, and excessively colourful animations, and users on several social media sites began using quotes and images from the video in unrelated conversations. noteworthy for its lack of any one single visual or verbal script to be remixed as most memes have, “history of japan” became a flexible and relatively long-lived meme. one snippet of the video that lent itself very easily to use in various kinds of political talk was the phrase “knock knock. it’s the united states.” superimposed on an image of 19th-century american warships against a background of the american flag (figure 4). captions i have seen accompanied by this image include “when anything happens in the middle east,” “when you hear there’s a war brewing in another country that you have no reason to take part in; and “when a country democratically elects a socialist government.” a similar example comes from another meme that first appeared on reddit in 2016: the “meme economy,” essentially a satirical approach to discussing the creation, consumption, and sharing of memes themselves in which they are understood through concepts relating to financial markets. though not born specifically of online youth culture like the other examples in this paper, as the meme economy concept spread to tumblr and twitter for a brief period in the fall of 2017, examples became tinged with the sardonic, irreverent commentary on social norms and political institutions that are the particular hallmark of political (and particularly leftist) youth discourse online. one exchange that was shared nearly a quarter of a million times across tumblr began when one user remarked wondering why “meme production” was in a downturn, to which another responded, “it’s because school has started! […] meme production always increases in may/june and stays consistent throughout the summer, then decreases around august”; a third user replied in affected rage, “privatized education and compulsory college has spiraled us into a meme recession.” these uses of these memes serve as humorous indictments of aspects of u.s. foreign policy and the contemporary education system that are in many ways uncontested in conventional political circles. though democrats and republicans frequently and loudly disagree on specific campaigns undertaken by american forces overseas, a broadly interventionist foreign policy designed to strengthen american interests abroad and capitalism as a global economic system enjoy fairly consistent support among the political establishment on the left and the right. similarly, although they may differ on how student loans should be regulated and how k–12 curriculum should be constructed, major parties in most global north countries have generally refrained from campaigning on the idea of making any revolutionary changes in how education systems operate. in mocking interventionism and blaming schools and colleges for the “meme recession,” the users posting these memes take positions outside the range of viewpoints seen as acceptable within mainstream political discourse. their expression, though small in scale, contributes to much larger pushes to interrogate assumptions about history, international relations, and schooling, and to normalize more radical cultural discourse on these subjects. impact and the future like most technological and social changes, the rise of memes and of remix culture and online cultural politics more generally has the potential to do both good and harm. research has found that casual engagement with social september 2019 12 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research issues—through actions ranging from liking facebook news posts to creating personal videos about immigrant experiences—has the cumulative effect of encouraging large-scale collective action, raising awareness of issues, increasing volunteerism and other forms of individual action, and bringing previously unheard viewpoints into the political mainstream (jenkins, shresthova, gamber-thompson, kligler-vilenchik, & zimmerman, 2016). this is particularly true among young people, for whom the internet has a primacy as a space of culturally relevant discourse it has not achieved for older generations (kahne et al., 2012). on the other hand, it has been established that the large-scale opening up of discourse that the internet represents comes with the risk of leading to “chaotic pluralism”—a state in which agendas and discourse are too numerous and shift too quickly for the political landscape to be fully understood—and that this political chaos may in turn give rise to populist movements (margetts, john, hale, & yasseri, 2015). memes in particular, it has been suggested, tend to contribute to ideological chaos, both because they have difficulty accommodating nuance or complex information, favouring simplistic statements and extreme positions, and because online culture tends to favour the wide sharing of memes presenting novel or fringe positions over those advocating for anything closer to the status quo (haddow, 2016; mazambani, reysen, hempelmann, & carlson, 2015). this is the problem we must now grapple with, as researchers and as citizens: that the power of online cultural politics may be unequally distributed in favour of instability and, by extension, of those who would benefit from instability. young people are movers on all sides of this complex equation. recent electoral successes of political candidates seen as disruptive progressives—alexandria ocasio-cortez, for instance—have built on the widespread dissatisfaction with center-left neoliberals among young activists for whom online culture is the first language of politics, the socalled social justice warriors of tumblr and twitter who use memes to destigmatize socialism and attack american imperialism. on the other hand, despite the broad left-leaning tendencies of young people overall, and despite the fact that the “alt-right” movement as a whole is composed primarily of middle-aged people, it is young men— particularly college students—adept at navigating and influencing online culture among teens and young adults who have become the movement’s most successful and visible cultural agitators (hawley, 2017; wendling, 2018). there are, of course, also players in this field who are less visible, and although this paper does not intend to discuss in detail the deliberate manipulation of online cultural politics that the world is gradually becoming aware is ongoing, it would be irresponsible not to mention this as context. recent high-profile campaigns from the leave side of the uk’s brexit referendum to the national leadership bids of donald trump and jair bolsonaro have capitalized on rising cultures of xenophobic nationalism and anxieties about social and racial identities that would have been roundly disavowed in mainstream politics a decade ago, and which sprang to relevance thanks to concerted attempts at manipulation of cultural politics that have primarily taken place online (douthat, 2017; ryder, 2016). in early 2018, tumblr—to much fanfare among its own user base but little notice in the broader media sphere—terminated 84 accounts of so-called russian chaos agents who had been using the platform since 2015 to sow discord and undermine faith in the united states’ democratic institutions. far from the hard-right views and “fake news” propaganda pushed on twitter and facebook, these accounts mostly forwarded radical leftist views, often using memes and other aspects of niche internet culture as vehicles, with an undercurrent of equivocating whataboutism designed to lower progressive voter turnout by alienating young and minority voters from the democratic party and stoking ideological arguments among leftists (lapowsky, 2018). it is not merely foreign adversaries with chaotic agendas using online culture to manipulate cultural politics, either; alt-right leaders like the publisher of neo-nazi blog the daily stormer have described “meme warfare” as “a successful attempt to formulate a new culture” friendly to their interests and antagonistic to institutions—like journalism— that would keep them in check (haddow, 2016, para. 30). september 2019 13 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the nuanced deftness with which this manipulation has been and continues to be carried out is frightening, not only for its direct impact, but because it would seem to demonstrate that malicious actors with harmful agendas are much further ahead in their understanding of online cultural politics than we are as media researchers. it also shines a new light on young people’s practices of resistance in these spaces. with our political institutions so far failing to catch up to the potential of online culture to reshape our social and political climate in harmful ways, the young people confronting this reactionary shift head-on with memes normalizing and advocating radical progressivism are not simply expressing themselves and bonding with one another through the sharing of entertaining nonsense—they are on the front lines of a culture war with global repercussions. implications for research the cultural and political significance of memes specifically and online cultural practices more broadly have several implications for researchers. the most fundamental implication concerns how we conceptualize the internet itself as a social space and the young people who are most connected to online communities. youth culture in general is often perceived as frivolous and the disruption of social norms it brings decried as degenerative and unworthy of serious attention; online culture, meanwhile, is frequently cast as a meaningless distraction, separated somehow from meaningful reality (boellstorff, 2015; sefton-green, 1998). while these attitudes are certainly not held by most scholars whose work focuses on these areas of culture, it still often seems strange to the academy at large— never mind to the society around us—to see a research paper take online youth culture seriously as part of our social and political landscape, surrealist memes and all. it is vital, however, that we acknowledge this part of our culture, not only for its impact on our political norms, but for its importance in the lives of those who do not have equal access to other social spaces and other ways of having an impact on our cultural discourse. fittingly, young people themselves, given the opportunity, push from the margins for a change in how we make meaning of their cultural contributions in online spaces. many of the tumblr users i interviewed for my research on that platform saw the divide between “online” and “real life” as artificial and needless and expressed a wish that the communities, relationships, and interactions they experienced in online spaces, as well as their own personal expression and selfrepresentation, be seen as no different from those in other contexts. there are also implications for specific areas of research in need of attention and for the kinds of research and theoretical approaches that are needed in these areas. memes and other products of online culture are underresearched, but more specifically, there are aspects of their power and potential in the realm of cultural politics which we urgently need to better comprehend, not only for the sake of academic curiosity, but also for that of protecting against their worst eventualities. if the political potential of memes is not evenly distributed across the political spectrum or tends toward fostering discursive chaos, either due to the nature of the medium itself or because of how it interacts with our present political institutions, our society needs data on which to base a response to this fact. the function of memes in organized campaigns of cultural politics must be understood if these campaigns are to be countered. these problems, along with the fact that media remix in general is increasingly a paradigm through which people—particularly young people—express themselves and interact on an everyday basis, point to a need for a more interdisciplinary approach to understanding online culture. this distributed, personal production of media, and the memes that are one of its most visible expressions, are deeply tied to everything from individual identity processes to global sociopolitical discourse. developing a thorough theoretical understanding of them will require the efforts of far more than just the field of media studies. finally, there are practical considerations that the study of memes forces us to address, and it is likely that these are among the reasons such study has not more quickly garnered attention. it is exceptionally difficult to do any kind of in-depth research on the impact or meaning of cultural fads that appear, go global, and fade from view within september 2019 14 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research a matter of weeks. even if it were possible to collect meaningful data on such a phenomenon in the time before a meme falls into irrelevance, the publication process precludes any timely analysis from reaching the academic community. perhaps we are consigned, in scholarly circles, to speak of memes in the past tense, as instances of a pattern and not as specific cultural texts or events whose impact is still unfolding and mutable, but this seems a loss of valuable perspectives. i do not have an answer to this problem to propose, but i hope, at least, to open the conversation. september 2019 15 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references bennett, w. l. 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(endnotes) 1 this number is approximate because of the fluid nature of the community. i continually updated my list of followed blogs as new users joined tumblr, established users left the platform, and active users with shifting interests moved in and out of my communities of interest. november 2019 120 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice uniting generations: intergenerational and universalthemed picturebook recommendations tara-lynn scheffel and lori mckee tara-lynn scheffel is an associate professor in the schulich school of education, nipissing university, ontario, canada. she teaches courses in language & literacies and educating young children. her research interests focus on student/literacy engagement, community-based literacy initiatives, teacher education, and the sharing of practitioner stories. email: taralyns@nipissingu.ca lori mckee is an assistant professor in the faculty of education at st. francis xavier university in nova scotia, canada. lori teaches teacher education and graduate courses in early childhood and literacies. her research interests focus on expanding literacy learning opportunities for young children and supporting teachers to design and enact responsive literacy pedagogies. email: lmckee@stfx.ca in this paper, we offer children’s picturebook recommendations for educators to use with young children in learning spaces. the focus for this paper arises from our discussion in “learning together: our reflections on connecting people and practices in intergenerational meaning-making experiences” (mckee & scheffel, this issue) where we reflect on our experiences as researchers / research assistants in intergenerational settings (mckee & heydon, 2015; scheffel, 2015). we ground our reflections in sociocultural perspectives that recognize meaning making as literacy that is dynamic, context specific, and supported through (1) relationships (barton & hamilton, 2000) and (2) the combination of different modes (written, visual, etc.) and materials (walsh, 2011). through our reflections, we found that intergenerational experiences created opportunities to connect people of different generations, and that these interpersonal connections supported the sharing of meaningmaking practices. further, we identified three interconnected principles that we view as central to supporting meaning-making practices, whether in intergenerational contexts or beyond (mckee & scheffel, this issue). these principles are (1) relationships are an essential, integral part of meaning-making practices, (2) all people, regardless of age or ability can be meaning makers, and (3) sharing practices enriches meaning making. these principles guided the selection of picturebooks that we recommend in this paper. we recognize that the interconnected nature of the principles means that educators could use the same picturebook to support multiple principles. thus, we frame our recommendations broadly, as catalysts for educators of young children to think in different ways about intergenerational meaning-making opportunities in relation to each principle and its corresponding picturebooks. our recommendations: • recognize the value of, but do not require, intergenerational settings: we understand that not all educators and young children may have the opportunity to work within intergenerational settings. thus, we selected picturebooks that could be used either in classrooms with young children to discuss intergenerational principles or prepare children for participation in an intergenerational program, or within an intergenerational program with elders and young children. this article offers picturebook recommendations for early childhood educators to use with young children across contexts (e.g., early childhood classrooms, intergenerational settings) as a starting point to support intergenerational programming. key words: intergenerational; early childhood classrooms; literacy; children’s picturebooks; literacy practices november 2019 121 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice • include both intergenerational-specific and universal-themed picturebooks: in making our selections, we recognized the abundance of intergenerational picturebooks focused on relationships between grandparents and grandchildren (see scheffel, 2015) but also those that recognize multifaceted elder roles (caring, wise, useful) that doiron and lees (2009) observed with senior volunteers in schools. we also thoughtfully considered the way elder figures were constructed (scheffel, 2015). while we intentionally include books that represent these elder relationships and elder roles, we also highlight books that are less overt in their intergenerational theme but may spark intergenerational-related meaning-making opportunities through a universal theme for which both elders and children can identify. in the section that follows, we begin with an overview of each principle followed by three recommendations of children’s picturebooks that could be used to support the principle in early years settings and beyond. each picturebook recommendation includes a quote, a brief synopsis, and a consideration of the way the picturebook speaks to the principle identified. at the end of each principle, we offer additional picturebook recommendations for further exploration. in our discussion, we suggest opportunities for extending meaning making beyond a read aloud. we offer these opportunities as invitations rather than set lesson plans for educators to adapt/expand as fitting of the learners and context. relationships this first principle recognizes that literacy is “embedded in broader social goals and cultural practices” (barton & hamilton, 2000, p. 8). educators are encouraged to create meaning-making opportunities that are relevant to classroom and school practices and reflect the broader social context. picturebooks, whether intergenerational specific or universal in theme, can demonstrate the power of relationships and learning between generations. wild berries by julie flett when clarence was little, his grandma carried him on her back through the woods to the clearing to pick wild berries/pikaci-mīnisa. this picturebook highlights the relationship between clarence and his grandma (ōkoma) as they go on blueberry-picking adventures. readers learn that grandma enjoys “soft blueberries, juicy blueberries” while clarence prefers “blueberries that go p o p in his mouth.” other onomatopoeia words are used to describe clarence’s observations of nature and animals. the story embeds cree words, and a pronunciation guide is provided. through this story, readers can observe the growth of an elder-child relationship that is grounded in social and cultural practice. children may identify with this picturebook for the way it reminds them of shared moments, such as berry picking. elders may identify with this text for the way it reminds them of cultural/linguistic experiences with their grandchildren or other significant children in their lives. the hello, goodbye window by norton juster when you look from the outside, nanna and poppy’s house has lots of windows, but there’s only one hello, goodbye window and it’s right where you need it. the hello, goodbye window shares the story of a granddaughter’s visits to nanna and poppy’s house. the reader observes daily events, as well as memories shared by the granddaughter (e.g., “nanna says she even used to give me a bath in the sink when i was little—really!”). the highlight of each visit is the window, which serves both as place to wave hello when she first arrives and to blow kisses when it’s time to leave. november 2019 122 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice described as “a love song devoted to that special relationship between grandparents and grandchild” (inside flap), this story is filled with shared meaning-making experiences and conversations that arise from a close elderchild bond. the experiences, while unique to this particular elder-child connection, invite others to consider the relationships they have with similar elder figures (e.g., helping in the garden, ways of greeting one another). it’s okay to be different by todd parr it’s okay to be different. you are special and important just because of being who you are. it’s okay to be different invites readers to explore several different themes that range from silly to more serious. parr begins each page with the sentence starter “it’s okay to ...” some examples include “it’s okay to need some help,” “it’s okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub,” and “it’s okay to have different moms.” to support these messages, the picturebook includes pictures that do not show characters with a particular ethnicity, but instead features characters with bright blue, yellow, and green faces. this picturebook embraces the diversity of people and recognizes that people have diverse experiences and practices that influence their relationships. though the text does not specifically include intergenerational relationships, it can create opportunities for all learners to appreciate diversity. additional recommendations: something from nothing by phoebe gilman; i know a lady by charlotte zolotow; the mitten tree by candace christiansen. capable meaning makers this principle focuses on pedagogies that recognize funds of knowledge, or resources that learners bring with them to learning opportunities (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzalez, 1992). rachel heydon (2013) emphasizes the importance of expanding meaning-making opportunities for elders and children, because at these stages of life, meaning-making opportunities can be restricted. when planning activities that recognize children’s capabilities, picturebooks offer the opportunity for “grand conversations” (ontario ministry of education, 2011) about the strengths we all have, regardless of age, as well as ways to honour approximations of learning (cambourne, 1988). these conversations can include discussions about aging, which larkin, wilson, and freer (2013) suggest “can influence how children think about growing older and guide their students toward appreciation for the diversity that exists among older adults” (p. 167). now one foot, now the other by tomie depaola bob was the one who helped bobby learn to walk. “hold on to my hands, bobby,” his grandfather said. “now one foot, now the other.” bob teaches his grandson bobby many things, from his first word (bob) to how to build towers with wooden blocks. they are best friends and often tell stories to one another, in particular the story of how bob taught bobby to walk. when bobby is five, his grandfather has a stroke. though scared that his grandfather is different, bobby finds ways to communicate with him, first by talking with him, then building towers for him, and eventually reteaching his grandfather—“now one foot, now the other.” this picturebook depicts a teaching/learning relationship between elder and child that values approximations of learning (e.g., building the tower requires multiple attempts). like the hello goodbye window, elders may recall similar moments where they have modelled a skill to children or vice versa. the book’s message that everyone needs help at different points in their lives may also resonate with both elders and children. november 2019 123 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice ish by peter reynolds ramon felt light and energized. thinking ish-ly allowed his ideas to flow freely. ish tells the tale of child ramon, who loved to create artwork but lost confidence in his abilities when his brother laughed at his attempts. ramon considers quitting art making because he knows his art is not perfect. the story takes a turn when ramon realizes that his younger sister collected and treasured his discarded drawings, and at the end of the story he explains that “thinking ish-ly” (accepting that his work was not perfect) renewed his desire to create. this picturebook shows that a child’s drawings, while not technically perfect, were still meaning-full. this message illustrates the importance of accepting approximations as part of learning (cambourne, 1988) and, like the first principle, identifies the importance of interpersonal relationships in meaning making, specifically affirmation by others. though the relationships portrayed are not intergenerational, the underlying messages may resonate with both children and elders. for example, children may identify with ramon in that they may not be able yet to create artifacts that are refined. elders may identify with not being able to create artifacts in the same way as when they were younger. no one but you by douglas wood no one else in the world can look up at the stars, these stars, right now, with your own eyes, and feel your own special place on this earth. in no one but you, the author invites readers to consider how the best things in the world cannot be taught, shown, or explained, but are instead discovered through our own sensory explorations. for example, “no one but you can feel the rain kiss your skin or the wind ruffle your hair.” each page is part of a two-page illustration that depicts an up-close image of a child engaged with the natural environment, whether land, sea, or sky. the final illustration focuses on the feeling of love. this picturebook values children as learners, each with a unique view of the world. written for an audience greater than children, the book suggests it can “inspire loved ones of any age as they set out to create their special place in the world” (inside flap). prior to an intergenerational visit, educators can discuss how one’s senses may change as they get older. at the same time, the picturebook fits with the multifaceted elder role (doiron & lees, 2009). together, elders and children may identify with the message of discovery, and that what they see, think, and feel is important. additional recommendations: beautiful oops! by barney saltzberg; how to catch a star by oliver jeffers; not a stick/not a box by antoinette portis; verdi by janell cannon. sharing practices the third principle focuses on the importance of sharing practices across contexts. it recognizes that meaning making happens within and outside of the classroom space (moje et al., 2004). one way that educators can build bridges across contexts (home, school, community) is by inviting community members, such as elders, to share from their diverse experiences and practices. our picturebook recommendations not only provide opportunities for sharing practices but also serve as inviting read-aloud texts for elders to read with young children when visiting their daycare/classroom. november 2019 124 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice grandma and the pirates by phoebe gilman it was because of her wonderful noodle pudding that grandma met the pirates. in this silly story, a group of pirates comes ashore in search of the delicious smell of grandma’s noodle pudding. they eat the noodle pudding and kidnap grandma so that she can be their grandma and continue to cook for them. melissa, her granddaughter, tries to rescue grandma but is also captured. melissa devises several unsuccessful plans for escape before deciding to create a fake treasure map. the map leads the pirates away from the ship, offering grandma and melissa the chance to sail away. this picturebook invites storytelling across a variety of contexts. together, children and elders can consider imaginary adventures. this picturebook also challenges the idea that elders are frail, which is fitting of the second principle already outlined above. madlenka by peter sis madlenka thinks this must be the best day of her life. madlenka tells the tale of a little girl who walks around her city block to announce to community members that her tooth is loose. as madlenka meets neighbours from different parts of the world, they greet her in their home language. when she travels the city block, readers view illustrations of images of important landmarks from countries around the world, including france, india, and italy. this picturebook creates opportunities for the sharing of personal histories. for example, elders conducting a read aloud of this book might share related stories about their world travels or experiences with their own grandchildren losing teeth like the madlenka character. together, elders and children might also try out the greetings from different parts of the world. all the world by liz garton scanlon hope and peace and love and trust, all the world is all of us. written in rhyming verse, this inviting book speaks to everyday, common experiences shared by people around the world. for example, the world is “wide and deep” as reflected on a family outing to the beach. the world is “a garden bed” where communities grow flowers and food. each page is filled with shared experiences between generations as they go for walks, eat together, and appreciate what the world has to offer. this picturebook invites conversation about global aspects of the world that everyone experiences, regardless of their age. the end of each rhyming verse culminates in a two-page spread that offers a starting place to talk about the global concept that is illustrated (e.g., old and new). elders conducting a read aloud might share stories about beaches they have visited, what they grow in their garden, etc. young children may also identify with the experiences depicted in the story as they recall related moments with their families. additional recommendations: strega nona by tomie depaola; the peace book by todd parr; my grandpa and the sea by katherine orr. discussion in table 1, we summarize the picturebooks recommended above, including the type of theme (intergenerational or universal) and the central principle identified, and offer suggestions for ways to extend meaning making november 2019 125 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice beyond a read aloud of each picturebook. as mentioned earlier, these opportunities are invitations and can be adapted according to learners and context. table 1. meaning-making opportunities beyond read aloud recommended picturebook central principle opportunities for extending meaning making wild berries by julie flett *intergenerational theme relationships invite learners to design a paper quilt square using key words and images that represent their observations after a nature walk or when remembering a favourite outing. join each square together to form a collaborative quilt. further ideas for this picturebook can also be found via the global read aloud (https://theglobalreadaloud.com/) the hello, goodbye window by norton juster *intergenerational theme relationships invite learners to recall a favourite window they like to look through (e.g., in their home, childcare/school). provide a range of art materials for recreating their favourite windows. learners might add shutters to create an element of surprise when sharing the windows. it’s okay to be different by todd parr *universal theme relationships invite learners to create a collaborative storybook in the style of it’s okay to be different (e.g., bright colours, black outlines). learners can work individually or in partners to compose and illustrate a statement beginning with the frame “it’s okay to …” now one foot, now the other by tomie depaola *intergenerational theme capable meaning makers invite learners to work collaboratively to build a tower with small blocks or sugar cubes. like the main characters, the goal might be to build the tallest tower with the materials provided. invite learners to share about their attempts (e.g., what did they learn from one another?). ish by peter reynolds *universal theme capable meaning makers invite learners to play a game where a learner selects a card with an image of a familiar object or place, creates an “ish” statement, and creatively illustrates the object or place (e.g., this is a dog-ish). no one but you by douglas wood *universal theme capable meaning makers invite learners to select an illustration and discuss what they notice on the page. for example, what do they notice on a lazy afternoon or after a rain shower? learners might then sketch a favourite place they remember. if fitting, learners could go on a nature walk and use their senses to draw what they see, hear, smell, and feel. november 2019 126 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice grandma and the pirates by phoebe gilman *intergenerational theme sharing practices invite learners to design their own pretend treasure map. they might draw the map they think was used in the story to lure the pirates away, or they might create their own treasure map. learners might also recreate their treasure map in a sand table and ask others to try and find the treasure with their map. madlenka by peter sis *universal theme sharing practices invite learners to create passports of places they have been or would like to visit. educators could take pictures of learners for the first page of the passport and then learners could fill the remaining pages of the booklet with images from travel magazines of places they have visited or hope to visit (see heydon, 2013, for extended lesson plan). all the world by liz garton scanlon *universal theme sharing practices invite learners to create actions for the story (e.g., how might they act out “wide and deep” using their arms and bodies?). draw the actions on a chart paper version of the story. when rereading the story, invite learners to do each action and chime in with the educator as the words are read. through the above picturebook recommendations, we • offer a starting point for educators to take steps toward intergenerational programming in their teaching contexts, whether preparing children to meet elders, planning opportunities for children and elders to learn together, or to discuss intergenerational principles in spaces where elders are not present. • expand the boundaries of what makes a quality picturebook for intergenerational conversations and meaning-making opportunities. we believe that “intergenerational-themed” books (with a grandparent and a grandchild) as well as “universal-themed” books can encourage rich conversations about intergenerational meaning-making opportunities. the picturebooks generate conversation and can be read multiple times by elders, educators, and parents across different contexts. these conversations and opportunities to extend meaning making can nurture relationships, honour differing capabilities, and support the sharing of practices (mckee & scheffel, this issue). with this in mind, we return to the opening excerpt from all the world by scanlon (2009) that speaks to time spent together in fellowship—a sense of community that unites generations and supports meaning making. nanas, papas, cousins, kin, piano, harp, and violin babies passed from neck to knee all the world is you and me. all the world, liz garton scanlon november 2019 127 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice children’s picturebooks cited cannon, j. (1997). verdi. new york, ny: harcourt. christiansen, c. (2009). the mitten tree. golden, co: fulcrum. depaola, t. (1973). now one foot, now the other. new york, ny: puffin books. depaola, t. (1975). strega nona. new york, ny: aladdin paperbacks. flett, j. (2013). wild berries/pikaci-mīnisa. vancouver, bc: simply read books. gilman, p. (1990). grandma and the pirates. richmond hill, on: north winds press. gilman, p. (1992). something from nothing. richmond hill, on: north winds press. jeffers, o. (2004). how to catch a star. hammersmith, uk: harpercollins children’s books. juster, n. (2005). the hello, goodbye window. new york, ny: michael di capua books / hyperion books for children. orr, k. (1990). my grandpa and the sea. minneapolis, mn: carolrhoda books. parr, t. (2001). it’s okay to be different. new york, ny: little, brown, & company. parr, t. (2004). the peace book. new york, ny: little, brown, & company. portis, a. (2006). not a box. new york, ny: harper collins. portis, a. (2008). not a stick. new york, ny: harper collins. reynolds, p. (2004). ish. cambridge, ma: candlewick press. saltzberg, b. (2010). beautiful oops! new york, ny: workman. scanlon, l. g. (2009). all the world. new york, ny: beach lane books. sis, p. (2000). madlenka. new york, ny: square fish. wood, d. (2011). no one but you. somerville, ma: candlewick press. zolotow, c. (1992). i know a lady. new york, ny: mulberry books. november 2019 128 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references barton, d., & hamilton, m. (2000). literacy practices. in d. barton, m. hamilton, & r. ivanič (eds.), situated literacies: reading and writing in context (pp. 7–15). london, uk: routledge. cambourne, b. (1988). the whole story: natural learning and the acquisition of literacy in the classroom. newtown, australia: primary english teachers association. doiron, r., & lees, j. (2009). it takes a village to raise a reader: reflections on an intergenerational literacy program. the school community journal, 19(1), 137–154. retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej847433.pdf heydon, r. (2013). learning at the ends of life: children, elders, and literacies in intergenerational curriculum. toronto, on: university of toronto press. larkin, e., wilson, g. p., & freer, m. (2013). images of old: teaching about aging through children’s literature. journal of intergenerational relationships, 11, 4–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2013.755068 mckee, l., & heydon, r. (2015). orchestrating literacies: print literacy learning opportunities within multimodal intergenerational ensembles. journal of early childhood literacy, 15(2), 227–255. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1468798414533562 mckee, l., & scheffel, t. (this issue). learning together: our reflections on connecting people and practices in intergenerational meaningmaking experiences. journal of childhood studies, 44(5). moje, e., ciechanowski, k. m., kramer, k., ellis, l., carrillo, r., & collazo, t. (2004). working toward third space in content area literacy: an examination of everyday funds of knowledge and discourse. reading research quarterly, 39(40), 38–70. retrieved from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~moje/pdf/journal/workingtowardthirdspace.pdf moll, l. c., amanti, c., neff, d., & gonzalez, n. (1992). funds of knowledge for teaching: using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. theory into practice, 31(2), 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534 ontario ministry of education. (2011). grand conversations. capacity building series. secretariat special edition 30. toronto, on: author. scheffel, t. (2015). the heart of the matter: exploring intergenerational themes in children’s literature. journal of intergenerational relationships, 13(2), 167–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2015.1028259 walsh, m. (2011). multimodal literacy: researching classroom practice. newtown, australia: primary english teaching association (e:lit). retrieved from http://www.petaa.edu.au/imis_test/petaa_docs/publications/sample_papers/pet094e.pdf november 2019 1 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research the reggio approach in motion: documenting experiences, reflecting on practice, and disseminating the ideas paolo sorzio and verity campbell-barr paolo sorzio is an associate professor at the university of trieste, italy, where he teaches qualitative research methodologies in educational research and design and documentation in educational services. his areas of research are professionalism in early childhood education and the impact of different learning environments on children’s learning. he works closely with teachers and practitioners. his publications include “day to day in italian preschools: environments for learning and development” in j. georgeson and j. payler (eds.) international perspectives on early childhood education and care (open university press, 2013). email: psorzio@units.it dr. verity campbell-barr is an associate professor in early childhood studies at plymouth institute of education, plymouth university, united kingdom. she has more than 10 years of experience as a researcher in early childhood education and care (ecec) and specializes in exploring concepts of quality and who and what informs them. verity’s latest research is focused on the role of the workforce in delivering quality ecec services and how professionals come to know how to develop quality pedagogical environments. she coauthored quality and leadership in the early years (sage publications) and has just published professional knowledge and skills in the early years (also with sage). email: verity.campbell-barr@plymouth.ac.uk the reggio emilia approach has received widespread interest as an innovative early childhood education and care (ecec) practice since the late 1980s. the approach has gained much currency because it makes explicit an articulated framework of child development, gives relevance to the manifold languages through which children’s thinking can be manifested, and proposes open-ended educational activities as opportunities for learning. this approach is a valid alternative to the standardization process in ecec, which relies on predefined learning outcomes and centers logical and linguistic competencies (fuller, 2007). however, while the reggio approach has much to offer, there is a need to present a critical articulation of the approach at a time when its ideas are often presented as prescriptions, frequently in component parts. in this article, the concept of “cultural object” (daston, 2008; urban, 2001), as a collection of reflexive texts that imparts a force to a cultural practice, is applied to analyze the cultural objects produced within the reggio emilia approach in order to understand the symbolic construction of its singularity and the motives of its dissemination. for this purpose, some minor texts are selected, since they are more focused on the innovative methods of ministories and of the projects, rather this article offers a cultural analysis of the materialization into cultural texts of a variety of educational experiences, political visions, and pedagogical approaches in order to understand the symbolic construction of the reggio emilia approach, highlighting its singularity and the motives of its dissemination. the analysis considers selected texts that refer to specific methods of documenting children’s activities to highlight the symbolic strategies that select, organize, and materialize a constellation of local experiences into a unified educational perspective. through the innovative analysis of text composition, new dimensions of professionalism have emerged, challenging conventional approaches and promoting a valid alternative to the standardization of early childhood education. the dissemination of the reggio approach through texts opens up new opportunities for early years practitioners to critically consider participation with families and calls on policymakers to reform the sector. the potential is created for cultural dialogue between families and professionals with different models of children’s growth, thereby enriching the “funds of knowledge” at communities’ disposal to promote children’s approaches to language and symbolism. key words: reggio approach; cultural objects; narratives of learning; participation structures; cultural dissonance november 2019 2 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research than reggio children’s major books, in which the experiences are only illustrative of the theoretical framework. this article is based on the tenet that the texts produced within the reggio approach become cultural objects through a deliberate process of selection, organization, and sedimentation of a constellation of experiences into a unified narrative in books, dvds and exhibitions. the texts have supported the distribution of the reggio approach internationally, leading to questions of whether the cultural conditions that gave rise to the approach have been evaded. some risks of reinforcing differences in cultural capital in the dissemination of the reggio approach are also addressed. in this analysis, the focus is not on the children’s performances but on their educational significance, as they are represented in the cultural objects that communicate “the reggio approach.” theoretical framework: the construction of cultural objects when the participants in a cultural practice are engaged in a process of reflection, selection, and abstraction of their relevant experiences, they activate a process of “metaculture” that produces cultural objects. therefore, “metaculture” is the process of framing a system of cultural practices as cultural expressions that define its origins and its core motives, its specific vocabulary, and the prototypical examples (urban, 2001). according to lorraine daston, the cultural objects that “become a magnet for intense interest” (daston, 2008, p. 24) are characterized by the crystallization of a constellation of heterogeneous elements in a structure. it is not a contingent bricolage of experiences but a unified whole with a story to narrate, something that requires a careful design. the cultural construction of the uniqueness of the reggio approach is an articulated, historically developed production of texts as objects that talk (daston, 2008). it is a semiotic construction that conveys the idea of the child-centered approach as self-evident. the adults are presented as closely listening to children’s utterances and observing their intentional actions as windows into their natural, creative thinking; the reggio-specific mode of documentation is intended to “make learning visible,” as it would be without mediation (project zero & reggio children, 2001). by crystallizing the reflection on its own practice into cultural objects, the reggio emilia educational experience acquires explicitness and consistency and becomes “the reggio approach.” the production of the material representations (books, dvds, exhibitions), in turn, promotes the dissemination of the reggio experiences and approach. analysis of the texts produced within the reggio experience is relevant because it is not just a description of what happened, it is an active process of selection of the experiences, their organization into a consistent narrative through argumentative strategies, and their solidification into a recognizable style with aesthetic and ethical components. greg urban (2018) identifies two potential directions of cultural mobility: one is vertical, that is, across generations through direct participation in the practice of teacher training; the other is lateral, consisting in the crossing of boundaries of language and educational systems. this second direction motion disseminates cultural objects produced within the reggio children foundation. the cultural objects, mainly texts, are signs that make the reggio approach visible, understandable, and comparable with other experiences. the overall functions of the texts produced within the reggio children foundation are made explicit in the preface of the book series coriandoli, in which it is stated that: november 2019 3 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research the philosophical approach in reggio emilia pedagogy supports communicating education in diverse ways with writing where words and images interweave to make the educational approach adopted visible and perceptible. this is a new, hybrid language based on competencies unknown in traditional training for teachers, cross-bordering into new forms of knowledge to declare and underline the importance of an aesthetic dimension in teaching and learning. (reggio children, 2008, page ii) this methodological statement is signed by the collective name of “reggio children,” indicating a shared orientation in the institution of the municipality preschools and infant-toddler centres in reggio emilia. by creating complex texts to document the educational activities, the reggio experience is solidified into cultural objects that can travel worldwide and provoke excitement, intellectual curiosity, and stimulation for changing practice in many different contexts. this article analyzes some texts produced in the reggio approach as cultural objects in order to identify their layouts and the relationships between different symbols that characterize the innovative “hybrid language” and the development of “new forms of knowledge.” we highlight the mechanisms that have promoted the construction of the reggio approach and its diffusion in the lateral direction. the texts are illustrative examples rather than a systematic sample. the analysis seeks to consider: • how has the reggio approach been organized into cultural objects? • how is children’s learning constructed as narrative? • which textual characteristics make the educational experience in reggio emilia relevant for a global audience? • what are the risks and opportunities of disseminating the reggio approach through cultural objects? the textualization of the reggio approach a system of cultural objects offers a frame of reference that makes the educational practice in the reggio emilia schools internally consistent and theoretically justified and promotes its dissemination. the theoretical foundations are presented in making learning visible (project zero & reggio children, 2001); the approach is grounded in malaguzzi’s deep sensitivity to children’s potentialities to express themselves and learn by using different symbolic codes and is connected to an eclectic combination of piagetian psychology, bruner’s socio-constructivism, and gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. the origins are in the specific community of reggio emilia, which has been characterized by a high social capital since the medieval era and then throughout the socialist movements in the 19th century, to the antifascist ethos during wwii, as aptly expressed in the dvd not just any place (fasano, 2008). in subsequent sections, the analysis presented of the cultural objects associated with the reggio approach (specifically the ministories and the projects) will provide details of the approach and its underlying philosophy. the analysis will contemplate the particular ways that both children and adults are constructed within the texts before considering the consequences of the anticipated embodiments of these constructions, particularly for professional practice. november 2019 4 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research the narrative composition of the ministories the ministories are short narratives about the children’s thinking during meaningful experiences with objects. a learning event is narrated by presenting a few photographs that offer communicative clues of the children’s joint actions, as well as by selecting some relevant utterances that the children express while they perform the actions, as gathered through video or audio recordings and fieldnotes. the ministories are not intended to focus on the children’s products or their actions in narrow tasks, with an expected outcome, but to appreciate the relevance of children’s thinking in the process of manipulating simple materials to create their own artefacts, as a creative outcome. indeed, each ministory revolves around an emergent thought the children work out to solve a cognitive deadlock in which they are entrapped while working out a project. in gathering materials for the ministories, the school team (composed of atelieristas, pedagogistas, and teachers) keeps attention on the children’s sentences that express their thinking processes in working out an intentional activity. children’s unfolding dialogues are complemented by pictures to highlight mutual attention, physical proximity, and coordinated movements on the objects. one founding text of the reggio approach as cultural object is the hundred languages in ministories (teachers and children from reggio emilia, 2016). the text incorporates some documentation of the children’s meaningful activities in reggio schools from 1980 to 1994. some of the ministories had been previously presented in an exhibition in 1988. in “construction of two little horses in clay” we see photographs of one girl’s hands manipulating clay to create her own small sculpture of a horse, and photographs of her intermediate productions. photo 9 shows the child’s hands trying to get the thin, fragile clay horse to stand up; her utterance gives a clear sense of what is going wrong: “he won’t stand up. come on, why don’t you hold still?” (teachers and children from reggio emilia, 2016, p. 4). her visible manipulation of the horse transforms the clay into a new shape that offers new affordances for the child’s thinking: she modifies her mental model of the clay horse and creates a completely new artefact representing the horse. the ministory is structured to make evident the child’s ingenious strategy to solve a deadlock situation; photographs alternate with utterances, and the lettering provides the rhythms of the child’s thinking. one photo focuses on the partial artefact alone to emphasize the unworkable situation, which requires the child’s new cognitive insight rather than a corrective manipulation. the child’s utterance expresses wonder. the following frame shows her hands reworking the artefact, therefore suggesting her new insight. in mosaico di grafiche, parole, materia (a mosaic of graphics, words, and raw materials), a child who is 4 years, 10 months draws some flowers, smudging the colours; she comments that “it is like the wind effect on the flowers … the wind melts them … it is nice” (reggio children, 2015, p. 23). the teacher builds on the child’s interpretation to ask the whole group if the wind can be drawn. the children offer their interpretation of the adult’s proposal to extend their thinking by making new drawings and commenting on them. another girl (5.2 years old) explains her drawing by stating that the wind goes everywhere; in her drawing the wind has made the flowers fly away, but “not all the flowers, some have remained otherwise one cannot understand that they are flowers” (reggio children, 2015, p. 30). when recognizing some opportunities for further learning in the children’s activities, the adult can intervene in the ongoing conversation, proposing relevant opportunities to the group in order to support the children’s november 2019 5 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research evolving understanding of the situation (in the reggio vocabulary these crucial adult interactional moves are called rilanci). the rilanci can be translated as “extending questions”—they are oriented to promote further conversation by encouraging children to reflect on their own reasoning strategies in open-ended tasks. the selection of children’s utterances is intended to give a glimpse into their constant attribution of meaning to their actions. this is particularly relevant when their activity goes into an impasse. the recombination of the situational elements into a new cognitive perspective, as expressed in the presented utterances, offers evidence of the children’s constructive processes as an integration of intentional thinking and sophisticated actions. structuring more encompassing narratives: the projects an innovative cultural object is the series called coriandoli, that is, small format books which introduce the educational activities with a more encompassing scope than the ministories. the series documents the unfolding of educational projects. in the reggio approach, the projects are multistage activities, planned by the teachers, who think about the educational opportunities the children can experience by engaging in the activities. the projects are open ended, since the careful documentation of unfolding activities suggests to the adults to introduce changes according to the children’s interests, proposals, and conjectures. we write shapes that look like a book (pablo picasso infant toddler centre, 2008) is a small book that documents an articulated project, conducted by adults and 2to 3-year-old children, oriented at making more visible the connections between the infant-toddler centre and the town community. the very name of the project represents a creative use of wording that conveys multiple meanings: la città inattesa (city-in-waiting) can be interpreted in italian both as “the unexpected city” and “the waiting city.” in this project, the children were invited to explore a large city park, to observe nature, to create hypotheses about the life of small animals in the park, and to gather natural materials to make artistic representations of their outdoor experience. an important part of the project was the children’s return to the park to construct something original that could be appreciated by the people of the town. the pictures highlight the children pointing to elements in the park’s small ecological niches (emphasizing curiosity), exploring in groups (emphasizing friendship), manipulating natural objects like pebbles, sticks, and leaves (emphasizing intentionality and fine gestures). the park revealed both its rich hidden life, when carefully experienced (the unexpected city), and the potentialities for its development, as represented by the children’s design of new paths to connect separated environments (the waiting city). after analyzing the documentation of the outdoor activities, the teachers recognized a small composition of pebbles and sticks that the children had created in the park as the most suitable for engaging them in further symbolic reconstruction of their experience. the raw materials were brought to the centre and rearranged to design a new road in the park. in the next stage of the project, the children came back to the park and explored the disposition of its elements in a new perspective. they measured, explored again, and produced a symbolic representation on paper, including drawing the new road, and eventually they constructed an architectural model that was fixed on the ground of the park and visited by the reggio citizens. the book presents four sources of information: photographs of children’s activities, children’s drawings, children’s utterances, and adults’ comments. two children making their own drawing are individually pictured and their product accompanies the photographs to give a sense of their intentional actions. the photographs of their drawing activity are framed to highlight commitment (each child is looking intensely at the drawing), and the hands of both are represented (one using the marker, the other holding the paper) to give a sense of the very young children’s november 2019 6 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research bodily coordination in their endeavour. to complete the narrative of the activity, there are pictures of the children observing their drawings projected onto a wall. strong consistency of complex educational activities is given by the children’s use of symbolism to fix their experience into a new level of awareness: in the case of the city in-waiting, the children explore the park, make a material representation of their experience through drawings and manipulation of natural objects; they imagine new possibilities and create a collective artefact that becomes public. this double process is crucial to learning because symbolism articulates and gives meaning to the experiences, as well as opening up new experiential opportunities. the narratives are focused on children’s utterances and actions, but they appear as an adult construction: the adults frame the children’s actions, select their utterances, and graphically compose the narrative sequence to give meaning to the situation and to open windows into the children’s thinking processes. the adults’ comments make use of mental verbs to interpret children’s intentional activities (i.e., the adults’ comments give more relevance to the children’s intentions than to the outcomes of their activity); “the children’s aesthetic research also becomes important, guiding them in their choice” (pablo picasso infant toddler centre, 2008, p. 19). in the same book, “the tree rapidly becomes a mental image” (p. 24) and the children “are inclined and open to encounters with the new” (p. 42). the analysis the books are carefully designed to convey the educational principles of constructivism, as expressed by carla rinaldi (2006): • learning consists in the children’s active transformation of their own mental schemes through engagement in meaningful experiences and constant reflection on the discrepancies between their intentionality and the real situation. • thinking and children’s competencies can be expressed in different symbolic codes, such as figurative expression, dramatization, logic, and verbal language. each emphasizes the natural competences of the children and they are not hierarchically organized. • children’s thinking develops along unpredictable lines, rather than accommodating to an adult model of acceptable performance. the cultural objects that document the educational activities and give consistency to the reggio approach incorporate three layers of interpretation: the children’s documenting of their experiences through utterances, drawings, and material models of reality; the adults’ documenting the processes of children’s learning in situation; and finally the narrative texts that organize educational experiences into a complex narrative, which gives the readers the meaning of education as a polyphonic activity, unfolding along carefully projected paths, but also open to unpredictability, to new possibilities arising from the children’s explorations. the cultural objects also present an idea of the child as constantly engaged in experience, thinking and talking about it, and using different symbols to represent and give meaning to it, individually or in a group. adults use sophisticated narrative techniques to make the subtle process of learning visible; therefore, they emphasize the idea of the competent child, rich with psychological potentialities that can be stimulated by the appropriate educational activities. november 2019 7 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research the material representations of the reggio approach are innovative along many dimensions. books are rich in iconic support: photographs capture events of children manipulating materials, exploring the surroundings, creating a joint focus of attention. by taking pictures of the activity, the adults frame the processes rather than the children’s products. when a picture frames a partial artefact, stilled from the flux of the activity, the sense of an impasse is conveyed. the reader shifts from an objective layer of interpretation, in which the children’s gestures are seen, to a more subjective perspective, in which the artefact is the focus of careful intellectual inspection in order to reconsider its structure and devise new functional relationships among its features. framing, that is, “the pictorial boundary, the function of which [is] to close off the depicted scene against surrounding reality” (prendeville, 2000, p. 159), is a relevant visual technique to give the reader the narrative rhythm of children’s thinking. the frames can focus on children’s visual orientation paying attention to the activity, the children’s spatial vicinity, and their facial expressions of positive feelings. the reproduction of children’s drawing highlights complex composition. the books’ original layouts allow new relationships between pictures and words, giving the reader a sense of the children’s thinking processes while engaged in intentional actions. the figurative descriptions of the children’s activities are supported by the selection of their utterances to offer a window into the children’s meaning making in situation. the reggio approach overtakes the conventional educational iconography, which implies adherence to a single point of view, a figure/background composition, a limited palette of colours. the books, as cultural objects, make manifest different educational presuppositions, which are closer to the artistic avant-gardes of the twentieth century—the children are encouraged to explore different representational modes, to express their thinking; composition and design are more appreciated than conformity to an expected format. as modernism in art tends to make the compositional process visible, the texts in the reggio approach are intended to “make learning visible.” the ministories as well as the coriandoli project make salient some relevant aspects of children’s thinking. however, both groups of narratives are constructed by the selection of a few images and utterances in order to give a sense of children’s learning. we are given only some interactional moments, when the children’s words are accompanied by an invitation from the teacher to extend their thinking. however, the fine-grained interactional situation is not available, and therefore it is difficult to appreciate the whole structure of children’s participation, that is, the set of educational presuppositions that orient the participants in the appropriate interpretation of the discursive acts in a communicative situation, the register of speaking and the culturally appropriate frames of reference (o’connors & michaels, 1996). as a consequence, in the cultural objects developed in the reggio approach, the children’s thinking is separated from the background of cultural presuppositions about the children’s status in schools, the implicit role of adults, the learning outcomes that are valued within the approach. we get some original metaphors, but we cannot recognize the communicative contexts that support their emergence. the cultural objects offer a representation of the reggio experience as a consistent approach that can make recognizable the relevant educational principles of introducing an innovative image of the child, as rich in competences and symbolism, with potentialities for further development. learning is also conceptualized in a new perspective. the children are active constructors of their own development through educational encounters that are democratic in nature: respectful, cooperative, proactive. taken together, these characteristics of the reggio approach, as they are made explicit in the cultural objects, represent a viable alternative to the standardization of ecec, which is based on rigid interactional procedures, closed tasks, and expected models of acceptable performance. as rinaldi, in conversation with peter moss, has maintained, “in an age of educational conformity in early november 2019 8 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research childhood education, reggio emilia offers the hope that a different way of thinking and acting exists. it represents an island of dissent and creates an opportunity for change” (rinaldi, 2004, p. 3). the educational system developed in reggio emilia solidifies a variety of cultural dimensions (namely, the political struggle for civil rights, the pedagogical vision of children as agents of their own learning, and innovative symbolic representations) into a consistent system of texts that gives the reggio approach its relevance. the texts make evident the well-interconnected elements of child-centered practice. the dissemination of the approach has the potential to introduce positive changes in the early childhood education culture worldwide, since it promotes the quality of the environment to support children’s initiative, responsive adult-child relationships, and dialogue with peers. as a consequence, educators are invited to orient themselves differently, adopting different values to those implied by standardized approaches. inspired by the reggio experience, practitioners design complex activities, give children voice, and jointly reflect on experiences in order to foster children’s potentialities and interests. this in turn promotes a professional culture of educational practice, based on innovative texts of documentation. as many researchers have highlighted (mccoy et al., 2017; sylva et al., 2007), quality in early childhood services is a relevant predictor of school success, personal well-being, and community participation. therefore, the dissemination of the reggio approach calls on policymakers to give value to and sustain professionalism in the early years sector through staff qualification, in-service training, and good salaries. risks and opportunities originally, the reggio approach was supported by the municipality, since it was considered consistent with the political perspective of promoting the community’s social capital. however, it is worth emphasizing for those who have not visited reggio emilia that not all ecec centres follow the approach within the municipality. further, despite the provision of ecec services across italy being characterized by a north–south divide in regard to levels of provision (fortunati, 2015), many municipalities offer good-quality ecec services but do not adopt the reggio approach and have not received international recognition (tobin, 2005). the approach, therefore, cannot be regarded as representative of italy. it is the global transference of reggio’s cultural artefacts that has resulted in the reggio approach becoming a (selected) global quality standard. the development of global objects that travel internationally is well illustrated upon visiting the loris malaguzzi international centre, where visitors can access various texts that have been translated into a number of different languages. the global dissemination is mostly supported by the predominance of the use of the english language, but with no consideration of how the anglo-american paradigm can ascribe a different cultural meaning onto native-language intentions in the process of translation (see jensen, 2016). the representation of the different educational presuppositions that are manifested within the reggio approach supports the international dissemination of the texts, because with no single educational representation or goal to be reached, international audiences are potentially provided with an opportunity to interpret the texts in ways that are culturally (and educationally) meaningful. however, becoming incorporated into objects that travel in a globalized society, the reggio approach undergoes the risk of receiving a different set of meanings when recontextualized into different socio-political conditions, because it requires a relevant financial, architectural, and pedagogical investment. for example, the involvement of parents within the reggio centres is key, and is in keeping with global quality standards for parental participation (e.g., organisation for economic co-operation and development, 2015), but the socialist political origins of parents’ involvement are lost in the globalization of the approach (tobin, 2005). educators risk a performative parental engagement that is closer to the prescriptive quality standards of organizations such as the oecd (campbell-barr & leeson, 2016) as opposed to one that is based on a november 2019 9 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research deep connection between the ecec centre and the wider community (tobin, 2005). “real participation” (rinaldi, 2006) requires co-responsibility and developing new ways of communicating with families, where educators meet and engage with the community in multiple ways. the reggio approach prescribes a particular way of thinking and acting onto those who are working with the children. the approach is reminiscent of the feminist ethic of care (see, e.g., noddings, 2010, 2012) and the careful way in which the adult appreciates the needs of the other (the child), thus upholding respectful listening. further, the emphasis on children’s autonomy promotes democratic principles that are largely consistent with the middle-class ideals of many international educators, extending the approach’s global transference (see tobin, 2005). however, despite its democratic appeal, it is still the adults who give voice to the child(ren) and attentively engross in documenting the child(ren)’s actions in ways that pace and sequence the child(ren)’s actions. as it appears in our analysis of its texts, the approach seems to give little consideration to how support for children’s autonomy is managed in group-based ecec environments. not only are there diverse children with different cultural backgrounds, but workforces can be equally varied. hybridizing the reggio approach the uncritical circulation of the reggio approach and its piecemeal application, separated from its inclusive ethos, may reproduce unequal access to the opportunities of early schooling. in the case of emphasizing only the dimension of the child’s autonomy and self-regulative learning, there is a risk of overlooking alternative, although rich and consistent, patterns of child rearing, especially in minority and working-class communities. minority and working-class families cannot be homogenized as groups; evidence suggests that ece professionals will encounter many different parental expectations regarding child rearing and child participation. as one example, according to bruce fuller’s (2007) encompassing review of anthropological research on child rearing, immigrant latino families develop different participation structures for children in their households— children may deal with different tasks and communicate through different patterns of interaction than those privileged in the reggio approach. latino families may expect the teachers to lead the activities in preschools and make visible the appropriate modes of using literacy skills (goldenberg & gallimore, 1995). in these contexts, the child may be required to be an active observer of an expert model in action when engaged in a structured activity (rogoff, 2003). in her fieldwork in different communities in southeastern united states, shirley brice heath (1982) observed specific patterns of use of children’s books in different households, each offering different types of linguistic tasks to children and therefore emphasizing different aspects of story-telling competencies. as the author highlighted, in narrating stories to their children, members of african-descent unschooled families tended to give value to the contextualization of a narrative into their everyday life experiences, rather than considering a narrative text as a self-contained system of meanings, as occurs in middle-class families in the same geographical area. the africandescent families emphasized rhythmical patterns and personal judgements more frequently than the true meaning of the stories. they made a larger use of linguistic markers that make references to the external world of the text and a lesser use of reference among elements expressed in the text. these patterns of interaction mediated by books show different perspectives of pre-literacy competence from those expected in the early years of schooling; nonetheless they are equally complex and flexible from a linguistic point of view. the dissemination of the reggio approach is an opportunity for early years services to meet a fully fledged culture of childhood and an innovative perspective on professionalism in working with children. the dissemination process can also be an opportunity for the reggio perspective to grow in cultural expression when meeting adult-child november 2019 10 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research interactional patterns that are different from those developed in italian mainstream communities. this process may create a hybrid zone of cultural dialogue. modalities of children’s narrative as developed in reggio experiences may be complemented by the “oral poetry” emphasis on rhythmic, expressive, and improvisational patterns of communication that children can learn in their early experiences with books, as heath (1982) recognized. in this perspective, documentation may become an interesting shared cultural object for dialogue and exchange of experiences between families and professionals that allows a bidirectional movement of metacultural objects: from the reggio approach to communities and from communities to reggio-inspired schools, as “funds of knowledge” (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzales, 1992). conclusion the reggio approach, as it is symbolically constructed in its cultural objects, has disseminated a whole system of a culture of childhood. textualization represents the motion force of the reggio experience, since it solidifies into a consistent cultural object a long history of political struggle for civil rights, an educational ethos of inclusion and respect for all the children, and innovative documentation of children’s experiences, dialogue, and thinking processes. reminiscent of modernism in figurative art, the artistic composition of ministories highlights children’s constant attribution of meaning to their actions and the role of dialogue in enhancing their thinking processes. the coriandoli book series creates an articulated narrative of multistage activities that are worked out to engage children in exploring and understanding relevant sites in their community. in the unfolding of the activities, the children develop verbal, numerical, geometrical, and figurative languages to express and share ideas. the approach therefore requires the children to work in particular ways, but it also requires professionals to consider their engagement with children and their families. presenting children’s learning as part of their participation in the life of their community, the reggio approach does not limit its contribution to the presentation of innovative activities. it offers an alternative framework to the conventional (standardized) approaches to ecec. through the dissemination of these innovative documentation texts, the reggio approach has become a valid alternative to the traditional approach of ecec, which is based on limited children’s initiative, on adult-led routines, and on purely anecdotal documentation related to children’s products. the reggio approach is also an alternative to the standardization of ecec, based on assessment of children’s levels of competence. from the point of view of professionalism in the early years field, the dissemination of the cultural objects produced within the reggio approach enhances awareness of the relevance of well-designed environments and warm and stimulating patterns of child-adult communication for children’s well-being and community welfare. it promotes the development of an innovative culture of education in the early years sector, as well as a reform of the services and of the profession. however, in its travels across countries and communities, the reggio approach is expected to be hybridized with different communication patterns, artefacts, and figurative styles in order to share its inclusive ethos and to increase educational opportunities for all. november 2019 11 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research references campbell-barr, v., & leeson, c. 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(2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia: listening, researching, and learning. london, uk: routledge. rogoff, b. (2003). the cultural nature of human development. oxford, uk: oxford university press. sylva, k., taggart, b., siraj-blatchford, i., totsika, v., ereky-stevens, k., gilden, r., & bell, d. (2007). curricular quality and day-to-day learning activities in preschool. international journal of early years education, 15(1), 49–65. https://doi. org/10.1080/09669760601106968 teachers and children from reggio emilia. (2016) the hundred languages in ministories: told by teachers and children from reggio emilia. worcester, ma: davis. original work published 1993. tobin, j. (2005). quality in early childhood education: an anthropologist’s perspective. early education and development, 16(4), 421– 434. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1604_3 urban, g. (2001). metaculture: how culture moves through the world. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. urban, g. (2018). the role of metaforces in cultural motion. signs and society, 6(1), 256–280. https://doi.org/10.1086/694550 october 2019 36 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research unsettling discourses of cultural competence karen sinclair karen sinclair is an aboriginal educator who currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in aboriginal studies within the school of creative industries at the university of south australia. her phd explored early years educators’ understandings and perspectives of cultural competence. research interests include aboriginal knowledges in curriculum, aboriginal early childhood education, aboriginal research methodologies, critical race theory, and transformative pedagogies. email: karen.sinclair@unisa.edu. au background the history of aboriginal education in australia has been profoundly shaped by exclusion and disadvantage (partington, 1998; price, 2012). it has become common practice to peruse reports on aboriginal education that focus on “indigenous disadvantage” and what the aboriginal child cannot do. as a signatory to the united nation convention on the rights of the child (1989), australia has a commitment to ensure that all children’s rights and needs are at the centre of policy development and service delivery. the australian early years learning framework (eylf) additionally highlights the significant role of children’s rights in the provision of quality teaching and learning in the early years. the eylf states: early childhood educators will reinforce in their daily practice the principles laid out in the united nations convention on the rights of the child. the convention states that all children have the right to an education that lays a foundation for the rest of their lives, maximises their ability, and respects their family, cultural and other identities and languages. (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2009, p. 5) consequently, the “journey for educators: growing competence in working with australian aboriginal and torres strait islander cultures” is identified in the eylf as a pedagogical practice that encourages educators to develop their cultural competence (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2010, pp. 24–29). this article draws on the author’s doctoral research that used poststructuralist approaches to explore early years educators’ understandings and perspectives of aboriginal and torres strait islander cultural competence (sinclair, 2017). this article argues that dominant discourses of cultural competence generate an “authoritative consensus about what needs to be done … and how it should be done” and is represented as a regime of truth (foucault, 1980) that at times does not benefit aboriginal children. this paper demonstrates how poststructuralist approaches can challenge dominant ideologies and practices and work to reject explanations of cultural competence that at times discourses on cultural competence are fraught with complications and there are concerns about the hidden assumptions behind the construct of cultural competence. this article draws on poststructuralist theories to demonstrate how educators can confront and challenge prevailing discourses of cultural competence by enacting an ethics of resistance. enacting an ethics of resistance and working in harmony with aboriginal families and communities challenges and disrupts dominant “regimes of truth” and constructions of cultural competence that sometimes work to disadvantage groups of people. this paper is a provocation for educators to construct counter-discourses to current conceptualizations of cultural competence. key words: cultural competence; regimes of truth; discourse; ethics of resistance october 2019 37 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research rely on representations of aboriginal people as needing remedial assistance. the next section demonstrates how colonial education had a devastating impact on aboriginal children and communities and contributed to various deficit discourses about aboriginal children. second, using a poststructuralist lens, various representations of cultural competence are explored. the last section considers how we can move away from using a regulatory approach to cultural competence toward a more nuanced approach that ensures a multiplicity of perspectives can be explored and critiqued. regimes of truth in education prior to colonization, aboriginal people all over australia maintained complex social, political, and cultural kinships systems that incorporated a diversity of customary laws, lore, and learning that were underpinned by their dreaming, kinship systems, and connection to land (burridge & chodkiewicz, 2012, p. 11). aboriginal society was based on an egalitarian system that was holistic and emphasized belonging, spirituality, and relatedness (martin, 2005). learning was viewed as a natural holistic process where education was centred on the land and children learned alongside adults. prominent australian aboriginal scholar kaye price (2012) affirms that “right from the beginning there was a specialized education and for each child there was a teacher, a mentor and a peer with whom to learn … who ensured that history and the essentials of life were taught” (p. 4). under colonization, education was provided with the main emphasis being on civilizing aboriginal people, “to teach them christianity and the western way of life and to rescue them from their heathen ways” (partington, 1998, p. 33). aboriginal children were commonly described as “uneducable,” “primitive,” and “doomed” (price, 2012). this type of racialized discourse functioned to position aboriginal children as inferior as compared to the western norm. several australian government policies operated to separate, segregate, exclude, protect, and remove aboriginal children from their families and communities with the intent to erase the visibility of aboriginal people in society (burridge & chodkiewicz, 2012, p. 12; bodkin-andrews & carlson, 2016, p. 787). by way of example, in 1883, the aboriginal protection board in the guise of “protecting” aboriginal people segregated aboriginal people on missions and reserves. on these missions and reserves, aboriginal children were required to attend schools administered by missionaries (burridge & chodkiewicz, 2012, p. 13). part of this education was the enforcement of rules that prohibited aboriginal children from speaking their home languages and practicing their cultural customs, along with the enforcement of strict regulations that restricted their movements. reserves, missions, and schools were all institutions in which discipline was enforced. the policies that forced aboriginal peoples onto reserves and mission were acts of what michael foucault referred to as governmentality. foucault (2003) explained that power works through government to support disciplining mechanisms, such as the role and functions of the aboriginal protection board that forced a population to abide by the dominant ways, in this case, western ways of living, being, and knowing. such powers were expressed and applied “through permanent mechanisms of surveillance and control” (foucault, 2003, p. 37). based on theories of social darwinism, it was assumed that aboriginal people were uneducable. during the 1930s, anthropologist a. p. elkin asserted the following ideas: the recent policy is to educate aborigines [sic] (mostly mixed-bloods) up to what might be called a “useful labourer’s standard”, for to do more, if it were possible, would not help them. aborigines (full and mixed blood) should not, and cannot, be assimilated by the white community. they must live apart. they cannot become equals of the white race. (as cited in gray & beresford, 2008, p. 205) elkin’s words reflect the popular belief that aboriginal people were uneducable because of their “race” (price, 2012). this demonstrates that the power of language is significant and plays a role in not only perpetuating, as demonstrated in the quote above, but also maintaining a deficit ideology toward the perceived “failure” of october 2019 38 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research aboriginal children. purdie and buckley (2010) note that a discourse of deficit is where individual, family, and cultural factors are blamed for the apparent nonachievement of aboriginal children in education. furthermore, the apparent discrepancy in educational outcomes between aboriginal and non-aboriginal students has come to be viewed as normal (gillan, mellor, & krakouer, 2017; vass, 2012). numerous approaches and policies have been enacted and developed to improve the educational outcomes of aboriginal children, and there appears to have been some minor improvements over the last few decades. by way of example, there has been a clear move from blatant assimilationist policies to notions of culturally competent and responsive teaching. however, this article argues that discourses of cultural competence continue to perpetuate negative outcomes for aboriginal students, with consequences in all areas of education, including influencing educators’ perspectives of aboriginal children and education. foucault (1980) proposed that when discourse becomes dominant, it gains a sense of acceptability and status as being “normal.” discourses then have real effects, legitimating practices alleged to constitute “truths” about “reality” (malson, 1998, p. 27). as an illustration, lynn cohen (2008) uses a foucauldian lens to analyze the numerous discourses in the universal “developmentally appropriate practice” (dap) document endorsed nationally and internationally by the (u.s.) national association for the education of young children (naeyc). naeyc developed this framework as a structure and set of principles and guidelines for best practice in the care and education of young children from birth to age eight. considering foucault’s (1980) regimes of truth, discourse/power/knowledge nexus, and “institutional apparatus,” cohen (2008) insists that the dap document as “truth” has been woven together by the “regime” (naeyc) to regulate what is held to be normal and appropriate for all children and governs early years educators’ practices. this “truth” (dap) fails to consider aboriginal views of childhood development and the effects this discourse and practice have on the development and well-being of aboriginal children. this in effect demonstrates how western models of child development neglect to consider aboriginal worldviews on child development (martin, 2008). similarly, the concept of quality is assumed to be “objective, real, knowable” (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007, p. 4). this raises questions as to whose truth is being advocated and further demonstrates how relations of power are established, consolidated, and circulated through various discourses that function as truth (foucault, 1980). interestingly, the self also plays a significant role in the construction of discourses. burman, kottler, levett, and parker (1997) affirm that the self faces many competing discourses, and individuals take different positions that are determined by one’s understandings at any given time. a foucauldian approach views the self as continually being positioned within a divided discursive space. there is a presumption that “cultural competence” and all it entails is measurable and consistent. therefore, it is important to contextualize and position cultural competence within larger contexts of how power, institutions, and our everyday pedagogical practices work to not only create but also maintain “difference” through binary discourses (castagno, 2014, p. 119). the eylf, and its emphasis on cultural competence as a pedagogical practice, can be viewed as a vehicle to endorse a deficit discourse of aboriginal students within early childhood education, as demonstrated in the following quote from the australian government that cultural competence is “much more than awareness of cultural differences. it is the ability to understand, communicate with and effectively interact with people across cultures” (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2010, p. 16). i argue that a discourse of difference normalizes binaries and perpetuates an “us and them” approach. this discourse is entrenched in a standpoint that normalizes the status quo by “othering” groups that are not perceived as the norm (castagno, 2014, p. 81). the following section explores further the various discourses of cultural competence. october 2019 39 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the various connotations of cultural competence cultural competence is described in the eylf as “the ability to interact respectfully, constructively and positively with children, families, staff and community” (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2010, p. 21). furthermore, the eylf requests that “we all strengthen our cultural competence” (p. 21). there is no consensus as to the meaning of cultural competence and the concept is interpreted in a myriad of ways. however, as advocated by the eylf, it is an “evolving concept and our engagement with it will contribute to its evolution” (p. 21). however, it is important to disrupt various discourses of cultural competence because the various discursive repertoires related to cultural competence can do little more than reaffirm the colonial view that “aboriginality … [is] a problem to be solved” (dodson, 1994, p. 3). it has already been ascertained that the language we use shapes and directs how we look at and understand the world (dahlberg et al., 2007, p. 31). furthermore, the previous section highlighted how discourse can legitimize certain knowledges as regimes of truth (macnaughton, 2005). there is a broad assumption that there is an entity or essence of cultural competence that is knowable and is a truth to be defined and described (dahlberg et al., 2007, p. 93). our ways of naming things and talking about them produce discourse that can have tremendous influence on our everyday experiences of the world and our relationships with each other (dahlberg et al., 2007, p. 31). for this reason, it is important to unsettle understandings and perspectives of cultural competence and question who it disadvantages or excludes. the discourse of cultural competence is treated as an “expert-defined specification” while there is little focus on the constructions of cultural competence (dahlberg et al., 2007, p. 94). in reviewing the research on cultural competence, there are multiple perspectives and criticisms of cultural competence (dean, 2001; lum, 2011; morris, 2010). this highlights that there is lack of understanding around cultural competence and what it means in practice. correspondingly, zofia kumas-tan and her colleagues (2007) state that there are some “highly problematic assumptions about what constitutes cultural competence” (p. 548). cultural competence can be viewed as a list of dos and don’ts and a checklist of culturally appropriate practices that need to be mastered. the problem with this approach is that it does little more than perpetuate stereotypes and essentialize culture. adding to this, cultural competence has been referred to as the “integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes … [leading to] better outcomes” (dornoo, 2015, p. 81). terry cross and colleagues (1989) provide a more widely used definition of cultural competence as: a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. (p. 189) there is clearly confusion as to what cultural competence is, particularly at agency, organizational, and individual levels. however, adding to this dilemma, cross et al. acknowledge the important task of the individual in “recognizing the cultural complexity and rich diversity that exists among minority populations” (cross et al., 1989, p. iii). here, reference is made to minorities, and later the authors state that cultural competence “assures appropriateness of care for minority populations” (cross et al., 1989, p. vii). the definition put forth by cross et al. is widely referred to both nationally and internationally; however, it was developed in the usa as a response to the health inequalities experienced by children of “marginalised and minority populations” (sherwood & russellmundine, 2017, pp. 139–141). although their work is directed toward an audience within a particular time and context, it has laid the foundations for understanding cultural competence globally. within the australian context, it is important to be mindful to contextualize any cultural competence framework in response to community needs (cleland, fredericks, & watson, 2012, p. 117). implementation of any cultural competence framework requires input by the local aboriginal community the proposed framework intends to serve. this is also highlighted by cross et al. (1989), who emphasize the requirement to respond to the “unique needs of populations whose cultures october 2019 40 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research are different than that which might be called “dominant” or “mainstream”” (cross et al., 1989, p. 3). the eylf also draws on the definition provided by cross et al. (1989, p. 1). however, there is a concern about the hidden assumptions behind the construct of cultural competence. as a social construct it operates to position the “other” as different, as demonstrated in cross et al.’s definition where the status quo is maintained through a discourse of difference. the concept of cultural competence can be problematized and the ability to be completely “competent” questioned (kirmayer, 2012). a review of cultural competence in the early years literature (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2009, 2010; secretariat of national aboriginal and islander child care, 2012, 2013) reveals that cultural competence is an important component in early childhood education. conversely, the eylf describes cultural competence as “being aware of one’s own world view; developing positive attitudes towards cultural differences; gaining knowledge of cultural practices and world views; and developing skills for communication and interaction across cultures” (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2009, p. 16). however, the description does very little to provide insight into the intricacies of individuals interacting with cultures other than their own. nor does it encourage individuals and institutions, including early childhood services, to investigate and challenge existing racialized structures and practices that work to disadvantage groups of people. furthermore, the eylf reinforces existing stereotypes about the “other.” by way of an example, the eylf affirms that educators who are culturally competent respect multiple cultural ways of knowing, seeing and living, celebrate the benefits of diversity and have an ability to understand and honour differences. (p. 16) a poststructuralist and foucauldian lens highlights the discourse of difference evident in the above quote. indeed, cultural competence that is framed within a discourse of the “disadvantages borne by minority groups—not in the advantage of dominant group membership” (jensen, 2005, p. 551) fails to address power and privilege. current frameworks espousing cultural competence require a “critical understanding of the underlying socio-political and economic processes of power, privilege and institutional racism that create, support and maintain … disparities” (rajaram & bockrath, 2014, pp. 82-83). rajaram and bockrath (2014) point to a limitation related to more than just interrogating our worldviews but more to investigating and challenging “existing racial and cultural structures” (p. 84). glenda macnaughton (2005) highlights that an examination of the discourse that is prevalent within the various connotations of cultural competence leads to the necessity of an approach that directs educators to think critically, to challenge inequitable discourse and “to begin to disrupt the regimes of truth that govern the field of early childhood by … learning to read for equity” (p. 117). unpacking competence various connotations of cultural competence maintain the concept as a competency-driven discourse. this framing is problematic because, as jonathan morris (2010) argues, “competence imparts the perception that culturally competence/sensitive/responsive practice is indeed attainable if appropriate steps are followed, requisite knowledge is acquired, and the boxes are ticked” (p. 319). morris adds that the term competence offers nothing more than “a sense of absoluteness, certainty, and clarity, invoking ideas of mastery, proficiency, and efficacy” (p. 319). such discourse maintains implicit social and institutional directives regarding the positioning of a group of people. jennings, bond, and hill (2018, p. 109) reiterate this argument, raising concerns that some connotations of cultural competence can produce homogenized and stereotypical representations of aboriginal culture. the idea of being competent can be challenged, largely because of its association with the idea of reaching a set of competencies that signifies that no further development is required. by way of example, kumagai and lypson (2009) october 2019 41 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research assert that the problem with the concept of competence in education is that “competencies are often categorized into learning outcomes involving knowledge, skills, and attitudes to allow for educational approaches which address each of these areas” (p. 783). white (2007) affirms that “the assumption that the complexity of practice … can be adequately conceptualised and measured by discrete ‘outputs’ like knowledge, skills, and attitudes can be highly problematic” (p. 230). culture is too multifaceted to suggest that there is a set of competencies that can be defined, tested, and measured and that an endpoint is achievable. adding to this, when cultural competence is presented as a competency, it not only objectifies aboriginal cultures but also accentuates a power dynamic between the “expert” and the “other.” discourse surrounding aboriginal and torres strait islander cultural competence asserts a “relationship ‘about’ aboriginal people” and is at most times “defined and inscribed by non-aboriginal people” (martin, 2009, p. 67). consequently, cultural competence is not an ideal to be achieved and instead of competence one should think of gaining understanding as it is nearly impossible to “become competent at the culture of another” (dean, 2001, p. 624). it has been established that cultural competence is a multifaceted construct. australian aboriginal scholar mark rose (2013) asserts that the concept of cultural competence has “gained a life of its own without ever having gone through any semblance of a vigorous intellectual interrogation of what it is” (p. 1). further to this, the concern is that when terms such as cultural competence, competencies, and diversity are cited in terms of educational missions, it becomes a way of “imagining organisations as having certain attributes” (ahmed, 2009, p. 44). what is required, write gunilla dahlberg and colleagues (2007), is “a dialogic and negotiated process” (p. 94) to coconstruct understandings of cultural competence in partnership with aboriginal children, families, and communities. however, there remains uncertainty and a degree of ambiguity surrounding the concept of cultural competence. the question remains: when working toward achieving equitable outcomes, is cultural competence a helpful construct? adding to this question, and in line with the work of sara ahmed (2012), what does it mean to embody cultural competence? applying an ethics of resistance the previous sections have pointed to the dichotomy between what constitutes cultural competence and assertions that cultural competence is an attainable measure (kumas-tan et al., 2007, p. 548). it has also been revealed that the ongoing legacy of colonial, political, discriminatory, and racialized discourse has dominated and determined policy making in education through generations (gray & beresford, 2008). foucauldian concepts have illuminated how we need to challenge reductive notions that suggest one can “know” and “be competent” and proficient in a culture. therefore, it is important for educators to continually examine and problematize assumptions around the meanings of influential concepts. rose and khan (2013) suggest that a significant flaw in promoting cultural competence is programs or workshops that offer “little pedagogical extensions on workplace translation” (p. 11). engaging in dialogue offers the possibility of better identifying and interrogating discourses of truth and knowledge. extending this idea, furlong and wight (2011) argue that the term cultural competence lacks conceptual coherence; therefore, they encourage one to work from a place of curiosity and “informed not knowing” (p. 39). extending this idea, cave, connerton, honig, and robertson (2012, p. 60) suggest creating a “space of encounter” where educators have opportunities to share and exchange wonderings and knowledge to enable new understandings to emerge. such a space may provide opportunities for educators to critically reflect on their own assumptions and the fixed meanings they may encounter, as well as to seek creative ways to open dialogue to “embrace their own moments of not-knowing” (pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2012, p. 270). as we encounter this space, we struggle with concepts and meanings, but through dialogue and critical self-reflection may move to a new way of doing that produces new lenses to stretch our thinking beyond the regimes of truth that currently construct october 2019 42 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research our understandings (harvey & russell-mundine, 2018). furthermore, developing intentionality in our practice is important. specifically, educators need to act intentionally and journey toward ways of doing transformative work through enacting an ethic of resistance, defined by hillevi lenz taguchi (2006) as conscious acts of thinking deeply about the assumptions and taken-for-granted notions we bring with us (often without awareness) as we engage in our daily work with children. as we practice an ethic of resistance, we deconstruct, or take apart, what we “know to be true,” to reflect on it, analyze it, criticize it, and resist its seductive powers arising from its familiarity. (p. 259) an ethic of resistance to confront and critically reflect on inequitable pedagogies and assumptions—what i refer to as upsetting racialized blind spots—is crucial. when we are confronted with racialized practices, “we are called to respond—although knowing how to respond can be unsettling” (cheeseman & kocher, as cited in fleet, patterson, & robertson, 2012, p. 304). navigating around these blind spots can be uncomfortable and they are rarely discussed by educators, but it is vital to challenge regimes of truth that contribute to racialized practices. such an approach makes sense given that many curriculum initiatives claim to be a solution to the various failings of the education system (maxwell, lowe, & salter, 2018, p. 11). nicholas burbules (2002) refers to educators undertaking a shared quest of developing knowledge and understanding and argues that whenever any pedagogical practice or relation becomes “naturalized” and comes to be seen as the only possibility, the best possibility or the most “politically correct” possibility, it becomes an impediment to human freedom, diversity, exploration, and—therefore—the possibilities of learning and discovery. (p. 266) the above quote points to the importance of deconstructing understandings related to authoritative constructions of cultural competence. to put it another way, questioning our ways of knowing turns our attention to move beyond a normalized way of responding and instead open ourselves to many possibilities to shift from understanding cultural competence to complexifying cultural competence (pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015, p. 21). this view aligns with rhymes and brown (2005), who state that “cultural competence is not simply a skill set to be taught but involves a fundamental shift in the way one perceives the world. it is more a path on which to travel, versus an end to be achieved” (p. 1). applying an ethic of resistance can disrupt both unequal power relationships and deficit discourse. however, this disruption can only occur in relationship with other people. working with aboriginal families and communities conveys to the families appreciation of and valuing of their ways of knowing, being, and doing (martin, 2008). establishing these relationships is vital, not only for aboriginal parents, families, and communities, but for all stakeholders. as we work together to disrupt regimes of truth about cultural competence, we realize that we can never totally see the world from the viewpoint of another, but we can be open to disrupting our present understandings and be receptive to other narratives through authentic encounters. this process must incorporate principles of respect, reciprocity, trust, and understanding, all of which underpin indigenous epistemologies and ways of doing. conclusion the early years literature highlights several recommendations for educators to be “culturally competent” (australian government department of education, employment, and workplace relations, 2010; secretariat of national aboriginal and islander child care, 2013). however, there continues to be a degree of ambiguity surrounding the term. adding to this ambiguity, the legacy of colonization in australia has contributed to and significantly impacted education and continues to influence education systems today. this article has highlighted that aboriginal people were exploited and oppressed through various policies and practices. it has also demonstrated that the concept of october 2019 43 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research cultural competence is a construct that has been developed to magnify a lens on aboriginal cultures as something that can be known about. such understanding then becomes discourse, which then becomes a “truth.” foucault’s (1980) notion of governmentality can be used to critique the ways in which government policies and curriculum frameworks have been applied to regulate the behaviours of educators and children and how systems operate to sustain an assimilatory political agenda. the use of foucauldian concepts permits deconstruction of language and discourses related to cultural competence that contribute to racialized discourses that essentialize aboriginal cultures. furthermore, a poststructuralist and foucauldian lens has valuable potential to help educators turn the gaze upon themselves, to view the self as an active participant in a pervasive ideology that works to justify domination of one group over other groups (castagno, 2014). there is hope that educators can move beyond a normalized way of responding to institutional directives toward cultural competence and enact an ethic of resistance to facilitate ways of knowing, being, and doing cultural competence in partnership with local aboriginal communities. this article has highlighted the urgent need to critique and reframe understandings of cultural competence. reframing the discourse of cultural competence should occur through relationships and dialogue with aboriginal communities, first as a matter of respect, and second to provide us with an ethical compass with which to navigate the multifaceted construct of cultural competence. this suggestion is in line with pease’s (2002) idea that there is a need to “challenge the status of [our] own professional knowledge and consider the extent to which [our] narratives retain traces of dominant discourses” (p. 142). together with aboriginal families and communities, we can work collaboratively to construct counter-discourses about the concept of cultural competence that privilege aboriginal narratives about cultural competence. the aim of this paper is to not suggest solutions nor discard the notion of cultural competence altogether, but to provoke educators to consider current conceptualizations of cultural competence and question how we might work with aboriginal families and communities to reconceptualize new thinking about cultural competence. october 2019 44 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ahmed, s. 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(2007). knowing, doing, and being in context: a praxis-oriented approach to child and youth care. child & youth care forum, 36, 225–255. winter/hiver 2018 46 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research a narrative inquiry into the experiences of urban indigenous families as they ready their children for, and during, kindergarten janice huber, vera caine, m. shaun murphy, sean lessard, jinny menon, and d. jean clandinin janice huber, in the faculty of education, university of alberta, has been privileged to engage in narrative inquiry alongside children, families, teachers, principals, elders, and undergraduate and graduate students in three canadian provinces. vera caine is professor and cihr new investigator in the faculty of nursing at the university of alberta. her most recent book with d. j. clandinin and sean lessard focused on the relational ethics in narrative inquiry. email: vera.caine@ualberta.ca m. shaun murphy is a professor and the department head of educational foundations at the university of saskatchewan. he was an elementary school teacher in rural and urban settings for twenty years. sean lessard is a member of the montreal lake cree nation and an associate professor in the faculty of education at the university alberta. he has had a long-standing interest in the lives of youth and families. jinny menon is a phd candidate at the university of alberta and a member of the university’s centre for research for teacher education and development. jinny is engaging in a multiperspectival narrative inquiry into the curriculum-making experiences of south asian girls, their mothers, and their teacher in canada. d. jean clandinin is professor emerita and founding director of the centre for research for teacher education and development at the university of alberta. she has published widely in narrative inquiry. her most recent project with vera caine and sean lessard is a narrative inquiry into the experiences of young children and their families who are refugees from syria. there was a boy named warse (bear in stoney). he was kicking and screaming going to school for the first time. he was raised by his grandparents, i knew this. i could recognize this. he was raised the stoney way. he sure missed his grandpa. i kept calling him by his english name and i got no response. he disappeared on the teacher into one of the cubby holes where he was hiding, and as soon as i called him by his stoney name he sat right up and came right to me. he came to me and he was settled then. i knew that this would settle him, because that is what he knows from home. i never ever called his english name anymore. stoney elder isabelle kootenay shared this story as she and sean lessard engaged in conversation as part of this narrative inquiry. her story turns attention toward the importance of acknowledging and respecting, as his kindergarten teacher, warse’s language and culture from his home and community places. elder isabelle’s story, a reminder to always remember where children come from and where they learn first, resonated with our learning alongside eight families who participated in our study. we foreground six threads that resonated across the lived and told stories of the families: each family and in this paper we draw on a study alongside urban indigenous families in western canada that inquired narratively into their experiences as they readied their children for, and their children participated in, kindergarten. we built relationships with eight urban indigenous families. as we looked across their experiences, six resonant threads became visible: each family and their life situations are unique; families wish for mutual respect and collaboration between school and family; respect is significant; families are invested in their children doing well in schools; siblings shape stories of school readiness; and intergenerational stories and places shape readiness. key words: indigenous; school; narrative inquiry; families; readiness winter/hiver 2018 47 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research their life situations are unique; families wish for mutual respect and collaboration between school and family; respect is significant; families are invested in their children doing well in schools; siblings shape stories of school readiness; and intergenerational stories and places shape readiness. we show the everyday experiences and practices that the children and families lived in their home and community places. as we attended to participants’ accounts of their experiences, our study added to what has been already learned from other studies critical of the dominant notions of readiness and how readiness shapes experiences differently in diverse lives and contexts (peters, ortiz, & swadener, 2015). coming to the research the long-term influences of early schooling experiences in the lives of indigenous1 children, and their parents and families, are of concern, particularly as canada’s indigenous population is growing. the early years of education and schooling are also an important focus in implementing the truth and reconciliation commission’s recommendations (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015). because, as dockett, perry, and kearney (2010) assert, “there is insufficient information on what indigenous parents and communities understand by ‘readiness for school’” (p. 1), learning from parents about the ways they prepare, and wish to prepare, their children for transitions to schooling is of great importance. given the intergenerational reverberations of residential schools in the lives, families, and communities of indigenous peoples (young, 2005a, 2005b; young et al., 2012) it is important to understand what indigenous parents (and families) experience as their children first attend schools and to engage with them about what they wish for their children to experience. school readiness and success school readiness is commonly understood by policy makers as meaning that young children are ready for school when they hold specific knowledge and skills. within such a view, readiness refers to what needs to be achieved before school learning can begin. being ready at school entry has been linked with ongoing academic and life success (beaton & mcdonell, 2013; dockett, perry, & kearney, 2010; mccain, mustard, & mccuaig, 2011; mcclelland, acock, & morrison, 2006). however, there is too often an unquestioned acceptance of the importance of readiness without enough attention to what it means to ready a child, or to the diverse experiences that parents, families, and communities see as readiness for schooling. this inquiry took place in alberta, where in the years before 2000, the focus on readiness was more confined to grade 1. in alberta, and elsewhere in canada and the us, this focus has now shifted to issues around readiness in kindergarten, with some noting that kindergarten classrooms are becoming “one-size smaller first grades” in which “children are tested, taught with workbooks, given homework, and take home a report card” (elkind, 2007, p. 2). christopher brown and yi chin lan (2015) observe that “it appears that the definition of school readiness […] has coalesced around what could be considered a white, middle-class conception of this construct (p. 8). also of concern is jackie marsh’s (2003) sense of “one-way traffic” (p. 369), which she describes as an imbalance in which school practices are privileged over practices children live daily within their homes, families, and communities. these findings about the dominance of one notion of readiness are particularly concerning given our studies with children, youth, and families of indigenous heritage (clandinin, huber, huber, et al., 2006; lessard, 2013; lessard, caine, & clandinin, 2014). while significant research attentive to early childhood education in alberta and canada has focused on ensuring that young children are ready for, and successful in, school (alberta government 2013, 2014) our concern is that little is known about parents’ and families’ understandings of readiness and their everyday and intergenerational winter/hiver 2018 48 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research practices as they ready their children for school. we are particularly concerned with the lack of knowledge about the experiences of parents and families of indigenous heritage. indigenous children and their families unesco’s (2010) report on the “social contexts of children’s lives” (p. iii) noted “weak social protection … in north america … for indigenous and traditional minorities” (p. vii). also noted is that “early childhood services are generally mono-cultural and may practice little outreach to parents and families from diverse backgrounds” (p. vii). the cumulative effects of colonization, residential schools, and the indian act significantly changed traditional ways of life, which adds to the complexity of urban indigenous families’ experiences in provincially funded schools. researchers recognize that the experiences of indigenous children and youth are embedded within place, family, and community (friedel, 2010; kirkmayer, tait, & simpson 2009; restoule, 2008; lessard, 2013; lessard, caine, & clandinin, 2014). while we know that the experiences their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents lived in schools shaped their lives, researchers are just considering the intergenerational impact of these experiences within the present generation of parents and families as their children enter schools (swanson, 2013). we focused this research on processes of school readiness, rather than solely on its outcomes, achievements, or failures. while there are early childhood intervention programs, little research addresses the experiences of families and parents as their children enter such programs. questions around disruption to families’ lives and their intentions in engaging in programs have not been asked. while it is not uncommon for indigenous families and children to experience “discontinuities between early childhood programs and schooling” (beaton & mcdonell, 2013), little is known about the strengths, resiliencies, aspirations, and hopes of indigenous families with young children. research participants we engaged in conversations with indigenous and non-indigenous educators, elders, and researchers as we designed the study. our purpose was to hear families’ stories of school readiness and to inquire into storied experiences embedded within broader social, cultural, linguistic, and institutional contexts. we purposefully used the term families to be inclusive of people who are part of young children’s lives. eight parents and grandparents who self-identified as indigenous and were parenting young children who entered kindergarten in the fall of 2015 or 2016 in urban northern alberta settings participated. methodology and methods narrative inquiry is attentive to experience over time and in diverse places, beginning from, and unfolding through, relationships (clandinin & connelly, 2000). we are a group of indigenous and non-indigenous researchers with professional experiences as teachers, nurses, school counsellors, and teacher educators and personal experiences as parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. our study is shaped by inquiries into our own experiences as, or with, indigenous parents of young children. different from some research in which “researchers” study “subjects,” narrative inquiry positions people alongside one another, sharing stories of experiences and inquiring into our lived and told stories in order to understand ourselves, places where we are/have been, and past, present, and future contexts. our research design enabled the formation of intensive relationships with each family over one year to hear how their home/school/community stories have unfolded, and are continuing to unfold, in relation with their young child and school readiness policies and practices. narrative inquiry is a relational methodology and our understanding of collaboration is embedded within this (clandinin & connelly, 2000). winter/hiver 2018 49 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research field texts (data) were transcripts of conversations between families and researchers, photographs, children’s art work, memory box artifacts, and field notes on events and activities to which researchers were invited. three to five conversations with each family happened in places convenient for families and were 60 to 120 minutes in length. some conversations were conducted via skype or telephone. all data collection methods were negotiated with participants. research ethics were approved by the university of alberta ethics board on june 26, 2015, and we adhered to the tri-council policy guidelines for working with indigenous peoples. we were guided by conversations with elders isabelle and francis whiskeyjack. pseudonyms were used for anonymity unless participants requested and provided consent for the use of their first names. we worked with the transcripts of the conversations to co-compose interim research texts (narrative accounts) of families’ experiences. after the narrative accounts were negotiated with participants, we looked across the narrative accounts to compose research texts which foregrounded families’ experiences of readying their child for school, as well as their experiences of interacting with school readiness policies and practices shaping the child’s kindergarten experiences. attending to everyday practices this section was composed by looking across participants’ narrative accounts to discern the following six resonant narrative threads. thread 1: each family and their life situations are unique. across the narrative accounts, we noted different social contexts in which participants lived. all families lived in urban centres and children attended urban kindergartens. however, there were remarkable differences in the social contexts of children and families. poverty marked some situations and some families struggled to provide food and shelter. each child was readied for kindergarten in ways that reflected their families’ stories. working against single stories (adichie, 2009) of indigenous families, we saw the diversity within the families and the ways each family engaged with their children as they moved into schooling. aileen and her family lived in a northern alberta city. for part of stanley’s kindergarten year, stanley’s father was on paternity leave. throughout the study year, aileen operated a day home for her own, and other, children. growing up in a cree community rochelle and her younger brother lived with her mom and her parents. both grandparents passed when rochelle was a teenager. when she was 19, rochelle’s mom passed in a sudden and tragic accident. everyone in my mom’s family kind of left early and i’ve been on my own since.… it’s been a tough road. these experiences shaped rochelle’s hopes for allison during and beyond kindergarten. i want … allison to live … the healthy, good way. questioning how stereotypes shape indigenous children’s experiences, rochelle described encouraging her children to be different, break your circle, make your own, as well as to love everyone.… there shouldn’t … be colours and races.… i went through that my whole life.… i always tell them, “never care what people think about you. just be you.” shelley and brenda’s lives were impacted by poverty, learning disabilities, and mental health issues. despite these challenges, they continued to seek ways forward. brenda said she couldn’t work and had to live on welfare, because i didn’t know how to fill out forms, and apply to get a job. when she tried to go back to school, the government … said i couldn’t … the message i got was it was a waste of funding because of my disability. chronic poverty was a constant challenge for mandy. she struggled to get a daycare for [the children]. in order to obtain daycare, she needed to be on subsidy and needed to apply for subsidy through a worker who said, “no, i’m winter/hiver 2018 50 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research not paying for your daycare. if you’re at home on medical, then i’m not paying for your daycare because you could be staying at home watching the kids.” mandy faced other challenges, like the need for counselling, and spoke of the difficulty of raising four children on her own. as an adult who was adopted as a baby and in her earlier life felt a lot of resentment towards the aboriginal part of herself, britanny talked about family stories that she and xander were making: it took me a really long time to work through that.… that’s why i put xander in [aboriginal] head start.… i want him to … feel positive about [being indigenous]. he was so happy when he learned cree. what the families made visible was not a single deficit story of indigenous families but the ways that each unique context shaped the transitions to schooling for them. thread 2: families wish for mutual respect and collaboration between school and family. each family spoke of their desires that they and their child be respected for who they are. they respected the schools’ programs and policies and wanted the schools to respect who they were and to understand what they were doing as they engaged their children for the transition to school. families viewed mutual respect and their openness to collaboration with schools as very important. britanny found it “stressful” to talk with xander’s teacher as she often felt “judged.” when describing how xander’s teacher said, “stop, stop!” and held her hand in front of his face when he tried to talk, britanny noted how this contradicted with her teaching xander to have a voice and to stand up for what he thinks.… even though he’s 5, he’s still a person. aileen was told of early fall testing by stanley’s teacher in which it was found he already knew a great deal of what was taught in the program. he already knew the alphabet and the teacher was excited for him. as aileen explained, it went really smooth for him. the teacher noted he’s a fast learner and aileen was glad that she picked up on that. because he is a fast learner. he does learn quite fast. he’s always been doing things at a fast pace. the importance of literacy was strong for brenda and shelley and was fuelled by knowing how difficult it is to be illiterate. brenda shared that a lot of people didn’t know i was really illiterate because i always got my kids—paid them to write my reports. brenda’s desire to gain literacy skills was expressed by the importance she placed on going into school; she often discussed the importance of getting totally involved with your children and of going to the school and ask[ing] to sit in, so you can know where your children are and work with them. brenda and shelley had concerns about the assumptions schools held about families and how these rippled into their home. for example: we don’t speak cree, and i’m not against teaching them cree, but everything they said was in cree. we’re not cree. we’re from down south, but we lost our language. shelley and brenda also shared stories about what was considered appropriate behaviour at school, such as younger children needing to line up with older children. they described how their daughter/granddaughter was “scared” and kind of got lost into the shuffle. they also spoke of the importance of children being allowed to keep their power, especially in relation with literacy. mandy talked about the importance of a school environment that supported her children to learn the cree language and paid homage to their faith and cultural ways of being, as well as attending to her children in caring ways. when she shared about the depth of trust she had with the school, she said, i usually just talk to the teachers: “how’s she doing?” they’re like, “she’s doing really good.”… like, when her dad leaves i’ll alert the teachers and the staff.... like, “if her attitude changes, this is why.” they’ll call me anytime. they’re really nice there. i love them. winter/hiver 2018 51 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research irene took porter to a pediatrician because of his active nature and pressure from the school to modify his program to attend full-day kindergarten. irene wanted to ease him into the routine, with time at home for being energetic without school constraints. a note from a physician stating porter would best be served with a half-day start to kindergarten was dismissed by the school. thread 3: respect is significant. respect was often discussed by the families and ranged from respect for their knowing of their children, their understanding of the school system, the contexts of their familial lives in terms of parent compositions, work lives, and other children, and recognition of the pride families hold for who they are in the world related to connections to familial home places on reserves or settlements, ethnicity, and familial and larger cultural ways of being. who am i to say, “don’t be like that” and then have heartache later in life because i didn’t let my child be who she wanted to be?… i have seen what that has done to people and i refuse to do it. in the above transcript, rochelle is referring to allison’s desires for short hair, to dress like her dad, and to play with boys. even when her sister serenna came home [from school] and said to my baby, “you’re not a boy, you’re a girl,” rochelle stayed strong in living with allison’s stories of choosing who she was becoming. jamie [allison’s dad] is her hero . ..he’s a man who works construction … she looks up to him … wants to be like him.… if she is trying to tell us something about her sexuality, i still don’t see anything wrong with it. involved in work that sometimes required her to meet with clients in the evenings, britanny felt that xander’s school did not yet recognize that families aren’t set up the way they were, even ten years ago. due to her evening work commitments, britanny was not able to participate in evening celebrations of learning during xander’s year in kindergarten. xander was also told, “mommy’s not sending … healthy snacks.… he was … mad at me. as her daughter’s kindergarten year ended, mary wondered if kindergarten might be suppressing lizzy. at lizzy’s march parent-teacher meeting, the teacher gently treaded on the topic of how lizzy is disruptive, she’s a social butterfly, she’s often playing; the teacher recommend[ed] an assessment. mary described her initial feelings of shock … not only because a 5-year-old was being assessed, but up until then, the teacher had always expressed this level of being blown away by lizzy’s intelligence. then, her story was suddenly a different story. aileen said she always tells her children’s teachers that she is a teacher. she told stanley’s teacher that i’ve taught him, and that i do teach my children at home. but the funny thing about this is that i get a different reaction from the teachers when i do tell them that i’m a teacher.… so when i do tell them that, they kind of take a different stance on, you know, my situation, being a parent who is at home, who’s raising my children and not teaching. and so i do feel like they’re more understanding. aileen’s strong sense was that teachers responded to her differently when she let them know she was educated as a teacher. shelley and brenda frequently linked schooling with possibilities for both mackenzie and her younger brother, milo. in their stories, a key to good living meant being able to read, speak, and write well in english. brenda talked about building a strong foundation: one of the things i’ve seen with my older grandchildren, and we didn’t really do this early prevention and foundation, is they struggled in school after. and then, once they started falling behind in grade 3, they couldn’t catch up. so they’re always a couple years behind. so, what i’m trying to do winter/hiver 2018 52 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research with mackenzie is have her try and have that this year, really push to have that “i can count 100” thing and then “i can say most of my sight words.” wishing for her children to feel empowered through responsibility, self-confidence, and love, mandy shared stories about her familial curriculum making alongside them, which was marked by “help me to help you, so you can help me at the same time. and then we can all get along here.” irene spoke about how the school brought in a behaviour consultant to observe porter. the consultant, with no relationship with porter, positioned the family in a deficit manner, stating a need for a family liaison social worker. irene, in conversation with the administration, spoke about who porter was in the world and wondered if this intervention was based on previous knowledge of porter. thread 4: families are invested in their children doing well in schools. each family indicated strong investment in having their child do well in school. families spent time preparing their child for school, spent time in kindergarten settings, and thought about how schools influenced their child; they wanted their child to be successful, socially and academically. despite intergenerational experiences with residential schools, some parents and/or grandparents were hopeful about the potential positive impact of schooling on their child or grandchild’s life. families wanted schools to acknowledge their investment. aileen continued to work on school-related tasks with stanley when he arrived home from kindergarten proud of what he had completed in school. she identified what he had difficulty with and then worked with him to ensure that he learned how to do school tasks correctly. stanley excitedly shared his work: look what i did! look what i did! … so he’s very proud of his work, he wants to show it off. he wants us to see that he’s doing good. and, like it’s the basic things that we’ve done at home too.… i’m trying to keep a step ahead of his teacher. brenda often talked about her investment in her grandchildren’s future. her struggles with literacy shaped her motivation to change through volunteering in a school literacy program: [i] took a lot of that literacy training. ... i learned to work with my grandchildren where i didn’t have the opportunity to work with my kids, and push my kids, and know that education was this important. now … i … tell my kids to work with their kids, and to teach their kids. but to do it through play.… the important part is laying that foundation. mandy also felt that her presence in schools was important in shaping her daughter’s memory of childhood, which in turn reinforced how their family valued school. rochelle’s desires for allison to do well in school began the year prior when she attended aboriginal head start so she could “learn cree”, as well as aspects of “culture, traditions [and] protocols.” however, during both head start and kindergarten, rochelle felt penalized for being dedicated to allison’s education, because the subsidy office refused to continue to pay part-time fees for allison’s daycare: [the daycare] is making me pay full-time nonsubsidized fees. i called them and said, “do you want me to pull my girl out of full-day kindergarten so i can meet your hours?” and she said, “do what you have to do.” thread 5: siblings shape stories of school readiness. in all but one family, the children in kindergarten had older siblings, some of whom had already completed high school. families shared stories of how older siblings came alongside their younger brother or sister to support their journey in(to) kindergarten, as well as how older siblings’ experiences in school shaped how families readied their child for, and during, kindergarten. mary described how lizzy entered kindergarten already knowing some of the people and places in the school because she was often with mary as she dropped off, picked up, or participated in gage and byron’s parent-teacher winter/hiver 2018 53 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research interviews. when lizzy participated in a mid-june visit to kindergarten, her brothers were already laying down a plan for … tak[ing] care of their little sister at school. theresa experienced a sense of integration as kennedy’s parent, because her older daughter, realle, attended the same preschool. irene, who lived close to the home where she raised her children, noted her multigenerational experience with the school her grandchildren attend, because she and her children had also attended there. in this generation, porter’s sister watches out for him when they are at school: now, what’s happening is the kindergarten kids have learned that she’s porter’s sister, so when porter’s crying in the field they’ll go and find her and say, “your brother’s crying.” the experiences of aileen’s older son in school were strong shaping forces in helping her think about what she needed to do to ready stanley for kindergarten. i didn’t know that [about gender differences and education for first nations children] going through with my … first son. i think if i knew that i probably would have been able to pay more attention and helped him succeed. because, again, first nations and because he’s a boy, and the teachers don’t really have the time for that. right? or, that they have this biased thought or notion that ‘i’m not going to teach him, because he’s probably not going to be here, you know, for longer than a week.” ... so yeah, i feel bad but i’m glad that i can help him [stanley] now, my son. aileen’s experiences with her older son, both when he struggled at the outset of school and now as she works with him at home, shaped how she readied, and worked with, stanley for kindergarten. she said she tried to help him be the person he is today and to be able to be confident […] in the classroom. stories of siblings were also very present for elder isabelle as she recalled vividly her time as a kindergarten teacher and how siblings were “guides” and helped in the “process” of learning to get ready for school. she also recalled her own memories of preparation and how her older brother dan became the teacher for the rest of her brothers and sisters, as well as her parents. dan would go to school and share what he learned from the place of school and these were important lessons shared in their home and in their stony language. these teachings prepared the entire family for what they would encounter in school: my brother attended and in stoney he would tell me all the things that would happen at the school. it seemed like i knew so much about school before it even started. thread 6: intergenerational stories and places shape readiness. coming from various backgrounds, the participating families are not monolithic in the ways they conceptualize their identities and distinct experiences. some families were métis, some had roots in the city, others were more connected to their particular first nation and the protocols, language, and practices within their specific communities. these are important distinctions within this thread as the memories pulled forward are related to these unique shaping experiences that are rooted in place(s). stories stood out as mothers shared their experiences of preparing for school and what mattered and counted at this time. there was a strong sense of looking backwards, at times nostalgically, and exploring from where particular feelings emerged. for example, brenda shared stories about her experiences within residential school and how they shaped how she and shelley came to understand what school was as, well as how these experiences lingered. memories were present in the telling, but the negative experiences manifested in the relationships with school. shelley shared how brenda never came to school. she never came to nothing at school. these words cast a shadow that pulls memories of experiences from the past into the present. the history in this case is reverberating in a phenomenon that is much more in the present as it ruptured relationships across generations. winter/hiver 2018 54 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the link to this thread is not meant to dwell in this painful past but to name its existence and relevance to stories that are shaping school experiences in the present. for many participants, it is the first time that mothers, fathers, guardians, and families are more active in their response, no longer as silent as they call on, and call out, schools to respond to the distinctness of their children as partners in schooling experiences. when mothers like shelley share when i had my kids, i kind of, broke that and i would go to every concert. i’d go to every teacher interview, we see that stories of the past shape their responses as early memories of school create opportunities for new stories, counter-stories that create small spaces to interact differently with the institution of school. yet, while both shelley and brenda talked about their childhood experiences in school, brenda was more hesitant. brenda’s stories were difficult ones that spoke of loneliness and isolation and painful experiences with residential schooling. she reflected on her life with her mother growing up and how her experiences shaped her hopes for mackenzie. we saw this, too, with mary. reflecting on her duplicat[ing] how … [she] was raised by parents … [who had] allowed … [her] to grow at … [her] own pace … [and] promoted … [her] to make up … [her] own mind—alongside her present commitments for ongoing connection at home with family and elders who describe lizzy as kiyiteyasis, a little old person—mary noted her readying lizzy for life. memories of experiencing many positive, healthy influences … from being a … [a small métis community] homegrown kid often turned mary’s thoughts toward her mom’s encouragement: come home a lot. be here more often. my mom … values that the … [small métis community] influence is inside my kids. imagining forward-looking stories the families’ experiences both echoed and extended earlier recommendations for the inclusion of voices and cultures of indigenous peoples in indigenous early childhood education in canada to include emphasis on language, discipline/guidance, and diverse life/social contexts. families foregrounded the significance of listening to children’s voices. the readying practices of parents and families encompassed temporal spans, as well as contextual/ place and personal/social interactions much more expansive than the child’s entry into and progression through kindergarten. this points to the need for reconceptualizing readiness as beginning long before, and extending far beyond, kindergarten. this reconceptualization of readiness includes the need to widen understandings of what readiness can mean, include, and require, as well as acknowledging and respecting the many differences among indigenous children and families. the significance of respect was also highlighted by elder isabelle as she reflected on experiences of her schooling, as well as time spent as a kindergarten teacher. her words emphasized the importance of traditions and teachings that were learned at home and that helped in the negotiation of preparing for school. near the end of the conversations she connected the ideas surrounding respect with a sense of pride in who they were as people that was nurtured at home: one strength i will always remember is our pride. my parents were strong in their ways. my mom and dad very strong in their ways of trapping and hunting, gone for a month … months just to help us out. it seems to me my dad had tremendous pride in our culture and family, we felt it even though he wasn’t there. my mom was very powerful in her ways, never did she neglect the rabbit snares. my brother would wake up very early before school to set up the snares to respect them. when we have that pride it was good teaching for us. that sense of pride was a sustaining memory that was passed on, and, as elder isabelle shared, it needs to continue winter/hiver 2018 55 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to be nurtured in children of indigenous heritage. such shifts hold potential for increased respect for the everyday practices that children and families live in their home and community places. shifts which position children’s lives as central in understanding school readiness will turn attention toward the processes of school readiness and the need for mutual respect and collaboration among children, families, teachers, and policy makers when designing, initiating, revising, and sustaining programs and policies around early childhood education. given the differing ways families readied children for kindergarten, it is evident they are not seeking instruction on how to parent; they desire to participate in the ordinary and everyday work in kindergarten and are seeking spaces where they can understand what their child is experiencing, including how their child is being taught. their intentions are to learn more, as well as to share their ways of guiding, and being guided by, their children. all families expressed desires to be welcomed into school as people committed to supporting their children to experience success in school, and in life. families are aware, and seek recognition from policy makers and schools, of the diversity of their lives, including that their cultures, family structures, and first languages differ and that many inequities (e.g., housing, literacy, poverty) are experienced by indigenous families. rather than feeling ignored, stressed, or judged as they interact with schools, families seek interactions in which they are respected for the ways they are invested in their children doing well in school. persistent gaps in knowledge given the study focus on urban indigenous families, it is also important to see how rural, first nation, and métis communities might shape children’s readiness experiences differently. some families indicated that transitions from rural, first nation, and métis family and community settings were not easy. making it easier to honour these transitions may lessen the disruption for children in kindergarten. we also see the need to develop understandings of diverse languages, faiths, and familial cultures. further, researchers, policy makers, and educators need to be attentive to school readiness practices within familial contexts and discourses. while the impacts of colonization on indigenous peoples have been studied, there has not been a focus on how this affects the ways children are supported in their transition to kindergarten and school. through listening to the families, we saw how readiness practices shaped long-term experiences in school, as signified by their stories of older children who had moved into higher grades. the disconnect between readiness for school that attends to the lives of children and readiness focused on school academic outcomes was also highlighted, and indicates a need for further work in the area. acknowledgements we gratefully acknowledge stoney elder isabelle kootenay’s research guidance and participation in this inquiry and cree elder francis whiskeyjack’s friendship, tea, and stories as the study unfolded. we are grateful to participating families and to community agencies who supported our connections with some families, and to community members for support. we are grateful to policywise for children and families for study funding. winter/hiver 2018 56 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references adichie, c. 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(2012). warrior women: remaking postsecondary places through relational narrative inquiry. bingley, uk: emerald. 1 while some families have identified by particular nations, most families identified as indigenous. november 2019 103 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice transmedial worlds with social impact: exploring intergenerational learning in collaborative video game design juan c. mansilla, liliana mejía betancur, and claudia queiroz lambach juan c. mansilla holds a phd in information and communication sciences from the sorbonne paris cité university. he is a member of the research laboratory cultural industries and artistic creation–labex icca (france) and, since 2017, has been a research associate at house of social sciences–paris nord. he has been a visiting scholar in são paulo, berkeley, vancouver, toronto, and seoul. his research interests include media ecologies, urban sociology, and intergenerational programming. he is cofounder of human mount institute an international network of social sciences researchers. email: juan.mansilla@humanmount.com liliana mejía betancur holds a phd in information and communication sciences from the sorbonne paris cité university and a master’s in culture and communication with a specialty in cultural and creative industries, media, web, arts from the university of paris. she has been a social-journalist at the university of antioquia (colombia) and is a member of the research laboratory cultural industries and artistic creation–labex icca (france). email: lilimejia95@gmail.com claudia queiroz lambach holds a phd in information and communication sciences from the sorbonne paris cité university and a master’s in theory of visual culture from iade–faculty of design technology and communication, european university, portugal. she is a specialist in the history of modern and contemporary art and a member of the research laboratory cultural industries and artistic creation–labex icca (france). email: cmql@hotmail.com the intergenerational creative memory and multimedia conception (commic) project in 2016, a multidisciplinary team of researchers in educational anthropology, information and communication sciences, and visual studies created commic, a two-year research project funded by the research laboratory cultural industries and artistic creation–labex icca (france) and implemented in two french cities, paris and bagnolet (http://projectcommic. com/). the project consisted of the implementation of several workshops where children from 8–12 years of age and elders 65 years and over designed a video game using bloxels builder (bb), a tablet computing application based on the identification of colour and spatial position of small plastic cubes on a big plastic board game. using a quasi-experimental methodology, the purpose of the study was to understand three emergent topics: (1) the intergenerational transfer of explicit and implicit knowledge; (2) the intergenerational learning associated with transmedia narrative design; and (3) the generational uses of information and communication technologies (icts). we evaluated these topics according to the participants’ behaviour during the workshops, focusing on implicit and explicit expressions of solidarity between participants and the creative production of video games based on the affordances of narratives and game design. this article’s focus is the creation of intergenerational game design experiences supported by phygital video games (i.e., games that feature both digital and physical elements) for children 8–12 years of age and elders 65 years and over living in paris and bagnolet, france. the purpose of the article is twofold: first, to give an account of our protocol activity to highlight the implementation difficulties associated with this kind of intergenerational gameplay, and second, to inspire researchers, educators, and caregivers to include innovative uses of transmedia world building and collaborative game design as tools to connect different generations and foster community participation in intergenerational programs. key words: children; elders; intergenerational game design; phygital gameplay; transmedia world building november 2019 104 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the commic social approach aimed at bridging the “age segregation” of classical institutions (e.g., elementary schools, retirement homes, children’s recreation centres, senior clubs) in the local communities of these two cities. we were aware of the social and scientific dimensions of the project, as well as the empowering experience of intergenerational activities for participants (newman & smith, 1997; zhang, schell, kaufman, salgado, & jeremic, 2017). we built spaces of intergenerational exchange to facilitate the transfer, not only of digital know-how, but also of social, empathic, and problem-solving skills. further, learning from phygital video games (i.e., games that exploit both digital and physical elements) allows participants to develop creative thinking, procedural memory, spatial logic, and narrative design (kaufman, sauvé, renaud, sixsmith, & mortenson, 2016). we conducted six workshops in three different kinds of institutions for elders: an accommodation establishment for dependent elders (établissement d’hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes), where seniors live and are assisted by people with medical training; a seniors’ club (club des seniors), where seniors participate in different leisure activities on a drop-in basis (e.g., card games, cooking classes); and an autonomous retirement home (foyer-logement pour personnes âgées), where seniors live without medical assistance. educators bring children from elementary schools and recreational centres to the institutions. these visits were introduced as part of the commic project, which brings an added social and local community dimension to our program. in total, 52 children and 47 elders participated in the commic project. children were students from different elementary schools in paris and bagnolet, and elders came from different kinds of seniors’ institutions in the same cities, as explained above. between 8 and 12 children and 6 and 10 elders were present in each workshop. participants were divided into three intergenerational teams during each workshop; therefore, every team had the same number of participants. however, the ratio of children to elders was not the same in every workshop, which elicited different results from one workshop to another, as stated in the results section. every workshop was carried out in three sequential phases: (1) construction of video games (creativity phase); (2) deconstruction of created games (memory phase); and (3) playability of video games (gameplay phase). the three intergenerational teams in every workshop performed each of the phases, at the same time. in the creativity phase, participants were expected to place small coloured cubes on a plastic board, and then, using the bb application, turn it into a playable level game by taking a picture of it. a playable level game has a narrative sequence (i.e., a fictional world with a character able to go from start to ending point). the bb application recognizes the colour and position of the cubes on the board and transforms them into gameplay objects (e.g., the yellow cubes are coins), so characters collect them throughout the game. in the memory phase, participants have to rebuild the physical board game design of other teams. to this end, they play the digital game to identify the physical bases (i.e., cube’s colours and spatial position) used in the narrative gameplay sequence. finally, in the gameplay phase, participants are expected to test the playability of each video game production. twenty-eight games were built during the six workshops; two of them were not playable (i.e., the main character was blocked at some stage of the game). all video game productions are saved on the infinity wall of the bb application, accessible in the application platform or on the website (http://home.bloxelsbuilder.com/index.html). the infinity wall uses an x/y-coordinated method to localize the published games. commic games are in the x-coordinate from 103 to 130, with y-coordinate 50, (e.g., 110,50). a transmedial gaming world experience new media researchers lisbeth klastrup and susana tosca (2004) coined the term transmedial worlds to indicate “abstract content systems from which a repertoire of fictional stories can be actualized or derived across a variety of media forms” (p. 1). participants in commic used bb application affordances, a kind of “abstract content system,” to produce different narrative discourses evolving in fictional worlds. the bb software developer november 2019 105 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice introduces a predetermined number of game rules and fictional characters, that is, the application developer “meta-discourse” (sánchez-mesa, aarseth, pratten, & scolari, 2016, p. 13). however, users have the capacity to evolve in an autonomous way to create new gaming content derived from this predetermined discourse. recently, the bb software developer has enriched this meta-discourse by introducing fictional references from star wars, which, in turn, increases the transmediality of the bb video games. participants in commic were exposed to multiple narrative discourses across a variety of media forms before, during, and after the hands-on activities. in the commic approach, the game design starts with existing popular media references (e.g., cinema, arcade games), and then participants use mobile devices to create fictional gaming worlds. finally, games are published online, where any user can expand the transmedial world and thereafter redefine the whole fictional space and so on. in three of the six workshops, the participants received detailed instructions about the goal of the activity (i.e., to create a playable game), which implied different results from the three other workshops. we started these workshops by explaining the logic of a playable level game. we presented video footage of existing narrative discourses in popular media culture to illustrate the desired results. for this purpose, we two compared short films: buster keaton’s ending sequence from seven chances (1925) and super mario bros video games, published by the youtuber gameplaygag (https://goo.gl/exdd6u). children and elders easily understood these popular media references and their relation to the proposed game design goal. the participants then created narrative spaces where the stories would take place (i.e., transmedial worlds), rather than transmedia storytelling. this means that a commic video game production is a world-building process with the necessary elements to articulate events and generate innumerable user-stories. the transmedia world-building strategy in intergenerational learning allows participants to incorporate multiple cultural references in the same narrative sequence. this would both overcome generational gaps between “old” and “new” popular media culture and enhance generational empathy. this should not be considered a firm statement, but a useful strategy that, in our experience, allows us to continue with the planned activities. for example, children considered the buster keaton character as a hero, and seniors engaged with them by talking about other silent film heroes, such as charlie chaplin. we observed fruitful conversations between the two groups when they agreed on popular media culture features. we called this approach transmedial gaming world with social impact. digital content production technology in intergenerational learning designing and creating gaming content using digital content production technology (dcpt) was one of the most important challenges participants faced. the collaborative design of a video game requires digital, creative, and collaborative skills. participants need to understand the tools they have at their disposal to design the game. this implies knowledge of both the application meta-discourse and the technical possibilities of the dcpt. participants in a phygital game should be aware of the possibilities of the physical world and of their consequences in the digital world. at the same time, participants need to translate their solutions into collaborative strategies, which are expressed through verbal and nonverbal communication. intergenerational learning with dcpt is particularly sensitive to nonverbal interactions (hock-koon & mansilla, 2015). indeed, some research suggests that the modes of expression vary according to age, and that children are more diverse in their methods of communication than are elder adults (heydon & o’neill, 2014). other important aspects to consider are the transformation of the human learning process later in life (e.g., declines in procedural memory; bonder & wagner, 2001) and agerelated deficits such as movement coordination and reaction time (lesnoff-caravaglia, 2007). these differences raise questions, such as, how can implicit and explicit generational know-how be measured? how do we take into account these communicational, biological, and cultural generational gaps in collaborative environments? there is still a lot of ground to be explored in this field. therefore, it seems crucial to understand how intergenerational november 2019 106 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice collaborative experiences of transmedia production impact the existing generational gaps in our societies. findings we used a protocol for observing and videorecording behaviour during the workshops (derry et al., 2010) to identify the degree of participation, solidarity, and enjoyment of the participants. as explained before, in three of the six workshops, we decided to give the participants detailed instructions about the goal of the activity, while in the three other workshops the participants built by themselves the meaning of a “playable game.” we took field notes and recorded videos, especially during the hands-on activities, which allowed us to have a better understanding of the participants’ nonverbal communication. the participants’ names are changed here for anonymity. in this paper, we have translated all quotations of participants from french into english. we added field notes and analysis after every quotation. we propose a detailed account of the main difficulties and lessons. they are not necessarily presented according to the three phases of the protocol as described before (i.e., the creativity phase, the memory phase, and the gameplay phase). however, this does not mean that there were phases without difficulties, but, as we will show, the creativity phase was the most challenging for both groups of participants. this may have been the case because they needed to interpret more information at the beginning of the activity. some of our main findings were as follows. most elder participants in commic were women. during the six workshops, according to our observations, the men seemed less willing to join the hands-on activities. several times men said “i prefer to watch.” an elder participant who had come to see the workshop set up left, saying, “this is not for me at all.” the workshops took place in the early afternoon, coinciding with siesta time at the retirement homes, which could potentially demotivate some elderly residents. other residents said they were “afraid” of new technology and not curious to try something new. in general, before the activity, children were eager to use the tablets, and elders seemed indifferent. we suggest creating the collaborative intergenerational teams (cit) with a few participants in each group to promote senior participation (see lesson 1 at the end of the article). we can affirm that the intergenerational exchange is not entirely natural. children do not instinctively invite elders to play. however, when asked, they are usually very patient, explaining to elder participants how to proceed. the following is an example of an elder participant whom we found to be above average in adopting new media technology. isabelle (86-year-old-woman) asked us, a little anxiously, “do you think i would be able to do it? because i am really a beginner.” she was very motivated by the activity and engaged with the game. children helped her to place the colour cubes on the plastic game board. even if children did almost all the activity, the fact that isabelle was at the centre of the table and the only elder in her team allowed an easy and effective intergenerational exchange among the team participants. she had a very good understanding of how the game worked, and she did not hesitate to interact with the children, ask them for information, or even give them advice. isabelle, who told us after the workshop she had a computer in her room, was familiar with the new technologies and had completely enjoyed the game. this remark is important because she was the only participant in this retirement home to be so comfortable with new technologies. she was not afraid or overwhelmed by this kind of activity. she also took some pride in being able to play and understand the game. she affirmed throughout the interview that she had a good time interacting with the children. children wanted to have the tablet in their hands as long as possible, especially the boys. frequently, boys did not let girls play too much with the tablet. we suggest some strategies to create a more balanced intergenerational experience. for example, we assign small tasks to each participant and avoid the simplistic division “children in charge of tablets and seniors in charge of physical objects” (see lesson 3 at the end of the article). in general, a november 2019 107 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice leader appears in each intergenerational team (usually a child, but sometimes a senior) and takes charge of the game (e.g., he or she assigns tasks to other team members). in general, children explain to the elder participants the relationship between the colour of the cubes and their function, and “advise” them about the spatial position of the cubes on the plastic board game, as the following example shows. children tend to guide elders through the activity: “turn around and shoot ... take a life.” one elder participant said, “but if you play this all day, you go crazy at night. you’re used to making it, we’re not.” another added: “i’m not capable of doing this!” children wanted to go fast with the plastic board game so they could move on to the digital gameplay stage. this behaviour inhibited the interaction of elder participants. however, children explained to elders the game rules with verbal and nonverbal communication, as the following example shows. at first, colette (82-year-old woman) did not want to play, on the pretext that “it’s impossible!” a child explained to her, “you have to jump with b, shoot with a. you have to do it at the same time, use both hands.” another child said to her, “with this hand you press this button.” as we expected, some elders with disabilities living in care centres started to leave the activity at this point. some of them argued that they were tired. bonder and wagner (2001) have argued that attention spans for people in this age group can be short, but we surmised that some of the elder participants did not really have a strong interest in the activity. additionally, some disabilities like dementia and those affecting movement and coordination were more likely to make their participation difficult. the enjoyment of elders and the interest they showed in the activity can be seen in their observation of the younger people, which prompted childhood reminiscences, such as the one bellow, as well as in their participation in the workshop. colette said, “just seeing them reminds me of school.” and she started to tell me some of her childhood memories. another elder participant said, “it’s good; it’s modern,” while another senior participant said, “it’s good to see the children like this, we never do that.” for younger people, according to our observations, their interest in the activity is more related to handling the new technologies. both groups of participants demonstrated increased generational empathy, characterized by children offering support to elders and the latter engaging more with technological hands-on activities. for example, children gave explicit instructions to elder participants about how to control the characters in the games. in some cases, elders gave instructions to younger participants about the memory stage of the game. both verbal and nonverbal communication were used in their interactions. this way, elder and child participants were able, not only to cooperate in a technological challenge using phygital resources, but also to know more about the individuals in their teams (their names, ages, classes in school, etc.). the workshops, where we presented detailed instructions about the goal of the activity followed by video footage showing popular media examples of narrative sequences, allowed participants to carry out the activities in a more independent way. nevertheless, when these initial instructions and references were absent, we observed more dialogue between the participants as they tried to figure out what exactly “a playable level game” meant. some children engaged creatively with the game and wanted to insert traps, lives, enemies, and hazards while designing. they already seemed to be projecting the second part of the activity, that is, the memory phase, while elder participants were more focused on the current phase. this difference in knowledge caused some difficulties, particularly in the creativity phase, when the concept of playability was being established in each team. children were in a competitive logic vis-à-vis the other teams without taking into account the main goal of the activity (i.e., to create a playable game). november 2019 108 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice during the memory phase, the children continued to interact with the elder participants. all participants understood the colour functions of the cubes. an elder said, “there’s purple here.” “no, it’s not purple, it’s danger,” replied a child. exchanges worked. very quickly, the children wanted to play with tablets while the elder participants talked among themselves about different topics, not necessarily about the workshop activity. not all the games produced during the workshop were fully playable. this did not discourage the participants. on the contrary, nonplayable levels awakened in both children and elders more curiosity about why the game did not work properly. the intervention of researchers was necessary to fix the logic of spatial building to advance to the next proposed phase of the activity. lessons learned lesson 1: less is more collaborative intergenerational teams (cits) are more effective with few participants. a ratio of one child per elder is more desirable to carry out a specific task than a cit of five or six participants (even if the ratio is 50/50). a good strategy is to divide the whole activity into sub-activities and the latter into minimal logic tasks. in this way, cits of 2 (maximum 3) participants could be responsible for one goal activity. this approach will ensure more intergenerational interaction and more engaged participants. lesson 2: the challenging “siesta time” it is more convenient for elders to participate in intergenerational activities in the morning or in the middle of the afternoon. the hour after lunch (siesta time) in retirement homes could provoke low motivation in the participants. however, the schedule of activities has to rely on the children’s and educators’ school schedules. lesson 3: controlling the appealing digital experience a phygital game activity is a promise of new technological and digital manipulation; children and elders are aware of that. they have preconceived ideas about ict practices and digital experiences. both children and elders are affected by the presence of dcpt. children pay a lot of attention to the tablet computer manipulation, sometimes at the expense of the intergenerational interaction. when children are too focused on tablets, elder participants are more inhibited in their interactions with them. this might happen because some elders are not so familiar with this technology, at least not as familiar as the new generation. a simple strategy to avoid this distance is to create small intergenerational teams (see also lesson 1) and assign each participant different tasks related to the tablet manipulation, not just children with tablets and elders with physical objects. to avoid a technological language gap between participants, it is necessary to design iterative and engaging activities for each participant across both physical and digital dimensions. for example, in our activity an intergenerational team was asked to create a game level. an elder participant on the team created the floor and the enemies by putting the coloured cubes on the physical board; a child created the enemies and the powers, and another child scanned the board with the tablet. in the next phase, the elder participant tested the level using the tablet and the child fixed the imperfect sides of the level. small tasks and iterative engagement across physical and digital dimensions allowed a balanced interaction between participants: one of our research goals. the intergenerational activities are first of all generational meetings where participants (re)discover “the others” and consequently themselves. transmedia and intergenerational program (ip) practitioners can find in this article some cues to address the fundamental generational gaps in collective experiences involving the use of media technology. from our perspective, accepting the process as the most important social and research goal (instead november 2019 109 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice of measurable results) gives us the opportunity to observe the meaning of cooperation and technological practices between children and elders. this process with social impact, new transmedia possibilities, and popular media culture references could be further used to bring together older and younger generations. project commic: intergenerational learning in collaborative video game design. november 2019 110 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice acknowledgements the commic project received funds from labex icca, an interdisciplinary research laboratory centered around the arts, culture, and digital markets, financed by the government of france through the program “investissement d’avenir” [future investment]. commic was supported by the house of social sciences (maison des sciences de l’homme, msh paris nord) and by pixel press technology, llc. endnotes 1 in this approach, storytelling plays a subsidiary role in favour of characters and world building, unlike transmedia storytelling, which “proposes a common experience that encompasses various media and devices, all united by a narrative link” (scolari, 2014, p. 71). references bonder, b., & wagner, m. b. (2001). functional performance in older adults. philadelphia, pa: f. a. davis. derry, s., pea, r., barron, b., engle, r., erickson, f., goldman, r., hall, r., koschmann, t., lemke, j., sherin, m., & sherin, b. (2010). conducting video research in the learning sciences: guidance on selection, analysis, technology, and ethics. the journal of the learning sciences, 19, 3–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508400903452884 heydon, r., & o’neill, s. (2014). songs in our hearts: the affordances and constraints of an intergenerational multimodal arts curriculum. international journal of education & the arts, 15(16). retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1045920 hock-koon, s., & mansilla, j. c. (2015). elderly people using tablets: unexpected issues highlighted in an intergenerational activity (pp. 1092–1097). paper presented at the society for information technology & teacher education international conference, association for the advancement of computing in education, las vegas, nevada, march 2, 2015. retrieved from https://www. learntechlib.org/p/150142/ kaufman, d., sauvé, l., renaud, l., sixsmith, a., & mortenson, b. (2016). older adults’ digital gameplay: patterns, benefits, and challenges. simulation & gaming, 47(4), 465–489. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878116645736 klastrup, l., & tosca, s. (2004). transmedial worlds: rethinking cyberworld design. in 2004 international conference on cyberworlds (pp. 409–416). https://doi.org/10.1109/cw.2004.67 lesnoff-caravaglia, g. (2007). health aspects of aging: the experience of growing old. springfield, il: charles c. thomas. newman, s., & smith, t. b. (1997). developmental theories as the basis for intergenerational programs. in s. newman & t. b. ward (eds.), intergenerational programs: past, present, and future (p. 247). washington, dc: taylor & francis. sánchez-mesa martínez, d., aarseth, e. j., pratten, r., & scolari, c. a. (2016). transmedia (storytelling?): a polyphonic critical review. artnodes, 18. http://doi.org/10.7238/a.v0i18.3064 scolari, c. a. (2014). transmedia storytelling: new ways of communicating in the digital age. in anuario ac/e de cultura digital—focus 2014: the use of new technologies in the performing arts (pp. 68–79). madrid, españa: acción cultural española. retrieved from https://repositori.upf.edu/handle/10230/26242 zhang, f., schell, r., kaufman, d., salgado, g., & jeremic, j. (2017). social interaction between older adults (80+) and younger people during intergenerational digital gameplay. in j. zhou & g. salvendy (eds.), human aspects of it for the aged population: applications, services, and contexts (vol. 10298, pp. 308–322). cham, switzerland: springer international. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-58536-9_25 october 2019 1 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor foregrounding indigenous worldviews in early childhood dr. catherine hamm, la trobe university, australia, guest editor we acknowledge the traditional lands and territories of the indigenous communities where the research and writing of the papers in this special issue took place. we pay respect to elders past and present and acknowledge the deep learning these places hold and have held for many thousands of years. this special issue has been a joy to edit. engaging with authors from a range of worldviews related to childhoods, the papers activate different ways of knowing, being and doing. responding to the provocation of foregrounding indigenous worldviews in early childhood, the papers engage with a wide range of ideas, including: • place • disrupting western policy worldviews • refiguring indigenous presences • cultural competence • quality in addition, the papers in the ideas from practice section engage with the ethics and politics of foregrounding indigenous worldviews in early childhood pedagogies. these papers attend to the tensions of settler accountabilities for the early childhood field in moments of everyday teaching and learning. i am very honoured to coauthor this editorial with dr. (aunty) sue atkinson, a yorta yorta1 woman living on wurundjeri country now known as melbourne, australia. dr. atkinson’s extensive scholarship for over 40 years as a kindergarten teacher, adult educator, and researcher has made significant contributions to the field of early childhood. as a way to introduce this special issue from an indigenous worldview, dr. atkinson and i use dialogue as a method to respond to the provocations that frame this issue. i have had the privilege of knowing aunty sue for around 20 years and have often engaged with her teachings on indigenous pedagogy in early childhood. aunty sue and i sat together and engaged in a lively discussion that responds to some of the provocations that frame this special issue. catherine: hi aunty sue, thank you for generously spending your time with me. can we begin by thinking with the provocation what are our ethical and political accountabilities in places of unequal relations (both human and more than human) in relation to engaging with indigenous perspectives? i guess we are talking about early childhood in colonial places. sue: my response to that provocation is to start with early childhood teachers’ philosophies and agendas. i wonder what they are basing their educational programs on? have they examined their own understandings of colonization, dispossession, racism, and marginalization? is that something they have thought about or unpacked prior to launching into embedding indigenous voices or perspectives into the curriculum? what is their starting point? is it because they have to do it, or have they actually done some deep thinking and critical reflection on their own knowledge and understandings before or alongside what they are doing now? the starting point is very important. october 2019 2 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor catherine: yes! everybody’s starting point is at different place. how do you identify what or where your personal starting point is? sue: it doesn’t come sometimes at the start, does it? catherine: no, it is not a linear process. sue: when i was talking to you years ago about my thesis, i spoke to others and they reflected on a lot of the ideas around the bicentennial celebrations [in australia, 1988] and it changed how they thought about things. they began to create educational programs from a political perspective, not just a play perspective. catherine: i wonder if this is how we are beginning to think about place … how can we understand places from an ethical and political perspective. for some people, their starting point is thinking about writing an acknowledgement of country (land acknowledgement). it takes a while to get there. some people are not sure how or where to start. sue: it is good for people to be unsure, because if you just launch in without asking deep questions, that’s when things become tokenistic or even racist. catherine: i wonder what kinds of questions prompt that personal beginning of your philosophy or understanding of accountability? what does it mean to be accountable as 21st-century settlers? sue: you need to recognize the tragedy and trauma that colonization created and work within these realities. catherine: are you talking about shared history? this is language i have heard quite a lot lately. sue: it is shared, although “shared” seems a bit too warm and fuzzy. maybe entangled history is better. the word aboriginal2 didn’t exist in australia until colonization. the colonizers really invented who we are to an extent, and that is still in people’s minds, in terms of what they think aboriginality is—what the aboriginal body looks like, sounds like, and how culture is practiced. this impacts on forming ideological and physical connections to local aboriginal communities. these relationships are central in foregrounding aboriginal worldviews. moving beyond tokenism also means reconceptualizing what is an authentic aboriginal body, identity, knowledge, and voice. for example, people don’t notice that there is a strong culture here in melbourne. people don’t see what’s around them. catherine: that comes back to your earlier comment about people’s starting point. what is their understanding of local aboriginal culture and heritage? they think that aboriginal culture needs to look or be a certain way. sue: yes, people need to understand that we are practicing 21st-century aboriginal culture. culture changes and adapts wherever you are. people aren’t living the way they were 200 years ago anywhere. why do people expect that from us? catherine: this is a nice move into another provocation: how might everyday moments of teaching and learning refigure indigenous presences on unceded lands and territories? sue: everyday moments of teaching need to refer to the continued presence of indigenous people in the here and now, not as a past that is lost and extinguished or existing in another place where aboriginality is “more” authentic. i wonder where we are up to with this in our educational settings? things tend to go in waves or movements where there is an engagement with indigenous voices then a resistance and a pulling back. october 2019 3 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor catherine: how do non-indigenous people respond to indigenous knowledges in a respectful way? it is important to think carefully about engagement because there is the danger of appropriation. what are settler accountabilities in relation to engaging with those knowledges? sue: as a non-indigenous person, if you are not sure, don’t do it! you can do it next year. wait, what’s the rush? you need to wait until you can build up a relationship with an elder or other member of the local aboriginal community. it might two years, three years. wait. in the meantime, engage the children with resources that have been constructed with or in partnership with indigenous people, and always acknowledge the source. catherine: yes, i think it would be very difficult to make deep embedded connection, thinking, and reflection if you try to rush and cram engagement with indigenous people. that is not being respectful of a relational worldview, where authentic engagements take time. sue: it’s not possible to cram relation building into a short timeframe, but it’s important to make a start in reaching out to indigenous people in your local community. catherine: the stories of people rushing make me uncomfortable. i think there is a temptation to get it done, tick the box, move on. sue: i suppose people feel overburdened. they don’t get the support to do things in a genuine way. catherine: that also makes me think about how indigenous people shouldn’t always have to do the “giving.” sue: absolutely! i have often heard the comment that you people should be educating the wider community. the wider community needs to be more responsible for its own education. catherine: so how can non-indigenous people take responsibility and also act in a respectful way? sue: a good step for early childhood teachers is to engage with indigenous community events. for example, naidoc3 week. there is lots of arts, dance, cultural events. take the time to be involved. catherine: take responsibility for educating yourself. sit back and listen. sue: yes! don’t have a dialogue in your head about what the answers are before you get there. accept what the aboriginal person is saying. don’t doubt their knowledge or experience because they have fair skin, for example. catherine: in education we are trained to ask questions and get answers. we have to shift this notion to be open to engage, to be open to entanglements. you have taught me so much about indigenous pedagogy. to sit and listen. sue: yes, to sit and listen to elders and to country, engaging with more-than-human others connects to caring for country, plants, and the land. i believe that our ancestors still guide us and exist on a spiritual level. this is why i wrote the poem “walk with care on country” (see below). i wanted to share the importance of engaging, learning, and connecting. catherine: what are the tensions in bringing together indigenous and non-indigenous worldviews? what are the tensions in the authentic walking together? sue: yes, i am always thinking about how we engage with the tensions without creating a pretty, naïve moment of revelation. october 2019 4 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor catherine: do you think that is about challenging structures that create space for “settler moves to innocence” (tuck & yang, 2012)? the colonizing mindset: it wasn’t my fault; i didn’t do it; i don’t have to engage with these issues. sue: you can challenge colonization by acknowledging its impact and taking some responsibility for the present and future. it is important for non-indigenous people to acknowledge the trauma of colonization and not just tell us to “move on,” to deny history. so much has been taken from us by colonization. dreaming stories have been taken away from us. it is hard to interpret those stories now in a 21st-century context. i believe that some of the stories are about looking after country and community. unless people look at that deeply and understand that these stories are not just entertaining or cute, but they have survived colonization, which is a miracle. catherine: in our australian context, i feel very privileged to have such generous indigenous scholars such as you to share indigenous perspectives and pedagogies, and i thank you very much for spending time with me to yarn. do you have any last words? sue: there is a lot of reflecting and learning to do! take your place as the learner instead of the teacher all the time. learn to wait and slow down! walk with care on country although passed into the dreaming they speak the ancestors buried beneath our feet they lay under burdens built over two centuries tall burdens that are eased when you listen deep and walk proudly on country where both joy and sorrow you keep dr. sue atkinson, 2019 acknowledgements i acknowledge the generosity of dr. sue atkinson in coauthoring this editorial. october 2019 5 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references common ground first nations. (n.d.). aboriginal, indigenous, or first nations? retrieved from https://www.commonground.org.au/ learn/aboriginal-or-indigenous tuck, e., & yang, k. w. (2012). decolonization is not a metaphor. decolonization: indigeneity, education & society, 1(1), 1–40. retrieved from https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554 (endnotes) 1 indigenous community in central victoria, australia. 2 in australia, aboriginal refers to the original peoples of mainland australia. torres strait islander refers to the original peoples of the 274 islands located north of australia in the torres strait. indigenous has become a term to describe both aboriginal and torres strait islander people (common ground first nations, n.d.). 3 national aboriginal and islander day observance committee, a significant annual cultural event in australia. november 2020 49 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research early childhood educators’ understandings of how young children perform gender during unstructured play sarah reddington dr. sarah reddington is an assistant professor in the child and youth study department at mount saint vincent university, halifax, nova scotia. her research in the field of critical gender and disability studies is concerned with the relationship between early childhood education practices and how westernized forms of representation impact children’s subjectivities and life courses. sarah’s work engages with poststructural thinking, affect theory, posthumanism, deleuzoguattarian theory, queer theory, diffraction, and new materialism to challenge the conditions of marginalization and oppression. email: sarah.reddington@msvu.ca early childhood settings are important foundational educational sites in which to examine how children perform gender. this research explores nova scotia early childhood educators’ (eces) understandings of how children perform gender during unstructured play. this inquiry is important because eces can often influence but also neutralize gender bias in educational settings (aina & cameron, 2011). moreover, we know from previous research that young children actively construct gender in learning settings with their peers (blaise, 2005; davies, 2003; macnaughton, 2000; renold, 2000; robinson, 2014; thorne, 1993; west & zimmerman, 1987). that is, children generally come to acquire a set of beliefs and ideas on gender at an early age and are routinely subjected to a system of norms that attempt to embed gender expectations in children regarding how they are supposed to be and act (balter, van rhijn, & davies, 2016; boskey, 2014; butler, 2004; janmohamed, 2010). however, critical child and youth scholars similarly recognize that children come to understand gender through experiences in other settings and learn about gender at home with their parents, guardians, siblings, and caregivers. for example, research has shown that boys may avoid dramatic play areas because they have been told playing house is for girls (cherney & dempsey, 2010). given the complexity of how gender is constructed for young children, it is critical to gain a better understanding of gender performativity in the early years through the lens of eces. you will see in this research that the eces view gender predominantly through the gender binary and often unknowingly construct heteronormative play opportunities that then inform the ways in which children learn gender. however, this study also shows the eces recognizing stereotypical gender role play and, at junctures, challenging the children to explore their identities outside normative gender processes. there is a need to explore further eces’ perceptions of how children perform gender and to identify ways to destabilize the reproduction of heteronormative gender practices and allow for new possibilities for self-expression in early childhood settings. judith butler (2004) in undoing gender draws discussion toward the impact regulatory norms have on young this study explores nova scotia early childhood educators’ (eces’) understandings of how young children perform gender during unstructured play. this research reveals that eces view gender primarily through traditional gender stereotypes and often unknowingly construct heteronormative play spaces that then inform the ways in which children learn gender. however, the eces also recognize the requirement to disrupt normative gender processes and challenge children to think and act outside the gender binary. there is a need for early childhood educators to discuss more regularly their gender-inclusive practices and locate new pedagogical approaches to support diverse identity expressions. key words: early childhood; gender; performativity; regulatory norms; challenge november 2020 50 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research children when they experience the public spheres of school. butler explains how norms reduce the possibilities of how life can be lived relative to how well each body accomplishes gender norms. that is, young children who do not fit neatly into the gender binary of masculine or feminine face increased scrutiny by peers in school (keenan, 2017; pascoe, 2007; reddington, 2017). i purposely mention butler’s critique of normative dimensions early on in this analysis because it provides an entry for examining how eces’ pedagogical approaches, such as predefined play areas (e.g., dramatic play, building block areas), might impose certain restrictions on how young children perform gender during unstructured play. this heteronormative paradigm is further complicated by the saturation of gender power relations that flow in and through early childhood settings and determine how a body should move within a masculine boy / feminine girl binary. in particular, it is the dominant gender discourses that circulate in early childhood settings that often come to define what it means to be a boy or a girl. these traditional gendered social practices, which are grounded in a tendency to other those who are different or who do not measure up to norms of hegemonic heterosexual gender configurations, require attention because they can limit the ways in which children express their gender. explicitly, for some young children, negotiating the everyday expectations of gender is a difficult and a complex process, especially if they do not fit the heteronormative representations inherent in dominant western discourses. therefore, it is imperative that we understand better how young children aged 4–5 years perform gender during unstructured play. the traditional gender frameworks have “particularly damaging consequences for those boys and girls who are positioned as other to the normalizing and regulatory gendered scripts” (renold, 2000, p. 324). in this research, i draw attention to the intensification and incitement of particular forms of desire within specific regimes of masculinizing and feminizing practices that shape how young children (aged 4–5 years) learn to relate to each other as gendered subjects. in particular, i investigate how normative structures like dramatic play areas influence the ways children perform gender as seen through the perspectives of eces. in exploring children’s gender constructions through the perspectives of eces, i invite a space for increased critical reflection and dialogue among educators on how we might begin to destabilize existing gender and normative structures in schools. theoretical framework butler’s (1990) theory of gender performativity suggests that nobody is a gender from the start; rather, gender is a phenomenon produced and reproduced over time. butler describes masculinity and femininity as constructions not from biological essences but stemming from language and society as effects of norms and power relations. butler explains that gender performance is how we act, walk, and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman. according to butler, gender ought not to be construed as a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts. the effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self. (butler, 1990, p. 140) in butler’s performative theory, situating one’s body through reenactments of stylized gendered modes emphasizes and reveals the tension young children potentially display in public spaces when faced with what is deemed acceptable. as janette kelly-ware (2016) states, “who children are and how they perform who they are, that is, what they do, are also fashioned through the power of what is acceptable, desirable and rewarded” (p. 149). that is, hegemonic ideals of heteronormative masculine and feminine gendered identities can be limiting to those who do not categorize themselves within these fixed gender boundaries (butler, 1990). similarly, gunn and macnaughton (2007) assert that children do gender in multiple ways and that their gender performances can change based on november 2020 51 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the learning setting, the context, and others around them. in this research, by thinking through butler’s theory of gender as performative, i aim to draw attention to the intricacy in young children’s gender construction and highlight how early childhood pedagogies and the role of educators potentially influence how children express their gender in an early childhood setting. further, this research presents a unique position to see the roles eces might play in subverting traditionally defined gender norms and allow for more fluid forms of gender expression. when thinking about what this might look like in an early childhood setting, i connect with harper keenan’s (2017) understandings of building a trans pedagogy that situates bodies to be viewed in multiple ways rather than through categories and single definitions. that is, keenan suggests that educators create spaces for children to “explore and play with gender as they understand it, inviting them into mutually respectful dialogue and asking them questions about the meaning and limits of those understandings, rather than forcing them to regurgitate our own rigid definitions” (p. 552). moreover, keenan argues that educators need to come together and share the complexities of our own embodied knowledge and question the limitations of that knowledge. as a queer academic in the field of child and youth study, i strongly identify with keenan’s suggestion to come together and acknowledge the complexity of individual experiences. i hope by bringing 15 eces together, i have begun this process. methodology there were 15 participants in this study, all of whom were early childhood educators in the province of nova scotia and employed at licensed nova scotia early childhood centres. these participants have been trained to provide gender inclusive opportunities for children as outlined in capable, confident, and curious: nova scotia’s early learning curriculum framework (nova scotia department of education and early childhood development [deecd], 2018). specifically, the curriculum guideline outlines specific tools for eces to use when fostering a gender-diverse learning environment. the gender-diverse learning principles include not making assumptions about a child’s gender, seeing the full potential of a child, and trusting the child’s choices in relation to toys, play, self-identification, and expression (deecd, 2018, p. 31). the framework states: “exploring gender roles, identities and fluidity is a normal part of child development. childhood is the time when an inner sense of gender emerges, and children undertake their own journeys to self-understanding” (deecd, 2018, p. 51). eces are encouraged to follow these gender inclusive learning principles when designing their learning environments: • use gender-inclusive language as much as possible. rather than addressing groups of children as “boys and girls,” use “children” and “everyone.” • organize children into groups rather than “boys or girls.” • avoid using gendered terminology to make it easier for children and families who are gender nonconforming to feel valued and included. • ensure all children have access to materials and encourage children to explore their full range of interests without gendered expectations (e.g., “this area is for boys”). • include a diverse selection of literature in the learning environment around gender identity, gender expression, and family diversity, such as families with same-sex parents or guardians, single-parent families, grandparents’ and extended family roles, and foster families. • engage children in conversations that broaden their understandings of gender, being oneself, and respect for gender diversity. (deecd, 2018, p. 50) november 2020 52 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the participants had varying levels of experience in relation to working with children aged 4–5 years (see table 1). five participants had 20+ years of experience, 3 participants had between 10 and 20 years, and 7 participants had less than 5 years of experience. thirteen of the 15 participants self-identified as women, one self-identified as a trans man, and another participant chose not to identify. all participants had either a level ii (early childhood diploma from a community college) or a level iii (undergraduate degree in child and youth study) certification. table 1. participants gender early childhood certification level age range (years) years of work experience with children aged 4–5 years in a licensed early childhood centre woman level iii 56+ 26 years woman level iii 56+ 35 years woman level ii 56 + 24 years woman level ii 46–56 10 years woman level ii 46–56 21 years woman level ii 46–56 26 years trans man level ii 36–46 2.5 years woman level ii 36–46 25 years woman level iii 24–36 2.5 years woman level iii 24–36 11 years woman level ii 24–36 16 years prefer not to identify level iii 24–36 3 years woman level ii 24–36 2 years woman level iii 24–36 4 years woman level iii 19–24 1 year the participants in this study were asked to observe and document children aged 4–5 years at their early childhood centre during unstructured play for a period of eight weeks with specific attention to how the children performed gender. the participants, after making observations, were then invited to follow up with me and discuss their observations by participating in two focus groups. each focus group lasted approximately 60 minutes. in relation to the observation period, i asked the participants to document observations related to gender and play. i did not give the participants specific cues to observe as i wanted to keep it open for interpretation and not influence their views on gender. in advance of the eight-week observation period and the focus groups, the participants were asked to send me via email a response to two questions: what comes to mind when you hear the term gender? what comes to mind when you hear the term gender stereotype? the purpose of this inquiry was to gain initial insights on the eces’ positions on gender and to build a space for the eces to begin to think about gender in advance of making their observations. the initial responses from the participants when asked “what words come to mind when you hear the term gender?” were male, female, boy, girl, man, woman, that you can never assume a gender, wide spectrum of gender, nonbinary, fluid, transgender, gay, queer, gender neutral, and pansexual. their responses to the second question, “what comes to mind when you hear the term gender stereotype?”, were boys like trucks, boys wear black and blue, boys are rough, play in the dirt, you know … the goo, the guck, the muck, the sciency-kinda stuff, boys can’t sit still, boys are loud, they are physical, boys do tumble play, they are aggressive and do sporty things. girls like dolls, like the colour pink, everything sparkly, girls play “house,” they like dramatic play, they like to role play, they are november 2020 53 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research nurturing, they play barbies, do art, they are quieter and calmer. keenan (2017) discusses how stereotypical gender categories “teach children a script about which kinds of genders and bodies are normal and which are not” (p. 540), hence the relevance to enter into dialogue with eces and learn more about their perceptions of how children perform gender. one limitation of this study is the gender imbalance of the participants. i recognize that having a more diverse representation of eces would likely result in more expansive views on how children perform gender during unstructured play. this speaks to keenan’s (2017) desire for educators with diverse experiences to enter into dialogue to better understand the limitless possibilities children experience with their bodies. as a researcher, i was also mindful of protecting my participants’ identities when sharing their experiences and observations. in particular, i was aware of the potential vulnerable position that participants who identify outside the binary might experience. explicitly, as a queer academic, this aspect was heightened for me because i can personally relate to the potential vulnerability individuals might feel when working in the field of child and youth study when your identity does not fit within the normative binary of man/woman, masculine/feminine. what follows are excerpts from eces comments after observing and documenting young children during unstructured play. specifically, quotes from the participants are provided to illustrate their perceptions of how children perform gender during unstructured play. you will see that the eces drew on gender stereotypes and normative gender structures when discussing their observations. this finding shows the dominance of regulatory gender processes in schools. this data emerged from conducting a content analysis of the transcripts based on the participants’ responses during two focus groups. transcripts were read for broad themes and then reread multiple times for specific themes. following this, the transcripts were coded for common words and phrases that focused on gender and gender performativity. i have intentionally separated the data into themes that emerged based on the eces’ responses. one initial theme early on was the clear categorical distinctions the eces provided when discussing gender. in particular, the eces’ understandings of gendered play were routinely divided into “girls’ play” and “boys’ play.” this initial finding suggests that the eces, while trained in gender-inclusive practices, reverted back to traditional gender constructs when viewing gender in an early childhood setting. i turn now to an excerpt of data that reveals the educators’ views after observing children in a dramatic play area. “girls’ play” mia: i’ve definitely had a situation where it was a group of girls and somebody had to be the dad. there couldn’t be a mom, or a dad, or two moms or three moms. there had to be a mom and a dad. and then there was the boss, a ringleader, deciding who would be who. there was quite a bit of drama around it. a teacher actually had to step in and say, “look, you could be anything you want, there can be three moms in this situation, there could be four, it really doesn’t matter.” and then a boy entered the dramatic play area and the ringleader, a girl, told the boy he had to be the dad and he didn’t want to be the dad! he wanted to be a mom, but he was not allowed! his only other option was to be the puppy. i routinely find that girls are doing the deciding and controlling the dramatic play area. barb: i find the girls will try to get the boys to do things during dramatic play. they tell them, “we’re going to be the mommies, but you guys will be the babies.” but, the boys don’t want to do that. i find it interesting that the girls never want to play the role of the baby. the girls are just very vocal. i’m not going to say bossy, but they are quite demanding. there is one child in particular that will not give up. she is insistent that the boy plays the baby. she will keep pushing it and if he does not agree then she tells him or the other boys that they can’t play, or she will say, “i’m not being your friend.” we hear this regularly. catie: i’m just picturing the things that are happening in the classroom right now and in typical house play there november 2020 54 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research is a baby and puppy. the girls always play the mom and the boys play the baby or the puppy. the puppy is usually running away! sometimes the boy will say they want to be a mom too and they will play that role for a little bit, but it typically doesn’t last very long, as the girls then take over and control the game. but the puppy controls it too because the puppy will not listen to the mom character and will be here and there and everywhere, right? so, that throws a whole other, power, and control, to the play. betty: we see this too in our centre. the girls need to be the mom. so, if someone says, “you be the baby and i’ll be the mom and we’ll take turns,” it’s like, “no, i need to be the mom.” the girls want to be in charge and be the ones to say, “eat your food or go to bed.” they need to be in control and the leader. diana: i agree there always has to be one mom and one dad. and you can’t have two dads, but you can be the dog. the eces describe a large number of girls engaging in traditional house play where the girls primarily perform traditional gender roles. we also see the girls actively policing other children’s play to maintain the gender status quo. this is evidenced when the girls forbid the boys to play the role of mom and only offer the boys the positions of puppy or baby. through giving the boys options, the girls are able to maintain control where the boys are situated in a border space. however, at moments we witness the boys negotiating their identities during dramatic play, as seen when one ece stated, “the boy will say they want to be a mom too and they will play that role for a little bit, but it typically doesn’t last very long,” or alternatively, the boy attempts to disrupt the girls’ policing by playing puppy and running away: “the puppy controls it too because the puppy will not listen to the mom character and will be here and there and everywhere, right?” here, normalizing regimes of gender incite particular forms of action, and it is the subtle power that circulates between the girls and the boys and operationalizes traditional gender roles. the eces play a critical role during this process by either establishing or challenging gender stereotypes. for example, the eces’ creating a dramatic play area as part of their pedagogical practice potentially evokes and reinforces the reenactment of normative gender processes. it is important for educators to address this in their program planning to ensure they produce learning environments that are gender diverse, as suggested in nova scotia’s early learning curriculum framework. butler (1990) reiterates how accomplishing gender often depends on the continuous reenactments of stylized gender modes available to children within the public spheres of school. if children are provided with rigid play options in relation to gender expression, they are more likely to adopt traditional gender beliefs (thorne, 1993). moreover, glenda macnaughton (2000) describes how children are frequently situated to negotiate the messages they receive about gender from adults, learning environments, and peers and from these messages make decisions regarding their gender expression. this finding brings forward the question of how educators can disrupt traditional gendered pedagogical play areas and encourage children to construct new knowledge (keenan, 2017). while we see one ece interject to destabilize the static gender roles (by saying “look, you could be anything you want, there can be three moms in this situation, there could be four, it really doesn’t matter”) the continuous production of dominant gender categories prevails and situates the children to perform their gender chiefly through traditional gender stereotypes. löfdahl and hjalmarsson (2015) put forward the idea that eces need to dismantle the traditional “home corner” and distribute materials like dolls throughout the learning centre to disrupt gender-stereotypical choices that incite “only girls” and “only boys” areas. this is a call for educators to question their pedagogical play areas and open up a discussion for more fluid gender-inclusive play opportunities. interestingly, the eces in this study also witnessed boys taking on traditional gender roles, as evidenced below. “boys’ play” taylor: it’s very common for children to say blocks are only for boys. i said one day to the children, “who said that november 2020 55 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research is a rule, because we made our rules together … i’m reading our rules in the block area right now and it doesn’t say it’s only for boys.” even though we have the rule the boys insist that the block area is their space. emma: at our centre, the boys control the block zone and they will tell the girls, “boys only.” i have witnessed the boys making walls and barriers with chairs to maintain their boy space. barb: i see this too … i have seen the girls try to get in on it (play in the blocks) and the boys say, “oh, you are not strong enough” or if they imitate gun fights from video games, they don’t allow the girls to play. beth: i worked at a preschool with a forest school setting and there was a ring of trees and it was claimed to be boys only. and even though we had a big talk with everybody, the boys still took it over. two girls really wanted to play, but finally decided not to try anymore. it’s very powerful and it creates anxiety in the kids. the boys’ exercising of power is an attempt to exert their perceived masculinity and modify the actions of the girls to secure their more powerful position. it is by securing certain play areas, like blocks and outdoor sites, that the boys are able to transmit so-called masculine traits to secure preestablished hierarchies and keep children within distinct categories of boys and girls. the actions of the boys policing the blocks is similar to the girls policing the dramatic play area. however, we also see, again, an ece challenging the dominant gender paradigm when saying, “who said that is a rule, because we made our rules together… i’m reading our rules in the block area right now and it doesn’t say it’s only for boys.” the educator in this situation is sending a gender-inclusive message to the children that “there are no gender constraints at our centre.” however, we still see that the cues children receive about gender from their peers largely determine their gendered play choices. barbara martin (2011) suggests that in early childhood settings the gender boundaries in play are often established by children, who then police each other’s adherence to specific gender roles. mindy blaise (2005) signals the role educators can play when this unfolds by supporting the children who cross the gender boundaries. this data brings forward the call for eces to pay close attention to their pedagogical choices and delivery, including how gender power relations can manifest and inform children’s gender performance (kelly, 2009). for example, we see from the data above how a predetermined block area can transmit ideas about masculinity and secure preestablished hierarchies that maintain traditional categories of what is expected of boys in relation to play. this shows the importance of eces being cognizant of how gender norms can persist within the power plays of learning settings and the need for educators to destabilize these power dynamics. for example, when one ece states, “the boys control the block zone and they will tell the girls, boys only” we see the strong need for an educator to intervene and challenge these ideas. while the capable, confident, and curious curriculum framework (deecd, 2018) points out the importance of eces giving children opportunities to explore “gender roles, identities and fluidity” (p. 51), we see in this research that the children’s own ideas and beliefs about gender are already deeply engrained within a traditional heteronormative framework, and thus eces must critically reflect on the impact regulatory gender norms have on young children’s identities and self-expression. next, we explore the more intricate gender relations the eces witnessed between children. and their implications for how children learn gender. gender productions emma: i see children policing others, but it depends on what kind of play they’re doing. if they do construction work or play as a police person, the boys are usually in control. and then the girls play the damsels in distress role and want to be saved by the boys! the whole damsels in distress thing happens quite often, and the boys seem to november 2020 56 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research be more dominant with policing girls around it when it comes to dramatic play. rea: we see this too… the girls will pretend to fall and shriek for the boys to come rescue them. the eces observed that the girls’ gender productions involved positioning themselves as helpless, weak, and vulnerable to appeal to the boys, as seen when the girls “will pretend to fall and shriek for the boys to come rescue them or when the girls play the damsels in distress role and want to be saved by the boys.” here, sexuality comes into play as the girls situate the boys as powerful and find pleasure in performing a “damsels in distress” role (ringrose, 2013). macnaughton (2006) explains that the most powerful gender constructions are those that reinforce the “normal” ways to be a boy or a girl when children look to locate more desirable fashionings of masculinity and femininity. this is evidenced when the eces observe children policing one another in relation to what is acceptable for a boy or girl. taylor: the children watch paw patrol and then the boys think they are the ones that have superpowers. they can destroy and save the world at the same time. and the girls are the princesses, you know, like you should be prim and proper all the time. rea: we play music on our ipod and we had the frozen song “let her go” playing, and a boy said, “oh no, that’s a girl song, let’s listen to a boy’s song.” the boy song was the chipmunks. the boys all agreed that was what they wanted to listen to. the children labelled boys’ and girls’ songs. catie: at our centre, the boys wrestle, and when a girl tries to get in on it, they will say “you are not a boy and you are not strong enough.” bias and stereotypes that put children in the societal binary of feminine or masculine can be limiting and the educators working with young children need to recognize the impact normative gender practices have on children’s lives (chapman, 2016). it is through these dominant gender discourses that children learn that heterosexuality is the “normal, right and only way to be” (blaise, 2005, p. 22). these compulsory forms of gender performance draw attention to the intricacy in subjectivity and the decisions young children must make when negotiating their gender expression in the public spheres of school. they also draw attention to the importance of eces talking with children about gender and supporting diverse gender expression. this includes encouraging nonstereotypical play and offering diversity in the books and materials we use in our early childhood settings. as blaise and taylor (2012) explain, young children are no longer simply “learning” or “soaking up” the social meanings, values, and expectations of how to be a girl or a boy exclusively from their parents, teachers, peers, or the media. rather, children themselves are producing and regulating gender by constantly “doing” and “redoing” femininities and masculinities that are available to them. (p. 83) in examining further, the eces also brought attention to how children become fashioned as particular types of gendered subjects. this was evidenced when the eces shared examples of how media, clothing, and the way a child wears their hair informs children’s understandings of gender. as karen wohlwend (2012) states, “children use layers of media to accomplish social work in the classroom in complicated ways: to restrict peers but also to create spaces for accessing, improvising, and animating otherwise unreachable identity texts” (p. 607). the excerpts below further illustrate how children become the gatekeepers for compulsory heteronormative ways of being based on what children wear and how they fashion themselves as gendered subjects. november 2020 57 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research heterocompulsory fashionings beth: i had a boy who wore a dress, and the children said to me, “he’s a boy, he can’t have that on.” “why is he wearing that? he’s a boy.” i informed the children that “he is our friend and he can dress in ways that make him happy,” to which the children responded, “that’s not right.” the children had to place him in a category that met the stereotypical gender format. catie: children will also say to each other, “you’re not allowed to play unless you’re a girl and wearing ‘the dress.’” hanna: i had a girl with very short hair and children would question her appearance: “why does she look like a boy?” the girl was very sensitive about it and it made her pretty angry. the children continually asked her, and she really struggled with having short hair. rea: most boys and girls have preconceived notions that short hair equals male. and long hair for children means you are a girl. we have a girl in our classroom with short hair and she always gets the question “are you a boy?” the children are always questioning her about her hair and if she is a boy. but we recently had a boy enter our program who has long hair, and when the children saw this it broadened their minds a little. we have the conversations with them about the hair length and it’s just hair, and it doesn’t mean whether you’re a boy or girl. catie: every now and again, you’ll have a child say “are you a boy or are a girl?” like typical lunchtime conversation. they go around the table and talk about it. if a child stereotypically looks like a girl and the child says, “i am a boy!” the children want to correct that. “no, like you’re a girl, that’s silly.” they really want to categorize, and they want it to be right. they want it to match the stereotypical gender they look like. sam: i have seen children question another child’s gender. i think they are questioning this child because they don’t understand. i think it’s completely nonjudgmental. butler (1990) suggests that bodies are inscribed within a system of subjectification where normalizing regimes of practice converge in and around the body. it is the traditional gender schema, a form of power, that drives certain social practices and relations of masculinity and femininity in the early learning space. these excerpts show that children work to achieve a heteronormative physicality to strengthen their hierarchical position to others. therefore, eces should offer increased opportunities for children to have access to a diverse range of clothing options and materials and be encouraged to explore their full range of interests without gendered expectations. in the excerpt above, we also see how language and power are tied. children stating “he is a boy, he can’t have that on” or inquiring “are you a boy or girl?” has direct implications for how the children develop meaning making around their own gender and that of their peers. as elizabeth meyer (2007) states, “children learn at a very early age that it is not biological sex that communicates one’s gender to the rest of society; rather it is the signifiers we choose to wear that will identify us as male or female” (p. 19). in this way, their bodies are governed and constructed by hierarchical and dichotomous forms of identification. this signals a call for eces to be vigilant about language that might contribute toward establishing hierarchies of identity and power. we witness glimpses of the eces using language to disrupt normalizing gender performances, as evident when one ece says, “he is our friend and he can dress in ways that make him happy.” this statement shows the degree to which the ece understands the fluidity and flexibility of gender and the importance of expanding children’s gender constructions. this is also evidenced when another ece challenges short hair as a dominant signifier of masculinity by explaining to the children that hair is just hair and it “doesn’t mean whether you’re a boy or girl.” that the eces actively work to critique unconscious views on gender in their learning spaces speaks to their dedication and passion to incite change and create more gender-inclusive opportunities for their children. november 2020 58 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research conclusion in this research, i engaged with nova scotia eces to explore their perceptions of how young children aged 4–5 years perform gender during unstructured play. after conducting focus groups with 15 early childhood educators, this research shows how dominant paradigms of identity categorization continue to proliferate in early learning settings where children largely engage in traditional gender-stereotypical play despite a curriculum that encourages more gender-inclusive pedagogy. butler’s theory of gender performativity is useful here because it shows how these reenactments of stylized gender modes consolidate a strong impression of what it means to be a boy or girl. such acts leave a lasting impression on the children as they work to navigate normalizing regimes of gender practice. thus, children’s gender expression cannot be separated from normalization practices through which power is circulated. given this, there is a strong requirement for eces to actively challenge dominant identity categorizations and raise important questions of how early childhood pedagogy, policy, and practice can begin to destabilize normative gender construction processes. in particular, the findings of this study call for eces to challenge hegemonic heterocompulsory norms for fashioning masculinity and femininity and to critique traditional western constructions of gender identity. that is, there is a need to reconfigure the rigid heteronormative landscape of masculine boy / feminine girl from which the participants in this research speak. macnaughton (2000) highlights the role eces can potentially play to free children of the gender constraints they experience in the classroom. she suggests that “teachers need to find alternative ways of integrating alternative gender storylines into children’s play” and that “teachers can also help children recreate their storylines by creating classroom communities in which children are in constant dialogue and in which multiple and conflicting voices are heard, are allowed and encouraged” (p. 123). as taylor and richardson (2005) remind us, an emphasis on the “fluidity of children’s gender identity performances and their strategic negotiation of multiple and shifting identity positions [can] challenge ... the heteronormative assumptions of stable, discrete and coherent gender categories” (p. 171). similarly, allyson jule (2011) suggests that eces should consider using “alternative and varied metaphors for gender roles when choosing books, stories, and learning activities for the classroom” (p. 33). i hope this research will ignite eces to increasingly consider professional development in the areas of gender and equity. there is a need to understand the complex ways in which traditional gender configurations can dictate, limit, and constrain young children’s capacities to express their gender freely. i would argue that a more ontological space needs to be attended to where educators prioritize the conception of bodies as “open and in the constant state of transformation” (reddington, 2017, p. 61). to move in this direction, we need to critically reflect on our daily pedagogical practices and in this process actively dismiss dominant paradigms of identity categorization that limit the possibilities for children to explore their identities in more open ways. november 2020 59 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aina, o., & cameron, p. 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(2012). the boys who would be princesses: playing with gender identity intertexts in disney princess transmedia. gender education, 24(6), 593–610. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2012.674495 october 2019 6 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research unpacking the mechanisms shaping perceptions of quality in early childhood education research and practice as illuminated by crosscultural conversations between practitioners from britain and jamaica zoyah kinkead-clark and charlotte hardacre zoyah kinkead-clark is a senior lecturer, researcher, and coordinator of early childhood programs at the university of the west indies, mona, jamaica. as a researcher, she is particularly interested in understanding how young children are shaped by their ecological experiences within the home and wider community with the view to explore how educators can build on these experiences in early years classrooms. email: zoyah.kinkeadclark02@uwimona.edu.jm charlotte hardacre is a lecturer in the department of health, psychology, and social science at the university of cumbria, where she has been a faculty member since 2014. she teaches a range of undergraduate modules in the working with children and families degree program, with a focus on early childhood education and intergenerational learning. globally, attempts to develop standards and improve educational outcomes have largely been the impetus behind early childhood education (ece) reform efforts. notwithstanding the difficulty in achieving these objectives, decisions driving such efforts have predominantly revolved around providing “quality” and have responded to questions surrounding “what can we do better?”, “what does it look like?” and “what do we do next?” these questions are important for both researchers and practitioners because, as michele schweisfurth (2014) notes, the global quality imperative has often been “addressed obliquely and couched in terms of its outcomes rather than its processes” (p. 260), shifting the focus of research toward evidence-based practice that uses cause and effect models and quantitative impact measurement (national institute for health and care excellence, 2014; nesta, 2018; stewart-brown et al., 2011). jamaica and britain are two countries that have asked such questions about quality in ece and which are admittedly at different points in articulating a response to them. for instance, in jamaica, it is quite clear that the early childhood sector stands at a unique point in its bid to provide quality services for children in the early years (kinkead-clark, 2015). increasing investments in the sector have resulted in greater student enrollment in early years institutions, improved teacher qualifications, and the implementation of standards to improve the quality of offerings to children from birth through 5 years. likewise, in the uk, focus on ece as the “great equalizer” has been the impetus behind decisions to ensure equity and equality in access to ece offerings across the country (dua et al., 2016). because of the reciprocal relationship between research and practice, policy shifts by the authors’ respective governments have been directly informed by current research guiding ece. this has led to the british government’s pronouncement that all 3and 4-yearold children have a statutory right to ece. as a result, decisions have been made to provide free child care for all 2-year-olds and to subsidize 30 hours of child care for 3and 4-year-olds (pascal et al., 2013). through cross-cultural conversations between teacher educators from jamaica and the uk, this paper explores the drivers of how quality ecd is perceived. our dialogue is grounded in our positional contexts: one from a context that reflects the eurocentric model of “bestpractice” and one that measures itself against it. using thematic analysis, we highlight three overlapping drivers that shape how quality is perceived. our findings eschew the perception that quality is represented in one way. we point to dangers of homogenistic beliefs. we suggest that deficit approaches to local contexts obscure local knowledge and sociocultural factors. key words: knowledge democracy; jamaica; uk; quality; early childhood; cross-cultural discourse october 2019 7 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research it is abundantly clear that in both jamaica and the uk, while decisions driving ece sector development have largely been in response to societal needs, the overarching goals to improve ece offerings have had both positive and negative ramifications. in the uk, for instance, the decision to promote equity in access to affordable and high-quality care has overwhelmingly been in response to the political and social climate seeking to increase access to preprimary schooling, yet in ways that do not disrupt austerity measures (west, roberts, & noden, 2010). coupled with this response, “audit agendas” have also funnelled their way into the mix, driving literacy and numeracy requirements with the goal of putting british children on par with their finnish counterparts (lewis & west, 2016; lloyd, 2015). similarly, in jamaica, a significant factor that has led to much of the change in the ece sector has been the development of policies in support of sector reform fuelled by jamaica’s goal to achieve developed country status by the year 2030. interestingly, jamaica too is dogged by the challenge of how to claim a greater stake in ece but in ways that do not directly impact the meagre coffers of the government. though well intentioned, the undercurrents driving sector development in both britain and jamaica have also had uneven effects. for instance, “big policy” initiatives, including the un’s sustainable development goals and jamaica’s national development plan vision 2030, have triggered a range of “little policy” activities in a ripple effect of intended and unintended consequences. in the uk, the frequent comparisons to the finnish model of education have amplified messages to british teachers of the perceived inferiority of their practices and have resulted in highly stressful learning environments, especially when one considers the proposed “testing” of children in reception classrooms (beliner, 2018). using cross-cultural conversations between two researchers who are also early childhood educators, one from jamaica and one from the uk (see table 1 for a comparative look at ece in jamaica and the uk), this paper explores what informs perceptions of quality in early childhood education and care. this dialogue is informed by our experiences as both practitioners and researchers. our dialogue is also grounded in our positional contexts: one from a context that reflects the eurocentric model of “best-practice” and the other from a context which frequently measures itself against these eurocentric models, which are positioned as the gold standard for developing nations (rao et al., 2014). research aims this study has three aims. it first examines how research contexts guide researchers’ assumptions about quality and how it is constructed. second, we examine the dangers of “knowledge capitalism,” a practice that has largely positioned knowledge construction in the hands of countries from dominant-hegemonic perspectives. finally, through a prominence/perception matrix, we propose a framework for how researchers and other stakeholders can challenge such practices by accepting the need to destabilize commonly assumed “positions of power” and by adopting an awareness of the importance and value of knowledge democracy (hall, 2014). october 2019 8 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research research context table 1 below briefly describes the research context by comparing jamaica and the uk on a number of factors. table 1: comparative look at the ece contexts of jamaica and the uk jamaica the uk developing country developed country lowerto middle-income state economically advanced formal early childhood curriculum formal early childhood curriculum no standard early childhood policy exists established early childhood policy in place educational standards largely driven by the goal of meeting developed country status by 2030 educational standards largely driven by the desire to have a system on par with finland majority of ece centres are privately funded, though the government is seeking to increase involvement in ece government minimally involved in ece with ahands-off approach predominantly taken, though evidence suggests this will soon change ece evolving from its grassroots legacy formally developed ece system explicitly stated minimal educational qualifications for practitioners explicitly stated minimal educational qualifications for practitioners over 95% of 3to 5-year-olds enrolled in preprimary school over 95% of 3to 5-year-olds enrolled in preprimary school ece a national priority ece a national priority literature review in working to understand how the different research contexts we operate in have shaped our assumptions about quality practice in early childhood education, we were first enlightened by studies that describe how research is perceived and ordered in the world, notably through budd hall’s (2014) and rajesh tandon’s (2014) work on knowledge democracy. this led us to engage with scholarship that considers the ways research hierarchies can be subverted. here, as researchers from previously colonized and colonizing countries respectively, we found tula brannelly’s (2016) and gabrielle russell-mundine’s (2012) work on decolonizing research useful. finally, because of the cross-cultural nature of our research, we were also led by morton beiser (2003), brigit van widenfelt and colleagues (2005), and sullivan and cottone (2010). these scholars have helped us to conceptualize the ways in which research can be socially and culturally situated and the importance of finding ways to reveal and navigate normative or deficit framings of early childhood education practice in research. october 2019 9 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research unpacking knowledge democracy: who “owns” knowledge construction? hall (2014) articulates knowledge democracy as an “opening outwards of comfortable assumptions about whose knowledge counts, and how life and knowledge are related to each other” (para. 7). this definition challenges narrow views of what legitimate research can be and the constricted spaces in which legitimate knowledge production can take place. this more open definition is instructive for researchers seeking to engage with, and contribute to, the knowledge base for quality ece research, as it calls for critical evaluation of the suppositional barriers which may enclose or exclude rightful knowledge (mullett, openjuru, & jaitli, 2015). much of the literature on knowledge democracy focuses on capturing and mobilizing grassroots knowledge within communities in order to build local capacity to meet socially just aims (gaventa & cornwall, 2008; hall, jackson, & tandon, 2013; tremblay & de oliveira jayme, 2015). this movement has been part of dismantling the “research monopoly” of the academy because, as gert biesta (2011) points out, “nowadays research is carried out in many places outside the university” (p. 46). despite rising pluralism in research, there has not been a neutral shift whereby knowledge production has transferred from the hands of elite institutions to the hands of “the people.” rather, alongside a growing participatory research movement there has also been an increase in the commodification of knowledge, “with business, media, think tanks and civil society challenging the traditional hegemony of universities as the only recognized sites of knowledge production” (tandon, 2014, p. 2). illuminating this point, biesta (2007) notes that while the university may no longer hold the monopoly on research, it may maintain a “knowledge monopoly” through its power to anoint small-scale community-driven research with legitimacy through publication and partnership activities. it is in relation to this power dynamic that george openjuru and his colleagues (2015) call for broader definitions of knowledge to be affirmed “within the framework of the current mainstream academic and knowledge publication/ sharing systems outside participatory research or community circles” (p. 221). this cautionary note is a reminder that certain types of knowledge have gained acceptance only in certain spaces, creating a fragmented and shifting landscape of recognized knowledge that is dependent not only on who creates but also on who reads, shares, and applies knowledge. accepting plural voices in knowledge construction inadvertently, straightforward conceptions of knowledge democracy may valorize plurality but minimize how the competing voices that emerge are inequitably positioned due to uneven distributions of power. kaz stuart and marnee shay (2018) suggest that this inequity, and associated “epistemological exclusion,” emanates from the preeminent positioning of impact measurements and scientific approaches to data collection and analysis. this perspective is frequently advanced by a dominant neoliberal agenda in global education research and policy making (schweisfurth, 2014). this imbalance could potentially be revealed by delineating how the various producers of knowledge, such as academic institutions, think tanks, and intergovernmental organizations, engage with local communities in practice. further compounding this situation is the obfuscating effect of a tokenistic coopting of the language of participatory research across much commissioned and academic research (rutkowski, 2007). daniel sarna-wojcicki and colleagues (2017) neatly articulated this concern in their study examining the “unnamed” contributors in participatory research. it is also evident in the rhetoric of mission statements and briefing documents of intergovernmental organizations that emphasize the importance of cocreating knowledge and participatory approaches in developing education policy (fredericks, 2009; lingard; 2013; rutkowski, 2007; tremblay & de oliveira jayme, 2015) but are not always transparent about the nature, depth, and challenges of such collaborations. october 2019 10 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research an increasing number of scholars characterize this shift toward a democratic rhetoric around knowledge production in education as part of a global system of neoliberalism that privileges education’s economic role in relation to the creation of human capital (apple, 2000; russell-mundine, 2012; rutkowski, 2007; stuart & shay, 2018). this reading suggests that the hollow incorporation of participatory and collaborative terminology, particularly into commissioned research, is part of a meritocratic discourse that emphasizes local people’s self-determination and their right to be heard but does not necessarily account for the factors that marginalized their voices in the first place. quentin wheeler-bell (2017) adds texture to this concern by noting that while including grass-roots perspectives in the production of knowledge should not be tokenistic or inauthentic, equally researchers should beware assuming marginalized communities automatically and unproblematically provide the best or purest forms of knowledge. thus, gathering knowledge democratically “entails more than including the least advantaged into the deliberative process ... respecting individuals, in this sense, requires subjecting both one’s own opinions as well as those who are oppressed to reasonable arguments” (wheeler-bell, 2017, p. 574). interrogating hierarchical agendas in knowledge production there are many concerns for researchers who are presented with global priorities that are dissonant from the local realities in which they operate. these concerns serve as an impetus for disentangling ideas about quality from politicized versions of best practice (alexander, 2015; boyd, 2009). this need to interrogate hierarchical agendas in knowledge production resonates with the work of levermore and beacom (2009, as cited in mwaanga & adeosun, 2017), who point to “vertical partnerships” in which “northern experts speak on behalf of the south” (pp. 58– 59). this phenomenon, richard giulianotti (2004, p. 22) suggests, is the “cultural legacy of colonialism” wherein, as brannelly (2016) argues, the presumption of expertise is analogous with the assumption of a “dominant and colonising position ... which fails to recognise the expertise and worldview of colonised societies” (p. 4). this position is in line with stuart and shay (2018), who draw on linda tuhiwai smith (2012) and aileen moreton-robinson (2009) to note that “western knowledges continue to dominate the epistemic realm of knowledge production, emphasising white, patriarchal imperialism, while indigenous knowledge continues to be positioned as a paradigm on the peripheral” (p. 7). as well as marginalizing local voices, neocolonial approaches to knowledge also have a homogenizing effect. this, according to douglas hartmann and christina kwauk (2011), can be observed in the way singular solutions, such as sporting, entrepreneurial, or intergenerational programs, are applied to diverse problems. oscar mwaanga and kola adeosun (2017) suggest that the development of broadstroke, panacea solutions is “perpetuated by inter-governmental organisations and corporations who embody the belief that inhabitants of the global south share the same identity and henceforth share the same problems that require the same solutions” (p. 59). methodology this study forms part of a larger body of research. as two researchers from different research contexts, we engaged in a series of cross-cultural conversations to discuss critical issues germane to early childhood education and care in our respective countries. in this piece, once again using cross-cultural conversations, we discussed the underlying issues which reflect notions of how quality is construed in jamaica and the uk. as riitta suhonen and colleagues (2009) suggest, cross-cultural research provides a robust opportunity to advance knowledge by taking a global perspective on critical issues. likewise, as oluwatoyin ilesanmi (2009) proposes, cross-cultural research ultimately seeks to remove barriers and bias in research by acknowledging cultural differences while simultaneously reaffirming global similarities. october 2019 11 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research cross-cultural approaches are a useful response to ethnocentric discourses on knowledge production (beiser, 2003; sullivan & cottone, 2010) because of their potential to contextualize researcher interpretations and situate knowledge within local communities. this possibility is demonstrated in a study by van widenfelt et al. (2005) which found that ethnocentric definitions of “social competence” for children resulted in bias and inaccurate conclusions because of the differing, culturally situated meanings attached to the term. this finding indicates one way in which a cross-cultural approach may help researchers “to reconsider conceptualizations that appear to be universal yet are actually based in western standards and perspectives” (sullivan & cottone, 2010, p. 360). as two researchers who sought to do just this, we engaged in a series of conversations to understand how our individual research studies in our own research contexts compared to each other. having the opportunity to engage in this critical discourse enabled us to challenge much of the rhetoric, biases, and assumptions of how, why, and what fuels perceptions of quality. data collection the data for this research was garnered over 11 and a half hours of conversations unevenly distributed over five meetings via skype. each conversation followed a pattern, which helped us to manage the copious information gathered throughout our discussions. because we understood lack of focus as one of the dangers that might potentially emerge while we engaged in our discussion, prior to commencing each conversation, we outlined an unofficial agenda to detail what we wanted to discuss in the session. in addition to helping to minimize the frequency of straying too far off on tangents, it also helped us to ensure that we were “productive” in each conversation by ensuring we addressed key issues relevant to our contexts (hartung & wilson, 2016). throughout each conversation, both of us took note of comments, questions, and remarks which we individually thought were particularly important to the discussion and the general focus of the research. we found that note taking, rather than recording each conversation, was especially useful. rather than detract from the fluidity of our discussions, note taking served a powerful role in that it really helped us to focus on key points we thought were significant to our own research contexts. thus, our conversations had the potential to be a purposeful yet intuitive exploration of our extant positions in a dialogue enhanced by “immediacy, personal relevance, rich stories, serendipity, improvisation, an open agenda, permissiveness, and risk-taking” (haigh, 2006, p. 14), all of which are distinct elements of conversation which may be found less often in other data collection methods, such as structured interviews or oral surveys. each conversation ended with each of us summarizing the keys points of our discussion as we saw it. this practice served two purposes. first, it helped us to clarify issues that we felt needed to be further explored or explained, and second, it provided a springboard for us to highlight unofficial themes which we felt emerged from each conversation. data analysis the data for this research was analyzed thematically (braun & clarke, 2006; nowell et al., 2017). to do this, we individually coded the data we had collected over the conversations. this information was placed in broad categories based on similarities and differences in meaning. the second phase, axial coding, involved reexamining the previously coded information to determine if the information accurately reflected our discussions. in this phase, categories were also reordered and merged based on a process of “revisiting, de-familiarizing, and alternative casing” (timmermans & tavory, 2012, p. 180). in the third phase, the data was once again recoded, merged, and recoded again. this was done until saturation was reached and inherent themes were extracted. october 2019 12 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research after analyzing the data to determine the themes, we shared them with each other. we were able to look at each other’s suggestions and discuss the similarities in themes we felt emerged from the data. our discussion led us to propose three broad drivers for understanding quality in early childhood education and care: framing, saming, and shaming. findings our cross-cultural conversations revealed three drivers that shape our understanding of how quality is perceived in early childhood education and care. these drivers are summarized in table 2 and then explored in more detail below. table 2: drivers shaping our understanding of how quality is perceived driver overview framing the relational framework we use to consider what quality means. involves framing our research and practice in relation to that of another country. saming the perception that all developed or developing countries have the same sets of strengths and weaknesses. shaming the impact of relegating research from/about developing countries to the margins of research about quality in ece. framing within our conversations, we frequently articulated our understanding of quality through comparisons with other countries, particularly those widely regarded as exemplars of best practice in ece, such as finland and denmark. at first, framing our research in this way was a helpful explanatory tool, bounding our discussions and providing benchmarks for what we perceived as effective approaches, such as child-centered play or outdoor learning. however, this relational framework quickly became constrictive, with charlotte noting that in ece we are always trying to get to a mythical land of best practice, and by focusing on that we spend more time gazing at a horizon we never reach, rather than focusing on our own settings. we both expressed, with frustration, a feeling that our research and practice contexts were being positioned at differing points on a continuum, moving from poor to better to best. we found this particularly concerning because shifting global priorities, investment patterns, and educational trends ensure that notions of quality are in continual flux, and thus the continuum is a shape-shifting entity that cannot be traversed in a straightforward manner. there was also an uneasy sense in our discussion of being relational to one another hierarchically, with charlotte’s practice and research taking place in a developed nation and zoyah’s taking place in a developing nation. this did not fit with our personal perceptions of our own or each other’s practice. thus, simplistic notions that practice in developed nations is “better” than that in developing nations were easy to dismiss as ill-fitting and inaccurate, but we both recognized that deficit narratives are resistant to dismissal in the wider field. zoyah shared: october 2019 13 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research i submitted an article to an international ece journal and was informed it would not be “of interest to an international audience” whilst a paper from sweden (focusing on a similar topic) was included in the edition. my experience is that perspectives from developing nations are often positioned as of marginal interest because they don’t fit with ideas about gold-standard or best practice. we noted that country-level discussions enable glib comparisons to emerge, such as suggesting that ece in one nation would benefit from a shift in practice to become “more like” the ece of another nation. these types of broad-stroke analysis lacked relevance and utility at our person-to-person–level discussion. however, a feeling of disempowerment remained because framing was experienced as something that happens to researchers and necessitates time-consuming deconstruction before each researcher could share their work with the field. saming alongside our experiences around the framing of research, we identified an interrelated driver of conceptions of quality in ece, which we came to refer to as saming (this is distinct from the term othering, which connotes a marginalizing form of difference). our initial discussions about this phenomenon related to the subordinate treatment of research emerging from the developing world, and we described this in line with the concept of othering as a reductive label for people who do not fit in with dominant societal norms. this was evident in our conversations when charlotte shared: it would be unusual to look to jamaica or other developing nations as a place to find aspirational practice—like you might with reggio emilia or denmark. usually, developing nations are seen as niche or special interest only. i feel there’s a sense of exoticism and a fascination with cultural features such as food, music, and festivals but less interest in the intellectual offerings of those countries. however, our analysis of the conversations led us to shift our attribution from one of othering to one of saming. this concept is in line with naomi schor’s (1995, p. 51) discussion of irigaray’s feminist thinking, which contends that while othering acknowledges the notable difference within an individual, saming denies the “objectified other the right to her difference” and thus the specificity that is essential when describing the nature of a person or place is eliminated. this process of saming was evident in our dissatisfaction with the homogenous treatment of groups of nations and their approaches to early childhood education and care. the perception that all developed or developing countries have the same sets of strengths and weaknesses was an unhelpful and persistent facet of our discussion that we often associated with the global priorities operating in our contexts. charlotte articulated this in relation to the impact of the organisation for economic cooperation and development’s (oecd) programme for international student assessment (pisa) in the uk, saying: we are continually made aware of where we sit in the pisa rankings, and the need to improve our position is a real driver for making young children in england “school ready.” zoyah was similarly attuned to the influence of the vision 2030 agenda on a range of associated early childhood policies in jamaica. both participant-researchers found global priorities limiting and reductive to work with because they remove context and overlook diversity. our conversations revealed that our differing contexts did not protect us from either the requirement to meet a common standard or the expectation that one-size-fits-all measures would work to support these endeavours. october 2019 14 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research shaming as we further analyzed our data, the mechanism of shaming was revealed in our experiences of how quality is expressed in early childhood and care. this driver was challenging to confront and we often referred to it obliquely until we established a sufficiently open dialogue. while we had established that dominant hegemonic structures enable a more prolific research output from developed nations, often minimizing or excluding the voices of developing nations, our analysis uncovered two factors in relation to shame. first, it means that researchers from nondominant contexts are relegated to trawling through swaths of research that are only tangentially related to their context. this is a disheartening and disempowering process that engenders a sense of being excluded from the narrative, which zoyah alluded to when she noted: i really have to work with what best fits or what i can make work when it comes to engaging with literature on children’s play, for example, because the idea that children are not playing outdoors anymore is a common thread but is not relevant to the jamaican context. zoyah noted that this challenge had not prevented her from pursuing her own research or attending international conferences to disseminate her work, but she was aware that colleagues had at times internalized the perception that dominant hegemonic perspectives were the gold standard, leading them to privilege textbooks or visiting speakers from these countries over local authors and speakers. the second feature of shaming we identified was the resonance this process of documenting and disseminating narratives about quality has with marginalizing and exclusionary neocolonial attitudes and values. charlotte found these overtones uncomfortable, whereas zoyah noted that recognizing and articulating such concerns was a regular part of her academic life. charlotte explained: i find it a difficult subject to broach as i am so conscious that it may not be my story to tell or that i might articulate it inaccurately or in a patronizing way. which is strange as the uk context is multicultural, and so not only do i want to engage with a wider range of voices, surely it’s an obligation if i want to get a proper sense of the varied communities i conduct research within. thus, shaming relates to the sense of shame researchers might feel when they are excluded from the narrative, to the sense of shame that is internalized about knowledge produced by local people, and also to the sense of shame researchers feel about being part of a marginalizing narrative. discussion and implications this research had three aims. we first sought to unpack our perspectives of knowledge formation/construction as it relates to quality. second, we sought to illuminate the dangers of “knowledge capitalism.” finally, we aimed to provide a framework for how researchers and other stakeholders can dismantle barriers to knowledge democracy, thereby revising or challenging perceptions they may have of quality, who reflects it, and who and what dictates what it ought to be. our findings outline three themes: framing, saming, and shaming. these themes encompass the seemingly broad assumptions about how knowledge is constructed and narrowly defined. they also perpetuate narrow yet commonly held perspectives of what quality ought to look. we argue that removing blinders will also challenge the perceived need for “vertical partnerships.” as suggested by mwaanga and adeosun (2017), these one-sided relationships promote the perspective that dominant hegemonic countries need to “think for”and be the “brain” for developing states. october 2019 15 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in this piece, we challenge this assumption. similar to david rutkowski (2007), michael apple (2000), gabrielle russell-mundine (2012), and kaz stuart and marnee shay (2018), we question the ethics and sense in promoting homogeneity in education, which often comes at the expense of cultural identity. our conversations illuminated the dangers of how this practice manifests in academia within the context of research. development and theoretical underpinning having developed the framing/saming/shaming mechanism to describe the way perceptions of quality are driven in ece, we found that through the act of cross-cultural conversations we had named some of the forces driving perceptions of quality. this naming was revelatory for both of us because it brought previously implicit factors into sharp relief and allowed us to recognize obstacles and barriers we had taken for granted or internalized as part of the norms of producing, disseminating, and applying research. an example of this would be zoyah’s use of best-fit but ultimately unsatisfactory scholarship in her own work because of the dearth of nondeficit-lens studies from or about developing nations. this process of articulating the factors that shape quality served as a transformative dialogue in line with paulo freire’s (2007) observation that “it is in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it” (p. 45). as such, our cross-cultural conversations have contributed to our critical consciousness in that systems of power which may serve to constrain or suppress were acknowledged and can thus be subverted. while many have articulated the need to reveal structures and engender agency through dialogue, practical tools for supporting this process are less prevalent. thus, as action-oriented researchers, we have developed a matrix and associated questions that can be used to engage in a transformative dialogue to develop critical consciousness about the forces that may shape the way research and practice are perceived. the matrix emerged from diagrams we used to describe our experiences of being framed in differing ways in the research space and our frustration at linear models for understanding quality. we present the tool here in the hope that other practitioners and researchers might use it to consider how they perceive their research is positioned in order to navigate, subvert, or challenge entrenched perceptions. description of the matrix the prominence/perception matrix (p/p matrix) is a highly reflexive tool intended not as a prescriptive and rigid measure but rather a way to consider the ways a country’s research output is positioned against others in a manner that makes context a part of this discussion. for example, the danish forest school is an aspirational discourse (williams-siegfredsen, 2012) but is not widely applied. the matrix invites the user to consider their work in relation to that of others and ask questions about the factors which are at work to position research. it resists simple explanations by moving the outputs of knowledge production from a continuum of quality toward more multifaceted explanations. october 2019 16 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1: the prominence/perception matrix. the x axis of the matrix relates to perceptions of the research or practice in a particular country and moves from negative discourse to inspirational discourse. the y axis relates to the level of prominence the research has and moves from niche to broad. thus, research outputs can be mapped onto the matrix rather than being considered in a continuum of quality that should only move in one direction. instead, the matrix offers a useful way to include context in discussions about knowledge production, research, and practice from a range of countries. application and utility the work the researcher does to position research acts to dismantle barriers by problematizing the factors that place research in one quadrant versus another. for example, the researcher asks questions such as “what factors contribute to an aspirational discourse?” or “what factors contribute to more prominence in the research community?” the p/p matrix can be used with a set of questions (see table 3). the first three questions will help the researcher to position their work and the work of otherson the matrix. the second three questions will help the researcher to consider why this positioning is the case. the last three questions are calls to action which will help the researcher subvert or navigate this positioning. we would welcome further research that applies this matrix in practice from both dominant-hegemonic and subordinate positions. october 2019 17 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 3. questions underpinning the use of the prominence/perception matrix 1. position the relevant contexts 2. evaluate the positioning of contexts 3. address the positioning of contexts does research from my context regularly appear in journals relevant to my field? what factors contribute to the positioning of my context on the x axis of the matrix? can i challenge the positioning of my context in the research i disseminate? how aspirational is the practice in my context for other contexts? what factors contribute to the positioning of my context on the y axis of the matrix? can i apply research from contexts similar to mine in order to challenge dominant discourses? when developing practice and policy in my context, which research contexts are held up as aspirational? what factors contribute to the positioning of other contexts on the matrix? can i challenge the status quo about best practice in my context at the policy level? conclusion it is hoped this study will contribute to the movement seeking to dismantle barriers to knowledge democracy. this hope addresses the driver of framing, which seeks to homogenize perceptions of quality. using cross-cultural conversations, we drew attention to the dangers of homogenistic beliefs and how they manifest in the spaces in which we exist as researchers. as brannelly (2016) suggests, the “cultural legacy of colonialism” must be challenged, which would address the perception of quality being driven by saming. value and knowledge about quality can come from the “formerly colonized” as well as those from the dominant hegemonic position. as two researchers who have made the effort to engage in cross-cultural conversations, we deliberately endeavoured to challenge our current biases and assumptions about quality. this included eschewing the idea that developed countries represent the pinnacle of good practice, considering quality as a process as well as an outcome, and developing a practical tool for engaging in transformative dialogue that rejects the “shaming dialogue” about the forces shaping perceptions of quality. overall, by uncovering the tacit forces that shape notions of quality, we encourage others to transform how they articulate the drivers that silence practice and research about quality in diverse contexts. october 2019 18 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alexander, r. j. 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(2012). understanding the danish forest school approach. london, uk: routledge. november 2019 44 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice responding to reggio emilia: researching with materials to cultivate an ecology of practice in early childhood education kelly boucher kelly boucher is an education consultant and academic based in regional victoria, australia. an arts specialist with broad and varied experience teaching in both the arts and education sectors, her research primarily focuses on children’s relations with materials in early childhood and questions how materials might be seen as doing significant pedagogical work with children. in her own studiobased arts practice she engages with materials and processes typically used in early childhood settings in order to “think materials otherwise” and generate nontypical material questionings of/with the world. kelly also works across early childhood services as a pedagogical facilitator to active critical dialogue with/in theory and practice. email: kellyboucherarts@gmail.com after the study tour: a starting point my story begins a week after returning from the australian study tour of reggio emilia in april 2014. i am a lecturer in early childhood teacher education, and i’m mentoring a group of preservice teachers on their teaching placement. we are running a weekly playgroup (a pre-kindergarten program for children 0–3 years old). the building we are using is located in the far back corner of a primary school in an outer suburb of melbourne. the windows are frosted and each wall is painted a different, bright colour. the tables and chairs match—red, blue, yellow, green. this room smells slightly of old sausage fat from the two barbeques that have been stored here (it is a multipurpose room after all). i feel devastatingly uninspired. only a few weeks ago my feet wobbled across the cobblestone piazzas of a town in northern italy. i marvelled at the effervescent orange colour of my daily aperitivo and i buzzed with stories, images, ideas, questions, and feelings from the days spent with academics and practitioners from all over the world as we engaged in dialogue with the educational project that is reggio emilia. buoyed by the excitement and richness of experiencing the infant and toddler centres first hand, i was convinced my teaching and practice would change immediately and the whole australian early childhood education system would travel effortlessly along with me in this inspired state. here, in this room, sausage fat lingering, i pick up a slightly sticky bunch of plastic grapes from a container labelled “home corner” and loudly announce to the students, “right! tip it all out!” they look at me confused as i up-end the boxes of resources into a pile in the middle of the room. i am “busting out” these labelled materials and mixing them up. the pile becomes a mountain. children arrive and the pile is strewn about as they rummage. someone places a red plastic scoop onto the red table and it “disappears”—a colour hunt ensues. children run about collecting objects to place on the corresponding coloured tables. children are gleeful, focused, determined. then, it happens. i notice a few children gathered at the split between the green and yellow tables. they are in serious discussion about a dinosaur toy and which table it should go on. the dinosaur has light green scales and a yellow underbelly. after much deliberation, the children carefully this article traces an artist/pedagogue’s work with materials, children, and educators in response to a reggio emilia study tour experience and how this work was understood, positioned, and activated at a children’s service in australia. through situated, collaborative, everyday materials practices, a group of educators generated collective responses to colonized, land-based, neoliberal conditions. artist/pedagogue, educator, and material stories describe how inspiration and ideas were mobilized and reshaped into a context-specific ecology of practice with materials. key words: reggio emilia; pedagogy; materials; early childhood; ecology of practice; practitionerresearcher november 2019 45 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice place the dinosaur on the green table with its head reaching over onto the yellow table because “it is green with a little bit of yellow.” (see image below. except where noted, photos are by the author.) in this moment something shifts in me and i suddenly realize how materials support children’s learning in multiple ways. by removing materials from their usual context and “busting them out” of the confines of their “correct” place and usage, materials become something other than categorized, preconceived inert plastic objects—developmental tools to be played with in particular ways. here, materials offer questions. materials generate wonderings; materials pile, stack, roll, balance, pattern, and clatter. materials move with children in multiple ways. materials demand that we grapple with ideas that are different from dominant early childhood ways of knowing and doing. old, sticky plastic grapes and a green/yellow dinosaur offer a material encounter that enlivens me in an uninspiring room. materials call us to attention, offer uncertainty, and pose questions. studio pedagogies i situate myself in the australian early childhood context as an art specialist, an educator whose arts practice informs my teaching and whose teaching informs my arts practice—materials are what i do. my interest in the reggio emilia approach was piqued when i learned of the role of the atelier and of the value placed on the atelierista as an artist/pedagogue who facilitates the visual languages as central to children’s research. to step into the ateliers in reggio emilia was a fascinating and liberating experience. guided by atelieristas, children’s projects and studio processes are layered, insightful, political, and highly sophisticated and would easily sit side by side with the work of many contemporary artists. it was exciting to follow the rich makings, doings, and voices of children made visible in these dedicated studio spaces that intentionally cultivate the aesthetic experience. my places of practice however, were a far cry from the rich, layered, and carefully cultivated aesthetic experiences of an atelier in reggio emilia. unable to create a dedicated, working studio space to teach in at my university, i needed to change the way i taught the visual arts in an education setting, as well as find a place to experiment with environments and generate pedagogical questions that responded to my context and my now burgeoning material wonderings. i began a few projects with schools and child care services to regenerate classroom spaces and activate arts-based learning opportunities for children. during this time, however, i was hyper-aware of the uptake of the reggio november 2019 46 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice aesthetic as a particular “look” and a marketing spiel about how services were “doing reggio.” i was not comfortable to continue this journey of generating arts projects and curricula in structures where an understanding of time, processes, and a commitment to deeper critical questions and pedagogical intentions were not valued. i was also recognizing that while the reggio approach had sparked my thinking in ways that validated my artist-educator orientation, i was struggling with the reggio inspiration as place to be and whether i could even remain there. as an arts-based scholar working in the early childhood space, i take up ideas and theories through my artist lens first, then overlay ideas and questions onto early childhood research and practice. developmental psychology has never been foregrounded in my thinking. in traditional australian early childhood education, materials are integrated into practice as developmental tools that scaffold children’s learning. through an arts lens, i see materials differently than merely the objects that children use and make with. i attend to materials as questions, movements, and “doings.” in the months following my visit to reggio emilia, i worked hard to translate my experience and my arts-based approach to practice in the australian context, yet i found i was becoming increasingly frustrated by practices that positioned materials as static objects acted upon by children in early childhood classrooms. my materials thinking was now the “piling up” and vibrant movement that were generated in that stinky, overcoloured, and unloved room months before. my materials piles challenged me to rummage, to clatter about, and to search for ideas that more specifically articulated alternatives to the dominant materials discourse i was grappling with. material encounters: a turning point around this time, my colleague travelled to canada (september 2014) to attend a symposium (learning how to inherit in colonized and ecologically challenged life worlds) that brought together scholars from a variety of different research disciplines to generate new ways of thinking, being, and doing in response to the intensifying ecological challenges of the 21st century. on her return she handed me a booklet and announced, “i think you’ll like this!” i flicked through the catalogue of an exhibition, material encounters—a three-year arts-based research project by canadian scholars veronica pacini-ketchabaw, sylvia kind, and laurie m. kocher about materiality in early childhood where materials were positioned as encounters and events. i poured over images of children engaging with materials: clay, charcoal, paint, blocks. i read it from cover to cover. my thinking shifted deeply. within this new encounter i felt validated as an arts-based educator. while materials are at the forefront of artsbased pedagogies, what i found was that materials discourse in education, for the most part, responded to materials as a medium to achieve a certain technique or style of “doing” as outcome. however, i could now see that materials were the process, outcome, and participants of/within practice. collaborative researching with materials-asparticipants in practice offered me a way to activate my visual and materials sensibilities in critically responsive practices embedded in theory. these ideas and doings generated by the canadian scholars were something i hadn’t come across before. they offered a departure from a static euro-western materials discourse into a common worlds conceptual framework—a framework that i could think with to translate my ideas, questions, and uncertainties about how i might be responding to the reggio approach and the material pedagogies i was producing. a common worlds conceptual framework (taylor & giugni, 2012; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015) pays attention to bringing together nature and culture, not the separation of the two. these posthuman theories influenced by donna haraway “focus upon the ways in which our past, present and future lives are entangled with those of other beings, non-living entities, technologies, elements, discourses, forces, landforms” (common worlds research collective, 2019). to address dominant early childhood educational paradigms and move into other ways of thinking and doing, i use a common worlds orientation to posthuman theories as well as postdevelopmental ideas to situate my thinking and november 2019 47 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice practice. a postdevelopmental orientation to early childhood education responds to euro-western developmental worldviews as being interpretive frameworks that universalize children’s everyday worlds (blaise, 2014; paciniketchabaw, 2011; parnell & iorio, 2018). a common worlds orientation and postdevelopmental pedagogies shift away from euro-western developmental logics of child-centered practices and move toward complexity (paciniketchabaw et al., 2015) in order to generate affirmative, experimental, and responsive pedagogies. by opening up to more-than-human knowledges, these thinkings and doings work to challenge human exceptionalism and “decenter the human from the construction of knowledge” (myers, 2015, p. 7). by thinking with materials as more-than-human others inhabiting kindergarten spaces, i became more uncomfortable with how i was inhabiting and working with my inspirations from reggio. while these inspirations gave me anchors for understanding, positioning, and activating my work as an arts specialist in early childhood spaces, the child-(human)centric approach within reggio didn’t seem to offer a way to respond to the posthuman ideas i was beginning to cobble together. using common worlds ideas as a conceptual framework as well as the material encounters project (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2014) offered me a way to respond to my reggio inspirations in australia. thinking with more-than-human knowledges with materials in an australian context poses complex questions about settler colonial narratives inscribed on indigenous land, about resource consumption, and about environmental precarity. thinking with more-than-human knowledges attends to settler colonial, euro-western material relations and was something i needed to find in order to shift from reggio “inspired” to attuning to materials and arts-based practices within my own context, worldview, ethics, politics, and relationships. i needed to “common world” my reggio experience in order to ask questions of and complexify my practice and to be accountable to my everyday pedagogical decisions. finding a place to be clare court children’s service (clare court)1 is an integrated service in melbourne, australia, that combines long day care and kindergarten within a large building surrounded by outdoor areas and gardens. clare court is located next to a parkland and creek. my relationship with clare court began as a visiting lecturer supervising preservice teachers on teaching placement at the service, then as an arts education consultant facilitating arts-based materials inquiry with a group of educators. my role as artist/pedagogue offers a rethinking of taken-for-granted materials practices in order to move into more complex pedagogical dialogues within the service. yet, what does complexity look like for practitioners in the everyday? what are material “doings” and how might these ideas be offered to practitioners to work with in amongst curriculum, standards, frameworks, policy, documentation, family needs, nap times, and nappy changes? what do educators do to support materials in their settings? how do materials participate with children? how are children supported to pay attention to and be present with materials? how might we begin our research by positioning materials as questions/doings/concepts? what does it mean to support materials in/with this place? how do i mobilize these ideas and material questionings and make them meaningful to the colonized, land-based, extractive, neoliberal conditions (nxumalo, vintimilla, & nelson, 2018) that influence pedagogies at clare court, australia? and what specific practices, concerns, ethics, and politics are required to grapple with a more-than-human philosophy of material relationalities in this place? across three years, i have offered my materials inspiration through situated, responsive, collaborative everyday practices with educators and children at clare court. as an artist/pedagogue, i bring my own reggio inspirations and generative thinking with materials into different classrooms at clare court. through bimonthly workshops, educators participated in radical materials experimentation to unpack common worlds theories while experimenting with specific materials in a studio environment. weekly one-on-one meetings with educators in classrooms and november 2019 48 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice play spaces both support critical reflection on emerging materials practice(s) and theoretical understandings and generate lively, ongoing pedagogical documentation of the work. through these ongoing processes, i’ve come to understand that initial reggio-inspired provocations are made meaningful in the clare court context through thinking material relations as an ecology of practice. an ecology of practice in this setting is the collective cultivation of rich, situated pedagogies made up of multiple layers of concepts, ideas, knowledges, and doings with materials. this microbial thinking takes my initial troubled reggio inspirations into the service and reshapes those ideas into a clare-court-specific ecology of practice with materials. practitioner stories the following three stories are from educators at clare court, all at different stages of their careers and thinking. this core group of educators have worked with me over two to three years to rethink materials in their classrooms. these practitioner stories offer examples of how materials are thought otherwise, grappled with, piled up, and reshaped collectively with educators to animate the complexities of doing with materials as an ecology of practice. the educators are collective material thinkers activating the centre with their questioning and robust conversations about/to/with materials via art-based processes. their collective grappling with materials has cultivated the idea of paper/cardboard relationalities as an ecology of practice that supports thinking material encounters differently. these stories show how collaborative materials research questions and conversations travel throughout the centre offering a dynamic pedagogical force for generating complexity rather than certainty. paper interventions, by magalie sanassee cardboard calls to paper. cardboard offers paper to the room. paper intervenes in educator’s thinking. paper launches into children’s experience. paper fills a room. paper removes toys and moves furniture. paper activates space. paper responds to ideas. paper offers us questions. i have always been keen on using natural/recycled materials in my practice. as a child living in mauritius, i remember spending hours playing with mud and drawing with chalk on every surface possible. when my dad trimmed the mango trees in the yard, he would leave all of the branches in a pile on the ground for days so my sisters and i could play through a mountain of branches and leaves. they were the best memories of my childhood. i guess i was always inclined to fall in love with materials and connect with their simplicity and complexity. the consideration of materials as joint participants in learning (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2016) is a completely new concept to me. this concept offers me a different view of looking at, understanding, and “doing” materials in the early years programs. our sessions with kelly set the processes in motion to question the ethicality of materials (paper/cardboard) in our classrooms and to investigate their truths. quite honestly, i had never considered that materials owned a story or had been on a journey before landing in my world. what life did they have before? i wondered why it was essential for me to remain in question with this material. would the experience of paper (in the classroom) affect my own? undertaking this work, i soon found myself in a state of cathartic realization as i began to recognize the layers of complexity living inside a tiny piece of paper. the questions that were thrown at me dazzled me completely. where did that paper come from? who made it? who cut the tree it came from? who transported it? perhaps it was packed by someone on a different continent—what were their working conditions? was this paper made ethically? questioning paper almost drove me to mental exhaustion. i looked at a piece of paper in my hands—what new trajectory was i to give it now? should i trash it or prolong its life? paper unexpectedly became political and i started to look beyond its mere physicality. as i was getting my head around new concepts, i was also becoming november 2019 49 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice nervous about sharing this new thinking with my colleagues. while materiality offered me new ways of celebrating materials and deepening my pedagogical insights, i became anxious about a possible rejection of this artistic inquiry by my peers. thinking with materials in this way was so remote from developmental and child-centric theories—would my team be ready for a shift in their thinking and take on this conceptual evolution? the beginning of our journey with materials is to gain an understanding of the materials (paper/cardboard) and think about their place in the world. we start by asking whether these materials were destined to be trashed. we wonder about whether we have a responsibility in changing their trajectory. what does it mean to engage with these materials in an ethical and sustainable way? with pedagogical support from kelly, these “critical material questionings” guide us to shift the way we engage with materials. it is encouraging to be on this journey with my colleagues and to be able to talk to each other about our fears as well as share project ideas. i am very nervous about whether raman, my co-room leader, will be open to these new ideas and whether she will join me on this adventure. luckily, she is, and we begin to question paper together and invite other educators to rethink materials more intentionally. at this point, kelly poses the question of how we as educators might support materials in our early years classroom. what do we do to help materials stay here? cardboard and paper are repositioned in the classroom, and we question how they might be asking us to learn in different ways. we realize time is crucial for educators and our children (0–2-year olds) to settle with these new ideas and become confident to research with materials. in our classroom, materials reinvent play and become alive in different spaces and conditions: inside, outdoors, outside in the large parklands that surround our centre, in the rain, during windy days. day after day, we look forward to what paper and cardboard can become or do with us. during our encounters with materials, time is so crucial. the paper/cardboard offerings become more thoughtful and intentional. the coming together of materials and children starts to happen in new spaces and we witness some very intense paper-cardboard-body movements (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2016). what stands out the most is how materials move through space and time. paper and cardboard invite new ways of thinking, doing, and questioning. the materials have a force of their own—inviting the children to assemble them in so many ways. paper and cardboard become structures, shelters, and secret places. paper and cardboard dance, make music, travel, and move with the children and educators. during this time, we also notice there is a lot of skin-to-skin contact with materials. the child-material intimacy is reciprocal and enjoyable. paper tensions are also occurring along the way. some educators question the “mess and waste,” especially when we launch a 10-metre-long roll of paper into the yard. there is disapproval and it is evident that the presence of paper in the outdoor space makes some educators feel uncomfortable. over time outside, this paper becomes inscribed with marks made by human and nonhuman (dirt, food scraps, mud, rain, footprints, birds, trees, the creek, tears, creases) and is perceived as “dirty” and “a waste of good paper” by some educators/staff. we assertively support paper to stay in the outside areas. paper asserts itself here too, and we are shown how cardboard and paper become imprinted with our experiences as we connect more deeply with these materials. thinking through these material and child relations broadens our pedagogical practices and informs our thinking about children’s artistic processes and learning. as i continue this work, i am generating a sense of deep care for paper. i have repositioned paper as a powerful agent that acts on me and is acted on. paper and i join together to construct learning; we are entangled in each other’s worlds and transform each other daily. i am keen to help drive this fresh pedagogical movement at our service and bring it to the children in my care. november 2019 50 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice mess and chaos, by joanne schloss children are making piles of stuff in the yard. sandpit toys, sticks, rocks— anything they find is brought together and piled up. i first notice one under the big oak tree—a pile began and then other children pitched in to build it. over the days, piles popped up everywhere. sometimes children interacted with the piles, but mostly it was about the gathering of stuff. lots of educators find this activity annoying because it is difficult to pack up and is seen as pointless mess making by some. my colleague steph has also noticed this gathering and pile making, and is watching with interest and curiosity. we both talk about this interesting behaviour. eventually steph facilitates the making of a huge pile inside a truck tire we have in the yard. cardboard tubes, branches, wood, a large board from an art easel. children are interested, curious. they climb on, add to, take away from, and talk about the pile. then paint shows up. i don’t know who put it there, but i add brushes. children paint. they start on the outside of the tire, then begin to lean in. they seem to want to paint every part of the pile. some children stand back and observe their peers while others are active and get right into it. children climb as they paint; they reach up and lean over; the branches and cardboard tubes support them. a couple of the children want to get right into the creation and stretch to reach different parts of it. the tubes and logs hold them and challenge them at the same time. poppy comes to the pile and picks up a paintbrush. she doesn’t paint the pile, she paints her face. she then holds the paintbrush above her head and slowly twirls around, painting the sky. viewing materials as active in children’s learning and as posing questions to us has introduced me to endless creative possibilities and completely changed my view of my work. suddenly, who i really am and the creative practice i am so passionate about is welcome. i am able to be myself and to come to work and feel challenged and excited. it feels like where i should be. i now feel free to learn with materials and children together and to engage differently with my creativity and practices of sustainability. thinking with materials as practice has made me feel more involved, connected, and passionate about my work and has given me a deeper connection to my coworkers. through the pedagogical facilitation and focused learning kelly offers, i now share ideas and enthusiasm with like-minded coworkers, which gives me a new sense of purpose. my days feel more meaningful. even though i have been working at this service for nearly 10 years, it’s in the last two i have felt have the most connected and content in my job. after working for so many years in early childhood, rethinking materials in our practice and questioning materials differently has given children real autonomy, the likes of which i have not seen before. the multifaceted learning with materials supports children in so many ways—one single piece of paper can be a blanket, a cave, or a cloak. materials invite children to imagine. material provocations, by carley rawle engaging in the learning sessions facilitated by kelly on november 2019 51 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice thinking with art materially, i am inspired to disrupt what is commonplace in early childhood art education. to disrupt the ongoing cycle of children engaged in teacher-directed activities understood through the lens of developmental psychology. i seek to activate moments of experimentation where materials are eventful and participatory, where ideas are unearthed in creative processes and where meaningful discourses emerge through experience. to cultivate an experimental studio space is not without risk; it requires courage, creativity, a willingness to attend to the unknown and embrace a little chaos in the flow of experience. as an artist and teacher, i am excited to push boundaries and shift how we engage in material practices in early childhood education. i empty the art studio of all typical early childhood art resources. i roll long sheets of paper out across the floor. i travel with paper intuitively within the space, improvising where it lands as it folds, curves, and intersects around the room. paper draws my attention to tiny alcoves and hidden spaces materializing amongst the layering. i think with paper’s potential playfulness and i imagine young children and paper in relation with one another in this space. paper pulls me in and i am curious and full of questions: what are paper’s histories before it arrives ready to use in the studio? as a tree, how long did it grow for? on whose country? how do we care with/for paper? the studio is quiet. i notice paper fluttering with a passing breeze, a tiny movement activating the lively presence of nonhuman agency. how will paper and children join in and participate together in this material encounter? what connections will children receive? how will paper respond? i am captivated in this moment, in this space, attuning to and dwelling in the unknown and the energies and forces yet to entangle. i invite the children into the studio. it has been nearly two years since i facilitated this experience and paper is continuing to move with me in multiple studio landscapes: the classroom, outdoor garden, parklands, and more. working with kelly throughout this time has activated socio-material practices at our centre. as educators we are more connected and we are now in dialogue with each other. the corridors of our centre are meeting places to negotiate and think through our practices. this focused and intentional pedagogical support has enlivened and influenced a group of educators to think differently, and i am wondering about how, as a community of teacher-researchers, we might think of our centre as becoming activated as an “ecology of practice.” photo by carley rawle. materials as coevolutionary practice(s) each of these stories shows complexity: the layered moments, questions, conditions, knowledges that entangle with materials. each of these stories shows how educators’ thinking with materials might be explained as being november 2019 52 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice coevolutionary. pacini-ketchabaw, kind, and kocher (2016) refer to clay as an ecology. given that ecology is defined as the study of organisms in the environment and their relationship and interrelatedness to and with each other, we might then respond to clay as soil, made up of multiple particles, minerals, and microbes—clay is living as we are living and clay responds to and with us in a variety of ways. responding to the idea that an ecology “demand[s] that we think and feel coevolution” (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2016, p. 60), carley sees herself and her co-educatorresearchers shifting, changing, and coevolving as they are opened up to radically different ways of being in the world. pacini-ketchabaw et al. pose the question, “how might ecological thinking be practised in early childhood education?” (p. 60), to which carley responds: “when i think about how the pedagogical questions you pose to us move with/in/between our practices within the centre, i cultivate an image of early childhood practitioners as in active dialogue with each other, emerging together in relation with materials, children, objects, place, and environments, inspiring each other to stay in the research and to dwell with the changing conditions that arise from day to day. through these complex material relations, we are becoming more connected, thus, we are becoming coevolutionary.” in order to practice ecological thinking in early childhood, here, in this place full of connections, on settlercolonial-inscribed land, are educators in fact cultivating an ecology of practice? if so, how might a variety of conditions be generated to support the ecology? how might ideas, questions, processes, and materials “pile up” together? just like the piles of old resources in the unused classroom, or the piles of mango leaves and branches from a tropical mauritian childhood, or indeed, the piles of stuff gathered for days by children in the yard of clare court. what do these leaves, branches, microbes, clay, soil, paper, thoughts, pedagogical intentions, time, and critical conversations become? what next? situating myself as an artist/pedagogue at clare court has not been without its challenges. the management and leadership team are open to and supportive of my methods, however, it has taken years of regular visits, meetings, and learning sessions to generate the relationship i now enjoy with the centre and educators. this work is ongoing. this work takes time and requires the support of teams of people who value and are willing to cultivate relationships like these and invest in generative ideas that reconceptualize practices. through the experience of pedagogical innovation and the energy it creates, we respond to multiple questions and also tensions as we travel collectively with ideas and doings. the practitioner stories in this article show that, to be pedagogically innovative, we need to ask ourselves why we put at risk that which we have always done and how we might be accountable to doing otherwise. this work grapples with ideas about how materials might continue to support participatory and generative pedagogical practices with children. in doing this work, my risk taking for and accountability to materials practices has transformed my initial reggio inspirations from starting-points into radical relationalities with materials in situated australian contexts. in doing this work collectively, we cultivate an ecology of practice. november 2019 53 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references blaise, m. (2014). interfering with gendered development: a timely intervention. international journal of early childhood, 46(3), 317– 326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-014-0122-9 common worlds research collective. (2019). about the collective. retrieved from https://commonworlds.net/about-the-collective/ lenz taguchi, h. (2009). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. london, uk: routledge. myers, c. (2015). children, among other things: entangled cartographies of the more-than-human kindergarten classroom (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?::no:10:p10_etd_subid:105261 nxumalo, f., vintimilla, c. d., & nelson, n. (2018). pedagogical gatherings in early childhood education: mapping interferences in emergent curriculum. curriculum inquiry, 48(4), 433–453. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2018.1522930 pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2011). developmental theories and child and youth care. in a. pence & j. white (eds.), new perspectives in child and youth care (pp. 19–32). vancouver: ubc press. pacini-ketchabaw, v., kind, s., & kocher, l. (2016). encounters with materials in early childhood education. london, uk: taylor & francis. pacini-ketchabaw, v., kind, s., kocher, l., wapenaar, k., & kim, b. (2014). material encounters [exhibition catalogue], capilano university studio art gallery, march 1–19. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: complexifying early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. north york, on: university of toronto press. parnell, w., & iorio, j. m. (2018). vivid life and learning: rendering thorough illustrations rather than chopping stories to bits. in j. m. iorio & w. parnell (eds.), meaning making in early childhood research: pedagogies and the personal (pp. 1–7). new york, ny: routledge. taylor, a., & giugni, m. (2012). common worlds: reconceptualising inclusion in early childhood communities. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 108–119. https://doi.org/10.2304%2fciec.2012.13.2.108 taylor, a., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2015). learning with children, ants, and worms in the anthropocene: towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. pedagogy, culture & society, 23(4), 507–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015. 1039050 (endnotes) 1 since this article was written, clare court children’s services has transitioned to gowrie clare court. september 2019 85 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research “a place where it was acceptable to be unacceptable”: twenty-first-century girls encounter nineteenth-century girls through amateur theatricals and dance heather fitzsimmons frey heather fitzsimmons frey is an assistant professor of arts and cultural management at macewan university in edmonton, with a phd in drama, theatre, and performance studies from the university of toronto. she studies arts and performance for, by, and with young people, in historical and contemporary contexts, and her research is published in a variety of books and journals, including girlhood studies, jeunesse, oxford review of education, youth theatre journal, canadian literature and imaginative geographies (2018) and ignite: illuminating theatre for young people (2016). her phd and banting postdoctoral fellowship at york, the institute for dance studies at the university of toronto, and many families and wonderful young people supported this research. email: fitzsimmons-freyh@macewan.ca performance-based historiography means working with live, thinking, and feeling humans and using performance practices as tools for generating knowledge about the past that processes of examining historically located archives and material objects may not reveal. as claudia mitchell (2016) writes of girlhood studies research, “we do all have to start somewhere” (p. 99). this self-reflexive article hearkens back to 2014 when i began my own performance-based historiography research that aimed to put girls at the centre of the projects. as i have described previously (fitzsimmons frey, 2016) my approach is based on porous conceptions of time inspired by doreen massey (2005) and rebecca schneider (2011). the focus is on developing knowledge through what i call “encounters” between white, middleclass, 19th-century english girls and 21st-century girls living in toronto (whom i describe in more detail below). i like the implications in the word “encounter” of casual, chance, and unexpected. an encounter is brief, and offers the potential of a flash of insight or an intense emotional response, but does not suggest the time to develop a deep relationship. an encounter is often about first impressions and lingering questions—and these questions shape the next steps of research. in practice, 21st-century girls participate in workshops and creationbased projects, revealing difficult-to-get-at information about 19th-century girls and simultaneously creating spaces for 21st-century participants to theorize their own lives. marlis schweitzer (2019) observes, “as historical subjects marginalized by age and gender, girls exist on the fringes of theatre and performance history, rarely popping into historical narratives except in exceptional this self-reflexive article about girl-centered, performance-based historiography uses carole lynne d’arcangelis’s cautions about selfreflexive research writing and caroline caron’s concerns about girl studies as activist research focused on social change to explore how the presence of girls and listening to girls shaped the knowledge that was created. by staging encounters between living 21st-century girls and 19th-century girls, the process reveals possibilities about the lives of girls in both eras. encounters drew attention to issues concerning power, gender, agency, present-mindedness, emotion work, embodiment, and racialized identities. the article demonstrates how girls’ actions and insights complicated understandings about 19th-century girlhoods and at-home theatricals and, simultaneously, exposed power structures influencing their lives today and opportunities to work within or subvert them. working through concepts like “radical reflexivity” (d’arcangelis), “theatrical ethic of inappropriation” (michelle liu carriger), “the wince” (stephen johnson), and the “foolish witness” (julie salverson), the article describes research pivot points and argues that ways of listening to girls alters how meaning is made. key words: performance-based research; girlcentered research; 19th-century girlhoods; at-home theatricals september 2019 86 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research situations” (p. 1), and my participatory performance research demonstrates how significant it can be to put girls of today and girls of the past into the centre of the inquiry, analysis, and understanding. listening to girls is the most important facet of my research methodology, and through the performance-based research process i learned that when i ask 21st-century girls to act as bridges to the past, they and their insights reach toward possible futures. when i wrote my dissertation (subtitled performing and playing with possible futures) i understood futures to refer to the white, middleand upper-class 19th-century english girls whose lives were long since past but who, during their girlhoods, had futures to look forward to (fitzsimmons frey, 2015). but as i reflected on ideas generated through performance-based historiography and girl-centered research during my postdoctoral fellowship, i came to believe that by acting, dancing, trying on costumes, and creating theatre in particularly 19th-century ways, the 21st-century girls were also, significantly and often critically, reaching toward possible futures for themselves, their communities, and research itself. this article is arranged in a series of vignettes. each vignette clusters around experiences i staged in order to work through questions about 19th-century girlhoods and performance. each vignette contains a story that reveals how listening to girls and paying attention to girls’ actions offered unexpected insights that altered my practice and my thinking. the first encounter addresses power, gender, and agency; the second engages with present-mindedness, care, and emotion work; the third is about dance, racialized identities, embodiment, and defying expectations. for each vignette i describe the pivotal research questions, and then i focus on moments when girl participants radically influenced my process, analysis, and understanding, not only of 19th-century amateur theatre practices, but of the way this methodology engages with girls today. in a way, the vignettes can be seen as a kind of charting—claudia mitchell (2016) argues that charting the field of girlhood studies is “a strategy for getting at imagined pasts and imagined futures” (p. 96). charting these vignettes reveals moments when girls—who were encountering imagined pasts—changed the future of my research. i take seriously caroline caron’s (2016) concerns about girl-focused research as a rights-based approach to research and activism: caron challenges researchers to consider whether their work with girls actually pursues social change (p. 122). i am also holding onto carole lynne d’arcangelis’s (2018) concern that self-reflexivity is “a fraught mechanism for grappling with and dismantling structural privilege” (p. 340), and that even though selfreflexivity can demonstrate how “researcher subjectivity shapes knowledge production … the goal is not simply to tell one’s story, but to do so in a way that sheds light on broader structures of power and meaning making” (p. 341). as a white, settler, feminist scholar and artist, i aim for d’arcangelis’s “radical reflexivity” (pp. 350–351) inspired by sara ahmed (2004). true to doreen massey’s (2005) and rebecca schneider’s (2011) porous and slippery conceptions of time and space, the research process isn’t linear, nor does the arrangement of vignettes attempt a kind of progressive narrative with a false promise of climax, catharsis, and denouement. nevertheless, the vignettes respond to mitchell’s invitation to feminist scholars to embark upon charting (p. 99), demonstrating that positioning girls as drivers of each trajectory alters the way we can understand the map, the narrative, and the shape of research. throughout the research process and through embodiment and thoughtful reflection, girls uncovered the past and also reflected on how they can change how they approach their lives today. setting the scene: girls and 19th-century amateur, at-home theatricals throughout the 19th century, at-home theatricals were a popular leisure activity among england’s middle classes. whenever i offer workshops related to this research, i ask participants to describe family gatherings where they created performances for the adults with siblings, relatives, or friends. nearly everyone has a story, and memories range from highly involved reimaginings of annie or swan lake, to at-home piano recitals, to nearly impromptu september 2019 87 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research performances featuring silly, unrehearsed improvised play. while i suspect that the impulses that produce the childhood urges to create and perform for the adults are similar across the 21st and 19th centuries, in the 19th century there was a thriving commercial industry around the phenomenon of “getting up” a play at home, including published scripts, how-to guides, and costume advice.1 usually with the help of older girls or sometimes aunts and mothers, and often during the chilly holidays around christmas when houses were bursting with relatives and it was too cold to be outside for long, young people would work together to perform for an invited audience. boys, girls, families, and young people all participated in at-home theatricals, but in the 19th century, they were particularly popular with girls. anita harris argues that in the 21st century, “the category of girl is constantly shifting,” and the 19th-century idea of “girl” was equally difficult to pin down (as cited in rodgers, 2016, p. 4). generally, a white, english, middle-class girl could be as young as 4 and as old as in her 20s, providing she was unmarried yet still viewed as marriageable. carol dyhouse (1981) establishes that even though many middleand upper-class girls had to take jobs as governesses or companions, the preferred situation was for middle-class girls to be dependent on fathers, while women were to be dependent on husbands (pp. 7, 138). throughout this research, i made use of these broad english 19th-century parameters of white middle-class girlhood, and depending on the project, the participants’ ages ranged from 5 to 25.2 biological age, education attainments, class, work, marital status, and attitudes of the immediately local community all shaped the construction of the idea of “girl” (rodgers, 2016, p. 5), and as kristine moruzi (2012) and beth rodgers (2016) demonstrate, adolescence increasingly offered girls a temporary liminal space to push boundaries and explore possibilities. as the 19th century drew closer to the first world war, girls and journalists began to reject the “angel of the house” narrative of self-sacrifice in favour of “self-development” (dyhouse, 2013, p. 42), but anxieties around duty and frailty shifted slowly and unevenly: the late 19th-century offered opportunities to some girls, but remained a potent time for debate. at-home theatricals were one arena in which girls could test possible futures for themselves, and could imagine and practice different ways of being in the world. “the frog prince,” 1896 meets 2014, and being fin-de-siècle girls one of my early questions about getting up an at-home theatrical related to the social conditions inherent in 19th-century amateur performances: what was it like to be a 19th-century girl putting on a play at home? unlike their male counterparts, middle-class girls were encouraged to be self-effacing and helpful, to serve their mothers, fathers, and brothers, and to model good behaviour (dyhouse, 1981, pp. 11, 28). after reading how-to guides, fiction, letters, and diaries3, i wanted to connect empathetically with 19th-century girls and their possible at-home theatrical experiences. many playwrights used the at-home stage as a place to explore issues concerning suffrage, gender roles, women’s education, and saying “no” to marriage4, but the young thespians were not the heroic characters they portrayed on stage. the real performers of the past were young, middle-class girls, and i wanted to connect to their life circumstances in order to imagine what the experience of getting up a play could have meant for them. working with undergraduate and graduate students at the centre for drama, theatre, and performance studies at the university of toronto, and together with designer and technical director justin blum and musical director art babayants, we decided to explore the social and working conditions of creating an at-home theatrical. we opted for a very short 23-hour rehearsal period, which probably mirrored the amount of time people had together over the two weeks of christmas holidays. rather than recreating victorian special effects, candles for lighting or fur for costumes, we attempted to reproduce the experiential aspects of play making by following the methods described in charlotte yonge’s (1864) and juliana horatia ewing’s (1861) fiction—raiding closets, altering, or, as september 2019 88 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research david oswell (2013) puts it, “mixed up mash-ups and making do” (p. 59). we were fortunate that the university of toronto drama department manages an on-campus house built in the late 19th century, with a living room in which we could perform. the cast and crew did not adopt 19th-century personas or live together during rehearsals, nor did they abandon their other university-student responsibilities, but i hoped the compressed rehearsal period and correct kind of space would help us to imagine better. in practice, the focus on social conditions also guided our decision to adopt a “realism” acting style5, and significantly for this vignette, for me to adopt advice regarding 19th-century at-home theatrical management offered to women (rather than men). in the 19th century, there were no theatre directors as we understand them today, but there were theatre managers who produced the shows and took care of the people. in her study of 19th-century amateur acting manuals, mary isbell (2013) observes that men and women received different advice regarding getting up home theatricals with their friends. advice for men stressed a strong vision and authoritarian execution, while advice for women emphasized the congenial social occasion and the importance of rendering one’s leadership invisible (pp. 24, 111). the advice given to women seems to mimic the advice given to girls putting on theatricals with young people and children. juliana horatia ewing (1861) warns: what you (and i, and every other actor!) would really like, would be to choose the play, to act the best part, to wear the nicest dress … but as this very leading part could only be played by one person at the expense of all the rest, private theatricals—like so many other affairs of this life—must for everybody concerned be a compromise of pains and pleasures … learning to find one’s happiness in seeing other people happy, aiming at perfection with all one’s might, and making the best of imperfection in the end. (p. 45) ewing’s words are very much the kind of self-effacing advice carol dyhouse (1981) argues girls of the era constantly heard: ewing encourages girls to be generous, self-sacrificing, and eager to make a congenial community space. when we were selecting the script, i explained to participants that my intention was to replicate 19th-century social and working conditions, including leadership style. in response to the way i understood the advice offered to female at-home theatrical managers, i managed rehearsals as friendly, sociable affairs, usually with snacks. i acted as prompter but rarely directed beyond very basic suggestions. my interpretation of theatrical management for women meant i adhered to 19th-century gender power dynamics. when our male technical director or our male musician arrived at rehearsals, i listened to their advice and deferentially accepted it. on the surface, the environment appeared completely friction free. most advice suggests that participation in an at-home theatrical should be voluntary and inclusive. to that end, all interested undergraduate and graduate students read some short “new girl” type plays6 and discussed the scripts’ potential and how each of them read in light of our 21st-century expectations about feminism, gender politics, and our shared notion of how the play was or was not “victorian.” we ultimately settled on clara ryland’s “the frog prince” (1896) as our performance text, which was among the shortest and had five speaking parts, aligning perfectly with the number of people interested in performing. furthermore, the radical princess characters connect to the “new girl” movement (sally mitchell, 1995), and invite girls to experiment with supporting women’s suffrage, saying “no” to marriage, ascribing a high value to (traditionally) women’s domestic labour, and considering the possibility of higher education, a career, and a leadership role. september 2019 89 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. the frog prince (2015), university of toronto, centre for drama, theatre, and performance studies. photo by justin blum. adopting the advice to female theatre managers the way i did reinscribed the patriarchal power relations of the 19th century, even as we explored a slightly subversive script. in the completely friendly, uncritical, nonconfrontational space, it did not occur to me that anger was simmering beneath the congenial surface. after our performance when we debriefed and discussed, the girls talked about how frustrated they had been with my passivity during the rehearsal process. would late-19th-century girls have read my interactions with my male colleagues as normal and unremarkable, or did they prickle too when an older woman took a man’s advice in the place of her own ideas? in our discussion, i began to consider that there must have been other, less subservient ways for a 19th-century woman to create a congenial social atmosphere without unquestioningly accepting male advice. the critical comments of the university girl participants bring to mind kristine alexander’s (2015) remarks: “privileging public forms of agency and equating the term with resistance, as many historians have, limits our ability to understand girls’ choices and actions. is being obedient, for example, a form of agency? is it a lesser form of agency?” (pp. 122–123). i believe theatricals offered 19th-century girls opportunities to think about, and even embody, alternative possible futures, but given the power dynamics of the day, i wondered if theatricals could encourage girls to do or even feel more with those experiences than identify the injustices. even more potent than what the process revealed about 19th-century girls’ possible experiences of amateur theatricals was what the girls and i discovered about ourselves and the persistence of deference to patriarchal power dynamics in our lives. one participant wrote in reflection: during the rehearsal process, myself and the other three female actors became frustrated that our female director offered passive instruction while the male director dominated the leadership in the room. however, neither myself nor the other performers spoke up about this power dynamic. during the post mortem discussion…a very valuable discussion emerged surrounding both the nature of victorian gender roles and their persisting implications. in retrospect, i became aware of my own submission to male dominated direction, and frustration with the passivity of a female superior. most disappointing was that myself and the other three women performers never felt comfortable voicing our concerns. (s. robbins, letter of support, february 2016) september 2019 90 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the reflexive process not only helped us to interpret what we could imagine about the past, it also changed each of us, heightened our awareness of our assumptions, pointed toward ways we had internalized social expectations, and encouraged the 21st-century research participants to make changes in our social relations and future research. from our very first meeting when we discussed “new girl” plays, my conversations with the university student girls were supported by our collective knowledge and interest in feminist theory, yet our conduct demonstrated the pervasive influence of systemic patriarchal power dynamics. it also highlighted power structures embedded in academia: i was a graduate student (not faculty), but i was also the principal investigator, and the girls were reluctant to challenge me. d’arcangelis (2018) argues that self-critical, self-reflexive research can be useful when it sheds light on “broader structures of power and meaning making” (p. 341). performance-based research opens up space for project participants to ask, as jacky bratton (2003) puts it, present-minded questions of the past (even as we refuse to give present-minded answers) (p. 14). the insights the girls and i forged together during debriefing enabled the research process to become “a window into structural oppression and privilege” (d’arcangelis, p. 340), illuminating how our experience with those structures influenced how we understood the past. as girls critically thought through engagement with the past, they began to make demands for better, more equitable futures for themselves. adele, the frog prince, 1896 meets 2017, and donald trump just over two years after conducting the initial frog prince research, i wanted to revisit the same script in light of some lingering questions. clara ryland wrote the frog prince as a play for children ages 9 to 12, with a christmas fairy prologue to be used “if necessary.” i wanted to work with children, siblings, and friends to mimic the conditions of an extended family over the winter holidays in the 19th century. in 2017, the frog prince project replicated a victorian holiday event in that there were four families represented, there were siblings, they ranged in age from 5 to 12, and they were all good friends. to accommodate all eight actors, we included ryland’s fairy prologue and worked harder on the dancing aspects of the play.7 i focused on fostering a culture of care and caring in response to what i learned about the superficial congenial social occasion. i also kept the concerns the university student actor raised about power dynamics in the rehearsal process in mind. i kept thinking about the contrast between the strong, agentic, and resilient futures suggested by the characters in the play, and the challenging day-to-day behaviour expectations that must have influenced how much impact those performance experiences could have on 19th-century lives. september 2019 91 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2. clara ryland’s “fairy prologue” in the frog prince (2017) including the two youngest participants. photo by rod fitzsimmons frey. the preexisting community of siblings and friends rooted a culture of genuine care in the rehearsal hall. as i expected, the child performers had no difficulty memorizing their lines: even the two youngest children who could not read worked with two older girls who coached them, gave them gestures to help them remember their lines, and were just as encouraging as i imagine juliana horatia ewing would have expected. parents (primarily mothers) helped children find and make costumes, spoke to me about anxieties and successes their children were experiencing as we prepared, and one advocated for her child to have a chance to try a scene again during the final performance when a cue didn’t work out according to plan. in spite of the formal industry around 19th-century athome theatricals, in fact, the occasions the scripts instigated were likely to be an aspect of what katherine newey (2005) describes as “a whole area of previously unrecognized women’s work” that is connected to “the economy of the household and its improvement and entertainment” (p. 143). besides that, these projects demanded the “emotion work” alexander mentions in her plea to go beyond a focus on girls and agency in historical research (2015, pp. 123–125). in fact, the story of putting on one of clara ryland’s “new girl” plays in the 19th century may be simultaneously the tale of mothers and older daughters maintaining the status quo of self-effacing (but lovingly given) care described by carol dyhouse (1981), while it is also the story of exploring alternate futures. figures 3 and 4. “the looks of joy on the faces of the parents, the participants and the friends” as families join the frog prince (2017) child cast for the butterfly polka. photos by rod fitzsimmons frey. september 2019 92 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research community was key to the collective affective responses to the project. following a 19th-century at-home performance, there was often lemonade or tea and a dance for the actors and their families (bell, 1896, p. xv; yonge, 1864, n.p.). we also invited the audience up for a post-show dance of the butterfly polka, and in my field notes i wrote, “the looks of joy on the faces of the parents, the participants, and the friends suggest to me that there is also a lot to think about here for this moment of shared community celebration.” spectators invest differently in the performance success when they know the amateur actors than they would at a professional show8, because as mary isbell points out, the amateurs bring something the most talented professional cannot bring to the stage: “their existence in the spectators’ life” (2013, p. 3). far more than wanting “to act the best part, to wear the nicest dress,” as ewing (1861) suggests, the 21st-century girls presenting this production of the frog prince told me they wanted to be funny. in a letter about the original 1896 ryland family performance, a niece wrote that the frog sang a sorrowful ballad (“my lodging is on the cold marsh”—a rewriting of the original “my lodging is on the cold ground”) which was supposedly “absolutely killing” (which i take to mean hilarious; chamberlain, 1895). in spite of a variety of efforts, we never achieved hilarity in the university students’ frog prince. to support the girls’ ambitions, in the 2017 iteration we abandoned the original ballad and rewrote the lyrics to adele’s song “hello” (adkins & kurstin, 2015). the frog character took the lead, and we choreographed it as a campy, full-chorus number. figures 5 and 6. child cast of the frog prince (2017), singing their adaptation of adele’s hello. children on the left sing “hello from the other side! i must have called thousand times!” children on the right sing “to ask you if you’re sorry for breaking my heart!” a few days after the performance, two girls i interviewed explained through their giggles that the song “made the frog so that he wasn’t really sad anymore, just mopey!” “and it was cheesy!” “yeah, it was cheesy and he wasn’t sad, he was mopey.” i saw that the children could take control of the room by encouraging laughter—not by acting funny for the amusement of the adults, in the way that i previously imagined the original “absolutely killing” ballad, but in performing humour that delighted the young people at least as much as it amused the audience. the key contemporary insight connects to the complicated concerns about power dynamics raised by the university student in the first project: the contrast between the strong, agentic futures offered by the frog prince characters and the possible opportunities to challenge authority in the lives of the 19th-century girls. after we set our performance date for family and friends, women began to agitate against the newly elected donald trump’s words about women and set the date for the 2017 women’s march on january 21, at the same time as we had space booked for our performance. of course, all my young participants wanted to attend the march, and due to the busyness of life and other campus bookings, we couldn’t reschedule. the girls chose to do both. they made posters and banners, some knit pink hats, and they chanted slogans like “girls have rights! and we’re gonna use ’em!” after the march, september 2019 93 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research we raced to the rehearsal hall, they threw on their costumes, and, without the benefit of a final run-through, we shared their project with their families and friends. they needed to be prompted a few times and the piece was not as polished as it could have been, but those failures accentuate the significance of choosing to participate in the women’s march: mia perry writes, “like all disruptions to expected norms, failure reminds us of the contingency of meaning and the possibility of difference” (2015, p. 151). months later at the playground i noticed some of the girls exuberantly singing and dancing our revised version of “hello.” on other occasions, they were belting out the women’s march de facto anthem “[i can’t keep] quiet” by milck (lim & gonzalez, 2015). figure 7. frog prince girls and friends at the 2017 women’s march, toronto. photo by heather fitzsimmons frey. at the age studies working group at the canadian association for theatre research conference, ash mcaskill (2018) described engaging in a waving game in a café with a one-and-a-half-year-old child. the game eventually included the caregiving grandmother. in mcaskill’s presentation she discussed intergenerational moments of connection, of being in relationship, and of the politics of relationality. she described the grandmother and child leaving with a red stroller, and said, “i am a little sad, but grateful to him for sharing his joyful energy with me. a caring moment this tired and dissertation writing human being needed. he tended to my needs in this moment. he was the one that took care of me.” mcaskill’s words made me realize that the girls and their families had been taking care of me. otherwise caught up in the demands of the show and my research, by listening to the girls tell me what was important in their lives, the researcher-participant power dynamics were stretched and altered, if not subverted. while d’arcangelis argues that disclosure and self-reflexive strategies will not “mitigate my power in relation to the research” (2018, p. 348), and “self-reflexivity per se will not eradicate oppressive systems” (p. 351), the very acts of listening to girls and reflecting on how girls employed laughter and genuine care to stretch power structures established by age and education in order to accommodate their own voices alerts me, as a researcher, to how the girls nudged power dynamics in the research process. by helping me to focus on the important aspects of the frog prince to the 21st-century girls, and by encouraging all of us to connect our lives to present-minded material, like “hello,” and present-minded events, like the women’s march, the participants took on “emotion work” and september 2019 94 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research had wrapped me up gently in the culture of community and care that i hoped would govern our process while illuminating the past but hadn’t imagined would generously include me. “a place where it was acceptable to be unacceptable”: learning to dance and the power of the wince the initial questions framing my 2018 research asked what working on a holiday family project with girls of all ages would have been like and also about learning to dance from a book. to that end, i held two dance-focused performance-based historiography sessions as part of the university of toronto institute for dance studies research pop-ups. at both workshops we danced, read scripts, examined images of characters, and tried on costumes like skirts and corsets. participants in the first workshop were upper-level undergraduate and graduate students and two faculty members; in the second workshop, girls ranged in age from 5 to 25. a few older girls attended both, and many of their provocative questions and challenging statements about my research methodology influenced how i structured the second workshop. the self-reflexive commentary on this vignette demonstrates the importance of the double turn in girl participants’ self-reflexive process, the power of the wince to expose the need for change, and the potential for learning through performance implied by michelle liu carriger’s “theatrical ethic of inappropriation” (2018, p. 180). florence bell’s volume fairy tale plays and how to act them (1896) offers detailed instructions and diagrams for dances such as quadrilles. while she includes one solo dance reminiscent of a skirt dance, it seems likely that bell believed that girls dancing as orientalized characters would dance according to their imaginations. i wanted to better understand two things about using this manual: (1) what it would be like for an older girl to try to teach a group of girls of various ages (as in a winter holiday family gathering) to do one of the dances represented in the diagrams; and (2) how the experience of dancing according to the book’s instructions was different from dancing based on imagination. to address the second question, we could not ignore the racism inherent in the 19th-century scripts. the 19th-century attitudes toward dancing that made it possible for bell to believe that a girl would need to be taught certain kinds of eurocentric dance forms but the same girl could imagine, embody, and represent the unknown (but supposedly knowable through the imperial project) are profoundly tied to 19th-century english ideas about race and supposed english superiority (lesko, 2012). in at-home theatricals, systemic racism and imperialist discourses are at the heart of representations of “oriental” and so-called gypsy (romani) people and their dance forms. today the pervasive essentializing of romani people can turn them into nearly mythical fairy tale characters—except they are not. while planning my research, alice merton’s popular song “no roots” (merton & rebscher, 2016) regularly blasted on cbc radio, claiming “i’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night”9 and i made the decision to focus on the gypsy trope in 19th-century literature, aware that it is racist, knowing that the stereotypes continue to operate largely uncensored in popular canadian culture, and that many 21st-century non-romani research participants may have unthinkingly acted in ways that racialize romani people. in order to examine the different ways of approaching dancing, we had to confront the racist tropes and our own possible engagement with them and consider what white, 19th-century girls were getting out of taking on so-called gypsy characters too. the stereotypes embedded in bell’s passionate, strong, and powerful characters promised 19th-century white, middle-class girls a chance to imagine themselves differently in a world that minimized their significance. in her study of 19th-century children’s geography primers or textbooks, megan norcia (2010) asks, “was there a route to agency/authority/autonomy for 19th-century women that did not go through the patriarchal imperial master september 2019 95 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research narrative, which expropriates agency and freedom from others to shore up its domain and power?” (p. 145). the primers norcia examines also essentialize and racialize non-english peoples, and like the theatricals, invited housebound girls with limited future options to imagine themselves otherwise, granting white girls the possibility of more power, even as they became complicit in the imperial project that subjugates non-english people. most felt white girls were immune to negative connotations associated with racialized others because by the 19th century, innocence had been “raced white” (bernstein, 2011, p. 8), and therefore, whiteness was equated with goodness, and would protect young white thespians. michelle liu carriger (2018) argues that in order to go beyond binary right/wrong discussions regarding cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation, and racism, we should restore “context detail, history and complex considerations,” which, she contends, “are most important in forging longterm solutions to the problems of cultural exchange and hybridization” (p. 169). in a project that uses embodied practice as a way to get at difficult information, i structured the research workshops to highlight, rather than obscure, the systemic racism operating in the scripts, and encouraged research participants to consider how white, 19th-century girls related to these tropes. i’m inspired by the concept of “interest” that roberta barker brought to my attention at the “playing with history” symposium marlis schweitzer and i hosted at york university in october 2018. barker explained that in 1761, pierre de beaumarchais defined interest as “the involuntary sentiment whereby we adapt ourselves to [a dramatic] event, putting ourselves in the place of the person [we are watching on stage].” barker called this feeling fundamentally sentimental (that is to say, grounded in sentiments or emotions). using rebecca schneider, she argued that through embodiment and performance, not only do reenactments offer an opportunity to better understand the past and our relationship to it, our choices about what might hold interest indicate a great deal about us as researchers. the double value of the concept of interest is clear in the context of at-home theatricals. in homes, 19th-century girls were invited to try on roles that might hold interest for them (a concept that continued to circulate in the 19th century) and, in turn, invited their audience to be interested in those characters. if, in the 21st century, we revisit specific dance instructions, and certain characters, what is our interest there? when is it productive to separate our interest in the character’s actions, dancing, and behaviour from our interest in the girls who performed them, or from our interest in the racializing discourses embraced by the playwright, and when is our interest so tightly wound up in those factors that they are difficult to tease out? julia salverson (2008) argues in favour of conducting creative research like a clown, with an “insistence on engagement based in availability and the willingness to step forward without certainty” (p. 246). she suggests that “the goal is relationship, not success” (p. 246). as i prepared this research workshop, i focused my interest on the 19th-century thespians and on the encounter—the brief (imaginary) relationship formed between the 19th-century girls and the 21st-century girls in the workshop. in addition, d’arcangelis (2018) suggests using ahmed’s idea of the double turn as a way for white, settler scholars aiming to dismantle colonial structures, to perform self-reflexivity: “the task for white subjects would be to stay implicated in what they critique, but in turning toward their role and responsibility in these histories of racism, as histories of this present, to turn away from themselves, and towards others” (ahmed, 2004, para. 59). my intention was to establish research conditions in which we could embody and discuss 19th-century amateur dance practices, turning toward the racism of the past that lingers in the present, but turning away from it by creating knowledge that might draw and direct girl participants toward possible ways to dismantle privilege in their daily lives and, simultaneously, to seek out relationship. the characters that had particular interest for me included both the “racialized characters” and “the bad girls.” sometimes in 19th-century scripts, the so-called gypsy or orientalized characters were both. i wanted to share both racialized and raced-white characters with my workshop participants to help pare away what racialization in the texts did and to contextualize our approach to dancing. after reading florence bell’s “little red riding hood” (1896), one participant remarked gleefully, that jenny (red riding hood’s name in the script) “is so bad-ass!” september 2019 96 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research another participant liked neighbour slapps, the tough, cranky, busy-body female neighbour who saves jenny from the wolf by beating him to death with her umbrella. girls who read florence bell’s “ali baba and the forty thieves” laughed with delight as morgiana solved the mystery, dispatched the robbers, managed the servant boy, danced seductively, and killed the robber captain to ultimately save the ali baba family from disaster. those who read charlotte yonge’s a strayed falcon (1864) were intrigued by the clever “gypsy” thieves who tricked their way into riches. afterwards participants between the ages of 9 and 13 asserted that it was always more fun to play the villain characters. on paper surveys, several younger girls wrote that doing theatricals would be a chance for 19thcentury girls to “be free” or to “try something new” or to “be different.” these statements echoed an undergraduate participant’s remark that at-home theatricals offered “a place where it was acceptable to be unacceptable.” in theatricals, 19th-century girls had permission to dress like boys, to have sword fights, to be powerful heroes, to be sassy, lazy, and talk back to their elders because the expectation was that, in spite of the high interest, the transgressive behaviours would remain in the space of imaginary play. rahman et al.’s (2012) study of 21st-century cosplay10 practice in hong kong suggests that cosplay “allows enthusiasts to momentarily change their identity in order to create an exciting, extraordinary and contented self rather than attempting a real-life transformation” (p. 334). many participants in my study wanted to identify with the bad-ass characters, but they had no desire to attempt a real-life bad-ass transformation. did the “space where it was acceptable to be unacceptable” ultimately neutralize the powerful explorations that took place there, making it easy to leave radical ideas and behaviours behind? current drama-in-education thinking suggests that dramatic play has the potential to offer provocative spaces for critically thinking about the self and possibilities11, and while 19th-century girls may not have wanted to be bad-ass, experimenting with how it felt meant that perhaps, upon reflection, those possibilities could influence quotidian life. in the first workshop with the upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members, we examined 19thand 21st-century iterations of the “gypsy” stereotype, in literature, of 19th-century children’s costumes held in museums and in 19th-century fancy dress (costume) guides.12 with the exception of the images accompanying ardern holt’s (1887) costume recommendations, participants pointed out the very common depiction of young barefoot women in a stooped, subservient begging posture, even when the character was not begging in the text. we compared those images with the widely available costumes available on ebay in 2018. we also discussed the racism romani people are currently experiencing. the workshop included white participants and racialized minorities, first-generation canadians and those whose families had been in canada longer, but notably, there were no romani people or experts in romani culture. this probably mirrors the situation in a 19th-century english at-home theatrical: romani people were almost certainly outsiders and completely other to the girls’ experiences and their at-home theatrical imaginings. in the workshop with participants aged 5 to 25, we also discussed imagery from 19th-century children’s books and fancy-dress costume advice, so-called gypsy dances and skirt dances of the early 20th century, and we also read scenes from charlotte yonge’s (1864) a strayed falcon, featuring appealing but villainous “gypsy” characters, and noticed the embedded stereotypes about passion, kidnapping, thieving, fortune telling, and magic. as before, we discussed how playing those characters might have been appealing to white middle-class girls in the 19th century, and we also discussed contemporary racism against romani people, hallowe’en portrayals of gypsies, and the precarious status of romani people as refugees in canada.13 one 17-year-old girl, who later told us that one of her dearest friends is romani, railed against ignorant racism against romani people in canada. she spoke vehemently about the frequent neglect of the romani experience of the holocaust and her understanding of the crisis in europe today. i was grateful because she provided the contextualizing voice i hoped would be present in this multiseptember 2019 97 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research age grouping. other theatre makers and scholars i know have worked with romani people to theatrically share some of their difficult stories (gallagher, 2015; kazubowski-houston, 2010, 2011). gallagher (2015) writes that to avoid reinscribing trauma, “if the stories … are meant to connect our past to an imagined future, we can privilege that over the compulsion to get it right” (p. 18). i, too, hoped to use these workshops to connect the past to an imagined future, but 19th-century middle-class white girls did not have romani people’s guidance, and neither did we. this time, in spite of efforts to recruit a range of young women, the group was not as visibly diverse. while a third of participants identified as jewish (some called this an invisible minority) and two participants were half taiwanese american, all the participants could easily “pass” as white. romani absence was a constant imagined presence for the 21st-century girls who dared to consider how things could have been different. the way we approached dancing in the first workshop provided insights into how some young people in 19th-century middle-class homes probably experienced dancing. first, i taught the participants a simple square quadrille—a popular victorian dance frequently suggested in theatricals. participants described the dance as very upright, elegant, and presentational, and they enjoyed learning to do the figures correctly. in contrast, when we attempted to imagine the dances girls might have done for the so-called gypsy characters, we watched some late 19th-century and early 20th-century films on youtube, tried on some wide circle skirts, and keeping in mind the 19th-century images we looked at, moved to the music of the gypsy kings. participants laughed, swirled their skirts, and spent time spinning. no one adopted the “begging” posture we saw in the 19th-century books. they grinned and chatted a bit as they moved, and while they did not attempt anything too physically risky, they experimented and took chances with their steps. afterwards, participants debriefed about the fun of dancing and the anxiety associated with being uncertain as to whether they were “getting it right.” it was easy to imagine the pleasure and perhaps awkwardness young 19thcentury girls could have felt in allowing themselves to explore their bodies and move in ways that were foreign to their daily lives of corsets and contained and regulated gestures. as i considered the implications of whether or not 19th-century participants would have understood that there were actually techniques and steps associated with the type of dancing they attempted to portray, one black participant commented that “we were having fun being racist.” in spite of my efforts to expose and unpack the way romani people were racialized in literature, the doing of the dancing temporarily obscured the racism for those of us who had the privilege of not being the objects of racialization in this encounter. the comment froze me. julie salverson (2008) argues that in creative inquiry that kind of freezing “is the retreat that often occurs in elements of scholarship and practice that are preoccupied with the sometimes claustrophobic relationship between ethics, critical analysis, and loss” (p. 246). caught up in a world guided by the imperial project, systemic racism, and patriarchy, white, middle-class girls benefitted from the opportunity to reimagine possibilities for their own lives and limited options, at the expense of romani people. in the 19th century, the middle-class girls may not have seen their privilege or the racism, but now, in the 21st century, if we know that the performance-based historiography work we are doing racializes romani people, what are we doing? rather than hiding behind unproductive guilt and shame (ahmed, 2004), or, as d’arcangelis (2018) cautions, imagining that confession of privilege will lead toward the disruption of power relations (p. 342), i continued to follow salverson’s advice to conduct research like a clown, stepping forward without certainty, and aiming for relationship, not success (2008, p. 246). in these 19thand 21st-century encounters, the relationship i hoped to create was between the girls across centuries, while fostering an awareness of the absent romani people that encourages a rethinking of what that relationship could become today. in the second workshop we also approached a eurocentric dance first, and to explore my question about learning to dance from the book, 36 hours prior to the workshop, i asked two “older” girls (in their early 20s) to each prepare to teach one of the dances in bell’s (1896) book. i suspect the process was similar in 19th-century homes—someone september 2019 98 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research tried to figure it out and then taught the others. the space was full of happy laughter as girls attentively learned to dance together with so many different heights represented, and the older girls generously and gently helped the younger girls keep up, reminding them which step to do when. rather than note upright, elegant, presentational postures, the girls in one group were very amused by some of what they called the “mechanical” dance gestures they had to adopt. one of the older girl teachers said that the diagrams in bell’s book were easy to follow and that “it was fun working with different ages. i usually found that the older girls helped/guided the younger girls.” later when girls read scenes aloud from 19th-century scripts, the littlest ones who could not read had nothing to do but sit and listen—and they did. in fact, they seemed content to be with the older girls, perhaps to be a part of something the “big girls” did. multi-age creative groupings put into action relational care that was truly inspiring. the emotional labour and sometimes joy in taking care were clearly central to understanding the experience of the workshop participants and, i posit, the girl participants of the past. in contrast, the process around working with the “gypsy” dance style was contained chaos. as before, with only their imaginations to guide them and with fun rehearsal skirts to throw on, the dancing was entirely exploratory, based on very limited and probably inaccurate information. the little girls joined older girls in small groups, and the movements they proposed were enthusiastic and uninhibited, and the older girls copied their experiments: spinning, whirling, swishing skirts, high kicks, slightly ornamented arm movements, and physical gestures that required a full-body bend at the waist. in post-workshop surveys all of the participants aged 17 and under preferred the so-called gypsy dances to the dances the older girls taught. two older participants said they felt uncomfortable and wished there had been a romani person there to shed insight on the culture, and perhaps a dance expert to teach some of the steps. one wrote, “it felt a little weird because i felt like i was trying to mimic stereotypes— and i was having fun doing it. i think if i knew more about the techniques of that style of dance i would feel less weird because i would be practicing the dance as they did, rather than making it up.” however, most girls didn’t intellectualize the chance to move, and they gave themselves permission to explore what their bodies could do. in keeping with megan norcia’s (2010) observations, we may not have wanted to vilify girls of the past who probably also had fun exploring what their bodies could do, who had very little power or opportunity to make choices or shape their communities, even as we criticized the society they occupied that gave white girls, and not others, the somewhat limited privileges they had access to. during the first workshop debriefing, i invited participants to further discuss the comment “having fun being racist.” i told the university student and faculty participants about my desire to do similar work with younger girls to see if they and their bodies offered different insights into ways of learning and creating the dances, but asked if they thought i could do so responsibly and ethically. the girls ultimately agreed that, with context, the conversation could productively expose younger participants to conversations about racism. d’arcangelis (2018) argues that self-reflexive work can expose broader structures of power and meaning-making: i had to create conditions to encourage girls to scrutinize our work, as well as its implications for girls and power in the 19th-century and for meaning making in their own lives. september 2019 99 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 8. “the girls” aged 5 to 25, dance research pop-up at the university of toronto. photo by heather fitzsimmons frey. during debriefing after the second workshop, the last reflection question was “would you like to make any comments about performing so-called gypsy characters and “having fun being racist?” using the undergraduate participant’s phrase from the first workshop, this question seemed like a productive way to respond to michelle liu carriger’s (2018) call to action: to address the long sticky history of how representation—impersonation, surrogation, performance— has been used to oppress, to insist on recognition of the fact from those who feel no such weight when they don (for example) a kimono, constitutes a right and an injunction of ethical representation that is the responsibility of everyone. (p. 182) i could see a girl striving for relationship in the encounter when a 24-year-old girl mused, “knowing what we were playing and knowing it is racist makes the performance for me remain in the confines of pretend, and in a way, thinking of it as an experiment to see if i could try to understand a 19th-century girl outlook. but to them would they even think they are being racist? or would it just seem normal?” and i could see the presence of contextualization when an 11-year-old wrote, “discrimination and stereotypes should never be used as a game. people’s traditions aren’t games. in the plays, i was acting as a ‘gypsy.’ the older stories were written by people with older beliefs.” but the process remained flawed, as the girls’ commentary and questions revealed. in the context of his research in blackface minstrelsy, stephen johnson (2018) describes the “wince” in practice-based historiographic research as the reflective reaction of the researcher in a place where boundaries are crossed, where good art is probably not created, and where, perhaps, profound learning can happen. he asks researchers to consider: september 2019 100 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research do i learn more when i am confronted by the false promise of narrative, by the inelegant, ungainly colliding of the partly or poorly trained or embarrassed or ill-prepared or inappropriate body-inperformance, attempting to understand the past? do i learn more from the smile i wear when i watch some of this work--or from the wince i wear the rest of the time? (p. 9 of johnson’s speaking notes) in my position of power as workshop leader, i did not want to compel participants to embrace racism, but by encouraging a brief relationship between 19thand 21st-century girls, i did want to problematize and better understand the appeal and consequences of the behaviours of the past. yet the emotions and ideas are complicated. the high school student who had spoken so passionately about racism against romani people wrote anxiously: i feel uncomfortable at the idea of a “having fun been racist.” i noted that all the girls in the room were white (or white-passing, such as myself). i think romani people are still very unrecognized and marginalized today; their struggles and stories are still quite unknown, as is their culture. with that in mind, i wonder how much our dances resemble anything they may really have done. it didn’t feel racist. i wonder why. is that because it was so removed from romani culture and practices? because i’m so unused to talking and thinking about romani people? because we discussed the ideas beforehand and acknowledged the racism? or just because i didn’t process or acknowledge that i was being racist. or something else. i don’t know. (emphasis added) she also approached me after the workshop and said, “i didn’t feel racist when i was dancing. what does that say about me?” while we were talking about complicated contexts such as privilege, an 11-year-old girl handed me her almost finished survey and told me that she didn’t feel like answering the last question “because i don’t really know about having fun being racist, and anyway, i don’t want to do that.” it was a “wince”-worthy moment. had the younger girl separated the research activities from her own self so that she could not see that aspects of our dancing essentialized romani people whether we wanted them to or not, or perhaps, was she suggesting that the research was fine because “real life” operated differently? were the implications of the question too uncomfortable to think about in a direct way? she ran off before we could discuss the comment. carriger (2018) enjoins researchers to recognize when, perhaps because of their privileged bodies, they do not feel the weight of oppression in representation (p. 182). both these girls noted that they felt a lack of weight, and in this case, while i ensured that the research process was historically contextualized, only the girls who felt the absence of romani people in the workshop space made the double turn and imagined implications of the project beyond the room. the wince means, of course, that i must consider what the wince teaches about conducting research with girls in the future. while d’arcangelis (2018, using ahmed, 2004) argues that guilt and shame are unproductive, the wince is different. when we wince, we are startled. we recognize something uncomfortable, possibly unintentional, but that once remarked upon, cannot be ignored. perry (2015) writes that “the perseverance of the practitioner of failure therefore, becomes a revolutionary model of alternative possibility” (p. 151). in acting out failure, we may see the possibility of change. as johnson (2018) argues, “i wince, and i learn” (p. 9, unpublished speaking notes). i believe that in aiming to learn more about girls, dance, and at-home theatricals, i had inadvertently replicated one of the 19th-century appeals that at-home theatricals might have for young girls and had, as an undergraduate student put it, created “a place where it was acceptable to be unacceptable.” in the 19th-century, theatricals gave girls space to experiment with challenging behaviour expectations governing their lives. girls performing the same theatricals in the 21st century did not defy their community’s behaviour expectations when they pretended to be boys, refused marriage, or acted wild. however, like the 19th-century girls, they did indulge in racializing play, which is unacceptable today, even if it was unremarkable in white homes of the past. in both eras, the girls occupied a theatrical space where the unacceptable could be lived out for a short time. elizabeth ellsworth (2005) september 2019 101 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research argues that a “transitional space” is a place which may “provide opportunities for us to both act in the world and to be acted upon by it—while at the same time offering us the flexible stability we need to risk allowing ourselves to be changed by the interaction” (p. 32). the opportunities to act, and change, and alter the way we might create our own futures are the positive aspects of the transitional space. however, if the space simply offers its consent for poor behaviour, that is dangerous. supportive debriefing is essential. carriger (2018) proposes a “theatrical ethic of inappropriation” (p. 181), asking artists and scholars to consider “what dynamics appear when we restore context to cross-cultural performance” (p. 180) and “what group defines the meaning of the performance” (p. 180). she also calls on artists and scholars to reflect on when we can “use our opportunities for thought and debate[,] not to insist on simplifying and binarizing the situation, but on complicating and expanding it” (p. 180). her analysis suggests that embedded in our 19th/21st-century encounters was, indeed, the recurrence of the “troubling dynamics of nineteenth-century orientalist exoticizing” (p. 180), but that “every repetition also constitutes a difference” (p. 180), suggesting that the key to rethinking, and breaking, cycles might be a different sort of repeating. critically working with context, could performance-based research spaces with girls support a different sort of repeating? were the girls and i turning toward our responsibility in the history of racism, and turning away from ourselves and toward others (ahmed, 2004)? in the transitional space, sometimes i believed we collectively created powerful knowledge about 19th-century girls, community, racialization, and dancing, and about 21st-century girls and power structures. and sometimes, i winced. discussing performance, carriger argues, “the possibility that we might understand something, even partial, flawed, or silly, across the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, nation, and so on, is a possibility that we cannot afford to give up” (p. 180), but we also know we cannot afford to ignore the wince. working with girls to trouble structural inequalities through research is challenging. in learning to look toward responsibility, in turning away from ourselves, and toward others, we may wince but when we do, we learn. from the wings: a few thoughts about girls, vignettes, and self-reflexive writing placing girls at the centre of the research, and viewing them as people who drive the research trajectories, radically changes the research experience and analysis. these various performance-based historiography projects, with their focus on encounter, require living, breathing girls to embody aspects of the past. as their bodies make discoveries about, and perhaps relationships with, 19th-century girls, it is their minds, their ideas, their flashes of insights, and their critical reflections that have the potential to instigate social change, aligning their experiences with the rights-based approach to girl studies research. it may seem obvious, but as active and present people in the research process, girls’ potential for self-reflexive thought enhanced and shaped my own critical thinking, helping me complicate my own storytelling so that it clearly pointed toward structural inequalities, power dynamics, and structures of meaning making. when their comments made me wince, i knew i had to reconsider my approach in the future. performance-based historiography, like any kind of performance research, can be risky. this performance-based research project, in its effort to understand 19th-century girls and the power that at-home theatrical explorations might have had in their lives, ultimately taught me about the 21st-century girls who participated and their hopes for a more equitable future for themselves and their communities. as they spoke about systems of oppression that they wanted to dismantle, they also demonstrated that effort is required in care, and that it has far more value than congeniality. girls drew attention to ways that they could subvert power, that they could seize control of a creative project, and that they could ask thought-provoking questions that would change the way i approached future research. they pointed out how much pleasure there is in learning through moving and doing, and that there is also fun in believing it is possible to move “correctly.” they made observations about defying behaviour expectations by being “bad ass,” about the absence of romani people from our research process, about respecting dance skills and techniques, and about creating communities of care. in my self-reflexive process, inspired by september 2019 102 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research carole d’arcangelis (2018), i repeatedly saw that the richest insights and most powerful observations on structures of meaning making or power relations came from the girls themselves. in our space where it was “acceptable to be unacceptable,” listening to each other and listening to girls meant that they could critique the research, girls’ history, contemporary society, and the legacy historical systemic injustices bring to the present, and they could imagine a different future that they, perhaps, might be able to shape. acknowledgements special thanks to seika boye and the institute for dance studies, to my postdoctoral advisor marlis schweitzer and the participants of the “playing with history” symposium at york university, to the funding from the banting postdoctoral fellowship, and especially, to all of the young people who participated in my research. september 2019 103 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references adkins, a., & kurstin, g. 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(2018, february 15). someone tell cbc to stop playing this song. the uniter. retrieved from http://uniter.ca/view/ someone-tell-cbc-to-stop-playing-this-song perry, m. (2015). reconsidering good intentions: learning with failure in education and the arts. in a. babayants & h. fitzsimmons frey (eds.), theatre and learning (pp. 138–152). cambridge, uk: cambridge scholars press. rahman, o., wing-sun, l., & cheung b. h. (2012). “cosplay”: imaginative self and performing identity. fashioning theory: journal of dress, body and culture, 16(33), 317–342. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174112x13340749707204 rehaag, s., beuadoin, j., & danch, j. (2015). no refuge: hungarian romani refugee claimants in canada, osgood hall law journal, 52(3), 705–774. retrieved from https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google. ca/&httpsredir=1&article=2955&context=ohlj rodgers, b. 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(endnotes) 1 examples of these are described and cited in my dissertation (fitzsimmons frey, 2015). 2 as for the idea of being a 19th-century girl as opposed to a boy, sally ledger (1996) suggests that gender was arguably the most destabilizing category in the cultural politics of the fin-de-siècle (p. 22). as newspaper writers thought about dandies in their dapper suits, “new women” riding bicycles and wearing bloomers and demanding the vote, and “new girls” (sally mitchell, 1995), the concept of “girl” was a fascinating and often anxiety-provoking category to 19th-century writers. today, in the 21st century, when people understand “girl” quite differently, i made my working definition clear in my calls for participants, included anyone who self-selected for the research, and did not exclude anyone who did not identify as a girl. two people who identified as male participated in research workshops. 3 i shared selections of my archival research with participants, including excerpts from letters and diaries, as well as drawings and cartoons in journals. for more details on some of these 19th-century resources, see my article “an ethical approach to encountering nineteenth-century girls” (fitzsimmons frey, 2016) or my dissertation victorian girls and at-home theatricals: performing and playing with possible futures (fitzsimmons frey, 2015). 4 see, for example, florence bell’s (1896) retelling of “the sleeping beauty” or kate freiligrath-kroeker’s (1881) “the bear prince.” 5 the acting vernacular of the 19th century would have been “gestural” acting, and young 19th-century people would have assumed that was the correct way to act. similarly, 21st-century young people generally assume that they should be acting with a “realism” style, largely borrowed from film and television. instead of teaching new acting skills, since our process emphasized the condensed rehearsal period, we incorporated skills young amateur actors already brought with them. 6 sally mitchell (1995) coined the term “new girl” after the new woman of the late 19th century. her work focuses on literature, especially l. t. meade, but i argue that the term can also be applied to plays intended for girls to perform that also offer similar explorations of agency and possibility. besides clara ryland’s the frog prince, we considered plays by florence bell, kate freiligrath-kroeker, amy levy, and louisa powell macdonald, as well as an anonymous cinderella from the 1870s. 7 we planned to rehearse and present in four days, after about 18 hours of rehearsal. some children practiced their lines at home on their own time; others did not. 8 the letters beatrice chamberlain (1895) wrote to her brother neville about her nieces and nephews performing in the original productions of ryland’s plays also indicate delight in knowing the children on and off stage. 9 see papadopoulos (2018) for a critique of the song. 10 “cosplay,” a conjunction of costume and play, originated in japan and now is popular throughout asia and north america. 11 see, for example, gallagher (2001), hatton (2013), and neelands (2009). 12 kathleen gallagher (2015) writes about creating a theatrical piece with hungarian romani youth in an effort to improve their education in canada and support their case for a successful refugee claim. judging from stories of the young people’s lives, we found the simple, stark, and brutal theatricalization of their memories was completely different from “gypsy” characterizations in the white-authored 19thcentury script we examined. 13 for example, while more than 11,000 hungarians made refugee claims in canada between 2008 and 2012, claiming ethnic persecution, very few succeeded. instead, “they encountered racist rhetoric drawing on stereotypes” (p. 771). for more information about hungarian romani refugee claimants in canada, see rehaag, beaudoin, and danch (2015). october 2019 56 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research interculturality or government of childhood? challenges of indigenous child care in colombia vivian lissette ospina tascón, tatiana calderón garcía, and martin j. packer vivian lissette ospina tascón (ma in psychology of cognition and learning, facultad latinoamericana de ciencias sociales, buenos aires) is an assistant professor at la universidad san buenaventura-cali, cali, colombia. email: vlospina@usbcali.edu.co tatiana calderón garcía, ma in psychology, universidad del valle cali, is a doctoral student and assistant professor at la universidad de san buenaventura-cali, cali, colombia. email: tcalderon@usbcali.edu.co martin j. packer, phd in developmental psychology, university of california, berkeley, is an independent researcher in bogotá, colombia. he has taught at the universidad de los andes, duquesne university, the university of michigan, and the university of california, berkeley. his principal interests are child development, cultural psychology, and qualitative research. he is the author of child development: understanding a cultural perspective (sage, 2017). email: mpacker@cantab.net a social phenomenon spreading across the world today is the reorganization of forms of care for very young children. in the past, what have prevailed are forms of care and education for children from birth to around 3 years of age in the context of their family and community. the trend today is one of the institutionalization of these children. in the south american nation of colombia, babies, infants, and toddlers are spending many hours each day in institutions whose dynamics and functioning are directed primarily by public policy and administrative guidelines. in this article we first explore the tendency for research on this phenomenon to adopt a reductionist perspective, in which the focus is on indications of “quality” and “outcomes” that are measured in ways that assume a western axiology and ontology. policies and political positions remain unexamined. second, we propose that this institutionalization of the first years of childhood involves “government” which amounts to the inculcation of a particular way of being a person. third, we show, in two examples from our research, how state intervention in the care and education of young children creates various kinds of tension for the professionals who work in institutions with young children, as well as for indigenous communities, for whom it threatens to undermine not only their rights to make decisions about the best ways to care for their children but also their very existence. overall, we hope to contribute to a reflection on the challenges that are intrinsic to the institutional care of very young children and, above all, to explore the potential risks for children in indigenous communities. a global phenomenon is the reorganization of care for very young children. institutions are replacing the context of family and community. increasingly in colombia young children spend hours each day in institutions directed by public policy and administrative guidelines. we explore, first, how research on this phenomenon adopts a reductionist perspective, a focus on “quality” and “outcomes” measured in ways that assume a western axiology. second, we consider how the institutionalization of childhood amounts to a “government” that imposes western individualism. third, we illustrate the tension created for childcare professionals and for indigenous communities as their rights to make decisions about the best ways to care for children are threatened. key words: childcare; institutions; young children; government; indigenous october 2019 57 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research institutionalized childcare in colombia in 2012, unesco reported an increase of 40% in the number of young children enrolled in early institutional programs across the world (unesco, 2012). in colombia, it is children in the lowest socioeconomic strata who attend programs offered by the state, while children in the higher strata are cared for at home. the most recent censuses indicate that of the 3.2 million children under 5 years of age in colombia, 2.4 million are in conditions of economic vulnerability (bernal, 2014). some of these young children are in state child development centres, others are in hogares comunitarios and kindergartens in the private sector. many are cared for by madres comunitarias, women who take children into their homes and who are recognized in their community for their compassion and commitment to the well-being of children (there are almost 70,000 in colombia). colombia’s public policy for childhood (consejo nacional de política económica social, república de colombia, 2007) is based on international guidelines and represents the government’s commitment to improving comprehensive care for young children. the policy is implemented through the estrategia de atención integral, a comprehensive plan that includes objectives related to nutrition, health, and healthy environments, educational practices that promote “integral development,” restitution of rights, children’s participation in decision making, promotion of citizen participation in the evaluation and implementation of policy, and ensuring that all children are registered and receive an identity document. achieving these objectives is the aim of three types of program, directed to the family, to institutions, and to communities respectively. since 2016, there has also been a fourth type of program, the modalidad propia e intercultural (instituto colombiano de bienestar familiar, 2016), directed to the country’s ethnic and indigenous peoples. the development of this fourth program follows principles established by the colombian constitution of 1991: the recognition of diversity, rights for all people without discrimination, and preservation of the languages and dialects of ethnic groups. overall, these programs have the following characteristics. with the exception of the fourth, they are designed mainly for children in urban settings. they are based on the assumption, arising from pediatrics, neurosciences, and conceptions of children’s rights, that there is a universal pattern to children’s psychological development. they are guided by the policies of global organizations such as the world bank and unicef. they are implemented with the intention of respecting cultural diversity, but in fact they often fail to recognize the tensions and challenges they create for indigenous communities. consequently, they lack the conditions that would make viable a real dialogue among those who implement public policies and those who are the recipients. the emphasis on interculturality arises from recognition of the fact that colombia is a pluricultural country with an important percentage of indigenous peoples who live in territories dispersed around the country. the census data for 2005 indicate that, of the total population of children between birth and 5 years old in colombia, approximately 14.4% belong to an ethnic group. the afro-descendant population represents 9.8% of the total, with 507,272 individuals. of these, 3,679 are raizales (indigenous peoples from colombian islands of san andrés, providencia, and santa catalina) , 663 are palenqueros (afrocolombianos from the atlantic coast), and 502,930 are afro-colombian. in addition, 236,966 children belong to the indigenous communities, which is equivalent to 4.6% (fundación interamericana, 2011). in addition, the long period of civil war and violence in colombia has caused the displacement of many families from rural and indigenous communities. according to the united nations refugee agency (alto comisionado de las naciones unidas para los refugiados, n.d.), 3,000,000 persons were displaced, of whom approximately 70,000 were indigenous. remarkably, displacement peaked relatively recently: official figures report that between 2006 october 2019 58 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research and 2008, 48,318 members of indigenous communities were displaced. the result is that a significant percentage of the indigenous population is now settled, permanently or temporarily, in colombia’s cities, especially bogotá, medellin, and cali. these circumstances define a social context that represents a great challenge to both the government and the people, since it is difficult to create conditions for equal participation in debate and dialogue around the idea of children’s “integral development.” in addition, the modalidad propia e intercultural was designed for children living within their indigenous communities, not for children whose families have been displaced to an urban setting. moreover, the state’s policies are ambiguous when it comes to children under 3 years of age, since initial education is proposed for children over 3, while institutional care is offered from birth to 6 years. this leaves ambiguity about what should happen in the institutions of care during the first three years. the “quality” of institutional childcare research on young children’s involvement in institutions of early care has begun in several countries. in general, this research explores the consequences these institutions can have on children’s psychological development. this research has been influential, including in colombia. however, in our opinion, several difficulties confront the interpretation of its findings. the most influential studies are those that emphasize evaluation of “quality.” peter moss and gunilla dahlberg (2008) explain that quality is assumed to be “an attribute of services for young children that ensures the efficient production of predefined, normative outcomes, typically developmental or simple learning goals” (p. 3). studies focus on what are taken to be indicators of institutional quality: the adult-child ratio, the conditions of the classrooms and the building, the number and character of adult-child interactions, and the pedagogic curriculum. these are certainly factors intrinsic to the functioning of these institutions, but these studies assume that child development experts have identified universal, objective norms that define a program’s quality. however, there is every indication that definitions of quality are based on what specific cultural groups privilege in their own way of life. generally, researchers define quality in terms of middle-class standards. in addition, outcomes are typically measured in terms of subsequent school attainment, or using scales, instruments, and questionnaires whose validity is presumed because they have been standardized across different settings. however, the norms that underlie evaluations of quality are not essential, natural, or neutral. quality cannot be assessed in an objective, technical, and apolitical manner. in a multicultural world, it is no longer acceptable to measure and judge all cultures by comparison with anglo-american norms. nonetheless, the position that unesco has adopted regarding childcare is based on these studies evaluating quality, and colombian childhood policies follow unesco guidelines. studies that subscribe to evaluation of quality in childcare institutions look for beneficial effects that quality programs can have on the socio-emotional and cognitive development of children (e.g., bradley, mckelvey, & whiteside-mansell, 2011; landry et al., 2014; sosinsky & kim, 2013; sylva & pugh, 2011; sylva et al., 2011; thomason & la paro, 2009). for example, studies conclude that quality early care can facilitate cognitive and language development and social relationships, improve relationships between children and their mothers, and in general lead to long-term positive outcomes in the development of children (babchishin, weegar, & romano, 2013). high-quality childcare is found to be associated with better cognitive, academic, and behavioural performance when the children are older (vandell et al., 2010). more broadly, unesco (2012) has reported evidence for positive outcomes from young children’s participation in high-quality childcare, arguing that this favours better october 2019 59 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research school performance and the development of skills for future employment. there are also warnings about the negative consequences of institutional care for very young children. for example, it has been suggested that institutional care for prolonged periods of time during the first two years of life can have adverse consequences on children’s behaviour (belsky et al., 2007; jacob, 2009; national institute of child health and human development, 2004, as cited by eryigit-madzwamuse & barnes, 2013). it has been suggested that institutional care before 2 years of age creates risk for subsequent emotional problems, as group contexts make it difficult for children to develop skills to deal with frustration (eryigit-madzwamuse & barnes, 2013; stein et al., 2012). poor-quality childcare experiences have been associated with insecure attachment relationships with parents, regardless of the sensitivity of maternal care at home (aviezer, 2008, as cited by owen, 2018). at the same time, there are indications that the influence of parenting is stronger than the effects of institutional care (national institute of child health and human development, 2006, as cited by owen, 2018). in latin america, much research on early childcare has adopted a similar approach. for example, in chile studies have indicated that, despite the massive enrollment of young children in these institutions, positive results are achieved only when quality is maintained (cárcamo et al., 2014). in argentina, similar studies have indicated that early entry into childcare provides cognitive stimulation which favours cognitive skills later, in primary school (caputo & gamallo, 2010). what we find striking, and preoccupying, in this body of research is its tacit assumption that the primary purpose of early childcare should be the cultivation of the skills necessary for schooling and for certain ways of working in adult life. these studies assume that “education” (providing children with knowledge and skills) is the primary, or even the only, function of childcare institutions. when attention is paid to socio-emotional development, this too is viewed as a matter of “competences” that can be learned and taught. this assumption can be seen also in unesco’s emphasis on the need to continue improving the quality and accessibility of institutional childcare and its articulation with other levels of the education system (unesco, 2012). in addition, the results of these studies are interpreted within a narrow psychological framing, one that presupposes that the basic social organization is the nuclear family and that psychological development follows a single, universal pathway. there is no acknowledgement of cultural difference in psychological processes, of cultural variation in the trajectories of children’s psychological development and practices of childcare, or of differences in the expectations and ways of life of the communities in which children develop. in part, this is because this research generally lacks the multidisciplinary perspective that would enable it to explore the social, political, and cultural dimensions of institutionalized childcare. as a result, these studies place their primary emphasis on the interaction between adults and the young children they are caring for. by focusing narrowly on adult-child interaction, however, they ignore the social and cultural context and the political dimension of the state’s policies and programs for children. there is certainly no acknowledgement of the line of critical thinking about developmental psychology which points to the ways it can regulate and impose values on women, families, and ethnic minorities (burman, 2011; callaghan, andenaes, & macleod, 2015). there is, we believe, a need to incorporate critical perspectives and alternative paradigms into analytical empirical research on care in early childhood (bloch, 2010). it is our goal in the colombian context to conduct and promote research on the childcare phenomenon that acknowledges the political character of evaluations of quality, is sensitive to culturally diverse contexts, and can foster debate about which policies can be designed and implemented with respect to the needs of specific cultural communities, rather than simply aiming to implement international october 2019 60 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research standards. institutionalization of young children’s development we consider it important to conceptualize the growing prevalence of organized childcare for young children in ways that go beyond quality and outcomes. specifically, we propose that it be thought of as “governmentalization” in michel foucault’s sense. foucault emphasized how states arrange the “government” of people as they act and live within institutions. he was thinking about government in a broad sense as “the way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick” (foucault, 1982, p. 221). we also follow foucault in seeing the daily practices in institutions of care for young children as the normalization and discipline of these children’s ontologies: constituting the kind of humans they become. the “corporality” of everyday institutional life, both for children and for adults, is crucial here. the state is in effect operating in profound ways on its youngest citizens through projects ostensibly concerned with hygiene, health, pedagogy, and the rhythms and routines of everyday life. in fact, however, these projects change who these children are. moreover, government is not something that occurs only through state institutions. empirical research within an academic discipline also exercises government over children, families, and educators as it establishes the status of “experts” and the concepts and values that shape how caregivers think and how policymakers act (bloch, 2000). equally, practices of government are not exclusively matters of state law or policy. alongside policies, laws, and decrees are routine everyday practices that sustain institutional power just as effectively, and which can also be disputed just as effectively as can formal laws. thinking of the growth of institutions of early childcare in terms of government and ontology highlights their political, social, and cultural dimensions and takes us beyond the narrow focus on the interaction between adults and children. it also takes us beyond the narrow focus on educational quality, which assumes, as we have noted, that institutional childcare has a primarily educational function and so must be coordinated with children’s future schooling. these points imply that two different research agendas are needed. the first focuses on formal policies and the images of childhood they presuppose. for example, ana vergara (2015) has shown the existence of public policies regarding children in latin america that mix a concern with social investment with a concern with children’s rights. however, the rights that are recognized, or assumed, are in fact neither universal nor consensual (magistris, 2016). the second research agenda, equally important, focuses on the operation of government in the everyday practices of childcare institutions. it is necessary to investigate how state policies and parenting and community practices come together and clash in the dynamics of institutions for young children, and the consequences of this for the ontology of children and for the existence of their communities. this is not only a study of practices, for government also establishes the conditions for people’s thoughts and feelings (castro, 2010). foucault saw government as a play of power, defined as action on the actions of another, in which agency and even resistance are central. indeed, “government” neither destroys nor erases the capacity for agency; rather, it shapes particular kinds of agency. it is important to recognize that the creation of a state institution does not negate the possibility of resistance on the part of families, professionals, or communities (valverde & levi, 2006). the key difference between this second research agenda and the study of the implementation of policies from the october 2019 61 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research perspective of quality evaluation is that it doesn’t take for granted the official “knowledge” that supports and is supported by the government in an institution. it can thus explore the risks and tensions this official knowledge can create for members of minority communities. governmentalization, then, is a way of directing the agency, thoughts, feelings, and ways of being of the people who live and work in an institution. in the section that follows, we describe two research projects that fall within the second research agenda that we have described, in which we sought to understand the government of young children in institutions by focusing on conflict and resistance on the part of those involved. local knowledge: two case studies in colombia, government policies directed towards young children and their families are increasingly based on research evaluating the quality of childcare, both inside and outside the family home. because these studies assume that there is a single, universal trajectory to psychological development, and because they use measures of outcomes and of quality that reflect, unconsciously, the values of a particular group, government policies tend to neglect cultural differences. yet it has become clear that children’s development follows trajectories that depend on their family and the culture of their community. culture is a constitutive element in children’s psychological development, and cultural diversity gives rise to distinct trajectories which integrate care practices, educational processes, and the place of the child in the lifeway of the community (packer, 2017). furthermore, psychological development is not a solely epistemological process or a matter of acquiring or constructing practical and conceptual knowledge. it is also about becoming a particular kind of person, a member of the form of life of a community. these ontological considerations are attended to unreflectively by caregivers in every community. but colombian government policies tend to focus on epistemological phenomena and treat childcare as though it is merely a form of education. one way to track the changes that occur as government policies and practices of administrative and governmental management penetrate community institutions is to explore the work of those people who must implement these policies or practices, or whose work is directly impacted by them. our research along these lines has been collaborative, participatory research. we have come to believe that it is crucial to generate local knowledge about the care and development of young children, based on an acknowledgment of our country’s cultural diversity. this local knowledge is needed if colombia is to have a solid basis upon which to design policies and programs for young children and is to implement them in appropriate ways. the goal of generating local knowledge also requires reflection on the ways in which knowledge is produced, especially knowledge that acknowledges the singularity of contexts. for example, local knowledge cannot be based simply on the use of instruments whose presumed validity stems from their standardization across diverse cultural contexts. voices from inside childcare institutions in this section we describe two examples of our own research in colombia that has explored the phenomenon of the institutionalization of children under 2 years of age. the first project was carried out with professionals in charge of the care of young children in cali (ospina, calderon, quintero, cantor, & villalobos, 2018). cali is colombia’s third-largest city, with a population of around 2.5 million, located in the southwest of the country. it is the city with the greatest cultural diversity in colombia. around 600,000 afro-descendants from the pacific coast live in cali, along with substantial numbers of at least six indigenous groups: ingas, quichuas, yanaconas, misak, october 2019 62 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research kofan, and nasa. according to figures from the mayor’s office of cali, around 177,030 children aged 5 and younger lived in the city in 2017 (alcaldía de santiago de cali, 2018). various kinds of institutions offer care and food assistance to these children during the school day or for even longer hours, regulated by the government through public policies. they include public and private institutions, and they vary with the socioeconomic stratum in which they are located. these institutions have progressively incorporated practices of formal schooling, both pedagogical and administrative, such as organizing age-defined grades and hiring teachers who are licensed in early childhood education or preschool education. our investigation was conducted during 2016 and 2017 in collaboration with colleagues from the universidad del valle and universidad icesi. we undertook a form of participatory action research with a group of 13 early childhood workers from several public and private childcare institutions that represented different socioeconomic strata in cali. we invited these early childhood professionals to participate in a learning group which we called a “training seminar.” the teachers had to leave their work early in order to be able to attend the sessions with us, and to be granted permission they had to have a certification that their participation would count as a teaching qualification. in regular meetings over a four-month period, totalling 90 hours, we engaged with these professionals in roundtable discussions and viewed and discussed videos they had made of everyday practical activities in their institutional settings. we sought to preserve the horizontality between researchers and participants. we emphasized their professional expertise and practical wisdom. we asked these professionals to describe some of the tensions they experienced in their everyday responsibilities. it emerged that they were deeply concerned about the ways in which they were required to relate to the young children in their charge. they described conflicts they experienced carrying out daily tasks such as feeding, changing diapers, and responding to children’s emotional needs, as they were required to do. for example, the type of food that children received was regulated, and there was strict monitoring of the amounts consumed. juana described conflicts arising from the emotional bond with younger children: a month ago there was a change in the kindergarten to move in groups, and they sent me to the nursery. i almost died, i started crying. i was anxious to create that bond with them, to work to be able to create it. babies stick to one, and sometimes they just want to be with one and not with other people. from the outside they see it as easy, but when other teachers are there, they realize that it is not so easy. this teacher had been working with older children when the institution asked her to work instead in the nursery. to “move in groups” means that the teachers rotated through the different grades. juana described how working with the youngest children caused her a lot of anxiety, because she was not sure that she was prepared to meet the emotional demands that babies make. she pointed out that her colleagues “from the outside” see work with babies as a simpler task, but in fact it is a big challenge. these professionals told us of administrative practices that seek to ensure they comply with government requirements concerning young children, who are considered vulnerable, and that they monitor children’s attendance so that they do not lose their assigned place in the institution. the colombian government has numerous reporting requirements for its planning and processes, as well as formal procedures to guarantee access to its programs. these requirements struck the teachers as inflexible. the institutions in which they worked had, following government policies, been placing increasing emphasis on “planning” (planeación): filling out worksheets in preparation for october 2019 63 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research each class; defining the learning activities in which children would be involved. indeed, the universities are now training early childhood “teachers” in these processes and practices of planning. the following exchange took place during reflections over everyday routines: lucía: my work is not about teaching; it has to do more with cradling [acunar: to rock or cradle]. sometimes the early childhood education practitioners arrive, and they come with a huge desire to carry out their planning. but cradling is not about planning. cecilia: in my case and in that of my companions, we plan, so as to comply, because it is a requirement. mariela: i feel that when i plan i am more focused on whether the planning is being carried out and not on whether the child enjoys what he is doing, in his game, in his relationship with others. but i see that they enjoy more when they have their free time. lina: at the beginning we had a lot of problems with this planning ... now i have learned how to handle it and i do not wear myself out so much. i turn in my planning as it is requested, very nice and well organized. but if what happens in the classroom is something else … with the children one has to invent new things every day. if one tries to do everything said in the planning, one would not pay attention to the things that the children bring. these professionals were finding ways to satisfy both the needs of the children, as they perceived them, and the requirements of the institutional setting. finally, they spoke of practices of human resource management in which university education and pedagogical training were privileged, rather than practical experience and competence. these professionals turned out to be very aware of the tensions, indeed contradictions, inherent in the fact that very young children need not only to be educated but also to be cared for. they spoke to us very clearly of their growing appreciation that a kind of childcare modelled solely on schooling is not appropriate, or even possible, for children who are so young. they emphasized the importance of recognizing the emotional needs of the younger children, and the type of care appropriate to these needs. the following remarks were made while watching a video of nursery-aged children and their carer: lucia: i feel that it is a very home-like context: there are the cribs, the children are free to move around, the teacher is folding clothes, like the role of a mother. i see a teacher who cradles the children all the time, one after the other. she supports the children physically. in other words, she gives her body to the children; she releases them; she leaves them free. very nice! coordinator: and what do you think of that? lucia: i like it. i think that the children are in a time of solitude, but they are accompanied and they may need those spaces. i feel that she is a teacher who cradles, who receives them through her cuddling. the teacher’s way of being with the children is valued, and there is no concern for the absence of explicit teaching. it is the similarity with home—not with school—that is remarked upon and praised. however, this “maternal role” was described as clashing with that of teacher, and was viewed both as less professional and less demanding: lina: it is usually thought that colleagues in formal school find the work more difficult and even that their work is more professional. it is thought that in the other levels you work, while we simply “mother” the children. october 2019 64 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research we found diverse trajectories of formation among these professionals. some were from university undergraduate programs in early education, while others were madres comunitarias, whose formal education consisted only of technical studies. paradoxically, many of the university-educated professionals had come to feel that their theoretical and disciplinary knowledge was insufficient to enable them to make sense of their place as educators with babies and very small children. in fact, they voiced the concern that this academic knowledge could become an obstacle to identifying the needs of the children in their charge. a particular case of this was the difficulty they described in knowing how to relate to the children’s parents and families, and how to respond to the diverse caretaking practices and values in the family. those professionals who had been madres comunitarias, on the other hand, whom one might have anticipated would feel legitimate in the eyes of the community, in fact felt devalued due to their lack of professional qualifications and the absence of academic validation. the tensions we have described briefly here illustrate how these childcare professionals are torn between being the carers that they feel the children need and the teachers that are expected by the institution with its procedures and guidelines. the example of the nasa and luucx lecxkwe these professionals working in institutions for young children in cali were acutely aware of contradictions in their everyday routine practices. one might anticipate that the situation in an indigenous community would be even more problematic. a research project conducted by a master’s student (grace david) of one of us (tatiana) involved an ethnography of the nasa community, focusing on a childcare institution that had been established by the state. called luucx lecxkwe (“our children”), this institution was regulated by the same standards as the centres in cali. but its practices were very different (david, 2018). cauca is a region to the southwest of cali populated by indigenous, afro-descendants, and campesinos. the nasa are an indigenous community with around 60,000 to 80,000 members, many of whom live in a resguardo of 1,300 square kilometres in the highlands beside the cauca valley. they are engaged in a struggle to regain territory in the valley which they believe was taken from them illegally early in the 20th century. this ethnographic study was carried out over two years, with weekly visits to the resguardo to understand how the nasa implemented state programs to promote the development of their children. it is not possible for us to quote here the voices of the participants, since the access that was negotiated with the nasa council (cabildo) granted us permission for local publication but not international publication. implementing the state’s policies for indigenous children in this community has not been a simple matter. it has taken ten years of dialogue between representatives of bienestar familiar, the government agency, and the cabildo. it was necessary for the community to become the legal operator, the administrator, of the state services. the nasa maintained their opposition to intervention by expert professionals from the western world, only permitting some professionals to enter and become involved in the care of their children after a collective evaluation of their spiritual suitability. they recognized the distance between what the government wanted to provide and the ways they raised their children, and they organized themselves to become, in a sense, intermediaries of the state in order to safeguard the principles of the nasa world. for the nasa, a child’s development is a matter of “walking towards the moon.” this is not the achievement of skills or competencies, but an exploration of gifts given by nature before the child is born. the nasa recognize a sacred relationship with nature and especially with the moon, which guides and influences everyday life: harvests, the october 2019 65 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research care of animals, procreation, and the birth of children. the rhythms of the moon orient the gifts which children receive. these gifts must be discovered and fostered by the family and community, and they serve to maintain harmony and peace. the development of a child is a path of spiritual struggle which requires practices of spiritual protection for both the child and for those who accompany them. the child development centre luucx lecxkwe does not operate in a closed space like the traditional preschool or kindergarten. the children go to various places in the community: to its rivers, its fields, and its forests. the elders of the community (los abuelos, literally grandparents) decide on the activities in which the children participate. mothers participate alongside their children, accompanied by state facilitators selected by the abuelos for their spiritual suitability and their knowledge of the nasa language. the overall aim is to provide the care that will guide the discovery of each child’s gifts. in short, every child is gifted. the people who are in charge of the nasa children are clear in their recognition of the needs of their children. for this community, the fundamental thing is to preserve their cultural identity, and this is what they seek to safeguard in the face of state interventions. this can be recognized in the following extract from field notes: the children and parents of the program are sitting in a circle. the facilitator in the middle greets them in nasa yuwe and later speaks to them in spanish about the importance of children living in the community, addressing the parents with the following words: “i am not the one who knows about pedagogy, it is you who know about pedagogy. here we only come to remember what we are as nasa, but you are the ones who know how to take care, you are the ones who know how to teach your children ... here we are not going to teach formulas. it’s about talking about what we are ... because as it is possible that we are of small stature, a nutritionist may tell us that our children have growth difficulties, when we the nasa are that way! (david, 2018) what community leaders seek to safeguard and legitimize is the community’s continued existence. what is at stake is an ontological defence: they recognize that the proposed government programs would not simply teach the children, they would change who they are. the intercultural collaboration behind the formation of luucx lecxkwe was possible because the community was able to maintain a symmetry of power with the state, and this generated the conditions for the community to sustain its own forms of government, those which they felt were legitimate for the preservation of their culture and the well-being of their children. however, the maintenance of this symmetry has required a posture of permanent resistance on the part of the community. the state had the best of intentions to protect indigenous culture, but this in itself was not sufficient. the nasa people had to both resist the state’s interventions and be willing to engage in dialogue. conclusions when the care of young children in institutions provided and regulated by the state is seen simply as a matter of education—of providing children with knowledge and skills that prepare them for school—this might seem to be of undoubted benefit to all. however, we have argued that in fact this institutional childcare is more than an epistemological matter. these institutions are also operating on an ontological level: their “government” is shaping the kinds of person that these young children become. viewed that way, it becomes evident that childcare institutions can clash with the pluricultural communities they claim to be serving. a single institution that is attended by children from multiple ethnic and cultural communities will struggle to do justice to all their ethnic and cultural identities. october 2019 66 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the two examples we have summarized, it became evident that the phenomenon of institutionalization of the care of very young children is crisscrossed by a series of practices of administration, management, regulation, health, and hygiene with a logic and values that reflect a western perspective oriented towards the constitution of schooled subjectivities, especially focused on the achievement of competences. creating and implementing effective and fair policy and programs for the care of young children from different cultures is a challenge in colombia. this is not least because conceptions of cultural diversity and of integral development tend to clash. globalized conceptions of integral development have generated a powerful model of parenting and childcare, but it is one that is displacing traditional childcare practices, and risks erasing the identities of indigenous peoples. october 2019 67 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alcaldía de santiago de cali. 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(2015). public policy discourses on childhood during chilean post-authoritarian democracy: a case of discursive colonization by the language of the free market. childhood, 22, 4, 432–446. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0907568214549079 october 2019 98 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research being-country in urban places: naming the world through australian aboriginal pedagogies margaret somerville, sarah powell, and narelle trist margaret somerville is a professor of education at western sydney university. she is interested in alternative and creative approaches to research and writing, with a focus on relationship to place and planetary well-being. she has a long history of research collaboration with australian aboriginal people and communities and has published 4 books, 11 book chapters, 7 journal articles, 3 research reports, and 5 art exhibitions from this work, in collaboration with aboriginal participants. her most recent research, naming the world, draws on posthuman and new materialist theories and indigenous eco-philosophical approaches in collaboration with very young children and their extraordinary capacities in world naming. email: margaret.somerville@westernsydney.edu.au sarah powell is lecturer in creative arts (music) at macquarie university. prior to joining macquarie, sarah worked in the school of education at western sydney university, focusing on arts in education and literacy in early years learning. sarah collaborated with margaret somerville and narelle trist in naming the world through her interest in music. narelle’s approach to working with children, her emergent indigenous pedagogies, intersected effectively with sarah’s embodied approach to music and movement, where stories and song and listening are a physically enacted literacy of experience. sarah is interested in the potential of music to bring diverse cultural understandings together through the embodied nature of music and its integral part in all aspects of our lives. email: sarah.powell@mq.edu.au narelle trist is an aboriginal education officer at noumea public school in shalvey, western sydney. she comes from brewarrina in murrawarri country. her mother is a murrawarri woman and her father is a dharug descendant. her work at noumea public school involves providing aboriginal input across all ages and year levels of the school and linking with the local aboriginal parents and communities. she specializes in developing resources consisting of found objects for children’s learning and creative engagement. through these resources, narelle supports learning across all subject areas. her resource room provides a place of excitement and creative learning where children can make new things from discarded objects (e.g., jacaranda pods, bark, sticks, leaves) to improve learning outcomes. email: narelle.trist@det.nsw.edu.au in this paper we explore the pedagogies enacted by a murrawarri/dharug teacher and co-researcher, narelle trist, through activities she brought to the children at western preschool, located in a significantly disadvantaged area of western sydney. the examples chosen for this paper include learning and performing indigenous animal names, physically enacting an animal story, learning a traditional welcome dance, and creating personal message sticks. as narelle engaged with children, she enacted her indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, her onto-epistemology, and her full and total entanglement with her worlds. the international research project naming the world: enhancing literacy and sustainability learning in the early years forms the backdrop for our discussion of narelle’s pedagogies and our exploration of being-country in urban places. we collaboratively explore the enactment of narelle’s distinctive australian aboriginal approach within the posthuman and new materialist framings of the project as a whole. this paper explores the pedagogies of a murrawarri/dharug co-researcher enacted during three activities: becoming animal; welcome dance; and message sticks. we thinkwith trist and consider the possibilities of beingcountry in urban places. the research draws on data collected as part of naming the world, an international project informed by posthuman and new materialist theorizing and indigenous understandings of humans as fully intertwined with the world. we grapple with the intersection of posthuman and new materialist perspectives alongside indigenous onto-epistemologies in early childhood education settings. key words: being-country; indigenous; posthuman; onto-epistemology; new materialism october 2019 99 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research we begin by considering the literature that helps frame our thinking around the intersection of indigenous and western onto-epistemologies in early years learning. we contemplate the significance of land, settler colonial impact, and language/naming. we describe our research project, naming the world, to contextualize the discussion, and we introduce narelle-in-country through her depiction of herself, using a written and graphic language map. we present a number of data examples, which form the basis of our discussion of narelle’s activities with the children at western preschool. literature in western systems of early childhood education, there continues to be an ontological and epistemological problem of separating culture (as language) from nature (as world). a large and developing body of work in early childhood research has grappled with new materialist concepts, such as intra-action and entanglement (barad, 2007), and has sought to apply these concepts in settler colonial contexts (lenz taguchi, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw, 2013; pacini-ketchabaw, di tomasso, & nxumalo, 2014; somerville, 2018; taylor & giugni, 2012). theorizing within these framings challenges the powerful nature-culture binaries that are familiar to western humanist philosophies, which separate humans from the rest of the planet. in contrast, these framings align with indigenous onto-epistemologies, which have always understood humans to be inextricably intertwined with the world and its becoming (somerville, 2013). many early childhood education researchers have recognized the possibility of bringing these fundamentally different philosophies into conversation. the complexities characteristic of indigenous onto-epistemologies and the difficulties that western systems of knowledge have with integrating or accepting these in settler colonial contexts is the subject of much research literature. indigenous onto-epistemologies across the world acknowledge that all things are connected and impact each other. they see the relationships between all things, human, nonhuman, and more-than-human, as integral to being, and it is these relationships that foster knowledge and understanding (ritchie, 2013). somerville and hickey (2017) discuss the failure of the australian curriculum to fully engage with australian aboriginal ways of being and knowing. they use “thinking through country” to grapple with the vastly different cultures and philosophies that continue to disconnect western, settler colonial systems from indigenous australian aboriginal systems. thinking through country (marshall, 2007; somerville, 2013, 2018) was developed by chrissiejoy marshall as part of her doctoral study and journey. as a methodology, it “enacts ongoing relations with natural elements and forces, and is manifest in narratives and cultural practices” (cole & somerville, 2017, p. 73), having emerged as a result of marshall challenging “conventional discourse” (p. 74) and developing her own indigenous onto-epistemology. like posthuman and new materialist conceptualizations of being, including the notion of a flat ontology, thinking through country perceives and experiences life as interconnected, equal, and nonhierarchical, not as disconnected entities with greater or lesser value. karen barad’s (2007) notion of intra-action aligns with indigenous onto-epistemologies in that it describes the internal relatedness of all things, where all things have agency (martin, 2017) and impact each other. in a discussion about indigenous research methods, karen martin (2017) identifies the separation that occurs in western representational thinking that does not account for “everyday living” (p. 1393). in contrast, an indigenous worldview is based on “the premise of a ‘real’ relationship people have to an inseparable cultural ideology that is premised on country” (p. 1396). even knowledge has agency and is fluid, and for indigenous people, the way knowledge is acquired and how it is shared is as important as the knowledge itself, and it is completely entangled with the everydayness of being. the understandings embodied in education in settler colonial societies are seen as operating against indigenous october 2019 100 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research ways of being in and knowing the world, to the point of the erasure of an indigenous presence (martin, 2017; ritchie, 2013, 2014, 2016). a study conducted in aotearoa (new zealand) by jenny ritchie (2013) was based on bruno latour’s (2004) notion of matters of concern. one of these matters was that indigenous onto-epistemologies were invisible in early childhood educational settings. in this colonial context, indigenous peoples and the environment are constantly overlooked. the indigenous onto-epistemology in this maori context sees humans as inseparable from and reciprocally dependent on the world, both locally and globally. ritchie discusses the urgent need to recognize and validate indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing (p. 397) in order to address the destruction caused by western dualist systems of thought about the environment and human “detachment from the morethan-human world” (p. 397). similarly, michelle salazar pérez and cinthya saavedra (2017) challenge the global south/north distinction that exists in america in the early childhood education field, arguing that global south onto-epistemologies have been disregarded. they advocate “centering the lived ways of knowing and being” (p. 2) of marginalized children, and call for the recognition of diverse onto-epistemologies. concepts of land and country embody profound ontological and epistemological differences to the often-invisible underpinnings of environmental education (tuck, mckenzie, & mccoy, 2014). veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2013) asks, “what might happen when we pay attention to how indigenous peoples and their ontologies and epistemologies are erased from child care forest pedagogies?” (p. 356). she draws on anna tsing’s (2005) concept of friction to explore the divergent social relationships of the modern world. like many, pacini-ketchabaw understands that colonial practices have silenced indigenous naming practices (p. 359). she describes an early childhood game that explores folk, scientific, and children’s naming practices in relation to chickadee woods. the paper concludes with the challenge to pay close attention to the lively collaborations between “indigenous peoples, the land, the forest, settlers, other pedagogies, animals, families, and so on” (p. 361). eve tuck and her colleagues mckenzie and mccoy (2014) discuss the significance of naming and language in indigenous education, particularly in relation to land. “naming” in learning is recognized as the “site at which issues with references between western and indigenous epistemologies unfold” (bang et al., 2014, p. 47). land is an integral feature of indigenous onto-epistemology. ritchie (2016) draws on “alternative conceptualizations, drawing on post-humanist and indigenous theorizing” (p. 78). relationship with land is an integral part of maori cosmology, which “situates humans, trees, birds and other creatures as fellow descendants of sky father (ranginui) and mother earth (papatūā nuku)” (p. 79). again, this intersects with the concept of intra-action, where all things are integrally connected and equally part of the world’s being and becoming. land is also significant for arrente children. affrica taylor (2013) asks what we might learn about children’s postcolonial nature-culture relations from arrente caterpillar children living in the aboriginal fringe camps around alice springs (p. 366). here, land is related to the traditional caterpillar dreaming story and to “sacred rock paintings in the cliffs around the waterhole” (p. 370). this is an entangled story of aboriginal and colonial settler that has transformed the traditional storytelling of mparntwe country. enacting local knowledges and ways of being and doing is taken up by carol rowan (2015), who explores the relationship between inuit peoples and their “land, water, ice, and snow” (p. 199). she talks about the “situated and specifically inuit nunangat pedagogy” (p. 198) integral to early childhood education in the canadian arctic. nunangat is the inuit word or concept for land, encompassing land, water, and ice and also “weather, waterways, animals” (p. 203). rowan notes that settler colonial systems have severely jeopardized inuit relations with land because of ongoing euro-western development (p. 202). she describes the pedagogy of an elder, elisapi, through the carving of snow. the children watch this elder, learn from her, and then do what she has shown them. this is nunangat pedagogy that understands and acknowledges the agency of the snow. the snow october 2019 101 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research exerts its agency on the child within their interaction, as well as vice versa. the snow is teaching the child about its carveability—it is affording certain kinds of carvings to emerge. it is a co-production involving snow, tool, and child. (p. 206) in another project, somerville and hickey (2017) analyze children’s multimodal images and texts, where children planted native groundcover species in the school grounds (p. 1427). land and country are understood here in terms of remnant patches of the ecological community of the cumberland plains, which were cleared for agricultural use and urban development. these areas are now considered endangered (p. 1429). a settler colonial critique of this history acknowledges the impact of colonization on the cumberland plains. a significant part of this project was teaching aboriginal english and producing a book, which begins with the translation of a child’s story into aboriginal english and displays artworks and aboriginal symbols. the pedagogies involved were powerful. they “underlie the extraordinary and transformative potential realised when indigenous approaches and environmental education are genuinely integrated” (p. 1438). the data examples we use demonstrate how narelle trist’s onto-epistemology translates to her pedagogy and exemplifies total entanglement of her land and country, language, colonization, and pedagogy. the project: naming the world naming the world: enhancing literacy and sustainability in early years learning (2016–2019) is an international research project investigating the ways young children name their worlds. it responds to literacy and sustainability outcomes expressed in the australian early years learning framework (eylf), which broadly understands literacy as “the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms” (p. 38) and identifies “the interdependence between people, plants, animals and the land” (p. 29). this research sought to “think these together” and explore the way children use “languages” to make sense of their world(s). the notion of literacy+sustainability was formed and various categories were created to help make sense of data (somerville & powell, 2017). we use three of these categories to discuss trist’s pedagogical examples: becoming animal; drumming, singing, dancing, rhythm; and artefacts and imaginative play. seven early learning sites from australia and finland were involved in the project. in australia there were three sites in new south wales (nsw), two in victoria, and one in queensland. a kindergarten in oulu, finland, was the seventh site. the children involved were aged 0–6 years. the research was structured in two main phases. we describe the first phase as the “deep hanging out” phase (geertz, 1998; walmsley, 2018; wogan, 2004), which involved 6–12 months of being with children in their education setting (e.g., long daycare, preschool), observing them at play, outside in the playground, and inside in their classroom. we would be guided by the children and only enter a game or conversation when invited or approached. our deep hanging out reflects donna haraway’s (2015) notion of curious practice, where everything is interesting, where we expect to be surprised, and where research starts from a point of openness, without preconceived notions of what should be discovered. the second phase saw the educators develop a project to implement with the children. for some, this meant devising music activities to add to a day or embedding indigenous language in literacy activities, such as word recognition and greetings. for others, it involved constructing a riverbed in adjacent bush land, or connecting with children in finland through the exchange of stories, drawings, and language. for narelle, it meant engaging children in traditional aboriginal dance, language, and storytelling. this paper focuses on one nsw site, western preschool, which is located in sydney’s west, the fastest growing october 2019 102 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research urban area in australia. it is the destination of choice for newly arrived migrants and refugees, with over 100 languages represented. it has the highest concentration of aboriginal people, 30% of whom come from elsewhere in australia. western preschool stands on a street corner in a high-poverty suburb and is secured by high, barred, metal fencing. across the road is a small shopping complex, main road, and suburban streets. the preschool provides for children from a range of ethnicities, including aboriginal children. the researchers, margaret somerville and sarah powell, visited the preschool on a regular basis as part of the deep hanging out phase. we observed children, interacted with them, and got to know the educators. narelle trist joined the research project in its second phase (the pedagogical phase), but was known to many of the staff because she had contributed there before. narelle came to the preschool on a regular basis and provided pedagogical experiences for the children. she enthusiastically embraced the research, taking leadership of her own pedagogical activities, and was happy to be the focus of our video recording. her participation in this paper has been to generate the pedagogical ideas behind these activities as her intellectual property and to welcome the opportunity to contribute to this publication through our presentation and analysis of a small number of videos and fieldnotes. this paper highlights three examples, which we identify as becoming animal, welcome dance, and message sticks. narelle enacted her distinctive australian aboriginal approach through these activities, which were situated within the posthuman and new materialist framings of the project as a whole and exemplify the intersection of these framings with indigenous onto-epistemologies. the following segment is narelle’s representation of herself. her identity directly relates to the enactment of her pedagogy and is distinguished by her powerful being-country in this urban place. being-country: narelle trist the diagram in figure 1 was created by narelle as part of another project (pathways to engagement, 2016) that sought to map the everyday language practices of students at schools in a highly disadvantaged area of western sydney, to develop pedagogies based on these practices, and to support english curriculum outcomes (hickey, trist, bell, lee, somerville, & power, 2016). the maps were created by aboriginal education officers (aeos) who introduced themselves, drew a “map” of their language practices and history, and discussed what they had produced. the maps are significant for this paper because they encapsulate an identity shaped by history, experience, and language. the verbal narrative of narelle’s language map enhances her drawing: hi my name’s narelle trist. i originate from brewarrina in murrawarri country. my mother is a murrawarri woman, my father’s a dharug descendant but my mum’s father is from queensland, born on the diamantina river, my grandmother is from angledool. my parents brought us down to mount druitt in early 1970s for better education for the future for her children. so we came down on the old steam train down from brewarrina all the way down to penrith which from there we caught a taxi out to mount figure 1. narelle trist’s language map. october 2019 103 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research druitt to the first five-bedroom home in mount druitt. from there we attended dawson public school; then we went to mount druitt high school. i was married 1980 in mount druitt, settled in hillsdale then campbelltown, but we all come back to mount druitt because all our family’s there. the green represents life, the red represents the red dust, brown represents the earth and the green on the mountains but also the sun. we cannot grow—plant nor human being—will grow without sunlight as it holds the most important thing, vitamin d with sunlight to help you grow. (hickey, trist, bell, lee, somerville, & power, 2016, pp. 13–14). the map constructed here, in both visual and written form, is a powerful narrative that narelle brought to her daily practice as educator and advocate, an identity that she also brought to our project, her being-country in urban places, enacted through her pedagogy with the children at western preschool. data and discussion in this section, we provide examples of narelle’s pedagogies with the children at western preschool. we have transcribed them from short iphone video recordings and from fieldnotes, framing the activities in three categories: becoming animal; drumming, singing, dancing, rhythm; and artefacts and imaginative play. becoming animal video 1: animals children are sitting on the floor. narelle holds up a laminated picture of an australian animal and recites each name for the children to mimic. “badagarung,” she says, and the children repeat, “badagarung.” “aaaah,” she says dramatically, leaning forward. the children call out, “snake by the creek.” “yeees, but what does he do?” she raises one arm from the elbow with fingers bent at knuckles, mimicking a snake’s upright posture. “but what does he do?” she hisses loudly. “he’s called bulada, bulada.” the children repeat it. another dramatic pause and then, “aaaawh, who’s this beautiful girl? mother emu, muriyung, muriyung.” again, the children repeat. “ooooh, who’s this cuddly one?” “koala!” the children shout. “hooray, yeah, but where do they live with their family? and what does she do with her family? in a tree, a eucalyptus tree?” “in the jungle,” suggests one child. “not in the jungle, pretty, they live where there’s a lot of bush, and see that tree? (points to picture) they climb on, that’s their food (fingers poised at lips in chewing motion), ’cause they don’t drink water, either” (shaking head). “how does he drink water?” asks a child. “he gets all the moisture out from the leaf. he gets all the moisture out from the eucalyptus leaves” (fingers to lips october 2019 104 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research again). “i’ll have to get a eucalyptus leaf and i’ll bring it in for you, and i’ll let you smell it and i’ll let you touch it” (hand out, fingers curled, rubbing each other). “ok, okaaaay, aaaah (big sigh), who’s this?” “dingu,” children call out. “dingu,” narelle responds. “and what is he?” “he’s a puppy,” answers one child. “no, he’s a dingooooo. and what did our dingo do last week? how many dingoes have i got?” (stretches arms out open wide as if to include the whole group) the children immediately begin howling, heads lifted, looking towards the sky, hands cupped in front of their mouths, making piercing howls. narelle’s arms move to conductor position and she begins counting, 1, 2, 3, signalling to them to howl again, which they all do simultaneously and with great pleasure and animation. it continues on and on and on. end video 2: being-becoming animal narelle reads kangaroos hop, and with each page of the book the children become the animal: hopping kangaroos, flying birds (their arms for wings), shuffling echidnas, dancing butterflies, running lizards (with tiny steps), crawling crabs (on all fours), and jumping frogs. narelle pauses. “the frogs jump to the river bank wheeeere … (pauses in silence as the children respond) … are you sure?” she holds up the book to show the picture. “shhhhhh (finger to lips). the big fat crocodile is sleeping.” the children are jumping up and down in excitement. “are you sure?” the children respond: “crocodile.” narelle says, “crocodile, yeah, yeah” as the children continue to jump, shouting, “crocodile!” end there are two main sequences in narelle’s repeated performances of becoming animal. in the first, the children learn the names of australian native animals in both english and the local aboriginal language, dharug, from a series of images narelle has created as a resource. the second sequence involves reading the book kangaroos hop, written by ros moriarty and illustrated by aboriginal artist balarinji. ros moriarty is described as “founder of indi kindi pre-literacy education” and is the author of the acclaimed listening to country, a memoir of her journey across country and culture with the matriarchs of her husband’s aboriginal family (moriarty, 2011). october 2019 105 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research kangaroos hop involves kangaroos, birds, echidnas, butterflies, lizards, fish, crabs, goannas, frogs, and crocodiles. it introduces each animal, with its accompanying movement or action, in a cumulative fashion, so that by the end of the book, children are reciting and enacting the whole sequence of animals and performing their characteristic movements. in these performances, land is performed through the bodies and movements that depict native animals, their actions, and their habitats. in many senses, the enactment of the animals evokes the country of its habitat—the snake by the creek, the koala chewing leaves in its eucalyptus tree—in a quintessential settler colonial context. the children at western preschool enter the country of the animals as a place of imagination; it is too dangerous and too disturbing for many of the children to leave the grounds of the preschool. they join with narelle in experiences that directly connect them with a very different time and place, an indigenous past of knowing, being, and doing, with an embodied real and present knowing, being, and doing. learning and performing dharug animal names is also an embodied experience for these children and is central to the pedagogy in this performance. however, it is much more embodied than just language as abstract and disconnected words. the children become the animals; they feel the movement in their bodies; they howl like a dingo, smell the gum leaf with the koala. their participation shows a “depth of sensory, embodied engagement [that] enables their response-ability within these intra-actions” (ritchie, 2016, p. 88). in this embodied engagement, the children learn to name their worlds through their relation with narelle’s performing body, the collective bodies of children, the animals, and their habitats, and the book through which they learn to read and perform. the pictures and the book come to life in this enactment. this urban preschool room momentarily transforms into being-country. drumming; singing; dancing; rhythm video: welcome dance seven girls are lined up, standing in a row beside narelle, who leans forward, arms extended in front of her body, hands facing each other, ready to clap the beat. narelle leans into a swinging walk forward, clapping her hands and counting as she does: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. her hips swing from side to side in gathered cotton skirt, arms and hands following the same movement and rhythm: clapping, counting, moving, swinging. the girls follow her, repeating movements to the rhythm of their counting and clapping: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. on the last count, narelle turns back to face where they have come from and continues with the same movement and rhythm: hips swinging, arms waving, hands clapping, repeating the counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. the girls following narelle turn and repeat their movement, counting and clapping, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. as they reach the count of 8 and arrive back at the starting point, narelle raises her arms as high as she can reach, takes in a deep breath, and, as arms and hands reach their furthest extent, blows out all her breath with a very loud “oyyyyyyyi” and the girls follow suit, raising their tiny arms and shouting in pleasure and release. she does the same with the boys, but the steps are different. end october 2019 106 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in these examples, land is represented by evoking the ritual of welcome, performed in traditional times when neighbouring tribal groups entered the territory or home country of the welcoming group. with over 500 distinct aboriginal languages defining their own ecological territory prior to settler colonial invasion, the rituals of crossing over or walking through another’s country were elaborate and essential. in traditional times, it was also customary for the visitor to call out in their own language to the spirits of country to let them know that someone from another country was approaching (somerville & perkins, 2010). in the context of settler colonization, the welcome ritual has been translated into the customary performance of a ritualized speech, usually given by an elder from the country location of a gathering. often the speech is given in the speaker’s language and some form of identification of country is performed. in the absence of an elder from that country, the practice is for an aboriginal person to perform an acknowledgement of country to let country know that visitors are present. according to narelle, part of learning the welcome dance is for children to learn to respect everyone. they learn to “embrace all cultures—rainbow people—and respect everyone for all their differences, not just skin colour.” this is especially important at western preschool because there is a large diversity of ethnic backgrounds represented. narelle says, “everyone needs to learn to be okay together.” in the welcome dance, the children learn to enact a welcome according to some of the traditional protocols of the traditional indigenous performance of welcome to country. the girls and boys learn separately. they learn the body moves differently according to each gender. girls swing their hips and arms from side to side; boys stomp their feet in a leaning-forward action of rhythmical stomping and clapping. tapping sticks or hand clapping is used with particular dance steps to accompany body rhythm and movement, a vital part of the performance. the children count their steps out loud, becoming the embodiment of both number and rhythm. the finale is the loud shout, a call to the spirits of the country to let them know that the visitor has arrived. this pedagogical activity clearly expresses narelle’s indigenous onto-epistemologies. it incorporates indigenous rituals, known across different aboriginal peoples, and is simultaneously a physical enactment of such a welcome ritual through the interpretation of a moment in an urban preschool. the children become-with narelle and experience a beingcountry with her as they clap and count and stomp. thousands of years of indigenous being and knowing come together with narelle and these ethnically diverse children in a moment of doing. artefacts and imaginative play video 1: message sticks narelle sits with a young boy, her face and gestures expressing an exquisite tenderness as she assists him in his identify-forming message stick making. they are sitting at the table with remnants of other children’s makings, three black plastic ice cream containers, one with white glue and two paintbrushes; a second with a variety of brightly coloured paper and a white cup; and a third with sand. scattered across the table are white and pink pipe cleaners, two white cups, and sand. narelle leans in towards the boy whose hands are poised over a green message stick that she holds out for him while he sprinkles stars onto some glue. his body looks down shyly. narelle’s face, smiling and so attentive, looks towards him as she gently presses the stars into the glue. she turns the stick and says, “a little bit more there? what else would you like other than stars? we got eyes (picking up white cup and placing it in front of the boy who looks down into it). and where would you like to put two eyes if you got eyes? down here? which side but?” (holding stick up, turns it around). october 2019 107 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the boy tilts his head to one side, contemplating the message stick. “ummm,” shyly pointing, he looks down, hesitating. “well, you get your eyes out, aunty relle put them on.” she takes a paintbrush and dabs paint gently onto the message stick while the boy gets eyes out of the white cup. eyes are glued on. end video 2: message stick—story 1 five children sit at the table with narelle. she holds her message stick up to show the children. her other arm stretches out wide. she says, “she [emu] is letting everybody know that she has laid her eggs, and that old man emu is sitting on them (nods approvingly towards message stick and children). but also (pointing to the top of the message stick), my stars, they not only remind me of my country. they remind me of my life, because i work with little bright stars (hand on heart, fingers spread wide). my children are my little bright stars” (smiling and nodding at a child). she holds the stick up again and points. “see this? (pipe cleaners wound around stick) that’s like a nice brown, ’cause my country is a sunburnt country. see the sand? (pointing again at message stick, the bottom this time) that represents western preschool with my little superstars (pointing to the stars again and nodding to the children). ok?” end video 3: message stick—story 2 narelle has the message sticks that the children made last week. she tells them her story, pointing at the patterns and decorations on her message stick as she speaks. narelle then invites each child to tell her or his story. sixteen children take turns to tell their story, huddled close to narelle, her arm protectively enveloping them. she holds their hand in hers with the message stick safely in both their grasps. the children say things like “pink is my favourite colour”; “i need stars”; “i love stars”; “stars are from my tree”; “the eyes are my house watching me”; “the green is my tree”; “gold is my mummy and daddy”; “the eyes are watching my mummy when she is sick”; “the stars are mummy, poppy, and grandma looking after me.” end for australian aboriginals, traditional times were composed of everything that made up country. this included elements of rock, stone, sand, soil, water, air, and fire; the weather, wind, storms, and the seasons; the contours of the land, hills, valleys, creeks, rivers, and waterways; all living creatures, reptiles, mammals, birds, insects, spiders, fish, amphibians, and so on, ad infinitum. everything in its totality is country, including its humans. country was also a specific place, as well as the relationship between all places. red, yellow, and white ochre were used with humans for body and ground designs in ceremony, and also to transmit messages on sticks from one human clan to another. sticks and bark were the most accessible mobile forms of inscription and communication. october 2019 108 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the message stick activity by narelle denotes land as a powerful expression of shared identity in country. the message stick was also a sign of permission to enter the country of the other. for narelle, land plays an integral role in the communication of her and the children’s identity, as her language map shows. at western preschool, the activity takes place in a highly urbanized settler colonial context. the message sticks are made from manufactured timber rods, or dowel, and the “message” is constructed using an assortment of readily available materials, including pipe cleaners, scraps of assorted shiny paper, glitter stars, tiny plastic eyes, stickers, and sand. the materials are organized into a number of empty plastic ice cream containers in the middle of a preschool table, set up with four chairs for selected children to take their turns. the children choose how to decorate their message sticks and narelle helps them by applying glue. she works with one child at a time, with each time being a moment of intense identity formation and sharing. each time narelle holds up her own message stick, she tells her story. the stick closely resembles her language map and is a hybrid mix of traditional symbols and knowledges. narelle’s is a contemporary urban identity at western preschool, a being-country in urban places. the first time narelle begins her story it starts with the emu, the traditional symbol for murrawarri country in the desert country of far western new south wales. the red sand desert country is “a sunburnt country” where the temperatures rise up to 50 degrees in summer. the stars are so bright in this country, far from city lights, and the stars on narelle’s message stick represent her murrawarri country, as well as the children, her “little bright stars.” on another occasion, the children are invited to tell their identity story when they return to their completed and dried message sticks. theirs are messages of personal identity, which largely involve family who look after them. when narelle tells her story on a different occasion, she is the sunburnt country, and the matchsticks represent the staff and the fence around the preschool that keeps the children safe. her whole story is an amalgam of being-country, both in times gone by and now in contemporary western sydney. (in)conclusion examining narelle trist’s pedagogies has opened up new possibilities for bridging the gap between indigenous onto-epistemologies and western systems of thought. in doing so, we have experienced the possibilities offered by the intersection of posthuman and new materialist theorizing with indigenous onto-epistemologies. these understandings have been developed through our collaboration and have contributed significantly to naming the world. in this work, we have seen the entanglement of peoples, ideologies, philosophies, lived experience, objects, and things, and we have seen the way this entanglement can shape pedagogy and learning. we have seen the enmeshing of indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing with the intra-active embodiment of land, beingcountry, and the settler colonial narrative. we have experienced the unique pedagogy of narelle trist, through which she enacts being-country in this urban place. the examples we have presented portray narelle and the children of western preschool “becoming animal” as they perform animal names in the dharug language, connect these words with animal pictures, perform animal sounds, move like animals, and enact an animal story together. through the message stick activities, we are drawn into narelle’s land and country as she tells her story and as this is translated to the children telling their stories. finally, we witness the full entanglement of land, country, and settler colonial influence as narelle teaches and performs a welcome dance with the children: an amalgamation of bodies, stories, and ritual, past and present realities, and the musical, rhythmic exchange between narelle and the children; a new interpretation of “welcome to country.” we have a new vision of this work of being-country in urban places whereby being-country with narelle becomes a body literacy, a memory or dna literacy that permeates all of us from her very being. whether it be reading, dancing, making, hopping like a kangaroo, shuffling like an echidna, flying like a bird, howling like a dingo, or just october 2019 109 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research sitting with the children, we become-country in this contemporary hybrid urban place. conclusion by narelle trist with this paper it was a privilege to work with yourself first, and with sarah, who was very warm, and if i needed any assistance she was there, no problems. at the end of the day i feel privileged because i work with children and can see those little children coming from preschool to my school and to me it’s worth all the money in the world. i get to see children come through my gate happy and to leave happy from my learning grounds. i love it. i love my community and the little preschool learning grounds because it’s so child friendly. i can be a child with them and let my imagination go with the children. i am a strong believer if you read stories you have to play the part. if that means carrying on like a child, being a big kid, well, who cares? it means that you’re having fun. it was a privilege to have so much fun with all the children, yourself, and sarah powell. the staff there always welcome any kind of learning ’cause at the end of the day all our children are colourful little rainbows and they learn in so many different ways through so many little cultures coming together. it’s a privilege because we’re all one when we’re together. they’re my children and i have to care for them and my own learning grounds. 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(2004). deep hanging out: reflections on fieldwork and multisited andean ethnography. identities, 11(1), 129–139. https://doi. org/10.1080/725289021 september 2019 120 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the power of civility: a transdisciplinary examination of adolescent social power and bullying anthony a. volk, richard c. mitchell, and tauhid khan anthony a. volk is a professor in child and youth studies at brock university. he studies parenting, bullying, personality, and the evolution of childhood. he uses multiand transdisciplinary methods to gain a better understanding of why children, adolescents, and parents behave the way they do. his work has been published in health, psychology, education, sociology, anthropology, social work, and education journals. email: tvolk@brocku.ca richard mitchell is a transdisciplinary scholar whose work focuses on child rights. a former social worker, mitchell is an active scholar whose work promotes the rights of children across the globe, particularly from the perspective of the un convention on the rights of the child. a passionate believer in transdisciplinary thinking, dr. mitchell offers multiple undergraduate and graduate courses that highlight the value and challenges associated with transdisciplinary thinking. he has also been active in promoting environmental sustainability and indigenous rights within the niagara region. email: rmitchell@brocku.ca tauhid khan did his mss in sociology at the university of dhaka, bangladesh, and ma in child and youth studies at brock university. he taught sociology in different public and private universities for six years in bangladesh. he is currently pursuing a phd in public health and health systems at the university of waterloo. he has research experiences (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method) through a number of theoretical lenses in different fields of social sciences, especially sociology, including sexuality, intimacy, sex education, crime, and health. email: thkhan85@gmail.com adolescence is a tumultuous time in development when, among other changes, social power becomes increasingly salient (cillessen & rose, 2005). one expression of this increased focus on power is an increased level of social competition that manifests as bullying behaviour (reijntjes et al., 2013). bullying occurs when, within the context of a power imbalance, one individual pursues their goals by harming another (volk, dane, & marini, 2014). this is a deliberately broad definition that can apply to adult business practices or preschoolers’ birthday invitations. at the same time, it can distinguish between more serious episodes of unbalanced aggression versus typically less harmful episodes of “drama” among relatively equal adolescent peers (ybarra, espelage, & mitchell, 2014). the popular stereotype of bullies as maladapted or deficient individuals does not appear to fit the evidence; most bullies (as opposed to bully-victims1) appear to have average or better physical and mental health, selfesteem, and other peer-desired characteristics, such as strength or attractiveness (volk, camilleri, dane, & marini, 2012). bullies appear to leverage these talents to obtain desired goals. research on adolescent bullying has made it unfortunately clear that one such goal is the selfish pursuit of social power (i.e., dominance, popularity, and a powerful reputation; goodboy, martin, & rittenour, 2016; juvonen & graham, 2014; olthof, goossens, vermande, aleva, & van der meulen, 2011; pellegrini & long, 2002; sijtsema, veenstra, lindenberg, & salmivalli, 2009). across cultures, adolescents who adolescents are keenly aware of the importance of social power, leading some to bully others in order to acquire and/or maintain that social power. traditional efforts to understand and prevent adolescent bullying have largely proven to be limited or ineffective. in response to this, researchers have called for a transdisciplinary approach to bullying. unfortunately, a transdisciplinary approach is challenging to implement, partly because it depends on, and is sometimes constrained by, the successful implementation of civility. we suggest that civility may not only be required for research but may also serve as a key for transdisciplinary efforts to understand and guide adolescents’ use of social power. key words: adolescence; power; social power; bullying; transdisciplinary september 2019 121 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research bully do indeed gain popularity and social dominance over others (pronk et al., 2017; reijntjes et al., 2013; volk, provenzano, farrell, dane, & shulman, 2019). the success of bullying as a social tool for adolescents interested in obtaining power may explain why school strategies (anderson & kincaid, 2005) and interventions have proven to be of modest, null, or even iatrogenic value for adolescents (yeager, fong, lee, & espelage, 2015; zych, ortega-ruiz, & del rey, 2015). for example, school policies of zero tolerance tend to disproportionally discriminate against minorities and fail to reduce targeted behaviours (martinez, 2009). policies that encourage adolescents to work with peers to solve bullying problems as an intervention strategy are ironically associated with significantly higher levels of post-intervention victimization (ttofi & farrington, 2011; see smith, salmivalli, & cowie, 2012 for further commentary). thus, while there are some recent signs of hope (e.g., gaffney, ttofi, & farrington, 2018), we currently lack a proven intervention that results in large, or even medium-sized, reductions in adolescent bullying. the complex problem of designing successful interventions for adolescent bullying may account for the exponential increase of the bullying literature (volk, veenstra, & espelage, 2017). while this literature is impressive (e.g., over 5000 peerreviewed publications in the last five years), an increasing problem within the literature is a growing fracturing of theory, measures, and interpretations (volk et al., 2017). disciplinary boundaries, terminology, and theoretical conflict all play a role in reducing the clarity and utility of this research (volk et al., 2017). it was for this reason that we previously called for a transdisciplinary approach to studying bullying that would literally transcend many of these issues in an effort to better tackle the problem of adolescent bullying and the abuse of power (marini & volk, 2017). a transdisciplinary approach to adolescent social power and bullying on its surface, an academic understanding of adolescent social power seems like a relatively simple and straightforward task, yet it may represent one of the more challenging problems known to humanity. a corollary of this is the mounting evidence that the human brain, the most complex information processor currently known, evolved its impressive capacity to solve just these kinds of social problems (dunbar, 2009). indeed, we seem to be at least partly hard-wired to attend to this problem as even infants can differentiate between individuals who use power respectfully versus those who use power to bully others (margoni, baillargeon, & surian, 2018). thus, it is not surprising that unidisciplinary approaches have struggled with adequately capturing and understanding the complex phenomenon that is bullying. in response to this complexity, researchers are increasingly relying on multiand interdisciplinary approaches to understand bullying by drawing from anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, education, economics, computer science, media studies, visual arts, medicine, and even climate science (copeland et al., 2014; holben & zerkel, 2014; holt, green, tsayvogel, davidson, & brown, 2017; hong, espelage, hunter, & allen-meares, 2018; plimmer, proctor-thomson, donnelly, & sim, 2017; rinderu, bushman, & van lange, 2018; thomas, connor, & scott, 2018; volk et al., 2012; walton & niblett, 2013). while these efforts have yielded an impressive array of new dimensions of bullying behaviour, they still do not capture the entire scope of the problem. vaillancourt and colleagues (2008) note that there is often a significant gap between the academic discourse of bullying and what actual adolescents (i.e., the stakeholders in this issue) consider to be bullying. for example, power imbalances were the most difficult feature to accurately code, and despite representing the core distinctive component of bullying, they were mentioned by only about 30% of adolescents (vaillancourt et al., 2008). while this was three times more frequent than for children september 2019 122 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (who mentioned power imbalances only about 10% of the time; vaillancourt et al., 2008), it does reflect that academics may not be tapping into adequate definitions of power or of bullying and/or adolescents may overor underextend the definition of bullying. with regard to the latter, adolescents may be motivated to claim bullying when there isn’t a power imbalance in order to gain sympathy or support. conversely, they could be motivated to underreport bullying if the perpetrator is believed to be a friend or a socially desirable individual or if they wish to deny their own lack of power. these all present powerful challenges to the current validity of bullying research. these issues may be even more critical for marginalized adolescents whose race, ethnicity, gender identity, health, and/or exceptionalities are often overlooked by most general research (e.g., see the special issue journal introduced by hong, peguero, & espelage, 2018). in many cases this marginalization not only increases the complexity of the problem, but it is also accompanied by higher levels of bullying that may include systemic forms of bullying that differ from more traditionally captured forms of bullying (haines-saah, hilario, jenkins, ng, & johnson, 2018). nor is it always easy to translate research across different global cultures (smith, kwak, & toda, 2016), particularly when one considers public versus academic perceptions of bullying (puhl et al., 2016). one potential solution to these problems is to use theoretical perspectives that are deliberately not limited by disciplinary silos or to studying normalized subject populations. to our knowledge, there is one such approach that may prove useful in understanding adolescent power and bullying: transdisciplinary theory (marini & volk, 2017). transdisciplinarity can be defined as research that operates simultaneously between disciplines, across different disciplines, and beyond all academic disciplines (nicolescu, 2002). the concept of transdisciplinarity remains controversial in some circles (martin, 2017; mitchell & moore 2015a, 2015b). this controversy exists despite having the academic discourse on this reform movement in research and teaching begin within postsecondary education systems around the world in the early 1970s (bernstein, 2015; choi & pak, 2006, p. 359; groen et al., 2010; leavy, 2011; martin, 2017; montuori, 2010, 2013; morin, 1999; nicolescu, 2002, 2008). as desmond manderson (2000) emphasizes, “the aim of bringing together diverse disciplines in a transdisciplinary project is not to transcend that knowledge base but rather to transform it” (p. 91). canadian health scientists choi and pak (2006, 2007, 2008), in their meta-analysis of international literature of that day citing this concept, reviewed hundreds of papers published between 1982 and 2006 and found the notion being deployed interchangeably with multiand interdisciplinarity, and most often without clear comprehension of its distinctive dimensions. in many ways, this resembles the confusion and profusion of the use of the word bullying by academics and the general public (volk et al., 2017; vaillancourt et al., 2008). martin (2017, p. 40) notes that in “transdisciplinary research” the whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but also has “qualitatively different characteristics.” as choi and pak (2006, p. 359, citing dixon, smilek, cudahy, & merikle, 2000, p. 365) have astutely framed these characteristics from their meta-analysis: within multidisciplinary teams, two plus two equals four. within interdisciplinary teams, two plus two equals five due to the sum of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. within transdisciplinary teams sharing distinct paradigmatic, methodological, and analytical strategies, two plus two often equals yellow! in other words, transdisciplinary thinking can lead to outcomes that transcend what is understood and/or expected within traditional disciplinary boundaries. given the inherent complexities associated with bullying, this appears to be a particularly useful approach for capturing the complexity of the problem. montuori (2008), in his foreword to nicolescu’s transdisciplinarity: theory and practice, notes there are four key dimensions to this “new way of thinking” (p. xi). first, there is a focus that is inquiry driven rather than discipline specific. this does not involve a rejection september 2019 123 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of disciplinary knowledge, but the development of pertinent knowledge for the purposes of action in the world. in this way, transdisciplinary knowledge adopts a pragmatic, yet humble, epistemological approach. second, there is a stress on the construction of knowledge through an appreciation of the meta-paradigmatic dimension—in other words, the underlying assumptions that form a paradigm through which disciplines and perspectives construct new knowledge. disciplinary knowledge typically does not question its own paradigmatic assumptions, but a transdisciplinary approach explicitly encourages challenging dominant disciplinary preconceptions. third, it entails an understanding of the organization of knowledge, isomorphic at the cognitive and institutional levels, the history of reduction and disjunction (what morin [1999] refers to as simple thought) and the importance of contextualization and connection (or complex thought). in this way transdisciplinary thinking explicitly acknowledges the power structures and rules that underlie knowledge generation and mobilization. finally, there is the integration of the knower in the process of inquiry, which means that rather than attempting to eliminate the knower, the effort becomes one of acknowledging and making transparent the knower’s assumptions and the process through which they construct knowledge. this thereby removes disciplinary defenses from the knower and encourages them to conform to broader norms of civil discourse. to these four dimensions found through a diverse transdisciplinary literature over decades, many recent transdisciplinary authors are also including indigenous knowledge systems (or iks), for example, christie (2006), duplessis, sehume, and martin (2014), leavy (2011), and mitchell and moore (2018). these efforts are particularly acute given the vulnerability of indigenous adolescents to bullying (gloppen, mcmorris, gower, & eisenberg, 2018; melander, hartshorn, & whitbeck, 2013). what’s more, transdisciplinary research transcends the usual gap between academia and the broader public by acknowledging the value of knowledge obtained from diverse, nonacademic stakeholders in various communities, government, and business (somerville & rapport, 2000). indeed, two decades ago morin and kern (1999), looking forward to our own day, observed that transdisciplinary thinking would be an essential pathway for uniting disparate methods of thinking to approach problems that seemed intractable to any single disciplinary approach (e.g., bullying). in child and youth studies, this includes the direct participation and input at various levels within research projects by interested and committed populations of young people themselves, hence this contribution to the burgeoning global discourse. this can be challenging, particularly when power differences prevent adolescents from speaking freely, and may be challenging for youth who are marginalized or lack power within their peer group (marini & volk, 2017). an increasing number of national initiatives are being set up to address the transnational and transdisciplinary nature of bullying by linking researchers to government, ngo, and public arenas of power and discourse (pepler et al., 2006; pepler, cummings, & craig, 2016; spiel, salmivalli, & smith, 2011). indeed, it was these transdisciplinary efforts (specifically, the voice of a father whose child was killed in a one-time episode of bullying, see make children better now association, 2019) that motivated the removal of frequency as a criterion for bullying (volk et al., 2014). these transdisciplinary efforts appear to be supported by numerous authors (mitchell & moore, 2015b, pp. 407–408; also gillis, nelson, driscoll, hodgins, fraser & jacobs, 2017; kueffer, underwood, hirsch hadorn, holderegger, lehning, pohl, & schirmer, 2012) who have made concrete recommendations regarding how to foster transdisciplinary university-community research collaborations by identifying numerous common facets shared by different groups. thus, for example, new bullying research approaches could focus on the inclusion of currently excluded and diverse epistemological insiders who traditionally lack power in an academic setting (hong, peguero, & espelage, 2018). these include groups—minoritized communities; children and young people; women’s groups; poverty activists; lgbtq individuals; indigenous communities, individuals, and elders; migrant labourer and refugee populations; along with nonacademic and nongovernmental organizations, civil society, and small business—all acting as full partners in problem-centered research projects. when asked by a september 2019 124 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research colleague what transdisciplinary thinking offers beyond an appreciation of complexity (which interdisciplinary research acknowledges and deals with), our fundamental reply was epistemological humility—the simple notion that singular disciplinary knowledge is incomplete (see also montuori, 2008). a transdisciplinary approach recognizes that complex problems like bullying often have nonlinear solutions that require moving beyond disciplinary approaches to incorporate input from a host of nonacademic sources (pepler et al., 2006, 2016). epistemological humility tells us that complexity can lead to the problem of unanticipated outcomes (montuori, 2010), or “black swans.” the concept of the black swan was popularized by nassim taleb in the context of his economic research and encapsulates the idea that until the discovery of australian black swans by john latham in 1790, all swans were believed to be white. the discovery of an atypical species of swan required a major revision to the definition and even the concept of a swan. when this notion is applied to adolescent bullying it means our understanding of that behaviour is vulnerable to unknown events. one such example is the advent of cyberbullying, which might have surprised academic researchers but would likely have not had researchers adopted a transdisciplinary approach that directly involved adolescent stakeholders who were more conversant in, and aware of, the potentials of new technology. in other words, a transdisciplinary approach adopts an intellectual humility that encourages transdisciplinary breadth as an insurance against overlooking important phenomena. failing to attend to information from a diversity of sources can lead to artificially narrow disciplinary hypotheses that fail (sometimes spectacularly) in the face of real-world data. thanks to highly visible media cases (e.g., cbc news, 2013), researchers are now aware of the importance of incorporating cyberbullying into research (volk et al., 2017). the existence and impact of previously unknown events (e.g., the novel use of technology to bully others) may be particularly likely when discussing adolescent power and bullying given the secretive nature of many adolescents (bakken & brown, 2010). although adolescents can, at times, be quite candid (spadafora, marini, & volk, 2018), they can also potentially withhold important information from adults. that is why it is crucial for researchers to seek out information from insider stakeholders themselves (i.e., adolescents) in order to get their perspectives (bosacki, marini, & dane, 2006). this may be particularly important for marginalized groups who inherently distrust the authority of researchers (e.g., cyberbullying amongst indigenous adolescents; broll, dunlop, & crooks, 2018). there have already been calls to differentiate between etic (e.g., outsiders like researchers) and emic (e.g., insiders like adolescents) perspectives on bullying (holt et al., 2017). fortunately, transdisciplinary research, by its very nature, offers a breadth of study that renders such research less susceptible to the presence and influence of unknowns or black swans (pohl & hirsch hadorn, 2007). by incorporating a diverse swath of opinions (e.g., holt et al., 2017; hong, espelage, hunter, & allen-meares, 2018; melander et al., 2013), bullying researchers can construct transdisciplinary theories that are more robust than those constructed without such previously unknown information (marini & volk, 2017). what’s more, they are more likely to provoke the discovery of such sources of information by actively exploring outside of known disciplinary domains. in this way a weakness of disciplinary approaches (e.g., an ugly fact spoiling a beautiful theory) becomes a relative strength of a transdisciplinary approach that emphasizes the importance of epistemological humility as a means of leading to data and theoretical constructions that lie beyond the scope of traditional boundaries. however, this diversity comes at a price. there clearly exists a degree of challenge in conducting transdisciplinary research. transdisciplinary research requires that one become familiar with a range of research and discourse within, and outside of, academia (pohl & hirsch hadorn, 2008). this by itself requires significant mental effort. however, knowledge is a precious commodity that is often fought over (constant, kiesler, & sproull, 1994). disciplinary biases and predispositions can be very challenging to overcome, both at the individual level and at the level of publication/knowledge mobilization (cohen, 2009). the challenge of dealing with different september 2019 125 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research viewpoints and disciplines means that a transdisciplinary approach should be characterized, not just by humility, but also by civility. is civility both the medium and the message? civility can be defined as “the ability to act as a ‘citizen’ of a group and function in a positive manner so that individual engagement can benefit both the individual and the group” (marini, 2007, p. 1). in this way, civility can be represented as a multifaceted construct that be construed of as a behaviour, as a cultural set of norms, or as an individual trait. civility can thus possess both objective and subjective domains (hefner, 2018) and is a concept and behaviour that cuts across and beyond disciplines (carter, 1998). much in the same way that bullying has attracted attention from diverse areas, civility has attracted attention from the general public (papacharissi, 2004), the media (young, 2018), policy makers (nwanevu, 2018), historians (shapin, 1994), psychology (volk, marini, & dane, 2016), education (feldmann, 2001), and workplace management (lim & bernstein, 2014). thus, we believe that a transdisciplinary approach best offers a means of grappling with civility’s complexity, breadth across domains and cultures, dual objectivity/subjectivity, and multifaceted nature. unfortunately, as has been noted (hyun, 2011), working across and beyond academic disciplines can be a challenging and sensitive endeavour. augsburg (2014) emphasizes the importance of openness and risk taking for becoming a transdisciplinary thinker. the former trait is common to most successful academics (pouratashi & zamani, 2017), while the latter may better reflect one’s career status as (anecdotally at least) it appears that most transdisciplinary scholars both have previous disciplinary experience and are beyond the vulnerable (i.e., power-imbalanced) tenure-track stage of their career (pohl, 2005). indeed, following social conventions and respecting others allows for the smoother transmission of ideas and information across transdisciplinary boundaries (della chiesa, christoph, & hinton, 2009). civility, or a lack thereof, appears to have a contagious effect on communication (han, brazeal, & pennington, 2018), rendering a transdisciplinary endeavour progressively easier or more difficult depending on its presence or absence (hyun, 2011; pohl, 2005). civility has been noted as the answer to the inevitable disciplinary conflicts that arise when conducting transdisciplinary research (benesh et al., 2015). indeed, civility appears to promote a general sense of cooperation across domains that is based on a longer-term orientation to relationships (billante & saunders, 2002; pye, 1999), unlike bullying (volk et al., 2014). this may be because civility serves as an individual reminder of the importance of cooperation versus competitive relationships and offers one the chance to express one’s allegiance to the common good (billante & saunders, 2002). civility is related to the personality trait of honesty-humility that promotes cooperation at the expense of taking advantage of others (spadafora et al., submitted). honesty-humility is associated with positive academic outcomes (de vries, de vries, & born, 2011) and also fits naturally with the concept of epistemological humility. being honest and humble can lead, almost by necessity, to augsburg’s (2014) transdisciplinary criteria for appreciating one’s limitations in comparison to others’ skills and attributes, as well as to the awareness of the limitations of personal and institutional knowledge that is necessary for transdisciplinary research. as noted by jacobs and nienaber (2011), “it is impossible to ever perfectly solve or understand an issue completely. the pursuit of knowledge is always imperfect. similarly there is never a perfect solution to a problem” (p. 618). indeed, the original charter of transdisciplinarity proposed by de freitas, morin, and nicolescu (1994) calls for, among other things, a deep adoption of epistemological humility via (a) a recognition of the existence of different levels of reality governed by different types of logic, (b) an attitude of absolute respect for the collective replete with shared knowledge and understandings, (c) rigour in argument, and (d) tolerance of ideas opposed to one’s own. these principles are all facets of being honest and/or humble. thus, on the one hand, honesty, september 2019 126 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research humility, and civility can represent a medium that could facilitate future transdisciplinary bullying research. on the other hand, to twist a common phrase, the medium may also be the message (mcluhan, 1964). in this context, more specifically, we refer to a duality of the role of civility, in that a lack of civility may hamper bullying research, but a lack of civility may also serve to embolden adolescents toward abusing their power in the form of bullying (marini, 2009). this lack of civility appears to increase with age from early to mid-adolescence (spadafora, farrell, provenzano, marini, & volk, 2018), possibly because of a combination of an increased desire for reward seeking along with a diminished capacity for self-control (steinberg, 2008). in particular, an arrogant lack of cooperativeness may allow individuals to both ignore social civility conventions and exploit social power. many adolescents who bully in both eastern and western cultures do in fact appear to lack both honesty and humility (book, volk, & hosker, 2012; volk et al., 2018). a lack of honesty may allow adolescents to not only hide their misdeeds but also to deceive themselves about the true costs of their behaviour. with regard to humility, researchers who used grounded theory to generate a bottom-up explanation of bullying found that bullies possessed a relatively arrogant belief about their own worth versus that of their victims (mazzone, thornberg, stefanelli, cadei, & caravita, 2018; thornberg, 2015). this allows adolescents who bully to value their gains more than they value the harm caused to their victims. finally, classroom incivility is positively correlated with both adolescent bullying and a lack of honesty and humility (spadafora et al., submitted). thus, in a very real way, a lack of civility can serve as a gateway to bullying by emphasizing short-term individual gain over long-term cooperative benefits (marini, 2009; pye, 1999; volk et al., 2014). so there appears to be a strong link between bullying, (in)civility, and a personality-based tendency to arrogantly exploit others. however, as mentioned above, when viewed through a transdisciplinary lens, civility is more than a psychological trait. a lack of adolescent civility has been documented in both modern and historical cultures, with adolescent culture being typically labelled as unruly and uncivil (e.g., hanawalt, 1995). while these enduring historical and cross-cultural trends may tend to point toward a common, biologically based psychological predisposition for adolescent incivility, they equally raise questions about the creation and perception of civil norms. in particular, they highlight the dominance of adult voices in the discourse of civility, just as they appear to emphasize the voices of socially powerful individuals. the socially powerful (e.g., nobility, politicians), the wealthy, and the famous have a clearly established role in prescribing civil norms (benson, 2011). sometimes this occurs at the expense of the majority, but often it occurs at the expense of marginalized minorities (benson, 2011). in these cases, a group with power uses social rules to reinforce their power rather than to benefit others (callahan, 2011; thiranagama, kelly, & forment, 2018). we would consider these rules to in fact be a socially sanctioned form of bullying that is enforced by civility. it would seem that civility used outside the context of honesty and humility (e.g., a charitable prosociality) can as equally serve as a precursor of bullying, as can incivility. by logical extension, incivility can thus also act against bullying. acting up against dominant groups (e.g., adult norms) may be a way for adolescents to resist the social power imposed on them by others. there are numerous historical examples of individuals engaging in incivil behaviour in order to resist the bullying behaviour of others (davetian, 2009). the relationship between civility and bullying is therefore nuanced, contextual, and complex— the perfect relationship for transdisciplinary research. civility, bullying, and transdisciplinary solutions an important, if problematic, concern for both civility and bullying is that there often isn’t much incentive for an individual with power to forgo long-term cooperation in favour of obtaining immediate benefits. indeed, most adolescents hold a negative view of bullying behaviour (sentse, veenstra, kiuru, & salmivalli, 2015), yet it not only persists but continues to be a successful strategy across the world (pronk et al., 2017). so why september 2019 127 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research would any adolescent be concerned about potential long-term costs if those costs are largely irrelevant? similar queries likely explain the prevalence of sexist, racist, elitist, etc. bullying or the persistence of civility norms that discriminate against other groups (e.g., civil norms that persecute women; towns, 2010). it is in one very real (if selfish) sense highly irrational to ask people to stop benefitting from bullying or the enforcement of biased civility because it hurts others. if bullying does really get you sex, power, and resources, why should individuals stop doing it (ellis et al., 2016; volk et al., 2014)? what is the benefit in doing that? the stark reality of these questions is reflected in the declining efficacy of antibullying interventions during adolescence (yeager et al., 2015): why give up something for nothing? for those programs that have shown some degree of success, any relaxation of their efforts and bullying tends to revert to its previous levels (roland, 2011). the temporary nature of these successes points to persistent biological and/or cultural influences that continue to promote or reward bullying and incivility. the perseverance, ubiquity, and impact of these negative behaviours raise transdisciplinary questions as they also relate to other forms of social power abuse, such as why slavery should have ever been abolished, women allowed to vote, and children given rights. why would any individuals voluntarily relinquish their power over others for no apparent personal gain (dawkins, 1976)? fortunately, civility might offer us a clue as to its persistence: long-term cooperative benefits for those who design the rules of civility. in light of the inevitability of black swans in complex systems like human social power, no particular group or individual will have a guaranteed permanent grip on power, and a reversal of power may result in a reversal of fortunes. thus the same selfish logic that promotes bullying can also promote having the insurance of giving up some power today to make sure you aren’t bullied tomorrow. it is also true that in almost every instance, cooperation results in better long-term outcomes than does competition (wedekind & braithwaite, 2002; wilkins et al., 2010). this may help explain the recent success of an anti-bullying program that focuses on working with, rather than against, adolescents’ desire for social power. adolescents appear to be keenly aware of the potential dynamics associated with social power, its acquisition, and its role in the peer group (cillessen & rose, 2005; spadafora, farrell, et al., 2018). so interventions that try to go against these norms (e.g., relying on unpopular children to change the behaviour of popular children) tend to fail (garandeau, lee, & salmivalli, 2014). similarly, programs that rely on intensive adult oversight and interventions offer some success but quickly lose their effects once that costly support is withdrawn (roland, 2011). as one might expect, adolescents tend to resist adults’ attempts at taking away their power, or redefining adolescent civility, as those same attempts of modelling adult civility might instead be interpreted as modelling the potential abuse of power by adults. in contrast, programs that work with adolescents in a way that respects their own agency in discovering the benefits of prosocial civility may have better results. in one such program, called meaningful roles, adolescents are given jobs to perform in the class (ellis et al., 2016). rather than being told by adults how they can and cannot act, all students are asked to create jobs they would value and that would help the class (i.e., meaningful roles). from there, based on earlier identification, bullies are given prosocial jobs that promote civility while still affording the social visibility that they desire (e.g., being the person at the door who greets everyone who enters class/school; ellis et al., 2016). this allows adolescents who bully the opportunity to achieve their goal of being socially visible and in a leadership role without causing harm to others, without facing any risks of punishment, and without facing peers who might otherwise respect their power, but not them individually. school-level evidence suggests that this program can reduce fighting by 66%, along with significant reductions in illnesses, days off, and detentions (ellis et al., 2016). thus, the promotion of seemingly minor but civil roles can offer adolescents a meaningful outlet for their desires for social recognition and power. by involving adolescents in the creation of their jobs, this approach respects the rights of individuals to pursue their own goals and decisions but affords them opportunities toward civility that they might not have otherwise had. by reconfiguring the september 2019 128 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research landscape toward prosocial civility, we can encourage adolescents to use their power to lead others rather than dominate them. this could entail the employment of transdisciplinary narratives from beyond the school setting, drawing on popular culture, art, and/or spiritual narratives (e.g., safaria & yunita, 2014) to provide meaningful examples to support this reconfiguration. rather than relying solely on adult-driven costs and benefits (i.e., punishments and rewards), we can work with adolescents and nonacademics to draw on other aspects of knowledge to emphasize the value of a longer-term outlook and allow adolescents to experience the benefits of cooperative engagements with each other. these engagements can be both direct and indirect. for example, the historical rise of women’s power and agency in western democracies may have been a boon, not only for those women, but for children’s and adolescents’ welfare as well (pinker, 2018). women have traditionally played (and continue to play) dominant roles in the care of children and youth (volk, 2011). so an increase in the welfare of women appears to correlate with a rise in the rights and welfare of children and youth (e.g., hammarberg, 1990) as some women used their power to benefit the children and youth that they cared for and/or worked with. while there remains much work to be done with regard to gender inequality, the transdisciplinary message would be that gains in one domain (e.g., women’s rights) can have important yet unpredicted impacts in another domain (e.g., adolescent bullying). what was formally sanctioned and viewed as a right of passage by largely white-male-dominated school boards (i.e., hazing and bullying) is now increasingly viewed as a callous, needless, and incivil abuse of power by more diverse school boards. similarly, one could hope that the current #metoo movement aimed at reducing workplace sexual harassment might have indirect benefits in reducing adolescent sexual bullying by readjusting civil standards of behaviour to a more prosocial and gender egalitarian level. the power of prosocial civility prosocial civility therefore may offer two clear advantages for understanding adolescent power. first, it may offer an important way of smoothing out explicit and implicit biases toward disciplinary “truths” and research goals (billante & saunders, 2002; kelly, 2017). transdisciplinary research can present an inherent threat toward disciplinary researchers by casting their work as unimportant and/or insufficient. the former is, by any reasonable academic definition, false. we can’t add 2 + 2 if we don’t even know what numbers we’re dealing with in the first place. however, given the competitive nature of academic research, the latter might be a new reality that needs to be presented to researchers in such a way that it invites them rather than threatens them. in this way, given the complexity and scope of adolescent bullying and social power, it seems that transdisciplinary research offers the only reasonable avenue for a complete solution that involves adolescents, their parents, educators and child workers, the pubic, policy makers, marginalized groups, ngos, and academics. some bullying intervention efforts have already begun to use transdisciplinary research efforts (e.g., prevnet in canada), but in general the field has been slow to adopt transdisciplinary research as a main pillar of research and intervention efforts (marini & volk, 2017). second, beyond using a transdisciplinary foundation of civility to study the problem at hand, the transdisciplinary nature of civility might make it part of the solution for addressing adolescents’ abuse and pursuit of social power (marini, 2009). on the one hand, this message is nothing new—adults have long preached the value of civility (higonnet, 1992). nor is it unique to humans. to grow up successfully, adolescent male elephants require older male elephants to teach them “prosocial civility” (slotow, van dyk, poole, page & klocke, 2000), and many trees grow stronger and live longer when there are adult trees present to monitor and guide their “adolescent” development according to rules of cooperation and competition (wohlleben, 2016). civility is a complex phenomenon that involves behaviours, traits, traditions, and contemporary sociocultural september 2019 129 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research conditions. understanding its applicability to bullying will require input from multiple academic, nonacademic, and nontraditional domains if we are to have a reasonable chance of being catastrophically surprised by black swans. on the other hand, adolescents have always been at the forefront of civility by testing its boundaries and meanings (cahill, 1987; higonnet, 1992; marini, 2007). adolescents’ resistance to adult interference is one of the very likely reasons why bullying interventions are so ineffective with them (yeager et al., 2015). yet adolescents are not impervious to adults’ behaviours, and most earnestly strive to mature into successful, cooperative individuals by learning from adults around them (arnett, 2015; wilkins et al., 2010). an unfortunate reality is that the “adult world” itself often lacks prosocial civility and instead encourages bullying (nwanevu, 2018) and/ or strips adolescents of their agency and power by insisting on morally neutral (or even hostile) civil deference toward adults (cahill, 1987). adolescents are quite likely, and accurately, able to perceive the hypocrisy in messages that promote equal sharing of power among adolescents presented by adults who do not share power with adolescents. what’s more, there are real concerns about the decline of prosocial civility in modern western society (wilkins et al., 2010). yet there remain bright spots of hope (nwanevu, 2018). we can arrange our classrooms in ways that promote prosocial civility (kauffman & burbach, 1998). presumably parents, teachers, and other adults can both better model prosocial civility and arrange social structures surrounding adolescents in ways that promote civility (wilkins et al., 2010). for it to be a transdisciplinary effort, this modelling must go beyond honest but unidisciplinary research into predefined categories and variables of behaviour (e.g., dijkstra & gest, 2015). put succinctly, adolescents may pay more attention to the prosocially civil behaviour of a single celebrity than to the results of a well-constructed meta-analysis. what’s more, we require more input from outside of academia and adult circles. wearing a hat to the dinner table may no longer be an act of incivility in adolescent circles, while momentarily ignoring others at the table while texting on one’s phone may represent a breach of civility for adults but not for adolescents. by engaging with adolescents and individuals outside of academia, and by drawing from numerous disciplines to inform our understanding, we may well be able to guide adolescents toward adopting and/or developing their own meaningful values of prosocial civility that promote a common long-term well-being (wilkins et al., 2010). these efforts most certainly need to transcend the school, allowing adolescents to meaningfully engage with their communities and cultures to develop their own language of civility that promotes cooperation and wellbeing (youniss & yates, 1999). research on civic engagement (a component of civility) clearly demonstrates that adolescents are influenced by more than their peers and schools: parents, neighbours, and communities can all influence adolescents’ uptake of civility (rossi, lenzi, sharkey, vieno, & santinello, 2016). these influences must now also include online interactions and communities (young, 2018). they should also include an awareness of the legal rights, resources, and responsibilities that accompany adolescents’ civic behaviour (hammarberg, 1990; hepworth, rooney, rooney, & strom-gottfried, 2017; levesque, 2000). thus, civility, a seemingly simple and potentially unimportant concept, might actually represent the important underpinnings of a whole range of adolescent social behaviour, including intervening against bullying (spadafora, farrell, et al., 2018). fortunately, we know from research that most bullies are highly engaged in obtaining social dominance, but not all individuals who have social power become bullies (reijentjes et al., 2013). we argue that it is the responsibility of adults across domains to model and encourage civil behaviour for adolescents (billante & saunders, 2002), just as it is the duty of adolescents to study and develop their own codes of civil behaviour (marini, 2009; marini, polihronis, & blackwell, 2010). adults have made important strides in imbuing adolescents with an increasingly broad scope of rights and protections at the same time as adolescents have made significant strides in claiming those rights and protections for themselves (freeman, september 2019 130 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2018; hammarberg, 1990). we strongly argue that it behooves us to continue acting in this tradition with an aim toward building greater prosocial civility. as stated before, we know that if we want adolescents to responsibly use their social power (i.e., not bully others with it), the solution must ultimately come from adolescents themselves, not be imposed by adults (yeager et al., 2015). however, by adopting a transdisciplinary perspective on adolescent social power, bullying, and civility, we may be able to learn enough to help guide adolescents in their mastery of, and engagement with, prosocial civility. adults can also help empower the voices and knowledge of adolescents who belong to groups that are typically both marginalized and victimized by bullying (hong, peguero, & espelage, 2018). as individuals with power, adults can also demonstrate the requisite epistemological humility by inviting, and listening to, a diversity of voices in a transdisciplinary forum. for example, the prevnet 2017 conference focused on addressing bullying by bringing in speakers from academia, business, government, ngos, professional sports, television, child rights, restorative justice, indigenous networks, and law. it was capped off by an evening town hall led by a diverse group of adolescents that was broadcast live over the internet. these kinds of civil efforts to bring together diverse groups not only represent an opportunity to advance our knowledge, but in the spirit of the medium being the message they also represent a clear message to adolescents about how adults in the ivory tower can suspend their disciplinary privilege to encourage individuals from disparate groups to humbly and openly work together to respectfully share their knowledge. finally, adolescents can help adults understand both the failings of adult civility and what aspects of that civility may (or may not) best work for adolescents. again, granting adolescents the respect they are due in cogenerating knowledge about bullying not only improves our knowledge of bullying, but it also offers an object lesson in how individuals with power (i.e., typically the adults) can respectfully share that power with others. the alternative to these kinds of solutions is to remain in disciplinary and age-specific silos that fail to reach beyond their borders. this is an alternative that has so far proven to be unsuccessful and will almost certainly continue to be so until we fully address the scope of the problem and any potential solutions for it. civility may thus seem like an underwhelming goal, but as both a means and a message of transdisciplinary thinking, it may actually hold the key to adolescents’ responsible use of social power and to the long-term reduction of bullying. acknowledgements this paper was inspired, motivated, and informed by the work of our departed colleague dr. zopito marini. zopito inspired the metaphor of civility as both the medium and the message as he served as a living example of civility at the same time as he spread the message about its importance. we were motivated to do this paper via a strong suggestion from zopito that we team up to address this important question. he most certainly would have joined us in this endeavour given his passion and knowledge of the topic. and it is the latter that informed much of our research. he is cited repeatedly in our references, but those fail to do justice to the extent to which he informed our work. we only hope that we have done a reasonable job of conveying what would have been his latest message about the importance of civility and transdisciplinary research for understanding adolescent social power and bullying. september 2019 131 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references anderson, c. m., & kincaid, d. 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(2015). systematic review of theoretical studies on bullying and cyberbullying: facts, knowledge, prevention, and intervention. aggression and violent behavior, 23, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.10.001 (endnotes) 1 the evidence very strongly suggests that individuals who are both bullies and victims do not obtain the same benefits as those who are only bullies and experience far more negative costs associated with bullying (volk et al., 2014). the focus of this paper is on “pure” bullies, who commit the majority of bullying episodes. winter/hiver 2019 80 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research navigating power and subjectivity: cultural diversity and transcultural curriculum in early childhood education carolyn bjartveit & cheryl kinzel carolyn bjartveit, phd, is assistant professor in the department of child studies and social work at mount royal university, calgary. her doctoral research focused on the topics of teaching and learning and the complex intersections between the self (of students and educators) and the curriculum in culturally diverse early childhood education postsecondary classrooms. her research has appeared in the journal of curriculum theorizing, the journal of applied hermeneutics, and contemporary issues in early childhood. email: cbjartveit@mtroyal.ca cheryl kinzel, edd, is the director of the centre for early childhood development and applied research (cedar) at bow valley college, calgary. her doctoral research will explore reconciliation and indigenous epistemology and pedagogy as understood through the storied experiences of early childhood education students. her research interests are social-emotional well-being in the early years, indigenous epistemology and pedagogy in the early years, and culturally specific early childhood education curriculum. why are we here? a professional learning community (plc) was created in the province of alberta in 2015 to engage representatives from educational institutions, the provincial government, professional organizations, and practitioners in critical dialogue about topics and issues related to cultural diversity and transcultural curriculum in early childhood education (ece). a transcultural curriculum moves beyond or transcends mere acknowledgments or acceptances of cultural differences. through layering diverse cultural ideas and beliefs, the plc members are forming new understandings of pedagogical theories and educator practices. marjorie orellana (2016) writes that “trans” is a movement beyond borders, a transcendence or transformation of things that were being held apart, or artificially constructed as separate and distinct. this is not the same as hybridity, which presumes an even and presumably equitable blend of different forms. nor is it the erasure of difference. rather, it is about questioning the ontologies that hold things apart. it involves the resolution of dialectic tensions and the emergence of something new—something that we perhaps cannot even imagine. (p. 91) designing and implementing a transcultural curriculum, therefore, is a creative and transformational process that plc members are critically considering and exploring in the context of their own praxis. since the plc was formed, group membership and interest in the work has continued to grow beyond provincial professional learning communities (plc) can build partnerships among diverse stakeholders that support transformative change and uphold social justice. in this dialogic, reflexive piece, the authors explore how a newly formed plc in alberta is engaging individuals in relational practices and discussions about cultural diversity in early childhood education. through sharing their subjectivities, field experiences, and current research, the group members are defining and exploring ways to coplan transcultural curricula in culturally diverse education settings. by recognizing subjectivities and differences and honouring the needs of all learners, the plc is raising cultural awareness and mobilizing efforts to build capacity and strengthen professional relationships across alberta. key words: early childhood education; professional learning community; cultural diversity; subjectivity; transcultural curriculum winter/hiver 2019 81 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research borders through online platforms and social media. using a dialogic, reflexive approach, this paper explores the positioning and subjectivity of the cochairs and their hope of expanding the work through sharing the plc’s successes and challenges, building strong bridges that reach across and through contested spaces and a vision of critical, transformative reflection and action. the plc was formed in response to the requests of ece professionals who attended carolyn’s research presentation at the alberta child care association conference in calgary in may 2015. carolyn’s phd study findings raised critical questions about the time and opportunities provided to students in ece postsecondary education programs to discuss and compare their cultural beliefs about pedagogy and child care with relative western early learning theories and practices. during the research project, carolyn interviewed educators, all recent arrivals in canada within the past five years, who had completed their ece postsecondary study programs in alberta and were working in child care centres and preschools in calgary. the study participants juxtaposed western pedagogical theories and practices with their own cultural beliefs about child care and education and talked about specific issues they had confronted in the postsecondary classroom and field in alberta (bjartveit & panayotidis, 2014, 2015). some of the cultural differences the educators described included child-centered pedagogy—allowing children to make choices and guide their own learning; lenient western child rearing and discipline policies and practices; the strong focus on developing minds and bodies and little attention to children’s spiritual development; and wastefulness and the questionable management of materials and food supplies in ece settings. following carolyn’s conference presentation, there was interest among the session participants to continue their discussions about cultural diversity and transcultural ece. in response to their requests, carolyn sent an invitation to the participants in her doctoral research study, conference session attendees, and professional contacts at various postsecondary institutions and professional organizations in alberta. in october 2015, 40 people responded to her invitation and attended the first plc meeting, which was held at the werklund school of education at the university of calgary. shortly after the initial plc meeting, cheryl joined the group as cochair. her motivation to embark on the journey with this work is related to her first postsecondary teaching experience working with a cohort of first nations students in an ece diploma program. the students had experience working at, and indeed returned to work in, the early learning centres on their reserve when they completed their program. during the course of study, the students identified that the early learning centres on the nations’ territory did not have a specific curriculum that they followed and there was very little of the nations’ traditional culture practiced in the centres (kinzel, 2015). exploration of the ece postsecondary curriculum exposed another gap as the planned delivery of curriculum was entirely eurocentric in focus. troubling the dominant discourse while carolyn and cheryl worked together as cofacilitators of the plc, the content of this article came out of our discussions and relational practices related to the work of the plc, and about teaching and learning in culturally diverse ece settings. we view this work through practical and theoretical lenses and frame it with hans-georg gadamer’s (2004) and ted aoki’s philosophical and metaphorical ideas about dialogue and the “art of questioning” (as cited in pinar & irwin, 2005, p. 361). the work is also informed by critical pedagogy, which explores social justice education (freire, 2000), and indigenous methodology, which emphasizes a relational and decolonizing approach to research and practice (kovach, 2009). we recognize that these are multiple epistemological and ontological positions, but we find great value in bringing together diverse perspectives, and these ideas work together to trouble perceived issues in the development and delivery of ece curriculum in alberta. we find that winter/hiver 2019 82 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research our theoretical tensions lead us to challenge each other and our ideas and thus further our dialogue. our aim in this piece is to interrogate the concept of transcultural ece through the ongoing work of the plc as well as our personal positioning. because we have chosen to focus on our own subjectivity within our pedagogical practices, we believe it is fitting to write this piece as a critical and honest conversation—an example of our relational practice that underpins our work with the plc. the dialogic style of the piece also reflects the plc members’ casual conversations at meetings and on social media. through engaging readers in reflection about social justice in ece, we hope to provoke critical thinking about ways to mobilize dialogue about difference and diversity and action in the field. following the ideas of gaile cannella (2002), we recognize that within the context of social justice and care, respect would require appreciation of the value of all other beings, acceptance of multiple ways of thinking and being in the world, and a willingness to fight for an equitable and just community for everyone. (p. 169) ultimately, our intent in writing this dialogic piece is to disrupt and resist colonizing pedagogical practices and understand authentic and meaningful ways to invite dialogue and reflect all cultures in ece programs (pre-k– postsecondary), environments, and curricula (louie, poitras pratt, hanson, & ottmann, 2017). wait a second, who are we to be doing this work? carolyn: i’m still wrestling with some of the questions we discussed at the education conference last may. how do you think we can develop and support effective professional partnerships through the plc to facilitate teaching and learning in indigenous and multicultural ece settings? and how can we disrupt taken-for-granted professional teaching and learning practices in culturally diverse classrooms? cheryl: you are launching into a conversation about dominant discourses. before we can explore that idea, we need to position ourselves in the work we are already doing related to identity, difference, and diversity. carolyn: i’m really struggling to situate myself within the plc and i wonder what right i have, as a woman of “whiteness and privilege” (carr & lund, 2007), to facilitate discussions related to cultural diversity. i’m interpreting ideas as an outsider and i’m far removed from the cultures that i’m talking and writing about, which makes it very difficult to justify my position. my understandings of ece theories and practices have been shaped by euro-western cultural perspectives on “good” child care and pedagogy, and immigrant educators will have different child-rearing practices and early learning philosophies, formed by their own cultural beliefs, histories, and traditions. you might remember discussing the notion of the “good teacher/mother” (ailwood, 2008, p. 162) in your university graduate classes. the “good” educator upholds tenets of the dominant discourse about pedagogy and child rearing, adheres to universal stages of child development theories, and manages students by ordering and measuring their learning and behaviours (langford, 2007, p. 343). according to grieshaber and cannella (2001), the dominant discourse of developmentally appropriate practice (dap) constructs the identity of the good early childhood practitioner, the discourse creates both the desire to be the good teacher and a definition of the good teacher in dap terms. good practitioners are constituted and regulated within the claims of appropriate practice and learn to judge themselves as “good” or “bad” teachers according to that discourse. (p. 15) although i am continuing to explore my own subjectivity, it is causing tensions and troubling me. recently, i was surprised—more shocked—when i came across a statement i had written in an academic paper a few years ago. i was referring to the works of philosopher paul ricoeur (1992)1 and richard kearney (2003). kearney posits that winter/hiver 2019 83 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research it’s necessary “to accept the truth that we are strangers-to-ourselves and we need not fear such strangeness or ‘act it out’ by projecting such fear onto others” (p. 8). i reasoned that because my own identity and ontological self is always and forever changing based on my lived experiences and interactions in the world, i am therefore “other” to myself. shifting my thinking from self and other to self as other and acknowledging that i am a “stranger” to myself—might enable me to put my fears aside and be more accepting of cultural differences. i now recognize that in doing this, i was attempting to make the other like me—only accepting folks if they had similar worldviews and ideas—and not for who they truly are. sonja arndt (2015) stresses that recognizing the foreigner within could become the catalyst for a humble, possibly frightening, re-imagination of being together and of communicating across and despite differences (todd, 2004). this ... is the essence of community as an ethical commitment to maintaining and engaging with alterity, as a personal responsibility towards the other, to the individual and to humanity. (p. 890) so, rather than putting fears aside, the tensions that i experience are productive in prompting me to reimagine different relationships and a “re-framing of a future in early childhood education that critically engages with the complexity and uncertainty” (arndt, 2015, p. 890) of otherness and with all others. cheryl: it’s okay to change and reassess how we approach our understanding, and critically question assumptions and privilege. sometimes we need to be uncomfortable to reflect and grow. exploring my own subjectivity has been a significant part of my work in graduate studies as i have wrestled with new knowledge about the world and my relationships within it. nêhiyaw scholar margaret kovach (2009) reminds me that the supposition of subjectivity and the interpretative nature of qualitative research imply a relational approach to research … reflexivity is the researcher’s own self-reflection in the meaning making process…. decolonizing methodologies demand a critical reflexive lens that acknowledges the politics of representation. (pp. 32–33) my journey has located me at a place where i am interested, through my professional roles, in working toward reconciliation. i am approaching this by specifically working toward meeting the truth and reconciliation commission’s (2015) call to action #12, which calls for culturally relevant ece programming for aboriginal children and families (p. 2). as a non-indigenous person who is exploring indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing, i feel uncomfortable with approaching this research from a solely western-european framework, and i believe that in coming to make sense of indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing, i need to take up the work of indigenous scholars and indigenous methodology. i align my socio-constructivist and critical pedagogical perspectives with indigenous methodology as outlined by kovach (2009) and paulo freire (2000). this alignment carries over to my involvement with the plc. i am hopeful that this group will provide a voice to articulate the need for an indigenous-led development of culturally appropriate ece curriculum, because the alberta elcc curriculum framework does not offer this (prochner, cleghorn, kirova, & massing, 2016). we need to step away from the role of “expert” (because of our academic credentials), open dialogic spaces, and listen to the wisdom of others (louie et al., 2017). the difficulty with trying to infuse or add indigenous content into a eurocentric framework is well articulated by educator emily ashton (2015), who writes: curricular practices that espouse to embed, add-on, or infuse indigenous pedagogical principles to already established settler frameworks are extremely problematic. ethical, ontological, epistemological, and cosmological differences make such inclusions analogous to acts of colonization. (p. 92) winter/hiver 2019 84 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research bridges carolyn: the focus of our first plc meeting was to present current academic research about cultural diversity in alberta, and to be honest, i didn’t think it went well. some members said they felt frustrated because they didn’t have a voice or opportunities to share their ideas. thinking back, we could have opened the meeting up and invited practitioners working directly with children and families in the field to present their work, too. but we are making changes as we move forward—learning how to facilitate the group based on building relationships and knowing the members. relationships, relational practice, and storytelling are foundations of indigenous epistemology and in developing and supporting the plc (kovach, 2009). aoki (as cited in pinar & irwin, 2015), describes crosscultural dialogue as a bridge. it is important to develop strong professional connections in the field, and i view the plc itself as a metaphorical bridge. aoki writes that “on this bridge, we are in no hurry to cross over; in fact, such bridges lure us to linger … [it is] a site or clearing in which earth, sky, mortals and divine, long to be together, belong together” (as cited in pinar & irwin, 2015, p. 53). the experience of meeting people on a “bridge”—deepening our understanding about cultures, identities, and differences, and creating new pedagogical theories and practices through dialogue is important in developing relationships. but dialogue is also multilayered and unpredictable and reflects the complex, always changing self of subjects. arndt (2017) emphasizes a need for an “attentive, receptive and reciprocal ethics of care” (p. 918) in our dialogic interactions with others: linguistic encounters and developing subjects that are “infinitely in construction” (kristeva, 2008, p. 2) involve surprise, memories, dreams and fears, that can tear apart, in order to again cohere, in different ways, in the present and in and for the future…. the unknown and difficult implications—the fissures and bridges—of this life reassert the argument for depth, criticality and consideration in educational dialogic relationships. (p. 916) cheryl: i also think that we need to move into a dialogic space where we can question the dominant discourse and truly explore how this narrative may or may not fit for those participating in early childhood spaces in canada. culture itself is contingent and situated—always shifting and changing (brooks, 2015)—and it shapes the ideas that are upheld and communicated through economic, social, and political institutions. this has huge implications for “learning” which we might understand as “overlapping, complementary or … conflicting cultural practices” (nasir, rosebery, warren, & lee, 2006, p. 489). learning is a complex layering of cultural beliefs, ideals, traditions, and practices. i recognize that western cultural beliefs have shaped my own image of the child and childhood and that historical and institutional constructs of contemporary western child-rearing practices and child development theories point to issues of power. jordan and weedon (1995) stress that “power is at the centre of cultural politics. it is integral to culture …all practices that have meaning—involve relations of power” (p. 11, italics added). if cultural politics shapes the meaning of social practices and determines who has the authority to define those meanings (jordan & weedon, 1995, p. 5), it explains why ideas that are different from the dominant discourse, or from what has been constructed and reproduced within western cultural tradition, are often challenged and not accepted. when we talk about “culture” we are referring to the social relationships and practices that are historically developed and shaped by communities to accomplish the purposes they value (matusov, depalma, & drye, 2007). these practices include the tools we use, the social networks we connect with, the ways we speak to each other, and what we speak about. the dominant discourse in ece is coming out of eurocentric cultural norms and does not necessarily represent indigenous and other non-european values, beliefs, and way of being, knowing, and doing (archibald, 2001, 2008; cooke-dallin, roxborough, & underwood, 2000; greenwood, de leeuw, & fraser, 2007; kovach, 2009; ledoux, 2006; louie et al., 2017). but when we collaborate, as we are attempting to do through the winter/hiver 2019 85 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research plc, we are exploring the spaces in-between self and other, and are beginning to build connections and bridges. sharing the space carolyn: i envision a transcultural curriculum as a story—curriculum topics layered with the cultural beliefs, life experiences, dreams, imaginings, and pedagogical knowledge that individuals and communities share. through layering, new and different ideas emerge that can be developed into storylines. so rather than curricula that promote western cultural traditions and ideas, a transcultural curriculum might be imagined as “a set of great stories … [with children and adults] as the storytellers of [their] culture[s]” (egan, 1997, p. 64). building relationships through intercultural dialogue is crucial in supporting a transcultural curriculum. it requires an “open and respectful exchange of views between [diverse] individuals … on the basis of mutual understanding and respect” (council of europe, 2008, p. 10). gadamer (2004) explained that the “first condition of the art of conversation is ensuring that the other person is with us…. to conduct a conversation means to allow oneself to be conducted by the subject matter to which the partners in the dialogue are oriented” (p. 361). attentive listening on the part of conversation partners might mean giving up control and being willing to change one’s ideas based on the unfolding conversation. cheryl: working in relationship with others and working through a story is well articulated by sto:lo academic joann archibald when she states, “one does not have to give meaning right after hearing a story, as with the questionand-answer pedagogical approach. an important consideration is hearing stories over time so that they become embedded in memory” (p. 25, 2008). building and sustaining relationships through storytelling and listening is a path to understanding and respect. this understanding is something i am exploring in my own doctoral research. i have become curious about dominant discourses in ece and the hegemony of western-european epistemology and pedagogy. how does this relate to early childhood education? what are we seeing in the field? what conversations are occurring? i think these questions are what initiated the idea for the plc. from my own research, i know that indigenous peoples have historically educated their communities in traditional ways prior to and since colonization through successful methods of cultural transmission. this traditional system of education was disrupted during the period of the indian residential schools when children were forcibly removed from their homes, and their families, and speaking their traditional language was punished (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015). the government-funded educational experiences of indigenous people in canada from contact through to the current era are stories of colonization and violence. many scholars have explained that contemporary canadian educational practices for indigenous and non-indigenous peoples frequently negate indigenous knowledge traditions, continuing the history of cultural suppression (archibald, 2008; cooke-dallin et al., 2000; greenwood et al., 2007; kovach, 2009; ledoux, 2006; matusov et al., 2007). given the truth and reconciliation commission’s calls to action (2015), i find myself wondering how the dominant discourse in ece may or may not support call #12 which states, “we call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for aboriginal families” (p. 2). in working with communities and on a variety of ece working groups, i repeatedly hear the call for the development of culturally appropriate curriculum and the addition of indigenous voices from community members. carolyn: what can we do, as non-indigenous professionals working in the ece field, to support the trc’s calls to action? cheryl: i see our role as doing the difficult work that moves us toward reconciliation (poitras pratt & danyluk, 2017; regan, 2010). i think exploring and recognizing our power and position is a place to start. instead of being winter/hiver 2019 86 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the ones who direct and create, we need to move into positions where we ask and listen. culture is unique to each community, and it will not be possible for a single curriculum to be inclusive of all indigenous cultures (poitras pratt & danyluk, 2017). we need to engage in the dialogue that recognizes this and works to change it. we need to be genuine in our formation of relationship and do a lot more listening. carolyn: it also relates to my understanding of diversity and identity in the context of immigrants’ experiences in the ece field. newcomers to canada are bringing their premigration, migration, and settlement experiences with them. schooling is a process through which immigrant and refugee children must come to terms with societal expectations while also staying connected to family and culture (kağitçibaşi, 2007; knörr, 2005). these children are often required to choose the world in which they will belong and are forced to navigate between different identities (henning & kirova, 2012, p. 226), which points to a need for new pedagogical approaches and theories. through ongoing dialogue, listening, observing, and building relationships, ece professionals must consider new and different ways to coplan meaningful learning experiences for all children. cheryl: how do we check our privilege and support the facilitation of a plc group that has the potential to disrupt the dominant ece discourse without having our own voices become overpowering? carolyn: we can turn to scholars who have taken up these same ideas and are addressing some of the questions that we ourselves are struggling with. it is interesting that researchers in canada today (e.g., bjartveit & panayotidis 2014; massing, 2015; prochner, cleghorn, kirova, & massing, 2014) are asking similar questions to those that annette lagrange, dawne clark, and elizabeth munro (1994) addressed 20 years ago in their research cultural sensitive child care: the alberta study—a project funded by the government of alberta and sponsored by the alberta association for young children: how can professionals shift from “tourist” representations of culture, where they focus on symbols of culture, and move toward deeper understandings of self and other? how do educators recognize differences and include cultures into facets of ece programs (pre-k–postsecondary levels), environments, and curricula in meaningful and authentic ways? and what can result when intercultural dialogue is not initiated and supported in ece playrooms and classrooms? ece curriculum frameworks in canada carolyn: while early learning curriculum frameworks are being implemented across canada, a subgroup of the plc is extending an invitation and asking educators and professionals to participate in critical conversations about difference and diversity and how it is reflected in the alberta elcc curriculum framework. the members, many of whom work in culturally diverse child care centres and day homes in the province, are discussing how the alberta elcc curriculum framework concepts might be interpreted and implemented in indigenous and multicultural communities of practice in meaningful and authentic ways, and how members of diverse communities contributed to the design, revisions, and implementation of the framework. we must remember that the curriculum is itself dialogical and its development must be based on the complex layering of lived experiences, cultures, histories, and diverse pedagogical theories and practices. earlier you mentioned that a single curriculum document is not inclusive of all cultures. i would argue that a “framework” design has open spaces for members within communities of practice to construct their own unique curriculum according to their needs and interests. metaphorically speaking, i envision a curriculum framework as the frame of a house with the broad play-based goals representing the structural support beams. two a-frame houses with the same structural design can look very different according to the materials that builders or owners choose to construct the walls. similarly, educators, children, and parents in a child care centre construct “walls,” so to speak, or develop their curriculum based on how they themselves interpret the holistic goals and concepts. winter/hiver 2019 87 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research although the framework goals and concepts are established, the curriculum will look and be lived out differently in child care settings. peter moss (2014) explains that “a broadly defined ‘framework’ curriculum … leaves plenty of scope for local interpretation and for local supplementation to express local conditions and traditions and locally determined values and objectives” (p. 181). christine massing (2017) emphasizes that discussions related to cultural practices, beliefs, and knowledges must occur within local contexts to inform and construct broader curriculum frameworks. the creative potential of a curriculum framework points again to our understanding of a “trans” cultural curriculum—the ideas people share are transformative and can potentially create new concepts and pedagogical approaches within unique communities of practice. the plc members are also addressing how language and terminology in the alberta elcc curriculum document might be interpreted in diverse ece settings. although the image of a “mighty learner and citizen—strong, resourceful and capable” (makovichuk, hewes, lirette, & thomas, 2014, p. 38) aligns with particular western beliefs about children, how do these images differ from the views of people from other cultural backgrounds? referring to a research study and bridging program—an ece program of studies for refugee and immigrant women in edmonton, alberta—prochner et al. (2016) explain that the image of the child included in the alberta curriculum document was “a source of dissonance” (p. 54) for the study participants: “images of children as innocent, precious, and special seem consistent with participants’ concern for helping children to do things” (p. 54), as well as a strong desire to protect children. so how can educators acknowledge and honour cultural differences in views and beliefs about young children in the context of the provincial curriculum document? cheryl: a framework is just that—a framing for later additions. however, i think that the framework itself, in this instance, represents the dominant culture view of what an ece curriculum framework should be (battiste, 2013; kerr, 2014; kincheloe, 2008; kovach, 2009; pidgeon, 2008, 2016). one of the challenges we face in early childhood education in canada is to articulate a vision for children and families, and for ece curriculum that works outside of dominant culture frameworks. the significant differences in epistemology and pedagogy of indigenous and western cultures would mean to me that we could not use the same systems or frameworks for both. the alberta elcc curriculum framework is not neutral and value free. it is developed from western, dominant-culture norms and expectations. carolyn: it is crucial to engage with different stakeholders to initiate conversations and develop the curriculum. building relationships through ongoing dialogue is the foundation of coconstructing a transcultural curriculum. a group of plc members are currently making plans to meet with members of indigenous communities and elders to discuss concepts in the alberta elcc curriculum framework. where do we go from here? cheryl: we are working in what sometimes seems like a fractured field-scape. where is the network? the ece field is made up of a variety of stakeholders with different perspectives and agendas. reaching and engaging with all the stakeholders can be challenging and at times contentious. we do not always speak to each other or engage in a critical, forward-thinking, relational manner. we are not aware of all the work that is happening related to culture and diversity in the field. this is something that i am concerned about. how do we work together in a collaborative manner while still asking difficult questions? is this a safe space? how do we engage and mobilize in a nonthreatening manner? carolyn: any kind of change takes time, and mobilizing action to support rights-based education produces tensions and requires risk taking. but rather than turning away from tough conversations, we might learn to live within the tensions they produce—even invite tensions. by engaging in discussions, we might come to recognize winter/hiver 2019 88 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research our differences and understand the complex and multilayered nature and deeper meanings of culture. i truly believe there is hope in continuing our dialogue, finding ways to disrupt dominant discourses and strengthening relationships in the field through the plc. in addition to our online and face-to-face meetings, we have launched a facebook account to help mobilize knowledge about transcultural curriculum and our plc, with the hopes of engaging more stakeholders nationwide in this larger conversation. through online platforms we hope to share resources, children’s projects, and current research in wider circles. cheryl: i think the field recognizes that teaching and learning in multicultural classrooms, and particularly in classrooms that include indigenous children, calls for more than an acknowledgment of diversity. it requires engagement, listening, reflection, and action. rather than ignoring cultural differences, educators can recognize dissimilarities as opportunities to initiate discussions and honour the needs of all learners by inviting dialogue even when it is difficult and uncomfortable-this in itself is an act of social justice. however, dealing with the tough questions of difference must be determined according to the unique circumstances and contexts in which individuals live and work together. we must consider how this work can be expanded and what actions it will require to support and continue the plc in the future. carolyn: how the work unfolds will be determined by the plc members themselves as we continue to discuss topics and issues related to diversity and difference and transcultural education in ece. through continuing the dialogue, we might learn how to listen and be more open to the ideas of others, as gadamer (2004) suggests: “dialectic consists not in trying to discover the weakness of what is said, but in bringing out its real strength. it is ... the art of thinking” (p. 361). i believe the hopefulness of this work—building professional connections and opening intercultural dialogue through the plc—will make the playroom “a real space in the middle, where we can all stop and rest and work to find the … epistemological forms that will mediate … oppositions” (grumet, 1988, p. 20). difference is the foundation on which a transcultural curriculum is built. in creating a transcultural ece curriculum with diverse paths of learning, educators, children, and families might arrive at new understandings of self and other and intercultural relations will be strengthened in culturally diverse ece settings. postscript in recognizing that critical social justice requires dialogue and actions (sensoy & diangelo, 2012), three subgroups of the plc have been formed to further mobilize change and implement plans to support ece in diverse child care settings across alberta. recently, the entrance requirements and canadian language benchmarks (clb) for admission into postsecondary early learning education programs have been increased in alberta. the members in one working group are discussing ways to build capacity in the field, supporting individuals to meet clb requirements through the design of bridging programs that include concurrent language and ece courses (massing & shortreed, 2014). the group is also planning to propose ideas to postsecondary institutions regarding ways to implement new bridging programs in partnership with community agencies and organizations. based on suggestions from the plc members, a second subgroup is investigating postsecondary ece programming and opportunities for nondominant groups to explore their cultural beliefs in relation to the western pedagogical theories and practices included in the alberta elcc curriculum framework document. the members are attempting to define and understand a culturally responsive pedagogy within each of their professional contexts. this includes developing coconstructed curriculum approaches that support the inclusion of the lived experiences winter/hiver 2019 89 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of students and exploring how these lived experiences and coconstructed curricula can be reflected through other curriculum documents. at a plc meeting in april 2017, the members agreed on a new vision for the group: to share and increase awareness of current research, projects, and programs related to cultural diversity and transcultural curriculum in early learning in alberta; to exchange ideas and engage in critical dialogue about topics and issues related to child care and pedagogy in multicultural settings; and to build connections and relationships among professionals working in culturally diverse child care and education settings. since 2015, the membership has expanded to include individuals working in diverse settings, including professional organizations, school boards, government, postsecondary institutions, day homes, private and public child care centres, and preschools across canada and as far away as singapore. what began as an academically focused, alberta-bound group two years ago has since become a growing community of 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(2017). learning what schooling left out: making an indigenous case for critical service-learning and reconciliatory pedagogy within teacher education. canadian journal of education, 40(1), 1–29. prochner, l., cleghorn, a., kirova, a., & massing, c. (2014). culture and practice in early childhood teacher education: a comparative and qualitative study. international journal of multidisciplinary comparative studies, 1(1), 18–34. prochner, l., cleghorn, a., kirova, a., & massing, c. (2016). teacher education in diverse settings. rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. regan, p. (2010). unsettling the settler within: indian residential schools, truth telling, and reconciliation in canada. vancouver: ubc press. ricoeur, p. (1992). oneself as another. chicago, il: university of chicago press. sensoy, ö., & diangelo, r. (2012). is everyone really equal? an introduction to key concepts in social justice education. new york, ny: teachers college press. truth and reconciliation commission of canada. (2015). truth and reconciliation commission of canada: calls to action. retrieved from: http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/calls_to_action_english2.pdf (endnotes) 1 paul ricoeur (1997) has suggested that the notion of “oneself as another” implies otherness to the extent that “one cannot be thought of without the other, that instead one passes into the other” (p. 3). this notion moves beyond comparisons of self to another and points to “oneself inasmuch as being of other.” in other words, we understand that the self is defined, understood and affected in and through relationships with the other (kapuściński, 2008, p. 67). winter/hiver 2019 134 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research professional knowledges for early childhood education and care verity campbell-barr verity campbell-barr is an associate professor in early childhood studies at the university of plymouth. she has over 15 years of experience researching early childhood service provision and related policy developments. her research interests centre on the quality of early childhood services, with a particular focus on the role of the early childhood workforce in facilitating “quality.” in 2015 she spent 18 months in hungary undertaking a marie curie european research fellowship (funded by the european commission) considering the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for working in early childhood education and care services. most recently she has embarked on a research project considering interpretations of child-centred practice in different european countries in support of quality early childhood education and care. email: verity.campbell-barr@plymouth.ac.uk specialized knowledge is core to the identification of a profession (young & muller, 2014), but within early childhood education and care (ecec), concepts of professional knowledge are much debated. in this article i present an argument for a plurality of specialized professional knowledge for ecec, but identify challenges in articulating all forms of knowledge. drawing on basil bernstein’s sociological work on knowledge (1999, 2000) and those who have iterated it (e.g., hordern, 2016; young & muller, 2014; winch, 2014) in relation to ecec professionalism enables a consideration of knowledges, their different structures, and how they are developed and legitimized. having outlined bernstein’s sociology of knowledge to provide a theoretical framework for the article, i present aristotle’s three forms of knowledge: episteme (pure knowledge), techne (skills) and phronesis (practical wisdom) as a structure for discussing knowledges. i focus on phronesis, considering what it is and what it might constitute within the ecec knowledge base. i emphasize that phronesis is a considered and learned knowledge and an important component of the ecec knowledge base that should be considered at all stages of professional development. my discussion is set within the context of debates on quality and professionalism internationally. an international discussion creates challenges of how to refer to those working in ecec given the variable training requirements that exist internationally. i refer to professionals and ecec as general terms to represent those who work in care and education services for children from birth to just prior to starting school. later i discuss the challenges of professional as a term, particularly in light of circumstances where there are no, or minimal, qualification requirements. while qualifications do not equate to professionalism and professionalism is not a given predictor of quality ecec, both are concerned with the knowledge base to be acquired that represents the focus of the paper. the exploration of knowledges for ecec seeks to broaden perspectives on the ecec knowledge base and to recognize the complexities of professional learning in ecec. this article proposes reconceptualizing professional knowledge in early childhood education and care (ecec) as knowledges, incorporating phronesis (practical wisdom), techne (skill), and episteme (pure knowledge). conceptualizing professional knowledge in the plural broadens perspectives on the professional knowledge base and opens up a discussion of how different forms of knowledge are acquired. drawing on bernstein, the author identifies ecec as requiring horizontal and vertical constructs of knowledge that have different structures and legitimization processes. while phronesis is presented as being a part of ecec professional knowledges, the discussion explores the difficulties in defining phronesis, because of the variable ways it is articulated. key words: knowledges; professionalism; phronesis; ethics winter/hiver 2019 135 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research bernstein’s theory of knowledge bernstein (1999) developed a sociology of knowledge to consider different knowledge structures and their validity. he identified horizontal and vertical discourses, where the everyday and common sense are expressed as horizontal, with all actors having access to it, creating a common nucleus, but where differences between the repertoires result in the meaning from one segment not being translatable to another. the language of horizontal discourse is shared within a group, where there is a taken-for-granted knowledge base, but one that does not extend beyond the group; the knowledge is transmitted locally. for example, the local practice developed within the workplace, such as daily care routines, illustrates horizontal knowledge. vertical discourse can take two forms, one that has a hierarchical structure, the other horizontal. given the potential confusion between horizontal discourse and horizontal structures, i adopt jim hordern’s (2017) use of vertical discourse with hierarchical and segmented (horizontal) structures. vertical discourse with a hierarchical structure is coherent, explicit, and structured and has a specialized language which can speak to other knowledge and history (young & muller, 2007). these features facilitate the distribution of vertical, hierarchically structured knowledge, enabling it to be challenged and defended. the physical sciences offer an example of vertical, hierarchically structured knowledge, with an established methodological and empirical base (bernstein, 1999). vertical, segmented knowledge is compartmentalized, with specialized language and modes of interrogation. bernstein (2000) distinguishes between segments that have strong grammars, with explicit and formalized rules, and those with weak grammars, where there is a weaker relationship between the internal conception and the external language of description (hordern, 2016) and the legitimacy of the knowledge is uncertain. bernstein offers sociology as an example of vertical knowledge with a horizontal structure and weak grammar (bernstein, 1999), while math and economics have strong grammars. the disciplines that influence the ecec knowledge base (e.g., psychology, sociology, philosophy, education) could generally be considered vertical discourses, with varying structures and grammars (hordern, 2017; rheddingjones, 2005) that are recontextualized to meet the needs of practice. for example, theories on child development have been prominent within ecec, representing knowledge that is identified as having value and significance (hordern, 2016). while an assumption could be made that it is knowledge that is vertical, hierarchical, and with a strong grammar that is valuable, for an applied profession such as ecec, propositional knowledge (“knowthat”) is not sufficient because members of the ecec workforce will need to “know-how” to apply and evaluate the knowledge (winch, 2014). bernstein attempted to illustrate that professionals draw on a variety of forms of knowledge, encompassing both horizontal and vertical, with the relationship between the different forms of knowledge often subtle, not differentiated and binary. ecec therefore requires a combination of knowledges, both vertical (with varying structures and grammars) and horizontal, that combine in subtle ways so that individuals “know-how” to meet the demands of professional practice. bernstein (2000) created a distinction between singulars, regions, and fields of practice to illustrate the coming together of knowledges and their application. a singular can most easily be understood as an academic discipline, while regions represent the bringing together of different disciplines. importantly, bernstein understood regions as facing in two directions, one towards singulars, but the other towards fields of practice, the specialized, practical, and tacit knowledge that informs professional practice. the structuring of knowledge influences the forming of professional identities (bernstein, 2000), whereby in an applied discipline the value of a singular is generated through its recontextualization, where the knowledge is delocated and relocated to face the field of practice (hordern, 2017). singulars into a region is a process whereby professionals make sense of academic disciplines for the context of their professional practice. for example, the value of a discipline such as psychology will be determined by how it meets the complexities of professional practice. however, rather than a linear process of winter/hiver 2019 136 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research singulars into regions and regions into fields of practice, bernstein also considers how regions draw on knowledge generated in practice. the model provides a framework with which to consider how knowledges come together to inform ecec professional practice. in considering the combination of knowledges for ecec professional practice, it is the less structured (less explicit) forms of knowledge that i am interested in. poststructural and ecological perspectives of ecec professionals (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013; dalli, 2014), have begun to broaden understandings of professional knowledge through an ethical lens, with an emphasis on “doing the right thing” (morally) as opposed to “applying the right techniques.” the ethical focus identifies with the importance of professional knowledge as being underpinned by multiple forms of knowledge, but i am interested in contemplating the knowledges that are harder to articulate and scrutinize. sociological perspectives of professional knowledge enable an appreciation of the complexities of the ecec professional knowledge base and coming to know-how to work with young children, which is significant for considering how ecec preservice and in-service training is developed. conceptual framework the challenges in articulating knowledges for ecec leads me to draw upon aristotle’s three forms of knowledge— episteme (pure knowledge), techne (skills), and phronesis (practical wisdom)—to organize my discussion on knowledges. ecec has its origins in episteme and techne. episteme, or pure knowledge, has a high cultural value, with recognized expertise, while techne represents more vocational knowledge or technical skills (andrew, 2015). together, episteme and techne represent the coming together of theory and practice in ecec professionalism. phronesis is more difficult to articulate and is a debated term (breier & ralphs, 2009; finnigan, 2015; russell, 2014). broadly, phronesis represents the practical “spur of the moment” actions that are embedded in understanding the other, incorporating both the individual and the universal (gade, 2014). phronesis is a situated awareness of ethical values in action that is not separate from other forms of knowing (winch, 2010) and, as i will argue, is central in bringing together knowledges for ecec. the taken-for-grantedness of phronesis (florian & graham, 2014) assumes the presence of values and beliefs in the guiding of daily practice, but phronesis is a “deliberative excellence” to find the correct and beneficial course of action (russell, 2014). within bernstein’s model, episteme has to be applied as a form of techne within applied professions such as ecec, illustrating the notion of informing the action of professional practice. phronesis is rarely referred to explicitly in the literature on ecec. rather, variable terms are used to describe this additional form of knowledge (e.g., ethos, ethic, attitude, disposition), with an even more varied language to describe the various attributes of this form of knowledge (e.g., love, patience, sensitivity, empathy, awareness, respect for others, people who want to make a difference, passion, warmth, being emotionally accessible, reflexivity). my intention is not to present phronesis as a definition or an all-encompassing term that masks the variable language of what it represents, but to enable a critical review of the ecec knowledge base. quality and professionalism examining professional knowledges for ecec recognizes the limitations of standardized, rational, and technocratic approaches to determining quality ecec and professionalism, with limited interpretations of what is valid knowledge. modernist constructs of quality have sought to identify objective assessments of the provision of ecec services, whereby quality is about predictability and reliability, ensuring the right techniques can be applied to achieve the right outcomes (dahlberg et al., 2013). jayne osgood (2014) challenges the “know and fix” mentality of modernist constructs of quality that are underpinned by established ideas of the becoming winter/hiver 2019 137 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research child, characterized by developmentalism and increasingly joined by selective representations of neuroscience to inform how to perform quality ecec. economic debates on the function of quality ecec also prove persuasive. quality ecec is identified as contributing to the “normal child,” who will, it is supposed, require less economic intervention from the state as they progress into adulthood (campbell-barr, 2012); this lens views atypical children as only problematic when they require additional expenditures by the state. the discourse of quality has become synonymous with professionalism, whereby there is a focus on the right person to achieve the right outcomes, reflecting a normative and governing (modernist) interpretation (cameron & moss, 2007; urban, 2008). professionalization agendas are contentious; they include debates on what constitutes a profession and whether ecec is a recognized profession (brock, 2006; moyles, 2001; osgood, 2006), revealing a tension between perspectives focused on standardization and models that enable professional autonomy based on professional judgment (young & muller, 2014). michel vandenbroeck and his colleagues jan peeters and maria bouverne-de bie (2013) explore how understandings of professionalism and working in ecec became technocratic, underpinned by a concept of the entrepreneurial self; their work reflects osgood’s (2004, 2006) critiques of masculine and rational approaches to professionalism in ecec. the ecec professional reflects a concern with creating the right worker to produce the right child outcomes, but in neoliberal economies, entrepreneurialism and economic competitiveness are also required to ensure sustainable businesses that adhere to policy requirements (osgood, 2004). concepts of professional knowledge become narrowly focused on economic competitiveness, evident at the individual level of having the knowledge to succeed, but also for service providers to be successful entrepreneurs with viable businesses. the rational, technocratic, and entrepreneurial construction of professionalism is problematic for understanding the ecec knowledge base and the role of the workforce in determining concepts of professionalism. knowledge is that which can be identified and assessed, frequently determined through a top-down process that privileges policy objectives over the views of professionals (cottle & alexander, 2012; moloney, 2010). the presumed objective reliability of modernist approaches to quality ecec and professionalism are challenged when looking at contradictions across europe. europe has common goals and terms of reference from the european commission (e.g., council of the european commission, 2011; european commission, 2014) for the provision of quality ecec, but huge variations in the ecec services provided, particularly when analyzing workforce requirements (urban, 2008). oberhuemer, schreyer, and neuman (2010), in a cross-european study, considered the range of ecec professionals that exist. the varying job titles indicate not only a lack of agreement on the structure of the workforce for quality ecec, but also different conceptions of ecec and an associated professionalism. the varied concepts of professionalism will depend on the training undertaken and the ecec services that people work in, with some services encompassing different professional roles, such as teachers and assistants. the cultural variances inevitably have different adherences to modernist principles of professionalism. concepts of professionalism combine with images of children and childhood and have implications for the ecec knowledge base, including knowledge that extends beyond standardization and rationality. professional knowledge for ecec is therefore not about universal understandings of ecec or seeking to mask the differences that exist between those working in ecec, but opening up debates on what the knowledge base is and the multiple ways of knowing for working in ecec. multiple forms of knowledge the struggle around the nature of knowledge within professional competence models for ecec (hordern, 2016) sees some forms of knowledge favoured over others. yarrow andrew (2015) discusses the privileging of episteme (pure knowledge) in western education systems; episteme is seen as a form of elite knowledge that is evident in the education of kindergarten pedagogues (often at the degree level), while techne (skills) is evident in the vocational winter/hiver 2019 138 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research training of those working in childcare. andrew’s distinction acknowledges a split model of care and education services (bennett, 2003), which, while evident in many european countries (european commission, 2014), is a model no longer favoured by the european commission. writing in the australian context, andrew acknowledges that the forging together of episteme and techne will be challenging, but wider debates on professionalism identify the need for both knowledge and skills—know-that and know-how (winch, 2014; young & muller, 2014). the combination of know-that and know-how demonstrates how ecec professional knowledge is multiple and varied. the combination of knowledges (in different forms) begins the process of recognizing the different knowledge structures that exist (bernstein, 1999) within a professional knowledge base, but still leaves a need to consider the knowledges that remain unrecognized and undervalued in ecec. the historical favouring of episteme and techne is evident in discussions of the knowledge base for ecec. as discussed, child development theories have been prominent because they represent knowledge that has value and significance (hordern, 2016), but they require know-how (young & muller, 2014) to meet the demands of professional practice. kalliope vrinioti (2013) writes of ecec professionalism: no matter what definition of profession and professionalism one chooses from whatever ideological or epistemological starting point (urban 2008), it seems that all agree that the main feature of professionalism is the implementation of scientific knowledge towards solving today’s problems by using reflective ability. (p. 158) however, the predominance of “scientific knowledge” as underpinning ecec professionalism has sat uneasily with professionals, with concerns as to what is lost, particularly that which relates to a more ethical construct (dahlberg & moss, 2005). an ethics of care considers the conditions of ecec critically, conceptualizing knowledge as plural (knowledges), thus opening up the possibility of ways of knowing beyond those set out in modernist models. the plurality is not a rejection of one form of knowledge for another, but a recognition of knowledge as contestable and plural. the plurality of knowledge means that ethics are not universal principles that can guide people in a rational way; instead, multiple ways of knowing will be shaped by many factors, including individual experiences and cultural context. the emphasis on ethics is not to the exclusion of theory in professionalism (young & muller, 2014), but is an appreciation of multiple forms of knowledge for working in ecec. the knowledges evident in ecec illustrate the different forms of knowledge present in bernstein’s framework. mathias urban and colleagues (2011) identified a range of forms of knowledge in the ecec competence profiles for individuals in different european countries, such as knowledge of holistic child development, learning strategies, communication with children, working with parents and communities, working collaboratively, and health, safety and child protection requirements. mary moloney (2010) refers to the complexities of both understanding and applying child development knowledge to facilitate professionals in providing appropriate resources, while simultaneously thinking about the learning environment and differentiating the needs of the children within it. linda miller (2008) considers how the ecec knowledge base extends beyond child development to include knowledge of the setting, children, and families, while also including leadership, management, and organizational skills. the varying knowledges reflect the coming together of know-that and know-how, whereby vertical and horizontal knowledge combine to inform professional practice. however, more than just episteme and techne are embedded in the knowledges identified. urban and colleagues (2011) also refer to values in their analysis of competence profiles, while miller (2008) considers dispositions as important for professionalism. variable terms, including sensitivity, empathy, awareness, respect for others, commitment to the early years field, and confidence (miller, 2008), as well as love, reflection, wanting to make a difference, passion, warmth, being emotionally accessible, and emotional intelligence (georgeson winter/hiver 2019 139 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research et al., 2014), have all been identified in the context of ecec professionalism in england. the list of terms does not assume universality, but provides evidence of something beyond episteme (pure knowledge) and techne (skills) as part of ecec professionalism—phronesis. phronesis (practical wisdom) is not concerned with a particular end goal, but guides one in how to do things in pursuit of a good life (russell, 2014). phronesis relates to both the individual and the universal, taking the context as well as the interpersonal relationship between the professional and the child into account to provide “a family of skills that all aim in an intelligent, perceptive way at finding what it would be beneficial to do within the here and now” (russell, 2014, p. 206). phronesis is not a question of responding to a child, but of how to respond to a child, in relation to both the individual and universal child, such as with empathy, sensitivity, and warmth. phronesis is acquired through experience and is deliberative, but a lack of articulation of its deliberations does not mean it is absent (finnigan, 2015). learning and displaying phronesis despite my emphasis on phronesis as deliberative (learned, intentional, and purposeful), it is often presented as an innate, gendered ideal. however, identifying phronesis as learned is important for later considering its discourse and structure in relation to bernstein’s theory. research evidence demonstrates that those undertaking vocational ecec training consider caring to require innate, embodied characteristics. theoretical knowledge is downplayed and practical experience is valorized (skeggs, 1997; vincent & braun, 2011). caring is regarded as a natural ability aligned with femininity, whereby personal dispositions characterize and are inseparable from a construction of a good care worker (skeggs, 1997). feminist arguments identify the long history of classifying the moral actions of women, whereby women are given constant messages about right and wrong behaviours that are closely aligned to cultural discourses on femininity and motherhood. the gendered ability to care has also been associated with social class, with a shift from wealthy philanthropists providing services for children deemed in need to workingclass women providing ecec services for middle-class women who are employed. the perspectives on social class illustrate an interest in the professionalism of the ecec workforce from beyond the sector (skeggs, 1997). while this interest remains, it is no longer always characterized by social class; instead policy initiatives increasingly characterize external influences on ecec professionalism. helen colley (2006) discusses how training reinforces a constructed ideal of those who work in ecec via a hidden curriculum that ratifies correct behaviours. a vocational habitus encapsulates the combination of idealized and realized dispositions to which students orientate themselves in order to become the “right person for the job.” far from being innate, the moral behaviours for ecec are socially constructed, embedded in understanding the other (both the individual and universal), and learned through interactions with those also undertaking their training, with experiences of being in the workplace, and with broader (gendered) messages of right and wrong behaviours. the vocational habitus may vary among the levels of qualifications that exist for those training to work in ecec and/or among the different professional roles, but it demonstrates the learning, experiential, and deliberative excellence of phronesis, which challenges the innate, gendered ideal. illustrating that the ideal is learned is significant, both for recognizing the demands of coming to know-how to work in ecec and also for challenging assumptions of who is an ecec professional. many countries report that nearly all staff working in direct contact with children are women, (european commission, 2014), and as vandenbroeck and peeters (2008) explore, modelling the profession on a mother-like ideal is likely to reinforce gender segregation. both vandenbroeck and peeters (2008) and vincent and braun (2011) argue that within ecec training there are implicit assumptions, particularly among students, about the right person for the job winter/hiver 2019 140 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research that are highly gendered. research with male students draws attention to men being branded as the “wrong” kind of person, with concerns that they will be labelled as either homosexual or a pedophile for working with young children (vincent & braun, 2011). despite these concerns, charlotte jones (2015), in her survey of men working in ecec, finds that her participants were motivated by “a love of children” (p. 12), suggesting that the ideal is not gender exclusive. however, the vocational habitus, in which individuals become the right person for the job, illustrates that the ideal is learned. colley (2006) writes: even the most “suitable” girls have to adapt their dispositions further as they encounter the emotional challenges of the workplace. the pragmatic detachment required to cope with “puke”, “pee,” and punches is mitigated by the idealised image of the perfectly sensitive and gentle nursery nurse, and by the deeply caring culture created by college tutors. (pp. 24–25) presenting ecec as requiring innate abilities masks the challenges identified by colley of coming to know-how to work in ecec. while colley (2006) draws attention to the role of the workplace and training institutions in contributing to how professionals learn the ideal, parents and the cultural context also interplay. increasingly, ecec research emphasizes the emotional challenges of working with children, much of which centres on learning appropriate emotional responses (elfer, 2015). jools page (2011), while emphasizing the importance of the relationship between professionals and the child, has indicated that there is less certainty as to whether parents expect the relationship to include love. page argues for “professional love,” but given the debates on professionalism, what it means, and whether it is a constraining construct, it might be that professional is not the right term for understanding the emotional complexities of working in ecec. there is a risk that professional love becomes technocratic in its approach (as with other debates on professionalism) or is separated from wider discussions and definitions of a professional knowledge base. i accept that there are cultural norms to learning appropriate behaviours, particularly when it comes to interacting with children, but i do not position phronesis as an anti-intellectual process of fitting in to the norms. the process of fitting in is a careful and considered act, focused on an ethics of care that incorporates multiple forms of knowledge. in work previously undertaken with colleagues (campbell-barr, georgeson, & nagy varga, 2015), we highlighted the question faced by students undertaking training in england as to whether a hug is an appropriate emotional response to a child falling over. conversely, in hungary, physical signs of affection are accepted within their ecec traditions (campbell-barr et al., 2015). our conclusions emphasized the consequences of the cultural context, culturally appropriate terminology, historical events that shape concepts of childhood (such as highprofile child protection cases), and policy developments for informing understandings of professional emotional responses. while neither page (2011), colley (2006), nor campbell-barr et al. (2015) refer to phronesis, they indicate the need to recognize something beyond episteme and techne for working in ecec, much of which relates to appropriate emotional responses in the relationship with the child. the learning of correct responses in a context demonstrates phronesis as deliberative intelligence, whereby it is considered, intentional, and purposeful. moreover, phronesis as know-that is not sufficient. professionals also need experiential know-how in developing their professional knowledges. emotion as a commodity learning the correct responses and becoming the right person for the job are also evident in perspectives that have identified emotional responses as a commodity. perspectives on emotions as a commodity have positioned emotions as either something that is exploited by an employer or something of value to the employee. for example, winter/hiver 2019 141 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research arlie russell hochschild’s (2003) “feeling rules” emphasized learning and displaying emotional responses as being a “cost” to the employee. an employee learns to regulate their emotions in a way that is of economic gain for the employer, but not the employee. conversely, recognizing the rewards of emotional labour and being consciously aware of emotions and the day-to-day decisions that are made regarding them enables individuals to make use of emotions as emotional capital (andrew, 2015). andrew explores emotional capital in relation to phronesis to account for how the response to one child may not be the same as the response to another child in the same situation. instead, emotional responses are considered actions, developed through self-reflection. prior emotional interactions provide insights for how to respond in subsequent emotional interactions. therefore, emotional responses are not innate, but are skills to be practised within the social context. for andrew (2015), learning about and understanding emotional responses prevents exploitation. however, to understand phronesis as capital, the interpersonal and relational aspects of ecec must be seen as commodities that are traded, potentially positioning emotional interactions within an economic perspective that challenges the moral construct of phronesis, given that economics is aligned to the technocratic, rational professionalism of modernism (osgood, 2004). rather than phronesis being aligned to technocratic professionalism, i would suggest that perspectives on emotion as a commodity illustrate the interplay between know-that and know-how. the know-that of phronesis will not meet the demands of professional practice. instead, experiences in the field of practice will refine professional knowhow, illustrating the complexities of professional knowledges for ecec. the language of knowledge andrew (2015) acknowledges how his discussion of emotional capital is bound by the language available. i also believe language limits the elaboration of phronesis. christopher winch (2014) discusses the fact that within professional roles there will be personal characteristics that go beyond the identification of skills, but often we just do not have words for them. inevitably there is a cultural turn to the terminology used, and even the use of the english language in writing a paper on knowledges impacts the concepts it is possible to discuss. take for example the use of love. in greek four words are available to express love: agápe, éros, philía, and storgē. while the cultural context is important for understanding the application of these four forms of love, as an english writer i have one word. cultural should not be confused with national. there will be local cultures that those working in ecec will be negotiating in forming an understanding of their role, such as seeking to understand the families in their community. those working in ecec therefore find themselves negotiating the cultural context, learning about phronesis through the experience of emotional interactions developed through self-reflection. however, language presently limits both an articulation and an analysis of experiences relating to phronesis. for example, someone can produce an emotional response befitting the context (such as to a child falling over), but this does not mean it can be described. in modernist terms, the tacit nature of the knowledge means that it cannot be measured and assessed, and it is therefore marginalized in understandings of professionalism. there is a danger that the exploration of phronesis could get caught up in semantics, but the variable (and potentially insufficient) terminology used to describe a body of knowledge that extends beyond episteme and techne is one difficulty with recognizing this form of knowledge. without an agreed-upon (or common) language to discuss this knowledge, it is intangible. further, the innate construct limits explicit evidencing of the presence of phronesis either in relation to what it is or how it is acquired. the knowledge base risks becoming a folk pedagogy, an everyday construction of the knowledge required for ecec, representing a set of assumptions that those working in ecec bring with them regarding children and teaching and learning (bruner, 1996). finding a language for phronesis is not about enabling researchers to identify and classify it, but about enabling a full appreciation of the complexities of working in ecec and the knowledges required for this role. winter/hiver 2019 142 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research bernstein and knowledges the discussion of phronesis demonstrates that there are knowledges that ecec professionals develop that extend beyond episteme and techne. techne and episteme reflect the multidisciplinarity of ecec (rhedding-jones, 2005) and the requirement for knowledge to be applied within professional contexts. there is a temptation to position phronesis in the horizontal discourse in recognition of its practicality, everyday derivation, and taken-forgrantedness. however, the deliberations, judgments, and action that relate to phronesis (breier & ralphs, 2009) are an example of bernstein’s vertical knowledge. phronesis represents vertical knowledge with a segmented structure and weak grammar, represented by the challenges of articulating and interrogating it. while the use of attitudes, dispositions, values, and an ethic of care are illustrative of the weak articulation of the know-that of phronesis, they provide a set of propositions as to what should be included in ecec professionalism. however, knowledge alone is not enough in a professional context, so phronesis requires practical action whereby a phronetic approach forms a link between reason and emotions. bernstein never explicitly mentions phronesis, but i believe it is a key component in the recontextualization and application of knowledges, whereby professionals draw on a range of knowledges to meet the needs of practice. know-how therefore includes the application of phronesis, illustrated by the references to being caring, loving, empathetic, etc., discussed earlier. as illustrated, the emotional characteristics of phronesis may make them hard to articulate, but they remain central to the ecec knowledge base. there is a need to elaborate both the knowthat and know-how of the ecec knowledge base to develop a more elegant articulation of the knowledges for working in ecec (winch, 2014). i recognize that my assessment of the knowledges for ecec is bound by the social processes of legitimizing knowledge, but just because something cannot be scientifically proven is not to say it is not there (young & muller, 2007). understanding ecec as a region enables professionals to draw upon a long history of theoretical knowledge from various disciplines while also recognizing phronesis in meeting the demands of professional practice. phronesis and “pure knowledge” are integrated, whereby the former is needed to make sense of the latter (winch, 2014). however, because of the array of languages as a result of vertical discourse, segmentally organized and with differing grammars, the recontextualization involves a process of selection (bernstein, 2000). the selection process can be shaped by external factors, such as market forces or policy requirements, but the choice of an individual can also shape the knowledge combinations and their recontextualization. there is a danger of rogue theories, whereby particular ideals are upheld, but without scrutiny or evaluation. for example, the innate, gendered ideal is a rogue theory that masks the learned nature of phronesis while potentially excluding men from ecec. therefore, identifying the presence of phronesis for ecec professionals is not sufficient. it requires articulation, both in regards to what it is and to how it is applied and evaluated to develop legitimacy and avoid rogue theorizing. conclusion bernstein’s contribution to understanding the knowledge of professionalism offers the potential to recognize the importance of phronesis in ecec. however, the language of phronesis is problematic for discussing what this form of knowledge is and how it is acquired and applied. knowing is clearly more than having theory. it will depend on personal characteristics (winch, 2014) and be drawn from experiences, both in the wider society and from the daily experiences of working with children (colley, 2006; skeggs, 1997). phronesis is therefore not innate. instead, the ecec professional is shaped by the cultural context in determining appropriate emotional responses. the emphasis on knowledges and the importance of knowledge combinations illustrates that there are not singular right and wrong emotional responses for working in ecec. considering ecec professional knowledge in the winter/hiver 2019 143 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research plural broadens perspectives on the ecec knowledge base and opens up discussions about how different forms of knowledge are acquired and combined. recognizing ecec professionalism as requiring knowledges (episteme, techne, and phronesis) has consequences for how professional learning is conceptualized. importantly, the incorporation of phronesis acknowledges the emotional challenges of learning to work with young children and that becoming the “right” ecec professional is a careful and deliberative process. ecec training programs should consider the place of phronesis within ecec professional knowledges, exploring the complexities of coming to know-how to work with young children, while beginning a process of professionals articulating and scrutinizing all aspects of the ecec knowledge base. winter/hiver 2019 144 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references andrew, y. 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(2014). from the sociology of professions to the sociology of professional knowledge. in m. young & j. muller (eds.), knowledge, expertise and the professions (pp. 3–17). london, uk: routledge. winter/hiver 2018 17 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s moral agency: an interdisciplinary scoping review marjorie montreuil, crystal noronha, nadia floriani, and franco a. carnevale marjorie montreuil is assistant professor at the ingram school of nursing, mcgill university. she completed her doctoral studies in the field of childhood ethics and pursued postdoctoral training in pragmatic health ethics. she holds experience as a nurse in child mental health. her research interests include concept analysis, qualitative and participatory methodologies, and ethics in the context of mental health and nursing practice. email: marjorie.montreuil@mail.mcgill.ca crystal noronha is project manager of the voice (views on interdisciplinary childhood ethics) project, an international initiative to advance knowledge and practices relating to ethical concerns in childhood. she graduated from the faculty of dentistry, mcgill university, with a master’s in dental sciences. her master’s thesis was a scoping review examining oral complications in children with cancer and their impact on quality of life. nadia floriani is a research assistant for the voice project. she graduated with a bachelor of arts in psychology from mcgill university, having earned a place on the dean’s honour list. nadia has continued her graduate education in communications studies at concordia university and will receive her graduate diploma in 2018. franco a. carnevale is a nurse, psychologist, and clinical ethicist. he is the founder and principal investigator for voice. his current academic appointments include, all at mcgill university, full professor, ingram school of nursing; associate member, faculty of medicine (pediatrics); adjunct professor, counselling psychology; affiliate member, biomedical ethics unit. inconsistencies have been noted in how moral agency is conceived in childhood (montreuil & carnevale, 2016). these inconsistencies have led to variations in children’s level of inclusion and exclusion from discussions and decisions affecting them, both in children’s services and research. through a scoping review (arksey & o’malley, 2005; levac, colquhoun, & o’brien, 2010), we examined the different ways in which children’s moral agency is imagined in the literatures across different disciplines: education, health, law, psychology, and social services. this work aims to shed light on how these different perspectives on moral agency affect service providers’ interactions with children, as well as how these perspectives could be bridged to advance interdisciplinary knowledge in childhood ethics and promote practice improvements. some background information on the concept of children’s moral agency and its importance is presented first, followed by a description of the methodological approach used to guide the review. we then present the five perspectives identified through the analytical work, and discuss the importance of the review results for practice disciplines and research. background the concept of children’s agency, a key concept in the field of interdisciplinary childhood studies, is increasingly discussed in the literature (esser, baader, betz, & hungerland, 2016; james & prout, 2015; montreuil & carnevale, inconsistencies have been noted in how moral agency is conceived in childhood, leading to variations in children’s levels of inclusion/ exclusion from discussions and decisions affecting them in children’s services and research. through a scoping review of 261 articles, we examined the different ways in which children’s moral agency is imagined in the literature across different disciplines: education, health, law, psychology, and social services. a developmental psychology perspective dominated the results, while other viewpoints were less prevalent (e.g., children as active moral agents). we discuss how the different perspectives could be bridged to advance more integrated perspectives on interdisciplinary knowledge and practices related to childhood ethics. keywords: children; moral agency; scoping review; interdisciplinary winter/hiver 2018 18 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2016). there has been a long-standing view of children as incapable of decision making and meaningful participation in social life, which has increasingly been challenged (james & prout, 2015; n. lee, 2001). in a concept analysis undertaken in 2016 on children’s agency within the health literature, there was a growing recognition in recently published papers situated within childhood studies that children are active agents who reflect on and construct their social world (montreuil & carnevale, 2016). however, various perspectives prevail within different disciplines, especially with regard to moral agency, in reference to children’s capacity to act in the light of considerations of right and wrong (carnevale, campbell, collin-vézina, & macdonald, 2013). are children perceived as agents capable of moral experience, who are making sense of, reflecting on, constructing, and acting on what they perceive as rightwrong, good-bad, just-unjust in their social world? children are sometimes described as morally incompetent and unable to participate in decisions affecting them, with adults being in charge of decision making for children in their best interests, because they are considered vulnerable. this limited participation from children has important implications for them, as it is unclear how what is considered as in the child’s best interests is decided. adults with authority often decide what is in the child’s best interest, without considering the child’s perspective (carnevale, campbell, collin-vézina, & macdonald, 2013). there is a recent movement toward seeing vulnerability and moral agency, not as binary opposites, but as coexisting in every person, including children (bluebond-langner & korbin, 2007; wall, 2010). from this view, which is central within childhood ethics, children are considered both vulnerable and moral agents: they do need a form of protection based on their vulnerability, but are agents with moral outlooks and experiences whose perspectives should be recognized (carnevale, campbell, collinvézina, & macdonald, 2013). in light of the various inconsistencies that have been noted in how moral agency is conceived in childhood, we examined the different ways in which children’s moral agency is imagined in the literature through a scoping review across different disciplines. we analyzed the prevalent and dominant views that are present in the literature, comparing and contrasting the views that we identified. to clarify how children’s moral agency is imagined has important implications regarding children’s potential inclusion or exclusion from discussions, decisions, and actions that affect them. ultimately, this work aims to shed light on how these different perspectives on moral agency could be bridged to advance interdisciplinary knowledge in childhood ethics and promote practice improvements in disciplines that provide children’s services. purpose the main aim of this scoping review was to map the different ways in which children’s moral agency is imagined across various disciplines that provide children’s services, to help advance interdisciplinary knowledge and practices. disciplines included education, health, law, psychology, and social services. we addressed the following questions: (1) what are the prevalent/dominant views in how children’s moral agency is imagined? (2) what are the intraand interdisciplinary patterns, as well as temporal trends? (3) what are researchers’ assumptions in relation to children and childhood, and how do they relate to how moral agency is imagined? research strengths and gaps are then discussed, as well as the implications of adopting various perspectives. methodology a scoping review framework was chosen to structure the article identification and analysis (arksey & o’malley, 2005; levac, colquhoun, & o’brien, 2010). this framework is considered optimal to address broad review questions such as the ones guiding this review, and permits the inclusion of various disciplinary perspectives and winter/hiver 2018 19 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research types of publications. moreover, the flexibility of this framework allows for reconsideration of which aspects to chart in light of the available literature, as well as ongoing reflection on articles relevant to include. this flexibility was highly relevant in light of the breadth of articles included in this review. data sources considering the interdisciplinary nature of this review, key databases were identified in collaboration with librarians specialized in law, education, and health. searches were performed in each database (cinahl, eric, heinonline, proquest social sciences, psycinfo, pubmed, scopus, social work abstracts, web of science) using different combinations of the words moral, agency, agent, child*, adolesc*, and teen. in this review, “children” refers to all minors up to 17 years old (and 20 years old in certain countries).1 article selection the searches combined yielded a total of 3,096 articles, with 261 articles remaining after removing duplicates and going through the inclusion and exclusion criteria using the articles’ title and abstract. articles were retained if they were (1) published between 2000 and 2016 (to highlight recent perspectives, while allowing for the identification of temporal trends), (2) related to children’s moral agency, (3) published in english, and (4) authored by a primary researcher based in canada, united states, great britain, australia, or new-zealand. this last criterion was added to include countries with similar legislative and cultural outlooks, specifically in relation to child law perspectives. since we were scoping the literature from diverse disciplines, it already offered a wide breadth of articles to compare and contrast. these decisions were made to balance the breadth of the review with issues of feasibility (levac et al., 2010). also, only electronic sources were included, which could have prevented the inclusion of relevant documents that were available only in other formats. as is common in scoping reviews, all relevant literature was included whatever the research design. the article search was done using an iterative process to enhance diversity in examining how moral agency is imagined (arksey & o’malley, 2005; i.e., we did additional searches as we were selecting the articles, e.g., based on ancestor and offspring searches of included articles). data charting data collected from the articles were charted using an excel worksheet with the categories: (1) full bibliographic details, (2) year of publication, (3) discipline of the first author, (4) database, (5) type of study, (6) age of child participants, (7) how moral agency is imagined, (8) author assumptions about children and childhood, and (9) study abstract. data analysis an excel table was developed including the charted information from all the included articles. the charted data were then compared and contrasted by two reviewers closely involved in data collection (mm and nf) as to how moral agency was imagined, using categories 7 and 8 to guide the analysis and answer the review questions. articles sharing similar perspectives were grouped together, and descriptive summaries were written for each, further analyzing similarities and differences within each perspective. additional analyses were then performed to identify trends in how the different perspectives held similarities/disparities in relation to other categories included in the table (categories 2, 3, 5, and 6). a final synthesis was then produced for each perspective identified, with exemplar articles identified for each. exemplars were articles that illustrated clearly the different perspectives and enhanced the understanding of the similarities and differences between them, in line with benner’s (1994) definition of the term. winter/hiver 2018 20 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research results we have identified five broad perspectives as to how children’s moral agency is imagined in the literature reviewed (i.e., within canada, united states, great britain, australia, or new-zealand), labelled as (1) moral agency within developmental psychology; (2) moral agency as a competence influenced by the context; (3) moral agency as absent in children; (4) moral agency as a narrative construction; and (5) children as active moral agents. a brief description of the search results is presented first, followed by a presentation of the five perspectives. for each perspective, we present only the exemplar articles that were selected, as there were too many articles to include them all here. descriptive analysis the discipline of psychology dominated the search results, with 61% of the 261 articles retained for analysis falling in this category (see figure 1). certain articles from other disciplines, such as law, education, health, and social services, also referred to perspectives from psychology, particularly in reference to children’s moral development. a large proportion of the documents included were quantitative studies (44%). other types of documents comprised qualitative studies, theoretical papers, book chapters, and commentaries. a few articles were retained even if primarily from related disciplines other than the ones selected at the beginning of the review (e.g., anthropology), when resulting from the databases searches. figure 1. articles by discipline (%). perspectives moral agency within developmental psychology the field of developmental psychology possesses a vast literature on children’s moral development, which dominated the search results. within this perspective, a child with moral agency is often implicitly described as having the advanced cognition, reasoning, and/or moral judgement that an adult would have, as assessed by how children fig.1 articles by discipline (%) psychology, 61 education, 11.3 health, 11.3 social services, 7.2 law, 2.4 other, 6.8 winter/hiver 2018 21 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research adhere to what are considered established social norms. the main focus of this field is on identifying the factors leading to acquiring a sense of “morality,” describing its features and what this process will entail through different stages. this process of moral development is generally presented as universal, not differing between cultures, and based on the development of children’s cognitive, reasoning, and moral judgment capacities. from this view, as children age—or through their past experiences—they develop a sense of morality and later become what can be referred to as moral agents, that is, individuals who act in a goal-oriented manner in light of right or wrong. some articles referred to piaget (1997) or kohlberg’s stages of moral development (kohlberg & hersh, 1977), building on them (e.g., schonfeld, mattson, & riley, 2005), as well as to theory of mind, highlighting the social-cognitive development of young children (e.g., lane, wellman, et al., 2010; sokol, chandler, & jones, 2004). the developmental perspective dominates the literature within the field of psychology, and is also present within education, sociology, health, and neuroscience. most of the studies from this perspective were conducted with preschool or school-aged children to examine how children develop moral capacities. the predominant research method employed in these studies was quantitative. the studies from neuroscience described morality as being related to brain state and function, investigating the different brain areas involved in the development and exercise of moral reasoning (e.g., beauchamp, dooley, & anderson, 2013; pujol et al., 2008). we identified specific intradisciplinary trends within psychology as to how moral agency was imagined, related, for example, to bandura’s social-cognitive theory and turiel’s perspective on the transgression of moral norms. studies related to bandura’s social-cognitive theory were mainly related to moral disengagement. bandura considered that “moral conduct” should be examined together with moral reasoning, stating, “a complete theory of moral agency must link moral knowledge and reasoning to moral conduct. this theory requires an agentic theory of morality rather than one confined mainly to cognitions about morality” (bandura, 2001, pp. 8–9). bandura emphasized the need for the exercise of moral judgement in acting in a “humane” way and not acting in an “inhumane” way. he identified this capacity as key to being a moral agent. studies on moral disengagement appeared as a more recent trend and were conducted almost exclusively with adolescents, examining how adolescents can become morally disengaged—for example, in cases of bullying—and how their peers can affect that process (e.g., bauman & pero, 2011; bussey, fitzpatrick, & raman, 2015; caravita, sijtsema, rambaran, & gini, 2014; pornari & wood, 2010; coker et al., 2014; d’arripe-longueville et al., 2010; quinn & bussey, 2015; robson & witenberg, 2013; shulman, cauffman, piquero, & fagan, 2011). from his perspective, turiel (1983) views transgressions of moral norms as different and as more severe than the transgression of social norms. young children (e.g., school-aged) are perceived as having the capacity to enforce both types of norms, but do so differently for social norms as compared to moral norms (atkin & gummerum, 2012; schmidt, rakoczy, & tomasello, 2012). children are described as usually committing to morality above group loyalty, though they encounter more difficulty expressing it the younger they are (cooley & killen, 2015). however, in certain situations, children might think social norms should dictate their moral judgment, while in others, they believe moral norms to be paramount (helwig, 2002). this view was also present within education and law (e.g., fox, kvaran, & fontaine, 2011; nucci & turiel, 2009), and contrasted with other views within developmental psychology by this distinction between social and moral norms, as well as the view that moral understandings change with the context of the activities the children are engaged in, and are thus not universal. moral agency as a competence influenced by the context another trend we identified presented moral agency as a skill or competence that can be taught and that is influenced by the socio-political context in which the child develops. in these articles, moral agency was said to be formed mainly through outside influences and teaching, for example, from parents, teachers, peers, sports winter/hiver 2018 22 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research coaches, and religious leaders, or the “moral atmosphere” of the community that they live in (e.g., carson & banuazizi, 2008; chow, murray, & feltz, 2009; ferguson & cairns, 2002). ultimately, the children themselves were described as having the agency to make their own decisions, but influences from the community (such as from peers for making a particular decision, from a sports coach to follow the strategy decided on for the team, or, in some particular cases, from the moral norms of a community) very often sway children’s viewpoint, so that the decision they make may be different from the decision they would have made for themselves upon evaluating the situation (brenick & killen, 2014; lee, whitehead, ntoumanis, & hatzigeorgiadis, 2008; ntoumanis, taylor, & thøgerson-ntoumani, 2012; thornberg et al., 2012). within this perspective, the articles were also mostly from the field of psychology, with some articles from education and health. some articles studied how outside influences affect children’s moral development, and shared similarities with the articles in the section above on developmental psychology (e.g., walker, hennig, & krettenauer, 2000). however, moral development was generally not referred to as following a universal process, and the focus was not on the cognitive processes involved in moral development, but on the context in which the children live and how it affects moral development. moral agency was rarely defined explicitly in these articles, but could be inferred to be similar to the field of moral development, that is, as children’s capacity to act in accordance with established social norms. still, a difference within this perspective is that moral agency often also entailed accepting outside influences, usually from people in a position of authority, in identifying what is considered “moral,” in addition to following social norms. for instance, parental influences were described in various articles as being more important than community influences in fostering moral agency in children, as parents were described as the primary guides and authority figures in their children’s lives (e.g., daddis, 2011; hardy et al., 2010). some authors studied how parenting styles can lead to distinctly different moral development paths in children, sometimes delaying them (e.g., ttofi & farrington, 2008; laible, eye, & carlo, 2008; trentacosta et al., 2011; vieira, 2015). cultural differences were also studied in certain articles as to how children develop moral understandings (e.g., fu et al., 2007; woods & jagers, 2003; jensen & mckenzie, 2016), as well as how the political climate can affect the development of morality in children (e.g., ferguson & cairns, 2002). some articles also referred to interventions that can foster a sense of morality in children (e.g., padilla-walker & fraser, 2014). this perspective was present in the fields of education and psychology and, to a lesser extent, in sociology, social work, and health. for example, some articles referred to the development of a tool to measure moral competence in order to assess youth intervention programs fostering moral development (e.g., mouratidou, chatzopoulos, & karamavrou, 2008; park & peterson, 2006). moral agency as absent in children in some of the articles, children were assigned no moral agency. from this view, a person becomes a moral agent when entering adulthood; children and adolescents were viewed as still gaining the experience they need to be able to make their own “fully justified” and “acceptable” moral decisions (e.g., sturdevant & spear, 2002). as within moral development, morality was imagined as a series of stages that are universal, but the last stage was described as being reached only in adulthood, and thus children and adolescents were thought of as relying on adults to make moral decisions for them, most frequently without children’s involvement. this view was prevalent within law and medical ethics (a subcategory of the health literature), and included both children and adolescents, often with no specific age range. for example, some of the authors assigned little or no moral agency to children as a way for them not to be punished by criminal law as adults would (e.g., scott & steinberg, 2002). the literature related to youth’s sexuality also widely perceived youth as not having the moral capacity to make decisions considered “rational”; adults were thus described as needing to impose moral norms on youths in regard winter/hiver 2018 23 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to their sexual life (e.g., bishop, 2011; froyum, 2010). this perspective was critiqued by certain authors, who considered youth’s moral agency was “denied” and claimed they should be involved in decisions related to their sexuality both at the personal and policy levels (e.g., braeken & cardinal, 2008; macvarish, 2010). moral agency as a narrative construction in certain articles within psychology, children were described as “meaning makers” who, while being considered developing beings, morally “make sense” of their experiences. drawing on the developmental psychology view of moral agency in children, moral agency is described from this perspective as resulting from a narrative construction of experience. within this theme, which included articles from 2010 onwards, children’s sense of moral agency was described as a developmental achievement that emerges when children view their actions as being initiated and guided by justice and welfare. through the construction of narratives, children are said to develop their sense of morality when taking responsibility for their actions, making choices, and considering other people’s perspectives. moral agency was thus defined as “people’s understanding and experience of themselves (and others) as agents whose morally relevant actions are based in goals and beliefs” (pasupathi & wainryb, 2010, p. 55). this definition differed from other views present within developmental psychology, in that moral agency was considered as being coconstructed and contextual, developing once other areas of moral development had been acquired, such as theory of mind and self-identity (lapsley, 2010; recchia, wainryb, bourne, & pasupathi, 2014). children were described as needing to be able to make sense of their experiences (pasupathi & wainryb, 2010). studies within this perspective were conducted mostly with adolescents, as they were described as having more developed cognitive capacities allowing for this narrative meaning-making construction. children as active moral agents in very few articles within anthropology, philosophy, and sociology, moral agency was perceived as being present in all children and coexisting with vulnerability (e.g., brown, 2011). we had not included databases from anthropology and philosophy specifically during the article searches, but some articles from these disciplines were identified and included in the review. in these articles, children were described as agents who navigate and contribute to create “worlds” around them. in this view, children were presented as needing to be included in discussions affecting them, while it was recognized that “children are at once developing beings, in possession of agency, and to varying degrees vulnerable” (bluebond-langner & korbin, 2007, p. 242). children were also described as being both “moral beings” and “moral becomings,” in that they already have a moral self, and their experiences contribute to shape their moral agency, as is the case in adults (britton, 2015). from this perspective, children’s moral agency was not perceived as a developmental endpoint, but as present in all human beings, which differed from the other perspectives. discussion the large prevalence of articles related to the psychology of children’s moral development highlights the dominance of this perspective in how moral agency is imagined, within this field and others. this perspective is largely recognized, with variations as to how the different stages of development should be defined and are acquired. moral development theories largely focus on aiming to uncover universal processes leading to developing what could be labelled as moral agency (building on piaget and kohlberg), but questions have been raised from within and outside the field of psychology as to whether children’s moral development follows a universal process or varies with socio-political factors, culture, and/or life experiences. within other disciplines, such as law and medical ethics, there were some discussions on children’s moral development, questioning whether adolescents should be included in decisions affecting them or not, and at what age they should be consulted (e.g., mutcherson, 2005; winter/hiver 2018 24 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research scott & steinberg, 2002). within education, the school’s influence on the development of moral competence in children was examined, to help foster children’s moral education (e.g., brownlee et al., 2012). this vast literature within developmental psychology and across disciplines reveals its importance within western conceptions of childhood. children are often viewed and assessed through this developmental lens, which is also applied to children’s moral agency. as we conducted the review, we also identified differences in how research is conducted in different disciplines, which we consider was informed by how children’s moral agency is imagined. for example, in relation to how children’s morality is studied within the field of moral development, children were frequently presented with vignettes or puppet shows for which they had to answer questions related to what they considered as right or wrong (e.g., asking the child which one of the characters was naughtier or if the child would engage with certain actions or not). children’s moral reasoning or judgment capacities were then measured according to their answer that was considered by the researchers as morally right or not (e.g., grant, boucher, riggs, & grayson, 2005; lagattuta, nucci, & bosacki, 2010). some of these studies highlight how even young children act in accordance with what is considered moral. however, as mentioned by hoffmaster (2011), there is more to morality than formal reason: formal reason hides the real nature and extent of the rationality and the morality in our lives because it denigrates, if not ignores, our experience and our creativity. attending to both reveals the richness, the complexity, and the power of our rational intelligence and our morality. (p. 31) to examine children’s morality from this latter perspective, there would need to be a deeper engagement from researchers in the “worlds” of children, to explore their experiences. the predominance of quantitative designs in the studies reviewed did not foster such an examination, which was mostly present in the studies on children as moral agents and moral agency as a narrative construction. future studies on children’s moral agency would benefit from using designs that would permit the examination of children’s own moral experiences, in addition to what is considered as resulting from formal reasoning. for example, using ethnographic, interpretive, and participatory approaches would be suitable to achieve this aim by fostering children’s engagement with the research process and encouraging them to freely share their experiences “in context” (greene & hogan, 2005). this dominance of a developmental psychology model can be limiting in that children are not seen as complete human beings (n. lee, 2001) because there is a presumed incapability based on children being perceived as not fully developed psychologically. children are consequently perceived more as passive non-thinking objects of practices or of research (rather than active agents), and are therefore excluded from decision-making processes that affect them. as seen in the results, the literature from psychology is not homogenous, and some subperspectives do recognize a form of moral agency in children. bridging different conceptions and perspectives could be beneficial to further understand children’s moral agency and enrich each other’s views. an interdisciplinary approach to the study of children’s moral agency would therefore be valuable to foster such a discussion and further practices with children that are more inclusive of their perspectives. this shift would promote the development of childcentred practices that are attentive to children’s perspectives, as put forth in children’s rights approaches such as the united nations convention on the rights of the child (united nations, 1989) and increasingly discussed within childhood studies (james & prout, 2015). we suggest a rapprochement between these different perspectives on children’s moral agency could contribute to bridging the disciplinary gap. by rapprochement, we refer to taylor and gutmann’s (1992) notion of a reciprocal understanding of each other’s perspectives—including assumptions and values—to encourage reflection and discussion. this process could contribute to identifying what “ought” to be in practice. in the articles within this latter field, some authors argued that developmental psychology tends to deprive children winter/hiver 2018 25 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of their humanity by not recognizing them as moral agents (e.g., britton, 2015). a recent trend was observed in this latter perspective referring to children (as well as adults) as both beings and becomings, building on nick lee (2001). from this view, children and adults were described as being “full” moral beings, as well as moral becomings, who actively participate and contribute to moral life instead of passively conforming to preestablished moral norms. this view is consistent with views from the field of interdisciplinary childhood studies. however, there were very few articles from this field in the searches conducted. the concept of “children’s agency” was present, but “children’s moral agency” appears to have been scarcely discussed. this review offers a valuable starting point to address such issues within childhood studies, by offering an overview of how moral agency is currently predominantly imagined. understanding children’s moral agency can contribute to addressing key social and ethical concerns present both in society and, at a more micro level, in professional practices with children. recognizing children as having the capacity to act in light of moral issues, reflect on their moral experiences, and shape the world around them based on these reflections and actions would change how people interact with children in daily encounters. furthermore, a greater understanding of children’s moral agency could impact children’s inclusion in decisional processes that affect them (e.g., in professional practice or in the governance of children’s services). future research future theoretical and empirical research could examine approaches to reconcile the views we have identified to further our understanding of children’s moral experiences and advance interdisciplinary inquiry. this work also has implications for curricular preparation and continued education of professionals within children’s services, which should be attuned to diverging viewpoints related to moral agency in children and recognize the strengths and limits of each perspective. adopting a certain perspective can lead to children’s potential inclusion or exclusion from discussions, decisions, and actions affecting them, which bears importance on how children’s best interests is defined and related practices. conclusion in sum, there were quite distinct views of children’s moral agency present in this review. for instance, in some articles children were considered as having no moral agency, while in others moral agency was construed as gradually developing or being fully present. a trend that became visible is that in most of the articles in which children were described as having little or no moral agency, adults were said to be acting in order to protect the child considered vulnerable, in his or her best interest (notably within law and articles on youths’ sexual activities). this view highlights the tension present between the protection of children’s best interests and the recognition of children as moral agents. children are often seen as either vulnerable or moral agents, in need of protection or capable of making moral decisions for themselves, with little overlap between the two perspectives. putting forward a perspective in which children can be seen as both vulnerable and moral agents, as both developing beings and active moral agents, could help shed light on all the complexities involved in childhood and inform practices of child service providers. acknowledgments thanks to suzanne george and meaghan carly shevell for their assistance with data charting, as well as librarian angella lambrou for collaborating on the literature searches. winter/hiver 2018 26 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research funding this work was supported by an insight grant from the social sciences & humanities research council of canada (grant number 239025) and an ethics planning grant from the canadian institutes of health research (grant number 132281). winter/hiver 2018 27 vol. 43 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references arksey, h., & o’malley, l. 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(2003). are cultural values predictors of moral reasoning in african american adolescents? journal of black psychology, 29(1), 102–118. doi:10.1177/0095798402239231 1 within the article, we use different terms to refer to children, in accordance with the terms used in the article referenced. spring/printemps 2018 44 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research with(in) the forest: (re)conceptualizing pedagogies of care haro woods, narda nelson, sherri-lynn yazbeck, ildikó danis, deanna elliott, julia wilson, johanna payjack, and anne pickup haro woods is a second-growth forest situated on the unceded coast and strait salish territories. the woods are not separate from the rest of the territories despite the perceived name and boundary changes that have resulted from colonization and urbanization of the area. haro woods is an assemblage of douglas fir, hemlock, arbutus, big leaf maple, and cottonwood intertwined with english ivy, himalayan blackberry, and spurge laurel. finnerty creek, an urban-influenced drainage-to-shoreline network, runs through the forest, while black-tailed deer, chestnut-backed chickadees, barred owls, banana slugs, and a myriad of other creatures feed, find shelter, and migrate with(in) and through the woods. urbanization, by both passive and active presence, has caused soil and root disruption, erosion, and some disturbance to wildlife. narda nelson is a master’s student in the school of child and youth care, university of victoria, located on the traditional territories of lekwungen-speaking peoples. drawing on her background in gender studies, narda takes an interdisciplinary approach to rethinking young children’s relations with animals, plants, and landscape forms. she works as a pedagogista with uvic child care services, with a particular interest in thinking with processes of rot (compost), death, and waste-flows as a conduit for promoting sustainable and ethical futures with children. email: nelsonn@uvic.ca sherri-lynn yazbeck is an early childhood educator at uvic child care services. drawing on her background in psychology, philosophy, and early childhood education and inspired by “ordinary moments” with children, she is interested in the entangled multispecies relationships and encounters that take place in the classroom, playground, nearby forests, and gardens. she is intrigued by how these human and more-than-human assemblages create place and pedagogy in early education. she is also researching what it might mean to practice care and sustainability through these children/more-than-human relationships. email: syazbeck@uvic.ca ildikó danis is an early childhood educator at uvic child care services. she has a degree in early childhood special needs education from georgia state university, atlanta, and experience in the canadian, u.s., and hungarian educational environments. her interest in complex and inclusive ways of forming “natural childhoods” spurred her curiosity about children’s relations with place and everyday natural materials. her focus on child-material relations and movement pedagogies is motivated by a commitment to attending to stories and events that evolve by chance in the themes of children’s relations with other species, with the material world, and with place. email: idanis12@uvic.ca deanna elliott is an early childhood educator at uvic child care services. her 19 years of experience working with toddlers has strengthened her interest in materials and outdoor play spaces. she is curious about how relationships with place transform over time for educators, children, and the more-than-human others. she is currently interested in the relationships toddlers build in forest spaces, specifically the engagements that take place among toddlers, forest spaces, and more-than-human others. email: dinnie@ uvic.ca julia wilson is an early childhood educator at uvic child care services. in addition to her early childhood education diploma, she has a degree in psychology/sociology from the university of victoria. her curiosity in the interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies has been her inspiration and driving force in fostering empathy and caring toward all species. email: jnw@uvic.ca johanna payjack is an early childhood educator working at uvic child care services. she has 16 years of experience in the ece field and is currently taking infant and toddler specialization courses. fuelled by her recent coursework, she is exploring the question “what are our preconceived images of the toddler and how do those images play out in the materials we present in our shared environments?” email: jpayjack@uvic.ca anne pickup is an early childhood educator at uvic child care services. her 30 years of experience working with children from infancy to school age has strengthened her interest in fostering deep connections between the natural world and the children and families she works with. she is particularly interested in how as educators we can incorporate children’s play while respectfully collaborating with the more-than-human others we encounter. email: pickupal@uvic.ca spring/printemps 2018 45 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research this writing emerges out of a tangle of challenge and possibility generated in the process of learning to care for, and with, young children and more-than-human others in a time of rapid environmental change. we live in an era where news and social media sites increasingly chronicle catastrophic loss created in the upheaval of accelerated climate change, mass extinction, and other violent phenomena. at the same time, social media has been instrumental in mobilizing powerful resistance movements against corporate and state fossil-fuel development projects. within this paradox and others, indicative of the complicated times we live in, early childhood educators are called to teach children to “care for the earth” as a conduit for enhancing childhood development and creating more sustainable modes of living (chawla & cushing, 2007; collado & staats, 2016; cox et al., 2017; hedefalk, almqvist, & östman, 2015; louv, 2008). caring is what we do on a day-to-day basis with young children and families. sometimes we are even referred to as care-givers. but increasingly we wonder what constitutes “good” care in troubling times. how do dominant eurowestern frameworks influence our understandings of what it means to be in care-full relations with others? and can we learn to inhabit pedagogies of care in early childhood educational practice without simply retooling the extractive settler-colonial stewardship frameworks that brought us to such uncertainty in the first place (clark, pacini-ketchabaw, & hodgins, 2014; nelson, pacini-ketchabaw, & nxumalo, 2018; nxumalo, 2016; paciniketchabaw & nxumalo, 2015; taylor, 2017)? common worlding inquiry framework sherri-lynn, ildikó, anne, julia, deanna, and johanna are early years educators who work together with narda, a pedagogista1 and researcher, as part of a university child care services educational team made up of a larger group of educators, staff, researchers, and pedagogical facilitators. for over five years, we have engaged in an ongoing collective inquiry process as part of an intention to open ourselves up to new understandings of children’s immediate common worlds (common worlds research collective, 2015). among other things, a common worlding approach reframes childhood as collective and relational rather than individualistic and developmental, points we see as particularly pertinent to a discussion on care where we are trying stretch the very notion of who or what can be considered part of our community and capable of engaging in care-full relations with others (paciniketchabaw, taylor, & blaise, 2016; taylor, 2013, 2017). each year, we choose an inquiry theme and guiding concepts to shape common worlding pedagogies in each of drawing on moments from an early learning forest inquiry located on songhees, esquimalt, and wsáneć territories, otherwise known as victoria, bc, this paper engages with the messy politics of “care” that emerge when early childhood education and colonized forest ecologies meet. in it, we take up the challenge of unsettling our deeply held conceptualizations of care through a series of pedagogical stumblings with young children’s worldly forest relations. foregrounding the question “what constitutes good care in troubling times?” this discussion explores the logics we draw on to respond to the increasing sense of urgency in contemporary calls to teach children how to care for the earth. can we learn to inhabit pedagogies of care in early childhood educational practice beyond simply retooling the extractive settler-colonial stewardship frameworks that brought us to this era of uncertainty? and what happens if we invite a wider cast of participants into our understandings of care than those prevailing early learning approaches tend to promote? key words: care; forest; pedagogy; colonization; nature; early childhood spring/printemps 2018 46 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research our centres from which a dynamic process of collective-focused engagement with young children can emerge. examples of past inquiries include thinking with paint, water, compost, textiles, tape, and movement and rethinking relations with inhabitants of haro woods, an urban forest that surrounds the childhood centre on three sides (clark & nelson, 2014; clark et al., 2014; hodgins, 2015; land, 2017; land & danis, 2016; nelson, 2018; nelson, coon, & chadwick, 2015; pacini-ketchabaw, 2013; pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2014; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015; yazbeck & danis, 2015). the inquiry process is underscored by a commitment to learn to think and do differently together with materials, place, plants, animals, and landscape forms in response to the way status-quo ways of thinking and doing have contributed to the making, and everyday remaking, of the dangerous times in which we now find ourselves. as veronica pacini-ketchabaw and affrica taylor (2015) point out: the recognition that … critical changes in earth systems are primarily human-induced carries ethical implications for early childhood pedagogies. we can no longer afford the illusion of our separateness from the rest of the natural world and so educators and young children must rethink understandings of our responsibilities to the common world with share with other living beings. (p. 45) but what do we mean when we say we want to “think and do differently with care” in our early childhood forest pedagogies? pacini-ketchabaw and taylor (2015) argue that “in settler colonial societies, the seemingly unremarkable, everyday business as usual of early childhood education remains inadvertently (albeit often unknowingly) entangled in the social and ecological legacies of colonialism” (p. 1). with their words in mind, we want to make “caring for and with” in our forest pedagogies remark-able. that is, rather than taking what it means to care with young children for granted, we want to rethink and remark on our understandings in an effort to unhinge them from what heather davis and zoe todd (2017) call the ecocidal logics that are so deeply embedded in contemporary canadian society. from our perspective, it is increasing clear that in these “colonized and ecologically challenged times” (pacini-ketchabaw, taylor, blaise, & de finney, 2015, p. 3), business as usual in early childhood education is simply not an option. at least, not if we take seriously the necessity to turn away from the ongoing violence of well-established and untenable patterns of living that threaten the very existence of a growing number of communities on earth. more than an innocuous exercise, this discussion represents something consequential and often overlooked: that is, that the moral frameworks we infuse with everyday enactments of care in our early childhood practices, as well as those we use to draw conclusions about who is or is not capable of giving or receiving care, reinforce specific patterns of relating (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). this paper is an invitation to think expansively about what might be required of us, as early childhood educators, to cultivate critical, creative, and care-full pedagogical interventions into colonial patterns of relating, particularly those that render the plants and animals we share space with as little more than instrumental conduits for enhancing childhood development. in it, we link the articulation of pedagogies of care in everyday moments to the vital project of transformation necessary for creating viable futures together. how might we mobilize care to “do otherwise” in everyday early childhood moments? and what might be required of us in early learning practices to open up space for such possibilities to emerge? settler colonial implications in using the terms settler colonial and settler colonialism throughout this discussion, we draw from the work of unangax scholar eve tuck and her colleagues marcia mckenzie and kate mccoy (2014), who describe settler colonialism as “a form of colonization in which outsiders come to land inhabited by indigenous peoples and claim it as their own new home” (p. 6). tuck and her colleague wayne yang (2012) write that spring/printemps 2018 47 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research land is what is most valuable, contested, required. this is both because the settlers make indigenous land their new home and source of capital, and also because the disruption of indigenous relationships to land represents a profound epistemic, ontological, cosmological violence. this violence is not temporally contained in the arrival of the settler but is reasserted each day of occupation. this is why patrick wolfe (1999) emphasizes that settler colonialism is a structure and not an event. in the process of settler colonialism, land is remade into property and human relationships to land are restricted to the relationship of the owner to his property. (p. 5) red river métis (otipemisiw) scholar zoe todd (2016b) discusses colonialism as an ongoing form of violence that “tries to erase the relationships and reciprocal duties we share across boundaries, across stories, across species, across space, and it inserts new logics, new principles, and new ideologies in their place” (para. 2). michi saagiig nishnaabeg scholar leanne betasamosake simpson (2013) foregrounds settler colonial resource extraction and the connection to indigenous dispossession as processes that work together. she describes land, plants, and indigenous and animal bodies as framed as resources for extraction and dispossession under colonial and capitalist frameworks. it is vital to reflect on these points to avoid falling into the trap of believing that, in virtue of our “good” intentions, we sit outside the continuation of structural settler colonial violence. it feels necessary to juxtapose them with our desire to rethink what it means to care with young children on the songhees, esquimalt, and wsáneć peoples’ territories, whose connections to the places we live and work on continue despite brutal histories of colonization and its contemporary forms. keeping the seriousness of what is at stake in mind, the question becomes one of moral obligation: what can we do about it in our work with young children? vanessa clark, veronica pacini-ketchabaw, and denise hodgins’ (2014) approach in “thinking with paint: troubling settler colonialisms through early childhood art practices” is helpful to think with in attempting to craft our approach to thinking through our own entanglements on colonized lands: by situating and implicating ourselves in destructive (albeit active and creative), violent, imperial colonialist practices, we attempt, through our art pedagogy, to respond to the amnesia of settler colonialism (hilden & lee, 2010). in engaging colonialism in this way, we hope that our work can contribute to decolonizing efforts. yet, we are leery of calling our work decolonizing, as tuck and yang (2012) remind us of the problems in doing so. for example … even though we attempt to respond to settler colonialism, we cannot stand outside its messy, implicated, ongoing activities, and thus we recognize that there is no easy binary of colonizing/decolonizing.... our art pedagogy is therefore a motion toward becoming implicated in settler colonialism, as we work to continually think through its complexities, creativities, and shifting and changing activities. (p. 754) we follow their example from similarly fraught positions as settlers engaging in forest pedagogies on the lands of lekwungen-speaking peoples, as well as that of natasha myers (2017) in turning our attention to “asking better questions and cultivating more robust modes of inquiry” (p. 3) in our forest pedagogies. this also requires us to take seriously the ongoing and uneasy process of unravelling our assumptions about what it means to care with plants and animals and others we encounter in the forest we visit every week with 2to 5-year-old children. caring for, caring with the way we learn about what care looks and feels like and who or what is deemed deserving or cast as a passive spring/printemps 2018 48 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research recipient of it shapes consequences and influences the way we world together. simply put, the way we conceptualize care matters. pauliina rautio (2017) argues that concepts can be thought of as answers to questions posed by the world. concepts are answers insomuch as they are certain ways of thinking about and acting within the world—excluding other ways. in some cases we have grown accustomed to the answers or conceptualisations to the extent that the original questions are no longer easily available. (p. 94, emphasis in original) as such, reconceptualizing pedagogies of care, as well as putting them into action, is messy, imperfect, and sometimes difficult work. rather than relying on universalisms to reinforce a sense of being set apart from other species in our forest pedagogies, we are learning to pay attention to moments that bind us together with forest ecologies and the histories of this place. our interest in thinking about care as a profoundly more-than-human phenomenon pushes back on prevailing child-centered approaches in canadian early childhood education. an array of voices guides us in this inquiry process, including those of the children we work with, our colleagues, and tsawout elder, ethnobotanist, and knowledge keeper earl claxton, jr., who took us on a forest walk to share some of the histories of this place and his continued acts of resistance against ongoing settler colonial degradation of these territories. in sharing a few of his cultural teachings about trees and other plants we regularly encounter in the forest, elder claxton also reminds us that for lekwungen-speaking peoples, the plants, animals, and landscape forms of these territories have always been understood as teachers and kin. we are reminded here of todd’s (2016a) assertion that with growing efforts to foreground human-animal relations in academia, there is often a failure to “credit indigenous thinkers for millennia of engagement with sentient environments, with cosmologies that enmesh people into complex relationships between themselves and all relations, and with climates and atmospheres as important points of organization and action” (pp. 6–7). it is with acknowledgment of the lekwungen-speaking peoples’ inclusive worldview that shaped—and continues to shape—relations in the places we now live and visit (penn, 2006) that we strive to open up our understandings about what it means to care with others in our forest pedagogies as a vital part of challenging colonial assumptions about this place and our responsibilities here with young children. in this discussion, we also draw on a number of euro-western feminist scholars’ voices. like us, they must be understood as rooted in the tradition of dominant thought that we are attempting to challenge in our pedagogies. however, we draw on both non-indigenous and indigenous feminist scholarship to theorize care because, as hodgins, yazbeck, and wapenaar (forthcoming) point out, feminists have long challenged dominant conceptualizations of care, putting forward the assertion that there are practices and affects in everyday moments that make living possible. for example, max liboiron and colleagues (2017) describe care as “a form of political and ethical practice that ‘holds things together’ (puig de la bellacasa, 2011, p. 90; martin et al., 2015),” further pointing out that “care work can disproportionately affect certain groups more than others depending on gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and perceived abilities” (p. 6). in her recent book matters of care: speculative ethics in more than human worlds, maria puig de la bellacasa (2017) conceptualizes care as an integral act of maintenance in everyday worlding relations, a “critically disruptive doing” (p. 12), and “a speculative affective mode that encourages intervention in what things could be” (p. 66). care emerges here as a contestable notion, one reproduced through our everyday relations. welcoming an array of subjectivities into our understandings, while pausing to rethink the “why” and “how” we care for and with others, becomes vital in rethinking this dynamic. there is no doubt that we, and the children we work with, care for the forest. and yet, the values mainstream society infuses with everyday acts of caring for ourselves, plants, animals, and the places we live simultaneously play a role in reproducing global systems of catastrophic loss. given the spring/printemps 2018 49 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research seriousness of these times, the question becomes whether we can learn to care differently and appreciate modes of care in a way that resists carving care up into the imagined divide of so-called human interests versus morethan-human others, so often depicted as little more than resources to be managed for our (human) benefit. what consequences are produced in the types of care we choose to guide our everyday relations? as puig de la bellacasa (2017) argues, far from being an innocent activity, care in naturecultures cannot be purged from its predicaments: for example, the tendency to pastoral paternalism, the power it gives to care takers, and the unequal depletion of resources it implies in existing divisions of labor and exploitation of nonhumans and humans…. [care] is not about ideal “feel good” relationships, something particularly crucial to think within the context of contemporary ecological engagements in shattered and disproportionately distressed geographies of naturecultures. (p. 164) these points resonate with our choice to take a common worlding approach in our forest inquiry work. taylor and giugni (2012, following foucault [1986] and levinas [1989]) discuss this method as useful for reconsidering “the limits of the social … beyond a singular ethic of care of the self … [beyond] an exclusively human-focused ethic of care of the ‘other’ … and [beyond] an ethic of care of an externalised environment” (pp. 110–111). if the point of engaging in forest pedagogies is to foreground our shared vulnerabilities and responsibilities with others in an effort to imagine new possibilities for living together, it seems to us that thinking expansively about what it means to care and who is capable of this everyday act is an important part of the process. stumbling with far from easy or straightforward, engaging in this work demands we turn a critical lens on the way our own conceptualizations of care are shaped by cultural practices that continue to privilege settler colonial ways of knowing, managing, relating to, developing, playing in, and extracting from the places where we live and work. despite “knowing the forest” as the place we walk at least once a week with children, sometimes we feel like we are stumbling over unfamiliar terrain in our attempts to rethink what it means to care in haro woods, beyond what we have been taught about stewardship and enhancing childhood development (nxumalo, 2016; taylor, 2017). oxford tells us that stumbling can mean “to trip or lose one’s balance while walking, or move with difficulty” (oxford university press, 2018). perhaps learning to care differently with young children—that is, in a way that refuses the foundational logics of an extractive capitalist society—means learning to stumble more often as part of the uncomfortable but necessary process of unsettling deeply held colonial narratives about what it means to care with(in) this place. we embrace the word stumbling here, and the feeling of uncertainty it creates, to help us navigate the tensions of learning to care for and with others as settlers on these territories. to do this, we articulate three stumblings. “stumbling i” highlights our messy attempt to acknowledge the forest as an active participant in coshaping our experiences and thoughts throughout this discussion. “stumbling ii” foregrounds the emergence of the eurowestern binary notion of a nature/culture divide in forest moments and the subsequent conceptual fault line this imagined split creates, also known as anthropomorphism, which we have been taught to avoid since we were young children in the canadian educational system. “stumbling iii” draws attention to pedagogical moments with invasive plants and unruly animals. rather than trivialize stumbling as a stigmatized means of navigating the world in an ableist society, we take it up as a tentative and powerful way of moving through the world that departs from the cocksure arrogance of settler colonialism that moves throughout this place. each of the stumbling articulations we propose touches on issues deserving greater attention than we can provide spring/printemps 2018 50 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research within the parameters of this discussion. for example, while we touch on anthropomorphism, we do not offer definitive answers to large questions about it; instead, these stumblings represent our attempt to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of unsettling the frameworks we unconsciously invoke in choosing to care for (or neglect) certain creatures and the places they call home. in stumblings ii and iii we offer brief vignettes of forest inquiry moments to provide examples of emergent everyday encounters in our work. we own these settler stumblings as part of an effort to get somewhere new in pedagogy and practice, knowing we will continue to trip through the ongoing process of trying to disrupt normative understandings of care. rather than providing neat and tidy answers or attempting to cover up our stumblings, here we make explicit some of the everyday tensions that emerge in resisting the “tempting dichotomy” (haraway, 1988) of either adopting the prevailing child-centered approach to care or risking the appropriation of indigenous land pedagogies. because neither of those two are viable ways forward, we accept the challenge of figuring out an alternative way forward and see stumbling as an inevitable and generative part of an imperfect process. again, this work is not necessarily easy to put into practice. taking a common worlding approach to embrace early childhood as a situated, plural, and political process is a radical departure from the dominant child-centered approaches we (sherri-lynn, ildikó, julia, deanna, johanna, and anne) learned in our training to become early childhood educators. this shift requires us to rethink the norms, hierarchies, and values that continue to inform our teaching and research practices, which can feel awkward and unsettling at times, but that is precisely the point. as evidenced in the last 40-plus years, status-quo approaches to living have proven overwhelmingly dangerous to the viability of the earth’s narrowing array of life forms. care itself is not exempt from producing this dynamic. the type of care we learn to cultivate through euro-western frameworks tends to carry with it a belief that “we” belong to an undifferentiated humanity, the anthropos, which exists outside of a passive “nature” at our disposal for human benefit (taylor, 2017). because this construct remains largely uncontested in mainstream canadian ece discourses, we believe it must be unsettled if we are to move away from perpetuating the frameworks underlining unsustainable global patterns of living. taylor and giugni (2012) write that working with a common worlding approach means “[taking] account of children’s relations with all the others in their worlds—including the more-than-human others” (p. 108). taking up this intention, we are committed to thinking with more-than-humans as if they matter, that is, as coparticipants in storying and caring for and with the places we live and learn (van dooren & rose, 2012). stumbling i in writing this manuscript, we feel compelled to acknowledge haro woods as coauthor in its creation. this is problematic for a number of reasons. and it is here we begin to stumble. because we cannot set ourselves outside of a long line of settlers who have laid claim to these territories in various ways, we list haro woods as a coauthor in this paper with the understanding that this is not a neutral act. however, we also feel this is an important step in decentering ourselves and interrupting the belief that we (humans) are sole creators of the forest pedagogies we work with. we also see this move as consistent with the common worlding approach we work with and through which we are attempting to learn to care with, think with, do with other species and landscape forms (elements) as active coparticipants in worlding practices. while uncertain about naming haro woods as a coauthor, knowing it could be misconstrued as an assumption that we see the land is a willing participant in writing our version of the story or see ourselves as entitled and capable of interpreting the voice of the forest, we feel we could always find reasons to stay safe and complacent in our work. maybe it is time to risk doing something differently in our writing instead of saying something in spring/printemps 2018 51 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research practice and neglecting to do so in academic circles. remembering earl claxton jr.’s suggestion that settlers need to try to do things that feel uncomfortable, such as say hello or thank you in local indigenous languages, to try to get somewhere new even if we risk making mistakes, perhaps we can think of this simple act as an expression of care, in the hopes it might crack open space for other readers to question their own interdependencies with the places where they live, learn, and work. we tentatively take this step with the recognition that we continue to benefit from living on lekwungen-speaking peoples’ lands and that much work remains to be done to check our everyday structural privilege and support indigenous struggles for justice. stumbling ii we are walking in the forest. the forest floor is littered with sticks. we wonder how they got here. windy days? dying trees? sawed off ? belt loops, pockets, and hands grasp, carry, abandon, and pick up again. “en garde!” sticks become swords, bridges over fast flowing creeks, forts protecting from heavy rains and hiking poles guiding through deep water and up hills. we recognize “this stick’s alive!” as we crouch down carefully, petting moss or examining mushrooms rooted within. “it’s not a hole, it’s a home!” we discover termites and wood bugs weaving their way through, leaving us to wonder who else might inhabit these homes. what microorganisms are we not seeing as we grasp, carry, abandon, bridge, fort, and hike? we struggle to leave sticks behind. we are walking in the forest again. among the trees, soil, deer, and moss we also find abandoned bike parts, sharp metal, beer cans, broken chairs, plastic shards, and condoms. at times, our eyes seem keenly primed to notice these things above all else—as we walk, a child calls out “broken glass!” and an educator with glove on hand picks it up and carries these left-behind pieces through the forest and back to the centre for “proper disposal.” other times, our attentions are drawn to “forest things”—we crouch down low, heads together, to watch closely as a banana slug crosses the trail, never seeing that small piece of glass just to the side. still, there are times we silently notice, make note in our minds, say quietly to ourselves or maybe even out loud “broken glass,” but we walk on—acknowledging and wondering but leaving behind. what happens when we invite a wider cast of participants into our understandings of care in early learning pedagogies? for example, as sherri-lynn and anne highlight above, what if a stick’s need to care for and with the forest factors into a conversation with the children about how many sticks we should remove? and, is it possible to care for the garbage we find in the forest outside of dominant environmental education approaches that position young children as eco-heroes? of course, these speculative thoughts emerge from our perceptions. rather than sharing them here as part of an attempt to transcend our settler positionality, we follow figure 1. sticks-bridge. figure 2. sticks-garbage. spring/printemps 2018 52 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research anna tsing (2015) in situating our (human) speculations about more-than-human others as the only starting place we have to invite new considerations of, for example, a stick’s need to stay in the forest versus automatically giving in to the desire to take, extract, and consume without wider consideration of others’ needs. like us, a stick or a piece of garbage does not cease being part of the ecological system once it leaves the forest space. however, its ability to engage in a type of relational reciprocity changes depending on where the stick or the garbage continues to live. while we stumble with the challenge of not contributing to the reification of so-called nature spaces as existing separately from human spaces (the forest versus the childhood centre), we are simply trying to open up new considerations beyond a child’s personal desire to extract (sticks, in this case) from the forest. pacini-ketchabaw and her colleagues sylvia kind and laurie kocher (2017) describe encounters such as this one as “a moment of meeting, where things and forces and human and non-human beings come together in spaces of difference” (p. 34). by meeting with, they suggest, “we decide how to respond—whether to follow, join with, intervene, provoke, perhaps work against. something is set in motion in this encounter” (p. 34). we wonder about the power such moments hold to crack open space for learning to be affected (latour, 2004, as cited in taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015), learning to attend, not only to our own ability to care, but also to the abilities of those we encounter in the forest. here, we stumble with unravelling our assumptions about how the world works. water, sap, soil, wood bugs, logs, and mushrooms are mobile, intra-active participants in our stick-y encounters, each affected by the other, each affecting each other, each requiring us to listen with all our senses and be open to becoming different, vulnerable, affected (davies, 2014). listening in these encounters, as bronwyn davies (2014) writes, “is not about being bound by what you already know. it is [about attuning ourselves to] life as movement” (p. 1), where something as seemingly still as a stick on the ground is in care-full motion with the forest in ways we had not previously imagined. in the euro-western philosophical tradition, acknowledging sticks and garbage as active agents in forest relations means opening ourselves up to the charge of anthropomorphism. inspired by the example of lekwungen-speaking peoples, for whom so-called inanimate objects and other creatures have always been understood as kin who actively coshape place relations, we return to puig de la bellacasa (2017), who speaks to the euro-western discomfort with including more-than-humans in our understandings of care. katie ulrich (2018) puts it well in discussing puig de la bellacasa as: ready to risk the charge of initiating an anthropomorphist ethics of more-than-human care” because speculative thinking will be necessary for imaging more caring worlds, and anxieties about anthropomorphizing cannot be allowed to “paralyze our ethical imagination” (219). she says we can’t let charges of anthropomorphism prevent us from acknowledging how nonhumans do shape us, how the “cared for coforms the carer too” in cases when it seems humans are the main ones doing the caring (219). (para. 6) opening ourselves up to thinking about how to care for and with the garbage we encounter in the forest might be one of the most challenging stumbling blocks we regularly encounter in this process. can we learn to remediate spaces where care has been abandoned, where neglect itself becomes an act with repercussions? over the past few years, we have been paying attention to the garbage we inevitably face each time we enter haro woods, in our endless, unsettling encounters with glass, abandoned bike parts, sharp metal, plastic shards, condoms, etc. at times we put on gloves and remove the garbage; other times we examine it and move on. sometimes we don’t, or choose not to, even see it. while antithetical to the pristine images conjured up when nature-spaces are imagined, garbage in the forest is one of the most predictable “others” we encounter. the conflicted feelings we experience about the abundance of garbage in the forest feel, in many ways, unreconcilable, yet demand care-full attention. spring/printemps 2018 53 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research whether we like it or not, it is a reflection and a reminder of our own complicity in consumer-culture patterns of relating. in grappling with these tensions, anne engages the children with a story called what matters, written by alison hughes and illustrated by holly hatam (2016), which she finds helpful in thinking about the ongoing materiality of garbage, the connections it creates, and the question of how to care with it by focusing on waste-flow connections rather than resorting to an out-of-sight-out-of-mind philosophy. as the story goes, “a small, small, thing” (p. 5) like removing garbage comes to matter a great deal. myra hird (2016) talks about the need to come to terms with waste’s indeterminacy, that is, its ability to matter beyond human neglect, as a critical factor in coming to terms with the “imprescriptability of our ethical responsibility to future human and environmental sustainability wasteworld making” (abstract). puig de la bellacasa (2017), too, highlights the ethical necessity of “remediating neglect,” wherein “these ethics attract attention to the invisible but indispensable labors and resources [of earth others]” (p. 162). “the ethicality here,” she says, “is about making us care for what humans—most of us—have learned to collectively neglect” (p. 162). rather than focusing on picking up garbage within the good/bad binary descriptors attached to acts of “recycling care,” perhaps we need to shift the focus to how these acts might impede or promote others’ ability to care. in hughes and hatam’s (2016) story, the act of picking up a soda can becomes less about the care-full act than about how it comes to matter to a series of other lives—those of an ant, a snail, a spider, a worm, a stream, a dog, baby birds, an ocean—all in connection with that can. this story sheds light on some of the tensions and contradictions emerging in our practice as we engage in (re)conceptualizing pedagogies of care. while we have learned to recognize the shapes care takes in binary terms of good or bad, right or wrong, perhaps we can learn with young children about questioning or contesting where certain modes of care come from, why we value them, and what they continue to do in the process of creating or worlding new ways forward. stumbling iii we are walking in the forest. we notice some trees covered with ivy. the sun shines brightly through their green leaves. on other trees, we see the ivy has been cut. it surrounds the tree, deadbrown-decaying. as we continue to walk, we ask the children, “what are your thoughts about ivy in the forest?” some walk away without answering; others look around; one child responds, “it’s pretty, its leaf is like a heart”; another comments “it’s choking the trees!” as we continue to walk, some children drag previously cut vines behind them. others use them to create a measuring stick. we wonder about weaving baskets. it is time to make our way back to the centre. we drop the ivy vines we have been carrying. we leave them in haro woods. an almost archway of himalayan blackberry bushes moves over the path we are walking on. as we stop to pick “ready berries,” we are startled to see a mouse on a bramble eating too. we are wildly curious. our eyes dart around trying to catch a glimpse. we decide to move back to give space. one educator crouches figure 3. ivy. spring/printemps 2018 54 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research down to model stillness and the mouse scampers down a long, trailing bramble, taking cover under the educator’s skirt for a moment and then out the other side and into another blackberry bush. we feel relief and excitement about our encounter. a child expresses later in the day, “we share the forest. we share the berries.” we have come to know english ivy and himalayan blackberries as invasive and damaging to the forest. but, as ildikó and johanna discuss, we stumble here again with an impulse to appreciate the beauty of the sun shining through heartshaped ivy leaves, the possibility of weaving baskets with its trailing stems, savouring the sweet (sometimes sour) taste of a “ready berry,” and sharing in the excitement of seeing a mouse eating the same berries we like to eat. we find joy in splashing in pockets of water left behind because of soil erosion and watching deer drink from these same pockets. we watch deer sometimes eating from “colonizing” plants and notice the way birds find shelter in the ivy. one child excitedly cuts ivy to “save trees” while another looks horrified at the prospect of killing it, asking “why can’t we save the trees and the ivy?” care-full lines become blurred and entangled with carelessness, and we wonder where responsibilities lie. does care for one take care away from another? pedagogista nicole land asks, “what makes it possible for us to care with these connections as connections that matter—as we think about inheriting and navigating settler colonial worlds” (personal communication, april, 2017)? we see such questions as critical in our attempts to create pedagogies of care that refuse to blindly follow settler colonial patterns of relating. what might it mean to learn to care with “invasive” plants and other unruly species? what happens when we meet with those deemed out of place? how might we attune ourselves to their modes of care-full existence across the designations that flatten our understandings of where they belong while disregarding the histories of how they got here in the first place? learning to care for and with more-than-human others might mean appreciating the complexity of a plant or animal beyond such categorizations. robin wall kimmerer (in conversation with bowers, 2012) is helpful to think with here in response to the question of how to respond to invasive species: one perspective which is often well represented in indigenous thinking, and less so in western thinking, is this notion that the plants themselves, whom we regard as persons (as we regard all other species and elements of ecosystems) have their own intelligence, role, and way of being. when we look at new or “invasive” species that come to us, instead of having a knee jerk reaction of “those are bad and we want to do everything we can to eliminate them,” we consider what are they bringing us. plants are our teachers, so what is it they’re trying to teach us? what is the presence of overabundance of phragmites teaching us, for example? what do we need to learn about that? we need to learn about controlling nitrogen and phosphorous. those plants are here because we have invited them here. we have created the conditions where they’re going to flourish. (bowers, 2012, paras. 46–48). of course, as kimmerer also points out, this does not mean we sit apart from making decisions and taking actions figure 4. picking blackberries. spring/printemps 2018 55 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research that impact others in caring for a place. similarly, annemarie mol suggests that learning to care is not something we can cultivate by sitting outside of the world, suggesting that “[doing] is not necessarily having a choice” (in conversation with boyer & howe, 2016). rather than spiralling down into paralysis or recentering ourselves by foregrounding misplaced “settler guilt,” the point of our forest engagement is more about disrupting simplistic top-down euro-western stewardship models that have contributed to creating the frameworks that underscore untenable patterns of living. our forest encounters influence thinking and emotions beyond the forest boundaries. they also defy quantification. traditional euro-western early educational pedagogies tend to emphasize matters of fact in policy and practice— for example, when programming is anchored in observing children in a theorized clinical developmental way. instead, we work to shift our emphasis on pedagogies to enmesh matters of concern (blaise et al., 2017) with matters of care (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). this includes recognizing care through the act of appreciating the possibility of shared desires to inhabit place, as deanna explores in the following vignette. we are walking in the forest. a child says, “hello.” we had not heard anyone approach, but a strong-looking male stands nearby watching our investigations. he belongs here, appearing comfortable and sure. we wonder, are we welcome or are we intruding? our group is large, spread out, and loud in what seems the stillness of the forest. he seems relaxed, and he is not alone. his group has quietly spread around us. we count them—six deer companions are present, some very close. someone suggests we move back, allow space. we wonder, how do we respect and share this place with our more-than-human-other companions? can we say that stopping to notice multiplicities of care with young children is itself an act of care? puig de la bellacasa (2017) suggests that “[if ] to care is to be attracted, to be entangled with the recipients of care in a relationship that not only extends but obliges (us) to care, then a world is being made in that encounter that rather than determining (us), shifts (our) priorities” (p. 167, emphasis in original). but, as she cautions, “care is not about fusion; it can be about the right distance” (p. 5). this is again a point of stumbling for us in wanting to avoid the settler colonial habit of appropriating indigenous ideas, beliefs, and experiences and repackaging them as our own. culturally specific relations of lekwungen-speaking peoples with more-than-human others on these territories is not something that is available to us to simply try on. settler colonial relations continue daily to make and unmake worlds in this place, something else we need to remember. with this in mind, we are trying to learn from an array of perspectives, theories, and teachings that are available to us to start reimagining what might be required of us to be in reciprocal relations with the plants and animals we encounter on a weekly basis. within the forest inquiry we spend a great deal of time visiting and thinking in haro woods with the children. an assemblage of movement, encounters, and stories fills our forest walks, leaving us to wonder how we constantly, and often unconsciously, figure 5. deer tracks. spring/printemps 2018 56 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research enact care with(in) these particular common worlds. as pacini-ketchabaw, kind, and kocher (2017) suggest, in our walks we come together and pull apart: “our movements are recursive, acting on each other in a continuous exchange back and forth” (p. 27), always in motion, enacting, reacting, changing, and challenging movement. walking in the forest, thus transformed, becomes intertwined and interdependent with and as our means of noticing (tsing, 2015), our way of exploring rhythm (olsson, 2009), enmeshing human and more-than-human others together in a complex assemblage unable to be pulled apart. focusing on the socialities, agencies, and lively stories others tell, blaise, hamm, and iorio (2017) write, “is a strategy that makes room for relationality, or the ways in which humans and more-than-humans are integral parts of the universe” (p. 39). (re)conceptualizing pedagogies of care is important in our work as early years educators. the way we learn to understand what it means to care, who gets to care, who is constructed as deserving of care or as a passive recipient of care shapes consequences and influences the way we world together. understanding our common worlds as produced through mixed-up heterogeneous world relations (taylor, 2013), rather than as separate or innocent, opens up space to take notice, become attuned, and listen to other ways of caring with and storying place. it invites us to be curious and to consider more-than-human others as narrative subjects, weavers of stories, and carers of place (van dooren & rose, 2012). paying close attention to others’ lifeworlds also draws us into powerful modes of care that exist outside of contemporary human desires in these colonized and ecologically challenged times. consideration of these multiplicities of care beyond the human reminds us to shift our understandings and be care-full in our practice, to think with pedagogies that enmesh matters of concern with matters of care. as early years educators, we invite you to look for and reflect on those interdependent, messy moments that bind us together with forest ecologies and the histories that have brought us to these challenging times and continue to shape place relations. what happens when we invite a wider cast of participants into our understandings of care in early learning pedagogies? spring/printemps 2018 57 vol. 43 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references blaise, m., hamm, c., & iorio, j. m. 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(endnotes) 1 drawing from the work of carla rinaldi (2006), fikile nxumalo (2014) writes: “the role of a pedagogista takes inspiration from the preschools of reggio emilia, italy, where the presence of a pedagogical mentor to support, challenge and deepen educators’ practices and thinking is an embedded part of early childhood education policy and practice” (p. 50). clark et al. (2014) further describe the role as one “working collaboratively with educators to deepen and broaden pedagogies in the classroom, including attending to ethical/political aspects of early childhood pedagogies” (p. 752). november 2019 71 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research recognizing intergenerational assets within religious communities of colour michael j. farrow, and jeanmarie farrow michael james farrow earned his edd at rowan university in glassboro, new jersey, united states. he is currently working as a graduate research assistant within rowan’s education department. he has professional experience as a kindergarten teacher within an urban community of colour. his doctoral research focused on latino religiosity and its influence on education. further research interests include the role of latino and african american religious communities within education, religious-community-school partnerships, and the college choice process. email: mikefarrow1@yahoo.com jeanmarie farrow received her phd with a concentration in literacy and learners at temple university, philadelphia, united states. she is currently working with temple’s family, school, and community lab. her doctoral research focused on teachers’ supports of early writing components in prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms serving low-income children. she has a deep appreciation for the role of language in the human experience, as well as in the process of learning to read and write, and she is particularly interested in researching interventions that help nurture and develop children’s foundational oral language skills necessary to later literacy. she recently received the 2019 student vocabulary research award, american education research association vocabulary sig. email: tug20188@temple.edu religious organizations are important community centres and are integral to supporting intergenerational learning experiences within communities of colour. the intergenerational opportunities afforded by religious organizations marshal literacy assets and community cultural wealth for children of colour. as a result, religiosity is related to academic success for these marginalized children (antrop-gonzalez, velez, & garrett, 2005; barrett, 2010; donahue & benson, 1995; jeynes, 2003). however, despite research indicating the importance of religious networks for children of colour, there is a paucity of research and scarce attention toward religious organizations’ contributions to the lives of marginalized children. communities that identify with religion are underpinned by value and belief systems, framing cultural perspectives. the lack of attention given to religiosity by educational institutions is a problem, because religion, for many children of colour, is an intricate part of their culture (dallavis, 2011; skerrett, 2016) and is an intersection whereby older members can transmit and share the cultural values unique to the community (glanville, sikkink, & hernández, 2008; muller & ellison, 2001). intergenerational social networks are the building blocks of community. thus, intergenerational experiences for many children of colour cultivate ways of knowing while transmitting values, meanings, and symbols that are situated in shared experiences extending through generations (gee, 2004). children are provided a wealth of assets when they engage in meaning making with older generations. as collaborating academic researchers within early childhood and cultural studies, we underscore that many recent north american publications may be overlooking cultural factors in their research, which can have the effect of religious organizations within communities of colour have traditionally been ignored by educational institutions, even though they provide community cultural wealth and literacy assets. while churches are often considered as having nothing to do with school, intergenerational experiences fostered by religious networks positively influence academic achievement and should be considered. in an effort to confront the minority deficit myth and promote a responsive pedagogy, this literature-based position paper promotes the acknowledgment of religion’s role in the cultural makeup of many children of colour, and the recognition of the intergenerational assets within marginalized religious social networks. key words: language and literacy; intergenerational learning; cultural responsivity november 2019 72 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research positioning children of colour within a deficit frame. we believe this positioning wrongfully sketches children of colour in need of remediation that has dire academic effects. in response, we take an intergenerational perspective to illuminate the many benefits north american children of colour acquire from their religious social networks: namely, forged relational bonds and rich language and literacy practices. we argue that acknowledgement of religiosity as a component of culture for children of colour contributes to the body of literature detailing the cultural wealth of marginalized communities and, subsequently, combats negative perspectives of difference, relegating minority children to substandard status. we advocate that a culturally responsive pedagogy, as a result, should include consideration of the religious cultures of children of colour, recognizing how religious networks function as intergenerational spaces that contribute toward the academic welfare of marginalized children throughout north america. confronting the deficit view of religious children of colour considering religion as an intricate part of cultural identity for children of colour within educational studies takes a perspective of acceptance, of which community cultural wealth theory (yosso, 2005) frames our argument. community cultural wealth theory emphasizes the cultural capital found within communities of colour that is often unrecognized by dominant white culture. this theory posits that culture provides advantages that people use to achieve desired ends; thus, it is a socialization process whereby communities enculturate members with, not just relevant skills, but also values, norms, and perspectives, or a lens to understand the world. emphasized by tara yosso’s (2005) framework is an asset-based approach that focuses on the knowledge, skills, abilities, and contacts found specifically within communities of colour that have heretofore been misunderstood or classified as deficient by dominant white culture. as such, intergenerational learning experiences are valued within this framework and seen as an important cultural resource for children of colour. valuing the cultural wealth of marginalized communities directly rejects and combats the presumption that minority children are intrinsically disadvantaged by a lack of culture: the “deficit view.” unfortunately, the deficit perspectives of students of colour can still be found within education (bartolomé & trueba, 2000; gregory & williams, 2000; pérez & taylor, 2016). the deficit-based myth concerning students of colour is so persistent that it has “the longest history of any explanatory model for understanding the achievement of low-status students discussed in the education literature, and is deeply imprinted in our individual and collective psyches” (trueba & bartolomé, 1997, p. 3). this suggests that many privileged members of the academic community, who come from the dominant culture, have ascribed certain characteristics to marginalized groups which have become ossified over time. further, these negative stereotypes are perpetuated precisely because the cultures of marginalized communities are so often misunderstood, overlooked, and, worse, dismissed altogether. as an example, ginwright and cammarota (2007) point out that educational studies are dominated by researchers focusing on perceived “delinquent” behaviour of latino and african american students. hill (2003) points out that a myriad of studies try to link the failures of minority students to dysfunctional communities of colour, portraying families of colour as disorganized, pathological, and disintegrated. most notably, the dismissal of cultural differences has buttressed language deficit views that have implications for children’s literacy and academic success. for example, much research in early childhood studies has focused on language gaps between socioeconomic groups (ses). low ses children, of which a large majority are children of colour, consistently are shown as lagging behind more affluent peers in standardized tests of language skills. therefore, the preponderance of children of colour entering school at a disadvantage dominates perspectives and consequently erases the advantages and strengths in language children of colour bring to the classroom. taken together, children of colour enter school systems dominated with white perspectives that, at best, overlook them and, at worst, silence them. the erasure of children’s culture within school systems serving students of colour extends to the erasure of religion from educational consideration. november 2019 73 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research in contrast to negative stereotypes that dismiss cultural difference, understanding the importance of intergenerational experiences underscores the community assets of marginalized cultures, of which religion is one. religion is a strong pervasive force in many communities of colour. reports of religion’s importance as a function of race has shown that people of colour place a higher value on religion and report higher church rate attendance relative to their white counterparts (pew research center, 2009, 2014). more specifically, a plethora of research describes the strong spiritual and religious orientation of african american families as a unique strength of this community (al-fadhli & kersen, 2010; barrett, 2010; freeman, 1986). likewise, religiosity is a powerful asset within latino communities, with more than 80% of latino families considering themselves to be a part of a religious group, and more than half of latinos perceiving a great deal of guidance from their religion (espinosa, elizondo, & miranda, 2003; pew research center, 2014). moreover, recent research has suggested a rise in pronounced religious identities and an increase in religious vigour among younger generations of children of colour (platt, 2014; skerrett, 2016). however, religion has largely been dismissed in considerations of students’ culture within school systems. the dismissal, we argue, is systematic of dominant deficit views in that religion’s importance to communities of colour is not understood, therefore, not seen and thereby erased by dominant white perspectives. in this way, silencing beliefs and values so integral to the lives of many children of colour can be a form of institutional racism (jeynes, 2010) perpetuated precisely because of the location of religious communities within communities of colour (irizarry & antrop-gonzález, 2007). in an effort to bring to the forefront the underrecognized educational assets provided by religious communities, the following sections detail the role of intergenerational relationships within african american and latino churches as providing (1) social assets that function as a bulwark for resiliency and (2) language and literacy assets that reveal rich language uses connected to communities’ values. community cultural wealth acquired through intergenerational church relationships intergenerational relationships have been shown to provide important social resources to children of colour, and they are an important mechanism in acquiring cultural capital (barrett, 2000; irizarry & antrop-gonzález, 2007, liou, antrop-gonzález, & cooper, 2009; rendón, nora, & kanagala, 2014). additionally, research specifically underscores religious networks as fostering meaningful intergenerational experiences (antrop-gonzalez et al., 2005; barrett, 2000; coleman, 1988; glanville et al., 2008; muller & ellison, 2001). church networks are one of the few opportunities children of colour have to interact with adult members outside of their family; thus, the transmittal of culture extends to the social group (glanville et al., 2008). churches act as a socialization agent that actively seek to form intergenerational bonds where community elders are dedicated to the social development of children (glanville et al., 2008). as a result, intergenerational contact becomes a meaningful source of socioemotional strength for children that allows them to gain access to advice, resources, and other services that provide information, motivation, and support, which is related to positive educational outcomes (antropgonzalez et al., 2005). one positive manifestation of social development attributed to church networks is the mentor-mentee relationship. research has shown that church networks strive to foster the growth of youth, thus providing a safe haven for children to go to when in need. within this spirit of nurturing and support, mutual trust between young and old community members foments strong liaisons. these mentoring relationships allow children to interact with ideas and share experiences that promote individual and collective achievement (ginwright & cammarota, 2007) while bolstering self-esteem “through positive reflected appraisals” that influence how children perceive outside opinions about themselves (muller & ellison, 2001, p. 159). when children perceive themselves as accepted and seen in a positive light by their mentors and social circles, like church communities, positive social development occurs as a result (muller & ellison, 2001). november 2019 74 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research socio-religious support is a crucial dimension of academic success for minority children, specifically in urban areas. tribulations associated with urban settings are mainly the result of oppressive forces of poverty. children of colour in urban communities, as a result, face an onslaught of personal challenges, whereby community churches become increasingly significant in their role of providing meaningful support for children (jeynes, 2003; regnerus & elder, 2003). as a result, religiosity is especially influential for children of colour, providing many poor, marginalized children with caring adult support to nurture children and provide scaffolds toward healthy development necessary to academic achievement. religious communities provide assets for minority children that are not always accumulated through formal education but “are developed strengths through lived experiences, cultural traditions and life challenges which help them” to excel in education (rendón et al., 2014, p. 4). support for this comes from qualitative studies showing children of colour continually describe intergenerational experiences as meaningful and connect their relationships within their religious communities to their academic success (antrop-gonzalez et al., 2005; irizarry & antrop-gonzález, 2007, liou et al., 2009; rendón et al., 2008). further, studies have found that participation within church networks transpires into higher gpa scores, lower dropout rates, and avoidance of negative behaviours like substance abuse, truancy, gang activity, and suicide (barrett, 2010; glanville et al., 2008; jeynes, 2010; muller & ellison, 2001). most notably, william jeynes (2010), in his seminal meta-analysis, examined marginalized student religiosity and its relationship to reducing the achievement gap. the results showed that religious involvement had the highest effect on reducing the minority achievement gap compared to other variables such as family factors, classroom structure, and improved curriculum. taken together, highlighting the intergenerational relationships formed within religious churches of colour reveals religiosity as a unique construct in the lives of many marginalized children, providing children a pathway of resiliency to fight oppression. marginalized community churches provide opportunities for relationship building between younger and older community members that promote interactions that have socioemotional benefits for many marginalized children. the intergenerational social dynamics within religious communities provide essential resources that are used by children of colour for academic achievement. however, we further argue that intergenerational interactions specifically relating to transmittal of culture, as in religious interactions, also entail the transmittal of language uses and practices that underpin marginalized students’ literacy assets. intergenerational learning providing literacy assets the cultural wealth coming from communities of colour also extends to their rich language experiences whereby younger children are enculturated into language uses and purposes of the community. children’s home language is a vital bridge to school language. specifically, language underpins literacy; thus, language is a crucial contributor of learning how to read and write (dickinson, golinkoff, & hirsh-pasek, 2010; muter, hulme, snowling, & stevenson, 2004). the problem is a juxtaposition between marginalized children’s home language and the language of school, which has contributed to deficit notions of language and, by extension, literacy achievement attributed to minority students. traditionally, language and literacy development for young children has been viewed in terms of “skills,” creating a “skills focus” pedagogy. under this frame, children of colour and those coming from low socioeconomic (ses) backgrounds consistently are shown to lag behind their white and more affluent peers in skill acquisition, perpetuating notions of deficiency that help to marginalize these groups of children. however, understanding language and literacy in terms of “events” and their “practices” (gee, 2001; street, 2003) can lead to a better understanding of language as being socially constructed. november 2019 75 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research language and culture language is communication and communicative events build children’s “ways of knowing” (heath, 1983). literacy practices, resulting from events that include reading and writing, reflect cultural perspectives and values embedded within language. children learn language through exchanges with more expert language users (vygotsky, 1978). james paul gee (2000) explains that language is acculturated and nourished through a type of apprenticeship whereby young children try out language within contexts to learn uses and purposes through feedback and exchanges with more expert language users. according to gee (2000), the language of a child’s home is considered their primary discourse, underscoring that language uses are situated. language practices of communities reveal the valued ways in which members communicate and, therefore, are inextricably tied to identity and a child’s sense of self. we contend that community events for children of colour are intergenerational social spaces that transmit cultural language practices. additionally, because of the pervasive force of religion in communities of colour, which is committed to socialization of children (antrop-gonzalez et al., 2005; donahue & benson, 1995; jeynes, 2003; sikkink & hernández, 2003; skerrett, 2016), community churches, in particular, are intergenerational learning spaces whereby older members of the community help to nurture language and literacy practices containing a community’s historicity. language and ways of knowing a small but important body of research exploring language practices of diverse communities has detailed distinct language uses that directly reflect communities’ values, beliefs, and expectations (gee, 2004; heath, 1983; labov, 1972; michaels, 1981; smitherman, 1977). importantly, the language uses also have been traced to religious traditions and practices interwoven into a community’s cultural fabric. for example, in her seminal study, shirley brice heath (1983) found that african american children coming from trackton, an impoverished town in north carolina, tended to tell stories that did not fit expected structures and norms of having a beginning, middle, and end, clearly relaying a theme or message. in contrast, heath found that children of colour in this neighbourhood tended to tell stories that were open in the sense of inviting various interpretations, feedback, or collaboration to complete the story. heath surmised that many children in trackton had to “come to know” in order to participate in community conversations. as such, “to know” often meant to figure out the world by seeing through comparison, acknowledging the complexity of life experiences and life’s divergent truths. the most common type of question issued to a child in trackton, heath noted, was an analogy, which elicits metaphoric responses. children, through this type of questioning, were used to telling or showing in ways that invited multiple interpretations. the learned use of language and literacy was traced specifically to trackton’s church, in which older members delivered open sermons and younger members’ impromptu responses reflected their “knowing,” honouring the verbal adroitness within orality (delpit, 1995). hymns that included repetitions, rhymes, and figurative language were distinct language features. gee (2004) also noted ways of language use having distinct linguistic features for the african american community. he traced the usage of high-level poetic devices, commonly found in the psalms, in african american children’s storytelling practices, such as the use of stanza organization with repetitions and parallelism. other researchers have similarly found differences in language practices attributed to cultural values of a community (cazden, 1988; labov, 1972; michaels, 1981; smitherman, 1977). these studies illuminate that language practices relate to how marginalized communities use, interpret, and understand the world around them. put more precisely, using the words of a participant in heath’s (1983) study in relation to how children come to use language, the children “just got to know.” and so knowing and language are intimately connected. moreover, the studies reveal that children of colour possess unique, rich, and varied language practices, beautifully sophisticated in relaying underlying values of the cultural community. other research has supported rich language uses by both latino and african american children, especially within contexts more reflective of their home language, such as november 2019 76 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research in oral narratives (craig & washington, 2002; lee, kang, jeong, lopez, & fernandez, 2010; morales & lee, 2015). taken together, the home language children hear from their infancy swaddles the child’s knowing, sense of self, and sense of relation to others. it is a language of love and nurturing that surrounds the child’s identity. thus, the home language discourse is the language of acceptance. language and difference however, the language uses of marginalized communities diverge from more mainstream language uses of the dominant culture. consequently, these cultural values laced in language have direct implications to the struggles of marginalized children within an educational system that misunderstands and devalues the language practices of marginalized children’s homes (cazden, 1988; delpit, 1995; heath, 1983; michaels, 1981). as such, instead of seeing the strengths and richness of these children’s language practices, schools tend to see the home language of minority children as deficient and in need of remediation. a child’s language of acceptance in the home is morphed into a language of rejection within the schools. poor children and children of colour possess rich language and literacy traditions, yet their distinct language practices and ways of knowing do not match up with school language discourse. the result is a tottering bridge between home language and school literacy because marginalized children’s language does not pay off in the school system, which regards differences from dominant white language practices as substandard (gee, 2004). language to early literacy: disconnect in the classroom unfortunately, misunderstanding language differences of the home transpires into a variety of negative effects in the classroom. sarah michaels’ (1981) qualitative research detailed that many white teachers misunderstood their african american students’ language. analysis of children’s storytelling revealed differences in narrative discourse styles between african american and white students. white children typically told stories reflective of school language expectations of stories (e.g., having a beginning, middle, and end, centering the point of a story); however, african american children typically told more episodic narratives (e.g., shifting through interrelated and descriptive scenes). specifically, she found that white teachers often interrupted, corrected, and judged their african american students’ stories as deficient. her findings aligned with other research showing dismissal and rejection of african american children’s language practices (gee, 2004; heath, 1983). additionally, courtney cazden (1988) reported differences in teacher judgments based on race. when black and white teachers were asked to assess the quality of oral narrative skill in transcripts of children’s sharing time presentations, white teachers were more likely to judge black children’s stories as “terrible” and “incoherent.” however, black teachers in this study did not perceive black children’s narrative accounts in the same way. in fact, black teachers believed that the same stories rated as terrible by white teachers were exceptional, with “lots of details and description.” the consequence of misperceiving the language of minority children is denigrating their language of home. as such, language development for marginalized children has been stifled precisely because of teacher misjudgment of language capacity and a disregard for the home language of minority children (fogel & ehri, 2008). a further problem with not acknowledging home language practices is the corrosion of children’s self-worth and selfefficacy in the classroom because minority children are constantly being shown that their language is inferior, misunderstood, and a reflection of their worth as a student (delpit, 1995; gee, 2004). children whose community language gets reflected as deficient and wrong deal with a myriad of consequences in the classroom that disrupt overall development. young children’s early cognitive, language, social, and emotional growth are foundational systems that help set the stage for children to be ready to read and write, and these systems are interconnected (dickinson et al., 2010). considering that marginalized children are often implicitly silenced in the classroom, it seems plausible that november 2019 77 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research minority children may not be experiencing healthy interactions using language that can foster cognitive, emotional, and social growth. the negative consequences to misperceiving language ability include limiting language experiences and limiting engagement in cognitively challenging interactions with supportive adults (johanson, justice, & logan, 2016). some research in support of this supposition is work done by cabell et al. (2011) which found that the amount of responsive strategies by the teacher, defined as quality interactions that support language development (e.g., feedback loops) along with emotional and social supports (e.g., maintaining eye contact and being warm and encouraging) related to language growth only for children who tested higher in language skill ability. the authors concluded that child language ability may be a moderator of teacher input. put another way, if teachers perceive that children are language deficient, the engagement with the child may be moderated. teachers may be less inclined to engage in conceptually rich feedback loops if they feel as if their students are inadequate to perform this task. this avoidance on the part of the teacher has ramifications for all early systems of development of the child that are tied to communicative acts, which shape emotional and social growth along with language development. a further example of teachers’ perceptions of ability level affecting teacher behaviours comes from work done by farrow, wasik, and hindman (in press). exploring teachers’ complexity of speech to at-risk children in high-poverty schools, the authors found that minority teachers tended to speak using more complex sentences to children in poverty than did white teachers. the authors surmised that because the majority of the children in their sample were african americans, white teachers may have felt they needed to speak using simpler sentences, misjudging child language ability due to cultural differences, whereas minority teachers, mostly african americans, did not see the need to speak more simply. of importance, the researchers also found that the level of complexity of teacher speech uniquely contributed to child vocabulary outcomes. what these studies show is that misjudging child language ability can have negative impacts on minority children’s overall development directly related to achievement in school. intergenerational literacy assets of marginalized communities although, there is a dearth of research devoted to exploring how marginalized communities’ intergenerational language practices support critical developmental systems in young children, some research suggests that marginalized communities do support the emotional and social growth of children through literacy practices, specifically the often overlooked literacy practices grounded in a religious or spiritual orientation. as an example, cassandra chaney’s (2014) research identified the cultural institution of the african american church and the spiritual and religious orientation of african americans to be an underlying positive influence in nurturing the emotional and social growth of african american children. additionally, research has identified intergenerational events provided by the church specific to literacy development, namely, exchanging religious ideas regarding books read, bible reading, reciting prayers, and collaborative writing of sermons and other speeches to the community (chaney, 2014; heath, 1983). the literacy events of the church permeate to the homes of minority families; thus, the church nurtures literacy interconnected to emotional and social growth (chaney, 2014). in regards to early childhood specifically, qualitative studies have substantiated that religious practices support preschoolers’ literacy experiences (johnson, 2010; kelly, jarrett, & williams-wheeler, 2016; teale, 1986). for example, kelly et al. (2016) found that nighttime prayer was a substantial literacy event in african american homes across ses levels, indicating its permanence as a cultural value to, and a strength of, the african american community; unfortunately, many minority children’s home values and cultures are misunderstood and depreciated in school systems that reflect dominant cultural beliefs. we argue that an intergenerational perspective that includes valuing the religiosity of marginalized communities helps to combat negative language perceptions. instead of seeing marginalized children as deficient because they do not have “skills” related to dominant language practices, what manifests from an intergenerational perspective november 2019 78 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research is the understanding that marginalized children may not have opportunities to display their skills with language because their uses of a language may be unaccepted or unrealized by an education system that is anticipating, expecting, and accepting dominant language uses. marginalized children’s literacy practices are not wrong or deficient, but rather are underpinned with a sophisticated system of communication that reflects cultural values. a strength-based view of marginalized children’s home lives is an essential starting point toward transformation within the school systems. therefore, it is to the advantage of schools and teachers who desire to promote homeschool partnerships to recognize literacy experiences with the older generation as a part of their students learning experiences, including meaningful religious experiences that take place within community organizations. a pedagogy that responds to religious culture religious networks are multigenerational communities that offer children of colour a host of benefits. religiosity is a particularly influential factor in the cultural makeup of children of colour, and instead of viewing religious culture as an abnormality to be corrected, culturally responsive education professionals desire to profoundly understand children’s religious culture and recognize the community cultural wealth that religious networks provide. unfortunately, churches, as organizations within communities of colour, have been subjected to the same deficit myths and misunderstandings (irizarry & antrop-gonzález, 2007; jeynes 2010). the religious identity of children of colour is dismissed, and their cultural wealth, as a result, is ignored. therefore, marginalized children’s culture is erased from school settings. erasing the cultural lives of marginalized children is essentially setting up disconnects between children’s home and school lives, resulting in marginalized children feeling as if school is not a part of who they are, not part of their identity (gee, 2004; delpit, 1995). the resultant effect can dovetail into two problematic results. the first is disengagement with school because marginalized children do not want to deny the nurturing of their home lives as part of understanding the world (boutte, 2012). second, the continuity of failure reflected onto marginalized children because their way of doing, way of knowing, and way of speaking deviate in comparison to white children, positions marginalized children as substandard within the classroom. these relegated positions in classrooms have negative psychological effects. positive identity development is widely recognized as having profound implications for children of colour (alfaro et al., 2009; moses, 2000; steel, spencer, & aronson, 2009; sung, 2015; torres, jones, & renn, 2009; umana-taylor, gonzales-backen, & guimond, 2009), because for marginalized children, identity is compared to and evaluated against the norms of white privileged culture (phinney, romero, nava, & huang, 2001). within school systems, many marginalized children have reflected onto them a contorted vision painted by deficit myth perspectives, impacting their self-esteem, self-worth, self-efficacy, and, consequently, motivation. rejection of cultural differences is erasure of marginalized children’s identity. it is this rejection that perpetuates academic failure. marginalized children’s failure is the failure of school systems to recognize the beauty and wealth crafting distinct cultures. in response, we advocate for a culturally responsive pedagogy as one of acceptance, valuing the life experiences of many marginalized children. valuing, in turn, seeks to bridge children’s community lives to school, so that school identity is not immiscible with cultural identity. the importance of identity to education includes consideration of intersections with religious identities (dallavis, 2011; hallett & venegas, 2015; skerrett, 2016). unfortunately, this tendency of deficit perspectives to devalue religious identity hinders effective pedagogy that engages diverse students (dallavis, 2001; skerrett, 2016). out of fear of mishandling sensitive conversations, white teachers tend to ignore race and ethnicity (lensmire, 2012), as well as different religious cultures (skerrett, 2016). teacher avoidance is a microcosm of the dismissive disposition the school system typically takes in regards to issues of marginalized cultures, including religious cultures. public school systems have historically avoided november 2019 79 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research acknowledgement of religiosity due to fears of religious controversy and violating policies that prevent the endorsement of a particular religion (skerrett, 2016). this sadly results in the neglect of a crucial component of culture for students of colour, and, when student cultures are dismissed by school systems, a negative impact on education can be expected (gay, 1999). a pedagogy that seeks to bridge the community lives of children to school is necessary, but is a stark transition from the traditional avoidance that is so prevalent. a better understanding of student culture can help to provide a more effective culturally responsive pedagogy (gay, 1999; sleeter, 2012), and for many students of colour, this includes religious identities cultivated by local community churches (dallavis, 2011; skerrett, 2016; veneers & hallett, 2013). the disconnect between school systems and children of colour who identify with religion can be addressed by seeing religion as a cultural resource that requires recognition and an appropriate pedagogical response (dallavis, 2001). even though the secular setting of public schools makes addressing religious identity and faith complex, public school professionals should nevertheless be encouraged to consider how the intergenerationality of religious social networks can be used to close achievement gaps. one promising avenue is using community churches to help bolster literacy practices (chaney, 2014). for example, many home literacy outreach programs target adult book reading with children (chance, 2010; stoltz, czarnecki, & wilson, 2013; wasik, 2004). some of this outreach includes making sure children have access to books or writing materials, but also encourages family members to read with children on a daily basis. however, extending these initiatives to include community churches provides further nurturing literacy opportunities and should be a part of home-school outreach programs (chaney, 2014). for example, book reading within community churches may include texts chosen by church members to read with younger members. additionally, outreach programs that include writing with older church members may be another promising avenue. within the classroom, a strength-based approach can be used as a bridge to school learning. in one respect, acceptance of a child’s culture can have motivating effects, but it can also be used to harness high expectations (delpit, 1995; lee, 2000). the view that school language is a type of discourse, a language system that can be learned, invites marginalized children to use that language to achieve certain academic purposes. from this perspective, ownership and authority are transferred back to the children (delpit, 1995). marginalized children bring a wealth of language features to the classroom that teachers can use to bridge into high academic language instruction. in other words, children of colour do not need to be talked down to or given less conceptually demanding activities. they just need to be shown the covert rule book of school language (delpit, 1988), while at the same time marshalling the wealth of their home language. for instance, allowing children of colour to “shift” in their narrative retellings followed by explicit connection making in which children use language to explain how two things are interconnected both values their home language while at the same time supports uses of school language in classrooms. in light of the research that demonstrates the profound intergenerational support provided by religious organizations within communities of colour, it is incumbent upon teachers, education leaders, policy makers, and researchers to find means to culturally respond to the religiosity of students of colour. conclusion religious organizations within communities of colour have traditionally been ignored by education scholars and practitioners alike, even though, through intergenerationality, they provide literacy assets and community cultural wealth (irizarry & antrop-gonzález, 2007; liou et al., 2009). gregory and williams (2000) contend that it is the “awareness of this wealth that best exposes as groundless the deficit myth” (p. 1). expanding their assertion, we find that recognition of intergenerational experiences in community churches for children november 2019 80 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research of colour can assist in forging community-school understandings that promote success for these traditionally marginalized students. while churches are often looked at as having nothing to do with school, research suggests that intergenerational experiences fostered by religious networks directly influence academic achievement and should be considered by academics and practitioners (antrop-gonzalez et al., 2005; glanville et al., 2008). taking into consideration that religious social networks offer meaningful intergenerational relationships for children of colour, educational institutions can promote attention to community cultural wealth and literacy assets generating from intergenerational contact within neighbourhood religious networks. means of culturally responding to the religious cultures can be supported by recognizing the contributions of religious networks toward the academic welfare of children of colour, through the rich intergenerational experiences they offer. november 2019 81 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research references al-fadhli, h. m., & kersen, t. m. 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(2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 january 2020 48 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice creating connections to land through art: allowing curiosity to take the lead in urban spaces jeannette heino, rece jeannette heino is a registered early childhood educator and works at london bridge child care services inc., in london, ontario, as part of the centre’s leadership team. children’s natural ability to feel joy, see wonder, and seek out curiosities first led jeannette into this field. early on, she discovered a love of writing and regularly spends time documenting her observations and interpretations of those observations. over her 14-year career, her experiences have led her on a journey of studying what it means to “live in question,” learning alongside both colleagues and children. she enjoys being part of a dynamic community where collaboration, reflection, questioning, and conversation continue to develop her thinking. email: jeannettevandermolen@gmail.com the journal of childhood studies and jeannette would like to thank alex berry for acting as a critical friend reviewer for this article. walking with questions london, ontario, sits on the traditional lands of the anishinaabe, haudenosaunee, huron-wendt, attawandaron, and leni-lunaape peoples, and is home to the munsee-delaware nation, oneida nation of the thames, and the chippewas of the thames first nation. london is commonly known as the forest city, as there are many gorgeous parks and conservation areas throughout the city limits, and many small pockets of green spaces nestled among the diverse neighbourhoods. little acorns early childhood learning centre, a part of london bridge child care services, is located on the main floor of an office building in a bustling urban centre that is replete with tall office buildings, busy traffic, a blending of businesses, and a rich art scene. as an educator and community member, i am passionate about the natural world and am often awestruck by artists’ representations of that world. being in an urban setting has given me an opportunity to experience the blending of natural, urban, and artistic spaces: london’s art scene pervades the city as a whole, but is centralized in the downtown core. a child’s fascination with the colourful metal trees they spotted on their way to their childcare centre prompted us— educators and children—to go out and explore all that london had to offer. bill hodgson’s trees of the carolinian forest installation invited us into a place where nature met art in a new and exciting way and led us on a year-long walking investigation of the unique and eclectic neighbourhood that surrounds our centre. what started off as a quick walk down the street to look at the “pink tree” became so much more to the children and educators involved. walking with 16 children through the busy streets came with a few challenges, but we saw the importance it held for the children and worked through some logistics. after a few walks, we came together as educators and began to ask ourselves questions: how will we keep them safe and engaged? where do we find the balance between safety when a child requested a visit to a colourful metal tree that she had seen on the way to the children’s centre, we had no idea it would spark a journey of connection to the land through the art found in a bustling, urban, downtown setting. this article describes our journey as educators as we used questions to guide and push forward our practice with children. the questions provoked both children and educators to notice connections to the environment and how we might learn more about ourselves and the histories and stories of our surroundings. the purpose of this article is to consider how a series of metal tree art installations called our attention to the land we are on and the pedagogical possibilities that arose when we listened to questions proposed by both educators and the children in our care. key words: art; environment; urban nature january 2020 49 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice and exploration in a place filled with a variety of people commuting from one building to another without really looking around? can a downtown environment really hold their interest for an investigation? how can we collaborate alongside children to explore this space? these questions allowed us the opportunity to explore places that we passed by daily but were still quite unfamiliar to us. the hidden gems of the downtown core prompted us to look closer. as we continued our exploration of the neighbourhood, it became apparent that while the children were drawn to the multiple artistic attractions of the downtown core, they were particularly drawn to the “colourful trees,” as they affectionately called them. these colourful trees are placed in random spots downtown, and as the children grew more and more interested in finding them, our knowledge of the downtown core also grew. as we visited well-known places we had seen with our families, such as workplaces, shops, and parks, we also ran into people who would stop to talk with us, share stories, and lead us into new directions and discoveries. we began to discover seemingly hidden aspects of the downtown area as we searched for the trees: new and interesting art pieces tucked among the tall office buildings, almost waiting for the observant eye of a child to expose them. as the children discovered the many pieces of art the city had to offer, they also had the opportunity to have more conversations with each other. as we listened to their conversations about a particular piece of art, their curiosity sparked our own curiosity as educators and continued to push us forward. “why did the artist pick these colours?” “how do real trees feel compared to the metal ones?” “can children really create a strong connection to the land in an urban environment?” these questions allowed us to linger longer and move more slowly in a quickly moving environment. as the months progressed, the children’s interest in the colourful trees did not fade, and their hunger to find new ones fuelled our inquiry. our routes extended and changed to incorporate new streets even further away, and the children’s varying abilities to walk further became correlated with their motivation to find the trees. as the children brought their excitement of our discoveries to their families through nighttime conv ersations and shared photos from our walks at pickup time, their families began to ask questions: “what are these colourful trees?” “i was surprised that she knew we were on wellington street!” “did you walk by our work the other day?” “have you guys visited the red tree near the citi plaza?” it seemed the more we spoke about our inquiry, the more the families opened up about their own experiences downtown. families became partners in our inquiry, which only propelled us further along, giving us more to wonder about. when the children found a new tree or a piece of art, they could not just passively sit back and observe it. they needed to experience it first-hand, feel its cool metal or rough exterior, and walk around it to see it from all angles. as the children grew increasingly attached to the trees, it was no figure 1: our first meeting at the “pink tree.” figure 2: a large metal sculpture found tucked away at the court house. january 2020 50 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice longer enough to just look at them or touch them. they embraced the trees on a new level, one of relation and familiarity from our previous visits. they seemed to feel compelled to share more with each other. we began staying longer by the trees, which allowed us to become more attuned to our surroundings and what was happening beyond ourselves. the children began to attend to different aspects of the places in which they walked. our routes throughout downtown became longer and more involved as the need to walk by our favourite trees compelled us to take new directions. it appeared that the colour of the trees was what originally attracted the children, but their relationship with the trees seemed to provoke them into looking again to make sure they were not missing any important detail that would help them know and understand these art pieces more. the trees were pushing the children to sustain their attention longer and longer. the children’s passion for the colourful trees found its way into our classroom: they wanted opportunities to draw their favourite trees and to create them using blocks or legos, and soon our walks became intertwined with a material inquiry with clay in our centre’s creative studio. we made photos of the trees available to aid the children as they worked with the clay. echoing the trees’ formation, the children brought the momentum of our outdoor walking inquiry indoors. while watching and participating alongside them as they explored the trees both indoors and outdoors, we saw an even deeper connection to the land they were walking on outside the centre. the children investigated the trees’ formal names, and soon the pink tree became the white pine and the green tree became the slippery elm. eventually the children were able to identify living trees based on their observations of the colourful ones. the colourful trees began to show more of their history and the reason they were there slowly became clear. the trees that the artist chose to represent are indigenous to this area and have meaning to the land. black oak, white oak, aspen, sassafras, white pine, elm, and birch took the place of the children’s pet names. the blue tree in front of the building where the london figure 3: a new piece of art found along our walking route. figure 4: as we looked closer at the leaves of each tree, the children were inspired to draw. figure 5: art mediums were used to examine the trees and gain a different connection to them. january 2020 51 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice knights play also underwent a name change. a comment about it made by a child demonstrated the subtle shift in their thinking: “it’s the sassafras tree in front of bud gardens. that’s where they play hockey.” it seemed that the children’s need for more accuracy and details about their surroundings began to apply to more than just the trees. they realized that each building too had a name, a reason for being in its spot. the children experienced a collective bond with the trees as we walked throughout downtown, seeing the trees as old familiar friends and discovering new and interesting ones to add to our list. throughout our inquiry, we had many different educators—supply, support, and full-time—join us on our adventures downtown. as such, we had a wonderful opportunity to discuss each other’s perspectives during regular meetings about our walks where we could ask each other questions to understand more about what we were seeing. having such a variety of educators along for the inquiry increased the urgency to make time for these meetings as soon as possible. collaborating with families also became essential for the flow of our inquiry. as our time with the children neared its end, and they prepared to move on to elementary school, we reached a point where we were unsure of how to proceed. we wanted to hear new perspectives from more educators from the broader london bridge umbrella. we decided to invite educators and members of the community to share their views and questions about our inquiry. after this exchange we were able to move forward with a new outlook on our inquiry, which showed us the immense value of returning to our own questions, working alongside each other as educators, and dissecting children’s observations and experiences in a new environment. staying with questions working in a centre located in a bustling downtown core can be somewhat daunting, given the noise, traffic, and multitudes of people moving from one place to another, always hurrying. though the children are very familiar with this place, taking them into this urban environment and giving them an opportunity to explore its various aspects allows us to see what unexpected attributes this cityscape has to offer. following the children’s lead, and our own curiosity, we go off to ask and answer our own questions within this area. the children’s fascination with an idea and a conflict of understanding in our encounters with natural and metal trees provoked us to notice a juxtaposition: organic trees that are stoic in nature, swaying in the wind and a symbiotic part of their environment, contrast with the colourful metal trees, which are unmoving, solid, and standing stark against the backdrop of the buildings. this makes me wonder: what are the children’s understanding of trees and how did this art installation challenge them? are these metal, seemingly unmoving trees also a symbiotic part of the urban environment? is this art piece about bringing our attention to our changing natural/cultural figure 6: a group of trees we found at the market. figure 7: an invitation to look at the world from a new perspective. january 2020 52 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice environments and how they intermingle with each other? how does this affect my view on the changing spaces that we bring children into? how are our histories implicated here? art allows us the opportunity to ask these questions. when we began our walks, i wanted to make sure the children had the opportunity to see the nature that surrounds our downtown location. i did not anticipate that the children would allow me to see the urban nature in plain sight. the artist’s work offer us questions about the metal tree sculptures, even among the adults who notice them as they pass by. what do they represent? how do they affect us? what is their meaning? what are the ideas behind this installation? and all too often it seems adults who walk past them are too busy to consider these questions. walking with the children, we became ripe to answer questions and ponder our own curiosities alongside the children’s. when we began our inquiry, the adults we encountered had mixed reactions to the trees. the trees were often described on local blog posts as a “waste of taxpayers’ dollars.” questions bubbled about why real trees were not used instead. misunderstanding and differing perspectives challenged me to think more. how would these differing perspectives affect our inquiry? what was our responsibility to others while we explored shared spaces that people used to get from place to place? looking at these tall giants from the perspectives of the children allowed our classroom educators and parents the opportunity to see the kindness of strangers and the beauty of art and experience a feeling of community. it also gave us a sense of visibility within the community. when did it become more than just noticing the art intermingled with the buildings and more about understanding the tensions and contradictions that the art provokes? how can we bring this curiosity, this call to notice, to others around us as we walk between places? a change in perception when we began our walking inquiry, the children initially noticed more obvious aspects of their surroundings: the tallness of the buildings, their parents’ workplaces, the colours and shapes. as we continued our journey, those superficial observances became more in-depth. we noticed how the clouds subtly moved behind the buildings, making the buildings appear to almost sway alongside them. months into our inquiry we finally noticed the names of the natural trees and sculptures written in cursive at the base of the installations. as we craned our necks way back, our observations gave way to conversations between educators and children about movement and about memories of watching clouds pass by with our families. passersby and other educators became a part of the conversations and gave us a way to see something from even more new perspectives. while we walked down the brick sidewalks, the stark colours of red, blue, yellow, pink, and green in the trees stood out for us among the grey stone and glass buildings. adults would generally walk by the colours without so much as a glance, but the children’s excitement seemed to pull them in. strangers became collaborators in our conversations as the children explained to them what the trees were. our conversations expanded to include others’ perspectives, stories, and experiences with downtown london. the children’s voices opened up more communication for those simply heading from one place figure 8: as we ventured further and further from our centre, we found different trees to examine. a child brought this tree to our attention and wanted to show it to others in the class. january 2020 53 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice to another and broadened our own views on what we were seeing. just as the art seemed to have its own place within the community, so too the children were carving out a place of their own. the children became more visible in the fabric of the downtown community as they assisted others in seeing through the lens of a child again. they became part of a story that was being told in the moment. walking among tensions in the past, walks with the children in our class seemed to be more about a destination. getting the children from one place to another mirrored my experiences downtown as a community member. as an adult, i would walk to get somewhere, whether it was from my car to my workplace, to the corner store, or to a neighbour’s house. it had become an automatic process. however, walking with the children during this inquiry helped to remind me to look through a lens of curiosity and openness. when i, as an educator, began to stop more and wonder alongside the children, it gave me an opportunity to see things, events, and people a little closer and a little more in-depth, to see the detail, and to slow down. i have now noticed a difference in my personal walks with my own family. we stop a bit more, creating familiar spots that we reexamine again and again. walking in this way has helped me to establish a stronger connection to the land amid its tension, to the place i call home. when i am outside, regardless of where i am, i have always felt a strong connection to the earth, to the stories that happened before my time. i enjoy noticing plants that i have never seen before and the excitement of spotting wildlife hidden in the underbrush at the park. walking downtown among the tall buildings, tensions arise as i recognize that this place has stories from before that are harder to find within the concrete structures that surround me. how do i arrive on this land? where does my story connect with that of the land that i walk on? my own story is one of personal discovery. i am proud to be a mix of several different nationalities. i have roots in europe and africa and have indigenous ancestry. my family is still working to retrace the specific areas of land that we belong to. as i walk on the land of the anishinaabe, haudenosaunee, huron-wendt, attawandaron, and lenilunaape nations, i feel a mixture of emotions, including tension. i feel a strong connection to the land through my indigenous roots, and a sense of peace and calm as i use all of my senses to explore. however, with my european figure 9: the idea of how the trees felt came into play and the children went on a walk exploring the trunks of different live trees along our routes. this also led to a discovery of the names of the metal tree sculptures written in cursive at the bottom. january 2020 54 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice ancestry, i feel conflicted because i see how colonization has affected this neighbourhood and the people whose land i walk on. i am still learning about who i am and who my ancestors are. our stories—my stories—have been lost over the decades. as a member of an entire generation without family origin stories, i am struggling to find out who and where i come from, a wondering about my nation and history that fuels my curiosities on our walks. the lands that we walk on may have belonged to my ancestors, and knowing this raises questions for me as i walk here. how can i incorporate my own personal journey of self-discovery with the children i teach? walking by the thames river that runs through our city, my question becomes “what was this river’s story before colonization?” talking about these histories alongside children provides them with the opportunity to see there is more to their neighbourhood than what they see and propels me to continue looking deeper into my own histories. i am still curious: what is it about the colourful trees that prompted the children to learn more and sustained their attention for such a long period? why were they entranced? these questions motivate me to continue to slow down and be a co-learner alongside the children. i am able to learn even more about myself through our discoveries with the trees. i am surprised that i can learn so much about the natural environment and our city’s indigenous plants through a metal tree installation. i remember becoming more excited as the children pointed me to different aspects of a space that i had walked so many times before. even now, with the inquiry finished, i have taken my wonder and curiosity and applied them to new environments that i visit. this drives me to find those aspects of the land that i can connect to, ground myself in these spaces, and ask deeper questions about the land that i walk on. i think about not only the last 50 years, but further back—100, 200, 500 years—and how the stories of those years impact us now. i understand and see the importance of the stories of the land that i walk and take this with me as i continue on my personal and professional journey. conclusion during our walking inquiry in a neighbourhood i have worked in for many years but never explored, i found myself drawn to many more aspects of this place than i expected. the children’s unanswered questions, the artistic structures, and the urban and natural materials shared complex histories with me as i walked by them. paying attention to the land that i walk upon, amid its contradictions, has become both a necessity and a responsibility as i walk alongside the children in my care. while speaking about this urban environment, it is necessary to also think about how the colonization of this area affects the children and people living on it, and how these spaces figure 10: exploring a natural space where the thames river (askunesippi-antlered river) runs through. january 2020 55 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice differ from the visions indigenous peoples had, and continue to have, for this place. the metal tree sculptures bring attention to plants that are indigenous to this area. i wonder how indigenous histories are represented in this place, and what responsibilities i have as an educator in honouring this land and the original inhabitants whose ancestors continue to care for it. what might walking with land and attending to the art found within it offer us in times of reconciliation? the children’s curiosity, coupled with my own, gave life and importance to our relationships with the land we stepped on. with the help of the trees of the carolinian forest, we were able to pay attention to the contradictory presences of the urban and natural worlds and how they are entangled with each other. by slowing down our thoughts and movements as we explored these spaces, we were able to be present, to notice this intermingling and consider what it might mean to walk here. our inquiry allowed us to not only walk with a destination in mind, but also to walk without one, to see further, to question deeper, and to learn more. acknowledgment i would like to extend a special thank-you to bill hodgson (1956–2017) for giving us sculptures that made us think, brought us together and created a stronger sense of community. june 2019 28 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the living wall: implementing and interpreting pedagogical documentation in specialized elcc settings carolyn bjartveit, catherine smey carston, joanne baxter, jennifer hart, and cheryl greenidge carolyn bjartveit, phd, is assistant professor in the department of child studies and social work at mount royal university, calgary, canada. her doctoral research focused on the topics of teaching and learning and the complex intersections between the self (of students and educators) and the curriculum in culturally diverse early childhood education postsecondary classrooms. she is a pedagogical partner supporting the work of early childhood educators and participants in the alberta early learning and child care curriculum framework project. cathy smey carston, phd, is an associate professor in the department of child studies and social work at mount royal university. her doctoral research focused on the topics of leadership, mentoring, and coaching. she is co-lead (with joanne baxter) of the exploration of implementation approaches for the alberta early learning and child care curriculum framework project, funded by the ministry of children’s services and alberta education. joanne baxter, phd, is now retired from her position as an associate professor in the department of child studies and social work at mount royal university. she is co-lead (with cathy smey carston) of the exploration of implementation approaches for the alberta early learning and child care curriculum framework project, funded by the ministry of children’s services and alberta education. jennifer hart, bed, msed, has worked for the calgary board of education for over 20 years as a classroom teacher, resource teacher, learning leader, strategist, specialist, and assistant principal, her current role. her educational background and varied roles within the board have allowed her to support staff and those students with complex needs in both inclusive and specialized settings. cheryl greenidge, bed, ba, is an early learning strategist with the calgary board of education. her work has primarily focused on supporting staff and children in kindergarten and specialized preschool classrooms, as well as collaborating with cbe’s early learning team in planning and implementing professional development, guiding documents and curriculum resources. she has been an early learning educator for more than 20 years, working as a classroom teacher, resource support, and learning leader in preschool to grade 2 environments. in recent radio rebroadcasts of the 2017 cbc massey lectures, law professor and social justice activist payam akhavan talked about upholding the rights of diverse individuals and building a “human rights culture” built on empathy. when asked by an audience member how one can teach empathy, the professor suggested that sharing personal stories is a powerful way to increase people’s understanding of difference and diversity. akhavan emphasized that “human rights is a thousand humble stories” (march 26, 2018, cbc massey lecture 1, 11:46). in reflecting on akhavan’s ideas about advocacy, empathy, and stories in the context of our work in the alberta early learning and child care (elcc) curriculum framework project1, we have come to recognize pedagogical documentation as more than a form of storytelling or the practice of writing “learning stories” (makovichuk, hewes, lirette, & thomas, 2014). documentation is a tool that gives children a voice in specialized child care settings. although words such as “voice,” “dialogue,” and the program approach in specialized early learning programs may result in adults focusing too intently on therapeutic treatment reports and disabilities and not on the stories children share through play. observing, listening, and documenting play scripts can shift adults’ focus and make the self of children and their interests visible. exploring different ways of documenting children’s experiences in specialized educational settings was the impetus for this paper. the living wall—a form of pedagogical documentation— aligns with ted aoki’s notion of a “curriculumas-lived-experience” that honours children and gives them a voice through the collection and interpretation of their artwork, dialogue, and imaginative play scripts. key words: listening; living wall; pedagogical documentation; specialized ece june 2019 29 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research “conversation” often imply verbal communication, many children in specialized settings do not and will not have the capacity to engage verbally. however, they can still engage with their own strengths and ways of communicating through graphic, symbolic, embodied, and visual languages. carlina rinaldi’s (2006) “pedagogy of listening” includes both holistic and metaphorical definitions of “listening” and emphasizes the need for educators to be sensitive and open to interpreting “the hundred, the thousand languages” (p. 65) of children. according to gianni rodari (1996), children “must be encouraged to … reproduce their own language and meanings through stories that will enable them to narrate their own lives” (p. xix). our interest in documenting children’s play was inspired by the work of educator vivian paley (1981, 2001, 2004), who recorded children’s experiences in the kindergarten classroom, and scholars richard kearney (2002), thomas king (2003), and david loy (2010), “who write about the symbolic and functional work of storytelling in sociocultural, historical, and political contexts … [and] offer us ways to think about storytelling as a form of imaginative play” (bjartveit & panayotidis, 2017, p. 117). katz and chard (1996, p. 2) have explained that documentation includes samples of a child’s work, photographs, comments written by teachers and parents, transcriptions of children’s discussions, and an explanation of intentions about their activities. expanding on these ideas, pedagogical documentation includes adults’ and children’s interpretations of play in the context of learning and development (pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015; stacey, 2015). educators who work in the northern italian reggio emilia schools have described documentation as “the skin of the school” (ceppi & zini, 1998) and an “act of love” (rinaldi, 2001, 2006). our understanding of documentation aligns with rinaldi’s (2001, 2006) metaphor of “visible listening” and pam okenwright’s (2001) description of documentation as “both mirror and light” that reflects the self of children and shines a light on their learning and interests. over a two-year period, a team of faculty from mount royal university in calgary engaged in a project with education-funded/based early learning programs to explore practices originating from the alberta early learning curriculum framework (makovichuk et al., 2014). participants in the development of these ideas included the project leaders, catherine smey carston and joanne baxter, who invited leaders from the local school district programs to facilitate learning communities made up of preschool administrators and educators from four school boards in the calgary area. jennifer hart and cheryl greenidge represented the calgary board of education (cbe), and with the support of their pedagogical partner, carolyn bjartveit, participated in the exploration of the curriculum framework in practice. it is through our personal experiences and reflections that we share how pedagogical documentation made the children’s interests and learning visible and changed how we view and engage children holistically in a specialized learning environment. these unique educational settings are fully comprised of children diagnosed with severe delays and/or disabilities and are staffed with educational as well as therapeutic professionals. in this paper, we focus on a form of pedagogical documentation that carolyn has named the “living wall”—a term she invented based on the ideas of education scholars ted aoki (1994) and bronwyn davis (2014). aoki’s (1994) explanation of the difference between a “curriculum-as-plan” versus a “curriculum-as-lived experience” shifts educators’ focus from teaching prescribed, preplanned curricula to co-planning programs with young learners based on their lived experiences and interests. davis (2014) has noted that june 2019 30 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in order to keep the walls alive … in which the not-yet-known of the children’s thoughts has space to emerge, the photos and paintings, along with quotes from what the children say, are posted on the wall in an informal way that invites the passer-by, both child and adult, to stop and contemplate what it is that is emergent there … and to wonder how they might become involved in it, how they might respond to it. (p. 25) the random placement of documents on the living wall is a metaphor for the tangle of children’s ideas—both imaginary and real—always transforming and often unpredictable. like a jackson pollock2 painting with messy splatters and layers of colours creating an aesthetic whole, the living wall represents the multilayered processes of children’s thinking, which is anything but linear and orderly. recognizing the complex, contextual, and individual nature of learning and development creates tensions and raises questions about some diagnostic assessment tools that categorize and fit children into stages or a linear, universal trajectory of development. gaile cannella (2002) has explained that “child development has been constructed based on enlightenment/modernist notions of human progress … that establish advancing as a standard for ‘normalcy. those who do not fit are abnormal” (p. 63). in considering the scholars’ (aoki, 1994; davis, 2014; cannella, 2002) ideas, we wondered how the living wall might be used in a specialized classroom as a documentation, planning, and advocacy tool to make the self of children, including their cultures, languages, histories, stories, and interests, visible. this was a key question while working with educators, therapists, and support staff who had an additional focus—meeting the therapeutic goals in this environment. we believe that an understanding of developmental perspective is important to support classroom teams in knowing the impact of medical diagnoses on children and to support their education based on the diagnoses. a combination or layering of therapeutic and educational perspectives is essential to interpreting, engaging in, and planning for interest-based play experiences while also honouring children’s developmental skills and growth. while we do not minimize the importance of therapeutic reporting, interactions, and expertise, we wanted to understand how time and opportunities were provided for the children to freely play, explore their interests, and tell their personal stories. our intent was to explore the challenges, tensions, and possibilities of introducing pedagogical documentation to teams of professionals who were focused on therapeutic and educational reporting and supporting the safety and progress of children with severe special needs, which adds to the complexity of their work. by sharing our experiences, we hope to provoke ideas about how the living wall invites children and adults to question, imagine, and explore ways to share children’s play scripts in specialized classrooms. following enid elliot (2010), we recognize that “remembering our own stories of our practice can provide us with a deeper awareness of what needs to be shared and understood about this work” (p. 5). documenting in the specialized playroom scholars and educators who write about inclusive and specialized practices (donegan, hong, trepanier-street, & finkelstein, 2005; dalkilic & vadeboncoeur, 2016) and other researchers who have worked with exceptional learners in emergent curriculum classrooms (gilman, 2007; smith, 1998; soncini, 2013; tsekhman, 2011) offer ideas about the role of documentation in supporting children’s learning. sheryl gilman (2007) wrote about the value of honouring children’s work through documenting, sharing projects with parents, and using documentation as a means of communication with the families of children with disabilities. in the preprimary schools of reggio emilia, a maximum of two children with “special rights” can be accepted into an inclusive class of up to 20 students (smith, 1998, p. 200). ivana soncini (as cited in smith, 1998) has noted that june 2019 31 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the reggio schools, a flexible program plan is created for each child, based on a long period of initial observation and documentation, which can be revised and reinterpreted based on the educator and pedagogista. the educators’ and support staff ’s role “is to help the child find the way … through motivation and interest” (p. 204). each child has a documentation binder that includes photographs, written observations, artwork, and anecdotal records. the documentation is always available to families and reflects “the collaboration among professionals, family, and educator to support the child’s progress” (p. 204). listening to children’s ideas, expressed through multimodal languages, is a key principle of the reggio emilia philosophy of education. rinaldi (2006) has noted that documentation … is seen as visible listening, as the construction of traces (through notes, slides, videos, and so on) that not only testify to the children’s learning paths and processes, but also make them possible because they are visible.… this means making visible, and thus possible, the relationships that are the building blocks of knowledge. (p. 68) in canada, many early learning programs function to serve the child’s exceptional needs. historically, policies and funding in these programs necessitate the involvement of therapeutic supports to meet the disabilities assessed by the professionals. accordingly, children are assessed and goals are determined by therapeutic and teaching professionals. the assessments contribute to the creation of an individual program plan (ipp), individual student profile (isp), or individualized education plan (iep). when a therapeutic assessment is completed, a report is generated and used, along with teacher observations and anecdotal notes, to document the impact of assessed needs in an educational environment. goals, key understandings, and strengths, focused on a child’s function in classroom experiences, are recorded in an ipp. a structured plan is developed and evidence toward reaching goals must be presented to meet funding guidelines in many jurisdictions. therapists’ time and resources are allocated based on the identified functional severity of the needs of the child. this often results in a structured, goal-oriented environment. educational programs, for many therapists, are typically grounded in developmental and behavioural practice and based on the requirements of their practice. they often come to early learning settings with these approaches. through sharing various forms of documentation, engaging in ongoing dialogue, and interpreting classroom observations together, the educators and therapists—participants in the alberta early learning curriculum framework project—honed their listening and observation skills and developed alternative pedagogies and practices. navigating tensions and exploring alternative pedagogies carolyn’s role as a pedagogical partner in the alberta curriculum project involved supporting the implementation of curriculum concepts, including pedagogical documentation, in specialized classrooms. she met with school administrators and educators on a regular basis to discuss coaching and mentoring strategies and worked directly with children, their teachers, and teams of therapists in the school. these meetings enabled the project participants to discuss the purposes and processes of documentation and relevant academic articles and texts (stacey, 2015). in the schools participating in this project, the preschool curricula and programs were prescribed, tightly scheduled, and sharply focused on the tenets of child developmental psychology and therapeutic practices. this was defined in the programs’ policies and funding guidelines and was desired by the children’s parents. although the educators described the program as “strength based,” carolyn noticed “conventional practices of specialized education … [that] view disability through a lens that pathologizes difference from the assumed norm of development (slee, 2001)” (dalkilic & vadeboncoeur, 2016, p. 18). june 2019 32 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research a typical day in the playroom began with story time, followed by speech and language supports that included a focus on activities designed to target expressive and receptive communication skills as well as social interactions. the educators used visual cue cards to support receptive and expressive communication with children and pointed to pictures as they spoke. learning activities were planned by educators and therapists to develop children’s oral language and fine and gross motor, social, and cognitive skills. there were many transitions as children were moved between the various activities, and free play time typically encompassed approximately one-third of their day. often, play time was available as “free play time” when teachers and support staff in the playrooms took their required breaks and children were provided a mix of time to play on their own and with adults. on her first day in the classroom, carolyn observed educators documenting the children’s experiences in therapeutic reports, anecdotal records, and ipps. concerned that adding another form of documentation would increase the professionals’ workload, she decided to focus on creating documents (notes, photographs, and artifacts) that would speak to the child as an individual. carolyn invited the educators to create documents and place them on a panel mounted low on the wall in the classrooms and school hallway so that children and adults could view the work and add their own ideas. as the educators posted documents on the living wall, the therapists working in the classrooms noticed and began to ask questions: “what will you do with these notes and photographs? what is the purpose of this documentation?” at a monthly curriculum planning meeting with the full professional team, carolyn introduced and explained how the living wall could be used to co-plan activities with the children. her objective was to engage the group in conversations, with the hope they would come to understand the value of documentation in making children’s interests and learning visible. after several weeks of listening, observing, and recording the children’s play, the documentation included photographs, notes, dialogue, and artwork—evidence that the staff had contributed information to the panel. standing in front of the wall, the educators and therapists read and discussed the various documents and recognized echoing ideas and interests of the children. they drew lines on the panel to make the connections visible and, based on their findings, co-planned curriculum activities related to the children’s questions and repeating ideas about robots, transportation, and tim horton’s restaurant. carolyn reminded the professionals about the importance of revisiting the living wall with the children on an ongoing basis and involving them in the interpretation and planning processes. pointing to documents on the living wall, one teacher asked how it would be possible to document a child with selective mutism. through sharing documentation of a nonverbal child’s play experience, carolyn explained how listening, observing, and recording stories told in multimodal languages enables adults to interpret children’s playscripts. by moving toys and props and using gestures and facial expressions, a nonverbal child told carolyn a story about a dinosaur that fell ill. the child took a toy ambulance in the playroom, placed the dinosaur on the roof of the vehicle, and drove to a nearby tim horton’s restaurant (a mock setup of the restaurant in the drama centre). the child found a bowl and spoon and through dramatic play and nodding responses to questions, explained how chicken noodle soup made the dinosaur well again. when the story was shared with the child’s teacher, she seemed surprised and had not recognized the child’s ability to communicate imaginative stories through embodied language (see figure 1). june 2019 33 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. a nonverbal child’s story props. the children’s interest in robots was evident on the documentation panels in two different classrooms—proof that the children had noticed documents on the living wall mounted in the school hallway. the educators listened, observed facial expressions and body language, and recorded the children’s verbal and nonverbal conversations and play scripts about robots. in one classroom the children set up a robot shop, stocked with found materials, with their teacher (see figure 2). in another room the children worked together to create a large-size model robot (see figure 3). to further support their interests, the educators built a robot factory with recycled materials and boxes for the children to construct with. they also found picture books about robots to share with the children. the educators said there was a significant change in the children’s attention and engagement during story time after choosing books connected to their interests (documentation, june 3, 2016). carolyn asked the professionals to consider how their therapeutic objectives might be met through the planned activities. responding to the children’s interest in robots, a physiotherapist on the team created a machine with working lights and sounds to entice children to run the length of the gymnasium and push the buttons—an activity that increased the children’s engagement and supported their gross motor development. figure 2. the children’s robot shop. figure 3. a large-scale robot project. june 2019 34 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research memories and reflections one year after the curriculum pilot project had ended, the school administrators shared their thoughts about our work together. in her role as a specialist for early learning within the cbe, jennifer’s primary responsibility was overseeing the board’s early development centre (edc) programs. she collaborated with system, area, and school personnel to enhance and ensure the successful organization and running of the program. jennifer’s involvement in the curriculum framework project allowed her to support the enhancement of programming at each of the edc sites and to successfully showcase their work related to the framework at a system level. jennifer explained: i believe that any time we engage individuals to closely examine their practice, it is natural to experience tension. when we encouraged and supported our staff to look at new ways of doing and thinking and to push themselves to approach their work in a different way, because of the cf project, we naturally saw questions and uncertainty arise. questions were often tension filled, but by continually seeking answers through collaborative dialogue and modelling by carolyn, we saw individuals become open and receptive to approaching and seeing the work in a new light. i believe that we successfully supported others and eradicated tensions by first establishing a relationship where mutual understanding and trust were present. to create opportunities for shared leadership for all staff, we considered and created multiple entry points to allow staff to be active participants. by honouring the voices and opinions of all staff and working alongside them and allowing them to question freely, we enabled them to be open to new possibilities for teaching and learning within our programs. cheryl’s role within the edc settings as an early learning strategist was working collaboratively with teachers to support staff and parents in the school environments. she worked directly with classroom teams and children to facilitate planning and programming and provided leadership in the implementation of professional practice. cheryl explained that tensions arose when questions were posed by teachers as to how they could come to know children’s curiosities, wonderings, discoveries, and interests if their ability to engage or communicate verbally was limited. the answer to that came in the form of documentation and the very beginnings of a living wall. the educators began by taking photos and jotting quick anecdotes onto sticky notes to share simple observations such as smiles, squeals of joy, or a delighted word or phrase like “happy” or “i want” when children were engaged with a new toy or, perhaps, discovered a small insect outside. sparks of interest were being ignited for both the adults and the children in the room. over time, staff in the classrooms began to recognize the multiple messages communicated through the documentation. interests were evident in the play children were choosing to engage in on an ongoing basis, skills as learners were reflected in the progression of photographs over time, and opportunities to expand on classroom experiences were easily recognized as children demonstrated an increased curiosity and motivation to explore the materials being offered. conversations around the living wall became a part of weekly reflections among staff members, and over time, contributions to the wall were being added by therapists, support staff, and even students throughout the school as they were keen to share their observations of the children’s “work.” cheryl noted: the documentation on the living wall also inspired another equally exciting change in our classrooms as children began to take note of their own images on the walls and were drawn to discover themselves in the photos of their play and exploration. recognition of their place in the classroom, the importance of having their photo on the wall and reliving play experiences was invaluable as an opportunity for children to see themselves as worthy, capable, and collaborative partners in their own learning successes. through this process of intentionally documenting children’s play and creating a living wall, the classroom effectively began to evolve into a dynamic and responsive environment where play experiences were used to expand children’s opportunities and serve as a vehicle for all children to find their place and grow as a learner in a specialized setting. (personal correspondence, april 12, 2018) june 2019 35 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in utilizing forms of pedagogical documentation in their specialized settings, jennifer and cheryl saw how ordinary moments of children’s play were now being captured and carefully considered as an ongoing source of information for planning engaging play experiences and assessing learning achievements. as staff began to see the value and purpose of the living wall, they moved away from therapeutic reporting and adopted approaches that ensured personalized learning opportunities and increased student engagement. this personalization allowed each child to be successful within tasks while addressing their specific interests and identified learning needs. with a strong emphasis on pedagogical documentation, the shift in how educators approached teaching and learning was evident in each of the specialized preschool classrooms. creative and critical thinking as well as collaborative planning emerged, which has had a direct impact on the advancement and influence on instructional practices on behalf of each child’s personal development. to understand is to story as david loy (2010) writes, to understand is to story. documentation, dialogue, and reflection provided a new way of understanding and working alongside children and adults in specialized classrooms. will parnell (2012) emphasizes that by looking back … and recalling memories and experiences with a group we begin to sharpen our focus as we build on each other’s recollections, adding to each other’s knowledge of the experiences with this double-vision technique. this broadening and deepening of our knowledge is what we strive to achieve in our work to uncover the meaning of our experiences in the early childhood [classroom]. (p. 119) rather than understanding learning as naming, repeating, and reproducing concepts, the professionals lived the curriculum through critical reflections and reflexive practice. at the end of the project there were fewer transitions, more time for children to freely play with adults, and living walls were mounted in classrooms and school hallways. educators, therapists, children, parents, and support staff were posting and using the documentation for curriculum and program planning. the most significant shift was in how the administrators and educators came to understand and appreciate the benefits of using the living wall. they focused on creating and interpreting documents and through this process discovered different ways to share and highlight children’s strengths, engagement, and learning with therapists, families, and each other. this provided an authentic and meaningful way for educators and therapists to observe, notice, and engage with children in play and understand how play can be used in meeting prescribed goals and interventions. the collaboration of educational and therapeutic professionals and expertise and using the living wall as an anchor allowed for enhanced programming and child engagement. although the benefits of stories and storytelling is highly celebrated among many early learning participants, we also recognize that continuous efforts and conversations will be needed to engage therapists and specialists— individuals trained under a medical, behavioural paradigm, where traditional assessments are required for funding and reporting purposes—in this type of documentation process. another challenge that educators wrestled with during the project was making time in heavily scheduled programs to document, discuss, and co-plan the curriculum with children. the educators and administrators came to understand that documenting requires reflection, patience, and moving forward in small steps (wein, 2011)—a very different practice than what veronica pacini-ketchabaw and colleagues (2015) have described as the “mcdonaldization of pedagogical narration … [or] tendency toward a superficial, oversimplified approach to documenting children’s learning” (pp. 120–121). the educators needed time to communicate with children, june 2019 36 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research staff, administrators, and parents to discover how curriculum concepts work and can be implemented within their unique communities of practice. engaging the therapists in these conversations increased collaboration and offered holistic approaches to support the children’s learning. the living wall provided a bridge between the therapeutic world of goals and individual plans and the world of childhood play. through the documentation, therapists and educators came to recognize that play-based opportunities provided the means for prescribed goals and interventions to occur. therapists and educators understood how play-based learning and documentation can support the complex needs of the child, while at the same time meeting the prescribed expectations of professionals in the program. through the project, the participants learned how dialogue and documentation can uphold the rights of children with disabilities to have a voice and express their ideas and stories. according to caplan, loomis, and di santo (2016), employing multimodal approaches to learning, such as through storytelling and storyacting (paley, 1981) and pedagogical narrations (atkinson, 2012; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2014), creates spaces where children can explore ways to overcome challenges together as a community, develop a sense of community, and better understand their individual roles within their broader community (zepeda, 2014). (p. 42) rinaldi (2006) has noted that sharing pedagogical documentation is a “true act of democracy, sustaining the culture and visibility of childhood, both inside and outside the school: democratic participation, or ‘participant democracy,’ that is a product of exchange and visibility” (p. 59). while working together with the children, we discovered that “human rights is a thousand humble stories” (akhavan, n.p., emphasis added). although we acknowledge that further research related to using pedagogical documentation in specialized educational settings is necessary, we have come to recognize how the tools can begin to address the rights of children with disabilities. the living wall gave children a voice and served as an advocacy tool to support children’s right to play, dream, invent, explore, and share their imaginative stories. june 2019 37 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research acknowledgments we want to acknowledge and thank the calgary board of education for collaborating with mount royal university faculty (department of child studies and social work), and leaders of the alberta elcc curriculum framework project, for their participation in the alberta education project and implementing concepts of the alberta elcc curriculum framework in edc classrooms. references akhavan, p. (2018, march 26). the knowledge of suffering [cbc massey lecture]. retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/ struggling-for-justice-how-payam-akhavan-lost-his-home-in-iran-and-found-human-rights-1.4386404 aoki, t. (2005). curriculum in a new key: the collected works of ted t. aoki. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. atkinson, k. (2012). pedagogical narration: what’s it all about? an introduction to the process of using pedagogical narration in practice. the early childhood educator, 27, 3–7. retrieved from http://www.jbccs.org/uploads/1/8/6/0/18606224/pedagogical_narration. pdf bjartveit, c., with candelora, r., & suave, b. (2017). pedagogical leadership resource guide: mount royal university alberta elcc curriculum framework—alberta education project. edmonton: alberta ministry of education. bjartveit, c., & panayotidis, l. (2017). transforming early childhood educators’ conceptions of “dark play” and popular culture. contemporary issues in early childhood, 18(2), 114–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949117714075 cannella, g.s. (2002). deconstructing early childhood education. new york, ny: peter lang. caplan, r., loomis, c., & di santo, a. (2016). a conceptual model of children’s rights and community-based values to promote social justice through early childhood curriculum frameworks. journal of childhood studies, 41(3), 38–46. doi:10.18357/jcs.v41i3.16305 ceppi, g., & m. zini. (1998). children, spaces, relations: metaproject for an environment for young children. reggio emilia, italy: reggio children. dalkilic, m., & vadeboncoeur, j. (2016). regulating the child in early childhood education: the paradox of inclusion. global studies of childhood, 6(1), 17–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043610615619982 davis, b. (2014). listening to children: being and becoming. new york, ny: routledge. donegan, m., hong, s., trepanier-street, m., & finkelstein, c. (2005). exploring how project work enhances student teachers’ understanding of children with special needs. journal of early childhood teacher education, 26(1), 37–46. http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/10901020590918988 elliot, e. (2010). thinking beyond a framework: entering into dialogues. in v. pacini-ketchabaw (ed.), flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 3–20). new york, ny: peter lang. gilman, s. (2007). including the child with special needs: learning from reggio emilia. theory into practice, 46(1), 23–31. https://doi. org/10.1080/00405840709336545 katz, l.g., & chard, s.c. (1996). the contribution of documentation to the quality of early childhood education. retrieved from https:// files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed393608.pdf kearney, r. (2002). on stories. abingdon, uk: routledge. king, t. (2003). the truth about stories: a native narrative. toronto, on: anansi. loy, d. (2010). the world is made of stories. somerville, ma: wisdom. makovichuk, l., hewes, j., lirette, p., & thomas, n. (2014). flight: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta. edmonton: government of alberta. retrieved from http://childcareframework.com june 2019 38 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research oken-wright, p. (2001). documentation: both mirror and light. innovations in early education: the international reggio exchange, 8(4). retrieved from https://www.reggioalliance.org/downloads/documentation:okenwright.pdf pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. north york, on: university of toronto press. paley, v. (1981). wally’s stories: conversations in the kindergarten. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. paley, v. (2001). in mrs. tully’s room: a childcare portrait. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. paley, v. (2004). a child’s work: the importance of fantasy play. chicago, il: university of chicago press. parnell, w. (2012). experiences of teacher reflection: reggio inspired practices in the studio. journal of early childhood research, 10(2), 117–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718x11407982 rinaldi, c. (2006). in dialogue with reggio emilia. new york, ny: routledge. rodari, g. (1996). the grammar of fantasy: an introduction to the art of inventing stories. new york, ny: teachers and writers collaborative. smith, c. (1998). children with “special rights” in the preprimary schools and infant-toddler centers of reggio emilia. in c. edwards, l. gandini, & g. foreman (eds.), the hundred languages of children: the reggio emilia approach—advanced reflections (pp. 199–214). greenwich, ct: ablex. soncini, i. (2012). the inclusive community. in c. edwards, l. gandini, & g. foreman (eds.), the hundred languages of children (pp. 187–211). santa barbara, ca: praeger. stacey, s. (2015). pedagogical documentation in early childhood: sharing children’s learning and teachers’ thinking. st. paul, mn: redleaf press. tsekhman, n. (2011). a journey with jacob: pedagogical documentation of a child with special rights. canadian children, 35(1), 36–39. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v36i1.15139 wein, c.a., with guyevky, v., & berdoussis, n. (2011). learning to document in reggio-inspired education. early childhood research and practice, 13(2). retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej956381.pdf zepeda, j. (2014). stories in the classroom: building community using storytelling and storyacting. canadian children, 39(2), 21–26. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v39i2.15220 (endnotes) 1 information about the alberta elcc curriculum framework—alberta education project—and work described in this paper has been published by alberta education in pedagogical leadership resource guide: mount royal university alberta elcc curriculum framework—alberta education project (bjartveit with candelora & suave, 2017). sections of this paper were presented at the cayc conference “perspectives on curriculum frameworks in early learning and child care” at norquest college, edmonton, alberta, april 27–29, 2018. 2 jackson pollock (1912–1956) was an american abstract artist who explored the unique painting techniques of dripping and spilling paint on canvas (https://www.jackson-pollock.org/biography.jsp). winter/hiver 2019 54 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research implanter des ateliers d’expression créatrice et vouloir se former à les animer : l’histoire d’un partenariat autour d’apprentissages professionnels dans le secteur de la petite enfance joane deneault, odette lefebvre joane deneault est professeure en psychologie du développement de l’enfant au département des sciences de l’éducation de l’université du québec à rimouski où elle enseigne en formation initiale à l’enseignement primaire et à l’éducation préscolaire. chercheuse associée à la chaire de recherche sur la persévérance scolaire et la littératie (cpel) et au centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la formation et la profession enseignante (crifpe), elle s’intéresse au développement global des enfants, à leur compréhension des états mentaux, au jeu symbolique et à la motivation scolaire au primaire. elle a développé des liens avec le milieu communautaire et éducatif du bas-saint-laurent avec qui elle mène des recherches et des actions qui répondent aux besoins et aux aspirations des enfants et des intervenants de la région. odette lefebvre a été conseillère pédagogique au cégep de rimouski de 2002 à 2017 où elle a coordonné, entre autres, l’aec techniques d’éducation à l’enfance et l’aec de spécialisation éducation inclusive en services de garde. devant les besoins de sa communauté, elle a mis sur pied, avec son équipe, le perfectionnement aec techniques d’animation d’ateliers favorisant l’expression créatrice auprès d’enfants de 4 à 12 ans. détentrice d’une maîtrise présentant une approche novatrice auprès d’enfants atteints du trouble du spectre de l’autisme, elle œuvre depuis une quarantaine d’années à la promotion du bien-être et de l’égalité des chances pour tous les enfants. ses interventions éducatives se situent dans des milieux de garde, des milieux de santé et des milieux d’enseignement. cet article raconte l’histoire d’une mobilisation régionale visant à permettre 1) aux enfants de divers milieux du bas-saint-laurent (québec) de participer à des ateliers d’expression et 2) aux professionnelles de l’éducation à la petite enfance de s’outiller pour animer de tels ateliers. l’article présente le rôle des acteurs institutionnels et communautaires impliqués et identifie les conditions qui ont contribué à l’implantation et au maintien de dispositifs locaux d’apprentissages professionnels reliés à l’animation d’ateliers d’expression pour enfants, conditions susceptibles d’être transposables à d’autres contextes et à d’autres apprentissages. le récit est ponctué de réflexions théoriques et donne la parole aux praticiennes. key words: éducation à la petite enfance, apprentissage professionnel, concertation, atelier d’expression créatrice, développement de l’enfant, lien théorie-pratique. this article recounts the story of a regional mobilization effort aimed at allowing 1) children from various communities in the lower st. lawrence region (quebec) to participate in creative expression workshops, and 2) early childhood educators to develop the skills needed to lead them. it presents the role of the institutional and community actors involved and identifies the conditions conducive to introducing and maintaining local professional training mechanisms aimed at facilitating workshops for children – conditions that could be transposed to other contexts and other learning situations. this narrative is rich in theoretical reflections and gives a voice to practitioners. key words: early childhood education, professional training, dialogue, creative expression workshop, child development, theory-practice connection winter/hiver 2019 55 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research nous remercions c. rousseau pour sa lecture d’une version antérieure du texte et qui, par ses commentaires, a permis de l’améliorer sensiblement. nous remercions également les praticiens, les praticiennes et les enfants qui ont donné à cette aventure, tout son sens. en 2010, une enquête régionale rapportait qu’une proportion non négligeable d’enfants de la maternelle de notre région, le bas-saint-laurent (bsl), avait un niveau de développement insuffisant pour intégrer l’école primaire avec succès (asss-bsl, 2010). les scores moyens obtenus par ces enfants à l’instrument de mesure du développement de la petite enfance – imdpe1 – (janus & orford, 2007) étaient plus faibles que ceux de l’échantillon de référence canadien en ce qui a trait à la maturité affective et au développement cognitif et langagier, des résultats similaires à ceux obtenus auprès d’enfants de la région de montréal (direction de santé publique, asssm, 2008). la vaste enquête provinciale qui suivra, l’enquête québécoise sur le développement des enfants à la maternelle (eqdem-2012), confirmera ces besoins populationnels dans la sphère de la maturité affective et des compétences sociales chez les enfants du bsl (simard, tremblay, lavoie, & audet, 2013). pour faire face à ces besoins, deux conseillères pédagogiques2 du service de la formation continue du cégep3 de rimouski décident de mettre en place une formation destinée aux professionnelles4 œuvrant en petite enfance et susceptible de favoriser le développement de la maturité affective des enfants : une formation à l’animation d’ateliers d’expression créatrice inspirée des pratiques d’une équipe de recherche de montréal. l’originalité de l’approche prise par notre communauté consistera à ne pas opposer une vision dite compensatoire (où la formation vise à combler un manque chez l’enfant) qui s’appuie sur l’évaluation quantitative, l’enquête et la recherche empirique et prétend à l’objectivité, à une vision humaniste, contextualisée et subjective prônant un enfant aux potentialités à promouvoir. ces deux paradigmes (voir dahlberg, moss & pence, 2012) fourniront plutôt, tour à tour, les éléments d’un dialogue encore inachevé, mais néanmoins porteur de sens pour les praticiennes de la petite enfance. besoins régionaux en éducation et programme de prévention en santé de la métropole : le partage d’une solution issus du milieu de la santé, les ateliers d’expression créatrice  ont été élaborés par l’équipe de recherche et d’intervention transculturelles (erit) du cisss5 de la montagne et de l’université mcgill afin d’aider les enfants immigrants et réfugiés de montréal aux prises avec des symptômes de détresse scolaire et affective. l’erit a développé trois  programmes de prévention en milieu scolaire basés sur l’expression créatrice (rousseau, beauregard & michalon-brodeur, 2017), dont un destiné aux enfants du préscolaire : les ateliers jeu dans le sable. dans ces ateliers, les enfants s’expriment dans un bac de sable par le biais de figurines et du jeu symbolique, une activité particulièrement pertinente quand les enfants n’ont pas la pleine maîtrise du langage ou du graphisme. les ateliers s’inspirent du jeu de sable, créé en 1954 par dora kalf (1973), thérapeute pour enfants. en accord avec la conception humaniste, ils reconnaissent la capacité des enfants à assimiler le réel en s’exprimant à son propos et à dépasser par le biais du récit les difficultés rencontrées (bruner, 2006), particulièrement lorsque ce récit est accueilli et écouté (rejoignant ainsi le concept d’acceptation inconditionnelle de rogers, 1983 ; et d’éthique de la rencontre, voir dahlberg et al., 2012). selon l’erit, « le jeu dans le sable permet à l’enfant de mettre en trois dimensions d’abord (dans le sable) puis en mots… [en racontant à quoi réfèrent les représentations faites dans le sable] des émotions ou des situations » et d’essayer, à travers le jeu, de « … transformer l’adversité qu’il représente, de développer des stratégies de protection ..., d’imaginer un monde autre, etc. » (machouf, gauthier, rousseau & benoît, 2009, p. 124). en somme, les ateliers permettent à l’enfant de rejouer le fil des événements qu’il vit ou des sentiments qui l’habitent et c’est en recréant ce fil, en produisant (ou répétant) le narratif de sa propre histoire, individuelle, familiale, collective, qu’il se crée et se développe (bruner, 2006 ; 2015). on parle alors véritablement d’expression qui crée la personne, d’où le terme winter/hiver 2019 56 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research « expression créatrice ». les ateliers d’expression créatrice apparaissent comme une classe particulière d’activités que les enfants peuvent expérimenter en service de garde, en milieu scolaire, dans un organisme communautaire ou tout autre lieu de rassemblement d’enfants, par le fait même de leur apparente absence de but scolaire ou social, autre que celui poursuivi de façon intrinsèque par l’enfant, premier agent de son développement. les ateliers jeu dans le sable ont été décrits en d’autres lieux (deneault, lefebvre & rousseau, 2014 ; deneault & beauregard, 2016 ; erit, 2010 ; lacroix, rousseau, gauthier, singh, giguère & lemzoudi, 2007 ; rousseau, benoit, lacroix & gauthier, 2009). précisons simplement ici qu’il s’agit de séances hebdomadaires où tous les enfants de la classe6 (deux par bac de sable : chacun sa moitié délimitée par une paroi) s’adonnent simultanément à un moment de jeu symbolique individuel. d’une durée d’une heure, chaque séance comprend un rituel d’ouverture (chanson, échanges, consignes) et de fermeture (chanson) reproduits chaque semaine dans le but d’établir un espace «  sécuritaire  » pour s’exprimer, un espace et un temps autres que ceux de la vie courante, participant à sécuriser l’enfant. entre les deux rituels vécus collectivement, l’enfant dispose d’environ 35 minutes pour jouer dans le sable en solo avec les figurines mises à sa disposition (héros, humains, moyens de transport, animaux, etc.). les ateliers sont coanimés par deux adultes et durent généralement dix semaines. lors du jeu en solo, les coanimateurs circulent et accueillent ce que l’enfant souhaite partager ou non. les recherches menées à montréal sur les effets des ateliers d’expression ont montré une réduction significative des problèmes intériorisés et des problèmes d’interaction sociale chez les enfants de la maternelle qui y ont participé (rousseau et al., 2009). de plus, au temps 2, les enfants du groupe contrôle (qui n’ont pas bénéficié des ateliers) ont obtenu des scores plus élevés à l’échelle de troubles extériorisés comparativement aux enfants du groupe expérimental, alors qu’ils étaient équivalents au temps  1 (préateliers). ces résultats suggèrent que les ateliers participent à soutenir le développement psychologique et la maturité affective. la pertinence sociale pressentie des ateliers, considérant les résultats de l’enquête, a rapidement trouvé écho auprès des praticiennes du bsl qui ont souhaité les mettre sur pied pour les enfants de leur groupe, même si ces derniers diffèrent passablement des enfants montréalais, ne serait-ce qu’en termes d’homogénéité linguistique et culturelle ou d’expérience migratoire. dans l’analyse que nous faisons aujourd’hui des conditions de mobilisation autour des ateliers d’expression et des apprentissages professionnels qu’ils ont suscités, les résultats des enquêtes et des recherches empiriques ont éveillé l’intérêt des milieux de la petite enfance pour les ateliers en mettant d’abord l’accent sur l’enfant, plutôt que sur les pratiques qui y ont cours. ce focus sur l’enfant constitue à notre avis le pivot de l’expérience collective de mobilisation vécue. nous y référerons d’ailleurs comme une stratégie de mobilisation (comme samson et durand, 2011). les ateliers d’expression : un changement de posture pour l’éducatrice et l’enseignante comment passer d’une pertinence sociale à une pertinence professionnelle de formation-apprentissage pour le milieu de la petite enfance, d’un focus sur l’enfant à un focus sur le système  ? considérant la formation initiale dans le secteur de la petite enfance7, la pertinence d’une formation de perfectionnement en animation d’ateliers d’expression s’est révélée liée à la posture de l’adulte qui anime les ateliers. le rôle de l’adulte-animateur diffère passablement du rôle de l’adulte-éducateur qui a la responsabilité quotidienne d’un groupe d’enfants, tout comme les ateliers d’expression diffèrent des activités régulières en service de garde ou à la maternelle. d’abord, les ateliers se distinguent du jeu libre où l’enfant peut jouer collectivement et peut s’adonner à toutes sortes d’activités (le jeu symbolique n’étant qu’une possibilité parmi d’autres). dans les ateliers, l’enfant joue seul dans sa moitié du bac à sable (tous les autres enfants du groupe font de même). le matériel (en quantité winter/hiver 2019 57 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research suffisante est mis à sa disposition seulement pour les ateliers), le lieu, la durée, la fréquence et le rituel encadrent l’enfant afin qu’il s’adonne à un jeu symbolique qu’il contrôle et qui, potentiellement, sert ses besoins internes. les ateliers ne sont pas non plus des activités pédagogiques visant l’atteinte d’un but ou le développement d’un certain niveau d’autonomie ou d’habileté par l’enfant et dans lesquelles l’étayage intentionnel de l’adulte comporte des visées éducatives explicites. au québec, les programmes de formation initiale à l’éducation maternelle (mels, 2006  ; 2013) ou à l’éducation à la petite enfance (mfa, 2007) associent explicitement le rôle de l’éducateur à l’étayage qu’il fournit à l’enfant dans un objectif de développement global. le jeu symbolique y est alors vu comme une occasion pour l’éducateur-enseignant d’être attentif au soutien à apporter à l’enfant pour qu’il franchisse la zone proximale de développement (bodrova & leong, 2012  ; cloutier, 2012). pour sa part, l’accueil de l’expression créatrice de l’enfant ne vise pas comme telle l’atteinte de la zone proximale de développement de l’enfant, mais constitue plutôt une acceptation de ce qu’il est, de ce qui est beau ou laid, juste ou faux, avec ou sans sens dans ce qu’il raconte. le rôle de l’adulte y est différent des rôles habituellement observés chez les praticiens du préscolaire vis-à-vis du jeu symbolique de l’enfant (gaviria-lozaiza, han, vu & hustedt, 2017). l’adulte n’est ni dans le jeu ni en dehors. il est intéressé à accueillir l’enfant par l’écoute, à agir comme témoin de son récit, qu’il accepte dans son intégralité sans jugement (rogers, 1983). cette acceptation de l’autre, libre d’attentes, joue peut-être un rôle d’étayage au développement, particulièrement dans la sphère affective (voir deneault et al., 2014) et dans l’établissement d’une relation à l’autre (malaguzzi, 1993). être écouté, c’est être accepté. il est probable que l’acceptation et la relation qu’elle crée constituent le premier jalon d’une mini-culture entre l’enfant et l’adulte qui permet à chaque enfant de se sentir à la fois, soi et membre d’une communauté. quoi qu’il en soit, ces deux postures, acceptation inconditionnelle et étayage, sont habituellement traitées de manière distincte dans le champ conceptuel de l’éducation et on comprend que l’attitude d’ouverture, d’accueil, de non-jugement et d’absence d’attentes qui caractérise l’animation des ateliers d’expression diffère en partie de l’attitude du « pédagogue » qui, comme nous le rappelle l’étymologie (paidagôgos), « conduit les enfants ».8 enfin, autre distinction, les activités d’accueil de l’expression créatrice de l’enfant ne sont pas considérées comme des activités artistiques, puisque le produit réalisé par l’enfant (mise en scène de figurines dans un bac de sable, dessin, danse, théâtre) n’est pas apprécié pour ses qualités esthétiques, artistiques, sportives, intellectuelles ou linguistiques, mais plutôt comme produit de son expression librement émise. le rôle de l’animateur des ateliers d’expression consiste uniquement à bâtir un espace sécuritaire où les participants d’un groupe, quel que soit le moyen d’expression utilisé, se sentent libres de communiquer leur monde personnel, sans crainte du jugement d’autrui. l’adoption par l’adulte d’une attitude d’accueil qui n’engendre pas d’actions s’inscrivant dans un processus d’étayage ou d’évaluation est le deuxième élément qui a contribué à mobiliser les praticiennes vers les apprentissages à réaliser pour animer les ateliers. c’est à travers ce changement de posture qu’elles ont perçu la pertinence d’une formation. nous leur donnons brièvement la parole dans la section qui suit, avant d’aborder le rôle des autres acteurs institutionnels et communautaires qui ont permis l’implantation et le maintien de dispositifs d’apprentissage professionnel reliés à l’animation d’ateliers d’expression. le point de vue des praticiennes : petites histoires d’apprentissages professionnels les praticiennes du bsl qui ont été formées à l’animation et ont expérimenté ces ateliers avec les enfants de leur groupe entre 2011 et 2013 ont partagé, par le biais d’entretiens (focus group impliquant parfois les gestionnaires) ou de leur cahier de bord, leurs réflexions sur l’apport des ateliers à leur pratique professionnelle et les difficultés entourant leur utilisation. winter/hiver 2019 58 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research le commentaire le plus répandu traite du climat qui s’installe dans le groupe pendant les ateliers. toutes ont noté le calme qui régnait à chaque séance. une éducatrice mentionne son étonnement quant à la capacité des enfants de retenir les consignes et plusieurs décrivent combien ils étaient tranquilles et concentrés sur leur « tâche », comment les interactions entre les enfants étaient calmes et positives. une gestionnaire souligne qu’aucun intervenant n’a eu besoin de faire de la discipline durant toute la durée de l’atelier où elle était présente et qu’il n’y a eu aucun conflit, alors qu’il y en a souvent dans un contexte régulier. le fonctionnement amenait au calme, portait à la réflexion et au questionnement, à l’expérimentation et à la manipulation (éducatrice 1, cpe, rivière-du-loup9). le groupe de 10 enfants habituellement très volubiles était très calme pendant une heure complète, sans avoir à faire de la discipline (éducateur, cpe, mont-joli). d’autres ont apprécié observer l’évolution des enfants dans leur manipulation du matériel, la profondeur de leurs histoires et des jeux réalisés dans le sable au fil des rencontres. les ateliers ont permis de poser un regard nouveau sur les enfants et de découvrir de nouvelles choses sur eux. cela a été difficile au premier atelier. les enfants étaient gênés, ne voulaient pas parler. semaine après semaine, ils sont devenus plus à l’aise. ça a été très graduel et beau à voir. (éducateur, cpe, mont-joli). un enfant a beaucoup exploité la violence dans ses jeux dans le sable, malgré le fait que ce n’est vraiment pas dans son caractère habituel. ce n’est jamais présent dans ses conversations ou ses dessins en arts. (éducatrice spécialisée, price). un élève provenant d’une famille peu fortunée prenait tout l’argent-jouet disponible, en cachait dans le sable, sauf lors de la dernière rencontre. il n’intégrait pas l’argent dans des scénarios comme les autres élèves qui l’intégraient dans leur histoire par exemple pour acheter des médicaments à une fée malade. (éducatrice spécialisée, price). j’ai découvert la grande créativité d’un petit garçon. il avait toujours de très longues histoires et des scénarios complexes. (enseignante, price). un enfant qui a peu de concentration dans le contexte régulier était très concentré durant les jeux dans le sable. (éducatrice 2, cpe, rivière-du-loup). j’ai découvert des habiletés de partage chez certains enfants. j’ai découvert qu’un autre était très ordonné. (éducatrice, cpe, rimouski). les échanges avec les enfants, leurs histoires et ce qui transparaissait dans leur bac à sable ont donné l’impression à plusieurs praticiennes d’accéder aux émotions de l’enfant, à son « monde personnel ». touchant à l’individualité et répétés semaine après semaine, les ateliers offrent un contexte plus propice pour rencontrer l’enfant que les activités régulières. ce qui m’a frappé dans les ateliers, c’est le vécu des enfants, le monde personnel qui est ressorti. (enseignante, price). une petite fille faisait toujours la même histoire : une princesse malade avec des objets en cercle autour d’elle. après questionnement aux parents, nous avons su que la maman de cette petite fille avait été très malade. (enseignante, les hauteurs). une enfant insécure plaçait ses objets tout collés ensemble dans le bac jusqu’à ce qu’elle n’ait plus d’espace. j’ai appris par la suite que ses parents venaient de se séparer et qu’elle était en déménagement. une fois qu’elle s’est ouverte, nous avons remarqué qu’à chaque rencontre, elle plaçait de moins en moins d’objets dans son bac. winter/hiver 2019 59 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research … sans les ateliers, j’aurais passé à côté de quelque chose. je n’aurais peut-être pas su pourquoi certains étaient plus fatigués, plus tristes […] ou même s’ils étaient tristes. j’ai l’impression d’être plus sensible et de mieux intervenir. (enseignante, les hauteurs). les gestionnaires ont aussi apprécié la mobilisation, la collaboration et le partage de nouvelles informations résultant de la participation aux ateliers et de la rédaction des cahiers de bord. j’observais ce que … (éducateur) a découvert par ses interventions auprès des enfants et cela permettait d’ouvrir des discussions qui n’auraient pas eu lieu sans les ateliers. (gestionnaire, cpe, mont-joli). ce que j’ai le plus apprécié, c’est voir mon équipe-école travailler en collaboration dans un projet qui plaçait l’enfant au cœur de ses interventions. j’ai vu une belle mobilisation avec des impacts sur les enfants. (directrice, école primaire, les hauteurs). les ateliers d’expression sont apparus comme complémentaires aux activités pédagogiques régulières. ils permettent d’enrichir l’expérience d’inclusion au groupe vécue par l’enfant (machouf et al., 2009). ils permettent aussi aux éducateurs et enseignants de voir les enfants sous un autre jour à travers ces activités, participant ainsi à la relation élève-enseignant (enfant-éducateur) jugée comme un facteur-clé du bien-être de l’élève à l’école (ocde, 2015) et a fortiori de l’enfant en contexte préscolaire. enfin, plusieurs praticiennes ont évoqué la difficulté à changer de posture dans le cadre des ateliers. au début, je ne savais pas quel rôle je devais jouer dans les ateliers. je ne savais pas quelles questions poser […] si mes interventions étaient correctes. j’ai trouvé difficile de demander aux enfants de raconter leur histoire, sans pouvoir dire si c’était intéressant, si c’était beau. (éducatrice, cpe, sainte-luce). ce changement de posture est difficile et les apprentissages à cet égard se poursuivent parfois bien au-delà de la formation. cahier de bord, séance 3 : antoine10 ne participe pas, il demeure assis face à son bac de sable et manipule mollement deux figurines durant toute la séance. il les dépose devant lui, sans les animer, sans parler et sans les positionner dans le sable. il pleure un peu, seul, sans chercher réconfort auprès de moi et sans répondre aux questions que je lui pose. il ne parle pas lors des partages au début ou à la fin de l’atelier et ne chante pas les chansons de routine. je suis déçue qu’il n’accepte pas mes invitations et qu’il ne semble pas prendre plaisir aux ateliers. je me sens incompétente. je pensais que les ateliers seraient bons pour lui qui parle si peu. (éducatrice, maison des familles, rimouski) entretiens (post-ateliers) : antoine a toujours eu une participation … discrète et je suis restée déçue des ateliers. c’est seulement quand j’ai rencontré sa mère quelques mois plus tard que j’ai pris conscience que j’avais beaucoup d’attentes vis-à-vis cet enfant. à ma grande surprise, la mère m’a dit qu’elle avait trouvé les ateliers très bénéfiques pour son garçon. il n’a pas répondu à ses questions sur ce qu’il faisait, mais il a chanté la chanson des ateliers à la maison. durant cette période, il s’est mis à parler davantage. il va encore chercher le petit pot de sable remis à la fin des ateliers et dit souvent qu’il a été aux jeux dans le sable. la maman dit qu’elle, comme parent, aurait aimé qu’on lui parle davantage de ce que son fils y faisait et y vivait. (éducatrice, maison des familles, rimouski) l’accueil de l’expression exige de se décentrer de soi, de ses conceptions et attentes (même quant au plaisir que devraient générer les ateliers et à la façon dont l’enfant devrait le manifester). en prenant conscience de sa subjectivité dans l’interprétation de la conduite d’antoine (vue comme une atteinte à ses capacités d’animatrice), cette éducatrice a poursuivi le développement de ses compétences à accueillir bien au-delà du temps qu’ont duré les winter/hiver 2019 60 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research ateliers. cette illustration du temps long requis pour appendre confirme toute la justesse de l’expression « formation continue ». lors des discussions de concertation précédant les premières formations en animation d’ateliers, les praticiennes convenaient qu’un changement d’attitude requiert du temps et doit être expérimenté in situ et de façon répétée pour s’opérer et s’incarner dans un renouvellement des pratiques. d’autres conditions sont toutefois nécessaires pour que les apprentissages réalisés revêtent un caractère durable. l’implantation d’une formation à l’animation d’ateliers d’expression : une histoire de concertation et de partenariat le partenariat entre les programmes locaux de l’éducation à la petite enfance et les institutions sociales, culturelles et éducatives, notamment les collèges et universités, apparaît aujourd’hui comme une autre des conditions nécessaires à l’implantation d’un système compétent d’apprentissage professionnel (vandenbroeck, peeters, urban & lazzari, 2016). à montréal, ce sont les intervenants de l’erit qui, par groupe de deux, ont animé pendant longtemps les ateliers dans les milieux scolaires (lacroix et al., 2007). cependant, les coûts associés aux ateliers et la demande croissante pour que des enfants en bénéficient, ont poussé l’erit à tenter plutôt de former le personnel scolaire à l’animation d’ateliers afin de pérenniser les programmes d’expression créatrice (machouf et al., 2009). la formation offerte (erit, 2010) n’a toutefois pas été prise en charge par les institutions d’enseignement supérieur (notamment les universités qui sont responsables de la formation initiale des enseignants) et les défis de la mise en œuvre et du maintien d’un système d’apprentissage professionnel durable sont encore présents. comment faire face au défi de former des professionnelles de la petite enfance au bsl, situé à six heures de route de montréal où se situe l’expertise ? la part des institutions d’enseignement supérieur : formation et recherche le service de la formation continue du cégep de rimouski a analysé la situation de travail des animateurs des ateliers d’expression de montréal afin d’identifier les compétences sollicitées par cette intervention auprès des enfants. déjà dispensateur de la formation initiale en éducation à la petite enfance11, le cégep détenait l’expertise nécessaire pour concevoir et offrir une formation qui lui soit complémentaire. de plus, les ateliers ont été contextualisés à la réalité régionale des enfants (par exemple, des objets et figurines près de la réalité des enfants – motoneiges, orignaux, fusils, végétaux de bord de mer – ont été ajoutés dans les bacs ; voir deneault et al., 2014). le perfectionnement élaboré est une formation créditée de 435 heures (sur 1 an), destinée aux professionnelles de la petite enfance de notre région travaillant dans divers milieux (maison des familles, centres de la petite enfance – cpe –, cisss, maternelle et première année) et visant à développer leurs compétences à accueillir l’expression de l’enfant (impliquant ici un rejet de la posture d’étayage et d’évaluation habituelle à l’enseignant), à organiser et à animer des ateliers d’expression, à intervenir lors des ateliers et à développer des habiletés de coanimation. la formation comprend une partie théorique, une partie pratique (participer soi-même à des ateliers d’expression, exercer ses habiletés à animer les ateliers) et des stages en milieu préscolaire (exercer ses habiletés à communiquer dans une attitude d’ouverture, à consigner et à coanimer en contexte réel). elle intègre aussi des séminaires de groupe et des travaux individuels portant sur les problèmes rencontrés lors de l’animation d’ateliers avec les enfants, permettant ainsi une réflexion critique de la part des éducatrices sur leur pratique de l’accueil de l’expression, réflexion reconnue comme essentielle à une appropriation véritable (thomas & packer, 2013). la formation mise sur pied mène à une attestation d’études collégiales (aec) intitulée techniques d’animation d’ateliers favorisant winter/hiver 2019 61 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research l’expression créatrice auprès d’enfants de 4 à 12 ans12. l’erit acceptera que la formation prenne une forme différente de celle offerte à montréal et soutiendra l’équipe locale dans la mise en place de cette formation qui sera donnée pour la première fois à l’hiver 2011 auprès de 11 praticiennes. deux membres de l’équipe de montréal accepteront même de se déplacer à rimouski pour former la première cohorte de professionnelles qui s’inscriront à la formation. l’équipe du cégep s’alliera aussi à une chercheuse de l’université du québec à rimouski qui s’engagera à mesurer les effets des ateliers jeu dans le sable sur certains indices de développement jugés sensibles chez la population locale. quarante-cinq enfants de quatre à six ans de rimouski-neigette et de la mitis (issus de trois cpe et de deux maternelles) participeront à une série d’ateliers qui seront animés par les stagiaires inscrits à l’aec. les résultats de cette recherche révéleront non seulement que les ateliers ont des effets positifs sur la maturité affective des enfants du groupe expérimental comparativement à ceux du groupe contrôle (diminution des problèmes intériorisés et des comportements hyperactifs, augmentation de la prosocialité), mais qu’ils favorisent également le développement cognitif des enfants (deneault et al., 2014). la possibilité d’observer rapidement les effets tangibles issus de nouvelles pratiques est reconnue pour contribuer à mobiliser le milieu autour de ces pratiques (bigras & bouchard, 2011). encouragé par ces résultats, le groupe cosmoss13 rimouski-neigette, un regroupement de partenaires communautaires et institutionnels locaux, offrira pendant les deux années subséquentes, des ateliers à des enfants susceptibles de vivre une situation de précarité ou ne fréquentant pas les milieux de garde conventionnels14. on observera chez eux les mêmes effets (deneault & lavoie, 2015) que sur le premier échantillon d’enfants. un regroupement de partenaires communautaires et institutionnels locaux : le trait d’union si le partenariat a été identifié comme l’une des conditions facilitant l’implantation de systèmes compétents d’apprentissage professionnel, la gouvernance en matière de vision, de finances et de suivi en constitue une autre (vandenbroeck et al., 2016) qui est susceptible d’en favoriser aussi la durée. ces deux conditions peuvent prendre des formes diverses. par gouvernance, on peut signifier celle des milieux de pratique, du milieu politique ou des milieux de formation. nous nous intéresserons plutôt ici à la gouvernance du partenariat et traiterons donc de ces deux conditions conjointement. le partenariat local autour des ateliers d’expression sera facilité par le fait que les institutions mobilisées avaient déjà développé des liens et des habitudes de concertation à travers le regroupement cosmoss, et ce, bien avant 2010, moment où ont commencé les réflexions entourant la mise sur pied d’une formation sur l’accueil de l’expression. créé en 2004, cosmoss vise à favoriser le développement, la réussite éducative et l’inclusion sociale et économique de tous les jeunes (de la conception à 30 ans) en assurant des passerelles entre les organismes qui s’impliquent auprès d’eux. sa création « … repose sur le constat d’une certaine impuissance de chaque institution ou organisme à régler seul des problèmes complexes » à cet égard (levesque, castonguay, decoret, simard & bouchard, 2013, p. 70), due notamment au fait que la structure de service au québec est organisée en silos. par exemple, l’enfant en service de garde et le secteur la petite enfance relèvent du ministère de la famille. l’enfant qui a des besoins particuliers est suivi par le clsc15 ou par le cisss qui relèvent eux du ministère de la santé. enfin, lorsque l’enfant entre à la maternelle, il est intégré à l’école primaire qui relève du ministère de l’éducation16. certains de ces ministères ont des instances régionales, d’autres n’en ont plus depuis les dernières compressions budgétaires imposées par le gouvernement provincial (radio-canada, 2014). cosmoss regroupe des intervenants institutionnels et communautaires provenant du milieu de la santé (agence de la santé, cisss), du milieu de l’éducation (mels, commissions scolaires, écoles, cégep, université), du réseau du ministère de la famille (cpe et leur regroupement) winter/hiver 2019 62 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research et du milieu politique (municipalités et leur regroupement) et vise à « améliorer la continuité, la complémentarité et la cohérence des services offerts aux jeunes  » (lachapelle & bourque, 2011, p.  3). la collaboration entre les partenaires de cosmoss se structure autour quatre chantiers (comités) dont un, le comité petite enfance, qui mettra sur pied de nombreuses actions entre 2011 et 2017 dans l’objectif de favoriser une entrée scolaire « réussie ». les ateliers jeu dans le sable en feront partie à partir de 2012. en instaurant une logistique de concertation, le regroupement cosmoss rimouski-neigette formalisera le partenariat permettant ainsi aux gestionnaires des institutions-partenaires de libérer leurs employés pour qu’ils participent au projet. précisons qu’outre les quelques personnes travaillant pour cosmoss même (qui coordonnent les rencontres mensuelles des partenaires, corédigent les demandes de subventions en soutien aux actions choisies de manière concertée par les partenaires et gèrent les fonds disponibles de façon à réaliser chacune des actions prévues au plan d’action), tous les partenaires impliqués participent aux travaux de cosmoss durant leurs heures de travail ou bénévolement. la générosité de ces personnes et la mobilisation qu’elle traduit ne sauraient toutefois suffire sans l’apport structurant d’un regroupement reconnu, soutenu financièrement et assurant la gouvernance du partenariat. cosmoss assurera le suivi de l’action jeu dans le sable que ce soit sur le plan des valeurs des partenaires locaux (respect de l’autonomisation des familles, des enfants et des intervenants dans l’implantation des ateliers), de l’organisation des ateliers (recrutement des milieux intéressés par les ateliers, promotion, soutien logistique à la tenue des ateliers et aux rencontres des partenaires pour leur mise en place) ou de leur financement. la tenue d’ateliers d’expression par une équipe mobile d’animateurs (des professionnels de la première cohorte) dans divers milieux nourrira l’intérêt des professionnelles de ces milieux pour l’intervention. le partenariat établi à cosmoss contribuera ainsi à ce que les ateliers d’expression et la formation en animation perdurent dans le temps. il permettra aussi aux milieux de pratique (cpe, maternelles, maison des familles, cisss) de prendre une part active dans la redescription des besoins de formation. le partenariat durable : une histoire de flexibilité entre 2011 et 2017, le partenariat établi a été appelé à évoluer. les contraintes imposées par le contexte politique et socio-économique ont entraîné plusieurs modifications dans les règles de fonctionnement interne et de reddition de compte des institutions impliquées, ce qui n’a pas manqué de changer les conditions du partenariat et les conditions de réalisation des actions. on peut lire dans un document remis aux partenaires par cosmoss en mars 2017 que « dans tous les secteurs d’intervention, gestionnaires, professionnels et intervenants ont vécu de nombreuses restructurations au cours des dernières années. celles-ci ont occasionné plusieurs mouvements de personnel et la capacité d’adaptation des ressources du milieu est sollicitée de façon quasi constante […] ce qui pourrait affecter la capacité des partenaires à se concerter […]. malgré un sentiment d’essoufflement généralisé, la communauté fait donc preuve de résilience et s’adapte aux changements vécus en s’appuyant sur le sentiment d’appartenance territorial et communautaire qui lie les acteurs les uns aux autres » (cosmoss, 2017, p. 12). nous donnerons deux exemples de changement qui ont requis souplesse et flexibilité afin que le système d’apprentissage mis en place et les ateliers d’expression pour les enfants demeurent. d’abord, la formation à l’animation d’ateliers offerte par le cégep a été modifiée en raison de demandes du milieu qui vivait de nouvelles contraintes. en tant que formation créditée, l’aec exigeait un nombre d’heures de formation assez élevé et il était de plus en plus difficile pour les milieux de garde (cpe) d’y envoyer des éducatrices, faute de personnel pour les remplacer pendant leur formation. en concertation avec ces milieux, le cégep a élaboré une nouvelle formation dite «  sur mesure  », offerte en formule hybride (en classe, à distance et dans le milieu de travail) à winter/hiver 2019 63 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research partir de l’automne  2017. la formation conserve les trois aspects de départ (formation théorique, pratique et stage en milieu de travail), mais requiert moins d’heures. en contrepartie, elle comporte un coût plus élevé pour les professionnelles qui s’y inscrivent. puisqu’une portion du budget des milieux de garde peut être utilisé pour la formation continue du personnel, le comité petite enfance de cosmoss a décidé de retenir cette formule, la jugeant plus propice à la pérennisation des ateliers, du moins pour les milieux de garde. l’ouverture du cégep à ajuster la formation pour mieux s’arrimer à la réalité changeante des milieux de la petite enfance fait écho à l’importance des pratiques collaboratives qui visent le pouvoir d’agir des praticiennes (helterbran & fennimore, 2004) non seulement sur leurs interventions auprès des enfants, mais aussi sur leur formation continue et sur le système social et professionnel auquel elles appartiennent. pour réduire les coûts de formation, il est prévu que deux éducatrices par milieu se forment et qu’elles prennent ensuite la responsabilité des ateliers pour tous les groupes d’enfants de leur milieu. cette façon de faire n’est peut-être pas optimale comparativement à la formation de l’équipe entière (vangrieken, dochy & raes, 2016) qui permettrait de minimiser l’effet des mouvements de personnel (nombreux en petite enfance) sur la tenue des ateliers et qui participerait davantage au développement d’une expertise professionnelle entourant les ateliers et leur animation. pour pallier ces difficultés, des discussions sont en cours entre les partenaires pour voir comment soutenir une communauté de pratique entre les éducatrices de différents milieux par le biais d’un suivi d’implantation à mettre en place par le cégep à la suite de la formation sur mesure. le deuxième exemple de changement concerne le regroupement cosmoss qui a revu sa structure de façon à rassembler les quatre comités thématiques, parmi lesquels se trouve le comité petite enfance. cette « démarche de cohésion » a donné lieu à un nouveau plan d’action où la petite enfance n’est plus un secteur d’action distinct. en conformité avec les objectifs de départ, ce nouveau plan dit intégré a pour objectif de bonifier la concertation et de diminuer le travail en silos. il propose quatre priorités globales dont une, « parcours social et relationnel », vise à favoriser le développement psychosocial et la santé mentale des jeunes en fonction de leur stade de développement, faisant ainsi de la petite enfance, une étape intégrée au reste du développement. il est difficile de voir quelles seront les conséquences de cette restructuration du partenariat sur la formation en animation et sur la dissémination des pratiques d’accueil de l’expression des enfants dans notre région, mais les différents programmes d’expression créatrice élaborés par l’erit, jeu dans le sable, art et contes et théâtre pluralité, respectivement destinés aux jeunes du préscolaire, du primaire et du secondaire (voir rousseau et al., 2017 pour une description) pourraient servir cette nouvelle priorité. redéfinir le partenariat au fil du temps et accepter qu’il se structure différemment peut contribuer à sa survie. si la flexibilité que cette redéfinition appelle contribue directement à la perpétuation du partenariat, elle pourrait aussi concourir indirectement au maintien du système d’apprentissage professionnel qui en découle. les changements qui surviennent dans les institutions sociales, culturelles, éducatives, communautaires et politiques ou dans le partenariat qui les mobilise sont la preuve que la pérennisation des actions au service des jeunes enfants et les apprentissages professionnels qui y sont associés demeurent un défi. si ces institutions sont nécessaires à des actions sociales concertées et durables, ce sont souvent les individus dans ces institutions et leur désir de travailler ensemble qui permettent de trouver la manière de poursuivre le partenariat nonobstant les changements institutionnels. il nous apparaît ainsi que la véritable innovation consiste à trouver des voies pour maintenir les liens et repose sur l’élaboration de formes diversifiées (et parfois complexes) de structuration du partenariat. conclusion (ainsi s’achève notre histoire) la mobilisation des acteurs institutionnels et communautaires autour d’une action visant à favoriser le développement des enfants au bsl, les ateliers d’expression jeu dans le sable, a permis de mettre sur pied une winter/hiver 2019 64 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research formation continue pour outiller les praticiennes à animer de tels ateliers. depuis le début de la concertation autour de cette action, le milieu de la petite enfance et le milieu scolaire ont subi plusieurs compressions budgétaires qui ont modifié et dégradé à plusieurs égards les conditions de travail des éducatrices et des enseignantes. malgré ce contexte peu propice aux initiatives et au désir de formation continue, certaines conditions ont contribué à garder le cap sur l’action et sur la formation qu’elle requiert. 1. s’inspirer d’initiatives existant ailleurs (et les adapter) pour contribuer à la formation en petite enfance dans son milieu. 2. démontrer la pertinence sociale de nouveaux apprentissages professionnels en les reliant aux besoins locaux identifiés dans le milieu et à la cause des enfants. 3. démontrer la pertinence professionnelle de ces apprentissages (identifier en quoi ils peuvent bonifier la pratique professionnelle ou compléter la formation initiale reçue). 4. s’inscrire dans un partenariat local visant un objectif commun d’actions et de formation, et mobilisé à réfléchir aux enjeux, besoins et solutions pour les mettre en place, les maintenir et les évaluer. le partenariat comprend les milieux de première ligne auprès des enfants (milieu de garde et autres), premiers vecteurs de l’action à réaliser dans le milieu, et les institutions d’enseignement supérieur qui soutiennent le pôle formation et évaluation. il prévoit un rôle de gouvernance à un des partenaires. 5. faire preuve de flexibilité dans le partenariat (surtout en période d’instabilité institutionnelle). ces conditions nous apparaissent transposables à d’autres milieux qui souhaiteraient s’inspirer de notre expérience pour mobiliser le milieu de pratique envers une formation continue et établir-maintenir des partenariats favorisant l’apprentissage professionnel en petite enfance. winter/hiver 2019 65 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research références bigras, n. & bouchard, c. 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(2016). team learning in teacher teams: team entitativity as a bridge between teams-in-theory and teams-in-practice. european journal of psychology of education (ejpe), 31(3) 275-298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-0150279-0 winter/hiver 2019 67 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (endnotes) 1 les résultats issus de l’imdpe sont aussi recueillis au yukon et dans toutes les provinces canadiennes. le groupe de travail pancanadien sur l’imdpe comprend des représentants de l’offord centre for child studies (qui a mis au point l’imdpe) et de nombreuses administrations réunissant des données, dont le manitoba et le québec. 2 odette lefebvre et marie-laure lavoie. 3 au québec, les cégeps (collège d’enseignement général et professionnel) offrent des formations postsecondaires, soit la formation générale requise comme condition d’admission à l’université et les formations techniques comme la formation en éducation à la petite enfance. 4 le féminin sera utilisé comme générique dans l’article dans le seul but de ne pas alourdir le texte. l’expression « praticiennes de la petite enfance » réfère principalement aux éducateurs-éducatrices en milieu de garde et aux enseignants-enseignantes de la maternelle. 5 centre intégré de santé et services sociaux. 6 on considérera qu’il s’agit d’un programme de prévention primaire puisque tous les enfants (et non quelques enfants ciblés) y participent. 7 trois ans d’études collégiales techniques au cégep pour des éducatrices en centre de la petite enfance (cpe) et quatre ans d’études universitaires (baccalauréat) pour les enseignantes de maternelle. 8 l’expression « conduit les enfants » implique une direction. cette direction recouvre deux sens interreliés : le caractère de la relation pédagogique (l’adulte joue un rôle directif, il imprime une direction sans l’imposer) et la destination de l’enfant (il existerait une destination au parcours de l’enfant : la prochaine étape – proximale ou lointaine – de développement). 9 le nom de la municipalité. 10 un pseudonyme. 11 au québec, les éducateurs et éducatrices à la petite enfance travaillant dans un cpe certifié sont formés par le biais d’un diplôme d’études collégiales en techniques d’éducation à l’enfance obtenu au terme de 3 ans de cégep ou d’une attestation d’études collégiales (aec) en techniques d’éducation à l’enfance d’une durée généralement de 1 260 heures (équivalant à un an). le ministère de la famille exige en cpe un ratio d’au moins deux éducateurs ayant le diplôme technique pour un ayant l’aec. 12 outre le volet préscolaire (jeu dans le sable), l’aec comporte aussi un volet primaire (les arts et le conte) qui ne fait pas l’objet de cet article. 13 communauté ouverte et solidaire pour un monde outillé, scolarisé et en santé. 14 ces enfants fréquentent par exemple le milieu communautaire (la maison des familles), un cpe en garde atypique et leurs parents bénéficient d’une allocation visant à contrer la défavorisation économique ou ils participent au programme passe-partout offert à certains enfants de la maternelle et visant à stimuler leur développement et à soutenir les compétences parentales. 15 centre local de santé communautaire. 16 maintenant, le ministère de l’éducation et de l’enseignement supérieur. winter/hiver 2019 123 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research reconceptualizing our work: the connection between ece students and political action michelle jones, brooke richardson, and alana powell michelle jones is a registered early childhood educator and currently completing a master of arts in early childhood studies at ryerson university. her research focuses on childhood disability and the role of early childhood educators in inclusive education. michelle is currently working as a researcher at the childcare resource and research unit investigating current policy approaches to remuneration and retention in the canadian child care workforce. michelle was co-chair of the ryerson student childcare advocacy association as an undergraduate and graduate student. email: michelle.jones@ryerson.ca brooke richardson completed her sshrc-funded phd in policy studies at ryerson university in 2017 and is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the sociology department at brock university. brooke has been actively teaching in ryerson’s school of early childhood studies since 2012, working primarily to develop and teach early childhood education and care policy courses. her research interests include the discursive representation of child care in social policy debates, the critical examination of the pan-canadian child care movement, and care as political practice. brooke is also president of the association of early childhood educators of ontario. alana powell is a registered early childhood educator who is completing a master of arts in early childhood studies at ryerson university. her research engages in critical exploration of care discourses in early childhood during ontario’s 2014 and 2018 provincial elections. she has been active in the ontario child care advocacy movement for several years and was co-chair of the ryerson student childcare advocacy association from 2016 to 2018. as a contract lecturer in an ece diploma program, she strives to engage her students in developing a strong sense of professional identity and a critical perspective of the challenges facing the ecec sector. canada has a long history of student activism (bégin-caouette & jones, 2014), yet early childhood education (ece) students have been largely absent from the canadian child care advocacy movement. although ece students are often aware of the forthcoming low wages and poor working conditions inherent in their chosen profession (flanagan et al., 2013; ferns et al., 2014), they are typically divorced from child care advocacy efforts. the authors of this paper take the position that ece students are an overlooked political group with the potential to broaden and strengthen the canadian child care advocacy movement. we come to this topic an undergraduate and graduate student and a contract lecturer in ryerson’s early childhood studies (ecs) program. over the past year and a half, we have had the opportunity to work with our peers and colleagues to establish and lead the grassroots ryerson student childcare advocacy association (rscaa). while student advocacy efforts have been taking place ad hoc within the this paper takes the position that early childhood education students are an underutilized resource in strengthening the canadian child care advocacy movement. the authors come to this topic as undergraduate and graduate students and a contract lecturer member in ryerson’s early childhood studies program. over the past year and a half, we have worked with our peers and colleagues to establish and lead the ryerson student childcare advocacy association. drawing on student movement and devaluation of care literature, this paper describes and explores our opportunities and experiences reconceptualizing the value of early childhood education and care that motivated us to become student leaders in the child care advocacy movement. ultimately, we hope to both illustrate that students can and do make a meaningful difference in advocacy efforts and inspire and support postsecondary early childhood education programs to build the political capacity of students in the broader child care movement. key words: student movements; canadian child care movement; higher education; child care policy; early childhood educator winter/hiver 2019 124 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research ryerson ecs program for decades, brooke richardson, the author who is a contract lecturer, felt there was a need to formalize these efforts in a sustainable way. while recognizing that simply establishing a group does not guarantee sustainability, we argue that formal group status within an institution at least provides a basic structure to keep advocacy efforts consistent and reliable over time. it also provides a space for students and faculty to mentor and support each other in ongoing efforts to be active in the movement. we begin with an overview of recent federal and provincial child care policy developments and the rscaa’s involvement. after a brief review of the broader student movement literature, we then describe what has motivated and supported us to become leaders in the child care advocacy movement—primarily policy courses that provided the opportunity to critically examine the ongoing, systematic devaluation of care work. from here we discuss our experiences as leaders with the rscaa and share some of our thoughts regarding what academic institutions might do to engage and encourage students to become actively involved in the child care advocacy movement. given the ongoing struggles of child care advocacy organizations (particularly in ontario where eces are required to be members of the non-advocacy-based college of early childhood educators) we hope to begin a conversation with the academic and practicing, professional ece communities regarding the inclusion of students as a central component of strengthening the child care advocacy movement. we hope to illustrate that ece students can and do make a meaningful difference in canadian child care advocacy efforts and that postsecondary ece programs play a key role in inspiring students to take on the inherent challenges of this important work. political context canada has had a dynamic and sustained child care advocacy movement, primarily led by leaders in the women’s movement, in the post-world war ii period (prentice, 1989; langford et al., 2013). between february 2006 and october 2015, during the tenure of conservative prime minister stephen harper, the movement faced significant challenges as national child care policy was reduced to a tokenistic cash transfer to parents (the universal child care benefit) and women’s organizations were systematically defunded. in 2015, the sociopolitical context shifted when the self-proclaimed feminist justin trudeau won a majority liberal government. however, in 2018, federal leadership on child care policy is still significantly lacking and the child care and allied women’s movements are struggling to rebuild. child care policy continues to be relegated primarily to provinces, which simply do not have the same scope or financial resources to address the ongoing issues of affordability, accessibility, and quality in the sector. fortunately, several provinces (ontario, nova scotia, alberta, and prince edward island), either have or are currently taking on child care as a policy priority, providing some hope and optimism for children, parents, and the child care workforce. in this article we focus specifically on ontario because this is where the authors are located and have dedicated much of their advocacy efforts. in the past year and a half, the ontario liberal government has made several valuable strides in child care policy. these include the appointment of an associate minister of early years and child care and a commitment to create 100,000 new licensed child care spaces in the next five years. the government has been transparent in reporting that these additional child care spaces will require at least 20,000 new early childhood educators (ontario ministry of education, 2016a; ontario ministry of education, 2016b). one of the government’s first steps in pursuing this initiative was organizing and holding community town hall consultations where parents, community members, eces, students, and child care providers were invited to share their vision and ideas regarding future policy direction. the ministry also launched an online feedback survey where all ontarians could easily contribute their ideas and suggestions. believing that the voice of student eces was necessary, rscaa members attended several of these meetings and winter/hiver 2019 125 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research encouraged friends, peers, and colleagues to participate in the online survey. the rscaa also drafted a consultation response in the form of an open letter, which was published online and shared widely through social media by members, allied peers, community organizations, and provincial advocacy groups. as the open letter garnered the attention of the public and media, a policy officer at the ministry of education reached out to the rscaa to schedule a private consultation meeting where the students’ voice was presented directly to policy leaders. in the spring of 2017, this consultation process resulted in the ministry of education’s renewed early years and child care policy framework (the renewed framework). in addition to addressing the highly publicized and ongoing affordability and accessibility problems with the child care system, the renewed framework addresses the pressing workforce issues through a “recommendation to support a longer-term plan for growing the profession of early childhood educators and addressing the multiple complex issues facing the sector” (ontario ministry of education, 2017, p. 36). while overall the framework was quite broad and did not include many specific details, we were excited that allied efforts with other child care organizations in the province had led to the inclusion of the workforce voice in the document. in fact, a direct quote from our open letter was highlighted in the text. in our experience advocating in a time of new government initiatives, we believe student groups are able to uniquely support the larger child care movement by engaging in the difficult conversations necessary to alter the status quo. unlike professional organizations and formal educational institutions that must remain bipartisan and are limited in the claims they can make (most receive operating funds from these governments), the unique grassroots structure of student groups allows us to apply partisan pressure on the provincial government. rachel langford and colleagues (2016) articulate the value of “conflictual cooperation” in relationships between advocacy groups and governments—a role that student groups are well positioned to embrace as a collective with a broader mandate. student movements historically, student activists have made significant contributions to broader social movements around the world (altbach, 1989; bégin-caouette & jones, 2014; broadhurst & martin, 2014; linder & rodriguez, 2012; quarter, 1972; rhoads, 2016; winston, 2013). due to their substantial impact, researchers have studied student groups to identify features that distinguish them from other social activists and to document factors that relate to their success (altbach, 1989; bégin-caouette & jones, 2014; broadhurst & martin, 2014). eric swank (2012) suggests that the success of student movements may be related to the resources available through campus organizations and the flexibility of student schedules. indeed, the rscaa has benefitted from in-kind support (mainly access to meeting and event rooms at no charge) as well as the financial support from our school and student union. grants awarded to the rscaa allowed us to hold several successful events on campus, including a party congregating students for ece appreciation day and a panel discussion on child care for international women’s day. these opportunities were central to increasing the capacity of the rscaa: we were able to extend our reach within the student population and allow for collaboration with more formal provincial advocacy organizations. these efforts also gave us a platform to get the attention of the provincial government, which stayed abreast of these events. research conducted on student activist leaders has often concluded that enrollment in the social sciences and humanities is a significant factor in their participation in social movements (altbach, 1989). however, more recent research suggests that the completion of a social justice course is more likely responsible (broadhurst & martin, 2014). these trends are advantageous for the child care movement, because most early childhood education programs are both within schools of community services and beginning to integrate social justice discourses. as students, taking policy courses that critically examine the devaluation of female-dominated workforces and winter/hiver 2019 126 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research developing broader sociopolitical critical thinking skills were vital experiences leading to our sustained student activism in the child care movement. at ryerson, the course in the ecs program that challenges students to engage in macro-level policy issues recently shifted from an elective to a required course. again, this shift provides encouragement and promise that more ece students—at least within one institution—will have the opportunity to become involved in child care advocacy efforts. policy/advocacy-related courses now exist within some canadian two-year ece diploma programs, suggesting some recognition that contextualizing professional practice within the broader sociopolitical context is important to ece students. however, as langford (2008) notes, students often take these courses in their last year of study, decreasing their opportunity to apply this knowledge throughout their education and reducing the probability of engaging in student activism. even when students do form movements or become key allies of existing movements, there are some unique challenges. in relation to other social movements, student constituents have brief associations with their campus communities. this rapid turnover of “undergraduate generations” can have negative effects on the ability of student movements to create sustainable change (altbach, 1989, p. 99). this is pertinent to the child care movement because many ece students attend condensed two-year diploma programs. ece students’ fleeting association with their academic institution makes involvement in student activism that much more challenging. in recognition of this issue, the rscaa has worked to engage members with the ongoing campaigns and initiatives of provincial organizations in hopes of encouraging continued political activism throughout their careers. given that student movements have historically made substantial contributions to broader social movements, it is critical that student eces join the child care advocacy movement in canada. we believe heightened and sustained political participation of ece students depends on academic institutions’ ability to engage students on a sociopolitical level and nurture the critical examination of students’ professional identity. “professionalization” amid ongoing devaluation: our motivation to become involved child care in canada was originally developed as a welfare service provided primarily through religious institutions to widowed or impoverished mothers who required access to the workforce (friendly & prentice, 2009). today, due to the necessity of dual incomes and the increase in single-headed families, child care is an essential social service widely used by canadian families with young children. in the last several decades, early childhood education and care has also become a priority for nations as a way to encourage economic and human capital development (moss, 2006; organisation for economic co-operation and development, 2006; unicef, 2008). due to the growing appreciation of early learning for children, parents, and the economy, there has been a focus on increasing the capacity of the child care workforce through requiring higher education levels and ongoing participation in professional development. it is becoming increasingly recognized that well-educated, autonomous, and adequately remunerated early childhood educators are the cornerstone of quality care (halfon & langford, 2015; moss, 2006; urban, 2008, 2010). this understanding has led to the development of policies that aim to professionalize the workforce (urban, 2008). indeed, the federal government’s multilateral early learning and child care framework included provisions for quality that prescribed an increase in the number of “providers with early childhood education certification and/or participating in professional development and training” (government of canada, 2017). yet despite the increasing professional expectations of eces, the working conditions, professional autonomy, and wages remain stubbornly poor (halfon & langford, 2015; urban 2008, 2010). these challenges are understood to result from the persistent winter/hiver 2019 127 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research devaluation of female-dominated early childhood learning and care work. even the associate minister of early years and child care perpetuated this devaluation when she referred to registered early childhood educators as “caring smiles and helping hands” in the legislature on ece appreciation day. several factors contribute to the devaluation of care work; however, most pertinent, in our experience, is the way that both neoliberal ideology and social conservative norms situate the work of early childhood educators. in prioritizing individual responsibility and market solutions, neoliberalism as a narrative and political ideology shifts early childhood education and care from a social good to a private responsibility (moss, 2014). equally problematic are social conservative values which assert the family as the primary and preferred site for the care and education of young children, ultimately positioning eces as substitutes for maternal care (moss, 2006). we feel a poignant sense of injustice that our work, regardless of our level of education, continues to be seen as “innate” or “natural” for women (bourgeault & khokher, 2006; england, 2005; england, budig, & folbre, 2002; halfon & langford, 2015; macdonald & merrill, 2002; teghtsoonian, 1997) and therefore justifies low wages and poor working conditions. it is this ongoing “professionalization gap” that ultimately motivated us, as ece professionals, to become involved in the child care advocacy movement. as we sat down to write about the experiences that led us to become student activists in the child care movement, we discovered that, collectively, our enrollment in policy courses had made the largest contributions. learning about and labelling political ideologies and examining sociological processes through a critical lens, we became able to situate the devaluation of care work as external, rather than feeling that our own career choice was somehow less worthy of respect. we each engaged in our own process of reconceptualizing our work and committed ourselves to changing dominant narrative “truths” rather than taking them on as individual inadequacies. below we each share some of our experiences. graduate student (michelle). even before i began my college diploma program, i understood the widespread undervaluing of early childhood education. many of my friends and family questioned my decision to enrol in the program. as an ece student, throughout my diploma and undergraduate degree, i would often sidestep questions about my studies or misstate my studies as child development. answering “child development” over “early childhood education” allowed me to avoid unpleasant questions and negative assumptions. due to the often implicit nature of devaluation of care, i cannot explain most reactions, but some of the more offensive interactions involved being told to marry a wealthy man or that i was too smart not to continue my education and become a primary teacher. i believe i received such negative responses to “early childhood education” because of the cultural bias toward female-dominated workforces (osgood, 2010). yet, child development received more positive reactions due to its masculine associations with biology and psychology and less emotional labour (halfon & langford, 2015). (ironically, as i finish up my graduate studies, i am quite critical of pedagogies of early childhood education that take a scientific child development lens, preferring a postmodern, reconceptualist, competency model of the child and their learning.) it was not until my final semester in my undergraduate degree that i chose to take an elective policy course. i had already applied to the master of arts in early childhood studies program and believed that acquiring knowledge from a more respected base could assist in my future career. i remember learning about stephen harper’s conservative party and the neoliberal and social conservative norms that worked to prevent accessible and affordable child care, deepen the devaluation of care work, and almost devastate child care advocacy organizations. this was my introduction to neoliberalism, which helped clarify for me the strongly held acceptance of child care as a market system rather than a public good and children as an individual and private responsibility. it also became clear to me that socially conservative assumptions on the role of women had established caring for children as innate. in that winter/hiver 2019 128 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research course, for the very first time, i finally believed my work was valuable and i began to consider myself an educated professional. i finally understood it was purely due to sociopolitical factors that i was underpaid and undervalued. during the time i was taking the course, the ontario government proposed changes to the regulations around age ranges, ratios, and group sizes. the government was not interested in improving child-caregiver interactions but instead was trying to make child care more accessible and affordable without a financial commitment. through what i had learned about social policy and governments, i was able to recognize that the proposed child care regulations were in lieu of financial investments and were going to require early childhood educators to care for more children without greater remuneration. the proposed regulations would have provided more spaces but would have further marginalized early childhood educators. i joined the rscaa to write an open letter to the provincial government opposing the regulation changes, and i have been an active member of the child care movement since. by the end of the course, i had begun to identify as a feminist and was resentful that our profession was being mistreated because we were a female-dominated workforce engaging in stereotypically “natural” work. undergraduate student (alana). after completing a bachelor’s degree in political science and deciding to pursue a diploma in ece, i felt a surprising amount of push-back from my peers, some family members, and many colleagues who were openly confused by, and apprehensive of, my decision to study ece. it was through comments like, “you have a degree, why don’t you just apply to teacher’s college?” or “you don’t need to go to school for that” that i began to internalize the devaluation of care. it was explicit in their comments that being an ece was not as prestigious as being a teacher, and that an ece does not require specialized knowledges, values, and ethical practices, but is natural and innate. at the time, i did not have an understanding of the sociopolitical context to properly advocate for myself and my decision, and i would often just try to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. largely due to the dedication and mentorship of a faculty member, i was provided opportunities to explore the macro political level and understand its implications for children, families, and eces. as i engaged with the course materials and in conversations, not only did the injustice of these systems become more apparent, but i was shocked by the long history of efforts by dedicated advocates to change this reality and the marginal progress there has been. when i understood that low wages were not a result of the profession being less socially valuable, but less socially valued, i began to explore my role in creating real change. upon my faculty’s recommendation, i took a placement opportunity at a provincial advocacy association, where i developed my advocacy capacity and commitment to push back against the devaluation of care. these experiences solidified my commitment to the ecec field. without understanding the devaluation of care and the sociopolitical context, i likely would have finished my diploma, but instead of seeking a position as an rece, i would have looked toward another career. it became almost a sense of responsibility that compelled my advocacy. when i entered the workforce as an rece, i was hopeful that my life would change. despite an understanding of the low wages in the field, i believed that with a salaried full-time job i would finally be able to leave my part-time job as a bartender. ultimately, i really wanted to start a family of my own. however, it quickly became apparent that my salary as an rece would not be able to support a child—we could barely manage our current bills. i kept my part-time job as a bartender, working evenings and weekends with only the rare day off. i was essentially sacrificing my own goals so i could continue working as an rece. my partner and i hoped that my working two jobs would be temporary, and that a higher-paying job, or new wage increases, would allow us to live a comfortable life without working a 60-hour work week. however, that never happened. after a year and a half of working two jobs around the clock, i realized this lifestyle was not sustainable. while shopping for a gift for my stepdaughter, i walked down the infant clothing aisle and found myself in tears. i recognized the toll my professional commitment to ecec was having on my life. i knew my profession was valuable and socially important, both from my academic knowledge and experiences, but i could no longer live with the poverty-level wages i was earning. it was incredibly winter/hiver 2019 129 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research frustrating that i could earn a better living as a bartender than as an early childhood educator. while this experience compelled me to continue to advocate for child care, it also made me reevaluate my own career goals and pursue higher education to work on the macro level to effect policy change. i am currently beginning my journey as a master’s student in the ecs program at ryerson, where my ultimate goal is to be able to create real change in the field of ecec. unfortunately i have realized that, at least in the foreseeable future, i will not be able to earn a decent, sustainable living working as an rece directly caring for children. while i will stay in the field in some capacity, it will most likely be within a postsecondary education institution or at the policy level. contract lecturer (brooke). as a first-year ecs student, i had never actually considered that politics was something that had anything to do with caring for and educating young children. when a professor of my first ece class asked us to raise our hand if we thought understanding politics was important for eces, my hand, like those of my peers, remained on my desk. i had the idea in my head that children should be kept separate from the harsh world of politics. while this professor initially challenged my thinking when she insisted all hands should be up, it wasn’t until a class two years later where i truly came to appreciate how politics and policy were/are the foundation of children’s care experiences—particularly in the canadian sociopolitical context that continues to deny children many of their ratified rights, including the right to quality child care services as specified in article 18 of the un convention on the rights of children. i also began to see how neoliberal norms relegating care to the private sphere, combined with traditional social conservative norms situating care/education as “natural” for women, undermined the value of the work of early childhood educators. the sense of injustice, both for children and women, had a profound effect on my personal and professional goals and trajectory. while i remain an ece at heart, i first pursued an ma in early childhood studies, where my major research project examined the representation of child care policy in the 2006 federal election in canada. my parents, who had been hesitant about my choice to enroll in an ece program, were notably relieved when my master’s work was successful and my focus was now policy. i was encouraged by both my family and my mentors to pursue doctoral research in policy studies, which i very recently completed. while i had been somewhat aware of people’s wariness of my career path in early childhood studies prior to enrolling in the doctoral program, i was surprised at the overwhelmingly positive response i received when sharing with people that my latest degree was in policy. i felt that people were beginning to respect my knowledge and expertise and dedicated advocacy efforts as something valuable, where engaging in social justice related activities was more than a “passing phase” but a central component of who i am. today, i find myself struggling to find a place within academic institutions as my social justice orientated policy lens in the early years is not the focus of many ece programs. because i do not come from a “developmentalist” angle and am instead interested in advocating and building social infrastructure that empowers women and children simultaneously, my work does not translate well into prescriptive ece teacher programs geared toward narrowly defined “developmentally appropriate practice.” i am much more interested in engaging both children and adults in critiquing social structures and processes through an equity lens. this is something i unquestionably think that young children are capable of and provincial curriculum frameworks (e.g., ontario’s renewed framework discussed above, new brunswick’s curriculum framework for early learning and child care, and alberta’s play, participation, and possibilities) are beginning to reflect. again however, the sector will not ever be able to actualize the vision expressed in these recent reconceptualist, social justice oriented curriculum documents if policies supporting their implementation do not change. the existing child care policy infrastructure is inadequate (e.g., in terms of adequate number of staff, high levels of education for staff, widespread access for children) and many educators across the country simply do not have winter/hiver 2019 130 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the adequate education levels—let alone time or opportunity—to provide children with these rich early care and learning experiences. i believe child care professionals have a key role to play in changing this. as long as child care centres operate within a market-driven fee-for-service system where parent fees (revenues) and staff wages (expenditures) are fundamentally at odds with each other (wages are a critical factor in recruiting and retaining well-qualified staff ), there is simply not the opportunity to provide children with consistent, responsive, and stimulating experiences. it is my position that some responsibility for inspiring and motivating ece students to take on these systemic challenges falls to educational institutions. without a concerted effort, it is unlikely that things will progressively change. in this way i find it incredibly difficult to focus on the micro level of “preparing” ece students to work in the sector without addressing and deconstructing the fundamental macro-level problems with the sector. possibilities moving forward as the current leaders of the rscaa, we recognize that our time as students is limited. for this reason, students must have the opportunity to engage politically from the outset of their academic experiences. in hopes of creating a sustained child care advocacy movement at ryerson, the rscaa has been purposeful in reaching incoming students and encouraging leadership opportunities within the group. however, we believe a sustained student movement requires not only the interest of ece students in creating change, but an academic culture that supports and encourages student advocacy from day 1 of study. in no way do we as individuals or leaders within the rscaa claim to have the problem of engaging ece students in the child care advocacy movement figured out. we struggle constantly to keep our efforts going, recruit members, and mobilize alongside already overburdened community organizations. we have been supported through ece curricular requirements at various institutions that require students to attend child care advocacy events, engage in community mobilization, or participate in professional development opportunities. indeed, the success of our events has unquestionably been influenced by students feeling pressure to meet curricular requirements. however, meeting these requirements does not necessarily become meaningful to students if they have not had the opportunity to situate their work/study in the broader sociopolitical environment. it has been our experience that it is the ongoing and sustained critical engagement with sociopolitical issues that contributed to the development of a professional identity that reinforced our commitment to advocacy. while workshops and community events offer opportunities to explore these issues, critically examining dominant narratives and societal structures is beyond the scope of “one-off ” student engagements. certainly, greater effort is needed. it might also be helpful if faculty members (of all statuses) were encouraged to take leadership roles in student initiatives and outreach to community organizations. while this certainly occurs, it is typically individually motivated rather than something that is institutionally valued or supported. at the same time, we feel it is vital that educational institutions have well-developed processes allowing students to form groups and access resources. while we were successful in accessing some funding in our second year (mainly through applying and receiving an award), we faced significant delays in our requests for funds and other resources through other institutional means (mainly student union funds). since we, and incoming students, cannot apply for the same award in subsequent years, the group’s ability to have a strong presence on campus, bring people together, and mobilize has been undermined. as we continued our education engaging with complex pedagogical and theoretical ideas and challenging the basic notions of caring for and educating young children, we regrettably all experienced a lack of respect for our professional knowledge from our own peers, colleagues, and even professors. in many cases we were encouraged to winter/hiver 2019 131 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research leave the child care sector for a “better” profession—as if we were too “good” to be early childhood educators. in one case, a mentor and educator we deeply respected at the time said: “women like us should not let women like them (referring to eces) look after our children.” she believed that women with graduate degrees should stay home and raise their own children, completely undermining the value of the very profession she was teaching. comments like these are incredibly upsetting and disheartening for incumbent professionals and perpetuate narratives that continue to devalue care work. the authors have found that interactions with friends, family, professors, and community mentors who recognize the value of our professional knowledge have been invaluable in fostering our involvement in the advocacy movement. it has been essential to the construction of our professional identities to have professors respect the distinct professional knowledge held by academics and practicing eces and to not speak on behalf of the practicing profession when they themselves do not identify as eces. the authors’ experiences in policy courses that critically examined the current sociopolitical context and encouraged our engagement in advocacy informs our position that the inclusion of these courses is integral to building the capacity of ece students to participate in the child care advocacy movement. we also suggest that material and learning from policy and/or advocacy classes be better integrated with other course materials. for example, while students learn about the importance of responsive interactions with infants, they are not given the opportunity to understand why infant rooms are typically overcrowded and understaffed in canadian child care centres. it is our experience that understanding the broader context that creates these adverse circumstances allows early childhood educators to stop internalizing the challenges they face as professionals and identify real opportunities for change. understanding policy goes beyond one course—it is a central component of every topic ece students learn. to engage ece students in the child care advocacy movement, social justice and policy must be a central component of learning in all areas. conclusion after exploring our own experiences, we feel it is necessary for all ece students to have the opportunity to explore and embed their work within the broader sociopolitical context of child care in canada. although many institutions offer advocacy courses, we argue that they do not inspire sustainable student activism because they do not explicitly explain the social constructions that devalue our work and create poor wages and working conditions. once we understood that policies (or lack thereof ) rooted in neoliberal and socially conservative values were the cause of devaluation of care, we could stop internalizing the injustice as a personal failure and see it as a systemic issue. this not only allowed us to identify actions that would influence change but also encouraged the construction of an enduring professional identity. the ability to stop internalizing the devaluation of care allowed us to recognize ourselves as professionals worthy of professional wages and working conditions. our newfound professional identities unified us proudly as early childhood educators and sustained our participation within the child care advocacy movement. if all ece students have the opportunity and constructive support to incorporate the political into their professional identity, the broader child care advocacy movement—which faces persistent challenges and an overall lack of resources—will be strengthened. even if ece students move into other fields of practice (typically primary teaching in the public school system) they will remain committed and passionate allies of the canadian child care 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(2013). decisions to make a difference: the role of efficacy in moderate student activism. social movement studies, 12(4), 414–428. doi:10.1080/14742837.2013.827569 november 2020 68 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice culturally responsive indigeneity of relations spark conference 2019 sharing circle: embracing the needs of first nation children through the voices of first nation early childhood educators lori huston, elder brenda mason, and roxanne loon lori huston, rece, is completing a med ece at the university of british columbia. lori’s background includes coordination and a part-time faculty member in the indigenous ece postsecondary education diploma program with oshki-wenjack, an indigenous postsecondary institute serving 49 first nation communities and indigenous learners from across ontario. email: le.huston@ outlook.com elder brenda mason is from sandy lake first nation and lives in thunder bay, ontario. brenda, who speaks oji-cree fluently, is the campus elder at oshki-wenjack, teaching the cultural and spiritual knowledge and traditions of the anishinabe people. email: bearraven@live.com roxanne loon, rece, is an indigenous ece alumna with oshki-wenjack and a child care supervisor at migizi wazason child care centre, grassy narrows first nation. email: roxanneloon@hotmail.com this paper reflects the binary of indigenous education and western education. the western way of knowing is through theories, while the indigenous way is through stories. the wildfire circle is a traditional sharing circle led by an elder with traditional protocols in place. the wildfire circle was the indigenous research method used in the indigenous early childhood education (iece) leadership program and the method used to implement knowledge transfer at the 2019 spark conference. culturally responsive indigeneity of relations dr. john hodson (2013) the lead researcher of the anishininiiwi awaashishiiw kihkinohamaakewi niikaanihtamaakew indigenous early childhood education leadership program (iecelp), defines “culturally responsive” as it relates to indigeneity of relations, that is, “from our experiences and perspectives as building relationships with oneself and others” as “not a linear process but rather interwoven with resistance to what is connected to expanding and deepening all the relationships through a lifelong pursuit of healing and wellness” (p. 350). our paper, as a written narrative, is organized and unfolds as a process. in truth, it was much more a natural and transformational experience. the presentation at spark was not planned in a sense of powerpoint or speaking notes. we, as presenters, were open to letting our stories this paper draws on the traditional sharing circle at the spark conference held at the university of british columbia in 2019. the sharing circle was led by an elder and two early childhood educators sharing knowledge from their perspectives and experiences of the anishininiiwi awaashishiiw kihkinohamaakewi niikaanihtamaakew indigenous early childhood education leadership program (iecelp). the sharing circle at spark was delivered in the indigenous research method of a wildfire circle consistent with the summative research conducted across four first nation child care centres to measure the impact of the iecelp. we propose alternative ways of transferring knowledge in indigenous culturally responsive ways to be welcomed and encouraged in academia and in early childhood education. key words: indigenous early childhood educator (iece); culturally responsive; wildfire circle; leadership november 2020 69 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice unfold in the wildfire circle and were open to the participants sharing and unfolding their stories in a natural way, which led to a transformational experience of reconciliation. the indigenous wildfire circle at spark was an interwoven connection through a web of experiences and stories shared. our experiences embody hodson’s definition as interwoven, resistant, connected, deep, and in pursuit of healing and wellness. we recognize that culturally responsive indigenous relationships in western education settings are becoming part of the discussions. we were honoured to share the story of indigenous education innovation from an indigenous postsecondary institute perspective as we believe the time is now to be bridging knowledges and have indigenous voices heard. in this paper, by highlighting the transfer of knowledge at the spark conference, we identify how indigenous education is embedded in relationships and is core to understanding how learning occurs in an indigenous context. the knowledge was shared at the conference through a traditional indigenous research method, the wildfire circle, led by elder brenda mason. we demonstrated how culturally responsive indigeneity of relations is embedded in ways of knowing and practices of indigenous education and research. the purpose of this paper is to highlight the wildfire circle conducted at the spark conference by describing the culturally responsive and relational knowledge transfer process and by giving details of our experience and perspectives within our individual roles as presenters. we provide a brief overview of the iecelp and describe how we made connections to our commitment to truth and reconciliation in canada1 through the wildfire circle at spark. then we outline the culturally responsive research method of relations and share our individual experiences. in addition, we include a discussion of some of the findings of the iecelp. we conclude with recommendations for alternative ways of transferring knowledge in an indigenous culturally responsive way that may be welcomed in academia, as well as bridging indigenous research methods and knowledge in ece. as we begin a discussion that explores indigenous culturally responsive research and knowledge transfer, it is necessary to be responsive to the cultural norms of indigenous traditions. when elder brenda opened the wildfire circle at spark, she shared the protocol call of sharing in a circle and provided an understanding of the value of an eagle feather in the indigenous culture. an eagle feather is held and passed to everyone within a wildfire circle. once you receive the eagle feather, you start by introducing yourself and then share from your experiences. the eagle feather symbolizes wisdom and the eagle can fly high close to the creator, delivering our prayers and questions. we begin this article with a sacred eagle feather, which is known to hold the space of everyone’s personal sharing and to connect everyone to the creator that will provide guidance to the knowing within each of us. often our answers may come to us while sharing within others’ stories. introductions boozhoo2, my name is brenda mason, and my anishinabe3 name is imprint hanging standing woman; i’m oji/ cree4 and i speak my language. i belong to a fish clan, red sucker, and i was raised in sandy lake first nation, a remote community located in northwestern ontario. my aunty mom and uncle dad raised me, along with other children. i have a son who has blessed me with grandchildren. so, yes, i am a grandmother and loving it. today, i reside in thunder bay, and it is my home for 38 years. i graduated from confederation college in 1990 with a social services worker diploma. i am registered with the college of social workers and social services workers. today, i work within st. joseph’s care group, mental health outpatient program. i have provided cultural and spiritual services, including traditional therapy and traditional healing, for 28 years. i walked with the elders for several years before they sent me out to do my traditional indigenous work in our community. it’s the community members that started coming to me and referring to me as an elder. i have also provided elder support with the students and staff at oshki-wenjack education institute for about 11 years. i also teach one of the classes in the aboriginal wellness and addictions prevention program every year. november 2020 70 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice hello, boozhoo, my name is lori huston, registered early childhood educator (rece) and i am the former iece program coordinator with oshki-wenjack education and training institute, as well as the associate researcher in the iecelp. i am the daughter of a first-generation english canadian mother born to a second world war bride. on my father’s side, we trace back five generations of canadians with scottish, irish, and indigenous heritage. i am 41 years old in the second half of my life. i have two young sons, both of whom i parent solely on my own. i currently live in thunder bay, ontario, and was raised in red lake, a small northwestern ontario town. red lake was the site of a hudson’s bay company fur-trading post in the late 1800s, and its modern way of life originates from gold mining. it has a significant indigenous population and is a hub to surrounding remote, fly-in first nations. boozhoo, my name is roxanne loon and i am an rece. i am from grassy narrows first nation located in northwestern ontario, grand council treaty #3. grassy narrows is 80 kilometres north of kenora, along the english-wabigoon river system, near the manitoba border. i’ve been an educator for 10 years. i am currently the supervisor at migizi wazason child care centre in grassy narrows. i completed my ece diploma at oshkiwenjack and the iece leadership program. i am married and a mother to our four children. my parents both speak ojibway. my mother is a residential school survivor. she worked for many years in child care and completed the ece diploma program along with me at oshki-wenjack. my father did not go to residential school. he was hidden on his parents’ trapline. in the spirit of truth and reconciliation: wildfire circle at spark we (elder brenda, lori, and roxanne) arrived at spark together knowing we would be sharing from the heart in the truth of our experiences, allowing for participants at the conference to learn and experience the indigenous research method of the wildfire circle and possibly inspiring the participants’ own innovations in the early years. leading up to the presentation, we visited the truth and reconciliation totem pole on the campus of the university of british columbia (figure 1). we were all aware that the wildfire circle we would be conducting would be intertwined with stories of colonization and injustice. it was important to share the lived experiences of indigenous educators connected to their communities. michele sam (2019) explains, “indigenous peoples’ local experiences of colonialism are unique to place and time and continue to influence our actions and inactions, attitudes and beliefs even in our current time of relative freedom” (p. 2). we felt emotional and deeply connected to the residential school children represented on the totem pole. we all have extremely personal experiences with indigenous adults and children who have been impacted by abuse, neglect, and intergenerational trauma as a result of the experiences in residential schools. november 2020 71 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 1. haida master carver and hereditary chief james hart and his apprentices carved a totem pole as a tribute to residential school survivors. the pole was raised on the vancouver ubc campus, situated on the territory best regarded as shared by the musqueam, squamish, and tsleil-waututh peoples. photo credit: lori huston, 2019. according to the truth and reconciliation commission of canada (2015), “in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, professional learning should involve relationship building, valuing perspectives of local indigenous community members in creating understandings of canadian history, of appropriate teaching practices and roles of schools, teachers, and educators in indigenous communities” (p. 239). as we anticipated sharing in the wildfire circle, we were mindful that the participants we would be sharing with represented all four colours of the medicine wheel. the medicine wheel5 has been used for healing for many years by indigenous people (bell, 2014). a teaching of the medicine wheel is that colours represent the global ethnicities. we felt honoured to have a full representation of the medicine wheel in the wildfire circle, knowing we would be crossing all nations with our stories. the wildfire circle at spark opened with elder brenda and then lori shared the culturally responsive and relational innovation process of the iecelp and the research related to it. roxanne shared as an alumna of the oshki-wenjack ece diploma program and iecelp. the eagle father was then passed to each participant for them to introduce themselves and provide feedback on their experience of participating in the wildfire circle. the indigenous educators’ leadership journey for almost a decade oshki-wenjack has offered an early childhood education program that has accredited 89 indigenous early childhood educators (ieces), many of whom are currently employed in a first nation context. the program responds to research conducted in 2004 which found that “93 percent of ... nishnawbe aski nation (nan) ... children of ontario’s far north lag[ged] at least two grades behind in school” (brown, 2004). this education gap literally sets up indigenous children for failure as they proceed in their education, and it is a major contributing factor for the 60 to 80 percent dropout rate prior to completing grade 12 (calver, 2015; hodson & kitchen, 2015). recognizing that addressing that gap would require innovative approaches to professional development (pd), the iece leadership program (iecelp) was based on a needs assessment of the 2017 graduating iece class and program alumni. that needs assessment resulted in a comprehensive pd strategy that included two institutes, as well as a related formative and summative research study to measure change (huston, 2018, p. 50). the development of the iecelp was focused on the leadership qualities of the ieces and long-standing november 2020 72 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice relationships with lori, the former ece program coordinator at oshki-wenjack and a fellow ece alumna. in addition, the program forged a strong partnership between the shkoday abinojiiwak obimiwedoon thunder bay aboriginal headstart program and maamaawisiiwin education research centre, as well as receiving financial support from indigenous and northern affairs canada. the findings of the needs assessment highlighted that iece students wanted culturally relevant teachings; this would include teaching in their languages, special needs training, culturally responsive assessment tools, and culturally specific teachings such as the medicine wheel as a planning tool (huston, 2018, p. 48). the vision while developing the iecelp was in the spirit that all of the teachings received by the participants would travel back to the communities to effect change. the role of the ieces in their communities is significant and unique to each community (huston, 2018, p. 53). the iecelp included a three-month online preparatory course, two one-week institutes, and a related summative research study. research in partnership with maamaawisiiwin education research centre the qualitative study was shaped by the format of talking circles used by kompf and hodson (2000); they named their sessions wildfire i and wildfire ii in their research conducted within the development of a bachelor of education in aboriginal adult education program at brock university. their culturally responsive relational research design allowed for authentic and meaningful inquiry with the intent of improving practices that are relevant for participants. the wildfire circles created a common and often sacred research environment that was respectful of the traditions and cultural beliefs of the indigenous participants (huston, 2018, p. 49). participation was completely voluntary, and participants could decline to answer questions and choose to withdraw at any time. in the second year, the research included a summative analysis to assess the impact of the iecelp at the community level. the inclusion of indigenous knowledge and practices and the presence of oshki-wenjack’s campus elder brenda mason for the wildfire circle recognized the respectful relationships (huston, 2018, p. 48). embracing the needs of indigenous children through the voices of indigenous early childhood educators the iece alumni took on the role of researcher during the program; they were learning research skills as well as learning about cultural protocols and about their peoples’ indigenous knowledges, which led to building theories and enhancing their program capacities. the lead researcher on the project, dr. hodson (2013), believes that “indigenous research must purposely abandon the myth of objectivity that dominates western forms of research” (p. 357); he “encourages indigenous people to embrace their subjectivity in research” (p. 357). the ieces are mothers, grandmothers, and community educators. they are passionate about making a positive change for children and families. they are trained professionals connected to the identity of their people and children by which they share and live indigenous pedagogy in the community and programs. as well, they are trained in child development and know that nurturing positive social interactions and supporting healthy attachments are essential to promoting self-esteem, positive cultural identity, and language development during infancy and early childhood. in indigenous contexts, child development is centered around living experiences that are secured in family attachments within a comprehensive community base of supports (ball & pence, 2006). teaching indigenous students starts with relationships. elder brenda describes euro-western education as follows: “it teaches us to lead with our minds intellectually but often leaves out the holistic approaches to learning.” she then compares this to an indigenous approach in which “wisdom is already in you. it’s your heart that enhances our understandings, confirming what we know, and the work we do reflects our truth as we walk with our values.” november 2020 73 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice this relates to human potential and the awakening that can occur in our growth and development. it emphasizes the value of informal education when driven by authentic and spiritual values that intersect with more formally acquired knowledge. their lived experiences, knowledge, and commitment further inspire the ieces in the iecelp to take on leadership roles and create opportunities for transformational changes to early learning programs connected to indigenous education. the ieces’ lived experiences include the loss of culture and language. they are the children of residential school survivors or are survivors themselves, and have also been affected by the “sixties scoop,” another negative product of colonization that affects indigenous peoples. in the 1960s, in addition to residential schools, it was a time when “child welfare authorities removed aboriginal children from their homes in record numbers” (long & dickason, 2011, p. 61). understanding and engaging in hearing the lived experiences of ieces allows for culturally responsive relationships to be fostered and grow in truth and reconciliation. the indigenous population is also in distress from ongoing and inescapable influences of government policies and variations in access to supports and services. centuries of attempted cultural genocide and ongoing colonization mean that 37.9% of first nations children live in poverty (campaign 2000, 2018, p. 2). many of the ieces themselves are the sole income earners in their household and struggle with the lower wages in the child care sector. knowledge mobilization a culturally responsive research method of relations the value of respecting ieces’ stories and experiences was critical to mobilizing the knowledge revealed through this study. we recognize that research has not addressed indigenous peoples in meaningful and sustainable ways. the iecelp values from the beginning were grounded in indigenous peoples’ knowledge systems, guided by elder brenda and dr. hodson. respect at all levels informed transparent and open relationships throughout the iecelp. hodson (2013) explains that in indigenous culturally responsive research methods, “there is no space between the researched and the researcher. it is the relationships that creates a more in-depth conversation to allow for a complete understanding” (p. 355). this is further supported in the tri-council policy statement, ethical conduct for research involving humans (canadian institutes of health research, natural sciences and engineering council of canada, and social sciences and humanities research council of canada, 2014) position on indigenous research. the four primary principles are “respect for human dignity—respect for persons, concern for welfare, and justice” (p. 113). the research relationships within the iecelp could not have expanded without a foundation that already existed through oshki-wenjack’s decade of service to early childhood education in the territory, operationalized by then program coordinator, lori huston, a research associate in this study, and elderin-residence brenda mason (hodson, hedican, huston, mason, et al., 2020, p. 54). multiple expressions of respect respect was woven throughout the two years of the study, which emphasized the experiences of the ieces. the inclusion of indigenous spiritual practices, orchestrated through the consistent presence of elder brenda in each wildfire circle, was primary, and the insight gained through those discourses determined what was included in the pd (hodson et al., 2020, p. 14). the first wildfire circle took place in 2017 as a means of assessing the needs of ieces, and this created the supporting framework for the entire project. in reality, oshki-wenjack took the position that the ieces could not only delineate the problems they faced day to day in their educational practice, but they also had the solutions to resolve those issues. oshki-wenjack then became the facilitators of the pd, bringing together experts that aligned with the expressed needs, caring november 2020 74 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice for a myriad of logistical issues, and responding to the ongoing realities of a dynamic educational environment (hodson et al., 2020, p. 22). a closing wildfire circle was held at the end of institutes 1 and 2 to understand the participating ieces’ experiences and to direct the program’s development. the wildfire circles continued into the four communities in an effort to reveal the local impact of the project. in a final act of full inclusion in those chosen communities, the wildfire circles were open to all ieces, staff, parents, and community elders (hodson et al., 2020, p. 22). an indigenous conception of knowledge mobilization at the spark conference the wildfire circle at the spark conference provided a comprehensive review of a culturally responsive and relational innovation framework that was used throughout the iecelp: the vision medicine wheel teaching (see figure 2). this particular teaching contends that for every vision to become a reality requires certain relationships and specific knowledge which dictate a related series of actions. we shared an image of the vision medicine wheel teaching with the participants at the spark conference as a visual. figure 2. the vision medicine wheel teaching. we also shared: • the current vision of the education reality in first nation communities in northern ontario. lori spoke to the current landscape of early learning in the northern communities. • a presentation of the re-visioning process. lori spoke to this piece and shared how iecelp came to be, as well as iece narratives and needs assessment findings. • a presentation of the relationships necessary to bring that re-vision into reality. elder brenda shared the roles of the iecelp committee members and the iece alumni students coming together to expand, grow, and learn in collaboration. what actions need to take place to make the re-vision a reality? re-vision: what needs to change? what relationships need to be established? what knowledge needs to be gathered? november 2020 75 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice • a presentation of the knowledge necessary to bring the re-vision into reality. we shared with the spark participants the themes that emerged and the teachings that were implemented during the iecelp. • a presentation of the actions necessary to bring the re-vision into reality. roxanne shared her experience of how she has completed a successful proposal and taken the action to bring about change. lori highlighted that the ieces are very much still in the vision, relationships, and knowledge phases and are just tapping into action with the completion of some successful proposals. the ieces in the first nation communities will need continued support in their leadership journey to facilitate change. after sharing the framework we then moved into passing the eagle feather to invite participants to share their own visions and innovation. an experiential wildfire circle that resulted in participants’ own early years innovation with regards to truth and reconciliation in canada, the wildfire circle at spark was about the voices we heard and how those voices have impacted us, and encouraging others to address the educational gap in their own way and self-determine a better future. we have touched on the current reality of education in first nation communities. the re-visioning process was the development of the iecelp and the relationships necessary were held within oshki-wenjack and community partners. the knowledge necessary to bring the vision forward was the ieces’ ways of knowing and doing within their indigenous culture. ieces hold an understanding of child development that starts with relationships first and then considers the interrelationships among a child’s physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual realms. the holistic approach to child development considers the context of the child’s family experiences and community relationships. in first nation communities the early childhood (birth to 12 years old) programs and services have different policies and funding approaches that are managed by both provincial and federal governments. in recent years there has been more focus on the importance of the early years in first nation communities. for example, the emphasis on integrated services from the provincial government’s journey together program is to expand child and family programs on reserve and, through indigenous and federal partners, to make supports available in more communities (ontario ministry of indigenous affairs, 2016). and, in response to jordan’s principle, new federal funding will ensure that all first nations children can access products (e.g., wheelchair ramps, school supplies), services, and supports they need when they need them. the program can help with a wide range of health, social, and educational needs (government of canada, 2019). many of the ieces from the iecelp have completed successful proposals for journey together and are in the process of writing proposals for jordan’s principle funding. the leadership skill set that the ieces have demonstrated often goes unrecognized in their communities. the role of iece is often viewed in their communities as “babysitters,” and the leadership role is overlooked. the data drawn from the iecelp identifies many strengths of the participants where they are engaging in professional learning, sharing responsibilities, writing proposals, and advocating for the children and families in their communities. this evidence opens up future opportunities for professional learning about leadership with indigenous early childhood educators. ece innovation, visioning, relations, knowledge, and action planning through the narratives of the participants’ experiences during institutes 1 and 2, it has been determined that indigenous children and indigenous educators need a different approach to learning and teaching. from the first wildfire circle to the last held during the summative research, it has been demonstrated how such an approach november 2020 76 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice can be developed and implemented with a deep commitment to indigenous ways of learning and knowing. each wildfire circle ran for approximately sixty minutes and was digitally recorded. the recordings were then transcribed and underwent analysis, including coding and categorizing into key idea units. the themes reflect the collective experience of the participants in each wildfire circle (hodson et al., 2020, p. 22). the wildfire circle allows the participants to start with a vision provided by guided open-ended questions, which at the same time further supports and builds the relationships. the next two stages are knowledge and action, which take place after a firm foundation of vision and relationships (kompf & hodson, 2000). the known facts are that “ontario children living in first nations communities are living in poverty with many inequalities, and the work of the iece educators can have life-changing impacts on the young” (huston, 2018, p. 53). first nations communities lack services needed, especially for young people, who account for about onethird of first nations people; according to statistics canada (2017), 29.2% of first nations people in canada were 14 years of age or younger in 2016. a senate committee discussing the federal legislation known as bill c-61 heard from kelly crawford, director of anishinabek education system, who said, “we have an opportunity to use education as a tool to rebuild and strengthen our nation, our language, our culture, and our traditions” (francis, 2017). iecelp participants shared their vision to build relationships with community members and band leadership, as well as with the governments of canada, both provincially and federally. transformational change is not easily achieved. taking issue with the concept of silenced discourses, peter moss (2017) holds the view that “alternative discourses in early childhood are varied, vibrant and vocal, readily heard by those who listen” (p. 12). an area of noticeable change with the ieces was their ability to share their stories for change in both institutes 1 and 2. with a total of four days training with “build skills for change,” the participants became very clear from a place that holds core beliefs and values. other research supports this noticeable change in the use of story to guide indigenous people; for example, scholars from new zealand and china describe “heart pedagogy” as a double-edged form of education that claims to be inherently embedded in indigenous practice (gong & kahu, 2017). from the beginning of the iecelp program until the last wildfire circle held at spark 2019, iece stories informed the innovation, visioning, relations, knowledge, and action planning. areta kahu (personal communication, january 19, 2020) beautifully explained that “stories are filled with philosophies, makes us think about what is right and what is wrong. indigenous stories really get to the heart of issues.” the heart pedagogy, defined as connected to our highest self—spiritual being—informs the mind, the way one communicates within a spiritual realm to do our work and is the way the heart works (gong & kahu, 2017). in institute 2 the students connected to heart pedagogy as elder brenda also supports this theory of learning that was inspired by the students while connecting to their own identities as indigenous people with the traditional spiritual practices. as gong and kahu (2017) further explain, in the implementation of heart pedagogy shifts were made in the service mode; they give the example of “information vs. transformation” with “every opportunity to forge relationships” (p. 5). this speaks to the transfer of knowledge and relationships formed over the entirety of the iecelp. the voices we heard at the spark conference and how those voices have impacted us elder brenda shares her experience: attending the spark: the early years conference in vancouver, bc, was very inspirational and educational. the people at the university of british columbia were friendly and accommodating. the location was beautiful. maybe one day, i will have a chance to go back and explore further. by sharing our work and knowledge we provided the participants an opportunity to gain some knowledge about who we are and where we come from. using one of our traditional formats was intentional; wildfire circle november 2020 77 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice creates an environment where everyone is included and equal. the protocol and teachings shared were to be passed so people know and experience. as i observed and listened to the participants’ feedback and questions in the sharing circle, i felt touched and felt moved to share a song, the anishinabe kwe song. it’s a healing song for women and songs about women receiving a gift of a clan and inviting others to come and dance to celebrate. it seemed to me the people there were wanting to know more about us as indigenous people, our culture and traditional teachings, our way of life. i believe we gained some allies. lori shares her experience: i witnessed indigenous inequalities and the settlers’ contributions to the position indigenous people now occupy all of my life. my deep interest in the population living in risk situations has aligned me with my biggest passion: working to effect change for the first nation children. i have walked with the indigenous early childhood educators for over a decade, observing the reality of inequities and their barriers with limited access to resources and supports. the iece leadership program was many years in the making with the educators. my experience of co-writing the proposal, teaching, and as a research associate allowed me to walk side by side with the educators in a co-learning relationship. the ieces have inspired me to work harder at bridging cultures and [bringing] their voices forward. the spark conference provided the opportunity for ieces’ voices to be heard. callaghan, hale, taylorleonhardi, and lavallee (2018) state that “we must start learning to listen respectfully and without judgments ... not only with our ears but our hearts” and “act in ways to contribute to reconciliation” (p. 18). the wildfire circle provides a safe place to listen without judgment. the story of the iecelp is deeply connected to elder brenda and the ieces and having them both with me was indeed a heart-opening experience. i listened to the participants and respected how so many stopped and gave thanks to elder brenda for the opportunity to hold the eagle feather. that was beautiful as the eagle feather connects everyone to the spirits that provide guidance for the knowledge within each of us. the participants shared how they are going to move forward in reconciliation with indigenous peoples in canada and how they want to engage and support indigenous people. when the spark conference ended, elder brenda and i reflected. i was feeling very overwhelmed and tearful with the support and feedback received from the participants in the wildfire circle. we talked about how my program advisor; dr. mari pighini, mentioned that i consider a phd program. elder brenda looked at me and said, “you know all the elders i walked with and received teachings from—all had more than phd.” she is so right. the knowledge that elder brenda herself carries and shares with us all is transformational. i have witnessed it and experienced it first-hand. we have to engage with elders and embrace with care and respect their knowledge offerings. roxanne shared her experience: i decided to speak at the conference to educate about the importance of early learning through the eyes of indigenous eces. [i wanted to] share the work and experience and impacts of the iecelp on my community and me. i also wanted to inform people how my community was poisoned with mercury through the waters, our river system. the community members and educators see how the poisoning is still affecting the younger generation to this day. i am a strong advocate for the health and well-being of the children in my community. i had a vision before the format of our presentation was even told to me [and i was] not aware that we would be presenting through a sharing circle. i had a dream. i dreamt of us (lori, brenda, and i) presenting in a sharing circle. so, the next morning, i emailed lori and i told her right away. once i found out that we would be presenting in this style, i felt a sense of relief because i was foretold this in my dream. the importance of dreams and visions was described by virgil bullshoe: “dreams are november 2020 78 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice telling you something.” he considers dreams a part of the learning process related to participation in ceremonies as it provides a way of remembering (as cited in little bear, 2009, p. 12). i appreciated the spark committee and everyone involved that they acknowledged indigenous culture and traditions. our experiences were rich in knowing we were welcomed and we have deep responsibility within all of us to have our time and place in early learning. bridging cultures and knowledge in ece we propose that alternative ways of transferring knowledge in indigenous culturally responsive ways be welcomed and encouraged in academia and the early childhood field. indigenous elders are catalysts for institutional change; there is a rippling impact of elders’ teachings across all races, geographical areas, and generations of students. elder brenda shares, i have desired to find a way to reconnect our children back to who we are and reconnect to our traditions and land. as adults, we needed to heal first from our history, and many have. we are finding our voices, which will benefit our children. the voices need to be indigenous in all areas of life, such as in education. we need indigenous teachers to share our traditions through storytelling and other traditional methods that will provide knowledge and assist the students to reconnect to who we are as indigenous people. we need our own people to provide education that will inspire healing and regaining our culture. we asked dr. hodson to provide a recommendation regarding alternative ways of transferring knowledge that are culturally responsive to indigenous people in academia. his response to our question: when i consider the issue of indigenous research and education in the academy i think back over the proceeding decades in this country and consider what has been achieved. let me limit that reflection just to the ontario reality and then i ask why? why don’t we have a critical mass of indigenous professorate in this province in higher education? why don’t we see indigenous research methods, funded, taught or the outcome of indigenous research propelling indigenous communities past the legacy of colonialism? why don’t we see more indigenous people graduating with advanced degrees? after thirty years of work in this area i have come to the conclusion that it is the institution of education that is the metaphoric logjam that stops the river of change from flowing in this country. let me explain ... many of our people speak of systemic barriers that contribute to a lack of inclusion, success, change, etc., etc., etc. those in power often respond, “show me those systems” or they point to the myriad of policies/procedures designed to eliminate those institutional barriers. what they never see is how their unconscious way of knowing, values, and beliefs are the logjam. the outcome is oppression of indigenous children learning in the education system. i do believe that they do not know who they are. they only believe that they are the way forward, in spite of all the evidence piled up that speaks to the contrary. they will ignore that evidence, and ignore it at their peril. there is an epistemic arrogance in this province that creates that logjam, but all logjams have a tipping point, a point in time where the power to resist the flow of change is overcome by an unstoppable force that bursts forward and washes away everything before it. i believe that tipping point is close at hand. today, we know there are 13 faculties of education in ontario and there is no indigenous faculty of education (ontario ministry of education, 2020). there are two indigenous teacher education programs: brook university november 2020 79 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice currently in partnership with oshki-wenjack and the second at lakehead university that is not operational. ontario is making systemwide changes to include “professional development and integration of first nation, métis, and inuit perspectives into the curriculum” (ontario ministry of education, indigenous education, 2020). nonetheless, education training is overwhelmingly dominated by non-indigenous canadians. the final iecelp report outlined calls to act that are purposefully developed to increase indigenous education innovation that began with anishininiiwi awaashishiiw kihkinohamaakewi niikaanihtamaakew across all levels of education in northwestern ontario (hodson et al., 2019, p. 61). more qualified ieces across canada will result in quality programs for indigenous children. it is very important to think about all calls to action as we highlight trc call #12, which is very clear on ece where it calls on all governments to develop culturally appropriate ece programs for aboriginal families. by including ieces in every early learning program in the future, we will be tackling several trc calls to action: increasing equity, diversity, inclusion, and access to indigenous leadership and teaching for everyone (maracle, 2018, p. 16). we have to also recognize that indigenous educators are one person performing many roles—activist, researcher, family member, community leader—plus their day job. the indigenous educators have the story right and can tell the story of the children and family’s needs in the community. the iecelp was about embracing and acknowledging the gifts that shared knowledge and wisdom. elder brenda, as part of the association of early childhood educators ontario (aeceo) guiding committee on truth and reconciliation, shared in a recent piece titled “walking together in reconciliation” which was published in ecelink earlier this year: we need indigenous instructors to share and teach our traditional knowledge, traditions, values, customs, practices, identity, culture, our way of life, teachings, science, math, language, and everything that is in the education system but teaching it all from our way of understanding, our way of seeing the world, our knowledge about the land, spirituality and stories. we need the grandparents to be part of educating our children from the start to completion. we as indigenous people are responsible to respond to the trc calls to action but invite non-indigenous people to be part of the “work.” we are on the healing journey, yes, but we need the other races to join us in healing so we can leave a path of respect, love, wisdom, bravery, honesty, humility and the truth for all children. (aeceo guiding committee on truth and reconciliation, 2020, p. 6). meegwetch. to all our relations. acknowledgments we gratefully acknowledge the support of, and thank, indigenous services of canada. 1 the truth and reconciliation commission’s work is a holistic response to the indian residential school legacy. we align with specific calls to action under education that speak to the early learning sector in canada. our work acknowledges the injustices and need for continued healing. 2 boozhoo is greetings in the ojibway language. 3 anishinabe is indigenous in the ojibway language. 4 oji-cree is its own dialect in northern ontario, a combination of the cree and ojibway languages. 5 the term medicine wheel was established when stone constructions in the shape of wheels were found on medicine mountain. november 2020 80 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references association of early childhood educators ontario (aeceo) guiding committee on truth and reconciliation. 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(2019). contextualizing approaches to indigenous peoples’ experiences of intractable conflict. new england journal of public policy, 31(1), article 5. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol31/iss1/5 statistics canada. (2017). aboriginal peoples in canada: key results from the 2016 census. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/dailyquotidien/171025/dq171025a-eng.htm truth and reconciliation commission of canada. (2015). truth and reconciliation commission of canada: calls to action. http://www.trc. ca/websites/trcinstitution/file/2015/findings/calls_to_action_english2.pdf january 2020 65 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources early years education and care in canada: a historical and philosophical overview – a review jessica pratezina jessica pratezina is a graduate student at the school of child and youth care and a fellow at the centre for studies in religion and society at the university of victoria, british columbia. her research centres on alternative religions, childhood religiosity and spiritual experiences, religious identity and belonging, faith transitions, and the intersection of child welfare and controversial religious groups. her sshrc-funded thesis is a study of the experiences of children and youth who were raised in and then left alternative religions. email: pratezina@gmail.com book review: early years education and care in canada : a historical and philosophical overview edited by susan jagger toronto, on: canadian scholars, 2018 300 pp isbn: 978-1-773381-24-4 in the current canadian neoliberal ethos, children are often seen as valuable in as much as they are on their way to becoming something else: cooperative, able-bodied adults who contribute to the economy. for much of the euro-western world, political and economic forces have conspired to turn children into not merely investments in the future but the ultimate luxury purchase (zelizer, 1985). currid-hackett (2017) suggests that displays of privilege and social class are frequently no longer manifested through overt gestures like the purchase of yachts, rolexes, and silver spoons. rather, inconspicuous displays of wealth appear as “ballet slippers and yale tuition” (p. 46). it is perhaps not surprising, then, that much of the research on early years comes under the banner of education, long seen as the vehicle that can produce the kinds of “successful” children both parents and society desire. edited by susan jagger, early years education and care in canada: a historical and philosophical overview (2019) may be seen as a collection of reflections on the meaning and construction of early years studies more generally, making this volume a welcome and much-needed addition to the canon of early years literature. i engage with this book as a graduate student and researcher exploring the narratives of young people across the spectrum of spiritual and religious experiences, although other entry points are certainly possible. from my perspective, jagger’s volume deftly weaves history, theory, and practice. the book is 303 pages long and divided into 15 chapters. each chapter opens with guiding questions that would be useful in a college or university classroom, prompting student engagement and class discussion. with its broad range of topics and clear language it is an ideal choice for introductory early childhood courses in which instructors might want to grapple, together with students, with the complex, contradictory, and multidisciplinary threads of rethinking and responding to the context of early childhood studies and education in canada. in the opening chapter, angelina weenie reflects on her own journey as an indigenous woman at the forefront of early childhood education. first nations pedagogy has only recently been acknowledged in the curriculum for early childhood education (ece) practitioners and there is still much work to be done. weenie considers how a place can be made for first nations’ perspectives among the euro-dominant ece models. more than simply comparing developmental perspectives, weenie braids the work of theorists like jean piaget, erik erikson, and abraham maslow with different indigenous teachings. this chapter is an insightful and personal perspective on decolonizing approaches in indigenous education, particularly for ece students who are encountering indigenous perspectives for the first time. january 2020 66 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources patrick j. lewis’s chapter on the spirituality of play challenges the notion of a child’s early years being merely the developing grounds for what will become a productive adult. lewis complicates the idea that play is good or useful insofar as it encourages “healthy” development. in other words, play is understood as serving the development of “higher” functions, like rational thinking. lewis writes of play for its own sake, contrasting with piaget, who understood early childhood development as a series of successive and linear accomplishments of which the setting of play for a child is much like a laboratory for a scientist with a research agenda. a child is not wooed into play by a promise of improved fine motor skills, but by the sheer joy and delight inherent in the activity. in my own work on children’s spiritual and religious experiences, spirituality is often discussed against the same reductionist rhetoric. spirituality or religion are presented as “good” in that they might promote positive mental health, give one a sense of connection to culture and identity, and increase pro-social values. the often-overlooked premise that lewis begins with is that play, like spirituality, exists on its own terms and for its own sake. thinking with diffractive analysis, margaret macdonald’s chapter offers an opportunity to consider the lasting legacy of émile rousseau’s émile on child rearing and education. macdonald explores how practitioners can provoke curiosity to think differently about the inherited, established norms of early childhood education. whether this is in the compartmentalized, individualistic approach that seems unavoidable in the eurocentric education system, or the mother-blaming in and between “mommy-blogs,” rousseau’s ideas permeate not only professional ece practice but also society’s conceptions of childhood and “good” parenting. macdonald asks the reader not to reject but to recognize this influence and begin to question the taken-for-granted status of much of this legacy. in the context of my own work, this chapter prompted me to consider how i can act creatively when i encounter the long-standing and often unquestioned boundaries that seem implicit in standard ece practice. pivoting off rousseau, peter pericles trifonas’s chapter introduces the lesser-known jan amos komensky, or “comenius,” the czech philosopher and pedagogue from the early 17th century. like others of his day, comenius believed in the reforming power of education. however, he understood that education’s purpose is to produce not future workers for an increasingly capitalist society but lifelong learners. social reform will come about through “transformational learning” (p. 57). the objective is “to transform existing society through creative and active participation in life” (p. 58). this noble (perhaps even utopian) goal continues to be met with resistance in many modern education systems, including canadian ones, where education is both overtly and covertly used to replicate and inculcate a society’s economic needs and desires. “the child is,” trifonas writes, “in effect, dehumanized and perceived to be a cog in the machine of schooling that spits out finished products that are exactly the same” (p. 57). i see the possibilities of thinking with transformational learning in my own work as i consider children’s spiritual and faith development as lifelong pursuits of wonderment without definitive educational ends and aims. louisa fung further considers the fragmentation and dualism that dominates current euro-western models of education and offers the philosophy of holistic education as an alternative. holistic education is used as an umbrella term to unite the movements that react against these long-held assumptions. the central tenets that link holistic educators are spirituality, seeing each child as having a unique and important contribution, educating toward and through connection, and upholding the goodness inherent in humanity. education for the whole, integrated child acts as a deliberate critique of what is perceived as the mainstream education agenda, which sets the intellectual development of the child above all other priorities. in my work, fung’s chapter calls me to consider children’s experiences through the multivalent lens of faith, interweaving rather than segregating the domains of child development. susan jagger’s chapter introduces john dewey, the late-19th-century american education reformer. she thinks, like dewey, that we should resist the notion that children hold potential value that can be realized in a future economic january 2020 67 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources capacity if only the child is educated to certain set standards. instead, jagger argues, children must be taught with and in the “ever-changing and dynamic present” (p. 88). school, then, should be a transformative community that works in harmony to reflect the values of with a child’s social and home life. whereas much mainstream education places the child in opposition to the curriculum, dewey saw curriculum as fluid, able to change with the growing child. jagger’s chapter focused my attention on my practices as an instructor of future child and youth care practitioners, and i wonder how i am encouraging these new practitioners to engage in the “dynamic present” of their work while also moving toward a more just and hopeful future. in chapter seven, kristy timmons reviews developmentally appropriate practice (dap) as outlined in the national association for the education of young people, an american nonprofit association for early childhood educators. timmons understands dap as continually situated in the materiality of children’s worlds. this can mean that determining what dap is and how to implement it is not a clear-cut task. timmons moves the reader from the “what” of dap to the “why,” looking for diverse ways to think of early years practice as collaboratively aligned with evidence-based, developmentally appropriate practices. reading this, i am again thinking of student practitioners encountering the ideas of dap for the first time. how might we present dap with an edge toward critique, even deconstruction, while at the same time acknowledging its value and usefulness? aurelia di santo and bethany robichaud ask why more canadians are not familiar with the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc) and the implication this has for early years education and care. they suggest that both educators and students lack understanding, and even knowledge, of children’s rights, a topic that is not a regular part of the curriculum in canadian schools. it is no wonder that canada continues to underperform in comparison to other countries that have also ratified and implemented the uncrc. the authors call on practitioners to think of themselves as “duty bearers” charged with increasing awareness of children’s rights. i wonder how we can inspire new practitioners to see themselves as duty bearers, charged with the task of not only knowing the “what” of children’s rights, but also sensitively and wisely acting out the “why” behind them. noah kenneally’s chapter takes a sociological approach to children’s experiences in canada and considers how this way of thinking might challenge and broaden conceptions of early childhood. he suggests that the sociological tools of social context, social action, and social construction can be useful tools to help practitioners understand and situate children’s experiences within their macroand chronosystem. children are social actors on the stage of social context engaged in relationally constructing meaning. kenneally weaves together a social history of canada and suggests that by seeing children in their cultural, historical, and social context, ece practitioners can be better informed, more curious advocates and activists. kenneally offers that “early childhood professionals capable of historicizing childhood are better equipped to support children in the present” (p. 162). one particular focus of my research is on the experiences of children raised in religions perceived as new, alternative, and even controversial. how might i better situate the individual stories of these children and their faiths within a broader sociological context so as to bring greater understanding and depth to these narratives? how can a more robust understanding of society, culture, and history inform my work with young children? rachel berman and zuhra abawi give an account of reconceptualist contributions to the early years. against this backdrop they describe critical race theory, feminist theory, poststructuralism, queer theory, postcolonial theory, posthumanism, multi-species ethnography, and new materialism. the reconceptualist movement is diverse, but its many incarnations are united by their call for early years practitioners to think in a multidisciplinary way that challenges mainstream frameworks and assumptions. the many theories of practice described in this chapter offer invitations to imagine how we might shift our practice away from inherited, hegemonic assumptions. thinking with reconceptualist perspectives reminds me to be always situating children in the materiality of their experiences january 2020 68 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources as embodied humans. i think that this chapter will be particularly useful for instructors who are looking for a concise and accessible way to introduce these concepts to students with no previous experience of them. in chapter 11, veronia pacini-ketchabaw, randa khattar, and meagan montpetit continue the conversation on thinking otherwise about early childhood education and care by introducing common world pedagogies. eurowestern conceptions of children and childhoods have long held up white, heterosexual, male children and their development as the default norm against which all other children and childhoods are compared. common world pedagogies seek to destabilize and disrupt these assumptions. “common worlds are the actual, messy, unequal and imperfect worlds real children inherit and co-inhabit along with other human and non-human beings and entities” (p. 194). the authors show the value of common world pedagogies in practice by relating three stories. these stories describe the qualities of renaissance—slowing down and becoming reacquainted with what we believe we already know; experimentation—creating caring spaces and times to dwell with materials and ideas; and the more-than-human—“acknowledging the complex, dynamic relations that unfold in human/more-than-human assemblages” (p. 202). common world pedagogies view curiosity as a component in caring and propose that being uncomfortable is not always something children need to be protected from. always situated in the particulars of experiences, common world pedagogies do more than refresh stale narratives; they support practitioners in co-creating new ones. i believe that to work wisely with children, i must co-create worlds with them by curiously engaging with the promises, hopes, and even the apprehensions they experience. kathryn underwood, in chapter 12, argues that the polarized conversation about how disabled children are included (or not) in early childhood care and education can hinder the practice and application of social justice. underwood describes social justice as a continuum that moves from developmental theories to poststructural and critical theories. the desire to identify and “correct” children who breach the perceived bounds of normalcy is still a foundational component of developmental theories and strongly informs how early years practitioners theorize inclusion. underwood suggests that a more radical understanding of inclusion means that educators consider not just what and where a child learns, but also what learning actually means. this necessitates contextualizing the image of the child to include the social realities that create and delimit possibilities. underwood’s chapter challenges me to consider how conversations of normalcy are framed in early childhood care. much of my own work involves the stories of those whose religious experiences are other than normal. rather than asking how we can bring those who embrace alternative religions into the perceived realm of “legitimate religion,” i consider how we might expand our understandings of faith and spirituality to make room for those on the outside. in chapter 13, jessica ball challenges tokenistic attempts at reconciliation with indigenous peoples in canada. the chapter provides a concise and pointed summary of the health inequities experienced by many indigenous peoples and suggests that indigenous early learning and childcare (ielcc) can serve as a focal point and catalyst for broader systemic and community-level changes. yet, despite a wealth of evidence demonstrating the promising and positive outcomes of ielcc, many of these programs remain underfunded and slowed by competing bureaucratic interests and lack of training (especially culturally grounded training) for practitioners. ball argues that until all indigenous children and their families have access to universal, high-quality early years resources that are grounded in selfdetermination and cultural knowledges, any attempts at truth and reconciliation are moot. for me, this chapter marks a call for child and youth care practitioners to engage with policy in new ways, championing the needs not only of individual children but of whole communities. in a field that prides itself (rightly) on the lived, everyday experience of children, we must not forget that we are called to challenge the larger structures in which these children live and move. enid elliot, in chapter 14, writes about nature kindergartens, using the case example of the sooke school district’s january 2020 69 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources nature kindergarten, which began in 2012. the model for the program was drawn from the traditional scandinavian forest schools while also being informed by local indigenous knowledges. elliot reports that the outdoor milieu informed a different kind of pedagogy, providing space for the children to engage in diverse learning that would not be possible in a classroom. the children learned new ways of feeling capable and competent. the class formed a community not only among themselves, but also with the more-than-human world they now had access to. this chapter reminds me that material settings and more-than-human relationships are foundational to early childhood experiences, and not “extra” to everyday education but pivotal to it. in chapter 15, laura teichert considers the role of digital technology in the early years. the chapter presents a case study of four-year-old “belle” and her use of digital technologies in the home. teichert found that these technologies influenced belle’s non-digital activities. characters and stories encountered in games and videos show up in other spheres of her everyday life. these technologies are a part of most canadian children’s everyday environments, an integral part of their social realities. techno-literacy can be seen as coming alongside and working with, rather than replacing, other forms of literacy. teichert’s research demonstrates that very young children transcend their portrayal as passive consumers of digital technology and suggests how early years practitioners might collaborate with these diverse mediums and create spaces of critical engagement, rather than viewing them only as forces that need to be controlled or managed in children’s lives. in reading this chapter i am reminded of the need to challenge narratives that portray children as helpless and to foreground the ways in which children often defy narrow interpretations of their meaning making. this often requires that i set aside my own assumptions and approach engagement with fresh curiosity. there is a tension that runs through jagger’s volume that resonates not only with my own work about the religion and spirituality of childhood but also with my experience in early years practice more broadly. as both a researcher and practitioner in the field, i feel myself living in the “now and the not yet.” how do we provide education and care for very young children that reinforces our hopes for justice, peace, and love, while at the same time preparing these children to live and move in the world as it is now? in many ways, this is a spiritual question. we operate in a fallen system while longing for a redeemed future. much is written, including in this book, about the need for educators who are able to bring a joyful, whole-hearted, relational approach to their work (cassidy, king, wang, lower, & kinter-duffy, 2017; government of british columbia, 2019; government of ontario, 2014; lamouchi & brathwaite, 2019). this ideal bumps up against the boundaries set by low wages, poor benefits, and the chronic over-work experienced by so many ece practitioners. the kind of “heart homework” that waldorf-based education recommends with yoga, meditation, and quiet sitting is likely a fantasy for many ece practitioners, who hold second jobs to make ends meet, try to engage in professional development, and care for their own families. i think something happens when we come up against these boundaries. it may be in this grey area of “now and not yet” that we need to settle our practice. noticing, wrestling with, and wondering about these tensions may not result in the kinds of bullet-point answers that fit tidily into policy frameworks, but are, i believe, the calling for today’s practitioners in early years education and care. jagger’s work is a compilation of these kinds of noticings, wrestlings, and wonderings and provides a refreshing and accessible introduction that has value beyond early childhood education alone. january 2020 70 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references cassidy, d. j., king, e. k., wang, y. c., lower, j. k., & kinter-duffy, v. l. (2017). teacher work environments are toddler learning environments: teacher professional well-being, classroom emotional support, and toddlers’ emotional expressions and behaviours. early child development and care, 187(11), 1666–1678. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1180516 currid-hackett, e. (2017). the sum of small things: a theory of the aspirational class. princeton: princeton university press. government of british columbia. (2019). british columbia early learning framework. victoria, british columbia, ministry of education. retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/early-learning/teach/early-learning-framework government of ontario. (2014). how does learning happen?: ontario’s pedagogy for the early years. ottawa, ontario, ministry of education. retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/howlearninghappens.pdf lamouchi, r., & brathwaite, l. (2019). the effect of the child care work environment on the well-being of young children. interaction (ideas: emotional well-being in child care), 32(2), 5–8. zelizer, v. a. (1985). pricing the priceless child: the changing social value of children. new york, ny: basic books. november 2020 1 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor thinking with/in/through binaries and boundaries: sparking necessary and ongoing conversations in early childhood education iris berger, nancy van groll, and áurea vericat rocha, guest editors spark: the early years is an early childhood education conference run by graduate students and held biennially at the university of british columbia on the unceded traditional and ancestral musqueam territory, colonially known as vancouver, canada. the acronym spark stands for supporting practice, research, and knowledge and speaks of the intent that brought this conference to life: namely, to support, gather, and connect the diverse and situated individual and collective efforts that sustain, nourish, and ignite new thinking and practice in early childhood education. spark 2019 invited conference participants to explore and challenge the entrenched binaries and divides that still characterize conceptual and practical discussions in the ece field. the conference theme “surfacing connections & challenging divides: research, policy, and practice in early childhood education” inspired a sharing of innovative ways of thinking and acting that are surfaced when tensions are encountered and exposed. we conceived this publication to extend some of the boundary-crossing conversations that took place at the conference and also as a way to celebrate and disseminate the remarkable work that early childhood education students, educators, and scholars are doing in the field. as we were nearing the publication of this issue, however, we could not ignore the unprecedented times we are all living in. witnessing the surge of a global pandemic, the rightful revolt against racism and police brutality, and the imminent climate emergency provoked us to think about what new meanings emerge and what new relations can be made with the notions of borders and binaries. while it has been said that “we are all in this together,” we are not one and the same (braidotti, 2020). ironically, as boundaries melted, borders have been shut down and we are obliged to be isolated and physically distanced from each other. a vast and growing majority continues to suffer much more than those of us who are privileged (see braidotti, 2020, for a discussion of the inequalities the pandemic has surfaced). the isolation we are living in has revealed fractures in values and ideas, which, when in conflict with others’, splinter further as a result of intolerance. news abounds with stories about hyperpolitical polarization and violent collisions of opposing political affiliations in response to local and global conditions. what has been sparked in 2020 has dramatically exposed extreme tensions and polarities, but also the intimate interconnections and entanglements that exist among all forms of life on earth. these unprecedented times reinvigorate, we think, the importance of asking how early childhood education contributes to thinking and coming together differently. responding to a question about our current condition, emmanuel vaughan-lee (interviewed by cheung, 2020) offers that the role of storytellers is to reveal chasms, and to share and dwell with experiences and perspectives, because stories unearth questions without rushing to provide answers. it is in this spirit that we share the “stories” in this special issue. all the authors featured in it answered a call to “lead us inside” their diverse and vibrant worlds and ideas. they engage with the complex intersections that exist in early childhood education and guide us through creative ways of thinking with/in/through binaries and boundaries. denise hodgins, narda nelson, sherri-lynn yazbeck, xiaofeng ke, and rosalind turcotte open this issue with “living speculative pedagogies as boundary-crossing dialogues.” this paper beautifully illustrates how boundary crossing is enacted through a commitment to ongoing critically reflective dialogues among early childhood november 2020 2 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor educators and pedagogists in an early childhood setting on the songhees, esquimalt, and w̱sáneć traditional territories. while recounting a climate change inquiry project that explored thinking with trees, the authors show how ethics, collaboration, and curriculum can be thought of differently when committing to a boundary-crossing approach so that differences are made visible and therefore generate new possibilities. rachel langford’s article “navigating reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care scholarship to find a conceptual space for rethinking children’s needs in early childhood education” shares a fascinating conceptual journey that explores the boundaries between ece reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care perspectives and invites us to reconsider the notion of children’s needs. while reconceptualist scholars are critical of the tendency of developmental theory to focus on children’s needs within a deficit approach, feminist ethics of care scholars view having needs and dependencies as ontologically central to being and living in a world where we are connected to one another via caring relationships. articulating a third conceptual space for thinking about children’s needs in ece, langford offers a compelling alternative to move beyond the developmental/reconceptualist binary. both cayley burton and sarah reddington problematize western ideals of binary sex-gender performativity and how heteronormative boundaries work in early childhood contexts. in “gender disrupted during storytime: critical literacy in early childhood education,” cayley burton suggests storytime as a context for a critical reading of gendered messages present in picture books featuring gender-nonconforming characters. burton argues for gender disruption through critical literacy as necessary to achieving more inclusive ece spaces. sarah reddington, taking a different approach to the study of gender performativity, focuses on early childhood educators’ understandings of how children aged 4 to 5 perform gender during unstructured play. among other findings, her research reveals that educators tend to view gender primarily through traditional gender stereotypes and often unknowingly construct heteronormative play spaces that then inform the ways in which children learn about gender. in “wrestling with ‘will to truth’ in early childhood education: cracking spaces for multiplicity and complexity through poetry,” chenying wang employs creative arts-based methodologies to challenge a conventional way to think, act, and feel as an early childhood educator. through beautiful and evocative poetic practices, wang illustrates a move beyond the assumed boundaries of a single image of an early childhood educator that welcomes the existence of multiple and complex subjectivities. the special issue concludes with lori huston, elder brenda mason, and roxanne loon’s “culturally responsive indigeneity of relations,” where they share the story of the anishininiiwi awaashishiiw kihkinohamaakewi niikaanihtamaakew indigenous early childhood education leadership program (iecelp) in thunder bay, ontario. they discuss the wildfire circle as the indigenous research method used in the iecelp as well as during their presentation at the spark 2019 conference. their work foregrounds how dominant research paradigms have not addressed indigenous peoples in meaningful and sustainable ways. in contrast, the iecelp values were grounded from the very beginning in indigenous peoples’ knowledge systems offered by elder brenda mason. the authors propose alternative ways of sharing knowledge in indigenous and culturally responsive ways. threading together this issue has afforded us the privilege of dwelling in the ways the authors illuminate how ece is an active part of the world and its making, rather than the neutral and apolitical outsider it is often mistaken to be. we invite readers to witness the dynamic ways ece is involved in challenging the status quo, rejecting exclusionary practices, and embodying micro politics of storytelling of the otherwise. by contextualizing this work in the emerging 2020 narratives, we are compelled to shift the question from boundaries to connections and ask: what new and unexplored interconnections might be generated during this time, and where might these connections take us? november 2020 3 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor acknowledgments we would like to acknowledge the generous contributions the spark 2019 conference received from ubc’s early childhood education program and the centre for early childhood education and research, as well as from the departments of educational and counselling psychology, and special education; educational studies; language and literacy education; curriculum and pedagogy; and kinesiology. we also appreciate the contribution of ubc’s faculty of education dean’s office and the office of indigenous education and that of the interdisciplinary graduate student network. a special acknowledgment goes to other institutional funders that highlight the need and importance of interinstitutional collaboration in early childhood education: simon fraser university childcare society, ryerson university, early childhood educators of british columbia, and the british columbia ministry of children and family development. november 2020 4 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references braidotti, r. (2020). “we” are in this together, but we are not one and the same. journal of bioethical inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11673-020-10017-8 cheung, j. (2020, august 10). culture and health: a chat with emmanuel vaughan-lee. medium. https://medium.com/ideo-colab/ culture-and-health-a-chat-with-emmanuel-vaughan-lee-927541b08938 winter/hiver 2019 20 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research exploring early childhood educators’ notions about professionalism in prince edward island alaina roach o’keefe, sonya hooper, and brittany jakubiec dr. alaina roach o’keefe is a sessional lecturer in the master of education program with the faculty of education and in the faculty of arts at upei. she is also employed as corporate hr planning consultant with the pei public service commission. her background includes a bachelor of science (honours in psychology), a bachelor of education specializing in the early years, a master’s in applied health research, and a phd in educational studies. her experiences as an educator and researcher over the last decade range from the early childhood and k–12 systems to postsecondary education as an early literacy specialist at the pei department of education and early childhood development, research analyst for several provincial government departments, sessional faculty member at upei, and learning manager at holland college in the early childhood education and care program. alaina’s research interests include both quantitative and qualitative projects in education and early learning, health systems, strategic planning and evaluation, play as learning, diversity and inclusion, leadership, and action research in professional learning communities. email: aroach@upei.ca sonya hooper is the executive director of the early childhood development association of pei. during her last ten years in this position she has had the pleasure of conducting research that has transformed policy and practice in early learning and child care, and she has organized and facilitated regional and local conferences and acted as co-chair to national conferences. her background includes a diploma in early childhood care and education, a master’s in education, and many years of early childhood professional experiences, including in kindergarten and special needs education, as well as creating and leading her own licensed child care facility for ten years. sonya has developed and delivered many workshops. she participated as a panel speaker on the topic of constructing professionalism in four canadian provinces at “international innovations in ece: a canadian forum on early childhood frameworks,” held in victoria, bc, in july 2012, which led to her becoming a guest co-editor for canadian children’s 2015 special issue on professionalism in ecec. brittany a. e. jakubiec is a phd candidate in educational studies at the university of prince edward island in charlottetown. in her dissertation, she is exploring the identity formation process for lgbtq+ adolescents in pei. brittany has a background in psychology and educational leadership, and she engages in a variety of research projects relating to education, social justice, and mental health. in her spare time, she spends time with her family and young son, and tries to read 52 books every year. winter/hiver 2019 21 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research around the world, early childhood education and care (ecec) systems policy and practice have undergone great transformation (flanagan, 2010, 2012; goffin, 2013; oberhuemer, 2013; organisation for economic co-operation and development, 2011). an increasing national and global emphasis on school readiness that positions ecec as preparation for academic school success is underpinned by economically driven and narrowly construed views of cognition and learning (oecd, 2013, as cited in alcock & haggerty, 2013, p. 21). parallel to this schoolification, a corresponding focus on quality has also seen some reconceptualization and the terminology associated with the trained professionals working in the system has shifted, from babysitter to provocative protagonist, daycare worker to catalytic agent, and educator to mediator and facilitator (edwards & gandini, 2015). early learning curriculum frameworks have become embedded into the 21st-century early learning movement (oberhuemer, 2013; organisation for economic co-operation and development, 2011), creating a shift in professional deliverables and system expectations. as stacie goffin (2013) writes, “never has more been expected of eces” (p. 42). despite common policy growth and changes in a growing number of countries to raise the quality and visibility of early years services through the introduction of national curricular frameworks (bennett, 2004; blenkin, rose, & yue, 1996; burgess & fleet, 2009; oberhuemer, 2005), conceptualizations of early childhood professionals remain distinctly variegated (oberhuemer, 2005). this article describes a study that explored how early childhood educators (eces) in prince edward island (pei), canada, understand the concept of professionalism in their everyday practice. the researchers used qualitative methodology and a variety of methods, including workshops, interviews, and field notes, to gain insight into how eces understand professionalism. pei is a province on the east coast of canada with a population of approximately 152,000. it has 46 governmentfunded early years centres and additional private options for daycare. the project described in this article followed nearly a decade of changes in the early childhood field in pei, including a call for a comprehensive system overhaul of early learning and child care (elcc) for preschool-aged children (in 2009), movement of kindergarten to the public school system (in 2010), and subsequent development of an early learning framework (prince edward island department of education and early childhood development, 2011) and the pei preschool excellence initiative (prince edward island department of education and early childhood development, 2009). the literature asserts that such dramatic change is not new (ebbeck & clyde, 1988; hayes, 2010). as goffin (2013) explains, “given despite policy changes in a growing number of countries to increase the quality of early years education through the introduction of national curricular frameworks, conceptualizations of early childhood professionals remain distinctly variegated. early learning curriculum frameworks have become embedded into the 21st-century early learning movement, creating a shift in professional deliverables and system expectations. this study explores how early childhood educators (eces) in prince edward island (pei) understand the concept of professionalism in their everyday practice. the researchers used qualitative methodology and a variety of methods, including workshops, interviews, and field notes, to gain insight into how eces understand professionalism. the data was analyzed through thematic analysis and understood through the lens of sociocultural theories of learning that embrace communities of practice as a positive way to promote professional learning. primary findings explore (1) how eces understand professionalism in pei, (2) positive and negative impacts on their understanding of professionalism in their daily practice, and (3) professional development opportunities that impact professionalism in the early childhood field. key words: early learning; early childhood education; professionalism; imposter syndrome winter/hiver 2019 22 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the upheavals early childhood education has experienced in 200 years of history, field altering change is not an anomaly” (p. xvii). the purpose of this project was to unpack the professional notions and experiences that seasoned educators (i.e., with more than ten years of experience) have had as a result of many policy shifts and system changes over the past ten years in pei. the research was guided by the following research questions: (1) what has changed in your profession since the implementation of the preschool excellence initiative in pei? (2) how have policy shifts impacted your understanding of your practice? (3) what other areas of professional growth are needed for eces? in the next sections of this paper, the authors will illuminate threads of the research focusing on professionalism in the elcc sector and in the pei context. professionalism in the early learning sector internationally, numerous studies have delved into notions of professionalization in ecec (e.g., brock, 2012; dalli, 2008; lazzari, 2012; urban, 2008). according to goffin (2013), professional can be defined as committing to a job well done, being a good employee, providing a reliable, competent service, getting paid for what you do, and just plain good (goffin, 2013). traditionally, professionals were individuals who pursued a learned art in the spirit of public service; only incidentally did they view it as a means to secure a livelihood. consequently, “professions have long been understood to be moral endeavors, demanding moderation on personal interests in order to provide beneficent service to others” (weinberg, 2008, as cited by feeney, 2012, p. 4). alongside notions of professionalism, since the 1990s significant discussion has taken place around notions of quality in the ecec sector (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013). as this discussion has evolved the debates have continued to seek to define and measure quality in education and care (dahlberg et al., 2013). in addition, notions of quality and professionalism have been embedded in various government policies, with the result that educators often feel watched, evaluated, or measured in a dynamic of power relations (dahlberg et al., 2013; osgood, 2006). this creation of standards and subsequent perceived gaze can lead to self-evaluation on the part of eces in their attempts to measure up to certain standards, and potentially results in imposter syndrome (vergauwe, wille, feys, de fruyt, & anseel, 2014). several decades of work (katz, 1996, spodek & saracho, 2003) in the early childhood field involved developing codes of ethics, credentialing, and examining eces’ roles in relation to quality. stephanie feeney (2012), among others, has refined criteria involving ecec; she denotes eight criteria to determine whether an occupation is a profession: a specialized body of knowledge and expertise, prolonged training, rigorous requirements for entry to training and eligibility to practice, standards of practice, commitment to serving a significant social value, recognition as the only group who can perform a function, autonomy, and a code of ethics. there is professionalism as individual practice, which both feeney (2012) and goffin (2013) discuss in the field of ecec. feeney and other researchers suggest several areas in which eces demonstrate the ideals and principals of professionalism in their daily work with children. first, the notion of “knowledge and skills” refers to the specialized body of knowledge and skills that characterizes the unique contributions to society that eces make (feeney, 2012; spodek & saracho, 2003). specialized knowledge and skills are very often the hallmark of a profession and are at the heart of their contribution to society (goffin, 2013; hordern, 2014). in the united states, the national research council (2001) recommended that all early childhood teachers have bachelor degrees (bueno, darling-hammond, & gonzales, 2010). yet, as goffin (2013) articulates, “while formally acquired degrees and/or credentials are important to organized fields of practice, degrees and certifications by themselves do not denote professionalism” winter/hiver 2019 23 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (p. 36). the second area, which feeney (2012) calls “behaving like a professional,” focuses on communication and relationship skills, work ethic, and professional codes of ethics (p. 58). specific personal qualities or attributes are identified as being a critically important part of the ece field (feeney, 2012). finally, “doing your best for young children” (feeney, 2012, p. 86) is all about discovering your calling, being a life-long learner and a reflective practitioner, and having plans to always be a learner through your own professional development plan, in addition to being a “caring professional” (taggart, 2011). carmen dalli (2008, in collaboration with cherrington) adds to this list of “cornerstones of professionalism specific to the ec field” (cherrington, 2001, as cited in dalli, 2008, p. 174) professionalism of interpersonal actions, having and acting on professional knowledge, acting in the child’s best interest, and taking professional responsibility for the actions of one’s colleagues. dalli (2008) argues that traditional notions of ec work disempower the notion of professionalism in the field. consistent with feeney’s work, dalli and her colleague lukmanul hakim (hakim & dalli, 2018) articulate that the journey to early childhood professional is one that involves more than a checklist and explores ways of thinking, being, and behaving. concomitant with the schoolification of the field and an increased emphasis on “quality,” there has also been a focus on educators needing to assume a more intentional role in ecec programs, as reinforced in curriculum frameworks. this expectation relates to goffin’s specialized body of knowledge, for the field is replete with language and key terms associated with early learning frameworks, such as scaffolding children’s learning (bodrova & leong, 2001), loose parts (daly & beloglovsky, 2014), intentionality (epstein, 2007), reflection (edwards, gandini, & forman, 1998), observation (carr, 2001), pedagogical documentation (rinaldi, 1998), and children’s self-initiated actions and interests (edwards et al., 1998). the push (resultant from the emphasis on quality) to create environments and relationships that inspire children to experiment, make choices, and guide their own learning means educators are encouraged to situate their practice within frameworks that perhaps they were not exposed to throughout their certificate or degree training (goffin, 2013). context of professionalism in the pei early learning sector coinciding with efforts to raise quality and visibility of the early years sector in pei, the role of ece was starting to be talked about as a “profession” rather than just an occupation. campaigns like start with play (early childhood development association of prince edward island, 2013) articulated that eces are early childhood professionals, that early learning is important, and that it ultimately happens through play. a cultural shift began to happen in pei as elcc was being discussed in numerous political and public platforms, thus placing system change on the agendas of families, educators, community advocates, policy makers, and academics. professionalism was being defined through government policy, and eces were feeling reaffirmed by the message that they were professionals (osgood, 2006). in addition, policy changes happened that were political in nature. for example, when pei’s government moved the previously community-based kindergarten system to the public school system, it required all kindergarten teachers to obtain a bachelor of education degree (if they did not already have one), created additional certification and training opportunities for eces to obtain two-year diplomas, implemented a wage scale and increase for eces in early years centres, and commissioned the creation of an early learning framework. the authors wondered if or how these changes would be implemented locally. observational data from the early childhood development association of pei indicates that educators in the province have been silently navigating various new terms and expectations of the 21st-century system. in many cases, educators confessed that they had set aside practices they used to have great confidence in, and practices such as circle time, work-jobs, group snack, and themes are now referred to as the “dirty words of daycare” (s. winter/hiver 2019 24 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research hooper, personal communication, september 29, 2015), relics that belong in the past. given the significant policy change and perceived shift in demands on educators working in the pei ecec system, some educators may be experiencing imposter syndrome (bruno, gonzalez-mena, hernandez, & sullivan, 2013; vergauwe et al., 2014) and uncertainty about their practice. imposter syndrome refers to the intense feelings of intellectual fraudulence often experienced by high-achieving individuals (vergauwe et al., 2014). to investigate these issues further, the authors partnered to design and deliver a workshop series to support these educators in reflective practice and to formally document the process through a research study. theoretical framework this work draws on sociocultural theories of learning which suggest that individuals learn through collaboration and that the co-construction of knowledge and thinking transpires through a shared interest or mission (lave & wenger, 1991; vygotsky, 1978). these theories embrace learning communities as a positive way to promote professional learning (le cornu & ewing, 2008). this study tapped into similar theories of professional learning which suggest that professional learning must be relevant, context based, and practical for educators to be effective (mcgregor, hooker, wise, & devlin, 2010; roach o’keefe & moffatt, 2013). sociocultural learning theories suggest that the experience pei educators gained from participating in this practical short-term learning community may help them to recognize and acknowledge their funds of knowledge and to embrace their professionalism and responsibility to it. it may also enable a release from the paralysis they may have experienced in the recent years of policy shift in pei. a community of practice is defined as a group of people who share a common interest or profession (lave & wenger, 1991). in this context, etienne wenger’s (1998) characteristics of community of practice apply in that eces mutually engage in practice (coming together and creating a dialogue to explore and negotiate meanings of professionalism), doing so with a common purpose to learn and over a period of time to share experiences and stories together about their practice. research suggests additional benefits of learning communities, such as a revived sense of positive professional identity and a decrease in feelings of isolation (le cornu & ewing, 2008; roach o’keefe & moffatt, 2013). seasoned educators with more than 10 years in the field bring funds of knowledge to their practice that are mosaics of their education from many years ago combined with practical experience from working in the field (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzález, 1992). the authors used this theoretical stance to explore notions around professionalism in the elcc field in a setting where participants could both learn from and contribute to a collective dialogue. this methodological process is delineated in the next section. methodology to explore professionalism in the elcc sector in pei, the researchers utilized a qualitative research methodology (patton, 2014). the method used to examine the research questions reflects an ontological and epistemological perspective of learning as participation in a community of practice (cherrington & thornton, 2013; teague & anfara, 2012; wenger, mcdermott, & snyder, 2002). questions were explored in a focus-group / small workshop fashion. after receiving approval from the institutional research ethics board, an invitation was communicated to participants taking part in a professional development workshop series through the early childhood development association (ecda). initial data collection occurred at the first workshop, and interested participants were invited to follow up with an in-depth interview approximately three months later. researchers made best attempts at purposive sampling to garner a wide variety of perspectives from both male and female eces representing pei’s winter/hiver 2019 25 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research three counties and aboriginal, rural, and french centres, and to engage infant educators, preschool educators, special needs assistants, and directors with more than 10 years in the field. the aim was to recruit approximately 12 educators for these interviews, and 11 educators ended up participating. despite efforts to have a representative sample, while the participants represented pei’s three counties, all 11 were female. their length of experience in the field ranged from eight1 to 34 years in both public and private-licensed centres, and they brought expertise working with infant, preschool, and mixed-age groupings. methods the researchers used multiple methods (see figure 1) to collect data in two phases. participants attended a professional learning workshop where researchers used an interview matrix to gather a large amount of information from participants in a short amount of time, build dialogue, and explore notions of professionalism and funds of knowledge. using the results from the interview matrix, an in-depth interview protocol was developed and conducted with the educators. after the workshops and one-on-one interviews, the researchers brought back the data for member checking (patton, 2014). in most cases, the participants agreed with the data as collected, chose not to add more, and approved the data. researchers also made detailed and descriptive field notes and journal entries concerning their observations, reactions, direct quotations, insights, inspirations, and questions (patton, 2014) before and promptly after the workshop. these field notes served as essential documents for data analysis. after data collection, all three authors participated in thematic analysis of the data (babbie, 2010; neuendorf, 2017). to ensure the data collected within qualitative research is correctly interpreted by a research team and can be used to build new insights, it is vital that data analysis is conducted using best practices (lincoln & guba, 1985) that support trustworthiness. therefore, the thematic analysis involved two authors coding the data independently and identifying themes. the third author served as an independent member and consensus was built on the emergent themes. findings and their significance, as well as explanations and conclusions, are discussed in subsequent sections of this paper. figure 1. the research process. findings while the researchers found many themes in the data, the most salient findings explore (1) how eces understand professionalism, (2) positive and negative impacts on their understanding of professionalism in their daily practice, and (3) professional development (pd) opportunities that impact professionalism in the ec field. how eces understand professionalism participants talked about how their work was professional and an important part of economic growth. for example, tara2 said: we’re recognized more professionally than babysitters. that’s a bad word! there’s more recognition that without childcare, people can’t work. without work, the economy is worse than it is now. winter/hiver 2019 26 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research participants discussed what professionalism meant to them. they noted six ideas about what described professionalism: presentation, respect, high standards, values, training and a desire to improve, and policy support. first, presentation was important, in terms of attire: professionalism can mean lots of things—the way you speak, dress, and uphold yourself—but to me as an ece i feel it’s for me to provide the best care that i can to the child and the family, you know?” (april) another participant commented: if you want to make $20 an hour you’re probably not going to do it in your pajamas. unless it’s pajama day, then it’s totally fine! i just meant that if we want to be respected and want this pay and all this stuff, we need things to go with it. (nick) extending this notion of looking like a professional was a second idea of being respected and respectful in their work with children and families and being respected by society: being respectful. to me it’s having those open-ended conversations with children, families, and my director […] focusing on the children and what their interests are. how they learn. and collaborating with everyone involved in that child’s life to give them the best. (april) the third idea was that there are high standards in their field, including working to the best of their ability to provide the best care to the child and the family: you get so many different types of families too, like a family, whatever it may look like, whether it’s a separated family or a same-sex family or refugee family … you’re there to support them and their needs. (april) professionalism to me is doing my job to the best of my ability, and that’s what i strive to do every day […] no matter what’s going on in my life, when i walk in those doors it’s all about the children. (ezra) in a related theme, participants spoke numerous times about values that one holds as an ece, with patience, tolerance, thoughtfulness, honesty, reliability, and dedication being a few in particular that participants mentioned. lainey spoke about these ideas: there is a huge sense of pride to be working in this sector because years from now what we have shown these children how to conduct themselves, how to nurture, how to be patient, how to think of others and feel confident about themselves, they take throughout their whole life. that these values would be modelled and passed along by the children gave them a sense that their work was very important. although goffin claimed these do not denote a profession, participants also talked about education and training, qualifications, and the desire to improve as important components of professionalization in early childhood. as ezra stated: [it’s important] that you have the qualifications. you can be straight out of college and still be more qualified than someone with a closed mind who’s been there for 30 years. by being professional, i think it is the continuing education that you want, you have to want to be winter/hiver 2019 27 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research professional. finally, participants noted policies and early learning frameworks that support their work in the field. as hana explained: the policy shift has definitely helped professionalize practice; it set something out that everyone should aspire to, and if we’re all doing our job well, we should all be on the same page in saying this is our core, this is what we should all be aspiring to. another participant, april, spoke about “now being able to speak to what i do with confidence.” experiencing system change: impacts on understanding of professionalism system change (e.g., kindergarten leaving the early childhood system in pei; the introduction of the early learning framework) was something many participants wove into their discussions about professionalism and the changes they had experienced in the last decade. participants articulated various reactions to change, both positive and negative. some people embraced it and engaged in it as an opportunity for growth in their career and some had a hard time reconciling past learning with new expectations. april noted, i felt when the changes came it really kind of separated people: you had the people who were doing the professional practice as they always did and this either bettered them or they just changed with it and embraced it, and then you had others who were certified and i hate, for lack of better term, were “old school.” [the changes] terrified them, and [it] shut them down in their practice. anna noted that change was “okay” for those who were flexible and open-minded, and that it was time to either “step up or step back.” kindergarten: loss, grief, and readiness. the “loss” of kindergarten to the public school system was a recurring discussion throughout the project. when colleagues who were qualified eces became kindergarten teachers, educators who remained in the early childhood system grieved the loss of their mentors, friends, and co-workers and missed them dearly. chris noted: “in the beginning it was extremely hard. because we lost staff, we lost almost all of our certified staff; we lost probably half of our children.” hana added: “when kindergarten went into the school system, it sucked all of the certified early childhood educators that were there with it, pretty much out of the whole sector.” some participants remembered it being publicly stated by various people many times that “the best of the best [eces]” moved on to teach kindergarten in the public school system. participating eces felt anger, with one stating that “it was a slap in the face professionally … i don’t know the ins and outs of it, but the bottom line, my assumption was that the government would rather put the money into the school system instead of here, where we need it” (lainey). educators discussed that while there were programs put in place (“the golden carrot”) for the kindergarten teachers to obtain their degree, and for the uncertified staff left in the system to obtain their 90-hour certification and/or diplomas, they were the ones left holding the sector together and no one had thanked them for staying. many of the participants also expressed that they stayed to teach in the early childhood sector because they wanted to, because they loved what they did and were good at it. schoolification. schoolification was a term that participants discussed in connection with kindergarten leaving their system and moving to the public school system. what they meant by the term is that as a result of certain policies there is now more focus on academic learning and less on developmentally appropriate practice (pardo & woodrow, 2014). the participants spoke about how they perceived a shift in parents’ and society’s expectations winter/hiver 2019 28 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of children. they said that kindergarten readiness (which they viewed as a “dirty word”) seemed to be a focus of late, and that this was causing stress and threatening their professional pedagogy about how young children learn. when ecec is schoolified, then what eces saw as integral to their practice was lost. lainey said she felt “very strongly that we are here to teach a lot of social skills, self-regulation, self-control, empathy, sensitivity, tolerance …we’re stepping in, guiding, we’re scaffolding, and when they get to school it becomes very much an academic focus.” tensions around documentation. participants also talked about the introduction of pedagogical documentation as something they valued, which they felt was rewarding (to see the evolution of the child) and helped them scaffold learning. however, they also recounted that the perceived increased pressure to document (and assess) everything was taking away from enjoying the experience with the child (e.g., they spoke about feeling that they needed to take notes, take more pictures, etc.). they also spoke about the frustration they felt that “the more kids, the more difficult it is” because they had limited time to complete binders (portfolios) for each child, and the quality, thought, and effort they wanted to put into it was limited because of the volume of children and the amount of documentation they felt was required. they also were discouraged when they created documentation of children’s learning for families and “parents didn’t look at the documentation binders … i’m disappointed by this” (janet). participants also spoke of the pressure to prove their professionalism (“we are really teaching!”) through their practice of documentation. for example, cheryl talked about tying pedagogical documentation to the early learning framework outcomes so that parents and caregivers could see that the children were actually learning: “i know the parents want structure over play because when they think of play they think we’re just babysitting and we’re just housing the children.” imposter syndrome and professional confidence. there was evidence in the transcripts and in multiple discussions through the course of this project that there are educators who feel confident in their profession but also those who are struggling with imposter syndrome. persistent confusion about what is expected of them and feeling like they are fraudulent in their practice is part of what underlies much of their frustration about the current state of their profession in pei (vergauwe et al., 2014). well, in college we were taught you pick your theme and we had to plan a whole week, so many activities for this, you go outside, what can i bring outside to continue my theme? you had to do the whole week ahead of time. then the framework came into place and it was like no, you go with the interests of the children, so then it was like, what? what do we do with all this planning that we were taught to do? so there was kind of a period of confusion. it was like, do i keep my themes, do i keep doing what i was doing, or we thought we had to stop that and observe the kids and see what they like to do, and we didn’t really understand the framework, we didn’t know what to do with it! so it was very confusing […] like, lost. and we were angry, we were frustrated, because it was another thing put on us, you know? [sigh] anyway … it was frustrating because we didn’t understand it because maybe we didn’t [pause] learn the right way, or nobody showed us in a way that we could understand it and how to apply it with what the kids were doing, and so we kind of rebelled a bit, you know? (janet) growing respect. some participants also articulated that change came with some positive things for the early childhood profession in the form of growing respect for eces (by parents, community, and government officials). for example, lainey said: in the last 5 to 10 years, parents and community are starting to understand the importance that we have and the knowledge that we need in order to work in this sector [of ec] … it used to winter/hiver 2019 29 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research be a joke … but now they are seeing us as being very knowledgeable about child development, children’s social behaviours … empowerment. paradoxically, then, while some participants felt less confident, they did perceive that the public was starting to see them as professionals. pd opportunities that impact professionalism finally, the participants identified what they needed to continue advancing their profession as early childhood educators, and what they wanted or needed in order to continue in their own professional journey. participants articulated requests for advocacy in their responses to what their suggestions for professional growth included. these comprised the need for matching professional expectations (around pedagogical documentation) with actual resources. hana stated, “we need work time and substitutes for planning time,” while nick commented, “i am still in the same place i was in 15 years ago where i am going out and buying supplies on my own dollar.” some participants noted a need for better communication within and beyond the ec sector with partners (e.g., referral processes for children with special needs). lainey said: it’s a big thing right now that all these children in the centre that we’re trying to reach out to but we just don’t have enough time in our day and enough bodies to give the support that they need. to take it outside of our sector, we don’t have the speech pathologist or don’t have a speech pathologist in our area, we don’t have access to an ot as needed or a child psychologist as we need it, and we really need our own. tina articulated the impetus to leverage technology better within their practice, particularly using “social media (e.g., facebook) to talk with parents to post pictures.” others said they wanted parity with teachers in the formal school system (e.g., access to similar benefits and privileges); nick mentioned “closing the childcare centres when schools are closed and flu shots for free like the teachers,” as well as more access to grants, etc., for play supplies: “it would be great if there was a grant for each of us to get our own computer.” janet suggested increased access to “accessible professional development (e.g., pd sessions, access to bursaries for higher education). discussion the purpose of this study was to explore how eces in pei understand the concept of professionalism in their everyday practice. findings were supported in numerous ways by the previous work in this area; they also offer new opportunities for the field. these are discussed in the sections below: fostering resilience and workplace wellness through emotional intelligence (eq); motivating a marginalized field; encouraging pedagogical practices; and developing leaders in the ec field. fostering resilience and workplace wellness through emotional intelligence (eq) imposter syndrome and educators’ lack of intrinsic motivation can be linked to burnout (gu & day, 2007). research also identifies factors that contribute to employee resilience and success, including professional mentorship, collegiality, celebrating one another’s expertise and professional importance, and personal commitment to ongoing learning and self-insight (sumison, 2004). employer support to create such an environment can result in educators feeling healthier, more motivated, and more autonomous (sumison, 2004; timperley, wilson, barrar, & fung, 2007), which can, in turn, be useful for recruiting and retaining quality eces through decreased perceived stress (wagner et al., 2012). in addition, through continued collaborative learning communities, eces can build resilience and develop an awareness of their eq, that is, their emotional responses “as one of their many ways of winter/hiver 2019 30 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research knowing, and using the power of emotion as a basis of collective and individual social resistance, teachers can sort their experiences, their anxieties, their fears, their excitements and learn how to use them in empowering ways” (zembylas, 2003, p. 231). there is an opportunity to build a better workforce through fostering emotional intelligence (eq) in new ways for eces. an important facet of professionalism is autonomy, which is linked to psychologically healthy workplaces. decision makers need to pay attention to early childhood educators’ psychological well-being at work, as it depends on their feelings of autonomy, and without it, they are at risk of becoming unwell (royer & moreau, 2015). in addition, mental health in the workplace is important if childcare centres are to be the healthy, safe, and exciting places they are intended to be. to nurture and foster good mental health in children, educators need to be nurtured themselves and to practice self-care; research asserts that the personal and professional selves are intertwined (osgood, 2012; sumison, 2004). ann masten writes: “resilience has often been defined as the ability to bounce back in times of adversity and to develop in a positive way when faced with setbacks” (2009, as cited in petty, 2014, p. 35). the grief, anger, and sadness that educators are feeling amidst change in their profession over the last decade align with the stages of grief identified by elisabeth kübler ross (2005), whose model includes denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. the educators’ frustration with the changes over the past decade signals a need for those who can support them to respond with provision or with help. the voice of resilience (i.e., educators’ acceptance of change and their willingness to grow) needs to be championed, and there are opportunities here for mentoring within the sector like never before. motivating a marginalized field participants voiced their desire to remain firmly rooted in the elcc sector after the changes in kindergarten and the introduction of the pei preschool excellence initiative. they talked about having discovered their calling, as feeney (2012) calls it, and having plans to grow and learn. however, this and other comments reflect a professional motivation that is extrinsic in nature. many of the educators spoke of having an early childhood mentor of some kind who they relied on to tell them if they were doing something right or not (e.g., how they implement new curriculum). this is not uncommon when the dominant construction of professionalism has been through government policy, leaving educators perceiving they are subject to a foucauldian regulatory gaze (osgood, 2006). participants also articulated having wanted some kind of recognition for their practice. for example, cheryl said, “no one thanked us for staying.” while it is not unusual to want such recognition, especially after they saw it being given to others (kindergarten teachers, uncertified staff who were going back to school), these educators relied on external recognition to provide them with the professional sustenance of confidence they perhaps were lacking. underlying the extrinsic motivation and need for approval are remnants of the oppressed (freire, 1968) where these individuals feel that they are being told what to do, and that their role is inferior in some way. how do we get beyond the deeply engrained notions of care versus education when some of these educators might not buy into this notion themselves? this finding aligns with dalli’s (2002, 2008) assertion that the very traditional alignments of early childhood work have potentially disempowered eces from asserting their professional status. when intrinsic motivation in early childhood educators is activated, the authors saw them become passionate, articulate, and empowered as they spoke of their profession. nurturing this intrinsic motivation and fostering opportunities that encourage educators to use their voice is important, as is creating occasions where they can take back their power and rekindle their passion for what they love most. taking part in such opportunities as an early childhood educator might help in building this capacity within the elcc sector. this indicates that there is also an winter/hiver 2019 31 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research opportunity to create opportunities and mechanisms where early childhood educators can explore these notions of power and talk about their role as professionals. encouraging pedagogical practices pedagogical documentation was frequently mentioned in the findings above, but participants suggested that it comes with a price: a need for additional resources. pedagogical documentation was developed in the 1970s and 1980s by the educators of the infant-toddler centres and preschools of the municipality of reggio emilia in northern italy and has spread worldwide (edwards et al., 1998). the process of pedagogical documentation supports educators in both including child development in their view and in looking beyond development to capture broader aspects of experience for reflection. pedagogical documentation opens us up to relations and meanings that we have not thought to look for. as carol anne wien (2013, p. 2) suggests, this expansion of what we might learn to know and interpret is its gift to us. as educators reclaim their professional voices and strengthen their theoretical knowledge of the practical applications of their profession, they will find this helpful to be able to better communicate the purpose and longterm goals of early learning and care to others (other educators, families, etc.). participants expressed that they did this through pedagogical documentation, but also voiced the need to be supported in this. when eces use their voices and their specialized banks of knowledge and skills to articulate developmentally appropriate practice and reflective pedagogy, they strengthen their position of power. this would work to help them push up instead of feeling the push-down of developmentally inappropriate expectations and practice. this finding is congruent with dalli’s (2008) findings around pedagogical strategies that are “professionally desirable” (p. 177). developing leadership in the ec field through plcs the participating educators discussed feeney’s (2012) notion of professionalism as individual practice; however, contrary to feeney’s work, they did not mention the specialized body of knowledge and skills as a characteristic, nor did they discuss this at any other point in the workshops, during member checking, or during interviews with researchers. this gap illuminates a glaring requirement to provide a foundation of language about professionalism in postsecondary training. for example, professional development opportunities could support these eces to articulate what they do and why they do it, and to articulate their pedagogy and specialized competencies that demonstrate their expertise and professionalism. related to the findings of educators’ desire to increase both their professional confidence (vs. imposter syndrome) and their access to quality professional development for career advancement is the notion of the need to develop leadership in the elcc field. as suggested by several pieces of research, one of the single most important predictors of educational institutions is the strength of its leader(s) (day & sammons, 2013), in particular the strength of its pedagogical leadership (andrews, 2009; coughlin & baird, 2014; wenger, 1998). with all of the system change that has occurred in pei, directors of elcc centres are left as the primary mentors of their staff on a daily basis. support for directors is required, and was articulated as a key piece for moving forward with the pei preschool excellence initiative. the opportunity is ripe. directors have tools and are able to be effective leaders in the early childhood field. expert professional development in areas of pedagogical coaching, leadership, change leadership, and other areas in which they express a need for further learning and development would only strengthen the support directors are able to provide. although this research involves a small sample of early childhood educators and directors in pei, it was clear that some directors are thirsting for additional knowledge, not only to help them support the eces who serve the children in their centres, but also for personal and professional satisfaction and confidence to become the leaders of the elcc system of tomorrow. there are important signals for continued winter/hiver 2019 32 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research growth of professional learning communities as a means of professional development, specifically for leadership development within this elcc community (teague & anfara, 2012). educational significance in the short term, the findings from this project help to articulate how eces in pei understand the concept of professionalism in their everyday practice. findings may also inform the future design of professional learning opportunities for these educators who have 10 or more years of experience. in the long term, the findings from this project will add to the body of research that has been supported and validated by the ecda and contribute to the knowledge surrounding professionalism of eces in pei and canada. the research may also serve to (1) renew dialogue about professionalism in the ecec field in pei; (2) prompt a dialogue about next steps for the pei initiative(s) (e.g., long-term communities of practice [cherrington & thornton, 2013; mcgregor et al., 2010; powell, diamond, & cockburn, 2013], workplace wellness, and recognition strategies); and (3) serve as an evidence-informed discussion that may be used to begin a planning process for the development of postsecondary learning initiatives and to build dialogue about what a truly professional elcc community in pei would look like. results from this study also contribute to both national and international work in this area, enriching the dialogue of professionalism in the elcc field and prompting a call for deeper critical discussion in this area. winter/hiver 2019 33 vol. 44 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alcock, s., & haggerty, m. 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(endnotes) 1 despite the aim to recruit those with 10 or more years’ experience. 2 note: all participant names in this article are pseudonyms. june 2019 1 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children’s bodies in british columbia’s child care regulations: a critical discourse analysis connie m. antonsen connie m. antonsen has worked as an early childhood educator on vancouver island for many years. she is currently a sessional instructor, research assistant, and tutor in the school of child and youth care at the university of victoria, located on the traditional territories of lekwungen-speaking peoples. this paper began as part of her master’s project that asks how postfoundational empirical research understands children’s bodies and questions conformity while unpacking the institutionalized practices that control bodies, for the purpose of reimagining new possibilities in early childhood education. email: cmant@uvic.ca power functions at the level of the body, at the micro level ... [by] reach[ing] into the very grain of individuals, touch[ing] their bodies and insert[ing] itself into their action and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives.... power also involves resistance.... this resistance plays an important role in legitimizing the discourses around the care and education of young children. (paciniketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015, p. 209, drawing from foucault, 1977, 1978; emphasis in original) furthering discussions that relate to children’s bodies in early childhood education (burke & duncan, 2015; millei & cliff, 2014), this paper challenges normative thinking by reflecting on children’s bodies as they are depicted in british columbia’s child care licensing regulations (bc laws, 2016), referred to in this article as “the regulations.” using critical discourse analysis, i point out how techniques of power are embedded in this particular document by deconstructing it through an examination of how it works to regulate, normalize, and discipline children’s bodies in early childhood education. i describe how this government policy has worked to create and sustain what are considered to be common child care practices by exploring the following four questions adapted from pacini-ketchabaw (2005): 1. what assumptions have been made about children’s bodies through the organization of the regulations? 2. how have techniques of power worked to shape bodies through the discourses present in the regulations? 3. what social, cultural, and contextual conditions relating to children’s bodies are embedded in the regulations? 4. what issues have the discourses in the regulations claimed to resolve? i propose that unpacking the position that children’s bodies occupy within the regulations will contribute to this paper contributes to discussions that challenge dominant thinking by deeply reflecting on children’s bodies as they are depicted in british columbia’s child care licensing regulations. using critical discourse analysis, the author highlights how techniques of power are embedded in this particular document by examining how power works to regulate, normalize, and discipline children’s bodies in early childhood education. the paper describes how this government policy works to create and sustain common child care practices by exploring four questions about the organization of the regulations document to open alternative conversations about young bodies in early childhood practices. key words: children’s bodies; early childhood education; deconstructing developmental psychology; techniques of power; child care licensing regulations june 2019 2 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research deeper understandings of how early childhood education (ece) is acknowledged and will open new conversations about young bodies in early childhood practices. uncovering hidden meanings within regulatory child care texts has benefitted children and families, as well as those who work with them, through consideration of alternative discourses (moss & petrie, 2002; pacini-ketchabaw, 2005). to consider alternate discourses in the ece field, policy documents need to be critically examined (pacini-ketchabaw, 2005). my examination of the regulations looks for patterns where i believe discursive thinking begins, as described by sevenhuijsen (1998): policy texts and legal texts are, after all, “stories in themselves”: they include patterns of dealing with things, which are often the result of political compromises and discursive traditions. they often contain fixed patterns of speaking and judging, but they can also open up unexpected discursive spaces, where new forms of thinking and judging can start. (p. 30) my intention in this article is to look carefully at how power works through the regulations and to highlight deeply held assumptions that work to regulate, normalize, and discipline children’s bodies. i engage macnaughton’s (2005) poststructural interpretation of foucault’s (1977, 1978) work to consider these practices as workings of power, defining power as a network of discursive relations. my work questions how early childhood educational practices are entrenched in power that acts on young bodies. i look for examples hidden in the regulations that are understood as “correct” child care practices based on implicit assumptions that have been formed by discourses of developmental psychology and heteronormativity. these discourses work within a regime of truth that prescribes “the right way” to organize bodies. i describe how these governmental circuits of power become deeply enmeshed in disciplinary knowledges that measure practice in terms of technologies (ashton, 2014). i highlight hidden social, cultural, and contextual conditions in the regulations by making connections about neoliberalism. leaning on moss (2014), i define neoliberalism as an influential worldview that claims to explain how to live well using dominant stories of quality, by calculating social transactions of living. i assert that it is through the power of neoliberalism that ideas are transferred into policy texts that shape bodies. for example, i describe how political power gives greater value to some bodies over others. while describing the workings of discursive power, i aim to extend the reconceptualization literature (cannella, 1997; dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013; kessler & swadener, 1992; macnaughton, 2005; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015) by opening cracks in the ways of thinking, working, and doing early childhood education. a theoretical standpoint how does regulation work? to define the term regulation, i lean on the way macnaughton (2005) unpacks foucault’s “regimes of truth.” these regimes work to control thinking and being by aligning behaviours with political intent. macnaughton (2005) connects the emergence of what is accepted as truth with gore’s (1993) description of generating an “authoritative consensus about what needs to be done ... and how it should be done” (p. 30). through the employment of mainstream thought, i perceive “truth” as linked in circular relations with systems of power that produce and sustain it (foucault, 1977). once formed, these systems of truth create dominant power, from which discourses emerge that influence knowledge about how early childhood education is supposed to be, based on what is considered to be appropriate or correct knowledge. ideas that become known as rational, or the common way of thinking, connect powers of neoliberalism with governmentality. this powerful connection provides and promotes a system of ideas that translate into mechanisms or technologies of practice. thus, regimes of truth work to govern and therefore regulate powerful ideas about what are considered to be desirable ways to think, act, feel, and live. june 2019 3 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research bringing regimes of truth into the realm of child development knowledge, macnaughton’s work thinks with theorists such as walkerdine, cannella, and alloway to describe how the regulation and governing of ideas contribute to what is recognized as the appropriate way to organize young children in educational settings. for example, governments currently issue policy documents as checklists for correctness in working with children (british columbia director of licensing standards of practice, 2016), which solidify common attitudes in organizing bodies to live a particular way, such as reducing problems of obesity and screen time. many critical ece researchers and theorists suggest that discourses in developmental psychology have created truths that are commonly used by early childhood educators to determine ways to classify, distribute, and regulate children’s bodies (burke & duncan, 2015; burman, 2008; cannella, 1997; macnaughton, 2005; varga, 2011). according to macnaughton’s (2005) analysis, developmental regimes use “developmentally appropriate education [as] the mark of a good early childhood educator and developmentally inappropriate education marks out a bad early childhood educator” (p. 33). therefore, developmental regimes of truth have encouraged and confirmed knowledge that prescribes how to do early childhood education correctly. additionally, macnaughton (2005) interprets foucault’s idea of truth as having both political and ethical substance. for example, the behaviour of children’s bodies becomes directed by official government-sanctioned truths that are woven together with a system of management that governs what is held to be the most “desirable ways to think, act and feel in, for instance, early childhood institutions” (p. 32). thus, a system of morality is officially sanctioned that dictates what is considered to be a good or true way to live and what makes the early childhood educator a person who holds ethical substance. the weight of what the regime considers morality thus lies within each educator, who is expected to practice within the boundaries of what the regime considers to be true. for example, rules of behaviour through discourses of developmental psychology are set for children at specific ages and during particular incremental stages of development follow the belief that all children’s bodies have similar needs at established times. macnaughton describes these prescribed truths as having real implications for children’s bodies because they work to constrain and dictate the possibilities of what bodies can and cannot do and be. she notes that early childhood educators are positioned as entrusted authority figures who have a responsibility to produce universal bodies in a society that values sameness. the regulations therefore work to sustain what macnaughton calls “practices of inclusion and exclusion” (p. 85) that rely on binaries that classify bodies into those that fit a particular mold and those that do not. my analysis interprets the regulations as prescribing behaviour through dominant understandings that create discourses that bring truth from an authority accepted as powerful and knowing and that expect what is understood as the best outcome. this position contrasts with british columbia’s early learning framework (british columbia, 2008a), which values complexity in learning through relationship, exploration, social responsibility, and diversity. how does normalization work? macnaughton (2005) takes the idea of privileging some bodies over others and, using foucault’s (1977) description of power as described below, claims that the definition of normalization begins with power—not the kind of power that is understood as forcing one person or group to do something, such as sitting quietly. rather, macnaughton explains that, for foucault, power is a relationship of struggle (belsey, 2002) ... over how we use truths and build discourses about normality to produce and regulate ourselves (e.g., our bodies, desires and texts), our relationships and our institutions, especially our production of normality (alvesson, 2002). (macnaughton, 2005, p. 27) june 2019 4 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research with an abundance of accessible literature that details lists, maps, and instructions of what normal child development looks like, child development can be easily measured and expressed as normal. for instance, a simple internet search for “measuring normal child development” draws four million results. growth and development milestones can be accessed on government sites such as healthlinkbc (2016) to determine if a child’s body falls in line with what is considered to be normal. it seems that over time the social sciences have categorized children’s bodies by organizing specified ways to practice early childhood care and education that uphold truths about normal ways to comfort bodies, relate to peers, and concentrate on tasks. for example, comforting a child who experiences sadness can be sanctioned according to a child’s age. truths about a normal child matter, because educators use these truths as they connect with others and manage programs, representing an understanding of the “normal child, the abnormal child, and the delayed child” (macnaughton, 2005, p. 29). developmental truths about children’s bodies matter, because governments use them to inform their policies as they improve the community’s capacity to use data to monitor child development and create effective community-based responses (ksi research international, 2017). therefore, normalization works by “comparing, invoking, requiring, or conforming to a standard that expresses particular truths about, for example, the developing child” (macnaughton, 2005, p. 31). this happens by observing children’s bodies and comparing their routines with what has evolved as discourses of developmentally appropriate practice (dap) during behaviours such as sleeping, toileting, and eating that shape children’s temperament according to what is considered to be normal (millei & cliff, 2014). how does discipline work? to define discipline, i begin with macnaughton’s (2005) use of foucault’s (1984) work to describe the political substance of a regime of truth as a reliance on the practices of power that bring the regime and its truth to life. embedded in these practices lies the power of rules that organize and discipline behaviour. drawing on gore’s identification of foucault’s ideas, macnaughton describes “micropractices of power” (pp. 30–31) that can be used to analyze how daily practices in early childhood education bring truth to life. this is important, because bringing truth to life is how discourses emerge and thus how common thinking is born. these micropractices include surveillance, which disciplines by closely observing from a reference point that follows particular truths. for example, educators who expect to be observed and supervised by others who believe best practices follow developmentally appropriate approaches will comply by bringing a developmental regime of truth to their practice. exclusion disciplines by using truths to dictate what should be included or excluded, with an understanding that particular ways of being are desirable or undesirable, and by creating a definition of pathology for what is undesirable. furthermore, an educator will use classification as a means to differentiate between right and wrong amidst groups or individuals in ways such as distribution, which ranks development by organizing bodies into groups according to age or stage of development. individualization uses truths to separate individuals, for example, separating bodies that are developing normally from those that are not. totalization uses truths to produce a will to conform, such as following developmental truths to guide decisions about what all children should be capable of doing at a given time. for example, burke and duncan (2015) describe foucault’s (1975/1995) focus on the child’s body as the site of discipline through which control comes from realizing individual desires are secondary to those of the group. therefore, discipline is the enactment of what has become known as truths through the use of micropractices of power to govern ourselves and others. these enactments bring about ethical questions: macnaughton (2005), leaning on foucault, describes institutionally produced and approved truths that govern and discipline bodies through discretion about where, what, and how bodies are expressed. using feher (1987), macnaughton (2005) describes the political notion of the body as a june 2019 5 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research “battlefield of power relations” (p. 30), yet; on the other hand, ethical questions arise regarding how one’s own body is in relationship with itself and how that relationship shifts. thus, the political substance of a regime of truth entangles with an ethical definition of the relationship of people to their bodies. millei and cliff (2014) provide an example of this struggle by describing the supervision of children’s bodies in the bathroom as holding political power through the regulation of bodies as the object of critical examination and self-examination in order to cultivate healthy habits and to produce “proper” deeds that fall in line with communicated norms. thus, ethical implications that explore other possible activities in the context of the bathroom space depend on the relationship children have to their bodies. this unpacking of discipline complexifies ideas about how the educator’s view on policy in the bathroom might align or conflict with their own ethical ideas when observing bodies during toileting activities. therefore, discipline works in early childhood education through truth that has become knowledge and is therefore sanctioned institutionally to produce an authoritative consensus that guides educators to the point where it is difficult to live in any other way. once officially accepted, truths work to discipline and govern bodies through techniques and procedures that direct bodies. these neoliberal mechanisms of discursive power manage and govern early childhood education through a system of ethical substance that holds the authority to decide what practices are good/bad and right/wrong for children’s bodies. within this disciplined and polarized regime, developmentally appropriate education has become the mark of a good ece program. how does the regulation of bodies take place in the regulations? discourses of developmental psychology. the regulations put forward discourses of developmental psychology. through this lens, children’s bodies are universal and therefore need to fall into organized classifications that can be measured by age or stage for the purpose of aligning them into spaces of education and care (burman, 2008; dahlberg & moss, 2005; macnaughton, 2005; moss, 2014). the regulations measure bodies in multiple ways. for example, section 48.1a states that a licensee must “ensure that each child has healthy food and drink according to canada’s food guide.” to shape discourses that assume children’s bodies need a particular set of nutrients for healthy development, the regulations “promote healthy eating and nutritional habits” (48.1b). canada’s food guide (health canada 2016) provides a specific course of action by stating what kinds of and how much food and drink children’s bodies should consume. section 48.3a-b of the regulations rationalizes measuring bodies using a scale of age and time spent in care to prescribe adequate amounts of food and drink. this developmental psychology discourse regulates bodies through quantifiable considerations that compare bodies of the same age (burman, 2008). this regime of power scripts a euro-western policy that regulates young bodies by providing nourishment according to one particular knowledge base. in contrast, eating habits that fall outside the clearly set guidelines are considered abnormal for healthy development, and therefore become less desirable. macnaughton (2005) sees the power to dictate healthy development as a relationship of struggle over how guides are used to enact and confirm “truths” that ensure nutrition for bodies. these truths build discourses about bodies by keeping them in check with particular cultural assumptions about health and safety. this is how discourses work in the regulations to regulate children’s bodies. as fleer (2003) explains, the organization and hierarchy of developmental discourses privilege bodies that score in desirable ways, such as consuming predetermined amounts of food and drink. discourses of developmental psychology therefore regulate bodies by classifying them as desirable or undesirable, prioritizing compliant bodies as desirable. discourses of compliance. generally, the regulations are organized according to developmental discourses that refer to a need to follow rule-based programming. along with setting rules, i notice a discourse of compliance that june 2019 6 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research conveys a sense of certainty with the belief that outcomes involving children’s bodies can and should be known when rules are followed. for example, section 44.1b requires “a comprehensive and coordinated program of indoor and outdoor activities that is appropriate for the age and development of children in each group. this section holds an implicit assumption that children’s bodies need guidance and rule-based programming that follow assumptions based on age and development, even when terms such as “appropriate” are not clearly defined. dahlberg and moss (2005) describe practice based on inscribing a list of rules as a deficit-based approach to regulating bodies through an intention to follow authoritative power techniques. rule-based discourses such as those in the regulations conjure an embedded assumption that bodies need instruction by others to decide what is best for them (burke & duncan, 2015; macnaughton, hughes, & smith, 2007). the pattern of expected confirmation and belief in the regulations creates a discourse of compliance by putting educators in a position of upholding developmental truths. when educators believe they are providing excellence in programming by following discourses of compliance, children’s bodies are regulated. thus, the regulations regulate bodies through discourses of compliance that frame thinking that connects good practice with developmental truths that produce certainty through rule-based programming. discourses of heteronormativity. the regulations work to regulate bodies through discourses of heteronormativity that privilege dominant attitudes about gender, sexuality, and sexual behaviour. for example, schedule f.1(b) states that “a licensee who provides overnight care to children ... must ensure that no child over 6 years old is accommodated in a room shared by another child of the opposite sex without direct employee supervision.” this single way of knowing children’s bodies, defined by preferred, dominant heterosexual gender identities and sexualities, remains hidden in dap (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). dominant heterosexual gender binaries are confirmed by knowing that a body of one biological sex should not be in the same room overnight with a body of another biological sex. this example demonstrates dap based on knowledge that objectifies children (blaise, 2005). this knowledge base excludes the social, cultural, and political construction of children’s bodies and the social justice notion of gender beyond biological male or female bodies. the example highlights, through a discourse of heteronormativity, the requirement to separate children using a scale of chronological age and biological sex, implying that sexual play will develop into the next stage of development (blaise, 2005) by the age of six years. it shows how the regulations work to resolve quandaries around discourses of heterosexual behaviour that might ensue between children’s bodies. by ignoring other possible sexual thoughts or behaviours, such as those within a homosexual lens, the regulations regulate children’s bodies from a dominant developmental framework that assumes children older than 6 are not trustworthy in overnight situations when they are in the same room as younger children. by naming discourses of heteronormativity, we can question the privilege found within dominant attitudes that gender bodies. discourses of mistrust. the regulations lay out other implicit discourses of mistrust around age categories that confirm understandings that a person’s age can be a potential threat to a child’s body. for example, section 20.1 states, “the licensee must not permit a person over the age of 12 to be ordinarily present on the premises ... while children are present, unless the person is of good character and the licensee has obtained a criminal record check for that person.” this section shapes a discourse of mistrust, implying that once a child is 12 years old, they may no longer be innocent and cannot be trusted in the space of younger children unless they have been deemed safe by a recognized governmental authority such as the local police. following millei and cliff (2014), this hidden discourse brings about visions of young adolescents as objects or agents that threaten programming. this is how the regulations form a binary that younger children are innocent and older children are threatening, which works to resolve threats of potential conflict, such as child molestation, by placing blame on older children. this binary regulates bodies by securing barriers that separate older children, who are seen as potential threats, from younger children, who are understood as innocent and in need of protection. this is how the discourse of mistrust is born june 2019 7 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research through the regulations. another age category is exemplified in the regulations that creates a discourse of mistrust by positing the definition of a “responsible adult” as age 19 or older. this term hints that people between 12 and 19 are a potential threat to young children. these examples lean on discourses of developmental psychology because they categorize bodies by measuring chronological age on a scale that confirms certainty for discourses of mistrust (burman, 2008; dahlberg & moss, 2005; macnaughton, 2005). discourses of protection. the regulations regulate bodies by forming various other discourses that begin with the need to protect young children’s bodies. for instance, section 16(4b) conveys implicit messages with respect to play area, materials, and equipment that are based on an assumption that children’s bodies are vulnerable. to ensure that children have enough space to play and that anything considered a hazard is removed, this section states that “play materials and equipment accessible to children ... are safely constructed, free from hazards and in good repair.” this rule sets up a discourse that children need to live in what fleer (2003) calls a “child-centered” or “artificial world” (p. 66) to be safe. safety is often a priority in early childhood education, and therefore good practice connects with safety standards that commonly require children’s bodies to be separated from the real or adult world to be protected. fleer’s idea about overprotecting children is highlighted again in section 15.2(c), which states, “a licensee must ensure that each piece of furniture or equipment for sleeping is appropriate for the size, age and development of the children intended to use it.” underpinning images of children’s bodies as small, unknowing, and weak invites a technique of power through discourses that emphasize the relationship between children’s bodies and the need for protection from debris or hazards found in the real, or unsafe, world. the regulations therefore regulate children’s bodies through the creation and reinforcement of discourses of safety, which create truths about protecting bodies from hazardous equipment. the regulations then work through these discourses to resolve potential safety issues, such as injury, that might arise in the real or adult world, to shield children’s bodies from harm. through these examples that create and sustain developmental truths, the regulations lay out a framework of hidden discourses for educators and programs to follow that regulate children’s bodies through techniques of power. how does the normalization of bodies take place in the regulations? furthering discussions that show how techniques of power work through the formation of discourses to influence and create knowledge, this section focuses on how the regulations normalize children’s bodies. this happens by shaping developmentally appropriate ideas and beliefs that constitute proper health and safety routines, as understood through a euro-western cultural lens. discourses of euro-western culture. the regulations provide a developmental framework that employs powerful techniques that shape cultural discourses to regulate children’s bodies in a euro-western social context. i found only a hint of difference in culture, context, and choice outside this dominant lens, in section 48.3c about food preferences. a focus on euro-western preferences brings questions about why other cultural preferences are almost invisible, and why any mention of diversity comes as an afterthought, with no further description. hidden in the regulations is a lack of cultural diversity when attending to children’s bodies in ece. from an original purpose of reaching goals of quality care, health, and safety and to provide opportunities for growth, the child care licensing regulation information packet (government of british columbia, 2008b) normalizes children’s bodies according to a euro-western cultural context. however, consultation has moved toward creating a national food policy for canada (2018) that supports collaboration from various groups to june 2019 8 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research meet the needs of building food security from diverse cultures and contexts to connect health, environment, and economic growth across the country. this trend leads me to wonder whether it might be possible to align the regulations with current priorities that embrace diversity. additionally, the government of british columbia’s welcome website (2017a) explains that aboriginal people have lived in what is now known as british columbia for more than 10,000 years. aboriginal peoples developed their own policies before european explorers began to arrive in the mid-eighteenth century, bringing with them chinese migrants to help with conducting the business of fur trading (government of british columbia, 2017b) during a time when the province was home to thousands of aboriginal people. today there are approximately 200,000 aboriginal people in british columbia, making up 198 distinct first nations groups, each with their own unique traditions and history (government of british columbia, 2017a). as canada’s most ethnically diverse province today, british columbia welcomes nearly 40,000 new immigrants every year (government of british columbia, 2017c). therefore, i wonder how multiculturally diverse families in british columbia might interpret the regulations in schedule g.4c, which “encourage the emotional development of children, including providing a comfortable atmosphere in which children feel proud of their cultural heritage and cultural sharing is encouraged” (schedule g.4c). i believe the regulations impose cultural and contextual difficulties that challenge the way ece understands and attends to each child’s cultural practice. for example, if a child’s culture understands sharing a bed as normal (jiang et al., 2016) and the child prefers to sleep with another child, the regulations provide a challenge because they require sleeping equipment to be “used only by one child at a time” (section 15.2a). thus, licensed institutional care programs are kept in check through euro-western cultural understandings that view bed sharing as abnormal and problematic. this example highlights how contextual and cultural techniques of power work through the discourses in the regulations to normalize, legitimize, and therefore assimilate bodies by sending messages that bodies are desirable only when they align with sanctioned euro-western cultural ideas. how does the disciplining of bodies take place in the regulations? using macnaughton’s (2005) explanation that discipline works through attitudes of discretion about where, what, and how bodies need to be expressed, this section highlights how the authoritative tone in the regulations works to discipline children’s bodies. i found that the regulations discipline bodies through discourses that socially construct the need for certainty from a polarized position of power. dahlberg and moss (2005) describe polarized thinking as setting up opposing sides where one is desired and the other is banished. this dualistic model does not hold well for the child’s body that acts or lives outside the majority. if policy is believed to be the reconcilable force that pathologizes (sukariah & tannock, 2015), those bodies that challenge the norm by falling outside of predictable boundaries are seen as needing discipline. i think the idea of privileging some bodies over others lies inside phrases such as “unless the medical health officer is satisfied” (section 9.2). this phrase gives power to a governmental authority figure who is unfamiliar with the particular context of the program, the culture of its participants, and the social uniqueness of each child, family, and educator. situated outside the program, the medical health officer holds power through sanctioned regulations, making decisions about which bodies are privileged and which are excluded or pathologized (fleer, 2003). in this way the regulations discipline bodies through the confirmation of polarized discourses that privilege and pathologize. micropractices of power. the regulations’ authoritative tone blends ethical substance with a prescriptive vision. ideas that channel ethical substance into a prescribed way of doing practice invite micropractices of power to work by bringing the regime of truth to life. as mentioned, macnaughton (2005) describes micropractices, or techniques of power, as working through the supervision and governance of children’s bodies in ways that support june 2019 9 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and sanction truths. these truths then work to guide the way we think, do, and live in our practice. an example is found in section 46.1 of the regulations, which states, “a licensee must establish a program to instruct children in, and to practice the rules of, health and hygiene.” this statement builds a micropractice of power with ethical tones through a discourse of best practice that requires educators to teach children’s bodies to follow rules of health and hygiene. this specific rule underscores millei and cliff ’s (2014) ideas of how discipline works, by highlighting best practice discourses using an image of children’s bodies as needing intervention to ensure health and hygiene. discourses of colonizing childhood. furthering the idea of choosing some bodies over others, varga (2011) highlights the use of governmental techniques illuminated as discourses in the realm of sociohistorical colonization of children’s bodies. as a strategy of power and control utilized by nations over subjugated people, governmental power has been shown to provide historical, racial, and social contexts for understanding and promoting “the advancement of eurocentric culture through a generic ‘white’ development” (p. 137). depending on the priorities and desires of those holding authoritative roles, such as the medical health officer, children’s bodies are positioned in a place where they can be appropriated through attitudes about discipline embedded in the regulations. for example, sections 36(2), 45(4), and 49(1-2) use the term “parent,” which privileges the biological, legal, marital, and single-household definition of belonging and holding responsibility for the child’s body outside the child care centre. instead of using family, kinship, or community language, the regulations assume a traditional monoculture, excluding children who are raised beyond one household (tam, findlay, & kohen, 2017). another example of colonizing childhoods is found in section 48.5, which states, “a licensee must ensure that safe drinking water is available to children,” yet many first nations reserves in canada continue to lack access to safe drinking water due to longstanding inequities (bradford, zagozewski, & bharadwaj, 2017). this systemic issue works against children’s bodies that do not adhere to a solid foundational way of healthy living according to common standards. a final example is shown in section 57(2) that requires the licensee to obtain records of all relevant matters including sex, participation, and so on for up to five years, which in my interpretation steps into the oversurveillance of bodies. these are some examples of how the regulations put forward discourses that colonize childhood. discourses of surveillance. finally, in connection with discourses of colonizing bodies, i highlight the discursive assumption that “children are supervised at all times by a person who is an educator, an assistant or a responsible adult” (section 39.1). as a form of surveillance, supervision provides a micropractice of power that works to discipline bodies through a reference of truths that once again resolve issues around what is considered to be normal or abnormal behaviour. surveillance employs a witness to ensure that bodies act in ways that are considered to be appropriate. the early childhood educator works as a catalyst for disciplining children’s bodies through the regime of truth that imagines bodies as needing binaries of totalization, or sameness, through forces of discipline that produce a will to conform (macnaughton, 2005). therefore, the regulations work to discipline children’s bodies through entanglements of power that are embedded in the political and ethical substance of a regime of truth. thus, through the construction of sanctioned discourses, techniques of power allow discipline to work in ways that keep children’s bodies in check with developmentally appropriate or best practice through a euro-western cultural lens. conclusion this paper challenged developmentally appropriate practice (dap) by unpacking british columbia’s child care licensing regulations (bc laws, 2016). my critical discourse analysis highlighted dominant discourses relating to children’s bodies in the ways of thinking, working, and doing early childhood education, while attending to four questions set out at the beginning of the paper, as follows. june 2019 10 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research first, the regulations bring assumptions that children’s bodies should be organized by methods of dap to regulate, normalize, and discipline bodies according to measurements such as the age and developmental stage of the child’s body. using a clear scale of measurement provides certainty so that bodies can be compared and universalized. appropriate bodies follow euro-western health and safety routines, such as those prescribed by the canada food guide. appropriate bodies are assumed to be those that identify with a heteronormative social construction that shapes gender ideas about bodily behaviour from a single lens connected to biological sex. good educators are expected to follow quality programming by organizing children’s bodies from a dap model through a eurowestern framework. second, techniques of power work to shape bodies through the discourses of developmental psychology in the regulations by working to control thinking, being, and doing while aligning with sanctioned political intent. by forming systems of truth, dominant power regimes are created which employ developmental discourses. these discourses then become rationalized by the common powers of neoliberalism and governmentality that promote a system of ideas that translate into mechanisms or technologies of practice. these mechanisms bring certainty, often through quantifying bodies toward a desired outcome, while pathologizing opposing outcomes. thus, regimes of truth work to govern and regulate powerful ideas about bodies. third, euro-western social, cultural, and contextual conditions are embedded throughout the regulations, prescribing health and safety routines through good/bad binary thinking that promotes high levels of health and safety routines. cultural diversity is almost completely absent, especially considering the province’s incredible diversity. however, some current trends are moving toward collaborative thinking to expand cultural diversity in government policy. fourth, the discourses in the regulations work to resolve problems before they might arise. for example, discourses of heteronormativity provide developmentally appropriate thinking instead of complexifying the possibility of other ways of doing gender or sexuality. separating children according to biological sex is an easy way to resolve conflict from a male/female binary. understanding how discourses are formed and how they connect with knowledge is important, because this relationship invites critical reflection that opens multiple conversations that begin to shift common thinking about how to practice ethically with children’s bodies, instead of following common prescribed ways of thinking and doing practice. it is my hope that this analysis will contribute to discussions about children’s bodies in early childhood education that move beyond techniques of control, through advocacy and freedom of expression that might emerge from alternative discourses. june 2019 11 vol. 44 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ashton, e. 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(2011). look-normal: the colonized child of developmental science. history of psychology, 14(2), 137–157. doi:10.1037/ a0021775 november 2019 129 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice planting seeds: fostering preschool children’s interactions with nature and enhancing intergenerational relationships in a campus community garden judy gleeson judy gleeson, rn, phd, is an associate professor in the school of nursing and midwifery at mount royal university, calgary. her research interests include health equity and eco-health. she has been a participant-researcher in an intergenerational campus community garden project since 2015. email: jgleeson@mtroyal.ca figure 1. horticultural therapist janet melrose facilitating learning across the generations. children and nature children need nature. nature is not optional; not a mere amenity, but rather, has important implications for children’s health and well-being. moreover, the natural environment is “essential infrastructure” to which all citizenry ought to have access. (wells, jimenez, & martensson, 2018) numerous research studies have found that children are increasingly disconnected from nature, choosing to spend much of their time indoors watching television and on computer screens (hofferth, 2010; louv, 2005; rideout, foehr, & roberts, 2010). this tendency has been associated with an array of adverse health and social outcomes in the areas of decreased social interaction and social cohesion, lowered cognitive functioning and academic performance, increased myopia (short-sightedness), increased childhood obesity, and negative health effects, including hypertension, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and depression (centers for disease control and prevention, 2010; ogden, carroll, kit, & flegal, 2014). part of the initial impetus for bringing the childcare centre into the planting seeds program was an attempt to counteract this disconnection from nature (and attendant negative effects) by regular immersion into nature through gardening activities, and to encourage the children to experience the cycle of planting, growing, tending, harvesting, and consuming healthy food. this article outlines the evolution and development of an intergenerational campus community garden initiative and describes the benefits for participants, young and old. since 2015, children aged 3–6 years attending a childcare centre on a university campus in western canada have been part of an intergenerational community gardening initiative called planting seeds. this article provides an overview of the project to date and explores the positive outcomes for children who took part, namely, the fostering of intergenerational relationships, an increased understanding of where food comes from, and an enhanced knowledge of planting, nurturing, growing, and consuming plants, including food (herbs, fruits, and vegetables). key words: preschool children; community garden; intergenerational relationships; eco-health november 2019 130 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the intergenerational community garden project in 2013, faculty members in the school of nursing and midwifery at a university in western canada started a community development project focused on facilitating local community groups’ participation in a community garden. the initial aim of the project was to bring vulnerable adults and their caregivers onto campus to participate in a community garden, and to increase their exposure to nature and gardening in a therapeutic environment. two years into the project, in 2015, a decision was made to include children from the campus childcare centre. this ongoing collaboration has resulted in many benefits, not least of which has been the development and fostering of rich intergenerational relationships among participants. initially, a community outreach process was conducted to determine interest in the planting seeds project. the first to express interest was a group of older adults (aged 55–75 years) with mental health issues and their caregivers living in a nearby residential home. shortly afterwards, participation expanded to include adult clients of a nearby developmental disabilities resource centre program and their community support workers. the gardening group, facilitated by a horticultural therapist (janet melrose) and assistant (angela foster), met weekly in the community garden. the program included planting, growing, and harvesting fruits and vegetables, as well as preparing healthy snacks together that were enjoyed at the end of each session. intergenerational participation, stage 1 in may 2015, a group of eight community nursing students and their instructor partnered with the project to help integrate children from the campus childcare centre. initial steps included building relationships and discussing the aims of the project with the childcare manager, staff, and parents. the staff at the centre agreed that the community gardening project was a good fit, as their curriculum and teaching approach already included a strong emphasis on outdoor learning in spaces that encouraged learning through exploration. planting seeds was also congruent with the recently adopted province-wide curriculum framework (makovichuk, hewes, lirette, & thomas, 2014), which focuses on four core tenets: democratic citizenship; equity; intercultural competence and communication; and environmental sustainability. environmental sustainability was incorporated into the planting seeds program through elements such as composting, seed saving, and repurposing of materials, for example, using large coffee bean sacks donated by a local coffee roaster as grow bags for potatoes. intercultural context is being considered as we move toward the establishment of an indigenous garden within the existing space. the first cohort from the childcare centre who were invited to be part of the planting seeds project was a group of 16 4to 5-year-olds and two early childhood educators. over a period of six friday morning sessions from may to june 2015, the children and educators took part in the planting seeds program, together with the other participants (older adults with mental health issues and adults with developmental disabilities). most sessions were held outside in the garden. on particularly wet or cold days, the session was moved to a campus classroom. activities included planting, tending, and harvesting produce (including potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, and herbs), nature-related craft activities, and preparing and eating healthy snacks from garden produce. intergenerational participation, stage 2 in the spring of 2016, a second group of eight community health nursing students and their instructor evaluated whether participation in planting seeds enhanced children’s knowledge of healthy eating and where food comes from. the research took place over a period of six weeks. nine children aged 4–5 years old who were participating in planting seeds were selected through convenience sampling and paired with a nursing student buddy. a questionnaire was prepared with the goal of obtaining an initial understanding of the children’s prior november 2019 131 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice understanding of healthy foods and gardening. the questionnaire consisted of six simple questions. the children were asked questions regarding their prior knowledge of healthy foods, gardening, and where they believed food comes from. a follow-up survey asking the same questions was conducted with the original children during the last garden day, and the results were compared to the initial data. after they had conducted the initial survey (through informal conversations with the children using guiding questions), the responses were analyzed by the nursing students. the informal survey revealed that all nine of the children had initially expressed an interest in gardening and had a relatively good idea about what healthy eating was. in the follow-up questionnaire, 89% of children had an idea about where food comes from (as compared to 66% in pre-project questionnaire), 100% expressed an interest in gardening (100% in pre-project questionnaire), 89% chose a healthy food item when asked about their favourite food (56% in pre-project questionnaire), and 89% of children had a good understanding of what healthy food is and how it helps the body. although it was only a small sample, from this data we concluded that the children demonstrated an increased knowledge about healthy eating and where food comes from as a result of their participation in the planting seeds project. nurturing intergenerational relationships following the integration of the children into the garden sessions, the research team observed and noted the developing intergenerational interactions between participants in the garden. we were aware of a body of literature supporting the benefit of intergenerational programming (heyman, gutheil, & white-ryan, 2011; weaver, naar, & jarrott, 2017) and were interested to learn more about this aspect of planting seeds. analysis of our interview transcripts revealed a notable benefit for both child and adult participants in regard to fostering positive intergenerational relationships between children and adults participating in planting seeds. this benefit was well articulated by the interviewees (all names have been changed to protect privacy). below are excerpts of interviews with simona, an early childhood educator, and ella, a personal support worker for a young adult with developmental disabilities attending the program. simona: i had noticed some children from the childcare centre wanting to pick some specific people that they saw to come and work with them. whether it was one of the elderly people that were there or a student that was part of the [nursing] program. there were lots of great connections. the interactions between the older people who were involved and the children. interviewer: can you explain more about the connection piece between the older generation and the younger generation? simona: a lot of the connections being made were from the younger ones assisting the older ones with picking stuff and with the older generation helping the younger with writing their name on stuff. it was a good interaction. it was neat to see that it was a reciprocal relationship, where the kids helped them and they helped the kids. interviewer: what do you think the overall value of the planting seeds program has been for the preschool children who took part? simona: great opportunities, great interactions for the kids. brings it back to some skills that should be taught within the education system that would benefit everyone. the world is having a disconnect with skills to be able to do that kind of stuff. taking care of yourself. having your own garden and taking care of yourself. a lot of times, people aren’t bothering with that, so people aren’t growing up with that experience. we grew up seeing a part of it. it makes you appreciate it more and where it’s coming from. it makes you respect the earth more. november 2019 132 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice interviewer: what do you think the overall value of the planting seeds program has been for you and your client? ella: lots of us remember cooking with our grandmothers. i myself am at the age of a grandmother already. it’s lovely because the children that were there made name tags. they spelled the names out and there was a gift from them in that. they also brought a dog with them one day too and that was a shared experience for the people there. they could enjoy the kids playing with the dog. people in care centres don’t get to see a lot of kids out and active and interact with them. people were respectful of each of the people who were older and the people who had mixed abilities. some had greater abilities, we all do. several program participants mentioned that they appreciated having the preschool children involved in the program; for example, they enjoyed the energy the children brought to the project. an interesting finding was that even adult participants who had not been observed directly communicating with the children during the sessions said that the children’s participation in planting seeds was a positive aspect of the program for them. an area of growth for the children came from the experience of working alongside young adults and older adults, many of whom had mental health or developmental challenges. we observed the development of ongoing and rewarding reciprocal intergenerational relationships in the garden space. janet, the program’s horticultural therapist, noted in her reflective journal: another successful session. everyone got involved in some aspect of gardening even if they remained at the table; and in the garden the generations were working easily together, clearly comfortable with the culture of the group of acceptance and inclusion; the children naturally got into the mix of things even as the adults were transitioning to the tables; and the addition of a story for the children was terrific. the session continued to accomplish our goals of: building an integrated community of people from different generations, abilities, and walks of life, with the common interest in gardening and friendship. building self-esteem and confidence through learning and developing skills in gardening. thus far, we have not collected any data (apart from anecdotal observational) concerning the children’s perceptions of the intergenerational aspects of the program. this is something we would like to pursue as a future line of inquiry. conclusion integrating preschool children from a campus childcare centre into an intergenerational community gardening program has proven beneficial in terms of nurturing positive intergenerational interactions, learning together, and enhancing children’s knowledge and understanding of healthy eating, where food comes from and how to prepare and eat healthy food from garden produce. this project continues, with the addition of a second gardening program (sprouting seeds) held weekly at the childcare centre. acknowledgements additional project and research collaborators are horticultural therapist janet melrose, horticultural therapy assistant angela foster, and project researchers dr. sonya jakubec, dr. sonya flessati, dr. joanna szabo-hart, dr. bev matthison, genevieve currie, elaine schow, and dr. scott hughes. with thanks for the enthusiastic and ongoing support and participation of the childcare centre children, director, and staff. november 2019 133 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references centers for disease control and prevention. (2010) obesity. retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/obesity/index.htm heyman j., gutheil, i., & white-ryan, l. (2011). preschool children’s attitudes toward older adults: comparison of intergenerational and traditional day care. journal of intergenerational relationships, 9(4), 435–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2011.618381 hofferth, s. l. (2010) home media and children’s achievement and behavior. child development, 81, 1598–1619. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1467-8624.2010.01494.x louv, r. (2005). last child in the woods: saving our children from nature deficit disorder. chapel hill, nc: algonquin books. makovichuk, l., hewes, j., lirette, p., & thomas, n. (2014). play, participation, and possibilities: an early learning and child care curriculum framework for alberta. retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/media/482257/play-participation-and-possibilities-reduced.pdf ogden, c. l., carroll, m. d., kit, b. k., & flegal, k. m. (2014). prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the united states, 2011–2012. journal of the american medical association, 311, 806–814. https://doi.org/doi:10.1001/jama.2014.732 rideout, v., foehr, u., & roberts, d. (2010). generation m2: media in the lives of 8to 18-year-olds. menlo park, ca: henry j. kaiser family foundation. retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed527859.pdf weaver, r., naar, j., & jarrott, s. (2017). using contact theory to assess staff perspectives on training initiatives of an intergenerational programming intervention. the gerontologist, 59(4), 770–779. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnx194 wells, n., jimenez, f., & martensson, f. (2018). children and nature. in m. van den bosch & w. bird (eds.), oxford textbook of nature and public health (section 6.1). oxford, uk: oxford university press. november 2019 111 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice learning together: our reflections on connecting people and practices in intergenerational meaning-making experiences lori mckee and tara-lynn scheffel lori mckee is an assistant professor in the faculty of education at st. francis xavier university in nova scotia, canada. lori teaches teacher education and graduate courses in early childhood and literacies. her research interests focus on expanding literacy learning opportunities for young children and supporting teachers to design and enact responsive literacy pedagogies. email: lmckee@stfx.ca tara-lynn scheffel is an associate professor in the schulich school of education, nipissing university, ontario, canada. she teaches courses in language & literacies and educating young children. her research interests focus on student/literacy engagement, community-based literacy initiatives, teacher education, and the sharing of practitioner stories. email: taralyns@nipissingu.ca we began our careers teaching young children in the same small elementary school, and we recall fondly the school’s tradition of inviting elders who were the children’s grandparents or “grandfriends” to participate in classroom activities with our students for the day. we remember grandfriends day as a joyful celebration of learning that was eagerly anticipated by the school community. on this day, we strayed from our regular subject-based schedule and incorporated a variety of intergenerational activities with a focus on literacy (e.g., reading, singing, and creating art together). though neither of us could name it at the time, these activities were opportunities for intergenerational, multimodal meaning making. more than two decades have passed since we planned activities together for grandfriends day, and we are now teacher educators and educational researchers. through our research and practice, our understandings of literacy have broadened to include multimodal literacy, defined as processes of meaning making that can expand as people use and combine different modes and media (walsh, 2011). our understandings of intergenerational meaning making have also grown through our work as research assistants for dr. rachel heydon on different studies of intergenerational curricula during our graduate studies1. these studies left an impact on us as educators, one that opened our eyes to new experiences, both research related and in our own practice. in this paper, we focus our reflection on the theme of connection, for this theme recurred as we shared our experiences of intergenerational meaning making with each other. we saw relationships form as children and elders made meaning together. as intergenerational partners worked with different media, whether books, art materials, or ipads, opportunities to expand connections were realized. in this article we explore connections between people and practices in light of the literature and identify principles that can support meaning making in intergenerational and monogenerational settings. this article is a reflection on our experiences as researchers / research assistants in five different intergenerational settings. we envision the entangled nature of connections in intergenerational meaning making and explore this theme of connection as it occurs between people (children and elders) and across meaning-making practices. we identify three principles that support meaning making in both intergenerational and monogenerational settings. key words: intergenerational; literacy; literacy practices; relationships november 2019 112 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice intergenerational experiences in this section, we provide an overview of the range of intergenerational experiences that form the basis of our reflection (see table 1). we provide this context because we understand literacy as social practices that are dynamic and situated (barton & hamilton, 2000). we use the term intergenerational experiences to encompass elder-child interactions within program-type experiences that included elders and children. to situate our work within this special section on intergenerational learning, we distinguish between two types of experiences: visiting and shared site. for visiting experiences, elders and children travelled to intergenerational classes or an elder visited the children’s daycare. shared site programs were located in facilities that were home to the elders and contained a preschool or daycare. we identify some key program features of each intergenerational experience that were uniquely designed to support meaning making and reflected the goals of the local educational partners. we offer information about the location, as well as background information about the elders and children, so that educators of young children might envision how intergenerational experiences could be adapted to support the learners in their particular contexts. table 1. overview of intergenerational experiences experience type location features child participants elder participants 1 visiting program rural ontario, canada meaning-making opportunities through singing, art, and digital technologies kindergarten children (3.8–5 years) lived independently and travelled to the program 2 shared site program urban, united states meaning-making opportunities through art and digital technologies preschool children (4–5 years) lived onsite and received assisted living support 3 shared site program urban ontario, canada meaning-making opportunities through art preschool children (3–5 years) lived onsite and received assisted living support 4 elder volunteer visiting a daycare site rural, new brunswick, canada shared book experience with elder conducting a weekly read aloud preschool children (4 years) lived independently and visited daycare 5 elder volunteer visiting a home-based daycare rural, new brunswick, canada various shared interactions preschool children (4 years) lived independently and visited daycare lori’s intergenerational experiences i had the opportunity to participate in a rural visiting program where the kindergarten teacher facilitated the november 2019 113 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice intergenerational program with the support of the special education teacher, school principal, and research team. my role in the program was to support the educators in curriculum design and implementation and to document the intergenerational classes. my master’s research documented some of the literacy learning opportunities within this program (mckee, 2013). several years later, i was part of a research team within an urban shared site. this site was intentionally designed to provide opportunities for intergenerational connections through its architectural design, which positioned the children’s playground in a central courtyard, and through various programs that united the children and elders. my role in the program was to support the art teacher in integrating digital media (e.g., ipads and digital applications) into the art class in ways that could promote intergenerational relationships and meaning making (heydon, mckee, & daly, 2017). tara-lynn’s intergenerational experiences i had the opportunity to participate in an urban shared-site program where elders were invited to participate in weekly intergenerational art classes. the children attended daycare in a separate part of the building and walked over to meet the elders in their recreation room. my role in the program was to cofacilitate the initial cycle of art classes, with the onsite educators gradually taking over this leadership (heydon, 2013), and to document the learning taking place. several years later, i joined a research team at the university of new brunswick that was responsible for developing and implementing the province’s first early years framework. through this work, i had the opportunity to investigate two cases of intergenerational programming that promoted early literacy. the first case was weekly read-alouds at the local daycare by an elder affectionately called granddad by community members (scheffel, 2015). the second case focused on a collection of literacy artifacts (e.g., letters, emails, photographs) that illustrated the rich, communicative literacy experiences between the children of a home daycare and their elder neighbour. connecting through intergenerational meaning making to identify a focus for this paper, we shared stories of intergenerational meaning making from the experiences identified above. we recognized that although our experiences were diverse in location, people involved, and particular design, they resonated with each other as experiences focused on connecting generations and expanding meaning-making options for elders and children (e.g., heydon, 2013). next, we take a closer look at intergenerational meaning making and explore (1) connections between children and elders and (2) connections across meaning-making practices. connections between children and elders as we reflected individually and together about our intergenerational experiences, we continually returned to the importance of the relationships we observed between children and elders and the ways these relationships shaped the meaning making taking place. at times, these relationships formed and grew naturally, while at other times they were facilitated by an educator or volunteer. lori recalls an example from the urban us experience: elder jean was so focused on drawing an image of a cat that she didn’t notice child audriella copying her movements. audriella held up her own sketch of a cat to show jean, but jean didn’t appear to notice. a volunteer prompted, “look! audriella has a cat just like you!” jean looked up and smiled. we saw elders and children smiling and laughing while chatting and creating artifacts (e.g., digital storybooks, november 2019 114 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice works of art, letters). within these exchanges, elders and children shared with each other about their personal interests and preferences. across intergenerational experiences, we noticed that elders and children eagerly anticipated spending time with each other. tara-lynn reminisces about elder grandad visiting a daycare site in new brunswick: when grandad arrived at the daycare, the children stopped what they were doing and rushed to the entrance to share news from the past week. stories floated across the room, reminding me of james britton’s (1970) words: “literacy floats on a sea of talk.” granddad greeted all of the children by name even after just three visits. he noticed when someone was not feeling well or was absent. when a child arrived late, he said, “i missed you.” as we observed elders and children expressing care for each other through listening, telling stories, and creating artifacts, we recognized that the quality and depth of these intergenerational relationships were significant to the meaning making. researchers carson, kobayashi, and kuehne (2011) liken “social connections” to the “hub of a wheel” that links intergenerational learning opportunities (p. 410). tara-lynn recalls an example involving an elder neighbour of a home-based daycare in new brunswick: intergenerational relationships grew over time through a series of written communications, including an invitation to bake christmas cookies, followed by a letter that communicated that the elder had broken her leg, which led to another invitation to visit and add names/drawings to the elder’s cast (scheffel, 2013). meaning-making opportunities emerged in response to a specific relationship with this elder neighbour, one that became central to this daycare’s connections to the community. while this example was emergent and responsive to the children and this specific elder, other intergenerational experiences included curricula that were intentionally designed to expand meaning-making opportunities and support intergenerational relationships (heydon, 2013). within these experiences, relationships grew as both a catalyst and a product of formal meaning-making activities and informal interactions (carson et al., 2011). lori recollects an example of the way relationships grew in the rural ontario program: elder betty was absent due to illness for the program’s festive celebration, so her child partner, koleson, joined in with another elder-child partnership and created a festive centrepiece. at the close of the class, the teacher prompted the children to give their centrepieces as gifts to the elder partners. koleson picked up his centrepiece and walked over to his usual seat in search of his absent elder partner. another elder noticed this and was so touched by koleson’s care for betty that she offered to deliver the gift to betty’s home. in revisiting these examples, we recognized that the intergenerational relationships gave life to the meaningmaking practices. as the elders and children cared about and for one another and created artifacts, literacies were “imbued with the weight of relationships” (heydon, 2013, p. 17), and meaning-making practices flourished. connections across elders’ and children’s meaning-making practices next, we look at elders’ and children’s meaning-making practices within these supportive intergenerational relationships. these meaning-making practices created space for elders and children to attempt or adapt practices, which brian cambourne (1988) identifies as the condition of approximation. each partner drew from their “funds of knowledge,” or resources gained outside of the intergenerational experience (moll, amanti, neff, & gonzalez, 1992), to contribute to the meaning-making activities. at times, educators or program facilitators suggested these supports, but often elders and children spontaneously supported each other. tara-lynn remembers grandad’s visit to the daycare: november 2019 115 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice when granddad was conducting a read-aloud, i was struck by the way that a young child spontaneously adjusted her position on the carpet, without interrupting granddad, so that she could better see the illustrations of the picturebook. lori similarly recalls an example from rural ontario: as the elders and children collaborated to create digital storybooks, the elders read the textual prompts to the children and the children tapped the screen to select pictures and record audio. as elders and children took turns, they showed each other what they understood about using the app, and the elderchild duos determined how each partner could contribute to the story. in our reflections, we noted the reciprocal support that elders and children provided for each other. as elders and children exchanged practices, they each contributed in different ways and worked as “equal partners” in meaning making (carson et al., 2011, p. 415). within these practices, both elders and young children were positioned as capable meaning makers, in contrast to societal views that at times position elders and young children as less capable than adults (gamliel & gabay, 2014). the children’s practices were valued for what they were and not positioned as steps to achieve adult forms of literacy (gillen & hall, 2013), and elders’ practices were viewed as relevant rather than outdated (mcadams, 1993). as equal partners, elders and children learned from and with each other. tara-lynn recalls an example from the urban ontario experience: the “intergenerational hands” art lesson (heydon, 2013) has left a lasting impact on me for the way the elders and children physically supported the tracing of one another’s hands. the elders took time to point out the details of their hands, from the wrinkles to the rings they were wearing. some named the flowers in the bouquet they were tracing and listened to the children’s observations of the flowers. the children similarly helped their elder partners to add details or to draw for their elder partners as they pointed to the details they wanted to show on the paper. the children and elders took turns guiding each other, sharing their meaning-making practices and inviting their partner’s input as they created artifacts. we observed young children learning from more experienced members of the language or culture (e.g., gregory, long, & volk, 2004), such as when using print-based resources, as well as children leading the elders, in particular, when using digital resources (carson et al., 2011). within this exchange, new literacy practices emerged that bore traces of the children’s and elders’ literacy practices (e.g., gregory et al., 2004). we also noted examples of when the learning opportunities within the intergenerational experiences were connected with learning opportunities and experiences outside the program. the intergenerational experiences functioned as a third space, where elders and children shared discourses and practices of school, home, and community as they created artifacts (moje et al., 2004). at times, the curriculum intentionally created opportunities for elders and children to connect learning opportunities within the intergenerational experiences to their experiences outside of the program. lori recalls an example from rural ontario: in the digital storybook activity, the children learned how to use the ipads at school, then brought them home and took photos of the special people, places, and things in their lives. the children brought the ipads to the intergenerational class and showed the elders their pictures, and the elders supported the children in using the images to create a digital storybook. as elder martha viewed her child partner karl’s images from home, she recognized the child’s parent as a relative, which seemed to strengthen the intergenerational relationship already forged. november 2019 116 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice though the activity was planned to cross boundaries of school, home, and intergenerational classes, it supported the intergenerational relationships and learning in unanticipated ways. the boundaries of the program were permeable (e.g., jewitt, 2008) and allowed for connections of practices and people. discussion our reflections highlight examples that show the ways that intergenerational relationships were “inseparable” (mckee & heydon, 2015, p. 237) and entangled with meaning-making practices. figure 1 illustrates the entangled nature of connections in intergenerational meaning making as it occurs between people and across meaningmaking practices. our word cloud is constructed from keywords generated as we analyzed our ideas for this paper. these words represent what we saw, what we felt, and what we experienced in intergenerational experiences, with the size of the word indicating the words that recurred most often in our stories. the word cloud shows that the growth of these connections was not linear, or cause-and-effect processes, but was interconnected with each other and expanded in diverse ways in response to the particular setting, people involved, and program focus. through these entangled connections, generations were united, assumptions of young children’s and elders’ capabilities were challenged, and approximations of learning were supported. figure 1. entangled connections. our reflections also speak to the importance of intergenerational experiences for elders, young children, educators, and researchers. while we celebrate the value of intergenerational experiences, we also recognize the impact of these experiences on our practice as educators within monogenerational settings. as we consider this impact, we offer the following key principles as central to supporting meaning making in intergenerational settings and beyond: • relationships are an essential, integral part of meaning-making practices. barton and hamilton (2000) remind us that literacy practices are “purposeful and embedded in broader social goals and cultural practices” (p. 8). as educators, we can create opportunities for our students to engage in social connections that can november 2019 117 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice support them in learning with and from others, including peers, elders, or other adults such as educators and parents (carson et al., 2011). these connections allow for all learners to use and share meaningmaking practices (cambourne, 1998). • all people, regardless of age or ability, can be meaning makers. our experiences illustrate the ways that asset-oriented pedagogies recognize each person’s funds of knowledge (moll et al., 1992). as educators, we can design activities that recognize our students’ capabilities and extend from our students’ funds of knowledge. within these activities, we can accept learners’ approximations and convey the message that mistakes are part of learning (cambourne, 1988). • sharing practices enriches meaning making. moje et al.’s (2004) notion of third space suggests that allowing outside-of-school practices to flow into classrooms can extend meaning-making opportunities. as educators, we can build bridges for meaning makers to share practices across home, school, and community. we can invite community members (e.g., elders) into the classroom, or find intentional ways for children to share experiences and practices learned outside of the classroom. though we recognize that learning can be supported through singular experiences (e.g., grandfriends day visits), we advocate for ongoing opportunities for sharing practices (e.g., grandad coming to visit on an ongoing basis). we view these principles as interconnected, much like the entangled nature of connections within figure 1. the ways that these principles can come together will depend on particular contexts. with this in mind, we invite other educators, regardless of context, to consider how these principles may support learners and create spaces where meaning-making practices can be shared and enriched. november 2019 118 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references barton, d., & hamilton, m. (2000). literacy practices. in d. barton, m. hamilton, & r. ivanič (eds.), situated literacies: reading and writing in context (pp. 7–15). london, uk: routledge. britton, j. (1970). language and learning. coral gables, fl: university of miami press. cambourne, b. (1988). the whole story: natural learning and the acquisition of literacy in the classroom. newtown, australia: primary english teachers association. carson, a. j., kobayashi, k. m., & kuehne, v. s. (2011). the meadows school project: case study of a unique shared site intergenerational program. journal of intergenerational relationships, 9, 405–417. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2011.618369 gamliel, t., & n. gabay. (2014). knowledge exchange, social interactions, and empowerment in an intergenerational technology program at school. educational gerontology, 40(8), 597–617. https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2013.863097 gillen, j., & hall, n. (2013). the emergence of early childhood literacy. in j. larson & j. marsh (eds.), the sage handbook of early childhood literacy (2nd ed.; pp. 3–17). london, uk: sage. gregory, e., long, s. & volk, d. (eds). (2004). many pathways to literacy: young children learning with siblings, grandparents, peers, and communities. new york, ny: routledgefalmer. heydon, r. (2013). learning at the ends of life: children, elders, and literacies in intergenerational curriculum. toronto, on: university of toronto press. heydon, r., mckee, l. & daly, b. (2017). ipads and paintbrushes: an exploratory case study of integrating digital media as placed resources into an intergenerational art class. language and education, 31(4), 351-373. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2016 .1276585 jewitt, c. (2008). multimodality and literacy in school classrooms. review of research in education, 32, 241–267. https://doi. org/10.3102%2f0091732x07310586 mcadams, d. p. (1993). the stories we live by: personal myths and the making of the self. new york, ny: william morrow & company. mckee, l. (2013). print literacy opportunities for young children in a multimodal literacy ensemble (master’s thesis). retrieved from http:// ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/1156 mckee, l., & heydon, r. (2015). orchestrating literacies: print literacy learning opportunities within multimodal intergenerational ensembles. journal of early childhood literacy, 15(2), 227–255. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1468798414533562 moje, e., ciechanowski, k. m., kramer, k., ellis, l., carrillo, r., & collazo, t. (2004). working toward third space in content area literacy: an examination of everyday funds of knowledge and discourse. reading research quarterly, 39(40), 38–70. retrieved from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~moje/pdf/journal/workingtowardthirdspace.pdf moll, l. c., amanti, c., neff, d., & gonzalez, n. (1992). funds of knowledge for teaching: using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. theory into practice, 31(2), 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534 scheffel, t. (2013). portraits of home: working in community day care homes in new brunswick. learning landscapes, 7(1), 283–299. https://doi.org/10.36510/learnland.v7i1.643 scheffel, t. (2015). the heart of the matter: exploring intergenerational themes in children’s literature. journal of intergenerational relationships, 13(2), 167–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2015.1028259 walsh, m. (2011). multimodal literacy: researching classroom practice. newtown, australia: primary english teaching association (e:lit). retrieved from http://www.petaa.edu.au/imis_test/petaa_docs/publications/sample_papers/pet094e.pdf november 2019 119 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice (endnotes) 1 these studies were supported by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc) and western university and included: • sshrc insight grant learning together: a multiple case study of intergenerational multimodal curricula (rachel heydon pi, susan o’neill, ci) • sshrc major collaborative research initiative advancing interdisciplinary research in singing (annabel cohen, pi, rachel heydon, susan o’neill et al., ci) • sshrc standard research grant an inquiry into the relationship between curriculum interactions and learning opportunities in intergenerational shared site programs (rachel heydon, pi) • the university of western ontario paint brushes and ipads: a study of multimodal literacy and pedagogy in an intergenerational art program (rachel heydon, pi) november 2019 66 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor reconceptualizing children, teaching, and learning through inter/intragenerational educational opportunities rachel heydon, guest editor in the minority world, we routinely divide the population according to generation. for instance, in canada, where i am writing this, we have institutions designed by adults (of working age) for children to spend their days (e.g., schools, childcare centres), and there are others created by adults (of working age) for older adults to spend their days (and nights). we then subdivide these generations into manageable categories of infant room, toddler room, kindergarten, grade one, and so forth through to senior independent living apartment, assisted living, and so forth. the spaces and experiences ascribed to young and old are formed through a developmental logic where individuals are grouped by virtue of their age (e.g., 3.8 years of age) or a single defining cognitive feature (e.g., memory problems), rather than by a complexity of attributes. simplifying placement and programming by a single defining feature like age means that programming can claim efficiency and developmental appropriateness (e.g., this is what 5-year-olds need; this is what a senior citizen needs). as for when adulthood grows into senior citizenhood and there becomes a bifurcation between those who make the decisions and those about whom decisions are made, it has been argued that participation in paid employment is one of the markers that etches this line (e.g., heydon, 2007). herein lies one more place where developmentalism and neoliberalism clasp hands, promoting programs and subjectivities that squander the ethical possibilities of living well together (for other such places, please see sonu & benson, 2016; stearns, 2016; türken, nafstad, blaker, & roen, 2015). this special section of this issue of the journal of childhood studies recognizes that particular kinds of engagements between people who are at least one generation apart can challenge taken-for-granted notions of human development and what is meaningful and valuable for the constituents of our world across time. importantly, by constituents i mean all of what and who make up the world, including humans and nonhumans, such as water and trees. creating opportunities for skipped generations (persons separated by at least one generation, such grandparents and grandchildren) to live with each other in ways that are meaningful to them and their communities is the backbone of intergenerational programs that defy naïve pragmatism; that is, what complexifies and situates what these programs generate, for whom, with what affordances and constraints, as well as what “assumptions, theories, and metatheories” (skrtic, 1995, p. 69) these programs are founded upon (heydon & o’neill, 2016). the call for intergenerational programs of this ilk has been put out in a time when occasions for informal, organic, communal, and/or familial intergenerational learning are uneven. the literature suggests that the quantity and quality of interactions between skipped generations varies (bangerter & waldron, 2014). discrepancies in frequency and type of contact are correlated with factors such as culture and ethnicity (fuller-thomson, serbinski, & mccormack, 2014), socio-economics, and immigration status (e.g., milan, laflamme, & wong, 2015). for example, sherry holladay and heather seipke (2007) noted minimal interaction between grandparents and grandchildren in united states retirement communities even though increased intergenerational contact has been documented in grandparent-headed households in countries (e.g., australia) where kinship care is mandated over foster care (bell & romano, 2015) and in multigenerational households in cases such as new immigrants to north america sharing housing to reduce costs (milan et al., 2015). and, of course, the primacy of intergenerationality is a lesson that indigenous people on turtle island and across the world have never neglected (e.g., faulkhead, bradley, & mckee, 2017; gutiėrrez, 2012; mcleod, 2012; young leon, 2012). a special subsection of intergenerational programming is intergenerational learning programs. much of the classic research on intergenerational learning has involved familial intergenerational learning and has tended to focus on what children acquire from grandparents (e.g., gregory, long, & volk, 2004). much of this research is indebted to november 2019 67 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor barbara rogoff ’s (1990) concept of guided participation, in which children learn as they engage with caregivers, such as grandparents (kelly, 2004) during shared activities. for instance, in families that had recently migrated to london, uk, eve gregory (2008) identified grandparents as “mediators of literacies” (p. vii) and found that, by traversing generational and linguistic lines, children acquired “membership in different culture, language and literacy groups in different contexts or domains of their lives” (p. 25). formal intergenerational learning programs have typically been charged with finding ways to “create connections for non-biologically linked old and young people that could promote the social growth, learning and emotional stability that often characterizes relationships between elder and younger family members” (newman & hatton-yeo, 2008, p. 32). the papers in this special section express a related, more nuanced concern with the co-generation of knowledge by skipped generations. studies in this vein explore the meanings of intergenerational learning opportunities (formal and informal) for all participants, subverting the idea that children are the only or primary learners in these relationships. my own involvement in this kind of research has found that intergenerational learning programs can expand people’s literacy options across the lifespan (heydon, 2013), help participants forge and deepen different kinds of connections through literacy practices (e.g., among young and old, institutions, and community partners and organizations; heydon, mckee, & o’neill, 2018), and create expansive identity options for people, including identities based in folks seeing themselves having something valuable to communicate and the means to do so (heydon, 2007). research has identified that intergenerational learning program affordances reach beyond the children and adults enrolled in the program. studies have found, for example, that children discuss intergenerational learning experiences with parents irrespective of the parents’ participation in the intergenerational program (vaughan, gack, solorazano, & ray, 2003), and when children shared what they learned from intergenerational programming at home, the home was changed (ballantyne, fien, & packer, 2001). exploring what intergenerational learning programs can create in and for the world and its constituents is an is interand transdisciplinary project. this work has been taken up through program development and study concerning, but certainly not limited to, intergenerational art programs (laporte, 2002), singing groups (beynon & lang, 2018), technology programs (gamliel & gabay, 2014), and civic literacy (hanmore-cawley & scharf, 2018). still, intergenerational inquiry is in its infancy and its theoretical underpinnings have been dominated by developmental theories and an acritical, apolitical posture (e.g., hatzifilalithis & grenier, 2019). the literature does contain traces of critical discussions pertinent to early childhood education, such as the social positioning of young (and old), understandings of disability, and the purposes of education (e.g., heydon, 2007). this criticality can too often be missing from the intergenerational literature and therefore was the crux of the call for papers for this special section. in an era when the status quo is killing our planet, these old logics will not do. it is time to produce thinking that can overcome old modes of affect and thought, to (re)read intergenerational learning for what it might say about creating, not just more livable futures, but more livable presents, and (re)appreciating what the past might teach about what is important today and tomorrow. intergenerational learning can transgress developmental and neoliberal logics and thus has been called a radical curricular project (heydon, 2013). one way it enacts this transgression is by underscoring that people acquire, cogenerate, and practice new knowledge within and across generational lines. learning, generating knowledge, communicating, living, and being intergenerationally are intra-active (barad, 2007). there are no singular entities. karin murris and cara borcherds (2019), for instance, explain that all living beings “including human bodies … are only because they are in relation to and influencing each other” (pp. 198–199, emphasis in original). these bodies can also be conceptualized as plural, existing and becoming as (at least) social, political, and physical coconstituents of myriad systems (watson, emery, & bayliss, 2012). using this understanding and extending it, heydon et al. (in press) have argued that the bodies of young and old are read socially and politically based on november 2019 68 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor biological essentialism—woman, child, old person, disabled, for example. intergenerational learning can interrupt this thinking. within intra-action, the persons across these bodies cogenerate knowledge. what emerges is not yours or mine but ours. young and old are indivisible in an ontology conceived through relation. two critical ideas for thinking radically in intergenerational curricula emerge from this ontology: first, in the absence of individuality or singularity, difference (e.g., difference in age or generation) is a difference “within, not without” (murris & borcherds, 2019, p. 199, emphasis in original), hence eradicating binary-orientated thinking and hierarchy. the meaning of generations together is equally produced within the overlaps, interstices of the intergenerational us, never to be premised in a banking model of education (freire, 2000) where the adult teacher inputs knowledge as currency into the child with the expectation of getting back exactly what has gone in. relatedly, the collapse of the without is the demise of the “adult/child dichotomy” (murris & borcherds, 2019, p. 199) which has dogged the institutional structures i mentioned at the outset of this editorial. instead, the intraactions involving generations of people and the entanglements of their situ (e.g., the stuff of their program) can give rise to an “ageless subject ... who is always in process ... and is affected and e/merges relationally through intraaction” (murris & borcherds, 2019, p. 199) rather than by chronological age. the irony of intergenerational learning programs is that, when they are done in a way that cuts through the black box of developmental and neoliberal logics, their curriculum is an ageless curriculum. it is in the spirit of this ageless curriculum that i dedicate this special section. november 2019 69 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references ballantyne, r., fien, j., & packer, j. 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(2017). the more we get together, the more we learn: focus on intergenerational and collaborative learning through singing. journal of intergenerational relationships, 16(1–2), 45–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2018.1404405 faulkhead, s., bradley, j., & mckee, b. (2017). animating language: continuing intergenerational indigenous language knowledge. in j. anderson & h. geismar (eds.), animating language (pp. 452–472). london, uk: routledge. freire, p. (2000). pedagogy of the oppressed. london, uk: bloomsbury. fuller-thomson, e., serbinski, s., & mccormack, l. (2014) the rewards of caring for grandchildren: black canadian grandmothers who are custodial parents, co-parents, and extensive babysitters. grandfamilies: the contemporary journal of research, practice, and policy, 1(1), 4–31. retrieved from http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/grandfamilies/vol1/iss1/2 gamliel, t., & gabay, n. 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(2012). elders’ teaching on leadership: leadership as gift. in c. kenny & t. ngaroimata fraser (eds.), living indigenous leadership: native narratives on building strong communities (pp. 48–63). vancouver: ubc press. october 2019 47 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice cultural intersections, pedagogical encounters, and ethical disruptions ramona shawana, alana tucker, and sharon speir ramona shawana, rece, ba in early childhood studies with a professional master’s of education in progress, is an anishinaabe kwe from wiikwemkoong unceded territory who has been working with young children for 27 years. she is passionate about ensuring that young children’s learning is strongly rooted in their culture, fostering a strong sense of identity. email: shawanar70@gmail.com alana tucker, bed elementary education, med reading specialization, is a preschool administrator for the bermuda public school system. she has worked as a classroom teacher in both public and private settings. her interests include emergent curriculum, inquiry-based teaching, and fostering relationships with children and their families. email: altucker@moed.bm sharon speir, phd curriculum: teaching and learning, is an early childhood collaborator, researcher, and pedagogical leader inspired by the children, educators, and artists of reggio emilia, ontario, and bermuda. as a white person with settler heritage, she advocates for reconciliation and the decolonization of education. email: sharonbspeir@gmail.com we—ramona, alana, and sharon—have been supporting early childhood educators, each in our various roles: alana (a preschool administrator) with sharon (the assistant director of early childhood education) in governmentfunded preschools in bermuda, and ramona (an early childhood educator and consultant) with sharon (a superintendent) in kindergartens (on and off reserve) in ontario. in these contexts, the image of the teacher as most knowledgeable and in control is often firmly held and tied to the dominant eurocentric history and its discourse of schooling. this teacher image determines how children are seen, what teaching and learning will look like, and ultimately what practices are possible. while labouring to meet a eurocentric standard of success, only a single perspective is heard on this issue of identity and schooling, and the intelligence of indigenous places, peoples, and cultures is silenced. the loss of language, cultural awareness, and indigenous perspectives means that even when given an opportunity to speak, indigenous peoples may not be aware of an alternative and may be “proficient only in the language of the colonizer” (anderson, 2002, p. 293). can we imagine a learning space where indigenous teachers’ identities are distinguished and where indigenous children are deemed successful? cultural intersections and pedagogical encounters in this paper we inquire into encounters we have had with children in the early childhood settings where we work. using emancipatory inquiry as a strategy to liberate thinking, we explore indigenous ways of knowing as an alternative to the dominant colonizing narrative. how do we counter colonized schooling narratives in places where indigenous identities and cultural ways of knowing have been silenced? based on encounters with children, the authors inquire into how cultural intersections can become pedagogical with the potential to disrupt colonizing narratives and explore indigenous ways of knowing. they discuss inquiry’s emancipatory potential: granting space to listen, explore difference, think differently, and challenge the dominant colonizing discourses about indigenous and black children in early childhood settings. key words: indigenous knowledge; colonizing narratives; emancipatory inquiry october 2019 48 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice intersections of geography and culture this first encounter comes from ramona’s kindergarten class in sudbury, ontario, where she was working as an early childhood educator. ramona, an anishinaabe kwe from wiikwemkoong unceded territory on mnidoo mnising (manitoulin island), had recently moved with her family to sudbury, an urban centre located on the traditional territories of the atikameksheng anishinaabek. in this place, she found herself traversing two worlds, proficient in her own cultural heritage and traditions and adapting to new and different ones. figure 1. zuri drawing on blackboard. ramona: a glance across the classroom draws my eyes to an image that is being drawn on the chalkboard by a young black girl of african descent. i am intrigued by this image that has cultural significance for me. i see the four directions—north, south, east, west—and ask zuri to label her drawing. i make an immediate connection to the four elements—earth, wind, fire, water—of the medicine wheel and its teachings. “i live here,” zuri says as she points to place inside the circle that she has drawn. this moment ignited something in me. i immediately was connected to the familiarity of this image, stunned, really, that she was creating something i recognized, and i wanted to make sense of it all. i had just moved from my home to the city and was teaching for the first time in the provincial school system. as i was navigating this new and unfamiliar setting, i often found myself wondering who i was within this context. (shawana, villeneuve, caruso-parnell, hearn, & kelly, 2017) october 2019 49 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice reggio educators describe encounter as a “place for dialogue” about the intersections of culture and place that gives a way to define identities—ours, yours, and mine (lecture, study week in reggio, 2010). veronica pacini-ketchabaw and colleagues (2015, citing saldanha, 2006) suggest that “encounters of difference are a site for complex identity negotiations in which contradictory, situational, and contingent perspectives are constructed” (p. 95). the image drawn by zuri1 opens a “place for dialogue” between her and ramona, an invitation to explore the intersections between their african and anishinaabe cultures and what it means to each of them to be constructing an identity that is situational and contingent, evoked by living in a new place. in our experience, encounters with children have the potential to locate us in time and space and connect us. they draw us into inquiries about who we are and where we come from, and if we are open, to engage in thinking about the possibilities of how we might respond to a child’s invitation to explore cultural intersections such as geography and culture. intersections of race and gender this second encounter, an example of an intersection of race and gender, occurred in bermuda at the preschool where alana was the administrator. alana, a black bermudian born and raised in this british overseas territory, describes bermudian society and culture as a complex dynamic with respect to varying social, economic, and racial difference, which translates into how children are viewed and their capabilities and rank in society. alana: the children’s interest in babies has grown due to the arrival of azure’s and cruze’s new baby sisters. in a small group, the children discuss their theories about babies with their teacher. teacher: where do babies come from? cruze: she was in my mama’s belly. i can’t touch her. she has to get big. teacher: how do you know when someone is having a baby? azure: they have a baby shower. that’s how you know that someone is having a baby. we knew she was having a girl ’cause they had pink balloons. cruze: i didn’t know my baby kara was white-face, kara. she’s so pretty. what do we make of this dialogue? azure’s and cruze’s associations of female as pink is a stereotypical identification of gender, and white-face as pretty reflects the dominance of whiteness. how might we respond as educators? how do we stay with this? do we challenge, provide an alternative, or perhaps engage in trying to understand the children’s points of view? being in relation: a listening and learning stance according to bill readings (1996, as cited in dahlberg & moss, 2005), “pedagogy is a relation, a network of obligation (p. 154) … an infinite attention to the other (p. 158) … [and] education is this drawing out of the otherness of thought” (pp. 161–162). rather than a method to be followed, as is the case with scientific inquiry, inquiry as an emancipatory pedagogical strategy is a stance in relation to and with attention toward the other, a way of being that is open and curious about difference. ramona: anishinaabe people often ask when we meet someone, “where are you from?” it is important to share who we are so that we know how to be in relation to that person. october 2019 50 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice alana: similarly, in bermudian culture, “where are you from? who are your people?” are common introductory questions. we find it necessary at the onset to contextualize people to decide how future encounters will progress. treating these seemingly everyday moments with children as pedagogical encounters (as ways of getting to know the other) put us into a listening and learning stance and draw us closer to understanding who we are in relation to other beings and the spirit of place, community, and culture. this stance, for us, is aligned with indigenous ways of knowing. this “being in relation” is evident to us as we reflect on these encounters with children. ramona: watching zuri create this image made me curious about what she could potentially be communicating about who she was and where she came from. was it possible that she too was grappling with this idea of who she is in this place? alana: rereading this conversation about the babies, i want to have a further discussion with cruze. i think he might have been referring to the fact that the baby’s skin is lighter than both his and his siblings, as these are often everyday conversations in our society. i wonder if that’s his meaning? being in relation, akin to being in a listening and learning stance, requires that we see our perspectives as both located and subjective and have a desire to experience a different point of view. in schools, inculcated in eurocentric precepts, however, teaching is often perceived as an act of certainty. this mask of certainty impedes authentic relationships and restricts our vision of what is and what is possible. loris malaguzzi (1994) explains that our theories (and, we argue, the colonial narratives that shape us) orient us as we talk, listen, and observe the child and determine what child we will see. what identities do you see? ramona and alana, curious to learn more, decide to seek clarification by talking to the children, their families, and elders in their communities. what does zuri’s drawing represent? ramona wants to gain a deeper understanding of zuri’s culture. alana wants to know how cruze sees his baby sister. she wonders what family values may be influencing his perspective. ramona: zuri’s father shared with me that he wants to ensure that his daughter is bicultural, able to walk in two worlds. he explained, “culturally i give my children both. i teach them to know where they came from but also teach them to adapt to life here. you can’t live here like you live in congo” (personal communication, 2011). when i was listening to zuri’s father’s story of his family and what was important to him, it resonated with my own situation, specifically, being in a new community with my children, and the opportunities that we came here for. i am aware that as anishinaabe people we sacrifice a part of self to achieve in this world. brock pitawanakwat (as cited in simpson, 2008) writes, “the trouble with being (almost) assimilated is that i know something is missing but i am not sure what” (p. 161). how do we resist assimilation and the loss of indigenous identities while living in cultural contexts that differ from our own? through pedagogical encounters with children, such as these, we begin to see children and adults as having contingent and complex rather than singular or static identities, and as cocreators of culture and knowledge rather than merely replicating what they have seen and heard. sharon: zuri appears to be actively constructing her identity through this large drawing. she locates herself globally, in contrast to the classroom, where she is the only black child. is cruze surprised that his newborn sister is white faced and pretty? is he restating something that he has heard? is he thinking about these things differently, or maybe he is exploring these concepts and trying them on in front of his peers? october 2019 51 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice alana: in a later conversation with cruze, he expanded on the idea of skin colour: “baby kara is not white-skinned anymore. she’s turning black like me. her skin changed.” “her skin is turning black like you, cruze,” another child commented. “like my skin,” another added. i talked to the children about their concept of pretty to see if we could uncover their thinking about skin colour. initially, they focused on outward appearances, defining pretty as mascara, high heels, and pink, sparkly dresses. when i asked them if black skin is pretty, they agreed. however, when i asked them if they would rather choose a black doll or a white doll to play with, they responded that the white doll is nice. these topics are pedagogical both for children and adults, for they teach us about socially constructed notions of culture, race, and gender and the existing, oftentimes contradictory, tensions. alana: ongoing debates around gender and gender roles continued to emerge this year. these intrigue me. experiences and opinions expressed in their homes influence children’s views on gender and acceptable gender roles. the interesting point for me is that children are often willing to revise their opinions in the face of new information. however, sometimes they remain resolute in their views despite new or opposing information. back in alana’s classroom, the conversations continue. damian, a 4-year-old boy, is standing with his classmates with hands on his waist, expressing his displeasure at a situation. cruze: take your hands off your hips. that’s what girls do! damian: no, that’s not what girls do. anybody can do it! cruze: no, my daddy said that’s how girls stand. you must be a girl. damian: no, i’m not. on another occasion, the conversation about gender roles resurfaced when the children were dancing to music. cruze: you’re dancing like a girl. only girls do ballet. other children: yeah, only girls do ballet. boys can’t do ballet. cruze: ballet is for girls. boys are rough and tough! alana explains: i decided to show them a clip of boys participating in a ballet performance. some of the children were open to revising their views. however, others continued to maintain that ballet is not for girls. i asked cruze’s mom about what appears to be his strong opinions about gender roles. she stated, “he knows that dolls are for girls and trucks are for boys. obviously, some toys will overlap, but if the girls are playing house or dress up, we pull him away and give him something masculine to do. we make sure that the children understand that the natural order is that male is male and female is female” (personal communication, may 2018). cruze’s parent shared that their religious views are fundamental in helping to formulate their children’s characters and their worldview. she added that it is the family’s role to teach right and wrong. arun saldanha’s (2006, as cited in pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015) proposal that encounters are sites for complex identity negotiations seems applicable here, as we hear the contexts in which cruze is constructing his identity—at home, where parents promote particular subjectivities, and at school, where children offer something different. what is our responsibility as educators? how do we honour the child’s point of view in a nonjudgmental way while seeking to gain insight into the child’s identity? how do we respectfully navigate different identities in a way that october 2019 52 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice honours each and provides space for learning and growing from each other? we think it is helpful to understand the underlying family and cultural values and the cultural context. conceptions of children and childhood alana: in bermudian culture, religion and spirituality are very influential in the formation of children’s identities. they are taught in the home as well as through schools and churches. a large part of children’s early identities is connected to their god, their church, and their family’s religious affiliation. in contrast to the eurocentric worldview where persons become through individual agency, shepherd and mhlanga (2014) describe a different ethic, a worldview where persons become “in relation” with community: beginning from early childhood, in african traditional societies, children were identified by their extended families and in turn their immediate communities ... all elders bore the responsibility of nurturing desired moral values in children ... this communal ethic was fostered in these elders by the preceding generations. the end result was the desired product, a person with ubuntu or personhood (chitumba, 2011). (shepherd & mhlanga, p. 4) ramona: the elder shared with me how our people see the child: “children are sacred gifts given to us from the creator. children have an innate holistic worldview” (i. pitawanakwat, personal communication, 2011). it has always been our view that when a child is born, each brings something to our collective well-being. we do not focus on weaknesses or deficits but gifts. as anishinaabe, we have always placed great value in each child born into our community and the role they play. the communal ethic is also evident in the anishinaabe worldview that speaks to how the community is in relation to children and their gifts, bestowed to the community by the creator. david anderson (2002) explains: we know that each child is on loan to us from the creator. we have traditionally honoured our children through ceremonies. children receive their spirit names so the creator can recognize who they are. these names reflect their gifts. our communities were given clans, so our children know they are not alone in the world but have other beings around them to help teach and care for them. how do our schools and classrooms honour these children, their clans and their gifts? (p. 297) anderson’s question reorients us from a colonized stance of children and school toward being in relation with indigenous and black children as contributing members within a community, honouring who they are and the gifts they bring. this alternate way of thinking can also reorient us pedagogically. how do we conceptualize learning? what constitutes knowledge? colonized views of education and learning hold that there is a specific and objective body of knowledge acquired only through academic pursuits, whereas in the indigenous worldview there is an appreciation for the varied paths that lead to knowledge and wisdom, specifically from the land, water, and the animals. rhonda hopkins, a fluent anishinaabemowin speaker and language coach in elementary school and community college contexts, explains: “there is no word for ‘teacher’ in ojibwe. the closest word, dakenjgewin, or learning, is defined as what the learner does, how they make it their own” (r. hopkins, personal communication, 2018). anderson (2002) expands on this conception of learning: from infancy, children were taught the “big story,” the abstract messages of our being ... they listened to the teachings of the elders, the words of their mothers and grandparents ... it is the work of the october 2019 53 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice individual child to take these abstract concepts of creation, community, family, and individuality and to make meaningful relationships with the people, the land, the elements and the animals around us all. (p. 4) ramona: zuri’s parents shared with me that in the congo, elders would tell stories at night time. all the children in the village would gather around to listen, and there was a lesson to be learned (personal communication, 2011). from my conversation with zuri’s parents, i learned that legends and storytelling are traditions shared in both the anishinaabe culture and the people of the congo. in my culture, anishinaabe elders are our traditional teachers in the school of life. their experience is passed down from generation to generation to keep spiritual wisdom alive. i decided to introduce a storytelling stool into our classroom as a means of nurturing my relationship with zuri. the storytelling stool originated in the congo. elders could be found carrying the stool over their shoulder as they would travel from village to village sharing stories with the children. as a means of sharing my culture with my students, i share ojibwe legends. when the students see me pick up the stool, they immediately gather in anticipation of the telling of a legend. zuri identified with the stool. she told me, “this looks like my table at home.” this encounter with zuri permitted me to look inward. she helped me to see that there was a place for culture. when i introduced the storytelling stool as a way to honour and include her, it became a segue for exploring culture in the classroom. through documentation and reflection on this experience, i have come to view zuri like migizi (eagle), a messenger sent to me to assist me in realizing my purpose. this moment was pivotal in my growth as a teacher as well as an anishinaabe kwe. an encounter “operates as a rupture in our habitual modes of being and thus in our habitual subjectivities” according to simon o’sullivan (2006, p. 1, as cited in pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2017, p. 40). encounters, such as ramona’s encounter with zuri, change us. donna haraway (2008, as cited in pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2017) identifies this as new world making: a process through which we are remade. ethical disruptions sharon: the formation of identities in the intersections between cultural contexts is nuanced and complex. what is our ethical responsibility? alana: these encounters with children have confirmed my belief in the liberating power of inquiry: helping children to find their voice, express who they are, and construct knowledge in a way that is meaningful and relevant to their experience. i have witnessed the transformation of children who initially recoiled from conversations and engagement to demonstrate the confidence to ask questions, make and explain theories, and engage in meaningful conversations around ideas and concepts (tucker, 2018). these transformations have been the most gratifying part of this journey. children bring their identities and understandings of the world, all unique to their perspective and experiences. i feel it is a moral obligation to value, in meaningful ways, the culture and identities and ways of knowing that children bring. through emancipatory inquiry, we are free to use encounters with children as curriculum. ramona responded by connecting with the family, deciding to bring storytelling into the classroom, and including an african stool. through this act, she acknowledged zuri and her family’s culture and created a way to bring her identity and culture into the classroom. alana revisited earlier conversations and disrupted stereotypical images of gender by offering an alternative possibility, such as a boy who dances ballet. she held a conversational space for children to encounter difference and to internalize different ideologies. in her role as moderator, she supported the children to grapple with ideas and engage in a discourse, helping children learn to hear one another and to understand that each voice has equal value. october 2019 54 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice erkki patokorpi (2009, as cited by speir & simmons, 2016) states that, “through the lens of abductive reasoning, learning is a complex and an incomplete process, cannot be fully understood and is never complete” (p. 11). when we conceptualize encounters with children and teachers “as spaces of possibility and surprise; as sites of ethical and democratic practice; or indeed as ‘works of art’ or in many other ways” (dahlberg & moss, 2005, p. 59), we open up a space for dialogue that gives voice to the silenced and unspoken. those of us who work with teachers and children have the privilege and responsibility of bearing witness when the crack or opening appears. the ethical response, according to emmanuel levinas (1989, p. 137, as cited by dahlberg & moss, 2005, p. 77) is to encounter the other, staying open to alterity without attempting to grasp their identity and their experience as our own. october 2019 55 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references anderson, d. (2002). preparing to teach our children the foundations for an anishinaabe curriculum. mcgill journal of education, 37(3), 293–307. dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. abingdon, uk: routledgefalmer. malaguzzi, l. (1994). your image of the child: where teaching begins. the child care information exchange, 3(94). retrieved from https://www.reggioalliance.org/downloads/malaguzzi:ccie:1994.pdf pacini-ketchabaw, v., kind, s., & kocher, l. (2017). encounters with materials in early childhood education. new york, ny: routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l., elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (2015). journeys: reconceptualizing early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. shawana, r., villeneuve, d., caruso-parnell, e. hearn, j., & kelly, j. (2017). meeting in the clearing: reflections on northern identity and mino-bimaadziwin. innovations in early education, 24(3), 14–29. shepherd, n., & mhlanga, d. (2014). philosophy for children: a model for unhu/ubuntu philosophy. international journal of scientific and research publications, 4(2), 1–5. retrieved from http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-0214/ijsrp-p26119.pdf simpson, l. (ed). (2008). lighting the eighth fire: the liberation, resurgence, and protection of indigenous nations. winnipeg, mb: arbeiter ring. speir, s., & simmons, l. (2016). inquiry: an emancipatory pedagogical strategy for bermuda schools. voices in education, 2, 10–16. retrieved from https://www.college.bm/images/documents/bcj/vol_2/inquiry_an_emancipatory_pedagogical_strategy_for_ bermuda%20schools_schools.pdf tucker, a. (2018). an emergent curriculum study. unpublished. (endnotes) 1 the children’s names are pseudonyms. january 2020 19 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research indigenous knowledge in early childhood education: building a nest for reconciliation cheryl kinzel cheryl kinzel is the associate dean, department of research and innovation, and director of the centre for early development and applied research (cedar) at bow valley college in calgary, alberta. cheryl holds a bachelor of arts degree from the university of victoria, a bachelor of education and master of education degree from the university of british columbia, and a doctoral degree in educational research from the university of calgary. cheryl has over 25 years of experience in the field of education covering the areas of teaching, curriculum development, research, program management, and leadership. email: ckinzel@bowvalleycollege.ca the calls to action issued by the truth and reconciliation commission of canada speak to the moral and ethical obligations that the canadian government and society must undertake in order to reconcile relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. a research study exploring how indigenous knowledges were experienced by non-indigenous students in an ece diploma program at a canadian college represents a step in the direction of meeting call to action #12 under the heading of education: “we call upon the federal, provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for aboriginal families” (national centre for truth and reconciliation, 2015, p. 2). from a critical pedagogy perspective, knowledge is not only socially and contextually situated but also powerladen. it is created through interaction with others within the context of any situation (freire, 2000/1970; kincheloe, 2008; kovach, 2009). the culture of colonialism in canada has worked to negate and exclude indigenous knowledges from formal and informal learning environments (battiste, 2013). however, there is potential to work toward changing this, and in this respect i was inspired by marlene atleo. as a faculty member (education) at the university of manitoba and a member of the ahousaht first nation, atleo (2013) argues that non-indigenous canadians have an ethical obligation to work to change formal education to support social justice principles that affirm both indigenous and non-indigenous learners through cross-cultural praxis. i was further inspired by the influential work of paulo freire that explores the role of developing critical consciousness in working toward social justice. freire critically explored situations of oppression to foster dialogue that leads to praxis or “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (freire, 2000, p. 51). in a similar way—albeit in a different time and place—i am driven to support postsecondary education that focuses on social justice and reconciliation. embedding indigenous epistemology and pedagogy within early childhood education (ece) programming this article is based on my dissertation study exploring how indigenous knowledges were experienced by non-indigenous students in an ece diploma program at a canadian college. analysis of participants’ stories through the lens of critical pedagogy helped identify experiences with indigenous knowledges and reconciliation. critical reflection on these experiences identified key findings: 1) the promise of transformative learning, 2) an acceptance of the truths and realities of canadian history, and 3) the necessity of experiencing indigenous knowledges. through the metaphor of building a nest, i see transformative learning, truth telling, and inclusion of indigenous knowledges as a path toward reconciliation of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples within early childhood education programs. key words: early childhood education, indigenous knowledges, reconciliation, transformative learning, critical pedagogy, initial teacher education, indigenization january 2020 20 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research at the postsecondary level also aligns with the accord on indigenous education signed by the association of canadian deans of education (2010), the universities canada’s principles on indigenous education (2015), the colleges and institutes canada’s indigenous education protocol (2014), the calls to action issued by the truth and reconciliation commission, and the united nations’ declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples (2008). as these national and international documents signal, now is the time to work toward reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in canada by furthering social justice in postsecondary education. in the study discussed in this article, i draw on the concept of reconciliation as a catalyst to prompt those within an institution to value the knowledge and experience of indigenous learners, faculty, and staff of their postsecondary institution by including this knowledge and experience in the day-to-day operations of the college in the study. i also want to ensure that indigenous knowledges and experiences are reflected in the content of the courses and the programming offered to all learners. my particular focus in this study was to engage with non-indigenous learners as they explored their own stories of their experience with indigenous epistemology and pedagogy and to use their experiences as a means to inform the development of curriculum resources for the ece program on our path to reconciliation. researcher perspective locating myself as a researcher who is simultaneously exploring the possibility and path of her indigenous heritage and supporting the inclusion of indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing in the curriculum of the college was an important aspect of this study. because of both my lack of connection to an indigenous community and my lived experiences so far, i find it ethical to locate myself in this research study as a non-indigenous academic who is exploring my métis identity and working toward reconciliation. i find external pressures to choose from a binary of indigenous or non-indigenous to be extremely challenging, and i wonder if this perceived need to choose one or the other is a common experience for many métis people. however, this complex positioning within my story has helped to support strong relationship building with the research participants, the college, and indigenous communities. identity, as many scholars have pointed out, can be a crucial component in the success of any indigenous study (archibald, 2008; battiste, 2013; kovach, 2009; regan, 2010). it is my moral obligation as one living in and benefiting from historic colonial structures to work toward meeting the calls to action from the truth and reconciliation commission. research purpose the college where i am employed is a large postsecondary institution in western canada. the student population comprises learners from many different cultures; however, the educational framework predominantly favours western european epistemology and pedagogy. indigenous learners and learners from non-western countries share the unfortunate experience of having their own traditional knowledge systems and ways of being, knowing, and doing unrecognized or honoured in north american postsecondary institutions (archibald, 2008; asher, 2009; battiste, 2013; choules, 2011; kovach, 2009; poitras pratt & danyluk, 2017; smith, 2012). the college sits on the traditional territory of the blackfoot confederacy and the ancestral homelands of the métis nation. it is located in territory where the treaty 7 nations and indigenous and non-indigenous graduates of the ece program work in centres and programs that include indigenous children and families. in recognizing the original occupants of the lands that the college now occupies and their traditional knowledge systems, my students and i work toward meeting the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission. reconciliation, for me, involves reconceptualizing the scope of early childhood education practices to honour and include indigenous epistemologies, pedagogies, and child-rearing practices. january 2020 21 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research background hegemonic forms of western european education epistemological and pedagogical systems frequently represent the values of the dominant community from which they have developed. here in canada, as in many other colonial-settler nation states, such systems have developed in ways that privilege one way of knowing and understanding over other ways of knowing and understanding (battiste, 2013; kerr, 2014; kincheloe, 2008; kovach, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; pidgeon, 2008, 2016). this system of hegemony privileges the unquestioned use of western european epistemological and pedagogical systems as the standard in many canadian postsecondary institutions (alexander, 2016; kovach, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; pidgeon, 2008, 2016). as jeannie kerr (2014), an indigenous scholar from the university of winnipeg, stated, “educational spaces in higher education continue to support and perpetuate structures of colonialism through an epistemic monoculture based in western scientific materialism” (p. 83). this view positions itself as neutral and maintains that all non-western european epistemologies and pedagogies are somehow biased or not free of judgment (kerr, 2014; kincheloe, 2008). positivist scientific epistemology and pedagogy advances the idea that knowledge may be understood to be universal, testable, and generalizable, and is neither subjective nor contextual (battiste, 2013; kerr, 2014; kovach, 2009). this reductionist view does not support an understanding of the multilayered, interconnected, and complex ways that indigenous cultures view the world (archibald, 2008; battiste, 2013; kincheloe, 2008; kovach, 2009). other knowledge traditions, such as interpretivist approaches, seemingly overlap with indigenous epistemology, viewing knowledge as “oral, particular, local, and timely” (kerr, 2014, p. 88), dependent upon the context and circumstances at hand. in light of the ubiquity of eurocentric epistemology and pedagogy, non-western european participants studying in the postsecondary system do not typically see their values or belief systems represented in the educational system in which they are immersed. learners who come to postsecondary education from outside the dominant culture experience the education system differently, depending on how their own values are defined (battiste, 2013; kovach, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015). for many indigenous learners, postsecondary education is a hegemonic system in which their cultures, languages, and traditions are not included, and their knowledge systems are not recognized as legitimate ways of being, knowing, and doing within the institution (alexander, 2016; battiste, 2013; kerr, 2014; kovach, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; pidgeon, 2008, 2016). by continuing to ignore the knowledge traditions of the original occupants of this land, researchers engage in the utilization of a “hegemonic epistemology in league with a dominant power-soaked politics of knowledge operat(ing) to privilege the privileged and further marginalize the marginalized” (kincheloe, 2008, p. 5). joe kincheloe further argues that it is necessary to explore the diverse contexts within which knowledge is situated in order to understand a particular phenomenon: “we must challenge forms of knowledge that are presented to us as value-free” (p. 17). in other words, context and perspective matter. this understanding of the hegemonic nature of many western european academic practices in some canadian postsecondary institutions highlights the problematic nature of non-indigenous learners’ colonization of thought. we have been educated to believe that the epistemological and pedagogical practices we experience in public schooling are neutral, normal, and right (alexander, 2016; kincheloe, 2008; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; regan, 2010). the history of post-contact education in canada for indigenous and non-indigenous peoples has contributed to the negation and erasure of indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing, and the ensuing void left by the negation and erasure has been filled with many misunderstandings. january 2020 22 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research research design in my study, i employed the qualitative approach of narrative inquiry through storytelling, oriented by critical pedagogy, and supported by indigenous methodology. i chose this methodology in order to understand nonindigenous adult learner perspectives on how indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing may be experienced in the ece program at the college. exploration of the stories i collected has helped to identify non-indigenous learner understanding of indigenous epistemology and pedagogy, and it is anticipated that this knowledge may inform the development of curriculum resources for the ece curriculum to support the truth and reconciliation commission’s call to action #12. the calls to action issued by the truth and reconciliation commission speak to the moral and ethical obligation that canadian government and society must assume to reconcile indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. my research study represents a step toward meeting call to action #12 under the heading of education: “we call upon the federal, provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for aboriginal families” (national centre for truth and reconciliation, 2015, p. 2). throughout the entire process of the study, from its initial inception through the completion of my dissertation and defence, i was guided by two elders from the local community. after receiving ethics approval from my academic institution and the institution at which the study was conducted, one of the elders held a knowledgesharing session with the five participants in which she shared her anishnaabe community experiences of child rearing. after this knowledge-sharing session, i collected the learners’ stories of child-rearing experiences through conversational interviews as a method of rich qualitative data collection that, as a secondary outcome, moves the participants toward conscientization through praxis (archibald, 2008; freire, 2000; kovach, 2009). i explored this work through the lens of critical pedagogy within an indigenous storytelling approach that views story as a holistic method of understanding the world (archibald 2008; kovach, 2009). critical pedagogy as a theoretical framework supports reflection and action (praxis) that may lead to transformation of oppressive social or cultural structures. this social justice focus is an integral part of indigenous methodology and was foundational to the goals of my research study (kovach, 2009). it is my intent in this article to highlight the praxis experienced by the participants as a positive by-product of beginning to experience indigenous knowledges. by exploring the non-indigenous learners’ stories of experience with indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing, my aim was to support the development of curriculum resources representing potentially transformative resources that work toward social justice. in an effort to maximize the potential for doing work in a “good way” in my research project and inform the development of curriculum resources toward reconciliation within our institution, i strove to be transparent about my research goals and to form long-term relationships with the indigenous community within the college (archibald, 2008; bastien, 2004; battiste, 2013; kovach, 2009; little bear, 2012; smith, 2012). ultimately, because of the importance of local place-based knowledge and connection, it is vital that indigenous knowledge traditions and research involving indigenous knowledges be validated by local indigenous communities. through conversational interviews, the student participants from the ece program shared their stories of early learning experiences with indigenous knowledges and traditions in the ece program in the college. these students clearly articulated their desire to learn more about indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing, and identified it as key to enhancing their skills as future early childhood educators. their stories of experience were sorted into three major themes identified in the review of the literature: transformative learning, reconciliation, and indigenous knowledges. all three themes were identified in the literature review. all the participants focused the majority of their story on the elder-led knowledge-sharing session in which information about traditional childjanuary 2020 23 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research rearing practices in an indigenous community was shared. analysis the findings were derived from conversational interviews exploring non-indigenous student early learning experiences with indigenous epistemology and pedagogy. building from the three identified themes—transformative learning, reconciliation, and indigenous knowledges—another process of re-storying these elements through my own lens developed into a collective story, or nest. like margaret kovach (2009), i have used story and thematic analysis to “ensure that the story is available for interpretive analysis by others” (p. 132). analysis of the data revealed telling insights from the five participants related to the research question: the participants experienced the beginning of transformative learning, articulated the need for canada to work toward reconciliation as a nation but did not demonstrate an understanding of this work as individuals, rather viewing it as the work of the government, and desired more exposure to indigenous knowledges and a deeper understanding of these knowledges. indigenization as systemic and structural change was missing from the qualitative data, indicating a lack of understanding of or exposure to the depth of this concept. the participants instead articulated a piecemeal approach that suggested embedding cultural ceremonies and practices into the regular (dominant) curriculum framework. the early learning experiences of the college students, who were in the second and third terms of their program— explored through participation in the indigenous history, identity, and culture course, as well as the elder-led knowledge-sharing session—represent the only experiences with indigenous knowledges in the ece program identified by the participants. this knowledge, along with the assumptions about indigenous peoples and knowledge demonstrated in the interviews, indicates that there is a need to bring more material into our curriculum to build a substantial nest of learning grounded in social justice that could help realize the goals of reconciliation. the stories shared by the participants represent the foundational elements of the educational nest: the sticks and twigs of transformative learning through critical pedagogy, the mud and string of truth telling and relationships that bind, and the feathers of spirit, heart, mind, and body that line the nest (archibald, 2008). all these materials are needed to form the nest as we move toward answering the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission. this nest cradles and supports the important and challenging work of reconciliation. the collective story of experience: an eye-opening start this story represents my interpretation of the participants’ collective story of experience and should be viewed through that subjective lens. i have used pseudonyms throughout. the participants started a journey of transformative learning, part of the process of critical consciousness (freire, 1970, 1973, 1985; mezirow, 2003), when they began learning about indigenous history in the post-contact era through their participation in an indigenous history, identity, and culture course, the elder-led knowledge-sharing session, and reflection through the conversational interviews. willow shared her initial thoughts about the indigenous history, identity, and culture course: when i saw this was actually a class that was part of my program i was thinking it was kind of weird; i didn’t see how it was relevant. but then i was in the class and it was eye opening. (personal communication, january 22, 2018) through engaging in authentic dialogue with the elder during the knowledge-sharing session, the indigenous history, identity, and culture instructor during the term, and me during the conversational interviews, the participants reflected on their own lived experiences, values, and beliefs. this stimulated a recognition of unjust january 2020 24 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research power structures and a desire to move toward social justice (freire, 1970, 1973, 1985). as lexa reflected on the legacy of indian residential schools, she shared that “i want to better understand that [trauma] so that i can integrate my own beliefs and feelings to try to help improve the barrier between whites and aboriginal peoples” (personal communication, january 19, 2018). this process, through reflection and the act of participating in all facets of the research project, brought the participants to a point where they could recognize the inequitable power structures between indigenous and settler/immigrant/refugee populations encountered in their lived experiences. the process of beginning transformative learning through praxis and conscientization moved the participants to want to explore the concept of reconciliation. although they did not use the term reconciliation, they articulated concepts that referenced the importance of truth telling, healing, and partnerships between indigenous and nonindigenous people and communities rooted in respectful relationships and dialogue. the participants recognized their potential influence when working with children, family, and community in their roles as early childhood educators. theresa articulated this when she stated, “why is it important; what is early child care? a child and a family, a child and the parents. the best way to introduce a culture is from the beginning” (personal communication, january 24, 2019). all the participants articulated a desire to see a change in the relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in canada, and they saw this possibility being advanced through their professional roles. early childhood educators have the opportunity to begin positive relational practice founded on respect as we move toward reconciliation and the path to social justice. it is vital that instructors in early childhood education teacher preparation programs understand the power of critical pedagogy to change the systems of oppression in canada. the recognition of the lived realities of indigenous peoples and the realization that they wanted to work toward reconciliation spurred the participants to reflect on the importance of indigenous knowledges in the lives of indigenous and non-indigenous children and families and in their own practice as early childhood educators. after participating in the elder-led knowledge-sharing session in which they heard stories of traditional childrearing practices, tammy referenced “all the hard work that went into daily life . . . and the love that was in the family” (personal communication, january 22, 2018). this reflection and understanding is necessary to support connections and relationships. the participants expressed a desire to have a deeper understanding of and exposure to indigenous cultures, ceremonies, languages, values, and beliefs: “by learning and understanding more of the indigenous people and their values/beliefs, the more i can try and provide that at any centre i work at” (mariella, personal communication, february 4, 2018). while this is not an indication of critical consciousness or praxis, it does indicate that the foundations of an authentic dialogue have started. these foundations are necessary in order to move purposefully down the path of humanization toward social justice (friere, 1973, 1985). through a set of loosely framed prompts, the student participants were invited to talk about their experiences and perceptions with indigenous knowledges in their ece courses. throughout these conversations they did not articulate or explore their own roles or the roles of other settler/immigrant/refugee students in doing the difficult work that moves toward reconciliation (poitras pratt & danyluk, 2017; regan, 2010). theresa articulated the idea of federal responsibility when she stated that “the silence from the government has made it (the history of canada with respect to indigenous peoples) more difficult to understand” (personal communication, january 24, 2018). this is not altogether surprising given the initial experiences the participants had as part of their ece curriculum. this research project represents only the beginning of their learning, and they have not been encouraged to explore their own positionality and responsibility in the difficult work of reconciliation. it is obvious from the views expressed by the participants that more work is needed to develop individual and systemic change that will work toward reconciliation and the inclusion of indigenous pedagogy and epistemology in the ece program at the college. it is also important to note that it is not possible for a single curriculum or framework to be inclusive january 2020 25 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of all indigenous cultures (bjartviet & author, 2018; poitras pratt & danyluk, 2017; regan, 2010). rather, the goal is to work toward a system and framework that moves away from western european epistemology and pedagogy to that of a regionally developed model co-constructed with indigenous communities as the foundation for all teaching and learning in the college ece program (battiste, 2013; bastien, 2004; curwen doige, 2003; kovach, 2009; smith, 2012; taylor, 2017; tremblay, gokiert, georgis, edwards, & skrypnek; 2013). from this collective story where a nest has been built using essential thematic materials, the next step is to fill the nest with possibility. in a metaphorical sense, possibility is contained within insights (or findings) that are quite fragile but filled with great potential that needs the ongoing attention of those who care. the following section sets out the recommendations for the building of a learning nest. discussion and recommendations the specific purpose of this small-scale qualitative study was to gain an understanding of the stories of experience of non-indigenous ece students in relation to the extent of their familiarity with indigenous knowledges. exploration of these stories helped to identify non-indigenous learners’ early understandings of indigenous epistemology and pedagogy and highlighted three themes that were found in all conversational interviews. from the themes of indigenous knowledges (spirit, heart, mind, body), reconciliation, and transformative learning, i constructed a single re-storied account of what students reported. of note is that exploration of the participant conversations indicated that this early learning experience held potential for students to understand the importance of including indigenous perspectives in their future professional roles. however, the program’s developers will have to carefully consider and design a curriculum that can help students identify and explore their own positionality in this learning. this will require the integration of indigenous and critical perspectives that focus on the social justice aspect of this work. throughout the collective story of experience, a lack of deep understanding of indigenous knowledges became obvious, and no participants mentioned the complexities of indigenization. however, there is some evidence to suggest the presence of initial threads of transformative learning that could lead to reconciliation. the promise of transformative learning through my exploration of transformative learning theory, i found certain aspects of this theory closely aligned with critical pedagogy: a shared emphasis on critical reflection of assumptions and beliefs is crucial for challenging perspectives and, in the case of critical pedagogy, for challenging oppression (cranton, 2011, 2013; groen & kawalilak, 2014a; jarvis, 2010; kitchenham, 2008; mackinley & barney, 2014). while transformative learning may have social justice goals, critical pedagogy has social justice as a foundation (glass & newman, 2015; mclaren, 1999; smith, 2012). the engagement of both the participants and the local postsecondary institutions with initial transformative learning experiences demonstrates the potential for creating a path of critical consciousness. it is necessary to engage in a focused and targeted adoption of indigenous knowledges and critical pedagogy not only in the ece classroom but also in the postsecondary institution in general in order to move toward better relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. the foundation of transformative learning and critical pedagogy will form the framework for the nest needed to support the work of reconciliation. the truths and realities of canadian history the move toward reconciliation emphasizes the importance of truth telling, healing, and partnerships between indigenous and non-indigenous people and communities rooted in respectful relationships and dialogue. the january 2020 26 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research local institutional engagement with truth telling for some programs may represent a conscious and targeted effort to move toward reconciliation as articulated by the truth and reconciliation commission. these actions demonstrate the possibility of the inclusion of critical pedagogy. the “eye-opening” truth experienced by the students as a result of listening to the elder and taking the indigenous knowledge course has the potential to start them on a journey of transformative learning. by making such truth-telling courses mandatory for specific programs, i see efforts to begin the dialogue necessary to develop both critical consciousness and the idea of humanization (freire, 1973, 1985). additionally, i see a pedagogy of hope in these actions (freire, 1992). if the college leadership did not truly believe that these actions would lead to a better, more just, and more hopeful postsecondary environment, they would not expend the time and resources on them. purposeful engagement with critical pedagogy and the pedagogy of hope are necessary in our postsecondary environments. the truth telling and emphasis on respectful relationships and dialogue found in reconciliation are the string and mud, the dirty and tangly bits that hold together our nest of critical pedagogy and hope. including indigenous knowledges indigenous knowledges or indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing are about relationships and connections throughout our physical, mental, and spiritual selves (bastien, 2004; battiste, 2013). i have placed indigenous knowledges in the larger scope of indigenization because engagement with indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing can be found in discussions of indigenization. indigenization of postsecondary education has been defined to include indigenous governance structures; the revitalization of indigenous languages; respectful, collaborative research; and the inclusion of indigenous epistemology and pedagogy to support all learners (academica forum, 2016; acde, 2010; barnard, 2015; czyzewski, 2011; colleges and institutes canada, 2014; federation for the humanities and social sciences, 2017; louie, poitras pratt, hanson, & ottmann, 2017; macdonald, 2016; ottmann, 2013; poitras pratt & danyluk, 2017; universities canada, 2015). indigenization requires structural and systemic change the theme of indigenization of the overall structure, operation, and curriculum of the college or ece program was not mentioned by the participants. this is not completely surprising given that at the time of the study the concept of indigenization had been introduced only minimally to members of our campus community. the participants referenced a desire to have indigenous cultural understanding and indigenous ceremony included in the ece program both as a means to support indigenous and non-indigenous children and because of their own interest in the subject. the participants did not connect this to a more systemic approach to changing the epistemology and pedagogy of the ece program or the overall structure of the college to make space for indigenous knowledges. this early learning stage of indigenization does not consider the systemic and societal oppression inherent in dominant pedagogy and epistemology, and neither does it explore the concept of decolonization, which comes before indigenization (ashton, 2015; battiste, 2013; bjartviet & author, 2018; kerr, 2014; kincheloe, 2008; kovach, 2009; pidgeon, 2008, 2016). none of the participants referenced the idea of indigenization as reframing the structure and operation of the ece program in their conversational interviews. they referred solely to changing the curriculum by infusing indigenous content. this notable gap in understanding the concept of indigenization needs to be addressed holistically by the college through the exploration of structural and systemic change, in addition to including indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing in the ece curriculum, to work toward meeting call to action #12. indigenous knowledges or indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing are the final component in the building of our educational nest. we need the solid framework of sticks and twigs (critical pedagogy), the sticky, messy bits of mud and string (truth telling and relationship), and the beautiful and unique feathers (indigenous knowledges) as we work toward reconciliation. this nest will be challenging to build but it january 2020 27 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research will be worth the effort because it embodies hope for our future. critical consciousness and dialogue the efforts of the local postsecondary institutions and the findings from this research study with respect to reconciliation, indigenization, and transformative learning represent a conscious and targeted effort to move toward reconciliation as articulated by the truth and reconciliation commission, and demonstrate the potential for the inclusion of critical pedagogy as a method of instruction to work toward social justice (freire, 1970, 1973, 1985). in keeping with the truth and reconciliation commission recommendations, i maintain that our role as postsecondary instructors is to respectfully consider and include indigenous perspectives and viewpoints because of the historical relationship that indigenous peoples have to the land on which the college is located. understanding and acknowledging the history, culture, beliefs, and lived reality of indigenous peoples is a requirement in order for transformative education to take place in this postsecondary context. on the path toward reconciliation, the college has a responsibility to continue to work in the realm of critical pedagogy and expand its efforts to engage the college community in truth telling and exploration that will result in authentic and critical dialogue (freire, 1970, 1973, 1985). i believe that the college is working to follow this path and that we need to ensure that all the stakeholders are engaged in authentic dialogue that challenges our social, cultural, and political beliefs, values, and lived realities. this means that i will be engaging with indigenous elders, community members, and organizations to help support the realization of the recommendations outlined below. we cannot move toward reconciliation without the input and guidance of indigenous communities, otherwise we risk not only continuing but also reinforcing colonization. we must embark on this path together. engaging all the stakeholders in the practice of critical pedagogy supports the nest of hope into which indigenous knowledges can be meaningfully embedded in the college curriculum. the college leadership has offered full support with this project, which i see as evidence of their support for critical pedagogy as a means through which to work toward institutional critical consciousness and praxis. above all, i see hope. this hope brings me to the following reflections. reflections through discussions with an elder, the director of the indigenous centre, and other community members, i have learned a great deal about the importance of relational practice, community, and taking the time to ensure that i am developing good relationships and working alongside of and in support of community. i have also learned a great deal about the importance of following the guidance of elders and knowledge keepers in my work. i will ensure that my own future research includes and privileges the voices of those in my community who guide me in this work. it is vital that research that includes indigenous peoples or indigenous knowledges be done in collaboration with the indigenous community. the entire trajectory of this research project and the experience of travelling in relationship with the participants, the anishinaabe elder, and métis knowledge keeper as well as the director of the college’s indigenous centre on this journey has changed who i am and how i see the world. i would like to emphasize the importance of the authentic relationships i developed with the elder, the knowledge keeper, and the director of the indigenous centre, who have helped support me and guide me on this research path. through the work of this project, i am on a journey to discover who i am based on my own story and experiences, and i am also learning how to support the work of reconciliation that is my responsibility. i am learning to work in relationship with community, and, just as importantly, i am learning to be métis. january 2020 28 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research recommendations as we move forward to build an educational nest, we need to keep in mind the important themes identified through this study. purposeful engagement in transformative learning or critical pedagogy is necessary as the foundation of this nest. truth telling and respectful relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples form the mud and string that holds this nest together. the inclusion of indigenous knowledges or indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing at the college will fill the nest with feathers to support us on our journey to reconciliation. these themes provide direction for recommendations as we move toward reconciliation and offer guidance in the development of curriculum resources for early childhood education programs and wider college communities. realizing the full potential of the early childhood education program • in order to support engagement with indigenous communities and the inclusion of lived experience with indigenous knowledges in college programming, institutions will need to hire more indigenous faculty and staff who represent local community members. • to combat the history of colonial education and foster truth telling and dialogue, postsecondary institutions should create a course on reconciliation that uses critical pedagogy and its concepts as a foundational teaching approach. • to support the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission, institutions should make a course on reconciliation mandatory for all faculty and staff. • to ensure a collective approach of being in a relationship with the community and bringing together the threads of language, culture, values, relationship, connection, community, land/place, and spirit, postsecondary institutions should engage with community and knowledge keepers in all stages of curriculum work. • to ensure that the work of reconciliation continues, embed these recommendations in institutional structures through policies and programming so that the work of reconciliation continues in the face of a change in college, provincial, or federal leadership. these recommendations will support students in ece teacher training programs and in their future work as early childhood educators with indigenous and non-indigenous children and families. they hold promise for supporting our postsecondary communities in a broader sense. if done in a “good way” (kovach, 2009), guided by and in collaboration with the indigenous community, these recommendations will also work toward meeting the truth and reconciliation commission’s call to action #12 regarding the development of culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for indigenous families. these recommendations can be embedded within the educational nest that supports those on the path of reconciliation. summary i have explored the themes identified by analyzing the participant interviews through the lens of critical pedagogy. this exploration has indicated that although we have begun to explore the path toward reconciliation, we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do. i have shared recommendations that will support the college and the ece program as we work to meet the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission. i propose that these recommendations have a broader application and, if taken up by canadian postsecondary institutions, can support us on our journey of reconciliation. this work will not be easy and it will take an exploration of our own power and positionality as we move forward. january 2020 29 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the background of colonialism in canada has worked to negate indigenous knowledges. working toward building an educational nest that has critical pedagogy as the framework of sticks and twigs, engagement with truth telling and authentic relationships as the mud and strings that bind it together, and feathering this nest with indigenous knowledges is necessary to provide a foundation to support reconciliation between 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(2008). pushing against the margins: indigenous theorizing of “success” and retention in higher education. journal of college student retention, 10(3), 339–360. https://doi.org/10.2190/cs.10.3.e pidgeon, m. (2016). more than a checklist: meaningful indigenous inclusion in higher education. social inclusion, 4(1), 77–91. http:// dx.doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i1.436 poitras pratt, y. & danyluk, p. (2017). learning what schooling left out: making an indigenous case for critical service-learning and january 2020 32 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research reconciliatory pedagogy within teacher education. canadian journal of education, 40(1), 1–29. retrieved from https://searchproquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/docview/1880381512/fulltextpdf/b10b9b69e22e416apq/1?accountid=9838 poitras pratt, y., louie, d., hanson, a., & ottmann, j. (2018). indigenous education and decolonization. oxford research encyclopedia of education, january 2018, 1–32. https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.240 regan, p. (2010). unsettling the settler within: indian residential schools, truth telling, and reconciliation in canada. vancouver, canada: ubc press. smith, l., (2012). decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. new york, ny: zed books. taylor, b. (2017). toward reconciliation: what do the calls to action mean for early childhood education? journal of childhood studies, 42(1), 48–53. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v42i1.16887 tremblay, m., gokiert, r., georgis, r., edwards, k., & skrypnek, b. (2013). aboriginal perspectives on social-emotional competence in early childhood. the international indigenous policy journal, 4(4), 2. retrieved from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1151&context=iipj united nations. (2008). declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/ documents/drips_en.pdf universities canada. (2015). universities canada principles on indigenous education. retrieved from http://www.univcan.ca/mediaroom/media-releases/universities-canada-principles-on-indigenous-education/ september 2019 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources becoming with/beside/in feminist research for 21st-century childhoods leah shoemaker leah shoemaker is a researcher, writer, and early childhood educator from rural interior bc relocated to toronto. her work looks at the privileging discourses that have romanticized the nature-child relationship, such as those that took place during her small-town upbringing. leah uses feminist methods of narrative writing to share memories and identity to connect with theory and emotions. she has a background in communication studies and is completing a master of arts in early childhood studies at ryerson university. email: leah.shoemaker@ryerson.ca feminist research for 21st-century childhoods (2019, bloomsbury academic) highlights emerging pedagogical practices pursued throughout canada, united states, south africa, and australia. situating itself in settler/ colonial states, the book, edited by b. denise hodgins, aims to provide methods of inquiry into the practice of early childhood. hodgins introduces the book providing provocations to question anthropocentric and dominant discourses in childhood studies. using postqualitative frameworks, the collection of chapters seeks to dismantle the often-unquestioned positioning that human-centered thinking has taken within research. the book mobilizes common worlds methods and urges readers to think of the entangled relationships that children, adults, and more-than-human others navigate within childhood studies research, rather than center only the individual child, an approach that has been championed since the enlightenment. canada’s history of ongoing colonization, the uninvited presence of research on indigenous lands, and the resistance and strength of the first peoples of these lands are acknowledged before setting into the introduction. hodgins recognizes that this consideration is only a beginning and that it does not tackle how we might return stolen land, which is essential to reconciliation and decolonization. ongoing settler colonialism is inherited by 21st-century children and researchers, and this book acts as a tool to question the future of this legacy. working with new materialist and posthuman thinking, the chapters of the book look at relationships between species/material/place rather than severed and universal categories. as a reader, i recognize two specific perspectives guiding the way i interact with the ideas of this book. first, as an early childhood educator (ece) my thoughts are led back to the preschool room as i wonder how i can bring my experience to my reading: how can i think with these ideas when i am working as an educator? next, as a researcher exploring posthuman thinking in the ways that children and plants relate with each other, i am continually (re)asking myself questions in an ongoing dialogue. as a settler using posthuman thinking, how do i work within this framework without appropriating indigenous knowledge? and why am i doing the work that i am doing? why do this? was the overarching theme that drew me into each chapter of feminist research. throughout the book, a subtle to strong urgency is presented by authors as both current and future environmental conditions are pressed into the work that is being done. from narda nelson’s tracking of animals with anna tsing’s (2015) arts of awareness to understand “our shared vulnerabilities with others in this place” (nelson, p. 101), to cristina d. vintimilla and iris berger’s questioning the concept of collaboration, authors throughout the chapters challenge readers to push the boundaries of dominant thinking about how relationships matter within our common worlds. book review: feminist research for 21st-century childhoods: common worlds methods edited by: b. denise hodgins new york, ny: bloomsbury academic, 2019 230 pp. isbn: 978-1-350056-57-2 139 september 2019 140 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources the theme of becoming is present throughout the chapters as the question why do this? percolates. this concept of becoming, to create something new that in itself has agency and ripples and defracts into multiple opportunities, sits at the tip of my wonderings. what would happen if our education system valued the morethan-human world? what and who becomes then? what do we want to be valued? what do we want education to be? what matters?these are the questions i am working with as i read through feminist research. my own writing has taken on an aspect of personal narrative, memory, and storying to connect to ideas and jump between time and identity. in exploring feminist research, i provide this movement to show the way in which i am working with the ideas these chapters. in the writing that follows, these narratives are set apart slightly from my main text by using both spacing and a lighter text colour, creating a visual binary while blurring lines between thoughts. feminist research interferes in taken-for-granted practices of categorization too, as the book is separated into four distinct categories: relations with materials, relations with other species, relations with place, and relations with retheorizing. what seems to be a gradual and linear progression into these concepts is soon recognized as being as rhizomatic as my own memories. my narratives are therefore not offered as a structured progression through each chapter but are instead presented sporadically as they gained my attention. they work to show my thinking as i activate the provocations the authors offer to resist truth, objectivity, and making final conclusions through messy connections to my educational practice, research, and everyday life. working with the theories of feminist research inspires a blurring of material boundaries, and as i read through this work i recognize that within research i do not wish to only create tension between material categories, but also within the identity of who and what i bring into thinking. memories and emotions are not separate from the knowledge that makes up academia. thinking posthumanly, my writing resists anthropocentric notions that these memories and emotions are separate or fully developed entities and instead recognizes my narratives within the small pulses of what becomes when i think with them. part one of feminist research explores relations with materials ranging from clay, to muscles, to waves between generations. to begin, veronica pacini-ketchabaw and kelly boucher (2019) share a story about the caring agency of wurundjeri country clay. thinking with the ideas of scholars, artists, and scientists, this chapter asks of us to consider how clay relationships might be attended to when clay is positioned as a gift from the earth rather than a commodity or blank canvas for children to utilize. robin wall kimmerer’s (2013) words spill over the page and into my heart as she explains the gift of strawberries in her indigenous traditions, ripening on the vine “you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it” (p. 24). meanwhile my research site holds a strawberry plant that i brought into the classroom. the vines reach out at all angles into the space of the room. a green strawberry has started to blush, slowly ripening as the group of preschoolers play around it. this chapter sets the scene for the book as the authors dig into the history and ethics of clay. every relationship can be questioned and explored, and the authors invite readers to consider how these small relationships fit and contribute to political and ethical discussions. decentering humans, the chapters explore children’s movement between materials. thinking with fabric, sylvia kind and adrienne argent (2019) share a concept of calling into relation, while tonya rooney (2019) explores how children can connect to the world through/with sticks. the ideas coming through feminist research specifically provoke me to question the dominant discourse of process within early childhood education as the authors explore material agency, history, and the process of making. shifting away from focusing on how the child controls process and instead opening thinking that considers the agency of material creates room to ethically question relationships and responsibilities. it is no longer a question of whether a child can master the material but instead an exploration of what can be created within this entanglement. i am also overcome with a feeling of joy as i read some of the chapters as they restory different types of relationships. as an ece i watch as the group of preschoolers september 2019 141 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources climb a silty hill then slither on their bellies to the bottom. the dirt clings to their clothes, under their clothes, is drawn to their sweat and turned to mud. this mud lines the creases of their faces, fills the lines that form as they smile and laugh and yell. they were strengthening their large and small motor skills, creating play scenarios, communicating with each other and practicing safety. but the joy that erupted as silt met skin—children’s joy, my joy—was not something i had been taught about as an educator. candace r. kuby’s (2019) chapter interacts with the concept of literacy and material entanglements to form an ongoing product of knowledge rather than an end product of knowing. the concept of literacy is reimagined as a notion of becoming, something that resists being measured, tested, completed, or accomplished. this questioningof developmental notions is furthered by rachel heydon and elisabeth davies (2019) as they think with the understandings of human capital and the minimization of both child and elder in an economy-driven value-oriented market. in working with these ideas, the authors discover the way that death and dying is avoided in intergenerational education programs creating it as an aspect of “null curriculum” (heydon & davies, 2019, p. 64). working with both generational beings and art materials, the authors call for a deeper attention to the value within relations regardless of age while emphasizing that children, elders, and material hold meaningful relationships regardless of “modernist developmental appropriateness” (heydon & davies, 2019, p. 68). as i explain my research i reach the point where i tell this acquaintance that i am working with 2.5–3-year-olds. the conversation stalls as they hold me to that specification and ask whether children that age can even talk. i am still tender in these conversations that remind me society is filled with the idea that children’s experiences are less valuable because of the way they relate to the world. that plant knowledge is less valuable because it does not fit into the normative category of adult knowledge. a deep breath as i stumble to put these thoughts to words. nicole land (2019) works through thinking that shows dominant scientific renderings of the physical body as “knowable as something we are composed of, that we can describe, and is valued for the motion it generates” (p. 74). land (2019) proposes that even this concept can be unsettled and muscles can become a pedagogy of doing which creates this known aspect of the body into something “ongoing, situated, uncertain” (p. 79). as i read these words i wonder, even my body parts? i can question the relationship of my body parts? i feel this in the tips of my fingers and toes; tiny bits of discomfort shoot through my limbs. my fingers and toes are in relationship with the text. in both the relations with other species and relations with place sections, authors continually acknowledge that children are not innocent bystanders in their relationships. affrica taylor (2019) explores the complicated relationship that children in australia’s ngunnawal country have with settler-introduced rabbits, while vanessa clark (2019) thinks critically with byrd (2011) and acknowledges that when working in the a/r/tographic method of gathering materials and concepts to create art on colonized land, there is “nowhere innocent … to stand” (p. 121). this discussion raises the inherently un-innocent legacies that children inherit and relate within. complementing these ideas, taylor refers to the need for pedagogical questioning that stays within the discomfort of exploring these complicated relationships. in settler-colonial nations, such as the one where i have made a home, these discussions tie into the ways that early childhood education is positioned within relations to the land and reconciliation with indigenous people. the authors hold children to be a part of these conversations and urge researchers to explore and expand the ways species can also be held within these discussions. again, as heydon and davies (2019) noted within their discussion of generational practices, the need to rethink what matters within childhood discussions and childhood studies research is highlighted. in decentering human agency within relationships, kathleen kummen’s (2019) chapter explores child-crow encounters and presents a need for activism to champion early childhood education as “matters of concern” (p. 90). the term evolution is replaced with co-evolution and the entangled relations of crow and child both have september 2019 142 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources agency within evolution. for kummen, both children and crows participate in co-evolution and neither species could singularly, masterfully affect the trajectory of life. mindy blaise and catherine hamm (2019) think with the beautiful australian aboriginal term shimmer, which is used to describe the life force that “arises in relationship and encounter” (p. 94). this term and traditional knowledge give a different perspective to consider some of the other theoretical lenses that have been used throughout the text. the term shimmer was shared originally through deborah bird rose (2017), who attributes the concept to the “aboriginal people in the victoria river region of australia’s northern territory” (p. 51). in my reading, shimmer as a knowledge or concept is not attributed to specific people in this area, who are reduced to the umbrella term aboriginal within the current chapter. in the spirit of feminist research, i sit with this discomfort and question how academics can better attribute traditional knowledge to the aboriginal people who are the original knowledge holders of such ways of being within the world. nikki rotas (2019) incorporates donna haraway’s (2016) use of the idea of compost to explain the complicated mess that humans contribute to. rotas (2019) also brings in maria puig de la bellacasa’s (2019) notion of sight being “felt through the body’s sensorial capacity” (p. 133). in this research, elementary students wear on-body cameras and rotas (2019) questions curriculum goals that privilege “comfort in what is known” (p. 136). it is a reminder that discomfort is not wrong and there is an “endurance” (rotas, 2019, p. 136) in seeking education that values engagement rather than a finalized end goal. rotas (2019) asks, “what if studentand community-initiated forms of tangible engagement become committed knowledge practices of worldly transformation?” (p. 136). it can be somewhat disheartening to work in small ways on big problems. researching the ways that plants call a 3-year-old into action brings doubt into my mind often. why? this question is starting to sink in. what matters?it is starting to sink in. linda m. knight (2019) goes on to propose that play, another very dominant discourse in early childhood education, can be questioned as a matter of matter using karen barad’s (2007, 2015) work on quantum physics. my introduction to posthumanism started in high school science as my teacher explained that everything was made up of minuscule, moving particles. as the synapses of my brain shot off i imagined the unseen wave of motion that took place as my thoughts took consciousness. i considered this my spirituality from then on. this was how everything fit together, the universe connected by motion. knight (2019) questions how play can be reconsidered not as human, but as movement. experimenting with mapping that she describes as “inefficient” (knight, 2019, p. 142), knight explores play within the human-curated urban context and uses thinking to contest “the humanist approach to urban residential planning that demarcate (sic) sites of play via strictly regulated play structures” (knight, 2019, p. 142). the presence of gopros is explored by susannah clement (2019), who explains that in her research on family walking practices these “tools” show agency seen through the participants’ action. a little hand reaches towards the white envelope that i have beside me. inside it is the assent form for the 3-year-old participants, but first i must explain my research to them so they know what they are assenting to. this child has stopped listening, and the white envelope sitting silently beside me has gained every aspect of their attention. i hide it and use a sing-song voice to draw this child back to my gaze, smiling as our eyes meet. i ask if i can tell them more about my project. they reach to where i have put the envelope and i explain that we can open it after we talk about what i am doing in their class. i feel unsure of myself as i present the envelope as a reward. i rethink this material—the presence it played in assent, its context, the relationship between child and envelope. similar to the way that the themes in feminist research provoked me to reconsider process in early childhood education, thinking with clement’s chapter repositions material as a cocreator within research and opens toward how relational questioning takes place within a study. in fikile nxumalo’s (2019) chapter, storying is used to unfold the complicated nature of rethinking indigenous september 2019 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources peoples’ entanglement with the land early childhood education interacts with and the linear concept of presence we inherit from euro-western epistemologies. nxumalo (2019) recognizes that this storying “does not present a resolution to the messiness of ongoing colonialisms or to indigenous peoples’ displacements from … places” (p. 165). nxumalo offers a critical reimagining of the ways that early childhood education interacts with place and with the dominant settler discourses that situate children’s and researchers’ encounters with land and place as innocent. the final section of the book frames relationships with (re)theorizing. karen barad is again brought in to think of matters of care in b. denise hodgins’ (2019) chapter on the relationship between continuity and discontinuity,connection and disconnection. for both researchers and practitioners, hodgins gives questions to think with on the concept of care as ongoing and changing within early childhood. randa khattar and karyn callaghan (2019) tackle documentation within education, focusing on methods that champion “meaning making” (p. 181) rather than the neoliberal discourse that proposes knowledge that can be categorized and quantified. as a teacher’s assistant i marked the essays of the preservice educators and felt tenseness grow in my body. this was not the only way to show knowledge. it went against everything that we teach early childhood educators, yet hypocritically the system enforces exactly what not to do on these “adults.” using storying, khattar and callaghan (2019) bring in the constant and overarching theme of relationships and how this could be a way of understanding within childhood. you the reader, i the writer, these words: in relationship. rather than these separate entities, what is that relationship? what is becoming? cristina d. vintimilla and iris berger (2019) question collaboration in its dominant understanding as something that is pursued and achieved. as the authors dig deeper into this term, dissecting the very makeup of the word, they explore how issues of collaboration have trickled into education systems unquestioned. independence. it was slammed into me hard when i entered the field of ece. the gold star was my ability to get children to put away their toys, get dressed, zip up their lunch kits. children attached to materials, to family members, to friends were positioned as being in deficit compared to the independent child. in the final chapter of the book, karin murris and cara borchers (2019) address the very category of child. bringing posthuman thinking into education, a field focused specifically on the human, murris and borchers (2019) dismantle the noun child and propose the verb “to child” (childing) to refer to “being in time, usually associated with childhood” (p. 204). as i listened to the research session discussing the experiences of first-year university students i could not help but draw parallels to my own peers, ten years older than this participant group. later at this same research conference a different session is discussing research with four-year-olds and again the similarities emerge. how do age categories bound our understanding of experience, relations, and care between people and the morethan-human-world? as i complete feminist research i am heading into the analysis process of my own research and it is already clear that i will be referring to these pages often. it is a gradual and at times painful progression to work through the theories feminist research holds as authors prod and push against the most unquestioned, taken-for-granted understandings of the world that we have inherited in euro-western education systems within ongoing settler colonialism. to a researcher who is also an educator, the book provides tools to question the relationships that are so often overlooked. however, in thinking why/how, i also feel a tension between my perspective as an educator and my perspective as a researcher. feminist research provides many provocations for frontline educators to think with; however, there are few chapters that story the narratives of adults in relation to both the more-than-human world and children within the context of becoming/action/in the moment. at times, it feels that childcare providers have been dismissed from these entangled relationships, despite also having agency within these relational networks. the tensions of the neoliberal discourses 143 discussed throughout the book do not only affect children’s common worlds, but the adults entangled within these childhoods as well. as i read through chapters such as pacini-ketchabaw and boucher’s (2019) thoughts on clay and vintimilla and berger’s (2019) chapter on collaboration i considered the time, resources, and support necessary for frontline educators to work with these ideas within their practice. such thinking makes me hold to the question of how, or if, these theories are accessible for childhoods within all contexts. how is feminist postqualitative research including the relational aspects of various political barriers that exist for those who are exploring these ideas? as i close the pages of this book, i will admit that i continue to grapple with my original question of why do this? it becomes clear to me that this discomfort is an important intuitive guide that can’t be tested, measured, or universalized. as soon as i feel too content with my answers i must start asking different questions. i would urge readers to not stop exploring the unanswerable and uncomfortable of what might become from asking why work with the theories, provocations, and stories offered in feminist research. september 2019 vol. 44 no. 3144 september 2019 145 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references barad, k. (2007). meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. durham, nc: duke university press. barad, k. (2015). transmaterialities: trans*/matter/realities and queer political imaginings. glq: a journal of lesbian and gay studies, 21(2–3), 387–422. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843239 byrd, j. a. (2011). the transit of empire: indigenous critiques of colonialism. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. haraway, d. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. durham, nc: duke university press. hodgins, b. d. (ed.). (2019). feminist research for 21st-century childhoods. new york, ny: bloomsbury academic. kimmerer, r. w. (2013). braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. minneapolis, mn: milkweed editions. puig de la bellacasa, m. (2009). touching technologies, touching visions: the reclaiming of sensorial experience and the politics of speculative thinking. subjectivity, 28(1), 297–315. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2009.17 rose, d. b. (2017). shimmer: when all you love is being trashed. in a. l. tsing, h. a. swanson, e. gan, & n. bubandt (eds.), arts of living on a damaged planet: ghosts and monsters of the anthropocene (pp. 51–63). minneapolis: university of minnesota press. tsing, a. (2015). the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in the capitalist ruins. princeton, nj: princeton university press. blank page november 2019 13 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice encounters with reggio emilia: relationships, equality, and citizenship in our early learning setting valerie trew and kimberly squires valerie trew is the director at the university of guelph child care and learning centre in guelph, ontario, canada. she also teaches in the bachelor of applied science program at the university of guelph-humber with a focus on policy, administration, and leadership. valerie has spent almost 20 years working in children’s services through postsecondary education, regional government, inclusion and early intervention, and early leaning and child care. email: trewv@uoguelph.ca kimberly squires is the pedagogical leader at the university of guelph child care and learning centre. she also teaches in the bachelor of applied science program at the university of guelph with a focus on early learning pedagogy and administration. she has worked in both child care and school-based early learning and care settings during her more than 10 years in the field. email: ksquires@uoguelph.ca reggio emilia’s pedagogical approach has inspired the practices of early learning professionals worldwide. but upon travelling to reggio emilia and learning directly from the pedagogistas in the northern italian city, it quickly became apparent to us that context is everything. the post-world war ii social and political conditions, along with the northern italian culture that gave rise to this revolutionary early learning pedagogy, were instrumental in the evolution of an approach that incorporates the values of democracy and recognizes children as full, participating citizens. given the importance of the context of the reggio emilia approach, we recognize that it is essential to consider our own context while exploring this inspiration. it is important to acknowledge our perspective as educators in a licensed child care centre in ontario, canada. we are located on a university campus and function as the laboratory school for an interdisciplinary department focused on human health and development. with four toddler classrooms, four preschool classrooms, and a school-age outdoor learning program, we are a large centre. our programs have been exploring ideas inspired by reggio emilia for several years, and in march 2018, we attended the ontario reggio association (ora) canadian study week to reggio emilia to further our research. in this article, we investigate the impact that researching the reggio emilia approach has made within our specific context and offer narratives illustrating this effect. after closely examining our experience during the study week, we identified key concepts from the reggio emilia approach that have inspired us, and we share them in the following review. we believe that these concepts can be explored within any context that aspires to achieve an early learning program that is responsive to and honours its time, place, and participants. focusing on relationships as the foundation for a pedagogical approach fosters a strong image of the child, which can be expressed and supported through language use and by encouraging engaged citizenship, making it adaptable to any context while remaining true to the principles of reggio emilia. in this paper, we discuss what it has meant for us to be inspired by reggio emilia’s pedagogical approach within our licensed child care and laboratory school context in ontario, canada. we focus on three aspects of the reggio emilia approach—relationships, equality, and citizenship—which we believe are interpretable across many different contexts. we speak about the importance of these aspects and offer narratives of how we have been inspired to reconceptualize our own relationships, use of language, and concept of citizenship to construct new aspirations in the early learning field. key words: reggio emilia; early childhood; relationships; language use; citizenship november 2019 14 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the foundation of relationships the reggio emilia approach uses relationships as the foundation of learning. relationships within the reggio emilia system resemble a web connecting children, educators, parents, community members, local government, environments, and materials (fraser, 2012; infant-toddler centres and preschools istituzione of the municipality of reggio emilia, 2010). central to these relationships is an image of the child as competent, strong, powerful, and, most importantly, connected—to adults, children, environments, materials, and communities (mcnally & slutsky, 2017). as we explored the schools, neighbourhoods, and municipality of reggio emilia, we noticed many elements that we felt would pose challenges within our north american context. the nature of our regulations and cultural norms around community, such as fears about “stranger danger,” are limitations we identified. rather than being discouraged by these limitations, we were inspired to find opportunities for equally rich experiences that are possible within our context. fortunately, regardless of context, relationships are vital to child development and learning. using relationships as a foundation for a reggio-inspired approach has allowed us to incorporate some of the principles of reggio emilia in a manner that meets educators where they are at in their journey and builds on existing strengths within our own context. relationships in the ontario context in thinking about our context in ontario, we considered the ontario ministry of education’s guiding document how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early years and its focus on relationships, which is immediately apparent given the document’s subtitle, “a resource about learning through relationships for those who work with young children and their families” (ontario ministry of education, 2014). in describing one of its four foundational conditions, belonging, the document mentions the importance of forming and valuing relationships with others, while relationships with the surrounding world are briefly mentioned. the concept of children being in relation with materials is only suggested, and the document does not reflect the same depth of the concept that we observed in reggio emilia. a foundation of relationships within the cclc in thinking about relationships within our context at the university of guelph child care and learning centre (cclc), we considered our on-site community garden project. we embarked on this project at the beginning of 2018 because of our beliefs regarding environmental stewardship and our desire to strengthen relationships between our on-site kitchen and classrooms and the children’s relationships with nature and food. we also took this opportunity to enrich relationships between our centre and its families and, with that, our centre and academia. many of our families work in academic disciplines across campus, and we hoped that some parents would be able to contribute relevant academic knowledge to the project, such as information about plant biology and agriculture. through this constellation of relationships, we hoped to offer opportunities for our classrooms and on-site kitchen to collaborate and for the children to develop a clearer understanding of where food comes from and the process of growing and caring for it. we also hoped to offer a more specialized opportunity to which some families could contribute. we envisioned using the garden produce in our on-site kitchen, as well as having it available for our families to take home. our first step was to secure funding to cover the community garden’s startup costs. keeping in mind our relationship-focused goals, we started a fundraising project involving the families and classrooms. we put together a cookbook of recipes from our kitchen with proceeds used to fund the garden (see figure 1). since we were reducing recipes meant to feed more than 100 children down to five or six portions, we put out a call to our families november 2019 15 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice to act as recipe “test kitchens.” we asked participating families to share their experiences with us by providing feedback on the details and clarity of the recipe and the experience of making the dish with their children. we were overwhelmed with the response and engagement of our children, families, and educators and received a wide variety of stories, photographs, and drawings to incorporate in the cookbook. our classrooms engaged in the creation of the cookbook by studying some of the recipe ingredients to create illustrations and stories. figure 1. the final printed version of the cookbook created with contributions from the children, families, and educators. once spring came, we formed a garden committee of educators and family volunteers that provided leadership and knowledge for the implementation and upkeep of the garden. the garden committee planned many aspects, including layout, sourcing of compost, and sourcing of plants. we recognized that we would need a fence around the garden to protect the plants, but were unable to have this built by a department on-campus within our timeline or budget. instead, a small group of educators and families gathered to design and build the fence through many evening and weekend volunteer hours. once the fence was finished, we planned several “planting mornings” where children, educators, and family members helped to plant the garden (see figure 2). november 2019 16 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 2. images from planting our community garden with the children, educators, and families. as the garden has grown, our children, families, and educators have worked together to care for it by labelling, watering, weeding, and harvesting (see figure 3). daily rituals of watering and observing the garden have been created and a co-ownership has developed. rather than the garden being merely a small pet project of a few people, many of our children, educators, and families have developed a relationship with “their garden”—and with each other through the garden. figure 3. the children harvesting and eating vegetables grown in the community garden. november 2019 17 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice our garden’s location at the front of our building by a main road on campus has also helped in creating relationships. the various people and vehicles that pass by each day have watched the progress of our garden project and word has travelled across campus. although this was not something we initially anticipated, relationships with other departments on campus have strengthened through this project. excited by our garden, the campus sustainability team installed a system of composters that enable reuse of vegetable scraps from our kitchen to create enough compost to prepare our garden’s soil for next season (see figure 4). figure 4. the composting system installed by our on-campus sustainability team. though this project initially started out small, its reach has grown as the network of relationships has expanded. it has been a tool for creating and strengthening relationships and has helped us focus on the importance of these relationships within our centre. the garden has given us invaluable perspective on future projects and how we might plan, structure, and execute them in a responsive way to make relationships not only a priority but an essential outcome of any endeavours. encountering a “language of equality” something we noticed in our observations at the schools of reggio emilia and through the videos presented during the study week was what we refer to as a “language of equality.” the educators in reggio emilia used language that was rich and sophisticated in their discussions with children. their conversations with children could have just as easily been conversations with colleagues. they discussed matters, invited dialogue with and between children, and arrived at decisions and outcomes that would not have been possible through “top down” interactions common in many early learning environments. we were so struck by this language of equality that we documented specific phrases we heard that conveyed respect, equality, partnership, and sometimes even deferral. these phrases included “do you agree with what s/he said?”; “i’m proposing …”; “in my opinion …”; “it is interesting what s/he has discovered”; “shall we …”; “i don’t agree …” november 2019 18 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice “language of equality” at the cclc in 2018, five of our educators explored their use of a language of equality in a three-week action research project to gain a better understanding of the impact it could have. the project started with a meeting between the pedagogical leader and each of the participating educators to share, in depth, our observations of the use of language that we had observed in reggio emilia. we watched a video of a learning experience in reggio emilia and discussed specific phrases and approaches we observed the teacher using and the impact we felt these had on the quality of interactions. we related these to our existing understanding of language use and discussed our current language practices, which we realized had a power imbalance between educator and child. we decided on a structure for the action research project that included providing coverage several times a week for educators to write reflections to be shared with their colleagues engaging in the research. to conclude the research, we met once more with each of the educators to debrief and to offer the opportunity to share their reflections about their use of a language of equality. the educators’ reflections varied throughout the three-week period as they focused on different aspects of the research. as they challenged preconceived notions, we observed similar learnings develop related to their role and impact in their interactions with children. after several reflective sessions, we prompted the educators to share their conceptualizations of a language of equality. having spent time thinking more intentionally about their language use, the educators described the furthering of partnerships in their interactions with children. this revelation was contrary to their previous view, which tended to be more focused on the influence they were going to have on interactions, often by giving directions or information. in one of her final reflections, an educator wrote: what does language of equality mean to me? originally, i would have answered this by saying that the children deserve our respect and understanding of their capabilities. i would still say this is true, but i also think it means a partnership with the children—learning together and from each other. through their reflections and experiences, the educators developed an understanding of what it could mean to engage in dialogue with the children, becoming more aware of the impact of their responses on these relationships. if we are to create more equality within our interactions with children, their perspectives and ideas should be taken seriously and given careful consideration, rather than simply being agreed with (swadener, peters, & gaches, 2013). a process of exchange should occur, just as it would in a dialogue between two adults (chan, 2010). in their reflections, the educators expressed comfort while agreeing with the children and commented on the positive impact they observed these exchanges having on the children’s relationships with them, with each other, and with their environment. as the research progressed, we encouraged the educators to challenge themselves and observe the impact that disagreeing with a child could have. in a discussion about what animals they might see while visiting the on-campus arboretum, an educator tested this concept by telling a child she did not agree with her statement that they would see a lion. reflecting on this situation, the educator wrote, “i found it awkward to disagree with the child at first, feeling like we try to acknowledge all answers, but the child was receptive.” when she later verbally shared her narrative of this situation with us, she expressed that, though it had been uncomfortable initially, disagreeing with the child showed a higher level of respect for the children by ensuring that they had a more realistic and accurate worldview. a final aspect of language of equality that became apparent through the research was the topics of conversation. the educators expressed comfort with topics more commonly seen as something that children understand (e.g., conversations about their families, daily routines, and learning experiences). at one point during her research, an november 2019 19 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice educator broached the topic of her substantial hearing loss with the children for the first time: i reflected on this conversation later because it’s the first time in my almost 20 years working with children that i have told them about my loss of hearing. i wondered why—was it because i didn’t think they’d understand? or did i feel it wasn’t important to them? the conversation was started by the children pointing out that the educator had not responded to one child’s greeting. the educator was accustomed to brushing this off in previous instances by responding, “oh, sorry! i didn’t hear you.” however, during this particular interaction she decided to share the reason because she wanted to give the children a more accurate answer. it was interesting that the educator had never before shared this information with the children and brought an important realization that it is not enough to simply consider the way we speak with children but also what we speak about. these initial five educators found this project to be so impactful that we decided to offer the experience to the rest of our educators. citizenship as a method of community engagement just as relationships form the foundation of the reggio emilia approach, creating community is its purpose (mcnally & slutsky, 2017). children are invested in as a civic commitment (mcnally & slutsky, 2017), and viewed as participating citizens. italian culture values coming together, and spaces are designed and built with gathering in mind. the purpose of creating community seems a natural extension of the foundation of relationships. the concept of citizenship varies depending on the research reviewed, but one definition that is commonly accepted is “a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community. all who possess the status are equal with respect [to] rights and duties” (marshall, 1950, as cited in lister, 2007, p. 2). from this definition, we can see that the key elements of citizenship are essentially membership, rights, and equality. membership is often the most recognized aspect of citizenship within a community, though the understanding of what it means to be a member is context specific (lister, 2007). to be members of a community, children must be welcomed to participate and contribute in a way that allows them to be seen and heard. children’s citizenship is dependent on the definition, not only of citizenship, but of childhood (lister, 2007). therefore, the early learning profession in north america has a responsibility to advocate for a redefinition of childhood that is based on competence, participation, and rights. engaged citizenship at the cclc when thinking about citizenship within our context, it was essential to consider our position within the university of guelph. specifically, we needed to consider our visibility within, and contribution to, this community. as an undergraduate teaching institute, we maintain a close partnership with the department of family relations and applied nutrition. each year, children in our programs develop close relationships with undergraduate students who complete practica and work placements within our centre. many families within our centre are also students or employees of the university. our classrooms frequently visit different areas of campus, including the arboretum, university centre, library, art gallery, and agricultural animal facilities. during these excursions, the children receive enthusiastic responses from the community; however, we are often viewed as visitors to these spaces and not necessarily community members. to us, our membership within the university community has become more apparent as our contributions have developed. with increasing concern about student wellness, we wondered what we could offer in support of this important cause that might fulfill our responsibility as members of this community. from this concern, two initiatives were started: our “cards of kindness” campaign and “the heart of art: an art show created by preschoolers.” november 2019 20 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice through relationships with the undergraduate students, the children have learned about the students’ educational experiences and have developed some understanding of exams. they have learned that it can be a particularly busy and stressful time for the students and have often offered small tokens of kindness. through our “cards of kindness” campaign, we aimed to extend these experiences by partnering with the university of guelph academic services. cards were created with space on one side for a child to draw a picture and with a list of academic and personal student resources on the other side. at the end of each semester, children in our programs have worked together to decorate and distribute these cards across campus, much to the surprise and gratitude of the undergraduate students (see figure 5). through the experience of distributing the cards, the children have been able to observe the impact that their actions have had on the students’ lives. to our surprise, the support we have received for this campaign has grown across our city, and the campaign has been featured in several local news reports (see figure 6). figure 5. a child giving out a “card of kindness” during the exam period. figure 6. image from a guelphtoday article about our cards of kindness campaign (armstrong, 2017). november 2019 21 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice it is a tradition within our centre to celebrate when the children “graduate” from our program. the classrooms have celebrated this in different ways over the years, including our senior preschool classroom creating an annual art show down the main hallway of our centre. the art was displayed for several days and made a lasting impression on the children, families, educators, and visitors. while considering our contributions to our university community, we recognized that this annual art show had the potential to have a greater impact if we were able to make it more visible. we contacted the university centre management and arranged to display a larger art show in a main study lounge for one week of the exam period (see figure 7). all four of our preschool classrooms decided to work together on this project, each creating several exhibits showcasing the theories and reflections they had been researching in their classrooms. the exhibit received a welcomed response from the students and employees using and passing through the study area. over 50 comment cards were left about the impact that the displays had, particularly related to supporting student wellness during the exam period (see figure 7). as part of this project, we also hosted an evening reception in the lounge at the end of the week. our educators, preschool families, and some community members attended the reception to celebrate the children’s time in our programs and their contributions as members of the university of guelph community. figure 7. images from the art show displayed in the university centre. the impact of our encounters with reggio emilia through our experiences with our community garden, language research, cards of kindness, and preschool art show, we encountered the key concepts from the reggio emilia approach that most inspire us—relationships, equality, and citizenship. educators reflecting on the experiences describe children making meaningful contributions to their community; realizing their ability to make a positive impact on another person; forging relationships through shared experiences; and how competent and capable the children felt as they harvested vegetables, displayed their art, approached students to offer a card, or engaged in deep, reciprocal conversation with their teacher. but perhaps most importantly, our educators have been transformed by the experiences. one educator describes how she was affected by the garden—feeling content, connected, and peaceful after time in the garden with figure 7. images from the art show displayed in the university centre. the impact of our encounters with reggio emilia through our experiences with our community garden, language research, cards of kindness, and preschool art show, we encountered the key concepts from the reggio emilia approach that most inspire us—relationships, equality, and citizenship. educators reflecting on the experiences describe children making meaningful contributions to their community; realizing their ability to make a positive impact on another person; forging relationships through shared experiences; and how competent and capable the children felt as they harvested vegetables, displayed their art, approached students to offer a card, or engaged in deep, reciprocal conversation with their teacher. but perhaps most importantly, our educators have been transformed by the experiences. one educator describes how she was affected by the garden—feeling content, connected, and peaceful after time in the garden with the children. another educator felt a deep sense of pride and gratitude for the opportunity to “give back to the community” through creating and maintaining the garden. in reflecting on the cards of kindness and community garden, one educator described working in partnership with the children, feeling her agenda fall away to welcome the children’s natural investigation and direction. educators described a sense of collaboration and common purpose while preparing for the preschool art show, with the objective of making the abilities and talents of november 2019 22 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the children. another educator felt a deep sense of pride and gratitude for the opportunity to “give back to the community” through creating and maintaining the garden. in reflecting on the cards of kindness and community garden, one educator described working in partnership with the children, feeling her agenda fall away to welcome the children’s natural investigation and direction. educators described a sense of collaboration and common purpose while preparing for the preschool art show, with the objective of making the abilities and talents of their children visible to the community. for the educators, views of the child were affirmed or expanded by witnessing their capacity for caring, compassion, kindness, and brilliance. these key concepts from the reggio emilia approach that most inspire us, deepened through experiences within our early learning setting, continue to shape our pedagogical approach. while embarking on these community activities in recent years, we have remained open to the unknown—the opportunities for these encounters to be shaped by the time, place, and participants. the interdependence created by these experiences, solidified through the reflections of our educators and community members, affirmed our view of our organization as a living organism (filippini, 2001). while inspired by reggio emilia, we are reminded that there is no “recipe for reggio.” you cannot define reggio because you cannot define what happens when children, educators, environments and materials come together (filippini, 2001). we can, however, continually define and redefine ourselves and our programs based on a foundation of relationships, equality, and citizenship. acknowledgements we would like to thank all of the educators at the university of guelph child care and learning centre for giving us the inspiration to share their stories. we would like to specifically thank tanya doran, sabah hoosein, angela marshall, leigh-anne stafford, and chris veaudry for their permission to publish parts of their reflective research. november 2019 23 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references armstrong, k. (2017, november 29). with “cards of kindness,” preschoolers wish u of g students good luck on exams. guelphtoday. retrieved from https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/with-cards-of-kindness-preschoolers-wishing-u-of-g-students-good-luck-onexams-8-photos-778388 chan, k. h. (2010). rethinking children’s participation in curriculum making: a rhizomatic movement. in v. pacini-ketchabaw (ed.), flows, rhythms, & intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 39–53). new york, ny: peter lang. filippini, t. (2001). on the nature of organization. in c. giudici, c. rinaldi, c., & m. krechevsky (eds.), making learning visible: children as individual and group learners (pp. 52–57). reggio emilia, italy: reggio children. fraser, s. (2012). authentic childhood: experiencing reggio emilia in the classroom (3rd ed.). toronto, on: nelson education. infant-toddler centres and preschools istituzione of the municipality of reggio emilia. (2010). indications: preschools and infant-toddler centres of the municipality of reggio emilia. reggio emilia, italy: reggio children. lister, r. (2007). unpacking children’s citizenship. in a. invernizzi & j. williams (eds.), children and citizenship (ch. 1) london, uk: sage. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446214756.n1 mcnally, s. a., & slutsky, r. (2017). key elements of the reggio emilia approach and how they are interconnected to create the highly regarded system of early childhood education. early childhood development and care, 187(12), 1925–1937. https://doi.org/10. 1080/03004430.2016.1197920 ontario ministry of education. (2014). how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early years: a resource about learning through relationships for those who work with young children and their families. retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/ howlearninghappens.pdf swadener, b. b., peters, l., & gaches, s. (2013). taking children’s rights and participation seriously: cross-national perspectives and possibilities. in v. pacini-ketchabaw & l. prochner (eds.), resituating canadian early childhood education (pp. 189–210). new york, ny: peter lang. october 2020 58 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice living with time leigh (mean seo) kweon leigh kweon is a graduate of the bachelor of early childhood care and education program at capilano university. she recently embarked on a new journey as a pedagogist to pursue further learning within and beyond early childhood education. her research interests are in pedagogical work where theory and practice work together hand in hand, and reimagining early learning as collective and relational lived experiences. email: leighkweon@gmail.com in the context of modernity, humanity has abstracted time. in the neoliberal logics of understanding time, time becomes linear and chronological as a means to measure and efficiently use it, though it largely escapes the grasp of human understanding and control. time thus becomes an object of consumption for humans to chase after, catch up to, spend, achieve, and constantly desire (duhn, 2016; farquhar, 2016; jardine, 2013; kummen, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw, 2013; rose & whitty, 2010; tesar, 2016). thus, time is abstracted, becoming an exhaustible commodity. in constructing this linear “clock-time” (pacini-ketchabaw, 2012), three distinct categories, past, present, and future, become the building blocks. in the “smooth functioning of industrial society” (farquhar, 2016, p. 412)—an ideal of modernity—a sort of linear time that moves forward from the past into the future leads a way of life that is directional, predictive, and totalizing (duhn, 2016; farquhar, 2016). abstracted time also governs and dictates how we live. as future time becomes of paramount significance, past and present times are merely consumed in order to produce desirable futures. in classrooms, similar to all environments, we live in sequential times: lunchtime, naptime, snack time, outside time, etc., all of which resemble episodes that merely pass from one to the next rather than being fully lived and thought with in relation to the present. in these fragments of time, modernist understandings of time push us to only value what is forthcoming, and therefore we focus largely on the future rather than on present progress. as time passes in early childhood learning to construct some idea of the “better” future, the value of childhood on the whole is jeopardized and silenced in a society ruled by the clock. in our classrooms, we pass along this legacy of time to children, who challenge clock-time in their everyday lives. do we live partialities of time which pass and are forgotten? what are other ways to live with time and find true value in the presentness of childhood? in beginning a graduate research project at capilano university, i was encouraged to sustain this interest and concern. over the course of six months, i invited a small group of 3to 5-year-old children in a childcare centre to be the participants of this research. the research took place on the unceded traditional territories of the coast salish peoples of the musqueam, squamish, and tsleil-waututh nations, where the childcare program is situated. as an uninvited, immigrant guest to this land, i lived as both a full-time educator in the childcare centre and an undergraduate student during the time of this inquiry. i wished to acknowledge the legacies of colonization in this article researches time in the early childhood education classroom. this inquiry troubles the dominance of chronological, linear time that prescribes and predicts daily routines in a goal-oriented manner in pursuit of future development. through this project i hope to offer alternative perspectives on time beyond modernist and neoliberal abstraction and refocus on how the learning experience can be shaped by attending to the presentness of childhoods. key words: time; becoming; pedagogy; pedagogy of listening; ethics of care; pedagogical inquiry october 2020 59 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice my thinking throughout the inquiry and to make connections in this process with alternative ways of learning and meaning making. my effort to live time anew with the children was made possible by the reconceptualist framework thought with a group of scholars of the reconceptualizing early childhood education (rece) conference. for marianne bloch (2014), one of the main hosts of this conference, thoughts on early learning and care are led by poststructural and feminist cultural histories. the main focus of this framework is to initiate ruptures in the linearity of developmental psychology and, more fundamentally, to create opportunities to recognize different types of knowledge (bloch, 2014). with this framework, i attempt to add a robustness to the complex nature of children’s learning which, despite attempt, can be neither prescribed nor predicted. i have worked with this framework through current literature in the research of early childhood education to challenge and curate wonderings of the unquestioned governance of chronological time that we pass along to children through their education (bloch, 2014; duhn, 2016; farquhar, 2016; hohti, 2016; jardine, 2008, 2013; kummen, 2010; pacini-ketchabaw, 2012, 2013; rose & whitty, 2010; tesar, 2016; wapenaar, 2014). theoretical concepts three main concepts made their mark on the learning journey the children and i undertook together: becoming, listening, and care—all of which are addressed by scholars of the reconceptualist philosophy. i have temporarily settled with the three concepts, which are essential in our ways of living, not only with young children, but as citizens of larger communities. becoming, listening, and care were invited into this research and are referenced in the work of gilles deleuze and félix guattari, carlina rinaldi, and gunilla dahlberg and peter moss. the nomadic essence of all three concepts, which never completely settles, mobilizes learning to stay in motion. these concepts were robustly activated in this research and continue to live in our everyday lives to sustain and enrich ongoing dialogue in the classroom. becoming the first main concept, becoming, began as we refocused our lens to decenter ourselves from time. becoming is a theoretical concept referenced by the scholars gilles deleuze and félix guattari (olsson, 2009). becoming is an active state of learning for deleuze and guattari, where the learner is acquiring knowledge not only through observation or experimentation, but more intimately living with the topic of interest—in our case, time—and thus entering into a state of transformation. this transformation refers to the learner being affected by the lived experiences and entering a state of change as a result of it. becoming what is not ourselves (clock, forest) was not an easy or a speedy process; this process consisted of trials and errors, many pauses and hesitations. however, in our experience of becoming clock in the nap room and becoming forest that listens for the time, an opening was created for us to resituate the boundaries of our learning and understanding beyond human-centered knowledge. i feel that through this process of becoming time, we come to a deeper understanding of and relationship with the forest and are forming a greater sense of interest in our surroundings. unravelling the mysteries of our more-than-human surroundings and multispecies relations through the concept of becoming also offers new encounters within the forest. rather than tuning into our own world that is filled with our own thoughts, we were invited to carefully follow the lead of the trees and to practice listening to what they were willing to tell us. with becoming, our learning process digs deeper into everyday relations, allowing us to live collectively in our entanglements with the world around us and realize the potential of the more-than-human others we coexist with. october 2020 60 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice listening the second guiding concept that time brought to us was listening. listening is difficult; it is an act that cannot be satisfied in its purpose without time. in the project, listening did not happen without a struggle to spend a long time in one place. we learned that time must accompany listening in order for what is being said to fully translate. throughout this project, i deliberately reflected on and thought with the pedagogy of listening described by carlina rinaldi (as explored by dahlberg & moss, 2005). with the understanding of abstracted time, it feels as if time is always running out and there is not enough time for the kinds of play that do not lead to the milestones of developmental psychology (jardine, 2013). in this lived inquiry with the children, i realized that perhaps what listening could be was an opportunity to dwell with time and linger for moments on what is heard. having “not enough time” rushes us to hastily jump to conclusions and only desire predictable outcomes that lead to closures rather than openings. these are the ideas that were evoked from our lived experiences to nudge us toward a more ethical way of living with others and possibly teach us another meaning of care. time allowed the pedagogy of listening to come alive. in this project, learning was not an instructed and linear process to memorize; rather, listening enabled the possibility of a living experience that created opportunities for us to realize. care care, as the last main concept that activated the research project, resonates with the theoretical concept of an ethics of care. dahlberg and moss (2005) express that care is not merely an empathetic practice of putting our feet in the other’s shoes, but rather it is the process of staying in one’s own shoes and encountering the other in the midst of differences. in our experiences in the forest, i began to see the value in encountering others and creating new streams of complex relations within the forest. we abandoned the sense of chronological time that moves ahead of us and began to live with ontological time, which is lived time. in living with time, our sensitivity to expect the unexpected was enabled. i believe this sensitivity collided with our acts of listening and created responses in acts of care toward the forest. time evoked our sensitivity, which empowered our responsivity and perhaps even responsibility to truly care for what was speaking to us. care is a concept and a word that can be used redundantly in early childhood classrooms, even at the most basic level with the term child care. time challenges the existing notion of care that has been placed upon children as a burden: to care for the classroom, to care for friends, to care for the trees, etc. often this kind of care that asks for the child’s empathy is considered to be the right thing to do. however, i would like to work with the emerging ideas from this project in conversation with the ethics of care (dahlberg & moss, 2005) and seek care and responsiveness that is not merely empathy. with this idea, we must dwell with the other and respond to them in being ourselves and not anybody else. in the midst of endless differences, we enter into a realm of understanding which welcomes us to act in relation to the other while not losing ourselves in the process. pedagogical documentation the main concepts that have been discussed above, becoming, listening, and care, are brought to life through lived experiences. what follows are pedagogical documentations that illustrate theory into practice and how time teaches us to live complex theories in practice. creating pedagogical documentation signifies a sort of ethical practice in early years learning as the documentations work to amplify children’s voice and ways of learning and living. pedagogical documentation essentially narrates learning stories that invite us to take notice of the intricacies of particular ordinary moments and make meaning from the everydayness in ece classrooms. documentation allows both writer and reader to relive the moments illustrated and move into a more responsive october 2020 61 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice practice that keeps the learning process alive and itinerant—creating spaces for pedagogical wonderings that align with current societal issues and entanglements. with the purpose of constructive collaboration, i shared a series of ongoing documentations at the childcare centre with the educators, children, and families to think together in building and adding to the learning journey. the documentations that follow collectively reflect the three main concepts that activated the research project, showing how our understanding and knowledge moved along a nomadic learning trajectory. 1. becoming becoming clock. to understand the ideas that arose in my first dialogue about time with the children, i tried to invite into the nap room space what had come into our discussion about the clock: its tick-tocking sound, its circular shape, and the movement of its hands. before inviting the children to enter the room, i created an intentional space for inquiry. i used a large rope to draw a circle on the ground to resemble the clock and turned on sounds of the clock ticking in the background. the children were then invited through the nap room doors into the newly created clock space. excitedly entering, children stepped into the circle while some immediately gravitated toward the rope-clock on the floor. the inquiry began with the question: if you were a clock, how would you move? individual clock-bodies took turns in the circle, then one child stepped in with another. educator: can clocks move together? mx: well, these ones [pointing to the hands of the clock] are actually moving together. as all five children tried to move together, the shape of the clock began to shift. a: uh oh, it’s not a circle anymore. excited, the children picked up the rope, transforming the shape of the clock. a: mx, do you want to be tangled? educator: if you were a clock, how would you move? l: i turn like this. tick, tick, tick... a: i jump! mt: i move like this. (whispering) tick ... tick ... tick... october 2020 62 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice mx nods. j: we’re tangled clocks. a: look, mx is stuck like a baby! educator: are babies stuck? j: yes, when they are inside mommy’s tummy, they are stuck. there is a clock in everybody’s body. l: there is a clock in my ear. it helps me fight germs. right now, it’s saying it is 8 o’clock. the children’s responses raised a question: in what ways had we been separating ourselves from time and living as if it were not a part of us? in this moment, i came to a realization that time also lives in us. the children, who were already aware of this, were teaching me through their ideas that time cannot be understood with mere logic. understanding it requires feelings and a bodily awareness that tells us so much more than predictable numbers on a clock. perhaps everyone is brought into the world with an internal clock that ticks and tocks throughout our lifetime. in their movements and complex entanglements with the changing shape of what used to be the clock, the children were becoming tangled with time, where time is living in close relation to us (farquhar, 2016; hohti, 2016; wapenaar, 2014). in becoming clock, we see that time not only can be an elusive concept but become a very real and relational idea that works—or moves, talks, and grows—with us. the children show, in their embodiment of the material, that time is never an isolated or separated concept that exists on its own but is in conversation with our bodies and our living in each moment. as the concept of becoming was activated in our research, i began to wonder: what have we been missing and letting go unnoticed in our learning as we perpetuate extensive segregation of humans from the more-than-human and claim supremacy over the latter? there seems to be a much heavier issue being raised in this moment as we reflect on the children’s dialogue. becoming forest. because our initial understanding of the clock was interchangeable with our understanding of time, and vice versa, i began to wonder, “how would those who do not have clocks live without time?” to inquire further with this wondering, my plan was that the children and i would head into the forest, where there are no clocks. when i offered this idea to the children, they suggested that we take the big clock (the rope) with us to the forest and become clocks again. we gladly took on the idea, and headed for the forest with full hands. we continued our conversation about time in the forest, and our interchangeable understanding of clock and time began to unravel. in nature, and in consideration of the more-than-human bodies that live around us, the children were beginning to untie the knotted understanding of clock-time. october 2020 63 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice s: this forest house has no clock, but time is still there. e: how can the animals tell the time? al: the trees tell them [the time]. educator: what do the trees do to tell them? al: they talk. g: yeah, the trees talk! as we theorized many different ideas, the children fluidly came to an agreement that the trees “talk” to the animals to tell the time. because the act of talking is usually complemented by the act of listening, we began to question the reciprocity of talking and listening in the forest. in becoming forest to listen for the time, our bodies were brought closer to the trees, rocks, and ground, and i noticed that becoming was slowly transforming our presence in this place. 2. listening being with silence. in the midst of our search for time, the pedagogy of listening began to come to life. the continuing documentation consists of conversations and practices of how time invited the pedagogy of listening through our explorations in the forest. with the pauses, struggles, trials, and errors that are illustrated in the documentation, the lived experiences strengthened our roots of this learning. educator: if the trees talk, do you think we can hear them? e: i don’t hear anything. g: they’re not talking. there was a pause in our exploration. as we became the forest that was trying to hear time, we felt that the trees were unresponsive to our curiosity, and we were quick to move on to what else might excite us. however, the idea of the time-telling tree lingered with me, as i believe it did for some children also. so, i continued trying hard to listen. then, it was in this dwelling when the dewdrops busily fell from the leaves on the trees against our hooded jackets and echoed into our ears. t: i hear it. it sounds like raindrops ... it’s going tick tick! october 2020 64 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice mt: can i hear? ... oh yeah, you’re right! tick! tick! ◄ p: everything around them tells them when to sleep. the forest had invited each child to notice the life that resounded within. as the act of listening spread like a contagion of ideas, mg picked up a rock. carefully, he put it against his hood-covered ear. there was a brief pause. however, mg did not put the rock down, but instead hurriedly pulled off the layers that were covering his ear. ▼ m: oh, i think i hear something! i believe that this moment shows us how living time with the forest taught us not only to listen to others, but also to reflect on our own being and to be transformed. mg’s act of pulling off his hood instead of putting down the rock was a transformation in mg’s presence to the forest and with the rock—it was no longer that the rock was silent or unresponsive; mg realized that it was his ears that were covered and unable to hear. this realization created a rupture in our learning experience—to realize ourselves and transform, this was what lingering with time had enabled in this moment. this transformation nudges us to think about our presence in relation to more-than-human entities in our world and allows us to share a glimpse of how living reactively with morethan-human others enriches a collective learning journey. 3. care the last documentation draws on the concept of care. the following section illustrates a rich lived experience of both becoming and listening and how living with the two previous concepts led us to also live the ethics of care. the experience shows an ethics of care where children show not only an act of caring but also the heart of caring. time-ly responses. with the forest covered in a thick blanket of snow, we entered into a realm of peace. before we began to search the forest for anything new, we gathered together and shared when the trees crackle with cold—a children’s book by miriam körner about how the cree nation listens to and sees the world around them changing to know when different months and seasons come along. i hoped this book would enable our thinking october 2020 65 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice with different ways of knowing time by listening, and that it would create an awareness of aboriginal histories and culture of the land prior to our existence. once the story was read, the children did not hesitate to approach the trees; however, something was different. with this knowledge of the ways of the cree nation, listening did not merely remain a stance of waiting to hear time and move on. it was now more about reacting to what the trees actually had to tell us. i: the trees aren’t telling us anything today. s: oh ... maybe they’re saying it’s too cold. because of all this snow. the trees are saying that they’re cold so we should brush all of this snow off for them. with the understanding of aboriginal ways that spoke in conversation with the world and more-than-human others, s was able to actively respond. when such knowledge and awareness is carried into the world by young children and we act on this knowledge, the unwieldy politics of settler colonialism are disrupted and perhaps even agitated. being situated on unceded territory, we cannot change history. however, by allowing these diverse colours of knowledge to seep into the ece classroom today, learning enters a far wider and deeper paradigm of existing with others. living with time has been teaching us many things. we continue to develop a relationship with time, a relationship that is not merely to the clock on our wall but with time that is not chronological or predictable in any sense, and in this we are developing a relationship that carefully and mutually responds to one another and walks with the other in the midst of all our differences. caring for the unnoticed. from our lived experiences in the forest, the children were able to bring our findings back into the classroom, inviting further entanglements. with the understanding that charcoal is a material in the classroom that has a relation to trees, the children began to make deeper connections. as we worked with charcoal to draw different ideas, stories began to flourish from the charcoal. the darkness of the charcoal called us to draw our understanding of time in the forest. mg: darkness is coming! it will be dark soon. this darkness tells the time for the sick charcoal tree. with this provocation of darkness, the children desired to search for darkness on our next forest visit. where could we find darkness that tells forest the time? october 2020 66 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice in our walk to search for darkness in the forest, an interesting conversation took place. j: darkness is inside your eyes. educator: there’s darkness in our bodies? j: when you’re sick there is light inside, and when you are not sick there is darkness. mg: yeah, right now i have light in my body because i’m a little bit sick. educator: how about the sick charcoal tree? it looks very dark and black. is it still sick? j: the darkness has to be inside. not the outside. this conversation led the children to search for darkness, not only with their eyes for what was seen, but with what they could touch and feel beyond the surface. because the search for darkness was potentially hidden from the outside, the children tried to search for and understand darkness with their senses. as this intuitive search continued, we realized that it was not just us who were touching. darkness was also making its blackened mark on our fingers. the search for darkness or time in the forest enabled us to care for the trees in a different way. we began to take notice and take time to consider what was more than meets the eye that was beyond our existing knowledge about the forest. because we had shared the idea that it was what is on the inside of the trees that really shows the tree’s well-being, our search became much more thoughtful of the forest rather than of ourselves. in this moment, the children became researchers who were living with the forest and truly learning by valuing what is in the “now.” i believe that these lived moments in the forest create an opening for us to experience the complexities of time. this experience allows us to create an essence of care in our particular context in relationship to the forest. as time enabled us to step back out of the spotlight and take notice of the forest, we were living within the intricate relations of the world. caring for others allowed us to begin realizing our potential place to belong in between these relations. in creating our own value of care respective to our particular context, learning becomes a much intensified and complex process of meaning making. this leaves us to continue seeking and coconstructing new knowledge that is alive with and continuously changing along with the world we live in. conclusion these lived experiences with time became moments of living with others, being proactively responsible for one another as we lived together, and also opportunities to recognize alternative modes of learning. we took a while to dwell with the tree, the log, the stone, darkness—to genuinely listen—and then our encounter took an additional step in which we were transformed and responded. in the process of responding, we were brought to explore our own sense of belonging in the complex relations of our surroundings. taking the time and listening enabled us to respond to the forest and continue in dialogue with it. these moments teach us how to live with and be alive with others—more than to merely exist on our own, but to relate to others in a more responsive and caring way (dahlberg & moss, 2005). i believe that through this continuation of dwelling where children are—in the present—the predictive and linear neoliberal logic of time is deeply troubled. time becomes continuous events of sporadic encounters with october 2020 67 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the other and with ourselves. there is an ongoing practice of revisiting previous pedagogical documentations, re-dwelling and re-searching these moments and bringing these moments back into the present to dig deeper into what time is teaching us. in our disturbance of chronological, future-driven time, a space was created in return that allowed us to cultivate a sense of place on the land we are situated on. living in the now and valuing the presentness of childhoods unleashes a very complex logic. with this unconventional logic, ongoing settler colonial practice in ece classrooms may be questioned and potentially disrupted, and we are mobilized to proactively disengage with silencing the knowledge and voices of the first peoples of this land. the initial dwelling with clock-time led us into the forest to resituate ourselves in the network of relations with more-thanhuman others, allowing us to contextually find ourselves with the histories and inheritances of the unceded land we exist with. in these moments, time was a rhythm, and we became its melody in symphonic correlation to the world around us. through our lived experience with ontological time, i began to clearly see how the modernist abstraction of time in the ece classroom limits visibility of the early learning experience. we challenged this progressing, chronological time by pausing and dwelling in the uncertainties of the present with unanswered questions, which invited us into a much more elaborate and complex network of relations. in this complexity, we created an array of entanglements, from past to present and vice versa, to co-create a contextual and collective learning experience. as i reflect on our learning journey, i see that our dwellings and wonderings led us on an unexpected course of learning that was neither linear nor predicted. in this ambiguity and unpredictable nature of our learning, we created our own understandings and values of living in a world with others. in this journey of living with time, time surprised us with many unknown routes, and now we are left with the question: what more surprises will time bring as we continue dwelling with it? acknowledgments i wish to express my gratitude to all the children who participated in this research, to the educators and families for their support, and to faculty instructors of the early childhood care and education faculty at capilano university for the ethical and pedagogical conversations that sparked the essence of this research. i extend a special appreciation to my faculty advisor for this project, dr. bo sun kim, for her guidance from the beginning of this learning journey. october 2020 68 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice refereces bloch, m. n. (2014). interrogating reconceptualizing early care and education (rece)—20 years along. in m. n. bloch, b. b. swadener, & g. s. cannella (eds.), reconceptualizing early childhood care and education (pp. 19–31). peter lang. dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. routledgefalmer. duhn, i. (2016). speculating on childhood and time, with michael ende’s momo [1973]. contemporary issues in early childhood, 17(4), 377-386. https://doi.org/10.11771463949116677922 farquhar, s. (2016). time in early childhood: creative possibilities with different conceptions of time. contemporary issues in early childhood, 17(4), 409-420. https://doi.org/10.11771463949116677925 hohti, r. (2016). now – and now – and now: time, space, and the material entanglements of the classroom. children & society, 30(3), 180–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12135 jardine, d. (2008). on the while of things. journal of the american association for the advancement of curriculum studies, 9(2). https:// doi.org/10.14288/jaaacs.v4i0.187670 jardine, d. (2013). time is [not] always running out. journal of the american association for the advancement of curriculum studies, 9(2). https://doi.org/10.14288/jaaacs.v9i2.187726 kummen, k. (2010). is it time to put “tidy up time” away? contesting routines and transitions in early childhood spaces. in v. paciniketchabaw (ed.). flows, rhythms, and intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 97–112). peter lang. pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2012). acting with the clock: clocking practices in early childhood. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 154–160. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.154 pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2013). politicizing transitions in early childhood. global studies of childhood, 3(3), 221–229. http://dx.doi. org/10.2304/gsch.2013.3.3.221 rose, s., & whitty, p. (2010). “where do we find the time to do this?” struggling against the tyranny of time. alberta journal of educational research, 56(3), 257–273. https://cjc-rcc.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ajer/article/view/55410 tesar, m. (2016). timing childhoods: an alternative reading of children’s development through philosophy of time, temporality, place, and space. contemporary issues in early childhood, 17(4), 399–408. https://doi.org/10.11771463949116677924 wapenaar, k. (2014). entanglements of time. international journal of child, youth, & family studies, 5(4.2), 826–846. https://doi. org/10.18357/ijcyfs.wapenaark.5422014 september 2019 70 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research model minority stereotype and racialized habitus: chinese canadian youth struggling with racial discrimination at school dan cui dan cui is an assistant professor in the department of child and youth studies at brock university. her research interests include sociology of education; sociology of children and youth; immigration, integration, and transnationalism; intersectionality of race, class, and gender; social justice and equity studies; and qualitative research methods. email: dcui@brocku.ca in the age of globalization and transnational migration, chinese immigrants are one of the largest immigrant groups in canada (statistics canada, 2011). however, research with chinese immigrant youth, particularly the second generation, has not been fully developed in the canadian context. this deficit is partly due to the “model minority” discourse, which depicts chinese students as academic achievers (peterson, 1966a), leading their struggles as members of a racialized minority group to be less visible to academics. the few existing studies on this population have primarily concentrated on comparing and explaining their educational aspirations and occupational achievements in terms of ethnic variations and intergenerational mobility (boyd, 2008; reitz, zhang, & hawkins, 2011). however, racialized minority youth may still regard themselves as outsiders even if they are educationally successful and economically included. the canadian ethnic diversity survey revealed that 33% of children of chinese immigrants reported experiencing racial discrimination, and this figure ranks second highest after african canadians (reitz & banerjee, 2007). in this context, this paper aims to explore how chinese canadian youth struggle with the model minority stereotype and experience racial discrimination in canadian society. drawing on sociologist pierre bourdieu (1990), i argue that the model minority discourse, which was deeply embedded in the historical field, has continuously and discursively maintained and reproduced a racist social order in contemporary fields, such as school and media. it continues to frame “the rules of the game” in terms of whose capital is valued, who is allowed to enter the field as legitimate members, and who can occupy the dominant position in that field. in particular, the model minority stereotype plays a significant role in framing people’s ways of thinking about, and acting toward, chinese canadian youth. in other words, it contributes to the development of a specific kind of racialized habitus toward chinese immigrants and their descendants. in this sense, the model minority stereotype and social agents’ racialized habitus, particularly in relation to chinese canadian youth, are inextricably intertwined and mutually constructed. theoretically, i argue that racism is not only systemic and institutional, but also individual. it functions as a racialized habitus, an embodied and internalized racist social structure conditioned by both the past and the present fields. it is a product and manifestation of both collective and individual racist history. this paper makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which has been overwhelmingly this paper examines how chinese canadian youth struggle with the model minority stereotype and experience racial discrimination at school. three negative connotations associated with model minority stereotype are identified, which respectively treat chinse students as academic achievers and thus social nerds, undesirable immigrants (descendants) from the non-western world, and targets of bullying. drawing on bourdieu, i elaborate on a concept of racialized habitus, particularly in relation to the model minority stereotype. i argue that in addition to the existing theorization of racism as institutional and systemic, racism has also been maintained and reproduced at the individual level as a racialized habitus. key words: model minority; racialized habitus; chinese canadian youth; racism; bourdieu september 2019 71 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research employed to study social class, by highlighting how habitus is also racialized and group specific. the paper has three parts. first, i will review the history and literature of the model minority stereotype. second, i will introduce bourdieu’s theory of practice, particularly the concept of habitus, and some existing studies using a bourdieusian perspective to study habitus and race, followed by a brief description of research methods and participants in this study. finally, i will discuss three problematic connotations associated with the model minority stereotype, including foreign competitors and antisocial nerds, undesirable immigrants, and weak and obedient targets of bullying, all of which are evidenced in a recent example from canadian media (“too asian?”, findlay & köhler, 2010) and in my own interview data with chinese students. i will further explore how these biased assumptions, underpinned by the model minority stereotype, manifest and in turn contribute to the development of social agents’ racialized habitus. “model minority” stereotype the label of “model minority” applied to asians in north america was coined by sociologist william peterson in two articles he wrote in 1966. one was “success story: japanese american style,” published in january in the new york times and the other was “success story of one minority in the us” in u.s. news and world report in december, which focused on chinese americans. as peterson (1966b) stated in the second article: at a time when americans are awash in worry over the plight of racial minorities, one such minority, the nation’s 300,000 chinese americans, is winning wealth and respect by dint of its own hard work … being taught in chinatown is the old idea that people should depend on their own efforts—not a welfare check in order to reach america’s promised land … at a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 chinese americans are moving ahead on their own with no help from anyone. (p. 73) after centuries of suffering from racial discrimination and media denigration as “yellow peril,” this sudden honour and adulation from mainstream society indeed surprised the chinese community. however, some sober scholars immediately dismissed it as simply a media invention out of nowhere, which did not reflect the real conditions of chinese americans in the 1960s (wang, 2008). as lihshing wang argues, all asian american groups continued to suffer from institutional discrimination, social isolation, and political disenfranchisement. by highlighting the constructed asian american’s success while erasing their suffering, the media aimed to reinforce the ideology that america is “a land of unlimited opportunity” for immigrants only if they remain self-sufficient, hardworking, and docile. moreover, given that the model minority discourse emerged during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, scholars denounced it as a political and ideological construction designed to discredit the ongoing african american struggle for racial equality and economic justice (j. lee, 1998; suzuki, 2002). because it demarcated a racial line between asian americans and whites on the one hand and other minorities on the other, the model minority discourse was criticized for creating “a calculated contrast between the quiet, law-abiding, motivated, and diligent asian american families and the rowdy, lazy, defiant, broken, and welfare-dependent families of other races” (wang, 2008, p. 24). as robert g. lee (1999) cogently points out, “the elevation of asian americans to the position of model minority had less to do with the actual success of asian americans than to the perceived failure—or worse, refusal—of african americans to assimilate” (p. 145). what remains hidden behind the model minority discourse is the assumption that racism and social injustice are not serious issues—“since asians can make it, why not you?” (yu, 2006). literature reviews in education and other disciplines similarly point out how the model minority stereotype divides social groups who may otherwise collaborate for social change (chang, 2017; poon et al., 2016). september 2019 72 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research since the 1960s, the model minority stereotype has replaced the old “yellow peril” stereotype for asians in north america. despite the seemingly positive discourse change, it has a range of detrimental consequences that further disadvantage asians in many areas. for example, being viewed as educationally and economically successful, asian americans were excluded from federal affirmative action regulations as a minority group (suzuki, 2002). asian students may not be eligible for university minority scholarships (takagi, 1992) and some funding agencies do not include asians in their definition of underrepresented racial minorities, which results in inadequate funded research about this population (museus & kiang, 2009). although labelled as “model,” their “minority” status in relation to the dominant white group remains unchanged. in reality, asian americans encounter many systemic and institutional barriers similar to their black, latino, and native american peers (chou & feagin, 2008; museus, 2009). despite this fact, however, some people tend to deny the suffering and needs of asian americans by citing oversimplified statistics about their higher educational and occupational attainment and income compared with other groups (museus & kiang, 2009). in fact, when the socioeconomic data on asian americans were disaggregated, the annual per capita income of this population was dramatically less than their white counterparts with the same level of education (yu, 2006). in a similar vein, when enrollment data were disaggregated by institutional type, researchers found that community colleges (e.g., 2-year) enrolled the largest concentration of asian students of all types of higher education (e.g., 4-year university), clashing with the biased assumption that asian students are taking over ivy league institutions (assalone & fann, 2017). like all other racialized minorities, asians in north america continue to suffer from racial discrimination, hate crimes, unequal opportunity and participation in mainstream society, and institutional barriers in accessing professional jobs and promotions (guo, 2013; wing, 2007; yu, 2006). moreover, the model minority discourse constructs asians as nerdy and lacking social skills, which makes them more likely to be rejected by peers (zhang, 2010). it has been argued that frequently rejected children often suffer from stress, loneliness, depression, and damaging and risky behaviours (sunwolf & leets, 2004, as cited by zhang, 2010). further, empirical studies show that people’s perceptions of and interactions with asians are consistent with media stereotypes; therefore, the model minority discourse presented by the media has subjected chinese american adolescents to both verbal and physical peer harassment (qin, way, & mukherjee, 2008). despite the harmful effects, people tend to trivialize the “smart asian” stereotypes as “just joking” (raby, 2004). therefore, more research is needed to better understand how the model minority stereotype affects the school experiences of chinese youth, especially in the canadian context because less canadian research on this topic is available compared to the united states (with a few exceptions, such as cui, 2015, 2017; g. li, 2003). significantly, in november 2010, the popular canadian newsmagazine maclean’s published a provocative article, “too asian?”1 which blamed canadian universities, such as the university of toronto and ubc, for accepting too many asian students. these students were depicted as only academically focused, and their competitiveness was seen to deprive white students of postsecondary educational opportunities. the article also criticized asian students for being antisocial, with their very presence on canadian campuses not only ruining the traditional university life, which is characterized by parties, sports, and alcohol, but also creating ethnic enclaves and segregation. the publication of the “too asian?” article demonstrates a contemporary example of model minority discourse contextualized in canada. some key arguments of the “too asian?” article aligned very well with my interview data with chinese canadian youth. so, drawing on bourdieu, i will explore how the model minority stereotype reflects and at the same time maintains and reproduces the racist order of historical and present fields as well as social agents’ racialized habitus. september 2019 73 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research a bourdieusian perspective bourdieu’s theory of practice provides an important theoretical framework for this study. specifically, bourdieu views social agents’ practice as an interplay between three components: field, capital, and habitus. a field is a structured social space that contains people who dominate and people who are dominated (bourdieu, 1998). social agents are hierarchically positioned within the field depending on the interaction of capital at their disposal, the habitus in which they are inculcated, and the rules of the field. bourdieu (1986) conceptualizes three types of capital: cultural capital (e.g., tastes and styles), social capital (e.g., network), and economic capital (e.g., money). whether social agents are allowed to enter a field, and what positions they may occupy in that field, is not simply determined by the volume and types of capital they have, but also depends on the specific rules of the field and the strategies they use to activate their capital (bourdieu, 1990; bourdieu & wacquant, 1992; thomson, 2008). when social agents’ capital is valued by a specific field, they are in dominant positions, thus have the symbolic power to legitimate their actions and influence the rules of the field. more importantly, social agents develop systems of durable dispositions (i.e., habitus), which are structured by their experiences and the circumstances of the fields (bourdieu, 1977). social agents’ habitus is not fixed but evolving, which in turn structures their present and future practices (marton, 2008). bourdieu (1994) theorized habitus as “structured and structuring structure” (p. 170). habitus is a structure in the sense that it is not random but systemically ordered, comprising a system of durable dispositions that generate perceptions, appreciations, and practices. the concepts of field, capital, and habitus provide important theoretical insights for understanding social agents’ racist ways of thinking and doing. the existing studies from a bourdieusian perspective tend to overwhelmingly focus on analyzing social class (ball, davies, david, & reay, 2002; lareau, evans, & yee, 2016; lehmann, 2012). as diane reay (2004) argues, it is possible to use bourdieu’s theoretical framework to develop an understanding of habitus as shaped by gender and race, yet, there are very limited studies that use the bourdieusian perspective to study race. among the few conceptions, derron wallace (2017) breaks down the links between cultural capital and whiteness by examining black cultural capital among middle-class black caribbean youth in south london. and megan watkins and greg noble (2013) challenge the western educational perspective that views the “stillness” of asian students as a problem of passive learners by theorizing a concept of “scholarly habitus.” they point out that a productive stillness, such as quiet attention and concentration on learning tasks, is central to the formation of scholarly habitus, which consequently fosters students’ academic performance. both studies use bourdieu’s theoretical concepts to challenge the dominant western and often pathologized perceptions of racialized minorities, such as “black youth lack cultural capital” or “chinese students are problematic learners because they are too quiet.” this paper aims to expand bourdieusian analysis in educational research from class to race by developing and elaborating on a concept of racialized habitus, which can be briefly defined as a racist social structure internalized by social agents, or a system of racialized social dispositions that consciously or unconsciously affect social agents’ ways of thinking, being, and doing, particularly in their interactions with racialized minorities. for instance, some teachers might demonstrate a racialized habitus by having differential expectations of white students and chinese students based on racial stereotypes (cui, 2017), or some canadian-born chinese students may derogatively call their newcomer chinese counterparts “fob” (i.e., fresh off the boat) and intentionally avoid social contact with them in order to prove that they themselves are “real” canadians (cui, 2015). in this paper, i focus on how the model minority stereotype, in its three negative connotations, affects social agents by developing a racialized habitus in their interactions with chinese canadian youth. the study this article draws on interview data from a research project that examines identity construction among first september 2019 74 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and second-generation chinese canadian youth in alberta. according to statistics canada (2011), 20.6% of the canadian population is foreign born, and these immigrants mainly settle in four provinces: ontario, british columbia, quebec, and alberta. among 644,100 foreign-born immigrants in alberta, chinese immigrants are the second-largest racialized group after south asians. recruitment flyers were distributed to several local chinese community organizations, campuses of the university of alberta and university of calgary (e.g., on the bulletin board in the cafeteria, libraries, and student residence buildings), and local chinese websites. my final sample used in this study included 35 chinese canadian youth in edmonton and calgary. among them, there were 18 males and 17 females aged between 15 and 24, with an average age of 19. of these, 20 participants had migrated with their parents to canada after they were 6 years old (first generation), while 15 were either born in canada or migrated before the age of 6 (second generation). regarding their parents’ place of origin, 24 participants indicated that their family came from mainland china, 10 from hong kong, and one from taiwan. their parents’ occupations ranged from university professors, business people, engineers, and technicians, to bus drivers, restaurant cooks, housekeepers, and the unemployed. during the 1–1.5-hour interview, participants were asked to talk about the factors affecting their identity construction at school, within the family, and through their formative contact with canadian mainstream media. the “too asian” article was published in maclean’s magazine in the later stage of my data collection, so only some of the participants were asked to read the article in advance and voice their opinions during the interview. interviews were transcribed verbatim. interview transcripts, memos, and codes were organized and managed through qualitative data analysis software, atlas-ti. as a researcher, i was conscious of how my social positions as a non-native english speaker, a middle-class asian female from mainland china, a former international student, and now a canadian citizen affected the whole research design and process. this included, for example, the research topic i chose. the topic of model minority stereotype and racism first drew my attention when i came to study in a canadian university as an international graduate student more than 15 years ago. this life or career transition significantly shifted my social status from a privileged faculty member in a top university in china to a subordinate position as a female racialized minority, or “visible minority” (in official discourse) in canada. i suddenly found that how i perceived myself (e.g., who i am) was totally different from what local people thought of me due to the negative connotations associated with the model minority stereotype of chinese students. this realization triggered my research interest in social justice, particularly exclusion and oppression based on race and ethnicity. the purpose of this study is to make the silenced voices of chinese students heard, to bring the invisible to light, and to draw people’s attention to the deeply rooted social problem of racism which is hidden under the rosy picture that canada is a multicultural society with few race issues. based on the interview data, three themes related to model minority stereotype were identified: academic achievers (who are viewed as foreign competitors and antisocial nerds), undesirable immigrants, and the obedient and weak. each of these stereotypes is discussed below. academic achievers: foreign competitors and antisocial nerds the model minority stereotype depicts asian students as academic achievers. this seemingly positive discourse often carries negative connotations, however, such as foreign competitors or antisocial nerds. for example, in the “too asian?” article published by maclean’s, the authors quote an asian student: “at graduation a canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that i’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots” (findlay & köhler, 2010, p. 78). such biased belief that regards (asian) immigrants and their descendants as foreign competitors who take up “our” limited resources is not only held by an individual white parent, but also by some educated teachers (cui, 2017). one of my participants, michael, mentioned an uncomfortable experience he had in his grade 10 biology class when his teacher criticized the increasing population of immigrants: september 2019 75 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research with all the immigrants coming in … the world will come to an end … people here have started losing their jobs. immigrants are having so many kids … so we will run out of supplies. so, the end of the world. the above examples reflect typical racist ways of thinking held by some canadians who treat (asian) immigrants and their descendants as forever outsiders whose achievements and progress are not celebrated as a part of canadians but are narrow-mindedly interpreted as competition and a threat to “real” canadians (cui & kelly, 2013). although canada is internationally acclaimed as an immigrant country and a multicultural society, the historical anti-immigrant sentiments did not disappear with the past but have been discursively maintained and reproduced in contemporary fields (e.g., media and school) and internalized by some individuals as a racialized habitus. the racialized habitus displayed by the white parent and the teacher is characterized by a race-based and biased distinction between “us” and “them,” which further frames their logic of reasoning that attributes “our disadvantage/failure” to “their advantage/success.” arguing against the assumption that immigrants are harmful to canada and its economy, peter li (2003) writes that “on the contrary, most studies indicate that immigrants have contributed to canada in a variety of ways, and the weight of evidence suggests that canada has benefited from immigration” (p. 99). by scapegoating asian students for the educational failure of some white students, such ways of thinking simplistically reduce the multifaceted issue of university access to the single factor of race. in response to “too asian?” jason, a first-generation immigrant youth from hong kong, explained how he finally got accepted into university with limited knowledge of english. because i spent triple amount of time in studying, in looking through dictionary, until it got ripped. i spent triple amount of time learning a language that i am not even familiar with. and i got into university … you know, they are denying your effort. in addition to teachers, some students also develop a racialized habitus that treats asian students with good academic performance as foreign competitors. for example, as the only asian student in his school, michael’s academic achievements did not help him win peer respect and friendship; rather, they subjected him to discrimination and marginalization (cui, 2015). as michael revealed: so the white kids, i don’t think they’ve ever met an asian person before in their life, so they are a bit nervous in a way, but also cautious in their attitude toward me. also, at the same time, they are a bit discriminatory. because just by appearance i look different from them, and also by academic achievement, i differ from them quite a bit too. here, michael attributed the peer discrimination he suffered not just to his racialized body, but also to his academic achievement. in that specific school field, his academic capital was not highly valued but treated as a threat because he was seen as competing with white students for limited symbolic capital, such as good grades. the academic achiever identity is often linked with another derogatory attribute—the antisocial nerd. for example, the “too asian” article justified its argument for limiting the acceptance of asian students to canadian universities on the grounds that asian students are antisocial so their very presence on canadian campuses ruins the traditional university life which is characterized by parties, sports, and alcohol. the authors blamed asian students for creating ethnic claves and segregation. asian students work harder … they tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university … white students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interactions, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. when the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration. (findlay & köhler, 2010, p. 78) september 2019 76 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research such a way of thinking essentializes cultural differences between “asians” and “whites” (cui & kelly, 2013). it denies the heterogeneous nature of asian cultures. even students of chinese origin (e.g., those from mainland china, hong kong, taiwan, etc.) do not share a common chinese culture, given the completely different historical, social, cultural, political, and economic contexts of these regions. working hard and having high educational aspirations have nothing to do with an essentialized asian culture, but with a valued work ethic many parents cultivate in their children, regardless of their racial and ethnic backgrounds. similarly, not all white students define their university life in terms of party, sports, and alcohol. in response to the “too asian?” article, dong, a firstgeneration chinese boy argued: it’s just racist. um, i think asian students do work hard, like the majority of the people i know, they work hard. but i also have caucasian friends who also work really, really hard. and so i think it’s a fair game, it doesn’t matter if you’re white or not white. moreover, working hard at school with less involvement in social activities such as sports, parties, and drinking should not be simplistically understood as a personal or cultural preference. some first-generation immigrant youth, like jason, have had to deal with many adaptation difficulties such as language barriers, so they may not have the same time, energy, resources, or even interest in university social life that some local canadian students have, given the pressures of school work. further, the dominant white peer group may not really want to include asian students in those social activities due to the function of their racialized habitus. in other words, we cannot blame the victims for the exclusion they encounter. in this sense, working hard and engaging in fewer social activities should not be interpreted as single-minded or antisocial, under the assumption that it is only based on individual free choice; rather, it is a strategic tool that many immigrant students and racialized minorities have to employ in order to achieve educational and career success in the face of various structural constraints, adaptation difficulties, and inequalities (cui & kelly, 2013; guo, 2013). it is important to note that at school, the antisocial nerd discourse serves to delegitimate and devalue the academic and cultural capital of chinese students, which consequently denies their entrance into the social field of peer groups. so, for example, sandra revealed that in order to be accepted by her classmates, she would “try not to read or study in front of people, or people will think i’m a nerd.” that was why, during the interview, some participants tried to highlight various social activities and clubs they were involved in, to prove they were “normal” people, not antisocial nerds. obviously, the model minority stereotype not only affects the development of racialized habitus among dominant white groups, but also the ways of thinking, especially the identity construction, of chinese students. this is what reay (2002) points out as the “psychic cost” that some working-class students paid when they tried to fit into the working-class peer group while at the same time manage to do well at school. in fact, rather than blaming individuals for their “cultural” or “behaviour” or “personality” problem, we need to look at the contributing structural constraints. more importantly, what does a real multicultural society mean? to what extent can we allow people to be themselves rather than measuring them against a western/canadian “norm”? people from china: the undesirable and the inferior chinese students have also been treated as undesirable immigrants. as wang (2008) argues, there is a “thin line of demarcation between model minority and yellow peril” (p. 31). it is important to realize that as the popular stereotype shifted from “yellow peril” to “model minority,” the latter did not completely replace the former; rather, these two seemingly contradictory stereotypes harmoniously coexist like two sides of a coin, with one temporarily taking precedence over the other various times. historically, chinese immigrant labourers were hired to build the canadian pacific railway (cpr) when september 2019 77 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research employers had difficulty finding local white labourers. once the cpr work was completed, the canadian government immediately instituted a chinese head tax in 1885 and passed the chinese immigration act in 1923, which completely barred chinese immigrants from entering canada. the systemic racism against chinese people was justified in terms of cultural deficits; chinese immigrants were denigrated as a group of undesirable and inassimilable “heathen chinee” without “civilized habits and religious aspirations” (royal commission report, 1885, as cited by anderson, 1991, p. 54). what remains hidden behind these cultural excuses are economic and political rationales for exclusion (cui, 2017). economically, chinese labourers were used by european colonists to maintain a disposable, subservient labour force at marginal cost to meet the unpredictable labour supply and demand of the capitalist system (p. s. li, 1998). politically, during the critical transition period of canada’s nation building, the dominant group attempted to maintain a white settler society. anti-chinese sentiments and movements were manifested in almost all the major institutions of canadian society. schools were not an exception. according to timothy stanley (2011), during the early decades of the 20th century, chinese children experienced segregation in almost all the government-controlled schools in british columbia in the name of health and the moral threat they presumably posed to white students. for example. chinese children were segregated into a special class, a segregated school, or a tent in a city park. the younger generations were indoctrinated with “white supremacist forms of knowledge” through official curriculum (stanley, 2011, p. 96). for example, an elementary school textbook authorized for use in bc between 1911 and 1923 described the “white race” as “the most active, enterprising, and intelligent race in the world” while “the yellow race” was characterized as “some of the most backward tribes of the world [who,] as a rule, are not progressive” (p. 108). by combining racial concepts with the authority of science, students learned “at the same time they learned how to write” (p. 112) that chinese are aliens who have different characters and qualities than whites. this is the historical field in which older generations of canadians were educated and their racialized habitus against chinese people evolved, which may have affected their and their descendants’ perceptions of and actions toward chinese people. as bourdieu (1990) argues, “the habitus, a product of history, produces individual and collective practices—more history—in accordance with the schemes generated by history” (p. 54). my interview with one chinese immigrant youth further demonstrates this point. hua, a first-generation chinese girl, recalled that her social studies teacher attributed the exclusion of chinese immigrants in history to their undesirable consumption styles: i remember my social studies teacher told us that many chinese immigrants came to canada to build the canadian pacific railway; they got paid and then became very rich. but they didn’t spend money. many caucasian labourers did not understand why the chinese like to save and become rich rather than spend money. it did not make sense to them, so since then, they began to discriminate against chinese immigrants. (author’s translation) by blaming the victims for their exclusion in the name of their cultural deficit, hua’s teacher not only denied the economic exploitation and political oppression that chinese labourers experienced in canadian history, but also reproduced the yellow peril discourse that perceives chinese people as uncivilized, undesirable, and inferior (cui, 2017). similarly, ping described what happened to her in a grade 6 social studies class when they read a chapter about china: the textbook was written many decades ago. it doesn’t have a real, good description of china; [it is] very terrible. so some students said, ‘oh, china looks so bad, the streets are very dirty, their currency is not valuable. pollution is everywhere.’ at that time, i told them, ‘china does not look like that’ because september 2019 78 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research i am from china. however, the social studies teacher did not give ping an opportunity to discuss her lived experiences in china. instead, she criticized china as an inferior country compared with western democracy and civilization. ping felt hurt and upset by her teacher’s and classmates’ ignorance, sense of superiority, and humiliation of her (cui, 2017). matt shared a similar experience in hanging out with his white friends. in junior high, i had most of my friends were caucasian again … sometimes they’d make jokes about foreigners that i didn’t really appreciate too much … [such as] we use chopsticks instead of forks … i don’t know they kind of viewed other cultures as slightly inferior to the western ones … they tried to impose their views on me, so yeah, they say, “oh, canada is much better than where i come from.” for a short period of time, i did hate myself for being different than other people, but eventually i began to realize it’s a stupid thing to think about because i mean i can’t change that, so i just have to deal with what i have already. as edward said (1978) said, “the orient was orientalized not only because it was discovered to be ‘oriental’ in all those ways considered common place by an average nineteenth-century european, but also because it could be—that is, submitted to being—made oriental” (p. 6). the above examples demonstrate how racialized habitus can be characterized as a distinction between the west and the rest, the civilized and uncivilized, the master and slave (anderson, 1991). the distinction between the orient and the occident, according to said (1978), was ideologically constructed by europeans to justify colonialism and to maintain unequal cultural and moral power relations with non-europeans. nowadays such distinction continues to devalue the cultural capital (e.g., consumption/living style, knowledge of china) of chinese people and at the same time reproduces the unequal power relations between the west and the rest. people from china continue to be viewed as undesirable and inferior from a western lens, a key component central to social agents’ racialized habitus toward model minorities. for bourdieu and wacquant (1992), it is the knowledge of the field in which social agents evolve that allows us to grasp “the roots of their singularity, their points of view or position (in a field)” (p. 107, italics in original). social agents’ practices cannot be simply deduced either from the present condition of the field which may have provoked them or from the past condition which constructed their habitus; rather, their practices have to be understood as the interplay of these two states of the field. compared with the present condition, the long period of the past seems to play a more important role in producing and framing social agents’ practices, “because of which,” bourdieu (1990) said, “we have emerged in the form we have today” (p. 56). the racialized habitus exemplified above can be understood as a product of both the past and the present fields (cui, 2017). the yellow peril discourse has been discursively reproduced across these fields, combined with the model minority stereotype, and has contributed to the development of a racialized habitus against chinese people and other asians. the social order of the field is still based on a racial hierarchy with the west on the top and the rest at the bottom. being picked on: the obedient and the weak what is also problematic with the model minority stereotype is that it tends to represent asian people as docile, quiet, timid, respectful to authorities, not complaining about overtime work and other unjust treatment, and not demanding more rights from governments or pay increase and promotion from employers (li & wang, 2008). when such stereotyped assumptions are projected onto chinese students at school, it places them in a disadvantaged position where they are seen as obedient and weak and thus easily picked on by peers and teachers. michael reported that he was occasionally addressed with racial slurs such as “chinaman” or “chink” at school. despite his good academic performance, michael recalled being excluded from school projects: “basically all the september 2019 79 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research white kids got into groups and i was forced to be excluded from any of the groups … eventually i got into a group and then they started piling all the work to me.” fang was also excluded from school projects as an immigrant teenage girl, but as she stated, it depended on which project. if it was a mathematics project, her classmates were willing to include her, because “she can do all the work.” however, if it was an english project or physical education class, she would be left out by them. at those moments, she felt hurt and suffered low self-esteem. in addition to such peer marginalization and exclusion, several chinese students shared their experiences of being verbally and physically bullied. olivia noted: there were always teasing from students. the low chances are like, me chinese me no dumb. i cannot remember what other part of the teasing was but that always bugs me. they do actions. it really, really bugs me because it made fun of chinese people. for cathy, an immigrant girl with limited english proficiency, her junior high school experience was associated with some unpleasant memories of “being made fun of ” by school peers. c: they call me different last names like cathy yang, cathy bang and all these other names. there was this one time that this guy called me cathy electra. i: electra? c: it’s a porn star … and they make fun of my height too because i am short. when facing peer harassment, it is important to note that both olivia and cathy chose to remain silent. in their words, they “just ignore it.” when asked why they didn’t “do something,” olivia explained, “because the more you confront them about it, the more they are going to do it to you.” for cathy, the reason to endure peer bullying was because, compared with a chinese boy who was also picked on in her school, “mine wasn’t worse as his.” a sense of powerlessness in dealing with those difficult situations was not only experienced by quiet girls like olivia and cathy, but also by ping, who once actively engaged in resistance. as discussed before, when ping’s teacher criticized china in a social studies class, and ping’s peers began to laugh at her for coming from such a backward country compared to the western world, ping felt humiliated and angry. she began to argue against such eurocentric views by saying that china was not like what they imagined. however, her resistance exacerbated her previous weak peer relations due to her excellent academic performance compared with others, and she encountered a physical attack in a gym class where she was hit by dodge ball by some girls “accidently on purpose.” in reflecting on her difficult time as a first-generation immigrant girl at school, ping acknowledged that she was different from her chinese friends who were quiet and obedient, so “other students won’t pick on them,” whereas she would “stand up for my values” and “fight back.” however, her resistance triggered further peer harassment, including malicious gossip about her to the point that she could not endure it any more. her situation became temporarily better until her parents sensed something was wrong and brought the issues to the attention of the school principal. similarly, megan also mentioned a hard time she experienced in her pe class where she was hit by the balls and marginalized by peers: i had a hard time with it when i was in elementary school, but i think it just gave me a bad experience of it and it’s mostly team-oriented sports and where things are getting thrown around where it’s an issue. i’ve tried a lot to get better at individual sports. i run and i bicycle so i’m not really bad now, but i understand that there’s a social circle around team sports and it’s never been where i’ve wanted to be. in the uk, in examining the racism that british chinese pupils experienced, louise archer and becky francis (2005) found that the popular stereotype that chinese students are quiet and passive exposed them to increased september 2019 80 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research racism and bullying “as a result of being seen as weak by other pupils” (p. 394). this is partly because of the dominant gender discourse that constructs the ideal pupil as male, assertive, and confident, so the perceived passivity and quietness of chinese students is seen as problematic. the intersection of masculinity and model minority discourse reinforced the racist way of thinking that sees chinese students as feminine, soft, and thus easily picked on (cui, 2015). from a psychological perspective, volk, dane, and marini (2014) redefine bullying as an imbalance of power between the bullies and the victims. the power could be conceptualized as physical, cognitive, and/or social. the cognitive power of bullies, such as their verbal fluency, may aid them in selecting and teasing a less articulate victim or persuading peers to engage in social exclusion. the social power refers to bullies’ social status, such as their popularity, which may facilitate them in committing relationally aggressive acts (e.g., recruiting classmates to exclude a target peer). it is beyond the scope of this paper to comprehensively examine the topic of bullying. however, interdisciplinary evidence has linked school bullying with unequal power relations (volk, dane, & marini, 2014). in the case of chinese students, such unequal power relations between bullies and victims should not be simply understood in an individual way (e.g., individual power imbalance), but as relations between the dominant and subordinated groups. the bullying that chinese students experience does not just happen in that specific moment and field but is deeply embedded in history as a collective racialized habitus. in the above examples, michael, olivia, ping, and megan were bullied not just by an individual “bad” student; rather, they were subject to a collective symbolic violence in which sometimes the whole class was engaged. when michael was marginalized in a school project, for example, nobody stood up to challenge it. when ping tried to voice her opinion about what china looks like, nobody wanted to listen to her, but they collectively joined in reproducing the eurocentric dichotomy between the west and the rest. when megan and ping were hit by balls in the gym, nobody helped them. it seemed that everyone has “a feel for the game” that these actions are doable and go without saying (bourdieu, 1994). as bourdieu (1990) argues, racialized habitus as durable dispositions tends to ensure the active presence of past racist history. it is characterized as racist schemes of perception, thought, and action that tend to “guarantee the ‘correctness’ of practices and their constancy over time” (p. 54). this is not to say that social agents’ racialized habitus is fixed. instead, it is always evolving in relation to field, capital, and the social order of the field. in the above examples, it seemed that the rules of the game in the social field of those schools is still based on racial hierarchy with the white students on top and the racialized minorities at the bottom. the model minority stereotype and its associated unequal power relations between the dominant and subordinated groups places chinese students in a disadvantaged position in terms of school bullying. most importantly, the stereotype contributes to the development of racialized habitus among students in terms of who is considered inferior, weak, and powerless—in other words, who can be potential targets of bullying with little cost. conclusion chinese students are often labelled as a model minority, an ideologically and politically constructed identity that tends to highlight their academic achievements while leaving their struggles as racialized minorities unattended. this seemingly positive racial stereotype is in fact associated with various derogatory connotations. in this paper, i have drawn on both an article published in a mainstream canadian magazine and on interview data with chinese canadian youth to discuss three negative connotations linked with the model minority stereotype and how they reflect and contribute to the evolvement of racialized habitus against chinese students. specifically, i argue that the academic achievements of chinese students are not celebrated as part of canadian achievements but interpreted as competition and a threat against “real” canadians (e.g., the white ones). chinese students’ academic capital is september 2019 81 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research devalued in some school fields and their cultural capital, exemplified as an ethic of hard work, is often denigrated as single-minded or lacking interest in social activities or social skills. racialized habitus based on the model minority stereotype is also characteristic of a eurocentric dichotomy between the west and the rest (e.g., the civilized vs. uncivilized). such ways of thinking treat chinese students and their cultural capital (e.g., knowledge about china, consumption styles) as a deficit: undesirable and inferior. moreover, the model minority stereotype depicts chinese students as quiet and obedient, thereby contributing to a kind of racialized habitus that perceives them as targets of peer bullying. these three negative connotations associated with the model minority stereotype serve to categorize chinese students into a subordinate social status. such categorization, according to bourdieu (1984), is a process in which “correspondence between membership of a category” and “possession of a particular property” is built, so that “knowledge of a person’s category strongly influences judgments of him” (p. 479). in other words, the model minority stereotype plays an important role in distinguishing chinese students as others, who are different from and inferior to “real” canadians. how is social order, such as racial hierarchy, reproduced in an educational field? according to bourdieu and wacquant (1992), the reproduction of racialized social structure could not be realized without the collaboration of social agents who have internalized “the imminent law of the structure” in the form of habitus (p. 140). their habitus inclines them to perceive this social order as natural and normal. therefore, with the function of habitus, they reproduce the social structure “in the very spontaneous movement of their existence,” regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not (p. 139). to challenge racial hierarchy requires us not only to interrogate institutional and systemic racism (e.g., laws and policies) but also to critically reflect on how racism has been maintained and reproduced at the individual level as racialized habitus. more research is needed to explore how 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(2010). asian americans beyond the model minority stereotype: the nerdy and the left out. journal of international & intercultural communication, 3(1), 20–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513050903428109 (endnotes) 1 due to the controversy it ignited, the “too asian?” article in maclean’s changed its title to “the enrollment controversy.” september 2019 42 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research “rain, rain, go away!” engaging rain pedagogies in practices with children: from water politics to environmental education ashley do nascimento ashley do nascimento is a phd student in the faculty of education at the university of western ontario. her current research focuses on water pedagogies and the possibilities for engaging water in common-world encounters with children and youth. she is interested in finding new ways to conceptualize and theorize work with children and youth that is centered on water. how can we become more attuned to human and nonhuman entanglements that are present in our work with children? email: adonasci@uwo.ca i woke up one morning listening to the rain beating off the window. the cool breeze was a nice break from the hot and humid temperatures we had been getting; however, it was the third day of rain. another day of rain meant the likelihood of the school in the favela (slum) closing down was greater. i called one of the other volunteers to confirm if the classes had been cancelled. they had. another day to lie in bed. i started to wonder what the kids got up to when classes were cancelled and our programs were not running. in brazil, children go to school for half a day either in the morning or afternoon. when they are not at school, children in the favela end up back at home, roaming the streets of the community. our programs were offered twice daily to ensure that children studying in the morning could attend classes in the afternoon, while children in the afternoon could attend the morning programs. with school and programs cancelled, i wondered what they might be up to. classes were often cancelled due to rain. rain is a concern in this specific favela due to the geographical space it consumes. with the community centre located at the side of a hill and the school at the bottom, torrential downpours make the space especially vulnerable to landslides. i had spent a couple days at the community centre when torrential downpours had swept by, trying to tiptoe in havaianas (brazilian sandals) through the murky water as it gushed past, which was nearly impossible. it was dangerous at times trying to battle the downstream force of the water while attempting to manoeuvre my way around the favela. for this reason, when it rained hard, it poured, and classes were cancelled. the above is an example of a time when rain affected the liveliness of the children, the volunteers, and me as we attempted to manoeuvre our bodies through the daily living conditions of the favela.1 the power of the rain affected our bodies by limiting and constricting our inspired by the popular children’s song “rain, rain, go away,” this paper explores what it would look like to consider inviting rain to stay in our practices with children. this invitation acts as a provocation for pedagogical practice that has the potential to engage thinking differently about the ways we work with children and youth. framed from the vantage point of current curricular practices in environmental education, this paper fuses discussions about water (including racialized and gendered politics) with a consideration of the histories of environmental educational practices as they are currently situated within childhood teaching. in pushing ourselves to think about our bodies as watered/weathered, especially in the context of educational practices, we are able to explore new territory that moves us toward a critique of the taken-for-granted ways in which children and nature are continuously conceptualized, and we open up room for dialogue that moves beyond developmental psychology frameworks. through considering rain and inviting water to stay in our practices with children, it is suggested that these moments provide critical insight into the more-than-human relationship between children and nature that goes far beyond the romanticized understandings that exist today to consider children’s common worlds. key words: water; rain; pedagogy; common worlds; children september 2019 43 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research movements and encounters in the world around us (ingold, 2007). i use this experience to provoke inquiry in early childhood practices toward exploring possibilities for thinking with, alongside, and as rain. in attempting to wrap my head around what possibilities thinking with rain could offer for pedagogical practices with children and youth, i engaged in a dialogue with my two-year-old daughter. me: “oh, jada, how can mummy start thinking with rain?” jada: “ohhh, it’s raining mummy.” me: “yes, honey, it is raining! so how can mummy think with rain?” [my voice sounds desperate] jada: [sings] “rain, rain, go away. come again another day…” i laugh. and then pause to reflect on what she had said. instead of looking to rain as something that needs to go away and come again another day, how can we encourage the rain to stay? in thinking back to my experiences while working in the slums of brazil and the ways in which the rain limited my body’s ability to manoeuvre within the spaces the water surged through, how might it look to instead think alongside the slippery, chaotic flow of rain? what would it look like to invite rain into our practices instead of wishing rain away? how could thinking with rain provide alternative possibilities for engaging with children and youth, specifically in the face of 21st-century climate change? context in considering the questions above in relation to the opening vignette, this paper explores what it might look like to think beyond the popular children’s nursery song “rain, rain, go away” to engage thinking that invites rain to stay. in light of climate change and the romanticized viewpoint of childhood practices that considers the child/nature relationship to be natural, innocent, and normal (taylor, 2013), this exploration is important for queering the essence of child/nature relations and for thinking differently about our engagements with children in early childhood spaces. this exploration is done in the context of thinking through environmental education’s curricular practices with children that fall short when it comes to considering children’s understandings of the more-than-human entanglements2 they have with the environment. this paper is broken into two sections and is presented as a conceptual piece that is exploratory in nature and poses more questions than it intends to answer. questions are placed throughout the paper to provoke reconsideration of how we understand water/rain pedagogies, and also to challenge the reader to thinking differently about how these engagements can shift the ways we understand and practice with children. water/rain pedagogies are defined as the various ways and experiences of how we learn, practice, engage, and come to understand water and rain as intrinsically intertwined. because rain is the weathered manifestation of water that falls from the sky, rain and water are used simultaneously and interchangeably throughout the paper. the first section, “rain, rain, go away …” uses the language from the popular children’s song to explore current water/rain literature that situates water/rain understandings within the 21st century and the importance of ecological action for children and young people. situating these concerns in the face of climate change is important as current moves toward sustainability in environmental educational practices continue to center the human through privileging a social justice agenda (kopnina, 2012, as cited in taylor, 2017). these concerns are critical to understand in current scholarship because they reference the importance of children’s ecological action, which often has been framed within anthropocentric frameworks. as taylor (2017) notes, september 2019 44 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research environmental education reverts to what the teachers (as agentic human students) need to do and the children (also as agentic human subjects) need to learn in order to better care for and protect the environment (simultaneously and ambiguously positioned as holding integral value and as the passive object of human knowledge/needing human care and protection). (p. 1452) considering the anthropocentric nature of such practices poses a critical insight into how we understand and see ourselves in relation to the environment, or, in this case, to water. this section, in considering water, then moves toward an understanding of our bodies as “watered bodies” (neimanis, 2013), which is explored in relation to the literature on politics, race, and gender. a consideration of water politics, race, and gender is important because it helps to situate how water is (what it is, what it does, etc.) and how it lives in the world. the ways that water is present in our lives and how water understandings are currently taken up around the globe help to better focus the importance of thinking with/as/alongside water in 21st-century childhood practices. these understandings of water become further entangled in the consideration of our common worlds encounters (concerns about our collective relationships with/in the more-than-human world; pacini-ketchabaw, 2017; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; taylor, 2013) and also in our pedagogical practices with children. the second section, “come again another day,” leverages common worlds pedagogies to consider further water/rain engagements in the classroom to think about alternative pedagogical practices. it very briefly explores environmental education engagements with water and explores the ways in which water is currently present in the classroom. concluding thoughts are given about how thinking through this gap in current environmental education practices will advance knowledge in the field of childhood studies, particularly focusing on common worlds encounters and looking specifically to rain/water pedagogies. the section wraps up with a practical application of rain/weather pedagogies as proposed by tonya rooney (2018) that demonstrates a full-circle consideration of the provocations brought forth in this paper and how thinking through some of them in the light of environmental education can provide new possibilities for working with children and youth in the 21st century. rain, rain, go away… consideration of climate in the 21st century in the 21st century, climate change is a growing concern (alaimo, 2010; shiva, 2002; somerville, 2013). with largescale weather events wreaking havoc in certain parts of the globe, there has never been a more crucial time to consider the ways in which we as humans are entangled and implicated locally and globally (rooney, 2018; shiva, 2002). it is no longer fair to say that humans are not implicated in the catastrophic events that are happening around the world—research has already demonstrated the intricacies of the smallest actions and their impact on places and things on different continents (neimanis, 2009, 2012). for example, the plastics we consume in north america have travelled and made their way to affect the lives of whales and birds off the coast of australia (earle & glover, 2009). as climate change intensifies, items like plastics are being swept away and are able to travel farther as tsunamis and hurricanes become larger and their effects greater (earle & glover, 2009). climate-related issues require an engagement with the world that goes far beyond humancentric tendencies to repair the past or salvage the future (neimanis & walker, 2014) and instead focus on our collective relations to the world (haraway, 2002; neimanis, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2016; rooney, 2018). but in order to think alongside water, and alongside weather, we need to explore the ways in which water (as it relates to rain) has been conceptualized and worked with in childhood practices. for the purposes of this paper, i borrow rooney’s (2018) definitions of climate change as long-term changes in temperatures reflected through an average, and weather as the expression of those long-term changes at a given september 2019 45 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research point in time. therefore, in this paper, rain is considered as a specific weather expression of climate change. climate change and ecological action in responding to current times marked by drastic climate change, pollution, and dwindling water resources that sit within heavily bounded networks of historical, social, and political contexts (food, water, energy nexus, 2016; mudavanhu et al., 2015; pacini-ketchabaw, 2017; shiva, 2002), ecological action of young people is a concern. how young people think about, understand, and engage in these ecological matters can offer a great deal in understanding how to become ethical beings that engage responsibly in dealing with 21st-century concerns as they relate to climate change (blaise, hamm, & iorio, 2017; pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2016). children’s responses to ecological matters help us to think differently about our daily practices in the more-than-human world, in ways that move beyond human-centered logics and supremacy. water, as one of the most threatened resources of our time (barlow, dyer, sinclair, & quiggin, 2008), is a material substance worth exploring with children (kocher, pacini-ketchabaw, & kind, 2014). as water becomes less tangible, creative ways to understand its uses and prevent its depletion become paramount. however, in addition to attending to water shortages, understanding the “hows” of water use now becomes the emphasis of current water engagements (chen, macleod, & neimanis, 2013; somerville, 2013). as educators realize that we are watered bodies and we realize water’s potential to transform us, thinking with water becomes an important framework to guide our practices. it is in this thinking that we can better attend to water crises that entangle with our daily lives, and work toward a future that sustains watery relations among humans, nonhumans, and living and nonliving materials (chen et al., 2013; pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2016). our bodies’ connection and intra-relations with water as manifested through rain is an additional piece as we consider becoming weathered bodies (rooney, 2018). as we move beyond developmental frameworks for thinking about water in the classroom toward thinking with rain in environmental education and outdoor education frameworks, this paper invites rain into our practices to provoke new possibilities for pedagogical practice with children and youth that considers climate change in the 21st century. water subjectivities water, as a substance that makes up nearly 70% of our human bodies, occupies nearly 71% of the earth’s surface and is something nearly all organisms need for survival. it is crucial to life on earth (somerville, 2013). as water becomes a scarce resource (e.g., cape town, south africa, recently became the first city in the world to nearly run out of water [welch, 2018]), humans are forced to unpack their relations with water and rethink their understandings of water. astrida neimanis (2013) asks us to explore our water subjectivities and unpack the ways in which we become entangled within watery relations and watery transformations (chen et al., 2013). it is through acknowledging these relations that we understand that we are all watered bodies, and we are able to think more responsibly about our ecological relationships with water (mies & shiva, 1993). such engagement allows us to think more about our relationships with and to other watered bodies as we consider ourselves “part of a global hydrocommons” (neimanis, 2013, p. 28). this kind of thinking allows us to notice where and how we are situated, calling on a politics of location that not only makes us accountable to specific waters, but requires us to notice our subjectivities alongside water. neimanis (2013) looks to research by gayatri chakravorty spivak (1994, as cited in neimanis, 2013), who offers an important point in engaging feminist water subjectivities. in discussing a development project looking to reroute watercourses in bangladesh, spivak entangles human and more-than-human worlds when she notices humans’ september 2019 46 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research error in thinking that they “know better” (p. 37, as cited in neimanis, 2013), alluding that they (as humans) can be in complete control of water. spivak claims that feminist subjects need to understand that they will never fully know water in a colonial mastery type of way. instead, she suggests an engagement in “knowing-with” and “knowing-alongside” water (p. 37, as cited in neimanis, 2013). to practice in such a way calls us to think differently about who we are as watered bodies and to realize how water comes into the political realm as gendered and as racialized (alaimo, 2010). doing so, however, requires an exploration of the global politics of water and a look at the ways in which water has been understood in relation to human rights that are bound within gendered politics. water as political: toward gendered politics in locating water as an entity that is vital for our survival, and in recognizing its precarity in relation to access, cleanliness, and use, water becomes political (chen et al., 2013; somerville, 2013). one way of examining the complexity of water as a political entity is looking to water’s use in relation to energy. in noticing how water becomes entangled in the politics of energy production and consumption (chen et al., 2013), we are able to think of questions that surround its uses in the market: how much will water cost? who will pay? how will energy use be monitored? water thus becomes an “othered” entity, manufactured and sold within capitalist systems of logic. this othering of water becomes further entangled in political practices as humans continue to see themselves as separate and superior beings in the material world, resulting in the further privatization of water (chen et al., 2013). water is therefore brought into capitalist relations as it becomes commodified, at a cost to some humans and nonhumans, including species and ecosystems (strang, 2013). this commodification of water becomes even more problematic as gendered bodies come into play as watered subjects are regulated (alaimo, 2010; bondi, 2002). farhana sultana (2009) explores the complexity of gender and water practices in rural areas in bangladesh, arguing that water subjectivities are influenced by physical location and spaces in relation to the negotiation and regulation of bodies and gendered identities. sultana claims that “embodied subjectivities are simultaneously material, social, spatial and ecological in any given context, where the source of water, water quality and water technology interact with the ways that gendered subjectivities are re/produced, reconfigured, lived and experienced” (p. 435). she discusses the implications that arise in rural bangladesh, where traditionally women are the ones who fetch clean water. sultana nuances power in its relation to gender and domestic water practices, stating that power differences are specifically noticeable in the household, when considering other factors that influence the reality of accessible, safe, clean drinking water, such as location, time of day, caste systems, and hierarchy within families. while acknowledging the possibility for men to contribute to water-fetching practices, many women find that their feelings are bound within greater systemic limitations. sultana claims that “struggles over water end up being struggles over gendered identities” (p. 437). envisioning her work as an additional resource that nuances gendered water politics, sultana hopes that her engagement with gender in relation to water subjectivities will enrich future gender-nature discussions in feminist-ecological literature. when we are able to see water as something not everyone has equal access to, we are also able to make connections between rain (as water) and the gendered ways that rain is manifested. when you think, as an example, of the story that opens this paper, the rain negatively affected the lives of children in the favela, who were socially and geographically more vulnerable (compared to children not living in the favela) to the negative possibilities that rainfall could bring (e.g., their school closing down due to risk of landslides). how can we use this example to think about the politics of water as they relate to rain and other weather manifestations? seeing water as political allows us to ask questions about who has access to water: who benefits from certain services, or access, and who is left out? who is at risk? how is water being used and why? how is rain (or lack september 2019 47 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of rain) seen as a threat to some but not to others? from here, we are able to see how water becomes racialized, gendered, and queered (chen et al., 2013), and as sultana (2009) points out, how rain/water becomes a struggle over gendered identities. water is political—its notions and engagements are drowned by social meanings, contaminated by colonial histories, and bound by geography—water is lost at sea. its discourses flow and change shape as they come into contact with other ways of knowing or of being (in contact with) water (alaimo, 2010; chen et al., 2013; sultana, 2009). because water is an agent that births us, that brings life to this earth, and that literally connects all of us, paying attention to its flows from indigenous perspectives is not only useful, but crucial (chen et al., 2013; somerville, 2013). indigenous ways of knowing help us to better understand what being (in contact with) water means. indigenous stories, traditions, and spirituality help us to move beyond anthropocentric ways of thinking about water and make sense of the deeply political ways in which humans have made water into a commodity, and the dangers in doing so (christian & wong, 2013). looking to water through indigenous knowledges affords other ways of knowing to engage in practices with water and rain that take into consideration the land and its role in environmental and outdoor educational practices. this is important to consider: as styres, haig-brown, and blimkie (2013) point out, the sea and waters are as much a part of the land as are people and the environment (whitehouse, lui, sellwood, barrett, & chigeza, 2014). racialized understandings: indigeneity, race, and water indigenous peoples have continuously been connected to water in ways that signify their deep commitment and connection to land and place. water is not only a valuable resource that needs to be protected, it is also a life form that transmits hope, love, and meaning to those who embrace and cherish it (strang, 2013). water is spiritual (christian & wong, 2013). as it moves through the earth, is carried away by streams and rivers, and flows in and out of our bodies, water contains past, present, and future promises of what has been, what is, and what might be for human-environmental relationships (christian & wong, 2013; strang, 2013). dorothy christian and rita wong (2013) discuss the implications that come when humans continually take from the earth without giving back. christian and wong acknowledge the gift of water that has come from mother earth and talk about indigenous kincentric relations to water as a way of honouring relationships to all living and nonliving beings. they state that all humans need to think kincentrically if they wish to move beyond anthropocentric relationships with the environment. their view offers a movement toward thinking alongside water, noticing how it slips into our thoughts, floods our bodies, and washes over our heads. without romanticizing indigenous knowledge, their thinking offers new ways of being with water and being in relation to the world. as we orient ourselves, our practices, and our thoughts toward an engagement with the more-than-human world, we begin to see different possibilities of how materials and substances like water act in the world and how we can become attuned to their properties. thus, engaging differently with water, paying attention to how it lives in the world as informed by “socialized, spatialized, ecologized and embodied subjectivities” (sultana, 2009, p. 438), we can think about the many different possibilities water offers for us to be in the world. andrea moraes and patricia perkins (2007) extend ideas related to living in the world with water in relation to gender and race, further exploring women of colour in brazil and their opportunities in water engagement. in their study focused on water management, moraes and perkins found that women of colour were often left outside of political engagement in water practices, which was further complicated by lack of childcare, location, effects of climate change, and poor health because of polluted waters. such understandings of how race and gender intersect with water practices lend further points of contention to how we engage with water discourses, practices, and uses globally, suggesting that attention should be paid to more-than-human possibilities for thinking alongside water and considering the racial and gendered politics that drown out other possibilities. for instance, when looking to september 2019 48 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research women of colour in brazil and their inability to engage in the politics of water, we can see how gender is negotiated in relation to patriarchal discourses that are brought to light by other limitations like lack of childcare. how is childcare taken up here to reflect a woman’s ability or inability to become involved in water management? if we take a similar approach to considering rain and the potential threats put forth by rain, we can see that in many places—like brazil, for instance, and the specific favela i worked in—rain poses a threat to some and not to others, due to geographical space and location. if we can look to race and gender and situate them within politically bounded areas of exclusion, or threat, we can then see how rain (and weather) become contextually situated, and that this situation can change over time. but common worlds pedagogies urge us to move further—to move beyond taken-for-granted understandings of water/rain engagements to consider how we live symbiotically in the world. while still acknowledging the racialized and gendered politics of rain/water, how can we think with/ alongside rain/water practices with children and youth to engage new opportunities in pedagogical practice? come again another day… environmental education practices in outdoor education programs a brief consideration of environmental education and outdoor educational practices can help to locate where and how water is situated beyond the “traditional” classroom. becoming more popular in the 1990s, outdoor educational programs started off in places like scandinavia, germany, and england, where a push for “holistic” learning was the focus for child development that occurred within more natural settings (constable, 2014; knight, 2013). concerned with children’s abilities to obtain lifelong skills, educators created outdoor educational settings in the shape of various forest schools throughout europe and the uk. these spaces were designed so that children would have free range to explore in “natural settings” while gaining independence, self-esteem, and confidence (constable, 2014). outdoor educational settings and forest schools were assessed on their capacity to encourage the children’s self-promoted development, with a push for “environmental awareness” (constable, 2014, p. 40). with many different viewpoints on the importance of outdoor education (the most impactful and continually referenced benefit situated within developmental frameworks), outdoor education was not only about one’s ability to access green space but was seen for its benefits to studying (no matter what subject) in a natural environment (knight, 2013). but what happens beyond a child’s ability to simply study and access green spaces? if children’s development is at the forefront of outdoor educational experiences, how do children and youth become attuned to their more-than-human entanglements with the natural world? environmental education (ee) on the other hand, which is more concerned with the economic, social, ecological, and political matters of urban and rural spaces and takes a human-centered approach to protecting the environment (unesco, 1990), considers the human/nonhuman entanglements that coexist within outdoor educational spaces. in the 1990s, ee (in contrast to outdoor education), began to more intricately consider atmosphere, location, people, animals, plants, soils, minerals, water, economics, and energy in order to engage in more ethically sound practices and initiatives about/for the environment as a collective (palmer, 1998). with a push to consider the entanglements among all of these factors, ee was indeed more concerned about common worlds; however, it maintained a developmental focus in relation to children’s learning (palmer, 1998). with advancements in technology and pushes to live in more ecologically friendly ways in the face of 21st-century climate change, concerns regarding a sustainable future became the focus. what continues to be missing from ee practices even today is a focus on the more-than-human world and how we are enmeshed within it. as one example, an ee program in ontario reaches toward an understanding of a shared, sustainable future, but does not consider the entanglement between humans and nonhumans; instead, it focuses on water, watersheds, water cycles, wetlands, weather, and september 2019 49 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research nature more generally (camp kawartha, 2018), emphasizing scientific learning about water and weather without consideration of us as watered/weathered bodies (neimanis, 2009, 2013; rooney, 2018) and what it means to live with/as water. ee also demonstrates a disconnect from indigenous knowledges about water/land relations and rarely considers “explicit discussions of settler colonialism, decolonization, and indigenous conceptualizations of land” (tuck, mckenzie, & mccoy, 2014, p. 14). this gap is even more problematic when you consider curriculum influences on ee. the anthropocentric view that is at the heart of the ontario curriculum (specifically in relation to science education and its tie to ee) fails to consider the intra-activity between the child and the more-than-human environment. if we paid more attention to this intra-activity—that is, the entangled and enmeshed relationship between humans and nonhuman worlds that are continuously being diffracted and enfolded into each other (barad, 2012)—we might be able to look beyond ee and outdoor education programs and see them as more than alternatives to the traditional, four-walled classroom. in these spaces, we might begin to see the intra-activity of common worlds as we better attune ourselves to ways of being with/as water and rain that move beyond the traditional practices that dominate in educational settings. thinking with water—developmental engagements and watered bodies: moving toward rain traditional practices with water in early childhood tend to see water as a resource that needs to be controlled and is used to promote children’s development (gross, 2012; pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2016). water is housed in small bins or larger water tables to encourage creative play, where children can simultaneously learn about things like buoyancy, porosity and evaporation. water is used in experiments to learn about its properties as a gas (vapour), solid (ice), and liquid (water). colanders, funnels, sponges, and scoops are used for play within the water bins. children are able to play creatively while also developmentally engaging their fine motor skills through hand-eye coordination, improving their language skills through engaging in dialogue at the water table, and also improving their sensory abilities through tactile engagement with the various materials available to play with (gross, 2012). in paying attention to the ways that water lives in the classrooms, veronica pacini-ketchabaw and vanessa clark (2016) note the impossibility of controlling water’s presence in the room. for example, removing the water bins and water tables from the room does not completely displace water. because we are all “watered bodies” (neimanis, 2009) and water is within each of us, water can never be fully removed from our presence (chen et al., 2013). when we acknowledge that we are all watered bodies, we are able to take on more responsibility in our ecological relationships with water (mies & shiva, 1993). in practice, this might mean looking at other ways in which water is within the classroom—seeing the ways that water lives within our practices (pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2016). therefore, an understanding and engagement with water that considers our bodies in relation to the water of the planet requires a movement past the developmental logics in specific childcare practices (pacini-ketchabaw & clark, 2016 taylor & blaise, 2014). it is meaningful here to consider the importance of discussing water in relation to rain. neimanis (2009, 2012) reminds us of the ebbs and flows of water in its various forms and its ability to travel in, around, through, and among us. the continuous cycle, with no clear beginning or end, affects us all—we drink water, it mixes and mingles with toxins in our body, and it is expelled. once expelled, it makes its way back to the rivers and streams, picking up chemicals, fertilizers, and arsenic along the way, while permeating the various plants and biological species it comes into contact with. the rivers feed into the ocean where fish, plankton, and other marine life feed on it. the same bodies of water have toxins, plastics, and other bile dumped into them. the water stirs it up. after mingling with other aqueous bodies (chen et al., 2013) in the ocean, water evaporates as it makes its way to the clouds. it then rains. the rain not only touches our body, penetrating our skin, but also gets recycled back into the september 2019 50 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research earth. whatever toxins it has picked up along the way are now further spread to plants, insects, and animals. rain, as a form of water, then recreates this cycle as it travels back into the rivers and streams to the oceans, the sky, and back again to the earth (ingold, 2007; neimanis, 2012). this understanding of the flows of water and rain suggests that we had better attune ourselves to being watered bodies and acknowledge our watery relations to both human and nonhuman worlds (chen et al., 2013; neimanis, 2009; 2012). understanding the traditional engagements with water in early childhood practices while simultaneously acknowledging our watery relations to other aqueous bodies positions us for work that moves toward thinking alongside water, more specifically, rain. weatherly worlding: situating rain in environmental education i turn now to rooney’s (2018) piece on weatherly worlding (an understanding of how we can better attune ourselves as humans to the world of weather and engage in learning with weather, as a cohabitant on earth) to encourage thinking that focuses on our collective responsibilities in the world. when considering climate change, it is impossible to deny our human influence on weather (ingold, 2007; neimanis & walker, 2014; rooney, 2018). simultaneously, our human influence should not be considered in isolation. we are called to look at the intermingling of the human/weather relationship as we symbiotically live together as humans and nonhumans. neimanis and walker (2014) propose that to think with weather, we need to become weathered. in becoming weathered, we are better situated, in the intra-active (barad, 2007) process that engages human/nonhuman matter, to position ourselves as weather bodies (neimanis & walker, 2014; rooney, 2018). in becoming weather bodies, we are better able to attend to climate change matters beyond the immediacy of crisis prevention that is caught up in linear salvage discourses that place humans at the centre of climate change solutions (neimanis & walker, 2014; rooney, 2018; somerville, 2013). such an engagement is crucial as we work toward better understanding our becomings with climate change in our attunement to water/weather (blaise et al., 2013). in the realm of environmental education, rooney (2018) proposes three ways of engaging with weather in our practices: walking in the weather, returning to places, and attending to more-than-human encounters and concerns. an engagement with walking in the rain could perhaps offer an opportunity for the reconnection of bodies—material and not. such intermingling with rain could bring out our connectedness through contact zones that are created as the rain falls on our bodies. in returning to place, our memories become a central part in our weathering. as rain falls, we may remember the earthy smell of the air or the visibility of the worms that emerge after being swept away by the raindrops. these memories shaped by the weather allow for places to become familiar, which “provides an opportunity to notice the work of weathering over time” (rooney, 2018, p. 9) and therefore encourages a more thoughtful connectedness to weather. finally, attending to more-than-human encounters calls for a careful engagement with the common worlds we inhabit. plants, animals, other organisms, and other living and nonliving matter dwell within collective spaces and places, calling our attention to the intermingling of human and nonhumans species. with children and youth, attuning to all matter is suggested as a way of exploring curiosities about the world we all collectively cohabit, paying particular attention to our connectedness with rain (blaise et al., 2017; haraway, 2002; kocher et al., 2014; rooney, 2018). this type of paying attention, which calls us to look carefully beyond what is simply visible to the naked eye (tsing, 2015), allows us to understand and situate racialized and gendered ways of understanding water that become implicated in rain/weather practices. in ee, for example, this paying attention pushes us further to invite rain to stay in our practices so that we might consider our multiple world entanglements that move us toward thinking differently about how we work with children and youth. september 2019 51 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research inviting rain to stay: alternative curricular practices through noticing the undeniable entanglement of water and rain pedagogies, we are able to think about inviting rain to stay as we learn to think alongside rain in relation to climate in childcare practices. the ways in which water and rain slide through the earth, flow in our bodies, and fall from the sky attest to the endless possibilities of attuning ourselves to our weathered/watered bodies, both in the classroom and beyond. in their ethnographic encounters with people on the west coast of canada, phillip vannini and his colleagues (2012) found that weatherly engagement varied from person to person and at times was racially situated. through exploring practices of weathering through somatic work, the authors present interesting experiences of “ordinary weather” in coastal regions, specifically looking to their engagements with rain. beyond describing their cravings for sunlight and warmth and their longing to feel dry, some participants described their experiences with the weather in terms of a negotiated relationship whereby they learned to “live in relation to the weather” (p. 362), and they noted that “we don’t live in the rain. rather, the rain lives in us” (p. 365, emphasis in original). through proposing that rain is everyday life, their reflections demonstrate an understanding of their bodies’ watery relations to rain and acknowledge their bodies as being weathered and watered (neimanis, 2009, 2012; neimanis & walker, 2014; rooney, 2018). for the authors, this acknowledgement is a crucial aspect in becoming skillfully weathered (vannini et al., 2012). concerned by the limited amount of social science research that looks at weather and climate change, vannini et al. (2012) encourage us to become weathered, as i suggest in this paper. what possibilities lie ahead for curricular practices when rain/water pedagogies are considered in the classroom? these notions of considering rain/water pedagogies in practices with children and youth in the classroom offer an advancement in the field of environmental education by opening up spaces for young people to consider their engagements with the more-than-human world. these engagements allow for sophisticated understandings of the complexities of climate change we face in the 21st century. in addition, opening up spaces for rain/water pedagogies allows for a rethinking of pedagogical practices that has the potential to go far beyond anthropocentric, privileged, and racialized understandings of common-world encounters that are entangled within political, social, and historical contexts. moving beyond developmental considerations of water in the classroom to invite rain/water pedagogies into curricular practices is proposed in hopes of offering a more complex understanding of children’s ecological engagement. looking to young people’s environmental awareness as it relates to thinking with/as water and rain can offer other ways for thinking about how we work with children and youth. in considering alternative curricular practices, we are able to situate past/present political contexts as we move toward a more commonworld understanding of children and their environment, in hopes of creatively addressing and attuning ourselves to 21st-century climate change concerns. this paper therefore presents an opportunity for further engagement and thinking with/as water/rain. it presents an opportunity for those involved in curriculum planning, development, and implementation to pay more attention to how young people are in the world, how the world is in them, and how these relationships are symbiotic and continuously act on each other. these relationships offer alternative ways to conceptualize, think about, and engage in curricular practices that go beyond humanist and developmentalist practices and call us to pay special attention to young people’s ecological engagement in environmental matters. conclusion this paper was inspired by the vignette in the introduction, which probed my interest in looking at rain/water september 2019 52 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research pedagogies in practice with children. in attempting to think about this experience, i engaged in a dialogue with my two-year-old daughter, who began to sing “rain, rain, go away,” provoking me to consider what it means for our collective relationships when we wish rain away instead of inviting it to stay in our practices. inviting rain into our practices with children and youth will not only help us to better attune ourselves with the nonhuman world, it will help us to generate possibilities for thinking and practicing differently in our work with children and youth. as i reflect back on the story that opens this paper, i call into question the liveliness of rain that once constricted my movements and begin to ponder what it might look like to think with the rain. how might inviting the rain to stay produce different ways of learning and knowing about climate change? what possibilities exist for pedagogical practices where engagements with weathering take place (neimanis & walker, 2014; rooney, 2018) and where we move toward an understanding of our bodies as being watered/weathered? how can we call gendered and racialized politics into focus when thinking alongside rain, without forgetting the importance of common-world pedagogies? can our thinking with/as rain provide alternative notions for practice in environmental education, while simultaneously holding the politics of water in one hand and our common-world encounters in the other? while this paper asks more questions than it seeks to answer, it brings forth provocations that can have important impacts for our pedagogical practices. as we continue to live as coinhabitants on this earth, rain and consequently climate change will demand more questions of us than we can answer. while beyond the scope of this paper, an in-depth exploration of indigenous ways of knowing and land practices in relation to environmental education should be considered in future research. while taken up elsewhere (see tuck et al., 2014; whitehouse et al., 2014), environmental education in relation to land practices needs to better account for the history of place and land in a way that moves beyond settler futurity to address settler colonialism and the appropriation of indigenous understandings of human/land relationships. perhaps looking to indigenous knowledges and accounting for the history of place and land will provide other ways of being with and knowing rain. perhaps history of place and land will also advance our understandings of the racialized and gendered politics of water that become contaminated in our rain/water futures. for now, i leave you with these provocations in hopes of inviting you to think about our common worlds and our entangled watery relationships. instead of singing “rain, rain, go away,” let’s instead invite rain to stay and see what possibilities it presents for us. september 2019 53 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alaimo, s. 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(2012). making sense of the weather: dwelling and weathering on canada’s rain coast. space and culture, 15(4), 361–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331211412269 welch, c. (2018). why cape town is running out of water, and who’s next. national geographic, retrieved from https://news. nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/ september 2019 55 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research whitehouse, h., lui, f. w., sellwood, j., barrett, m. j., & chigeza, p. (2014). sea country: navigating indigenous and colonial ontologies in australian environmental education. environmental education research, 20(1), 56–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2 013.852655 (endnotes) 1 this paper draws on data from previous research. 2 entanglements can be defined as all of the relationships and connections made in relation to a single event. for karen barad (2007), things are always in constant relation and engagement to and with other things—we are continually acting upon each other and other events in the world. an entanglement can be seen as this contact point where something happens. october 2021 79 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice thinking with doors and perspectives: reimagining early childhood spaces sherry rose, kim stewart, pamela malins, and candace gallagher sherry rose is an associate professor with the faculty of education at university of new brunswick (unb). she has been teaching and learning early childhood pedagogies for 36 years across childcare, public school, and university settings. email: srose@unb.ca kim stewart is an assistant professor in the unb faculty of education. she has experience in the field of education as a teacher (both locally and internationally), principal, researcher, curriculum developer, and literacy subject coordinator. kim’s research investigates multiple ways of being literate across institutional and community spaces with a focus on strong literate identities. her current research investigates the educational pathways of early childhood educators in eastern canada. kim can be reached at stewart@unb. ca pamela malins is an assistant professor in the unb faculty of education. she is interested in early childhood curriculum, literacies, and identities and the meaning-making opportunities afforded to young children to explore gender and sexual identities, specifically. current research includes engaging community in conversations about comfort levels with various picture books that address gender and sexual identities. previous research has included a sshrc-funded critical discourse analysis of canadian kindergarten curricula. email: pamela.malins@unb.ca candace gallagher is a phd candidate in the unb faculty of education and coordinator for the bachelor of education in early childhood. candace has experience teaching in early childhood settings, public school systems, and as an instructor at unb. she has taught and has experience as a curriculum developer both internationally and locally. as a critical feminist researcher, she is investigating early childhood leadership as world making through pedagogical documentation in the interest of social justice. email: candace.gallagher@unb.ca it is always about more than doors. (palmer, 2019, p. 156) rosi braidotti (2020) writes: “the current crisis can make us more intelligent about what we are ceasing to be and who we are capable of becoming” (p. 467). one way to reimagine our becoming is to think about problems as not just our own. using the lens of posthumanism, we wonder how leaders might collectively respond to human and more-than-human entanglements in ways that do not pathologize the individual. what positionalities, relationships, and meanings might be possible when we withhold judgment? how might we listen and learn about the a/effects as we navigate our shifting realities? in the same way veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2012) writes that “the clock, as both producer and enabler, affords possibilities and exclusions for practice” (p. 159), in this paper we are inviting the possibility of doors as producers and enablers that can provide opportunities to reimagine ways of caring within childcare systems in canada. we draw on pacini-ketchabaw’s (2012) words and this paper explores, through a posthumanist lens, child care as a communal responsibility, taking into account varied partial perspectives produced through human and more-than-human intra-actions. multiple narratives illustrate embodied and experienced complexities within child care spaces allowing us to reflect on uncomfortable truths to enact affirmative ethics as a way to transform the ways we care for children, their families, each other, and the spaces of child care. specifically, we think with actual and virtual doors as producers and enablers to create spaces where early childhood educators might collaboratively interrogate how materiality and socially constructed hierarchies are embedded in the inequities that separate us, inequities further exposed and exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. key words: child care; relational; perspective-taking; flexibility; equity mailto:srose@unb.ca mailto:stewart@unb.ca mailto:stewart@unb.ca mailto:pamela.malins@unb.ca mailto:candace.gallagher@unb.ca october 2021 80 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice insert the word doors instead of clocks to invite further reflection, so that we “may begin to understand human and non-human others—specifically here, children, educators, and [doors]—as coming into being through their relationships with each other” (p. 155). thinking of doors “as assemblages [of ] educators, [doors] and other nonhuman bodies intermingling in the classroom” (p. 156), we can move beyond thinking of doors as established boundary markers constructing spaces of privacy, safety, and/or freedom to see doors and their frames as spaces of embodied relational encounters. encounters affect us, inspire questions, cause us to think and feel, and provoke varied relationalities. they invite us to act, turning toward or away from encounters, prompting us to ask questions of ourselves, our institutions, and our institutionally shaped pedagogies with the goal of imagining otherwise. all encounters are entangled relationalities, calling up the potential of possibilities if we are able to refuse the logic of western binaries and detach ourselves from hierarchical relations (braidotti, 2020). what does it mean to think with doors as a way to reimagine child care? thinking with doors, this paper narrates daily complexities within child care spaces, allowing us to confront and change habitual ways of being as a way to transform caring for/with children, families, and each other. the goal to reimagine child care is a lofty one, addressing ethics, relationality, and connectivity while questioning exclusions. posthumanism invites reflection on the use of the communal “we.” rosi braidotti (2020), reflecting on covid circumstances, asks “who ‘we’ might be to begin with and whose anxiety is taking centre-stage in public debates about the crisis” (p. 467). recognizing that we “...-are-not-one-and-the-same-but-are-in-thisconvergence-together” (p. 469), can we bring feminist, indigenous, antiracist, and critical disabilities knowledges and ethics together and acknowledge that responses to current challenges are a communal rather than an individual responsibility? braidotti suggests that the shift in perspective which covid has produced “points in a different direction, towards some other middle-ground, another milieu, which expressed the awareness that ‘we’—all living entities—share the same planetary home” (p. 467, italics in original). covid has made it clear that supporting our child care educators and programs directly supports our families, our communities, our economies, our workplaces, our well-being, and the well-being of our shared world. how might time and space be constructed with a communal disposition that allows different kinds of perspective taking and relationships to occur? what follows are various perspectives revealed through thinking with doors that provoke possibilities for hearing the perspectives of a mother, a director, and an educator while thinking about belonging, “power rifts,” and “webs of ever-shifting relationalities” (braidotti, 2020, p. 467) and considering actual and virtual doors, including the doors of educational hierarchies. each narrative enacts entanglements of clocks-doors-spaceschildren-families-educators-power. a mothers’ perspective time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimension of space.… you don’t look back along time but down through it, like water. sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. nothing goes away. (atwood, 1988, p. 3) when i think back, i remember rushing and watching my watch. drop-off and pick-up were the worst times of the day. in june, on jack’s last day at the children’s centre, i removed the watch from my wrist, and still today, my heartmindbody (stewart, 2020) won’t allow the watch’s return. jack functions via his internal schedule. everything is completed in his time, at his speed. at four years old, his way of being with the world didn’t mix well with my mothering pace of negotiating job responsibilities and morning/afternoon drop-off and pick-up of two children at two locations. each day the routine was the same: drop sam off at school for 7:45 a.m.; next, jack and i arrive in the parking lot october 2021 81 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice for 7:55. by the time jack and i walk through the doors of the children’s centre at 8:00, the doors will be open. “mommy, why am i the only kid here again today? i don’t like being the only kid in the classroom.” my internal voice calls forward a continuous tension: because i am balancing my mothering with my school district responsibilities, which begin at 8:30. every day, watching jack remove his outerwear, i try to be patient. if i begin a conversation, he will stop everything and talk with me. in less timed circumstances, that is exactly what i would hope for with him. i glance at my watch. it is already 8:03 and i have a meeting at 8:30. my fingers are crossed, hoping the three traffic lights will be green today. jack doesn’t have his boots off yet. to speed up the process, i reach down to pull off one boot, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards, hitting his head on the floor. the sound of the crack was heard through the half-opened door of the classroom, causing one educator to open the door and enter the hallway. the intensity of this embodied experience (experienced by jack, me, and the educator) cannot be measured by the clock (paciniketchabaw, 2012). a director’s perspective the challenge is both to understand the ways in which clocks [or doors] are embedded in our practices and how they resonate with educators, children and families, and to imagine ways to rearrange these reverberations. (pacini-ketchabaw, 2012, p. 159) for a long time, i read the closed door of the child care centre as an intentional exclusion of the children’s families when they arrived to drop off their children. while i read the exclusion as intentional, the educators in the space at the time read the closed door as a protection of their planning and preparation time. in a fast-paced day, the closed door protects a quiet, collaborative space for the educators to fill paint pots, set out invitational materials, reflect on the previous day, and complete required paperwork before the children and their families flood the space. oftentimes a mom who was rushing between home, child care drop-off, and eventually work would be waiting in the hall for the exact timing of the open door. drop-off and pick-up times required many hands as families negotiated their schedule demands while transitioning their children from the centre. over the years, various parents would make the request to drop off 15 minutes earlier or pick up 15 minutes later. educators too made requests. they requested implementing a fine for early drop-off or pick-up when parents could not make the designated times. despite raising the parent perspective, this long-time practice of keeping the doors closed until 8:00 a.m. was difficult to disrupt until an intersection of forces energized the possibility for change. out of necessity, an educator had to bring her own child to the classroom. was it fair to privilege her with access while denying early drop-off to parents? another educator, who had previously worked at another centre, was empathetic to the drop-off and pick-up challenges that parents might experience on any given day and was willing to welcome early arrivals into the space. eventually the decision was made to keep the doors open as a way to welcome families 15 minutes earlier. an educator’s perspective what forms of knowledge are being produced? how are they connected to power? what opportunities are created for living together differently? (braidotti, 2019, 00.20) october 2021 82 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice alec (a pseudonym) was in the middle of the classroom throwing toys on the floor, emptying every basket and bucket he could reach, angry he didn’t have the flavour of yogurt he wanted for snack—a typical afternoon occurrence in the classroom since the 4-year-old had joined a month before. reminding myself to stay calm, i walked toward him, but this time, instead of ignoring me, he ran across the room to a side door, pushed through, and closed the door behind him. i knocked on the door and asked alec to come out, making great effort to steady my voice. on the other side of the door was a small stairwell to the playground, and i feared he would get beyond the fenced-in playground to the busy highway. alec ignored my knocking. i pushed on the door to open it and realized he had barricaded himself on the other side. he was able to lie on his back, put his hands on the wall and his feet on the door. i stopped pushing and realized he had stopped yelling, and we both became calmer. i understand no. i picked up the bottle of cleaner and a cloth to occupy my body while my mind and eyes were with the child behind the closed door. after a few moments that felt like an eternity, the door opened. alec moved just to the other side of the door, once again back in the classroom. i looked to the co-educator with me in the room and exchanged what felt like an understanding to leave space for alec to join the group when he was ready. i continued to clean tables. she moved to the book corner to read with children there. over the next few days, alec would run to the stairwell and barricade himself on the other side, and when he was ready, he rejoined the group. we began to realize his need for space when his emotions became too much, and we wanted to find peace between his need and our need to ensure he was safe. on the fourth day, after the children had gone home, we found a drill, took the door off its hinges, and tucked it away in the storage room. no one asked about the door the next day. children walked to the empty door frame, looked in the stairwell at the steps they used to get to the playground, and walked away. that afternoon when alec needed time and space, he ran to the stairwell and sat on the bottom step where we could see him—alec had a place to go/be within our classroom. over the next few weeks, when alec became overwhelmed, angry, or frustrated, he would sit on that bottom step. the positives we saw and felt were not seen by the director, who told us to put the door back: “if alec can’t be within the classroom, then he has to go home.” opening the doors of educational hierarchy the doors of education are well known to have established barriers in our society. there are numerous misalignments in our postsecondary system where there is a failure to credit lived experiences, self-study, nondegree university courses, and community college programs. many early childhood educators find themselves unable to pursue additional educational opportunities to advance their careers due to the responsibilities of working full time while parenting young children or caring for seniors, and they experience institutional classed boundaries or educational streaming. in response to these challenges, members of the early childhood centre at the university of new brunswick (unb; n.d.) collaborated with community leaders to create an online bachelor of education degree (bed) in early childhood education (ece)—the first degree program of its kind in canada—offering a bed and a new brunswick certificate iv teacher’s licence. opening doors online offers flexibility while acknowledging the many preexisting responsibilities in early childhood educators’ lives, including their jobs, parental roles, care for elders, and increasing responsibilities due to covid. https://www.unb.ca/fredericton/education/undergrad/early.html october 2021 83 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice early childhood educators often talk about the opening provided by this online degree as they learn about and enroll in the program. as one early childhood educator shared, “i am a working professional and mum to three busy kids!” a bachelor of education degree in early childhood education honours a range of personal desires, such as deepening their knowledge and their leadership and pedagogical capacities to support educators and/or directors in child care, becoming a licensed teacher, or simply achieving a university degree. one early childhood educator told us the program was “like a dream come true” and another said, “it feels a lot like a ‘too good to be true’ opportunity.” these individuals shared narratives that reinforced the social inequalities that permeate society creating hierarchies among those involved in the education and care of young children. as one early childhood educator commented, “this course has allowed me to follow my dream of an ece degree and the professors have worked hard to make it possible for us to balance with our home and work responsibilities.” another noted, “it is exactly what i always wanted: an online course that extends my early childhood education diploma and allows me to become a certified teacher. it is the perfect program for a single parent who is working full time.” upon completion of the degree, early childhood educators have the choice of teaching in early childhood centres and/or the public school system (kindergarten to grade 3). being an early childhood educator in a school represents a significant increase in wages, benefits, working conditions, resource budgets, and access to paid professional learning opportunities (cannella, 2002; moss, 2006; osgood, 2004). unb’s bed in ece degree may play a significant role in recognizing that early childhood educators are not all equally located, opening institutional doors. however, the danger is always about reinscribing a hierarchy of a different kind when there is a collective failure to create more equitable economic systems. virtual doors and covid the development and planning of unb’s bed in ece degree program, in progress for the past five years, intentionally responded to the lived realities of early childhood educators by offering the flexibility of online delivery, which is aligned with the virtual circumstances created by the covid-19 pandemic. early childhood educators made the decision to enroll in the new online degree program while provinces were declaring states of emergency and issuing quarantine measures. the social inequities that surround the child care sector have only become amplified during this time. some early childhood educators were able to shift from part-time to full-time enrollment, while others had to take a break from the program to find piecemeal employment, and others were required to put in extra time running their centres as they accommodated other families and spent time cleaning facilities. yet, early childhood educators are crucial to a functioning economy, enabling other workers to be freed of their own child care responsibilities. covid has also created opportunities for unb’s early childhood team to schedule weekly virtual meetings to discuss how the materials, spaces, and individuals in the program would interact. together we coauthored instructor, early childhood educator, and practicum handbooks to support the community of early childhood educators and instructors. virtual gatherings were held to bring university instructors and early childhood educators together across multiple provinces and schedules. our goal was to maintain an affirmative ethical responsibility to educators’ lived private and public responsibilities entangled with their desire to learn. covid has magnified the complexities of care. we are forced to consider early childhood in relation with the ecological world, seeing child care and employment as intertwined, and engaging with community and families in unison. the need to recognize early childhood educators as caregivers in both public and private spheres is paramount. as more individuals walk back through the physical doors of workspaces, funds are needed october 2021 84 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice to support early childhood centres, cover wages, and provide flexibility, such as wraparound services that accommodate early and late drop-off and pick-up. early childhood educators require equitable recognition for their education and the care they provide, both as an essential part of the fabric of a functioning economy and, more importantly, as a necessary support for the flourishing of our common world. challenges and possibilities of reconceptualization despite the many benefits of unb’s bed in ece program, tensions arose in implementing the degree, such as negotiating university structures, addressing the potential depletion of early childhood systems, drawing learners from other postsecondary programs, designing practicum experiences that respect early childhood pedagogies and accommodate employment, and determining whether early childhood education and care should be linked to public education and how this dynamic might disrupt education as usual. the articulated challenges speak to the need to shift our thinking and institutional practices to reimagine other possible landscapes for child care and education that disrupt hierarchies and the binary of open or closed doors. this paper thinks with door entanglements to critique our embodied and experienced complexities. the narratives we have presented offer perspectives that require courageous conversations, fearless listening, and a willingness to make fluid adjustments. while these are not unfamiliar dispositions to many early childhood educators, they are amplified by covid. a practice of critical self-knowledge that embraces relationalities of human and more-than-human becomings and enacts affirmative ethics is necessary for disrupting inequities. in this paper we think with actual and virtual doors as producers and enablers to create spaces where early childhood educators might collaboratively interrogate how materiality and socially constructed hierarchies are embedded in the differences that separate us (braidotti, 2020). we challenge binaries such as “with me or against me,” imagining expansive relationships, multiple perspectives, and responsibilities that enact connections across systems and communities and through doors to disrupt the oppression of early childhood educators, children, and families. october 2021 85 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references atwood, m. (1988). cat’s eye. mcclelland & stewart. braidotti, r. (2019, april 2). revolution is a fascist concept [video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6pljqtdp6q braidotti, r. (2020). “we” are in this together, but we are not one and the same. bioethical inquiry, 17, 465–469. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11673-020-10017-8 cannella, g. s. (2002). deconstructing early childhood education: social justice & revolution. peter lang. moss, p. (2006). structures, understandings and discourses: possibilities for re-envisioning the early childhood worker. contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(1), 30–41. https://doi.org/10.2304ciec.2006.7.1.30 osgood, j. (2004). time to get down to business?: the responses of early practitioners to entrepreneurial approaches to professionalism. journal of early childhood research, 2(1), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718x0421001 pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2012). acting with the clock: clocking practices in early childhood. contemporary issues in early childhood. 13(2), 154–160. https://doi.org/10.2304ciec.2012.13.2.154 palmer, d. p. (2019). falling for myself: a memoir. wolsak & wynn. stewart, k. (2020). sacred encounters: literacy beyond cardboard words (doctoral dissertation, university of new brunswick). unb libraries scholar research repository. https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/islandora/object/unbscholar%3a10437 university of new brunswick. (n.d.). bed in early childhood education. https://www.unb.ca/fredericton/education/undergrad/early.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6pljqtdp6q https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10017-8 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10017-8 https://doi.org/10.2304%2fciec.2006.7.1.30 https://doi.org/10.2304%2fciec.2006.7.1.30 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1476718x0421001 https://doi.org/10.2304%2fciec.2012.13.2.154 https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/islandora/object/unbscholar%3a10437 https://www.unb.ca/fredericton/education/undergrad/early.html _goback _hlk55814250 _heading=h.gzz8lwck2k7z _heading=h.kv7h7cn8hz2i _goback _goback _hlt78915813 _goback _heading=h.30j0zll _goback _hlk78458784 _hlk56166518 _goback _goback october 2021 1 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor early childhood education in canada during a pandemic veronica pacini-ketchabaw, coeditor, and susan prentice, guest editor in fall 2020, we circulated a call for papers for a special issue, “covid and beyond: reconfiguring early childhood education in canada for the 21st century.” in seeking submissions, we noticed that the covid virus had thrown the issue of childcare, as well as the fragility of the early childhood education system, into sharp relief. we sought theoretical and/or empirical papers that reflected on the current moment and imagined a reconfigured future. we were met with an enthusiastic response from the field, as authors proposed articles from research and ideas from practice. the seven articles assembled in this issue suggest the breadth of the myriad ways the pandemic touched the field. collectively, the papers address curriculum, policy, licensing, indigeneity, families, children, and more. read as an assemblage, they illuminate the wide range of complex and varying effects the pandemic has generated across canada. martha friendly, barry forer, rachel vickerson, and sophia mohamed provide a detailed inventory of covid and childcare in canada, tracking a “tale of ten provinces and three territories.” they undertook the valuable work of documenting closures, shifting policies, and the sudden pivots that occurred from coast to coast to coast to manage the public health needs of children, staff, and families while also serving essential workers. among other important lessons, the detailed review makes plain the varying capacities of different jurisdictions, a function of their diverse policy architectures. quebec’s more mature childcare policy framework meant its response differed from the rest of canada. sophie matthieu unpacks how policy paradigms developed and shifted through the first and second waves of the pandemic. since english-readers have little access to the details of quebec, this paper does much to explain canada’s (and north america’s) most developed childcare system. equally compelling, brooke richardson, alana powell, and rachel langford use a gender lens to critique policy responses, showing deep connections between the needs of mothers, children, and early childhood educators. in a field that has, for strategic and other reasons, sometimes sought to downplay the role of gendered stratification, this paper reasserts the necessity of a gendered lens. alongside systemic policy at the macro level, scholars addressed how the pandemic affected relations with and between educators and children in their everyday experiences in early childhood settings. marie-anne hudson and lori huston advocate for inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, doing, and being in early childhood environments in order for the early childhood field to authentically be “all in this together.” also calling for inclusion, kathryn underwood, tricia van rhijn, alice-simone balter, laura feltham, patty douglas, gillian parekh, and breanna lawrence drill down into the complex experiences of children with additional support needs to produce insight into ableism, exclusion, and procedural bias. new relationships and practices in early childhood care and education bubbled up in an organic, if troubling, process akin to fermentation. coexisting with vulnerabilities and tensions are possibilities that can help make living and learning well flourish, and these are the foci of nancy van groll and kathleen kummen’s explorations in “troubled pedagogies and covid-19.” similarly, sherry rose, kim stewart, pamela malins, and candace gallagher reimagine early education using a posthumanist lens in their ideas from practice article. writing with a communal disposition, they highlight the perspectives of a mother, a director, and an educator to open doors in early childhood education in times of crisis. october 2021 2 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor childcare settings are astonishingly complex. bringing together children, their families—especially their mothers— and early childhood educators, early childhood is nested in a multilayered ecosystem. a deep understanding of the fragility, necessity, and urgency of childcare means grasping macro, meso, and micro levels, juggling the diversity of canada’s 13 jurisdictions and complex funding and policy regimes. we recognize that a richer understanding would have emerged if we had been able to apply in much more depth an indigenous lens—or lenses—on early childhood education. for us, what the articles collectively emphasize is that the lack of a publicly funded early childhood education system made responding to the pandemic much more difficult—yet, we didn’t need a pandemic to teach us that lesson. initial submissions were received at the end of the second wave, mere weeks before the federal government announced historic ambitions in the 2021 budget. federal finance minister chrystia freeland rose in the house to commit more than $30 billion over more than a decade, vowing, “i make this promise to canadians today, speaking as your finance minister and as a working mother.” as experts provided peer review, the third wave ebbed and flowed, and ottawa signed bilateral agreements with provinces. at the time the authors received final word about their submissions and we crafted this editorial, a federal election was precipitously called and the fourth wave began to crest. we do not know what the future holds for childcare across this country. but the pandemic exposed how clearly childcare is a central issue for canada’s children, families, parents, communities, and economy. those who previously considered childcare a marginal issue and who disregarded questions of care, gender, intersectionality, and social reproduction have been shocked into a new appreciation of just how much the public world of production relies on systems, practices, and deeply rooted relations of care. whatever comes next, we know this special issue contributes to a deeper understanding of how covid will reshape early childhood education in canada in a future yet to be written. january 2020 56 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice a critique of a child-centered curriculum rachael floom and melanie janzen rachael floom is a nursery and kindergarten teacher for winnipeg one school division. she is also completing her master’s of education in language and literacy at the university of manitoba. rachael is passionate about early childhood education and giving a voice to our younger generation. email: umfloomr@myumanitoba.ca melanie janzen is an associate professor in the department of curriculum, teaching, and learning at the university of manitoba. her areas of research are curriculum studies and teacher education. she uses critical perspectives to explore the interrelated workings of power and discourses, particularly as they relate to the identities of teachers and children. email: melanie.janzen@umanitoba.ca the journal of childhood studies, rachael, and melanie would like to thank noah kenneally for acting as a critical friend reviewer for this article. a critique of a child-centred curriculum imagine a world full of human beings existing to and for themselves alone, inconsiderate, insensitive, and removed from the social and natural world around them. the prospect of a world full of selfish and self-centered inhabitants is a frightening one indeed. however, as we critically reflect on the language used in early years curriculum documents, we wonder if the discourses of child-centeredness that pervade our curricula put children at risk of developing into such individuals. what might a discourse of child-centeredness in our curricula be perpetuating in children and how they understand themselves and their place within the world? further, what does a child-centered curriculum mean for who we are as teachers? gert biesta (2017), who is influenced by the work of jean-paul sartre, paraphrases the french philosopher when he explains that “we first of all exist, that we ‘find’ ourselves in existence, and that any answer to the question of who we are comes afterwards” (p. 10). in other words, understanding ourselves as individuals is only possible once we understand ourselves in relation to our greater existence. we believe it is our responsibility to engage with our students in a way that helps them to understand that their existence within the world is one of pronounced importance and meaning, and that to engage with others openly requires an openness to be affected by those encounters. in this article we ask: in what ways do early years curriculum documents promote (intentionally or unintentionally) discourses of child-centeredness, and what are the effects of promoting child-centeredness? we will attempt to answer these questions by exploring the following points: 1) what educational task or purpose is implicit in early years curricula? 2) how are children viewed and situated in relation to others in their classrooms and in the world around them? 3) how do child-centered discourses position the teacher and what effects does this have on their relationships? 4) how do mandated assessments (for example, report cards) and data collection and analysis imagine a world full of human beings existing to and for themselves alone, insensitive and removed from the social and natural world. here we contemplate child-centeredness, a discourse used liberally in the realm of early childhood education and yet rarely considered critically. drawing from gert biesta, we will explore the ways in which the notion of a childcentered curriculum positions the child as an egological being and thus minimizes the child’s relationships with others and the world in which they exist. we hope to provoke considerations of how we might reconceptualize curricula to foster children’s understanding of their broader existence. key words: child-centered; curriculum; early childhood; egological january 2020 57 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice promote or reinforce child-centeredness? the purpose of this exploration is to critically consider the discourses of child-centeredness that pervade early years curricula and pedagogy in order to (re)consider our beliefs and practices as teachers, while seeking to foster mindful and thoughtful children who can engage with and respect the world around them. we are writing from the perspective of our shared interest in early years philosophy and practices. we met during a graduate curriculum course, where i (melanie) was teaching and introduced the graduate students to gert biesta’s work. i (rachael) was intrigued by biesta’s critique of child-centered discourses and wanted to explore his ideas more fully. this article is a result of our shared reflections and my (rachael’s) interpretations of them from my own classroom experiences. i (rachael) am a kindergarten teacher and i am familiar with the manitoba kindergarten curriculum because i am expected to use it to guide my teaching practice. however, i do have a degree of freedom to implement the curriculum in a way that best represents my teaching pedagogy, and i am able to incorporate different ideas and topics, and to employ strategies and techniques that best address the needs of my students. i am thoroughly invested in the education of my early years students. i am their advocate, their supporter, their teacher, and their student, learning from them each and every day. in my everyday work i have the curriculum in mind. it provides direction for my teaching—but more important, it is what i am required to teach. nonetheless, we as educators must ask ourselves important questions: • who are the people currently deciding what is best for the overall well-being of the children in our classrooms? • who is responsible for creating the curriculum? • whose voices have been heard and whose have been ignored? there are areas of the curriculum in which i am able to integrate my own ideas about fostering children who are conscious thinkers, aware of the complex world around them. thus, i actively seek out learning opportunities that will enhance my students’ overall well-being and their perception of the world they live in. however, i wonder, is the current document really serving our young students the best it possibly can, preparing our future generation to function successfully into adulthood in the social and physical world? it is important we ask these questions, because the answers can help point us in the direction of those who have a role to play in intervening in and disrupting child-centeredness. throughout this article “we” is often referenced. this collective “we”— educators, curriculum makers, superintendents, administrators, parents and/or guardians, provincial government officials, community members, and any other audience reading this article—has a stake in the education system and a role to play in disrupting and intervening in the child-centered curriculum. biesta’s critique biesta’s ideas in the rediscovery of teaching (2017) come from his desire to view teaching in a new light, while simultaneously revaluing and recovering current practices. he sees education as extremely important, but is also willing to address the limitations it presents to supporting young children on their journey to becoming adults. biesta’s work is important to acknowledge and consider because it provides educators and other educational professionals with a new lens through which to view education. this lens helps detect problematic areas in the curriculum that may otherwise go unnoticed because they do not concern the academic skills we teach to our students. his work prompts us to ask critical questions that will make us think about where a student is situated within the curriculum and how teachers advertently or inadvertently situate their students as a result of the january 2020 58 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice curriculum. biesta’s critique brings to the forefront the possibility that the education young children are receiving establishes for them a world that revolves around them and for them. at a time when here in canada there are strides being made toward truth and reconciliation and creating equitable relationships between first nations, inuit, and métis people and settlers and newcomers, we must also acknowledge the state of the world outside the classroom. it is because of this world, a place where violence and public displays of hate and intolerance of others are frequently the subjects of media headlines, that we must not only encourage children to be compassionate, caring, accepting, and empathetic individuals but also make such encouragement a priority of the educational task (see below). progress is being made in this respect. it can be observed in classrooms right here in winnipeg, for example. teachers are taking responsibility for educating themselves about indigenous education, and in turn becoming better equipped to incorporate this knowledge into their curriculum and practice. they are seeking out elders to speak to their students and teach them about the history of the land they live on, and about cultural and spiritual traditions to preserve and respect nature. children are learning about our nation’s wrongdoings, its efforts and plans to achieve truth and reconciliation now and in the future, and how they can be involved and active in this movement. in what follows, we will use quotations and language from the kindergarten curriculum in manitoba in order to illustrate its child-centeredness, and then demonstrate, by drawing on biesta, the ways in which the curriculum undermines children’s ability to live fully with and in the world around them. the goal is to help educators, administrators, and curriculum makers critically consider the language of child-centeredness that resides implicitly and explicitly in curricula and how this influences not only how children are viewed and might view themselves in relation to the world around them, but also what this requires of educators when it comes to implementing curricula in their classrooms. the article will also offer some possibilities for reconsidering perspectives and theories within early childhood research, education, and philosophy. what is the educational task? according to biesta (2017), defining the educational task is not simple. he suggests that: the educational task consists in making the grown-up existence of another human being in and with the world possible. or, with an even more precise formulation: the educational task consists in arousing the desire in another human being for wanting to exist in and with the world in a grown-up way, that is as subject. (p.7). worth noting is that biesta makes no mention of curricula or learning outcomes of subjects such as mathematics, science, or english language arts when describing the educational task. rather, his focus is on the child and their existence “in and with the world” around them. in manitoba, as in other canadian provinces with outcomes-based curricula in early years education (kindergarten to grade four), there are six broad subject fields: arts education, mathematics, english language arts, science, physical education/health education, and social studies. each of these subjects has specific learning outcomes that determine what knowledge every child should acquire. for example, english language arts: a foundation for implementation (manitoba education and training, 2014) states that children should: • recognize connections between new experiences and prior knowledge (p. 1); • make connections between oral language, texts, and personal experiences (p. 2); january 2020 59 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice • share feelings evoked by oral, literary, and media texts (p. 2); • demonstrate curiosity about and experiment with letters, sounds, words, and word patterns (p. 3); • share information and ideas about a topic of personal interest (p. 7); • recognize their own name, uppercase and lowercase, familiar logos and periods (p. 7). in this brief excerpt we see a heavy emphasis on the child as an isolated individual and on knowledge as a benign object of transmission. this is fairly typical of early years curricula and educational outcomes, in which emphasis is placed on individual achievement and personal experiences, void of context or acknowledgment of the child’s social and worldly existence. while we understand the importance of children exploring their feelings, experiences, curiosity, prior knowledge, and own existence in the world, what is even more important, we believe, is that children learn how to exist within and among the social and natural world that surrounds them. as biesta (2017) argues, “it is actually only in the world that we can really exist” (p. 8), and so to live egologically is to deprive oneself of a full existence. the idea of living egologically comes from the work of french philosopher emmanuel lévinas. biesta (2017) explains “egological” as: following the logic of the ego, not the logic of what and who is other. this egological way of being is entirely generated by the desires of the ego without asking—and this is a crucial distinction—whether how, or to what extent such desires are desirable… (p. 16) with this in mind, we must ask ourselves, how is one to fully exist if they are living in a way that does not acknowledge the world and people around them? does a curriculum that is child-centered detract from one’s full existence in and of the world? furthermore, is it a desirable world to live in if individuals are living and making decisions driven by their ego? biesta (2017) argues that the educational task is to be more attentive to our existence in and with the world, what he terms a “grown-up existence.” this grown-upness of being is a “particular ‘quality’ of way of existing.” biesta explains, “the grown-up way acknowledges the alterity and integrity of what and who is the other” (p. 8). for biesta, our existence only ever comes to fruition in our relation to and with the world around us: it is actually only in the world that we can really exist, since when we withdraw ourselves from the world we end up existing only with and for ourselves—which is a rather poor and self-absorbed way of existing, if it is to exist at all. (p. 8) in light of biesta’s claim, we can see how a child-centered curriculum that focuses on specific outcomes promotes what he would identify as poor and self-absorbed ways of existing: existences premised only on one’s isolated experiences and achievements. biesta’s theorizing is indeed a challenging theory for a teacher to implement given the current curriculum. to enact biesta’s theorizing requires teachers to work against a curriculum that they are expected to implement, a curriculum that fosters behaviours and ways of thinking whereby children are encouraged to consider themselves the center of their world, and teachers are expected to consider children at the center of every curricular and pedagogical experience. with echoes of sartre, as referenced by biesta, the early years curriculum asks children to answer questions about who they are and what they can do before confronting the task of finding themselves in existence and in relation to others. january 2020 60 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the child as a subject when the curriculum positions children as objects, rather than subjects, it detracts from children understanding their own subjectivities. for example, the math curriculum (manitoba education curriculum framework of outcomes, 2013) specifies that students are required to: • say the number sequence by 1s starting anywhere from 1 to 30 and from 10 to 1 (p. 20); • subitize and name familiar arrangements of 1 to 6 dots (or objects) (p. 20); • represent and describe numbers 2 to 10 in two parts, concretely and pictorially (p. 20); • compare quantities 1 to 10 using one-to-one correspondence (p. 30). in reflecting on these outcomes, biesta might ask questions like: where is the child, the other, and their world being considered? why are these outcomes important for kindergarten children? who decides? further, how is a teacher expected to accommodate the diversity presented within their classroom when they are forced to think about children through—and compared to—learning outcomes? are these curriculum outcomes the education we imagined? according to biesta (2017), the problem with a curriculum that requires teachers to consider education through a defined set of learning outcomes is that “the depiction of teaching as an act of control is that in such configurations students can only appear as objects of the teachers intentions and actions, but not as subjects in their own right” (p. 2). yet, students must view themselves as subjects in order to situate themselves in their existence in the world. these predefined learning outcomes hinder the possibility for students to see themselves as the subjects, resulting in an inability to consider their existence in the natural and social world around them. how can teachers support conceptions of children as subjects existing in and among others when the curriculum positions them as objects, fixed and knowable? when curriculum is focused on learning outcomes it positions—and fosters the development of—children as egological human beings. according to lévinas (cited in beista, 2017), an egological worldview is “the way of thinking that starts from the (assumption of the existence of the) self as self-sufficient ego or consciousness, in order then to thematise everything that is ‘outside as the subject’” (p. 43). being self-sufficient seems like a rather rational and constructive goal for kindergarten-aged children. of course we want children developing independence and feeling confident in who they are and what they are capable of. the problem arises when seeing yourself as self-sufficient situates the things and people around you as the “outside.” deciding on learning outcomes in advance therefore comes at a risk: once children are put at the center, where does that leave others? the curriculum, such as the english language arts: a foundation for implementation (manitoba education and training, 2014), intentionally or not, has a predetermined set of outcomes that situates children at the center of their learning: • listen to experiences and feelings shared by others (p. 1); • identify self and others as sources of information (p. 4); • seek information from others [such as people at school, at home, in the. community...]; use multimedia and computers when appropriate (p. 4); • talk about own and others’ creations and stories (p. 6); • share information and ideas with a group (p. 7); • find ways to be helpful to others and use group process (p. 8). january 2020 61 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice what these learning goals have in common is that, although they acknowledge there is an other, they ignore the interaction between the child and that other. there is a disconnect between how this information from the other relates to how children are able to exist in the world and make meaning of it. when a curriculum positions children in egocentric ways, it fails to provide opportunities for them to understand their own existence in relation to others. this understanding could lead to so much that is positive, such as children who know and demonstrate empathy, compassion, understanding, awareness, acceptance, love, respect, and kindness. in addition, children who understand their relation to and take care of their physical environment will have the capacity to make choices that will benefit the well-being of our world. the problem with child-centered curricula student-centered, child-centered, and learner-centered teaching all reference the pedagogical approach in which students are considered to be at the heart of teachers’ decision making, the topics of study emanate from the student, and the student’s self-interest is fundamental. for example, manitoba’s kindergarten resource guide for teachers, a time for learning, a time for joy (manitoba education and advanced learning, 2015), asserts that it “supports an integrated, child-centred approach to education and learning, recognizing that young children learn through play and through relationships with caring adults and each other” (p. 1). these seem like admirable, even pedagogically sound goals. yet, the term “child-centered,” while used prolifically in educational curriculum and resources, is rarely considered critically. as biesta (2017) explains, a focus on child-centeredness “has shifted the attention away from teaching and the teacher towards students and their learning” (p. 1). unfortunately, focusing on the student as the centre could do them a disservice. as stated by biesta, “focusing on students and their learning […] fails, because such acts of interpretation and comprehension have an egological structure that not only emanates from the self but also returns to the self, even if this occurs ‘via’ the world” (p. 43). a student-centered approach encourages that all of the attention be given to students’ thoughts and feelings, with little mention of how these thoughts and feeling exist in relation to others and in the world around them. further, when thinking about the world, child-centered learning creates a dynamic in which the children are relating everything back to themselves—an egotistical way of being. for biesta, “the challenge, therefore, is to exist in the world without considering oneself as the centre, origin, or ground of the world” (p. 8). how do we help children understand themselves in relation to others and the world when we put them at the center of it? child-centred curricula and the teacher a child-centered approach to curricula also positions the teacher in a particular way. as explained by bernadette baker (1998), by making a child empty and by viewing children in terms of what they lack—rationality, knowledge, experience, ability, and so forth—adults have been able to occupy the space of the all-knowing, fully rational rescuer of the othered who, by virtue of being called the othered, provide the grounds for the existence of the redeemer. (p. 173) in a child-centered curriculum, the teacher is viewed as the one in control, the one holding the knowledge, and the one determining which knowledge counts. the problem, biesta contends, with the depiction of teaching as an act of control, and with the suggestion that teaching ought to be a matter of control, is that in such configurations students can only appear as objects of the teacher’s intentions and actions, but not as subjects in their own right. (2017, p. 2). january 2020 62 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice teachers are set up to be concerned with teaching their students the desired learning outcomes, with the result being that they overlook what education is truly about. referring back to the education task at hand, teaching is about more than achieving the desired learning outcomes. it is about helping a child unfold as a person who is aware of their interrelatedness and knows how to exist within and among the social and natural world that surrounds them. reflecting on data collection and means of student assessment in our current educational system, we can see the ways in which child-centeredness is present. teachers are obliged to follow a generic template, putting numerical values on children and commenting on their development in impersonal, objective, and often quantitative ways, which can involve selecting a generic comment from a drop-down menu and applying it to more than one student. this way of assessing students seems to be a result of politics and pressures from governments and ministries of education to make preschool, kindergarten, and lower elementary grades more “academic” and data driven. unfortunately, this has created a dynamic whereby children are turned into objects that are expected to meet a specific and often unattainable standard. standardized testing has become a means to assess the success of a school and then rank the school in terms of that success. standardized testing focuses on what a student can or cannot do in terms of curricular outcomes, rather than on how they treat others and make meaning in the world, and thus emerge as a subject within the world. education needs to consider the ways in which we consider the task of education, who children are in relation to the world, and our work with them as teachers. these reconceptualizations need to be reflected in curriculum documents and in our assessment tools and strategies. curriculum designers should take note of biesta’s (2017) observation that education needs to address the idea of “opening up existential possibilities for students, that is, possibilities in and through which students can explore what it might mean to exist as subject in and with the world” (p. 3). conclusion we live in a time when the planet’s resources are being wasted by humans, when populist movements are enflaming xenophobia and hatred toward those who present as “other,” and when consumerism is an ideal at the core of nations’ economies and individuals’ social existence. we worry about our current and future world and the ways in which egocentric human beings undermine our collective existence. the early years curriculum has the power to influence how educators understand education and engage pedagogically with children so they see themselves in relation to the world around them. a child-centered approach may put children at risk of becoming human beings consumed predominantly with their own selves and neglectful of the natural and social world around them. instead of focusing on a small set of desired learning outcomes that put the child at the center, the curriculum should guide teachers in helping their students to make meaning of and with the world and their relationships within it. curriculum designers must think critically about the ways in which children, pedagogy, and teaching are conceptualized in order to foster children’s development not as egological beings, but rather as existing in relationship to others and to the world around them. we encourage educators to think critically about their own curriculum or any other child-centered curricular resource they work with and ask themselves: does what we are required to teach align with greater pedagogical values and beliefs? how can we, or do we, disrupt or intervene in child-centeredness in our own practices? how do the children we work with view themselves in relation to the world around them, and how does their view need to be changed in order to support their journey compassionate, caring individuals who are aware of the social and natural world around them? as a kindergarten teacher, i (rachael) am constantly seeking and learning new ways to teach myself and my students how to exist in this world so that we are constantly considering the feelings, experiences, and ideas of other people. it always seems to come back to four simple, yet highly complex ideas: kindness, respect, love, and empathy. some techniques that have been effective in my classroom include reading at least one piece of children’s literature daily and strategically selecting this book january 2020 63 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice based on its content and premise; going outdoors to explore, appreciate, and learn in nature; teaching kindness and respect; and having sharing circles where children learn to listen to each other—but most importantly, i treat my students as people. despite their being only three, four, or five years old, i do not “baby” them or speak down to them. i am aware of their potential and their capacity as individuals, as human beings who exist on this planet on an equal footing with me. i believe we must teach in a way that encourages children to think critically and ask questions. we believe biesta helps us to do so by considering education as a way to support children in their grown-up existence so they can be in and with the world that we believe is possible. january 2020 64 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references baker, b. (1998). child-centred teaching, redemption, and educational identities: a history of the present. educational theory, 48(2), 155-174. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1998.00155.x biesta, g. (2017). the rediscovery of teaching. new york, ny: taylor & francis. manitoba education and advanced learning. (2013). kindergarten to grade 8 mathematics. winnipeg, mb: the government of manitoba. manitoba education and advanced learning. (2014). kindergarten english language arts: a foundation for implementation. winnipeg, mb: the government of manitoba. manitoba education and advanced learning. (2015). a time for learning, a time for joy: a resource for kindergarten teachers. winnipeg, mb: the government of manitoba. july 2021 66 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice dinner at dinosaurland: invention, dialogue, & solidarity in the early childhood classroom selena l. hoy, jessica l. lea, and erin e. flynn selena l. hoy is a bicultural, bilingual social worker. she is outreach coordinator for tell, a mental health and suicide prevention nonprofit organization in tokyo, japan. she received her msw from portland state university in 2017 and has particular interest and experience working with underserved children, refugees, and immigrants. jessica lea is a licensed clinical social worker at an intensive outpatient program in portland, oregon. she received her msw from portland state university in 2017 and has worked and volunteered in multiple sectors supporting underserved members of the community. erin elizabeth flynn is an associate professor in the child, youth, and family studies program at portland state university. she is an educational researcher who specializes in language and literacy development during the early years, with an emphasis on the social, emotional, and linguistic power of storytelling. email: flynn2@pdx.edu the child is made of one hundred ... a hundred worlds to discover a hundred worlds to invent a hundred worlds to dream.... ~ loris malaguzzi (1998) in hopes to give “witness to memories, gestures, and ways of thinking from a world of childhood too often overlooked or forgotten” (gandini & morrow, 2016, p. xv), we share the joy and invention that occurred in the context of a routine classroom storytelling activity called a story circle. in the story circles, children told stories about the invented world of dinosaurland, introducing, sustaining, and evolving an idea over time. the idea of dinosaurland as an invented world quickly worked its way into the common culture of the children in the classroom, catalyzing new lines of storytelling. a catalytic event is an experience which sparks deep interest in children, motivating their pursuit of learning in a particular direction (wiggins & mctighe, 2005). the introduction of dinosaurland into the children’s stories along with the subsequent dinner at dinosaurland stories served as a catalytic event for this group of children as the dinosaurland adventures assumed a place of prominence in the story circle and in the children’s indoor and outdoor classroom play. pedagogically, the intent of story circles is to create space for children to author the ideas that motivate and make up classroom life. we will show how one group of children used this newfound classroom space to build an invented world together, and in the process, exchange and sustain ideas in ways not often attributed to young children. setting the context the joyful invention of dinosaurland occurred in the context of an urban head start classroom in the u.s. pacifthis ideas from practice piece highlights a storytelling practice called story circles as a routine classroom practice with the potential to catalyze shared ideas in the classroom by spurring invention, dialogue, and invention. examining the slow-growing unfolding of stories about the invented world of dinosaurland, we illuminate the potential of the language of story as a way for children to sustain and develop ideas through sharing imagined worlds. key words: early childhood; storytelling; story circles; language development july 2021 67 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice ic northwest. the classroom offered play-based preschool curriculum, complemented by teaching practices like engaging children in immersive study of child-driven ideas. in this half-day preschool program serving children aged 3–5, a linguistically and ethnically diverse group of children, many from refugee and immigrant backgrounds, learned together, developing shared ideas and interests. this article stems from a research partnership between the urban head start classroom and a local university. interested in enhancing teachers’ existing repertoire of child-centered learning practices, a collaborative team consisting of a teacher educator and two master’s of social work students worked with the team of classroom teachers, loretta, sofia, and madison (all names are pseudonyms). the teachers engaged children in a weekly storytelling activity, story circles, as a catalyst for learning and the development of classroom community life. story circles are a small-group storytelling activity in which children take turns telling their own story each week. story circles have been used in educational, therapeutic, and community-building settings, and have long been valued for centering the common cause of participants in a dialogic exchange (flynn, 2016; flynn et al., 2019). children in this classroom participated in story circles over the course of the school year, introducing and developing ideas and ways of telling stories. in the process, they built a distinct classroom culture populated by characters, places, and processes of their own invention. in a story circle, a small group of four to six children sit in a circle on the carpet accompanied by a classroom teacher. the teachers designate a classroom prop as a talking stick to signal whose turn it is to tell a story. each child takes a turn telling a story of their own choosing. the teachers’ primary role is to listen and facilitate turn taking. they refrain from attempting to extend children’s stories or asking questions of children, trusting instead that children’s stories will get longer, more detailed, and more complex by being told and retold within the circle (flynn, 2020). instead, teachers provide primarily positive or neutral comments, intervening in the storytelling as little as possible so that children can more freely nominate and sustain ideas in the circle. introducing and sustaining the idea of dinosaurland the dinosaurland stories began simply enough with the children’s shared interest in dinosaurs and alex’s (one of the preschool students) introduction of dinosaurland as a place to play in one’s stories. reflecting on the genesis of the idea and the flurry of thinking it inspired in the children, in the following vignettes we trace the development of dinosaurland and show how alex’s catalytic story “dinner at dinosaurland” moved children’s storytelling in new directions. the story circle group included alex, damon, emma, nadim, sadiq, miguel, and aaden, children of recent immigrants from the middle east and north africa and those from european american, african american, and latino families. alex introduced the idea of dinosaurland in february. once upon a time. i went to dinosaurland. then. i played with dinosaurs. i went in volcano. then i went to mommy and told all about it. the end. over the course of the next four months, children told over 20 stories about dinosaurland, returning to the invented world week after week. the origin and importance of the idea for this group of children was not immediately clear. “was this a real place?” the teachers in the room wondered. maybe in our city? they had never heard of it. one of the researchers, jessica, had a child the same age as the children in the classroom. did she know of this place? no, she did not. a map search turned up nothing. well, the children had been studying dinosaurs in class. july 2021 68 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice perhaps they had read a book about it? from this uncertain origin, we continued to wonder and listen, captivated by the strong sense of reality dinosaurland held for the children, even as its status as a place felt more ambiguous for us as adults. dinosaurs were an excellent medium for the children’s imaginations. within the first few stories where dinosaurland was introduced, the children also referenced places everyone was familiar with, like school, the park, or home. eventually dinosaurland became a place where one could visit at will, dropping in after breakfast and returning home in time for lunch. then i went on the bus. then after that. i go to dinosaurland. and i saw dinosaurs. i went on a ride. then after that. i went back home. aaden though dinosaurland began with alex, the idea did not belong to any one child. it was a shared idea, open to all and visited frequently. for some, it was a ferocious landscape with volcanoes, while for others, it was a theme park. once upon a time i was walking to dinosaurland. again. and i’d been. and then i went to disneyland. so that’s the end. that’s the end. damon eventually dinosaurland became a plot device that allowed the children to integrate themselves and, indeed, each other in their stories. family members had cameos in these stories, and then classmates began to appear, sometimes taking on central roles. i went to dinosaurland. played with dinosaurs. hmm. miguel and damon came too. we played with dinosaurs. alex as the weeks progressed, children began to include more and more of their peers as characters in the stories they told. this proved popular, and we could see children’s eyes brighten when they were mentioned in a friend’s story. then we went to the park. me and alex. then we went to dinosaurland. me and alex. fight a flying dinosaur. july 2021 69 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice then we went on a flying dinosaur. then we went back home ... then i went to damon’s house again. and alex’s house. nadim’s house. and miguel’s house. and sadiq’s house. then we all went to dinosaurland. then we all go to the dinosaur. again. then the dinosaurs taked us everywhere. then we all have fun together. over there. then we all love toys. then we all went back home. aaden dinosaurs played an important part of this imaginary landscape, and children had a remarkably good grasp of their names and traits. they would recite lists of multisyllabic, tongue-twisting names: “pteranodon, tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus!” “stegosaurus, velociraptor!” sometimes these creatures would feature in plausible scenarios, running, jumping, and flying. but just as often, the children would move fluidly into the realm of fantasy, inventing scenarios where dinosaurs interacted with humans and animals from another time period, joining along in play or vanquishing common enemies. the transitions were matter of fact, a bit of everyday magic from children who had no need to separate reality from fiction. for instance, one story was set in a dinosaur museum before shifting the action directly to dinosaurland. and then we looked at the dinosaur museum. of dinosaur bones. and then we went to. where the hobby kids were. and then we said “hi” to them. and the hobby kids didn’t know my name. so i told them. my name. and then we all see the dinosaurs moving. swish. swish. swish. and we all saw big t rex that was like going. roar. july 2021 70 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice roar. roar. roar. roar. and then we saw pterodactyls. and then we saw big dinosaurs. and then we saw velociraptors.... then we went to dinosaurland. and then i maded a friend with a pteranodon. and i chased. and i had a little fun with the velociraptor. and i chaseded him. like that. and then i was like, going like crazily. when, and james was going like crazily. when i was blowing bubbles. and the dinosaurs too. like. (noises). like that. and you too. you were like going like. (noises). like crazy. and then i went like, “you big thingy.” then i was. then i went back home. emma with the space to explore the magical and the scientific through the language of story, the children began to attend more closely to the interests and desires of the other children in the circle, increasingly telling stories that elicited laughter and approval from others. within the context of this sustained idea of dinosaurland and the increasingly social turn in storytelling, the children continued to combine the real and imagined, the everyday and fantastic. it was at this time that alex, again, provided the catalyst, telling a story about dinosaurs eating dinner, with children’s and teachers’ body parts serving as the main course. july 2021 71 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice imagining a new world: a catalytic moment of joyful invention the introduction of the idea of dinosaurs consuming classmates and teachers for a meal brought a new energy to the storytelling as children straddled the real and imagined and played with the potential violence of carnivorous creatures. alex: once upon a time. i was walking in dinosaurland. teacher madison: that’s a good start. alex: i played with dinosaurs. and one of them said, “you can’t come to my house.” then the other one said, “you can come to my house.” and then i went to the dinosaur’s house. and it had full of stuff. and stuff. and even more stuff. and even dead humans. that they, he. that dinosaurs ate them. and damon came to dinosaurland with me. and nadim, and miguel, and damon, and sadiq, and aaden. and they, and i. and the dinosaur said, “would you like to come to my house for dinner?” and miguel said. and i said, “miguel will do it.” and he said, “no way.” then the dinosaur ate him up for breakfast. then teacher madison came over and said, “don’t eat miguel up.” then a bald came along. then sadiq had no hair. and then because the dinosaur ate him for salad. he had bald hair. uh huh. and he ate it for salad. and then damon came along and had no nose. miguel: then you cannot smell! alex: then nadim came along and he had no ears. july 2021 72 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice because the t rex. because the dinosaur ate them for cucumbers. and aaden had no eyeballs. because the dinosaur ate them for little potatoes. and then miguel came back along with no mouth. then damon. then nadim. then sadiq came along and he had no shirts. aaden: why? alex: yep. then amal came along and then. she had no arm. because the dinosaur ate them for long carrots. (children laughing.) teacher sofia: too loud, guys. alex: and then damon came along and he had no pikachu. because the dinosaur ate it for lightning. um and then, teacher sofia came along and she had no lips. because the dinosaur ate them for. for a tomato. and sadiq came back along and he had no legs. because the dinosaur ate them for even more long carrots. and miguel came along and he had no ( ) or clothes, or mouth, or head, or arms, or feet, or shoes, or anything! because he ate them. because he was a ghost. all done. reflecting back on this storytelling moment, we consider it a catalyst because it at once built upon previous stories and provided an exciting departure for the children, sending the entire group’s storytelling in new directions. stories up to this point had been met with quiet listening or a few comments. now, fits of uproarious laughter came over the group as they described how a human meal might compare to a side dish for a dinosaur. in future iterations of the dinosaur dinner stories, children clamoured to be included, listening with intense interest and nominating themselves and others as the next tasty bite for the dinosaur. whether it was the reality of never having to fear such a fate in their real world or the freedom to discuss a potentially taboo topic in front of the teachers and researchers, the inclusion of their friends and a teacher as snacks proved to be an irresistible combination. nonsensical elements like a dinosaur eating the teacher’s lips as a tomato were seamlessly and matter-of-factly combined july 2021 73 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice with more abstract concepts like the dinosaur eating pikachu for lightning or miguel becoming disembodied, having been eaten by the dinosaur and becoming a ghost. hilarity ensued. in the often-overlooked world of children, fantastical elements readily combine with the everyday. dinosaurs, given their status as something at once real and fantastic, straddle the factual/imagined in a way uniquely suited to the worlds of children’s stories, in which they entangle their existing friendships, well-known places and landscapes, characters from popular culture, and the communal imagined world of dinosaurland. dinner at dinosaurland: inspiring new directions alex’s story transformed dinosaurland and the story circle, with the eating of friends’ body parts becoming a repeated convention. the story was such a hit that it was often imitated in subsequent story circles. in dinosaurland, it seemed, dinner was always on. using this winning formula, sadiq riffed on alex’s story, including his peers one by one. once upon a time. i come with no hair. because the dinosaur eat it. for a potato hair. (laughter). and. damon come. and he do not have. any mouth. be because. because the dinosaur ate it. for a superman. (laughter). and there comed aaden. and he. had. no hands. because the dinosaur ate it for a water. (laughter). and come miguel and he have no arms. and the dinosaur eat it for, uh, macaroni and cheese with pizza. and come damon. and he have no nose. because the dinosaur eat it for aaden. july 2021 74 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice and come alex and he do not have. and he wear glasses. i mean he do not have any ears. and the dinosaur eat it for, for a pizza. sadiq as the weeks passed, storying the devouring of each child continued, first with references to dinosaurland and then with a detailing of the dinosaur’s insatiable hunger. in the following vignette, children advance the story through a more coconstructed, dialogic process. sadiq: ... and come miguel and he has no shoes. because the dinosaurs eat it for a apple. and come me and i have no. alex: pants? sadiq: no pants. and come nadim and he has no. alex: shirt? sadiq: no shirt. and come aaden and he has no. miguel: pants? sadiq: no hands. because the dinosaurs eat it for a. for a crunchy munchy. and come miguel and he has no. and he has glasses. because of the dinosaurs eat it for a. for a crunchy unchy. damon: carrots. sadiq: and become ( ) and he had no. damon: pants. sadiq: no head. because of the dinosaurs ated it for a crunch. crunchy unchy.... new elements, such as the “crunchy m/unchy,” went on to become part of the children’s shared vocabulary, enhancing the realm of dinosaurland. one of the remarkable aspects of witnessing this group’s progress was watching offerings put forward by one child make connections with others and flow into new shared stories. by design, july 2021 75 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice story circles center the ideas and authorship of young children, envisioning children as the support for one another’s learning. repeated engagement, shared dialogue, and collective affinities do the work of extending children’s ideas, rather than teacher questioning and encouragement. the children were motivated to elaborate, extend, and amplify ideas in their stories by the engagement and reaction of their classmates. the use of new details helped children make their stories come alive in a way that everyone involved could imagine the noises and feelings of the characters interacting in their now collective world. the children were inspired to include more and more peers until everyone was involved. the infectious joy of absurd and implausible scenarios brought the group closer together and created a shared world of stories, focused on dinosaurland. storytelling permeating the classroom space children’s adventures in dinosaurland inspired many changes in the classroom, some initiated by teachers and some authored by children. storytelling offered a fruitful way for teachers to keep connected to the children’s thinking and evolving ideas. storytelling began to permeate classroom life as teachers invited children to story their classroom drawings. soon, children spent the morning breakfast sharing their storytelling plans for that day’s circle. they ate their lunch while retelling, commenting on, and laughing at each other’s stories told during the circle earlier in the day. teachers found inspirations for new curricular investigations in the children’s weekly story circles. for example, a study of dinosaurs evolved into a study of animals that inhabit land, air, and sea. the children continued their stories in other forms outside the circle time, pretending to be dinosaurs and initiating animal chase games on the playground. they expanded on ideas introduced in the story circle in their play with classroom blocks, natural materials, toy dinosaurs, and animal figures. even though story circles met only once a week, storytelling permeated the classroom’s everyday routines, energized children’s thinking, and deepened their connection to one another. concluding thoughts storytelling in preschool classrooms has been shown to help children build a classroom community of shared ideas (paley, 1990). however, the power of storytelling to enable children to share and sustain ideas while building solidarity in the classroom remains underappreciated in the face of increasing academic pressures in the early years. the joyful participation in the dinosaurland stories shows how child-led storytelling makes space for children to sustain, vary, and share ideas in ways that are collaborative and inclusive. here, dinosaurland stands at the intersection of reality and fantasy, a place for real friendships to be solidified around a shared love for an unknown fantastical land. the language of story invites thinking and feeling, imagining and believing, listening, dialoguing, and connecting. stories make up an important part of the hundred languages of children (malaguzzi, 1998) because, through storytelling, children come to experience and cocreate the rich intertwinings of “work and play, reality and fantasy, science and imagination, sky and earth, reason and dream” (malaguzzi, 1998, p. 3). by dedicating space to storytelling that brings reason and dream together, story circles provide the necessary conditions for children to be in dialogue with one another and their lived everyday environments. teachers carefully compose story circle groups, inviting children of different backgrounds and abilities who, based on classroom interactions, are likely to learn well together and from one another. bringing the group together each week, teachers listen, facilitate turn taking, and build on children’s ideas outside of the circle through classroom conversations, studies, and the introduction of classroom materials aimed at enhancing children’s exploration of shared ideas. as alex’s singular moment of joyful invention shows, story circles “activate within children the desire and will and great pleasure that comes from being the authors of their own learning” (malaguzzi, 1994, p. 3). ultimately, it is in their invented worlds, like dinosaurland, where children bring about the most fantastic realization of some of their most urgent concerns, and where educators can find inspiration for ways to enrich their july 2021 76 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice teaching repertoire and day-to-day classroom activities and routines. the teachers in this study continue to wonder: what place do ferocious storytelling turns like dinosaurs eating teachers and children have in our classrooms? how can our existing child-centered practices be enhanced by creating, facilitating, and protecting the space for children’s imaginative storytelling flights, however gruesome they may be? alex’s catalyzing idea of dining dinosaurs shows how a different kind of teaching engagement, energy, and questions can be sparked when the dynamics of power are shifted to center child curiosities even when what children story is irreverent, ferocious, and lives on the boundaries of what early childhood teachers more typically invite and encourage in the classroom. what might happen if we accept the invitation for dinner at dinosaurland? note this work was supported by a grant (16-0007pcf) from the caplan foundation for early childhood to portland state university and by the portland state university office of academic affairs. july 2021 77 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references flynn, e. e. (2016). language-rich early childhood classroom: simple but powerful beginnings. the reading teacher, 70(2), 159–166. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1487 flynn, e. e. (2020). “rapunzel, rapunzel, lanza tu pelo”: storytelling in a transcultural, translanguaging dialogic exchange. reading research quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.367 flynn, e. e., hoy, s., lea, j., garcía, m. a. (2019). translanguaging through story: empowering children to use their full language repertoire. journal of early childhood literacy. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798419838569 gandini, l., & morrow, l. (2016). the hundred languages in ministories. davis. malaguzzi, l. (1994). your image of the child: where teaching begins. child care information exchange. https://www.reggioalliance.org/ downloads/malaguzzi:ccie:1994.pdf malaguzzi, l. (1998). no way. the hundred is there. in c. p. edwards, l. gandini, & g. e. forman (eds.), the hundred languages of children: the reggio emilia approach—advanced reflections. greenwood. paley, v. g. (1990). the boy who would be a helicopter. harvard university press. wiggins, g., & mctighe, j. (2005). understanding by design. ascd. july 2021 1 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research structural challenges and inequities in operating urban indigenous early learning and child care programs in british columbia alison gerlach, shemine gulamhusein, leslie varley, and magnolia perron alison gerlach is a first-generation white settler of english and welsh descent who is privileged to have lived and worked on the unceded traditional territory of the coast salish peoples for the past 30 years, including the lands of the skwxwú7mesh (squamish) nation where she lives with her family and the lands of the lkwungen, songhees, esquimalt, and wsáneć peoples where she currently works at the university of victoria in the school of child & youth care. email: alisongerlach@uvic.ca shemine gulamhusein is an assistant professor in the department of child and youth care at macewan university. her research focuses on the beautifully complex intersections of a person’s identity and how young people negotiate and navigate living in the in-between. leslie varley is the executive director of the bc association of aboriginal friendship centres. leslie is a member of the killer whale clan of the nisga’a nation and a lifelong social justice advocate. magnolia perron is from tyendinaga mohawk territory and is a proud member of the mohawks of the bay of quinte. she holds a graduate diploma in indigenous policy and administration from carleton university and a master’s in indigenous nationhood at the university of victoria. in settler colonial societies such as canada, quality in indigenous1 early learning and child care (elcc) contexts means that programs are grounded in indigenous philosophies on raising healthy children. indigenous knowledges are highly diverse but often share a worldview in which children’s health and well-being is viewed holistically, encompassing interrelated spiritual, physical, intellectual, and social/ emotional dimensions, and extended family and community members are valued in children’s care and socialization (halseth & greenwood, 2019). greenwood (2005) describes the foundations of indigeneity as being comprised, in part, of values that privilege interrelationships among the spiritual, the natural and the self; reflect a sacred orientation to place and space; encompass a fluidity of knowledge exchanged between past, present and future, thereby allowing for constant and dynamic knowledge growth and change; and honour language and orality as an important means of knowledge of transmission. (p. 554) a growing number of indigenous families are raising their children in urban centres in canada (statistics canada, 2017). in british columbia (bc), where this study took place, approximately 80% of indigenous peoples from first funding for urban, not-for-profit indigenous early learning and childcare (elcc) programs has not kept pace with a rapidly growing urban indigenous population, increasing operational costs, and the rights of indigenous children. in british columbia (bc), closure of a prominent indigenous elcc program prompted a study of some of the key factors influencing the operation of indigenous elcc programs in bc. this qualitative research highlights the priorities, concerns, and recommendations for supporting the operational success of urban, not-for-profit indigenous elcc programs and upholding the rights of indigenous children. these findings have relevance for indigenous elcc programs that are facing operational challenges in bc and other jurisdictions in canada. key words: early childhood; aboriginal children; equity; truth and reconciliation; indigenous governance; selfdetermination; children’s rights; aboriginal head start july 2021 2 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research nation, métis, and inuit backgrounds are living in urban and off-reserve areas of the province (government of british columbia, n.d.). indigenous people’s “migration” to urban centres is frequently conveyed in public discourse as a decision to leave rural communities and cultures and assimilate into mainstream society (newhouse & peters, 2003). this discourse disregards the fact that many canadian cities are developed on long-established gathering places or settlement areas used by indigenous peoples prior to the government forcibly displacing and relocating entire communities to reserves far from urban centres that have since been renamed (newhouse & peters, 2003). in 1996, the royal commission on aboriginal peoples highlighted that many indigenous peoples want to have healthy family lives in cities, maintain and develop distinctive cultures and traditions, and have individual and collective governance over their daily lives. like all children, indigenous children’s early health and development is inseparable from the well-being of their families and communities. for many indigenous families in canada, their well-being and everyday lives continue to be adversely impacted by colonialism. pertinent to understanding indigenous parental concerns about sending their children to institutional forms of elcc (hare & anderson, 2010) is the canadian state’s use of “education” as a means of assimilation and cultural genocide. for over 100 years, indigenous children as young as 4 were forcibly removed from their homes and communities and placed in church‐run residential and industrial schools (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015; wilk et al., 2017). the ongoing impacts of colonialism mean that, compared to non-indigenous children in canada, indigenous children are more likely to grow up in families affected by intergenerational trauma (reading & wien, 2013) and the multiple and interrelated downstream effects of poverty (hajizadeh et al., 2018) and to be removed from their homes, cultures, and communities by the contemporary child welfare system (tait et al., 2013). quality indigenous designed and delivered elcc programs play a vital role in providing indigenous children with the best possible start in life (halseth & greenwood, 2019). government investment in quality indigenous elcc is viewed as critical to optimizing indigenous children’s health and development, redressing the attempted elimination of indigenous peoples, cultures, and languages, and mitigating the intergenerational impacts of social and structural inequities on families and children’s living conditions and life chances (halseth & greenwood, 2019). the right of indigenous children to have equitable access to indigenous elcc is set out in article 30 of the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc; united nations, 1989). as greenwood (2016) notes: the provisions of article 30 are particularly relevant in nations such as canada that are built upon a history of colonization, where for generations indigenous children have been dispossessed of their cultures, languages, territories, family and community ties—all of the foundational elements of healthy and whole indigenous identities. (p. 1) however, according to a recently developed national indigenous elcc framework codeveloped by the government of canada, assembly of first nations, inuit tapiriit kanatami, and métis national council (2018), urban indigenous children and families in canada continue to be denied equitable access to indigenous elcc as a result of unstable or insufficient funding, a lack of continuity in a “patchwork of programs or services” (p. 4) and a lack of indigenous control over planning, design, and delivery of programs. in 2018, one of the few not-for-profit indigenous elcc programs for indigenous families raising young children in the greater vancouver area of bc closed due to unsustainable funding (ctv news, 2018). this closure, and concerns about the ongoing lack of attention to and investment in urban-based indigenous elcc programs in this province, prompted coauthor leslie varley, who is the executive director (ed) of the bc association of aboriginal friendship centres (bcaafc), to seek funding and a research partnership to explore the operational challenges july 2021 3 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of running quality nonprofit urban indigenous elcc programs in bc with the primary author, alison gerlach. this paper reports on some of the key findings from their community-engaged research project, highlighting the priorities, concerns, and recommendations for supporting the operational success of urban not-for-profit indigenous elcc programs. these findings, while focused on urban indigenous contexts, have relevance for many indigenous and mainstream programs that are facing operational challenges in bc and other jurisdictions in canada. urban indigenous early learning and child care programs in canada there is no lack of evidence that infants’ and young children’s early life experiences and relationships can have profound effects on their early brain development and health trajectory (boyce & hertzman, 2018; halfon et al., 2018; shonkoff, 2012; unicef, 2014). it is also widely accepted that quality elcc programs can support families’ and children’s health and well-being, mitigate the impact of early adversity on children’s life course (britto et al., 2011; lake & chan, 2014), and function as important determinants of population health (bell et al., 2013). in the unique context of indigenous children in a settler colonial state, “early childhood can be seen as a crucial site for reconciliation and cultural healing” (greenwood, 2016, p. 1). when elcc programs are anchored in local indigenous and community cultures, languages, protocols, practices, and histories, they can play a foundational role in children’s cultural identity and health trajectory and provide a pathway for the collective health and well-being of their communities and nations (greenwood & de leeuw, 2012; greenwood & jones, 2015; royal commission on aboriginal peoples, 1996; smylie & adomako, 2009). protecting and enacting indigenous children’s rights to their heritage languages, cultures, and traditions in elcc programs is in accordance with the 1989 uncrc, the 1996 royal commission on aboriginal peoples, the 2007 united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples (undrip), and the 2015 truth and reconciliation commission (trc) of canada. thus, indigenous elcc programs uphold longstanding calls and mandates by indigenous leadership, communities, and families to reassert their roles and rights with respect to their children, which governments are obliged to uphold according to their own laws (bc aboriginal child care society, 2014a; first nations information governance centre, 2012). in bc and across canada, an increasing number of indigenous families are accessing urban indigenous notfor-profit elcc programs (government of canada et al., 2018), including many based in friendship centres. friendship centres are caring community hubs that offer a wide range of social services and programs in a culturally safe manner for urban indigenous families (bcaafc, 2020). across bc there are 25 friendship centres and 16 of these currently operate an elcc program, including some that have aboriginal head start in urban and northern communities (ahsunc) programs. ahsunc is the most prominent urban-based indigenous elcc program in canada, and is supported and funded at the federal level by the public health agency of canada (phac). however, generally speaking, regulated child care for indigenous families living in urban centres has no special status with the federal government and has seen its funding stagnate year after year since its inception in the early 1990s (bc aboriginal child care society, 2014a). promising practices in indigenous elcc contexts include programs that are community planned, designed, and controlled, are grounded in indigenous knowledges, cultures, and worldviews, aim to revitalize and protect language and culture and restore identity, and incorporate a holistic approach (halseth & greenwood, 2019). achieving these goals requires that programs are embedded within interdependent relational networks involving families, elders, and community members (greenwood & de leeuw, 2007). providing indigenous children with elcc programs that are rooted in culture and community is a challenging process for multifaceted reasons, including the enormous diversity of indigenous families living in urban contexts (place, 2012) and the effects july 2021 4 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of colonization on the intergenerational transmission of indigenous knowledges and cultures (stout, 2012). operationally, indigenous elcc programs are also constrained by current governance and funding structures, a lack of qualified, skilled staff (government of canada et al., 2018), and predetermined structural requirements that are not always inclusive of unique indigenous attributes (greenwood et al., 2007). attracting qualified early childhood educators (eces) is a well-established and ongoing barrier to the successful operation of quality elcc programs in canada (government of canada, 2017; wagner et al., 2013). in the current bc context, ece recruitment is a critical topic given that the provincial government’s recent commitment to achieving universal childcare over the next 10 years is predicated on recruiting an additional 12,000 eces and other childcare professionals (government of british columbia, 2018a). the bc government’s early care and learning recruitment and retention strategy (government of british columbia, 2018b) reinforces the need for (1) an adequate and stable workforce comprised of qualified and skilled early learning and care professionals, (2) acknowledgment of ece as a viable, sustainable, and valued career, and (3) appropriate compensation plans and human resource strategies. as a result, there are increasing educational opportunities and ece bursary programs in bc to incentivize and meet the projected increasing need for ece (government of british columbia, 2018b). it is currently unclear how the increasing demand for urban indigenous elcc programs and staffing in bc is factored into the larger provincial initiatives that are currently underway in bc. funding for indigenous elcc programs has not kept pace with a rapidly growing urban indigenous population or increasing operational costs, including infrastructure costs, a living wage with benefits for staff, and the training and resources required to support children with diverse abilities (bc aboriginal child care society, 2014a). the historical and ongoing underfunding of urban indigenous elcc programs speaks to unresolved jurisdictional disputes over which level of government is responsible for funding programs and services for urban indigenous families and children (halseth & greenwood, 2019). moreover, in the context of bc, political inaction to support a transition to “the design, delivery and governance of indigenous elcc that is anchored in self-determination” as called for in the indigenous elcc framework (government of canada, 2018, p. 5) disregards the united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples (undrip), which was legislated by the bc government into implementation in 2019. a community-engaged research design consistent with a community-engaged and participatory approach (hacker, 2013), this research was initiated by coauthor leslie varley, who is a member of the killer whale clan of the nisga’a nation in bc and, as previously mentioned, ed of the bcaafc. the lead university research partner and primary author of this paper, alison gerlach, is a new settler to canada with british ancestry. alison has a 20-year history of collaborating with indigenous elcc programs and colleagues in bc as a community-engaged researcher (gerlach, 2007; gerlach, browne, & greenwood, 2017; gerlach & gignac, 2019). the two research assistants and coauthors of this paper are shemine gulamhusein, who is a canadian muslim with east african and indian heritage who was working at the university of victoria at the time of this study, and magnolia perron, who is kanien’kehá:ka (mohawk) and was working with the bcaafc during this study. the study objectives and design, including data collection methods and knowledge translation activities, were subsequently codeveloped in partnership with the researchers who came together for this project. the purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to generate a greater understanding of how organizational and funding factors and structures shape the operation of urban indigenous elcc programs in bc and to provide evidenceinformed recommendations for supporting their operational success in the context of challenges with funding july 2021 5 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and staff recruitment and retention. ethics approval was granted by the university of victoria. data collection and analysis were undertaken over a six-month period from january to june 2019, and a research summary was published in november 2019 (gerlach et al., 2019). recruitment the researchers used purposeful and snowball recruitment strategies. in january 2019, executive directors of urban indigenous organizations that operated an elcc program were recruited at a bcaafc meeting and via a subsequent email invitation. executive directors who expressed an interest in participating provided the name of the manager of their elcc program and were informed that their manager may or may not be contacted given the scope of the study. some executive directors and managers subsequently contacted the researchers to say that they would like to be interviewed together. participants there was a total of 19 participants, including executive directors (n=11), indigenous elcc managers (n=6), and provincial indigenous elcc experts (n=2). participants represented 9 distinct indigenous elcc programs and 4 ahsunc programs in all five health regions of bc (fraser valley: n=1, interior: n=2, vancouver coastal; n=2, northern: n=4, and vancouver island: n=10). the length of time these programs had been operating ranged widely; some were newly opened and others had been in operation for over 20 years, with an average of six to seven years. participants self-identified as female (n=15) or male (n=4) and their experience in their current positions ranged widely, from 10 months to 24 years. given leslie varley’s position as ed of the bcaafc, she was not involved in recruitment and did not have access to participants’ identities or the raw data. data collection and analysis following acquisition of participants’ signed consent, the researchers conducted individual or dyad semistructured interviews based on an interview guide that explored questions such as: (1) can you tell me about some of the ways your centre has been successful in operating your child care program? (2) what are some of the operational challenges you experience, or have experienced? (3) what do you think needs to be done differently to support the successful operation of centres like yours? six of the interviews were conducted in person including an interview with a provincial expert. the remaining interviews were conducted by phone. the researchers recorded field notes immediately following each interview. all interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and anonymized. the researchers codeveloped a code book, and coded a sample transcript to strengthen and refine the coding process. all transcripts and field notes were subsequently coded using hyperresearch. the coded data were analyzed to identify interrelated themes and subthemes, which were refined in alignment with the research objectives and a further reading of the literature. all participants were given an opportunity to review and verify their transcripts and contact the researchers if they wished to add or change any details. a discussion about the preliminary findings and recommendations took place at a bcaafc meeting that the ed participants attended. a similar discussion of the findings took place with the elcc expert participants, who had a long history and substantive knowledge of the indigenous elcc landscape in bc. to increase the policy relevance and impact of the findings and recommendations at a provincial government level, a draft summary of the research was also shared with the indigenous engagement and policy branch of the provincial office for the early years. limitations the recruitment strategy resulted in certain regions of bc being represented more than others. as outlined above, to overcome this limitation, two indigenous elcc experts with a long history of working in the indigenous elcc july 2021 6 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research sector in bc were recruited to provide provincial overviews and insights related to this project. the scope and funding of this study did not allow for examining issues related to operational successes or challenges from the perspectives of indigenous families or children. findings the findings highlight some of the key strengths and challenges of operating indigenous elcc programs. in the following section, the main themes and related subthemes are discussed and linkages made to the literature. these include (1) program capacity to “set up a strong foundation”; (2) programming “takes a lot of money”; and (3) staffing is “our number one operational challenge.” program capacity to “set up a solid foundation” research participants described a successful and high-quality indigenous elcc program as one that “sets up a solid foundation [and] requires ... investment of time, resources, funding, energy and attention to caring for the caregiver” (p11). identified interrelated subthemes highlighting key characteristics of quality programs that “set up a solid foundation” are summarized in figure 1 and discussed thereafter. figure 1. summary of subthemes in “program capacity to set up a solid foundation.” investing time in creating “safe and trusted spaces” for families. consistent with the spirit of friendship centres, participants talked about the importance of focusing their time, efforts, and resources on providing “safe and trusted spaces” for families and children. as an ed commented: we had the evaluators come in to evaluate the new universal childcare programs. and all the families met, and there was no staff in the room, and the thing that they said was the best part of the program was that they felt safe there and they felt their children were safe there. (p6) the capacity to “create safe and trusted spaces” was in large part dependent on programs being able to recruit staff who were the “right fit” and retain them over the long term in order to provide continuity in family-staff july 2021 7 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research relationships: we want those caregivers to be consistent, to be long term, because it’s based on relationship. the families look to these educators as aunties, uncles, as surrogate aunties and uncles, extensions of their family. but if these people keep leaving and new staff keep coming on you’re not creating that familiar place, the continuity. and really more replicating the areas that challenge families of inconsistent people in their lives, lacking continuity, but if we can demonstrate in our delivery of early years programs continuity and knowing we’re reliable, we also are then creating those trusting spaces and demonstrating ... healthy relationships and healthy expectations. (p11) this theme highlights the critical link between programs being able to retain qualified staff and their capacity to foster a sense of safety and trust with families. staff retention is an important concern for many elcc contexts (totenhagen et al., 2016) but is perhaps even more salient in indigenous contexts due to parental concerns about and distrust towards institutional care for their children (hare & anderson, 2010). using “our skills” to support families. “setting up a solid foundation” also required that staff responded to families’ priorities and needs beyond child care. as one participant commented, “i tell everyone that we don’t run childcare centres, we run family centres.” (p16) another added: it’s just stepping out of our roles as daycare providers and looking at how we use our skill sets to support families.... what we need to do is we need to address the family’s concerns first, support them in their concerns and then over time, once they have those things dealt with, they’re able to open up to the other things that we may offer. (p18) participants described needing the time and resources to respond to multifaceted social challenges faced by families and children in their programs, including “children who are either in care or in jeopardy of being in care” (p1), “a lot of poverty” (p18) and housing insecurity, intergenerational family histories of child removal, and young children who have experienced trauma and/or have “special needs.” this data points to the importance of programs and staff investing time and resources in responding to each family’s circumstances and priorities. this is consistent with a canada-wide 2017 study with ahsunc which concluded that programs strengthen indigenous community resilience by emphasizing healthy child development in the context of a child’s social system, focusing not only on the child but on their family and the larger community (public health agency of canada, 2017). however, this finding also raises concerns that many programs do not have the financial resources to invest in a family support worker position to provide this essential form of support. embedding “culture is healing, culture is safety.” not surprisingly given the existing evidence discussed in the introduction, “setting up a solid foundation” was also dependent on the capacity of programs to foster families and children’s long-term well-being by “reconnecting and reclaiming cultural identity and language” (p10), providing opportunities for families to “express themselves in all the myriad of cultural ways” (p12), and “families being proud of being indigenous and wanting to ... live that life as best they can” (p12). elder involvement was viewed as “a critical piece to everything we do” (p12). an ed reflected: culture is healing, culture is safety. connection is safety. the more positive connections we build around these children earlier in life the less likely they’ll end up in a system that’s probably going to eat them up and spit them out. (p10) while the fundamental right of indigenous children to have access to indigenous elcc programming is well established, including by the royal commission on aboriginal peoples (1996), undrip (2007), and the trc july 2021 8 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research (2015), the actual implementation of this right requires funding. as a program manager stated: with everything that we work so hard to do for our families the one thing i’m really proud of is that we are really answering the trc’s call to action for the families. like we are doing it. we have everything in place and what i’d really love to get the message back to the government is—if you’re serious about the call to action then you really need to be making sure that our demands for what we’re looking for, for our centres, for our families are being answered. (p12) participants’ perspectives on having the capacity and financial resources to employ elders and knowledgeable community members and to anchor their programming in local indigenous cultures and languages are consistent with and support previous research with ahsunc programs in canada (public health agency of canada, 2017). moreover, capacity development is a key principle and required action to meet the legislated obligations of undrip (united nations, 2007) in bc and the national indigenous elcc framework (government of canada et al., 2018). in this subtheme, licensing was also raised as a related concern. navigating “a tricky relationship” with licensing. in bc, the community care and assisted living act (queen’s printer, 2002), the residential care regulation (queen’s printer, 2009), and the child care licensing regulation (queen’s printer, 2007) establish the minimum health and safety requirements that must be met. licensed childcare programs are monitored and regularly inspected by regional health authority licensing officers to ensure programs are meeting specific requirements for health and safety, staffing qualifications, record keeping, space and equipment, child-to-staff ratios, and programming (government of british columbia, 2008). the purpose of licensing is to ensure “the provision of quality child care services in british columbia ... [and] protect the health and safety of children in care” (government of british columbia, 2008). provincial funding is contingent on programs being licensed. in this study, several participants described how they had to navigate a potentially “tricky relationship” with their licensing officer, with one saying, “i think that it’s a tricky relationship for sure. no matter what i think, even if you have a really good relationship with them, there’s always going to be something else and that’s their job” (p9). participants expressed concerns that the licensing approval process was dependent on a licensing officer’s personal interpretation of the legislation and the strength of their relationship. experiences reflected a variation in their relationships with licensing officers: unfortunately, what i am seeing is that some of that is dependent on the licensing officer perspective and attitude and it shouldn’t be, right? it should be a very consistent regulation across the board, but we’re finding that it’s not. (p16) we’re really fortunate, we’ve had the same licensing officer since we opened, so we have an amazing relationship with her and ... she trusts how we work and operate and knows that we’re a stand-up program. so, an example would be other places aren’t allowed to use traditional food because it’s not licensed approved, but if we get parents to sign off on a letter saying that they’re okay with their child eating traditional food, we’re allowed to serve it. (p4) the implementation of government-funded elcc programs involves complying with an array of predetermined structural requirements that may constrain or support the inclusion of indigenous-specific attributes in the face of no indigenous-specific authority (greenwood et al., 2007). licensing is one example of a valueand culturally laden structural requirement that does not distinguish indigenous elcc programs from other elcc programs. participants’ concerns about licensing echo those raised by the bc aboriginal child care society (2013) and the indigenous elcc framework (government of canada et al., 2018). for example, a key indicator of quality in indigenous elcc programs is elder involvement. as knowledge holders, elders are indispensable in cultural july 2021 9 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research programming, but their value is not always recognized in licensing regulations (bc aboriginal child care society, 2014b). programs “take a lot of money” an affirming and not surprising main theme related to the operational challenge of urban indigenous elcc programs was that programs “take a lot of money.” as the following participants note, investing in an elcc program is a long-term venture, and the “returns” on this investment may not be fully evident for several years: they [programs] do take a lot of money to run, as you can imagine, especially being a no fee service. but the outcomes and the cost reduction on the other side of the prevention plan is showing that spending the money upfront is working. (p12) there needs to be an understanding that childcare requires a lot of resources to be high quality. it is not a financial gaining endeavour. it will deplete resources more than contribute. [but] the resources it contributes are higher—better opportunities for children and families with high-quality experiences. then understanding that, you aren’t going to make money delivering childcare, but the outcome of investing in childcare is huge.... the advice to friendship centres is, if you don’t have a childcare program and you want one, you need to be well positioned before opening one and going into that knowing and recognizing that it’s going to use up services and added resources and funding rather than contribute to the pot. (p11) within this theme, two interrelated subthemes were identified, as summarized in figure 2. figure 2. summary of subthemes in programs “take a lot of money.” having to “cut back on services.” the historical stagnation in funding for urban indigenous elcc programs in bc has resulted in programs “cutting back on services” in order to stay open and/or within budget. as the following participant described: well, we try to cut down some staff hours, so like our family involvement workers are part time now, our bus driver is part time, our cook is part time, and those all used to be full-time positions … putting money back into a facility and making sure that it’s taken care of, but it’s also not just that—it’s like how do you do technological upgrades, you know, computers, telephones, cell phones, you know, all of that other infrastructure that stuff ages and you have to be able to replace it. (p4) also, when programs are dependent on parent fees, the financial and administrative burden on programs and host organizations increases, and providing a quality program can be compromised: july 2021 10 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the program is very challenged by [a] limited budget. because it operates on parent fees, the income for their budget is low and cannot address the ongoing needs for the childcare [program] to deliver enhanced program and curriculum. the staff reported that they have not received any supply budgets and therefore have to do without or purchase materials with their own money. also, there is no funds to have janitorial support so the staff focus a lot of time in general daily maintenance of the building missing out on key learning opportunities with the children. (p11) this finding is consistent with the recommendations in the indigenous elcc framework (government of canada et al., 2018) calling for appropriate and stable funding that reflects the realities, fundamental rights and responsibilities of operating quality indigenous elcc programs for a growing urban population. as previously discussed, historically rooted jurisdictional ambiguities and wrangling over which level of government (federal or provincial) is responsible for funding urban indigenous elcc has resulted in the stagnation of funding for decades (bc aboriginal child care society, 2014a). this lack of government investment fails to address a fastgrowing urban indigenous population whose children, as previously discussed, have the legal right to elcc that is grounded in local indigenous and community cultures, languages, protocols, practices, and histories. “running around with our hands out all the time.” primary funding sources for the programs in this study included parents’ fees, the provincial government, phac, and individual grant applications crafted by host organizations. the current capacity of many programs to meet their operating costs was dependent on executive directors spending large amounts of time writing proposals, competing for limited funds, and reporting back to multiple funders in order to cover the operational costs of their elcc programs—creating what the first nations elcc policy framework refers to as an “administrative burden” (bc aboriginal child care society, 2017). as the following executive director stated: we’re operating in the red all the time. so, its taxing to the organization as a whole to keep it open... we run around with our hands out all the time and we apply for every possible [funding name] that we possibly can which takes a huge amount of staff time. it’s difficult when you put say 28 hours in a proposal and you get nothing back in return. that happens way too often. (p15) this finding also affirms that building or maintaining programs’ capacity, particularly in communities that do not have the resources to write strong proposals, requires sustainable, long-term, and noncompetitive funding to avoid perpetuating inequities between communities—that is, underresourced communities get less and betterresourced communities get more. as this executive director notes: we need more sustainable funding. but one of the problems i’ve faced in my 20 years of service in communities was the competitive nature of funding. the system is set up that communities have to compete against each other to get pots of money. whoever writes the best proposal, whoever has the best infrastructure is able to access the money. (p18) the current inadequate funding available for operating costs results in many executive directors having to compete and be accountable to multiple funders in order to keep their program running, which requires significant time and resources with no guarantee that funding will be forthcoming or stable. this finding raises questions about a single-source funding model as an administrative and operational matter whilst also upholding the rights and mandate of indigenous peoples to determine how funding is allocated rather than government authorities (government of canada et al., 2018). staffing is “our number one operational challenge” there was some variation in the data on programs’ reported capacities to keep their staff. some participants july 2021 11 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research reported having staff in their programs for 10 years or more, and other participants described not being able to keep staff beyond two years. these different experiences may relate to the data discussed in a later section, on the ability of programs to support staff ’s ongoing professional development and well-being and a living wage. regional variations may also account for different experiences in recruiting and retaining staff. for example, in the lower mainland of bc, eces are more mobile and have multiple employment options. recruiting and keeping ece staff in this region and job market may therefore be more challenging. nonetheless, a recurring theme in the data identified that “our number one challenge operationally is staffing” (p16). or, as the following participant pointed out, “the biggest issue is qualified staff. previous governments have said we’re going to invest money and build new spaces. you can build the building, you can fill it full of children, but you cannot staff it” (p18). within this broad theme, analysis of the data identified three interrelated subthemes, summarized in figure 3 and discussed in the following section. figure 3. summary of subthemes in staffing is “our number one operational challenge.” working with “entry-level wages.” participants frequently linked challenges with staff recruitment and retention with the burden of low wages for eces. as the following participant summed up, “the average person that works in the daycare only sticks around for two years. it’s an entry level job. .. and they don’t stick around very long because the wages aren’t sufficient” (p1003). other participants noted: the wage people are making [is] the same wage as a check-out clerk. and so why should they go to college, why should they take on the extra burden and stress of being an early child educator when they [can] simply go and be a check-out clerk and make the same money and have better benefits? and it’s always been a challenge and we are hitting a wall. there is not enough educators out there. many programs are struggling just to staff their programs with regular employees and many places have closed because they cannot staff it or find substitutes. (p18) what we have been told is that a lot of people have not gotten their infant and toddler [certification] because it really wasn’t much of an increase in wage for them. so, it didn’t feel like it was worth their while to spend another year or two years to get the certificate. and so, yeah, we’re finding that that is a challenging position to get. we have one now. we had two before and we lost both of them. (p1) as previously mentioned, numerous initiatives are underway to incentivize eces to maintain their employment in bc, including a provincial wage enhancement initiative that equates to an extra $2 an hour (government of british columbia, 2018b), a higher hourly rate through the “growing aboriginal head start” federal initiative (aboriginal july 2021 12 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research head start association of bc, 2019), and wage enhancement as part of an indigenous elcc investment strategy (bc aboriginal child care society, 2019). it is too early to know how effective such strategies will be in recruiting and retaining indigenous staff in indigenous elcc programs. “building capacity within themselves.” participants discussed how they mitigated the operational challenges related to recruiting and/or keeping staff and providing quality programming by “building staff ’s capacity within themselves”—in other words, supporting and investing in staff ’s ongoing professional development. the following ed identified finding the funding for staff education as a high priority and ongoing challenge that often depends on the success of a funding application: my job is to ensure that we have the best trained staff that we can and ... to build capacity in them because i want a high-quality program [because] our children deserve the best care that we can give them. and so, always working with the staff to try and complete their ece.... we could use ten more eces definitely, but our staff is really seeing the need to build capacity within themselves and to help out the needs of the centre. so, we have five staff right now working on their infant/toddler and we’re supporting that. we’re helping them pay for their courses, helping them pay to do their practicums, trying to keep it in house as much as possible. so, it feels really good to know that staff are that committed to the program.... when i build the budget i definitely push the need to our funders that we need training dollars and those need to be there to help us with that. and the funders are really good about that, you know, here’s why we need these dollars, it’s important. we’re building capacity, we’re doing better work for our families when we have better trained staff, and the funders are really good about that. (p7) this participant went on to highlight the need for more work-integrated learning opportunities to support professional development while also attending to the need for continuity, as previously discussed: it hurts me to see people having to take six weeks off work to do a practicum in our province. we need people working and we need to find a way that they can train where they’re working, because why take them away for six weeks and pull them out and the children lose that person? our kids can’t lose people, so we need that continuity and consistency for those children and those families, but we also need to figure out a way that we can train staff in their workplace. (p7) the subtheme of “building capacity within themselves” also included participants’ perspectives on the need for more opportunities for elcc programs to “build capacity within themselves” by have stronger relationships with similar programs in their region and different parts of the province. this finding shows that, although it is well established that the ongoing professional development of elcc staff is a significant predictor of program quality (government of canada, 2017), accessing ongoing professional development continues to be a challenge for many urban indigenous elcc programs and it will therefore be important to monitor the impact of the provincial government’s recently announced innovations. a promising and recently formed first nations pedagogies network in bc (https://fnpn.ca/) is an example of an indigenous-led initiative to support to support eces in their ongoing professional development in the context of urban indigenous elcc programs. staff retention is also closely aligned with staff well-being, which is explored in the following subtheme. “taking care of staff.” participants talked about the importance of taking care of staff in order to keep long-term staff and provide a quality program. as one participant clearly stated, “your staff need to be taken care of so that that they can give quality childcare” (p5). one manager highlighted a proactive team approach: july 2021 13 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research so the staff are generally happy with the job satisfaction, our job hours, and the pay. we’re able to have benefits as well. and i think our new management team in place is really proactive. we have a really good team setting now. so, going forward i think we’re going to see really good retention in our staff and that we’ve really worked hard on that the last couple of years to make sure that our staff were happy. (p12) staff satisfaction also related to relationships and communication in programs so that staff had “a voice” to inform and be involved in change. as one ed noted: making sure that you’re communicating with your staff regularly. it’s really hard to make time to do that in a daycare situation because they’re so busy ... but you don’t know what’s going on in here (signalling with hands the space in a classroom) unless you’re having conversations. and if you don’t give opportunities to have those conversations, whatever is going on just builds up and you don’t want that.... we’ve implemented regular staff meetings and that’s another thing that we think is very, very important for our staff to have a voice. but we also want to make sure that their voice is about change it’s not about just complaining about situations but it’s about also coming forward with some recommendations about how they see that change happening. and for us to act on that as quickly as possible but also have them involved then in the change. (p1) the need for funding for staff wellness as a strategy for keeping staff longer was also identified: if i could do more wellness as a preventative measure it would make a big difference because right now they [program staff] don’t like taking time off because we don’t have enough subs and also because we don’t have that on our contract to offer them. but wellness is so important when you’re working with our little guys, right? you have to come with 150%, you can’t come with less than that. and when you have less then they know it. and when you have less then your team also is affected. and so the more people i have coming with less, the whole team is impacted, their stress gets higher. like if i had more wellness happening then i’d definitely have a healthier staff that wanted to stay longer. (p8) in the context of operating quality indigenous elcc programs described in this study, including the critical importance of retaining long-term staff, “taking care of staff ” is a priority that can get overlooked given the multiple demands on everyone’s time and energy and the financial constraints. “taking care of staff ” from a strengths-based perspective can also encompass having programs that foster job role clarification, appreciation of strengths and work completed, a sense of teamwork and team cohesion, and good communication between staff and management (deroy & schütze, 2019). finally, the findings in “staffing is our number one operational challenge” point to the urgent need for the bc government to enact their stated commitment to undrip and redress the health and social inequities experienced by many young indigenous children by advancing indigenous governance of urban elcc programs with stable and appropriate funding for staffing and operations. discussion a robust system of quality indigenous elcc can make a vital contribution towards redressing the legacies of colonialism across indigenous children’s life course (bc first nations early childhood development council, 2009; government of canada et al., 2018; greenwood & de leeuw, 2012; public health agency of canada, 2012, 2016). quality indigenous elcc programs are controlled, planned, designed, and delivered by indigenous organizations and communities (government of canada et al., 2018; halseth & greenwood, 2019). however, consistent with existing evidence (bc aboriginal child care society, 2014a; government of canada et al., 2018), the operational challenges highlighted in this paper show that the potential of urban indigenous elcc to make a substantial difference in the life chances of indigenous children continues to be denied in the current system of july 2021 14 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research state control and inadequate funding. to achieve social and health equity for indigenous children, political action and sustainable funding is required to support a transition to “the design, delivery and governance of indigenous elcc that is anchored in selfdetermination” (government of canada et al., 2018, p. 5). this transition of authority enacts indigenous peoples’ legislated right to self-determination and indigenous children’s right to culturally relevant curricula and heritage languages in accordance with the trc calls to action (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015), the uncrc (united nations, 1989), and undrip (united nations, 2007). the transition to self-determination and governance of indigenous elcc is particularly salient in the bc context, given that bc, in 2019, was the first jurisdiction in canada to pass legislation to implement undrip. the operational challenges of staff retention outlined in this paper expand on current global discourses on this topic (pek-greer & wallace, 2017; totenhagen et al., 2016) by highlighting the essential continuities in indigenous elcc programs between staff retention and the capacity of programs to create “safe and trusting spaces” for families and children. this is of critical importance given that canada’s history of forced child removal, which disrupted generations of indigenous families, continues to generate widespread mistrust about engaging with formalized child-related programs (gerlach, browne, & greenwood, 2017; hare & anderson, 2010). the potential positive impacts of engaging indigenous families and children in indigenous elcc programs are therefore contingent on programs having sustainable funding in order to retain staff and foster long-term community-family-staff relationships. this finding provides further evidence for an adequate and stable one-source funding model that provides a living wage for staff and allows for professional development and strategies to support staff wellness. when elcc programs have adequate and secure funding, qualified staff are likely to retain long-term positions that provide “a solid foundation for families” grounded in sustained, trusting relationships. consistent with the friendship centre ethos, the findings in this paper also highlight that the operating costs of urban indigenous elcc programs need to respond to the socioeconomic realities and priorities of urban indigenous families’ lives. as this study shows, providing “a strong foundation” for indigenous families and children involves a broader scope of elcc that requires staff to “use their skill sets” to support the needs of the family as a whole. consistent with indigenous philosophies on raising healthy children (halseth & greenwood, 2019) and the capacity of indigenous elcc programs to promote family well-being (gerlach, browne, & suto, 2018; gerlach & gignac, 2019)2018; gerlach &amp; gignac, 2019, the findings reinforce the need for operational costs to include funding for designated family support workers. investing in designated family support workers strengthens the capacity of programs to mitigate the impacts of poverty on children’s early health, development, and life experiences. conclusion quality indigenous designed and delivered elcc programs play a vital role in achieving social and health equity for indigenous children, their families and communities (halseth & greenwood, 2019). however, as the findings in this paper show, the longstanding operational challenges of urban, not-for-profit indigenous elcc programs in bc are kept in place by a failure of all levels of government to implement their legislated obligations to undrip (united nations, 2007), the uncrc (united nations, 1989), and the calls to action of the trc (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015). enacting these obligations requires that provincial and federal governments make greater investment in indigenous elcc programs and the growing number of indigenous families that are choosing to raise their children in urban centres. there also needs to be strategic action and investment in “research and evaluation frameworks to support promising practice and innovations in indigenous july 2021 15 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research elcc policies, programs, and services” (government of canada et al., 2018, p. 13). ultimately, as outlined in the indigenous elcc framework (government of canada et al., 2018), strategic transformations in elcc structures, operations, and programs that are controlled and directed by indigenous leadership are fundamental to redressing the intergenerational impacts of colonialism and realizing the potential of indigenous elcc programs to make a difference in the life chances of indigenous children in this country. acknowledgements this research was funded by the social sciences and humanities research council (sshrc) as part of the western centre of the urban indigenous research network. the authors would like to sincerely thank all of the participants who were so generous in sharing their time, knowledge, and passion for their early learning and child care programs. 1 the term indigenous is used in this paper to refer inclusively to all first nations, inuit, and métis peoples who have their own diverse identities, histories, rights, and relationships to the canadian state. july 2021 16 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aboriginal head start association of bc. 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(2013). perceived stress and canadian early childhood educators. child & youth care forum, 42, 53–70. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1007/ s10566-012-9187-5 wilk, p., maltby, a., & cooke, m. (2017). residential schools and the effects on indigenous health and well-being in canada: a scoping review. public health reviews, 38(8), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-017-0055-6 december 2021 96 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources a critical book review of i’ve been meaning to tell you: a letter to my daughter by david chariandy reviewed by sherine douglas sherine douglas is a graduate student at the ontario institute for studies in education and a certified educator in ontario, canada. her passion is teaching young people. her research interests include race relations, educational policy, and law and ethics. as an educator in the public school system for the past ten years, sherine has developed her teaching praxis and competencies to include a lens focused on system approaches in and around schools. her leadership has taken her out of the classroom and into boardlevel positions where she has the opportunity to effect change that will inspire 21st-century learners. email: sherine.douglas@mail. utoronto.ca chariandy, david. (2020). i’ve been meaning to tell you: a letter to my daughter. bloomsbury. from a father’s perspective, writing a letter to your teenage daughter about the ills of the world can seem like a daunting task—one of mixed emotions without quite having the right words to say. in i’ve been meaning to tell you: a letter to my daughter, david chariandy does quite the opposite. i’ve been meaning to tell you is a letter written by chariandy in 2018, revealing to his 13-year-old daughter the current state of racial tensions in canada carried from a history of colonial rule and power. in the letter, he describes a rich family history of south asian and trinidadian cultures, each one playing an important role in shaping his daughter’s identity. chariandy, born and raised in canada, tells a story of disconnect and discrimination he suffered as a young black boy growing up in toronto. as a born canadian often referred to as an “immigrant” or “visible minority,” he speaks of the disassociation and lack of acceptance he experienced from his peers, his extended family members, and those at the top of power hierarchies. chariandy refers to his former teachers, principals, politicians, his parents’ employers, and those who benefit from white privilege as being at the top of such power hierarchies. such power structures work within social systems to uphold white supremacist beliefs. the book begins with chariandy retelling the details of a visit to a local grocery store with his young daughter. as chariandy approaches the public water fountain to refill his bottle, he is pushed out of the way by a white lady who intends to make him feel out of place. irritated by his presence, she exclaims, “i was born here. i belong here.” describing this moment of bigotry witnessed at the young age of 3, chariandy decides to write an intimate letter to his daughter to answer her question “then what happened?” chariandy’s letter is relevant to current and future early childhood educators as they reflect on their own beliefs, experiences, and biases as they apply their personal praxis in the classroom setting. throughout i’ve been meaning to tell you, chariandy reflects on his own past encounters with racism and discrimination as others pass judgment based on his appearance. on his daughter’s 13th birthday, he becomes increasingly aware of the importance of sharing with her their family origins and the intersection of canada’s fictitious postcolonial harmony, to best prepare her for a life of race-conscious decisions she will have to make on her own. as he describes his own childhood journey, chariandy attempts to unpack canada’s long legacy of tumultuous and unsettled relationships with marginalized groups—including the broken relationship between canada and indigenous peoples. chariandy’s experiences of being a mixed-race citizen in a matrix of white-dominated power structures are not unique. as he described his childhood journey, i often wondered how many other nonwhite children have had similar experiences, and which children continue to experience marginalization within the education system. do chariandy’s personal encounters with both overt and discreet acts of racism allow readers to question their own mailto:sherine.douglas@mail.utoronto.ca mailto:sherine.douglas@mail.utoronto.ca december 2021 97 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources biases and thus reflect on their interactions with children? further, can educators take away some wonderings of their own to question how they may unconsciously be replicating a biased system that remains dominated by white eurocentric beliefs? throughout this book, from beginning to end, chariandy often finds inspirational words that question the violent tragedies of the past, while raising the important influence these violent transgressions have on the country’s current social, political, and economic systems. chariandy’s love for his daughter and his admiration for her individuality as she matured into a young lady encouraged him, as a father, to continue seeking beauty in the world to help cultivate her journey as biracial and as an empathetic citizen. chariandy does not provide answers for his daughter; rather, he challenges her to think about what it means to be seen as a racialized canadian. although chariandy does not do a profound analysis to expose the deep-seated issues surrounding systemic racism and institutional oppression originating from a colonial past, including the history of indigenous peoples, in writing to his daughter, his personal reflection does provide the reader with a powerful example to reflect on their own intimacies with identity, allowing ample room to wonder about the love and beauty required to envision an improved future for marginalized people in canada. about love chariandy’s love and admiration for his daughter are evident in each chapter of the book. it is his profound admiration and respect for her, paired with her own agency and confidence, that allows the reader to envision a brighter future; not only for his daughter, but for a society that is equally accepting of all races, genders, and cultures. in the letter to his daughter, chariandy describes his own past experiences with racism and his struggle to feel loved. he often felt rejected and was singled out because of his differences. he suffered from extreme isolation in a neighbourhood where he saw others with his own skin colour, but they too suffered from overt acts of racism leading to low self-esteem and self-worth. besides his own family members, he lacked any true connections to others. now as a father, however, chariandy admires the love for life that his daughter displays. it is with her inherently positive attitude that chariandy’s love translates to a feeling of confidence, knowing that his daughter is better prepared to fight the injustices of society. regardless of his own unfortunate experiences with racism, he remains optimistic about a better future. in addition, it is through witnessing his daughter’s self-love, along with her ability to see the good in others so easily, that he believes love will carry her from a history of hate. he writes, “to witness you, my daughter, so physically confident in your body, is to be awed and also to wonder at how much your childhood differs from mine. certainly you possess a worldliness that was unthinkable to me at your age” (p. 6). chariandy strongly believes that the strength his daughter exudes, and her will for life as she develops into a beautiful young lady, will provide her the compassion to overcome systemic barriers as she explores what it means to be biracial in canada. throughout the book, he presents many accounts of how he is deeply moved by the person she is and by the person she is becoming. moreover, chariandy describes the admiration and respect he has for his parents as an unlikely couple whose survival of the journey made from trinidad to canada was made possible because of love. his father, a darkskinned south asian man, and his mother, a lighter-skinned trinidadian woman, overcame many hardships to provide a better future for their family. their relationship was not only dismissed in the black community, but at the time, it was also illegal for them to migrate to canada. on his daughter’s 13th birthday, chariandy refers to the unselfish love shared between his parents and their desire for a better life that ultimately led to his personal success as a writer and as a father. in that moment, he feels compelled to share his parent’s love story to counteract the worry that appears on his daughter’s face as she hears about the muslim travel bans announced by the american government. but in the letter, chariandy assures his daughter that the power of love will carry them through to a december 2021 98 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources better tomorrow. he writes, “you were confused and worried.... i wanted suddenly to tell you the quieter story of your grandparents, a story of migration and struggle and also of love between races taught to distrust one another” (p. 12). in this moment, chariandy expresses his gratitude for his parents’ unconditional love and recognizes their love as the catalyst responsible for providing many opportunities for him and for his family. chariandy’s love for both his daughter and his parents radiates throughout the book; it is precisely this relentless love that allows the reader the opportunity to better understand the origins and effects of systemic acts of deliberate hate. as a result of accepting such truths, as chariandy hopes for his daughter, readers can then educate others who are less informed about the harmful legacies of racism in canada and how systems of oppression, specifically the education system, contribute to discrimination against people of colour. revealing the past and educating about its current effects, the author suggests, will propel canadians toward a promising future. however, while chariandy certainly makes a convincing argument that love will prevail over hate, i wonder if this same belief can exist for nonfamilial relationships. a father and daughter can certainly have a relationship based on love, but what about educators and students? the western school system often discourages any sort of open affection a teacher may want to show their students, such as hugs or a validating touch on the arm. while i personally believe that love must be embedded in everything related to student nurturing, i am not convinced that this is a shared belief among educators. therefore, chariandy’s deep expression of gratitude for his parents that he then shares with his daughter as an opportunity to resist hatred may be challenging for educators to pass on to students in the classroom. about identity ethnicity and race play an important role in one’s identity. although society often uses race to cripple people of colour with the purpose of segregation and division, chariandy reimagines his daughter’s race as a fitting opportunity for her to reclaim her future as her own. throughout his childhood, chariandy recalls how others identified him as an outsider, never possessing the racially accepted qualities to fit in among others. his hair was too curly, his skin was too dark, and his speech was not quite right. as a person of colour living in canada, chariandy first reflects on his own childhood experience with race and identity: “i was very noticeable, not only for how i looked but for how i spoke and acted, what i wore and possessed ... and so i grew up the embodiment of what some feared and refused to understand” (p. 63). in reflecting and in writing, chariandy admits to his daughter that he never learned to accept himself. all along, he struggled with identity and self-love. instead, he allowed others to fear him and tease him, which in turn made him feel unimportant and inferior, and he lacked true self-worth. although chariandy’s experience with his own identity led to a lack of self-confidence and a period of isolation lasting from childhood through to adolescence, he remains hopeful for his daughter’s future. he imagines how a transformative understanding of her own identity can have a meaningful effect on her future opportunities. in the letter to his daughter, chariandy explores the canadian myth of multiculturalism that falsely permeates the very fabric that makes up canada. multiculturalism has often been used as a pull factor for immigrants to build their families in canada; however, as chariandy writes about his parent’s experience, he reveals that multiculturalism has been more successful at establishing a power of oppression that has managed to marginalize racialized peoples rather than provide opportunity. it is often believed that people of colour in canada experience disadvantages and racism at disproportionate rates due to their own individual circumstances rather than the oppressive nature of the policies and procedures embedded in the practices of the canadian government. even with these barriers, chariandy believes his daughter’s biracial identity will give her the ability to choose how she wants to be identified by others in this world. he writes, “but the fact is that i’ve never actually named you one way or the other, never told you, authoritatively, what you are, racially speaking. i suppose that i have imagined, at times, that you, as such complexly mixed children, might have the opportunity to choose and declare your own identity” (p. 55). in addition, chariandy emphasizes that a just future requires that all people of diverse december 2021 99 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources backgrounds must be recognized as individuals, not by the colour of their skin but rather by how they choose to be identified. in retracing the historical misrecognition of racialized people as part of canada’s social identity, chariandy calls attention to the importance of self-recognition and the importance of personal identity for a hopeful future. in reimagining the possibilities, chariandy argues that there is no room for preoccupations about identifying one by their skin colour. he writes, “the future i yearn for is not one in which we will all be clothed in sameness, but one in which we will finally learn to both read and respectfully discuss our differences” (p. 108). chariandy encourages the reader to reflect, not only about the future, about systemic racism and the continued poor treatment of people of colour in canada, but about how personal identity affects how we interact with others in the world—either to the betterment or to the detriment of ourselves and others. chariandy’s letter carries the reader to a space of optimism. by imagining a future where society can “respectfully discuss differences,” he underlines the importance of first understanding one’s own past as the necessary tool to envision a genuinely different future—where identities are chosen and not assigned. by encouraging his daughter to choose her own identity as a means of mobilization, chariandy invites the reader to do the same. shaping one’s identity becomes fundamental in reimagining a future of possibilities. educators can certainly take on this challenge as presented by chariandy. eces have the unique opportunity to engage with students as they encounter the education system for the first time. in these settings, educators can begin to break down the barriers of identity and the molds that students are often asked to fit. the responsibility of choosing one’s own identity, as chariandy suggests, certainly lies with each individual student. however, the opportunity to suggest such dismantling of a prescriptive system is the responsibility of the classroom teacher. about beauty chariandy’s ability to see the beauty in an unjust world gives the reader hope for imagining a better future. in his letter to his daughter, chariandy describes beauty in places where it is often overlooked. his consistent acknowledgment of beauty allows the ugliness of racism to fade, losing its credibility. when reminiscing about his college days, for example, he finds beauty when his black friend recounts a very narrow escape from a gunshot as a result of police profiling. chariandy writes, but my roommate with the shy-gentle eyes was laughing all the same. what was so funny? ‘we made it here,’ he explained. we stared at him before realizing it was true. we found allies. we’d found each other. we were lucky.… my roommate stood there with a silly smile on his face. soon we were all wearing it. before the birth of both you and your brother, dearest daughter, these were the most beautiful smiles i’d ever seen. (pp. 83–84) chariandy writes about the importance of noticing beauty in the world as a way to escape tragedy. choosing to focus on beauty instead of tribulation, chariandy offers to his daughter another possibility—a possibility for canadians to embrace a future that includes equality for all races. he writes, you did not create the inequalities and injustices of this world, daughter. you are neither solely nor uniquely responsible to fix them. if there is anything to learn from the story of our ancestry, it is that you should respect and protect yourself; that you should demand not only justice but joy; that you should see, truly see, the vulnerability and the creativity and the enduring beauty of others. (p. 51, emphasis in original) chariandy’s reference to beauty and choosing joy as a way to prosperity parallels the sentiments christina sharpe (2019) illustrates her mother also expressed as she brought beauty into her childhood home. in her essay “beauty is a method” sharpe recalls, december 2021 100 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources she brought beauty into that house in every way that she could; she worked at joy, and she made livable moments, spaces, and places in the midst of all that was unlivable there, in the town we lived; in the schools we attended; in the violence we saw and felt. actively choosing to see beauty and “do” beauty as an active process to negate the things we cannot control is equally emphasized by chariandy in writing to his daughter. to imagine a better future, chariandy maintains that honouring one’s unique past and seeking the beauty in all nearby things will allow individuals to demand change to the oppressive system in which we currently live. what chariandy misses in his letter although chariandy does raise concerns about canada’s complex relationship with indigenous peoples, he does not address the history in sufficient detail that warrants any change to current beliefs or practices. further, he does not describe to his daughter the ways in which this relationship particularly impacts the lives of blacks and african peoples who were forcibly removed from their original lands and relocated to canada as slaves for nearly two hundred years. at one point in his letter, he describes his own understanding (or lack thereof ) of indigenous peoples represented as the past and the “unease” he felt celebrating the winter olympics in vancouver. although chariandy does bring the truth to light for his daughter, he does little to explain the importance of learning from this violent history upon which canada was founded. he misses an opportunity to mark the historical significance and the obligation of citizens to not only acknowledge the sorrow of indigenous peoples, but to impress upon his daughter the need to take action that does not contribute any further to the mistreatment of indigenous peoples and their culture. here, chariandy misses a profound teachable moment for his daughter. moving forward chariandy’s letter to his daughter is an intimate recounting of canada’s systemic racist history, including slavery and indenture. however, by combining love, identity, and beauty in his letter, he reveals a dark past only to demonstrate the possibility of a brighter future. chariandy recognizes the significance in telling his daughter, as she is entering her first year of junior high school, the truth about her racial identity and how others may treat her because of it. self-identity and honouring the past are both essential in moving forward—these are critical lessons to be taught at school and at home. a letter to my daughter can be used by early childhood educators to encourage young children to engage with their cultural identity. chariandy’s work can encourage educators to deepen their own knowledge of self-identity and bring awareness to the biases they bring to the classroom. since early childhood programs are often the first point of contact for many children and their families, making the connection between home and school should not be overlooked. by using narrative pieces, teachers could explore the concepts of identity and the importance of understanding one’s past to inform their future. this short, easy-to-read book can be read aloud in the classroom to engage students in the inquisitive space of alternative discourses. early childhood educators can introduce the concepts of love, beauty, and identity that chariandy explores to illustrate these themes through interactive play, art, and dance with young children. for an extended study, educators can apply the concepts from a letter to my daughter to engage in a deep reflection of both their personal and professional identities. chariandy’s letter raises the necessity of asking critical questions regarding the possibilities of an anti-black-racist future and the importance of honouring different identities—racial identities and beyond. chariandy’s work contributes to the balance of acknowledging a painful truth and the timely message of necessary change as he leaves his daughter (and the reader) with a message of inspiration: now you speak your own truths and you will continue to find the scripts that honour your body and experience and history, each of these scripts a gift, and none of them fully adequate to the holy force december 2021 101 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources of you.... you are not what they see and say you are. you are more. (pp. 84, 120) chariandy’s letter to his daughter is an intimate account of his own ancestral past, and it demonstrates the politics of race and the compassion required to combat it. this book is a must read for all educators and for those who believe in brighter possibilities for a better future—a future that embraces differences rather than discriminates against them. december 2021 102 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references sharpe, c. (2019, december). beauty is a method. e-flux journal, 105. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/105/303916/beauty-is-a-method/ https://www.e-flux.com/journal/105/303916/beauty-is-a-method/ october 2019 82 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice reconciliation as relationship: exploring indigenous cultures and perspectives through stories natsuko motegi natsuko motegi has been working as an early childhood educator since 2002 after obtaining her med in curriculum and instruction from the university of british columbia. she builds preschool curriculum based on children’s interests and inquiries and strongly believes in the importance of documentation as a tool to observe, record, and reflect on the process of curriculum building as well as to make the children’s learning visible. she has been working at marpole preschool since 2005 and also teaches a responsive curriculum course in the early childhood education program of burnaby school district’s community and continuing education. email: natsukomo@gmail.com how can we incorporate indigenous cultures and perspectives into our preschool program? how can we make it meaningful and age appropriate for the children? what is our part in the process of reconciliation? these are questions gabi kirton and i, as the educators at marpole oakridge community centre preschool, have asked ourselves. we feel strongly that we are called to take an action for truth and reconciliation “to come to terms with events of the past in a manner that overcomes conflict and establishes a respectful and healthy relationship … between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples in this country” (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015a, p. 6), and we also acknowledge that we live, work, and play on the unceded traditional ancestral territories of the ʷməθkʷəy̓əm (musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (tsleil-waututh) first nations. while we wanted to bring indigenous perspectives into the program, we have been hesitant, mainly because of possible misrepresentation of indigenous cultures, history, and values. being nonindigenous and rarely having indigenous families in our program, we have been unsure how to start respectfully engaging with indigenous culture. we pondered different ways to incorporate an indigenous perspective in our curriculum and came to agree that exploring an indigenous story through children’s questions and thoughts might lead us on our journey of truth and reconciliation in early childhood education. background marpole preschool has provided responsive curriculum inspired by the preschools of reggio emilia, italy, for the last two decades. the educators have been studying various works from reggio emilia and others inspired by this approach (avery, callaghan, & wien, 2016, cadwell, 1997; curtis & carter, 2017; edwards, gandini, & forman, 2012; fraser, 2012; pelo, 2007) and have adopted and modified ideas to suit their own practice. currently the curriculum cycle at marpole preschool flows from (1) observing children’s experiences, (2) reflecting and sharing multiple perspectives among staff, children, their families, and other professionals, (3) offering experiences to the responding to the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission of canada, a non-indigenous author and her coeducator embarked on a learning and research journey with 4-year-old children in a preschool program. the challenge for the educators was to make the experience meaningful to the children rather than handing down a set of information on indigenous cultures and history. through exploring indigenous stories, both the educators and the children shared their wonderings and coconstructed the meanings of them. developing authentic appreciation toward indigenous cultures and values through the power of stories became a first step toward reconciliation. key words: truth and reconciliation; indigenous cultures; pedagogical documentation; teacher research october 2019 83 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice children responding to their wonderings and interests, and back to (1) observation to continue the cycle. this process is often documented for further discussion as the curriculum cycle goes on. the documentation panels are displayed to make the children’s learning visible to the families and also to revisit the experiences with children to deepen their understanding and define their inquiries. the current staff share an image of the child who is curious, competent, collaborative, and a critical thinker. the preschool environment provides a space for children to work both socially and individually according to their interests and intentions. the educators strive to provide “one hundred languages” (malaguzzi, 2012) for children with different materials and methods to investigate their wonderings and communicate their ideas. exploration of an indigenous story the opportunity arose when the children in the four-year-old group showed interest in birds by making birds in the art area, singing a bird song, and acting out a bird story. hoping to explore an indigenous story as an entry point to respectfully engage with indigenous perspectives, we started to search for a story of a bird that could capture the children’s interest. soon we came across the commonly told indigenous story how raven stole the sun from different sources. in the story, raven the trickster looked for light for people who lived in darkness and successfully withdrew the sun from the box in sky chief ’s house using his trickery and the power of shape-shifting. a raven is a common figure among many north american indigenous stories and is often the trickster. this particular story of the raven bringing the sun is prevalent, with some variations through many indigenous communities in the northwest region of canada, such as tlingit, haida, and kwakwaka’wakw (westcoast child care resource centre, n.d.). we wondered: could this story lead us to authentic understanding and appreciation of indigenous cultures? would the children develop their curiosity respectfully toward indigenous cultures? would we, the educators, misinterpret the story and therefore misrepresent indigenous perspectives? though we felt uneasy in presenting a story that was unfamiliar to us, we eventually decided to tell it after finding many websites and resources that led us to the same story. during my research i collected felt board pieces, the book raven: a trickster tale from the pacific northwest (mcdermott, 2001), and a story kit with the characters painted on small rocks and other related props in a replica of an indigenous bentwood box from westcoast child care resource centre. we told the story using the felt board pieces first, reasoning that the book had more details and was very complex for the children to take in all at once. the exploration of how raven stole the sun started slowly, and the children received it with sincere curiosity. it provoked some questions: “how did a bird turn into a baby?” “it’s magic.” “why did raven take the sun?” “maybe his baby was in the nest and needed the sun.” “is he (raven) real?” “can raven turn into a train?” “how do you know this story? did you see it?” i was also filled with my own questions after listening to the children’s questions. is it appropriate to interpret the indigenous story in many ways? stories usually give listeners a chance to interpret and understand through october 2019 84 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice personal views, but is it acceptable to do so with an indigenous story? is there a certain way to interpret and understand the story? how do indigenous people tell this story to their children? what values do they want them to take from it? are there any characters that indigenous people relate themselves to in this story, such as people without light, raven the trickster, sky chief, or his daughter? regardless of our uncertainty, we told the same story for a few days. when we finished storytelling each time, the children would often start discussion with enthusiasm. “raven is so nice (to bring light to people).” “it’s nice of raven.” “no, it’s not nice to take the sun.” “if he doesn’t take the sun, people don’t have the sun. they have to use the light on the car.” “they don’t have the flashlight. it’s a long time ago. there were horses.” “the chief took the sun. he was a bad chief.” the children seemed to ponder morality in the story: “why was the chief keeping the sun to himself ? how did he get it?” “why did raven take the sun? it is not nice.” “but raven helped people and made them happy.” was it these moral issues that engaged the children deeply in the story? were they curious because they were developing a sense of justice, wanting to know what is right and what is wrong? over time, however, the children developed a shared understanding that people were in darkness and raven felt sad for them. they eventually gained a perspective to see raven as helpful and kind. after the storytelling session one day, the discussion led to another wondering: “raven took the sun so everyone has light. he saved the day. he helped people.” “why did raven take the sun? sun is very hot.” “but he is very strong.” “raven is not good at holding the sun. the sun is really, really hot!” responding to this discussion, we decided to tell another version of the same story, in which raven was originally thought to be white, but in the process of bringing out the sun, it turned black (kients, 2012; raven tales productions, 2005; williams, 2001). we shared with the children that the same story could be told in different ways in different indigenous cultures. when the story was finished, the children exclaimed with a sense of comprehension: “raven got burned!” “the sun was too hot.” “i was sure about the sun was very hot. raven cannot touch it.” “he burned his mouth.” “he got hot and ouchy.” through the exploration of the raven story, we rediscovered a strong image of a child who is capable and reflective. previously i wondered through which character in the story indigenous people would see themselves and how october 2019 85 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice they would interpret the story. contrary to my expectation and desire to “get it right,” the children’s discussion showed multiple understandings of the story. the exchange of different views was genuine, and the children listened to each other carefully and shared their ideas seriously, allowing themselves to see diverse and complex interpretations of the story. one child’s painting demonstrated another possible interpretation. she saw the story through sky chief ’s daughter’s eyes and made meaning of it. she explained, “she is sad because the baby was gone and the raven was away.” her deep understanding of attachment between a child and his mother astonished us. figure 1. sky chief’s daughter. “she is sad because the baby was gone and the raven was away.” exploring the story how raven stole the sun with the children continued for three weeks using different props and materials: the replica of a traditional bentwood box from west coast indigenous communities such as haida; rocks painted with the characters of the story borrowed from westcoast child care resource centre (n.d.); and the book (mcdermott, 2001). i noticed myself feeling more comfortable with interpreting an indigenous story. i felt reassured by harvey mccue and associates (2010), who state: non-aboriginal people often recorded first nations legends as fairy tales or myths, adding convenient morals to sum up the story. however, the stories of elders and accomplished storytellers often have no such ready explanation. the listener was expected to take time to think about the story and its meanings. (para. 18) harvey mccue and associates (2010) emphasize repetition as an important element of indigenous storytelling in order for the stories “to be told and ‘felt’ over and over again” (para. 20). jo-ann archibald (2008) agrees, stating, “one does not have to give a meaning right after hearing a story, as with the question-and-answer pedagogical approach. an important consideration is hearing stories over time so that they become embedded in memory” (p. 25). i recognized the same value in our storytelling, which was repeated for many days so that the children would take in the story’s meanings slowly. the repetition also allowed them to ponder their own questions and share their understandings. our learning process also coincides with one of the first peoples principles of learning (first nations education steering committee, 2008) that says, “learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and october 2019 86 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice relational.” the children and educators at marpole preschool experienced the power of storytelling by engaging with an indigenous story and exploring it deeply through telling and retelling it, as well as sharing reflections and wonderings. exploring the story with “the hundred languages” the founder of the reggio emilia schools, loris malaguzzi, inspires us in his poem, saying, “the child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking” (2012, p. 3). in our program, we make a conscious choice to offer opportunities for children to express their ideas in different ways other than verbal communication, such as designing, painting, drawing, or building, because we believe each child has a different approach to learning, as well as different talents to communicate their thoughts. since the children were keen to continue the raven story exploration, we invited them to act it out as another language of expression. they were thrilled and called it “a show.” some children quietly acted, while others spontaneously created their own lines, such as “i am going to search for light.” through acting, the children explored their earlier questions, such as, “how did the chief get the sun in the box?” they brainstormed: “he just took it.” “he grabbed it and put it in the box.” “raven took the sun for the chief.” as the children continued to act and tell the story through different roles, the chief ’s part evolved from “he just grabs the sun!” to “he needs to get on the ladder because the sun is too high.” the emotions of the characters also became expressive through acting since the children gave more thought to how they should act. they said the chief needed to look “angry” because he would say, “i keep it (the sun) all to myself ” and “not share.” when the raven child was crying for the sun, the children acting as the chief and his daughter showed love and care to console him. while their acting developed, the effects of room lights and the use of props (e.g., the raven took off the black fabric used as wings when it turned into a baby) evolved over four weeks. boys and girls took turns over time to play the raven, sky chief, and the daughter, regardless of their gender. they formed relationships with the characters, especially raven, because they were represented in their dramatic play during playtime and through many artworks. another “language” (malaguzzi, 2012) we provided for the children was drawing to explore their ideas rather than verbal discussion. as they drew, they exchanged their thoughts: “the raven is good.” “people feel good (with the sun).” “i like raven.” “he saved the day.” it seemed most of the children shared the view that raven was good figure 2. raven with buttons. october 2019 87 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice to bring the light to people. some children drew all the main characters: raven, sky chief and his daughter. we also noticed some children took time to depict each scene as they drew. the process of drawing itself became an opportunity to tell the story, and some of the drawings started to represent the sequence of the events. after drawing for a few days, there was a great collection of drawings. as we organized them in order, we noticed there was almost a complete set of illustrations that represented the entire story. the children were excited to see it, and they drew more pictures for the missing scenes. the collection of drawings grew, and finally there were enough pictures to tell the whole story of how raven brought the sun. we bound the pictures to make a book and read it to the children as “illustrated by the children of marpole preschool.” a sense of pride was shared in the class, and at the end of the day, one child brought her mother to show the book “illustrated by us.” raven the trickster puppet designed by doug lafortune, a coast salish artist, also added another dimension to the children’s relationship building with the character and provided different “languages” in their play. when i introduced it to them, the children started to talk to it. “hi, my name is fatima. i have a baby brother.” “you should break the door at the chief’s house. then you didn’t get dirty” (by going through the smoke hole as in the version by williams [2001]). “can i play with you, raven?” we told two other stories of raven the trickster using the puppet; one was adopted from heroes and heroines in tlingit-haida legend (beck, 1989) about how raven got fresh water and spread it to create rivers, and another was raven goes berrypicking (1991) by ann cameron. every time a story was finished, the children asked with excitement, “do you have any more raven stories?” both of these stories were explored deeply over time with different materials. the children enjoyed playing with the puppet and telling the stories they learned. the puppet soon became like another classmate, and the children expressed genuine affection toward raven. on valentine’s day, some children made a card for the puppet and said, “i love you, raven!” turning point and self-critiquing after exploring the raven stories for three months, i visited westcoast child care resource centre. looking for new materials and inspiration, i picked up a drum in the library and wondered “could we explore drumming as ‘the heartbeat of mother earth’” (bear & huff, 2016, p. 5; meuse-dallien, 2003, p. 51)? a man shared with me that he was a drummer from musqueam, the local indigenous community, and sang for a living, and was currently taking early childhood education courses. on the spot i excitedly shared what we had explored at the preschool. he acknowledged that we had learned a lot about haida culture, one of the northwest coast indigenous communities, but he also challenged me by asking, “what about musqueam?” even the raven story that we thought was a prevalent indigenous story, he pointed out, was from haida. he thanked me for our effort to bring indigenous figure 3. the bentwood box with the sun inside. raven with the sun in his beak. chief, his daughter, and the raven child. october 2019 88 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice cultures to the non-indigenous children at preschool, and encouraged me to look into local indigenous cultures. this encounter made me reflect carefully on our past learning journey of indigenous cultures at preschool, and i realized i had wrapped and presented to the children “indigenous people” as one big entity without being aware. though i knew there were different cultures, nations, and experiences among indigenous peoples, i called them conveniently “indigenous people” under one big umbrella and failed to acknowledge their diversity. then, what approach would have been better and more meaningful to the children? i was initially motivated to incorporate indigenous worldviews in our program because we share this land with indigenous peoples. if so, we need to look more into the local indigenous cultures, stories, and worldviews that are imbedded in this land. it would make more sense for the children who live on this land to learn the traditions and values that emerge here. as early childhood educators, we are trained to avoid misrepresentation and stereotyping of a certain culture when we introduce it to children. to avoid any bias or stereotype, julie bisson and louise derman-sparks (2016) suggest that educators reflect critically to uncover their own beliefs and feelings about specific cultures, to identify the messages of the activities they provide, and to consider concerns and perspectives of the families and the staff. i realized that introducing how raven brought the sun to the children as “indigenous” would create the perception that all indigenous peoples share the same story. cheryl bear and tim huff (2016) point out that “it is often assumed that all indigenous people in canada and the usa have totem poles and live or lived in tipis. but this is a stereotype” (p. 15). though i had been careful not to misrepresent the indigenous story, i misled the children without knowing. maggie macnevin and rachel berman (2017) point out that “children are actively constructing their own understanding of race” (p. 835). i could see my class of children making meaning of who “indigenous” people are through the story. the authors suggest that “educators engage in a continuous cycle of self-reflection and focused, thoughtful observation of children’s play and social interactions” (p. 837), and my conversation with the ece student from musqueam nation made me aware that i had not been careful enough and had presented an overgeneralized view of diverse indigenous cultures in canada. engaging with a story from the musqueam nation i started to search for a story from the musqueam nation to bring children’s focus to the local indigenous people to help them develop deeper understanding of indigenous perspectives rooted where they lived. though i found a few coast salish stories, they were not specifically from musqueam. i visited westcoast child care resource library and public libraries in different municipalities, where i was told it would be difficult to find a story that was from a specific indigenous nation. i went to xwi7xwa indigenous library at the university of british columbia (ubc), and they had only one children’s book from musqueam, let’s take a walk (grant, 2013), in which the author describes his childhood with a chinese father and a musqueam mother. the book was in the special collections and was not available for loan. the librarian searched for the source of the book and found that the musqueam cultural centre gallery might have a copy. at the gallery, i found other books, but they were written in the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language. the receptionist tried to find someone who could answer my question of where to find a musqueam story, and gave me a name and contact number. i contacted the person and shared my learning journey and struggle to find a musqueam story that i could share with the children. she could not think of a story right away and asked me for some time. the research was a struggle, and i was learning to accept that “there are certain things that are not for public consumption. they’re for our (musqueam’s) cultural benefit, for our identity, and for our own community’s self-worth” (grant, as cited in pape & dodds, n.d.). i continued my research, however, feeling it was important for us to know more about musqueam people and culture considering that marpole preschool was located in the area of the musqueam village called c̓əsnaʔəm dating back at least 4,000 years. october 2019 89 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the answer came from another source. the ece student from the musqueam nation that i had met at westcoast library connected me with his uncle, a musqueam elder. he was concerned about my process of indigenous exploration at the preschool and possible lack of knowledge about indigenous cultures, particularly musqueam. we had a meeting right away and shared our experiences and viewpoints. upon my request of learning a musqueam story, the elder shared two stories with me and the titles of two books as resources. one of the stories was found in musqueam reference grammar (suttles, 2004) as a sample of language use, hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, the downriver dialect of the salishan language halkomelem. musqueam means “people of grass” and the story tells how they came to be called so. the musqueam story of the double-headed serpent in order to connect the origin of the story and where we live, we invited the children to explore maps for a few weeks. while we explored the map of canada, they shared their knowledge of maps in general: “i live in canada so i live right here.” “i think school is around here.” “my house has a number.” “i live in canada and i have the number, too.” “my number has to be 749.” “if you are lost, you need a map.” “my car has a map that talks and tells you a way.” the conversation showed us that the children understood that a map represents a place, and they could use it as a tool to locate themselves and navigate to another place. responding to their understanding of a map, we explored further with a vancouver road map that included street numbers. we looked together at the locations of the preschool and the children’s homes, and the children recognized some street names and parks on the map. using this map, i decided to tell the musqueam story, hoping that it would help them connect the story with the place. i pointed at the spot on the map which used to be the lake where the double-headed serpent lived. i told the story that the massive serpent with two heads went through the musqueam people’s village and made a river. from the droppings of the serpent grew grass called məθkʷəy̓. musqueam people identified themselves with the grass which grew back strong even after it withered, and they became known as musqueam, the people of məθkʷəy̓ (grass). the children’s initial reaction to the story was curiosity and a slight fear of the large two-headed snake. they discussed: “is this real?” “i think it is a story.” we repeated the story for a few days, and wonderings and fear around the double-headed serpent continued to emerge in the children’s play. some of them, for example, pretended, “the serpent snake is coming. the one with two heads. everyone, hide!” through repeated telling of the same story, the children slowly became storytellers and shared their thoughts. “it’s the serpent snake.” october 2019 90 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice “two-headed snake.” “that makes me have a bad dream.” “grass grows up, and they said, ‘it’s alive!’” “it’s called məθkʷəy̓ for people in the grass.” “people eat the grass and next time people eat again.” “it keeps you healthy.” we shared the two-headed serpent images created by musqueam artists susan point (croes, point, & wyatt, 2014, p. 62) and brent sparrow, jr. the children were particularly impressed with sparrow’s double-headed serpent post that was raised in 2016 at ubc, and exclaimed, “wow! very cool!” being curious about their impression of the double-headed serpent, we invited the children to draw what they thought it looked like. while some children drew the image of sparrow’s double-headed serpent post, others drew a “double-headed serpent and a musqueam person” or the house in which the musqueam people hid. figure 4. “double-headed serpent came at night.” the children often included “poo” and “grass” in their drawings as important parts of the story. as we often do, we allowed children to continue exploring their ideas through drawing for a few days, and some children’s drawings grew from the simple depiction of the story to their own versions of the story. “double-headed serpent is mad. he’s going to the ocean. he’s going to get food. he will get food for everyone.” “the snake came at night and bonked on the grass, ‘ow!’” “double-headed serpent said, ‘sorry for ruining the fun.’ they bonked their head and people put bandages on them. double-headed serpent was trying to get pears because they were hungry.” the pictures of the double-headed serpent getting “bonked” or eating fruits made us wonder if they were making the scary serpent more humorous and approachable. october 2019 91 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice there was also a story of the double-headed serpent getting attacked by a superhero. “it’s anpan man and crocodile fighting the snake. crocodile bite and bite. the two-headed snake said, ‘ouch! ouch!’” when they retold the story using the props, locking up the door for safety and attacking the serpent were prominent. “people locked up their doors.” “they said, ‘lock up your house! two-headed snake is coming!” “i’m gonna cut the head off.” it seems that locking up or fighting back was their way to feel secure and more powerful than the serpent. while we frequently revisited the story as a group during circle time, some children made the double-headed serpent out of paper during playtime. they drew two snake heads and attached them with a piece of tape which also represented a tail. they used the self-crafted serpents as puppets and acted out. “double-headed serpent is eating the flowers! yum, yum, yum…” “now it’s eating ice cream!” after feeding the puppet serpents well at the play kitchen, they moved on to the couch and announced, “doubleheaded serpent is sleepy now,” and pretended to sleep. though the children perceived the double-headed serpent as scary at the start of the exploration, it seems that they found a way to make it less scary through drawing, storytelling, and pretend play. the serpent players made more double-headed serpents over a few days, and we wondered if other children would like to try making one. we provided buttons, rings, small cups, ribbons, and variety of paper, including one with a reptile print. we brought some artworks of the double-headed serpent by indigenous artists as a reference. this sparked the children’s imagination and creativity, and they made different styles of the double-headed serpent. there seemed to be some confusion in the children’s understanding of how many heads and eyes to make for the serpent. does it need two eyes for each head or one eye for each head? one child made two eyes on each head, but each eye turned into a face and ended up having four heads. another child made one eye for each head. the children had a discussion on how many eyes they should make for the serpent when i pointed out, “emma’s serpent has only one eye on each head, just like one of the artists who made the serpent. why do you think he did that?” figure 5. “double-headed serpent said, ‘sorry for ruining the fun.’ they bonked their head and people put bandages on them.” figure 6. the double-headed serpent. “i forgot to put the tail.” october 2019 92 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice “because there was a fire, and one serpent got one eye burned and another serpent got one eye burned.” “because the artist cannot draw on the other side. he just drew this side.” “one is facing here and one is facing there.” later on, i learned from the musqueam student another legend of a double-headed serpent whose two heads did not agree with each other. in this story, the eye on each head that was facing the other head was blinded so that they would not attack each other, and therefore the double-headed serpent had only two eyes altogether. sto:lo writer lee maracle shares a similar image of a double-headed serpent in her novel celia’s song (2014). she writes, “the two heads argue and as the day wears on the argument heats up until both heads are shouting and twisting to emphasize their points of view … when two heads from the same body go to war, no one wins” (p. 23). i realized the question of how many eyes the serpent should have was not a simple math question, and i needed further research to guide children to understand the depth of the story and the significance of the double-headed serpent in musqueam and other coast salish cultures. while the children were engaged in the process of making a double-headed serpent collage, i had an opportunity to learn a little more about the doubleheaded serpent from the musqueam elder who had shared the story with me. i contacted him because i felt uneasy about the children’s reactions of fear and worries whether the serpent was real or not. i asked: is it appropriate to be scared of the double-headed serpent? is it a sacred figure in musqueam history and culture? through the answers from the elder, i learned: • musqueam people believe the serpent is very real. you cannot always see it, but you can feel by changes in the temperature and atmosphere. • the double-headed serpent is powerful and sacred. it protects musqueam. it is good if you need protection, but if you trouble it needlessly, it is bad. • it is “illegal for musqueam people to know fear.” i am learning slowly about musqueam people and their culture through the exploration of stories, and i have started to see them as a strong nation with a tradition of warriors. modern-day warriors are “still dedicated to protecting musqueam culture and territory” through “such causes as language revival, land title and access to fishing” (musqueam indian band, 2006, p. 19). did the elder share the story of the double-headed serpent with me to represent the musqueam people’s resiliency and strength through the image of reviving river grass? is it this resiliency of warriors that keeps the musqueam nation strong in the history of colonialism in canada? i wondered what the children would think of the perspectives of the musqueam elder. i decided to share them by bringing back the conversation of “being scared.” i retold the serpent story once again and revisited the children’s first impression of the double-headed serpent as scary. after three figure 7. the double-headed serpent with tongues. october 2019 93 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice weeks of exploration, even when i told them that “my musqueam friend” said that the serpent was real, many children remained calm and some claimed, “i am not scared of it anymore.” there were only a few who admitted, “it’s scary because it’s a snake. i am scared of snakes.” we also discussed the perspective from the musqueam elder that the serpent was strong and therefore could protect them, and they thought, “that’s nice!” the other musqueam value, that they were not supposed to be scared of anything, was also shared. how could this be possible? the children related their experiences to this question: “i am not scared because i am brave.” “i have a special rock. if i had bad dreams, it makes me have good dreams. if i dreamed about the twoheaded serpent, it would just poop on dirt.” “i have my special stuffy emily to cuddle with.” “i am brave because i have a sword and shield.” “i have a strong whip to make me strong.” “i am not scared because i have mommy.” the children seemed to understand that everybody could feel scared, but they also had their own strategies to cope with fear. in their perspective, weapons seemed to be something that they could count on for their sense of security. reflection on the double-headed serpent exploration when we started to explore the story of the double-headed serpent, the children were scared and worried whether the serpent was real or not. as they explored the story further, they became more familiar with the serpent. they thought about what the serpent ate (e.g., pears) and what it did (e.g., bonked on the head, “ouch!”), which reflected their own life experiences. it seems that they tried to cope with fear toward the double-headed serpent, the unknown monster, by making it something more familiar and humorous. as the discussion on fear deepened, some children started to express their bravery and others shared their strategies to face fear. they seemed to value bravery that adults often demonstrate in front of children. the children talked about special things to help them cope with fear, such as a special rock, sword and shield, and mommy. while they have their own strategies to be brave and strong, it seems that the children became more familiar with the double-headed serpent through repeated storytelling, drawing, and making a serpent collage over the three-week period of exploration. i was given an opportunity to share the children’s exploration of the musqueam story with a group of indigenous ece students. reflecting on the children’s fear of the double-headed serpent, one student shared a poem by chief dan george (n.d.) from tsleil-waututh nation. if you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. if you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. what one fears one destroys. the poem seems to answer my wondering: was it the unfamiliarity of the serpent that the children were actually scared of ? as they listened to the story many times and mulled over the serpent’s significance, have they developed october 2019 94 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice a relationship with the serpent? this simple wondering made me also reflect on my own fear and hesitation that i have been experiencing since we embarked on the exploration of indigenous cultures in our preschool. the truth and reconciliation commission of canada (2015a) urges us to establish and maintain a mutually respectful relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples in this country. in order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour. (p. 6) do we, the educators, also fear the unfamiliar, such as indigenous cultures or the uncertainty of the truth and reconciliation process, the path that many of us are still searching for? should we teach young children about the brutal past of colonization as a start? what is the role of an early childhood educator in order to support children along with ourselves to establish and maintain “a mutually respectful relationship” with indigenous people? the history of colonization and canada’s residential school systems that have left a deep scar in indigenous communities will be taught in later years as the children grow into the current school curriculum. to understand the devastation of the history, they will need to be personally connected to and appreciative of indigenous cultures. how, then, could an educator foster a deep connection and appreciation in children? i was initially hesitant to start the exploration of indigenous cultures and was unsure where to start, but by developing the curriculum together with the children through their wonderings and interests, i have been learning and moving forward to figure out how an early childhood educator can respond to the calls to action toward truth and reconciliation. i realize that the journey has fostered my own understanding and appreciation of indigenous cultures and history beyond my initial fear of the unknown. is this the fear that sets barriers between different cultures, races, or peoples in the world? has cultural assimilation come from this fear of not knowing each other? have many conflicts in human history arisen from this fear that is generated in people when they encounter the unknown? we, as early childhood educators, are called to action. on the last day the last day of our preschool term fell on june 21st, national indigenous peoples day, and the elder from the musqueam nation that i had made a connection with invited all the children of marpole preschool and their families to their public celebration in their community. we made the event as our last field trip and brought as many family members as we could. together we viewed musqueam artworks such as house posts, welcome figures, woven blankets, and spindle whorls. each family enjoyed the food that the musqueam community provided, and games and crafts for the children. some were surprised to see a man wearing a traditional salish cedar hat, and exclaimed, “it’s chief. it’s real.” some children were excited to see a real bentwood box like the one in which sky chief hid the sun in the raven story, and the musqueam race canoe on display that had come up in another indigenous story that they had learned. through the visit to the musqueam event, the children and their families made a connection with the local musqueam community and culture. they were glad that they joined the event because they “didn’t know where the current musqueam community was” otherwise. some shared, “it was nice to know musqueam people were so friendly and welcoming.” although these comments came from their innocence and i resonate with them, i realize they indicate the barriers that exist between non-indigenous and indigenous peoples: we and the other. along with innocence, there is ignorance, and these comments show that ongoing reconciliation practices are required. without opportunities to respectfully engage with indigenous peoples, non-indigenous people could remain ignorant of contemporary, local indigenous communities. along with the preschool exploration of a musqueam traditional story and community visit, the children, their families, and the teachers took their very first step in the journey toward reconciliation. i believe the presence of our preschool october 2019 95 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice community at the event also showed musqueam people our sincere engagement with their culture and community and an action toward reconciliation to establish respectful relationships. in the evening after our visit to the musqueam community, gabi and i continued our exploration of indigenous cultures by attending the meet-the-author talk by lee maracle at burnaby public library. she shared many stories and ideas, and the one that struck me was when she was asked how canadians could help indigenous peoples. her answer was simple: “what we need is friendship, relationships, not help” (2018, n.p.). “friendship and relationships” are what the children and the educators at marpole preschool have been developing for seven months, and it is our response to the following call: together, canadians must do more than just talk about reconciliation; we must learn how to practise reconciliation in our everyday lives—within ourselves and our families, and in our communities, governments, places of worship, schools, and workplaces. to do so constructively, canadians must remain committed to the ongoing work of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships. (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015b, p. 11) the indigenous stories and artworks and the people we have come to know during the exploration supported the children, their families, and the educators to develop an authentic appreciation of their cultures. i personally grew, from being uncertain and fearful, to feeling more committed and hopeful in this journey of reconciliation. october 2019 96 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references archibald, j. (2008). indigenous storywork: education the heart, mind, body, and spirit. vancouver: ubc press. avery, j., callaghan, k., & wien, c. a. (2016). documenting children’s meaning: engaging in design and creativity with children and families—inspired by the reggio emilia experience. worcester, ma: davis. bear, c., & huff, t. (2016). the honour drum: sharing the beauty of canada’s indigenous people with children, families, and classrooms. lagoon city, on: castle quay books. beck, l. m. (1989). heroes and heroines in tlingit-haida legend. bothell, wa: alaska northwest books. bisson, j., & derman-sparks, l. (2016). holidays and anti-bias education: being thoughtful and creative. child care exchange, september/ october. retrieved from http://www.antibiasleadersece.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/holidays-and-abe-bisson-dermansparks.pdf cadwell, l. (1997). bringing reggio emilia home: an innovative approach to early childhood education. new york, ny: teachers college press. cameron, a. (1991). raven goes berrypicking. madeira park, bc: harbour publishing. croes, d., point, s., & wyatt, g. (2014). susan point: works on paper. vancouver, bc: figure 1 publishing. curtis, d., & carter, m. (2017). learning together with young children: a curriculum framework for reflective teachers (2nd ed.). st. paul, mn: redleaf press. edwards, c., gandini, l., & forman, g. (eds.). (2012). the hundred languages of children: the reggio emilia experience in transformation. (3rd ed.). santa barbara, ca: abc-clio, llc. first nations education steering committee. (2015). first peoples principles of learning. retrieved from http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wpcontent/uploads/2015/09/pub-lfp-poster-principles-of-learning-first-peoples-poster-11x17.pdf fraser, s. (2012). authentic childhood: experiencing reggio emilia in the classroom (3rd ed.). toronto, on: nelson education. george, d. (n.d.). talk to animals. retrieved from https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/talk-to-animals/ grant, l. (2013). let’s take a walk: wo men chu qu zou zou la! vancouver, bc: musqueam indian band. harvey mccue & associates. (2010). the learning circle: classroom activities on first nations in canada. retrieved from https://www. rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1316530132377/1535460393645 kients, c. (2012). raven tales: how raven stole the sun. markham, on: scholastic. macnevin, m., & berman, r. (2017). the black baby doll doesn’t fit the disconnect between early childhood diversity policy, early childhood educator practice, and children’s play. early child development and care, 187(5–6), 827–839. https://doi.org/10.108 0/03004430.2016.1223065 malaguzzi, l. (2012). no way. the hundred is there. in c. edwards, l. gandini, & g forman (eds.), the one hundred languages of children: the reggio emilia experience in transformation (3rd ed.; pp. 2–3). santa barbara, ca: abc-clio, llc. maracle, l. (2014). celia’s song. toronto, on: cormorant books. mcdermott, g. (2001). raven: a trickster tale from the pacific northwest. boston, ma: hmh books for young readers. meuse-dallien, t. (2003). the sharing circle: stories about first nations culture. halifax, ns: nimbus. musqueam indian band. (2006). musqueam: a living culture. victoria, bc: copper moon. pape, j-g., & dodds, k. (n.d.). this land: a companion resource for early childhood educators to accompany five short films. retrieved from https://drawingwisdom.ca/thisland october 2019 97 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice pelo, a. (2007). the language of art: inquiry-based studio practices in early childhood settings. st. paul, mn: redleaf press. raven tales productions. (2005). raven tales episode 1: how raven stole the sun [videorecording]. bowen island, bc: author. suttles, w. p. (2004). musqueam reference grammar. vancouver: ubc press. truth and reconciliation commission of canada. (2015a). honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: summary of the final report of the truth and reconciliation commission of canada. retrieved from http://www.trc.ca/assets/pdf/honouring_the_truth_ reconciling_for_the_future_july_23_2015.pdf truth and reconciliation commission of canada. (2015b). truth and reconciliation commission of canada: calls to action. retrieved from http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/calls_to_action_english2.pdf westcoast child care resource centre. (n.d.). how raven stole the sun [information sheet]. vancouver, bc: author. williams, m. (2001). how raven stole the sun. new york, ny: abbeville press. july 2021 20 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research can i share your ideas with the world? young children’s consent in the research process sonya gaches sonya gaches is currently a lecturer at the university of otago college of education in dunedin, new zealand, after spending more than 25 years as an early childhood educator in the united states. sonya’s research interests include teaching/learning experiences in the early childhood education community, children’s rights, and how these interact with policies and practices. email: sonya.gaches@ otago.ac.nz the participatory articles of the united nations’ convention on the rights of the child (uncrc; 1989) have called particular attention to the promise of conducting research with young children and the role young children’s views and voices can and likely should play in all matters that affect them. this perspective of children as agentic and capable is reflected in the early childhood curriculum of aotearoa new zealand, te whāriki (new zealand ministry of education, 2017), which states: children are capable and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society. (p. 2, emphasis added) however, the promise of young children being perceived as capable and confident and having their participation rights fully recognized is a journey that has been fraught with more than a few bumps in the road and plenty of uneven, uncertain footing. the process of consent to participate in research has been an ever-present obstacle for researchers desiring to work with young children. this article first discusses some of the many issues related to the consent of young children to participate in research and then describes how recent research addressed these issues in a project with children aged 2 to 5 years in early childhood education settings on the south island of aotearoa new zealand. most specifically, as part of a greater research project, answers to the following questions were sought: what will be needed to acquire informed consent of young children in this research? what assurances could there be that young children understand the research project and what it means to consent to participate? it is hoped that this article’s discussion and illustrative example can provide guidance for those wishing to undertake research with children. informed consent in research with children one of the first questions that arises is whether children assent or consent to participate in research. according to the online oxford english dictionary, the two words have very similar meanings. the verb assent means “to give utilizing the four features of informed consent from the guiding document ethical research involving children, the article illustrates how the informed consent process was carried out with young children from the initial planning stages through the ongoing research’s focused conversations. specifically, the questions of what would be needed to acquire informed consent from the children and what assurances could there be that young children understood the research and how its results would be disseminated are addressed. the article concludes with suggestions for what other researchers might consider and include in their local contexts. key words: children’s participation rights; informed consent; research ethics; early childhood july 2021 21 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the concurrent of one’s will, to agree to (a proposal), to comply with (a desire)” whereas the verb consent means “voluntarily to accede to or acquiesce in what another proposes or desires; to agree, comply, yield.” additionally, in the full definition of consent, “to assent” is also used. the distinction between these two words rests predominantly in the manner in which they have been used in research to denote legal ramifications originating from the biomedical field (graham et al., 2013; guillemin & gillam, 2004; morrow & richards, 1996; oulton et al., 2016). young children are generally deemed to be a vulnerable population in need of care and oversight by adults (particularly parents, teachers, agencies, and community organizations). thus, informed consent to participate in research must be first obtained from these adults in most instances. informed consent indicates that the consenting person has been informed of the purpose, potential benefits, and risks of participation and then voluntarily agrees (or consents) to participate. this consent is most often confirmed in writing but can also be documented as a verbal agreement in the transcript of a recorded interview or other similar means (marshall, 2003). based upon the legal requirements of consent and due to the fact that children are not deemed to be of legal responsible age, some researchers and human ethics review boards assert that children cannot consent but can only assent or dissent to participating in the research (te one, 2007). as noted by guillemin and gillam (2004), informed consent marks a special relationship between the researcher and research participant “where the prospective participant comes to an understanding of what the research project is about and what participation would involve and makes his or her own free decision about whether, and on what terms, to participate” (p. 272). graham et al. (2013) and graham, powell, and taylor (2015) argue that this special relationship and indicative respect between researcher and potential research participant must also be extended to young child research participants. the research discussed in this article takes a similar view of young children as capable and confident, to be respected throughout the research process, and able to make their own free decisions regarding participation. thus, i shall be referring to young children’s informed consent with the acknowledgement that parental consent and institutional consent has already been achieved. the guiding document ethical research involving children (graham et al., 2013) states that informed consent has four main features: consent involves an explicit act; consent can only be given if the participants are informed about and have an understanding of the research; consent must be given voluntarily without coercion; consent must be renegotiable so that children may withdraw at any stage of the research process. after a further elaboration on these four main features, they will be used as a means to address the two previously stated research questions. consent as an explicit act the role of parental (or other designated guardian) consent as well as consent from other institutional gatekeepers is reaffirmed in graham et al.’s (2013) consideration that informed consent must be considered an explicit act. while we continue to acknowledge young children as capable and confident, in most cases it remains a legal requirement for those charged with the care and safety of children to provide the first consents. however, as mentioned previously, the uncrc articles 12 and 13 assert that children have the right to have their views given due consideration in a manner that is appropriate to their age and capabilities (united nations, 1989). children then are part of a “triad (rather than a participant/researcher dyad) consisting of the researcher, child participant and parent or carer” (graham et al., 2013, p. 57). furthermore, in recognition that the child is a member of particular cultures and communities that have similar moral, ethical, or legal responsibilities for the children, consent may also be obtained from those community members. understanding the research in order to consent the challenge to the researcher then becomes how to explain the research in a manner that is understandable july 2021 22 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research for the young child (smith, 2011, 2013). the research project itself must be described so that young children understand its purpose, what they will be required to do as part of the research, and how their contributions will be disseminated. for young children, having results published in a journal or presented at a research conference may have very little meaning. standard written research consent processes are not sufficient for children (graham et al., 2015) or some other populations (marshall, 2003). within these informed consent documents there is generally a great deal of written text and complex academic or legal language. however, it is the responsibility of the researcher to make the informed consent process approachable and understandable. where article 12 of the uncrc states that children have the right to have their views given due consideration in matters that affect them, it is important to remember that article 13 further states that children have “the right to freedom of expression” and that these expressions can be made through a variety of means not limited to print but also inclusive of “the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.” furthermore, general comment number 7: implementing child rights in early childhood (office of the high commissioner for human rights, 2005) requires adults to demonstrate “patience and creativity by adapting their expectations to the young child’s interests, levels of understanding and preferred ways of communicating” (14c). this means that adults need to draw upon uncrc’s article 5 to recognize children’s “evolving capacities” and draw from these capacities as the child’s strengths in order to continually modify our adult notions of what it means to participate and how young children can express themselves as they participate. researchers have documented several strategies for undertaking revised and more child-appropriate consent processes while still fulfilling the mandates of human ethics committees, including semistructured, planned conversations (gray & winter, 2011; harcourt & conroy, 2011), a consultation process with other children (gaches & gallagher, 2019; harcourt & conroy, 2011), the use of a poster (bitou & waller, 2011), an information booklet (gaches & gallagher, 2019; te one, 2011), and photographs with captions (graham et al., 2013). regardless of which medium is used to communicate these requirements, language must be used that is familiar, approachable, and understandable to the desired child participants in that place and time (graham et al., 2013). moreover, it is important for children to have some type of reference point or materials to which they can later refer as the research proceeds. information provided to children should include details usually associated with the consent process (e.g., research topic and purpose, what participation involves, potential benefits and risks, ongoing options to withdraw, where the research will take place). however, it should also contain information about what will become of anything the children create, such as drawings or photographs. voluntary consent without coercion children must feel that they can freely consent or dissent. adults are frequently perceived by children as those who have power over them. this can be particularly true in education settings (gaches, 2020; gaches & gallagher, 2019; gallagher et al., 2010) where children may feel obliged to participate, as they must for schoolwork, or that participation can be bartered to gain the adult’s favour or to get out of undesirable work. children may also feel pressure to participate through overt goading and coaxing from peers or from feeling they are missing out on somethings special. graham et al. (2013) also provide several considerations for how various cultural considerations around respect, hospitality, and obedience can factor into unintentional coercion for children to participate. in a related vein, children may feel that withdrawing their consent may damage their relationship with the adult researcher or other adults associated with the research (gaches, 2020) and so they are coerced into continuing with the research out of fear of hurting this relationship. july 2021 23 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research consent as renegotiable throughout the research throughout the research process consent must be affirmed and children must have the right to discontinue their participation even if their parents or other gatekeepers have consented and desire the child to participate. while this is generally true for all research participants, special considerations are involved for young children (graham et al., 2013; gray & winter, 2011). first, young children may not have the verbal capacity to state their desire to discontinue. special attention must be paid to children’s nonverbal or behavioural dissention (gray & winter, 2011). a child ignoring an adult’s prompts or who only plays with research materials should not be seen as adversarial but rather as expressing their dissent to participate. dockett, einarsdóttir, and perry (2011) note that children can express their dissent in many ways, such as verbally, requesting to leave to use the toilet, and engaging with research materials but not the researcher. additionally, a child research participant may participate one day and then decide on a following day to no longer be a part of the research. researchers must then decide, based upon their research design, whether or not that child can rejoin the research again another time (harcourt & conroy, 2011). gray and winter (2011) utilized “process consent” (p. 31) to break the research into smaller pieces and then recognize children’s consent/dissent through discrete changes in their nonverbal cues along each step of the research. finally, special considerations also come into play when researching in group contexts (graham et al, 2013) as children may again feel coerced to continue because they want to be a part of the group, they fear teasing or bullying if they withdraw, or if the group engagement doesn’t provide a sufficient opportunity to exit. the study in an effort to better understand the lives of young children on the south island of aotearoa new zealand, both as a new resident and because recent related research by the children’s commissioner (children’s commissioner manaakitia ā tātou tamariki & oranga tamariki ministry for children, 2019) excluded the voice of these children, i undertook a small-scale qualitative research project with young children. following a consultative process with older children (gaches, 2020; gaches & gallagher, 2019), it was determined that i would engage in focused conversations with young children in their early childhood settings to find out where and how they learned, how they were engaged in their communities, and what their thoughts were for their future. through my community engagements as part of the initial teacher education (ite) program at my university, i approached two early childhood education settings about conducting this research with their 2to 5-year-old children. one setting is a local kindergarten (beachside kindergarten1) and the other is a nonprofit community-based education and care centre (hillside centre). both settings were interested in the research and so sought and obtained consent from their governing bodies. the research plan developed with school-age child consultants (gaches & gallagher, 2019) included having focused conversations with young children while they played with legos or drew with markers/crayons. other times the young children took photographs with special child-friendly cameras and we used these photographs as discussion starters (einarsdóttir, 2005). during these conversations i would ask them about their learning, their engagements with the community, and what they thought life would be like when they were adults. results from these focused conversations, the children’s views and voices, will take centre focus in further publications. however, before these focused conversations began, the informed consent process had to be undertaken. throughout this research, many ethical issues were considered (gaches, 2020), but the ethical consent process itself asked these questions: july 2021 24 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research • what will be needed to acquire informed consent of the young children in this research? • what assurances could there be that young children understand the research project and what it means to consent to participate? the four main features of informed consent discussed previously (graham et al., 2013) were used as both a planning tool and as part of critically reflexive ethics in practice (gaches, 2020) in addressing these questions and are discussed in the following. data for this article is drawn from the documents used in the consent process, as well as field notes recorded after each research visit and transcripts from the conversations with children. enacting the four features of informed consent from the outset of this research planning, efforts were made to engage with all of these features of informed consent. the discussion that follows is not a chronological ordering of the process but is rather organized by the four features. often various actions that were taken in the informed consent process fell into more than one feature. it is hoped that this illustrative example can provide guidance for those wishing to undertake further research with children. consent as an explicit act in action. informed consent was attained from the early childhood settings and their administrative bodies as well as the children’s parents as part of the institutional human ethics requirements. however, from the beginning the intention was to provide multiple opportunities to obtain informed consent from the children themselves. this informed consent would be through explicit means as well as implicit ongoing consent. this section will discuss the explicit means. how implicit consent/dissent occurred will be discussed in a later section. because i was familiar with the settings and knew that engagement with books was a common occurrence, the explicit act of providing information about the research was through a specially created big book and individual handheld-sized black-and-white copies of the same book (gaches, 2020; te one, 2011). the reading and discussion of these books was the explicit act of informing the children about the research, its purpose, what the children would be expected to do, and what would happen to their contributions. on the last page of the book was a set of tick-boxes where children could mark their consent/dissent to participate and a box where they could “sign” their name (or make their mark) in one of the handheld-sized books. i explained to the children that this marking and signing would prove to other adults that each child had made their own decision to participate in the research with me and have their ideas shared with the world. at hillside centre, reading the big book was part of the normally occurring whole group time at mid-morning. the children were especially engaged by particular graphic aspects of the book (to be discussed in the following section) and the opportunity to sign their names in the box. at beachside kindergarten, reading the big book was an optional choice activity during the regularly occurring playtime after morning kai (snack). about one-fourth of the children chose to come and sit in the area where books are routinely read with groups of children. the attending children had a variety of levels of engagement, from peripherally engaged while playing with a friend, to sitting quietly and appearing to listen intently. furthermore, in both settings as i began each subsequent engagement with children, either individually or in small groups, i pulled out one of the handheld-sized booklets to remind the children about the research project and its key informational points. if this was the first time a child was participating, they had the opportunity to mark their consent/dissent on the final page. the child was then offered another copy—their own copy—of the small book to keep. during each research visit, i kept a handheld-sized copy of the informed consent book next to me where i july 2021 25 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research was sitting. when a returning child began their engagement with me, i would point out the book and remind them of what i was doing in the early childhood centre that day, once again explicitly seeking their informed consent/ dissent. understanding the research in order to consent in action. the challenge in creating the big book and accompanying handheld booklets was to create a narrative that would provide the necessary information but also be approachable and understandable to these young children. i had preexisting relationships with these early childhood settings as a visiting lecturer (supervisor) for our student teachers (student kaiako). many of the children already knew me as someone who was there as their student teacher’s university teacher. now i was there in a different capacity doing something much more directly focused on their play, their interests, and their ideas. therefore, my new purpose for being in their space had to be addressed. the first part of the informed consent book addressed this point: hello! my name is sonya gaches. i work at the university of otago. sometimes i come to (name of setting) to see how new kaiako are doing and to help them become even better kaiako. you may have seen me here before writing things on my ipad and talking with your kaiako. maybe you and i have even played together while i was here. another part of my job at the university of otago is to do research. research is when you are curious and are wondering about some questions you have. you figure out a way to find an answer to that question. i bet you do research, too! what do you do when you have a question about something? maybe you explore, looking for the answer. maybe you ask someone else about your question. maybe you watch or listen really carefully. these are some of the things i do as a researcher when i have questions. right now i am curious and wondering about children’s lives. i think sometimes grown-ups forget to ask children about things that are important. sometimes they remember but they only ask older children, like children who are in schools. sometimes they forget to ask children who are in (kindergartens/early childhood centres)—children like you! in a similar vein, the book continues to briefly share, in child-friendly language, some of the gatekeeping steps i took, including a brief mention of consulting with older children (gaches, 2020; gaches & gallagher, 2019) and getting permission from their teachers and parents. perhaps one of the most challenging parts of the narrative was describing what they would be doing in a manner that kept their attention and was somewhat enticing and interesting but was still realistic and contained the needed information. this was accomplished through a first-person narrative with shorter, direct sentences in a very matterof-fact manner, such as in the following excerpt: when we’re talking and drawing or building, i’m going to record our voices. that way i can remember what you say. when we’re all done with this research, i’ll delete all the recordings of us talking. sometimes you might want to give me your drawings or we might take a picture of your drawings or what you build. you get to decide. i then made sure to let them know what i would do with the information they shared with me: then i’ll share some of your ideas with other grown-ups so they can hopefully make some better decisions about things children want or need in their lives and how to make things better for children. sometimes i’ll write about your ideas for people to read about. other times i’ll go to big meetings and talk about your ideas. july 2021 26 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research this point was reiterated two more times in the book and the final consent tick-box noted that by marking that box they were saying “i want people around the world to hear my ideas.” this last point rather became an ongoing mantra of the research project. as noted previously, when children reengaged with me on multiple visits, i would point to the handheld version of the book to remind them of the project and then i would ask, “can i share your ideas with the world?” however, even the best intentions of this messaging can be problematic. after all, what does “the world” mean for these children? is it the world in which they are most directly participating, or might this world extend to worlds they see through the media, including but not limited to social media, reality television, and fictional “world/time” settings? to at least partially address these ambiguities, as was conversationally appropriate with the children in our interactions, i would mention how i had travelled to faraway places like america (how the children referred to the united states) and denmark and how i had shared my work with the primary school children with adults (the children’s preferred word) while i was there. while denmark was less known to them, some children had family in america or had travelled to america, and children were often curious about my family there or things i did growing up there. these conversations led me to believe that at least some of the children had an understanding of “the world” extending to faraway places outside their usual daily routines. however, this is also an issue that the concept of ethical mirroring can address (christensen & prout, 2002; gaches, 2020). how research findings will be disseminated and what impact they may have are ethical considerations that researchers must address within the consent process for all research participants, regardless of their ages and capabilities. there were several indicators that the big book / handheld books and accompanying conversations were successful in helping the children understand at least some key elements of the research. first, children were engaged and attentive at each reading of the big book. at beachside kindergarten, a couple of children were very excited about the cartoon-like illustrations in the book, most particularly a big rainbow and a cartoon version of me. one of the children exclaimed that she knew the cartoon-type person was me because of the glasses being worn and the purple streak in the character’s hair (just like mine at the time). this was an intentional likeness that the book’s illustrator (my artistically gifted sister2) had incorporated. a few children were particularly excited to participate after that first reading. at hillside centre, one child, ab, was so excited that she interrupted the discussion at the end of the reading, insistent that she wanted to sign her name and for people to hear her ideas. additionally, at beachside kindergarten, both b and c immediately requested their own copies of the handheld booklets. even after i explained that we wouldn’t actually start the research until my next visit, they both demanded (and received) their own copies right then. c ran off to show his copy of the book to his mother, one of the kindergarten’s kaiako (teachers). it’s interesting to note that children often chose to draw with the markers rather than build with legos (dockett et al., 2011) and that several of them also asked for another copy of the handheld book. i was perplexed at first, but children often wanted to colour in the grayscale pictures of the booklet while conversing with me about the research project and my planned focused conversation intentions. this was not something i had anticipated but went along with, as interacting with these consent books appeared to create a physical connection for the children to focus our conversation and its purpose. the children then kept this additional booklet as their created artwork and as a point of reference to which they referred as to why they were chatting with me that day (graham et al., 2013). it may have just been the novelty of this new process, the receiving the gift of their own small book to keep, or their colouring in of the pictures, but i never saw a booklet just discarded or laying around. it appeared that, for at least some of these children, these books were something special. the following response from b led me to believe that the consent booklets held a connection to potential power. upon receiving her copy of the consent booklet, b ran around the kindergarten showing the booklet to the other july 2021 27 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children, including children who had not listened to the reading of the big book. she provided a good summary of the key points to these children (whether they seemed interested or not) and made a point about how i was going to share their ideas with the world while pointing to the picture of the world in the booklet. when i left the kindergarten for the day shortly thereafter, i saw b standing in the outdoor play space, clutching the booklet to her chest. each time i returned when b was in attendance, she was eager to participate in our play and focused conversations. this small book seemed to hold the potential for something exciting, something that would make a difference for her. during a later conversation about how she learned to wink, b strongly stated that “my dad teacheded me to have a giant voice, too.” it was as if this consent booklet was an object that was going to help that giant voice be heard all the more. b was not the only child who could explain aspects of the project very well to others unprompted. during one research day at beachside kindergarten, i was drawing and conversing with w when her younger brother approached. while i was explaining the research to him, w interrupted to clarify and then proceeded to explain the research in a manner her brother better understood. she then guided him through the process of making his marks of consent. i then verbally asked him if i could share his ideas with the world to double-check that he wasn’t feeling coerced by his big sister (graham et al., 2013). meanwhile, at hillside centre, ab’s mother shared with me (and i retell here with permission from mother and child) that during a home conflict between siblings, her daughter became quite distressed when the older sibling was tattling on something ab had said. reportedly, ab declared to her mother that she had not given permission in that instance to have her words shared with the world. voluntary consent without coercion in action. since i had a preexisting relationship with these early childhood settings as someone who would be observing student teachers, i was aware that, based upon this relationship, children may see me as a figure with some power and authority even though i had also often engaged in some play and conversations with the children. i was also careful during this research to not be the designated supervisor for any student teachers in these settings. instead, i renewed my relationship with the centre at the beginning of the academic year as only an observer and play participant. my play with children began with just sitting in play areas and engaging with them as they approached me. sometimes i was the recipient of sand-tea times and other times i drew or sculpted playdough alongside children, while still other times i was requested to push children on the swings or to “watch this!” after reading the big book to the children, this relationship shifted as i became the researcher. when children approached me to play, again i would remind them through use of the handheld booklets that i was there for research. the three consent options were • permission to play and talk and for sonya to share their ideas with the world • permission to play and talk but sonya could not share their ideas with the world • no permission to play or talk with sonya. nearly all children who engaged with the consent booklets chose the option to play and talk with me and for me to share their ideas with the world. one child at beachside kindergarten selected no permission to play or talk with me, took her book to her backpack, and never interacted with me again. another child at hillside centre, en, chose to play and talk with me but not to share her ideas with the world. each time en, her friends, and i were engaged in drawing/building focused conversations, en participated fully in the engagement, yet always declined consent to share her ideas with the world. however, when en saw the small booklets created by/for the children as part of the member-checking process (see gaches, 2020 for a full description of this process), she changed her mind and we had a brief exchange to be shared with the world. the concern, of course, is whether seeing her friends deeply and rather excitedly engaged in this final process was, in fact, coercive consent (graham et al., 2013). july 2021 28 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research this was a particularly challenging ethical dilemma because en had consented to participate in all our previous engagements unhindered as play partner but not as a research participant. these member-checking booklets could only be produced based upon transcriptions from data i had permission from the children to obtain. since en had not been a research participant, i had no data from en from which to create the current booklet. she either had to consent to providing me research data or not be included in this member-checking booklet peer-inclusion moment (corsaro, 2003). thus, the ethical tensions pulled at en’s understanding what she was initially consenting to, understanding what she was consenting to now that she saw what her friends were doing, and how this affected her standing in her peer community and perhaps her voice in the world. in each setting there were children who chose not to interact with me in any way or chose to not participate in these research interactions. like en, some children did choose to participate in play and conversation, but they did not want to have their ideas shared with the world. the variety of levels of engagement with me and the research’s focused conversations was indicative that those children who did consent to participate in the research-focused conversations with me were doing so by their own choice. at beachside kindergarten, only eight children out of the approximately 25 children present each visit chose to have me share their ideas with the world. at hillside centre, only five of the approximately dozen or so children in attendance each day of my research visits chose to share. in each early childhood setting there were a few children who met with me and signed the consent booklet and would then draw or build with me in silence, not responding to my conversational overtures. other consenting children would engage in conversation, but when i double-checked if i could share that idea with the world, they consistently replied no. of those who did consent and wanted their ideas shared with the world, for each child there was at least one incident where they either verbally or nonverbally indicated their dissent to have some of their feelings and ideas shared with others. these interactions indicated to me that children felt comfortable engaging with me (or not) and were also comfortable engaging with me but dissented to the research itself. consent as renegotiable throughout the research in action. it was clearly stated in the informed consent books and in our conversations that the children could change their minds whether or not to participate at any time. as mentioned in the previous section, even after children provided their written consent in the handheld books, ongoing consent/dissent was obtained. while this was often my very repetitive questioning of “can i share this with the world?” children had their own ways of dissenting. as has been seen in much research by others (dockett et al., 2011; graham et al., 2013; gray & winter, 2011) children’s dissent can often take a nonverbal or dismissive form. sometimes i would ask a question and the child would just ignore me and keep colouring or building. sometimes it was a more overt evading of the question, such as in the following transcript excerpt: me: so, what do you think the world is going to be like when you get to be a grown-up? child 1: i, um, i … (lips are moving but nothing is heard) me: i can’t hear you. child 1: (withering looks at me then lips moving but nothing is heard) me: (playfully) i can’t hear you. there’s no sound coming out. child 2: because she’s not talking! (children begin singing loudly) me: so, you’re not going to tell me what life is going to be like when you’re a grown-up? you don’t want to talk about that? children: (silence) july 2021 29 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research child 2: there’s another magic pen! look! (both children turn their attention to rummaging in the pen container to find the specialty colouring pen.) clearly, we were not going to be talking about what life was going to be like when they were grown-ups at least on that day. child 1 had found a quite powerful way of not having her voice heard in response to my adultfocused question. child 2 then diverted attention away from my pitiful attempt at a playful response by calling our attention to the sighting of a much-valued marker. this shift in the power relationship between my adultresearcher questioning and desired children’s responses was then turned on me as i was soon being questioned about who lives with me in my home and what we each do with the dogs in our homes. child in-the-momentdissent in this instance is an illustration of how children can be empowered within the research process. on another occasion, a child with whom i had been interacting quite a bit but whose responses had often been fairly brief had a different manner of indicating her consent to participate in my previous moves to focus the conversation. after sharing with me a story about her dad throwing her up to the stars, she declared, “it’s just that i want to tell you a couple of things.” she then proceeded to tell me in great detail all about how her mum and dad both help her learn how to behave and to ride her bike without training wheels, her favourite place to go to play in the community (a trampoline park), how she’s going to have two babies like her mum when she’s grown up, and how she learned to write letters from the poster on the wall. where previously this child had been a bit reticent to share, this conversation rushed from her as though she’d been thinking about my previous questions for some time and was now ready to share with me these important key points. this made me wonder if her responses to our previous focused conversations had been slightly coerced and only now she was actually consenting to sharing these ideas with the world. concluding remarks throughout this illustrative example we can find answers to the questions of what will be needed to acquire informed consent of the young children in this research and what assurances there could be that young children understand the research project and what it means to consent to participate. several aspects of this research project addressed what was needed to acquire informed consent with the children. first, it is necessary to build a relationship of trust and rapport with the children (smith, 2011, 2013). in this research, i was able to build upon existing relationships i had with early childhood centres. for many of the children i was already a known face and sometimes play partner. these relationships were instrumental in putting the children at ease when sharing the information about the research and during our ongoing engagements. the relationships also made reading and understanding children’s nonverbal signals of dissent possible. when one child started talking with no sound and then she and another child began singing loudly, i knew them well enough to read that they weren’t just being silly but that they were telling me they didn’t want to talk about my proposed topic. when the child specified she had two things to tell me, i could read that this was a serious moment for her and paid special attention to these particular points. second, time and place had to be designated to acquire informed consent. furthermore, that time and place was setting specific because each early childhood setting had its own cultures, routines, and ways of doing/being. at one setting, the big book was shared with the whole group during a designated group time, while in the other setting an optional small-group reading time was needed. additionally, we created our own routines. one routine was the use of the handheld book as a reference point at the beginning of each research conversation to remind july 2021 30 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the children of the purpose of these engagements. another routine was the constant checking of “can i share your idea(s) with the world?” this routine was also highly related to the third requirement, which was a child-friendly and engaging way to explain the research to the children. the big book and accompanying handheld book fulfilled this need. children enjoyed engaging with the book. its cartoon-like illustrations helped the children make connections between the informed consent text, me as the researcher, and the children’s known worlds. the ability for the children to colour in and keep the handheld book made it a treasured keepsake for at least a few of the children and provided them with a reference point to which we could all return regularly. several of these same points and others provided the assurances that the young children understood the research project and what it meant to consent. first, there was the initial eagerness of children b, c, and ab after the reading of the big book. all three children were eager to begin the research with me that very day. children were also good communicators about the intended research. immediately after reading the big book, b approached other children and told them about the research, pointing to the picture of the earth in the handheld book as she explained how i was going to share their ideas with the world. older sister w was able to provide a better explanation about the research to her younger sibling than i was able to do, and ab was adamant that she had not given permission for her words to be shared by her older sister, especially in the case of tattling. finally, the explicit and implicit dissentions are indicators of understanding this process. not all children chose to engage with me, the drawing, or the building. some children chose to sign their consent in the handheld book but then never engage with me again, while others would sometimes engage and tell me, through a variety of means, that they didn’t want what they were saying shared with the world or they didn’t want to talk about my ideas for a focused conversation at all. there are of course limitations to this research and its illustrative value. much of this discussion is built upon my interpretations of the children’s engagements, consents, and dissentions. while i may rely on critically reflexive ethics in practice (gaches, 2020; pillow, 2003, 2015) to address potential bias or misinterpretation, there is always the possibility of complete misreading. additionally, this study was undertaken with a very small sample size and with sufficient time to build relationships so that processes and routines were generally unencumbered by external schedules and timeline demands. often this amount of time and research freedom is unavailable in larger research projects or those for which there are more rigid schedules. however, this illustrative example of acquiring children’s consent and assuring that it is informed consent has many implications for further research with young children. by taking the stance that children are already capable and confident, ways were found to address concerns for children’s understanding of the research and how its results would be disseminated. in fact, this research makes the argument that it is up to the researcher to build relationships with their intended participants. based upon the knowledge gained through these relationships, the researcher must develop appropriate methods (dockett et al., 2011) for informed consent relevant to those particular young children in that time and space and to those children’s cultures, languages, and ways of doing/being/knowing. as part of these methods, the researcher must develop routines for ongoing affirmations of consent or periods of dissent so that children have natural and comfortable avenues to opt out of the research in that moment. finally, it is imperative that the researchers have enough understanding of young children that they can read the nuanced and often mixed messages of consent and dissent. ultimately, we must respect children as powerful and capable when we ask them to share their ideas with the world. july 2021 31 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 1 all names are pseudonyms. 2 special thanks to amy wimmer walkden for her graphic design services. july 2021 32 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references bitou, a., & waller, t. 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(1989). united nations convention on the rights of the child. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx march 2022 7 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice reconceptualizing inclusion through anti-bias curriculum sarah binnendyk sarah binnendyk is an mped candidate at western university focusing on the field of early childhood education. she has over 20 years of experience working in various childcare settings in schools, nonprofit organizations, and home care. for the past eight years, sarah has also been gaining a new perspective on early childhood education through her role of mothering her young children. email: s.binnend@gmail.com this paper reconceptualizes anti-bias curriculum in early years settings. in the spirit of inclusion and advocacy, this paper proposes to reimagine inclusivity to expand the definition of diverse learning spaces beyond a humancentric collective by offering the environment and nonhuman inhabitants agency in anti-bias curriculum making. the ideas expressed throughout this paper are intended as invitations to reflect as we work toward cultivating learning spaces that welcome the voices and influence of all early years stakeholders—educators, children, families, the indoor and outdoor environment, and the human and nonhuman communities where these spaces are investigated and explored. in my early childhood education practice, i had not understood the term anti-bias as relevant to early years curriculum. this topic sounded heavy, politically charged, and wrought with problematizations that could wait until we tackled more “appropriate” and timely subject matter. as is often the case, recent exposure to this contextual vocabulary spurred an initial exploration of the available literature on the subject. derman-sparks and edwards (2019), focusing on (human) inclusion, offer four goals of anti-bias curriculum—identity, diversity, justice, and activism—which can be employed to “create a safe, supportive learning community for every child” (para. 2). anti-bias curriculum foregrounds the development of “caring connections across all dimensions of human diversity,” “empathic interactions with people from diverse backgrounds,” and “comfort and joy with human diversity” (derman-sparks et al., 2020, p. 6). it occurred to me that i have been involved in anti-bias curriculum construction for many years. i had unknowingly been doing advocacy work through the lens of inclusion in my home since my children began to speak and observe their world. when pondering the importance of this advocacy work as conducted and contextualized in an early years carer/educator role, i realized that it is critical that educators become aware of their personal “feelings” in regards to these matters (kuh et al., 2016, p. 61). comments that i had fielded in the moment throughout the years while mothering and working with children in care and educational settings began to find their way back into my awareness. “that guy has girl hair!” “why don’t pets live with their parents?” “how does that character have two dads?” “that boy has black skin.” these comments coursed into the conversation with an element of curiosity, and not a stitch of judgment. it was an tensions can arise when biased thoughts and practices are uncovered through discursive events in early years classrooms. this paper challenges the common practice of disregarding childhood curiosities in an attempt to ease tension and remove the risk of discomfort for some adults in caregiving and educating roles. through a conceptual shift from a futurity of inclusion to an urgent call to action that problematizes the exclusion of nonhuman subjects within the curriculum, the construction and implementation of anti-bias curriculum is offered as a vehicle to the realization of holistically inclusive early learning spaces. key words: anti-bias curriculum; interconnectedness; worlding; belonging; reflexivity march 2022 8 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice audible articulation of a new observation with the readiness to commit this new experience to memory after dialoguing and reasoning occurred. in an effort to coconstruct curriculum and make space for alternative ways of being, we can use situational events as they arise in our early years spaces. in my practice as a preschool director, i have often observed tensions between children as they negotiated roles in their imaginative play, as well as when they entangled with nonhuman elements of their learning spaces. although anti-bias curriculum is traditionally viewed as a framework for living well together as humans, we can also explore the goals of this framework to reconceptualize diverse relationships and inclusion beyond a humancentric model. in the case of one event that i observed in a preschool classroom, the children had transformed their space into a world of crime and justice. the children were all interacting through a binary of superheroes or villains. another child arrived and he was immediately met with invitations to choose his role: superhero or villain. the child declined those offers and said he wanted to be a dragon. the group of children then discussed whether the dragon would fit into the superhero or villain category. the majority felt the dragon would likely resemble a villain. the child rejected the binary and restated that he was neither superhero nor villain; he was a dragon. my involvement as the adult in this process was to observe and leave space for the children to traverse the tensions that can accompany the unknown while being present to co-explore differences, if needed in the spirit of inclusion. after some passionate discussion, the room became still for a moment as the group of children determined what the concept of breaking the binary would mean to their play. they then collectively welcomed the idea of a third option, and the play was back on with new and wonderful momentum as they navigated their world with acceptance of this different way of being. this is what can happen when we refuse to shy away from the discomfort often found in the beginning stages of reflexivity as we enter an awareness of our previously unacknowledged beliefs. after some thought, i realized the impact a parent or educator can have in those moments, given that our reaction to differences can model and express bias and fear (derman-sparks et al., 2020). as a graduate student in the field of early childhood education, i am challenging myself to reflect on my multiple roles as a preschool director, sunday school teacher, and mother of two young children while i explore anti-bias curriculum making. anti-bias curriculum making an anti-bias approach requires educators to be accountable for the opinions we hold and to be aware of the biases we bring into the classroom. this is not to say that educators must realign their values, religion, or cultural imperatives, but there is an obligation to the children within the setting to accept them for who they are and where they come from. for their sense of self to be developed according to their intrinsic values, their curiosities must be respected and encouraged. we must mentally position ourselves to welcome each student to the classroom with an open heart and mind in an effort to understand and value our interconnectedness. we need to make our classrooms safe spaces for the children to feel a sense of belonging and not influence them to feel as though their home lives are to be a source of shame or grounds for othering. children attending early years programs have varied experiences and home lives that contribute to their outlook and understandings of diversity. some of the experiences that children carry with them to the classroom might have shaped a negative outlook on diversity; therefore, we must discover pathways to support these children in their journey through anti-bias curriculum. bias is a learned behaviour that can also be unlearned and replaced with an openness to new possibilities and acceptance of others, not to replace one’s own standing but to move forward with confidence that there is space for more than self within a setting. rather than viewing acceptance dichotomously, we can learn alongside one another (human and nonhuman), as there is room for acceptance of self and others simultaneously. when we prioritize inclusion we can deconstruct barriers that have previously marginalized members of classrooms and communities. march 2022 9 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice inclusion in this paper, inclusion is explored as a collective-building entity. the essence of this entity honours diversity as it is found and acknowledged through organic and intentional encounters within early childhood education. while constructing anti-bias curriculum, we can entangle inclusion and diversity by welcoming an awareness of similarities and differences (derman-sparks et al., 2020). in doing so, we make an intentional choice to build a collective that is strengthened by the participants within the learning community. in this model of living together, we can observe, value, and discuss the differences found through diversity without breaking down the collective and risk privileging individuals over the community. we concurrently ensure that all children are heard, included, and appreciated as members of the collaborative. the parts of the whole are then able to entwine ecologically rather than block one another from the crucial components for growth. an ecological perspective considers the interconnections within an environment and offers an understanding that the function and well-being of one part relies on and affects its co-inhabitants. a collective can be impacted by either the strain or flourishing of one individual part. although anti-bias work has been active for decades, a satisfactory realization of this work is still highly speculative. what world could we create with children if the consistently modelled normative adult behaviour was that of inclusion? the observation of differences might encourage a deeper understanding of the fellow inhabitants of our temporal spaces rather than the status quo of eliciting a judgment response through a comparative algorithm of othering. through pedagogical imaginaries, one could concur that relationships could deepen through the connective properties of pedagogy as we are elevating the relational tools developed in the early years. how could these relationships open space for the inclusion of a “more-than-human” (hodgins et al., 2020, p. 17) collectivity? moving past humancentric curriculum discursive renderings of diversity in early years curriculum run the risk of “dichotomized consciousness” (husband, 2010, p. 70), or a polarized misunderstanding that there are only two viable ways of being, generally one desirable and the other undesirable: good/bad, normal/different, human/nonhuman. when we push past these divisive narratives, we can encourage the children to lead us into new possibilities of thought and action that offer space for the advocacy of their co-inhabitants. in addition to the inclusion of all humans regardless of race, sociocultural factors, religion, or gender, we have necessarily moved the marker and find ourselves going beyond the discourse of antiquated and exclusionary humancentric ideology. as imagined by nelson et al. (2018), “common worlds consist of the full range of complex relationships, traditions, and legacies that we inherit in the specific places in which we live” (p. 7). a speculative depiction of a common world decenters humans by creating a holistically inclusive space that can and should include humans, various species, land, and the interconnections existing in modern practice as well as historically, where “playing well together is understood as a human–more-than-human ethical responsibility” (hodgins et al., 2020, p. 17). this work is not optional in the global climate in which we live out our temporalities. in general, we have been working toward inclusive spaces in early years settings and utilizing imaginaries of what inclusive spaces might render. we have vocalized an essential provocation to create learning communities that we speculate can be visualized as a future of living well together, but the enactment of inclusion for only the human world is no longer sufficient. in the field of early childhood education, as we diverge from a humancentric positionality, speculative imaginaries depict a space between the binaries we have previously accepted, in the form of a space to live that rejects the dichotomous concept of separating the “human and non-human” worlds (nelson et al., 2018). march 2022 10 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice an experience i share with my children each summer as we navigate outdoor spaces is realized through learning to live with bees. my one son is terrified of being stung, so he will avoid situations where bees may be present, but he is also caring and would not want harm caused to bees to appease his avoidance. as a collaborative community, the children and i often discuss alternative approaches to interacting with nature without asking the space to be altered or the inhabitants to be excluded for our enjoyment. we are better equipped to “do the right thing” rather than “do things right” (urban et al., 2011, p. 33) when we bring a pedagogical compass to our curriculum making rather than bringing information derived from a textbook through a methodical knowledge-transferring persona (ingold, 2011). we can weather the storm of temporal uncertainty when we elevate building and merging relationships. through this reimagining of environmental inclusivity, the world we inhabit is given agency within our pedagogical encounters. encounters with multifarious elements in pedagogical spaces require a shift “from encouraging individual development to fostering collective dispositions” (common worlds research collective, 2020, p. 10). intentionality, interconnectivity, and reflection to offer a greater understanding and encourage the construction of anti-bias curriculum, we can first inquire within ourselves to determine a degree of intention that supports our practices. this is ongoing, reflexive work that is inherently insatiable yet profoundly productive and necessary. routines and rituals in an early years classroom are culturally bound practices that can inadvertently marginalize individuals who are newer to the group or who practice different routines in their families and cultures. we need to consider the impact of each routine and ritual on the collective by asking ourselves if these practices other different cultures, viewpoints, species, or ways of being. furthermore, routines and rituals tend to be human-centered practices that fail to consider the impact on creatures, materials, and the environment. it is paramount to a reimagining of inclusive learning environments that these practices be explored reflexively to uncover the “foundational logics” that are a part of “everyday moments, practices, and understandings, including our own” (hodgins et al., 2020, p. 7). we might ask ourselves some of the following questions: • how did this practice become a routine in our classroom? • is there pedagogical value found within this practice? • who or what are we including in this routine? who or what might we be excluding by maintaining this course of action? once we as educators have reflected on these questions, we can bring these provocations forward to public dialogue for further discussion. tensions are a common occurrence while sharing space and forming a collective. we may determine through this reflexivity that exposure to the ritual is worthwhile, and as a result we can enter with the families into an exchange of thoughts on beliefs and intentions in an effort to “draw upon the knowledges and resources offered by diverse cultural perspectives” (massing, 2018, p. 197). a moment from my practice reveals the tensions that can arise when children come from varied backgrounds in which eating habits may be similar or different. one child in the group came from a family that followed a vegetarian diet, while another child came from a family with blended eating habits. the children were trying to consolidate their altering understandings of meat consumption, ethically and logistically, with their love for animals. ultimately the conversation flowed and we walked alongside one another through the confusion and tension. the children displayed a remarkable contentedness in dialoguing and releasing the tension, even in the absence of swaying opinions. the educator’s personal values may be challenged, as the children’s familial structures, march 2022 11 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice values, beliefs, and experiences might not always align with their own. the educator’s previously held beliefs and assumptions may be operationalized in their practice or they may simply desire to not form a stance on certain topics. reflection and transparency in a democratic effort to live well together will safeguard our practice from any singular way of being “claiming to have the right answer” (moss, 2014, p. 120). these conversations could potentially expose biases and alternative thoughts, which can offer deeper deliberations to the context. through intentionality, we can also use this anti-bias work to “foster each child’s capacity to identify bias and … nurture each child’s empathy for the hurt bias causes” (derman-sparks & edwards, 2019, para. 8). for example, an anti-bias framework can help us illuminate routines that have perpetuated harmful colonial practices. children can become part of the discussion of animal and land use and investigate “resource extraction” as they learn alongside one another in a space that decenters humans (nelson et al., 2018, p. 5). it is also important that we remove the bias of “humanist stewardship frameworks” in this coconstruction of environmental inclusion and explore nonhierarchical human roles of living with the land without viewing ourselves as environmental rescuers (taylor, 2017, p. 1449). according to kuh et al. (2016), another typical adult approach to the avoidance of discoursing these tender matters is to “change the subject when anti-bias topics come up or redirect children to distract them from the topic at hand” (p. 61). when adults choose to accept the dialoguing with and among the children while they tackle these large issues, they use the opportunity to cocreate anti-bias curriculum with the children, consequently making “dialogical safe spaces” for the children to think critically and compose their own stance, which is essential to child-initiated social justice (husband, 2010, p. 73). the construction of anti-bias curriculum occurs when we mindfully attend the conversations that many of us have been taught to recoil from. we have an obligation to be intentional in our modelling within these early years dynamics, and we can do this “by experimenting with modes of collective (more-than-human) thinking and learning with rather than individual (human) thinking and learning about” (taylor, 2017, p. 1458). while focusing on intentionality in anti-bias curriculum making, we can include literacy offerings such as books with themes related to diversity and inclusion, we can take our learning into the outdoors to learn alongside creatures, we can explore rainy days to understand the impact of our footsteps on puddles of water and the impact of puddles of water on our footsteps, and we can invite members of the community to come share their experiences through storytelling. conclusion in recent times, we have become increasingly aware of our reliance on the well-being of our neighbours near and far, and the interconnectivity that encompasses living in the 21st century. a newly understood reliance on one another as we journey through public health initiatives brought on by the pandemic, the threat of environmental hazards such as wildfires and extreme weather conditions, and economic recovery plans to combat recessions evidences the impact our actions have on all inhabitants of our common world. the work being done through a coconstruction of anti-bias curriculum making in the foundational years can rewire the societal framework that previously avoided discussing difficult topics of diversity and othering. the conversations that happen when we stay in the moment with children as they analyze the world they co-inhabit can be a starting point for the growth of a conceptual change that can trickle out to the children’s homes and communities through a positive momentum of change making and awareness. reconceptualizing inclusion to consider relationships between humans and nonhumans is being done with intention, not as a pendulum of correction that leads to the opposite end of a spectrum. the ideas presented in this march 2022 12 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice paper are intended to move the conversation of inclusivity into actionable daily practice. it is our job as educators to dig into these albeit at times uncomfortable conversations and attempt to determine exactly what feelings bubble to the surface. according to derman-sparks and edwards (2019), “these are early lessons in critical thinking for children, figuring out what they see and hear and testing it against the notions of kindness and fairness” (para. 9). it takes a great deal of intentionality to face these matters, but we must remember that in each act within our practice, we are making a choice. when we allow ourselves to perpetuate the practice of sweeping these conversations to the side to relieve discomfort, we communicate to the children that these matters are better left unsaid. alternatively, by pressing in and creating space to construct anti-bias curriculum both organically and intentionally in our early learning spaces, we forge new pathways to inclusion. march 2022 13 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references common worlds research collective. (2020). learning to become with the world: education for future survival. paper commissioned for unesco futures of education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374032 derman-sparks, l., & edwards, j. o. (2019). understanding anti-bias education: bringing the four core goals to every facet of your curriculum. young children, 74(5). https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/nov2019/understanding-anti-bias derman-sparks, l., edwards, j., & goins, c. m. (2020). anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. national association of the education of young children. hodgins, b. d., nelson, n., yazbeck, s., ke, x., & turcotte, r. (2020). living speculative pedagogies as boundary-crossing dialogues. journal of childhood studies, 45(4). https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs00019126 husband, t., jr. (2010). he’s too young to learn about that stuff: anti-racist pedagogy and early childhood social studies. social studies research & practice, 5(2), 61–75. http://www.socstrpr.org/files/vol%205/issue%202%20-%20summer,%202010/action%20 research/5.2.6.pdf ingold, t. (2011). being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203818336 kuh, l. p., leekeenan, d., given, h. & beneke, m. (2016). moving beyond anti-bias activities: supporting the development of anti-bias practice. young children. http://www.antibiasleadersece.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/abe-epcs-naeyc_ youngchildren_201603.pdf massing, c. (2018). african, muslim refugee student teachers’ perceptions of care practices in infant and toddler field placements. international journal of early years education, 26(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2018.1458603 moss, p. (2014). transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: a story of democracy, experimentation, and potentiality. routledge. nelson, n., pacini-ketchabaw, v., & nxumalo, f. (2018). rethinking nature based approaches in early childhood education: common worlding practices. journal of childhood studies, 43(1). https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v43i1.18261 taylor, a. (2017). beyond stewardship: common world pedagogies for the anthropocene. journal of environmental education research, 23(10), 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452 urban, m., vandenbroeck, m., van laere, k., lazzari, a., & peeters, j. (2011). competence requirements in early childhood education and care: research documents. london: european commission, directorate general for education and culture. https://repository. uel.ac.uk/item/8618y october 2019 21 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research colonialism in early education, care, and intervention: a knowledge synthesis kathryn underwood, nicole ineese-nash, and arlene haché kathryn underwood is a professor in the school of early childhood studies and the project director for the inclusive early childhood service system (iecss) project at ryerson university. her work focuses on equity and disability issues in early childhood studies, as well as in education, care, and intervention social policy and practice. kathryn’s research uses critical disability theory as a starting point for understanding how society responds to and constructs childhood through social institutions. email: kunderwood@ryerson.ca nicole ineese-nash is an indigenous scholar, teacher, and researcher. she holds a master’s degree in early childhood studies from ryerson university and is pursuing doctoral studies in social justice education at the university of toronto. she was formerly a project coordinator for the iecss project, which explores family perspectives of navigating disability support services across ontario, including in nicole’s home community of constance lake first nation. nicole’s research interests include indigenous concepts of child development, disability, traditional governance, and family support. she is passionate about supporting social justice initiatives, taking a critical lens to colonial social structures that perpetuate harm for particular peoples in society. email: nicole.ineesenash@ryerson.ca arlene haché is a program developer with the keepers of the circle and liaison for the council of wisdom keepers for the district of temiskaming. ms. haché founded and was executive director of the not-for-profit centre for northern families for 25 years. the centre primarily served first nations, inuit, and métis women and their families through a variety of services, including child care, family support, and early intervention programs. as a result of her work and leadership in the north, ms. haché was awarded the order of canada in 2009 and received the queen elizabeth ii diamond jubilee medal in 2012. email: arleneh10@hotmail.com early intervention and indigenous children early intervention (ei) is understood to be an important strategy to ensure optimal development for all children and is largely delivered in health or therapeutic settings. ample research supports the efficacy of ei strategies, which has resulted in broad advocacy for ei, including through international human rights law (united nations, 2006). however, the rehabilitation focus of ei, and the embedded medical model, have been critiqued because of the tensions that arise between trying to optimize development and ensuring that children are valued as unique individuals (underwood, valeo, & wood, 2012). ei includes cognitive, social-emotional, communication, physical, and developmental supports, which are offered to children who are identified as having (or are at risk of having) a disability or developmental delay (mccarty & romanow, 2009; underwood, 2012). ei programs are offered within the home (dunst, bruder, & espesherwindt, 2014), educational contexts (barnett, 2011), healthcare centres (bagnato et al., 2004), communitybased settings (hiebert-murphy, trute, & wright, 2011), and clinical services (zwaigenbaum et al., 2009). the delivery of ei services is often dependent on diagnostic this knowledge synthesis aims to understand indigenous experiences of early childhood education, care, family support, intervention, health, and indigenous services in the context of childhood disability. each of these institutional contexts has its own underlying professional discourses and worldviews. knowledge from three sources have been synthesized: (1) interviews with indigenous families about their experiences of having disabled children, conducted through the inclusive early childhood service system (iecss) project; (2) analysis of the iecss interviews by the district of temiskaming elders council and indigenous community partners; and (3) the existing body of literature on disability and indigenous children. this project was conducted in partnership with a mixed team of indigenous and settler researchers. key words: indigenous childhoods; childhood disability; early intervention october 2019 22 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research assessments which determine eligibility (bruder, 2010). screening procedures for young children have been critiqued for the assumption of a single trajectory of development that may not be consistent across all families and cultures (van widenfelt et al., 2005). indigenous children access various supports in non-indigenous settings, which have underlying pathological frameworks that are inconsistent with indigenous worldviews (chapman, 2012). research suggests that ei programs operating from a medical model (i.e., those that treat developmental differences as resulting from individual characteristics) are less successful than those incorporating a more holistic view of the various factors involved in childhood development (gerlach & zeidler, 2004; guralnick, 2011). institutional intervention for indigenous children may reproduce colonial practices that can be harmful to children’s cultural identities and familial connections (ball, 2008; chapman, 2012; ineese-nash, bomberry, underwood, & haché, 2017). understanding indigenous perspectives of development and disability is crucial to the provision of culturally appropriate ei services (ball, 2008; iecss project, 2017b), but has yet to be a prominent focus of disability research. indigenous childhoods, disability, and colonialism indigenous communities have diverse beliefs and traditions that can support culturally safe ei services for indigenous populations (battiste & youngblood, 2000; dei, hall, & rosenberg, 2000). indigenous communities also share values, such as relationships with each other and with the land (alfred & corntassel, 2005). in many indigenous communities, children are revered as gifts (greenwood, 2006). each child brings unique abilities and strengths to the family and the larger community (guilfoyle, saggers, sims, & hutchins, 2010). it is the responsibility of those around the child to nurture and foster each child’s gifts as they develop (best start resource centre, 2010). indigenous communities value what each individual brings to the collective (fleer, 2004). children’s development from an indigenous perspective goes beyond mastering skills or attaining developmental milestones (greenwood, 2006). the focus instead is on supporting children’s relational identities and experiential learning (ball & pence, 2006; greenwood & de leeuw, 2007). indigenous children accessing disability supports often spend time in multiple environments that can be culturally dissonant from their communities (ball, 2008). few early intervention programs are developed specifically for indigenous children (digiacomo et al., 2013) and the lack of integration between cultural services and disability supports can lead to children having to choose between their indigenous and disability identities (iecss project, 2017a, 2017b). while statistics on indigenous identity and disability are not readily available, it is estimated that the rate of childhood disability among indigenous children is double that of the general population in canada (durst, 2006). culturally inappropriate assessments may be leading to overrepresentation of indigenous children in special education programs and disability services (fleet & kitson, 2009; nguyen, 2011). colonialism continues to create social conditions of poverty, environmental risk, and trauma that also are causes of childhood disability (czyzewski, 2011; greenwood, 2005). further, indigenous peoples are less likely to seek support from mainstream institutions, such as medical and intervention services, and often report receiving inadequate care within these settings (allan & smylie, 2015; digiacomo et al., 2013; woodgate, 2013). the health and well-being of indigenous children comes from connection with their land and culture, which is not available in mainstream ei services (greenwood & de leeuw, 2012). october 2019 23 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research method family interviews interviews with families about their experiences of accessing disability support services for their young children are the first data source for our knowledge synthesis. through the first phase of the inclusive early childhood service system (iecss) project we interviewed 67 families, 21 of whom identified as anishinabek, haudenosaunee, or métis. we met the families once per year over a three-year period (2014–17) across five communities in ontario (the city of toronto, city of hamilton, wellington county, district of temiskaming, and constance lake first nation). the iecss project is a longitudinal institutional ethnography that aims to understand how the processes and social relations in institutions act on families and children. through the project we have identified many contrasting views of disability that are embedded in early childhood services. in this knowledge synthesis we are interested in the contrast between institutionally constructed disability discourse and indigenous views of childhood as an empirical tool for analysis of ongoing colonization of indigenous childhoods (ball, 2012; greenwood, 2006; tremblay et al., 2013). elder and community knowledge the iecss project was guided by the district of temiskaming elders council from the outset. additionally, the project team consulted with numerous indigenous-led community agencies throughout the process. this approach was taken to honour indigenous ways of analyzing and synthesizing information. these discussions focused on understanding the iecss findings through the cultural, linguistic, and historic viewpoints of indigenous peoples. in february of 2017, the elders council, along with the iecss research team, hosted a meeting of indigenous community partners at native child and family services in toronto. this gathering was intended to disseminate the results of the first year of the project data to the community partners and engage in a dialogue regarding the findings, and how these results could impact policy development. subsequently, policy makers were invited for a brief discussion of the project and ideas about policy implications. this meeting was audio-recorded and transcribed. these discussions, as well as previous community meetings, are considered integral to the understanding of indigenous early childhood disability and experiences of accessing interventions within these communities. findings from these meetings and additional consultations with the elders and community partners were used to develop a video (iecss project, 2017a) and a policy brief (iecss project, 2017b). these discussions are the second data source integrated into this knowledge synthesis project. literature search a systematic literature review was conducted to examine the current state of the academic literature on childhood disability in indigenous communities; it forms the third data source. a search of three databases (proquest, eric, and pubmed) with advanced search capacity was conducted using descriptors of indigeneity (i.e., aboriginal, first nation, indigenous, native, and american indian), disability (i.e., disability, special needs, exceptionality) and age (i.e., early childhood) as search criteria. next, indigenous-specific academic journals, community agency websites, and government resources were searched for relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature reports. resources were included in the synthesis review based on relevance of the age range (from early childhood to middle school) and service systems implicated (ei, disability, and health). we did not restrict the review to particular methods, outcomes, or theoretical positions because we were interested in the overall discourse available, as well as the knowledge base in the academic literature. the process of identifying relevant studies began with screening titles and key words within search results (initial search yielded 3210). abstracts were then reviewed from articles identified as applicable to the search parameters. further review of particular articles allowed for the narrowing of october 2019 24 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research results to 81. figure 1 shows a summary of the literature review data sources. figure 1. summary of the literature review process. findings our three sources of data yielded similar but variable key concepts, which we describe below. family interview findings we analyzed the iecss project interview data through coding the interviews and mapping families’ experiences as they interact with institutional processes. the results indicate that institutional processes in ei, early childhood education and care, and indigenous services are governed by several factors, including families’ worldview and cultural perspectives; historical factors such as family relations and experiences with institutions including residential schools and child apprehension; access to indigenous services, which includes whether these services are available in a geographic area or if they are offered as part of disability services; geographic accessibility of disability services, particularly on reserve and in the north; the support of families that was evident throughout indigenous experience; and finally, concerns about transition to school, which were connected to distress about racism, ableism, and understanding of individual characteristics of children by peers and teachers (iecss project, 2017a; ineese-nash et al., 2007). these findings are described in more detail in the next section as part of the synthesis. <<insert figure 1 about here>> figure 1. summary of the literature review process. findings our three sources of data yielded similar but variable key concepts, which we describe below. family interview findings search: academic peer-reviewed journals, government databases, and agency websites for indigenous early childhood disability and intervention articles identified through initial search n = 3210 titles and abstracts read n = 1334 full article reviewed n = 187 total included in review n = 81 n = 154 excluded/irrelevant n = 1893 excluded/irrelevant n = 1147 excluded/irrelevant n = 106 articles identified through secondary sources n = 17 commented [lp1]: note to jess at tph: the figure isn’t saved as a unified object. please fix so that the caption displays correctly underneath it. thanks! october 2019 25 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research elder and community knowledge we have identified four areas of focus from the elders’ and community partners’ analysis of iecss findings: cultural-linguistic, access to services, institutional processes, and constructs of disability. cultural-linguistic. the elders and community members identified cultural-linguistic concepts and practices as central to family and childhood experiences. families spoke about the cultural activities they engage in with their children, such as smudging, attending powwows, and practicing their traditional language. many families attend a variety of programs in indigenous-specific agencies with the intention that their child will be able to engage in cultural programming. while parents seek out culturally based early learning and care programs in order for children to have opportunities to learn in cultural ways, these programs are not offered in all communities. some families expressed feeling connected to their culture when accessing culturally specific programs for their children, even when those programs are not directly focused on teaching parents. a few families engage in ceremonial practices exclusively within service agencies or programs, which gives these environments meaning beyond a support service for the children. the cultural identities of participants in the study are diverse and influence childrearing practices. for example, some participants with some indigenous heritage identified more closely with their european heritage, which impacted the types of services they would seek for their children. families in the study have various perspectives of their children’s gifts, which in some cases reflects a cultural viewpoint. children are described as being unique, special, and at times challenging. families often describe children’s behaviours in the home in ways that differ from the perspectives of service providers. that is to say that certain behaviours or manifestations of disability were not necessarily problematic in the home setting, as families were able to understand the needs of the child and accommodate them. elders told us that often the disagreements between families and service providers are “cultural misunderstandings” which can lead to the misdiagnosis of children. cultural expectations vary depending on the environment, which can be difficult for some children to navigate. for instance, one child who was diagnosed with three behavioural conditions by a school psychologist was regarded as a spiritual conduit by his family. families often have their own explanations for a child’s behaviour that are not acknowledged by professionals. families also want professional support and some families have strong relationships with service providers. in most cases, however, culture is not an explicit focus of intervention services, which means that children spend time in settings that do not provide cultural teachings. one mother said, being a mother and a family person, we try to incorporate our cultural beliefs and spiritual values when raising our children. it is very hard to live in a society where those teachings and values aren’t always appreciated. my children have had a very strong understanding since a young age about those cultural values and beliefs. (as cited in ineese-nash et al., 2017) in the current system of services, families are being forced to make decisions between cultural programs and intervention supports. an elder shared: [parents] just don’t have time. people do not have time to do both, cultural interactions, cultural learning, and traditional understandings as they raise their children. the priority becomes the physical needs of the child, and that sometimes overtakes that time in a day to be able to come to an office and spend some time learning about drumming and learning about cultural things. (as cited in iecss project, 2017a) differing cultural perspectives make it difficult for families to access the types of support they feel their child needs while also maintaining traditional and spiritual beliefs. indigenous partners in the study have told us that many of october 2019 26 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the services that children access are categorized in developmental domains, without a consideration of the spiritual realm. differences in children’s behaviours and displaying of gifts are thought to reflect the child’s spirit. access to services. accessing disability support services looks different depending on where a family lives, their unique circumstances, and the perspectives they hold. families living in northern communities face significantly more challenges in accessing support services than those living in the south. northern families (such as those living in temiskaming and constance lake) have to travel to access services in urban centres. professionals coming into northern communities generally serve a large number of families, which limits their capacity to form trusting relationships with children and their families. elders tell us that to understand children’s abilities, we need to look at the values of the family and community, as well as the social conditions in which the child lives. perspectives families hold regarding their child, disability, and the service system influence which types of supports they will try to access. indigenous families often have fewer options, depending on where they live. some families identified their child as disabled, while others said they felt this is a label put on their child that does not reflect the child’s gifts. while these are not mutually exclusive ideas, families who identify with disability are generally more likely to seek institutional supports. getting disability-specific support, for some families, is the first priority, with particular focus on medical or clinical services, while other families may feel their child benefits more from culturally based programs. families also may be forced by child protection or social services to engage with service providers. institutional processes. family circumstance plays a crucial role in access to ei services for indigenous children with disabilities. the manner in which the service system functions puts onus on the family in order for services to be provided to the child. families’ ability to engage in the institutional processes of the service system (such as following up with referrals, filling out paperwork, attending appointments) depends on multiple factors, such as socioeconomic status, literacy levels, health of the parent, knowledge of the service system, and comfort interacting with institutions. this means that some families are able to navigate the service system more easily than others, which can lead to more services for their child. from an institutional ethnography perspective, accessing services is related to families’ ability to do the work of the institution, but this ability is largely based on the social position the family holds within that context. in this way, the service system favours particular people, which fosters a social hierarchy and reaffirms colonial structures. one elder said: as much as we believe that a specialist can diagnose, who is to say that they as a human being have the responsibility to do so? we as family groups, as family, extended family, aunts, uncles, people that are with our children, those are the people who truly know what it is that this child is capable of and have the ability to succeed in. (as cited in iecss project, 2017a) in addition to physically attending specialist appointments, families also need to follow through with the processes involved with interacting with the service system. depending on what services are available in a particular region, there may also be additional processes involved with getting travel funding, as families must often travel to urban centres to meet specialists. these obstacles are compounded when a family has more than one family member experiencing disability, or they need to access other services that are not available in their community for multiple family members, which was the case for most families in our study. the more services a family is accessing, the fewer resources a family may have to devote to engaging in institutional processes related to their child’s care. construction of disability. indigenous knowledges tell us that children have their own gifts that begin to show as they grow and interact with others around them. developmental differences are seen by communities as opportunities to learn. in this way, children have gifts to share with others in the community, though it is up to october 2019 27 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research those around them to listen and watch to help the child realize these gifts. one cultural advisor explained: [children] they know what they need. but sometimes words cannot come out of their mouth. sometimes doing is the best way they know how and they’re showing us physically what needs to be done. […] we need to give them that ability to be able to walk in a good way in their life and to be able to recognize their gifts that they do have and as an anishinaabe person, as a gifted person that came into this world to be a good teacher to us. (as cited in iecss project, 2017a) differences are often seen as strengths within communities. having said that, many families in the iecss project want ei services to support their children in progressing with others their age. our community partners tell us that differences should be acknowledged and supported while at the same time meeting the child “where they are at.” supporting an individual who may face challenges in participating in community life should be done in a manner that “does less harm” and surrounds the family who are part of the child’s life. diagnoses that are attributed to individual pathology may in fact be caused by trauma related to intergenerational impacts of colonization. other differences may be a result of a cultural way of raising children that impacts the timing of particular skills, such as the age at which a child walks or talks. ultimately the mainstream approach that focuses on identifying nonnormative development early, and intervening early, may be in conflict with the indigenous value of waiting and observing the gifts that a child offers. findings from the literature literature on indigenous early childhood disability is not extensive in comparison to research literature on childhood disability, particularly clinical studies of specific conditions. however, this review identified a body of work that focuses on indigenous childhood disability in the fields of health, early childhood education and care, and ei services internationally and in canada. articles reviewed were predominantly focused on indigenous populations in canada (ball, 2009; gerlach, 2008), the united states (ogata, sheehey, & noonan, 2006; tepper & tepper, 2004), new zealand (lyons, 2013), and australia (d’aprano, carapetis, & andrews, 2011; nelson & allison, 2004). some indigenous african (owusu-ansah & mji, 2013) and south american perspectives (bailey et al., 1999) were also found. the purpose of this review was to synthesize the existing body of academic and community literature on indigenous early childhood disability generally; therefore, specific diagnostic categories were not used in the search criteria. we did not restrict the literature review to research specifically by or from indigenous scholars. despite our search criteria, many articles focused on specific categories of impairment such as speech and language support (peltier, 2017), occupational therapy (gerlach, 2007), behavioural concerns (chartonas & bose, 2015), autism (mandell et al., 2009), or educational achievement (faircloth, 2006). there was also a body of work that included indigenous experiences of disability in early childhood generally (digiacomo et al., 2013) and in special education (hibel, faircloth, & farkas, 2008), as well as specific discussion of indigenous early learning (greenwood, 2006), service navigation (green et al., 2016), and health (kenney & thierry, 2014). the articles reviewed yielded five broad areas of information: cultural identity and self-determination; pathologizing of indigenous children and families; environmental and prenatal impacts on development; assessment and diagnosis; and social determinants affecting disability. these are described below with reference to the findings from the iecss project and the elders’ and community viewpoints. cultural identity and self-determination. the literature suggests that there is an increasing awareness of the role of culture in the development of intervention services and the diagnosis procedures associated with disability support. limited examples of specific disability support services operating from an indigenous perspective were identified (niles, byers, & krueger, 2007 is, however, one example). many articles spoke about the cultural conceptualization october 2019 28 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research of disability and its inherent impact on the provision of ei (e.g., digiacomo et al., 2013). cultural identity is overwhelmingly discussed in the literature as critical to children’s development (greenwood, de leeuw, & fraser, 2007; joe, 1982; nichols & keltner, 2005), and the development of culturally specific ei programs is seen as a means for indigenous self-determination (ball, 2009; peltier, 2011; simmons, novins, & allen, 2004). indigenousled education programs are discussed as a preventative strategy to mitigate negative outcomes associated with particular disabilities and poor social conditions (greenwood, 2006; niles et al., 2007; peltier, 2017; terbasket & greenwood, 2007). many articles spoke to the impact of colonization on indigenous health (e.g., greenwood, de leeuw, & fraser, 2007) and the ability of families to navigate the complex system of services for their children (e.g., green et al., 2016). culturally informed disability support may be one way for indigenous communities to develop intervention systems that allow for indigenous control of development services (simmons, novins, & allen, 2004). pathologizing of indigenous children and families. the pathologizing of indigenous parents and children is found throughout the literature. studies identify parents as being responsible for their child’s disablement (block, balcazar, & keys, 2001), uninvolved in their development (hibel et al., 2008), or unequipped to handle the demands of parenting a child with a disability (joe, 1982). while research supports the claim that indigenous children are at risk of developmental delays and disability, the underlying assumptions about indigenous parents as the cause is concerning. environmental and prenatal impacts on development. much of the research on childhood disability in indigenous communities is focused on drug and alcohol abuse in pregnancy and its impacts on child development (kenney & thierry, 2014) and, to a lesser extent, the impacts of toxic substances from environmental pollutants (allan & smylie, 2015). in addition, a review of research on the prevalence of childhood disability research in canada indicates an overrepresentation of studies on fetal alcohol syndrome, with little attention to trauma, autism spectrum disorder, and cerebral palsy, leading causes of childhood disability in canada (di pietro & illes, 2014). our research has resisted examining specific disability categories in order to focus on the institutional responses to disability. these institutional practices are often quite generalized, despite the reliance on diagnosis as a gatekeeper. the overall pattern of institutional interaction begins in infancy with hospitals and intensive health care intervention at birth, and then occupational therapies or ongoing health interventions related to specific biological systems of the body, such as the digestive and pulmonary systems. the general pattern of ei is focused on individual pathology, with the added pathologizing of families in a system that automatically links indigenous women with child protection. institutional interaction begins with prenatal care, but this creates opportunities for surveillance by social service agencies, which targets indigenous women. culture and family support are rarely a significant part of the ei system. while family relations are central to indigenous child-rearing practices, they are also central to intervention in families where drug and alcohol addiction are present. also, intervention at the socio-political level is necessary in order to ameliorate the conditions that are the cause of some childhood disability. assessment and diagnosis. a number of articles address the difficulty of assessing indigenous children (halle, et al. 2011; niles et al., 2007; ukrainetz et al., 2000) due to cultural translation (chartonas & bose, 2015), differing perspectives regarding the trajectory of development (peltier, 2010), and limited interaction with diagnostic professionals in some regions (aakhus & hoover, 1998). culturally appropriate adaptations of developmental screening tools are largely regarded as a strategy to mitigate cultural conflicts in early childhood assessment and the disproportionate representation of indigenous children in special education and child welfare (d’aprano, carapetis, & andrews, 2011; d’aprano et al., 2016; morrier & gallagher, 2011). simmons, novins, and allen (2004) specifically speak to community-established assessment measures as a model for indigenous self-determination in the definition of early childhood disability and provision of intervention services. october 2019 29 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research social determinants affecting disability. the literature identifies several social conditions that may affect indigenous families’ interactions with disability and early years services. overwhelmingly the literature focuses on poverty (chambers & burnett, 2017; skiba et al., 2005), but to a lesser extent it also discusses racism (block, balcazar, & keys 2001), education levels (nichols & keltner, 2005), mental health (kalyanpur, 1998), and social capital (digiacomo et al., 2013). the experience of early childhood disability is not only about the child, but also the family and community. the social context in which a child lives has considerable implications for understanding the impact of disability and the necessity for the right type of intervention. discussion across the three data sources, culture and language is at the centre of indigenous understanding. indigenous cultures are varied and rich, but as a result of long-term colonialism, there is inequitable access to cultural-linguistic resources. all of these data sources describe preservation of culture and language as central to children’s resilience. in disability studies, resilience has also been described as a sociocultural phenomenon rather than an individual characteristic (curran & runswick-cole, 2013). self-determination: indigenous services indigenous communities have been demanding self-determination in all aspects of their lives since the time of the first treaties with european and canadian governments. the literature review showed a focus on the underlying causes of childhood disability in indigenous communities, with particular attention to prenatal drug and alcohol exposure and environmental toxins in communities as causes of childhood impairment. the elders and community members raised very sensitive questions about how indigenous people are pathologized, and expressed that many indigenous people have experienced discrimination because of poor understanding in mainstream society about how addiction and environmental toxins are in fact symptoms of colonialism. our knowledge synthesis suggests that ei and early childhood education, care, and family support initiatives are a critical spot for considering the intersection of childhood disability and indigenous lives in a respectful way. knowledge sharing while self-determination is consistent with our most prevalent finding that indigenous culture and language must be the starting point for any discussion of disability in indigenous childhoods, we also know that families living in rural and remote communities in particular have a difficult time accessing disability services. we also know that even where services are available, they are not accessible when they are not culturally appropriate and put children and families at risk. across the three data sources, we found that the organization of services is central to the valuing of indigenous cultures, but also in the degree to which children with disabilities are accessing early childhood education, care, intervention, and family support. in the larger iecss study, we have found that many policies that govern general early childhood services make vague references to “inclusion” without explicitly planning for institutions to actually engage in this practice (iecss project, 2016a, 2016b). in the sharing of knowledge, it is important not to see indigenous communities as the recipients of research expertise on disability (as is the case in some of the literature), but as a model of inclusion. conclusion this knowledge synthesis specifically examines the institutional interactions that families have in the early years. while the knowledge synthesis project and the analysis were conducted by a mixed team of indigenous and settler researchers, any messages or recommendations should only be implemented in response to the local knowledge of october 2019 30 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research specific communities and children. the following key messages were identified through the knowledge synthesis: 1. indigenous cultural understanding values differences in child development and recognizes children as gifts. differences in children are part of the gifts that they hold and that make them gifts to their community. indigenous culture is at the centre of a worldview that values indigenous childhood and family experience. 2. social policy that takes indigenous experiences of childhood disability into account must include indigenous early childhood education, care, and intervention programs. in order to improve access and inclusion in early childhood education, care, family support, and intervention services, there needs to be better funding for and understanding of indigenous-specific experiences of childhood disability in both mainstream and indigenous services. 3. recognition of the role that institutions play in defining disability as they seek to support optimal development can help to identify theories of disability that are inherent in childhood disability processes and the cultural implications of these processes. ongoing research on specific disability experiences should integrate clinical studies with cultural knowledge of indigenous-specific experiences of childhood disability. while some literature discusses specific childhood disabilities in indigenous communities, this literature is largely focused on prenatal and environmental causes of disability, with little research on the construct of disability in indigenous communities and the construct of indigenous childhoods in mainstream early childhood education, care, family support, and intervention services. acknowledgements this research was supported by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada knowledge synthesis grant #872-2016-0005. october 2019 31 vol. 44 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aakhus, b. p., & hoover, j. h. 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(2013, june 20). understanding the disability trajectory of first nations families of children with disabilities: advancing jordan’s principle [brief ]. first nations families of children with disabilities summit. retrieved from https://umanitoba.ca/ faculties/nursing/research/media/booklet_june_summit.pdf zwaigenbaum, l., bryson, s., lord, c., rogers, s., carter, a., carver, l., ... & fein, d. (2009). clinical assessment and management of toddlers with suspected autism spectrum disorder: insights from studies of high-risk infants. pediatrics, 123(5), 1383–1391. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2008-1606 march 2022 45 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research speculating the symbio: possibilities for multispecies and multi-entity world making in childhood shelley o’brien shelley o’brien is a phd candidate in york university’s program for environmental and urban change. her work is grounded in feminist vital materialism, with a focus on climate precarity. her current research explores ways of knowing through intersections of age, entities, and species. she’s a practicing zen student, musician, and mother. email: skobrien@yorku.ca peter kraftl (2020) considers “alter-childhoods” as attempts to “imagine, construct, talk about, and put into practice childhoods that differ from perceived mainstreams” (p. 1). in this paper, i bring attention to assumptions about mainstream (western) children/childhoods before creating an alter, speculative world for multispecies entanglements. considering “alter-childhoods,” i explore a vital materialist perspective as a way to dismantle, rather than reiterate, binaries such as culture and nature, and think-with the possibilities for multispecies kin in ruined landscapes. in doing this, i attend to the complexity of children’s relations with more-than-human others, while also decentering the (adult) human. at the end of this paper, i call upon donna haraway’s (2016) sf (speculative fabulation, sym fiction, so far, etc.) as a tool for “seeking of otherwise possibilities” (nxumalo & ross, 2019) to entangle-with childing and speculative futures. as such, the final portion of this paper is a creative work entitled the symbio inspired by anna tsing’s (2015) the mushroom at the end of the world. this story explores bird-childmicrobe-dog-e-waste relations as a playful and generative means of imagining robust survival for children on a contaminated planet. throughout this paper and the story, when i speak about childhood, i am referring to a mainstream (western) perception of childhood in colonial nations such as canada, which is where i live. i take a cue from karen malone, iris duhn, and marek tesar (2020) in this contribution of speculative fiction as an offering for their “greedy bag of possibilities,” which they call their assemblage of approaches to childhood-nature encounters (p. 19). this bag of perspectives—including new materialism, posthumanism, and place theory—aren’t competitive, but can be enthusiastically approached and bounced off each other, as all have been productive in the field of childhood-nature. perhaps this piece of speculative fiction can be a consequential entity with these other theories, and in the greedy bag, they “can produce sparks when knocked together” (p. 19). conventional approaches in western childhood childhood is a governable domain, defined through (adult) western ideas of chronological, linear development in this paper, i attempt to interrupt conventional analyses of childhood and instead illustrate the importance of diverse stories around child-nature relations. vital materialist perspectives dismantle and disrupt binaries, so by exploring these perspectives, i am decentering the (adult) human and thinking-with the possibilities for multispecies relations in precarious times. this paper finishes with a speculative story that proposes lively experiments in multispecies and multientity possibilities, in a near-future contaminated toronto. enabled by microbes that have flourished on a shipwreck of e-waste, children, birds, and a dog codiscover the symbio. key words: speculative fiction; childhood; symbiosis; multispecies and multi-entity relations; vital materialism march 2022 46 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (burman, 2020). in large part, developmental psychology individualizes, universalizes, naturalizes, and privatizes the many ways in which the care and containment of the young are structured, and this is done according to (mostly western) models of who (adults think) children should be. this ageand stage-based psychology has influenced and deepened the binaries between children and nature by powering the movement of reinserting and reconnecting the so-called nature-deficient child into nature (dickenson, 2013; malone, 2015, taylor, 2013; ). it assumes a reconnection is necessary when, in fact, in the words of david clarke and jamie mcphie (2014), there was no possible way for a disconnect in the first place. because children tend to be locked into an ageist developmental trope about adult exceptionalism, children are often not taken seriously as knowers because of their being as a child. as karen malone (2019) expresses, considering karin murris’s idea of epistemic injustices: children are not listened to because of their very being (onto-): a child is unable to make claims to knowledge, because it is assumed that they are (still) developing, (still) innocent, (still) fragile, (still) immature, (still) irrational, (still) becoming, (still) monsters. (p. 160) this forward-moving trajectory of development (along with an insistence of an otherness that is not adult) is both limited and limiting for children and childhood in a world that is “increasingly complex, mixed-up, boundary blurring, heterogeneous, interdependent and ethically confronting” (taylor et al., 2012, p. 81). indeed, as tsing (2015) says, without “stories of progress, the world has become a terrifying place … it’s not easy to know how to make a life” (p. 283), but perhaps we can address precarity in a recuperative way and turn experiences of inexistence into “generative relational encounters” (braidotti, 2019, p. 52). the conventional narrative of child development is just one of many iterations of the fallacy of progress, a forwardmoving march that drowns out many other, more indeterminate temporal patterns and ways of being. buddhist and indigenous worldviews are two such examples. tsing (2015) suggests that precarity, rather than being an exception to the orderly workings of the world, is rather the characterizing condition of our time (p. 20), and that it is the unpredictable nature of the indeterminate that has the power to transform us. donna haraway (2016) conceptualizes play as “the most powerful and diverse activity for rearranging old things and proposing new things, new patterns of feeling and action, and for crafting safe enough ways to tangle with each other in conflict and collaboration” (p. 150). play “plays” with precarity, and together, they can reveal very real possibilities of a multispecies world making that includes children. in staying with precarity and play, we can “stay with the trouble,” which haraway (2016) encourages. she says that “we all live in disturbing times. the task is to become capable with each other in all of our bumptious kinds of response” (p. 1). peeking into the greedy bag: sympoiesis and vital materialism the theory of symbiogenesis (including sym, meaning together, and bio, meaning life) was advanced by biologist lynn margulis (as cited in haraway, 2017). symbiogenesis challenges individual units of natural selection in favour of their relationships. a complex of organisms and their symbionts that interact in symbiosis was termed by margulis as the holobiont. in donna haraway’s (2017) understanding, “critters do not precede their relatings; they make each other through their semiotic, material involution … the core of margulis’s view on life was that new kinds of cells, tissues, organs and species evolve primarily through the long-lasting intimacy of strangers” (p. m26). this “making-with” is sympoiesis: haraway (2017) explains: “critters interpenetrate one another, loop around and through one another, eat each other, get indigestion, and partially digest and partially assimilate one another, and thereby establish sympoietic arrangements that are otherwise known as cells, organisms, and ecological assemblages’’ (p. m25). these assemblages, understood by tsing (2015) as “polyphonic, open-ended gatherings” march 2022 47 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (p. 23), are encounters of holobionts in indeterminate time. as we think-with sympoiesis, it is important to think beyond a dual, species-specific sympoietic relationship. sympoiesis is more complex than that. the hindu/ buddhist concept of indra’s net is helpful to think with here. a vast and intricate net, much like a spider web, is said to be stretched out infinitely in the realm of indra. at each infinite node is a jewel, both linked to every other jewel and reflecting every other jewel. this is the concept of interpenetration, where each part reflects all, connects to all, and is whole in and of itself. the vast net and jewels are not limited to species but include all things, and all entities, as well as the links and spaces between them. likewise, says rosi braidotti (2019), subjectivity is not restricted to bound individuals. in fact, it is “a co-operative trans-species effort that takes place transversally, inbetween nature/technology; male/female; black/white; local/global; present/past—in assemblages that flow across and displace the binaries” (p. 33). much scholarship that is centered in the more-than-human is also termed “vital materialism” (bennett, 2010). this scholarship disrupts western dualistic notions and focuses on relationship and relationality: [it] positions humans and nonhumans as interrelated and co-productive of the interactions which comprise vitality or life. the notion of distributed relationality is at the centre of vital materialism, a relational ontology which disrupts western binaries and is valuable for thinking with the historical and cultural contingencies of more-than-human perspectives. (lupton & watson, 2020, p. 2) no matter, no things are excluded from this framework, as jane bennett (2010) suggests in her book vital matter. bennett reminds us that we can all remember a childhood populated by animate things rather than just merely passive objects. she uses the term thing power to express the idea that matter is “alive” because it has the capacity to animate and produce effects (p. xvi). a favourite stuffed toy, for example, can cheer or comfort a child in a mere moment. in related work, karen barad (2007) explains: “posthumanism doesn’t presume the separateness of any-‘thing’, let alone the alleged spatial, ontological, and epistemological distinction that sets humans apart” (p. 136). vital materialist thought focuses on the idea that everything intra-is in that “there is no longer a knowing (human) subject that acts upon a passive (non-human) object. everything is ‘entangled’” (snaza et al., 2016, p. xvii). if this is the case, it opens up the whole world for/of childhood and childhood studies. it plays messy havoc on tried/tired concepts such as growth, development, and the binary of child/adult in favour of more-than-human and morethan-life entanglement in the here and now, and the kin that result from these infinite intra-actions. in making this mess, vital materialism also has the capacity to bring us (as scholars and practitioners) closer to the present, to what is happening right now, which is the time in which children already dwell. in the companion species manifesto, haraway (2003) says: “i suspect that human genomes contain a considerable molecular record of the pathogens of their companion species, including dogs” (p. 31). we can consider intimate intra-action of multispecies and multi-entities as evidence of our relationship on a molecular level. to speculate on bird-child-microbe-e-waste-dog relations, as i do in my story, is to attend to the interfusion and interpenetration of all bodies and beings in community, without bindings or bounds. as malone (2015) relays, “the phenomenological experience of being” is “a shared intersubjective being in the world, with and through children who are equally exposed to the genomes that have infiltrated all bodies/entities (dirt, air, beings) at a molecular level” (p. 10). haraway calls earthlings “kin in the deepest sense” (2016), and tells us it is past time to practice taking better care of “kinds-as-assemblages (not species one at a time). kin is an assembling sort of word” (p. 103). what does it mean then, to be part of an ever-shifting and uncanny assemblage with multispecies and multi-entity kin, like children, birds, microbes, e-waste, and dogs? can we make these kinds of lively and troubled stories part of our knowledge practice in childhood studies? march 2022 48 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research making sparks: introducing the symbio in the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins, tsing (2015) traces shifting kin/assemblages around the matsutake mushroom. we travel with her through an ethnography of multispecies encounters amid human-created destruction. she illuminates indeterminacy and precarity as reality and pokes all manner of holes in narratives of progress. in doing so she muses about (resurgent) survival in contaminated, disturbed landscapes. tsing’s book—and work, along with other work in new materialism cited here—is a jumping off point for my project of speculative fiction, entitled the symbio. through imagining (re)configurations of microbe-bird-child-e-waste-dog becoming in the age of the holobiont, what emerges? in these events of so-called contaminated intimacy we find all manner of strangers in community. in the symbio, the children hold e-waste and work with this thrown-away technology to build a nest (much like the liminal childhood pastime of fort building) for birds at the site of a toxic, abandoned urban shipwreck, and in so doing, intra-act as multispecies holobionts. the children are not separate from the microbes, from building, from other children, from toxins, from the landscape and its colonial history, from illumination. the microbial and e-waste “toxic contamination” disrupts, or renders obsolete, the language boundary between bird and child. in a post-contaminated landscape, through the world making (or play) of children, the assemblage of characters in the symbio (the “open-ended gathering”) becomes a “happening” greater than the sum of its parts (tsing, 2015, p. 23). cordoned off and deemed dangerous by officials, the shipwreck, e-waste, and toxic microbes are a blasted landscape in my story. as tsing (2015) says, “everyone carries a history of contamination; purity is not an option” (p. 28), sometimes simply due to encountering others. in her book against purity (2016), alexis shotwell points out that “the discourse of toxicity attempts to secure a rhetorical space for individual purity” (p. 85). however, “corporeal exceptionalism cannot be sustained, because inter-absorption is the way things are” (p. 85). to be against purity in this sense does not mean that one is for contamination but rather that we resist the bifurcation into falsehoods like pure and contaminated and tell the stories of “intercommunalism” for all objects, “transgressing categorical understandings” (p. 15). in fact, it is just this encounter of children and birds with the “contamination” of microbes on e-waste that metamorphizes understanding, creating a lively encounter of multispecies possibility. the birdschildren-e-waste-microbe-dog world making is a speculative future of pedagogical possibility. i imagine these futures in our present ruin as a practice of paying attention: to the precarity of living, the possibility of play, and the ways stories are told. in this way of attention, what arises? the realization that entanglements like childcontamination-birds, or any other number of assemblages, are right here in the present for us to see. the symbio 1. kawatare “who are you?!” i said, perplexed at the word my mother was translating as we walked out of high park at dusk. “yes! the word kawatare is made of the japanese character for person and the character for who! this time of day and night in japanese translates literally as “who are you” because it’s just dark enough to not recognize another person’s face.” as we went on, purposefully, through the lush foliage of summer in high park, the rains began, crescendoing from an ominous pitter patter to a low roar upon us. zenji, our red heeler, gave a “woof !”, and as we quickened our pace in silence i glanced up into the trees. there, i saw a neat little nest in a young oak tree, illuminated in the half-light, glowing defiantly like a beacon in pinks, oranges, turquoises, purples, and greens. i closed my eyes, march 2022 49 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research wiped the raindrops from my face, and looked again. it was there, i hadn’t been seeing things. the rain was getting cacophonous now, and we hurried on home. but i would never forget the first time i saw the symbio. 2. genevieve’s nest when we got back home and dried off, i glanced at the postcard above my mom’s office desk. it was a simple postcard, but i loved it. a copy of an old print, mom said from the 1800s, of a little nest filled with four blue eggs. mom told me she kept the card there to remind herself of the power of small things to do great things. the artist’s name was genevieve jones, and her nest drawings were a feisty response to this other guy, named audubon, who drew (and killed and collected) thousands of birds. his birds, whether drawn or collected, were always floating around in nothingness, existing only for his eyes to see. those poor birds! they had no homes or trees to fly back to, no eggs to hatch. when this guy captured them by pen or hand, they just lost their whole existence. they lost their futures. i’ve been thinking about whether my future is lost. a lot of people here in toronto seem to think so, because of the floods, the shipwreck, and the almost daily storms. but then i found that first nest, and everything changed. 3. bacterial brains “yes, seriously, love! did you know we humans came from and exist because of bacteria? prokaryotes were the only living beings on earth for the first two billion years. they invented all life systems. their technology led to photosynthesis, breathing, and even levels of conscious awareness. bacterial collectives change the world, so i bet there is something intelligent about this slime. i mean, slime mould is eukaryotic, so the cells have nuclei, not like bacteria or archaebacteria, but still, look at mycelia—fungal intelligence is well-known.” yes, this is my mother. it was the afternoon after seeing that nest in high park, and i was trying my hardest to make an excuse to go back there today, but she wasn’t making it so easy. she’d just read an article about the shipwreck in grenadier bay at the south of high park and how, from a recent flyover, government officials saw that there was a problematic slime mould growing on the pile of e-waste on the shores of the bay. “before grenadier bay was part of lake ontario, my parents used to skate on it, and it was called grenadier pond, and toronto had its own island with an amusement park! hard to believe how much more water there is these days.” she didn’t think this was depressing at all, but i sure had some questions about it. she has now started talking about a japanese mushroom that only grows after a forest has been destroyed. my mom is a weirdo. “k mom, i’m gonna head out with zenji before raintime, ok? we’ll just be in the park.” “okay, just keep your ear on, okay?” she said. i reached up to my ear to press my fingerprint to the reader. “connected,” replied a voice. “good to go, mom!” she gave me a mildly distracted wave, reading an old textbook called the mushroom at the end of the world with her glasses down her nose and a contented smile. 4. kawatare, illuminated ahhh! i was free. high park was such a place of solace for us. it was usually deserted. the combination of the shipwreck, people’s fears about toxicity and pollution, and the mosquitos kept people away from the park. mom was lucky enough to get us vaccinated against all the mosquito diseases when she was pregnant with me, so we didn’t have to worry about that. the wild coyotes that plagued the park for years had also moved on, smart enough march 2022 50 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to know that their dens were too prone to flooding. and mom took regular air pollution readings. it was always a lot better in the park. i knew exactly where to go. the nest was there, looking completely ordinary. i wouldn’t have even seen it had i not seen it glowing last night. i had to crawl up a soggy log, wedged in the fork of the tree to get a closer look. zenji whined and settled in the damp grass. oh, it was a marvellous little thing! probably a robin’s nest, made of sticks and twigs, but what was so cool was that it contained what looked like little bits of machinery, metal, wires, all woven into something pretty wonderful. so, maybe you’ve figured this out, but you should know: i love nests. mom says from age 2 or so, i would crawl under the piano bench, in the space between the dresser and the old radiator, or put zenji in little in-between spaces and pack them with sticks, empty sticker pages, receipts, leaves, pinecones, and any other little stuffable i could find. i also obsessively brought her back piles of sticks from school, which the teachers would pass to mom with a knowing look. anyway, i put my face close to this wonderful thing and gave it a good sniff. then i hopped back down and sat with zenji and waited. it was humid and the afternoon seeped along my skin like slime, sliding along us stiflingly. i could hear the rumbles of thunder on the horizon, but i wasn’t moving until i saw the nest glow. dusk’s little fingers started to tickle at our edges, and just as daylight leaked away, the little nest seemed to absorb and transmute it into a glow. there it was. then, without any warning, it made a sound. “bzzzt.” my heart leapt into my throat and zenji sat up and perked her ears. just as suddenly a bird landed on it. it was a cedar waxwing! a beautiful little bandit who stared at me, bent over, and pecked at the nest, cocked her head to the side, and with a “chirp!” took to the sky, just like that. i stood up, amazed, and brushed myself off. just as the raintime had started, i heard that sound again, but farther away. then again. if i hadn’t been staring at the nest i would’ve just thought it was an insect, but nope, this sound was a nest on vibrate mode, like back when every human had a smartphone and they would buzz on a table. suddenly another sound entered my consciousness. “mama here, coming home soon?” “on my way, mama,” i said, with my finger on my ear. the buzzes continued, and my curiosity got the better of me. before turning for home, i climbed a hill nearby. when i turned to look over the ravine i just couldn’t believe my eyes. there were dozens of nests, illuminating on and off, and faint buzzing noises that could only have been them. these nests seemed alive! then i saw a shift in the lower branches of the trees by one of the nests. the whites of two eyes caught mine. i gasped. “who are you?!?” i said to myself. 5. the beautiful bandit it turns out it wasn’t just one kid. it was a band of kids, and they knew all about the buzzing, illuminated nests, and their fleet makers, the birds. i started going to the park every day after that. my mom was working on a research project, and as long as zenji was with me and my ear was on, she was okay with it. the one i saw the first night was quill. we met in person the next day when i waited in the woods by the waxwing’s nest. quill showed up, expecting me, and a crew of birds seemed to follow, alighting in the trees as i was given the march 2022 51 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research once over. after smiles, quill asked if i was wearing an ear. i turned to one side, showing it. a gesture from him: i was supposed to remove it. holding it tight in my hand, i followed as they turned, feeling like one of the birds that trailed along. we cut through the park together, diving into trails i didn’t remember, hearing birdsong i’d never heard, until we got to a fence with a large yellow hazard sign on it. quill, zenji, and i were just narrow enough to squeeze through an opening underneath, and we went down a hill until we were at a shoreline. i gasped. this was grenadier bay! mom had told me all about this place, the site of the shipwreck, but it had been cordoned off for so long, and was thought to be contaminated, so mom didn’t ever bring me here. the sandy shore was deserted except for a smattering of kid’s footprints, my first sign of what i was soon to encounter. i took in the sight of the container ship partially submerged in the bay. it lay breached on its side like a monstrous whale with grasses and bulrushes growing through the rust holes in the hull. all the containers had been removed, but not before a lot was scavenged and not before a container of broken up e-waste had spilled into the bay. the water was an eerie hue of orange, just like mom said, but i was surprised at the life that teemed there: seagulls and shorebirds of all kinds gathered by the ship and in the water. zenji was busy sniffing the air. quill made a crazy whistling sound that honestly sounded just like a robin, and slowly, four other kids, some younger than the kindergarteners at my school, emerged from the brush surrounding the shore. “hey,” i said, holding up my closed hand, which was holding the ear piece. the were just rambling park kids like me, but not really like kids i’d seen before. they were so sparkly compared to my friends at school, who seemed kind of dull, bored, and sick all the time. with their eyes shining, one by one quill told me their names: ora, dea, lore, and red. “nice to meet you,” i said. at that moment, a cedar waxwing lifted off the brush and hovered over my closed hand. surprised, i opened it up and she landed on it, looking sideways at me in her beautiful bandit mask. she gently tipped the earpiece until it was upside down. “she’s chosen you!” said quill. “what?” i said. “you met her before, remember? she’s chosen you.” quill made a sound, and a beautiful robin came to their shoulder. the two young ones, dea and lore, also chirped, and out of nowhere a chickadee and a sparrow appeared to them. ora, who was a bit older and seemed more reserved, gave me a half smile and let out a “caw!” and an inkblack crow replied from the sky and circled until the two were united, claws resting on shoulders. red snapped, and a beautiful flicker came in to land. “oh my god this is so cool what is going on here?” i said in a hushed voice. ora finally spoke. “welcome to the symbio. your bird, the cedar waxwing. she says your name is cee.” 6. slimed ora went on, with the crow tilting their head from time to time, to explain to me what was happening. the birds, being the curious type, had started using materials from the shipwreck for their nests shortly after the accident. the e-waste, which was full of rare earth minerals and the bacteria that grew on them, became coveted for both march 2022 52 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research its illumination and vibration. but the birds weren’t alone in loving the e-waste. turns out a certain type of mould favoured the microbes and minerals, and it was that orange slimy stuff that coloured the bay. the slime-microbee-waste, when played with by the birds, made them more discerning about who they were and were not afraid of. ora was the first to discover this, and brought lore to the park. the two of them quickly had a crow and a sparrow as their companions. quill and dea followed, then red. birds “adopted” them too. a robin for quill, a chickadee for dea, and a flicker for red. soon after, they discovered the nest network, and got the idea to copy the birds. “copy them?” i asked. quill said “yeah! do you want to see our nest?” “yes!” i said. zenji and i moved along with our new friends, excited. we all travelled along the beach, turning up a trail to a small clearing where i saw the world’s biggest nest. it was just like the illuminated nest, but people sized! “it’s still a work in progress, but it’s our summer project. want to help, cee?” i smiled. “wow, yes, this is a dream come true!” 7. the symbio i told mom about the kids i’d met in the park, omitting the obviously tricky details about the birds, the slime, and the giant nest. “huh, sounds like alder and tonah’s kids. they’ve given themselves nicknames?” “yeah, and i’m cee.” “great, love! be careful in there, okay?” “will do, mom!” as we worked on the nest the next day, the cedar waxwing i’d named bibi was always nearby. she chattered away to me, and the other kids laughed. “okay, guys, how are you like somehow understanding what these birds are saying?!” i said. “we can hear them!” cried lore, who had found a shiny, orange-slime-covered square, possibly a battery along the shore. she carefully tucked it into a spot along the bottom, wiping the slime on her shirt. ora smiled at me. “just keep working, you will get it soon.” by the end of the first week, the nest had filled out a lot. i’d found some interesting slimy pieces myself. broken circuit pieces, triangles of screen, small wires. i was just focusing intensely while placing a little yellow wire in a perfect spot when bibi let out a loud “seeeee!” and suddenly all these images flashed before my eyes: my mom at her desk, smiling. flying up in the air, above the shipwreck at dusk, seeing our nest illuminated. bibi looking at me from her nest. the stars above a city with no lights on. the dense lush greenery of the park. zenji, running and jumping on the beach with her tongue out. my new friends and me sitting in the nest. the network of nests, illuminated and buzzing out messages: we are here! come see us! let’s sing! and, finally, this intense, loving hum march 2022 53 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of togetherness. after this eternal moment subsided, i shook my head. ora was looking at me. “you okay?” “i ... i don’t know. i don’t know what happened, i just kept seeing all these things, and they were so beautiful, so alive ... wow, that was crazy.” ora smiled. “that’s the symbio, cee. i knew you’d see it soon.” just then, bibi flew down and landed close by. she looked at me, head tilted, and said, “welcome.” 8. zenji makes a friend the symbio. touching the slime. as it turns out, something in that slime, those microbes, that e-waste, makes us understand birds, but only if the birds want to be understood. okay, this is so weird. not only understand birds. understand. the slime and microbes with these rare earth minerals allows us to somehow make a symbiotic leap of consciousness. but was the slime adding something to me or taking something away? ora said for lore and dea, the younger ones, there was no “moment” like i had. they had just basically started chattering to and like the birds straight away. for us older kids, we needed to work harder to get lost in the making of the nest. to let the slime ... well, slime us. gross! hahaha. “who else knows about this?” i asked, thinking of how freaked out (okay, and excited) mom would be by this. “no one yet,” ora said. “we are waiting for the birds’ and the symbio’s counsel on whether to tell anyone. they brought you here, right? we think they know what they’re doing.” just then, a quirky blackbird descended on the field. “hi!” she said, hopping over to the dog. “wanna be my friend?” zenji lifted her head and woofed. conclusion in this piece, i experimented with the speculative as a process to disrupt and muddle with conventional arrangements and binaries we are used to in child-related disciplines, such as child/nature and child/adult. speculative fiction can be a valuable practice of paying attention in order to see through assumptions and suggest possibilities. the mother in this piece “knows” things and the child hears this, yet the child subsequently experiences what the mother only understands in a more superficial way, turning the convention of adult-teaching-child on its head. the adult in this story remains on the sidelines while the children are in relation with the birds, microbes, e-waste, and dogs. they are “in nature,” but it isn’t a conventional wild landscape or a conventional urban park. they aren’t “reconnecting with nature” but are in the midst of a human-caused site of contamination, building a nest out of toxic garbage. here is where i create possibilities for thinking-with childhood and precarity. i imagine a toxic future, but one where children play with contamination, garbage, and toxicity and become-with birds. these children don’t need to be assigned any gender in particular. perhaps as the story evolves they will voice their genders. through working together, birds-microbes-child-e-waste-dog both inter-are and intra-become. children (still) play and (still) encounter multispecies nature/kin in all its precarity. they listen, they watch, they attend-to the more-than-human world, and in turn, they are listened to, even amidst the damaged landscape they engage with. while this piece of speculative fiction may seem far-fetched, for me it is a necessary creative entanglement, entangled as we already all are in precarity and the trouble of living in this world. as narda nelson (2020) states, we tend to multispecies relations, “including those considered uncomfortable, as deeply entangled and consequential to open up new possibilities for ethical responses to living and dying together in these troubling times” (p. 637). march 2022 54 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research these speculative child-figures both call into question and subvert conventional arrangements where “life” doesn’t necessarily extend to microbes, to minerals, and to slime. and yet, these children become-with the e-waste (in the process of building the nest) and become-with the contamination (in cee’s illumination experience), and in fact, it is the “intelligent” interaction of the bacterial and slime microbes that leads to new opportunities for kin relations. in becoming-with the e-waste, they also become-with birds in new ways. working with the speculative can conjure unconventional experiments and provocations by inviting us to the possibilities of world making that we haven’t considered before. child-microbe relations, child-bird relations, and child-waste relations, for example, all add to a vital discourse that reveals the interdependent multispecies assemblages that are actually already at work and repositions the figure of the child right into the thick of things, where they most certainly already are. march 2022 55 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references barad, k. (2007). meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. duke university press. bennett, j. (2010). vibrant matter: a political ecology of things. duke university press. braidotti, r. (2019). a theoretical framework for the critical posthumanities. theory, culture, & society, 36(6), 31–61. https://doi. org/10.1177/0263276418771486 burman, e. (2020). developments: child, image, nation (2nd ed.). routledge. clarke, d., & mcphie, j. (2014). becoming animate in education: immanent materiality and outdoor learning for sustainability. journal of adventure education and outdoor learning, 14(3), 198–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2014.919866 dickinson, e. (2013). the misdiagnosis: rethinking “nature-deficit disorder.” environmental communication, 7(3), 315–414. https://doi. org/10.1080/17524032.2013.802704 haraway, d. (2003). the companion species manifesto: dogs, people and significant otherness. prickly paradigm press. haraway, d. j. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. duke university press. haraway, d. j. (2017). symbiogenesis, sympoiesis, and art science activisms for staying with the trouble. in a. l. tsing, h. a. swanson, e. gan, & n. bubandt (eds.), arts of living on a damaged planet: ghosts and monsters of the anthropocene. university of minnesota press. kraftl, p. (2020). after childhood: re-thinking environment, materiality and media in children’s lives. routledge. lupton, d., & watson, a. (2020). towards more-than-human digital data studies: developing research-creation methods. qualitative research, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120939235 malone, k. (2015). posthumanist approaches to theorizing children’s human-nature relations. in t. skelton, k. nairn, & p. kraftl (eds.), space, place and environment (pp. 185–206). springerlink. malone, k. (2019). walking-with children on blasted landscapes. journal of public pedagogies, 4. https://doi.org/10.15209/jpp.1184 malone, k., duhn, i., & tesar, m. (2020). greedy bags of childhoodnature theories. in a. cutter-mackenzie knowles, k. malone, & e. barratt hacking (eds.), research handbook on childhoodnature: assemblages of childhood and nature research (pp. 19–29). springerlink. nelson, n. (2020). rats, death, and anthropocene relations in urban canadian childhoods. in a. cutter-mackenzie knowles, k. malone, & e. barratt hacking (eds.), research handbook on childhoodnature: assemblages of childhood and nature research (pp. 637–659). springerlink. nxumalo, f., & ross, k. m. (2019). envisioning black space in environmental education for young children. race ethnicity and education, 22(4), 502–524. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1592837 shotwell, a. (2016). against purity: living ethically in compromised times. university of minnesota press. snaza, n., sonu, d., truman, s. e., & zaliwska, z. (2016). pedagogical matters: new materialisms and curriculum studies. peter lang. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures of childhood. routledge. taylor a, pacini-ketchabaw, v., & blaise, m. (2012) children’s relations to the more-than-human world. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 81–85. https://doi.org/10.2304ciec.2012.13.2.81 tsing, a. l. (2015). the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton university press. december 2021 89 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources no children involved: open letter to my fellow educators a review of equity as praxis in early childhood education and care by gabrielle monique warren gabrielle monique warren is the media director and advocacy officer at start2finish canada, a nonprofit committed to bridging the gaps between the haves and have-nots in canada. she recently completed her master of education at york university with a concentration in early childhood pedagogies. her med major research paper, pedagogy of the “savage” child, was inspired by the children she works with, the communities she serves, and the black radical tradition. her approach is towards praxis and is rooted in the belief that conviction must lead to tangible action. email: gwarr97@yorku.ca abawi, z., eizadirad, a., & berman, r. (2021). equity as praxis in early childhood education and care. canadian scholars. systematic change begins at the micro, grassroots level; it depends on the emancipation of the mind, followed by a revolution within the heart. this must be attended by struggle, resiliency, and sacrifice as individuals and organizations take action, in solidarity with communities, to centre equity as a sustainable priority for institutional policies and practices and to reflect the needs of vulnerable identities and communities. (abawi et al., 2021, p. xxi) equity as praxis in early childhood education, edited by zuhra abawi, ardavan eizadirad, and rachel berman (canadian scholars, 2021), is a critical resource to early childhood thinkers and practitioners because it makes visible the lives of the othered in ece. i use the term othered to refer to how individuals outside of the dominant ethnoclass are perceived as marginal human beings. this is not to say that they are marginal, but they are perceived that way. in this view, children who are othered must contort themselves to fit into a model of humanity not designed for them, hence an othered status. in other words, othered refers to how white supremacy categorizes populations that it does not recognize as legitimate. the clear and concise format of equity as praxis refuses room for ignorance in understanding the landscape of students and educators often unseen in the ece space. the editors achieved this by including contributors who speak on issues such as low-income racialized children and making space for indigenous knowledge. this work points toward how canada’s purported universalism is merely a signal toward assimilation. the book is divided into nine chapters and encompasses several themes, including childhood inequity, child developmentalism, the need for a national strategy on children, discourses in education, the ethics of care, feminized care, indigenous pedagogy, neoliberal childhoods, and anti-black racism. in this review, i look at the volume thematically as opposed to sequentially. my purpose is to engage with the arguments and propose my thoughts on specific aspects of the work. the intellectual project of sylvia wynter has inspired my work by infusing it with an otherwise subjectivity. by looking beyond the world presented to us, wynter shifts our view of what is possible in our current situation. throughout this review, i will be weaving in wynter’s (1994) “‘no humans involved’: open letter to my colleagues” to explore the complications of equity and how the same forces it desires to resist can coopt its meaning. written in response to the rodney king beating and the riots that came with it, “no humans involved” (wynter, 1994) argues that education is implicated in the production and reproduction of harm. the abbreviation nhi (no humans involved) refers to the one routinely used by officials of the judicial system of los angeles about any case involving young black males belonging to the jobless category of inner-city ghettos. in this piece, wynter uses the term inner eyes to describe the use of nhi. she explains that the cops and lawmakers who acted violently towards rodney king and the rioters had specific inner eyes that affirmed the “truth” that human beings—within a white mailto:gwarr97@yorku.ca december 2021 90 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources supremacist worldview—are universal and any status outside this worldview’s descriptive statement does not exist. a descriptive statement is defined as how humans use language to answer the question of who and what we (as human beings living in the world) are (see wynter, 2003). the rodney king case was not isolated but endemic of inequity deeply baked into how we define ourselves as human. equity as praxis, in a canadian context, speaks toward how inner eyes can affect how the child is perceived and how education is implicated in reproducing a particular truth. in the introduction, abawi, eizadirad, and berman (2021) assert, “this textbook seeks to challenge and disrupt developmentalist discourses that frame young children as oblivious, unaware, and incapable of navigating the complexities of multi-faceted identities” (p. xvii). additionally, they offer “a critique of the various short-comings in the field of ecec” (p. xvii) while celebrating the strength of those who think and do liberatory work in the field. in wynterian terms, equity as praxis desires to untether from the status-orienting principle that ties students and educators into strict binaries of being. gould (1993, as cited in wynter, 2003) defines the status-orienting principle as classification systems that direct our thinking and order our behaviour. in the case of the rodney king riots, by classifying rodney king and the rioters as nhi, these public officials would have given the police of la the green light to deal with the group’s members the way they pleased. these members were perceived as jobless young black men of inner-city ghettos. foucault (1981, as cited in wynter, 2003) traces the processes by which our present disciplines came to be put in place at the end of the 18th century by european thinkers to be central representations by which the human would come to perceive and know itself as if it were a pure organism in complete continuity with organic life (wynter, 1994, 2003). this claim to organic continuity can also be perceived as a claim of the dominant ethnoclass as universal. equity as praxis refuses this universality in its contents, speaking toward the need for ecec to “stir the very foundation of the field of early childhood studies” (p. xi). supraculturalism in early childhood education in chapter 1, “state of emergency: mapping inequities in early childhood education and care in canada,” eizadirad and abawi (2021) explain the inequities in the ecec space. they cite the lack of a national ece policy program, lack of investment by the federal government, difficulty retaining qualified ece educators due to lack of investment, high fees for parents, long waiting lists, and unregulated childcare centres as evidence of this lack of investment. by discussing how neoliberalism and marketization have affected the ecec space, they interrogate how intersectionalities of oppression and inequities cause the asymmetric application of harm for students and educators. in raising awareness of the power dynamics within canada, they assert the state of emergency that exists in the space and propose how we might move forward in our present situation. overall, their arguments illustrate how a universalized, neutral understanding of what child care looks like in canada is harmful to those on the margins. this chapter illuminates how supracultural accounts of canadian child care are inherently inequitable and proposes that refusing this supraculturalism can create substantial change. supraculturalism is the mechanism that allows universality to function and classify (wynter, 1994). asmarom legesse (1973, as cited in wynter, 1994) points out that our present knowledge organization is premised on the technocultural fallacy. this term derives from the failure of anthropology to distinguish the purposive aspects of human behaviour and the unconscious structure in human culture from the unconscious empirical processes that link man directly to animal societies and the ecosystem. human beings are unconscious of their descriptive statements; thus, they believe that their reality is the only valid reality. this belief becomes harmful when it is overrepresented. in other words, when one believes that how they experience the world is the only way, a rigidity forms that is harmful to those who do not attend to the written and unwritten presumptions of their world experience. this is the technocultural fallacy legesse speaks of. wynter (1994) builds on this fallacy by december 2021 91 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources asserting the second fallacy of supraculturalism. when the fallacy becomes institutionalized within the schema of politics and, in our case, education, it proliferates more significant harm than individual encounters. in many chapters throughout the book (e.g., chapters 2 and 8) there is explicit argumentation toward how supracultural understandings of human beings mediate ecec relations. the question in these discussions is how we might understand how we have been affected by these understandings and how we might shift away from this effect. in other words, while we are in an emergency, a call toward an otherwise future must not add on to the current order but altogether refuse it. this volume works toward, in various ways, articulating that an equity tied to white supremacist, capitalist, settler-colonial, patriarchal, neoliberal values is not equity at all. in chapters 2 and 8, there is an explicit discussion of how supraculturalism operates in canadian ece spaces. from alana butler’s discussion of the barriers low-income, racialized students and families face to maria karmiris’s conversation on the violence of child developmentalism, there is an emphasis on how the belief that one kind of child exists in canada inflicts harm on othered students. when one assumes that the average canadian child is white and middle class, programs and funding needed by marginalized children are deprioritized because they are considered unnecessary. this assumption flattens the reality of childhood in canada (see unicef, n.d.) and removes accountability of those in power to change asymmetric applications of ece. like those who saw the rodney king rioters with inner eyes, a supracultural ece space projects a specific truth that is marred by historical and political bias. in chapter 2, “low-income racialized children and access to quality ecec in ontario,” butler (2021) discusses and identifies barriers that low-income, racialized students and families face when they attempt to access highquality ecec programs. the barriers emphasized are financial, spatial, and cultural. further, there is a stress on how a colour-blind understanding of the ecec system negatively affects students by assuming that the system, as is, is sufficient. butler emphasizes that “without universal access to affordable early childhood education and care [marginalized] families will continue to face barriers” (p. 35). butler explores strategies that educators and policymakers can use, including increasing public investment in early learning and care, adding strong antiharassment and antidiscrimination policies to workplace policies, and adopting am antiracist approach to early childhood education curricula. supraculturalism allows the inner eyes to justify its truth, and the “colour line” operates to solidify that truth fully. wynter (2003) reasons that the colour line is a status-orienting principle based on differential degrees of evolutionary selectness—this includes differences between classes, sexes, sexualities, rich and poor, and the developing versus the developed world. the dominant ethnoclass defines these lines in symbolic life / symbolic death terms. symbolic life is the caucasoid physiognomy, or “the name of what is good” naturally selected by evolution. symbolic death is the negroid physiognomy, or “the name of what is evil” deselected by evolution. the works of w. e. b. dubois (1903, as cited in wynter, 1994) and elsa goveia (1972, as cited in wynter, 1994) emphasize how race functions to systematically predetermine the sharply unequal redistribution of the collectively produced global resources and, therefore, the correlation of the racial ranking rule with the rich/poor rule. this phenomenon is also known as structural racism. before the civil rights movement in the united states, the institutionally secured white/black segregation served to absolutize eugenic/dysgenic terms. in the canadian context, residential schools, the indian pass, and segregation played this role. just as we spoke in previous paragraphs about inner eyes, the colour line adds to how the inner eyes operate in the world. race creates a status differential that recursively serves to verify the truth of the divinely ordered hegemony. that unsaid divinely ordered hegemony is that black and indigenous people are symbolic death, white people (including those who are white adjacent) are symbolic life, and all other racialized folks are on a spectrum in between. december 2021 92 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources refusing dominant narratives in early childhood education four chapters of equity as praxis in particular refuse the dominant ethnoclass’s hegemony through their equityfocused theorizations of the role of the educator, child, and education at large. by speaking toward discourses surrounding the child, indigenous pedagogy, the importance of the relational, and antiracism practice, respectively, the chapters’ authors nidhi menon, maya-rose simon, maria karmiris, and kerry-ann escayg actively refuse the ways in which the status-orienting principle of the colour line is produced and reproduced in education by orienting the reader toward how one may deny the truth of the dominant ethnoclass’s inner eyes. these authors also assert that genres of the human outside of whiteness do not only exist but are thriving despite the violence inflicted on them. their conversations are praxis by acknowledging the current situation and proposing movements toward an otherwise future. in chapter 3, “troubling dominant discourses and stories that shape our understanding of the child refugee,” menon (2021) argues that certain stories, which present one version of truth, can become dominant. by understanding agency and vulnerability in the lives of refugee children, menon argues that there is a revelation in denying supracultural understandings of the refugee child. deficit discourses are potent, and understanding their damage is crucial in rethinking how researchers position the child. the “hidden cost” of not rethinking these discourses is maintaining the status-orienting principles that cause harm. menon is clear about the importance of the educator’s role in producing and reproducing education, writing that “education is a political practice, and when educators adopt certain pedagogical positions, they make a political statement” (p. 57). menon proposes the pedagogy of discomfort to respond to a refusal of deficit discourse in early childhood educational thought and practice. in chapter 7, “making space for indigenous knowledge in an urban child-care centre,” simon (2021) examines the importance of culturally appropriate early childhood education in indigenous communities and emphasizes that indigenous knowledge separated from the larger curriculum cannot be deemed as successful in mainstream education. this knowledge must be infused to be respected. on the one hand, indigenous curriculum is vital for indigenous students to learn about the forces that shape them, the history of their people, their values, and their language; without it, they will never know themselves or their potential as human beings (national indian brotherhood, 1972, as cited by simon, 2021, p. 130). on the other hand, indigenous knowledge is important for all children to grasp. simon speaks about land-based pedagogy, which fosters a greater connection to the land, reexamining the idea of land and reconstructing old pedagogies that center around the land for all those who engage. amid our current planetary crises and rampant violence against indigenous people, this knowledge is needed now more than ever. similarly, in chapter 8, “failure and loss as a methodological, relational, and ethical necessity in teaching and learning in early years,” karmiris (2021) examines the limits of the hegemonic practice and discourse of child developmentalism in ece. by confronting how this discourse fails both children and educators, karmiris asks us, “how might we seek to generate distinctly different networks of support by foregrounding our interdependence with and amid diverse representations and embodiments of human experiences?” (p. 156). karmiris looks toward reconceptualist scholarship and postfoundational theories to transform the relationships between teaching and learning. the aim is to propose an alternative to the dehumanization that child developmentalism inflicts on the child. in chapter 9, “reflect, enact, and transform: a preliminary anti-racism guide to early childhood educators,” escayg (2021) contextualizes antiracist teaching practices by speaking about anti-black racism in canada, saying, “anti-racism is a life-long journey requiring sustained commitment and a tenacity to endure despite persecution december 2021 93 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources (both professional and personal)” (p. 170). this discussion is vital because it develops self-reflection to deter the harm that racism has inflicted since canada’s inception. escayg challenges the neutrality of the ecec space by recognizing the intersections between who the teacher is and their pedagogy. to refuse the hegemony of the dominant ethnoclass (and its violence) requires taking an active stance against what mckittrick (2015) terms “the axis.” against the “axis”: care theory and challenging the status quo the axis is katherine mckittrick’s (2015) interpretation of wynter’s project that argues how our present political spectrum forecloses the potential of a new science of being human. in early childhood education (as with education in general), the narrative around childhood is produced in a self-referencing system underwritten by normative and biocentric conceptions of being human. this narrative is included in how those who think and enact early childhood see themselves, children, and childhood. in other words, the status-orienting principle creates an axis that mediates any theorizations or truths about the world. mckittrick (2015) explains the axis as follows: a cartesian axis is formed with vertical/biocentric/top-down (man/native/nigger/nigger woman) and horizontal political (left-right-center) coordinates. these social and political classifications offer limited options, with particular communities barely moving at all. these coordinate options function to reify us/them, margin/center, right/left, right/wrong, human/other categories. wynter brings into focus how particular intellectual and emancipator projects, while promising to radically unsettle the axis, pivot their definition of liberation to man as white heterosexual breadwinner and measuring stick of human normalcy or man as human. man stays the anchor and origin of this axis and thus produces a closed system sliding up/down left/right. (p. 152) as early childhood educators dedicated to equity, the question that must be asked is how we might move away entirely from the structures we have inherited. in many ways, this is a questioning of who we are in this space. the emergency of this moment is that maintaining the current structures denies the very personhood of the students we work with. this movement is not a passive suggestion but a deep understanding that students will not thrive without ecec’s transformation. in chapter 4, “equity enacted: possibilities for difference in ecec through a critical ethics of care approach,” alana powell, lisa johnston, and rachel langford (2021) suggest that equal rights are not sufficient for equity to exist and put forward the necessity of shifting our conceptual understanding of what equity is. they draw upon ethics of care to propose that equity is enacted in relation to others in the early childhood space. as gilligan (1982 as cited in powell et al., 2021) asserts, a foundational aspect of an ethics of care is its feminist ethics. initially focused on girls and women, it essentializes “feminine” traits; however, gilligan (2011, as cited in powell et al., 2021) considers that it goes beyond the “feminine” and rests in the human. overall, there is a discussion about care as an ongoing and relational process. the authors propose possibilities for professional preparation programs and how to enact equity through an ethics of care approach. in chapter 5, “planning time for equity: a (re)examination of a study of eces’ perspectives on planning time in southern ontario,” lisa johnston (2021) discusses the entanglements of working conditions, gender, and neoliberalism in the context of equity of praxis. johnson’s position as an ecec educator during the “professionalization” of the field provides insight into how equity is essential in providing educators with the time and space to do their work well. johnston describes the tenets of critical qualitative inquiry and how it differs from other qualitative methods. in particular, the theoretical framework of feminist poststructuralism has been instrumental in critically interrogating larger discourses. johnson asserts that by engaging in reconceptualist december 2021 94 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources literature, one may acquire a critical awareness to “notice” the dominant developmentalist and neoliberal discourses in early childhood education spaces. this awareness is crucial as educators are being burdened with more expectations but less support to deliver these expectations. johnson argues that these expectations are the result of neoliberal conceptions of time. in chapter 6, “using femme theory to foster a feminine-inclusive ece and care practice,” adam davies and rhea ashley hoskin (2021) examine how the devaluation of femininity is symptomatic of femmephobic societal values and assert that this femmephobia is why ecec work is undervalued in our society. they argue that feminine qualities are highly valued and should not be undermined by the market’s drive for masculinization. this masculinization is defined by its ability to “better” ecec, emphasizing evaluation and productivity. by applying care ethics and femme theory, they assert that the field can become liberated from forces that do not value women’s work in the ecec space. in reading these chapters, i was challenged by care ethics and femme theory as a foundational piece for equity. while i believe these theories as examined in these chapters can be useful, i was not entirely convinced they are liberated from the “axis” as put forward by mckittrick (2015). i fear that an educator who uses these concepts without understanding how the weaponization of white femininity (see miller & lensmire, 2020), the depoliticization of feminism (see hooks, 2015), and the neoliberalization of the ece space (see vintimilla, 2014) profoundly affect the application of said “care” and of who gets to be “feminine” will become blind to students and educators outside of the dominant ethnoclass’s descriptive statement. regardless of good intentions, liberation cannot mean inclusion but a complete dismantling of the system. in our current neoliberal situation, “care” is weaponized to form neoliberal subjects. for students deemed symbolically dead by the axis, this leads to the death of self (see fanon, 2007). tiffany lethabo king (2020) speaks on the posture of suspicion that scholars committed to the politics of black abolitionist work and to decolonization often must assume because of how inner eyes operate. in encountering care ethics and femme theory in relation to equity, i adopt this wariness. conclusion: gesturing toward an otherwise future wynter (2003) argues that our learning systems conserve the status-orienting principle by producing and reproducing white supremacist, capitalist, settler-colonial, patriarchal, and neoliberal values. legesse (1973, as cited in wynter, 1994) posits that all mainstream scholars function as grammarians of our order. in other words, educators are well versed in the techniques of ordering a select body of facts within a framework that is entirely consistent with the system of values of the society with which they belong. a liberatory educator refuses this order by rejecting the system of values embraced by the dominant ethnoclass. in other words, to be free of the symbolic life/death categories, educators must move away from the axis. equity as praxis provides insights into refusing the conservation of the status quo. by calling on educators to rethink their position in the early childhood education space and the world, they put forward an otherwise vision of what a canadian early childhood education can be. december 2021 95 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references abawi, z., eizadirad, a., & berman, r. (2021). equity as praxis in early childhood education and care. canadian scholars. fanon, f. (2008). black skin, white masks (rev. ed.). pluto. hooks, b. (2015). feminism is for everybody: passionate politics (2nd ed.). routledge. king, t. l., navarro, j., & smith, a. (eds.). (2020). otherwise worlds: against settler colonialism and anti-blackness. duke university press. mckittrick, k. (2015). axis, bold as love. in k. mckittrick (ed.), sylvia wynter (pp. 142–163). duke university press. https://doi. org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw0rj.9 miller, e., & lensmire, t. (2020). mammies, brute negroes, and white femininity in teacher education. curriculum inquiry, 50(5), 400– 418. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2020.1860643 unicef canada. (n.d.). unicef report card 16: for every child. https://www.unicef.ca/en/unicef-report-card-16 vintimilla, c. d. (2014). neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education. journal of childhood studies, 39(1), 79–87. https:// doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v39i1.15246 wynter, s. (1994). “no humans involved”: an open letter to my colleagues. in forum nhi: knowledge for the 21st century. moor’s head press. wynter, s. (2003). unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation—an argument. the new centennial review, 3(3), 257–337. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41949874 https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw0rj.9 https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw0rj.9 https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2020.1860643 https://www.unicef.ca/en/unicef-report-card-16 https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v39i1.15246 https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v39i1.15246 http://www.jstor.org/stable/41949874 october 2021 53 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research we are all in this together: supporting hearts and minds during unprecedented times marie-anne hudson and lori huston marie-anne hudson (she/her) has a master’s degree in early childhood education from the university of british columbia. she is a program and policy development specialist with the early learning and child development division, newfoundland and labrador department of education and brings 30 years of education and experience to the field of early childhood education. she is a strong advocate for social-emotional learning and mental health, personally and professionally, as a foundation for knowing and doing, and she is passionate about leadership and empowerment. e-mail: mahudson@nf.sympatico.ca lori huston (she/her) is of mixed descent: métis, scottish, and british. she currently works as an indigenous curriculum specialist in the ece department of humber college institute of technology & advanced learning. she is a doctoral student in education curriculum and pedagogy in the faculty of education, university of british columbia. lori’s cumulative experiences in research and graduate work have focused on indigenous ece leadership, which highlights indigenous pedagogies connected to reconciliation, place, and land-based teachings. lori founded a mentorship program called rising indigenous voices in early learning. email: le.huston@outlook.com throughout the past 19 months of the covid-19 pandemic, the words “we are all in this together” have resounded across canada and around the world. this phrase can be interpreted many ways. in both global and local contexts, it suggests that each of us has to do our part to care for and protect one another to reduce the spread of the virus. however, the pandemic is affecting individuals and communities in very different ways (dawe, 2021; warren & bordoloi, 2020) and has created great divides socially, politically, economically, and intellectually (bascaramurty, 2020; statistics canada, 2020, yang et al., 2020; yong, 2021). covid-19 has shone a bright light— not only on social injustices and inequalities, especially for vulnerable and marginalized people, but also on diverse and often dichotomous viewpoints within the early years field. if we are truly “all in this together,” how do we in the early years field support each other’s hearts and minds while also supporting diversity and inclusion? we, marie-anne hudson and lori huston, in our separate roles as advocates for early childhood education (ece) and early childhood educators (eces), have been listening throughout the pandemic to the voices and fears of the ece community, locally through our ece connections and nationally through the media. narratives have emerged in the media about “essential” and “nonessential” workers. as advocates with long histories of working in the early years field, we recognize eces as unquestionably essential to the fabric of canadian society. we respect their knowledge and practice in the care, protection, and education of children. and we are passionate about supporting them in navigating the changes covid-19 has brought to our field. as advocates, we believe that if we going to examine the pandemic’s effects on the early years field at this moment through a magnifying glass, we would be remiss if we did not also take out binoculars to view its fartherreaching effects and long-term implications for early childhood policy and practice. on one hand, the pandemic this article discusses the potential that traumainformed pedagogy and social-emotional learning practices hold for supporting educators during the covid-19 pandemic and beyond. the authors bring a critical lens to considering these approaches, noting some limitations and provisos in their use. we advocate for dialogue, mentorship, and professional learning in using them not only to support educators but to authentically include diverse ways of knowing, doing, and being in early childhood environments. key words: early childhood education; socialemotional learning; trauma-informed mailto:mahudson@nf.sympatico.ca mailto:le.huston@outlook.com october 2021 54 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research is providing an impetus for growth and change, as in the federal government’s april 2021 announcement of a plan for universal child care (government of canada, 2021a). on the other hand, covid-19 has caused stress, anxiety, and trauma—individual and collective trauma (sherwood et al., 2021), both in society at large and in early childhood environments. the well-being of many children and families has diminished in social isolation (warren & bordoloi, 2020). many are struggling to access education and basic life necessities. eces’ well-being has diminished too. many eces we have talked to are afraid about children’s and their own exposure to a virus that has taken many lives and strained both the health care system and the economy. some educators wonder how to balance the care and education of young children with protecting themselves and their loved ones from viruses, now and in the future. in a recent interview with lori, jerephine williams sakakeep from north caribou lake first nation in ontario said that “coming to work and making sure everyone is safe, and following new pandemic community protocols, which change from time to time, has been [her] biggest challenge” (aeceo, 2021, p. 11). throughout this pandemic, eces have been forerunners of providing universal care and precautions while following strict safety protocols, but many report feeling ill-equipped, as canadian society “reopens,” to work with the stress and trauma covid-19 continues to create. in this article, we consider whether trauma-informed pedagogy (tip) and social-emotional learning (sel) practices hold potential to create pathways toward supporting the hearts and minds of educators as well as young children during the covid-19 pandemic and beyond. we begin by locating ourselves and our advocacy work in the field. then, drawing from a review of tip and sel literature1 that we conducted for an earlier purpose and from our advocacy work, we define tip and sel and explore the possibilities these approaches ignite in early childhood environments. this discussion highlights intersections and overlap between the two concepts, including their affinity with indigenous ways of knowing and being, and also notes some limitations and provisos in working with tip and sel approaches. our focus is exploring the capacity of these strategies to support eces’ hearts and minds in their work with young children and to respect diverse ways of knowing and being. following some suggestions for future research, practice, and policy development related to these approaches, we draw a few conclusions in support of storying an early years field in which we are truly are “all in this together.” our journeys of support and advocacy we, marie-anne and lori, have long-standing backgrounds supporting eces in engaging authentically with children and families in ways that support wholistic development. we are acutely aware of the impacts of trauma and adverse childhood experiences on the lives of children and families, and we share an understanding of the role that eces play in mediating children’s social-emotional learning—and of the secondary trauma they may experience when caring for and supporting children and families who have experienced trauma (sherwood et al., 2021). marie-anne has worked in ece in various capacities for over 30 years and currently develops programs and policies for the early childhood sector on canada’s east coast. she recently completed a graduate degree in ece through the university of british columbia, focusing on social-emotional learning for children and educators. marie-anne has a keen interest in narrative pedagogy and examines early childhood frameworks and practices from a critical, feminist perspective informed by karen barad’s (2014) ideas about diffraction. lori’s background includes 12 years of coordinating an indigenous ece postsecondary diploma program with oshki-wenjack in thunder bay, ontario. for more than 25 years, lori provided trauma-informed education embedded in indigenous teachings—working toward decolonizing education, without naming it or knowing her indigenous ancestry, alongside elders, indigenous families, and educators. due in part to canada’s colonial fabric, lori learned only recently of her métis ancestry. she is now a citizen of the métis nation in ontario. her research, practices, and october 2021 55 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research projects focus on leadership in indigenous ece and highlight indigenous pedagogies connected to reconciliation, place, and land-based teachings. both of us are on journeys of support and advocacy in the ece field, lori more directly with educators and marie-anne at the macro level, creating and revising policies in an ever-changing, ever-expanding field. during this unprecedented time in our global history with the pandemic and soaring social injustices, eces across canada have expressed to both of us feelings of fear, stress, and anxiety. while we were aware prior to covid-19 that early learning and child care in canada was in a fragile state—due in large part to a lack of a national framework or universal access—we became increasingly concerned about how those directly working and interacting with children were managing during the pandemic. these concerns led us to think critically about the need for trauma-informed pedagogies in early childhood and the availability of professional development and resources for educators in supporting both children’s well-being and their own. lori’s work with trauma-informed practices (tips) and marie-anne’s research into social-emotional learning (sel) led us to conclude that these two approaches, particularly in combination, hold potential to support hearts and minds—of children, certainly, but also of educators—provided that the approaches themselves are supported with professional learning, mentorship, and dialogue. we suggest that when tips and sel are interconnected, opportunities arise for social growth and transformation. we do, however, bring a critical lens to considering these approaches. at the heart of this article is our deep desire to create space to story eces’ diverse voices as they navigate the challenges and opportunities created by the covid-19 pandemic. a central path in our own ways of knowing, being, and doing is the concept of community. therefore, we advocate for grounding these approaches in community, and we suggest that tip and sel programs must consider both developmental knowledge and indigenous knowledges of inclusive, diverse, and wholistic ways to support and connect the heart and mind. we argue that evidence-based scripted or prepackaged programs may have positive outcomes for some children and educators, but they will not be appropriate for all. tip and sel practices must consider the local context, local knowledges, individual differences, communities’ vision for their own children, and cultural identity, among other factors, some of which we touch on in this article. next, we define the terms tip and sel, as we use them, and then explain why we think they are important for early childhood educators, particularly during these unprecedented times. what are trauma-informed pedagogy and social-emotional learning? the concept of trauma-informed practice (tip) originated in the health care field in the 1970s when medical professionals identified widespread posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) among returning vietnam war veterans (ohio leadership advisory council, n.d.). the concept was brought to education after a large-scale study by felliti and colleagues (1998) of the impact of adverse childhood experiences (aces, i.e., trauma) on children’s development. the two-year study of 17,000 adults “provided evidence about the significant prevalence of adverse experiences in the lives of children ... and the critical need to invest in interventions to prevent and interrupt the long-term consequences of aces as early as possible” (nicholson et al., 2018, p. x). trauma-informed practices (tips) integrate “various strengths-based and relationship-based approaches and theories that all aim to do no further harm” (nicholson et al., 2018, p. x) when someone has been traumatized. for example, in the context of childhood trauma, the specific goal of tip is to not retraumatize the child but rather “to guide [the] child toward health and healing” (p. x). we want to emphasize that tips are not intended to treat trauma. instead, these practices prioritize principles of “safety; trustworthiness and transparency; peer support; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice and choice” (samhsa, 2014, p. 10). we suggest that these october 2021 56 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research principles must be embedded within a culturally responsive framework that pays attention to social-emotional learning (sel). like tip, sel is not a theory; rather, it is a process “through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions” (collaborative for academic social emotional learning [casel], 2021, para. 1). in our view, there is a strong connection between sel and indigenous perspectives that are rooted in relationships with the natural world and other people (e.g., the self, the family, ancestors, clan, community, nation, and other nations). in our experience, thoughtful weaving of relation-based indigenous knowledge into early childhood curricula, done in partnership with indigenous people, strengthens pedagogical processes experienced by both indigenous and non-indigenous learners, because wholistic learning engages all four domains of knowledge—spiritual, cognitive, emotional, physical—to nourish wholistic development.2 below we explore in more detail how these approaches can support hearts and minds in the early years field. how can tip and sel support early childhood educators? we all experience trauma in our lives. adverse experiences are part of the human experience. but the injustices and realities of our current times—racism, rampant violence, the devastating effects of climate change, and now, a deadly pandemic—are making trauma a more frequent, more complex experience in all arenas of canadian life, including early childhood environments. in responding to these experiences, trauma-informed sel programs can provide a useful framework—when applied in culturally responsive ways. trauma is by no means experienced equally. for example, all indigenous people in canada have inherited trauma connected to a loss of culture and place due to many generations being forcibly removed from their families, communities, and homelands (sam, 2019, p. 9) in acts of attempted assimilation that amounted to genocide (truth and reconciliation commission of canada, 2015). this inherited trauma lives alongside the trauma of experiencing racism and its effects on a daily basis (clark, 2016). these effects include being disproportionately impacted by the covid-19 pandemic due to “factors such as … lack of access to effective monitoring and early-warning systems, and adequate health and social services” (united nations, n.d.). it is clear that the pandemic has been experienced unequally. it is also clear that it affects us all, either directly in the form of illness or isolation or indirectly through constant media alerts and reminders. we must remember, however, as we have heard many times throughout the pandemic (e.g., dawe, 2021), that while we may all be navigating the same storm, we are in different boats. as advocates in early childhood education, we are keenly aware that educators too have been affected differently by covid. while k–12 schools, colleges, and universities switched to online teaching and learning early in the pandemic, early years environments were deemed to be essential services, and eces were immediately faced with managing their own fears and anxieties as they looked for ways to support children and families. questions emerged from eces in some provinces and territories as to why it was okay for child care centres to reopen when it was deemed unsafe for schools and universities to open their doors. during this time, lori took on the critical role of community organizing to amplify the voices of educators, families, operators, and social movement allies in responding to policy decisions in the wake of covid-19. this work was done in communities of practice with the association of early childhood educators ontario (aeceo) and within the rising indigenous voices mentorship program. in ontario, while home child care remained open, licensed child care centres closed and the early childhood workforce was laid off in large numbers; families were left to take on dual roles in working from home while caring for and educating their children. the ontario government’s lack of communication, clarity, and support for the sector left operators, educators, and families isolated and anxious as they struggled to find october 2021 57 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research information and a sense of community. the situation was different in newfoundland and labrador. following an initial two-week lockdown, the provincial government provided funding and other supports and resources to ensure that regulated child care centres and family homes that had essential workers enrolled were supported in being open; no staff were laid off if services availed themselves of the funding. a daily public news release provided updates, and the department of education also provided regular updates through e-mails and faq memos. in each territory and province, the government response was different (childcare resource and research unit, 2020, 2021; friendly, forer, & vickerson, 2020), which resulted in markedly different experiences of the pandemic in different parts of the country. so, while the pandemic’s effects have been unequal, this highly contagious virus has forever changed the ways of knowing, being, and doing in our field. we, marie-anne and lori, view tip and sel in much the same way. just as it is wise to assume that anyone we encounter could be carrying the virus and therefore we should practice precautions in all of our interactions with others, we suggest it is likely that everyone in the early childhood environment has experienced trauma; therefore, implementing high-quality universal wellness promotion programs such as tip and sel supports the social and emotional well-being of all. while there is no “one-size fits all” approach and programs must be applied in culturally responsive ways, research documents positive shortand long-term outcomes in their implementation (e.g., bond & hauf, 2004; durlack et al., 2011; jones & doolittle, 2017). trauma will be a salient consideration as children and educators return to early childhood environments in the coming days, weeks, months, and years post-pandemic. therefore, we as advocates would like to see the kinds of tip and sel strategies now being used to support children adapted to support educators, as we discuss next. adapting strategies for supporting children to support educators many tip and sel approaches are outlined in the literature to support children in developing sel competencies, including, for example, sel in support of school readiness (mashburn & pianta, 2006), equity-seeking frameworks (jagers et al., 2019), relational approaches (whitington & mcinnes, 2017), the “power threat meaning” framework (harper & cromby, 2020; read & harper, 2020), and many others (e.g., dorado et al., 2016; greenberg et al., 2003; hatton-bowers et al., 2020; jennings & greenberg, 2009). many of these approaches can inform programs for educators or be adapted to support educators. some sel approaches used with children have already proven beneficial for adults. for example, razza and colleagues (2019) examined an eight-week yoga program for preschoolers living in communities coping with extreme trauma. not only did the program provide social-emotional benefits for children, but the researchers also noted benefits for the staff, who had a high prevalence of ptsd themselves. the participants in another study also acknowledged the benefits of mindfulness training, specifically for improving the quality of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (hatton-bowers et al., 2020). the study participants noted that mindfulness involves intentionality, self-awareness, being present, taking a pause, and considering a response. programs that teach and support mindfulness could be beneficial for eces who are dealing with the stresses and risks of the workplace during a pandemic. as we noted above, there is a strong ontological connection between sel approaches and indigenous pedagogies, and some of the fruitful examples in our literature review were derived from the latter. for example, hodson et al. (2020) heard from more than 30 indigenous educators who shared their passion for changing their current outdoor learning environments to include traditional knowledges and practices that support tip. these educators had visions of including elders in programming, incorporating cultural teachings on the land, and connecting children to how the land supports their identity and interconnectedness with all beings (cajete, 2000). the educators found october 2021 58 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research that a heightened awareness of identity resulted in unique, community-driven forms of land-based learning. for example, one community of indigenous educators hosted a three-day hunting camp for women and girls (participants ranged in age from 3 to 57) to shoot and clean a moose together (hodson et al., 2020, p. 11). grief is another part of the covid-19 trauma experience—more than 28,000 canadians have died with the virus so far (government of canada, 2021b). both of us, marie-anne and lori, experienced profound personal losses during the pandemic. marie-anne’s mother and lori’s father both passed away. we know firsthand the pain of navigating covid-19 protocols in relation to funeral and burial services, and of grieving those losses in isolation without the supportive presence of our communities and extended families. we know that many educators, children, and families experienced similar losses and grief. we suggest that eces are uniquely positioned to support children, families, colleagues, and themselves during grief and other stressful times through their knowledge and experiences with tools and strategies based on their everyday practices. for example, while a vast array of commercial resources such as children’s books that address emotions are available, narrative pedagogy or storytelling is a useful alternative strategy that can be supportive and culturally sensitive. another way to support educators (or for educators to provide mutual support) is through social activities and hands-on projects like growing food or creating art that offer opportunities for self-expression or for connecting with others, including the land. these activities could be made available in the context of a community of practice and/or in conjunction with professional learning about sel and tip. any sel or tip approaches developed or adapted to support educators need to be designed flexibly, because eces are diverse and the ways in which they respond to change or to trauma are diverse. for example, some educators are very comfortable with technology and connecting in the digital world while others are not. this diversity reinforces the idea that a one-size-fits-all program is unlikely to be appropriate and that multimodal understandings and practice are required. implications for research, practice, and policy in the early years field sel and tip approaches in early childhood environments have only begun to emerge in the past decade (oberle et al., 2016). given a rapidly changing global landscape and ever-increasing stresses, traumas, and challenges in our society, we expect that research in these areas will develop exponentially in the coming months and years. yet, how this research will look as we forge ahead in living with covid-19 amid the many social injustices the pandemic has brought to light remains unknown. record-lemon and buchanan (2017), motivated by an influx of immigrants from war-torn countries, conducted an extensive (pre-covid) literature review of tips in schools.3 they highlight a scarcity of research into tip in canada, which they note “is in stark contrast to the significant number of studies being conducted in the united states or overseas” (p. 301). clearly this is a research gap that needs to be filled to inform our field about the usefulness of tips in specific canadian contexts. nicholson et al. (2018) describe a number of tip approaches studied in early childhood contexts in the us. one they mention that would appear to be particularly appropriate for research with educators is somatization—body aches and pains that result from traumatic stress (gray, 2007). another promising area for research is what oberle and schonert-reichl (2016) call stress contagion; they found a connection between educator burnout and stress levels of their young learners. further studies in this area could contribute to promoting the well-being of both children and educators. we sincerely hope that research in these practice areas expands to include educators as well as children. we also hope to see indigenous ways of knowing included in research about sel and tip because we feel these two approaches align with indigenous perspectives on the child’s wholistic well-being, the centrality of family and community, october 2021 59 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and the land as a teacher. and, as the government of canada moves forward with a national early learning and child care plan that is promised to be a community-based system of quality care (government of canada, 2021a), we will continue our advocacy work to remind the policy designers that “universal” is not to be interpreted as “one size fits all” but rather the plan must meet the needs of diverse communities so that high-quality, affordable, inclusive early learning and child care is provided no matter where one lives in canada. to build such a system, it is essential that eces are empowered to engage in the process. in doing so, they will support both the children of today and the children of the future. navigating new ways of knowing and doing covid-19 has changed the ways of knowing and doing for eces at the most basic level. keeping six feet apart is counterintuitive for eces, who use interactive and hands-on approaches to care and learning. but necessity leads to discovery, and many eces discovered that it’s easier to keep children six feet apart outdoors. further, covid has prompted at least one study on the benefits of outdoor play (lawson foundation, 2020). perhaps this research might lead provincial curriculum developers to consider the value of land-based teaching and learning and the social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual benefits for children and educators. it presents an opportunity for all provinces and territories to include outdoor-based programs inclusive of indigenous pedagogies in policy and curriculum. as we engage new ways of knowing and doing to build safe, healthy relationships with the children in our care and with our colleagues, we must keep in mind that we don’t have to work in isolation. let’s ensure that we continue to support each other with a wholistic perspective that values cognitive knowledge, self-awareness, emotional growth, social growth, and spiritual development equally. covid-19 is a traumatic event that has affected each and every one of us. in that sense, we are literally “all in it together,” but in differing ways. moving forward into an unknown future, the principles of tip outlined by samhsa (2014) would serve our field well—safety, trustworthiness, transparency, peer support, collaboration, mutuality, choice, voice, and empowerment. for us as advocates for eces and the early years field, empowerment has been a tough one throughout this pandemic. how is empowerment possible when we are all powerless over a virus and when so many in our field have been held captive—isolated—for 19 months? but as the country “reopens,” the pandemic is offering the early years field an opportunity to change the narrative of ece and eces. there can no longer be any doubt in the public mind that ece is essential, not only from a social or economic perspective in ensuring that canadian society can function, but from a social-emotional perspective that honours eces’ strength and resiliency in navigating the unprecedented and the unknown. while everyone’s pathway forward will be different, we can through dialogue, advocacy, and professional learning support one another’s hearts and minds. if, as a field, we do this, we can then say with authenticity that we are truly “in this together.” 1 our review focused on the canadian context, in part because we live and work in canada and because ece settings in this country are a patchwork system of private and nonprofit, regulated and unregulated, family and commercially based arrangements which, at the time of this writing, are not supported by federal policies or frameworks (friendly, ballantyne, & anderson, 2020). as advocates, we would like to see tip and sel approaches inform the development of the universal child care plan that the federal government promised in the 2021 budget speech (government of canada, 2021a). 2 this example of a decolonizing approach to the sel curriculum highlights the principle of doing no further harm. 3 we anticipate that research in tip and sel practices conducted before the pandemic will guide policy planners and curriculum developers toward supporting current and ongoing advancements in ece. october 2021 60 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references association of early childhood educators ontario (aeceo) guiding committee on truth and reconciliation. 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(2021, july 22). america is getting unvaccinated people all wrong. the atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ archive/2021/07/unvaccinated-different-anti-vax/619523/ https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-631-x/11-631-x2020003-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-631-x/11-631-x2020003-eng.htm https://ncsacw.samhsa.gov/userfiles/files/samhsa_trauma.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/1534765612441977 https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/executive_summary_english_web.pdf https://www.un.org/ https://internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/1357/925 https://doi.org/10.23965%2fajec.42.4.03 https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/06/28/torontos-covid-19-divide-the-citys-northwest-corner-has-been-failed-by-the-system.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/06/28/torontos-covid-19-divide-the-citys-northwest-corner-has-been-failed-by-the-system.html https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/unvaccinated-different-anti-vax/619523/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/unvaccinated-different-anti-vax/619523/ november 2020 20 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research navigating reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care scholarship to find a conceptual space for rethinking children’s needs in early childhood education rachel langford rachel langford is a professor emeritus in the school of early childhood studies at ryerson university. from 2006 to 2016 she served as the school’s director. her research and scholarly work focus on childcare advocacy and policy development, workforce professionalization, and conceptualizations of care and caregiving in early childhood education. she is the lead editor of the ubc press publication caring for children: social movements and public policy in canada (2017) and the editor of a bloomsbury academic education press edited volume, theorizing feminist ethics of care in early childhood practice: possibilities and dangers (2019). email: rlangfor@ryerson.ca in the early childhood education (ece) field, children’s needs are predominantly framed through a developmental lens. in reaction to the dominance of developmentalism, scholars who describe themselves as reconceptualists, or as members of the reconceptualizing early childhood education (rece) movement, articulate how developmental needs are treated as deficits, limiting educators’ appreciation of children’s capabilities. in their publications, these scholars question the normalizing and universalizing processes of developmentalism and explore new ways of thinking about children that do not center on their needs (e.g., the first and second editions of the rece reader edited by bloch, swadener, & cannella [2014, 2018] explore these ways). feminist ethics of care literature also challenges the deficit framing of needs, but in contrast to reconceptualist literature, argues for the centrality of needs as a fundamental component and experience of being human. in this article i attempt to bridge my theoretical work with both reconceptualist early childhood education (e.g., langford, 2010) and feminist ethics of care (langford, 2019) literature. thinking about the concept of children’s needs within and between these two bodies of literature has been deeply unsettling. the purpose of this article is to explore this conceptual disequilibrium and to navigate reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care scholarship to find a potential space for rethinking children’s needs in early childhood education. i begin by setting out the conflicts over conceptualizing children’s needs that broadly exist between the two bodies of literature while acknowledging some important points of agreement. indeed, some reconceptualists use ethics of care scholarship in their own pedagogical theorizing (e.g., dahlberg & moss, 2005; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015). in the next section, i explore some ways reconceptualist scholars seek to substitute the language of children’s needs for something else. as andrew gibbons (2007) suggests, i explore and “play” the ruins of these the aim of this article is to navigate through differing perspectives on the concept of children’s needs in early childhood education. reconceptualist scholars critique the developmental narrative of the needy and dependent child. in contrast, feminist ethics of care scholars regard having needs and dependencies as ontologically what it means to be human. the article proposes a potential inbetween space that recognizes that children have needs and dependencies, as do all entities. at the same time, this recognition is complicated through entangled ideas about subjectivity, needs interpretation, relationality, ethics, and politics. key words: early childhood education; children’s needs; reconceptualist theory; feminist ethics of care november 2020 21 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research conflicts and substitutions. gibbons writes that “the ruins” refers to “both the contexts within which knowledge(s) and practices in education are disrupted or ‘troubled’ and the positive critique of the disruption or troubling” (p. 124, emphasis added; see also st. pierre & pillow [2000] for a further explanation of this term). i then arrive at a key premise that appears to directly contradict existing reconceptualist literature: children (as do all entities) depend on others to fulfill unrealized needs through caring encounters. however, i propose that three understandings are required to support the premise that children have needs: (1) children are relational and embodied subjects with complex needs; (2) the caring encounter in which children’s needs are recognized is a moment of relationality; and (3) interpretations of and responses to children’s needs are ethical and political actions. i suggest that both reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care literature have the critical resources to explore the proposed premise and three understandings and to open up a third conceptual space for thinking about children’s needs in early childhood education. conflicts and agreements marianne bloch (2018) describes how critical perspectives in the ece field seek to “rupture” dominant discourses and practices in theory, methodology, curriculum, and policies (p. 25). in relation to the concept of children’s needs, veronica pacini-ketchabaw and colleagues (2015) write that postfoundational scholars reject the narrative of children “as having needs and vulnerabilities, mostly defined through developmental lenses” (p. 46). other reconceptualists, such as glenda macnaughton (2003) and michael o’loughlin (2018), rightly argue that the focus on children’s developmental needs has led too readily to theorists and educators taking a deficit view of children’s knowledge and skills, particularly those of children deemed different. further, reconceptualists (e.g., moss, 2019) have documented the intensification of this deficit perspective with the rise of the neoliberal state, which values above all else in early childhood education evidence of learning in children quantified through technical assessment tools. more recently, reconceptualist posthumanist scholars have critiqued both developmentalism and the centering of the human experience in ece, which, from their perspective, results in the exclusion of the experiences of all other entities. for example, osgood and pacini-ketchabaw (2019) state, “until now, childhood studies has been … a human matter focused on the needs of individual children” (p. xvii). they argue that another approach to childhood is to address the profound, human-induced ecological challenges facing both the human and more-than-human world. other posthumanist reconceptualist early childhood scholars (e.g., hodgins, yazbeck, & wapenaar, 2019) work with maria puig de la bellacasa’s (2017) exploration of moralism beyond “anthropocentric ethics” and the displacement of care as merely human (p. 13). in contrast, feminist ethics of care as a critical moral and political theory (robinson, 2019) emphasizes responsibility for and responsiveness to the needs of dependent others. care scholars such as marian barnes (2012), virginia held (2006), eva kittay (2015), tove pettersen (2008), and joan tronto (2013) view dependency, vulnerability, and the having of needs as ontologically what it means to be human. tronto (2013), for example, proposes the concept of equally needy citizens; as she says, “being needy is shared equally by all humans” (p. 28). kittay (2015) describes the human condition in a similar way: “we are all inevitably dependent and inextricably interdependent” (p. 58). in using language such as “needy” and “dependent,” tronto and kittay seek to unsettle what they believe is a denial of and a discomfort with a human ontological state. these care scholars argue that liberal and, more recently, neoliberal theories that permeate discourses, policies, and practices in many contemporary societies privilege the autonomous, independent, self-interested, and self-made person. as tronto (2013) has documented, some people in the public sphere seek through individualism and privileged irresponsibility to escape from the neediness of others, while in the private sphere, predominantly women and racialized groups are expected to be responsive to these needs in the home and in low-paying, low-status jobs. november 2020 22 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in broadly describing differing points of view on the concept of needs, i do not mean to suggest that the two bodies of literature are diametrically opposed to one another. as elaborated on in later sections, feminist ethics of care and reconceptualist scholars share a rejection of binaries such as the “self ” and the “other,” holding a belief that human beings are constituted as selves and subjects through relations with others (robinson, 2019). universalism also is rejected for an understanding of context and “the particular experiences, histories and relative power of others” (engster & hamington, 2015, p. 3). in addition, scholars (e.g., donovan, 2007; hodgins et al., 2019) from the reconceptualist, animal rights, and environmental movements pay attention to the more-than-human world through feminist care theory. in my own response to osgood and pacini-ketchabaw’s call for a posthumanist approach, i recognize that my focus on the concept of children’s needs is a humanist project. in this regard, bloch, swadener, and cannella’s (2018) critical question guides me: “even as we … acknowledge the human impact on the more-than-human world, how do we avoid losing our focus on young children, their lives, care and education” (p. 7)? however, i believe that it is possible to imagine the needs of all within entangled relational contexts of both human and more-than-human worlds. for the purposes of this article, i begin to imagine a way through the highly contested conceptual terrain of children’s needs with some tentative engagement with posthumanist theory. for some postfoundational scholars, feminist ethics of care has been a source of pedagogical inspiration (e.g., arndt & tesar, 2019; dahlberg & moss, 2005; hodgins et al., 2019). dahlberg and moss (2005) draw on ethics of care scholars sevenhuijsen (1998) and tronto (1993) to emphasize that in early childhood “ethics [is] a creative practice, requiring the making of contextualised ethical decisions rather than following universal rules or codes” (p. 73). this ethics, they add, is about “care of and responsibility for the other, both of which arise from proximity, from being confronted by the other” (p. 73). dahlberg and moss also acknowledge human needs in relation to care’s responsiveness, although this reference is bracketed in their text (p. 74). building on dahlberg and moss’s use of ethics of care, pacini-ketchabaw et al. (2015) describe this ethical approach as the means to critically think about, challenge, and disrupt expert discourses such as those associated with children’s developmental needs (p. 179). thus, these scholars draw on the ethics of care yet distant themselves from tronto’s (1993) contention that “what is definitive about care seems to be a perspective of taking the other’s needs as the staring point for what must be done” (p. 105). substituting children’s needs for something else from a feminist ethics of care perspective, tronto (2013) and bourgault (2014) examine approaches that seek to substitute needs for something else. tronto states, “the question of trying to define and to specify ‘needs’ is a difficult problem, both politically and philosophically. others have tried to articulate another approach that avoids ‘needs’ and focused instead on ‘basic human capabilities’” (p. 162). this alternative approach is evident in reconceptualizing literature wherein discourses of children’s competencies dominate. to clarify, these discourses importantly and positively generate an image of the child as capable, intelligent, and agentic (dahlberg & moss, 2005). further, reconceptualist literature appears to elevate discourses of competency to resist the neediness/ competency binary so evident in developmentalism and to complexify an understanding of children. from my perspective, the competency discourse is, however, problematic when viewed as the antithesis to developmentalism so that competency becomes in opposition to needs. furthermore, i have wondered why the language of the “competent child” has emerged in ece systems plagued by a neoliberal social investment narrative of human capital and high returns (moss, 2019). in other words, through this grand narrative, the competent child appears to have become politically salient in a neoliberal state. could it be that the rise of competency discourses represents a reinscribing of the developmental goal of independence required from children for becoming future self-made entrepreneurs in the neoliberal state (duhn, 2010)? while reconceptualists resist such insidious reinscribing, does this new emphasis on competency inadvertently reinforce the value placed on those ideal children who demonstrate november 2020 23 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research growing independence and the devaluing and stigmatizing of those different and exceptional children perceived as more dependent, needy, and requiring care? ethics of care scholars reject the binary between competency and neediness, asserting that humans with needs are not at all exceptional; they are all of us (paperman, 2006). furthermore, these scholars argue that competency does not negate need; in fact, feminist ethics of care scholars maintain that we are competent when we recognize and address our own and other persons’ needs (noddings, 2010; tronto, 2013). they contend, therefore, that we need more complex language that describes human beings, including the youngest humans, as both having competencies as well as needs and as being relationally autonomous as well as dependent on others to fulfill these needs. in this way, care scholars suggest that accepting the ontology of human (and more-than-human) neediness cuts more productively through the competency/neediness binary. tronto (2013) and bourgault (2013) also examine substituting rights for needs. some reconceptualizing scholars emphasize the value of an ethics of rights for amplifying children’s voices and addressing social justice issues in early childhood (e.g., swadener & polakow, 2011). while not disputing the importance of listening to and hearing what children think and want, from an ethics of care perspective, an ethics of rights represents a political definition of a (neo)liberal, universal, and normative understanding of the individual person (e.g., bourgault, 2013; held, 2006; tronto, 2013). care scholars argue that a person with rights is viewed favourably as an autonomous and active agent or self-interested individual who assert their rights through rational thought linked to independent action (held, 2006, p. 13). furthermore, kari greenswag (2017) suggests that an ethics of rights, with its focus on universal rules, is an appealing, straightforward proposition in that rights are predicated on the idea of legal equality in which persons have the same rights. ethics of care scholars contend that needs which permeate every aspect of life do not function in the same way; they are always subject to different contexts and levels of caring attention and support (davy, 2019: polakow, 2018). in making this claim, feminist ethics of care scholars do not abandon a focus on social justice. for example, in laying out the processes for a political ethics of care, tronto (2013) includes caring with, which requires that caring needs and “the ways in which they met need to be consistent with democratic commitments to justice, equality and freedom for all” (p. 23). admittedly, a focus on needs through an ethics of care perspective is a much messier and more complex ethical proposition, but it is the way ethical decisions can be enacted given our ontological interdependence. in the conceptual ruins of children’s needs in previous sections, i set out problems with the concept of children’s needs, and potential approaches for avoiding or substituting needs for something else, such as competencies and/or rights. while in these conceptual ruins (gibbons, 2007), i emphasized several times a central theme in feminist ethics of care, which is that “relations of interdependence and dependence are a fundamental feature of our existence” (robinson, 2011, p. 4). accordingly, depending on others to have needs met is not a human deficit, a weakness, or a limitation; it is what makes us human. it is this ontological understanding that i am not willing to give up even in the conceptual ruins of children’s needs. my underlying premise for rethinking children’s needs then is not surprising: children, as do all humans (as well as nonhumans), depend on others to fulfill unrealized needs. while on the surface this premise seems to retain the status quo, feminist ethics of care scholars argue that it is a radical statement (gilligan, 2013). positioning neediness (and i use this language as a provocation) as what it means to be human strikes at the very core of liberal theory that valorizes the autonomous, independent, self-interested person unfettered by a need for care and the neediness of others. moreover, valuing caring relations simultaneously demands an assertion that humans november 2020 24 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research depend on others to recognize and respond in caring ways to their needs. another way of putting this is, if others, whether human or nonhuman, require care then they must have dependencies and unfilled needs. even if we talk about interdependence, which reconceptualists often do, then we have to acknowledge that needs are inextricably tied up in interdependencies. and even if we talk about educators attuning to children, children to educators, and educators attuning to the more-than-human we have to ask: what are they attuning to? in other words, attunement, a key element of care, is always a response to something; often this something is an expression of need. denials of what it means to have needs that require responses all fall into the trap that patriarchy sets out to keep needs, dependencies, and vulnerabilities hidden away in a private sphere of second-class citizens. gilligan (2013) calls for resistance to all forms of oppression that seek to deny the need for care and the caring capacities of all citizens of a democracy. from my perspective then, the problem with the concept of children’s needs lies not in its ontological nature and moral value. the problems, i contend, lie in how we understand who children are and what their needs are, how educators interpret and respond to children’s needs (as well as their own), and why these interpretations and responses are underpinned by ethics and politics. i therefore propose three understandings that support the premise that children have needs: (1) children are embodied subjects with complex needs; (2) the caring encounter in which children’s needs are recognized is a moment of relationality; and (3) interpretations of and responses to children’s needs are ethical and political actions. in illuminating these three understandings, points of congruence and divergence in reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care literature are discussed while recognizing that both serve as important critiques of developmentalism. children as embodied subjects with complex needs in early childhood programs that use a developmental framework, the individual child is understood as having fixed needs that are externally defined (o’loughlin, 2018). a child is expected to grow out of their needs through linear instruction and increasingly demonstrate independence in their taken-for-granted skills and knowledge. reconceptualist scholars reject this unitary construct of the individual child (macnaughton, 2003; paciniketchabaw et al., 2015). rather, children are understood as subjects constituted and reconstituted through various unconscious discursive practices enacted in social interactions in different contexts (davies, 1989). some reconceptualists draw on judith butler’s notion of gendered performance in which a subject’s identity as a girl or boy is constituted through a stylized repetition of acts or performances (butler, 1988; taylor, 2010). through these performances, bodies become gendered, although butler views embodiment as variable, changeable, and coconstituted with class, race, and other social positionings. feminist materialism theory has further enriched these ideas of subject formation. osgood and robinson (2019) write, “a growing body of new materialist and posthumanist approaches invite a re-examination of how we come to understand children and childhood—which also foregrounds context, fluidity and performance but which brings materiality and affect more forcibly into the frame” (p. 4). this perspective suggests that children’s subjectivities are “not only created through discourse but emerge in the very moments of encounters between bodies, things and discourse” (p. 215). overall, bloch, swadener, and cannella (2018) conclude that postfoundational theories—humanist and posthumanist—offer ways to think about children as embodying “diverse situated identities and a multiplicity of subjectivities” (p. 7). understanding children as subjects therefore requires a different understanding of the needs of that subject. however, critical discussions about children’s needs in relation to their multiple subjectivities appear to be largely absent from reconceptualizing literature. in ethics of care literature, notions of subjectivity, identity, and embodiment are explored, although more often in relation to a caring identity than to the identity of a person requiring care (critical disabilities studies, concerned with the experiences of persons with disabilities, is an exception). however, november 2020 25 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in general, care scholars maintain that care relations are “constitutive of identities” (raghuram, 2016, p. 516). maurice hamington (2004) further argues that care cannot be understood without attending to its embodied dimension; indeed care, lived as a material practice, as labour and an experience, emphasizes its embodiment (p. 4). hamington maintains that “care does more than underpin yet another ethical theory—it is the very foundation of morality rooted in our body and our bodily practices” (p. 5). these reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care perspectives potentially lead to a different kind of understanding of children constituted as embodied subjects with complex needs through immersion in caring relations. this understanding, however, still begs the question “what are children’s complex needs?” many reconceptualists have exposed a problematic narrative about children’s needs that states children have physical needs requiring care and they have learning needs, classified into various developmental domains, requiring education. in ethics of care literature, a few scholars have sought to classify needs. nel noddings (2013), for example, classifies needs as basic (i.e., physical) or as expressed wants and interests. stephanie collins (2015, p. 55) in her analysis of the core of care ethics quotes jaggar (1995) who states that beyond needs, “participants in caring relations also strive to delight and empower each other” (p. 180). sophie bourgault (2014), drawing on french philosopher simone weil, describes the needs of the soul or psychic and moral needs (p. 8). however, i am reluctant, as are many reconceptualist scholars (e.g., dahlberg & moss, 2018), to promote a technical and potentially hierarchical practice of classification. brunella casalini (2019), a care scholar, offers one reason for this reluctance. she maintains that care in the neoliberal state is concerned with “improving and perfecting the care receiver,” who is constructed as human capital. casalini states, “such improvement [will] be susceptible to some form of measurement and achievement assessment” (p. 4). reconceptualists argue for resistance to such neoliberal concerns, improvements, and forms of measurement. another reason for this reluctance is that the early childhood education field already has a pernicious divide between what are perceived as care needs versus education needs. peter moss (2019) has rightly articulated the position that “care as an ethic should permeate all education” (p. 59). nevertheless, the binary between care and education persists, as reconceptualist scholars argue, because it represents the body-mind split perpetuated through western patriarchal discourses and systems (e.g., van laere, roets, & vandenbroeck, 2019). similarly, fiona robinson (2019), a care scholar, states that “care ethics recognises that western patriarchy is itself constituted by various forms of racism and by explicit or implicit colonial logics—all of which are themselves constructed through what we might call ‘master’ binaries—between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, and ‘body’ and ‘mind’” (p. 6). as do humanist and posthumanist reconceptualists, robinson seeks to “transcend these binaries through repudiation of the modern, disembodied moral subject, and open the door to the relational subject—embodied, connected, situated, heterogeneous, plural” (robinson, 2019, p. 3). in avoiding a classification of children’s needs, i still have not satisfactorily provided a description of what children’s needs are, particularly one that shifts thinking away from developmentalism. in this regard, i make the claim that children themselves throughout their childhood express their needs in caring relations. i view the expressed needs of children as a complex set of wants, goals, views, wishes, desires, concerns, and interests (along with other possibilities) that differ among children and are always changeable. this complexity resists an easy classification of children’s needs in that children self-define in relation with others what their needs are. some reconceptualist scholars, for example, liane mozère (2014), invoking deleuze and guattari (1987), capture this complexity using the language of desire so that in early childhood encounters “desire meets desire” (p. 104). certainly, the language of desire seems lighter, more interesting and exciting whereas the language of needs seems heavy, ponderous, and burdensome. however, in suggesting that needs encompass desires, wants, goals, views, wishes, concerns, and interests, the language of needs can be enlivened, representing forces that the flow in and between humans and more-than-humans. november 2020 26 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research children communicate their complex needs in multiple ways and forms, eloquently captured in the “hundred languages of children” described in reggio-emilia educational philosophy (malaguzzi, 1996). children actively and competently seek (and are actively encouraged by educators to do so) to have their needs recognized through multiple caring encounters in diverse human and nonhuman contexts. conceptualizing children’s needs as expressed signals that having needs is compatible with agency and the exercise of autonomy within care relations. thus, children are understood as engaged, curious, and intelligent subjects constituting and reconstituting their needs as they live in, explore, investigate, and experience human and more-than-human worlds. furthermore, care scholars stress that care is a coparticipative process and that caring is “not complete” without the other’s engagement and response (engster & hamington, 2015, p. 4). therefore, not only do children actively engage in expressing their needs, they also communicate their responses to interpretations of these needs. this means that children are not passive recipients of care. moreover, those who care for children must critically reflect on and judge their caring actions (dahlberg & moss, 2005). in such a caring encounter, a one-directional, interventionist, instrumental, and technical approach to meeting children’s needs is therefore rejected. this understanding also insists on an orientation not toward achievements in meeting predefined needs required for the future, a neoliberal value, but toward caring encounters in the present, the everyday, and the ordinary (casalini, 2019). there may be three objections to this conceptualization of children’s needs. one objection may be that, in abandoning a framework of children’s developmental needs, even reconceptualists require a way to think about what is important for children’s experiences in early childhood education. i agree and point to several reconceptualist early learning curriculum frameworks that set out a vision and broad goals for early childhood education in their particular geographical, social, and political context. for example, british columbia’s framework has goals in the following learning areas: well-being and belonging; engagement with materials, others, and the world; communication and literacies; identities, social responsibility, and diversity (government of british columbia, n.d.). a second objection may be that inevitably educators (in fact, everyone) will make assumptions from their own life experiences and professional education about what children need and do not need. these assumptions particularly flourish when educators believe that young children cannot competently communicate their needs. however, reconceptualist and ethics of care scholars agree that if we regard children as relational subjects with complex needs expressed in multiple ways then this requires interpretation, tempered by humility, not paternalistic assumptions about these needs. in caring encounters, an interpretative orientation to children’s expressed needs honours careful listening, emotive knowledge, sensitivity to contextual nuances, and conversation. hamington (2018) states that responsiveness to needs requires contextual knowledge of those needs, “making the process of care a form of inquiry” (p. 310). dahlberg and moss (2005) emphasize that even with respectful inquiry that genuinely seeks to amplify children’s views and interests, care responses may still be partial and provisional. in other words, it is not possible to know fully the human or more-than-human in need. more broadly, tronto (2013) maintains that “the process of determining needs is one of the foremost political struggles of any account of care and the key point of democratic caring practices will be to embrace this struggle as an intrinsic part of democratic life” (p. 162). a third objection to my claim may be that that it is impossible to respond to every child’s needs, particularly when framed as interests, desires, and wants. a related concern may be that this responsiveness reifies the needs of individual children and works against a collectivist understanding of human and more-than-human needs (taylor, 2018). however, care and reconceptualist scholars stress that all human beings are constrained by their “social existence” and fundamental relationality and connectiveness within and between human and nonhuman worlds (hamington, 2018, p. 310). this means that while the expressed needs of individual children are taken seriously, there can be conflicts over them, and some may not be reconciled through inquiry and dialogue. importantly though, noddings (2010) insists that care is a precondition to interpreting and responding to needs even when november 2020 27 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research conflicts arise. in addition, caring educators frequently ask how forms of oppression influence the ways in which they enact care in response to children’s needs. as robinson (2019) states, “the relational subject of care ethics” constantly negotiates relations with others in ways that break down existing relations of power (p. 3). in the context of early childhood education, mozère (2014) beautifully writes, “adults may snatch at the children’s desiring machines that can connect to their own concerns and discover possibilities to explore and within which they too can flourish” (p. 104). gail boldt (2019), leaning on stern (2010), describes these encounters as moments of vitality in which attunement, variation, flow, and relatedness are profound forces. relationality in rethinking children’s needs in the previous section, i sought to show that both reconceptualist and ethics of care scholars explore ideas of subjectivity, identity, and embodiment although with different emphases. while these scholars diverge on the place of needs in subject formation, i found that they are concerned with the processes of responding to embodied relational children as subjects and with the full participation of them in the caring encounter. out of this discussion, i began to rethink an understanding of children’s needs as expressed, complex, and compatible with agency and autonomy within care relations. this section explores in more depth the idea of relational subjectivity (hollway, 2006) in rethinking children’s needs. care ethics recognizes through the concept of intersubjectivity that subjects themselves are “constitutively in relation” with others (pulcini, 2016, p. 125, as cited in conradi, 2019). in other words, there is no separate self outside of being relational; relationality, then, constructs the self. needs are therefore not a discrete aspect of an individual in the sense that they are not separate from being in relation with others. this recognition is the second condition for my premise that children, as do all humans (as well as nonhumans), depend on others to fulfill unrealized needs in caring encounters. consequently, this emphasis on relationality requires two conceptual moves, discussed in turn, that go beyond a focus on the individualism of children’s needs and the dyadic adultchild relationship. reconceptualist and ethics of care scholars converge to address this individualistic and dyadic focus as a conceptual limitation to understanding relationality in and between human and more-than-human worlds. practices of observing and identifying the individual needs of children are common in early childhood programs. indeed, there is a belief that, without an individual focus, some children are overlooked and neglected. however, macnaughton (2003), taking a reconceptualist position, argues that this individualism actually “mask[s] the way in which the social relationships and dynamics produced through gender, ethnicity and class influence a child’s becoming” (p. 178). she states further that “masking these influences also marks the qualities and injustices that they create in our social relationships and dynamics” (p. 178). accordingly, educators critically observe to think about and act on the social dynamics in a group of children and their effects (macnaughton, 2003, p. 207). does macnaughton’s perspective then reject a focus on children’s needs, particularly if needs are located in the individual child? my argument is that if children have needs, as do all entities, then caring encounters in which needs are expressed, interpreted, and responded to are relational moments in which social relations, dynamics, and injustices are always at play. in this way, it is possible to see the caring encounter as a collective concern and a moment of relationality whereby relational and embodied subjects come together to recognize that we are all “equally needy” (tronto, 2013). consistent with posthumanist thinking, it is also possible to see the presence of many entities in the caring encounter. affrica taylor (2018) writes that she regards “children’s lives as inherently interdependent [her emphasis], and agency as the outcome of intra-actions between entities (both living and inert), not as something that exclusively resides within the (human) individual” (p. 206). while my conceptual project in this article is by and large humanist in its orientation, i share with taylor (2018) her “collectivist rather than individualist” approach november 2020 28 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research (p. 206) in that i view participants in a caring encounter as constituted by their relationality. within a collectivist approach, therefore, children come to understand their needs and subject positions as always inside and in relation to others. at the same time, the educator maintains an open-ended dialogue with herself about what enables and constrains her caring responses within larger social relations and “reinvents” her caring identity in relation to others (casalini, 2019, p. 8). this approach begins to unsettle the dominant narratives of the individual child and the individual adult-child relationship, regarded as discrete units immune to other social relations and injustices that occur in an early childhood program. some care scholars further seek to displace the logic of the individual caregiver and care receiver dyad in caring processes by examining who else is responsible for making the outcome of a caring encounter a satisfying experience for those involved (tronto, 2013). for example, kittay (1999) proposes a complex understanding of mutual dependency and interdependency as “nested dependencies” in democratic and equitable spaces whereby those who care for others at the everyday and ordinary level depend on others who provide supports and/or policies at the institutional and political level (p. 132). this proposal has particular relevancy for early childhood education because educators need supports (e.g., adequate staffing ratios, a flexible schedule to listen and respond to children) provided at multiple system levels to engage in satisfying caring encounters. tronto (2013) further observes that complicating care in this way begins to “break up the relentless hierarchy of power” (p. 151) that is present in many dyadic relations. in the context of early childhood programs, a hierarchy of power is evident in the power educators simultaneously hold over children in terms of predetermining their needs and assigning value to some needs over others and in the power an uncaring system holds over educators that constrains their caring practices. as kittay and tronto both maintain, by locating the meeting of unrealized needs in only the adult-child relationship, others at multiple levels are not held ethically responsible for encounters that seek to meet children’s needs. for this reason, i imagine entangled humans and things, some actually present and some hovering spectres, always living and relating in the caring encounter. posthumanist reconceptualist (e.g., arndt & tesar, 2019) and some ethics of care scholars (e.g., hamington, 2018) also seek to decenter the humancentric focus in an ethics of care. hamington (2018) writes that since care ethics is not interested in a precise definition of what it means to care ethically, there is room to push thinking about “the care of non-human entities and objects as a means to develop non-exploitive caring relationships for humans and non-humans alike” (p. 9). in the context of early childhood education, arndt and tesar (2019) advocate for decentering the educator subject through an ethic of unknowing which requires the caring educator to take a stance of humility and trust in “the unknowability and constant formation” of the child subject within human and more-than-human worlds (p. 53). responding to children’s needs as ethical and political actions the last section indicates that reconceptualist and ethics of care scholars consider relationality beyond individualism, the dyadic relationship, and the human world as central to their theorizing of care relations. in addition, these scholars link social relations to patterns of power and injustice. however, i suggest, not surprisingly, that care scholars offer more insights into how care relations are shaped socially, ethically, and politically by who does and does not assume responsibility for meeting dependencies and needs. thus, rethinking children’s complex needs requires an understanding that they are expressed within complex webs of care relations in which there is a shared responsibility for responding to these expressions of need. this position leads to my third condition for accepting that children have needs, which is to regard the care required in responding to children’s expressed needs as ethical and political actions. while reconceptualist and care scholars agree that ethics and politics are central to care, i discuss how these scholars may diverge in their focus on motivations for care relations. november 2020 29 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research pacini-ketchabaw et al. (2015) state that “ethics are conceptualized from a relational standpoint; accompanying actions are situated, contingent and often marked by uncertainty. this means that we understand ethics to take into account whom we are working with at a specific time in a specific place” (p. 174). for this reason, caring practices are not viewed by these scholars as arising out of natural maternal instincts; rather they are ethical choices and decisions. similarly, from an ethics of care standpoint, casalini (2019) states that the caring person rejects ready-made answers to ethical situations, using instead “a contextual ethics that is open to the contingency of a concrete care situation with a concrete embodied other” (p. 8). reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care scholars also maintain that recognizing and valuing difference is central to ethical caring responses. as a reconceptualist, o’loughlin (2018) urges educators to see children becoming subjects as a challenge to sameness and to find opportunities for children “to think, imagine and experience their own critical possibilities for becoming” (p. 71). from a feminist ethics of care perspective, robinson (2019) argues that a “revisable” care ethics responds to difference by resisting oppositional hierarchies in favour of relationality that is acutely sensitive to context (p. 1). writing on the experience of subjectivity in care relations, catrin dingler (2015) further observes, caring practice shows that the subjectivities of both [care givers and care receivers] are constituted and altered in an open and unpredictable way. so the particular experience of care helps us understand that the concept of relational subjectivity can only be realized in ongoing practice, in which difference is expressed and negotiated always anew. (p. 214) furthermore, reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care scholars generally agree that socio-institutional settings in which such practices occur are not neutral; rather, they are political spaces in which practices in the here and now and in a specific geographical space, context, and time are enacted ethically (tronto, 2013). contesting education as a technical practice, moss (2019) argues that “education is, first and foremost, a political practice, building on political questions that call for choices to be made between often conflicting alternatives” such as those associated with an understanding of the child subject (p. 49). coming from a care ethics perspective, tronto (2013) contends that the absence of explicit political discussions about care and care work in a democracy, and in democratic institutions, keeps care as a central aspect of life “hidden in the background” (p. 26). for this reason, tronto, along with many care scholars, holds the position that there is no ethics of care without a political understanding. however, there are differences in how reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care scholars articulate motivations for acting ethically in political spaces. in ethics of care literature, the primary motivation for acting ethically is to respond in a caring manner to the needs of others. as discussed in previous sections, reconceptualist accounts of ethics of care practices in early childhood education (moss, 2019; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015) do not point to a connection between needs and care relations. moss (2019), for example, highlights an ethics of care as a guide for how everyone in the political space of the early childhood institution can relate to each other. taylor (2018, p. 208) further captures this focus by describing situated and entangled childhoods which foreground how children are enmeshed within complex human and more-than-human networks of relations that have ethical, political, and pedagogical implications. in addition, the two bodies of literature appear to favour the motivation for acting ethically either as an obligation emphasized in traditional moral theories or as an inherent aspect of relationality and as a responsibility. for instance, some early childhood posthumanist scholars (e.g., hodgins et al., 2019), draw on puig de la bellacasa (2017) who, while taking a collectivist caring orientation, refers to duties and an “obligation” to care for the more-than-human world. similarly, to address social justice issues, other reconceptualists (e.g., swadener & polakow, 2011) make use of the united nations convention on the rights of the child, which sets out the duties and obligations of governments, families, and social institutions to ensure that children’s rights are respected and upheld. however, noah kenneally (2017) suggests that “from this perspective rights can be seen as a type of exchange that is almost november 2020 30 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research economic: adults and governments are obliged to take care of children and ensure their well being, and so pay them in a currency of things they are entitled to—children’s rights” (p. 344). care scholars such as greenswag (2017) also criticize human rights discourses for their inability to see beyond the entitlements of the individual human agent. greenswag uses an example relevant to caring for young children to support her analysis. she describes a case in which a family fulfills their obligation to uphold their nanny’s rights to minimal decent working conditions set out in labour standards. however, what this contractual obligation fails to acknowledge is that the nanny is emotionally isolated from her own children left behind and emotionally connected to other children in her paid work. in contrast, through the lens of care ethics, greenswag argues the “emotional exploitation” in this social, economic, and political arrangement and its ethical implications become clearer (p. 803). in this situation, recognition of the nanny’s emotional pain would be a starting point for addressing the challenges in sustaining a complex web of care relations across geographical spaces. moreover, this recognition requires an ethics of responsibility that puts participants together to justly allocate caring responsibilities and the resources needed to care well (tronto, 2013). thus, in contrast to the language of obligation, care ethics maintains that relationality itself motivates care. robinson (2019) writes: “responsiveness—which requires the ‘unlearning’ of patriarchal individualism in favour of the moral skills of listening, patience and loving attention—is based fundamentally on the recognition that the other and the self are mutually constituted and interdependent” (p. 10). furthermore, care scholars generally agree that care given does not have to be reciprocal in the sense of an exchange of one thing for another. in other words, children are not obliged to give care back in a caring encounter (noddings, 2010). rather, children recognize that they are in relation with others, and in experiencing relational care, generate their own care of others and things. conclusion i began this article by laying out conflicting views on the concept of children’s needs in reconceptualist and ethics of care literature. in the ruins of these conflicts, i salvaged an ontological position that children have needs, as do all human and nonhuman entities. nevertheless, i proposed that this premise is neither satisfactory nor complete unless three understandings are considered: children are relational and embodied subjects with complex needs; the caring encounter in which children’s needs are recognized is a moment of relationality; and interpretations of and responses to children’s needs are ethical and political actions. in exploring these three understandings, i navigated humanist and posthumanist reconceptualist and ethics of care scholarship to find a way to rethink children’s needs. i pointed out agreements and disagreements between scholars with the most contentious disagreement coming down to the use of the language of needs itself. i found that reconceptualist scholars emphasize relationality but minimize a connection, made by feminist ethics of care scholars, between having needs and being in relation with others. however, i proposed some possible ways that could potentially contribute to a more complex understanding of children’s needs, beyond the reductionist construct of the individual child with developmental needs rejected by reconceptualist scholars. i suggested that reclaiming a lively language of children’s needs raises the salience of having needs as a profound aspect of being and becoming in multiple worlds and of being in relations of mutual care (puig de la bellacasa, 2017 p. 161). at a most fundamental level, and put simply, i maintain there is nothing wrong with having needs and being dependent. from my perspective, rather than a cause for degradation and avoidance, having needs should be a cause of celebration since it is through this ontological state that connection and relationality flourish. i have therefore arrived at a third conceptual space that could potentially encapsulate a different way of thinking about children’s needs in early childhood education. i offer the following preliminary, perhaps overly packed, statement, which summarizes the three understandings supporting my key premise as a way to begin to rethink children’s needs: november 2020 31 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the political space of early childhood education, children, as relational and embodied subjects, express their complex needs and respond to the needs of others in generative encounters in human and more-than-human worlds, grounded in an ethics of care that recognizes the vitality of all things. acknowledging that everything in the political space is mutually constituted and interdependent, educators’ ethical caring interpretations and responses to children’s needs are contingent on context, difference, and a shared responsibility for care. in offering this alternative statement, i seek a paradigmatic shift, from foundational to postfoundational thinking about children’s needs. at the same time, this shift is anchored in a premise, articulated in feminist ethics of care as a critical, postfoundational theory, that dependency and ethical responsibility for responding through caring actions to this dependency are fundamental to human existence. thus, a tension between reconceptualist thinking which tends to reject singular truths and care scholars’ insistence on a truth about being human remains a challenge for rethinking children’s needs. furthermore, posthumanist thinking contests the very meaning of being human, implicating the human in relation with the nonhuman. i began this article by describing the conceptual disequilibrium i found myself in after working with the concept of needs in reconceptualist and feminist ethics of care literature. motivated by a reconceptualist value of opening up theoretical possibilities, i persisted in increasing rather than decreasing the conceptual complexity of children’s needs in early childhood and, as a result, i remain unsettled. this article, therefore, can only serve as a starting point for persisting with critical and, i believe, necessary dialogue about children’s needs framed by rich insights offered by humanist and posthumanist reconceptualist and ethics of care literature. acknowledgments i am most grateful for the generous feedback i received from iris berger, nicole land, meagan montpetit, mari pighini, and brooke richardson following a presentation of the ideas explored in this article at the november 2019 reconceptualizing early childhood education conference in las cruces, new mexico. peer reviewers also asked questions that provoked me to deepen my rethinking of children’s needs. november 2020 32 vol. 45 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references arndt, s., & tesar, m. 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(2019). the controversy of ravza’s pacifier: in search of embodied care in preschool education. in r. langford (ed.), theorizing feminist ethics of care in early childhood practice: possibilities and dangers (pp. 163– 184). bloomsbury academic press. september 2019 106 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research governed and liberated bodies: experiences of young female competitive dancers dawn zinga, danielle sirianni molnar, maureen connolly, and natalie tacuri dawn zinga is a professor of child and youth studies at brock university. her ongoing research interests include competitive dance, transitions to postsecondary education, and indigenous education. dawn received a chancellor chair in teaching award and has been the pi on many sshrc-funded grants. the research in this article was supported by a sshrc insight development grant that was awarded to drs. zinga, sirianni molnar, and connolly. email: dzinga@brocku.ca danielle sirianni molnar is an associate professor of child and youth studies at brock university. her current research interests include perfectionism, competitive dance, and health and well-being. danielle received an early researcher award from the ontario ministry of economic development, job creation, and trade and has been the ci on many sshrc-funded grants. maureen connolly is a professor of physical education and kinesiology in the faculty of applied health sciences at brock university. her ongoing interests include narrative and arts-based inquiry, poetic and bodily expressive modalities, and how these function across scholarly, pedagogic, and other creative outlets. a university and national teaching award winner and a 2009 erasmus mundus scholar, maureen’s teaching and research include curriculum, stressed embodiment, dance and movement education, and freirian approaches to teaching and learning. her theoretical dispositions are semiotic, phenomenological, post/anticolonial, irreverent, and quixotic. maureen enjoys training, reading, writing, laughing, and authentic interpersonal engagement. natalie tacuri is a master’s student in the department of child and youth studies at brock university and is currently focusing her research on competitive dancers and their families. she grew up dancing at various competitive studios and continues to be teacher/ choreographer for studios and university-level teams. natalie is passionate about using her love of dance to create meaningful change for dancers through her research, such as advocating for dancers’ recognition as athletes and providing an understanding of dance as a legitimate sport. in this research we focused on dancers’ experiences in studios and competitive dance contexts. young dancers often spend between six and twenty hours in dance studios participating in acro, ballet, contemporary, hip hop, jazz, lyrical, musical theatre, and tap classes. dancers are typically first enrolled between the ages of 3 and 8 and may start competing as early as age 5 or 6. we were specifically interested in how dancers would report experiences of their bodies as governed and liberated within these dance contexts. the dancers involved in this study had transitioned from studio contexts to dance at the university level and reflected on their past experiences as young dancers as well as current dancing experiences. we contend that competitive dancers’ bodies are governed in many ways by external forces through the training they receive and the rules of the competitions in which they participate. the contexts and environments that dancers inhabit shape their identities and understandings of dance. in addition, we argue that the ways in which dancers experience their bodies as governed and liberated provide insights into how childhood is conceptualized. more specifically, the dancers’ bodies are governed by rules, training, and expectations, yet dancers often report dance to be liberating and a source of emotional expression. in this study, a document analysis of the rules associated with 15 canadian competitions was combined with focus groups conducted with 15 female dancers. these dancers had transitioned from competitive dance studio contexts as girls to training and competing at a postsecondary level. applying a multidisciplinary theoretical approach that drew from self-determination theory, foucault, and bourdieu, we discovered that collectively these theories provide insights into the complex and contradictory world of competitive dance. key words: dance; self-determination theory; foucault; habitus september 2019 107 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research studio and competition rules and expectations that govern bodily expression, the surveillance around training, and the levels of autonomy experienced by dancers are connected to a conceptualization of childhood as a time of protection and of children as needing guidance. however, while adults influence conceptualizations of childhood that enter into dance contexts, we also see dancers as active participants through their engagement in dance and particularly their submission to governance and their experiences of liberation within dance. theoretical framework we employ a multidisciplinary approach to our theoretical framework by combining self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000) with foucault’s (1977a, 1977b) work on docile bodies, surveillance, and power and bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) concept of habitus. we contend that individually each of these three theoretical approaches offers specific insights into the lived experiences of dancers and dance contexts but that collectively they offer more nuanced insights into the complexity of those experiences and contexts. self-determination theory (sdt) offers an approach to understanding individual aspects of how dancers’ bodies are governed and the ways in which dancers exercise autonomy, experience competence, and achieve relatedness. within sdt (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000), autonomy is distinct from independence and implies enacting behaviour and decisions with a sense of volition rather than doing so independently of others (van petegem, beyers, vansteenkiste, & soenens, 2012). the central premise within sdt posits that all individuals have three innate needs associated with healthy development: autonomy (freedom to make one’s own choices), competence (belief in one’s own efficacy), and relatedness (feeling that one is part of caring relationships). when these psychological needs are met, individuals are motivated to take action that is fully consistent with their own values and leads to individuals experiencing enhanced well-being and greater life satisfaction (meyer et al., 2007; molix & nichols, 2013). many researchers have been applying sdt to understand various dance contexts, as well as dancers’ motivations and engagement in dance (see balaguer et al., 2001; jago et al., 2013; quested & duda, 2010, 2011a, 2011b; sebire, jago, et al., 2013; sebire, kesten, et al., 2016; shannon, 2016). to date, sdt dance research has demonstrated that dancers who experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their dance contexts are more likely to continue to dance and derive positive psychological, emotional, physical, and social benefits from dance engagement. however, sdt does not fully address how autonomy, competence, and relatedness are achieved in dance contexts or how dancers might negotiate and navigate their lived realities to experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness. sdt offers a particular window into the world of dancers, but we argue that it only offers a partial or obstructed view. similarly, foucault’s work on docile bodies, surveillance, and power has been applied to understand and explore dance, but we argue that it also offers a specific view of dancers and dancers’ experiences that does not take into account the view offered by other theories, such as sdt or bourdieu’s habitus. there may be more connections between foucault and sdt than one might expect. foucauldian dance scholars have focused on the creation of docile bodies, arguing that the bodily discipline created through constant surveillance results in dancers internalizing their teachers’ expectations, leading them to engage in self-regulation and self-critique (dryburgh & fortin, 2010; fortin, viera, & tremblay, 2009; green, 1999, 2001; kleiner, 2009). mirrors are seen to be key components in setting the stage for surveillance in dance studios (berg, 2015; clarke & markula, 2017; dryburgh & fortin, 2010; fortin et al., 2009; green, 1999, 2001, 2003; kleiner, 2009; loch, 2015; pickard, 2013; shannon, 2016; whiteside & kelly, 2016). kleiner (2009) linked the ballet studio with its mirrors and the constant watching of the ballet instructor and other dancers to foucault’s (1977a) panopticon. while kleiner did recognize that in the panopticon the observer/inspector is not visible, she argued that the mirrors within a ballet studio stand in for the observational towers and instill a sense of visibility and exposure that mimic the panopticon, even if the dance september 2019 108 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research teacher is visible. clarke and markula (2017) have argued that while foucault’s concepts of power and surveillance can be applied to indicate that ballet produces docile bodies through surveillance, it is more representative of the dance experience to consider how dancers both embrace and resist the governance of their bodies. bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) concept of habitus informs us that while bodies exist in the social world, they also contain the social world within, such that the body can reproduce cultural and social ideas and norms. habitus can reflect the larger society in which one lives but can also be more specific to a smaller social group or context, because it is related to the way the body is both managed and perceived within a social group. essentially, “when habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product … it takes the world about itself for granted” (bourdieu & wacquant, 1992, p. 127). pickard (2013) explored habitus in ballet dancers and argued that dancers developed an “unconscious ballet habitus” (p. 3) that was transmitted though dance contexts and informed dancers’ understandings of the relationship between their bodies and identities. foucault’s work on docile bodies and bourdieu’s concept of habitus are both relevant to female athletes (beckner & record, 2015; clarke & markula, 2017; harder & theune, 2017; rudd & carter, 2006) and particularly to dancers (alexias & dimitropoulou, 2011; clarke & markula, 2017; green, 2001; kleiner, 2009; pickard, 2013, 2015; tai, 2014; wainwright, williams, & turner, 2006). collectively, these theories offer an opportunity to understand the complexity and nuances within dancers’ experiences and contexts. while bourdieu’s work on habitus addresses how the body both reproduces cultural and social norms while also being managed and perceived within a social group, it also offers potential insight into how a dance habitus contributes to dancers’ understanding of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. foucault’s conceptualization of surveillance and the production of docile bodies combines with the other two approaches to address some of the mechanisms by which dancers interact with habitus and come to understand autonomy, competence, and relatedness. we propose that if habitus is a reflection of the whole or of the specific dance context, then foucault and sdt contribute to providing a more complex and nuanced understanding of how dancers navigate and negotiate various aspects of their experiences and contexts and how that contributes to habitus. method we chose to explore the competitive experiences of dancers by examining the contexts within which they compete alongside the dancers’ discussions of their competitive experiences. specifically, we decided to conduct a document analysis (bowen, 2009) of competition rules and to conduct focus groups with dancers who had finished competing with their studios and were currently competing at a university level. the document analysis of the rules provided information about the construction and nature of the competition contexts while the focus groups provided insights into how dancers experienced these contexts. our document analysis (bowen, 2009) explored the content communicated on the websites of 15 canadian dance competitions around the rules and procedures that apply to the operation of their dance competitions. the 15 competitions were selected according to the following criteria: their prevalence in ontario (number of events); their popularity among studios (roster of studios attending); and their representation across competitive levels (intensity of competition / level of studio). engaging with a document requires iterative and recursive reading with attunement. a document is read for the whole to get a sense of the document in its entirety; it is read with attention to idiom, word choice, notable revelatory terms and phrases and notable nonoccurrences; and it is read with attention to literal content, particularly how the literal content (e.g., number of pages, font size charts, graphics) contributes to the explicit purpose of the document. it also involves reading with attention to plausible deductive interpretations guided by a theory or model, and reading with attention to pattern. in effect, the reader makes the september 2019 109 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research obvious, obvious, makes the obvious dubious, and makes the hidden obvious (patton, 2015). we conducted a twostage document analysis that involved an initial analysis to identify overall patterns across the competition websites, then we conducted a superordinate level of thematic coding wherein we applied our theoretical framework to themes that emerged out of the pattern analysis. we conducted two focus groups with 15 competitive dancers between the ages of 18 and 24 who were involved in one of the competitive dance teams at a university in southern ontario. in the focus groups, we focused broadly on the dancers’ competitive experiences and more specifically on their experiences of competition rules, studio experiences, autonomy in dance, transition to postsecondary dance contexts, and being governed by rules and expectations. focus groups were conducted at the university where the dancers were going to school and training. one focus group (n= 8) was conducted with students new to the dance team and the other focus group was conducted with returning students (n= 7). dancers ranged from first to fourth year of postsecondary school. we modelled the focus group coding on the two-stage document analysis by first analyzing for common patterns and second exploring superordinate themes that emerged out of the document analysis and the focus groups. findings in the document analysis of the dance rules, we met as a team and collectively identified the common patterns across all of the dance competition websites. we identified the following 12 patterns, which are listed in order of most common to least common: registration; dance performance; judging; prizes; finance; photography; scheduling; backstage etiquette; liability; family friendly; theatre etiquette; attitude/sportsmanship. the first level of analysis is not reported in detail, but several of the key patterns are captured in table 1. september 2019 110 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 1. patterns within the document analysis, in order of prevalence name of pattern description competitions dance performance listing of styles of dance, categorization, number of dancers, number of acrobatic tricks and tumbling passes allowed outside of acro, length of music, penalties, recategorization of dances, divisions (novice, precompetitive, competitive), time limits. 14/15 judging scoring categories, scoring criteria, judicial decisions, tie breaking, dancer placement, re-dancing rules, adjudications, qualification for divisional and overall awards. 14/15 photography prohibition of photography and videography due to dancer safety, integrity of choreography, possible “questionable”nature attendees at public event. 11/15 scheduling allowable props, time limits for setup/takedown of props, holding numbers, numbers allowed for costume changes, and dancing out of order. 11/15 backstage etiquette rules about backstage and rehearsal areas (e.g., being quiet backstage, staying out of the wings) being on time, being ready 30–60 minutes prior to a performance, dressing room behaviour. 10/15 liability not liable for damages, loss, injury, or stolen property; dancers compete at their own risk; teachers responsible for ensuring dancers are competing at a technically appropriate level for their abilities; video and photo rules are repeated often. 9/15 family friendly “appropriateness” of choreography, themes, song lyrics, and costuming of the dancers on stage. performances lacking sensitivity are not tolerated, including dances that portray rape, suicide, murder, sex, domestic violence, eating disorders, and other themes with dark undertones. 8/15 attitude /sportsmanship rules instructing dancers, teachers, and parents to behave in a respectful and professional manner and to demonstrate fairness, ethics, sense of fellowship, and good sportsmanship. no tolerance for harassment or bullying behaviours. 6/16 the eight patterns reported in table 1 all had elements that contributed to governing dancers’ bodies through rules and expectations placed on dancers. dance performance governed dancers’ bodies in terms of defining dance styles, skills, length of music, and categorization of dancer, while family friendly, etiquette, and attitude/ sportsmanship governed specific behaviours and defined what was “appropriate.” judging, scheduling, and liability all offered more technical ways of defining and governing dancers’ bodies. collectively, these patterns created a competition habitus that had to be reconciled with dancers’ dance or studio habitus. similarly, wainwright, september 2019 111 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research williams, and turner (2006) argue that dancers have multiple forms of habitus. they argue that each dancer has an individual habitus that is unique, an institutional habitus that is shared and formed by their training and ballet culture, and a choreographic habitus that is informed by the roles they are given in dances. further, they state that there is an interconnectivity and reciprocity among the different forms of habitus. for example, a dancer must form a habitus related to competition, but this is not in isolation from their studio habitus as each informs the other to a certain extent. until competition, dancers have no experience with backstage behaviours, onstage behaviours, and interaction with judges (e.g., scores, critiques), which will come to form a competition habitus, but they do have a sense of dance styles and technique in their studio habitus that may be shifted and informed by judges citing the broader dance world and observations of other dancers. we also found that the competition rules spoke to foucault’s (1977a, 1977b) work on surveillance, docile bodies, and associated relations of power in which power is both constraining and productive. dancers were expected to conform to the competition rules, and the rules were frequently written in ways that governed dancers’ actions and bodies. inherent in underlying assumptions associated with the rules, as well as their expression and impact on the competition contexts, was engagement with dancers’ levels of autonomy, competency, and relatedness (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000). furthermore, adult conceptualizations of childhood were evident in most of the rules, particularly those that dealt with governance and protection. the relevance of habitus, complexity, and nuances around sdt and the emphasis on surveillance and the production of docile bodies that were present in the document analysis also emerged in the first-level analysis of the focus groups. overall, all dancers strongly associated their identity with dance and saw dance as an integral part of their world. this was evidenced by dancers’ claims such as “dance is who i am” and “when i was injured and could not dance, i felt as if i had lost a core part of myself.” dancers exhibited strong motivations associated with dance engagement regardless of specific dance style. they reported great enjoyment from dance, particularly in connection with the ability to engage in creative and emotional expression. while they recognized that their bodies were often governed by outside forces, such as teachers, studio expectations, parental expectations, competition rules, and judges, they also reported experiencing freedom, emotional expression, and power in dance. for example, one dancer stated, “sure, there are rules, but it’s me out on the stage dancing” and another said, “when i dance i am free and i can express my emotions.” in their conversations they also exhibited an awareness of how many of the ways that they were governed were associated with adults’ conceptions of childhood and of themselves as children or young people. one dancer explained, contrasting assumptions about children with those of university students: “now that we compete at a university level, our sexuality is welcome on the stage and seen as empowering when we embrace it in dance.” in applying theory in the second superordinate thematic analysis, we identified four emergent themes that were present across both the document analysis and the focus groups. each of these themes engaged with sdt (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000), foucault’s (1977a, 1977b) work on surveillance and docile bodies, and bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) concept of habitus. woven within the themes was evidence of how adults were conceptualizing childhood and children. these themes are as follows: policing the boundaries and borders; surveillance and regulation; misuse and exploitation; living contradictions. policing the boundaries and borders policing the boundaries and borders takes into account how porous the borders are among dance forms/styles, between “family friendly” and what is considered too erotic or evocative, and between what can be considered an artistic social justice approach to an issue and what is considered too dark or in poor taste. frequently, the boundaries and borders followed adult views of what was deemed appropriate given a child’s age. this theme also september 2019 112 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research linked to body shapes and body ideals, excellence versus perfectionism, and how some dancers are showcased in group numbers. there were some commonalities and some distinctions in how this theme emerged in the document analysis and in the focus groups. the document analysis revealed that judging at competitions and competition rules involve a lot of policing around dance styles, while dancers discussed experiencing this policing of boundaries and borders at competition and also in how styles of dance were taught in a studio. more specifically, they talked about how these rules and their experiences of being taught defined how they understood that style in terms of boundaries. as one dancer put it, “studios differ in how they think about forms of dance. in some studios you don’t have an arial [cartwheel without hands] in jazz but in others, arials are part of jazz choreography.” as part of policing the boundaries, bodily shape and ideals were expressed within the document analysis in terms of family-friendly rules around costuming and were prevalent in focus-group discussions. according to the document analysis, many of the dance performance and family-friendly rules serve to police the boundaries and borders of dance. some of the rules include an acknowledgement that there will be push back because tension around borders and boundaries is inevitable and it is what drives the emergence of new dance forms, new rules, new procedures, and so forth. dancers spoke of being trained to understand the specific body ideal that a studio was looking for and being positioned in dances according to body size or form. several dancers spoke of experiences with body dysmorphia and the strategies they still use to deal with it. one dancer described how she still carried scars from her studio: “we were expected to show our ribs when dancing and have a certain body shape. sometimes i still have to run my hands down my body to convince myself of my size.” these borders and boundaries about body image stayed with dancers, and they continued to struggle with what they had internalized. bourdieu (1977, 1984) proposes that class habitus leaves traces and legacies, thus the hidden injuries of class make themselves known in unconscious enactments of previous behaviours grounded in penury or poverty. this was clearly present in how dancers exhibited traces and legacies of the habitus of their studios, just like hidden injuries of class. dancers had hidden injuries around the borders and boundaries of gendered body image that continued to be expressed years after leaving the studio. the policing of boundaries and borders connects with autonomy (sdt; deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000), because autonomy is allowed within certain borders and boundaries but can be challenged and revoked when a dancer is seen to be crossing those borders and boundaries identified within the rules. dancers spoke about how teachers and parents could both be supportive and withdraw support depending on whether or not dancers were remaining within the expected borders and boundaries. as one dancer stated, “if my solo did not meet my teacher’s expectations, she would be gone from the wing when i got off stage.” foucault’s (1977b) contention that individuals are at once both vehicles and recipients of relations of power is also at play in that dancers are governed by rules which exert power on them, yet in their performances, they are also vehicles of power. once entering performance, it is the dancer(s) who bring the choreography to life—on the stage they are enacting power through their embodiment of the movements and emotional expression. dancers’ discussions reflected relations of power as dancers spoke about how at times they were constrained through discipline associated with training but also enabled through their embodiment of the choreography and emotional expression. aspects of habitus (bourdieu, 1977, 1984) are also influenced by these borders and boundaries in terms of how dancers take them in and make sense of them in connection with other forms of habitus they have gained from dance contexts. it was clear throughout the focus groups that while dancers shared many of these boundaries and barriers, their studiospecific experiences resulted in distinct differences. one dancer put it best when she said, “i resonate with a lot of what is being said, but my experiences [at my studio] did not involve having to be a certain size or meet a certain image to dance.” september 2019 113 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research surveillance and regulation surveillance and regulation was the second emergent subordinate theme. it is closely aligned with the policing of borders and boundaries but is more focused on the regulation of the body and its behaviours. this element was common across almost all the documented rules to some degree. the fine details of dance performance, such as the amount of time and the number of tricks, could be connected to the regulation of the body, while the etiquette and sportsmanship rules focused more on regulation of behaviour as well as the body in terms of who is allowed to do what with whom and where. there were strong echoes of adult conceptualizations of childhood in this theme, where surveillance and identification of dancers were frequently tied to age expectations and protectiveness. judging provided the details for both regulation and surveillance as it defined how dancers would be surveilled on stage and for what purposes. photography rules focused on who takes photos and videos and for what purpose, again detailing a level of surveillance. finance, scheduling, and registration included elements of surveillance and regulation in terms of how dancers were defined and categorized (regulated), as well as how these regulations were adhered to and, in several cases, supported by documentary evidence (i.e., confirmation of birth date). surveillance and regulation was one of the strongest themes emerging from the focus groups. dancers spoke about how surveillance and regulation were foundational through the presence of mirrors in the classroom, corrections in class, and teaching styles. studio-specific norms were also cited in terms of performance expectations, bodily form, technique, and teacher expectations. some studios regulated weight loss and food intake. surveillance also included who was featured in dances and how often featured dancers practiced or were in class. constant display and evaluation by teachers, peers, judges, parents, and themselves placed dancers in a constant state of surveillance, associated with the training of the body (foucault, 1977a). similarly, the regulation of the body reflects bourdieu’s habitus (1977, 1984) and informs dancers how their behaviours and movements are to be regulated. while autonomy has a minor role in this theme through dancers’ adherence or resistance to surveillance and regulation, competence (sdt; deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000) has a more primary role. a focus on competence was evident through the focus on the quality of movement, skill difficulty, timing, and precision, as those who can meet the defined expectations are seen as competent and these expectations provide dancers with a metric of competence. dancers spoke about how this metric of competence could be studio or competition specific. relatedness (sdt; deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000) is also connected to this theme, as there are implied relationships within the etiquette rules, particularly around who is allowed to go where and with whom. in addition, dancers specifically spoke about having to negotiate their relationships with other dancers within the contested contexts of surveillance and regulation and the implications of the metric of competence that provided a measure of comparison to other dancers’ abilities. dancers explained these negotiations in the following ways: “my studio did not allow contact with other dancers during a competition. i would be in trouble if i spoke to a dancer from another studio”; “a dancer in my studio would be so supportive when the teachers were watching, but if they were not [watching] she would try to throw me off my game before i went on stage, especially if we were competing”; “we spend hours together in class and at competitions. some dancers are as supportive as they look and work hard to balance friendship and competition, but others are all about winning and appearances in front of the adults.” misuse and exploitation the third theme, misuse and exploitation, focused on anticipating and regulating potential misuse and/or exploitation of dancers, rules, photos, and registration and were particularly associated with studio expectations, such as required hours of dance, importance of academics, treatment of illness or other absences, bodily form and image, and costuming. in terms of photos, the competitions often positioned rules as protecting dancers from september 2019 114 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research unwanted and inappropriate surveillance and exploitation by unauthorized photos and videos. this theme also applied to dance performance and family-friendly rules, as there was an implication that dancers did not have choice around costuming, choreography, or the theme of a dance and therefore could be exploited in those areas by their studios and/or teachers, particularly in regard to what was deemed as appropriate and not appropriate. dancers reported that some studios exhibited protective behaviours toward their dancers by putting academics first, having realistic expectations around illness and injury, having reasonable and appropriate costumes, and accepting all body types. in most of these studios, winning was less associated with excellence than at other studios: dancers were taught to assess their own progression towards excellence throughout their development as a dancer, independent of competitive scores. other studios were reported to put dance and winning first before any other concerns around the dancers’ health and well-being. dancers in these studios spoke of facing intense pressures to get their bodies to fit an “ideal” shape and form, and at times felt exploited in terms of their costumes. in reflecting back, one dancer said, “i wore things on stage at 14 that i would never wear now. i don’t know what they were thinking.” misuse and exploitation revealed competing and contradictory understandings of childhood. competition rules largely focused on protecting dancers from exploitation and studios showing mixed results, with some studios identified as protective and others as much less protective. dancers identified disconnections between various contexts. at times they felt they were treated as children and protected by adults (at times overprotected), and yet in other contexts “we were dancers, not children, and expected to meet the expectations set before us as professionals—balancing school work, illness, family was on us.” the pattern within studios and competitions that dancers lack choice and need protection undermines dancers’ autonomy (sdt; deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000), illustrating areas in which dancers are not autonomous or not allowed to be autonomous. dancers reported being expected to be independent and responsible and yet also follow rules and not make their own decisions. similarly, dancers reported being pushed to bring expression and feeling to dance and yet docilely follow the choreography exactly. dancers’ relationships with teachers and fellow dancers involved negotiating ideas around protection and autonomy. foucault’s (1977a, 1977b) focus on governance and surveillance is particularly relevant in terms of what dancers are thought to need protection from, as well as who has the authority/power to protect them in specific contexts. for example, in a training context a teacher controls what a dancer is able to do in terms of movements, such that if a skill is deemed too advanced, a dancer does not have permission to try it or work on it. in this context, a dancer may be protected from herself. in competition contexts, protection is more frequently expressed around the theme of the music and costuming to ensure that both are age appropriate. dancers are encouraged to be autonomous and responsible, and yet have little input into their training or competition numbers. teachers exert power both in training and in selecting competition numbers; dancers have the choice to participate or not. how these elements are negotiated in specific studio contexts contributes to dancers’ habitus (bourdieu, 1977, 1984). in the focus groups, dancers displayed shared habitus emerging from their dance experiences but also distinct habitus associated with their specific studio culture. dancers spoke about the marked differences between studio competitive experiences and university competitive experiences: studio experiences were associated with lower levels of autonomy and heightened protection, whereas university experiences were associated with heightened autonomy and lower levels of protection. as one dancer described the university context, “it has been an amazing experience. i am not always conforming to someone’s choreography. i get to bring my vision to life.” this shift seemed to be associated to dance contexts and adult conceptualizations of childhood as dancers in university contexts were seen to be emerging adults. the rules within competitions reflect a broader understanding of how surveillance, autonomy, and protection are understood and practiced by the adults governing these spaces, while dancers’ actions within these contexts reflect how dancers are navigating and negotiating their own compliance and resistance. september 2019 115 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research living contradictions the final theme addresses how living contradictions make the dance experience simultaneously exciting and frustrating. the purpose of the rules is to provide a safe and (for some competitions) family-friendly atmosphere, and yet the rules themselves can increase tensions, provoke challenge, and often result in overregulation, heightened anxiety, and high surveillance, leading to highly charged atmospheres at competition. dancers spent a lot of their time discussing living contradictions. they spoke at length about both negative and positive aspects of dance. dance was seen to have the ability to impact dancers deeply such that they continue to carry the emotional scars from emotional/psychological wounds they experienced during dancing. dance had left some with anxieties and other difficulties. one dancer spoke of what she called “performance ptsd,” while others reported body dysmorphia that left them unable to face the mirror some days. dancers also spoke of how surveillance had become part of how they related to others and to themselves and involved a level of comparison between the self and the other that had become part of how they evaluated the world. yet dance was also credited with being an amazing and life-affirming experience that was intimately tied to dancers’ identities and provided them with an outlet to creatively express as well as work through their emotions. the conversations with dancers revealed that the dancers had to reconcile these living contradictions in some way and that in reflecting on past experiences dancers became aware that they had integrated these contradictions, consciously and unconsciously, into their habitus (bourdieu, 1977, 1984). sdt (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000) also offers an important contribution to understanding dancers’ experiences, since some elements of the reconciliation process were mediated by dancers’ perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. dancers’ ability to reconcile these living contradictions was reported by the dancers as being associated with their levels of engagement, motivation, and other positive benefits associated with dance. dancers’ experiences also suggested that difficulties in reconciling these contradictions and/or a disconnect between studio culture and dancer autonomy, competence, and relatedness was associated by dancers with negative mental health outcomes. sometimes dancers reported changing studios to find a context that resonated with them and supported autonomy, competence, and relatedness, while in other cases dancers persisted in the studio but felt that they paid an emotional and psychological price for that persistence. the contexts of dance inhabited by dancers are complex and messy. these contexts are constantly shifting, highly influenced by surveillance and associated relations of power, and result in a multiplicity of habitus. discussion/conclusion the data analysis produced some very intriguing results. in both the document analysis and the focus groups, there was clear evidence of specific ways that dancers’ bodies are being governed by the rules and regulations of competitions, their studios, their teachers, and their training. furthermore, these rules and regulations, as well as the studio context, frequently reflected adults’ conceptualizations of childhood. additionally, there was clear evidence that dancers experience high levels of autonomy of bodily expression and liberation within dance. while there were some differences between competitions’ rules and regulations and dancers’ experiences, clear patterns and themes emerged. dancers’ experiences of having their bodies governed were strongly influenced by how they understood the dance context and the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in both the ways their bodies were governed and the ways they experienced freedom within dance. dancers’ lived experience illustrated complex relationships and balancing between freedom of expression and movement and governance of their bodies by external influences. similar to pickard (2015), who found that dancers experienced freedom through emotional expression, we also found that, despite the rules and the surveillance, dancers experienced freedom and autonomy in their performances. essentially, the process of training and development provided challenges for the september 2019 116 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research dancers, but the end product—the dancing—provided liberation and satisfaction. thus while the dancers might be governed by rules and expectations, they also felt liberated and empowered. the experiences and contexts we describe in this paper offer an intriguing set of resonances and contradictions, as well as opportunities to interrelate and interrogate the associations between and across the premises of sdt (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000) and the claims of both foucault and bourdieu. overall, using sdt (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000), foucault’s (1977a, 1977b) conceptions of power and surveillance, and bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) habitus as a collective approach to analyzing competitive dance contexts provided a more nuanced and detailed understanding of the lived experiences of competitive dancers and their competitive contexts. considered through sdt (deci & ryan, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000) dancers live in a world of contradiction where they have autonomy and no autonomy, where they experience competence and incompetence, and where relatedness is often negotiated with complex and tangled expectations, borders, and boundaries. yet some of those relationships were incredibly strong and supported dancers through difficult times. central to these experiences was the constancy of surveillance and its associated effects (foucault, 1977a, 1977b), which dancers negotiated and navigated, often in ways that were intricately connected to their understandings of their own autonomy, competence, and relatedness. furthermore, foucault’s (1977a, 1977b, 1990) assertions that power is productive (as opposed to interpreting it as an either/or value system yielding positive or negative outcomes) has important implications for the development of dancers’ identities. while dancers eloquently described how integral being a dancer was to their sense of identity, their descriptions of navigating and negotiating studio norms, expectations, and rules provided a tracing of how that identity as a dancer was developed. in addition, their descriptions of the transition to universitylevel competitions and how they had to reconsider and reconfigure their identities as dancers demonstrated their continued development. in many ways, habitus (bourdieu, 1977, 1984) pulled everything together. the similarities and differences in the habitus exhibited by dancers indicated that habitus was central in how dancers made sense of the complex and contradictory world of dance. dance contexts certainly have similar potential for the formation of habitus as the class contexts that gave rise to bourdieu’s (1984) notion of habitus. bourdieu proposes that “even when a person moves from a lower ses to a higher one; there remain ‘tells’ of the previously inhabited class” (p. 466). likewise, a dancer’s comportment often “tells” (or reveals) the values, ideology, and guiding principles of specific dance forms or dance instructors/masters or studios/regions. dancers spoke of the hidden injuries around body image, competence, and the need for perfection that they continued to carry with them. we found that dancers exhibited multiple forms of habitus, such as a dance habitus and unique studio habitus. dancers also demonstrated how habitus can shift and evolve through changes in context and environment. many of the older dancers spoke about renegotiating their dance identity and the expansion of their studio habitus to more of an overall dance habitus as they moved from the studio scene to pse competition. they were reimagining themselves and interrogating the things they carried with them, such as surveillance of self and other. further, group behaviours and rituals at competitions and studios reflect both adherence and resistance to the rules and regulations of a given dance form or event. thus, reproduction and reimagining coexist in dance contexts. in addition, the analysis of competition rules and dancers’ competitive experiences revealed how adults’ conceptualizations of childhood influenced how dancers governed their bodies. dancers also spoke about how, as they got older, particularly in university dance contexts, they were more effective at pushing back against these boundaries and found more points of liberation in dance. the complexity of dancers’ contexts and their experiences of those contexts were effectively revealed through the combined theoretical framework of sdt, foucault, and bourdieu, as well as the methods that were used, offering an insightful view into how adults’ understandings of childhood influence the training and performing contexts of young female dancers and how dancers find liberation in those spaces. september 2019 117 vol. 44 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alexias, g., & dimitropoulou, e. 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(2014). identities and dance competition: re/discovering the force from within. research in dance education, 15(3), 303–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2014.923831 van petegem, s., beyers, w., vansteenkiste, m., & soenens, b. (2012). on the association between adolescent autonomy and psychosocial functioning: examining decisional independence from a self-determination theory perspective. developmental psychology, 48(1), 76–88. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0025307 wainwright, s. p., williams, c., & turner, b. s. (2006). varieties of habitus and the embodiment of ballet. qualitative research, 6, 535–558. https://doi.org/10.11772f1468794106068023 whiteside, b., & kelly, j. (2016). the presentation of self in classical ballet class: dancing with erving goffman. research in dance education, 17(1), 14–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2015.1110570 march 2022 29 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research (re)envisioning childhoods with mi’kmaw literatures adrian m. downey adrian m. downey is an assistant professor at mount saint vincent university in the faculty of education. he holds undergraduate degrees from bishop’s university, a master of arts in education from mount saint vincent university, and a phd from the university of new brunswick. his research focuses on curriculum theory, indigenous education, and the foundations of education. email: adrian.downey@msvu.ca storying the (re)emergence of mi’kmaw literatures very old stories envision very old futures—futures that are often forgotten and relegated to the past. but those futures speak loudly today. they offer visions of the not this, the not yet, and the what if (ashton, 2020a) made uniquely tangible through their having been. this paper engages these very old stories brought to life in contemporary children’s literature and points to the value of those very old futures to theory, literature, and pedagogy. before that, however, there are stories that must be told and spoken back to—the once upon a time (king, 2003) of settler colonialism and indigenous erasure as manifest in literature and theory. in the winter 2018 issue of atlantic books today, a foreword by jon tattrie is titled “the emergence of wabanaki literature.” this title holds a certain accuracy as there has been a recent surge in the number of published titles by wabanaki authors—authors who represent the five eastern nations of the wabanaki confederacy, “the people of the dawn”: the mi’kmaq, wolastoqey, abenaki, peskotomuhkatiyik, and penobscot. among these books, i think of peter clair’s 2017 taapoategl & pallet, daniel paul’s 2017 chief lightning bolt, and shalan joudry’s 2019 play elapultiek. there are also several works aimed at younger readers, including texts by allan syliboy (2015, 2019) and rebecca thomas (2019, 2020a).1 it is undeniable that indigenous literatures, and the study thereof, both within educational contexts and beyond (e.g., coupal et al., 2020; hanson, 2020), have proliferated in recent years. yet, when i initially read the word “emergence” in tattrie’s title, i stifled a chuckle. in some ways, the use of that word precisely enacts what can be thought of as the colonial logic of the new—the colonial obsession with discovery and short memory for the origin of ideas. this criticism has also been levied at so-called new materialisms and posthumanisms (gerrard et al., 2017; todd, 2016). the word emergence suggests a coming to presence but lacks an acknowledgement of what happened before that presence. to suggest that wabanaki literatures are emerging erases a history of literature that, in the case of mi’kmaw language, extends back long before contact with europeans (see gespe’gewa’gi mi’gmawei mawiomi, 2016). a generative reading of four recent children’s books by mi’kmaw authors through indigenous and posthumanist lenses, this article suggests that indigenous children’s literature works at envisioning a “very old” future and highlights the counter-hegemonic potential of that future in the current moment. first, a reading of the mi’kmaw mythopoetic tradition as speculative fiction is presented. second, becoming-with land is discussed as a radical pedagogical future. third, the tensions between indigenous and posthumanist theories are discussed, along with the generative potential of those tensions. the article concludes by highlighting the power of the very old futures (re)emergent from very old stories. key words: indigenous children’s literature; indigenous futurities; posthumanisms; the ontological turn; speculative childhoods march 2022 30 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research in her 2017 book the homing place, settler scholar rachael bryant meticulously draws a line between current wabanaki literatures and the literatures that have always been present in this territory. in following this line of thought, it is helpful to remember mi’kmaw scholar marie battiste’s doctoral work. battiste (1984) highlighted precontact forms of literacy among the mi’kmaw and other algonquin nations, specifically the capacity to read and speak through notched sticks, wampum belts, pictographs, and petroglyphs. she also pointed to the hieroglyph system as a form of literacy specific to the mi’kmaq, one historically used to facilitate the rote memorization of catholic prayers (battiste, 2013, 2016), but which has also recently been taken up by mi’kmaw poet michelle sylliboy (2019) in her art and poetry. battiste (2016) refers to precontact and hieroglyphic forms of literacy as symbolic literacy. i read symbolic literacy as a sort of personal interpretation of symbols based on a shared cultural understanding and epistemological positioning; as battiste (2016) writes, “most symbols were never precisely defined or fully explained … since their purpose was to stimulate a dialogue rather than resolve the paradoxes of life concretely” (p. 131). bryant (2017) moves from literacies to literature and gestures toward the idea that these pictographs, petroglyphs, notched sticks, and wampum belts, as well as oral storytelling, form a part of atlantic canada’s canon of literature that has been pushed aside—unseen—by generations of scholars and readers alike. though never mentioned beyond the opening, the prominence of the word emergence in the aforementioned editorial’s title is a marker of this literary erasure, suggesting that the current wave of wabanaki writers are sharing their stories for the first time, when these stories have been told and retold in this place for thousands of years— the only shift that has occurred is in the audience. peter j. clair, the only indigenous author mentioned in tattrie’s piece, acknowledges this when he says, “i wrote taapoategl & pallet to make a contribution to mi’kmaw literature, which i call migmagoigasig aatogaaen” (as cited in tattrie, 2018, p. 7). here, clair positions himself in relationship with a long literary history ignored by the editorial. like many settler readings of indigenous literatures, past and present, this editorial seems unable or unwilling to see the brilliance and longevity of indigenous knowledges.2 in that, indigenous absence—erasure—from settler consciousness continues. the erasure of indigenous intellectual and artistic contributions is certainly not limited to atlantic canadian literature. unangax̂ scholar eve tuck and rubén gaztambide-fernández (2013) suggest that curriculum theory has systematically worked at replacing marginalized scholars and their contributions in favour of white voices, who repackage the same ideas in less overtly political and/or “more academic” terms. here, curriculum theory can be taken as a stand-in for western academia broadly. indeed, fikile nxumalo and stacia cedillo (2017) identify similar issues: “there is a marked paucity of work in both early childhood education and early childhood studies that firmly centers land as indigenous in place-based and environmental education in settler colonial contexts” (p. 103). while the authors also note exceptions to this erasure, the general trend stays true. historically, at every turn the intellectual contributions of marginalized scholars have been minimized and replaced by those of white settler scholars (see also todd, 2016). as alluded to above, the current wave of theories associated with the ontological turn can be critiqued for their complicity in and complacency with this erasure (todd, 2016). the central tenet shared by these theories is that matter is agentive and, when put in vitalist terms (bennett, 2010), alive. while there are nuances beyond this central axiom, they can mostly be traced back to the idea that all that exists is capable of acting and being acted upon (massumi, 2015). there is, of course, nothing new about any of this (gerrard et al., 2017). notions of a pervasive life/animacy and of interconnectedness among all life are present in many indigenous worldviews (murris, 2018; stonechild, 2016; todd, 2016; whitehead, 2013) and form the basis of many contemporary indigenous scholarly contributions as well (e.g., mika, 2019; sheridan & longboat, 2006). in an enactment of what amiskwaciwiyiniwak/papaschase cree scholar dwayne donald (2009) refers to as the march 2022 31 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research colonial frontier logic symbolized by the fort—the pervasive separation of indigenous and settler folks within settler colonial society—indigenous scholars and posthumanists3 rarely have sustained conversation with one another in public academic discourse. some indigenous scholars have broken up with the deleuzian thinking that informs posthumanisms (tuck, 2010), others remain critical of the settler colonial logics endemic to the paradigm(s) (todd, 2016), while others still are rightfully more concerned with the ever-growing list of issues immediately concerning indigenous peoples (e.g., laduke, 2020; palmater, 2020). on the posthumanist side, there are a few honest attempts at understanding indigenous thinking4 (e.g., nxumalo & cedillo, 2017), but more discussion is still needed between situated, place-specific indigenous knowledges and the “emerging” work with/ on/in posthumanisms. all this may seem like a digression or line of flight away from the topic of this special issue, speculative worldings of children, childhoods, and pedagogies, but i have begun this paper by sharing these two intra-active stories of indigenous erasure in order to highlight the complexity of writing about indigenous texts in relation to concepts like posthumanism, compost, and sf5, which emerge from the western scholarly vernacular. honestly, i want nothing more than to write about the beautiful worlds envisioned by these mi’kmaw children’s books, but i cannot do so without highlighting that mi’kmaw literature began in such a world. that world was erased, submerged in violent and ongoing settler colonialism, and whenever it bubbled to the top, it was ignored or squashed with violent military force. wabanaki literatures are not emerging. they are (re)emerging6, and what they are (re)emerging from is not some innocent slumber but 500 years of colonial occupation, violent military capitalism, and forced dispossession of traditional lands. they are (re)emerging from the apocalypse (justice, 2018). for me, the path forward cannot be one of separation. indeed, according to the truth and reconciliation commission of canada (trc, 2015), reconciliation is about building and sustaining meaningful relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. that will require change and discomfort and involves the giving away of privileges and powers held by the settler elite (especially crown land), but ultimately “we are all in this together, [though] we are not one and the same” (braidotti, 2019, p. 52). we are all in this together, and that means learning to think and feel across socially constructed boundaries, logics of the frontier (donald, 2009), and/or iconoclast barriers (bryant, 2017). however, we are not all the same. we have lived histories of privilege and penalty, and as we journey across those barriers so deeply entrenched in scholarly circles and cultural ethos, it must be on the terms of the original residents of this territory—wherever that may be. my belief in the possibility of a political and philosophical mutuality between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples (on indigenous terms) is deeply connected to my positionality. my ancestors were mi’kmaq, french, and irish, and today my extended maternal family are all members of the qalipu mi’kmaq first nation (qmfn). between 2012 and 2018, i was also a member of qmfn, but i lost membership and indian status because of political processes well beyond the scope of this paper to explain. before, during, and after those years, i have attempted to understand my relational obligations as someone in an “in-between” identity position. a recent article by journalist justin brake (2021) has given me cause for reflection on these understandings and has led me toward an acknowledgement that “my truth is not my own” (brake, 2021, para. 112), but rather that it is situated within the struggles of the mi’kmaq people for nationhood and sovereignty. personally and professionally, then, i am seeking mutuality, within myself, within my work, and within the place i live, and that mutuality must be built on a foundation of mi’kmaw sovereignty. in this essay, i am working at the intersections of posthumanisms and indigenous thinking toward envisioning something beyond what is. i am doing so in conversation with mi’kmaw children’s literature. as complicated and contested a terrain as this is, i think it is the terrain upon which we must tread if we are to trudge forward march 2022 32 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the trouble of the anthropocene. i am specifically interested in the way very old knowledges (styres, 2017),7 literatures, and literacies are (re)emerging in contemporary mi’kmaw children’s literature. i am also interested in the response this (re)emergence offers to the anthropocene, and the resulting imminent societal collapse, through the very old futures it envisions. i focus my conversation around two books by allan syliboy and two books by rebecca thomas. though none of these texts would generally be called speculative fiction, they do envision something different than what currently exists. as i highlight throughout this paper, these stories, whether very old, contemporary, or somewhere between, speak back to settler futurities by asserting indigenous ones. in that, they are both speculative and instructive and stretch the many meanings of sf beyond their western understandings across the aforementioned barriers toward a place of mutuality between indigenous and western ways of knowing and being. in the remainder of this paper, i discuss these texts and the ways they speak in the conversation around speculative fictions and (re)imagining childhoods and pedagogies. first, i address allan syliboy’s texts, which work with very old stories (re)imagined and (re)told in contemporary contexts. second, i discuss rebecca thomas’s recent books, which speak more to contemporary indigenous issues yet still acknowledge the linage of mi’kmaw literature into which they venture. through each of these discussions, i draw on posthumanisms and indigenous thinking toward deepening a reading of the future speculated/envisioned/dreamed through these texts. in a third section, i address some of the frictions at work within this thinking and suggest a value in playing at the edges of western theories— stretching meanings to deepen conversations. i conclude this essay by highlight the need to (re)turn toward the very old futures envisioned in very old stories. allan syliboy and mythopoetic futures the author and the texts allan syliboy8 is a well-known mi’kmaw visual artist from millbrook first nation. syliboy’s style is explicitly informed by the petroglyphs, pictographs, and hieroglyphs named earlier as part of mi’kmaw symbolic literacy (battiste, 2016). syliboy’s artwork is, to my eyes, a proficient enactment of mi’kmaw symbolic literacy; he speaks visually, through the symbols, telling new stories in conversation with very old knowledges and texts. recently, syliboy has brought his visual style and knowledge of mi’kmaw symbols and stories to two texts for children: the thundermaker (2015) and wolverine and little thunder (2019). thundermaker is a retelling of a traditional story. it follows little thunder, a child-figure of ambiguous human/more-than-humanness, as he learns what it means to be a thundermaker. along the way, he learns a variety of lessons reflective of mi’kmaw knowledges from his immediate family, the larger community, and the earth itself. ultimately, little thunder is tasked with striking the red earth with three lightning bolts so that glooscap, who is sometimes named “the teacher” and can be thought of as the first mi’kmaq (augustine, 2016), can be born and teach the mi’kmaq how to survive. as he throws the bolts, several go astray, and he quickly receives a scolding from various animate environmental forces. he tries again, and his bolts strike true. the text closes with little thunder showing himself as the thundermaker. wolverine and little thunder takes place sometime within or before the events of the thundermaker. it follows the story of little thunder and wolverine, who is something of a trickster, as they fish for eels. wolverine bites off more than he can chew when he spears a giant eel, thinking enough of himself to be able to best it. the eel and wolverine fight, and eventually wolverine triumphs because of his trickster immortality. wolverine and little thunder pull the eel to shore and ask an elder to help them clean it. in the end, the community is happy because the giant eel will provide them with enough food for winter. the story concludes with a reminder that they use every part of the eel: skin, meaty flesh, and bones. march 2022 33 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the mythopoetic tradition as sf both of syliboy’s texts take elements of the mi’kmaw mythopoetic tradition as their starting point (see also whitehead, 2013). my use of the term mythopoetic is drawn from the work of tewa scholar gregory cajete (1994, 2017). cajete suggests that the mythopoetic traditions of indigenous peoples are a sort of “speaking ‘poetically’ through of the structures of myth” (2017, p. 124). by continually breathing life into a variety of traditional stories, characters, and symbols, indigenous mythopoetic traditions “are connected to the living expressions and continuity of tribal life, past, present, and future” (cajete, 2017, p. 126). thus, although they are set long ago rather than in the future, i argue that these stories by alan syliboy can be read as speculative fictions. as was pointed out in the call for this special issue, “whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction” (imarisha, 2015, p. 10). in that regard, both of syliboy’s texts can be seen as speculative. they gesture back to a moment before industrial militarism, before forced incarceration, and before capitalism—before any of those things arrived on turtle island. just as syliboy’s artwork draws the past into the present through mi’kmaw symbolic literacy, so too does the use of traditional mi’kmaw characters, plot structures, and settings allow the past to speak in “the now.” in a current moment marked by neoliberal capitalism, such a past is a radical alternative, one replete with the unique possibility of its having been. if it could have been, then it can be again. in that, these contemporary (re)imaginings, (re)workings, and (re)tellings of mi’kmaw myth/story speculate radically different futures. one shade of the future dreamed in these texts is found in the lessons of sustainability and consent—concepts related to netukulimk in mi’kmaw (robinson, 2016)—embedded throughout. the most explicit example of this is in wolverine and little thunder, where the moral of using every part of the animal is clearly stated, but there are others as well. in thundermaker, little thunder’s father teaches him that caribou, bear, and human beings are all part of the same great circle of life. obviously, the notion of sacred ecology (cajete, 1994) is not uncommon in indigenous storytelling, traditional or contemporary. its presence in this text, however, challenges the tacit normativity of the current dominant western societal project of neoliberal capitalism and ideological obsession with economic growth and development at the cost of environmental degradation. these stories resist settler futurities and (re)assert indigenous futurities (simpson, 2017; tuck & gaztambide-fernandez, 2013). looking to the past, particularly in indigenous contexts, is a way of envisioning a possible future, and indeed speaks back loudly to what is. as stated above and below, very old stories give us very old futures—futures worth (re)turning toward. the term fiction deserves to be tempered slightly. syliboy’s is not a simple fictitious (re)imagining of a past for which there is no historical evidence. rather, syliboy draws on pictographs, petroglyphs, and the oral tradition to make the textual world as true as possible. additionally, it is important to remember in reading the mi’kmaw mythopoetic tradition as sf that many settler readers of traditional indigenous stories render them fantastical, when for many indigenous people they are a true reflection of reality (coleman, 2016; deloria, 1994; justice, 2018). to put it more succinctly, the mythopoetic is ontologically real within a relational framework. while it might be easy to point to certain mystical elements of these very old stories as a justification for their consideration as speculative fiction, i would not be so presumptuous. rather, i would gesture toward western literalism as a contributing factor to the romanticizing and marginalization of indigenous thinking. in staring at trees, one often misses the forest. such is the case when trying to parse what is real and what is metaphor in very old stories. everything is real, and everything is metaphor. when little thunder throws his lightning bolts at the red earth and gloosclap is born, we are reminded of the relationship between humans and the earth, that we are physically like the soil. for some readers, this idea may evoke haraway’s (2016) thinking march 2022 34 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research around compost. where posthumanisms might view the earth-human relationship as an assemblage (braidotti, 2019)—a network of intra-active actors (barad, 2007)—haraway (2016) blends the barriers together, articulating the divisions between beings as a sort of porous humus. indeed, the humus of compost—the bleeding together of beings—calls into questions where “i” begin and where “other” stops. the implications of the first human, glooscap, being born from energy and earth likewise begs the question of where human beings begin and where the earth ends. are we not humus, bleeding together at the edges, oozing together through life and becoming one? the idea of compost and the concept of netukulimk—and perhaps the interrelated concept of m’sit no’kmaw, “that everything is alive and everything is my relation” (henderson, 2016, p. 31)—both emphasize a unity and a community between humans and the natural world—a oneness among all life. these two thoughts move in the same direction, but each carries its own nuance and implication for how one should walk in the world. they can be read in the same text, and both—including their frictions—can inform our thinking-practice. consensual childhoods and pedagogies toward suggesting a mutuality between indigenous and posthumanist concepts, i now turn to childhoods and pedagogies. little thunder’s becoming thundermaker can be seen as a child-becoming-adult (ashton, 2020a), and his particular path of becoming evokes both indigenous and posthumanist pedagogies in early childhood education (e.g., nxumalo, 2017; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). in a well-known article from 2014, michi saagiig nishnaabeg scholar leanne betasamosake simpson shows the way land9 can be thought of as pedagogy in indigenous worldviews (see also hanson et al., 2020). simpson shares a story where a young girl learns the wonders of the sugarbush. much as i have above, simpson reminds us that these stories should not be imagined in the past, where their possibilities become romanticized and relegated to the categories of history or historical fiction, but rather that they be alive in the moment so as to ensure their possibility for the future. throughout her article, simpson calls back to the story, showing the way that the land itself is a teacher. she highlights that the adults in the story respect the young girl’s autonomy and encourage her to offer gifts in thanks to the land, emphasizing the consensual nature of these pedagogical moments. the girl is leading the experience, and we can imagine she could opt out at any point. the obvious contrast here is the dominant model of western schooling, where pedagogies are coercive and attendance is compulsory. nonconsensual pedagogies, simpson suggests, teach more than just the stated learning objectives of the lesson; they teach that nonconsensual relations are acceptable, even normative. the canadian government’s interpretation of their duty to consult with first nations proves her right—consent means being able to say no, but apparently not when it comes to pipelines (palmater, 2020). many of the same themes present in simpson’s article can be found in the mi’kmaw creation story (augustine, 2016) and the concept of netukulimk (robinson, 2016). there are also clear examples of consensual, relational pedagogies in syliboy’s texts. throughout both texts, little thunder sets out into the world without much parental supervision or instruction. in thundermarker, although little thunder does learn directly from his parents at various moments, his journey toward becoming the thundermaker is ultimately undertaken alone (save wolverine, who is more of a peer). when mistakes are made in the process of becoming, little thunder is corrected, not by the adults around him, but by animate forces of land. while one could read these environmental forces as teacher-like figures, it is perhaps more in line with the ideas of netukulimk (robinson, 2016) and m’sit no’kmaw (henderson, 2016) to see this as a building of accountable relationships between little thunder and the other forces/actors copresent with/in/on the earth. those relationships, and encounters within those relationships, are pedagogical moments built on reciprocity and mutual accountability. they are consensual in that they happen in relationships with a mutual understanding of what it means to be accountable to one another. as cherokee literary scholar daniel heath justice says, “we can hold each other to account as we hold each other up—they needn’t be mutually exclusive practices” (2018, p. xxi). land holds us to account for our actions, and when human beings fail to live up march 2022 35 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to their relational obligations, the earth speaks back. while within story this principle is usually direct, it is also true on a larger scale as witnessed through the earth’s reaction to the human-led destruction of the anthropocene. as kanien’kehá:ka (mohawk), english, and french-descended scholar sandra styres puts it, the “land is our first teacher” (styres, 2017, p. 50), and the foundation of land’s pedagogy is consensual relationships with mutual accountability. we learn these lessons through intimate encounters with land. while many engagements with nature in early childhood education and early childhood studies are still rooted in the bifurcation of human and nonhuman worlds (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017), indigenous land-based pedagogies and posthumanist pedagogies are steeped in an ethos of relationality and a desire to provide direct encounter/ relationship between the student and their environment, embracing the mutual entanglement of children and nature (i.e., childhoodnature, see cutter-mackenzie, malone, & barratt hacking, 2018). the role of the educator is diminished for many posthumanists, rather viewing the student as an assemblage of forces within and outside of the classroom space. for an ecological example, i think of harwood, whitty, elliot, and rose (2018) and the encounters with death their students found in natural environments. what can an animal corpse teach if it is left to its own devices? how might young children be affected by and affect (davies, 2014; see also massumi, 2015) these forest deaths? the answers will be individual and boundless if we can get ourselves out of the way and let students build their own relationships. in a less ecological example, i think of kuby’s (2019) redefinition of the social after observing a second-grade classroom. the social became less about human interactions and more about the intraactions between agentive others—stuffed animals, children, books, desks, and papers. here, there is a common opening-up of what could be with regard to the pedagogical. both indigenous and posthumanist pedagogies are consensual more than they are coercive and position the environment (e.g., land, classroom) as teacher; adult humans are there only for support and guidance. in my reading, syliboy offers an example of these modalities of consensual pedagogy. based on that reading, i gesture toward a childhood and an education that is “not yet” but imminently possible. i read the text as a speculative reminder of what a childhood within a society built on consent might look like—again, a society that was and can be again, albeit changed by the having been. rebecca thomas and becoming(s) the author and the texts a second set of texts, by rebecca thomas, offers a vision for the future rooted in the present rather than, but inclusive of, the past. thomas is a mi’kmaw poet connected to the lennox island first nation. she is well known for her spoken word poetry (thomas, 2020b), and her two recent entries in the world of children’s literature have yielded rich texts that cross over thematically with her poetic work. i’m finding my talk (2019) is an illustrated version of thomas’s poems of the same title. it picks up a generation after rita joe’s famous poem i lost my talk, which details joe’s experience in residential school of being punished for speaking mi’kmaw. thomas’s finding my talk explores the reasons why she, like many others, never had her language. residential schools, separations from parents, and parental aspirations of success in the western world all factor into the general equation, if not the specific instance of the author. finding my talk goes on to detail the ways the author is seeking out her language today. here, the “talk” in question extends beyond language into identity—she is not just learning to speak but reclaiming what it means to be mi’kmaq. indigenous identity can be deeply rooted in language, as language carries intimate understandings of land and ancestral knowledge (armstrong, 1998; styres, 2017, 2019). this connection to land is acknowledged in finding my talk, as are other aspects of indigenous identity such as family, ceremony, and community. the theme of identity is also the focus of thomas’s more recent text, swift fox all along (2020a). swift fox follows march 2022 36 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research a mi’kmaw child-figure, swift fox, who lives outside of community, as she encounters her extended family for the first time. at first she is excited, but when her family asks her to smudge and she is not sure how, she feels ashamed and runs away. the adults do not appear overly concerned and say she will come back when she is ready, but swift fox overhears several of her cousins expressing shock that she does not know how to smudge. this upsets swift fox, but another cousin soon arrives. this cousin seems more like swift fox; he is unsure about entering the house with so many people he has never met. swift fox approaches and introduces herself, and they go in together. bolstered by the feeling that she is not alone in not knowing how to smudge, swift fox tries and discovers smudging is not that hard. everyone is happy, and swift fox learns that being mi’kmaq was in her all along. futures, becoming(s), and literacies of the land just as allan syliboy’s texts seem aware of the cultural, literary, and artistic tradition toward which they contribute, finding my talk picks up on the literary thread of perhaps the most well-known poem by a mi’kmaw poet, i lost my talk. once more, the texts’ awareness of the previous generations of literary work serves to displace the notion that the current (re)emergence is in any way new. thus, in much the same way that syliboy’s texts function to disrupt the settler colonial erasure of indigenous intellectual and artistic contributions by way of the colonial obsession with the new, thomas’s poem asserts a presence in the present informed by the past. as i have already suggested, indigenous presence in the present is a way of envisioning and ensuring the possibility of indigenous presence in the future (simpson, 2017). presence thus becomes a futurity—a way through which the future is rendered (potentially) knowable in the now (tuck & gaztambide-fernandez, 2013). finding my talk, however, also works at envisioning a future through a desire for an almost deleuzian becoming. the verb tense “finding” as an active, present continuous search suggests that this is an ongoing endeavour. what is being sought through the finding is the author’s talk, which, as previously discussed, extends through language into other, interrelated aspects of indigenous identity. the finding of talk, then, is a search for personal meaning, connection, identity, and/or subjectivity. likewise, deleuzian becoming is reflective of the fluid state of the universe, in that everything is always becoming; nothing is ever set or finished, including the subject (may, 2003). indeed, the deleuzian notion of becoming itself is less of a what and more of a when (may, 2003)—although it can be generally characterized as “the unfolding of difference in time and as time” (may, 2003, p. 147). to me, the deleuzian notion of becoming has always sounded as though it were trying to articulate a verb-based understanding of the world. many indigenous languages, including mi’kmaw, have this verb-based quality, which seems a tangible acknowledgement of the changing nature of the world at large (sable & francis, 2012; whitehead, 2013). the default setting in verb-based languages is transition rather than stasis (whitehead, 2013), much like deleuzian becoming. deleuze’s notion of becoming sets the stage for posthumanisms, where the subject is not a unified, unitary psychic space but rather an assemblage of techno/geo/biological actors (braidotti, 2019). the subject assemblage is never fixed, suggesting an infinite potential of what it might become. thomas’s poem also can be read as suggesting the intra-activity and interconnectedness of the subject in myriad ways but perhaps most tellingly through her reference to the relationships among land, language, and identity: “i’m finding my talk, / how its written across the land, / learning to take only what i need. / netukulimk helps me understand” (thomas, 2019, p. 20). rather than reiterating my points on netukulimk and consent, here i gesture toward the recent literature around literacies of the land to deepen my reading of the texts’ vision for the future. styres (2019) summarizes indigenous literacy eloquently: “indigenous literacy is based on reading the cosmos—it is about reading all the things around us that are not necessarily the written word but nevertheless contain valuable information” (p. 25). i see this reading the animacy of the world—this attentiveness to the actions of all the very small beings around us (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015)—as a common thread between posthumanist and march 2022 37 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research indigenous literacies. the latter becomes more specific in the context of land: “storied landscapes form spatial and temporal tracks left by our ancestors that can be read ‘with as much care as one reads the narratives of classical history’ (kulchyski, 2005, p. 18)” (styres, 2019, p. 28). land is alive with narrative, and the indigenous languages of specific places carry with them the teachings of those places (armstrong, 1998). centering place-stories—or the search for them—in pedagogical contexts can serve to disrupt the erasure of indigenous bodies/stories endemic to western education (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017). being able to read land and place, however, is also a way of deepening an understanding of oneself (downey, 2020) and of one’s positionality (downey et al., 2019). in my reading, thomas’s narrator is actively working toward becoming literate in reading land—as are many others. the future envisioned through finding my talk, then, is of personal understandings of identity, community, and positionality. given the form of this text as a children’s book, however, the future envisioned is one where this literacy in place, land, language, and identity is normative rather than exceptional. it is a future where learning to read means not just learning the words on the page or engaging in a developmental process, but also learning to listen to land and letting it teach you about you. implicit in that knowledge of land is an attentiveness to nonhuman and more-than-human others, beings both very big and very small (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). swift fox, lateral violence, and (re)envisioning childhoods in my reading, swift fox likewise offers a new vision of childhood, this one aimed at remaking social and familial bonds between human beings rather than with the more-than-human. as i understand it, the term more-thanhuman is used to describe those things normatively deemed inanimate or less-than-human as a way of speaking back to and displacing the hierarchies of life embedded within the colonial language of domination. many thinkers, indigenous and otherwise, have critiqued the hierarchies endemic to western thought (e.g., braidotti, 2019; stonechild, 2020). hierarchies between different forms of life translate quickly into hierarchies between different groups of human beings, especially when certain human beings are viewed as a form of fauna. here, i am referencing the history of nonhumanity ascribed to indigenous populations (wilson, 2008). hierarchies between groups of human beings both necessitate and contribute to the separation of groups from one another. hierarchy is also an explicitly nonconsensual relationship, and within dominant western society, several hierarchies are transmitted to children in both covert and explicit ways. in swift fox, we can see allusions to the way hierarchical thinking has infiltrated indigenous communities and led to what some have called lateral violence (wingard, 2010). lateral violence is a term used to describe when members of the same marginalized group find ways of subjugating one another (wingard, 2010). often, this lateral violence is the result of a perceived hierarchy between individuals of the same group. in indigenous communities, the hierarchy is often built around the perceived authenticity of indigeneity (wingard, 2010). the term apple, for example, is considered a heavy insult, implying that someone is “red on the outside and white on the inside,” or that they have internalized the logics of the colonizer and lost touch with their indigenous identity. folks in liminal or in-between identity spaces—folks who occupy “those racial shadow zones that have been created for us and that we create for ourselves” (king, 2003, p. 92)—can also be the subject of hierarchies of authenticity and lateral violence. although there may have been some hierarchies among indigenous communities before contact with europeans, many sources reference the egalitarian nature of traditional indigenous societies (e.g., paul, 2006; stonechild, 2020). the sort of lateral violence seen today seems to have more to do with the colonial logic of separation and the social darwinist notion of racial purity than with traditional indigenous worldviews (stonechild, 2020). indigenous thinking is often relational in nature. in this, there is commonality with posthumanism. both indigenous thinking and posthumanism envision a future of relationality among humans and more-than-humans. socially, this means a future where we are aware of our positionalities and the unique assemblage of our subjectivity. it is a future where we are attentive to those beings with whom we are in relationship. i would also suggest there is an appreciation march 2022 38 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of the uniqueness of each being and each relationship at work in both indigenous thinking and certain strains of posthumanism, particularly braidotti’s (2019) critical, subject-centered posthumanism. in my reading, thomas seems intimately aware of the way hierarchies of authenticity and lateral violence get played out in indigenous communities, and she appears invested in envisioning a future—and a childhood—without them. through swift fox, she offers a more relational foundation to human interactions. although swift fox only depicts one very minor instance of lateral violence—the two cousins who comment on swift fox’s inability to smudge—the shadow of these hierarchies of authenticity are clearly present in swift fox’s internal monologue. indeed, if personal experience is any indicator, struggling with the authenticity from in-between identity positions is a common, ever-ongoing phenomenon—and, in cases such as mine, an ethically important one (see also brake, 2021). through swift fox, thomas addresses these internal dimensions of colonization by way of the acceptance of self. on the second to last page of the text, swift fox tells her cousin that “it is inside of you. sometimes it is just hard to find” (thomas, 2020a, p. 31). i think the “it” here can be taken as broadly as “talk” was in the previous section—it is identity, belonging, community, and knowledge. this self-acceptance is, i think, radically different than the current dominant developmental vision of childhood. rather than focusing on the process of becoming, today there is a great emphasis on what one becomes—careers, skills, and specific knowledges still dominate k–12 schooling, if not education more broadly (kumar, 2019). thomas, indigenous thinkers, and posthumanist early childhood educators all seem more interested in the fluid processes of learning, infinitely constant becomings, and mutual entanglements than in an arbitrary end goal based on models of child development and socialization. in this, there is a vision for the future and a childhood (re)made through becoming-with ourselves and the world around us rather than becoming as directed through the bureaucratic apparatus of the state education system—a becoming-who-we-want-you-to-be. indeed, it is a childhood and a future upon which many of us might agree. mutuality and frictions through this paper, i suggest that scholars and educators take seriously the often erased intellectual and artistic contributions of indigenous scholars, elders, knowledge keepers, authors, and students. i am not alone in this suggestion (todd, 2016), and many have enacted it already (e.g., ashton, 2020a)—particularly in considerations of place (e.g., nxumalo, 2017; nxumalo & cedillo, 2017; see also tuck & mckenzie, 2015). in some conversations, however, the engagement can be superficial or overly focused on the social dimensions of inclusion and recognition. it sometimes feels like the fact of indigenous knowledges means more than their content in scholarly conversation (i.e., a checked box). since the trc (2015) released its final report, there has been a broad, sweeping cultural shift in academia toward including indigenous knowledges and people in the conversation. what has been far less common, however, is specific, respectful scholarly engagement by non-indigenous scholars with local indigenous knowledges and contemporary indigenous scholarship. there appears more breadth than depth, and i think we need more of both. cree scholar willie ermine (2007) states that superficial conversation is not enough to cross boundaries as deeply entrenched as those between western and indigenous knowledges: at the superficial level of encounter, the two entities may indeed acknowledge each other but there is a clear lack of substance or depth to the encounter. what remains hidden and enfolded are the deeper level thoughts, interests and assumptions that will inevitably influence and animate the kind of relationship the two can have. (ermine, 2007, p. 195) there is more to be gained through mutuality within specific scholarly and local contexts. when we hold posthumanist concepts next to indigenous ones, interconnections and intra-actions become clearer and resonate more deeply (see also nxumalo, 2017). when we play at the edges of sf—stretching science to include indigenous knowledges, stretching fiction to include the ontologically real mythopoetic, stretching speculation to include the march 2022 39 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research recursive return of a future that has already been—the conversation becomes infinitely more complex. through this mutuality in literature and theory, that which was erased is gradually etched back into being, being-with, and normativity. the sort of mutuality between posthuman and indigenous thinking toward which i gesture is not without its frictions. nxumalo and cedillo (2017), who suggest indigenous place-stories as a way of disrupting colonial relationships with place in early childhood education, highlight the imminent tensions emergent from settlers’ use of indigenous stories in pedagogical contexts: “certain stories might act to situate non-indigenous educators as the transmitters of indigenous knowledges” (p. 104). but they also gesture toward a willingness to “[stay] with the trouble” (haraway, 2016) of this mutuality as essential to disrupting the normativity of settler narratives of place: “both research and educational engagements with place stories require an ongoing critical engagement with what stories of place are made visible, which stories remain invisible, as well as the whys and hows of these obscurances” (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017, p. 104). place stories are one manifestation of indigenous knowledges, and they can be an effective pedagogical intervention in complicating the dominant colonial narratives of place. indeed, i hope that by writing about four mi’kmaw stories and highlighting the ways they can be read in the current moment i have contributed to the disruption of settler narratives of the place where i live—mi’kma’ki. the call for ongoing critical engagement, however, can also speak to the specific instance of indigenous and posthumanist thinking. when new materialisms are presented as new without the acknowledgement of their presence in the world’s wisdom traditions and indigenous knowledges, “what stories of place are made visible [and] which stories remain invisible” (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017, p. 104; see also todd, 2016)? how might netukulimk and compost appearing in the same sentence deepen our understandings of each? what might braidotti have to say to grand chief membertou and, more importantly, vice versa? what sort of future might be envisioned when “this deeper level force, the underflow-become-influential, the enfolded dimension … [is] brought to bear in the complex situation produced by confronting knowledge … systems” (ermine, 2007, p. 195)? here, i remember braidotti’s statement that “we are all in this together, but we are not one and the same” (2019, p. 52). we are all here on this shared land, and neither of us are going anywhere: we are all in this together. but we are not, nor do we desire to become, the same. we are not looking for assimilation of any of us, only a conversation—a conversation that drives our understandings to new levels based on respect for the validity of one another’s intellectual, artistic, and cultural traditions and contributions within our shared place(s). very old stories, very old futures at the beginning of this article, i set out to discuss mi’kmaw children’s books as sf texts, but in the process of doing so, i have had play at the edges of the definitions and concepts of sf and posthumanism. speculative fiction needed to be stretched to include the mi’kmaw mythopoetic tradition; compost needed to be stretched to include netukulimk. i do not think there is as much resistance to this kind of playful creative theorizing in posthumanisms as there is in other academic paradigms (braidotti, 2019; haraway, 2016). there is, however, an important lesson in this stretching: if we want to have meaningful dialogue, we need to be open to both affecting and being affected (davis, 2014; see also massumi, 2015). any time we converse with another, we open ourselves up to the potential of being changed. that is admittedly terrifying, but it is also exciting and generative. in conversation, our ideas will also change, deepen, grow, and become otherwise, and that is the generative potential of posthumanism and sf scholarship in the current moment, particularly as they are brought into respectful, thoughtful, and intentional conversation with place-specific and locally situated indigenous knowledges and stories. if my above speculations are any indication as to what this conversation might bring, it is a radically different future—one built on a foundation of consent taught through pedagogies of sensitive encounter and attention: a march 2022 40 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research society where land is viewed as alive, sentient, sovereign, and agentive and where land helps us understand who we are and where we fit in the world. it is a society where the full history of a place is understood, rather than just the parts deemed of most worth by a particular group—a future where reading brilliance in other another’s literature, studying it carefully and thoughtfully, is normative. it is not educational utopia; it is educational possibility, and the possibility is assured through its having been. very old stories yield very old futures—futures toward which we can (re)turn. 1 in this paper, my engagement is with mi’kmaw texts because of my own ancestral background (mi’kmaq, french, and irish) and their relevance to my current location in unceded mi’kma’ki—the ancestral lands of the mi’kmaq. 2 like cree scholar margaret kovach, my use of indigenous knowledges—which are both contemporary and traditional—“acknowledges both the shared commonalities and the diversity of many indigenous ways of knowing” (2021, p. 19). 3 throughout the rest of this paper, i will use the term posthumanism to encompass the theories of the ontological turn. related terms encompassed within my meaning include agential realism (barad, 2007), vital materialism (bennett, 2010), compost (haraway, 2016), “new” materialism, and the ontological turn (todd, 2016). 4 my use of the term indigenous thinking—which i understand to include indigenous teachings, scholarship, storytelling, literature, and artistic creation—should be understood to include feeling and sensing. 5 haraway (2016) invites multiple meanings within the sign sf, many of which are evoked by the call for this special issue (ashton, 2020b). the primary meaning of sf used in this paper is speculative fiction, but i invite the haunting resonances of other meanings as well: “science fiction, speculative feminism, science fantasy, speculative fabulation, science fact, and also, string figures” (haraway, 2016, p. 10). 6 i use the prefix reas a way of disrupting doxa or commonly held thought and as a way of emphasizing the circular nature of indigenous thought—showing that the past is not destined to stay historical but rather is enacted in the present through us and our stories (see kuby, 2019; styres, 2017). 7 “very old” is a linguistic marker to remind the reader that these knowledges and literacies have a life well beyond the temporal scope of western society (see styres, 2017). 8 http://www.alansyliboy.ca/ 9 land with a capital l refers to the onto-epistemic foundation of indigenous thought. land with a lowercase l refers to the environment in a more physical sense (see styres, 2017). march 2022 41 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references armstrong, j. c. 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(2010). a conversation with lateral violence. international journal of narrative therapy & community work, 2010(1), 13–17. https://search.informit.com.au/documentsummary;dn=020944441308237;res=ielind october 2021 30 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research troubled pedagogies and covid-19: fermenting new relationships and practices in early childhood care and education nancy van groll and kathleen kummen nancy van groll is an instructor in the school of education and childhood studies and a pedagogist with ecebc (early childhood educators of british columbia) living, working, and learning on the unceded lands of the sel̓íl̓witulh (tsleil-waututh), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (musqueam) peoples. in her writing, research, teaching, and advocacy, she pays attention to lively relations and activates slow, situated, and spiralling pedagogical projects with(in) 21st-century contexts. email: nancyvangroll@ capilanou.ca kathleen kummen is a codirector of the ecpn and a faculty member of the school of education and childhood studies at capilano university, located on the traditional territories of the coast salish peoples, including tsleil-waututh, squamish, shíshálh, lil’wat, and musqueam nations. as a researcher, educator, and instructor, kathleen endeavours to reimagine and revitalize early childhood leadership as an ongoing practice of disruption to make space for alternative narratives of early childhood education. email: kkummen@capilanou.ca the covid-19 crisis has exposed the troubling fragility of the canadian early years landscape (see, e.g., friendly et al., 2020). through this exposure and combined with the 2021 federal budget announcement of funding for a national childcare plan (government of canada, 2021), attention has been renewed to the role of early childhood education and care (ecec) as the media, government, academics, and other groups present competing narratives of ecec. for example, ecec touted as a redemptive service to the economic woes brought on by covid-19 (government of canada, 2021) bumps up against assertions by scholars such as those in the early childhood pedagogies collaboratory (2020) that early childhood education is a pedagogical project with potential for social change. each of these discourses could decisively influence the life of children, families, educators, and communities in very different ways. equally, each of these narratives will shape the education of future early childhood educators. within a service model, postsecondary institutions are positioned as training programs producing the necessary workers to ensure available care for the children of the workforce. in contrast, within a pedagogical project, future educators require an education that supports them to think and engage in pedagogical practices that respond to the complexity and challenges of the 21st century (common worlds research collective, 2020; early childhood pedagogies collaboratory, 2021; nxumalo, 2019; paciniketchabaw et al., 2015; vintimilla & pacini-ketchabaw, 2020). we, nancy and kathleen, are instructors in an early childhood education program at a small university in british columbia (bc) with campuses located on the territories of the líỉwat (lil’wat), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (musqueam), the covid-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities, tensions, and possibilities in the canadian early childhood education and care system. this paper experiments with the metaphor of fermentation to critically reflect on the ways we, as ecec postsecondary instructors, were challenged in upholding our pedagogical commitments. through retrospective analysis of emails, meeting notes, and other personal communications, we examine and describe how our work and pedagogical thinking with students has been contaminated by covid-19. we highlight the need to refigure relationships to the troubling events and reconceptualize contamination as a potent opportunity to pedagogically ferment practices in the postsecondary classroom through which living and learning well can flourish. key words: early childhood education; early childhood teacher education; pedagogical practice; covid-19 mailto:nancyvangroll@capilanou.ca mailto:nancyvangroll@capilanou.ca mailto:kkummen@capilanou.ca october 2021 31 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research shíshálh (sechelt), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (tsleil-waututh) nations (now geographically referred to within bc as the lower mainland comprising vancouver, the sunshine coast, and the sea-to-sky corridor). as instructors working within a postsecondary ecec program in bc, we take seriously the bc early learning framework’s (2019) vision that early childhood educators cocreate pedagogical spaces so that we can ethically live and learn well together. the framework is a localized curriculum document that establishes a shared vision for ecec in the province and creates a point of dialogue for early childhood educators, teachers and administrators in the primary school system, university instructors and researchers, postsecondary students in early childhood and elementary education programs, and other interdisciplinary professionals (government of british columbia, 2019). we, as do our colleagues across bc, strive to provide our students with opportunities to develop the dispositions to engage in pedagogical practices that support this vision as we respond to the current conditions of our time. as we supported early childhood educator candidates through the pandemic, we noticed and became increasingly concerned by what we perceive to be a collision between our pedagogical orientations and commitments and the need to “produce” early childhood educators. in the context of recent federal and provincial investments into early childhood education (government of canada, 2021), we became aware of a mounting pressure for postsecondary institutions to respond to the documented shortage of early childhood educators in bc (coalition of childcare advocates of bc & early childhood educators of british columbia, 2020). at the same time, covid-19 presented postsecondary programs with additional, unforeseen challenges that require continual negotiation to respond in ways that support student learning. partway through the spring term of 2020, most early childhood programs were closed in bc, and many early childhood education students had their practicum interrupted or postponed. the disruption in practicum resulted in a delay in graduation for some students, and for others, an extension of their program length. in the preceding terms (summer 2020, fall 2020, and spring 2021), practicum placements were tenuous as some centres chose not to host practicum students to reduce the spread of covid-19. this meant that many students were unable to complete their practicum because they were not able to be present in an early childhood centre in compliance with the requirements the early childhood educator (ece) registry, the licensing body for early childhood educators in bc. working with the ece registry, our program, alongside other programs in bc, was able to secure practicum sites for a few students, but many students’ ability to complete a practicum was disrupted. further, our university, like other postsecondary institutions in the province, moved classes online. this change required both students and instructors to adjust as we negotiated the curriculum in an online format. covid-19 created conditions for learning that were unprecedented in our teaching lifetimes and asked us to think imaginatively to create supportive pedagogical spaces for future early childhood educators. the pandemic reinforced the need for us to expect the unexpected, a necessary condition for teaching according to our former colleague the pedagogist cristina delgado vintimilla (personal conversation, 2011). our experiences of transitioning our classes online and supporting students in practicum and coursework illuminate the ways in which our particular pedagogical commitments were challenged in our responses to covid-19. responding to the virus’s emerging narratives pushes us to question how we got here and what our response-abilities (haraway, 2016) are as ecec instructors living with(in) a pandemic. can we begin to consider what we might leave behind as we imagine the transformative possibilities covid-19 has exposed? this paper is a retrospective analysis of the tensions, struggles, and ethical dilemmas we encountered as postsecondary instructors as we navigated unfamiliar challenges and conditions created by covid-19, documented in our notes taken in department meetings, email exchanges, and personal conversations. many times, as restrictions were october 2021 32 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research imposed to reduce the spread of the virus, we encountered moments where we were compelled to ask questions about our practices as instructors. for example, is it possible for students to learn to live well with children when early childhood centres are closed or not available to host practicum students? what is our responsibility to students who have invested time and money into their education when a pandemic disrupts it? each of these incidents were met by instructors carefully and thoughtfully considering the context and complexity of the situation in order to make an ethical decision. yet, as we move toward the end (we hope) of restrictions and as students return once more to campuses and early childhood centres, we as educators are compelled to critically reflect on the incidents and academic decisions that emerged in response to covid-19. we were provoked by alexis shotwell (2020), who asks: what relationships do we want to grow out of this crisis? this question is particularly pertinent as bc and other provinces enter new phases in public health “reopening” plans and instructors envision how they will return to campus with students. do we want to return to a pre-covid world? or might we instead pause with this question to consider the opportunities covid-19 has made visible that offer possibilities to imagine new narratives for the education of future educators? to help us answer shotwell’s question, we propose thinking with and pedagogically experimenting with the metaphor of fermentation and its processes of contamination, collaboration, and transformation to ground ourselves in our pedagogical values as we embrace uncertainty and envision possible futures for our field. throughout this paper, we think with feminist, posthumanist scholars such as donna haraway and anna tsing to answer shotwell’s question in the context of our practice as educators of future educators. our intention is to make visible some of the dominant discourses and narratives about early childhood education at the postsecondary level that we encountered as instructors during the pandemic. the purpose is not to critique responses that were made, but to make visible and contest hegemonic discourses (moss, 2019). our hope is that this paper will activate dialogue in and beyond the postsecondary classroom as we consider the learning offered by our exposure to covid-19. to make space for alternative narratives and new possibilities in early childhood education, we must first make visible the discourses that regulate our practice so that they can be disrupted and contested (st. pierre, 2000). fermentation, from a microbial perspective, is a slow process of cellular metabolism whereby microorganisms digest and transform micronutrients (katz, 2020). fermentation involves contamination, collaboration, and transformation—the breakdown of previous forms into new forms. drawing from sandor katz (2020), we see fermentation as a metaphor that can help us deeply consider shotwell’s question. katz contrasts fermentation with fire, another process of biological transformation, and maintains that where fire destroys, sometimes unpredictably and uncontrollably, fermentation can slowly and steadily initiate something new. fermentation can be seen as a form of activism that allows us to “stay with the trouble” (haraway, 2016) and make intentional decisions about what ideas, practices, or values we would like to cultivate, or contest and leave behind. what follows is a conceptual exploration of our relationships to covid-19 through the metaphorical processes of contamination, collaboration, and transformation. we begin by thinking about how we have been contaminated by the virus: how covid-19 exposed certain narratives, conditions, and discourses that challenged or transformed our pedagogical commitments. next, we consider the possibilities of reframing our relationship with the virus from one of controlling to one of collaborating with or living well with covid-19. finally, we discuss how relating to the virus (and to troubling conditions in general) has generative potential to activate alternative narratives and ways of being in early childhood education and care. contamination: responding to covid-19 shotwell (2020) states that, in our attempt to control the spread of covid-19, we have created practices to contain october 2021 33 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research our relationships to the virus, from shutting borders, to shuttering businesses, to physically distancing from others. such practices reflect a belief, according to shotwell, that our bodies have boundaries that can be shut down to prevent invasion by viruses and bacteria. we engage in activities designed to protect individuals from being touched or contaminated by perceived harmful microorganisms. in an increasingly sanitized western society, the word contaminate conjures up fear, anxiety, and the need to seek protection. interestingly, “contaminate” comes from the latin word contaminatus, meaning to corrupt or defile. when viruses and bacteria become contagion, they are seen as corrupting, through touch and contact, what was pure. shotwell (2016) reminds us that we have never been pure and there was never a time when our bodies did not share the toxins of the environment. she argues that the human condition is one in which we are “co-constituted with the world, ontologically inseparable” (p. 7) from that which we see as contaminating us. in this way, we are actively engaged in relations as co-inhabitants of worlds populated by humans, plants, animals, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other organisms that live upon and within us. microbially, interspecies contact and the resulting “contamination” is not only inevitable but an essential aspect of our world making. as humans we are always contaminating and being contaminated in our encounters with the world. our relationships to the covid-19 virus are no exception. our ethical response-ability as educators is to consider which relationships we want to maintain and what discourses we want to disrupt in order to create conditions for living and learning well to flourish. in reflecting on the past academic term at our own university as well as on information gleaned from other institutions either through personal conversation, meetings, or the media, we now wonder if an opportunity was missed to invite students and faculty to attend to the complicated relationships and consequences emerging from living with covid-19. from the privileged position of hindsight, it could be argued that we were trying to retain a sense of normalcy that worked to erase the realities of the pandemic. this article is not offering a critique of these acts and other program responses that were enacted to maintain the flow of education. rather, the intention is to engage in a critically reflective analysis to consider the discourses that necessitated the desire to maintain normalcy as opposed to responding differently. this retrospective analysis requires asking difficult questions in order to unpack decisions made during the pandemic. however, the point is not to then appraise our actions or those of others as “good” or “bad” but to consider the discourses that regulate all of us in postsecondary education. to wonder if the discourses of efficiency and production meant that we unintentionally positioned early childhood programs as services for students to complete a practicum and our job as focusing on locating practicum sites. to consider if we inadvertently became sites of production as opposed to pedagogical spaces. to ask if we were strengthening our relationships with managerial logics as a way to negotiate the disruptions to—and, as a result, inadvertently driving wedges into—our pedagogical commitments. our lived experiences as educators of future educators have exposed us to and made visible the way educational discourse challenges or transforms our pedagogical commitments. for example, many students’ practicum placements suddenly ended when early childhood programs temporarily closed multiple times as the virus moved in and out of communities. a report by the childcare resource and research unit in june 2020 noted that 71% of canadian early years programs closed in the pandemic’s initial months (friendly et al., 2020). as early childhood education centres began to reopen, heightened concerns around communicable disease control meant that educators adopted disease containment practices, which reduced the presence not only of families but also of practicum students. as instructors of early childhood educators, it was not difficult to get caught up in the desire to rush to find a fix for the emerging challenges and to plan for the resumption of the “pre-crisis production model” (latour, 2020) of an efficient postsecondary program. as is evident in a review of student emails, meeting notes, and personal communications, our schedules became overwhelmed from meetings with students and colleagues to deal with the ongoing difficulties of practicum disruptions as students were required to self-isolate in response to their own exposures to covid-19. the disruption to studies meant anxieties were heightened as october 2021 34 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research covid-19 restrictions jeopardized planned graduations. the need to maintain the production of early childhood education graduates threatened to become the dominant narrative in our postsecondary institution. as neoliberal subjects, we struggled to “do a good job” to graduate students to meet market demand. doing so created ethical and pedagogical tensions as we worked to “fix” the problems. shotwell’s (2020) invitation to consider covid-19 as a relationship in order to invite “ethical, political, and ecological evaluations of the relationships we proliferate in response to ‘the virus’” (para. 1) offers us a way to move beyond only a commitment to produce graduates. she suggests attending to the narratives and practices being produced with and in our relationships with the virus. by identifying what has emerged in response to the virus, we can then ask ourselves, are these the practices and stories that we want to flourish in early childhood education? for example, the hegemonic discourse of early childhood education as a service has been strengthened through the relationship emerging between covid-19 and the economy. this service narrative, peter moss (2019) contends, positions early childhood education as a commodity whose purpose is to provide safe care for children while their parents work. in this narrative, educators are entrepreneurs and parents are consumers purchasing a service that meets their individual needs. moss argues that this discourse reduces early childhood education to a competitive service where consumers aim to purchase the best quality at the lowest price. thinking with moss’s argument, it could be asserted that if the covid-19/economy alliance is left to flourish in early childhood education, it reduces the possibility of considering alternatives beyond the market economy. if we want to disrupt early childhood education as a service, then we need to attend to alternative relationships emerging within the pandemic that are not found in the marketplace. specifically, we must consider generative relationships that respond to this pandemic in ways that offer possibilities to live and learn well together. we know that to challenge the singular service narrative of covid-19 will require a deep consideration of the relationships that exist in the conditions of our time. to help us in this task, we think with donna haraway (2016), who invites us to stay with the trouble. what will emerge if we stay with a relationship to covid-19 given that it appears that covid-19 is with us even with vaccines? what is possible if we allow education to stumble alongside a pandemic rather than move it forward in spite of the pandemic? shotwell (2020) contends that “the relations we create out of [this] pandemic will determine who lives and who dies” (para. 6). we extend her argument to early childhood education, a political project that produces future citizens (moss, 2019). therefore, we argue that the relationships that emerge from covid-19 within early childhood education can determine the type of humans who will live in post-covid-19 worlds. shotwell asks us to make choices that involve collective care and resist oppression. this paper will argue that we need, as educators, to make choices that involve commitments to collaborative learning and pedagogies that vigorously resist competition and individualism. our concern in the education of early childhood educators is: how do we invite students to expect teaching (and perhaps life) to be what alecia jackson (2001) describes as a “wrenching, uneven experience” (p. 388)? as teachers of early childhood educators, we need to create learning spaces that explore what it means to teach, live, and practice in unstable, unpredictable, always emerging worlds that include contagion. in the next section of the paper, we move from the contamination stage of fermentation to collaboration. here, we continue to think with haraway’s (2016) notion of staying with the trouble and introduce anna tsing’s (2015) concept of contamination as a livable collaboration. when contamination is understood as inevitable and generative, space opens up to invite future educators to consider what happens when ideas, curiosities, and thoughts are allowed to contaminate each other. new questions emerge, such as, what can we learn from contagion in order to create postsecondary spaces where contamination is a desirable event? october 2021 35 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research collaboration: pedagogies that stay with the trouble haraway (2016) reminds us that we live in beautiful, disturbing, and mixed-up times that overflow with both pain and joy. she understands that to stay with the trouble is a potent response that resists the “vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures” (p. 1). pedagogies of staying with the trouble of a pandemic bring attention to the narrative of what is and what might be possible in education. as we encountered and responded to each unfolding and at times escalating condition of covid-19, we found ourselves looking for what haraway terms a technofix—that is, an attempt to erase the trouble in order to move forward as if the pandemic were not living in the world. without a visible technofix, such as a vaccine, we wondered if we should pause until we returned to the pre-crisis production model of early childhood teacher education (latour, 2020). for example, when the university closed at the beginning of the pandemic, we immediately moved all our face-to-face classes online. within three days, instructors transformed their curriculum so that the production of graduates would not be interrupted by covid-19. there was a heightened frenzy focused on maintaining activities as if the pandemic were not a reality. it was as if we were trying to maintain a neutral equilibrium in which learning and pedagogy were outside of the unfolding troubles. it was as if illness, death, and fear were not part of curriculum planning nor considered in the speed with which we transitioned to the online platform. this is another example of haraway’s technofix—our production of graduates was rescued by educational technology platforms. this is not to say that this decision and the speed at which these activities occurred were wrong, but rather to pause and consider what was lost in our need to “fix” things immediately. by not acknowledging our relationship with covid-19, is it possible that what students saw was that educators were working to maintain the status quo and not to pedagogically respond to the conditions of the time. assignment expectations and readings were unchanged as online lectures were conducted without accommodation to the virtual environment. in reflection, did we inadvertently create conditions where students learned that curriculum and learning occur outside of the world rather than as a part of it? had we reinforced a belief that planned activities must go forward in spite of, and not in response to, the worldly conditions? this scenario brought to mind an image of the first snowfall in coastal bc (a rare event in a temperate rainforest) and children being kept inside by an enthusiastic practicum student to complete what had been planned the night before. in teaching students to avoid the unexpected or unpredictable, we maintained neoliberal discourses of efficiency over living. it could be argued that we avoided pedagogies that invited both students and instructors to ponder how to live and learn with covid-19. how then could we expect students to imagine pedagogies that are slow and responsive and thereby attentive to both the pain and joy that are life and learning? if we work to stay with the trouble of what is occurring in our world, we are required then to pause, acknowledge, and respond to the conditions we are facing. this requires a time of critical reflection to consider what has been lost in order to reconfigure our practices to meet new demands. haraway (2016) refers to this time of attending to loss as a mourning that opens us to become aware of our relationships and our dependency on them. if we take seriously shotwell’s invitation to attend to the relationships lost through covid-19, a period of mourning is necessary to evaluate what we want to leave behind and what we want to move forward into the new worlds we are meeting. when we pause to mourn what existed in early childhood before covid-19, we allow ourselves time to critically examine the relationships of the past. take, for example, the ritual and routine of drop-off and pickup in early childhood centres. many of our students, as well as other educators we talked with during this time, mourned the loss of this ritual. they explained that this time of day was essential to nurture relationships between families and educators. however, it was through the opportunity to mourn the loss of this routine as a result of covid-19 that we were able to discern whether or not this practice was producing the desired relationships between educators and families. was the practice allowing our pedagogical commitment to relationships to october 2021 36 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research flourish? were we mourning something real or something we imagined or assumed to be there? we can open up to the possibility that the simple exchange of niceties and information about a child’s day is not always the most generative or the only way to nurture a relationship. were those moments of greeting more of an efficient routine for exchanging information perceived as important? was it possible that we were confining a whole relationship to the drop-off and pick-up routine? as our province moves into the next stage of easing restrictions, should we be inviting our students into this critical dialogue? we have an opportunity to generate possibilities for examining what practices allow relationships to flourish in multiple, lively ways that are not confined to particular times or places. the reader should note we are thinking with foucault (1983). that is, we are not suggesting that drop-off times are good or bad, but rather that all practices have potential to support or hinder relationships. staying with the trouble of covid-19 in early childhood education allows us to ask different pedagogical questions and ethically attune to local, situated, and unique needs. we are able to ask which relationships, narratives, and practices we want to flourish and what we want to leave behind. pedagogies that stay with the trouble can be a way to enact what isabelle stengers (2020) terms generative interdependence, or actively letting oneself be moved, affected, troubled, intrigued, or involved with an idea, a body, a virus, a relationship, and so on. a generative interdependence with covid-19 means not passively being affected by the virus and accompanying conditions; instead, it requires an active and intentional way of being so that alternative narratives can flourish. staying with the trouble in postsecondary early childhood classrooms evokes the possibility to focus on ethical relationships and encourage students to ask pedagogical questions of how to live well together. pedagogies of staying with the trouble of covid-19 might, as shotwell (2016) suggests, “hold the possibility of another world, still imperfect and impure, and another one after that” (p. 214). anna tsing (2015) sees contamination as a generative process of livable collaborations—the meeting across differences to refigure our relationships and encounters to activate and form something new. to be in a livable collaboration with covid-19 is to stay with the tension of the unknown and to actively be moved by uncertainty and the unpredictable nature of life. the world is not neutral; covid-19 is not the only challenging condition we face. relationships are always contradictory and can always be dangerous. to be in a livable collaboration with this virus is to attend to the messy, complicated relationships it exposes and to intentionally avoid romanticizing the past or the future. in our thinking about our pedagogical relations with covid-19, we wonder what might happen if we reject narratives of purity and embrace the concept of contamination differently. thinking from a posthumanist perspective, covid-19 has contaminated the way we touch, the way we live, and the way we relate. we respond to the touch of covid-19 with the ways the virus encounters our bodies and our minds: we talk about it, fear it, avoid it, carry it in our bodies as we try not to breathe it in. our students encountered contamination literally and metaphorically as they resumed practicum experiences in the fall. there was struggle and friction as we reduced the number of students placed in centres in an effort to contain the virus. to reduce the number of adults in a classroom, we moved away from our practice of placing two practicum students together in a classroom. yet, we did not consider how the containment of students might impact their learning as future educators. focused, and rightly so, on planking the covid-19 curve through managerial logics, we did not pause to reimagine how we could continue to bring students together to engage in the coconstruction of curriculum. the rush to ensure practicum placements, maintaining graduation rates, overpowered our commitment to collaborative learning. it is important to note that we are not questioning the decision to reduce the number of students in a classroom; we are interrogating our failure to seek alternative ways to create the conditions for collaboration. our relationship with pedagogy was being threatened by our relationship with production. october 2021 37 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as instructors we are inspired by scholars such as hillevi lenz taguchi (2009), who asserts that diversity of groups makes for richer knowledge. if students are able to be contaminated by one another’s ideas, values, or philosophical orientations, different pedagogical possibilities might be activated than when they learn in isolation. when we work against containment in our pedagogical work with students, we are able to support them to seek opportunities to contaminate, be contaminated, and respond to those encounters in ethical ways. this is not to suggest that we were wrong in working to reduce the spread of covid-19, but we should have continued to create opportunities for ideas to be contaminated. contamination of a virus could have become a discourse that generated alternative pedagogies, pedagogies that contained a virus while opening up spaces for pedagogies of contamination. in our critical reflections, thinking with shotwell and haraway, we recognized that covid-19 was not a part of the cocreation of curriculum other than to contain its spread. lenz taguchi (2009) talks about materials as agentic in curriculum making, in which their presence or absence matters in what is pedagogically possible. in classrooms where covid-19 was an active material presence beyond containment, children were curious about its invisibility, about contamination, about touch, and about how the virus moved and lived. when the virus was acknowledged as a relevant part of children’s lives, curriculum was constructed with children and educators to explore their concerns, curiosities, and even fears. unfortunately, we could see as instructors that we were pulled into the neoliberal agenda of maintaining neutrality and the status quo. had we paused and thought more deeply with our students and our pedagogical commitments, we could have supported more of our students in reimagining responsive curriculum in a pandemic—curriculum in which covid-19 was agentic matter to think with, not simply to contain. transformation: activating new relationships taking up the concept of fermentation in education makes space for pedagogical events as encounters and enlivens transformative possibilities. the effervescence of fermentation in the context of ecec invites into educators’ pedagogical work the fermenting of experimentation, democracy, and diversity while refiguring a sustainable collective life. by attuning to the way ideas, encounters, and ways of being unfold, bubble, transform, and are reinvented, we stay with the terrestrial troubles of living well together in a pandemic and resist searching for neoliberal fixes or endings. thinking about our relationships with covid-19 through the lens of fermentation is generative in that it not only allows us to think critically about what has troubled us, or how we have been contaminated, but also invites us to deliberately activate something new. staying with the trouble, and mourning, are necessary processes to move toward fermentation, as a state of intentional activation, the process of making choices about the relationships, values, or ideas that contaminate us and our practices and create conditions in which we can generate spaces of activism that ethically reconfigure or transform the status quo. to discern what practices reflect certain ethical, political, or pedagogical commitments is particularly important to the process of fermentation, because not everything can or should ferment. educators must recognize what discourses are swirling in the formation that will be produced as a result of these choices or practices. shotwell’s provocation is helpful for us in this process as we choose carefully what pedagogical practices we wish to let go of and what we wish to move forward in our ongoing relationship with a pandemic and other messy, difficult parts of life. in returning to the examples presented throughout this paper, covid-19 exposed many situations in which, had we as instructors made intentional choices about the ways our practices and values fermented, something new might have been activated that held transformative possibilities for our students. the aforementioned fixing, containing, and sanitizing that we gravitated toward as instructors did not create opportunities for activism or the fermentation of our response(ability) to the ethical, political, and pedagogical conditions that arose. however, it is our hope that this paper might act as a form of pedagogical fermentation in the way we have presented and october 2021 38 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research critiqued our own experiences for the purpose of activating alternative narratives, discourses, and practices. life and education will always be troubled and full of friction, loss, and uncertainty, but the way we refigure our relationships to the conditions we meet positions us to respond differently and to coconstruct more livable worlds. as the rate of vaccination increases, the question of which ideas or values we bring forward to ferment and which ideas or values we leave behind is essential. ethical questions about individual purity will begin to contaminate our work, and we will be asked to stay with different kinds of trouble. we as instructors will inevitably be met with moments of challenge, but the way we create conditions for students to cultivate pedagogical fermentation opens up a disposition of what shotwell (2015) refers to as “flourishing, toward the contingent proliferation of ways of being we cannot predict, toward surprise” (p. 102). in repositioning the ways we encounter future surprises and unpredictability through the lens of relationships, we can be thoughtful and intentional about the narratives and practices that are produced. by allowing pedagogies informed by fermentation, we are more likely to be response(able) to ferment ideas and processes that cultivate practices that do not unintentionally return to discourses unable to sustain our political and ethical orientations. resisting and disrupting narratives that position ecec as a commodity or covid-19 as a troubling condition that can be overcome through a technofix requires an attunement to the relationships that might already align with pedagogical fermentation. it is our intention that the conceptual ideas presented in this paper might reground us within existing local and situated professional initiatives that orient us toward contamination, fermentation, and flourishing. for example, kummen and hodgins (2019) discuss the ways in which the investigating quality (iq) project presented generative possibilities that arise out of establishing and encouraging learning collectives that include postsecondary instructors, students, and community-based educators. this project articulates the ways ecec instructors, students, educators, and other community members can collectively reorient themselves to be authentic by upholding their values and pedagogical commitments. the resulting advocacy for creating a “collective culture of ecec” generated possibility for cultivating spaces that enable and encourage a contamination of ideas. fermentation as a metaphor has helped us reexamine and contest our experiences as postsecondary instructors during the initial waves of covid-19 in bc. as we have seen throughout this paper, covid-19 contaminated the ways we responded to and with our students. it created conditions, we assert, that might have been generative to learn from or be in a livable collaboration with, rather than simply work to fix or resolve. however, through this retrospective analysis, we are able to identify transformative possibilities for responding differently to troubled conditions in the future. through this conceptual experiment, we situate ourselves within the understanding that we have been forever contaminated by covid-19 and will continue to be tainted by troubles we have not yet encountered. looking at covid-19 through the metaphor of fermentation helps us see the inevitability of transformation that comes out of being troubled by viruses, events, or hegemonic discourses. it also supports us to actively resist romanticizing what haraway (2016) refers to as the edenic past and salvific (or apocalyptic) future. fermenting troubled pedagogies with our postsecondary students realigns us with our pedagogical commitments and reorients us to our response(ability) to the political and ethical values we espouse. this process is essential given federal and provincial investments in early childhood education and care, which, when contaminated by particular narratives or ideals, will ultimately ferment into new realities for children, families, early childhood educators, future early childhood educators, and communities. what we want to teach our students is that relationships to trouble are at the heart of the educational project. our goal should be to create curriculum in the postsecondary classroom that is always in relationship to the complex and ever-changing conditions of our times. this requires postsecondary instructors to continually engage in the pedagogical process of asking ourselves and our students what relationships we want to ferment in early childhood education. by asking these questions and october 2021 39 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research acknowledging our generative interdependence on troubles and unknowable futures, we begin to speculate about and activate alternative narratives that have been contaminated by livable collaborations with covid-19. we hope the legacy of covid-19 is one that encourages our students to stumble alongside troubles, to activate the possibility that pedagogies can ferment flourishing alternative responses of living well together. this possibility requires us to consistently resist the allure of haraway’s (2016) technofix so as not to activate latour’s (2020) precrisis production model when we encounter trouble. as postsecondary instructors, we need to take from our lived experiences with covid-19 the importance and the challenges of privileging pedagogy over discourses of efficiency and managerial logics. october 2021 40 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references coalition of childcare advocates of bc & early childhood educators of british columbia. 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(2020). developmentalism and pedagogy: opening horizons in early childhood education. european early childhood education and research, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390050156422 december 2021 46 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports differences in child care participation between immigrant and nonimmigrant families mila kingsbury, leanne findlay, rubab arim, and lan wei mila kingsbury holds a phd in developmental psychology. her research interests include healthy child development, adolescent mental health, and parenting. she is currently an analyst in the child health section, health analysis division, at statistics canada. email: mila.kingsbury@canada.ca leanne findlay is a principal researcher with statistics canada. her areas of expertise are population health data and healthy child development, with a specific interest in the health of vulnerable children and youth. she is also interested in mental health and correlates of positive mental health. recently, leanne has been involved in an extensive program of research on early learning and child care, with an emphasis on new data sources to address research gaps and inform elcc policy initiatives. email: leanne. findlay@canada.ca rubab arim holds a phd in human development, learning, and culture from the university of british columbia. her research expertise includes the use of population-based survey and administrative data to study policy-relevant issues for vulnerable populations, including children and youth and those with disabilities, with a particular focus on social determinants of health. she is currently a chief in the social analysis and modelling division at statistics canada. email: rubab.arim@canada.ca lan wei holds a phd in economics. his research interests include child well-being, child care, and household expenditure. he is currently an analyst in the centre for income and socioeconomic well-being statistics, statistics canada. email: lan.wei@canada.ca as participation in the labour force among mothers of young children has increased, canada has seen a corresponding increase in demand for child care (moyser, 2017). according to prepandemic national estimates, 60% of canadian children under the age of 6 participate in some form of nonparental child care (findlay, 2019). the choice of child care arrangements is influenced by several factors, including maternal employment, parental education, income, values around education and child development, parental work schedules, and the presence of extended family members in or close to the home (leseman, 2002). child care needs, preferences, and barriers to care may differ for immigrant families in canada as compared to their nonimmigrant counterparts (charters et al., 2020; cleveland & forer, 2010). however, little is known about child care usage among this important canadian subpopulation. immigrant families, defined here as those in which either parent immigrated to canada within the past 10 years, represent a sizeable and growing portion of the canadian population. it has been estimated that by 2036, between 38 and 50 percent of children under the age of 6 will have an immigrant background (statistics canada, 2019a). data from the canadian census suggest that immigrant parents are less likely than nonimmigrant parents to pay for child care in order to work (charters et al., 2020). however, after adjusting for sociodemographic variables, including low income and maternal education, the gap between immigrant and nonimmigrant families was much this study used data from the survey on early learning and child care arrangements (selcca) and the longitudinal immigration database (imdb) to examine patterns of child care use among canadian immigrant and nonimmigrant families. overall, children from immigrant backgrounds were less likely to be in child care. when considering only those in child care, children from immigrant families were more likely to be in licensed care than those from nonimmigrant families. parents of children with immigrant backgrounds indicated various reasons for not enrolling their child in child care. ensuring access to child care may have a positive impact on immigrant families. key words: child care; families; immigration; data linkage mailto:milakingsbury@canada.ca mailto:leanne.findlay@canada.ca mailto:leanne.findlay@canada.ca mailto:rubab.arim@canada.ca mailto:lan.wei@canada.ca december 2021 47 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports attenuated. other research from the us also suggests that socioeconomic drivers of participation in child care may be particularly salient among immigrant families (miller et al., 2014). overall, these findings suggest that socioeconomic factors, particularly income, may drive the association between immigrant status and use of paid child care, as participation in child care may be influenced by accessibility features such as affordability (leseman, 2002). immigration to canada occurs via three main channels: economic application (based on possession of skills and experience deemed valuable for canada’s labour market), family reunification, and refugee resettlement. although a high proportion of immigrants enter as economic applicants (i.e., they are highly educated, skilled, and healthy), children of immigrant families are more likely to live in poverty than their receiving-country counterparts (beiser et al., 2002). the resettlement process is often a tumultuous period marked by challenges adapting to the language and culture of the host country, difficulty finding employment, lack of social support, and material deprivation (beiser, 2005). although canada has an international reputation of multiculturalism and diversity, immigrants to canada, especially racialized people, nonetheless report experiencing discrimination (wilkes & wu, 2019) which could negatively impact economic prospects. for example, women with immigrant backgrounds are particularly likely to be underemployed relative to their level of education (khan & watson, 2005; man, 2004). however, some research suggests that after a decade of residence in canada, the average income of immigrants to canada surpasses the national average (beiser et al., 2002). nonetheless, even transient poverty and underemployment are likely to impact the child care needs and options of immigrant families. furthermore, immigrant families may be more likely to rely on unpaid care in order for parents to work. for example, immigrant families are more likely to have additional adult relatives living in the household, and may rely on these relatives for informal care (charters et al., 2020; cleveland & forer, 2010; goodbrand et al., 2017). in addition, cultural values surrounding childrearing and a desire to expose children to their native languages or culture may impact immigrant families’ child care preferences (obeng, 2007). however, little empirical work has examined both participation and barriers to participation in different forms of paid and unpaid child care among children of immigrant families in canada. the purpose of the present study was therefore to assess participation in various forms of child care among children from immigrant backgrounds in canada compared to nonimmigrant families. this assessment includes an examination of families’ use of various types of care, hours in care, and perceived barriers to use among those who were not using child care. some consideration is given to regional differences in child care participation given that child care policy and use of child care varies across provinces and territories. in particular, quebec’s publicly funded universal child care program, initiated in 1997, is associated with higher participation in child care in quebec (findlay, 2019). understanding the experiences of recent immigrants to canada (that is, those who arrived in the past 10 years) with respect to child care is important for developing policies and curricula that adequately address the needs of this important canadian subpopulation. for instance, awareness of any differences in types of care used or barriers to care for this subpopulation could highlight particular needs that should be considered in the ongoing development of a national system of child care (department of finance canada, 2021). method data source this study used data from the 2019 survey on early learning and child care arrangements (selcca), a nationally representative survey on child care for children under the age of 6 in canada’s ten provinces and three territories. sampling was done in two stages. first, a random sample of parents/guardians was selected from an administrative december 2021 48 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports file of recipients of the canada child benefit (ccb). next, one child younger than 6 years of age was selected at random as the target child for each of these ccb recipients, hereafter called the parent. it is estimated that this frame represents 96% of the population of children of all ages. response rate was 52.7% in the provinces and 41.1% in the territories, resulting in an overall response rate of 50.3% (statistics canada, 2019c). data was collected directly from survey respondents using either an electronic questionnaire or computer-assisted telephone interviewing. to obtain family demographic information, selcca data was linked to the 2016 census of population, tax information from the 2017 t1 family file (the most recent available at the time of the linkage), and the 1980– 2017 longitudinal immigration database (imdb; statistics canada, 2021). the imdb includes information on all immigrants who have landed in canada since 1980 and have filed taxes with canada revenue agency. linkages were carried out for each selcca target child, the recipient of the ccb for the child, and the recipient’s spouse. imdb records were found for 20% of ccb recipients, 22% of spouses, and 0.001% of selcca children.1 linkage rates to the census were 55%, 87%, and 88% for the child, ccb recipient, and spouse, respectively.2 linkage to the tax file was completed for 95% of ccb recipients and spouses. data for a total of n = 7,070 selcca respondents was included in the analyses for the present study. further details on the survey are available elsewhere (statistics canada, 2019c). measures outcomes. the main outcome considered was use of any regular nonparental child care arrangement. respondents were asked to indicate which of the following arrangements they usually used for the target child in the past three months: daycare centre, preschool, or centre de la petite enfance (cpe); care by a relative other than a parent; care by a nonrelative in the child’s home (e.g., a nanny); family child care home (e.g., home-based daycare); before or after school program; other child care arrangement; no child care. those who selected more than one form of child care were asked which they would consider the main arrangement. as secondary outcomes, we considered whether the main child care arrangement was licensed or unlicensed and hours spent in child care per week as reported by the parent. parents’ barriers to care were measured by asking respondents who were using child care whether they had difficulty finding a child care arrangement. if “yes,” respondents indicated which of the following difficulties they had encountered: affordable child care; finding licensed care; care available in your community; qualified care provider; care that meets your child’s special needs due to disability or chronic illness; care that fits your work or study schedule; care that could accommodate more than one child in your family; other. respondents who did not use child care were asked to indicate their reasons from the following list: unemployed; maternity, paternity, or parental leave; one of the parents decided to stay home with the child; shortage of places or waitlist; could not find licensed child care; adjusted work or study schedule to accommodate care needs; work or school schedules are unpredictable or variable; the cost of child care is too high; child care is located too far away; lack of transportation; lack of flexibility of hours of operations; services not adapted to child’s special needs due to disability or chronic illness; child is in kindergarten; other. immigrant status. family immigrant status was obtained from the imdb; in line with previous research (charters et al., 2020) we considered immigrant families as those in which the ccb recipient landed in canada after 2009 (i.e., in the 10 years before selcca data was collected), covariates. several sociodemographic variables were collected on the selcca: child age (<1 year; 1–3 years; 4–5 years), parent’s education (high school; more than high school but less than bachelor’s degree; bachelor’s degree or higher), parent’s employment status (working or looking for work vs. on leave or at home), child indigenous identity december 2021 49 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports (yes vs. no), and province. information about family composition (single parent vs. dual parent) and family income was obtained from the tax file. family low income status was determined using the census family after-tax low-income measure, which is based on family size and median family income for the year; more information is available elsewhere (statistics canada, 2019b). information on residence in an urban centre (population of 1,000 or more) versus rural area was obtained from the census. analysis using contingency tables, we compared the percentage of children from immigrant and nonimmigrant families using child care. binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to predict use of child care from immigrant status, adjusting for all covariates. among children in child care, binary logistic regression was used to predict type of child care (licensed v. unlicensed) and linear regression was used to predict hours spent in child care from immigrant status, adjusting for all covariates. among children not in child care, reasons for not using child care were compared between immigrant and nonimmigrant families, using contingency tables. to account for the complex survey design, all analyses were conducted using bootstrap weights (statistics canada, 2019c). results demographic characteristics of the sample are presented in table 1. notably, a higher proportion of immigrant families reported low income as compared to nonimmigrant families. overall, participation in child care was lower among children of immigrant families than nonimmigrant families (52% vs. 61%; table 2). when considering children who did participate in child care, children with an immigrant background were more likely to be enrolled in a daycare centre, preschool, or cpe as their main child care arrangement and less likely to use home daycare or relative care as the main arrangement than were children from nonimmigrant families (table 3). for children in any child care, 81.8% of parents in immigrant families reported that their main child care arrangement was licensed (95% ci: 77.0, 85.8) compared to 70.7 % of parents from nonimmigrant families (95% ci: 68.5, 72.2). sensitivity analysis suggested that this was the case in both quebec (95.4% vs 90.1%) and the rest of canada (75.9% vs. 62.8%). children from immigrant families were in care for an average 33.3 hours per week (95% ci: 31.0, 35.6), which was greater than children from nonimmigrant families (29.9 hours/week; 95% ci: 29.2, 30.7). table 1. demographic characteristics of the sample (weighted %), by family immigrant background full sample immigrant (unweighted n = 976) nonimmigrant (unweighted n = 6572) chi-sq p (chi-sq) child age 11.00* 0.0041 < 1 year 15.57 10.42 16.56 1–3 years 50.53 54.23 49.81 4–5 years 33.90 35.35 33.62 parent education 34.63* <.0001 high school 21.46 17.79 22.18 < bachelor’s 34.43 26.90 35.89 bachelor’s 44.11 55.31 41.93 december 2021 50 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports parent at work 51.80 49.57 52.23 1.37 0.2411 child indigenous identity 5.18 x 6.00 23.96* <.0001 low income 15.19 20.16 14.17 10.75* 0.001 rural residence 2.35 f 2.80 47.81* <.0001 single-parent family 17.23 8.37 19.05 35.58* <.0001 * significant chi-square (p < .05) x suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the statistics act f too unreliable to be published (coefficient of variation >33.3) note: nonimmigrant category includes those who landed in canada prior to 2009 table 2. use of any child care arrangement, by province nonimmigrant (reference) immigrant 95% confidence limits 95% confidence limits weighted % lower upper weighted % lower upper canada (pooled) 61.3 59.5 60.3 52.4 * 48.2 56.6 newfoundland and labrador 58.2 54.0 62.3 x prince edward island 66.8 62.1 71.1 54.0 37.4 69.8 nova scotia 61.4 56.8 65.7 54.6 e 34.1 73.6 new brunswick 62.2 57.0 67.2 43.0 e 23.2 65.4 quebec 77.9 74.9 80.6 80.2 72.3 86.3 ontario 55.0 51.4 58.4 47.0 39.5 54.6 manitoba 55.5 50.0 60.9 26.2 e* 18 36.6 saskatchewan 56.0 50.4 61.4 37.4 * 26.9 49.3 alberta 56.1 51.5 60.6 47.6 38.8 56.5 british columbia 59.5 55.2 63.7 47.4 * 37.3 57.6 yukon 60.5 55.5 65.4 49.7 35.7 63.7 northwest territories 56.3 50.8 61.7 55.1 e 35.3 73.4 nunavut 35.6 30.5 40.9 x * significantly different from the reference category (p <.05) x suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the statistics act e estimate unreliable; to be interpreted with caution december 2021 51 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports table 3. main type of child care arrangement (among those in any type of care), by child immigrant background nonimmigrant (reference category) immigrant 95% confidence limits 95% confidence limits weighted % lower upper weighted % lower upper day care centre, preschool, or centre de la petite enfance (cpe) 47.3 45.1 49.4 58.7 * 53.1 63.9 care by a relative other than a parent 18.6 16.9 20.4 14.1 * 10.7 18.2 care by a nonrelative in the child’s home 3.1 2.4 4.1 3.6 e 1.9 6.7 family child care home 20.1 18.5 21.9 14.0 * 10.5 18.5 before or after school program 8.6 7.4 9.9 7.9 e 5.3 11.7 other 2.3 1.7 3.1 f e estimate unreliable; to be interpreted with caution f estimate too unreliable to publish (sampling error > .33) * significantly different from reference category, p < .05 results of regression analyses suggested that after adjusting for all demographic factors, children from immigrant backgrounds were less likely to be in nonparental child care (or = 0.47; 95% ci: 0.37, 0.61). however, sensitivity analysis suggested that while this was the case for the rest of canada (or = 0.47, 95% ci: 0.35, 0.62), the association was not significant for children living in quebec (or = 0.65 95% ci: 0.35, 1.22). when considering only those in child care, children from immigrant backgrounds were more likely to be in licensed care than were children from nonimmigrant families (or = 1.88; 95% ci: 1.35, 2.60) although immigrant status was not a significant predictor of number of hours in child care (b = 2.13, p = .054). among children in child care, no significant differences were noted between immigrant and nonimmigrant families with respect to difficulty obtaining child care, and types of difficulties reported were mostly similar (table 4). among children not in child care, respondents from immigrant families were more likely to indicate that this was due to a decision to stay home with the child (20.2% vs. 16.5%), high cost of child care (15.1% vs. 9.2%), unemployment (11.5% vs. 5.3%; table 5), the child being enrolled in kindergarten (8.8% vs. 5.7%), or a decision to adjust work or study schedules around child care needs (5.3% vs. 3.5%). table 4. types of difficulty finding child care among parents of children enrolled in care, by immigrant background nonimmigrant (reference category) immigrant 95% confidence limits 95% confidence limits weighted % lower upper weighted % lower upper affordable child care 48.0 44.3 51.7 49.7 40.9 58.4 finding licensed care 28.4 25.2 31.7 23.4 16.2 30.7 care available in their community 54.8 51.1 58.5 42.2 * 33.8 50.6 december 2021 52 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports qualified care provider 27.1 23.8 30.4 28.7 20.5 37.0 finding the quality of care desired 36.0 32.5 39.4 44.8 36.2 53.3 care meeting the child’s special needs 3.5 e 2.3 4.8 x care fitting work or study schedule 38.9 35.3 42.5 35.4 27.4 43.4 care accommodating more than one child in family 17.5 14.5 20.4 10.4 e 4.2 16.7 other 20.8 17.8 23.9 16.9 e 10.2 23.6 e estimate unreliable; to be interpreted with caution * significantly different from reference category, p < .05 x suppressed because the number of observations is too small (n <10) table 5. parent reasons for not using child care, by child immigrant background nonimmigrant (reference category) immigrant 95% confidence limits 95% confidence limits weighted % lower upper weighted % lower upper unemployed 5.3 4.4 6.2 11.5 * 8.6 14.4 maternity/paternity/ parental leave 12.1 11.0 13.2 6.2 e * 4.1 8.4 parent decided to stay home with child 16.5 15.0 17.9 20.2 * 16.8 23.6 shortage of places or waiting list 2.4 1.8 3.8 3.9 e * 2.3 5.5 parent(s) adjusted work or study schedule 3.5 2.8 4.1 5.3 e * 3.6 7.1 cost of child care is too high 9.2 8.1 10.3 15.1 * 12.0 18.1 child is in kindergarten 5.7 4.9 6.5 8.8 * 6.4 11.2 other 7.3 6.3 8.4 9.0 6.6 11.4 e estimate unreliable; to be interpreted with caution * significantly different from reference category, p < .05 discussion in this nationally representative study of canadian preschool-aged children, we found evidence for differences in child care use among families from immigrant and nonimmigrant backgrounds. children from immigrant backgrounds were less likely to be in child care overall. when considering only children who were in child care, children from immigrant families were more likely to be in licensed care than those from nonimmigrant families. among those not in child care, parents of children with an immigrant background indicated different reasons for not enrolling their child compared to non-immigrant parents. these findings coincide with other studies from canada and the us which have also found that children in immigrant families are less likely to participate in nonparental child care than children from nonimmigrant families (cleveland & forer, 2010; miller et al., 2014). there are several reasons why the use of child care may differ between immigrant and nonimmigrant families. for december 2021 53 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports some, the cost of child care may be greater than they can afford. in our study, immigrant families were more likely to have a low income (one in five families had an income below the low-income threshold). among those whose children were not in child care, a larger proportion of immigrant than nonimmigrant parents reported that they did not use child care because the cost of child care was too high, that they decided to stay home with the child or had rearranged their work/study schedule to accommodate child care, or that they did not use child care because they were unemployed. these findings are consistent with previous literature indicating that the cost of child care is a significant barrier faced by immigrant parents (leseman, 2002; morantz et al., 2012). moreover, qualitative research suggests that in their countries of origin, many canadian immigrant families had depended on child care by extended family members, which may have little or no cost. this option may not be available to recent immigrants after migration (phan et al., 2015; stewart et al., 2015). furthermore, many immigrants, and women in particular, face significant challenges obtaining work due to the fact that foreign qualifications are often devalued (khan & watson, 2005; man, 2004). faced with a choice between low-paying work for which they are overqualified and staying home with children, many immigrant mothers may choose to stay home and save on child care costs. evidence from the canadian census suggests that gaps in paid child care usage between immigrant and nonimmigrant families narrow over time after arrival in canada (charters et al., 2020), perhaps corresponding to parents finding employment more commensurate with their qualifications (picot et al., 2016). our sample, however, considered relatively recent immigrants to canada (i.e., landed in the past 10 years). taken together, these findings suggest that improving access to affordable child care for immigrant families may have a positive impact on labour force participation (connelly, 1992; powell, 1997). indeed, comparative research suggests that the gap in labour force participation and earnings for women is largest in countries with the weakest child care policies (harkness & waldfogel, 2003). in the present study, results of a sensitivity analysis suggested that the difference in child care usage between immigrant and nonimmigrant families was not statistically significant in quebec, which introduced a universal child care policy for children under 12 in 2001 (kohen et al., 2008). this finding suggests that when affordable child care is readily available, immigrant families use child care at similar rates to nonimmigrant families. recently, the canadian federal government announced the creation of a national child care strategy with investments of $30 billion over the next five years, aimed at reducing the cost of child care to an average of $10 per day for all regulated child care spaces in canada (department of finance canada, 2021). the findings of the present study may provide insight in the development of child care programs that are accessible and affordable for all canadian families, with a focus on those who have historically faced barriers to care. of note, some research from quebec (guay et al., 2018) suggests that first-generation immigrant children (i.e., those born outside of canada) are less likely to attend early childhood education compared to second-generation immigrant children (i.e., those born in canada but whose parents were born elsewhere). due to the difference of two years between immigration (imdb) records and selcca collection, first-generation immigrant children may have been underrepresented in our sample. the experience of families who immigrate with children may differ meaningfully from those whose children are born in canada, and may be reflected in their child care arrangements. in the abovementioned study, guay and colleagues reported that parents of first-generation immigrant children were disproportionately likely to report that they were not able to find available childcare spaces for their children (guay et al., 2018). lack of established social networks, lack of ties to the host community, and language barriers may present significant barriers to accessing childcare (brandon, 2004) and may disproportionately affect more recent immigrants to canada, including parents of first-generation immigrant children. in the present study, participation in licensed care, including daycare centres, preschools, and centres de la petite december 2021 54 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports enfance, was higher among children from immigrant families, even after adjusting for important selection factors that might influence child care participation. one possible explanation may be the use of subsidized child care among low-income families. in almost all provinces, only regulated child care centres and licensed child care homes are eligible for subsidy (kozicka, 2016), thus greater use of these child care centres among immigrant families may reflect greater use of subsidized child care. however, information on use of subsidized child care was not captured by the selcca. of note, the association between immigrant background and licensed child care was significant even after adjustment for covariates including low-income status. this finding may indicate that need for affordable child care exists even above the low-income threshold. alternately, parents in immigrant families may select licensed care for other reasons related to educational values or concern for child care quality. the cultural context of child care offers another explanation for differences in child care use by nonimmigrant and recently immigrated parents. when selecting child care, many immigrant parents prioritize language instruction— either instruction in their native language or exposure to official languages—as well as cultural sensitivity (obeng, 2007; rose & chicoine, 1991). early childhood education in canada is largely framed by european-american philosophies of development (massing et al., 2013), which may alienate immigrant parents. lack of cultural sensitivity on the part of educators can lead to conflict and dissatisfaction for parents (bernhard et al., 1998). the experience of discrimination on the part of immigrants to canada, especially racialized people, has been shown to negatively impact trust in canada’s institutions and authorities (wilkes & wu, 2019). these experiences of conflict and discrimination and ensuing lack of trust may represent significant barriers to child care for immigrant families, and may be one reason many immigrant parents opt to keep their child home rather than enrol them in child care. in aiming to make child care inclusive of all canadian children, a move away from centering the europeanamerican experience has been recommended (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; souto-manning & rabadi-raol, 2018). typical frameworks of multiculturalism remain rooted in eurocentric norms, preaching tolerance and inclusivity of different cultures while still treating them as “other.” in contrast, a move toward the decolonization or unsettling of child care calls for reexamining and questioning normative practices and evaluation standards in early childhood education (kinard et al., 2021; souto-manning & rabadi-raol, 2018). when culture is fully integrated into pedagogy, children are encouraged to enact and enrich their own cultural knowledge while simultaneously gaining competencies within the dominant culture (massing et al., 2013). in practice, this may involve, for example, integrating non-european cultural objects into child care spaces to allow children to incorporate home knowledge into play-based learning, or the introduction of language facilitators to include instruction in home languages (massing et al., 2013). strengths, limitations, and future directions strengths of the present study include the use of a large, representative sample of canadian preschool-aged children and the value of using linked administrative data sets to explore the socioeconomic correlates of child care use for immigrant and nonimmigrant families. however, the results should be interpreted in the context of certain limitations. first, though we examined broad differences between immigrant and nonimmigrant families, the immigrant experience is certainly not universal, and factors such as culture, language, and country of origin may impact child care decisions (cleveland & forer, 2010). unfortunately, sample sizes do not allow for disaggregation by country of origin using the selcca data. second, although we considered several sociodemographic correlates, including low income, maternal work status, and maternal education, many of these factors were assessed at different time points from the child care information collected by the selcca. it is therefore possible that the sociodemographic data drawn from the census (e.g., urban/rural residence) and tax file (e.g., family composition, december 2021 55 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports family low-income status) may have changed between the time of census collection and selcca data collection. third, although the selcca is considered a nationally representative sample of children aged 0 to 5, it is possible that individuals who responded to the survey differ from those who do not. survey sample weights were generated to account for nonresponse based on province/territory, number of children, household income and child age (estimated from the ccb file and the labour force survey demographic counts). however, other differences that are particularly relevant to this domain of research or this subpopulation, such as primary language spoken in the home or child care preferences, may influence child care use but cannot be examined through attrition-type analyses. these results should thus be interpreted as a first step in exploring child care among immigrant and nonimmigrant families. fourth, parents reported on their use of licensed versus unlicensed care, an aspect of child care which may not be accurately reported by parents. however, a recent study that examined and validated parent-reported licensed child care use found that the majority of parents were accurate in their knowledge of whether the care was licensed or unlicensed (hill & findlay, under review). finally, although we found differences between immigrant and nonimmigrant families with respect to use of licenced versus unlicensed care, we were unable to assess differences in the quality of child care arrangements in the present study. child care quality is an important predictor of child outcomes (mashburn et al., 2008), particularly among disadvantaged children (geoffroy et al., 2012; mccartney et al., 2007). future studies should examine this important aspect of child care. conclusions the present study provides a descriptive analysis of the use of child care by canadian families. results suggest that patterns of child care use (and nonuse) are different for immigrant and nonimmigrant families in canada. these results are descriptive in nature but highlight the need for future research in this area to understand the barriers to care that immigrants to canada may face. taken together, the differences found in types of care used and the reasons for not using child care suggest that socioeconomic considerations such as employment and income may drive this association. however, families who had recently immigrated to canada were less likely to use child care even after adjustment for low-income status and parental employment. access to child care for families who have settled in canada in the past 10 years, with particular attention to providing culturally sensitive care, may facilitate child care usage and labour force participation for these canadian families. 1 immigrants arriving after 2017 would not have been identified by this linkage. 2 children born after the census collection date could not be identified via record linkage. in these cases, we relied on linkages for ccb recipients and their spouses. december 2021 56 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports references beiser, m. 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(2015). family dynamics and the integration of professional immigrants in canada. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 41(13), 2061–2080. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2015.1045461 picot, g., hou, f., & qiu, h. (2016). the human capital model of selection and immigrant economic outcomes. international migration, 54, 73–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12235 powell, l. m. (1997). the impact of child care costs on the labour supply of married mothers: evidence from canada. the canadian journal of economics, 30(3), 577–594. https://doi.org/10.2307/136234 rose, d., & chicoine, n. (1991). access to school daycare services: class, family, ethnicity, and space in montreal’s old and new inner city. geoforum, 22, 185–201. https://www.academia.edu/26611587/access_to_school_daycare_services_class_family_ethnicity_ and_space_in_montreals_old_and_new_inner_city souto-manning, m., & rabadi-raol, a. (2018). 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(2019b). technical reference guide for the annual income estimates for census families, individuals and seniors: t1 family file, final estimates, 2017. catalogue no. 72-212-x. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/72-212-x https://globalnews.ca/news/2985338/child-care-subsidies-what-parents-in-every-province-need-to-know/ https://globalnews.ca/news/2985338/child-care-subsidies-what-parents-in-every-province-need-to-know/ https://www.oecd.org/education/school/1960663.pdf https://www.oecd.org/education/school/1960663.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2004.06.004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01154.x https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v38i2.15445 https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v38i2.15445 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.appdev.2007.06.010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2014.05.011 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00848.x https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-503-x/2015001/article/14694-eng.pdf https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1007/s10643-006-0132-9 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2015.1045461 https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12235 https://doi.org/10.2307/136234 https://www.academia.edu/26611587/access_to_school_daycare_services_class_family_ethnicity_and_space_in_montreals_old_and_new_inner_city https://www.academia.edu/26611587/access_to_school_daycare_services_class_family_ethnicity_and_space_in_montreals_old_and_new_inner_city https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0091732x18759550 https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016015/98-200-x2016015-eng.cfm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016015/98-200-x2016015-eng.cfm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/72-212-x december 2021 58 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies critical and interdisciplinary reports statistics canada. 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(2019). immigration, discrimination, and trust: a simply complex relationship. frontiers in sociology, 4, article 32. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00032/full https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2sv.pl?function=getsurvey&sdds=5287 https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2sv.pl?function=getsurvey&sdds=5287 https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2sv.pl?function=getsurvey&sdds=5057 https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2sv.pl?function=getsurvey&sdds=5057 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-014-0062-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-014-0062-3 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00032/full march 2022 1 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor editorial: speculative worldings of children, childhoods, and pedagogies emily ashton, guest editor the cover image for this special issue is a painting titled “crossing reality portal” by alejandro darío pizarro chellet, a mexican multidisciplinary artist and permaculture practitioner who works at the intersection of environmentalism, social practice, and public art.1 the painting was part of a united nations international exhibition, “the future we want,” which aimed to “foster a conversation about the kind of future we want for our world and how we can empower youth to work towards it” (united nations geneva & perception change, 2020, p. 4).2 in his painting, chellet offers a speculative play on the “refugees welcome” logo that widely appears at activist rallies and in international human rights campaigns (see figure 1).3 while the popular image evokes the fear and urgency of flight, there are no obstacles in view—the tagline “bring your families” conveys an ease that is not emblematic of the refugee experience for most displaced persons. figure 1. “crossing reality portal” by alejandro darío pizarro chellet instead, chellet layers colour, affect, and meaning into his painting, and introduces “two pillars” to “symbolize a political and psychological border” of the refugees’ liminal experience (united nations geneva & perception change, 2020, p. 34). in the terms of this special issue, i interpret these pillars as a speculative not this and not yet of refuge: what happens in the borderlands (anzaldúa, 1987)? engaging with “crossing reality portal,” i wonder if it can inspire the kind of speculative care that maría puig de la bellacasa (2017) proposes, a “commitment to seek what other worlds could be in the making through caring while staying with the trouble of our own complicities and implications” (p. 204). this seems all the more relevant today as i watch from afar the situation in ukraine and wonder about how global empathy is distributed.4 additionally, the defined heteronormative nuclear family of “refugees welcome” blurs in ways where child and adult positionalities in the painting are no longer clearly defined. when i first saw the image, i assumed it was a child-figure in the foreground. given the referent sign, i know that my initial impression is likely mistaken. yet, the painting gestures toward how we “live simultaneously in multiple worlds,” and suggests that though the ability to move between imaginary and real words is often associated with children, it is not exclusive to them (pretti et al., march 2022 2 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor this issue). also uncertain is the future evoked in, by, and with this image: is this the future we want? chellet offers a speculative question as an accompaniment to the painting: what if “this family will be able to cross a portal into a better and more fair reality of the world?” (united nations geneva & perception change, 2020, p. 34). as a form of what queer feminist poet adrienne rich (1993) calls the first “revolutionary question…what if” (p. 242, emphasis in original), there is a lot left unsaid, unrepresented, and unknown. there is also a gesture toward a speculative “elsewhere and elsewhen that was, still is, and might yet be” (haraway, 2016, p. 31). thinking with the image, i arrive again at what i find so generative about speculative fiction and speculative pedagogies: imaginaries of not this (as in refusal), not yet (as in what is to come), and what if (as in generative possibilities). i want to linger with the painting a little longer as its title, “crossing reality portal,” presents me with multiple openings into the articles of this special issue. first, portals are unsettled and unsettling. in much speculative fiction, a portal is a secret door that opens into a new world. examples from my childhood reading are the clothes cupboard in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, the rabbit hole in alice’s adventures in wonderland, and platform nine and three-quarters in the wizardly world of harry potter. portals disrupt linear notions of space, place, and time—sometimes simultaneously, when spaceplacetime is an intra-active phenomenon that materializes another plane of existence (barad, 2007). several authors in this issue play speculatively with temporality. for example, sarah binnendyk suggests that a “futurity of inclusion” might emerge from reconceptualizing anti-bias education within more-than-human communities. adrian downey suggests that indigenous children’s stories are lively worldings that cannot be contained by the temporal confines of western linearity, and that, instead, “very old stories yield very old futures—futures toward which we can (re)turn.” portals enable movement between worlds— they unhinge us from any assurance of a one-world world metaphysics (law, 2015) and reveal a pluriverse, “a world of many words” (de la cadena & blaser, 2018, p. 232). portals then do not only consist of wardrobes, holes, and train platforms; they are not just literary devices in speculative fiction. stories themselves can be portals. speculative stories allow us to re-see what is taken for granted, reimagine what is possible, reconnect with multispecies kin, and reenvision worlds that are not so cruel to so many. given the articles assembled here, and with an appreciative nod to recent speculative-inspired work in childhood studies (e.g., common worlds research collective, 2020; nxumalo & ross, 2019; sheldon, 2016), perhaps academic writing can also open up “otherwise” worlds (crawley, 2015; samatar, 2015). esther do lago e pretti, jieyu jiang, ann nielsen, janna goebel, and iveta silova (this issue) story how their collective childhood memories fashioned portals through which they could “enter and exit different worlds, as well as a space—and time.” portals afforded an imaginative, collaborative, and scholarly interval for their common worlding. moreover, authors in this special issue engage with the speculative in ways that interrupt tropes of human exceptionalism and instead reposition the child as inextricably entangled with a host of human and more-than-human existents. the diverse collection of articles showcases what is possible when the speculative is engaged “as a mode of inquiry” to think-with challenges of contemporary childhoods, including the climate crisis (kupferman & gibbons, 2019). chellet’s title also indicates a grappling with what constitutes “reality,” while its precursor “crossing” conveys a trembling of solid(ified) meaning. in its verb form, crossing can signify movements of traversing, overlapping, and intersecting, but it can also mean thwarting, obstructing, and resisting. hard lines between the real and imaginary both intersect and are foiled in several articles in this issue. engaging with the imaginary in opposition to the real is revealed as a strategy to “maintain the ontological duality [of ] western scientific discourse” (pretti et al., this issue) that values rationality above all else; instead, we might be open and attuned to the “activation of worlds.” sometimes cuts do have to made (barad, 2007), but when we repeat too many in the same place, worlds and the borders between them get hardened. janet seow (this issue) explores these themes as she thinks-with young binti from nnedi okorafor’s novella of the same name. binti is making her way at the intersection of worlds—her home march 2022 3 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor on earth with the himba in namibia and her life in space at a speculative university called oomza uni among alien creatures. seow shows how binti thwarts stereotypes of black childhoods as she manoeuvres back and forth between worlds and between child and adult identifications and response-abilities—the crossings are not easy. the desire to erect hard borders between real and fantasy reflects a particular way of organizing worlds. a turn to the speculative might help us approach the facts of the (real) world differently. as ruha benjamin (2016) prompts, “the facts, alone, will not save us…we are drowning in ‘the facts’ of inequality and injustice” (p. 2). facts relay a partial view of the world as is; facts cannot imagine the world as it might be. this is another reason why i think the speculative is so important. in its attempt to “reimagine and rework all that is taken for granted about the current structure of the social world—alternatives to capitalism, racism, and patriarchy,” speculative fiction apportions “windows into alternative realities, even if it is just a glimpse, to challenge ever-present narratives of inevitability as they relate to both technology and society” (benjamin, 2016, p. 19). in this issue, bretton varga and erin adams focus analytical speculation on how droids—in part their design, performance, programming, genderization, and maintenance—blur boundaries between human and machine that might refocus our attention on interdependence rather than extraction. shelley o’brien (this issue) reinterprets the inevitability of e-wastelands as a speculative production of toxic ongoingness wherein children become with others, including contaminated species, technologies, and places. o’brien tells a story of “collaborative survival” that refuses to disavow the “contaminated diversity” of our futures (tsing, 2015, p. 32). what follows are some additional highlights of this issue’s speculative contributions, beginning with the articles from research. downey provides a close reading of children’s books by two mi’kmaw authors, allan syliboy and rebecca thomas, in order to grapple with the potential incommensurabilities and alliances of posthumanism, speculative fiction, and indigenous cosmologies. in “(re)envisioning childhoods with mi’kmaw literatures,” downey extends speculative temporalities to include “very old futures (re)emergent from very old stories” in ways where past-present-future are not linear formations but recursive relations. within these stories are pedagogical possibilities “built on reciprocity and mutual accountability,” which impart lessons of sustainability and consent that might help us to face up to the problems of the anthropocene. downey further sets out how the parameters of speculative fiction and posthumanism might bend to engage with “mi’kmaw mythopoetic tradition,” particularly how temporality is fluid, land is teacher, and literacy is about reading the cosmos and not just the written word. downey plays at the edges in his analyses—he wonders about the possibilities of “stretching science to include indigenous knowledges, stretching fiction to include the ontologically real mythopoetic, stretching speculation to include the recursive return of a future that has already been.” downey sees potential for radical, reciprocal, “very old futures” that are always already entangled within the “animacy of the world” all around us. o’brien is moved by vital materialist perspectives to “dismantle, rather than reiterate, binaries such as culture and nature, and think-with the possibilities for multispecies kin in ruined landscapes.” in the first section of “speculating the symbio: possibilities for multispecies and multi-entity world making in childhood,” o’brien disassembles individualistic figurations of the child defined by positivistic child development knowledge and established in opposition to powerful, all-knowing adults. this deconstructive work makes way for a reconstructive method (taylor, 2013) in the form of speculative fiction. in the latter part of the article, o’brien offers us “the symbio,” a speculative story of “bird-child-microbe-dog-e-waste relations as a playful and generative means of imagining robust survival for children on a contaminated planet.” set on an e-wasteland of human-caused contamination in a near-future toronto, a genderless child-figure, dogs, and microbes “intra-act as multispecies holobionts” to create community through coconstructing a livable nest of toxic garbage for their bird kin. amid the slime are pedagogical possibilities for disrupting romanticized nature discourses of rewilding, reimagining play with contaminated mates and materials and repositioning the child as not a solitary subject but “right in the thick of march 2022 4 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor things, where they most certainly already are.” the symbio is a speculative envisioning of a contaminated, lively common world. writing in a collective “we,” pretti, jiang, nielsen, goebel, and silova share their experimentation with collective biography. instead of a straightforward methodological practice, “memories of a girl between worlds: speculative common worldings” spins a diffractive tale of speculative fabulation that shows worlds in the making. the authors combine place, play, animals, mermaids, breath, and temporal dislocations to challenge what counts as real/fantasy and adult/child. they (re)claim their lived experiences of dreams and dreaming as both “portals to other worlds” and the “the real life-worlds that [they] inherited, shared, and cohabited with human and more-than-human others.” within these worlds are stories, games, feelings, transformations, desires and so much more—and neither the waking world nor the dream assert possession. in moving across space and time, body and memory, girl and group, these authors see pedagogical pedagogies for multispecies and intragenerational play that is radically open and receptive to the “visible and invisible worlds” that surround us as participants in a pluriverse. in “nnedi okorafor’s binti: african science fiction and the reimagined black girl,” seow offers a reading of binti with clear intent: to disturb and counteract deficit constructions of black childhoods. with young binti as her companion, seow demonstrates how africanfuturism can reclaim in the here and now a “reimagined future for the black child (and the black female in particular) beyond adult confines and beyond the stereotypes of an underachieving, hypersexualized, and unintelligent other.” indigenous african ways of knowing take flight in the novella’s outerspace setting, and they are also shown to be inseparable from land in ways the combine science with magic and the past with the future. for example, the red clay (otjize) that covers binti’s skin and the mathematical codes plaited in her hair demonstrate how “african science and technoculture are interlaced with traditional practices and beliefs” that are embodied and relational. with binti, seow defamiliarizes sentimental ideas of diverse childhoods and works toward refiguring black childhoods as place-based ecologies that are both grounded and out of this world. in “d032 n07 c0mpu73: exploring (post)human bodies and worlds with/in droidial(ity) and narrative contexts,” varga and adams consider how speculative literacies might create spaces for nonhuman and human relational becomings. they contest the assumption that children are passive recipients of children’s literature and describe how children are attuned to the affective capacities of nonhumans in ways that might provoke anxiety and fear in those who desire the boundary maintenance of hierarchical dualisms (e.g., natural/artificial, child/adult, human/nonhuman). they draw on research wherein children show a receptivity to “alternative possible presents” and exercise care and concern for how droids ought to be treated. varga and adams then offer an innovative and interruptive reading of three picturebooks that have robots as central figures. they do so by writing in and out of the publishers’ official synopses. they “plug in” posthuman concepts to short-circuit simplistic interpretations and enact how “posthumanism can be a way to decenter the human and the child in children’s literature.” they propose a framework of droidiality to redirect our attention “beyond human bodies” while simultaneously confronting the ethical instabilities shadowing the constitution of the non/human. they conclude with provocations for students to create posthuman writings that explore and experiment with the relational interdependence of children, droids, and worlds. a contribution to the ideas in practice section comes from binnendyk and her article “reconceptualizing inclusion through anti-bias curriculum.” binnendyk pulls from her multiple roles as a mother, educator, childcare director, and graduate student to recenter relations with more-than-human existents (e.g., bees and dragons) in early years settings. she proposes the provocative figuration of a “futurity of inclusion” as an invitation to collectively cultivate learning spaces “for living well together.” binnendyk’s reflective wonderings are an example of how we can begin march 2022 5 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor to unsettle the humancentrism of our early years’ practices and “welcome the voices and stories…of nonhuman subjects” into community. as expressed in the call for papers for this special issue, we were seeking speculative works/worldings that could “expand our own visions of what is possible” in childhood studies (benjamin, 2018, para. 20, emphasis in original). authors in this issue accepted this challenge in different ways: they played with form and format through font, size, colour, and emphasis; they played with ideas in ways not delimited by conventional scholarly analysis—some wrote stories; they played with child-figures in ways that did not reproduce imaginaries of childhood innocence or heroic narratives of redemption but got at how child-figures intra-act relationally with/in their worlds. fikile nxumalo and kihana miraya ross (2019) see speculative fiction as creating “openings for imagining what kinds of early childhood pedagogy might be possible within an ethics of radical relationality” (p. 509). taken together, i think these authors and articles have extended these openings and enacted a speculative ethics of possibility. acknowledgments i would first like to offer my thanks to the authors who took up the call for papers in ways i never imagined— your work pushes me in new directions and confirms for me the value of the speculative for childhood studies. appreciation is also extended to the reviewers who were thoughtful and generous with their time and expertise. lastly, i want to acknowledge the guidance, patience, and continued support of meagan montpetit, without whom this issue would not have materialized. thank you. 1 i extend deep gratitude to alejandro chellet for allowing the use of his image. to learn more about his work, please visit his website http://www.alejandrochellet.info/ and social media @alejandro.chellet and @alex.chellet.studio. 2 the catalogue for the exhibition can be viewed here: https://annewoelk.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/the_future_we_want_small.pdf 3 photo credit creative commons license: leif bryne, “refugees welcome bring your families (wien),” available at https://www.flickr. com/photos/49376052@n00/28668171035 4 see, for example, moustafa bayoumi’s (2022) opinion piece “they are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of ukraine”; wajahat ali’s (2022) article in the daily beast; and stephanie hegarty’s (2022) report “ukraine conflict: nigeria condemns treatment of africans.” march 2022 6 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references ali, w. (2022, march 4). it’s good to be a white refugee. the daily beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-good-to-be-a-white-refugee anzaldúa, g. (1987). borderlands: the new mestiza = la frontera. spinsters/aunt lute. barad, k. (2007). meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. duke university press. bayoumi, m. (2022, march 2). they are “civilised” and “look like us”: the racist coverage of ukraine. the guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civilised-european-look-like-us-racist-coverage-ukraine benjamin, r. (2016). racial fictions, biological facts: expanding the sociological imagination through speculative methods. catalyst, 2(2), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v2i2.28798 benjamin, r. (2018, july 16). black afterlives matter: cultivating kinfulness as reproductive justice. boston review. http://bostonreview. net/race/ruha–benjamin–black–afterlives–matter de la cadena, m., & blaser, m (eds.). (2018). a world of many worlds. duke university press. common worlds research collective. (2020). learning to become with the world: education for future survival. background paper for unesco futures of education initiative. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374032 crawley, a. (2015). otherwise, ferguson. interfictions online: a journal of interstitial arts, 5. http://interfictions.com/otherwisefergusonashon-crawley/ kupferman d., & gibbons, a. (eds.). (2019). childhood, science fiction, and pedagogy: children ex machina. springer. haraway, d. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. duke university press. hegarty, s. (2022, february 28). ukraine conflict: nigeria condemns treatment of africans. bbc news. https://www.bbc.com/news/worldafrica-60555650 law, j. (2015). what’s wrong with a one-world world? distinktion: journal of social theory, 16(1), 126–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/160 0910x.2015.1020066 nxumalo, f., & ross, k. m. (2019). envisioning black space in environmental education for young children. race ethnicity and education, 22(4), 502–524. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1592837 puig de la bellacasa, m. (2017). matters of care: speculative ethics in more than human worlds. university of minnesota press. rich, a. (1993). what is found there: notebooks on poetry and politics. w.w. norton. samatar, s. (2015, april 9). against the normative world. the new inquiry. https://thenewinquiry.com/against-the-normative-world/ sheldon, r. (2016). the child to come: life after the human catastrophe. university of minnesota. taylor, a. (2013). reconfiguring the natures of childhood. routledge. tsing, a. (2015). the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalistic ruins. princeton university press. united nations geneva & perception change. (2020). international art contest: “the future we want.” https://annewoelk.files.wordpress. com/2021/01/the_future_we_want_small.pdf july 2021 51 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research making kin with plastic through aesthetic experimentation louisa penfold and nina odegard louisa penfold is a postdoctoral fellow in early childhood education at the harvard graduate school of education. her doctoral research (2015–2019), which was run as a partnership between the university of nottingham, tate gallery, and the whitworth art gallery (uk), looked at the design of young children’s learning environments in modern art museums. louisa’s writing on children’s art education has been published in mit’s journal of design and science and the australian. she also runs the blog art play children learning. email: louisa_penfold@gse.harvard.edu nina odegard is an associate professor at the faculty of teacher education and international studies at oslo metropolitan university. her doctoral research explored the phenomenon and concept of aesthetic exploration in young children’s encounters with recycled materials in a remida centre. prior to this, nina worked as a project leader at a creative recycle centre and as a pedagogical supervisor across early childhood centres in norway. her work is inspired by the reggio emilia approach. she is also the author of the norwegian book reuse as a creative force: when matter comes to matter. email: odegaa@oslomet.no plastic on a damaged planet social scientists have argued that we live in the anthropocene, an era in which all planetary action is shaped by human activity (crutzen, 2006). beginning with the industrial revolution, this geological age has produced widespread environmental damage to ecological systems through drought, heavy rain, and rising global temperatures. within anthropocene debates, plastic has been critiqued for its destructive effect on the environment (zalasiewicz et al., 2016). humans’ overuse and misuse of the material is evidenced by the introduction of plastic to the ocean’s multispecies food chains (silverman, 2007). a recent assessment of waterways predicts that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by the year 2050 (united nations, 2017). at present, there are around 80,000 tons of plastic in the great pacific garbage patch (lebreton et al., 2018), most existing as microplastics embedded as sediment on the seafloor (marshall, 2019). such discarded plastic can be understood as a monument of what society once valued and has thrown away (hird, 2013). as a consequence of this environmental destruction, public consciousness has positioned plastic as a common enemy of living things, producing a singular discourse regarding human-plastic relations. however, as living bodies merge with plastic, the relationship between the material, livings things and the planet is becoming increasingly intra-related, blurred, and complex (gasperi et al., 2018; kraftl, 2020; reinertsen, 2018). reggio emilia educators spearheaded the connection between discarded materials, environmental sustainability, and early childhood education through the generation of remida centres, or creative reuse centres, around the world (fondazione reggio children, n.d.; gandini & kaminsky, 2005). this pedagogy emphasizes the importance recent scholarship in childhood studies has raised concerns about humancentric, singular discourses regarding human-plastic relations. as a result, questions of how to develop new forms of learning with materials in environmental education are now an important issue for researchers, educators, and policymakers. this paper activates a feminist new materialist ontology to position plastic as an active participant in the formation of knowledge. drawing on visual imagery of children’s and artists’ aesthetic experimentations, we explore the intra-related and complex relationship between plastic, children, and the planet. haraway’s concept of making kin is operationalized to highlight plastic’s multidimensional complexities as both a destructive and creative force, producing a novel framework for understanding and learning with plastic in early childhood education. key words: feminist new materialisms; aesthetics; plastic; early childhood education; anthropocene july 2021 52 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of aesthetics, inquiry-based learning, and atelierista culture in early childhood education (carlsen, 2015, 2018; girak, 2015; iorio et al., 2017). research undertaken by odegard (2012, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c) and odegard and rossholt (2016) has investigated waste discourses and recycled materials in remida centres through an intra-active ontology. from this perspective, intra-activity is understood as the coming together of people and the world in which meaning and matter are inextricably bound (barad, 2003, 2007). scholarship merging reggio emilia philosophy with new materialist theories (kind, 2014; murris et al., 2018; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2017) has contemplated the significance of materials in early childhood education and theorized the encounters and explorations that emerge from reggio practice (odegard, 2021). this research has been extended by molloy-murphy (2018, 2020), whose doctoral study reiterated the need to move away from humancentric discourses by acknowledging plastic’s agentic force in early childhood settings. she calls for a reformed “pedagogy of hope” that reconsiders what it means to live sustainably on an ecologically challenged planet. this article builds on the aesthetic aspects of remida practices and combines them with a feminist new materialist ontology to open up a novel framework for understanding and learning with plastic in early childhood education. beyond remida centres, human-plastic-waste relations have gained increasing attention in childhood studies over recent years (kraftl, 2020; pacini-ketchabaw, 2013, 2020; pacini-ketchabaw & kummen, 2016; taylor, 2013). this work has raised important questions around how children’s lives are being affected by plastic within the anthropocene. hodgins et al. (2020) argue that early childhood educators’ need to present innovative and “shiny” learning environments constructs a tension when recycled materials are used as educational resources: our actions to reduce, reuse, and recycle (being good citizens) sit alongside our actions to buy/bring into the classroom stuff to enrich children’s experiences in an inquiry (being good teachers), and both sets of actions are buoyed by neoliberal colonial individualist logic. (p. 13) studies undertaken in canadian preschools (pacini-ketchabaw, 2019, 2020) have mobilized a materialist pedagogy to position the material at the forefront of classroom practices, helping to reframe understandings of waste in early education. children’s play with recycled “junk” materials has also been studied by macrae (2008, 2011), who argues for the need to resist reducing children’s interactions with materials as simple representations of ideas and feelings. human-waste-material relations have also been foregrounded by osgood and robinson (2019) and osgood (2019a, 2019b), who critically examine the coming together of young children, lego, and glitter in early childhood settings, drawing attention to environmental questions relating to aesthetics, materiality, and waste. while previous childhood research has acknowledged the complexity of plastic in early childhood education, a multidimensional discourse surrounding the material has yet to significantly permeate teaching practices, particularly concerning the selection of learning environment materials. as a result, questions of how to develop new forms of learning with plastic that acknowledges its multidimensional potentialities are now an important issue for researchers, educators, and policymakers. activating a feminist new materialist ontology feminist new materialism, described as an ontology of relational learning with material, place, human, and nonhuman actors (molloy-murphy, 2020), has gained increasing popularity over the past 20 years as a mode of cultural, social, and political inquiry across disciplines, including quantum physics (barad, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2014), critical cultural theory (bennett, 2010; coole & frost, 2010; van der tuin, 2011), biology (haraway, 2016; paulson, 2019), gender studies (fox & alldred, 2015), and posthumanist theory (braidotti, 2013). the ontology acknowledges the active, participatory, and unpredictable role of matter in the formation of knowledge. by producing a new understanding and renewed emphasis on materiality, feminist new materialism flattens the ontological divide between people and the physical world so that they are in a state of mutual transformation with one another (lenz taguchi, 2018). exploring plastic-waste-matter relations is situated within broader discourses of environmental education. research exploring the intra-relationship between children and materials has a decade-long history in childhood studies (hultman & lenz taguchi, 2010) with more recent scholarship exploring the posthumanist nature/culture july 2021 53 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research divide and material agency in early childhood education (hohti, 2016; rautio 2013; taylor et al., 2013; tesar & arndt, 2016). further studies have explored the implementation of feminist new materialist methods in childhood studies (common worlds research collective, 2020; hodgins, 2019, kind, 2014; malone, 2020; murris, 2020; nxumalo, 2020; ringrose et al., 2018; somerville, 2016). this work has drawn attention toward the inextricable relationship between children and more-than-human entities such as materials, technology, weather, and ecological systems. materials have been drawn on to produce new ways of thinking with and through the world (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2016; pacini-ketchabaw & boucher, 2019). as osgood and robinson (2019) articulate, this ontology draws attention toward children’s bodily positions in early childhood contexts, inviting researchers to immerse themselves in the material-discursive entanglements that shape practice and to be attuned to the means by which children resist, challenge, indulge, and transgress gendered ways of becoming through their interand intra-actions with humans (e.g., peers, parents, educators), non-humans (e.g., material, animal), and the more-than-humans (e.g., computers). (p. 37) in line with this research, we understand materials, including plastic, as active and vibrant forces that intra-act with children to produce new ways of thinking and being in early childhood education (barad, 2003, 2007, 2014; bennett, 2010; braidotti, 2013). making kin with plastic this paper mobilizes haraway’s (2016) concept of making kin to construct a multidimensional framework for understanding and learning with plastic in early childhood education. we understand making kin as a way of thinking about humans’ relationship with the more-than-human world that acknowledges all living beings as sharing a common “flesh” (haraway, 2016). haraway articulates this as a process in which “we relate, think, world, and tell stories through and with other stories, worlds, knowledges, thinkings, yearnings” (p. 97). by drawing on the material of plastic and children’s aesthetic experimentation with it, we explore the intra-related, complex, and blurred relationship among plastic, children, and the planet. from this perspective, kin making is used to blur human and nonhuman entities and so we can coexist and cocreate each other through our coexistence (malone et al., 2020.) in this paper, we operationalize a feminist new materialist ontology and “making kin” through data generated from two separate doctoral research projects undertaken in norway and the united kingdom. the first was an action research study looking at how the material practices of contemporary artists can be used to support young children’s learning in modern art museums (penfold, 2019a, 2019b, 2020; penfold & turner, 2020). the second study explored the concept of aesthetic explorations and the complex intra-actions among children, recycled materials, tools, and the physical environment in a remida centre (odegard, 2021). between 2017 and 2019, the authors copresented three conference presentations exploring children’s aesthetic experimentation with plastic (penfold et al., 2017; penfold & odegard, 2018, 2019; figures 1 and 2 illustrate plastic materials shared in these sessions). these presentations generated new connections and insights on plastic, aesthetics, and early childhood education across the two studies. visual images of plastic and children’s play from the projects with it are reread and reexplored collaboratively in this article. these images are not positioned as representations of children’s experiences but as provocations to push our thinking further. we argue for a new framework for understanding and learning with plastic in early childhood education that acknowledges the material’s multidimensional and complex potentials that emerge from paying careful attention to its physical properties and their intra-actions with children. july 2021 54 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. plastic materials presented as part of a workshop at the 2018 reconceptualizing early childhood education conference in copenhagen, denmark. image credit: louisa penfold. figure 2. plastic materials presented as part of the “children’s learning with new, found, and recycled stuff” symposium at the 2017 australian association for research in education conference. image credit: nina odegard. july 2021 55 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research exploring plastic’s potentiality through aesthetic experimentation aesthetics is a complex concept that is difficult to define, articulate, or classify (knight, 2018). articulated by vecchi (2010) as a polysensorial approach to forming relationships with oneself, other people, and the world around them, aesthetics can include the lighting, texture, colour, materials, space, furnishings, equipment, and layout of a learning environment (macnaughton & williams, 2009). while what is considered beautiful varies significantly across cultures, aesthetics can be understood as the process of giving attention and care to the arrangement and layout of physical spaces (dissanayake, 2000). aesthetics become experimental when different components of an environment actively extend thinking and become a multisensory, beautiful, valuable, and provocative experience (odegard, 2021). building on grosz’s (2008) work, odegard (2021) conceptualizes aesthetic explorations as a process that produces effects, sensations, and intensities. subsequently, aesthetics can be understood as a multifaceted concept that enables objects to be more than they are (grosz, 2008). aesthetic experimentation opens up new pathways for thinking and becoming with plastic’s physical properties. plastic is made from natural and organic materials like gas, cellulose, coal, and oil. these components are processed in intricate ways, beginning with the distillation of crude oil that is then separated into chemical compounds (geyer et al., 2017). these are then heated and moulded into objects like buckets, containers, and buttons (see figure 3). plastic’s ability to change form allows it takes on diverse functions, giving it great potential for aesthetic experimentation. figure 3. recycled plastic cups and coffee capsules at a remida centre in norway. image credit: nina odegard, from the book reuse as a creative force (2015). plastic as a material for artists’ experimentation artists, whether adult or child, transform materials into artistic mediums through exercising careful aesthetic control over a material (eisner, 1971). this watchful attention to materials distinguishes the activity from other acts of experience. eisner (1971) writes: for a material to become a medium, appropriate transformation must take place. such transformation july 2021 56 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research requires intelligent decision-making in the selection of the material to begin with, as well as during the process of creation. (p. 5) artists’ experimentation and decision making with materials can be drawn on to produce an alternate face of plastic that challenges singular discourses on the material. aesthetic experimentation with plastic can be traced to the beginning of the 20th century, when the material was first produced (davis & turpin, 2015). since this time, artists and designers have turned their attention toward developing sustainable practices with plastic (davis, 2015; kane, 2015; moholy-nagy, 1947; solanki & corbin, 2018; williams, 2009), leading to further ecological thinking and environmental awareness in contemporary art (boetzkes, 2009). figure 4. jessica den hartog, “recolored: a new way of recycling” (2018). image credit: jessica den hartog. for example, dutch designer jessica den hartog (2020) experiments with recycled plastic to produce colourful 2-d and 3-d objects. she produces new ways of working with the material by melting, fusing, and reconfiguring the plastic, as illustrated in figure 4. as she does this, the plastic produces unique configuring of meanings, feelings, and matter and opens up new thought processes. haraway (2016) talks about fabric weavers as a “cosmological performance” in which the artist constructs relationality and connectedness into the material through the process of making. like fabric weavers, den hartog and the plastic she works with create, entwine, and construct stories through their transformations. by doing so, her experimentation opens up new discourses and potentialities for plastic in creative learning. children and plastic’s playful intra-actions plastic and children intra-act in unpredictable ways to reconfigure one another over time. while aesthetics has been highlighted as critical in constructing pluralistic, collective, and expressive ways of being (delors, 1996), the arts have been marginalized from school curricula around the globe (thomson et al., 2019). as a result, opportunities for children to engage in the world in aesthetic and sensory-driven ways have become increasingly limited. at july 2021 57 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the same time, play-based learning has been trivialized as not being sufficiently focused on academic skills (moss, 2012), limiting children’s ability to experiment with the material world. while opportunities for children’s playful aesthetic experiences in schools have reduced, many modern art museums are developing exciting material play offerings for young audiences. plastic has the ability to be transformed by children while also provoking new thought processes in return. to explore these intra-actions, the whitworth art gallery in manchester (uk) curated a children’s “atelier” (art studio) activity inspired by david batchelor’s sculpture “plato’s disco” (2015). the atelier environment presented plastic as a material that children could use to explore the concept of colour mixing. during the activity, 3-year-old claire (a pseudonym) experimented with sticking cellophane shapes to a window with a water spray bottle (figure 5). the cellophane invited aesthetic experimentation relating to phenomena including colour mixing, transparency, opacity, and texture. figures 5 & 6. a plastic/colour-mixing art studio activity at the whitworth art gallery, uk. image credit: louisa penfold. claire then moved to another window with a long strip of cellophane hanging off it. she sprayed the water onto it until the material’s properties transformed, from hanging in front of the window to adhering to the glass (figure 6). the water simultaneously ran down the cellophane until the dye from the plastic began to form a pool of purple on the floor. the plastic, water, and claire’s thinking intra-acted as these transformations occurred to produce new starting points for aesthetic experimentation. this vignette illustrates children’s need for playful intra-actions with plastic’s aesthetic qualities. doing so allows them to understand the messy, situated, and complex possibilities of the material in their lives. these intra-actions also challenge previous human-centered approaches to play-based learning that position children as innocent beings who exist in a protected space from more-than-human forces such as plastic. july 2021 58 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research plastic as a provocation for children’s aesthetic exploration in remida centres, surplus recycled plastic is donated by local industries for children’s creative experimentation (as illustrated in figures 7 and 8). the origins of remida centres can be attributed to the italian town of reggio emilia that set up the first space of its kind in 1996. as a result, remida centres share the philosophical underpinnings and practices of the reggio emilia early childhood approach. for example, remida centres are based on cultural and pedagogical projects that encourage environmental sustainability (fondazione reggio children, n.d.; vecchi, 2010, 2012). remida centres collect, store, and exhibit a wide variety of recycled materials, including industry offcuts, surplus supplies from commercial productions, and faulty goods that would otherwise be regarded as junk. consequentially, the material content of each remida centre is based on the stock of local industries and businesses. these materials, including recycled plastic, have a second life as a creative force at the centre (odegard, 2015). these second lives make it possible for humans to encounter big amounts and varieties of materials in many different ways, which allows for thinking through ideas of making kin through getting to know the materials. the plastic in the remida centre comes in many different sizes, colours, surfaces, and shapes. these various physical forms invite unique opportunities for children’s aesthetic experimentation. aesthetic experimentation with recycled materials, similar to aesthetic explorations, can be defined as the hands-bodies-materials-light-shadow-darkness-colour intra-actions that are produced by the coming together of complex phenomena in an aesthetic environment (odegard, 2015). in these aesthetic explorations, plastic invites children to narrate, imagine, and play in divergent and experimental ways. children’s aesthetic explorations with materials, such as plastic, are significant because they allow the children to think, do, and experiment in different ways, including through their senses. these materials open up new ways for children to build relationships with the world and vice versa. getting to know plastic, and making kin with plastic’s properties and possibilities and their destructive sides, cultivates thinking-and doing-with the material, opening up children’s capacities to respond. from this perspective, aesthetics is integral in constructing a conceptualization of how children encounter the world beyond a focus on cognition. figure 7 (left). materials are laid out at a remida centre in norway. image credit: nina odegard. figure 8 (right). a child plays with plastic materials at the centre. image credit: nina odegard. july 2021 59 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research plastic as a material for setting children’s thinking in motion vecchi (2012, as cited in carlsen, 2015) stresses that experimentation with materials should be based on an ecological mindset that emphasizes connections between children, materials, and the environment. vecchi’s ideas echo haraway’s invitations to kin making (haraway, 2016, p. 145). figure 9 shares visual documentation of the intra-actions between recycled plastic and a young child inside the remida’s darkened room. the plastic sheet is transparent, which makes this material especially interesting to layer, to look through, to use against a screen, and to explore light and colour. the child explores the large plastic sheet’s properties and potentials, its transparency, and how light and colour change. this image, taken during the second author’s research (odegard 2019a, 2019b), illustrates children’s aesthetic explorations with unique recycled materials. by layering the sheet with other transparent sheets, the colour of each transparent plastic material, including stage light filters, transforms into new colours that both the child and the researcher find intriguing. these intra-actions and transformations are then moved on to the children’s bodies, clothes, and spaces. by looking through the plexiglass, the material entities change into something new. through kin-making and letting themselves be affected by these relationships, new forms of companionship arise between the materials and the children. figure 9. child playing with recycled objects at a remida centre. image credit: nina odegard. plastic objects seem to set children’s thinking in motion (odegard, 2021). for example, children’s play with plastic provokes storytelling, invites creative actions, shapes new ideas, and evokes memories. the plastic’s properties engage children in aesthetic explorations with the phenomena of transparency, translucency, mobility, shadow, light, july 2021 60 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research and colour. kin making ties relationships through material play. the aesthetics and phenomena of light, colour, and shadow become companions (odegard, 2019c). by engaging in play with materials, which haraway (2016) understands as arts for living and dying on a damaged planet, we tie threads between human and nonhuman entities by making kin with plastics. a child’s response to the plastic material’s vibrant matter could generate responses that make a difference, raising awareness about consumption and sustainability as an important and possible side effect. constructing child-plastic kinship through aesthetic experimentation while previous research has looked at the role of aesthetics (dissanayake, 2000; vecchi, 2010; macnaughton & williams, 2009) and environmental sustainability in childhood studies (girak, 2015; iorio et al., 2017; molloy-murphy, 2018, 2020 pacini-ketchabaw, 2013, 2019, 2020), this paper merges these debates to produce a multifaceted framework for learning with plastic in contemporary childhood research. if kinship involves caring and being kind, caring for plastics is to acknowledge the material’s complex and often contradictory constituents. this paper has explored: • plastic as a provocation for children’s aesthetic exploration • plastic as a material for artists’ experimentation • children and plastic’s playful transformations • plastic as a material for setting children’s thinking in motion. questions of when, how, and if we should use plastic at all are at the forefront of plastic’s use in early childhood education. while government recommendations encourage educators to reduce the use of single-use plastics in classrooms (sparrow, 2018), it is also essential to acknowledge that the material is already here on our planet and therefore already an immediate threat to the earth. simultaneously, if plastic is cared for and recycled, it can be reused for years to come, making it a valuable and sustainable resource. examining plastic through the lens of making kin cultivated the capacity for us to respond to these tensions. kin making is the process of coming to know plastic in all of its complexities and contradictions. this awareness then becomes a form of activism (alaimo, 2016). by sitting with the messy uncertainty of what is produced from the intra-actions between children and plastics, we acknowledge the complexity of forming ethical response-ability with the material within the anthropocene. these often contradictory facets of plastic are webs like those that haraway (2016) describes as being “necessary for learning to stay with the trouble” (p. 216). in this paper, we have not sought to solve the problems plastic has generated but rather engage with the complex and often contradictory relations among the material, children, and the planet. making kin and aesthetic experimentation are integral in recognizing and productively working within plastic’s paradox in early childhood education. by operationalizing making kin as an analytical framework, we have produced a way of responding to the challenge of plastic’s existence in childhood and environmental studies. we have drawn attention to the many ways in which plastic travels around, into, through, and out of children’s everyday lives. making kin produces a mode of inquiring into how sustainable, ethical, and response-able practices can be developed with plastic in a particular time, place, and context. this paradigm opens up possibilities for new relations in-between human and nonhuman entities such as plastic. by doing so, it also questions relationships with the material that are simultaneously playful, aesthetic, ethical, political, and hopeful. however, if this framework is to be implemented in early years practices, there is a need for educators to work with complexity, uncertainty, and risk in their everyday practices. looking toward a destructive and creative future with plastics this paper illustrates what a new and creative form of learning with plastic might look like in action. by engagjuly 2021 61 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research ing with plastic’s multiple facets through the two separate research projects, our thinking has become entangled with plastic’s ethical complexities. by attending to the material, its properties, and its potentials, new perspectives have emerged that dissolve dichotomous thinking about people/matter, standardization/creativity, and destructive/constructive thought. these intra-actions with the material are significant because “each one reconfigures the world in its becoming—and yet they never leave us; they are sedimented into our becoming, they become us” (barad, 2007, p. 394). we have attended to plastic and its unique properties to construct a framework that acknowledges plastic as both a destructive and a creative force. however, we need to continue to generate deeper knowledge of the material to further explore its aesthetic potential, stories, histories, and properties. with this framework, we will continue to explore the multiplicity of what plastic means and offers to the future of early childhood education on our environmentally challenged planet. by thinking with plastic and exploring its numerous destructive and productive potentials, we have destabilized a singular discourse on the material to produce new ways of thinking with plastic that acknowledge its multiple potentials for learning in early childhood education. we therefore propose a paradigm shift in pedagogy toward one that values creativity of thought and collective aesthetic processes that pave the way for new ways of living on a damaged planet. july 2021 62 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alaimo, s. 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(2012). blå blomster, bitre blader [blue flowers, bitter leaves]. fagbokforlaget vigmostad & bjørke as. williams, g. (2009). from industrial waste to objects of beauty. new york times, february 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/t-magazine/recycling-waste-into-objects.html zalasiewicz, j., waters, c., ivar do sul, j., corcoran, p., barnosky, a., cearreta, a., edgeworth, m., gałuszka, a., jeandel, c., leinfelder, e., mcneill, j., steffen, w., summerhayes, c., wagreich, m., williams, m., wolfe, a. & yonan, y. (2016). the geological cycle of plastics and their use as a stratigraphic indicator of the anthropocene. anthropocene, 13, 4–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2016.01.002 november 2019 85 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research authentic family learning: reconceptualizing intergenerational education initiatives in jamaica and england through cross-cultural conversation charlotte hardacre and zoyah kinkead-clark charlotte hardacre is a lecturer in the department of health, psychology, and social science at the university of cumbria, where she has been a faculty member since 2014. she teaches a range of undergraduate modules on the working with children and families degree program, with a focus on early childhood education and intergenerational learning. she is also a family learning practitioner, facilitating courses in primary schools in which children and adult family members learn together. charlotte is conducting doctoral research in this field to understand the role of authenticity in family learning. email: charlotte.hardacre@cumbria.ac.uk zoyah kinkead-clark is an early childhood lecturer at the university of the west indies, mona. she is keenly interested in how children are shaped by their experiences in the home and how educators build on these experiences in the classroom. she was a kindergarten teacher for several years, and her current research focus explores how young children, particularly those from lowresource regions, can be provided with greater opportunities to successfully meander the crucial first five years of life, especially in light of the significant challenges many of them face. email: zoyah.kinkeadclark02@uwimona intergenerational learning has gained steady global acceptance as a tool to minimize dissonance among home, school, and community (cartmel et al., 2018; moriarty, 2001; timmons & pelletier, 2014; wainwright & marandet, 2011). while the range of experiences covered in these family learning programs may differ, the overarching goals have often been to provide robust opportunities for collaboration, knowledge building, and strengthening of skills. in jamaica and the uk, family learning programs have had a long history. the jamaican movement for the advancement of literacy (jamal), a family literacy program started in the mid 1970s to address the low levels of literacy across the island, and families and schools together (fast) in the uk serve as examples of two programs that have been very successful in yielding plethoric positive results (national institute of adult continuing education, 2013). this study analyzes a series of cross-cultural conversations between two researchers who are also practitioners who have been intimately involved in family learning programs. these conversations are structured around the six key practices of authentic family learning proposed intuitively by charlotte hardacre (2017). the process involved critical discourse to explore how intergenerational programming is constructed and how it may be reconstructed within our individual contexts. context as noted above, both authors are practitioner-researchers who are currently involved with intergenerational learning activities. one of the authors (zoyah) is the program manager for insights into children’s temperament (insights) in jamaica, an intervention which supports families in replacing harsh disciplinary this paper shares a set of cross-cultural conversations between two family learning practitioner-researchers, one from jamaica and one from england. our concern that global education policies reflect and reproduce a social investment perspective, positioning family learning as a way to generate productive citizens, drives this paper. using charlotte hardacre’s authentic family learning as a conceptual framework, we reexamine our ongoing work with families. an analysis of these cross-cultural conversations reveals that along with valuing the existing agency and identity of participants, there is also a need to balance the role of power enacted by practitioners; ultimately reconceptualizing power as a positive force that does not require inversion, minimization, or removal. key words: social investment; family learning; power; authentic learning november 2019 86 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research practices with more responsive approaches. the other author (charlotte) facilitates family learning courses in the uk, currently as an independent practitioner and previously, between 2009 and 2017, on behalf of a local council as a family english, maths, and language (feml) tutor. through prior cross-cultural conversations about our practice (kinkead-clark & hardacre, 2017), we have uncovered clear differences between our contexts, including funding levels, social norms, and learning environments, while also discovering rich seams of similarity, such as the emphasis placed on intergenerational education in the early years as a way to ameliorate social problems including unemployment, adult literacy, and antisocial behaviour (wainwright & marandet, 2017). to provide context for the analysis of our cross-cultural conversations, an outline of each of the intergenerational programs we are involved with is set out below. insights in jamaica insights, in jamaica, is a tripartite temperament-based program working with parents, teachers, and children. to date, insights has been in 38 schools and has impacted 4,923 children, 327 adult family members, and 232 teachers in kingston, st. andrew, manchester, st. ann, and st. catherine. though the program predominantly targets children ages 4 to 5, within the past year the reach has been extended to children in grade 1 in primary school. the program has been in existence in jamaica since 2013 and has the overarching goal to provide parents and teachers with behaviour management strategies and conflict resolution skills. over the course of eight weeks, the program uses intergenerational sessions to help parents develop strategies that can be used to resolve challenging situations they encounter in the home environment. this provides them with an alternative that helps minimize their dependence on harsh disciplinary practices (beating, shouting, or cursing), which is a tremendous social issue in jamaica (bailey, robinson, & coore-desai, 2014). feml in the uk family english, maths, and language (feml), in the uk, is a government-funded adult learning provision which is delivered by local authorities alongside a suite of other programs, including personal and community development and skills for jobs (leeds city council, 2017). the family english courses delivered by charlotte take place during the school day, in primary schools located in areas of high deprivation. the courses are between 8 and 10 weeks long and are attended by nursery or reception-age children and one or two of their adult family members. feml courses are intended to reduce “the cost of supporting vulnerable families, through improved health and well-being, increased engagement with society, positive attitudes to learning, greater confidence and employability” (learning and work institute, 2019, “background,” para. 3). feml is therefore discretely political, as it addresses the needs of the employment market by “upskilling” adults. this functional approach to learning, which takes a narrow, vocational focus (hamilton & burgess, 2011), sits in opposition to emancipatory ideals of education as liberatory and self-directed (friedman, kremer, miguel, & thornton, 2011; herz & sperling 2004; levine, lloyd, greene, & grown, 2008), and it is the tension between these opposing perspectives that led to charlotte’s interest in authentic family learning (hardacre, 2017) as an alternative approach. it is this approach that provides the conceptual framework for the cross-cultural conversations that were analyzed for this paper. literature review as noted above, a working theory of authentic family learning is a touchstone for this paper. thus, to deepen our understanding, we conducted a literature review that considers how an authentic approach to learning is characterized by socially contextual approaches, threatened by deficit perceptions of participants, and bolstered by creating a sense of belonging. november 2019 87 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research socio-contextual learning kristy timmons and janette pelletier (2014) relate rigid and uncompromising approaches that privilege the needs of schools and marginalize the needs of families to deficit models of family support that maintain “a one-way transfer of knowledge, which often excludes parents’ own knowledge and experiences” (p. 513). they argue, in line with kerryn dixon and kelly lewis (2008) and elaine rocha-schmid (2010) that programs would meet the reallife needs more effectively if they took the diverse perspectives and practices of families more fully into account. suggestions for addressing this deficit approach to intergenerational learning point to the benefits of developing a socio-contextual approach that is both family relevant and school relevant (b. l. brown, 1998) and thus authentic and meaningful to all stakeholders. specific steps for moving toward a socio-contextual approach are articulated with much less frequency and detail in the extant literature, although some guiding principles are evidenced. for example, janet goodall and caroline montgomery (2014) suggest that immediate relationships and personalized knowledge of the participants provide a way to move toward more socially situated practice with families. this corresponds with dialogic approaches that are characterized by an interchange of values, ideas, and experiences in a two-way flow between stakeholders. sara lawrence-lightfoot (2004) contrasts this sort of parental engagement, that is fluid, informal, and dialogue based, with the potentially superficial nature of highly ritualized school activities, such as parents’ evenings. a cautionary note about adopting a consultative approach is raised by laurie elish-piper’s (2000) study, which analyzed the social-contextual nature of adult education in urban family literacy programs: avoid tokenism. elishpiper asserts that programs often use a dialogic approach to collect information about family strengths, needs, and goals, but do not use these details to inform the content or structure of courses. this point is developed by donald simpson and mark cieslik (2002), whose research outlines how optimistic initiatives to include participant voice in the development of programs can collapse in practice because of assumptions about parents’ level of skill and confidence and the amount of trust they have in practitioners and programs. this perspective is advanced by karen argent (2007), who discusses how parents’ role in collaborative projects is unintentionally diminished by practitioners who privilege professional knowledge through repeated reference to official processes that lack relevance to parents. a similar point is described by m. c. black (2007), who underscores the importance of conversing with parents without using jargon because of its potential to push them away. correspondingly, julia bryan and lynette henry (2012) call on practitioners who are working with families to: purposefully diminish their roles as the “experts,” respect families’ knowledge and insight, regard each other as valuable resources and assets, involve family members in mutual and equitable decisions about partnerships goals, activities and outcomes, refuse to blame each other and encourage families and communities to define issues. (p. 410) this approach has the potential to build what anthony bryk and barbara schneider (2002) call “relational trust,” which may be lacking between educators and parents who have had poor prior experiences of education, meaning it is hard for either party to understand the motivation or actions of the other. arguably, emphasizing the importance of learning the differences and similarities between each other’s values and beliefs is a practical form of critical pedagogy that has the potential to prompt practitioners to “consider their own identities and contexts, not just those of the community members” (ashworth & bourelle, 2014, p. 64), eventually moving both parties toward more authentic forms of interaction. november 2019 88 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research deficit perceptions several sources in the literature under review here describe how a return to learning in a primary school setting can be a barrier for participants in family learning (brassett-grundy, 2001; kwan & wong, 2016; lexmond, bazalgette, & margo, 2011; moriarty, 2001; wainwright & marandet, 2017; west, 2005). angela brassett-grundy (2001) surveyed nonparticipating parents to find out why they chose not to engage in an intergenerational learning program and found a common reason was a previous unhappy experience of learning at school and concern about entering a formal educational space. similarly, a survey by peter hannon and viv bird (2004) found that low levels of confidence and comfort in educational settings were powerful barriers to engaging in family learning. additionally, unease is evident in the literature about recruiting parents to intergenerational learning programs solely to apply normative ideals about appropriate ways of supporting children’s needs (argent, 2007; wainwright & marandet, 2013). the consequences of this are apparent in bryan and henry’s (2012) study; they point out that “educator attitudes about families and partnerships determine how [educators] treat families and partnerships” (p. 414), suggesting that programs that seek to identify and then improve particular “types” of parents may be rooted in patronizing, pessimistic, or disapproving attitudes, which are unlikely to be explicit but will shape interactions between participant and practitioner. this makes the argument for consciously working to understand differences as opposed to assumptively labelling practices and perceptions that differ from our own as deficient. emma wainwright and elodie marandet (2017) argue that judgmental attitudes about the way families function reflect and reinforce the “professionalization of parenting as a set of skills to be taught, understood and practised” (p. 214). additionally, the use of schools as a space for enacting public policy is a matter of concern for scholars such as kwan and wong (2016), who suggest that because schools are arguably a middle-class institution, with norms that may differ from other socioeconomic groupings, it becomes a foregone conclusion that disadvantage and negative parenting practices are inextricably linked, a claim addressed by lexmond, bazalgette, and margo (2011), who undertook qualitative research in an area with high levels of deprivation, unemployment, and crime in glasgow. lexmond and colleagues found a key feature of daily life “was the presence of familiar and trusted family friends and neighbours, and open communication and trust between parents and children” (p. 87), disrupting the idea that parenting problems are widespread in areas experiencing poverty, a stagnant labour market, and criminality. there was extensive recognition across the literature of the idea that family learning is often rooted in pathologized or deficit perceptions of families (elish-piper, 2000; harris & goodall, 2008; heydon & reilly, 2007; luguetti & oliver, 2017; moriarty, 2001; timmons & pelletier, 2014). in fact, elish-piper (2000) called nearly two decades ago for a move from deficit models of family literacy programs aimed at perceived weaknesses toward strengthsbased approaches, and this call still echoes in more recent work by wainwright and marandet in 2013 and 2017. in the latter, concerns are raised about practitioners casting “a web of inspection and judgement” (wainwright & marandet, 2013, p. 20) in order to recruit parents who are unemployed or have low levels of education to family learning courses so that the social and economic policy interests of the government can be served as opposed to the authentic interests of parents. sense of belonging developing a distinct space for intergenerational learning was raised in a number of sources as a way to tackle a disconnect between parents and settings where family learning classes take place. this is an important solution because, as noted by dolores loughrey and caroline woods (2010), such divides can lead families to “view schools with mistrust and suspicion and ... not see education as having much to do with their everyday lives” (p. 82). november 2019 89 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research creating a welcoming and comfortable environment is a facet of building trust and demonstrating the value a school places on the role of parents. penny lamb (2009) documents a concerning disregard for the way family learning courses are delivered in primary schools in the uk, noting: examples include classes taking place in corners of the staff room with constant interruptions; inappropriate furniture to meet the needs of adults; and courses cancelled because schools require children to be involved in an activity that is seen as a greater priority. (p. 8) kate pahl and sally kelly (2005) suggest that the place created by family learning groups can be understood as a “third space between home and school offering parents and children discursive opportunities drawing on both domains” (p. 91). liz heydon and jill reilly (2007) also use third space thinking to describe how family learning might increase “the value attributed to home activity at school and school activity at home” (p. 157), a suggestion reminiscent of joyce epstein’s (2010) widely cited call for family-like schools and school-like families, or the creation of a bridging space between home and school where schools take on a nurturing and inclusive nature and families reinforce the value of homework, classroom norms, and high engagement with learning. a challenge an authentic practitioner would face, however, is developing truly meaningful activities, as opposed to those mandated by the school (barillas, 2000; sangster, stone, & anderson, 2013). maria del rosario barillas (2000) tackled this challenge by setting out the characteristics of meaningful activities prior to embarking on her intervention. these included the activity reflecting the families’ cultural practices, having a personal element, and being relevant beyond the classroom. another useful definition was framed by elsa auerbach (1989), who drew on paulo freire’s (1970) work to argue that an activity is meaningful “to the extent that it relates to daily realities and helps [people] to act on them” (p. 166). this definition links meaning with context and indicates that acting authentically requires practitioners to engage with parents’ everyday lives and avoid imposing school norms on them. this sort of guidance is useful, but is somewhat limited across the literature reviewed here, and thus a gap has been identified wherein a wide range of scholars describe the nature and benefits of authenticity in learning, but far fewer delineate specific steps for developing authentic practice this study will go some way to addressing this gap by interrogating, as part of a wider set of aims, a specific set of practices that could be followed to achieve an authentic approach to family learning. a journey to authentic family learning the authentic family learning approach emerged from a tension between charlotte’s personal values and the professional and political expectations that acted on her in the role of feml tutor (e.g., the mandatory requirement by the local authority to improve parents’ employability, literacy, and numeracy levels when they were recruited to attend a family learning course in their child’s school, whether they had expressed an interest in this goal or not). the marketing of these courses emphasized spending time with children over the employability and literacy activities. this drive, which was part of the skills for life strategy launched in 2001, also encompassed the mandatory use of decontextualized, mass-produced learning materials that lacked relevance to adult participants’ everyday lives. for example, parents found the experience of completing cloze exercises (i.e., filling in the blanks) based on working in a call centre, or adding punctuation to paragraphs of text about country fairs, disheartening and demotivating, particularly when time devoted to these activities detracted from the amount of time the children would spend in the classroom (hardacre, 2011). the term authentic family learning was chosen because charlotte has developed practice, within the feml context, which involves using materials and activities that are not solely designed for use in school. there are reallife purposes for the practices, and these are arrived at through dialogue and consultation with the parents and november 2019 90 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research children involved in the course. for example, in one setting this involved planning, raising funds for, executing, and celebrating an educational visit to an indoor ski slope. the vast range of discrete literacy tasks within this shared activity were all real. this task included the parents’ interests, a considerable number of meaningful choices, and the parents carrying out the actions, with purpose, in order to complete the task. this type of approach has been referred to as authentic learning by a wide range of scholars, including jacobson, degener, and purcell-gates (2003), maina (2004), lombardi (2007), and hui and koplin (2011). thus, it was as a result of concerns about homogenous and decontextualized approaches to feml that authentic family learning emerged as an approximated and best-fit approach wherein charlotte worked to meet the disparate agendas of funder, practitioner, participant, and setting. consequently, the use of unorthodox and unsanctioned methods of working with families who had not volunteered to be “upskilled” were conceptualized as six key practices (see figure 1) that encapsulate charlotte’s approach to setting up and delivering family learning in a way that is congruent with critical pedagogical values and authentic learning practices. these practices, outlined in table 1 below, shape charlotte’s concept of intergenerational learning and have been selected as the basis for cross-cultural conversations with zoyah. the conversations explored areas of resonance and dissonance with these practices in order to reconceptualize our understanding of intergenerational learning, figure 1. the six key practices of authentic family learning. november 2019 91 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 1: the six key practices of authentic family learning authentic lifeworlds the lifeworld (habermas, 1987) encompasses a wide range of conventions and suppositions about “who we are as people and what we value about ourselves: what we believe, what shocks and offends us, what we aspire to, what we desire and what we are willing to sacrifice” (frank, 2000, para. 16). in authentic family learning, none of these lifeworlds is privileged above another, although power is disproportionately allocated and therefore always relevant and impactful. authentic place the authentic practitioner recognizes the potential for parents feeling they are in a hostile environment and seeks to create a “third space” that is distinct from home and school (pahl & kelly, 2005). seemingly small actions, such as insisting on appropriate rooms with adult-size furniture, disrupt the conventions of family learning courses and set an authentic tone that prioritizes the immediate experiences of the people involved. authentic agendas establishing shared goals focused on real tasks is therefore the most fundamental aspect of authentic family learning, especially given that many families have experienced deficit-based interventions where they were told what is wrong with them. the authentic practitioner will need to establish trust and build constructive relationships with families in order to agree on a shared goal that works for everyone. authentic actions activities in feml programs are often abstract, decontextualized, and prescribed in advance. in contrast, authentic activities are grounded in the lives of the families and involve practitioners and parents co-planning meaningful activities. this can only happen when agendas are explicit and authentic, as these create the boundaries for the choice of actions available to the whole group. authentic relating the roles of trust and reciprocity are significant in this practice. the lack of hierarchy and imposed activity can create suspicion and confusion, while the accepted roles of teacher and student are not being taken up, creating a period of negotiation and, in some cases, boundary testing. during this phase the practitioner should maintain a focus on the shared goal and the enjoyment and engagement with the children. authentic reflection authentic family learning (afl) will never take a static form; it will require constant negotiation and adjustment, a form of steering and control by the practitioner which some may feel belies authenticity, but is in fact the hallmark of afl. adults and children participating in afl are invited to acknowledge and critique power structures through reflection on the impact of these on their own agency. november 2019 92 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research methodology this study is part of a wider set of research in which, as two researchers from different contexts, we engaged in a series of cross-cultural conversations to discuss critical issues relating to intergenerational learning in our respective countries. as suggested by suhonen, saarikoski, and leino-kilpi (2009), cross-cultural research provides a robust opportunity to advance knowledge by taking a global perspective on critical issues. likewise, as proposed by oluwatoyin ilesanmi (2009), cross-cultural research ultimately seeks to remove barriers and bias in research by acknowledging cultural differences while simultaneously reaffirming global similarities. cross-cultural approaches are a useful response to ethnocentric discourses (beiser, 2003; sullivan & cottone, 2010) because of their potential to contextualize researcher interpretations and situate knowledge within local communities. this possibility is demonstrated in a study by widenfelt et al. (2005) which found that ethnocentric definitions of social competence for children resulted in bias and inaccurate conclusions because of the differing, culturally situated meanings attached to the term. this finding indicates one way in which a cross-cultural approach may help researchers “to reconsider conceptualisations that appear to be universal yet are actually based in western standards and perspective” (sullivan & cottone, 2010, p. 360). guided by this aim, we employed naturalistic collaborative enquiry as our methodology (burnard et al., 2006), specifically in the form of a series of cross-cultural conversations in which we sought to reappraise our initial understandings of the purposes and practices of intergenerational learning. as neil haigh (2005) explains, because “conversation is a constant in our personal and professional lives, we are not necessarily inclined to think about it as a research tool” (p. 3). however, in line with senge (1994), baker, kolb, and jensen (2002), and burnard et al. (2006), we position conversation as a valuable context for learning. in doing so, we acknowledge the distinct nature of conversation and the competencies and sensitivities that are required if conversation is to become an occasion for learning. specifically, we contend that our cross-cultural conversations, as expressed by both haigh (2005) and senge (1994), should balance inquiry and advocacy, meaning that participants should both state and justify their initial position while also engaging in an exploration and “critique of the reasons and assumptions associated with their positions” (haigh, 2005, p. 8). thus, conversation has the potential to be a purposeful yet intuitive exploration of extant positions in a dialogue enhanced by distinct features such as “immediacy, personal relevance, rich stories, serendipity, improvisation, an open agenda, permissiveness, and risk-taking” (haigh, 2005, p. 14) which may be found less often in other interactions for research, such as structured interviews or oral surveys. therefore, we sought to use conversation to identify and document our concepts of intergenerational learning by utilizing charlotte’s six key practices of authentic family learning (hardacre, 2017) as categories to discuss one by one. researcher positionality table 2 below compares the jamaican and uk contexts on a number of factors. november 2019 93 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 2. jamaican and uk research contexts jamaican practitioner researcher: zoyah british practitioner researcher: charlotte project manager facilitator program caters to parents, teachers, and children program caters to parents and children predominantly involves inner-city schools in kingston, st. andrew, and st. catherine predominantly involves schools high on deprivation index in northwest england program caters to children 5–6 years old caters to children 0–5 responsibilities in the program include tracking parent outcomes, teachers’ classroom practices responsibilities in the program include supporting employability of parents and improving children’s literacy skills data collection the data gathered for this research was garnered through comparative cross-cultural methodology. this method was purposefully selected because it provides an opportunity to remove boundaries and other limitations on how “knowing” is constructed. likewise, as suggested by junko tanaka-matsumi (2001), cross-cultural research provides an opportunity for researchers to interrogate the similarities and differences across and between cultures. by presenting an emic perspective on our individual experiences with family learning programs, we engaged in a series of cross-cultural conversations. we were able to examine each other’s contexts, life experiences, and perspectives in order to interrogate and compare our individual concepts of family learning within our own contexts. to gather these data, we engaged in approximately 12 hours of conversations via skype over the course of ten meetings. as previously stated, our conversations about family learning were explored in relation to charlotte’s six key practices (hardacre, 2017). we selected this as a framework to find resonance or dissonance with our respective concepts of intergenerational learning. throughout each conversation, we both took notes of statements, points, or topics which we felt were particularly important or significant (hermanowicz, 2002; wolfinger, 2002). at the end of every conversation, we each undertook a general overview of the notes taken. this practice served two purposes. it first provided us with the opportunity to appraise each other of the points we individually felt were important; second, it allowed us to clarify issues which we individually felt needed to be elaborated or expanded on. to analyze the data, we used deductive thematic analysis because, as suggested by braun and clark (2006), this method provides a basis for using a previously developed theory to determine how resonant or dissonant the findings from previous research are. in this case, we used charlotte’s six key practices of authentic family learning. to do this, we perused the data collected throughout our conversations and then sought to assess how well they aligned with charlotte’s categories (hardacre, 2017). the suitability and the alignment are discussed below. findings: reconceptualizing through resonance and dissonance following the analysis of our cross-cultural conversations, a range of resonant and dissonant factors emerged. in relation to authentic lifeworlds, both practitioner-researchers acknowledged that parents attending their intergenerational learning programs come from diverse circumstances and bring their experiences and worldviews into the learning space. zoyah noted, “these experiences should be valued even if they counter the philosophical november 2019 94 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research underpinnings of the course.” this shared perspective was shaped by the fact that both interlocutors facilitate programs that take a social investment perspective which may connote normative ideas about appropriate or good parenting that do not align with the beliefs or understandings of participants. the conversations revealed the mutual perspective that effective practice can only begin once participants and facilitators have developed a reciprocal respect for each other and the learning process. we both expressed the ways that this could be challenging because of the disproportionate allocation of power between facilitator and families. as a result, we both expressed a desire to convey equal value to all participants and make efforts to tackle difficulties up front. charlotte noted the need to be cognisant of her power to legitimize the beliefs, values, actions, and judgements of the group. zoyah echoed this point, while also pointing out the challenge of training other facilitators to understand the implicit ways they might impose their power on the groups they are leading. a particularly rich area of resonance was evident in relation to the concept of authentic place. this was revealed when the practitioner-researchers referred to the physical space allocated to family learning in a school or setting, connoting a level of valuing and respect for families. zoyah explained, “in many instances, schools provide a space that reflects little consideration of the parents’ comfort ... it is not uncommon for programs to be held in rooms primarily used for storage.” both practitioners related the common experience of their courses being located in inappropriate spaces, despite lengthy negotiations to set up the course, with some schools perceiving intergenerational learning as an afterthought or bolt-on to the central activities of the school day. mitigating factors, such as availability of space within the school, timetabling issues, and availability of staff cannot be dismissed but do not wholly account for the seemingly low status attributed to families attending classes in box rooms, storage areas, or thoroughfares. this reinforcement of the hierarchical relationship between school and family is power laden, as the parent has limited recourse to make changes to the situation. this positions the family learning facilitator in a unique position to redress this power imbalance, but it raises questions about when this is the appropriate stance to take. in terms of authentic agendas, resonance was found between the interlocutors in terms of developing a shared understanding about the nature and purpose of the course. this was particularly important to the practitionerresearchers because of the instructive and corrective nature of intergenerational learning that comes from a social investment perspective. insights helps parents reduce their reliance on harsh disciplinary practices and feml aims to improve literacy and employability, thus both practitioner-researchers felt a strong drive to ensure parents were fully aware of these aims, and both rejected well-intended but ultimately deceptive approaches, such as suggesting the sessions are simply an opportunity to work alongside their child at school. again, our conversation turned to the role of power, with zoyah pointing out the structural factors that may have led parents to be enrolled in her program in the first place, such as being compelled by the state to undertake parenting classes with their child. in terms of authentic actions, an analysis of the conversations revealed some dissonance within this practice. when discussing the use of authentic materials in sessions, zoyah noted that because insights is a program that has been adapted from the us, many of the “resources used throughout the program reflect a context quite dissimilar to jamaica.” redesigning these resources would be too costly and time consuming, so the jamaican facilitators of the program actively highlight the similarities and differences to stimulate discussion germane to the lived experiences of the participants. this best-fit approach was a common experience for zoyah, who noted that an expectation to use techniques and resources based on imported euro-american ideas of best practice, was part of her daily reality. thus, practical and material factors clearly shape the degree to which a practitioner can be guided by the concept of november 2019 95 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research authentic actions. charlotte also noted that “using authentic materials can be challenging on short courses, as there is limited time to get to know parents and design activities around their interests.” on these occasions, charlotte explained that she would focus on a shared project that could be personalized, such as making “story sacks.” here, each family group could select their own book to base their “story sack” on, but the activities each week could be planned without parental input and contextualized week to week. for example, week two would involve the families creating a puppet based on their personally chosen story. in both instances, the practitioner-researchers did not eschew the idea of authenticity—which we define in line with jacobson et al. (2003) as approaches that are relevant, meaningful, and personal—but we did have to adapt in line with financial and temporal realities. this indicates that the six key practices of authentic family learning are best understood as guiding principles to be led by, rather than prescriptive rules to apply in a wholesale and rigid manner. the conversations also revealed that an adaptive approach resonated with the concept of authentic relating. for example, zoyah explained that families were more likely to engage with and complete the course when there was a shared understanding about the purpose of the program. developing this shared understanding is of course heavily reliant on a responsive relationship between stakeholders. both researcher-practitioners emphasized the importance of honest and open communication among participants, practitioner, and setting. this was not seen as a straightforward task, as the differing interests of, for example, schools and families can put pressure on facilitators to act as an intermediary. both of us agreed that rejecting this role was the most effective strategy, as we invariably both experienced what charlotte referred to as “trying to please everyone and ultimately pleasing no one ... it’s not effective to advocate for both groups at the same time. you have to get them to talk to each other.” again, we observed in our conversation our function in shifting and redistributing the power operating between the stakeholders, with zoyah questioning whether this role should be more explicitly acknowledged in the design of intergenerational learning programs and in the courses that train the facilitators of such programs. resonance also emerged in relation to the last of the six key practices of authentic family learning: authentic reflection. both practitioners could see how this process aligns with the pursuit of critical consciousness, in which power structures are revealed. charlotte recounted the ways in which she might invite participants to acknowledge and critique these structures and reflect on their impact on their own agency. however, as zoyah pointed out, while this may involve parents questioning the legitimacy of authority figures in the school, it should not devolve into a generalized and circular airing of grievances. charlotte agreed that mindful and focused facilitation of these types of discussions is essential. this conversation revealed the power-laden steering role practitioners may play within intergenerational learning programs, including those with emancipatory aims. additionally, our analysis revealed resonance with authentic reflection when zoyah brought up how “subtle biases and discourses surrounding the participants of such programs ... may be shared by stakeholders within the school walls” and suggested the need to allow time to recognize and seek ways to address these through critical reflection. charlotte agreed, noting that family learning tutors are often accepted as a natural peer by teaching staff and thus included in staffroom gossip or well-intentioned but denigrating narratives about the challenging lives of parents and children in the school. the conversation turned to how taking a buffering role between the competing interests and agendas of staff and parents can have merit, but that the practitioner may face the temptation to placate both sides. while doing so, at face value, could appear to simply be abiding by social norms of empathy and polite agreement, our conversation revealed a feeling that it would in fact be a form of collusion that maintains the status quo between the two groups. therefore, actively choosing to challenge deficit discourses about parents and to reframe criticisms of the teachers and school toward solutions and action was seen as the best use of the unique and powerful position the intergenerational educators can find themselves in. november 2019 96 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research discussion: reconceptualizing power in intergenerational learning by engaging in cross-cultural conversations, using authentic family learning as a conceptual framework, we found much common ground between the uk and jamaican contexts. this can be attributed partly to the fact that we both deliver intergenerational programming that is underpinned by a social investment approach. the corrective and instructive nature of such programs is hierarchical and power laden, and this power operates at various levels (holloway, brown & pimlott-wilson, 2011; mcdowell, 2004; raco, 2009). the negotiation and management of power in our different contexts shaped our entire set of cross-cultural conversations and leads us now to reconceptualize our understanding of the role of power in relation to practitioners and participants. as a result of this reconceptualization, we argue for a need to balance rather than subvert, invert, or remove existing power positions in intergenerational programs. we were both aware of the influence of global policies on driving implementation and uptake of intergenerational programming in both our contexts. for example, the united nations’ sustainable development goals emphasize education as “intrinsically an intergenerational process” (bengtsson & barakat, 2016, p. 5) and call for an increase in family learning programs as a way to minimize the intergenerational transmission of poverty. we also recognized that as a consequence of these global priorities, local authorities target families who are “considered most deviant in terms of economic and social norms” (wainwright & marandet, 2017, p. 215) for recruitment into intergenerational learning programs with social investment aims. however, our conversations revealed concern about governmentality and the more “coercive and regulatory dimensions” of intergenerational programs (wainwright & marandet, 2013, p. 3), but lacked any insight into how to address such concerns practically. following the analysis of our conversations we considered how, in the everyday life of our classrooms, we accounted for this corralling of specific types of families into intergenerational learning programs that seek to “upskill” them and build aspirations that fit with “highly normative forms of identity” (wainwright & marandet, 2017, p. 226), particularly those with low levels of education who are not employed and who live in areas of high deprivation. we identified that a key approach we already utilized intuitively was to actively discuss the purpose of the course with the families involved in such programs. we see this as a practical way to balance power because it moves a previously hidden agenda into the light. entering into dialogue with participants about what drives the funding and framing of intergenerational programs is in line with freire’s (1970) argument that it is “in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it” (p. 45). this form of transformative dialogue, in which the nature and purpose of the course is actively acknowledged and engaged with by participants, is a way to ensure that the learning is grounded in participants’ existing “agency, identities and literacies” (a. brown, 2011, p. 3), allowing them to make sense of their experiences and to raise their critical consciousness about the interests and agendas being enacted through the intergenerational program of which they are a part. this dialogue can infuse and shape the course, but it is not the central focus of the program, and thus it takes the form of informal and spontaneous conversations about the families’ reasons for attending or the purpose of activities. allowing questioning to be an acceptable and welcome form of dialogue is a practical way to balance the distribution of power in intergenerational learning. prior to our cross-cultural conversations, we both characterized our practice as learner centered, but the process of unpacking the lived experience of delivering intergenerational programming revealed that achieving learnercentered practice often requires significant intervention from practitioners to draw out families’ interests, beliefs, and values. this may well take place while working to externally set timescales, using decontextualized materials in spaces not designed for learning. when the practitioner is necessarily expending control to create a learnercentered experience, it would be disingenuous to claim that power structures are equalized or flattened. this is november 2019 97 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research in line with michele schweisfurth’s (2014) call for the discourse on learner-centered pedagogy to account for the role of the practitioner more fully. schweisfurth acknowledges that learner-centered approaches, in practice, often feature teacher authority or curricula prescription because programs are always “deeply embedded in the cultural, resource, institutional and policy contexts in which they take place” (p. 259). this insight has much in common with the work wainwright and marandet (2013), who explicitly tackle power in family learning by suggesting that the relational dimensions of family learning, such as the broadening of social networks or the rapport between tutor and parent, are not simply an outcome of participation but are also “an important strategy through which family learning is effectively mobilised” (p. 22). this foucauldian (1991) reading conceptualizes the power that operates through family learning as positive or supportive, and acknowledges that “relationships of empowerment are both voluntary and coercive, simultaneously controlling and liberating” (wainwright & marandet, 2013, p. 28) in ways that neutral articulations of the interactions between participants and practitioners taking part in intergenerational learning obscure. this characterization of “supportive power” aligns with our experience of the benefits of a relational approach to family learning, such as improved retention rates and the continuation of family learning groups beyond the duration of the course itself. it also allows issues of control, influence, and authority to be recognized and held in tension with a more positive reading of the role of power. this is in line with carol vincent and simon warren’s (1998) point that intergenerational learning programs that have a social investment focus are never entirely oppressive or entirely liberatory, and “it is only by recognising and holding these opposing readings in tension that an analysis can be formed which appreciates both” (p. 191). knowledge democracy it should be noted that our dialogue is grounded in our positional contexts, with charlotte working in a context that reflects eurocentric models of “best practice” and zoyah in a context that frequently measures itself against these eurocentric models (rao et al., 2014). thus, the use of a conceptual framework rooted in british practice should be noted for its dominant-hegemonic perspective. our awareness of the importance and value of knowledge democracy (hall, 2014) meant we acknowledged this perspective through our cross-cultural conversations with the hope of destabilizing commonly assumed “positions of power.” this acknowledgement resonates with the work of levermore and beacom (2009, as cited in mwaanga & adeosun, 2017) who point to “vertical partnerships” in which “northern experts speak on behalf of the south” (pp. 58–59). this phenomenon, richard giulianotti (2004, p. 22) writes, is characterized as the “cultural legacy of colonialism” wherein, as tula brannelly (2016) argues, the presumption of expertise is analogous with the assumption of a “dominant and colonising position ... which fails to recognize the expertise and worldview of colonised societies” (p. 4). cross-cultural approaches are a useful response to ethnocentric discourses on knowledge production (beiser, 2003; sullivan & cottone, 2010) because of their potential to contextualize researcher interpretations and situate knowledge within local communities. however, while a cross-cultural approach may help researchers “to reconsider conceptualizations that appear to be universal yet are actually based in western standards and perspective” (sullivan & cottone, 2010, p. 360), we are keen in future work to use the jamaican context as a starting point for cross-cultural conversation. conclusion intergenerational learning programs that are rooted in a social investment perspective are driven by a dynamic set of overlapping interests that are both complementary and conflicting, particularly for programs in school november 2019 98 vol. 44 no. 5 journal of childhood studies articles from research settings, where there are usually four types of participants: the practitioner, school staff, parents, and children. similar to jürgen habermas (1987), our findings suggest that all partners involved in the experience are equally important and should be treated as such. they each tacitly create, exchange, and embody ideas, beliefs, and perceptions about right ways of being, learning, and interacting, and these must be carefully negotiated prior to and during the program implementation. we also acknowledge that, rather than viewing discordant lifeworlds as deficient, the practitioners ought to see an opportunity to build and support rich, authentic learning experiences which all participants can benefit from. we refer to this as the need to balance power. by eschewing a top-down transmission of knowledge in favour of one that is more open and democratic, all partners are empowered to learn from each other while simultaneously increasing knowledge and strengthening skills. at the same time, we caution against discourses that minimize the role of facilitators; instead we reconceptualize the facilitator role as a form of supportive power which, in line with wainwright and marandet (2013), should be acknowledged as a potentially positive force that 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(2002). on writing field-notes: collection strategies and background expectancies. qualitative research, 2, 85–95. retrieved from https://entwicklungspolitik.uni-hohenheim.de/uploads/media/day_2_-_reading_text_4_02.pdf october 2020 75 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources book review: colin heywood’s childhood in modern europe reviewed by sabiha didar tutan sabiha didar tutan is a research assistant and a graduate student in comparative studies in history and society at koç university, istanbul, turkey. she recently completed her ba in international relations and philosophy. her current research interests are sociology of crime and deviance and childhood studies. email: stutan14@ku.edu.tr book review: childhood in modern europe author: colin heywood cambridge university press, 2018, 280 pp isbn: 9780521685252 childhood in modern europe (cambridge university press, 2018, 280 pp.) is a meaningful contribution by colin heywood to the textbook series “new approaches to european history.” the book clearly introduces and explores the major themes and problems in the history of childhood studies in europe. the work brings together existing studies of childhood across europe and adopts a comparative approach; its scope includes the mediterranean regions, russia, western europe, and the nordic countries, although northwestern europe is its primary focus. heywood also considers the interaction with the united states, the imperial conquests, and mass migratory movements where relevant. the book’s take on these issues does not aim to be comprehensive or partial; it mostly covers these issues practically and to the extent that they had repercussions for either children’s lives or children’s studies. however, i found it useful for contextualizing these changes in a wider context. for instance, heywood acknowledges how the increased cultural influence of the united states in the 20th century was welcomed in some ways and resented in others rather than making an overarching case for how the united states was perceived independent of context. contemporary childhood studies welcomes research from diverse disciplines, and research of the history of childhood has a foundationally informative role for the field as a whole. history of childhood is essential because it “defamiliarizes the present and helps us understand the distinctiveness of contemporary society’s value system and social arrangements” (mintz, 2012, p. 17). this process of defamiliarization is useful to question what we have taken for granted as being a natural part of childhood and invites us to adopt a critical approach to existing concepts in our respective disciplines regarding childhood, such as psychology or criminology. therefore, this detailed curation of the history of childhood is a resource to be welcomed by scholars who are not historians but are interested in studying childhood. heywood engages with past and current historical contentions in the field, engaging critically with what he calls “a tendency among historians of childhood to adopt a ‘whiggish’ approach to their subject” (p. 10). taking issue with the all too common description of an inevitable-sounding evolution to our modern, middle-class, privileged, or protected childhood, heywood underlines the diverse experiences children and adolescents have had by bringing attention to the historical evidence against the notion of a protective childhood. this raises the question of innocence in childhood and adolescence, making the reader question whether it is possible or even desirable for children to maintain a distance from so-called threats to innocence. heywood notes that there is already “a reluctant acceptance that children cannot remain ‘innocent’ in a highly sexualised society” (p. 10). if we consider this arguably uncomfortable reality, we are invited to think more critically as adults in contemporary societies about the measures we take in the name of protecting children. in contentious debates involving children we may encounter in life, the arguments in favour of protecting children may feel unobjectionable or very difficult to defeat. the belief that we must protect our children at all costs owes its status of common currency to the unfortunate reality that children are often vulnerable in their relationship october 2020 76 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources to adults. however, “protecting children” as a general aim is a nebulous one, and we may need to think harder about what it is about children that we are trying to protect. considering that the relationship between innocence and childhood is an important ongoing debate in childhood studies, reading about the historical changes in this relationship is important. the particular significance of this relationship will be discussed further in this review. how the book is organized the book consists of an introduction that outlines different theoretical approaches to the study of childhood, followed by three parts focusing on studies of europe from the early 18th century to the turn of the 21st century. the introductory chapter is extremely useful in contextualizing the detailed work that follows it. in it heywood provides an engaging account of the studies of childhood in the social sciences, beginning with the division of academic labour in the late 19th century that assigned the child to the field of psychology, the family to sociology, the tribe to anthropology, and the school to education. heywood explains that in this model, the study of childhood was mainly under psychology’s developmental paradigm and was largely ignored by other social sciences. while the study of childhood has come to concern other disciplines in the social sciences, the developmental paradigm is by no means inconspicuous in contemporary societies. understanding childhood as consisting of a given set of developmental phases is still a common frame of reference in everyday conversations about childhood. heywood locates the changes in the childhood studies field in the 1960s and 1970s, citing the role of the intellectual climate in questioning established values in rethinking the study of childhood. he points out a marked shift in the new approach: the acknowledgment of cross-cultural variation in both childrearing practices and the expected level of skill from children. a shift no less important that is also explored in the book was the adoption of a child-centered approach with an emphasis on children’s autonomy. although centering children’s autonomy in our analysis of childhood may sound commonsensical, children often find themselves in marginalized positions in life. our legal systems often put parents’ decisions above children’s autonomy; in fact, not constraining some of their children’s decisions out of respect for the child’s autonomy may have serious consequences for parents. norvin richards (2010) correctly points out that if parents were to treat their children as adults treat each other in terms of liberties, they would likely lose custody of their children. it seems that in our society, we require parents to exert authority over their children when we see fit. usually, parents also want to exert authority over their children; however, parental control can seriously threaten children’s autonomy-related interests, and we cannot always assume parents are making decisions that are in the best interest of their children. the reasoning behind constraining children’s decision-making power is often their lack of capacity for rational judgment. it’s likely that complete lack of constraint may result in some bad decisions; however, it is misleading to think of decisions in terms of being either good or bad and assigning parents to the former category and children to the latter. children are not categorically failed decision makers and parents are not categorically successful decision makers. martyn hammersley (2017) notes the complexity of agency and the danger of treating it dichotomously and misleadingly as “simply opposing a passive model of children” (p. 119); he calls for “a sophisticated middle position” (p. 119). we may instead consider children’s agency as something that can be cultivated; in fact, interest in understanding children’s agency “invites interdisciplinary collaboration in research on the practical implications of children’s agency” (sorbring & kucynski, 2018, p. 4). the role of family and school in this process of cultivation would be good candidates for exploration. sirkko et al. (2019) underline the role of early childhood education settings for the realization of children’s agentic rights. parents’ role can be enabling for children to gain a sense of agency, and it can be constraining. vandenbroeck and bouverne-de bie (2006) argue that the construction of the “fragile child” in the 19th century was closely related to industrialization, urbanization, poverty, child mortality, and the abolition of child labour; this construction also interconnected with the construction of the “responsible mother” with duties to fulfil towards both the child and society. given that the social context has changed remarkably since october 2020 77 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources the 19th century, how can we challenge the notion of the fragile child in need of protection in our research? in one of the recent contributions to the debate on children’s agency in childhood studies, kontovourki and theodorou (2019) use the notion of performativity to “unravel immigrant children’s narrations and identity performances” (p. 153), underlining the fact that the interview process with children is itself a performative space. their observance raises the question of plausibility of the child as agent and raises questions about the methodological implications of interviewing children during research. taken together, the questioning of established values and the acknowledgment of cross-cultural variation in childrearing practices can be interpreted as a reaction against the developmental paradigm. compelling challenges to this paradigm have further political implications. for instance, moran-ellis and sünker (2018) assert that the developmentalist position limits our imagination of children as participants in political life, with the result that we delay “participation for children until they have reached some hard-to-specify level of cognitive ability” (p. 289). taking into account the vast differences in definitions and experiences of childhood despite all children “having the same biological starting point” (heywood, p. 5), some historians, as well as social scientists, have considered childhood to be a social construction. heywood acknowledges the merits of the social constructivist approach but correctly points out that it “leaves open awkward questions on the relationship between the biological and the social” (p. 6). he cites alan prout who warns against downplaying the biological and material dimensions, which risks ignoring the bodies of children—an invaluable source of evidence for a research study. two universal challenges persisting in the study of the history of children are the scarcity of archival material about and by children despite children making up a significant percentage of society. given the scarcity of sources written by children, historians often have to rely on sources written by adults. this creates a thought-provoking dilemma for the reader. given that many accounts of childhood (particularly early childhood) are documented by adults, can these historical works be considered more a literary form with the inescapable creative role of the author in its reconstruction? heywood does not give a definitive answer to this question but aims to reconstruct the conceptions of childhood both as a lived experience and as a concept in the minds of adults. regardless of the validity of archival resources, heywood points to a preliminary challenge: accepting that childhood is a subject worth studying in its own right. today, childhood with its many complexities has come to be an important subject of study for many fields in social science. the first point that persists throughout childhood in modern europe is the definition of childhood. of course, the age boundaries of childhood differ across time and space. in the absence of a criterion to determine these boundaries, defining childhood becomes difficult. much contention about boundaries of childhood exists in the literature, some of which i discuss in this review. looking at some biological markers, thompson and nelson (2016) argue that childhood “begins at about age three when human offspring can begin to provision some of their daily energy requirements themselves” (p. 82), and in some studies, the beginning of childhood is tied to weaning, following infancy. this discrepancy is something i find difficult in my assessment of academic research about children, because childhood can refer to such a long time period in a person’s life. this discrepancy also suggests that researchers can select and justify a criterion for childhood that is tailored to the purpose of their research, which makes it difficult to use the term comparatively and widely. determining when childhood begins and ends biologically becomes an impossible-to-answer question, yet it is a matter of historical research to discover which criteria ordinary people used to make this distinction irrespective of its consistence with biological factors. childhood in modern europe takes on this task. heywood notes that in preindustrial europe, the skill and strength of the individual determined the status rather than an age category. another factor could be the extent of dependence on other adults. thus, childhood in modern europe does not adopt strict age parameters. instead, the united nations definition of a child as anyone under 18 years of age is used as “a rough guide” (p. 13). october 2020 78 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources the scope of the book covers the period from the early 18th century to the turn of the 21st century. the theoretical discussion explained so far takes place in the introduction, while the historical discussion is divided into three parts. these parts are organized chronologically and according to their location, namely urban and rural. part i: childhood in villages, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is concerned with conceptions of childhood in rural society. part ii: childhood in towns (c.1700–1870) focuses on the impact of developments such as the enlightenment and romanticism, as well as the industrial revolution, on children. part iii: childhood in an industrial and urban society discusses the period beginning around 1870 and deals mainly with childhood in an affluent society that aspires to protect the young from some aspects of adult life. the book’s main points of discussion selected for the purposes of this review can be organized around the following three themes: the changing definitions and significance of childhood across time and space; the changing relationship between religion, education, and work for children; and children and agency. in the discussion that follows, each theme is inevitably present in the analysis of the others; for instance, the reader will see that religion influenced the definition(s) of childhood, which in turn had implications for children’s agency. the changing definitions and significance of childhood heywood explains that what marked the end of the early phase of childhood in the villages of europe during the 18th and 19th centuries was the young’s development of abilities to help around the home, the farm, and the workshop; parents gradually increased the difficulty of the tasks as children gained strength. although the criterion was skill development, it differs from the traditional developmentalist paradigm since these boundaries were determined by individual circumstances rather than rigid and predetermined developmental stages. heywood demonstrates a considerable variation in the type of work expected from children and practices of moving away from home, which suggests that neither puberty nor a fixed age were of decisive importance in determining these boundaries. the final step towards adulthood in rural europe was marriage; however, heywood also demonstrates the considerable variation in age boundaries across countries. couples in england and the nordic countries married late, towards the end of their twenties, whereas earlier marriage was common in eastern and southern europe. what marked the difference between rural and urban boundaries was higher school attendance in towns. the age-grading of school systems had increasingly stronger influence in marking the beginning and end of childhood in towns beginning from the middle of the 18th century. during the 19th century, formal education became increasingly important, making the end of elementary school a discernible boundary to mark the end of childhood. the amount of evidence this book contains to demonstrate the diversity of definitions across europe is too great to be covered in this review; what is discussed above is a fraction of the evidence provided by heywood, which show that the boundaries of childhood were and continue to be elusive. heywood also carefully explores the changes in the meaning of childhood, in addition to the variation in milestones drawing the boundaries of childhood, such as education ending and marriage. the meaning of childhood also experienced a shift from a more religiously inspired notion inherited from the medieval period to a more secular perspective which can be traced to the intellectual contributions of the enlightenment. a significant part of the first chapter is devoted to the influence of the enlightenment and romanticism and their role in encouraging people to take childhood more seriously. the enlightenment’s lasting influence was the emergence of a more secular perspective on the notion of childhood. john locke’s definition of the boundary between childhood and adulthood was the capacity to exercise judgment. locke’s emphasis on the capacity to exercise judgment is still relevant for childhood rights to this day since it underlines the limitedness of childhood’s capacity. in other words, children by definition lack the capacity to exercise judgment. another influential intellectual discussed in this chapter is jean-jacques rousseau, who argued that children had a particular way of seeing, thinking, and feeling. october 2020 79 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources rousseau’s book emile was highly influential in terms of the perception of children’s education. heywood notes that rousseau’s interest in feelings often makes him appear as a transitionary figure between the enlightenment and the romantic era. heywood provides ample evidence to show the rousseauist and romantic influences on poets, novelists, and painters including delacroix and goya. the chapter also includes notable paintings, including childhood by joshua reynolds and otto sigismund, der sohn des künstlers by otto runge as illustrative figures. heywood concludes that the popularization of such romantic depictions of the pure and innocent child fuelled the emergence of the modern “protected” childhood that can also be associated with the welfare state. as discussed earlier in this review, depicting children as lacking judgment and being innocent figures in need of protection has had serious ramifications for what we expect from and offer to children. bringing this tension to the present has led me to think deeply about how we define childhood today. in contemporary research, to what extent are we aware of the enlightenment’s and romanticism’s impact when we are theorizing childhood? religion, education, and work religion, education, and work are three concepts that are closely related to each other, not only in this book, but in children’s lived realities as well. in the absence of the notion of a protected childhood according to which children should not be working but rather should focus on playtime or education, children were routinely called on to help with various tasks, including working on the land. i gathered from this book that attitudes towards children working were not negative in early modern europe; children did not have a privileged position in the household which would free them from the burdens of work. education’s relationship with religion was also much more straightforward; in rural society, teaching usually took place in churches, a priest’s house, a cottage, or a barn. heywood explains that children were important targets in the efforts of the church to assert influence in everyday life since many of the early schools were founded as philanthropic work, attempting to teach the basics of christian doctrine and morality. persuading the peasantry to send their children to school was a cause for conflict because of the extended amount of time the school kept children away from work. urban children, although they may not have been working on the land, were a part of the labour force working in factories, and securing a job for a child was crucial for working-class parents. heywood further details the motives and constraints of the parents in expecting work from children beyond what i have exemplified above. i believe thinking about the motives and constraints of the parents at that time and recognizing that the notion of a protected childhood was not prevalent is important today because of the sharpness of the contrast we can observe in two parenting approaches. simply put, there is a strict stance today against children working instead of going to school, and working under the age of 18 is heavily regulated in europe. the prevalence of this opinion is overwhelming to the point that it becomes easy to miscalculate the early modern european parents’ rationale and make anachronistic judgments about it if we are not informed about the content of the education in that time as well as the social context in which these parents put their children to work. heywood’s chronological exploration of the relationship between religion, work, and education reveals that the increased tension between these three forces in europe seems to have resulted more or less in favour of a more secularized education with a resistance to child labour—although this change occurred rather slowly. in fact, heywood explains that the children of early modern rural europe grew up with the expectation of marrying and starting a family of their own, thus they had to be concerned with earning a good reputation as a worker and a dutiful christian as well as saving money for this future. compared to the new industrial centres of the 19th century, growing up in villages spared children from schools, reformatories, and barracks. on the other hand, agricultural societies expected hard work from children in farms and workshops. in general, urban and rural children were faced with different expectations and challenges. although there was a general trend towards mass schooling in the 19th century, the urban environment had more suitable conditions than the rural one to embrace this shift towards october 2020 80 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources schooling. so, the scale of change that would be required to result in a long-term decline in the employment of children needed intervention from an external actor such as the state, which would not materialize until the middle of the 19th century. even when we discuss mass schooling, we cannot make sweeping generalizations about all children in europe; class and gender become an important variable to consider. for instance, heywood argues that middle-class family life is set apart by the family’s willingness to spend money on literature for their children. the middle classes were committed to educating their children, even though the meaning of education differed for boys and girls. the belief that girls were best educated in the household and by their mothers is shown in the book to have been prevalent in early modern europe; however, parents sending their daughters to school was practiced more widely throughout the 19th century. school gaining more decisive primacy over work on the list of priorities did not happen until the late 19th and 20th centuries. although education is considered a right, religion as an institution is much more narrowly involved in education, and children’s labour is regulated in europe, the tensions between them sometimes resurface in contemporary debates regarding children. keeping in mind heywood’s point that it required external involvement from a powerful actor such as the state to create a decisive turn in favour of mass schooling and against the employment of children, how should we think about the role of the state today in addressing the tensions and inequalities that persist? what role should it play, if any? children and agency a notable issue heywood deals with is the “death of childhood” thesis. according to this thesis, the appearance of the idea of childhood is related to the spread of literacy because it made it possible for adults to “control the symbolic environment of the young” by being able to keep secrets from children in written form (p. 187). with further development of technology, the innocence of a child was disappearing in modern society with children being more aware of adult life due to television being readily accessible. essentially, according to this thesis, by children once again joining the adult world, the boundaries between childhood and adulthood became further blurred. heywood explains this position and accepts that the digital revolution made adult material available; however, he heavily criticizes some of the assumptions of this thesis. of course, this thesis makes no reference to class and gender distinctions and “proposes a determining influence on human behavior of technology” and “ignoring the social context” (p. 188). however, heywood’s most significant criticism against this thesis is its lack of attempt “to discover what children themselves think” (p. 188). i think this criticism is worth highlighting because it gives voice to a muted and vulnerable minority; it suggests that children are beings whose opinions are not considered in cases where they should be. i also think that abandoning the death of childhood thesis can invite people to call for further exposure of young people to realities they will eventually grow into instead of calling for a restoration of children’s supposed innocence. heywood does not deny the digital revolution’s impact on children’s exposure to the so-called adult world, though—he accepts technology’s role in “undermining the construction of child as an original innocent” (p. 188). the view he considers more plausible is that technology has “increased the distance between the generations, as children embraced the new forms of communication with far more enthusiasm than adults” (p.188). in this sense, his interpretation is that children have merely become more informed without necessarily making a claim about the desirability of this change. the knowing child or the competent child “is surely taking over from the supposedly innocent one” he concludes (p. 189). heywood further underscores the importance of an affluent society having more parents with more disposable income, which made children consumers in the market. this newly recognized competence is in stark contrast to the earlier position of children in which they were “in effect considered to be the property of their parents”—their fathers in particular (heywood, p. 191). as a vulnerable minority, children need protective rights but also, as some october 2020 81 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources argue, participatory rights. this bold perspective challenges the all-too-common assumption about the limited capacity of children that is pervasive in contemporary discourse about childhood. the emergence of children as rights holders also implicitly challenges the conception of children as becomings rather than beings, highlighting their autonomy. heywood locates the signs of this change as happening around the turn of the 21st century, during which children’s rights movements argued for the need to give children “a greater say in the running of their own lives” (p. 194). grand theories which are in search of universal laws that are relevant for children across time and space become questionable in the face of historical evidence of diversity demonstrated throughout this book. recognizing the vulnerable position of children, how can the tension between protecting children and recognizing their autonomy be resolved? in what ways can we advocate for an approach to childhood that is more sensitive towards children’s empowerment? overall, childhood in modern europe provides a detailed and multidimensional reconstruction of childhood in each particular historical period, outlining the continuities as well as major shifts across time and region excellently. considering the wideness of europe, each issue heywood analyzes has considerable regional variation; he is successful in taking into account this variation and avoids sweeping generalizations. heywood’s work also goes beyond a survey of the main theoretical approaches and corresponding empirical evidence; he also discusses the moral implications of the findings of these studies. a demonstrative example is scholars questioning “the legitimacy of the existing distribution of power and authority between adults and children” and whether adults always acted “in the best interests of the child” (p. 7). as shown throughout this review, heywood tries to make the reader doubt the notion of a protected childhood and really underscores the fact that children have voices of their own that need to be taken seriously. this concern is taken up in part iii with the legal recognition of children as rights holders. i found the legitimacy discussion to be thought-provoking because it consistently challenges a deep assumption commonly held in contemporary society about children’s legal position with respect to adults. despite observing how children’s rights can be routinely violated under the pretence of looking out for their best interests, i also understand how such violations can be written off as the parents’ discretion. when we think critically about the common discourses about children and childhood, the enormous influence parents have over their children’s lives is assumed to be justified in most cases, unless there is a legal demonstration of abuse or neglect. what are the boundaries of abuse and neglect is really an open question, and the answers given to it change across cultures and centuries. the readily accepted and rarely questioned status of parents as disproportionately powerful influences over their children’s lives ultimately creates the impression of an unresolvable ethical dispute between children and parents, albeit a temporary one until the child grows into an adult. heywood is careful in handling the precarious position of children with respect to their relationships with adults, thus he is able to introduce more critical arguments without marginalizing them. since each part of the book can operate as a stand-alone piece, i felt like i could recommend any chapter individually as a solid introduction to researchers new to the field with confidence. in the case of my research interest, which mainly concerns the ethics of parenthood and autonomy of children, the discussion in the book regarding children’s agency and status as rights holders would become a key recommended resource to provide historical context. historically, what were the filial obligations children had towards their parents? which external influences and internal motivations changed the obligations parents had towards their children? how did parents perceive their children and how did children perceive themselves? were children always perceived to be innocent? answers to these questions can be found in this book and can inform researchers and practitioners. i should also note that despite acknowledging the very material impact children had in the society by being workers and consumers, heywood does not hold a naïve position in terms of the negotiating power children had. in the conclusion, he recognizes that children’s negotiations with adults were and continue to be from a position of weakness. a notable strength of this book is its accessible adjudication of scholarly debates on the study of childhood. october 2020 82 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources heywood not only presents these debates but often gives a balanced account of the strengths and weaknesses of each position, which makes it easier for readers who are foreign to the study of childhood by taking up the challenge to connect histories of childhood to broader social, political, and economic changes in the society. childhood in modern europe has much to offer that cannot possibly be covered in a review. it introduces the reader to key debates in childhood studies, such as children’s role as workers as well as consumers, the role of religion and religious institutions in children’s lives, gender as a cross-cutting influence in childhood, schooling practices, and children’s status as a minority group in european society. the book’s contribution to these debates is not in the form of providing new empirical evidence; rather, its strength is in presenting and contextualizing existing research for its audience. i am confident that a careful reader will find the book rewarding regardless of their previous familiarity with the field. october 2020 83 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references butterfield, h. (1931), the whig interpretation of history. g. bell & sons. hammersley, m. (2017). childhood studies: a sustainable paradigm? childhood, 24(1), 113–127. https://doi. org/10.1177/0907568216631399 heywood, c. (2018). childhood in modern europe. cambridge university press. kontovourki, s., & theodorou, e. (2019). performative politics and the interview: unraveling immigrant children’s narrations and identity performance. in s. spyrou, r. rosen, & d. t. cook (eds.), reimagining childhood studies. bloomsbury academic. mintz, s. (2012). why the history of childhood matters. the journal of the history of childhood and youth, 5(1), 15–28. https://doi. org/10.1353/hcy.2012.0012 moran-ellis, j., & sünker, h. (2018). childhood studies, children’s politics and participation: perspectives for processes of democratisation. international review of sociology, 28(2), 277–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2018.1477106 richards, n. (2010). the ethics of parenthood. oxford university press. sirkko, r., kyrönlampi, t., & puroila, a. (2019). children’s agency: opportunities and constraints. international journal of early childhood, 51(3), 283–300. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-019-00252-5 sorbring, e., & kucynski, l. (2018) children’s agency in the family, in school and in society: implications for health and well-being, international journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 13(sup1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2019.1634414 thompson, j. l., & nelson, a. j. (2016). childhood and patterns of growth in the genus homo. in c. l. meehan & a. n. crittenden (eds.), childhood: origins, evolution, and implications. university of new mexico press. vandenbroeck, m., & bouverne-de bie, m. (2006). children’s agency and educational norms: a tensed negotiation. childhood, 13(1), 127–143. https://doi.org/10.11770907568206059977 march 2021 72 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources book review: tiffany lethabo king’s the black shoals reviewed by adrianne bacelar de castro adrianne de castro is a brazilian educator with years of experience working in elementary and secondary schools in brazil. her ma thesis was inspired by common worlds pedagogies and thinking with, rather than mastering concepts of, materials and others of shared worlds. her approach to early childhood education is collectivist and inclusive of more-than-humans. her research is a humble response toward more livable worlds in the present human-modified geological epoch of the anthropocene. email: abacelar@uwo.ca sitting with black women from all over the earth has made me think a great deal about what it means to be indigenous, and what my relationship as a black woman in north america is to the land-rights struggles of the indigenous peoples of this land, to native american indian women, and how we can translate that consciousness into a new level of working together. in other words, how can we use each other’s differences in our common battles for a livable future? (lorde, 1985, p. 109) lorde’s journal entry evokes the kind of ethics from which this book holds space. the shoal invokes a material, constructed, and imagined ecotonal space of becoming where ceremony is also geography. in her journal entry, lorde wonders whether a conversation with native women is possible and asks “how we can translate that consciousness into a new level of working together. in other words, how can we use each other’s differences in our common battles for a livable future?” (king, 2019, p. 72) the year 2020 was devasting. how do we want life to move on from it? wildfires, climate-induced catastrophes, the novel coronavirus, and the murder of a black american caught on camera. those were life-changing events with consequences throughout the world. robert kunzig (2020) claims that, since 2020, being vulnerable might be a universal feeling: “climate extremes, the pandemic, and police violence all lead us to become aware of the same feeling: vulnerability” (p. 78). throughout different spaces and communities, the catastrophic events have connected people, but the effects are felt unequally. for example, across the united states, the statistics show that the virus is much deadlier to black people (sutton, 2020). such vulnerability pushes me to consider not only how we want to move on from these conditions, but also how we got to this place. in this moment of history, it has never been more relevant to ask oneself audre lorde’s and tiffany king’s questions about creating livable futures together. in a move to question my commitments and role in these turbulent times, i joined other graduate students in reading books and publications from black feminist writers. we searched for readings that might trouble our practice as academic researchers in education and as pedagogists working in early learning spaces in these challenging times. education, including early learning, is a political project, and as such is always entangled with questions of living well together. peter moss (2014) reminds us that “stories about early childhood education are necessarily framed and shaped by other and more epic stories, meta-narratives about the political, economy, the social condition, the environment—in short, stories about the state we are in” (p. 15). it matters how we take up those questions as educators and how they might implicate the pedagogical work in early learning spaces. cristina delgado vintimilla and veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2020) explain how pedagogical work asks early childhood education to “become ever more attuned to the situated complexities in which we live” (p. 8) and to ponder the (un)answerability of the question “what does it mean to live well with others?” (p. 11). this is a question that is not to be answered but is meant to provoke us to continually think about our pedagogical work and its larger implications. in this essay, i review the black shoals by tiffany king (2019). i believe it to be an essential addition to a pedagogist’s or an educator’s “bundle,” as scholar and pedagogist vintimilla calls it. vintimilla talks about one’s bundle that is carefully gathered during one’s life. the bundle is the coming together of experiences and ideas nurtured with march 2021 73 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources art, science, knowledge, inspirations, and ordinary moments: it is the ideas and concepts that help to orient the pedagogist’s practice and thoughts about education. what tiffany king’s book brings is not something to be applied or ideas to be extracted and moved to practice in early childhood. this book is an inspiration for an inclusive practice of possibilities, to think with other creative methodologies. i think about it as a source of ideas to nurture, and that might help us see, rethink, and possibly transform aspects of our practices in early childhood education— aspects that are silently and not so silently contributing to the environment-wrecking, racist, and genocidal project of the creation of man (wynter, 2003). i begin with an analytical summary of tiffany king’s book and how she used the shoal metaphor theoretically and methodologically. i conclude with a set of questions and thoughts on how this book might inspire work in early childhood education. the shoals the black shoals disrupts and interrupts western thought through its chapters as it delves into literature, black and indigenous activism, art, and lived experience. it brings a new perspective to theorizing “new world violence, social relations, indigeneity, and blackness in the western hemisphere” (king, 2019, p. 2). it is situated in the space of relationality between indigenous and black studies with the shoals concept. in the book’s introduction, king explains how the ocean and water metaphor has been focused on by the black diaspora, emphasizing rootlessness, and how indigenous studies has been focusing on land to challenge coloniality. using the shoal concept, she creates a new space to think about blackness and indigeneity that exceeds the symbolism of ocean/land. the shoal, defined by geology, is an area where water’s body becomes shallow: a shallow place between the sea and the shore. king also thinks of the shoal as a process: “the movement of the ocean from greater to shallower depths” (p. 2). the shoal is a liminal place with many meanings, not possible to map, a place for indeterminacy. the methodological approach sparked by these ideas of shoal and shoaling works to create analytical openings, crafting alternative grammars and vocabularies. the methodological shoal opens new investigative places that allow for noticing ways where indigenous and black trajectories of existence have been essentially connected to each other. the theoretical and methodological shoals disrupt, displace, and blur the binary of land/ocean. in creating this liminal space, king offers a new reading of the past and a coconstituted possible future that reconsiders “relational and ethical spaces of black and indigenous scholarship and the liberatory practices of abolition and decolonization” (p. 31). king makes an intentional move to read black and indigenous lives outside westerncentric modes of speech and understanding. she does this by discussing some of the ways settler colonial studies, for example, addresses colonization as a structure rather than focusing on the inherent colonial violence of genocide and slavery. at its core, the book discusses indigenous genocide and slavery through conversations between indigenous and black studies, leaving white western academic and political discourse out. simultaneously, it brings new grounds to understand the human—and perhaps the possibility of being human differently—beyond the rubric of conquest. in the first chapter, king writes about the use of language to describe colonization and its relations to indigenous genocide and slavery, calling it “errant grammars” (pp. 36–73). the chapter begins by describing an event where a statue of christopher columbus in boston was defaced with red paint and tagged with the sentence “black lives matter.” king uses the event as a point of convergence between indigenous and black studies. the image of columbus as discoverer and explorer is so powerful that it erases his role in the violent, genocidal, and slave-based conquest of the americas. king writes: “this aspect of conquest, a violent and repetitive process of making the march 2021 74 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources modern human through extinguishing black and indigenous life, is disavowed and willfully forgotten” (p. 39). she brings the contested figure of columbus, a figure attached to violence by both native and black studies, to think about conquest. relying on a robust tradition of interrogating the formation of the human in black and native studies, and more specifically how man was invented through and made possible by making indigenous and black life a space of death, she proposes to focus on the grammars of conquest instead of the grammars of settlement (settler colonial studies). king proposes the grammars of conquest and flesh: “attending to the lingua franca of conquest and flesh will enable a different perspective from which to attend to the ways black and native studies continue to be in conversation about and struggle against the project of the human” (p. 55). emphasizing genocide and slavery instead of settler colonialism reveals that settlement was always connected to the violence of genocide in the making of the new world. king highlights how the word settler is not adequate and not harsh enough to frame the colonial relations. in this chapter, she creates a space where native and black studies can share a language. in the second chapter, king takes two different readings of william gerard de brahm’s 1755 south carolina and georgia map (https://mesda.org/item/collections/a-map-of-south-carolina-and-part-of-georgia/1508/). in the first, she reads the map as an attempted conquest and settlement: “de brahm, the settlers in south carolina, and the british crown enacted their own, unique form of conquistador humanism by cartographically writing themselves onto the landscape of the atlantic low country though renderings of black fungibility and indigenous disappearance” (p. 84). the map has a list of names and titles of white proprietors of the lands and, at the same time, it brings slave workers into the illustration in the bottom right of the map and shows the displacement of indigenous peoples (who are absent from the map except for an arrow that points to a route away from the cherokees). in this first reading of the map, she points at the listed names as the representation of what was considered human and the possessors of things; the slaves were pictured there as fungible, products that were bought and sold and who represented the fecundity of this promising british colony. in her second reading, king reads the map as anxious, saying, “another spatial story that needs to be attended to is that the map was also a reflection and record of white settlers’ fears.” the map was created in the wake of the stono rebellion and after a series of cherokee insurrections against the white settlers. this map is portrayed in the second reading as an attempt to control black and indigenous rebellions that were always happening. in chapter 3, king puts de brahm’s map into conversation with julie dash’s film daughters of the dust (1991). the overlapping readings of de brahm’s map and dash’s film create tensions and frictions between the map (as an attempted conquest) and dash’s decolonial work that shows other ways of being human that are not under the rubric of conquest. according to king, dash does a counter reading of the indigo plantation, disrupting visions of death and labour in her film. king reads the map and the film as porous; they become sites of possibility for creating an alternative cartography that allows for reimagining the plantation scenes. in this chapter, she transforms the shoal metaphor into a metaphor of the pore. she thinks about dash’s poetic move when she portrays the hands of nana peazant, the main character, as permanently stained blue by the indigo. she thinks with the pores of the hands of enslaved black people who worked on indigo plantations. the pore represents the entrance and the edge of the body simultaneously, an opening and an end. king thinks about the pore as a site of death, almost inhabitable: the nether region of the indigo plantation is a liminal space that represents a space that is at once both inside and at the very edge of the plantation. it is also a place teetering on the edges of life and death. (p. 113) the indigo plantation is seen as the edge and at the same time as the beginning of a space where enslaved people could love and have an alternative social conviviality away from the enslavers’ eyes. in this chapter, she calls her march 2021 75 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources shoal methodology bricolage. this methodology works, and she puts different texts, literature, film, and objects together to create her analytical framework. she relies on the work of leanne simpson to disrupt the human/morethan-human binary as she reads the plantation from nana peazant’s stained blue hands: “our bodies are embedded in the ecologies and in our intimate relationships with the land” (p. 114). king shows the scale of violence through those stained hands by this overlapping of the map, the film, and black and native feminist writers such as sylvia wynter, katherine mckittrick, saidiya hartman, and leanne simpson. chapter 4 connects two erotic tales. one tale by julie dash talks about the relationship between iona peazant and st. julien lastchild (characters from the film daughters of the dust and the novel that gave a sequel to the story). the other tale is the cherokee rose: a novel of ghosts and gardens (2015) by tiya miles. the erotic stories narrate attachment between indigenous and black characters. in this chapter, king thinks about these relationships as representing “acts of decolonial worldmaking (p. 144). she addresses how the erotic has been used by poets like audre lorde and billy-ray belcourt to affirm black and indigenous lives in alternatives ways to those dominated by suffering and death. it allows us to think about black and indigenous futurity, the erotic as a liberatory space. king explains: “in the context of this chapter and this project, ‘liberatory’ means a space of possible futurity for black and indigenous people” (p. 144). in chapter 5, king uses as a point of departure charmaine lurch’s sculpture revisiting sycorax and brings excerpts of an interview with the artist where she talks about how her work is inspired by the work of sylvia wynter (adaptation of the notion of demonic) and interconnected with the mathematical formula of the tesseract. lurch explains how the tesseract can transform 3d into 4d. it is about creating a new space. king also thinks with “exilic thought” she encounters in the works of charmaine lurch, dionne brand, katherine mckittrick, and rinaldo walcott that “unsettles hegemonic, and often congealed, national and regional hegemonies within diaspora studies” (p. 175). this chapter is a space of transformation in her shoaling movements, with ceremony as the break with the old traditions and the initiation of the new (p. 205). in the end, king thinks about the concept of ceremony and explains how each chapter of the book was about different ceremonies. she began with the #blacklivesmatter ceremony of defacing the statue of columbus in chapter 1 and ended in chapter 5 with charmaine lurch’s sculpture, “the wiggling and distortion of the line … creat[ing] new aesthetics that invoke human ceremony on new terms that invite us to shape what it means to be alive” (p. 206). together the different ceremonies that compose the book create “shifting and new grounds” (p. 206) to rethink humanity. discussion and concluding thoughts as i mentioned in the introduction, i propose reading this book, not as something to possibly reproduce, but as a source of inspiration to think about the grammars of practice for early childhood education. engaging with humans’ violent makings from the 15th century until today can help us think about questions of how our work in early childhood education can be part of a story of conquest or a practice that engages in thinking about how to be human differently. inspired by king’s writings, i think that the possibilities of how to be human differently do not mean limiting ourselves to a response of moral outrage as we realize that this violence is perpetrated continually through the 21st century and as people face police brutality or the unequal effects of covid-19 on indigenous, black, and economically marginalized communities. moral outrage is not enough because that kind of response might put a period into the conversations. what king does with her shoaling movement in this book is, instead, about using commas, brief pauses, and interrogations that keep the thinking and the conversation moving. march 2021 76 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources there are interesting questions to ponder with king’s work. when she brings the idea of conquest as more generative than settlement for native and black lives and histories during colonization, we interrogate language and discourse. early childhood education is permeated with discourses about childhood, such as psychologybased developmentalism, that have been framing the early learning spaces for decades. how do we navigate the different discourses of childhood in education? how might some discourses be contributing to a liberal humanist project of making the human? blaise and ryan (2012) show how critical theory has been essential to question normative views of young children and to question the developmentally based curriculum as inclusive and unbiased. as blaise and ryan acknowledge the role of critical theory in education, they simultaneously claim the need to create transformation and “reinvent what it means to teach young children” (p. 89). when we think about creating a practice that moves beyond the idea of a scientific child (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013), an idea that has been shaping the field for decades, we might get some inspiration from king’s shoaling moves in chapter 3 when she reads de brahm’s map and dash’s film as speculative texts. king reads de brahm’s map as a map of the desires and fabulations of the british conquistadors. she does not read it as a scientific text that tells an irrefutable truth, thus she opens thinking about the map’s limitations and working toward new possibilities—a multitude of stories. at the same time, the limits of this cartesian object bring new imaginings for black and indigenous lives—lives not defined exclusively by stories of suffering. king’s reading of the map shows the limits of liberal humanism theorizations while concurrently opening possibilities for thinking about being human in different ways not inscribed in westerncentric thought. how might it inspire different kinds of thought about westerncentric childhood discourses and how they influence quotidian practices? how could it provoke new openings and possibilities created by engaging with art, poetry, and literature? as we carefully add these ideas to our bundle and nurture them, we might rethink ways that we include materials (books, illustration, toys) to satisfy diversity requirements in early childhood spaces, as is expected in the profession. how could we include books, ideas, and concepts into our spaces because they might be transformative and generative of practices that challenge anti-blackness and anti-indigeneity? we need to go beyond what is demanded and try to think with other objects and behaviours that might be contributing to maintaining and restricting black and indigenous lives to stories of conquest and suffering. one object we usually have in educational settings is the map itself. how can we imagine other ways to take an item such as the familiar map of canada found in classrooms and childcare centres across canada and reimagine how we engage with it? how can we think more deeply and critically of what it means to put this map up on the wall? when posting a map of canada as a practice, could we not include questions and provocations? can we reimagine the map? create new possibilities? canada is the country with the most extensive coastline in the world. we have more shoals than anywhere else. can this area of indeterminacy (canadian shoals) help us rethink this map? as an early childhood educator myself, i wonder about the simple act of posting a map on the wall, provoked by the shoaling and imaginings tiffany king proposes. as i claim, education is political. it matters what questions we choose to pose and what stories we choose to think with. i conclude by returning to the opening quotes as i suggest that we think seriously about our choices when we work with children, because they are always contributing to larger political projects, even when we are unaware. we might think about how can we include antiracism intentionally in our practices, engaging creatively and finding interdisciplinary inspirations in our field. this is a collective work that leads us to continually ask lorde’s question, and king’s: “how can we use each other’s differences in our common battles for a livable future?” march 2021 77 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references blaise, m., & ryan, s. (2012). using critical theory to trouble the early childhood curriculum: is it enough? in n. file, j. j. mueller, & d. b. wineski (eds.), curriculum in early childhood education e-examines, rediscovers renewed (pp. 80–91). routledge. dahlberg, g., moss, p., & pence, a. (2013). beyond quality in early childhood education and care: languages of evaluation (3rd ed.). routledge. dash, j. (writer, director). (1991). daughters of the dust {film]. kino international. king, t. l. (2019). the black shoals: offshore formations of black and native studies. duke university press. kunzig, r. (2020). let’s not waste this moment: we need to stop abusing the planet. national geographic, 238(5), 76–89. https://www. nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/lets-not-waste-this-crucial-moment-we-need-to-stop-abusing-the-planet-feature lorde, a. (1985). i am your sister: black women organizing across sexualities. kitchen table, women of color press. miles, t. (2015). the cherokee rose: a novel of ghosts and gardens. blair. moss, p. (2014). transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education. routledge. sutton, w. (2020). what covid-19 took from this black community. national geographic, 238(5), 36–39. vintimilla, c. d., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2020). weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. european early childhood education research journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 wynter, s. (2003). unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation—an argument. the new centennial review, 3(3), 257–337. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015 73 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice refusing to grow old: the antichronocratic labour of cypriot activist youth and what it can teach us about decolonizing childhood and related knowledge production georgina christou georgina christou is a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of social and political sciences at the university of cyprus where she currently works on the funded project youth autonomous politics, contested urban spaces and the right to the city. the project expands work undertaken during her phd. her research interests include youth social movements, the politics of childhood and youth, gentrification policies, and right to the city struggles. in her doctoral work, she researched cypriot youths’ autonomous horizontal politics and the role of public space in processes of political becoming. she has published in edited volumes and international peer-reviewed journals. email: christou.georgina@ucy.ac.cy in their recent book the time of anthropology kirtsoglou and simpson (2020) take on the issues of power and time and propose the notion of chronocracy, which they define as “the discursive and practical ways in which temporal regimes are used in order to deny coevalness and thereby create deeply asymmetrical relationships of exclusion and domination either between humans (in diverse contexts) or between humans and other organisms and our ecologies” (p. 3). the denial of coevalness, which refers to the temporal practice of denying the existence of the “other” in the present time in order to mark them as backwards and thus in need of development and civilization, was a primary practice of colonial regimes to justify interventions in the governing of colonized people’s lives (fabian, 1983). kirtsoglou and simpson suggest that such practice still continues today through hegemonic forms of governing temporality, that is, chronocratic practices, and term the work of anthropologists who expose such governing by giving emphasis to the existence of multiple temporalities as counterchronocratic labour and thus decolonial labour. in line with such arguments, it has been well documented within childhood studies (james, 2009; james & prout, 1997; lee, 2001) that a primary form of governing children has been to view them not as beings in the present but primarily as becomings, validated as subjects only when they reached adulthood and particularly a form of adulthood that assumes the perceived qualities of white adult european males (i.e., rational, efficient, individualized, independent). it goes without saying that for most children (and adults) this is an a priori impossible endeavour. what has not perhaps been given equal attention, although there are some key writings on this issue, are the colonial underpinnings of such governing, which i would term as a form of denial of coevalness. olga nieuwenhuys (2013) has argued that “the depiction of colonized people as historically occupying a lower rung on the ladder leading to the through registering the chronopolitics of cypriot teenage antiauthoritarian activists, this article explores the antichronocratic labour of children as a way to engage with processes of degrowth and to create dissident everyday temporalities through which to build alternative communities and relations in the present. it is argued that paying attention to such labour unsettles the hegemonic temporality of linear development and the individualized child of capitalist modernity while also troubling the consequent individual character of agency that has been hegemonic in childhood studies thus far. such attention must infuse research on childhood(s) in its attempt to decolonize childhood and related knowledge production. key words: temporality; degrowth; decolonization; youth activism; everyday 74 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice higher, european civilization showed remarkable parallels with theories of child development that were emerging at the same time in europe” (p. 5). in relation to this argument, nancy lesko (1996) has demonstrated that the inquiry “into lower species during colonialism such as women, children and savages was seen as illuminating the evolutionary progression of the race and factors contributing or blocking it” (p. 146). psychologists of adolescence explicitly “drew analogies between women, savages and youths” (p. 147), and thus child development and human evolution, as lesko suggests, were established as mirrors of each other. such mirroring has further informed what have been termed development and aid policies, often leading to constructions of an infantilized south that fell behind the civilization standards of a “mature,” adult north (burman, 1994a, 1994b). taking inspiration from such analyses, i suggest that paying attention to the counterchronocratic politics of children, that is, how children actively resist the hegemonic temporalities that either deny them coevalness and/or attempt to subdue them into a linear, progressive journey to adulthood, betterment, and development, constitutes a form of decolonial labour. active resistance insinuates more direct forms of politics that in the case of underage actors often take the form of social movement participation propelled by their exclusion from official political platforms. paying attention, i would argue, to the collective politics of children—that is, how children relate and co-organize with others to effect change—takes the work of decolonization one step further as it challenges the individualized child of modernity and neoliberalism and the consequent individual character of agency that has been hegemonic in the field of childhood studies until recently. such attention must infuse research on childhood(s) in their aim to expose the colonial legacies underlying such forms of governing, including knowledge production. indeed, paying attention to such forms of counterchronocratic labour and collective politics must be seen as part of the work of decolonizing childhood. questioning the (westerncentric) limits of childhood and related knowledge production within the continuously proliferating work on decolonizing childhood and knowledge production on children, as well as within more recent work that attempts to reimagine childhood studies (spyrou, 2018; spyrou et al., 2019), there is increasing recognition of the need to engage with relational forms of agency or to understand agency in a relational way. in fact, millei et al. (2018), in their important work on decolonizing childhood, suggest that providing visibility to the relational self, that is, the self as it emerges through “a network of social relations” (p. 249), is a step away from “the autonomous, self-contained individual” (p. 249) of modernity. in a similar way, cannella and viruru (2004) argue that we need to perceive childhood as a phenomenon that is not isolated but interconnected with larger issues; consequently, we need to perceive children as part of larger wholes, “as linked to and influencing the larger and more complex world” (p. 3). social movements and their study are first and foremost exactly about that: exploring the relational self that is produced through a network of social relations (see della porta & diani, 2006), as well as the conscious effort of people, especially within antiauthoritarian movements, to build alternative communities and forms of relationality to the ones that have become hegemonic within modernity and which support the consistent exploitation of the less privileged within late capitalism. despite this fact, childhood studies, until recently, showed a peculiar lack of interest toward studying the movements children participate in or initiate, particularly in the global north. beyond few exceptions, including research on working children’s movements (see liebel, 2003; liebel et al., 2001; van daalen & mabillard, 2019), what is mostly studied are individual forms of children’s agency or children’s participation through institutional means, that although crucial in countering the idea of the passive, in-development child, seem to still maintain a dominant order founded upon modernist dichotomies of (private/institutionalized) child versus (public actor) adult. however, part of decolonial labour, as kristen cheney (2019) suggests, is precisely to explore “where attention 75 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice to children lies and what sorts of knowledge production about children is deemed relevant and recognizable” (p. 95) and consequently, i would argue, what types of knowledge production are perceived as irrelevant to be taken on in relation to children and/or where childhood studies draws its boundaries. looking therefore into ways and/or methods to decolonize childhood and related knowledge production means going back to these colonial legacies of the conceptualization and management of childhood in order to unsettle them. this involves not only studying children as present individual actors, as has been widely done within childhood studies so far, but also paying attention to and exploring how children and teenagers themselves actively disrupt such legacies through conscious counterchronocratic practices and politics of time that challenge the denial of coevalness and the idea of progression toward a predefined telos. challenging the denial of coevalness does not necessarily mean claiming coevalness, but as i will show later, it might involve processes of degrowing, or becoming minor, achieved through conscious antihegemonic practice. paying attention then to children’s counterchronocratic practices, through which they open up time-spaces within modernity for building alternative communities and networking with like-minded groups, as well as for engaging with processes of degrowth, must be seen as a way to give validation and visibility to the times of those constructed as others of western civilized subjects—and to the ways these others challenge the hegemonic temporality of linear development and anticipated progress and the isolated, individualized (child) subject of modernity. i intend to unfold this argument by first exploring in brief the management and colonization of time, and particularly children’s time, within modernity through chronocratic practices. i then propose, following radical activists and scholars of the 1960s, to understand children’s attempts to recapture the everyday through forms of collective self-organization as a key form of youths’ resistance to such colonization. subsequently, i explore and situate chronocratic practices within the postcolonial and protracted conflict space of cyprus, demonstrating how the common evolutionary practice of equating child development with national development (burman, 2019; lesko, 1996; millei et al., 2018) takes particular contextual form and sets specific limits to the adults children can grow into. finally, i explore a case of cypriot youths’ collective resistance to such chronocratic regimes to register youths’ own challenging of the dominant temporalities of capitalist and nationalist modernity. doing so gives visibility to the times of others within western modernity, as well as to children’s collective attempts to forge differentiated and interconnected subject positions to the ones offered by modernity/coloniality. in this process, i show how children construct dissident temporalities within which they are able to build alternative communities and author a collective antiauthoritarian political voice. at the same time, i show how such a politics involves attempts on the part of children to maintain themselves within the realm of childhood rather than grow into the adults the nation-state and modernity demand. i argue that these efforts are an attempt to remain in the process of “becoming minor,” of degrowing rather than growing into neoliberal, nationalist selves. paying attention to children’s own attempts to degrow that are in line with wider projects of radical socioecological transformation (kallis & march, 2015) constitutes a way to decolonize childhood and related knowledge production. chronocratic regimes of childhood and youth educational systems, and formal schooling in particular, have been a primary mechanism by which colonial governments attempted to systematically regulate the temporalities of the colonized and particularly, in this case, their children (kidman et al., 2020). the associated clock time and timetable of the curriculum that divide time into a set number of hours and distribute bodies into regulated, individualized spaces to inscribe punctuality, efficiency, individuality, and predictability are central organizing principles of western culture exported elsewhere. as chris jenks (2005) emphasized, they constitute a principal mode of disciplinary governance that is firmly 76 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice connected with ideas about individual realization. schooling is seen as a primary way for self-realization, in other words, and those children who react or do not succumb to an obligatory schedule are often labelled pathological or deviant. if not schooled, one falls short of modernity, independence, or even full humanity—the characteristics of valid adulthood in modernity—with the predicted consequences that this might engender. this kind of colonization of time in modernity, and its resulting alienation, however, has reached far beyond schooling or working time. as the situationists, a post-marxist group of artists and intellectuals that partly instigated and participated in the university student protests of the 1960s in france and elsewhere, have proposed, free time is also heavily controlled through forms of commodification and regulation. free time is also divided into blocks; it becomes a thing, a sellable good. package holidays, theme parks, and shopping malls are brought as examples of governing what is otherwise perceived as free time (plant, 1992). this overall commodification and appropriation of everyday life, for situationists, stifles creativity, collectivity, and radical politics as participation is simulated through forms of individual consumption and commodity. the everyday, in other words, conceptualized also by henri lefebvre as a key site of capitalist regulation that produces alienation (see gardiner, 2000), is depleted as an active field for intervention and social change. to cure this alienation the situationists argued for a revolution of everyday life (vaneigem, 1967/2001)— a proposition, in other words, to see revolution not as a one-off event but as everyday labour, which happens through small acts that recapture everyday life via forms of collective self-organization. the latter refers to active participation in the organization of spheres of life with the aim of creating alternative, more equitable and just worlds in the present. especially for those excluded from official platforms of political participation—those recognized as exceptional spaces where “serious” politics is perceived to take place—such as children and teenagers, the everyday as a time-space must be understood as a primary field of political intervention and creativity to unsettle the hegemonic temporalities of modernity. attempts to recapture the everyday, i propose, must be explored as forms of counterchronocratic labour through which youth attempt to challenge their placement as heterochronic subjects, whose validation is postponed to an anticipated future temporality, by actively creating worlds and communities in the present. particularly children’s social movement activism, which, by its nature, involves youth attempting to build relations and alternative communities in the present, must be seen as a key form of resistance to youths’ chronocratic governance given that it more actively attempts to fight individualism and isolation, which constitute key conditions of modern/ capitalist living. in what follows i explore chronocratic regimes within the context of cyprus to demonstrate how the common evolutionary process of equating child with national development takes particular forms that, in the case of a protracted conflict context, enhance the exclusionary and restrictive appeal of such processes in terms of commanding the proper ways to be modern, to be an adult. chronocratic regimes in cyprus in countries that have experienced ethnic conflict, such as cyprus, this continuous linear progression to adulthood that assumedly brings forth self-realization, as well as the related colonial mechanism of denying coevalness, take on particular contextual connotations. in the case of the greek-cypriot community, children’s progressive journey to adulthood through schooling is further considered as a progressive journey to a (predestined) greek national self. education, for the greek cypriot authorities and particularly for the greek orthodox church of cyprus that has been key in managing educational issues for greek cypriots during the ottoman empire and while cyprus was under british colonial rule (1878–1960), has been considered as a major way to cultivate in youth greek orthodox 77 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice values and devotion to the nation (persianis & poliviou, 1992). for the church and the greek cypriot elite this nation was greece, and in fact the anticolonial struggle that was held by greek cypriots during the 1950s aimed not only at freedom from colonial rule but at union with greece perceived as the natural national space in which cyprus belonged, despite the existence of a substantial community of turkish cypriots on the island. according to rebecca bryant (2004, 2006), who conducted research on education in cyprus during colonization, the way education was envisioned for greek cypriot schools shows that greek cypriots, or at least the greek orthodox elite, believed that “humans are, by nature, ethnic subjects, members of their race, and education is required to achieve their higher end” (2006, pp. 53–54). bryant argues that “greekness” was considered innate in greek cypriot children, and that it needed to be cultivated through education in order for them to reach their full potential. in other words, to become fully greek one needed to undergo greek education. moreover, greekness represented civilization and thus humanity for greek cypriots who, in an attempt to establish their hierarchy against colonized others, claimed ancient greek civilization as ancestor of european civilization, a thesis that asserted modern greeks (and, by extension, greek-cypriots) as not only of western origin but as the descendants of the assumedly real ancestors of europe (bryant, 2006). thus, to deny greek cypriots a greek education meant to deny them civilization and, by extension, full humanity. such a thesis legitimized claims to a separate educational system from turkish cypriots perceived as polluting elements to an otherwise pure culture. such separations were in any case reinforced by the colonial regime through their inscription and codification in the colonial constitution in order “to manage the heterogeneity of the ‘native’ other” (gregoriou, 2004, p. 254). building on bryant’s (2004, 2006) argument and given the wider (post)colonial context of the time, where schooling was perceived as the means to become modern, developed, adult, i argue that greekness was further associated with adulthood within the greek-cypriot context, as achieving greekness through schooling meant reaching full realization. if not schooled in a greek educational system, with the nationalist outlook it engendered, one was considered degenerate, underdeveloped, not fully greek and therefore uncivilized, not fully adult. in this sense, the denial of coevalness within this context took particular nationalist connotations. such perceptions pervade greek cypriot education to the present day. after independence in 1960 and the founding of the bicommunal state, intercommunal fighting erupted. subsequently, a coup, supported by the military junta in greece against the cypriot president in 1974, was followed by a turkish military invasion of the island followed, resulting in the physical separation of the two communities between a turkish-cypriot administered north and a greek-cypriot administered south, with the state in the south recognized internationally as the republic of cyprus. after division, an already nationalistic curriculum in the greek cypriot community was further reinforced and served to indoctrinate children into what has been defined as the primary political goal of the nation: to liberate their land from turkish occupation and return it to its rightful—greek cypriot—owners (see bryant & papadakis, 2012; m. christou, 2006). in this imagination, children become symbolic of the nation’s survival and therefore atemporal as children’s present concerns and relationships with collectives that might also disapprove of nationalism become irrelevant. in nationalism, children often become spectacular given that the past is identified with the future, compressing the present. dissident temporalities and the chronopolitics of cypriot youth within such restrictive chronocratic regimes of childhood, resistance is expected to take heavily temporal forms. for the case of the greek cypriot antiauthoritarian youth community i have studied through an 18-month process of ethnographic fieldwork in central nicosia1, time was perceived as something to be reclaimed from adult authorities. more specifically, a pupils’ autonomous collective within this antiauthoritarian community with which 78 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice i engaged more thoroughly defined themselves as skapoula, a greek cypriot slang word that indicates truancy, or skipping school. skapoula literally means “escape” and it is particularly used by greek cypriot pupils to indicate an illegitimate absence from school. in fact, skapoula is a common practice conducted mostly by secondary school students in cyprus to spend the day as they see fit. the frequency of the practice of skapoula, however, is indicative of pupils’ frustration at the overwhelming management of pupils’ time by adult authorities, as they are called to spend approximately seven hours every day within classrooms following curricula decided on adult terms. it further indicates intense feelings of boredom in relation to a highly didactic and nationalistic delivery of education, particularly within public schools, which leaves little room for participatory, critical, and interactive methods of learning and for children’s present concerns and realities to come forward. such feelings were registered in skapoula’s magazine, a regular publication skapoula members prepared and distributed in schools and streets. in issue 2, under the title “why we don’t dig schooling,” skapoula wrote: “we don’t dig parroting. we want to think, question and critique. we don’t dig the imposition of religion, and of the ‘greco-christian’ ideal. we don’t dig after school private classes. they steal our mornings; they steal our afternoons!” (skapoula, 2011). the text was accompanied by the picture of a student leaned forward on his school desk. underneath the word bored was written in capital letters. in this context, skapoula and its frequency can be read as a diagnostic of power (abu-lughod, 1990). resistance, in other words, works here as a chemical catalyst (foucault, 1982) that reveals power relations and their particular ways and spaces of application. in this case it is revealing of the highly authoritarian educational practice implemented by the ministry of education within schools. from such governance pupils seek forms of escape. researcher: why name the group skapoula? ermis: because it was a pupil thing. billis: because skapoula constitutes a form of claiming our free time, so that we go and sit in parks. it was also something against the educational system, in general; all this time that we waste in school doing nothing, to be able to manage it ourselves the way we want to. for the group skapoula itself, in which ermis and billis were key members, the practice of skapoula was a form of resistance in terms of being a direct reclaiming of time from the authorities to be used on one’s own terms. for skapoula, the way pupils’ time is filled up and who has a say in that was not unproblematic; instead, they made it into a political concern, highlighting it as a specific way of governing pupils’ lives. this direct reclaiming of time exposed the occupation of one’s time as a deeply political practice and “as a medium of hierarchic power and governance” (munn, 1992, p. 109). the time earned by skapoula, for these antiauthoritarian youth, was often spent at faneromeni square, a central public square in nicosia’s old town that was constructed as a regular hangout space for youth and eventually was produced into a public sphere in which different opinions that could not be discussed in schools, such as ones challenging nationalism and ethnic division, were shared by unofficial groups of youth becoming active there (see g. christou, 2021, for more detail). moreover, during afternoon time or even at night during weekends, youth at the square developed alternative forms of entertainment, like self-organized street parties, that held a clear anticonsumerist ethos because the participants consciously understood themselves as being against the mainstream entertainment culture of chain coffee shops and night clubs. instead, free time was reclaimed to be spent playfully at the square, where community bonds were created among youth that fought the alienation of modern consumerist spaces and of the schooling system. play was reclaimed in this sense, from being an assumedly politically neutral free time for children, to being politically meaningful by taking on the sense of experimentation where identities 79 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice beyond those inflicted by the status quo were tried on for size. this reclamation was expressed in a text written collectively by youth regulars at faneromeni square in 20092 and distributed in city streets. in the text the youth expressed what they were claiming with their constant presence and occupation of the square. i quote an excerpt from the text below: we claim one of the few squares of our city. so that we create our own hangout outside of profit, so that we build relationships between us. relationships that are based on humanity, not on money. we claim our entertainment. our free entertainment beyond bars and clubs that one needs to pay 50 euro per night for entry and drinks. beyond such kind of places where socialization is negligible and fake. we claim back the time stolen from us by routine. school-afternoon class-home, home-work-home. they sack our energy on an everyday basis while we remain passive spectators. we claim the present. neither the future, nor the past. the text demonstrates the construction of an alternative everydayness and counterculture at the square that constituted a way for youth to recapture the everyday from schooling and consumerism by creating dissident temporalities where they could participate in public life in the here and now. the colonial chronocratic tactic of the denial of coevalness reproduced in modernity through schooling was being challenged at the square, where youth were questioning their production as heterochronic subjects through playful practices, creating in this sense community and alternative worlds in which to be and express themselves in the present, challenging simultaneously the forms of spectacular childhood produced by nationalism. this alternative everydayness was further used by skapoula youth as a time-space to hold their assemblies and prepare their political talk against the nationalist educational system and militarism and racism in cyprus, among other issues. this political talk was distributed in the form of brochures and a regular magazine in schools and city streets. with this political talk skapoula attempted to connect the individualized subject position of the child/ pupil with larger constituencies and social movements, as well as with other polemical global subject positions, such as that of “the worker,” in order to collectivize this category and demonstrate its interconnection with larger wholes (for extensive analysis of this practice see g. christou, 2018). skapoula youth thus fought the individualism inherent in perceptions of “the” child in modernity by coexisting and acting collaboratively in a direct democratic assembly of pupils while also actively seeking connections with the larger world. moreover, within this political talk, playtime—and, by extension, childhood—as the quintessential time for play in the west, was often reclaimed as resistance by skapoula youth, this time to the overarching rituals of adulthood within cypriot society. the example below is indicative. in assixtir 13, a street brochure prepared by skapoula that dealt with the educational system, as well as with rising fascism within cypriot society and its historical links to figures much celebrated in school history textbooks, the following line is emphasized as a response to all the above: “i’d rather stay a child and keep my self-respect if being an adult means being like you.” staying a child here means rejecting the overarching rituals of adulthood in cyprus, which, as seen earlier, relate to becoming an obedient proponent of the greek and christian ideals and willing to sacrifice oneself for those ideals. in choosing to stay children, skapoula members effectively reject being turned into (greek) nationalists. they reject the choices of adulthood and self-realization presented by greek-cypriot authorities, and the wider modernist project, by seeking to remain within the realm of childhood that they see as more morally sound in nature. childhood as a time-space here becomes an antihegemonic space of resistance to the dominant temporalities of capitalist and nationalist modernity. 80 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice this process of staying a child is reminiscent of the process of becoming minor or “minoritarian” in deleuze and guattari’s terms (1987, p. 105), which involves a process of constant variation from the hegemonic versions of oneself (through engagement with nonhegemonic practices), as well as variation from society’s hegemonic rendering of categories—such as child and pupil—through which to experience oneself. it involves, in other words, a process of degrowth, as well as a subversion of these categories through infusing them with different meaning that challenges ageism, individualism, and the inflicted temporalities of capitalist modernity that lead to uneven worlds. by claiming to stay children, skapoula youth effectively refuse to grow old in the ways expected from them by the establishment. they thus turn the authoritarian governing of time, which seeks to infantilize them and maintain them within a space of development, on its head by choosing effectively to remain in the process of “becoming minor” in the present. conclusion as millei et al. (2018, p. 242) propose, a key strategy for decolonization might be to rethink “time and space as other than objective, linear, and singular” and to challenge the association of children with (national) development and most importantly with “the teleology of development” (burman, 2019, p. 20). one way to do so, as i proposed in this article, is to give attention to the antichronocratic labour of children with which they attempt to challenge such hegemonic perceptions of time in modernity. by exploring the chronopolitics of, and in this case the construction of dissident temporalities by, cypriot antiauthoritarian teenage youth, be it the creation of alternative temporal zones or the reclaiming of childhood as time-space for resistance, i attempted to give visibility and validation to the times and politics of those constructed as other of western modernity and their attempts to degrow by cultivating minor positionalities to the ones supported by the nationalist and neoliberal establishment. i further attempted to expose the existence of multiple worlds, such as ones where children build relationality, solidarity, and collective, self-organized fun, beyond those inflicted by national and neoliberal modernizing projects. such endeavour can be achieved more broadly by paying attention to how youth attempt to recapture the everyday as the primary field where they can be politically active on their own terms and create alternative communities where they can experiment with different, nonhegemonic versions of the self, or in other words, where they can remain in the process of “becoming minor.” such communities, i suggested, are primarily created through the involvement of children and teenagers in countercultures or social movements that by themselves require a relational form of agency. paying more attention to children’s involvement in such collectivities, and how through such involvement they unsettle adult hegemonic time, which has become a key concern of current activist children (see g. christou et al., 2022), constitutes a further form of decolonizing childhood studies, as such involvement necessarily privileges relational forms of agency and children as public political actors over the individualized, apolitical, underdeveloped child of colonialism and modernity. this privileging troubles the focus on individual forms of agency that have been hegemonic in childhood studies thus far by placing children within wider social totalities, as well as by acknowledging their attempts to connect with wider agonistic communities—a key tactic of decolonization (see bhambra, 2014, in her discussion of quijano, 2007) to be pursued further in the future. attention to what sort of knowledge production is deemed relevant or irrelevant to be taken on in relation to children can help us disturb the boundaries of childhood studies and question westerncentric approaches within and beyond knowledge production. funding this work was financially supported by the onisilos postdoctoral program of the university of cyprus. 81 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice acknowledgments the author would like to express her deep gratitude to all the research participants, and particularly to the youth of the skapoula collective who welcomed me in their circles and generously shared with me their experiences of being a young antiauthoritarian activist in cyprus. 82 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice references abu-lughold, l. 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(original work published in 1967) 84 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice endnotes 1 the data presented here is part of an 18-month ethnography during which i have spent countless hours at faneromeni square and other public spaces in nicosia, socializing with mostly teenage boys and girls, while regularly participating in their online and offline assemblies, demonstrations, marches, and street parties. i documented this data in my fieldnotes diary. additionally, i have conducted 30 in-depth individual interviews (17 boys and 10 girls, among which 3 boys were interviewed twice) with youth square regulars, and a great number of informal discussions with older activists of the cypriot antiauthoritarian scene. most youth participants were greekcypriots, while some had one parent of migrant background. the youth came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. ethics approval for this research study was obtained through an ethics review process at the university of sussex. 2 this text was entitled “manolis is alive.” manolis is the name given to a tree found at faneromeni square that youth used to congregate around. the name was then extended by this youth to the whole square, so many times faneromeni square would be referred to as manolis’s square. the text referenced here was written as a response to authorities’ attempts at framing the square as a place of youth delinquency, drug use, and nuisance to justify interventions to evict the youth community created there. 3 assixtir was a small street brochure published occasionally by skapoula that could be produced cheaply and distributed easily. assixtir is a turkish word used by both greek and turkish-cypriots that means “fuck off.” _hlk90046102 _hlk104804934 _hlk104807814 _hlk104472374 march 2022 70 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research d032 n07 c0mpu73: exploring (post)human bodies and worlds with/in droidial(ity) and narrative contexts bretton a. varga and erin c. adams dr. bretton a. varga is an assistant professor of history–social science at california state university, chico. his research works with(in) critical theories of race, art, and temporality to explore how visual methods and artistic mediums can be used to unveil historically marginalized perspectives and layers (upon layers) of history that haunt the world around us. email: bvarga@csuchico. edu dr. erin c. adams is an associate professor in the department of elementary and early childhood education at kennesaw state university where she teaches courses in social studies methods, classroom community buildings, and teacher leadership. her research primarily focuses on economic education and subjectivity utilizing post methodologies and theories. email: eadams55@ kennesaw.edu we know nothing about a body until we know what it can do, in other words, what its affects are, how they can or cannot enter into composition with other affects, with the affects of another body, either to destroy that body or to be destroyed by it, either to exchange actions and passions with it or to join with it in composing a more powerful body. ~ gilles deleuze and félix guattari, a thousand plateaus intra/acting with speculative fictions offers a powerful approach for disrupting harmful single stories that stymie imagination, cultural sustenance, and im/possibility concerning morethan-human bodies and worlds (adichie, 2009; nxumalo & cedillo, 2017; saleh et al., 2018). despite traces of humanistic indifferentiation and exceptionalism within the context of children’s literature, the material turn in educational research exposes (re)new(ed) pathways (see, e.g., kimmerer, 2013; tuck, 2015; tuck & yang, 2012) of thinking about “ways humans, nonhumans and more-than-humans are already always entangled in producing truths, realities, knowledges and relationships” (kuby & rowsell, 2017, p. 285). we argue that one such (underutilized) entanglement involves the narrative and relational circuitry between human bodies and machinery created in the likeness of humans, which we refer to as droids. the imbrications among people, machines, and (science-fictional) narratives are complex, yet hold territories of cognitive estrangement (campbell, 2019; freedman, 2000; suvin, 1979) insofar that speculative/science-fictional texts allow us to see ourselves from afar. perhaps this capacity is a direct result of the tensions embedded within the genre categorization (i.e., paradoxical combination of objective science-based realities and imaginative universes). regardless, and notwithstanding rare positionings of droids as being agential and agents of resistance against the cruelty of this article focuses on droidial bodies in children’s literature to explore how speculative literacies foster necessary spaces for thinking about (non)human and more-than-human connectivity. specifically, we share what was produced when we applied a framework underpinned by posthumanist concepts to three children’s books centering robots. using jackson and mazzei’s thinking with theory to plug into these books, this article raises (re)new(ed) questions about the intersections of literacy, humanism, and droids. it proposes that pairing posthumanist concepts with droidial texts can be generative in thinking about, critiquing, and predicting changes with the (ever-developing) relationship(s) between humans and machines. key words: posthumanism; droids; speculative literacies; thinking with theory march 2022 71 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research humanity (dick, 1968), droids are commonly portrayed as “silent character[s] in the narrative of both the loss and hope of some common humanity” (deleon, 2015, p. 6). despite this portrayal, we argue that droids can be more than mere instruments of human desire (e.g., transportation, entertainment, communication, agriculture) and sometimes are narratively positioned to experience, endure, and reproduce various (humanistic) sensibilities (e.g., affects, emotions, dreams). and just as our social imaginations regarding the intersections of humans and machines become less speculative and more perceptible, we have been thinking about how explorations into the wiring and performativity of children’s literature—featuring droids—provides points of departure for teachers/students to slacken the entrenchment of humanism through a better understanding of “how humanity comes to understand itself ” (deleon, 2015, p. 5). put another way, and perhaps ironically, we argue that droidial narratives can be productive in redirecting our thoughts beyond human bodies while simultaneously serving as an introspective mirror which, when held up, forces humanity to confront—from a distance—ethicalities extending beyond what constitutes non/human. this might be especially pertinent for children, who have particular relationships with droids and with/in science fiction, wherein “androids and aliens demand our rethinking of the meaning of being a human and a child” (kupferman & gibbons, 2019, p. 6). to this point, in this article we introduce droidiality (our term) as a framework that is underpinned by posthumanism to help us think across/over/under narrative enactments that highlight the affectual, emotional, and physical relationship(s) between non/humans, droids, and more-than-human worlds. in an attempt to expand how intensities of the world are conceptualized, we draw inspiration from braidotti (2019b) who argues that “posthuman thinking is post-identitarian and relational: it turns the self away from a focus on its own identity into a threshold of active becoming” (p. 79). as literacy is a rich territory for engaging with intersections regarding bodily becoming (i.e., identity articulation, expression, formation; kuby & rucker, 2020; tschida & buchanon, 2017) might we ask: what can we (e.g., teachers, students, researchers) learn from droidial bodies and identities when considering the tensions among design, programming, and functionality? further, and considering the certainty of droids in/across societies, how can these (droidial) perspectives help “normalize and contest dominant ideas of what it means to be human” (leurs et al., 2018, p. 464)? specifically, this paper reports on what was produced for us researchers when we applied our droidiality framework to three children’s stories that center droidial bodies: little bot and sparrow (parker, 2016), love, z (sima, 2018), and rusty the squeaky robot (clark, 2018). (posthuman) figurations of children(‘s picturebooks) children’s books, because they are written by adults, reveal those adults’ prevailing beliefs about the nature, character, and moral standing of children in (future) society/ies. for example, murris (2016) outlines six historical (and often deficit-oriented) figurations of the child in the western imagination: (1) developing; (2) ignorant; (3) evil; (4) innocent; (5) fragile; and (6) communal (p. 109). although these attributes are undoubtedly susceptible to change over time, sheldon (2016b) reminds us that the way that time (narratively) changes around the child deserves our attention. in concert with murris’s (2016) figurations of the child, dystopian contexts often problematically celebrate children as being hopeful saviours/custodians of damaged futures. these narrative framings drop the connection between agency and child, thus tethering children to the reconstruction of trauma-based worlds. as sheldon (2016b) puts it, the innocent and agentic nature of the child “that is worth protecting cannot be preserved indefinitely, and so the child’s relationship to the future is defined, in part, by a melancholic anticipation of necessary loss” (p. 4). books with pictures that tell all of, or part of, the story and are oriented toward very young children are called picturebooks. following sipe (2001), we use picturebooks as an entangled concept “to emphasize the unity of words and pictures that is the most important hallmark of this type of book” (p. 23). picturebooks as fluidly march 2022 72 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research and cohesively text-images are particularly relevant to our work because, for all three books, the author is also the illustrator. children’s literature, specifically picturebooks, is a powerful and popular medium for connecting with young children. in social studies education, our specific field, picturebooks are often relied on for content delivery and leveraged to foster conversations about difficult topics or subject matter. often, these books are about people and events in the past and/or represent modern social issues. in addition to content acquisition, these books are thought to provide young children with windows and mirrors into perspectives (un)like their own, but to which they can relate (sims-bishop, 1990). with this in mind, picturebooks are used to teach, normalize, and reify various ways of being, becoming, and cultivating relationships. thus, picturebooks are “significant means by which we integrate young children into the ideology of our own culture” (nodelman, 2004). murris (2015) suggests that “certain picture books can be used for an approach to moral education that enacts a posthuman theoretical framework” in a way that “does not try to inculcate or moralize” but instead “disrupts traditional conceptions of children and childhood” (p. 59). from this perspective, picture books can foster inquiry framed around problematizing rigid binaries (e.g., nature/culture, human/non-human, teacher/student, science/ fiction) that stymie imagination and wonder (murris, 2015). moreover, such texts invite philosophizing insofar that upon entering queer worlds of “strange and distant and magical settings [featuring] ghosts, teddy bears, and monsters” (haynes & murris, 2012), students/teachers are exposed to nonnormative onto-epistemologies and identities within eschewed temporal contexts (e.g., future). human-cyborg relations robotification given the rapid robotification of the future, children are being acclimated to robots at an early age, finding themselves “on the frontlines of changing definitions of self, privacy, political participation, authorship and labour” (leurs et al., 2018, p. 464). studies of social robotics along with robophilosophy and android philosophy (ishiguro, 2014) offer new insights or “mirrors to reflect humanities” (ishiguro, 2014, p. 3) and new tasks that raise (philosophical) questions about “sociality and responsibility” (cockelberg, 2014, p. 7) within the larger framing of how humans and robots might engage in mutually trusting relationships (michael & salice, 2014, p. 125). within these contexts, we believe that robots—or droids—present inherently ethical questions about how machines ought to be treated and what rights they are entitled to. as authors / colleagues / science-fiction fans, we have talked at length about the efficacy of humans forcing droids to engage in problematic/risky endeavours. in particular, we have recently noticed troubling headlines/stories that reflect our ethical concerns. one such headline, “as covid-19 persists, japan looks to send in the robots” (martin, 2020), describes how robots are engaged and deployed involuntarily to situations deemed too dangerous for humans. also, we have seen articles that feature military bases using robo-dogs to patrol their borders (del valle, 2021) and robots that are so humanoid in nature that they can carry on conversations with humans (corkery & gelles, 2020). in this way, humans and robots are becoming increasingly acclimated to one another in preparation for (peaceful) cohabitation. the way robots are treated and the way they treat us is crucial when establishing appropriate behaviour and socialization. for example, when subjected to sexist remarks or demands, home assistants siri and alexa respond flirtatiously. this could be a dangerous foreshadowing into human-droid relations and a reification of sexism. while science fiction has at times presented machines as dangerous and apt to take over and enslave mankind (e.g., star wars, terminator franchise, and other popular media), when aimed at children, droids can also be portrayed as friendly, helpful, and unthreatening. star wars could even be said to be a primer into the ethical treatment of droids, as it has been suggested that the rebel alliance defeated the galactic empire because of their humane treatment of march 2022 73 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research droids and that, “had the bad guys” of star wars “actually bothered to think of droids as sentient beings worthy of attention and consideration, they’d have won every single war” (asher-perrin, 2018, para. 11). “errors” in (non/robotic) thinking building from the anthropological perspective (see marett, 1914) that when possessing humanistic attributes, inanimate objects can enigmatically be(come) alive, beran et al. (2011) performed a study seeking to understand the degree to which children map human sensibilities onto robots. during this study, participating children observed a nonhumanistic robot complete a series of tasks and then were asked questions relating to the robot’s identity (e.g., gender, name), cognition (e.g., recognition and memory), affectual capacities (e.g., emotions), and behaviour (e.g., actions). perhaps not surprisingly—considering the power of speculation and imagination—“more children considered the robot capable of emotions than cognition and behaviors” (beran et al., 2011, p. 546). although it is entirely possible that “children held little knowledge about the mechanics of robots, thus, [relied] on their existing knowledge state pertaining to humans” (beran et al., 2011, p. 547), perhaps the participants’ operating systems were defaulting to a posthumanistic perspective that acknowledges and articulates the vibrancy of matter (bennett, 2010). similarly, breazal et al. (2016) found that children aged 3–5 treated robots as companions and informants. the children showed a preference (i.e., greater trust and affiliation with) the robot that was more “socially sensitive” or “contingent” (breazal et al., 2016, p. 489), which demonstrates their sensitivity to social responsiveness. the children’s (ready) receptivity to robots aligned with a study by kahn et al. (2012) wherein children felt that a robot named robovie was able to think, feel, and develop friendships and was entitled to moral rights. relatedly, researchers are seeking to understand children’s treatment of nonhumanistic robots in order to prevent bot abuse. shelly, a tortoise robot developed in south korea, teaches children how it wants to be treated (ackerman, 2018). when shelly’s shell is stroked gently, it lights up. when shelly is hit or a child tries to pry its shell apart, it retreats into its shell and does not come out. shelly is a teaching tool “created by researchers ... in anticipation of the day when robots will be ubiquitous in our lives, helping in our homes and even acting as friendly companions.... robots must be treated fairly if they are to be fully integrated into human society” (maines, 2018, para. 3). in short, these studies reflect the variegated ways that children assign, or at least assume, (more-than-)human-like traits in robots and may be much less hesitant than adults to see robots—both humanistic and nonhumanistic—as “friendly companions and guides in an unfamiliar environment” (breazal et al., 2016, p. 482). we, too, want to inquire into a robotified future. the studies cited above reflect the sorts of present/future problems and issues of interest to social scientists and educators. researchers are keenly aware that 21st-century children are developing alongside robots and droids, who are not merely inanimate objects for amusement or workhorses of the future but companions that receive and reciprocate the full spate of human emotions and attachments. born in the breach between human and machine (haraway, 1985, 1991), today’s children are the fully realized cyborgs: “chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism” (p. 7). to this point, haraway (1985) predicted two cyborg(ian) futures: one was a star wars hellscape of machinic enslavement, a continual border war between human and machine in which humans, for a change, find themselves on the losing side. the other was a more cohesive, lateral relationship that is “about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines” (haraway, 1985, p. 15). further, we are keenly interested in how picture books might help children negotiate and philosophize such relationships as they come of age as “cyborg citizens” (gray, 2001). march 2022 74 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research positionality as researchers and social studies teacher educators, we both identify as white and acknowledge our settler privileges in this engagement. and, we are of collective mind that while there is a nonneutrality to humanity in which power and privilege are commonly hard-wired into the (western) human condition, we recognize decolonial, black, and indigenous scholarship warning of dangers of generalizing the human (lewis et al., 2018; nxumalo, 2020; todd, 2016; tuck et al., 2014; watts, 2013; wynter, 1984, 2003). moreover, we recognize that targeted communities have been historically/contemporarily marginalized, racialized, and treated in a way that could best be categorized as inhuman. to this point, we want to draw a clear distinction between our recognition of inhumanness and our posthuman line(s) of flight. during this inquiry, it is not our goal to circumnavigate this truth but rather to possibilitate how (re)wiring our perspectives in ways that are more materially engaged can foster ethicality (barad, 2007; braidotti, 2002; maclure, 2013) and progress toward a “dynamic becoming that constantly shapes and transforms us, as it [re]distributes agency among various life forms, e.g., human and nonhuman, organic and inorganic, actual and virtual” (dernikos et al., 2020, p. 11). in taking the position that all communities are relationally nomadic—yet transversal (braidotti, 1994; deleuze & guattari, 1987)—and include assemblages of nonhuman and more-than-human actors (e.g., droids), we attempt to work toward “the possibility of undoing and unsettling—not replacing or occupying—western conceptions of what it means to be human” (mckittrick, 2015, p. 2). as braidotti (2019b) reminds us, “clearly ‘we’ are in this posthuman together, but this does not necessarily spell out an ontological kind of humanism that has unified all the humans and thus flattened out the structural differences that separate us” (p. 156, italics in original). tracing the contours of science-fictional worlds foregrounds difference in itself (campbell, 2019) and thus offers innumerable opportunities to analyze/ consider how the figure of the child—through resurgent materialities and more-than-human (metallic) bodies— becomes made, unmade, and remade again and again. droidiality framework as robots, machines, and artificial intelligence become an increasingly important part of our everyday lives—even to the point of becoming appendages—it is necessary to develop theories to make sense of the fact that, as hayles (1999) puts it, “you are the cyborg, and the cyborg is you” (p. xii). conceptions of the cyborg (haraway, 1985, 1991), posthumanism, and robophilosophy are useful for considering subjectivity and ethics and how featuring robots and droidial figures in picturebooks offers children a vision of a posthuman-cyborg subjectivity, “a hybrid machine and organism ... a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction ... who populate[s] worlds ambiguously natural and crafted” (haraway, 1991, p. 149). in this way, picturebooks featuring droids offer children both windows and mirrors (sims-bishop, 1990)—as well as entry points to philosophize the relationship between humans and materialities of the world—into ways that educators might help cyborgs enter the world unafraid of their “permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (haraway, 2016, p. 15). along with these identity-related semiconductors, importantly, we see this framework as a conduit for further rupturing precarious (con)figurations of the child (murris, 2016; sheldon, 2016b) by opening portals into the future. that being said, we acknowledge that mere narrative/artistic representations of futurity will (always already) fall short in any efforts to foster temporal agency with children. with this in mind, our (speculative) framework seeks to serve as a mechanism that splices together droids, children, cyborgs, and futures in ways that focalize agency, inquiry, and philosophy. posthumanistic wirings despite the lack of research conducted around the intersections of literacy, (post)humanism, and droids, droidiality introduces a perspective aimed at computing heightened levels of humanistic attenuation by centralizing droidial march 2022 75 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research bodies. posthumanism provides a frame to understand the “unprecedented degree of technological intervention we have reached, and the intimacy we have developed with technological devices” (braidotti, 2019a, p. 2) as well as the extent to which we have become cyborgs (haraway, 1991) and, especially, how “most young people in today’s world are cyborgs in some form” (leurs et al., 2018, p. 463). a particular kind of posthumanism, speculative posthumanism, makes a move from theorizing “the as-if of [science] fiction and play” (seibt, 2018, p. 392) to the as-of-now. roden (2018) writes that speculative posthumanism, as a “metaphysical claim about the kinds of things that could exist in the world ... opposes human-centric thinking about the long-run implications of modern technology” (p. 399), proposing that “there could be posthumans” now (p. 399). although picturebooks are often moralizing and (allegedly) child-centering (floom & janzen, 2020), posthumanism can be a way to decenter the human and the child in children’s literature and to turn away, as moss (2016) suggests, “from the idea of the child as autonomous agent and ... towards the idea of the child enmeshed in an immense web of material and discursive force [that lives on earth with] other earth dwellers and is not in an inferior position to adults” (p. xi). droids are some of those other earth dwellers, and children are quickly being acclimated to listen to, learn from, and live among them. as such, we are prompted to ask, with leurs et al. (2018), “how do young people come of age as posthuman subjects” (p. 463) with other posthuman subjects? because “language names the possible” (deleuze, 1995, p. 6), we suggest that language also names the impossible. thus, in applying droidiality, we mesh together speculativeness and impossibility in a way that attends to braidotti’s (2019b) call for the “creation of new concepts and adequate figurations to express them” (p. 123). specifically, droidiality consists of a triad of themes programmed for exploring aspects of droidial identity and explores how these codes/combinations of parts contribute to the ways in which the droid intra/acts in the more-than-human world. we first present each of the themes and examples of subsequent guiding questions before applying the framework to each of the three children’s books chosen. theme 1: design and performance embedded in this theme are critical questions pertaining to the visual imagery (i.e., design) of the droid (g. rose, 2016). along with describing the droid’s (moving) parts, we also asked: to what extent does the droid’s design reflect humanity (dernikos et al., 2020)? leveraging this question, we inquired about the fulfillment of the droid’s design—relating to performance—and asked what this tension might reveal about the book’s programmer (i.e., author/illustrator). moreover, considering the traditionally biological containers for thinking, knowing, being, and becoming (deleuze & guattari, 1987; jackson & mazzei, 2012)—as well as perhaps the (con)figurations of the child (murris, 2016; sheldon, 2016b)—we thought about what happens when these act(ion)s are executed by (algorithmically driven) droids and their operating systems (deleon, 2015). theme 2: affects, emotionalities, and relationships using this theme, we thought across the various ways in which the main droidial character experiences humanistic sensibilities and how intra-actions with flora, fauna, and (non)human matter(ing)s shaped the arc of each narrative (braidotti, 1994; kuby & rowsell, 2017). while thinking about this convergence, we also considered how non/ human and non/droidial assemblages might be useful in (re)conceptualizing the pronoun “we” and the ethics involved in processing how the concept of relationship is commonly deployed. to this point, droidiality allowed us to describe what the droid thinks, feels, and desires (deleon, 2015) while also (re)directing our (ocular) attention to the currents of (humanistic) power dictating (g. rose, 2016) these (droidial) animations. march 2022 76 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research theme 3: programming, genderization, and maintenance theme 3 explores the positionality of the author/illustrator regarding several concepts. first, we are interested in what we can learn about/from the genderization of droids in relation to the gender of the author (mckittrick, 2015). second, we used this theme to investigate how the author addresses tension(s) regarding droidial disposability and sustainability. to which, we asked: does the droid have a caretaker and if so, what does the relationship reveal over the arc of the story? methodology this speculative inquiry into droidial worlds within the context of children’s literature relied on a purposeful sample (patton, 2002) that also enacted conceptual diversity in order to remain closely aligned with posthuman movements (braidotti, 2019b). book selection was based on several criteria: (1) it features a droidial subject; (2) its targeted readers/audience is very young children (age 7 and under); (3) the main character(s) encounter a problem beyond the scope of their programming (e.g., love, loneliness, sound); (4) the text prompts inquiry into the boundaries between human and nonhuman, living and nonliving (e.g., who “owns” the ability to feel emotions?). ultimately, we settled on three illustrated books that each offers a distinct/divergent depiction of droidial (intra-) connectivity to humans, nonhumans, and the more-than-human world. before intertwining our thoughts, we separately applied droidiality to each of the books, making notations and posing questions in a shared electronic document. next, we discussed one another’s reactions which, in turn, were added to the document. during this process, and perhaps paradoxically considering the metallic cas(t)ings of droids, we were prompted to think about the malleability of what was being produced and how traditional applications of data that are “mute, brute, simple, and concrete” (koro-ljungberg et al., 2017, p. 463) only recreate, reproduce, and regurgitate defined algorithms of knowledge and understanding. while uses of “data” in qualitative research continue to be “haunted by the specter of quantitative method and its claims to rigor and reliability” (koro-ljungberg et al., 2017, p. 465, italics added for emphasis), (post)qualitative inquiry deterritorializes—rips away from—the conventional wirings of (bugged) data, only to reterritorialize—make a return—to the term with a broader, fluent programming(s) of meaning (deleuze, 1978). accordingly, we resonate with barad’s (2007) orientation that “we don’t obtain knowledge by standing outside of the world; we know because we are of the world. we are part of the world in its differential becoming” (p. 185). it is within these spaces that we begin to understand “the role of human and non/human, material and discursive, and natural and cultural factors in scientific and other social-material practices” (barad, 2007, p. 26). thus, we applied jackson and mazzei’s (2012) thinking with theory to represent what droidiality produced for us during this inquiry. in particular, we used jackson and mazzei’s (2012) thinking with theory to code our theoretically wired thoughts/questions into the (droidial) literature. this philosophical becoming—thinking with theory— plugs into data rather than robotically starting/stopping with analytical processes intent on interpretation. leaning into deleuze and guattari’s (1987) notion of “plugging of one into other” (p. 182), thinking with theory engages “plugging in to produce something new … a constant, continuous process of making and unmaking” (jackson & mazzei, 2012, p. 1). while our application of this process (e.g., arranging, compiling, and (de)attaching thoughts/ perspectives) is represented below through textual means, it is worth noting that our methodology also takes the position that “visual images have their own effects” (g. rose, 2016, p. 22) and were used—along with the text of the books—to guide our thinking/responses. we are inclined to see this approach as an (already) futuristic and critical response to this special issue’s call for the operationalization of speculative literacies, imagination, and wonder seeking to disrupt, dislodge, and disavow march 2022 77 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research static narrative manoeuverings replete with currents of oppression. by entangling ourselves with these speculative narratives and theoretical (re)positionings, we can begin to consider how children are already-droidial, alreadycyborg, and (always) already plugged into the more-than-human and unjust world (haraway, 1985, 1991; leurs et al., 2018). further, in our experiment with bodily circuitry, heterogeneity, and difference, we are reminded by kuby and rucker (2017) that “phenomena and bodies come into being through relationships” (p. 18) and that these multiplicitous relationships can have (more-than-human) im(bri/pli)cations that warrant analysis and investigation (barad, 2007; braidotti, 2019a, 2019b; kuby & christ, 2019) in the next section, we present what was produced when we applied droidiality to each of the three books. in an effort to foreground “the materiality of language [text] itself—its material force and its entanglements in [droidial] bodies and matter” (maclure, 2013, p. 658), we plugged what was produced into the circuitry of each book’s summary that we located on each publisher’s website. to assist us in delineating our intra-actions with(in) the data (e.g., text and images), we bracketed our ongoing questions and comments as researchers throughout the summaries and added notes pertaining to the illustrations in italics. we have bolded the text from the original summaries. droidial(ity) entanglements book 1: rusty the squeaky robot, by neil clark rusty is a male gendered friendly robot that has a head, two arms, two legs but not a very happy one [is it possible for droids to feel loneliness or sadness, and to what extent are droidial performativities of emotion a byproduct of (humanistic) programming? throughout the book, rusty appears to feel alone, fearful, self-conscious, anxious, depressed, astonished, loving, carefree. what does this capacity reveal about whoever programmed rusty?]; he’s feeling down about the way that he sounds [how does this reinforce an othering relationship between rusty and his world (kuby & rucker, 2020)?]. rusty’s hands look like clamps or magnets [perhaps hinting at his design being geared toward working with metal or other droids.] on the top right side of his head is an antenna emitting a signal. [are droids ever not thinking or computing? deleuze (1968/1994) argues that while everyone holds the capacity to think, authentic thinking does not occur unless “we attempt to think that which is unrecognizable, that which is the most difficult to think” (hein, 2017, p. 656). how might (complex) droidial thinking reflect human ethicality?] the other robots on planet robotone [the planet’s name suggests tonations are a way of life and we find it interesting that negative emotions are associated with rusty for his making of sound. all the bots and rusty exist separately from humans. can droids have a future that is separate from humanity? and, how can this get us to march 2022 78 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research think in a way that values “our mass impact as or more than our unique and haunting song?” (gumbs, 2020, p. 71)]—belle, twango, hoot, and boom-bot all of which have sound-generating parts affixed to their nonhumanistic bodies—show rusty that being a little bit different is the best way to be, and together make a raucous song and dance that celebrates their differences [there is no mention of rusty’s desire to generate sound, but as the story progresses, his happiness appears to be connected to his ability to hear/generate sound.]. this charming story about friendship [interestingly, rusty appears ambiguous when he meets the other bots and doesn’t seem interested in creating relationships with the new bots, only experiencing the sounds they make. to which we might ask about how the other bots—who share nonhumanistic designs—know about rusty’s emotions? have they been watching him from afar? this gives us pause and reminds us of braidotti and hlavajova’s (2018) call for “new evaluation criteria ... to assess the computational turn in media and cultural studies in relation to issues of power and security” (p. 10)], self-discovery [now that rusty has realized that his squeak is his way of generating sound, will he need the socialness of the other bots? at the end, a note appears on rusty’s chest.] and the strength of pooling everyone’s talents together has a strong, empowering message of acceptance and embracing individuality. [is there anything wrong with not appreciating a bodily trait? to what end was rusty coerced into being happy about his sound?] with wonderful, contemporary illustrations [to what end is rusty mirroring humanity and contributing to the centering of humanism in children’s literature? considering the lack of droid-human intra-actions in this story, we are left wondering who created rusty and planet robotone and who maintains the droids and robots.] that will appeal to young children and parents alike, the story will provoke thought—and conversation—about being different [it is believable to assume that all bots on planet robotone generate some sound, thus, in this context, the other bots have emotional power over rusty. is a lack of musical consciousness the result of rusty’s aloneness?], and how we should all embrace our characteristics and be comfortable and confident in ourselves. book 2: love, z, by jesse sima when a small, ungendered robot—with two arms, two legs, a head with two eyes and body—named z discovers a message in a bottle that gets stored in their “body box” [we wonder what will happen in the future when droids find our (human) stuff. what are the ethical entanglements surrounding (the future of ) anthropology? just as we study ancient civilizations, who studies the studiers? and to what end could droids wonder at these mysterious words and things that “do not compute”?] signed “love, beatrice,” they decide to find out what “love” means. [z march 2022 79 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research spends a good amount of time fulfilling their exploratory duties. there is a tension in the story between thinking/ feeling. z thinks about luck but is in constant search of love, which is felt throughout the story. if droids are not programmed with the language to articulate certain actions, can they still experience them? the author would suggest yes, and notes that “z has felt this before.” that being said, z—who exhibits traits of adventurousness, reflectiveness, fearfulness, humanness (e.g., gets tired and must power down to recharge) and frustration—also desires affection throughout the story (e.g., goodnight kiss) from other family bots (robot-like characters that do not resemble humans). considering that “we are no more familiar with scientificity than we are with ideology; all we know are assemblages. and the only assemblages are machinic assemblages of desire and collective assemblages of enunciation” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 23), to what end must we tether desire to a label? and, within the context of education, how do we create space for students to explore the multiplicities of desire in a way that is sustaining and healthy?] unable to get an answer from the other robots [the robots are all branded with letters. z is the last of the alphabet. does this imply z is the last of their kind? we notice a has wheels. like a wheelchair. is this a “grandparent”? of note, at the end of story, all the droids are standing together and their brands spell out f-a-m-i-l-y] or animals throughout the story, they leave to embark on an adventure [z’s story arc is driven by these intra-actions (and the way that nonliving things assist z along their quest (barad, 2007). many of these intra-actions result in “does not compute,” with z failing to understand love.] that will lead them to beatrice [an elderly woman]—and back home again, where love was hiding all along. [is love a dream? is z’s story actually happening, or on another level, is this a droid’s dream-to find and be loved in a world that throws droids away? are droidial dreams humanless(ness)? further, we’re wondering how z is programmed. knowing that children’s literature also attempts a kind of programming on its human readers, how are we, readers, being programmed? also, this story has us thinking about emotional support pets (foster et al., 2020) and the ways in which animals throughout the story provided z some level of (emotional) support. we cannot help but wonder about how future multimodal innovations might be wired to attend to the complex relationship between emotion/affection and ai (yonck, 2020). book 3: little bot and sparrow, by jake parker when little bot with his two arms, two legs, hand-like appendages and face with two expressive eyes and mouth, along with a handful of random parts is thrown out with the garbage [because he “wasn’t needed anymore”] he finds himself in a strange new world where “for once, he didn’t have any work to do. little bot lay alone in the snow [did he fall through a portal? little bot’s unceremonious, headfirst disposal raises questions about planned obsolescence and droidial futurity. what kind of work did little bot do? why can’t he do it anymore? mechanical march 2022 80 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research failure? inability to keep up the pace? what does it mean to be “needed”? what should happen to bots when they are retired? what are they without their programmed functionality (i.e., work)?] [little bot first lays in the snow. then the grass. the seasons change and birds perch on little bot. he sits up and greets them with a friendly “hello” but they fly away, frightened.] fortunately, sparrow is there [watching little bot attempt, and fail, to make friends with the other creatures in the meadow. “what new thoughts does it make it possible to think? what new emotions does it make it possible to feel? what new sensations and perceptions does it open in the (droidial) body?” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. xv). she then decided] to take him under her wing. together, they explore the forest and [sparrow introduces little bot to her friends and little bot even (unsuccessfully) attempts to fly. he tests the boundaries of his gray mechanical body, already learning about himself and what he is and is not capable of doing. sparrow and little bot] share adventures [moreover, from sparrow, little bot learns about his environment and the creatures in it, even discovering beauty in spaces that at first appeared scary. through little bot and sparrow’s relationship, children] learn[ing] what it means to be forever friends [that a friend in need is a friend indeed. in an onto-epistemological sense, what else might we learn from mammals? (gumbs, 2020)]. this sweet, [heartbreaking] and lasting tale by jake parker beautifully captures the happiness and love that can come from making your first true friend [in this realm]—and the courage it takes [to acknowledge] when [the seasons dictate that] it’s time to say goodbye. [little bot learns that he is not disposable and that parting with one another and disposing of one another are not the same thing. by the end, “the little robot dreamed” of flying high in the sky with sparrow at his side “one is too few and two is only one possibility” (haraway, 1991, p. 180). we are reminded that “an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived” (le guin, 1975, p. 91).] speculative fiction and (con)figurations of child(hood) the three texts prompted thoughts about childhood: what it means, whom it includes, and how it is represented. traditionally, children’s (picture)books are thought to be about children or childlike creatures; their characters are intended to be relatable and comprehensible to children, to whom they “show a variety of human traits without employing too much complexity” (nikolajeva, 2002, pp. x–xi). children’s books are not just directed at children but often feature children or child stand-ins. it has been assumed that the child constructed by this literature is a human inexperienced in the ways of the world and that nonhuman characters and (con)figurations, such as animals, metaphorically reflect children’s sensibilities (nodelman, 2004). the books we analyzed do not feature human children in text or illustration, but it could be argued that the characters are childlike as each grows into self-knowledge through the course of the book. for example, z appears to live in a nuclear family structure. z’s caretakers are visually larger and also more knowledgeable than z. similarly, little bot in little bot and sparrow is childlike in that he is apprenticed into the world by a more knowledgeable caretaker (sparrow). in this way, it could be said that machines and children learn similarly and that machines, like children, learn to appeal to human emotion—through tone, demeanour, and word choice—to get a desired result. the books do not depict distinctly human-child figures, but that does not mean there is an absence of the child. children are present in the form of an imagined child-reader and in the robot characters, as “every robot is in a sense a child, because some adult human created that robot and android” (levinson in levinson & jandric, 2014, p. 214). from this axiom, creator might mean one who assembles the machine, but, especially in our context, the adult author/illustrator brings the book’s character into being. in a sense, it might seem that children’s books, specifically picturebooks, have little to do with children at all. adults write and draw the books, select the books, buy the books, and read the books. ultimately, children’s books are “a narrative that is told by an adult to and about a young person” (nikolajeva, 2002, p. xi). march 2022 81 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research if they were geared toward adults, these picture books, which exclusively feature robots, would be considered science, or speculative fiction. like children and droids, science fiction’s attention to “technology-human relations ... challenges any distinct boundaries between the natural and the artificial, and reveals the analogical relationship between human and machine” (kupferman & gibbons, 2019). and, like science fiction, children and droids represent “alternative possible presents” (jandric in levinson & jandric, 2019). whereas many picturebooks may be used to teach children about the world as it is now, our engagement with the droidial triad underscored how “science fiction offers childhood studies a further mechanism for revealing the construction of childhood and the normalizing tendencies that can occur around this construction” (kupferman & gibbons, 2019, p. 8). thus, science fiction, and picturebooks featuring droids, can be a way to normalize bots as affirmative/friendly/trustworthy beings and as a way to imagine a humanless future. moreover, such texts beckon children to philosophize the role of materials in the more-than-human world and, in turn, participate in dialogues concerning futurity. from the perspective that “childhood comes from the machine [and] the machine is the thing that constructs childhood” (kuperman & gibbons, 2019, p. 1), perhaps children and droids represent humanity’s past/future present, which unsettles (con)figurations of the adult as being (exceptionally) representative of the human form. beyond droidiality and toward a cyborgian future as a distinct genre, “children’s literature” presupposes children as “different enough from adults to need a special group of books and imagine a category to contain them” (nodelman, 2004, 139). children’s fiction rests on the idea that there is a child who is simply there to be addressed and that speaking to it might be simple [...] if children’s fiction builds an image of the child inside the book, it does so in order to secure the child who is outside the book, the one who does not come so easily within its grasp. (j. rose, 1984, p. 63) adults evoke this child for their own purposes (desires, in fact) as a site of plenitude to conceal the fractures that trouble us all: concerns over a lack of coherent subjectivity, over the instabilities of language and, ultimately, of existence itself. we think that droids—as presented in literature and media—also represent these anxieties, desires, and, perhaps most importantly, possibilities. we also wonder if scholars have been reluctant to take up droids because they either do not know what to do with them or view them as neutral in their nonhuman nonaliveness. we imagine that droids—like “folklore, nursery rhyme and nonsense”—have become “sidelined as mere ‘rhythm and play’, for fear of their disruptive potential” (rudd, 2004, paraphrasing j. rose, 1984, p. 139). relatedly, smart machines containing cognitive capacity, what might be termed cyborgs, are not subject to foucault’s biopolitics (haraway, 1985, 1991) or mbembe’s (2019) necropolitics. that is, they are not necessarily beholden to the ebbs and flows of life and death (and the accompanying politics) in the same way carbon-based lifeforms and organisms (once) were. as haraway (1985) puts it, “the cyborg would not recognize the garden of eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust” (p. 9). this sentiment was particularly highlighted by little bot and rusty, whose books begin when the primary (droidial) character’s working life ends. as such, they exist in a kind of afterlife; their use-value having been exhausted. because of this, it might be difficult for adults to know how machines relate to the problems of life and the philosophical and moral lessons they are supposed to teach children. we agree that droids have disruptive potential and relish that possibility, which became the central impetus for this inquiry. thinking with posthumanism across the pages of these books reminded us that agency “is a much wider, weirder thing than human agency” (snaza, 2018, p. 262) and that speculatory approaches to literacy are not only “necessary experiments” (nxumalo & cedillo, 2019, p. 108) holding the potential to unplug oppressive educational practices but that they can unlock and sustain the imagination of young learners. as all levels of education should be concerned with working toward a future that is more antiracist and anti-oppressive, march 2022 82 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research “ontological agential realism, and thus entanglement and intra(not inter) action implicity” (ringrose et al., 2020, pp. 5–6) can help us (e.g., teachers, students, researchers) think differently about everything that comprises the more-than-human world. moreover, we believe that droidial texts offer a generative space for students to create (posthumanist) writings. taking a cue from kuby and rucker (2020), we would be interested in exploring what children would produce if given the opportunity to create a droid from artistic/digital mediums. how might the design, programming, and functionality of these (student-made) droids help generate questions about humanity, materials of the more-than-human world, and how the intersections of both could be used to analyze/problematize the ways in which we treat one another? as a collection, these books are interesting in their subversion of the notion that robots are incapable of feelings and that feelings and emotions are the one thing that makes humans human. these narratives challenge the notion that our “biotechnological hybridization [and] eradication of the human is becoming more and more feasible in terms of operational cognition and less and less so in affective-emotional terms” (maldonato, 2017, p. 2). in fact, the books show z, little bot, and rusty’s “failure[s] to compute.” although the bots have some humanoid features (two arms and legs, face, eyes, and mouth) they do not nearly approach the “uncanny valley” point of being creepy. thus, the robots in the books are presented in human form through their sociality and emotions rather than their looks. that is, their bodies are both strange and familiar; “what estranges in these choices, then, is the very lack of estrangement, the ease with which the metaphoric register of personification becomes literalized as simply personhood” (sheldon, 2016a, p. 33). in our quest to explore droidial bodies in children’s literature through the lens of posthumanism, we discovered serious themes that should not be discounted by the adults as neutral or as not producing knowledge. while we fully grasp the capitalistic intent grounding each of the summaries, we found the language included (e.g., sweet and lasting tale) to be unnecessarily uncomplicated. each of the stories individually/collectively provides a window into the future and offers a multitude of entry points for conversations regarding the complex and (intra) connected future and agency of/between humans and droids. further, all three books challenge the common suggestion that “robots are not going to be able to understand social situations and consequently will not be able to consistently make the right moral decisions about human social situations” (sharkey, 2017, p. 215). in each text, bots are shown as capable of empathy, perspective, and emotional growth, “acquiring ends and roles that are not set by humans” (roden, 2018, pp. 399–400). within the specific context of the child, engaging with droidial books heightened our attunement to the urgency of including children in conversations about technological advances and the implications of robotification on future worlds. in this way, we believe that the droidiality framework helps rewire agency back into (con)figurations of the child by challenging normative and problematic framings (e.g., developing, ignorant, evil, innocent, fragile, communal [murris, 2016], passive, and feeble [sheldon, 2016b]) suggesting that children are unable to (re)shape and (re)cast unfoldings of the future. the notion of portals came up in our conversations and perhaps further complexifies the way we might situate droidial and (yet-to-be) cyborgian children’s texts. portals in science-fiction are technological doorways that connect two separate locations in space and/or time. they usually consist of at least two connected (or attuned) gateways which can establish communication with one another and transfer matter from one to another. with this in mind, how might the idea of the portal extend students’ imagination/thinking beyond text and pictures embedded within children’s books? correspondingly, how might the concept of the portal help students (re) consider the un/limitations of space and time and the (tangled) manner in which we, humans and nonhumans, (re) distribute agency and subsequent affects and emotions? a portal is a feature of both science fiction narratives and science fiction as a genre, because “science fiction reveals to the child the nature in which s/he is being educated” (kupferman & gibbons, 2019, p. 10). interestingly, these conversations mis/led us to discuss the possibility of march 2022 83 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research cyborgs being the result of a human body that had returned from an infinite threshold across a multitude of time(s) and space(s). accordingly, and considering the citizenship rights bestowed upon the droid sophia in saudi arabia (pagallo, 2018), we could not help but ask: how will children make sense of the blurred connections between human and machine in the future? and, how will society connect to and treat those that are of both human and machine? these questions are not without tension, and while we purposefully cut together/apart (barad, 2007) humans and humanlike robots—droids—we would be remiss not to mention the complete absence of cyborgian books that could be used as points of departure with young learners. just as posthumanism and droidial texts further complicate how we see the ever-developing more-than-human world, according to haraway (1985), “cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other” (p. 55). working with the three texts and their characters blurred the boundaries between human and machine, thus suggesting that we (e.g., educators/researchers) can short-circuit bodily identity markers that stymie imagination, cultivation, and expression while also rebooting “the realization of the relational interdependence between the child and the world” (lindgren, 2020, p. 921) and, we would add, the droid. in closing, according to braidotti (2019b), “we cannot solve contemporary problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” (p. 122). perhaps speculative (droidial and cyborgian) and science fictional literacies can be generative in fostering suspicious spaces (king, 2017) aimed at disarming humanistic exceptionalism and what it means to be (non)child/adult/human(like). march 2022 84 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ackerman, e. 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(2020). heart of the machine: our future in a world of artificial emotional intelligence. simon & schuster. july 2021 78 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research unboxing childhood: risk and responsibility in the age of youtube julie c. garlen and sarah hembruff julie c. garlen is an associate professor of childhood and youth studies at carleton university in ottawa, ontario. previously, she worked in the u.s. south as a primary teacher and early childhood teacher educator. her research focuses on the ways that cultural practices and discourses shape childhood, early learning, and teacher education. email: juliegarlen@cunet.carleton.ca sarah hembruff is an undergraduate student at carleton university, where she is pursuing a major in childhood and youth studies with a minor in sociology. her current research examines racialized families’ experiences of school disruption and online learning during the covid-19 pandemic. she also works as an educational assistant for the ottawa-carleton district school board. in recent years, toy unboxing has emerged as one of the most popular genres on youtube, garnering billions of views. the video genre got its start in the early 2000s when creators began uploading videos in which high-tech products like smartphones are slowly removed from their boxes and carefully examined while the creator shares their first impressions. by 2013, the trend expanded to include toy unboxing videos that were specifically geared toward children, beginning with the wildly popular “surprise egg” videos in which an adult user named melissa lima, known to fans as disneycollector, unwrapped chocolate disney-themed kinder eggs to reveal the toys hidden inside (amlen, 2014). assisted by parents, children soon began appearing in unboxing videos, and by 2018, two popular sites, ryan toysreview and funtoys collector disney toys (formerly disneycollector), had amassed 38.6 billion views combined. although there is no public data that documents how often children are watching these particular videos, a 2020 pew research center study in the united states found that 80% of all parents with children age 11 or younger have allowed their child to watch videos on youtube, while 53% say their child watches youtube content on a daily basis (auxier et al., 2020). these statistics combined with studies regarding young children’s viewing habits in north america (see clark, 2019; common sense media, 2017) strongly suggest that unboxing videos have become a prevalent, if not ubiquitous, part of many children’s digital media diets. as jaakkola (2020) notes, “content that encounters such massive popularity should be taken seriously and included in discussions of children’s media content in order to better understand what constitutes it” (p. 238). over the last few years, the sustained popularity of youtube among young children, particularly unboxing videos—referred to by kollmeyer (2015) and others as “toddler crack”—has sparked interest and concern among journalists and experts from a range of disciplines (bridle, 2017; craig & cunningham, 2017; lafrance, 2017; marsh, 2015; nicoll & nansen, 2018; ramos-serrano & herrero-diz, 2016; sloane, 2015; timsit, 2018). one especially outspoken critic is writer and artist james bridle, who published a 2017 post on medium titled “something is wrong on the internet,” which was later translated into the popular ted talk “the nightmare videos of children’s youtube.” ted (technology, entertainment, and design) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing ideas in the form of short, powerful talks that are typically delivered at a live event and shared online. at the time of our in this article, we look to viewer responses to james bridle’s ted talk on children’s youtube to learn about the discursive landscape of childhood in the digital age. we first situate concerns about children’s use of youtube within a history of moral panic and then conduct a thematic analysis of online comments to discover what viewers identify as the central concerns. we “unbox” three emergent themes of responsibility—corporate, parental, and societal—to understand how these themes might help us think about contemporary discourses of childhood “at risk,” critical media literacy, and children’s agency as social actors on the internet. key words: childhood; media; youtube; discourse; moral panic july 2021 79 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research analysis, bridle’s youtube video had recorded 4,110,631 views, while the video on the ted website had recorded 5,958,708 views. in the concluding lines of his talk, bridle says, “we need to stop thinking about technology as a solution to all of our problems but think of it as a guide to what those problems actually are, so we can start thinking about them properly and start to address them” (bridle, 2018b). in this article, we take seriously bridle’s suggestion and wonder what the unboxing craze and other youtube media content for young children that has been labelled “addictive” (timsit, 2018), “bizarre” (kelly, 2014), and even abusive (bridle, 2017) might tell us about the “problems” of contemporary early childhood in a time of constantly changing social media and technology trends. specifically, we look to viewer responses to bridle’s ted talk to examine the discursive landscape of childhood in the digital age. we begin by situating contemporary concerns about children’s use of youtube within a long history of moral panics, which have shaped the risk-oriented discourses and practices that construct and regulate childhood in the united states context. to further explore the moral panic associated with profit-oriented and predatory media content for children, we analyze adult viewer reactions to james bridle’s ted talk to discover what these viewers identify as their central concerns relating to young children’s youtube use. we “unbox” the three dominant themes of responsibility that emerge from the viewer comments—corporate, parental, and societal—to understand how these themes might help us think about contemporary discourses of childhood “at risk,” critical media literacy, and young children’s agency as social actors on the internet. media and moral panic contemporary anxieties about young children’s youtube viewing habits reflect a long history of moral panic over children’s exposure to mass media. the term moral panic was first defined as a sociological concept by cohen (1972), who described it as occurring when “a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’’ (p. 1). as hall (1978) emphasized, the perceived risk is often exaggerated in public discourse, resulting in a reaction that is disproportionate to reality. children, so often perceived in modern western contexts as important primarily for their future contributions to society, have been often at the centre of moral panics concerning dance crazes, youth culture, drug and alcohol use by young people, youth crimes, and the technology and media use of young people (krinsky, 2008; jenks, 1996). as rose (1990) has observed, “the modern child has become the focus of innumerable projects that purport to safeguard it from physical, sexual, and moral danger, to ensure its ‘normal’ development” (p. 121). a fear of the “disappearance” of childhood—which social critic neil postman (1982) described as the erosion of the distinctions between childhood and adulthood—has fuelled moral panics in the global north since the rise of industrialization in the late 19th century, when the working, “useful child” was replaced by the “economically useless but emotionally priceless child” (zelizer, 1985, p. 209). the mythology of the priceless child inspired the progressive “child-saving” movement that sought to rescue childhood innocence from industrialization and has been shaping policy and practice ever since (platt, 1969). as hunt (1999) explains, these “moral regulation projects are an interesting and significant form of politics in which some people act to problematise the conduct, values, or culture of others and seek to impose regulations upon them” (p. 1). the historical and contemporary projects to protect children from the potential dangers of media reflect the western cultural attachment to childhood innocence and the enduring belief that it is threatened by social change and popular culture (garlen, 2019). in the united states, one of the first waves of public concern over the media’s influence on young people was a response to the penny press, which mass-produced inexpensive newspapers and sparked concern by sensationalizing crime and horror (bogart, 1972, p. 493). however, it was the rise of the film industry in the early 20th century that gave way to the first organized public reform project. by the 1920s, debate about the movie “problem” began circulating in academic and popular discourse (luke, 1990). concerns included the potential effects of exposure to depictions of violence or interpersonal discord, the impact of movie viewing on school performance and attendance, eyestrain, and unsanitary cinema conditions (luke, 1990). as geiger (1923) asserted, these dangers constituted an “unparalleled assault” on society’s most valuable assets, namely, “its innocency and its youth” (p. 79). for johnson (1917), the responsibility for protecting children from these potential harms lay not with the film industry july 2021 80 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research but with mothers, who were to organize “clean, wholesome, entertaining, and instructive” movie performances (p. 11). these concerns led to the payne fund studies, the first comprehensive study of the effects of movies on the behaviour of children and adolescents. initiated in 1929 and published in 1933, the research did not find a direct causal effect between movies and antisocial or criminal behaviour; rather, the influence of the media could only be understood in the context of individual experiences (luke, 1990). nevertheless, the study concluded that films contained “too much sex and crime and love” for children (charters, 1933, p. 60). in spite of these tempered findings, the research was instrumental in the enforcement of the previously established motion picture production code, which outlined moral guidelines for the film industry and led to decades of censorship (nichols, 2006). this code was replaced in 1968 by the motion picture association’s rating system designed to help parents decide what films were appropriate for their children. by the 1950s, the increasing ubiquity of television was sparking similar panic about its potential effects on young viewers. as bogart (1973) observed, “with the advent of television, the debate over the influence of the media was raised to a new plane of intensity” (p. 493). concerns about television, not only as an instrument of entertainment but a commercial and political tool, raised questions about its possible effects. one survey conducted by the national association of educational broadcasters reported that “crime and horror” accounted for 10% of programming across four major u.s. cities (murray, 1973, p. 472). such concerns led to a 1954 congressional inquiry into juvenile delinquency, which concluded that crime and violence on television could be detrimental to young viewers and urged broadcasters to reduce violent content. however, subsequent surveys conducted by the same senate committee in 1961 and 1964 found that such content had increased (murray, 1973). in response to these concerns, congress commissioned the surgeon general’s scientific advisory committee on television and social behavior. the results, while acknowledging that television was only one of many factors that may contribute to violence in society and aggression in individuals, nonetheless raised concern about the prevalence of violent content in programming (united states, 1972). the federal communications commission strongly urged limiting violent programming, but as television content was mostly protected under the first amendment, networks were left to self-regulate. meanwhile, television was growing increasingly ubiquitous; by the early 1970s, census figures estimated that 96% of the households in the united states contained at least one television set, while in families with young children, the television ownership rate approached 99% (murray, 1973). however, it wasn’t until 1996 that legislative action was taken in the united states to limit the negative influences of television on young viewers. to assist parents in supervising the television viewing habits of their children, congress included a provision in the telecommunications act of 1996 that required a rating system for programming that included sexual, violent, or otherwise indecent content and mandated that all new television sets be equipped with a v-chip that would allow parents to screen out such programming (emeritz et al., 2001). by this time, concern was also growing about the effects of advertising and internet data collection on children. policymakers and children’s advocates began scrutinizing the data collection policies of internet service providers (turner, 2020). as a result, congress passed the children’s online privacy protection act of 1998 (coppa), which required websites or other online services directed to children under 13 to provide notice and obtain parental consent before collecting personal information. in 2000, harvard psychologist susan linn founded the campaign for a commercial-free childhood (ccfc), a nonprofit organization that sought to end marketing to children. over two decades the organization has won a number of high-profile victories against toy and entertainment corporations that have resulted in changes to marketing practices. most recently, ccfc lobbied for a federal investigation of youtube that resulted in a 170-million dollar court settlement to limit data collection and advertising practices related to children’s content (singer & conger, 2019). this case reflects the shift in public concern over the potential effects of media as the media environments shifted from a network system of corporate controlled distribution into a decentralized networked system where users have more control over how content is created, shared, and consumed (jenkins, 2006). in particular, youtube, which boasts over 2 billion monthly users who watch more than 250 million hours of content per july 2021 81 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research day in 100 different countries (spangler, 2019), has drawn criticism for its practice of monetizing video content, which allows content creators to share in revenue from advertisements shown before, during, or alongside a video. in 2006, just a year after its launch, youtube was acquired by google, which implemented monetization as a strategy to transform the site into a revenue-generating platform (gerhards, 2017). monetization has been a lucrative strategy, considering that spending on digital advertising geared at children totalled 900 million u.s. dollars in 2018 (guttmann, 2019; markijke de veirman et al., 2019). youtube’s popularity with children has been a source of significant controversy, particularly due to the fact that updated coppa regulations require users to be over the age of 13 since google collects and markets user data (u. s. federal trade commission, 2013). in response to the new legislation and concerns of advocacy groups, youtube introduced the youtube kids app in 2015 as a space where children could safely browse content selected based on algorithms and human reviewers. the application comes with a number of parental controls that allow for parents to curate what content their children can and cannot see, set locks and time limits, and choose the age range that best suits the child. in spite of these measures, youtube has continued to draw criticism. as burroughs (2017) has pointed out, youtube kids creates an environment where “children are now directly advertised to, creating a political space of branding and lucrative children’s marketing” (p. 2). ultimately, youtube kids is intentionally engineered to influence infants’ patterns of consumption. beyond such marketing practices, what sparked the most public outrage was the “startling videos” making their way past the app’s child-friendly content filters, as first reported by the new york times in 2017. in the article, maheshwari (2017) described multiple examples of “videos with well-known characters in violent or lewd situations and other clips with disturbing imagery, sometimes set to nursery rhymes” (para. 7). for example, one of these disturbing videos showed puppy characters from a popular animated preschool television called paw patrol committing suicide, with one walking off a roof after being hypnotized by a demon-possessed doll from an adult horror movie (maheshwari, 2017). another example was a video in which a clay caricature of the comic superhero spider-man is shown urinating on the character elsa from disney’s popular animated film frozen. in response to this unsettling trend, james bridle (2017) published a scorching post on medium entitled “something is wrong on the internet,” in which he asserted that “someone or something or some combination of people and things is using youtube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children” (para. 5). bridle identified examples of the disturbing knockoffs of familiar cartoon characters and expressed concern about the weirdness of unboxing videos, such as the wildly popular surprise egg videos, previously described by another journalist as “incredibly seductive, in a very innocent-but-addictive way” (amlen, 2014, para. 3). while unboxing videos lack the outright vulgarity of the strange parodies, they celebrate consumerism in a way that some adults find equally disturbing. according to michael rich, director and founder of the center on media and child health at the boston children’s hospital, unboxing videos teach children “to want things. it feeds into the ‘give me’ culture” (lopez, 2019, para. 7). together, the rampant commercialization and predatory content creation has sparked concern among parents and advocates regarding children’s use of and engagement with social media (craig & cunningham, 2017). specifically, bridle (2017) claims that “very young children” are “being deliberately targeted with content which will traumatise and disturb them” (para. 56). while we do not necessarily share bridle’s (2018a) alarmist assertion that youtube kids is symptomatic of a “new dark age” that is making the world a more dangerous place for children and adults alike, we find salient his observation that, when it comes to the infrastructure of children’s media experiences, “we’re still struggling to find a way to even talk about it, to describe its mechanisms and its actions and its effects” (bridle, 2017, para. 62). toward that end, we wonder how we might initiate a broader, more balanced conversation about contemporary childhood in a time of constantly changing social media and technology trends. in what follows, we explore one entry point into such a discussion through our analysis of anonymous user responses to bridle’s 2018 ted talk. unboxing the commentary the primary data for our analysis consisted of 21,113 user comments posted in response to james bridle’s (2018b) ted talk “the nightmare videos of children’s youtube—and what’s wrong with the internet today.” we chose july 2021 82 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to analyze responses to this video in particular for a few reasons. first, viewer comments are disabled on the actual videos targeted toward children, so we required an alternative entry point into the discourse around children’s youtube. second, bridle’s video was very popular, generating a large number of viewers, so this allowed for a diverse range of responses. the data included two sets of viewer comments: a smaller set (56) from the ted website and a larger set (21,057) from youtube. the purpose of analyzing the video comments was to explore the discursive landscape surrounding children’s use of youtube by examining how viewers responded to bridle’s claims. we used thematic content analysis to “unbox” or dissect the discussion. following braun and clarke (2006), we familiarized ourselves with the data through multiple views of the video and an initial review of comments. during this review many comments were excluded, including those not substantive enough to yield insights (short, off-topic, incoherent), not written in english, or containing profanity or discriminatory language. as most of the posted comments met these criteria, the exclusion process allowed us to narrow down the data to a significantly smaller set of 1,719 substantive and relevant comments on which we focused our analysis. next, initial codes were generated for this data set. each comment was pasted into a spreadsheet and codes were recorded in the adjacent columns. once codes were generated for all entries, we reviewed emergent themes. we calculated the distribution of themes across the entire dataset to identify dominant themes. the nondominant themes (those with a frequency of 64 or less) included denial, childhood agency and empowerment, child incompetence, and effects on early learning and mental health. the dominant themes (frequency of 228 or higher) are recorded in table 1 below. as the table shows, we identified two dominant overarching themes among the high-frequency subthemes: risk and responsibility. under the theme of risk, alarm (expressions of concern over children’s loss of innocence as a result of inappropriate content) was prevalent, appearing 502 times. the frequency of this subtheme was not surprising given the alarmist tone of bridle’s talk, in which he describes software that can “automatically generate kids’ worst nightmares” and children “being traumatized, becoming afraid of the dark, becoming afraid of their favorite cartoon characters” as a result of exposure. a closely related but slightly less frequent subtheme was addiction and dependency, which we also found consistent with bridle’s assertions that unboxing videos are “like crack for little kids.” both themes speak to the viewers’ deep concerns, and we take this as evidence that both bridle’s accusations against youtube and reactions to them are consistent with the historical discourses of risk that have framed moral panics over children’s media use. table 1. dominant themes from thematic analysis dominant themes subthemes frequency risk alarm 502 addiction and dependency 228 responsibility parental responsibility 951 corporate responsibility 791 societal responsibility 342 because the prevalence of risk-oriented discourses is well documented by historical trends, we focused our attention on the second and most prominent theme, responsibility. these comments were not unexpected given the question that helen walters, head of curation at ted, asks bridle in the last minute of the video, which is, “whose responsibility is education in this new world?” in other words, who is responsible for mitigating the risks that bridle is alerting us to? bridle’s response is that it “is kind of up to all of us, that everything we do, everything we build, everything we make needs to be made in a consensual discussion with everyone who’s avoiding it.” given walters’ july 2021 83 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research direct question and his somewhat vague response, it is not surprising that many viewers chose to share their own answers. however, given the quantity of these responses, we saw an opportunity to explore how a fixation on blame is shaping contemporary public discourse related to children as digital media consumers. these comments could be categorized into three subthemes depending on who was identified as the responsible party: society (342), corporations (791), or parents (951). as we illustrate below, further analysis of these subthemes offers insight into how discourses of responsibility have limited, and continue to limit, the focus of public dialogue around children’s media experiences. societal responsibility the smallest subset of comments (342) reflected the belief that social institutions—such as schools and communities—should be responsible for equipping children with the skills and knowledge they need to navigate their digital worlds. many commenters called for the need for more resources to teach parents, educators, and other adults how to use youtube and other forms of media technology. as one commenter expressed, many adults lack these skills: i think the biggest issue is the lack of “media competence.” this is something every parent or teacher should teach. the problem here is: most of them do not even know how to utilize media properly, so how can they possibly teach this? most often, the problem was attributed to schools, which viewers felt should be better preparing students. as one commenter observed, “you’re extremely lucky to be able to even learn how to type in school.” as this commenter further asserted, schools are failing to teach the skills needed to provide appropriate media environments for children: most parents don’t know how to work parental controls, and most parents don’t know how to browse the internet properly and safely (most people still use horribly inefficient google search terms that give them worse results because they don’t understand how search engines work, for example), so they can’t teach their children to do so. the calls for a more media-literate society were also grounded in an understanding of technology as a ubiquitous part of children’s lives, regardless of expert recommendations about when and how it should be used. for example, one commenter noted the contradictions between the advice given to parents and technology use in schools: “children under the age of 7 should never touch an ipad’ but yet they are used in kindergarten and by various developmental therapists.” this attitude of acceptance was reflected in the moderate tone of many of the comments, many of which suggested that children could be taught how to integrate technology in beneficial ways. as one commenter stated, “it’s how they are used and how they are integrated into life. the better strategy is to gradually teach kids how to use technology in a healthy way.” these comments primarily identified digital media literacy as a solution to the problems discussed by bridle, with many viewers calling for more comprehensive education on technology, especially the structures and functions of youtube and other social media corporations. such demands for social institutions to take up the task of promoting digital media literacy are not new. since the early 2000s, critical media literacy advocates like kellner and share (2007) have called for schools to foster students’ abilities to be agents in navigating and producing media messages. they find it “highly irresponsible in the face of saturation by the internet and media culture to ignore these forms of socialization and education” (kellner & share, 2007, p. 4). the comments calling for digital media literacy mirror the public pleas that have arisen with each new visual media innovation since the birth of the film industry. in response to the payne fund studies, progressive educational reformers championed the adoption of film appreciation courses to teach critical viewing skills in the early 20th century (staiger, 2005). decades later, the growth of television entertainment prompted similar campaigns. even after numerous congressional hearings, a special report to the national commission on the causes and prevention of violence in 1969, and the large-scale study commissioned by the surgeon general, gerber et al. (1980) found it necessary to insist that teaching “creative resources and critical viewing skills” should “become the primary task of schooling” (p. 716). yet, four decades later, kellner and share (2019) observed that, in spite of “criticisms of the july 2021 84 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research distorted values, ideals, and representations of the world in popular culture, media education in k–12 schooling has never been systematically established and developed in the united states” (p. 5). thus, the viewers’ comments reflect a history of calls for systematic media literacy, which remains “an unfulfilled challenge” (kellner & share, 2019, p. 3). corporate responsibility the next largest subset of comments (791) addressed youtube’s responsibility for regulating its content and marketing practices. many of these commenters expressed concerns about how youtube is not being held accountable for its content. for example, one viewer wrote: youtube just says “sorry! we’ll see to improve our algorithms.” ... and then it’s business as usual again. why isn’t a company that has zero costs for content, but keeps around 45%-55% of the advertising income made on the platform—and that’s billions and billions and billions—why is this company not directly accountable? other commenters expressed the need for youtube to implement strategies for more effectively screening and reviewing content, including the use of additional parental controls and more human monitoring. as one viewer wrote, “i agree completely with the use of humans to moderate videos on youtube. youtube have been very irresponsible in trying to leave that important and vital job to an algorithm.” another identified the problem as a lack of human ethics: the issue i think is that machine learning systems don’t have any ethics, so if they notice that a lot of people are flagging queer content as being inappropriate for minors, they assume it’s inappropriate. but then the people making the weird creepy videos know what keywords to avoid getting around that. as these examples illustrate, many commenters felt that relying on algorithms alone was not an effective way of evaluating content. as one commenter pointed out, youtube has created algorithms it can’t control, but the bad actors who are creating the inappropriate content are highly skilled at manipulating the same algorithms for their malicious purposes. other viewers focused on youtube’s responsibility toward users, criticizing the platform for prioritizing profit over providing appropriate content for child viewers. one commenter wrote, “youtube has become just like any other power-hungry media platform, only caring about watch revenue. i doubt they’d care about the content being made as long as it’s producing the big numbers.” these commenters expressed a need for youtube to apply additional resources toward identifying which users should be allowed to provide content for children and creating clearer and more stringent guidelines that would enable children to view content freely without the threat of encountering inappropriate content. as one commenter noted, youtube’s actions aren’t consistent with its own policies: “youtube [sic]: clearly states when signing up for an account that the youtube platform is not intended for children under 13 also youtube: demonetizes and takes down entire channels for not being kid friendly enough.” among these comments was a general sense that “the system is messed up” and that the policies that youtube does have in place are ineffective. one commenter complained that they “got a strike” for a video of two people arguing, and “yet, these fake-disney [sic] horror videos” get a “green light from the system.” many commenters expressed that, as one viewer wrote, “youtube isn’t really trying.” in particular, the policies that require creators to identify whether content is child friendly were identified as ineffective. these questions and comments regarding youtube’s obligation to protect children through self-regulation reflect a contemporary interest in corporate social responsibility (csr), the expectation that corporations should act deliberately to enhance society and be conscious of the economic, social, and environmental effects of their operations. as frederick (2018) notes, the united states has had a long-standing interest in csr because its adherence to a free-market ideology creates conditions that “generate an increased expectation of social awareness and social services to be forthcoming from private enterprise” (p. 5). with the rise of the internet and the increasing ubiquity of digital media, csr demands in the 21st century have centered largely on social media platforms. youtube, in particular, has been the subject of a number of high-profile controversies around creator content such as videos july 2021 85 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research containing anti-semitic imagery and other forms of offensive or extremist content, especially when these videos have ads attached to them. public outcry over such videos has resulted in advertisers pulling their ads from the site (leskin, 2020). after bridle’s (2017) public condemnation of youtube kids, youtube announced that it would no longer allow monetization of videos that “made inappropriate use of family friendly characters” and later implemented a policy for flagging age-restricted content and blocking it from youtube kids (popper, 2017, p. 2). in 2019, youtuber matt watson revealed how assumed pedophiles were using comments to share vulgar remarks on videos of young girls, leading to further advertising withdrawals and youtube’s disabling of comments on all videos featuring children (leskin, 2020). in april 2019, youtube ceo susan wojcicki released a statement declaring that her “top priority” was “responsibility” (wojcicki, 2019, para. 1). wojcicki acknowledged that the new policy of disabling comments “impacted so many creators who we know are innocent” but “in the end, that was a trade-off we made because we feel protecting children on our platform should be the most important guiding principle” (para. 2). yet, as bergen and shaw (2019) observe, it was a virtually impossible task to “nurture a growing community of demanding creators, while pledging to police troubling videos and protect millions of underage users who officially shouldn’t even be watching” (para. 2). youtube’s efforts were met with anger by creators who stood to lose millions in ad revenue, as well as free speech advocates concerned about censorship (york, 2018). youtube’s attempts to be socially responsible for protecting children highlights the “existential quandary” of a corporation trying to protect children while maintaining the “neutrality that it needs to thrive” (bergen and shaw, 2019, para. 2). this dilemma reflects a central issue in the historical discourse around children’s access to and exposure to media, which is the tension between protecting children and preserving freedom of expression. parental responsibility the largest subset of comments placed the primary responsibility for protecting children online with parents. these comments were divided between those who believed greater parental supervision was required and those who felt that young children should not have access to youtube at all. the latter group, while in the minority, expressed strong opinions regarding children’s use of the social media platform. one commenter wrote, “you do know there is a reason for the age limitation on youtube right? another agreed, stating “youtube isn’t for kids.” another commenter scolded, “i cannot even remotely understand how someone could let toddlers use youtube or the internet in the first place. what the heck is wrong with you guys?” more commonly, commenters expressed concerns about parental presence and the level of supervision provided when children were using the site. a common complaint was that instead of monitoring their children, parents are using youtube to keep children occupied when they are busy doing other things. as one commenter expressed, “i wouldn’t say that you shouldn’t let young children use youtube at all. but don’t let them alone with it. use it as bonding and curate the videos. a tablet isn’t a babysitter.” another viewer expressing a similar sentiment wrote, “i don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting them watch some youtube, as long as it’s in an appropriate quantity and of appropriate quality.” one commenter asserted, “if you’re going to let little kids watch youtube obviously you need to watch it with them; you wouldn’t leave them to play at the park by themselves, don’t leave them alone on an unregulated public website.” all of these comments placed the responsibility for vetting content and monitoring children’s usage with the parents. further emphasizing this point, one parent explained how their interventions had led to their child’s appropriate viewing habits: “i stopped letting him watch youtube but i also closely monitored what videos he was watching. he didn’t see anything bad because i hate autoplay. you can’t expect youtube to monitor kids that’s a parents [sic] job.” similarly, another parent described their technology supervision practices, condemning parents who don’t “take the time to preview, archive appropriate material in playlists, and actually watch the videos with their children, instead of handing their children a mobile device and then doing their own thing on their own devices.” among the comments expressing concern about parental supervision, many comments specifically critiqued conjuly 2021 86 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research temporary parenting practices. for example, one commenter shared their critical opinions on permissive parenting: it’s not ok to give the kid all that freedom. they need to learn to know their limits. if you give them anything they want just because they are happy, you’ll spoil them. discipline is a very important yet not popular value. people nowadays say limitations are bad and people should do whatever they want when in reality they need to learn to behave and respect. similarly, another commenter described how parental indulgence and inattention leads to excessive use of technology, even at the park, where they observed “a bunch of 6-12 year olds sitting on slides and swings, using iphones and ipads, with some even having headphones/earbuds in and watching videos, with their parents not even paying attention. it’s actually happening.” many commenters identified parental laziness as the problem: “kids need to get entertained and some parents are too lazy to do it themselves so they let youtube do it.” another commenter claimed, “parents throw them on a tablet to make them be quiet and make them become addicted to it.” as these examples illustrate, a sense of righteous disapproval about the ineptitude of today’s parents permeated this set of comments. this proclivity to name poor parenting as a threat to the well-being of children and society has been a common theme in long-standing debates over the regulation of media. for example, in summarizing the findings of the payne fund studies, w.w. charters (1933) noted that one study on the social conduct and attitudes of movie fans found that “the influence of a motion picture is only one of several influences and the attitudes of children are a product of many influences” (p. 17). among those many influences, charters identified “native temperament, past experience, family ideals” and “community mores” as factors that could determine how social conduct is shaped by movies (p. 17). as he further asserted, “the home influence may be stronger than the movie in specific cases” (pp. 17–18). while the payne fund study’s findings are decidedly ambiguous and do not directly implicate parents as being responsible for ensuring that movies don’t “crash through and overpower the influence of the home, school, or the community,” (p. 18), it can be inferred that combatting the potentially negative influences of movies and harnessing their positive effects largely depends on parents. the early decades of television brought more explicit concerns regarding parental regulation. in her book the plug-in drug: television, children and the family, anti-tv advocate marie winn (1977) expressed concerns about “the particular difficulty latter-day parents have in saying ‘no’ to their children” (p. 169). winn asserted that “many of the difficulties parents face in controlling television are related to modern child-rearing trends and sociological tendencies—permissiveness, the diminishing authority of the family, the growth of the suburbs” (p. 172). winn even went so far as to suggest that “had television existed a century ago, parents then, with their strong family structure and firm authoritarian ways, would have been able to keep it in hand” (p. 172). like charters’ subtle reference to “family ideals,” winn’s nostalgia for the authoritative rural family reflects a discourse of parental blame that privileges white, heteropatriarchal social structures and constructs poor and marginalized families as morally deficient. the subsequent spread of digital media exaggerated the emerging tendency to blame parents for failing to provide their children with appropriate supervision and moral guidance. one notable example is child psychiatrist robert shaw’s (2003) scathing indictment of contemporary parenting practices, the epidemic: the rot of american culture, absentee, and permissive parenting, and the resultant plague of joyless, selfish children. shaw asserts that modern parents fail to provide limits for their children or even allow them to experience frustration, at the expense of their moral development. to make matters worse, shaw argues, “they abandon their children to the influence of the media—children waste so much time on so much mind-numbing electronic entertainment as television and video games that their literacy, social development, and creativity are all inhibited” (p. 4). a new edition of shaw’s book was published in 2013, which, like the largest set of comments made in response to bridle’s talk, illustrates that parental blame continues to be relevant in contemporary discourses of children placed “at risk” by media exposure. july 2021 87 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research unboxing childhood: risk, responsibility, and agency if we consider the data described here a microcosm of the larger discursive landscape surrounding contemporary childhood, then our unboxing of this commentary on youtube reveals that the dialogue has remained largely the same throughout a century of moral panic over children’s media exposure. as we unpacked the themes of responsibility that were contained within the sets of comments, what was most striking to us were the components that were missing. across the large set of comments we analyzed, there was little discussion about children’s response to the videos or debate about their processes or potential effects, either positive or negative. instead, the conversation was framed by the question of who is to blame. therefore, in conducting this study, we have come to understand that our findings speak less to the phenomenon of unboxing videos and youtube kids specifically and more to the need to “unbox” the discourse on childhood in the digital age. it is no wonder that, as bridle asserts, “we’re still struggling to find a way to even talk about it, to describe its mechanisms and its actions and its effects,” because, as our analysis reveals, we’ve essentially been having the same conversation for the last one hundred years. although public concerns and advocacy campaigns have sparked some policy and legal changes, the emphasis on risk and responsibility that has persisted for so many years has not brought us closer to understanding relationships between children and media or how our fears and responses to those relationships are shaped by social constructs of what childhood is and “should” be. at the heart of these concerns about protecting children from the harmful effects of media is an enduring belief in innocence as the appropriate condition of childhood, a construct that has been continually rewritten through a persistent narrative that childhood itself is at risk (garlen, 2019). indeed, bridle’s claims against the internet are not unlike joseph geiger’s accusation a century before; that an “unparalleled assault” is being waged “on society’s most valuable assets, namely, its innocence and its youth” (p. 79). bridle’s anxieties about digital media content, like the historical concerns about both film and television, centre on violence. beyond the “violence being done to children” by the rogue content creators, bridle (2017) expresses concern that “this is just one aspect of a kind of infrastructural violence being done to all of us, all of the time” (para. 62). this recurring theme of violence, from sex and crime and love on films and television shows to disturbing animations and predatory advertisements on tablet screens, reflects a protective impulse and an ongoing fear of exposure, which threatens childhood innocence understood as a state of “not-knowing” (garlen et al., 2020). as historical debates illustrate, what is typically feared is exposure to “adult” social realities, particularly relating to sex. the need to protect children from the potential harms of such “adult” knowledge has been the driving force behind debates about how children’s media use should be regulated. as illustrated by this study, the question of who is responsible for mitigating the perceived risks that media poses for children has profoundly shaped and more importantly, limited, public discourse on the relationship between childhood and media, which continues to be premised on protection. although questions about the ethical obligation of families, corporations, and societies to children are certainly valid and worthy of debate, this protective approach “over-simplifies the complexity of our relationship with media and takes away the potential for empowerment that critical pedagogy and alternative media production offer” (kellner and share, 2007, p. 60). as our inquiry suggests, the protective imperative that has driven panic over children’s media use for nearly a century is still pervasive in contemporary discourse. where young children in particular are concerned, digital technology has been accused of making childhood “toxic” (palmer, 2015) and “hijacking” brain development (kardaras, 2016). and yet, particularly with the dawn of a global pandemic that has increased demand for online entertainment and information, youtube’s reach among children continues to grow, especially among children under the age of 11 (auxier et al., 2020). as one of the most significant sites of learning and socialization for children today, youtube should be taken seriously as a product of “social production and struggle” (kellner, 1998, p. 113), a medium that is both shaping and shaped by contemporary childhood. maintaining an emphasis on risk is not likely to lead to a better understanding of children’s media experiences or the role that digital media plays in their lives, including their potential effects. therefore, we suggest that the discourse of protection, including the enduring figure of the unknowing innocent child, requires rethinking in order to begin a broader conversation about children’s agency in social media platforms and society at large. if we seek to improve the digital lives of children, we must, as egan and hawkes (2009) argue, “take them seriously as ‘knowers’ in the world,” and acknowledge july 2021 88 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research that they are not simply ignorant objects in need of protection, but “reflexive and thoughtful social actors capable of taking part in a dynamic and dialogical exchange” (egan and hawkes, 2009, p. 395). what would it mean to unpack and critically examine these constructs in order to facilitate a different kind of conversation about children and social media and work toward realizing the “unfulfilled challenge” of critical (digital) media literacy? opening up the dialogue to new possibilities requires opening up the binary risk/benefit “box” to a more complex perspective that recognizes both the destructive potential and transformative possibilities of digital content creation and consumption. toward that end, craft (2012) proposes a view of children as agentic and “skilful collaborators, capable of knowledge-making as well as information-seeking” (p. 174). as craft suggests, even in “a digital, marketized age, children and young people can be understood and recognised as creative and potent” (p. 189). however, a focus on understanding how children engage with social media, navigate sources of information and entertainment, and produce their own digital content requires that the discussion around children’s media use move beyond blame. focusing on who is to blame for children’s media “exposure” is a defensive stance that detracts from what actions can and should be taken. a more generative starting point might be the very question that guided this study: what can be learned? more specifically, we might ask what can be learned about how children are experiencing and transforming their digital worlds? such a question could move the dialogue away from judgment and toward curiosity about how children are using and making meaning of new media. shifting the debate about contemporary childhood away from risk and responsibility and toward agency does not mean that media conglomerates should be given unconditional authority when it comes to regulating content for children, or that government intervention is never justified. rather it means reframing the debate about what can and should be changed around an “unboxed” construct of childhood—one that seeks to understand and empower rather than to limit and confine. as egan and hawkes (2009) assert, such a paradigm shift would “require that we stop using the protection of children to legitimate surveillance and social control more broadly” (p. 397). emancipating childhood from such constraints is no easy task, considering the western cultural investment in the discourses of child protection and innocence (garlen, 2019, duschinsky, 2013). yet, without an acknowledgment of children’s capacity to act independently and make their own choices, a truly critical media literacy cannot be advanced. note this work was supported by internally restricted research funds provided by carleton university. july 2021 89 vol. 46 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references amlen, d. 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(1985). pricing the priceless child: the changing social value of children. basic books. october 2020 19 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research a research journey with plains cree elders regarding their image of the child janine tine janine tine is a phd candidate at the university of alberta. her early childhood research interests include bicultural childhoods, parental perceptions of childhood and childrearing held by intercultural couples, and indigenous conceptions of childhood. prior to completing her master’s degree at the u of a, janine taught grade 2 for six years and gifted education for three. she has a post-degree certificate in education from the university of saskatchewan (u of s) and a bachelor of education from the saskatchewan urban native teacher education program at the u of s. email: akerman@ualberta.ca as educators, our socioculturally constructed images or understandings of the child directly influence the pedagogy we provide for them (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2013). how we understand or view the child (e.g., as intelligent, competent, creative) influences how we educate the child and the learning opportunities we provide (gandini, 2004; malaguzzi et al., 2016). understandings employed in early childhood education, however, are often decontextualized from children’s everyday cultural, historical, familial, and community lives (højholt, 2018) and rely instead on teachers universalized eurowestern understandings of child development (moss, 2016; new, 2018). this is especially true for the education of many indigenous children in canada despite the fact that indigenous families and communities have a strong history of raising and educating their children according to their own cultural values, in which children are nurtured emotionally by parents and extended family members, fostered spiritually through language and cultural traditions, and educated to cultivate their interconnection to others and to mother earth. the strengths and cultural traditions of indigenous communities, including the care and education of children, were deliberately suppressed by the canadian government’s policy of assimilating indigenous children to a european and christian way of life through residential schools (truth and reconciliation commission of canada [trc], 2015a, p. 629). residential schools, operated by the catholic and protestant churches, had their basis in an image of the indigenous child as uncivilized, savage, inadequate, and in need of intervention and correction (greenwood, de leeuw, & fraser, 2007; trc, 2015a). such “intervention” included not allowing children to speak their indigenous language or engage in cultural ceremonies (trc, 2015a). in addition to this, many children were emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by adults at the residential school who were supposed to care for them (trc, 2015b). the “historical disadvantage and trauma” (bezanson, 2018, p. 156) caused by residential school, and more current colonial practices, has meant that indigenous children continue to experience significant inequities (ball, 2012; trc, 2015b) which are cumulative, persistent, and complex. residential school’s legacy to develop culturally appropriate education for indigenous children in canada, knowledge of childhood in indigenous contexts is needed. this article focuses on the author’s learning journey during a community-based participatory research project regarding two plains cree elders’ images, or understandings, of the child. to situate the study, the author revisits her research with elders while exploring some epistemological, ontological, and axiological considerations of indigenous research and then shares how she employed cultural protocols and forged relationships. next, the author shares and reflects on the elders’ understandings of childhood and the ways in which she cared for the elders’ knowledge. key words: plains cree elders; indigenous research; cultural protocol; image of the child; early childhood october 2020 20 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of intergenerational trauma, for example, is perpetuated by more recent colonial injustices such as inadequate child welfare services on reserves (bezanson, 2018)—resulting in a greater likelihood of children being removed from their home and community by child welfare services. and, a continued form of colonization is education built on euro-western ways of knowing and being which fail to meet the needs of indigenous students (battiste, 2013). insofar as euro-western understandings of the child dominate early childhood education (fleer, chen, & van oers, 2018 moss, 2016; new, 2018), it continues to be a colonial practice (cannella & viruru, 2004; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). to counter the dominance of euro-western understandings of the child in early childhood education, one of the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission of canada (trc, 2015c) is to “develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for aboriginal families” (p. 2). however, to do so requires a knowledge of childhood in indigenous contexts, knowledge which is held by indigenous knowledge keepers such as elders. the first step in responding to this action call is therefore the act of listening to elders’ teachings on childhood. however, coming to listen to and gain knowledge from elders is an intricate and protocol-bound process that must be grounded in the community. to illustrate one such process in this article, i revisit and reflect on my master’s research1 and thesis on plains cree elders’ images of the child (akerman, 2010). the article begins by attending to relationships through theoretical considerations of my research journey with the elders. i outline the manner in which i engaged in the research—in both method and methodology—by turning toward indigenous epistemology, ontology, and axiology and enacting these constructs by engaging in cultural protocols or ways of relating with the elders in my research, as well as developing and maintaining relationships with them. i then examine some of the limitations of my research. this all serves as a point of reflection for those who wish to engage in research with indigenous elders for the purpose of informing curriculum making and pedagogy for indigenous children. the article continues by sharing the elders’ images of the child that were so generously shared with me, discussing how i made sense of the elders’ teachings, and considering the implications of my research. indigenous epistemology, ontology, and axiology i appreciate this opportunity to revisit my study (akerman, 2010) regarding plains cree elders’ understandings of the child and to reflect on the epistemology, ontology, and axiology that i employed as a means of attending to relationships with the participants. when i engaged in my research journey, i relied on my intuition and life experience as a person of european and quw’utsun descent to guide me, as well as on my relationships with plains cree community members. i strived to employ indigenous epistemology, ontology, and axiology in my research, but did not extensively articulate it in the writing of my thesis by matching it to academic literature. perhaps i did not explain such written commitments to an epistemology, ontology, and axiology because i could not yet easily articulate the indigenous theoretical constructs that—although i was employing them—i had taken for granted. nor could i articulate in writing that which i was still in the beginnings of learning (and to this day still am). these learnings of indigenous worldview were born out of my relationship with my quw’utsun grandfather and out of my four formative years pursuing my bachelor of education through the saskatchewan urban native teacher education program at the university of saskatchewan. it makes sense to me now to rely on the writings of strong indigenous (and non-indigenous) scholars to help articulate my research journey and to help articulate and make sense of the theoretical constructs and methodology that i actually employed throughout my research. in the past, research has primarily been done on indigenous peoples rather than by or with indigenous peoples (smith, 2013). as a result, research has been a tool of colonization where the cultural values of indigenous october 2020 21 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research peoples were ignored (lambert, 2014; rigney, 2006). such colonial research still occurs (dei, 2013), although more research is being done with and for indigenous communities (gaudry, 2018; kovach, 2016). it is with these histories in mind that i carefully planned my research project. i was astutely aware from the onset that in order for my research with the plains cree community to be fruitful, it had to derive from, as cora weber-pillwax (2001) refers to, “indigenous thinking and ways of being” (p. 169). therefore, epistemology, ontology, and axiology were critical considerations of my research and they informed my choice of methodology and methods (brayboy, 2018; pidgeon, 2018; wilson, 2008). while cognizant that indigenous ways of thinking and doing are diverse, i offer below some constructs of indigenous epistemology, ontology, and axiology found in academic literature to illustrate how these longstanding theoretical constructs align with, and informed, my interactions with the plains cree elders in my research. acknowledging that there is no one universal paradigm of indigenous thought or knowledge (battiste, 2013), i do acknowledge that there are some commonalities. since knowledge is relational and owned by the unique community from which it comes, these constructs would be best explored in a living group conversation where the ideas of the plains cree community in which i journeyed are shared and discussed (adams, wilson, heavy head, & gordon, 2015) rather than through this written text. below then, are some ideas to consider, although decontextualized from the living dialogue of the community where the research took place. epistemology during my research, i continually drew on my abecedarian understanding of indigenous epistemology—born from my relationships with indigenous people and the teachings of indigenous scholars—to inform my actions as a researcher. epistemology has been defined by shawn wilson (2008) as “the nature of thinking or thought” (p. 35). bryan brayboy and colleagues (2011) explain that indigenous epistemologies “focus on the processes and qualities of relationships between and among humans and the world they inhabit” (p. 432). one inhabits “a web of connections and relationships” (wilson, 2008, p. 77), and relationships with the land are as sacred as those with people (wilson, 2008). a central aspect of my research, then, was to learn about these connections. marie battiste (2013) speaks to the importance of connections in indigenous research when she states that “indigenous epistemology is holistic and acknowledges the interconnection of a person’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects and their relation to all living things” (p. 75). this interconnection of one’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects, for example, is often conceptualized by the medicine wheel, a traditional component of cree culture that is best understood under the guidance of an elder. together, the four interrelated quadrants of the medicine wheel—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—allow one to interpret “their relation to all living things” (p. 75) in a holistic and informed manner. as marlene brant castellano (2000) explains: the medicine wheel is one of the most powerful instruments currently used to convey the holistic character of aboriginal knowledge and experience. the circle, representing the circle of life, contains all experience, everything in the biosphere—animal, vegetable, mineral, human, spirit—past, present and future. two lines mark the quadrants of the circle. (p. 30) the parts of the medicine wheel can only be understood in relation to the whole. thus, the holistic nature of indigenous epistemology influences the manner in which i, the learner, experience and analyze research data. brant castellano (2000) explains: the holistic quality of knowledge implies that isolating pieces from experience and trying to make sense of them apart from the environment that gave rise to them flies in the face of reality and is bound to lead to frustration. this does not mean that analysis of parts of the circle are dismissed; it simply october 2020 22 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research means that analysis must be balanced with synthesis—placing the part that we have come to know by close analysis in the context of all its relations, which will continually impact on that which we thought we knew, and thereby transform it. (p. 30) weber-pillwax (2001) echoes brant castellano, stating that when an indigenous scholar is “based in indigenous reality and indigenous ways of thinking, [they] start out with synthesis” (p. 168) and remain in synthesis during their learning journey. synthesis, then, was well suited to the holistic nature of indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing throughout my research. when i synthesized indigenous knowledge in my research with elders, i paid heed to indigenous knowledge that came from many sources and was acquired in various ways. to acknowledge this, i offer brant castellano’s (2000) three sources of indigenous knowledge which i attended to throughout my research: traditional teachings, empirical observation, and revelation. first, traditional knowledge—handed down from generation to generation, including creation stories, genealogies, tales, and spiritual teachings—teaches the values and beliefs unique to each community (brant castellano, 2000). traditional knowledge, for example, is what i have received through oral tradition from my grandfather and from the elders in my research. second, i gained empirical knowledge during my research through careful observation interpreted “in the context of existing information” (waldram, 1986, as cited in brant castellano, 2000, p. 23), based on my own observations and perspectives and those of others. this process allowed me to revise my understanding of what i observed. third, revealed knowledge, which is spiritual in origin, is “acquired through dreams, visions, and intuitions” (brant castellano, 2000, p. 24), and at times in my research, i relied on my intuition to guide me. all three knowledge sources—traditional, empirical, revealed—are interconnected, and although i may receive them in different ways, they inform one another through synthesis. ontology while epistemology has to do with the “nature of thinking” (wilson, 2008, p. 35), ontology can be seen as the nature of reality (wilson, 2008), and both epistemology and ontology rely on relationships. wilson (2008) suggests that in indigenous ontology, there is no one truth but multiple realities enacted in and born out of “different sets of relationships” (p. 73) and that a “relational way of being [is] at the heart of what it means to be indigenous” (p. 80). as already stated, these relationships go beyond relationships with people. it is apparent that indigenous epistemology and ontology can be considered one and the same when wilson (2008) states, “it is not the realities in and of themselves that are important, it is the relationship that i share with the reality” (p. 74). reality, then, cannot exist without relationships (wilson, 2008). through relationships with participants in my research, i came to learn about their realities, their truths. axiology setting out to learn about and care for participants’ truths or realities in a good way requires a commitment to an axiology. wilson (2008) defines axiology as “the ethics or morals that guide the search for knowledge and judge which information is worthy of searching for” (p. 34). ethics, in turn, is defined by willy ermine (2007) as “the capacity to know what harms or enhances the well-being of sentient creatures” (p. 195). to develop the capacity to know how my actions would impact the participants, i had to be attentive to participants’ worldviews and anticipate how my actions as a researcher might “infringe or violate the spaces of others” (ermine, 2007, p. 195). this attentiveness was only possible through fostering my relationships with the participants in my research and my relationships with the wider plains cree community. attending to ethics can be difficult when the researcher and participants do not share a culture and therefore worldview. as ermine (2007) states, “diverse human communities do not share a common moral vocabulary, nor do october 2020 23 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research they share a common vision of the nature of human beings as actors within the universe” (p. 198). acknowledging that researchers and communities do not always hold morals in common, battiste (2013) warns of problems that arise when the researcher’s ethical standpoint differs from that of the community in which they are researching: imposition of ethical rules derived from other epistemologies or ontologies or ways of life in other communities will inevitably cause problems in how one enters a community, what relationships guide the interactions, what knowledge is appropriate to be sought, how it is to be used, and other issues related to access and benefit, although common understandings and shared interests can be negotiated. (p. 71) with this in mind, before committing to engage in research in the plains cree community, i had to first familiarize myself with the longstanding ethical directives and protocols of that community and, second, discern if i could adhere to these rules with a spirit of sincerity, openness, and good intent. this included engaging in protocols and behaviours that aligned with the community’s cultural values (smith, 2013). attending to the responsibilities that emerge from relationships with participants who operate from distinct and longstanding cultural values was a competing force for me as an academic researcher: i carried the responsibility of being accountable, not only to the community in which i was researching, but also to the academy (brayboy et al., 2011). because the academic institution is built on dominant euro-western notions of objectivity and truth, as well as the belief that knowledge collected through research can be owned by and claimed as the researcher’s own, my indigenous research methodologies had to, in the words of michelle pidgeon (2018), “go beyond standard ethical practices” (p. 5) of the institution and adhere to the ethical rules of the plains cree community in which i was researching. i learned the ethical rules unique to that community from community members, and these rules had implications from the beginning of my research when i accessed knowledge, to the dissemination and transmission of knowledge (gaudry & lorenz, 2018). this sustained regard was particularly important in the area of knowledge dissemination, since in many indigenous communities, as robin starr minthorn and heather shotton assert, “not all knowledge is meant for public consumption” (2018, p. 211). some knowledge is sacred and to be kept private, while some is public (pidgeon, 2018). it was my responsibility as a researcher to learn the community’s stipulations surrounding what knowledge can be shared, how it can be shared, and with whom. ultimately it was my duty as a researcher to be a custodian of knowledge (battiste, 2008), and this lifelong duty extends long past the written component (e.g., thesis, dissertation, scholarly paper) of my research project (lavallée, 2009). indigenous research research within an indigenous paradigm required me to develop and maintain a relationship with the plains cree people and community where my research was occurring, as well as to employ culturally informed methods (i.e., procedures to gather information) and methodologies (i.e., a philosophical framework) to tend to these relationships (drawson, toombs, & mushquash, 2017). in my indigenous research, the line between method and methodology was sometimes blurred, with methods such as storytelling through oral tradition, for example, being more than just a method to gather information but a relational human interaction that was ceremonial, spiritual, philosophical, and, to a varied degree, communal in nature. in a sense, in my indigenous research, method and methodology became interchangeable, and as alexandra drawson and colleagues (2017) suggest, embodied both a procedure and a framework. indigenous research methodologies, and the accompanying and intertwined methods, are many, which, according to adam gaudry and danielle lorenz (2018), represents the “plurality of indigenous knowledges” (p. 22). with this plurality in mind, lipe kaiwipunikauikawēkiu (2018) states that “there is not one singular approach to october 2020 24 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research indigenous methodologies” (p. 209), just as there is no singular indigenous lived reality or way of knowing. my indigenous research methodology, then, allowed me and the elders in my research to share our own stories in our own way (minthorn & shotton, 2018). given the agency indigenous research provides to each individual indigenous community, methodology and methods are fluid and changing, because they are formed and reformed to match the goals of the community where the research is occurring. community-based participatory research community-based participatory research, although not inherently indigenous, is often used as a methodology for indigenous research because it aligns well with indigenous knowledge-sharing values in terms of community control and the caring for, and sharing of, traditional knowledge (drawson et al., 2017; first nations information governance centre, 2014). i engaged in community-based participatory research because i was aware that, in the plains cree community where i was carrying out my research, ideas around community control and knowledgesharing values were prominent and well established. with this came the expectation that my research, in both method and philosophy, was done not only in consultation with but in relationship with the community, for the benefit of the community, and through participation of the community (drawson et al., 2017; gaudry, 2018). from the inception of my research, i continually worked to prioritize the needs of the elders and of the wider plains cree community by listening to their wishes in order to fuel research decisions and directives. i strived for my research to be driven by what drawson et al. (2017) refer to as “the underlying goal of collaboration, research equality, and community control” (p. 6), and i relied on the agency of community members to point out my shortcomings in addressing that goal. fostering community control of the research required me, the researcher, to depart from “motives of control and individual gain” (brayboy et al., 2011, p. 434) and to prioritize service and communal good. within this notion of service came reciprocity, where i, guided by the community, strived to provide for others around me in ways the community saw fit (brayboy et al., 2011). according to brayboy et al. (2011), such research is conducted “with a particular sense of humility; every legitimate relationship necessitates the discarding of egos and requires the researcher to recognize the responsibilities that emerge from the relationship” (p. 437). two ways that i confronted my ego throughout my research were by recognizing a) my limited understanding of plains cree culture and b) the expertise and knowledge of community members whose participation, direction, and counsel were vital to the research process. theoretical framework with my research relying on indigenous epistemology, where knowledge and knowing are relational, and on an axiology and methodology that are centered on an attentiveness and commitment to relationships, it becomes clear that my theoretical framework is relational (wilson, 2008). i am informed by the understandings of wilson (2008), who states that a research paradigm is made up of the four “inseparable and blended” (p. 70) entities of “ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology” (p. 70). in my research, knowledge was gathered and synthesized through relationships, and, knowledge was later cared for with the relationships in mind. below— following a brief paragraph—are two sections which illustrate my relational theoretical framework in action: (1) “engaging in cultural protocols and ways of relating” and (2) “relationships as the basis of my research.” what i share is my own unique and imperfect experience. it is intended to serve as a point of reflection and then departure. the two main participants in my research (akerman, 2010)2 were helen3 and margaret, both elders and cultural advisors in a school division in western canada in treaty six area where my research took place. helen grew up in october 2020 25 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research chitek lake first nation (known as pelican lake first nation) and learned her plains cree language and spirituality from her mother, who was a midwife. margaret is from thunderchild first nation. she grew up learning her plains cree language and spirituality from her parents. her mother was a midwife and herbalist. engaging in cultural protocols and ways of relating prior to my initial visits with margaret and helen, i visited members of the plains cree community to ask them about cultural protocols. when i use the term protocol, i don’t mean hard and fast rules but the fluid, attentive, and culturally informed ways in which i related to elders as my relationship with them and the community developed. in this sense, protocols are ways of relating, and i use these terms interchangeably. it was important that i inquired with people who personally knew margaret and helen, because the ways of relating expected from elder to elder often varies. a lot of these protocols i learned from community members ahead of meeting with the elders, but some of then i learned as i communicated with the elders and allowed their stories to inform how i should relate to them. six main areas arose with regard to cultural protocol when seeking knowledge from the plains cree elder participants. the first was the wearing of a skirt. my choice to wear a long skirt was, for me, a way of honouring the traditions of a female elder and her wishes for me to exercise my humility and honour myself as a woman who, like mother earth, can bear life. margaret expected me to wear a long skirt when visiting her. helen, on the other hand, appreciated my gesture of wearing a long skirt, but did not expect it. the second way of relating was offering tobacco. for plains cree people, tobacco is a sacred plant that is interconnected to mother earth. i offered tobacco to honour each elder’s wisdom and allow her to comfortably and culturally express, through body language, whether or not she wished to participate in my research. when helen and margaret accepted my tobacco offerings, for example, they were expressing their desire to communicate with me and participate in my research. illustrating the importance of relationship, particularly with mother earth, the elders in my study eventually offered the tobacco in prayer and thanksgiving to mother earth, while also praying for me, the person who gave them the tobacco. the protocols of offering tobacco varied from elder to elder in my research. for example, helen told me how when she was a child she would only offer a small pinch of tobacco to her grandmother when she went to learn from her. from this indirect teaching through story, i knew i was to offer only a small pinch of tobacco when i visited helen. margaret, on the other hand, had her assistant tell me that the tobacco i offered her during our first visit was sufficient for all subsequent visits; i was not expected to offer her any more tobacco. during one visit, margaret told me the importance of children sitting on the ground so they are close to mother earth. i asked her if it was best to offer her tobacco when we were both seated. “yes,” she replied: when we’re sitting on a chair, that’s being close to mother earth too. and also, the elder will not stand up. well, they’ll maybe stand up to greet you. but, if you’re coming for a purpose, they’ll tell you, “let’s sit down.” and to us, sitting down you’re more relaxed and you’re more open to welcome, to receive, and give in that relationship. from this i learned that i was to be seated when offering tobacco to an elder. the third way of relating was showing respect by offering the elders transportation, nourishment, and accompaniment. when i met with margaret for our first extensive visit, i picked her up from her home and took her out for supper at a restaurant. for those elders who preferred to travel on their own, i was sure to greet them at the main entrance and accompany them to the room in which we were meeting. at the end of a gathering such october 2020 26 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as a talking circle, i would offer to carry their belongings to their vehicle for them, ensuring they made it to their vehicle safely and comfortably. this walk also gave me an opportunity to thank the elder for their time spent with me and for the knowledge they shared. these ways of relating allowed me to show the elders respect and acknowledge the mental and physical fatigue that can come from commuting, meeting new people, and sharing knowledge—activities helen and margaret undertook while of retirement age. the care i provided for the elders in my research resembled, in a small way, not only the care i have provided for my grandfather in the past, but also the care many indigenous people provide for elders in their community. for example, while attending plains cree powwows, i have noticed that elders are offered accompaniment or a golf cart ride to the elders’ tent or lodge, where they sit in the shade and are served refreshments by younger community members. from observing this, i gathered empirical knowledge to learn how to care for and relate to helen and margaret in culturally appropriate and respectful ways. i then used this knowledge in my research by providing (or at least offering) transportation, nourishment, and accompaniment. eventually a relationship developed where the elders were willing to share their traditional knowledge with me. for me, gathering knowledge empirically— coupled with good intent for the elders and the community—was a precursor to being gifted with traditional knowledge. the fourth way of relating was acknowledging that elders are experts in their own right. when i set out to do my research, my topic focused on the plains cree image of the child from age 4 to 7—the age range that early childhood education generally encompasses. helen was quick to point out, however, that in a plains cree paradigm, where all life is valued, childhood begins at the moment of conception. my narrow focus on children aged 4 to 7 quickly broadened to include conception, birth, and infancy. putting at the forefront the elders’ “underlying values” (gaudry, 2018, p. 254) allowed my research to become more community based and participatory as it acknowledged the elders’ expertise. further acknowledging the elders’ expertise, i did not ask initial questions of the elders beyond “what is your understanding of the child?”, since i did not have the traditional knowledge and experiences the elders carried. because of their wisdom, the elders inherently knew what i needed to learn. i entered into learning sessions with them rather than interviews. the fifth way of relating was determining whether i should record the conversations with the elders. helen did not want me to use an audio recorder when meeting with her. asserting “tobacco is your computer,” helen explained that one of the reasons i offered her tobacco was to help me remember her teachings—the prayers she would later say while offering the tobacco to mother earth included prayers for my learning journey. helen also said, “the really important information will stay with you.” after each session, with helen’s permission, i would write down all i could remember of her teachings. from session to session, my listening skills improved, and i was able to recall more information, allowing me to partially experience some of the benefits of oral tradition. the sixth protocol was to invite the elders to remove from the final draft of my thesis information that was sacred or private. i slowly read the thesis draft to them as they listened and interjected when they wished. this allowed them to safeguard their indigenous knowledge. for instance, i responded to margaret’s request to remove some spiritual teachings (or revealed knowledge) that she did not want included, because she preferred to share such teachings with a select audience and a public thesis would not allow this. learning about the specific protocols preferred by each elder was a very important component of preparing to carry out my research. ahead of meeting with an elder, i would dialogue with a respected member of the plains cree community who would help me consider the elders’ worldview and the corresponding ways of relating that i could engage in to respect their worldviews (e.g., offering tobacco or not audio recording conversations). the more i learned about and followed the elders’ preferred ways of relating, the less i violated the elders’ spaces october 2020 27 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (ermine, 2007) and the easier it was for me to enter into an ethically sound research relationship with them. knowing each elder’s preferences allowed me to arrive somewhat prepared to interact with the elder in a culturally appropriate way. this built respect because the elders appreciated my efforts to accommodate them. being unable to completely anticipate the specific protocols each elder preferred placed me in a position of humility. i had to be open to making errors and, most importantly, i had to be receptive to the new learning opportunities these experiences provided. i also learned about the preferred cultural protocols that the elders expected me to follow by uncovering embedded teachings in the elders’ stories (such as how much tobacco to offer helen). brant castellano (2000) explains that stories “teach without being intrusive, because the listener can ignore the oblique instruction or apply it to the degree he or she is ready to accept, without offence” (p. 31). through stories, the elders indirectly offered me instruction and correction, and it was up to me to be both perceptive enough to notice these directives and humble enough to accept them. relationships as the basis of my research before beginning my research on plains cree elders’ understandings of the child, i did not know helen or margaret. coming to know and learning from them in a respectful way relied heavily on relationships—with them, with members of the wider plains cree community, and with mother earth. wilson (2008) points out that for a researcher, being included in an indigenous community depends on the researcher’s past work and relationships in that community (and beyond) and on current work and relationships with community members. echoing wilson, margaret kovach (2016) emphasizes that “relational connections” (p. 36) are a key requisite of indigenous research. without my relational connections, i would not have had success in forming learning relationships with elders helen and margaret. throughout my research, i relied on my previous relationships with plains cree people in the school division where my research took place to lead me into new connections or relationships with community members and elders, most importantly with helen and margaret. such relationships were spurred through my ongoing interest and involvement in indigenous education learning, as well as attendance at cultural gatherings, such as sweats, round dances, and powwows. relationships beyond the plains cree community also mattered. one such relationship was with my grandfather, who taught me through oral tradition when i visited him in british columbia throughout my life. from our interactions, i knew that listening to and learning from elders requires patience and time. when seeking information, i knew that i should not expect a direct response but should search for answers embedded in my grandfather’s stories. this included stories that initially seemed irrelevant or unrelated to the topic at hand, and stories from years past. determining who is an elder in an indigenous community can be a difficult process, therefore i relied on recommendations from community members. because some elders carry a deeper traditional knowledge than others, i wanted to find elders who were farther along in their journey as keepers of knowledge of plains cree childhoods. i visited respected personal contacts in the plains cree community in search of recommendations for appropriate elders. during these meetings, helen’s and margaret’s names came up repeatedly. as a result, i was confident they were respected elders who represented both the traditional and collective knowledge of their people. my relationship with ben, a métis contact of mine whom i had known for several years, was integral to forming successful relationships with the elders. acting as a gatekeeper to helen and margaret, ben asked me specific questions about my research to learn about my intentions. he wanted to know who would own the knowledge october 2020 28 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research i gathered. i explained that the knowledge the elders shared with me would continue to belong to them, while i served as a steward of their knowledge. watching out for their best interests, ben only helped me meet these elders once he was sure i would treat them and the knowledge they offered in a culturally appropriate manner. he needed to be assured of this primarily to protect the elders and very secondarily to protect his reputation as a community member. if i were to lack integrity when interacting with the elders, it could reflect poorly on ben, and he could be held accountable for my actions. under ben’s guidance, i arranged a talking circle with five of the school division elders to share my intentions and gather their feedback. helen and margaret were two of the elders present. in the days leading up to the talking circle, i visited each elder individually to introduce myself and offer them tobacco. the talking circle, which began with a smudge ceremony led by one of the elders, proceeded according to plains cree tradition of using a stone to signify whose turn it was to speak. passing the stone to the left, participants took turns speaking while others quietly listened. the elders asked me questions regarding my research, and i explained my intentions. among the elders, there seemed to be a general consensus (not spoken, but implied) that my research was welcome in their school division. this was confirmed when, after the talking circle, the two lead elders, helen and margaret, took interest in my topic and each invited me to meet with them at a later date. the elders’ questioning during the talking circle, coupled with ben’s questioning of my research intentions, served, in a sense, as a rigorous indigenous community advisory board that was enacted through the epistemology of a talking circle. this “board” was different from the board of ethics at my university because it served to protect the elders and their intergenerational knowledge and was specific to their plains cree ways of knowing in a particular time and place. most importantly, it brought me face to face with ben and the elders, affording them the opportunity to determine whether our relationship had a chance of advancing in a manner that protected and served the community and its intergenerational knowledge. our relationship did stand a chance, and it developed into a teaching relationship where helen and margaret shared with me their plains cree understandings of children. gaining respect among the elders through relationships with their contacts was not a one-time occurrence limited to the inception of my research, but rather was ongoing. for example, stan, a plains cree acquaintance i had crossed paths with several times in the area of indigenous education, helped me gain, or perhaps maintain, respect from helen. one day when i was visiting with helen at her workplace, stan happened to walk into the room. he greeted helen and then said, “janine and her sister are great proponents of indigenous education. they do good work.” these kinship ties with my sister (with whom helen was acquainted) and with stan (whom helen knew very well) offered the elder some confidence in me as she actively discerned whether to continue sharing her knowledge with me. countering limitations a key axiological challenge of my research was the consent form. in engaging elders helen and margaret in informed consent, i had to find a way to be accountable to both the elder participants and the university so i could carry out research that both respected the elders and satisfied the institution. having the elders sign a consent form was considered to be very ethical by university standards, but by indigenous standards it was incongruous and, given the colonial undertones of signing consent to use information or resources that indigenous people own, inappropriate and potentially offensive. i had to find a way to get indigenous protocols of consent “out in front” of the university consent form and to make the indigenous protocols the primary driver of consent in my research. once this was achieved, i could then position the consent form as a secondary, redundant, and clerical procedure. although i had to use the consent form as a student of the university, i worked to make it auxiliary in nature in that october 2020 29 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research informed consent, through gatekeepers and ultimately a talking circle, had already taken place before the consent form was signed. not only did the consent form have implications from the beginning of my research when consent was being obtained, it also had implications in the dissemination of knowledge (gaudry & lorenz, 2018) long after the research had occurred. to be responsive to my relationship of trust with helen and margaret when disseminating the research, i found myself imposing relationally and culturally informed limitations on the consent forms the elders had signed. although the form outlined that the intended uses for the research findings included, but were not limited to, research articles, presentations, and teaching, i moved beyond the consent form to consider my perception of the elders’ preferences when deciding how to disseminate their teachings. for example, years after my thesis was completed, i was approached by a professor to share the elders’ teachings via video recordings to be shown in an online course. however, because helen had wanted me to follow her custom of oral tradition and not audio-record her when she was teaching me, i deduced that she would not want me to share her teachings via video recordings. consequently, i declined to share the teachings on video, even though the signed consent form would have allowed me to. i offered instead to share the elders’ teachings in a face-to-face class. declining to share the elders’ teachings via video recordings was a quick, intuitive response that i felt was right because i knew it would extend respect to the elders, but it also caused me disappointment. this was because i highly respected the professor who invited me to share the elders’ teachings via video, and i dearly wanted to contribute to her work with the online course. she was a person of utmost integrity and she was acting with the good intention of contributing to culturally informed education for indigenous families. i could not, however, put my relationship with her ahead of my relationship with the elders. inherent to the latter was my responsibility to continually ask myself, as wilson (2008) suggests, “how am i fulfilling my role in this relationship? what are my obligations in this relationship?” (p. 177). here, my role—my axiological commitment—was to care for the elders’ knowledge as i knew they would wish me to. these wishes and obligations lay not in the consent form, but in the whole of my relationship with them, the whole of my understandings of plains cree customs and beliefs and wider indigenous beliefs, and in the whole of the traditional, empirical, and revealed knowledge i was holding. returning to, and being attuned to, my relationship with the elders and their cultural traditions, as well as determining what course of action would extend them the most respect, was an essential companion to the consent form. beyond the consent forms, other limitations to my research were not so easily countered. for example, presenting helen’s and margaret’s teachings in the format of an academic thesis in written english (with a very small amount of cree throughout) rather than through oral tradition and entirely in cree, was one such limitation. here, i relied on institutionalized practices and the colonial language of english to inaptly “define indigenous reality” (battiste, 2008, p. 11). in light of this limitation, i acknowledge that my research, although intended to be indigenous in nature, was the result of a carefully travelled path along two knowledge “systems”—the indigenous tradition of intergenerational knowledge sharing and caretaking, and the euro-western academic system. i frequently sought indigenous ways of knowing and doing rather than immediately defaulting to standard academic protocols. the participants helen, a plains cree woman from chitek lake first nation, saskatchewan (known as pelican lake first nation), grew up speaking cree at home. she credits much of her learning of traditional cree ways to her mother, who spoke only cree and had no formal education. her mother’s knowledge and language were not recognized beyond the indigenous community, and helen felt that her mother had “no voice” outside the community, despite her vast knowledge as a midwife. today, however, helen says that her mother’s voice is “loud and clear—louder than ever october 2020 30 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as i speak for her.” helen’s father was english/scottish. helen’s mother was baptized in order to marry him, yet she continued to practice cree spirituality. helen grew up practicing cree spirituality and maintains this spirituality today. like her mother, helen did not attend residential school. she explains that, because of the absence of residential school in her immediate family, her life is free from alcohol and drugs—substances she believes people have used to try and heal from the negative effects of residential school. when talking about her life without residential school, helen explains, “that is why i am more comfortable. the church meant well, but the people who worked there [at the residential schools] were not healthy.” helen attended kindergarten to grade 12 at a school in a nearby farming community and then attended the saskatchewan indian federated college. helen has five children, twenty-three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. she is an elder and cultural advisor at a high school, and her many talents include beading, hide tanning, and tipi making/raising. helen regularly shares tipi teachings, which she describes as “a woman’s teaching,” with other indigenous women. she likens a tipi to a woman in that a tipi “stands with dignity and is powerful.” margaret is from thunderchild first nation in saskatchewan and both her parents were plains cree. margaret’s mother was a midwife and herbalist who spoke only cree; her father spoke cree and english. margaret’s first language was cree. she attended grades 1 to 8 at st. anthony residential school in onion lake, saskatchewan. when reflecting on her residential school experience, margaret explains how the cree parents and elders at thunderchild tried to prepare children for their white cousins from the church that were going to join them. the elders and parents tried to prepare their children about those catholic teachings, but things were happening too fast ... too fast. the church came in too quickly and too fast. when reflecting on what she believes the residential school’s image of the child to be, margaret says: the culture of the child is not good, it’s evil. “i’m going to change the children to the way i believe.” assimilate, i guess. so the people from the residential school were not ready. they didn’t even want to listen to our teaching. you know, they didn’t want to understand. they were just there to get the land. and change everybody to their way of believing, their way of living. that’s how i saw it, and i believe i’m not the only one who began to understand that. margaret explains that regardless of what she learned in residential school, “the ways of teaching were different. more like, ‘i know better and i’m teaching you and you learn what i’m teaching you or else.’” despite her eight years of attendance at residential school, margaret is firmly grounded in her cree spirituality. as a school child, she went home every summer to receive traditional teachings from her mother and other elders in the community. it was these summertime teachings that fostered margaret’s cree spirituality, as well as her traditional knowledge and skills she still practices today. margaret smudges and prays every morning. her traditional talents include sewing clothing such as ribbon shirts and dresses for ceremonies, quilting, beading moccasins, and drying wild moose, deer, and fish that her relations have hunted. margaret never attended high school because there was no high school in her community. moreover, after years of attending residential school, she was not interested in leaving home to attend boarding school. once married, margaret worked on high school equivalency courses and then completed the indian social work program at the university of saskatchewan. she worked as a community health care worker for 20 years before her current role as school division elder. margaret considered furthering her university education, but was influenced otherwise october 2020 31 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research by her father, who encouraged her to spend her time cultivating her traditional plains cree knowledge. she remembers her father saying that the knowledge she had gained from her “aunties, mother and elders along the way is very important.” her father explained that there would be a lot of university-educated people in the future, but his people, the plains cree, were going to have very few keepers of traditional knowledge. elders acknowledging ancestors when sharing knowledge with me, both margaret and helen continually acknowledged the ancestors or elders who had originally passed on knowledge to them. for instance, before introducing a teaching, helen and margaret would say things such as “one of the things my mother and the great aunties taught me about ...” or “and in our way, and in our culture, what they would tell us is that ...” after giving a teaching, helen and margaret would make comments such as “so that’s what my mother always told me” and “that’s what my husband’s grandmother used to say.” when expressing her gratitude for “the teaching from the elders” that she has received, margaret remarked: they have helped me. and even to this day i still believe in that. and, when i pray, i still thank the creator for allowing me to know about these teachings. it’s not that i know about everything, but i kept what i learned, and if i wasn’t sure i would ask the older women. the elders’ image of the child the elders’ image of the child can be placed into six categories: (1) the child’s awareness in the womb, (2) the child as powerful and pure at birth, (3) the child journeying through infancy, (4) the child’s spirit as connected to mother earth, (5) listening to the child’s voice, and 6) the child as a butterfly. the child’s awareness in the womb helen, who refuses to use the european word fetus and instead talks of “a child when in the womb,” insisted that my research must consider the child from the moment of conception. helen explained that “the child’s spirit is asked to come down from above at the moment of conception.” “conception,” she points out, “is the english word that is used.” helen describes pregnancy as a nine-month ceremony where the mother is with child or carrying a child, which is called kikiskahawasot in cree. margaret and helen shared many teachings about caring for a child while it is in the womb. margaret taught, “it’s not only when they’re born that they remember things. a child has the power to remember when they’re in the womb.” margaret shared this teaching from her grandmother-in-law: she was a grand old lady, my late husband’s grandma.... she was the one that continued the teaching about how to look after myself when i was pregnant. she would say, “before you go to bed, sing to your baby, put your hands on your tummy and sing to your baby, or even in the morning when the sun comes, sing to your baby. and you ask your baby, ‘do you hear the birds singing?’” they listen. you are talking to your baby. and you nurture your baby through the umbilical cord. you nurture all four components: mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional ... and this nurturing transfers to your baby through the umbilical cord. and whatever you’re singing, whatever you’re talking, whatever you’re feeling goes into that baby and they’ll remember that. both helen and margaret believe that a child can remember experiences from their time in the womb. for instance, helen’s granddaughter remembers going berry picking with her mother while in the womb. according to helen, when a mother carries a child, everything the mother does, says, and thinks will affect the october 2020 32 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research child. for example, if a mother uses foul language or belittles someone, the child she is carrying will hear this. further, helen spoke to the need for a mother to abstain from alcohol while “with child.” since a child’s experience in the womb has direct implications for their journey to adulthood, helen believes that a child’s time in the womb should be “pleasant and beautiful” rather than “threatening.” according to helen, the necessary care while carrying a child “has been known by the elders for a long time,” but their knowledge has not been recognized because of their lack of formal university education. the child as powerful and pure at birth margaret and helen described the child as “powerful and pure” at birth. according to margaret, a child illustrates this power when they raise their fist up and cry the moment they are born (english translation of cree in brackets): you know what my grandma told me a long time ago when i was a young lady about 14? “someday you’ll have babies and when they are born you’ll notice that they have their little fists like this all the time, hanging onto something.” and ... they tell you what they’re hanging onto on their first cry, they tell you that. in cree they say “esônikeyimiyan [the future is in my hands] and i have to protect it. i have to protect this future, but you have to help me. mom and dad, you have to help me.” that is what every child is saying. “the future is in my hands and i need you to help me protect it.” margaret explained how her mother and other women taught her to cleanse the child’s hands with herbal oil right after birth to protect the future that rests in their hands. further, she described the child “blessing” those present: when they have their hands open, they are blessing you ’cause they’re powerful, they’re really pure. with their hands they’re blessing the people around them in the house and their surroundings. that’s what she used to tell us, that old lady. they’re born pure, they’re very powerful, so they’re blessing you, talking to you and telling you you’re receiving their blessings. helen also believes that the child is saying “i come with a gift” as they hold their fist in the air. this gift, which is unique to each child, is a talent to be used for the benefit of others. acknowledging the spiritual power that the oskawâsis or newborn baby has, helen explained that when one hears an oskawâsis cry, they are immediately attracted to the spiritual power and purity of that child. margaret told the story of when she was born, and how she was acknowledged as both “powerful and pure”: when i was being born my mother went through a lot of childbirth, you know it weakened her because of giving a lot of childbirth, and she was having problems with me. they asked this kehtaya [elder] in the community to come and do a ceremony to help my mom ... and then what he did was he put the pipe on my mother’s tummy and invited me to come into the world. and he called me by my name. that was when i was named and called opipiwakeskwun. and that means when you see a bird flying in one spot, that’s a thunderbird. when there’s a light drizzle of rain sending down the powers, healing waters, that was why the thunderbird was flying in one spot. that’s what i am named after ... opipiwakeskwun comes from the word iskwew. iskwew is a woman. see, already that old man knew i was a woman, a little girl. he invited me in the ceremony of birth. he invited me to come and then shortly after that i was born. he said, “in the future this baby will grow into a woman who is going to have this lodge, going to have to do this lodge.” that’s what he told my mother. and my mother told me that to help me ... those are the things that our culture did for babies, childbirth, those are the things that they did to help with childbirth. they give you to help in the natural way, and we call these the creator’s natural laws. margaret’s story about her own birth—not shared here in its entirety—can only be fully understood—and is only intended to be fully understood—by those who have an extensive understanding of plains cree spirituality. october 2020 33 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research consequently, when i read the initial thesis document draft to margaret, she retracted some of what she had initially shared with me about her birth so that that sacred information would not be published in my thesis. what all people can learn from margaret’s story, however, is that she was acknowledged as pure and powerful at birth. the child journeying through infancy helen described infancy as “a sacred journey” in which the child learns to walk and talk. both margaret and helen emphasized that, since infancy is a time where the child learns an abundance of new skills, it is important to carefully care for the child. margaret shared that children, from the time they are born, start studying. they start learning about their mother, that’s the closest person that they have. he or she is being nourished by their mother ... for food and also, you know, being warm and fed and clothed and all this and loved and cared for. but at the same time they’re already learning. they’re watching, you know, and feeling their mother, and they want to do that. even as little and young as they are, their eyes will wander. they’ll test what they’ve seen. they do that and they even talk in their own little language and they think in their little minds. they even do that. and then they want to play and they love playing, especially if they get their mom laughing. you know they want that forever, and we have to let that with the children because that’s their time and we have to respect and honour that. that’s what i said, we have to learn patience ... and when they are about a year, two years old they want to do things. they want to help you. they want to please you. margaret believes that an infant’s interactions with their mother is a meaningful time in the child’s learning. carrying a child or placing a baby in a moss bag was an important part of childrearing for both elders. a moss bag is traditionally made from hide and filled with dry soft moss. moss bags have lacing all the way up the middle, allowing the parent to tie the laces so the baby is snug and secure. in modern times, moss bags are often decorated with beading. margaret talked of her oldest son’s memories of being in a moss bag: he said, “i wonder how old i was?” he said, “i remember my grandmother putting me in a moss bag, taking my hand and putting it here and wrapping my hand so softly. and i remember taking my other one and putting it over, you know, after that and then i started getting really warm ’cause she was wrapping me that much.” he said, “i remember that.” and i said, “well, did you see her?” he said, “nope, but i know it was grandma.” [margaret laughs.] i said it could have been me. [margaret laughs] i wrapped all of my babies in moss. moss, it grows in muskegs, and it’s nice and soft. helen believes that infants, when in a moss bag, learn how to be patient and how to observe. because they are not squirming and looking at their hands, they are able to see what is going on around them. they develop their senses of smell, sight, and hearing, and sleep better at night. according to helen, moss bags can be used for infants up to about age one. helen showed me a beautiful moss bag she was sewing. she also showed me pictures of herself and her granddaughter as infants in moss bags. helen shared the importance of properly holding an infant, or as she put it, “a sacred child.” helen’s mother taught helen to hold an infant by cradling him or her. helen explained, “don’t carry an infant under your arm like it is a thing—that is not respectful.” instead, helen said, “cradle the infant.... don’t prop a bottle and let the infant feed, rather, breastfeed to allow a physical bond.” helen’s teachings on holding the sacred child reveal her high level of respect for the infant. helen believes that the infant has a very significant place in indigenous ceremonies. she explained that in ceremonies where people are gathered in a circle, “the circle is not complete without the very young.” as such, helen invites and encourages mothers to bring their very young children into the circle. she is not concerned when infants crawl october 2020 34 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research around and touch ceremonial objects because, in their purity, infants “purify the circle.” “once children begin walking on mother earth” helen explained, “they can begin learning about how to act in a ceremony.” the child’s spirit as connected to mother earth helen and margaret acknowledge the child’s spirit as being connected to mother earth and spoke to the importance of “teaching to the child’s spirit.” helen defines the spirit of the child as “the whole child”—which includes the “emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual” dimensions of the child. the term mother earth is not something i myself can define. rather, one can only begin to understand by listening to elders’ teachings. margaret teaches that mother earth has teachings from what’s on and in her body, you know, the plants, the medicines, the food, even our clothing come from her and from the animals, as the white people call them, but us, we call them the grandfathers, the grandmothers. even the sky life, she connects with the sky life because the birds that fly come on her breast to feed from her breast. we call her waters the seas, the lakes, the rivers, those are her breasts to us. because if we didn’t have that water we wouldn’t live. we have to have that water. and we also have to have the sun ’cause the sun ... sends down the energy to every living spirit on earth and the sky life to help them live. so that is one of the reasons why the woman is connected to mother earth.... and our men, they sit down too when they do the ceremonies. yeah, they sit down when they do the pipe ceremony and even in our lodges the men sit down. they connect with mother earth too. it is significant that margaret made note of the men sitting down. generally, it is considered most important for women to sit close to mother earth, because they are recognized by the creator as very powerful because, like mother earth, women can give birth. according to margaret, women can “identify with mother earth ’cause only mother earth can bear and give birth to life.” margaret explained further: grandmother the moon blessed us women and we can identify with her every 28 days. she’s full moon every 28 days, and she gave us that gift, that we will become spiritual every 28 days. because life is so sacred, so sacred. in both english and cree, margaret expanded on women’s bond with mother earth: osâm ohci tâpiskoc kiya iskwew ehahâwasoyan ekwa enihtâwikihat ana awâsis [because, just like you being a woman, you bear life, and you give birth to that child]. peyakwan kikâwînaw ehahâwasot pimâtisiwin ekanaweyihtahk enihtâwikîtât kahkiyaw kîkway nipiy mîciwin [just like our mother bears life, she takes care of it / preserves it, gave life to everything, water, food]. that’s how you are as a woman. you bear that life and give birth to that life. you give food to your child, nourish your child. that’s how you’re connected with mother earth. children, like adults, also have a special connection to mother earth because she provides many necessities for them, such as food and water. in the following passage, margaret talked in both cree and english about the benefits of children and adults alike sitting on mother earth: sitting down on the ground you will feel the energy of mother earth, the coolness of mother earth. you can feel the grass, you can just feel. kimôsihâw kikâwînaw kâhayapiyan waskanihk [you feel mother earth when you are sitting on her breast/chest]. you know, when you’re sitting on her breast, you just feel mother earth. you feel her energy. sôhkisiwin kimôsihtân [you feel the strength]. it just goes in you ’cause you’re connected to her. when children sit on the floor of a classroom, rather than sitting on the ground outdoors, margaret believes they are still connected to mother earth and can feel her energy. she believes that when teachers sit on the ground with october 2020 35 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research children, they acknowledge everyone’s connection to mother earth and acknowledge the child as equal to the adult. margaret considers that, of all her grandmother’s teachings, one of the greatest “is to be on the same level with the children,” which most often involves sitting on the ground together: my grandmother said, “do not scare their spirits away by being so high as if you know more and you silence their spirit, they’re not willing to learn. they feel so small. and they’re scared to speak up. but when you get to their level they will share.” margaret explained that when sitting at eye level with children, “you’re more relaxed and you’re more open to welcome, to receive and give that relationship.” according to margaret, children can feel the energy of the care that you have for them because you’re getting to their level. you’re not standing up, like teachers do ... teachers mostly stand, and they walk around, and you have to follow them, you’re moving your eyes. but the closeness and the caring that we were taught about teaching is sitting down with the children, being on the same level with them. helen also believes that children are equal to the teacher, and so teachers should sit down with the children and be at eye level with them. she cautioned against speaking loudly to children because this is often associated with trouble (e.g., at home). helen believes children cannot hear or process what the teacher is saying when the teacher is yelling. she believes children should be talked to with a gentle voice, which will allow the teacher to speak and teach to the spirit rather than the mind. helen believes teachers need to focus on the child’s spirit rather than, for example, their clothes, or the fact that the child’s parents may be living an unhealthy lifestyle. “when you touch the spirit,” helen explained, “the child, the awâsis, will learn.” listening to the child’s voice margaret and helen both believe that a child has a lot of knowledge to share with others, and so they stressed the importance of “listening to the child’s voice.” margaret shared that when adults sit with children, they are recognizing the child’s ability to teach adults: you’re welcoming them ... you’re being open to them and you’re welcoming their sense of level, that you’re not above them, that you do not know more than they do, but you’re willing to share and willing to teach and willing to learn from them. that’s what you’re giving them. they can teach as well. margaret shared: my grandchildren and my children have taught me how to care for them, and how to listen to them. they also taught me patience. patience that in time they will want to learn what i want to share. but in the meantime, all i have to do is watch them, to look after them, to protect them and see that they don’t get hurt. those are the kinds of things they taught me. they taught me responsibility. they made it stronger. they made my caring stronger and they taught me how to listen to them.... and one of the things that i was told, too, is that when your children don’t listen to you, you tend to start speaking louder and more sternly or even yelling at them and that’s when you drive their spirits away. because you don’t have patience. you’re not showing them that we need to take time together. margaret believes that when adults and children take time together, the child teaches the adult both patience and responsibility. it is the adult’s role to diligently and openly accept these teachings. helen believes that a child’s voice must be listened to from the moment they are conceived. when mothers with child ask, “what about me?” when overwhelmed by being with child, helen reminds these mothers that there are now two lives, and the mother must do what is best for the child, who, is also asking “what about me?” helen october 2020 36 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research believes that mothers must care for the child in their womb in response. helen acknowledges the difficulty that some mothers face but asserts that they must sit with elders/grandmothers and receive knowledge, encouragement, and strength from them. helen believes a parent must allow their child to have a voice and to be heard. she cautions that when a child asks questions, the parent must notice and respond. if the parent is not able to answer the question, they may send the child to an elder who can better address the question. helen pointed out that a child “gets used to the rhythm of a parent’s voice” and it becomes harder for them to internalize what their parent is telling them. therefore, the parent, even if they are able to answer the child’s question or give the child a teaching, may still go to an elder and ask the elder to teach the child. with the teaching coming from “a less familiar voice,” the child will be more likely to listen to, and accept, the teaching. for example, helen talked about a time when her daughter needed advice in a particular area. helen had advised her several times, but her daughter did not appear to use or internalize her advice. so, helen asked an elder to give the same teaching to her daughter. months later, at a gathering, helen noticed that this elder had quietly sought out her daughter and was speaking to her. helen kept her distance, knowing that if her daughter saw her observing this, she might stop listening to the elder. later, helen’s daughter came to helen and excitedly shared the seemingly new teaching the elder had given her. according to margaret, children willingly communicate the areas in which they want to receive teachings, and it is the adult’s responsibility to respond to these requests. for example, margaret reflected on instances where children touch ceremonial objects which are meant to be off limits: in ceremonies, i hear mothers say “get away from that” before their children experience it and fulfil their curiosity. let the children do that, touch the ceremonial object. and they’ll ask, “what is this for?” and that’s when your teaching comes in. they’re asking for your teaching. they’re asking for you to exercise your teachings. “what is this for?” okay, you’ll tell them that. “and why can’t we touch them or play with them?” that’s when you need to explain, “they’re for ceremonies and that’s the only time we use them. we’ll do it together. i’ll teach you how.” recognizing the importance of responding to a child’s curiosity, margaret welcomes a child’s curiosity in a ceremony because it is a great opportunity for a child to ask for, and receive, teachings. the child as a butterfly margaret views the child as a butterfly who is free in spirit. she explained: you look at a butterfly. they are so delicate. they’re so soft and there’s such beauty in them. you can see the purity in them and the beauty. and that’s the way a child is, a child is free in spirit. like their mind will go, you know, a child has the power to leave spiritually and still have life in their body, but they’re flying around observing. that’s how they know where they’re gonna be and then they’ll even think that “hey, i was here before ’cause my mother was talking to me while i was in her womb.” ... they have the ability to think and they’ll store that. they’re not forgetting it ... but they’re storing it, in their little minds and in their hearts and in their senses. the child as a butterfly analogy has direct implications for early childhood educators because it illustrates a child’s need for flexible and free use of learning time in the classroom where the child can explore different learning opportunities at will: well, you look at a butterfly. just watch a butterfly. it’ll go to one leaf or maybe go to another flower. they’ll have the taste of it, and they’ll have the experience of touching that plant and then flying away and learning again and then they’ll come back to where they were before. october 2020 37 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research like a butterfly, children’s spirits flutter from one learning opportunity or thought to another. as such, margaret cautions teachers that children will choose the amount of time they will pay attention to a task: i always tell teachers when i go and talk to them that i’m not gonna force the children to stay two hours with me or an hour with me. ’cause they have their own space, like we do. sometimes we’re sitting there and we’re listening and then finally, you know, we’re not listening at all ’cause already your spirit had enough and needed to go elsewhere to digest what we learn. and that’s the same thing with children. but theirs is a shorter span because the spirit they’re given is to learn and to pick up in different parts and different areas. and that spirit will go, it will wander off. you’ll be talking there and the child will be there, but they’re not really listening. so we have to respect and honour that. instead of scolding a child for not paying attention to the teacher during class, margaret suggests that a teacher ask the child: what is it that you had to experience? i’d like to learn about that. are you willing to share, or can you talk about it sometime? it must be very interesting. i’d like to learn, and i’d like to know about it. margaret explained that when a child is faced with such questions from the teacher, “sometimes they’ll come back and tell you more about it, sometimes they won’t.” to determine the amount of time a child requires to complete a learning task, margaret advises teachers to listen to the child’s voice: our children, we’re always told they’re slow or behind coming from another school. but i always think they’re not slow, they’re not behind. it’s the teachings that we had, we are given to be free, to be flexible with that child to allow them their time. even ask them, “how long do you want to spend time with me?” respect and honour that and they’ll tell you. “will you be able to get what i am gonna be teaching you in that time?” and they’ll tell you. this respecting and honouring of the child and the amount of time they wish to spend with a teacher further illustrates margaret’s and helen’s belief that children’s voices need to be heard and responded to. after being gifted knowledge from helen and margaret, i had much to reflect on. next, in the “discussion” section, i touch on a few ways that i made sense of their teachings. discussion the image of the child the elders shared with me is deeply rooted in their plains cree spirituality. aligning myself closer to plains cree epistemology and whole-part relationships helped me make sense of the elders’ teachings, long after the research took place. this required me to be both perceptive and reflective along a lifelong learning trajectory, thus being a continually active, rather than passive, recipient of the elders’ teachings. listening to the elders’ teachings, and making sense of them, was a continuous process of synthesis, spurring me to recollect all the “parts” of their teachings and connecting these parts in order to understand the “whole” of what they were saying. this required me, at times, to silently and contemplatively question the teaching of an elder when it did not immediately make sense to me or to others. by thinking back to the elders’ previous teachings, i was able to synthesize connections among them, allowing me to discern answers to my query, or the query of others, and come to a fuller understanding of the teaching at hand. such an instance of synthesis was spurred by the questioning of a colleague, “john,” after i shared with him helen’s and margaret’s understandings of the child as a butterfly. john, who very much appreciated the teachings, october 2020 38 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research wondered if referring to children as butterflies belittled or essentialized them. i began to momentarily consider his concern regarding the possibility of belittling children. he, however, was not addressing the situation holistically. according to brant castellano (2000), “the holistic quality of knowledge implies that isolating pieces from experience and trying to make sense of them apart from the environment that gave rise to them flies in the face of reality and is bound to lead to frustration” (p. 30). because john’s thinking was informed by a eurowestern epistemology in which animals and insects are considered less than human, he was initially unable to fully appreciate this plains cree teaching on children. after briefly considering john’s point of view, i thought more holistically and acknowledged the equality of all living creatures when i recalled margaret referring to animals as the “grandmothers” and “grandfathers” of the plains cree people: mother earth has teachings from what’s on and in her body, you know, the plants, the medicines, the food, even our clothing come from her and from the animals as the white people call them, but us, we call them the grandfathers, the grandmothers. by referring to children as butterflies, margaret respectfully acknowledges butterflies as family members. this respect for all of creation, not just humans, is echoed by scholars (henderson, 2000; steinhauer, 2002), including cree scholar sharon venne (1998, as cited in watts, 2013), who writes that all of life, including humans, animals, and plants, is an interdependent and “equal part of creation” (watts, p. 23). being able to more fully appreciate the imagery of the child as a butterfly required me to stay distant from anthropocentricism and recognize the butterfly’s place in the whole of plains cree creation. as suggested by james waldram (1997) in brant castellano (2000), i was processing and interpreting information “in the context of existing information” (p. 23) in order to revise my understandings of the imagery of the child as a butterfly. this synthesis was a process in which one observation or experience informed another. in battiste’s (2013) terms, i was engaging in a “dynamic, living process of watching, listening, connecting, responding and renewing” (p. 121). this epistemological process required me, the recipient of knowledge, to be incisive, alert, and reflective, always revisiting the elders’ teachings and discerning the meaning behind their teaching as necessary. stories told by elders often rely on the whole to understand the part. for example, the teaching on the butterfly, the part, relies on an understanding of creation and mother earth, the whole. the elders’ teaching on the child as a butterfly can be better understood when one is attuned to the whole of plains cree creation. here i was not just a passive recipient of “traditional knowledge” on the elders’ teaching of the butterfly. rather, i had to interpret this traditional knowledge in the context of my own empirical knowledge born out of my relationship with the elders, and even in the context of revealed knowledge. for example, when my colleague suggested that imagining children as butterflies might be a way of essentializing children, i momentarily considered his viewpoint. i then followed my intuition, however, and challenged his suggestion by holistically referring to the butterfly as an equal part of creation. doing my best to attend to a holistic way of knowing in an indigenous context throughout my research with the elders required me, the learner, to recurrently seek knowledge from the elders and the community and to continually synthesize this knowledge. therefore, parachuting in and out of the community to hastily gather information that is specific “parts” confined to the research topic would not have sufficed. without an extended relationship with elders, continued teachings, and continued immersion into the community (by way of, for example, attending cultural events and ceremonies when welcomed), i would not have begun an earnest and fledgling journey toward a holistic understanding of the plains cree culture—and consequently would not have been positioned to begin to authentically make some sense of elders’ stories. the guidance of the elders, community members, and ceremony served to holistically assist and inform me, the learner, as i interpreted and shared the elders’ stories. the more october 2020 39 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research i immersed myself in the community, the more knowledge the stories offered me. learning from the elders’ teachings required an extended commitment to learning indigenous ways of knowing. this lifelong learning afforded me the skills to begin to decipher what was valued, and why, in the particular plains cree community in which i was welcomed, thus enabling me to synthesize and begin to make sense of the stories through either a borrowed indigenous lens (as a non-plains cree learner) or an indigenous lens (as a learner of quw’utsun descent) rather than solely through a euro-western lens (as a learner of european descent and a student of the university). moving forward: implications the understandings of childhood shared through my learning journey with the elders can serve to counter the dominance of euro-western understandings of the child in early childhood education and offer a starting point to address the trc’s (2015c) call to action to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for indigenous families. culturally appropriate early childhood education for the plains cree community in my study, for example, incudes acknowledging children’s spirits as connected to the land that is mother earth. as recommended by helen and margaret, this involves ongoing opportunities for children to engage in education that is led by elders, is land based, includes indigenous language, and allows the child opportunities to be free in spirit, since, land, language, and the child’s spirit are all inextricably interconnected. it is important to note that my research is specific to one of many plains cree communities, and research with other indigenous communities is needed to address the trc’s (2015c) call to action. providing culturally appropriate early childhood education for indigenous children will require reconfigurations of educational systems built on colonial perspectives and a shift to systems based on local indigenous community knowledge and culturally informed ways of understanding and teaching children (united nations, 2008). decolonizing education requires structural changes but also local classroom-level changes that can be enacted by curricular leaders and teachers in relationship with local indigenous communities and elders. in addition to sharing the elders’ teachings, my research addressed the question: “in what ways can educators build and maintain relationships with local indigenous communities and elders in order to inform their understanding of the indigenous children they teach?” my research process, where i forged relationships with community members— specifically elders—can serve as a point of reflection on how others might consider their own way of going about relationship building over a continuum of time in order to inform curriculum making. once relationships are established with indigenous communities and elders, and if knowledge on indigenous childhoods is shared, the elders will have specific preferences for how this knowledge is disseminated to educators. for example, after the elders in my research shared their knowledge with me, they asked that i, with help from the community, organize a talking circle in which the elders shared their teachings with some of the plains cree early childhood teachers from the school division where my research took place. this talking circle provided an opportunity for the elders and teachers to reflect on ways that these teachings could culturally inform their interactions with their plains cree students. at the request of the community, i also presented the elders’ teachings to early childhood teachers in the division and to the early learning committee. my involvement is a very minute component of the countless ways in which the division equips teachers to provide culturally informed education for indigenous students, such as regular opportunities for teachers to attend public indigenous celebrations that undoubtedly inform the teachers’ ongoing relationships with elders and the wider indigenous community. both margaret and helen emphasized that learning is a lifelong journey, and so my research should not be conclusive in nature. cared for and kept alive through oral tradition for generations and held in high regard by community members, the elders’ teachings do not need a conclusive analysis to accord their teachings legitimacy. october 2020 40 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research it is the elders’ words that should resonate with the reader as they travel their own journey of learning about plains cree childhoods and, more broadly, indigenous childhoods, and reflect on how these teachings can inform early childhood curriculum and pedagogy. the importance placed on learning as a lifelong journey was summed up by helen, who, with a nod of agreement from margaret, said, “we are thankful for the words that our ancestors have left behind and believe that these words will continue to teach.” note: this research was supported by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada. 1 when i refer to “my research,” i respectfully 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(2013). indigenous place-thought and agency amongst humans and non humans (first woman and sky woman go on a european world tour!). decolonization: indigeneity, education and society, 2(1), 20–34. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index. php/des/article/view/19145 weber-pillwax, c. (2001). orality in northern cree indigenous worlds. canadian journal of native education, 25(2), 149–165. wilson, s. (2008). research is ceremony: indigenous research methods. fernwood. december 2021 59 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations temporalizing childhood: a conversation with erica burman, stephanie olsen, spyros spyrou, and hanne warming zsuzsa millei zsuzsa millei is a professor of early childhood education at tampere university, finland. her research addresses child politics by exploring how politics (power, government, nationalism, and ideology) intertwine with childhood and children’s everyday life in child institutions and, more recently, reconfigured within the anthropocene. her comparative studies of nationalism and explorations of childhood memories of (post)socialist societies use postqualitative and artistic methods to expose complex matrices of power and seek to decolonize the research imagination and knowledge production. her edited special issue on children and nationalism has recently been published in the journal children’s geographies. her coedited book childhood and schooling in (post)socialist societies: memories of everyday life (palgrave macmillan) and other articles and artistic explorations related to the re-connect / re-collect: crossing the divides through memories of cold war childhoods project can be found on the website www.coldwarchildhoods.org . email: zsuzsa.millei@tuni.fi erica burman is a professor of education at the university of manchester, an associate fellow of the british psychological society, and a united kingdom council of psychotherapists registered group analyst (and full member of the institute of group analysis). she trained as a developmental psychologist and is well known as a critical developmental psychologist and methodologist specializing in innovative and activist qualitative research. stephanie olsen, phd, frhists, is an historian of childhood and youth, education, and experiences/emotions and a senior researcher at the academy of finland centre of excellence in the history of experiences (tampere university). she is the author/co-author of two monographs, juvenile nation: youth, emotions and the making of the modern british citizen (bloomsbury, 2014) and learning how to feel: children’s literature and the history of emotional socialization, c. 1870–1970 (oxford university press, 2014), and the editor of the collection childhood, youth and emotions in modern history: national, colonial and global perspectives (palgrave, 2015). she  is the general co-editor of the forthcoming six-volume cultural history of youth (bloomsbury) and the four-volume children, childhood and youth in the long nineteenth century: a global primary source collection (routledge). she coedits the journal history of education. spyros spyrou is professor of anthropology at european university cyprus. his work is mainly located in the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies where he has worked on questions related to children’s political lives and identities (especially in relation to nationalism, migration, and borders) as well as issues related to poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization. he is currently engaged in research on youth participation in climate action. spyros is the author of disclosing childhoods: research and knowledge production for a critical childhood studies (palgrave macmillan, 2018) and coeditor of reimagining childhood studies (bloomsbury, 2019) and children and borders (palgrave macmillan, 2014). he is also an editor of the journal childhood (sage) and an editor of the book series studies in childhood and youth (palgrave). hanne warming is a professor of sociology and childhood at roskilde university in denmark. her research fields of expertise include childhood and youth, social changes, and how theorizing and findings from childhood studies can inform broader societal issues and change processes (childprism research). hanne is recorded in the european expert database of outstanding female academics, “academianet,” and serves as a member of the advisory board for the childism institute, rutgers camden. she is the author of “childhood prism research: an approach for enabling unique childhood studies contributions within the wider scholarly field” (children’s geographies, 2020), co-author of “future workshops as a means to democratic, inclusive, and empowering research with children, young people, and others” (qualitative research, 2020) and power and reflexivity: positions and positioning in involving research with young people (palgrave, 2021), and coeditor of lived citizenship on the edge of society: rights, belonging, intimate life, and spatiality (palgrave, 2017). this paper is a summary of the keynote panel conversation that took place as part of the “childhood and time” conference, may 10–12, 2021. the speakers respond to the question of how they place childhood in time relations, giving examples from their own research and outlining an agenda for considering time in childhood studies. key words: time; childhood studies; anthropocene; history of childhood; climate action http://www.coldwarchildhoods.org mailto:zsuzsa.millei@tuni.fi december 2021 60 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations the felt effects of the escalating climate catastrophe give evidence for geologists’ claim that the earth is now in a new geological epoch, the anthropocene. human activity significantly affecting the climate and ecosystems makes us realize the inseparability of earth time (geologic time divided into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages) and humancentric time (length of human life). another major event, the global covid-19 pandemic, is altering the personal sensation of time by interrupting usual routines and the rhythms of life, intensifying the sensation of its circularity (days becoming the same) and even stopping time. these life-altering changes—of earth ecosystems and personal lives—necessitate destabilizing and examining pervasive conceptions of time constructing, historicizing, structuring, materializing, controlling, governing, and sequencing childhood and children’s everyday lives (for earlier explorations on time and childhood, see tesar et al.’s 2016 edited special issue; also murris & kohan, 2020). in this conversation, i place childhood in time relations with four invited panellists from the “childhood and time” conference in tampere held in may 2021: erica burman, stephanie olsen, spyros spyrou, and hanne warming. in 1986, judith ennew raised the importance of facilitating a wider and more critical thinking about time and childhood, suggesting that “time may be crucial to the study of childhood … as a social institution and about the lives of children themselves” (p. 21). allison james and alan prout (1997) also pointed to the centrality of time in concepts of childhood by outlining that time constructs child/hood in at least two ways: time of childhood, referring to the periodization of the life course; and time in childhood, according to which “time is used effectively to produce, control and order the everyday lives of children” (pp. 227–228). time, as continuity and change, is also crucial to understandings of the social spaces of childhood in different eras and societies, including conceptions and ideals of childhood and children as a social category. in modern societies, time is “measured and contained, it became expressed in minutes, days, weeks, years and in categories such as generations” (jenks, 1996, p. 105), creating spaces for and materializing child/hood. time marks out personal ability and development, responsibility, and expectations; it connects unconnected events through the notion of linear progress. colonial expansion and capitalism intensified the spread and power of this modern construction of time, demanding that the peripheries (the global south and later the former second world) catch up and regulate their societies and childhoods according to it (cannella & viruru, 2004; silova et al., 2017). children thus were relegated to the “right” place at the “right” time, confirming the position of school and other key normative institutions as organizing children and childhood in dominating societies. from the outset, a key agenda of childhood studies was a deliberate shift away from the futurity of childhood, as captured in the notion of “becoming” imposing linear temporality and progression over children’s lives. scholars wished to trouble child development theories that mapped children’s competencies toward reaching predetermined stages in their progression to adulthood and future participation in society. the task was to recognize children as active participants and “beings” in the present of social life (james & prout, 1997). this shift mapped the field against developmental trajectories, including individual, societal, political, and economic concerns related to adult agendas. the focus on children’s everyday life also opened spaces for engaging with how time operates in children’s familial, institutional, public, and natural environments. this included how clock time and calendar time organize shared life-forming rhythms and temporal patterns such as schedules, routines, circularity, or celebrations (paciniketchabaw & kummen, 2016), since habitual practices are time-space routines producing a feeling of belonging within the rhythm of life in place. amid current claims of accelerating societies characterized by time-space compression, nevertheless societal times and children’s times and rhythms may differ. children may feel hurried, “out of time,” or in need of carving some space and time for themselves. while children’s time is often seen as not “real time” by adults, children may also experience time differently, when the world can happen (rautio, 2013). as wyness (2006) notes, the notion of december 2021 61 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations childhood as a period of play and “‘irresponsibility’ cannot be equated with the time adult time is measured” (p. 108). zsuzsa: how do you think “adult time” and “child time” and the changing rhythms and paces of time shape how children lead their lives today, particularly within the current anxiety over the future considering the accelerating and life-threatening effects of climate change and the covid-19 pandemic? hanne: when i was a young child, i felt that an hour was a very long time. i could struggle to make time go by, for instance, waiting for my mum to pick me up from the half-day daycare. today, on the contrary, i struggle not to miss time and to have enough time, and a year feels like a very short time. the older i become, the faster times pass by. this might be seen as a change related to age and life course, but it may also be related to socio-historical changes of pace of life as described by hartmut rosa—and if so, it probably characterizes children’s experience of time, too—maybe they also struggle to have time enough. according to rosa (2013), our lives are accelerated in three dimensions. the first is technological speed, the second is the speeding up of social change, which causes an experience of “contraction of the present.” the third form of acceleration is the pace of life, that is, the experience that we must “run” faster to keep our place in the world. all three dimensions are also present in children’s lives, maybe especially the last one. a central point in rosa’s theory is that these acceleration processes are not only driven by capitalism and worldwide competition—which they also are—but intervene in, and intersect with, subjective drivers of hope and fear. hope in the sense of the aspiration to achieve a good life, and at the same time fear of (and efforts to prevent) falling behind. but what happens with these individual hopes and fears—the drivers of acceleration of pace of life—with today’s apocalyptic turn, with the collapse of the future as appealing and promising? here, childhood studies could make an important contribution, since the discursive/material turn towards the apocalypse might prove more drastic in children’s lives—just one example of the potentials of childhood prism research for contributions to the broader field of social sciences and humanities (see 2020 special issue of children’s geographies edited by warming). exploration of children’s (and our own childhoods’) time experiences and struggles can be seen as a kaleidoscope of childhood (millei et al., 2019) or, as i have conceptualized it, as a kind of prism, or even a diffractive microscope for studying ongoing social changes and struggles, not only relating to childhood but to broader societal issues as well (warming, 2020). another time experience from my childhood is time as circular: days followed by nights followed by days and so on; the week as a circular movement through seven days; the year as a circular movement through seasons. time as circular and immersion in the here and now have been associated with nature, precapitalist living, animals, children, and women, and as intruded upon by a white capitalist male linear and progressive temporality (fuchs 2018; kristeva, 1981; lewis, 2014). still, both circular and linear time experiences characterize children’s—and adults’—lived time. in my childhood, i for instance experienced the life course as a linear movement. i deeply wanted to escape—not to escape death—no, what i feared was adulthood, which at that time appeared to me as loaded with burdensome responsibility, troubles, and work—no fun. just like pippi longstocking in the book authored by astrid lindgren, i wished never to become an adult, and if i had been given the possibility—as offered by pippi to her two friends tommy and annika, i would have taken the “i will never grow up” pill. today, the future invades the present and children are mobilized to take a stance and participate in making the future. the “invasion” of the future in the present is not a new idea. in 1989, nicolas rose pointed out how childhood, due to this idea, has become “the most intensively governed sector of personal existence” (p. 121). indeed, children have become key objects of what he terms “community governance”—a form of governance that is directed towards a certain group due to its identified features of “strengths, potentials, cultures and pathologies” (p.331. december 2021 62 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations several presentations during this conference have critically addressed and analyzed this intensified governance of childhood, especially early childhood, as imposing linear temporality and progression. in our time of global capitalism, children more than any other population are being addressed by such governance strategies driven both by ideas about which kind of citizens will enable the nation-state to do well in a global capitalist society and by an image of childhood as the cradle of tomorrow’s values and morals, for example, related to issues of climate change and citizens responsible for their own health. an additional source of the invasion of the present by the future in children’s lives derives from the fact that children have moved to the forefront of parents’ hopes, ambivalent desires, and struggles for independence, love and happiness, as pointed to by ulrich beck and elisabeth beck-gernsheim back in 1995. whereas the invasion by the future has roots in the 1990s and even further back, something dramatic has happened—namely the appearance of a sense or feeling of apocalypse being imminent. i see this feeling as an accelerating game changer. increasingly, the future appears as a discursive/material matter of a thread and a failed promise. back in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s in the western world, and despite the cold war threats of nuclear war, children were told—and, i think, also believed and experienced—that the older generations by the sweat of their brow had prepared the way for a bright future with infinite possibilities. today, children face a very different discursive/material reality of climate change, pandemics, terrorism with weapons of mass destruction, and masses of people on the run—resulting in the feeling of apocalypse being imminent. child climate activism can be seen as one expression of, and reaction to, this feeling. i suggest that this turn from hope and promises for the future towards apocalypse is one of the most drastic material/discursive changes of childhood and human life, and that it may have a serious impact on the generational relationship too. much research is and has been done regarding the dynamics and scopes of the apocalypse drivers. less—if any—explores the consequences of the collapse of the future in terms of the apocalypse and the accompanying material/discursive changes in child/hood, human life, and generational relationships. zsuzsa: hanne, you have highlighted the negative effects that the future orientation and expectations and the invasion of the future into the present bring, and especially how they shape children’s lives and their material and social relations. you also hinted at how anxieties around our human-generated ecological epoch, epidemics, and political violence worldwide mobilize children to engage with the future in more political terms. in earlier historical periods, for example in the socialist states, children were the icons of the desired societal change and the drivers of change by growing up to be the next generation, the ideal “socialist human” (silova et al., 2017). as you explained, children are governed to become productive citizens to reach their nations’ economic and nation-building goals (burman, 2021). it seems today more and more young people refuse the form of citizenship assigned to them and are taking the future into their own hands and demanding a stake in it. spyros, could you talk more about future, childhood, and politics in relation to your research? spyros: i could relate my answer to the notion of the “future-in-child.” holland and colleagues (1998) have used the notion of “history-in-person” to refer to “the sediment from past experiences upon which one improvises, using the cultural resources available, in response to the subject positions afforded one in the present” (p. 18). adapting this conceptual understanding to the child, we might find it fruitful to think about history-in-child but also, additionally, about future-in-child as the amalgamation of futural orientations and imaginaries which enable the child to act upon the future from within the subject positions they occupy in the present. my personal concern with the future in childhood studies stems from what i see as a reluctance on the part of the field to fully explore the multiple temporalities of children and childhood and to step outside its narrowly conceived fixation with the present. veronica pacini-ketchabaw’s keynote speech at the conference and her suggestion that we should “multiply our understandings of time” and think beyond linear time while also “not leaving the present to neoliberal and december 2021 63 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations colonial futures” is a good starting point for reflection and certainly a very important provocation for the field. of course, we do not have anything else but the present to work with—neither the past nor the future is directly accessible. nevertheless, we need to bring these temporalities into our accounts of contemporary children and childhood. by doing so, i think we are opening the field to more critical engagements with time, which is after all a key dimension of life. in a childhood editorial from last year (spyrou, 2020), i suggested that we can think of children as future-makers (and take them seriously as such) considering their increasingly visible role in climate action around the world. by that, of course, i did not mean that we should equate children with the future or that the future belongs to children (which would be a kind of naive, simplistic, and reductionist understanding) but rather acknowledge that we need to recognize children as legitimate participants in struggles to shape the future and to potentially craft alternative futures. if children are oriented in their everyday lives by the future, by what is to come and not just by what is, then perhaps we need to “retemporalize” the field, at least in the sense of allowing it to engage more explicitly with children’s futural orientations. in that case, we need to develop better ways of exploring how their practices, their values and desires, their aspirations, their fears and hopes in the present are shaped and impacted by their orientations to the future. my colleagues eleni theodorou and georgina christou and i are currently working together on an ethnographic study of young climate activists in cyprus (funded by the a. g. leventis foundation and the hellenic observatory at the london school of economics and political science). my thinking on some of these issues has been shaped by the kinds of questions we are engaged with in this study. one of the issues we are trying to explore, for instance, is “what kinds of children are constituted as a result of the climate crisis and children’s participation in the climate movement as activists?” in other words, we are trying to understand what the future does to these children in their everyday lives in the present and how they orient their thinking, their actions, and their activism based on their assessments of the future. relatedly, we are also trying to understand what kinds of future worlds these children imagine, try to forestall, or make possible. it is interesting to note here (at least based on our own study’s findings) that young climate activists see themselves in many ways as the future, because they feel that their generation will be affected disproportionately by climate change, and they need to do something about it, but they also recognize the need for intergenerational solidarity in the fight against climate change. so, in some ways, through our engagement with the future in childhood studies, we are offered an opportunity as a field to move beyond our critiques of what is inadequate, problematic, or wrong with the world and with contemporary childhoods and towards more affirmative explorations of what kinds of worlds might be possible. this could take childhood studies to the next step of critical inquiry and allow scholars to collaborate with children in coproducing and disclosing knowledge about alternative futures (spyrou, 2020). to take up this challenge we might have to think more generatively as a field about new concepts and ideas which might offer us different and more productive ways of thinking about the relationship of childhood and time, and of childhood and the future. fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and urgency might be some concepts which are useful, especially when we think about the crises which confront children today. hope (and especially collective hope) might be another key concept here which might offer us explanatory power for understanding children’s political participation and their engagement with global issues at large. in our work with the young climate activists i mentioned earlier, collective hope emerged as a key orientation towards the future and as a primary means through which the young activists managed to keep going considering the climate crisis. they turn to hope to anchor their activism in the present and to create a sense of possibility through their collective participation in a social movement, which in turn reinforces their willingness to engage in activism. collective hope offers these young people a way out of the despair they feel considering the climate crisis and to imagine and work towards more december 2021 64 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations desirable and sustainable futures. zsuzsa: hanne emphasized the possibilities and importance of studying society through children’s “beings” enfolded within societal, political, and ecological changes. spyros called into consideration how children’s own futural orientations and imaginaries—the future-in-child—materializes in the present lives of children as they collaboratively and intergenerationally make futures. for me in hanne’s and spyros’ accounts, the emotional climates and affective regimes that envelop children’s lives also stood out. fear, anxiety, hope, uncertainty, and urgency are all feelings associated with the ensuing apocalypse and ongoing epidemics and are also attached to an emerging activist solidarity. these feelings lead me to ask stephanie, who is a historian of emotions, how does the past and present structures of feelings place childhood—being and becoming—in time relations? stephanie: for an historian of childhood, historical time raises the question, how was childhood in the past different from that in our own worlds now? from a big-picture disciplinary perspective, this question provokes fundamental questions about periodization and whether conventional periods in history even make sense when our focus is on children. new child-centered periodizations are sometimes necessary to tell the stories historians want to tell and to do justice to child voices (or absences) in the archives (for more on this issue, see alexander, 2012). from an historian’s point of view, the concept of time is useful for understanding how experience was parcelled out in childhood and in children’s lives in the past—the everyday; play time; work time; school time; family time; peer time—and how this breakdown of the day, month, year changed for children over time. it also raises questions about the relatability of the past to the present: the historicity of childhood and children. everything about children’s contexts is contingent and should therefore be viewed with a critical eye through a contemporary lens, even things that might appear to be self-evident or natural, according to the evidence of our own experience of childhood. i want to return later to the problematic idea that we have indeed all had a “childhood.” time also brings to my mind thoughts about age cycles. why has childhood been so extensively historicized but adulthood has not? after all, aren’t humans at every stage in the life cycle always in a state of becoming as well as being? the changing conception of childhood itself as a distinct part (or not) of the lifecycle has been a major topic for historians. futurity—the future as imagined time for children as potential adults, and as future members of their nations, societies, communities—is an important feature in my work. children as beings or becomings, as humans in their own right or as future adults, are at the heart of the rise of the history of childhood, of trying to find children’s “voices.” in a recent lively debate, sarah maza (who, by the way, is not an historian of childhood herself ) was rather hard on our field. she writes that “the history of children and childhood is always on the rise and yet not quite risen” (maza, 2020, p. 1261, original emphasis). but she does suggest that “a productive shift has been emerging from writing the history of children to writing history through children” (p. 1263). many historians of childhood would disagree that this is the way the field should go in order finally to “have risen,” but it is at the core of a basic question about childhood versus children, and children as beings versus becomings. zsuzsa: let me interrupt you, as i feel there is an important connection that we need to point out. you describe child-centered periodizing and writing history “through” children’s experiences. this idea for me runs parallel to hanne’s agenda of studying society through children’s experiences and resonates well with nick lee’s (2001) notion of “immature” sociological theorizing, with which he calls on social theorists to write theory with children also in mind. i think temporalizing social and political theory and history with childhood could bring important challenges and highlight the limits and pitfalls of contemporary theorizing within these disciplines that dominantly focus on explaining adult experiences (see, for example, beier, 2020). december 2021 65 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations stephanie: let me continue with karl hanson’s (2017) addition to being and becoming, of the “been” of the child. hanson explains that, compared to the binary being versus becoming … the triolectical conceptualization composed of “been,” “being” and “becoming” offers a more productive lens for the study of children and childhood, as it includes more complex relationships between children’s past, present and future. (p. 282) as i hinted at earlier, all humans are in a continual dynamic process of all three of these processes, and therefore understandings of the lifecycle should not be linear. analytically, i don’t think there should be a dichotomy between becoming and being and between ideals of, and interventions in, childhood (history of childhood) and the experiences of children (history of children), since children themselves have been active participants in efforts of becoming. people often face the logics and experiences of their own present as “natural,” given, and obvious, and the experiences of child actors get built into this state of givenness. historians’ interventions should be a reminder to the larger field of childhood studies that such feelings of givenness are always constructed and situated. to reveal them as such in the past, often in greatly unfamiliar forms, is both a prompt and a guide to examine otherwise invisible assumptions in the present. from the perspective of past contexts, our present—a given, from our perspective—was the future: unknown and inscrutable. my point here is that children actively engaged themselves in becoming, in participating in adult efforts to educate and enculturate, as well as in child-directed efforts. they prepared for these “unknown and inscrutable” futures in situated ways, building on the “been” of children in its multiplicity of forms. we can describe empirically and in detail how childhood and children’s lives were historically contingent, and also demonstrate how childhood’s changing forms and requirements are always political. historical studies serve as reminders of the situated construction of childhood in the present, of the contingent societal processes that shape children’s unfolding lives. historians produce knowledge about childhood that should be leveraged against current understandings of the present. let me give you a brief example related to this idea of becoming, of futurity, of building on the been, from my own period of study as an historian of education. it is drawn from the context of 19th-century britain as a colonial power and the extreme of this imperial logic of childhood in a colonial context: canadian residential schools for indigenous children. understandings of children as innocent and malleable became increasingly dominant in the 19th century, yet not all children were perceived to have these qualities equally (olsen, 2014). the judgment of colonial policy makers and the effect of colonial practices in general created a hierarchy of childhood embedded within complex schemes of class, race, gender, sexuality, and geography that determined and naturalized lines of inclusion and exclusion within discourses of docility, plasticity, and potential. canadian residential schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, the last one closing in 1996. the strengthening notion of childhood innocence and malleability was here poisoned by contemporary racial theory that dehumanized indigenous children, providing potent reasons to make indigenous children a target of these institutions. the stated goal of these “schools” was to “civilize” indigenous children, to remove them from the “corrupting” influences of their parents, families, and communities, and to forge new canadian citizens out of them. they were sites of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and cultural belittling and denial (children were given a uniform and a number) in a concerted effort to strip away the individual. these practices have been described as “cultural genocide” (e.g., miller, 2006, p. 9). in 2015 the canadian government concluded a truth and reconciliation commission inquiry during which many survivors gave testimony and cogently explained how this fusion of ideas of childhood, racism and nationalism/imperialism impacted them as individual children through their schooling. december 2021 66 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations though the examples from canadian residential schools are disturbing, they are hardly unique (gordon, 2008; swain & hillel, 2010; vallgårda, 2014). the legacy of the residential school system remains in the physical and emotional health and welfare of indigenous people. its monstrous destructiveness is still being uncovered, as in the recent discovery, for example, of the remains of 215 children in unmarked graves at the site of the former kamloops indian residential school (dickson & watson, 2021). this system is not a blip in the canadian national story but rather a foundational element in the british imperial project and the creation of canada as a nation. it is the fusing of late-19th-century ideas about childhood and education with contemporary notions of racial hierarchy, nationalism and imperialism, and a “civilizing vision” of the futurity of the child. for those children, nothing was given. these “schools” aimed to re-form indigenous children into canadian subjects worthy of a “childhood” and a future. in so doing, their “been”—that is, their indigeneity and ties to their cultures, communities, and families— was annihilated. zsuzsa: your thoughts add a generative complexity to temporalizing childhood. besides the different notions of time we have discussed so far, such as societally constructed futures, future-in-child, and past-in-child, you added the “been” as necessary for investigations of childhood and children’s lives in the present. you also brought a very sobering example of the importance of historical method and theory for our present investigations in childhood studies. it is important for childhood researchers to keep in mind and keep being troubled by how the reasons and logics that were taken for granted during a historical period made possible the continuation of such practices in residential schools for a long time. childhood researchers can apply a similar kind of awareness to the motives and explanations that operate in our present to destabilize, explore, and contest the givenness of current processes and politics shaping childhood and children’s lives. with what reasonings and motives is the climatic regime (discourses and power relations) being explained, and how do those shape child/hood and the politics it promulgates for children, for their present and future, and by children? spyros: i think that the conference theme captured a reflexive moment in the history of childhood studies when we need to think more creatively and productively about the intersection of childhood and time in ways that are theoretically more nuanced and allow us to avoid the temptation of simply adding a new element (time in this case) to childhood and considering that to be sufficient. how can childhood studies make time a constitutive element to its object of inquiry—the child? several presentations at the conference pushed us to think more broadly about childhood’s temporalities in ways that go against dominant understandings of time. for instance, there were many wonderful presentations on multispecies enquiries and more-than-human childhoods which moved us to go beyond anthropocentric notions of time in childhood and to think otherwise. this kind of fruitful engagement is what allows us, i think, to sustain our claim to be reflexive as a field. zsuzsa: many presentations highlighted the impossibility to separate human-centered and earth time, and human and earth history, and how they are entangled in worlding the future, adding other important considerations to temporalizing childhood. erica: i think also that there needs to be more attention to reflexive issues but also a different kind in terms of how we are positioned by, and in relation to, temporalities surrounding children and childhood. being reflexive about researching children and childhood means understanding, or at least acknowledging, how the memory of one’s own childhood and personal history enters into one’s dealings with those positioned as generationally after us. this includes understanding how our commitments to notions of futurity, of progress, or maturity, or “growing up” are also inflected by this history, as well as performed in relation to current contexts and audiences. december 2021 67 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations my interest in psychoanalysis originates in my interest in the politics of developmental psychology and the ways conceptions of time inform ideas about childhood and development. it goes back a long way. as a second-year undergraduate (studying developmental psychology and cognitive studies), i encountered a paper on childhood and time by bergler and róheim (1946), which contained the provocative phrase ‘the calendar is an ultimate materialization of separation anxiety” (p. 206). what, i pondered, did the emotional dynamics of caregiverchild separation have to do with cultural artefacts, such as calendars and timetables, that structure the pace and rhythm of social relations (including children’s lives)? i dismissed it; it irritated me, but then it kept returning to me. it was the slow process of exploring and unravelling what this cryptic phrase might mean that in some way inspired my doctoral research (on children’s conceptions of age and time, burman, 1990) and led me to critiques of development, postdevelopment, and postcolonial studies. it took me to deconstructing development (burman, 2017) and then exploring developments (in the plural; burman 2021) so attending to multiple modernities and their limits (bhambra, 2007) and then trying to attend to their specificities (via my notion of child as method [burman, 2019]). fanon also subscribed to some common assumptions. in particular, he both opens and closes his first book, black skin white masks (1952/1967), with an epithet he attributes to nietzsche: “the tragedy of the man is that he was once a child.” leaving aside the “man” question for just a moment, it is worth asking what this rather cryptic phrase conveys, and what work it does in framing what has since become one of the most crucial accounts of subjectivity, subjectification, and the psychic impacts of oppressive social conditions and practices (i.e., racialization in the context of colonialism). clearly this phrase indicates fanon’s subscription to a psychoanalytic framework, one that attends both to the impact of early experience in shaping later understanding—history-in-child as spyros alluded to—and also how the memory of childhood is selected (or versions of those memories) according to current psychic preoccupations, that is, as retrospectively mobilized and organized for present purposes. i suggest researchers need to attend to both these aspects in the generation and analysis of accounts of childhood. holding onto both the psychological and (what now is called the) performative aspects of narratives of childhood (which are sometimes also narrated by children too) is tricky, both emotionally and analytically. but it is at this intersection, that is, where the subject of the narration and its enunciator meet, that the core political and analytical work of exploring the stakes of and in childhood occur. i recently discovered some discussion about this evocative phrase that fanon uses: “the tragedy of the man is that he was once a child.” it seems that this derives not from nietzsche but from simone de beauvoir (adkins, 2013). now it is well known that fanon hugely admired and was very influenced by jean-paul sartre, and that shortly before he drafted his final book wretched of the earth (the book he wrote in the final weeks of his short life) he spent an intense few days with both sartre and beauvoir. to (over)simplify those discussions in the interests of space, this phrase is understood to refer to the legacies of the child’s fears that remain present or are evoked in the adult. these legacies comprise each of our “tragedies,” in the sense that they continue to affect us and distort or impair our (political) action. moreover, and going beyond hanson’s (2017) notion of childhood as been, the recollection of “having been a child” can become retrospectively and nostalgically reconfigured as a period of life that came before one’s awareness of current constraints and limitations. in philosopher lewis gordon’s (2015) account, beauvoir explored this notion in terms of the specific modes of embodiment and identities “and the specific longing human beings may have for times before such ways of being were realised” (p. 31). for beauvoir this was about gender. fanon, of course, took this up in terms of racialization. december 2021 68 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations fanon’s existential, radical humanist commitments saw maturity as a matter of facing up to one’s political and personal responsibilities this “maturity” (the dominant developmentalist trope that, as we know, recapitulates masculinist and linear as well as colonial nuances of “mastery”) was something that fanon was clearly very invested in. as gordon (2015) discusses, this investment was rooted in his own biography, growing up in martinique where french rule both overlooked and displaced african matrilineal sources of power and, even as it offered men patriarchal authority, it also undermined and denied this by the racialized inferiorization structured into colonial relations. like fanon, we all have our own specific histories, whose continuous resonances cannot but be at play in our work, as our lives. this is something, therefore, we have to work with, rather than overlook, and it is great to see, for example, papers engaging with these questions, such as in the postsocialist childhoods project (e.g., millei et al., 2019). let me add one more link back to fanon, beauvoir, and this curious phrase. its first mention by fanon (1952) is qualified by the sentence that follows: “nonetheless ... the neurotic’s fate lies in his own hands” (p. 9)—which confirms fanon’s conviction that we can still overcome psychological obstacles. the last iteration is preceded by the sentence “at the beginning of his life a man is always clotted, he is drowned in contingency” (1967). such an evocative but cryptic claim, which suggests that the child is perhaps not yet fully formed (“clotted”), as well as being vulnerable (to being drowned perhaps?), with its fate a contingent and not fixed matter. and it is succeeded by the assertion of the need for critical reflexivity for personal and political transformation: “it is through the effort to recapture the self and to scrutinize the self, it is through the lasting tension of their freedom that men will be able to create the ideal conditions of existence for a human world” (p. 165). in more recent translations, the french word malheur is translated as misery rather than tragedy. this shift offers further psychoanalytic connections, recalling freud’s claim (elaborated in his studies in hysteria, co-authored with breuer) that, rather than offering a cure, psychoanalysis turns hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness. that is, distress—including the distress inherent in the human predicament, as well as that encountered through its injustices—becomes socialized, is shared, and becomes a joint, collective, or at least communicative condition. in this sense, as fanon put it, sociogeny replaces ontogeny, including socially situated recollections and reconstructions of childhood. this collective sharing is the route towards political and social engagement and sociopolitical transformation, for children and also adults. my key point here is not only that there are various kinds of “child” in fanon, but also that childhood is not only the domain of trauma (either as the site of or, alternatively, as having installed the traumatic past). rather, my argument here—for our discussions of time and childhood—is that the fact that we have all been children is a matter that has to be taken seriously as figuring within our childhood-related work. this matter may be historical and psychic, but it both was and is material. that is, in addition to having affected our lives in the past, these memories still matter insofar as they still animate our lives in ways we are not always aware of. accounts of the ambiguous agency of the chronological child (i.e., child as a person defined by age) and generational child (i.e., children who come generationally after us), i suggest, need also to be read in relation to recalled and reexperienced childhood experiences that are activated by this memorial matrix and its complex associations, and that are irreducibly political as well as personal. zsuzsa: originating in their own childhoods, researchers’ personal fears and histories linger in their studies, gesturing forward, and compose another form of futurity that researchers need to attend to. thanks for highlighting this important political and ethical aspect of research, erica. many thanks, hanne, spyros, and stephanie as well for the gripping conversation. you have placed childhood and considerations accompanying childhood research december 2021 69 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations into manifold space-time relations: earth and human history, earth and humanity’s possible futures, the been of childhood, the past-in-child and future-in-child, and researchers’ futures of the past. it seems to me that temporalizing childhood brings new energies, revitalizing and making more thorny childhood studies’ initial agenda of focusing on children’s present. the original agenda of childhood studies aimed to displace futurity vested in modern notions of development, both as future orientation and the governing effects of future. you brought back into our considerations other notions of future that matter in ethical, political, situated, and speculative ways. these add productive tensions and contestations to research in childhood studies and its engagement with time. for me a couple of these tensions create troubling realizations and raise further questions. first, if future appears as a failure—humanity causing the apocalypse on earth as hanne described—how is it possible to orient towards it? this kind of futurity jeopardizes (at least at the scale of human experience) the inexorability of this futurity itself. in other words, there is a sense of lost or taken futures. in a way futurity destroys the possibility of future. this paradox diminishes hope, itself a “modernist imaginary (with its optimistic telos of universal knowledge and progress) and its romantic critical counterpart of re-enchantment and hope” (chandler, 2019, p. 695). hope is closely attached to futurity and future-making in modern societies. modern generations following each other laid down future after future with a hope for progress. each future was an alternative to what existed, and the old future was disposed of. in this way, layers of futures were laid upon each other and old futures and their hopes crumbled (ingold, 2020). for example, and because the apocalyptic future hanne pictured is somewhat like the future of the cold war’s nuclear catastrophe, socialist futures and hopes were quickly abandoned after the fall of the berlin wall, and the new futures did not leave only the wall, institutions, economies, and hopes to crumble, they also made people’s past disappear, setting them on an alternative trajectory and expectations towards consumer capitalist development (silova et al., 2017). it seems today that these futures of the past have never arrived, and they might serve as cause for disappointments and gesture forward. in this sense, this kind of future-making is unsustainable as futures never stay and past futures remain, fuelling the present with affective remains (ingold, 2020). at the same time, hope accompanying possible alternative futures is associated with human empowerment and redemption, with solving problems by intervening, adapting, and being resilient, which all are based on a belief in progress and human mastery and remain an “unchecked privilege of the moderns” (chandler 2019, pp. 695–696). hope engendering alternative possibilities is thus a flight from staying with the trouble of the reality of extinction (multispecies, including humans). therefore, hope is a part of the problem (latour, 2017). could it be that those alternative possibilities that young generations currently create only but repeat “bestowing an epic agential power in ‘man’” (clarebook, 2015, p. 176, as cited in chandler, 2019, p. 704), and the hope generated by these imaginaries only but reproduce modern futurity in a paradoxical way? second, futurity appearing in historical studies as the past’s futures shaped children’s beings and becomings in the past, and these “have beens” of childhood also contour the present, the beings of children and adults alike. past futures tied to “civilizing” colonized populations, mixed with racializing practices, governed indigenous children and adults’ lives intensively in the past and continue to do so in the present. the recognition of the past’s futures affords grounds for reconciliation and refusal, and for the recognition of unrealized or lost futures and lives as well that linger and contour the present. other pasts’ futures, for example the socialist ones, which elevated childhood to an iconic state of the revolution for a more economically and socially equal and just society, create nostalgia in the present and project towards the future as well. thus, the recognition of pasts’ futures and fears—both in past societies and researchers’ personal lives—the traumas, losses, hopes, alternative possibilities, and “better lives” that were invested in childhood and socialized children and adults—provides important reflexive tasks for childhood research around futurity. at the same time, other kinds of reflexivity are also vital, such as to “engage for real in an apocalyptic discourse” and to think more seriously about the present when modernist hopes, progress, and reason have exhausted themselves (latour, 2017, p. 194). for researchers, these kinds of reflexivity give a double task of december 2021 70 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations asking “hard and provocative questions, disturbing complacency, troubling norms, and interrogating conventional truths. it involves interrupting the business-as-usual of everyday life and practice” (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015, p. 1), the givenness of the present, and questioning the givenness of the future as well. december 2021 71 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations references adkins, a. v. 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(2006). childhood and society: an introduction to the sociology of childhood. palgrave macmillan. www.cayc.cacanadian association for young children association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants www.cayc.ca the canadian association for young children l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants c a n a d i a n journal of the canadian association for young children fall 2014 / automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 the canadian association for young children what is the cayc? mission statement cayc exists to provide a canadian voice on critical issues related to the quality of life of all young children and their families. the aims of the cayc 1. to influence the direction and quality of policies and programs that affect the development and well-being of young children in canada. 2. to provide a forum for the members of canada’s early childhood community to support one another in providing developmentally appropriate programs for young children. 3. to promote and provide opportunities for professional development for those charged with the care and education of young children. 4. to promote opportunities for effective liaison and collaboration with all those responsible for young children. 5. to recognize outstanding contributions to the well-being of young children. implementing the aims of the cayc 1. the national conference: the national conference is a highlight of the cayc. the program includes lectures by internationally renowned authorities on children, workshops, discussion groups, displays, demonstrations, school visits and tours. 2. provincial and regional events: the organization of members at the local and provincial level is encouraged to plan events to deal with the issues and concerns pertaining to young children. these events may take the form of lectures, seminars or a local conference. 3. the journal: an outstanding multidisciplinary journal is published twice yearly. articles by nationally and internationally known experts in early childhood education and child rearing are presented in the journal of the cayc. inside cayc provides information on association activities. subscriptions and membership membership fees are payable on application and renewable annually on an evergreen basis. to be considered a voting member, fees must be paid no later than 60 days prior to the annual general meeting. cayc members receive two issues of canadian children as well as favourable rates for national and regional conferences. regular $55.00, 2 year regular $100.00, association/institution $120.00, student/senior $30.00, international $135.00 (ca). cayc 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants qu’est ce que l’acje l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants, issue du council for childhood education, a reçu sa charte fédérale en 1974. elle demeure la seule association nationale vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants, de la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de neuf ans, dans leur foyer, à la garderie et à l’école primaire. l’acje est composée de parents, d’enseignants, de professionnels de la petite enfance, d’administrateurs et d’étudiants, ainsi que de tous ceux et celles qui sont intéressés à partager leurs idées en participant à des activités liées au bien-être et à l’éducation des jeunes enfants. sa mission l’acje s’est donné comme mandat de faire entendre une voix canadienne sur les questions essentielles ayant trait à la qualité de vie de tous les jeunes enfants et de leur famille. ses objectifs 1. jouer un rôle sur le plan des orientations et sur la qualité des politiques et des programmes touchant au développement et au bien-être des jeunes enfants canadiens. 2. créer un forum pour les membres de la communauté canadienne oeuvrant dans le domaine de la petite enfance afin de susciter une collaboration active dans l’élaboration de programmes appropriés au développement des jeunes enfants. 3. encourager et offrir des possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel au personnel responsable du bien-être et de l’éducation des jeunes enfants. 4. promouvoir des occasions pour une meilleure coordination et collaboration entre tous les responsables des jeunes enfants. 5. récompenser et souligner les contributions exceptionnelles faites en faveur des jeunes enfants. exécution des objectifs de l’acje 1. le congrès national: il constitue le grand évènement de l’acje. des sommités de renommée internationale en matière de petite enfance y prononcent des conférences et on y participe à des ateliers, des débats, des expositions, des démonstrations, et à des visites guidées d’écoles. 2. les évènements provinciaux et locaux: l’acje encourage ses membres à organiser des conférences, des séminaires ou des congrès au niveau local et régional afin de débattre des problèmes relatifs aux jeunes enfants. 3. la revue : publication bisannuelle et multidisciplinaire de premier ordre, la revue regroupe des articles traitant de questions d’éducation et de formation des jeunes enfants. on y retrouve également des articles écrits par des experts de renommée nationale et internationale. la rubrique inside caycrenseigne les lecteurs sur les activités de l’association. abonnement et cotisation des membres les cotisations doivent être réglées au moment de l’adhésion et celle-ci doit être renouvelée chaque année. pour se prévaloir de son droit de vote, tout membre doit acquitter sa cotisation au moins 60 jours avant l’assemblée générale annuelle. les members de l'acje reçoivent la revue, et bénéficient de tariffs spéciaux pour participer au congrès national et aux évènements régionaux. tarif des cotisations annuelles: général; 55 $, général 2 année 100 $, étudiants/aîné: 30 $, associations : 120 $, international : 135 $ (ca) acje 31 pinedale drive prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z6 membership@cayc.ca the canadian association for young children (cayc) grew out of the council for childhood education and was officially recognized in 1974 by the granting of a federal charter. it is the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children, birth through age nine, at home, in preschool settings and at school. members of the multidisciplinary association include parents, teachers, caregivers, administrators, students and all those wishing to share ideas and participate in activities related to the education and welfare of young children. the canadian association for young children what is the cayc? mission statement cayc exists to provide a canadian voice on critical issues related to the quality of life of all young children and their families. the aims of the cayc 1. to influence the direction and quality of policies and programs that affect the development and well-being of young children in canada. 2. to provide a forum for the members of canada’s early childhood community to support one another in providing developmentally appropriate programs for young children. 3. to promote and provide opportunities for professional development for those charged with the care and education of young children. 4. to promote opportunities for effective liaison and collaboration with all those responsible for young children. 5. to recognize outstanding contributions to the well-being of young children. implementing the aims of the cayc 1. the national conference: the national conference is a highlight of the cayc. the program includes lectures by internationally renowned authorities on children, workshops, discussion groups, displays, demonstrations, school visits and tours. 2. provincial and regional events: the organization of members at the local and provincial level is encouraged to plan events to deal with the issues and concerns pertaining to young children. these events may take the form of lectures, seminars or a local conference. 3. the journal: an outstanding multidisciplinary journal is published twice yearly. articles by nationally and internationally known experts in early childhood education and child rearing are presented in the journal of the cayc. inside cayc provides information on association activities. subscriptions and membership membership fees are payable on application and renewable annually on an evergreen basis. to be considered a voting member, fees must be paid no later than 60 days prior to the annual general meeting. cayc members receive two issues of canadian children as well as favourable rates for national and regional conferences. regular $55.00, 2 year regular $100.00, association/institution $120.00, student/senior $30.00, international $135.00 (ca). cayc 31 pinedale drive prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z6 membership@cayc.ca association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants qu’est ce que l’acje l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants, issue du council for childhood education, a reçu sa charte fédérale en 1974. elle demeure la seule association nationale vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants, de la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de neuf ans, dans leur foyer, à la garderie et à l’école primaire. l’acje est composée de parents, d’enseignants, de professionnels de la petite enfance, d’administrateurs et d’étudiants, ainsi que de tous ceux et celles qui sont intéressés à partager leurs idées en participant à des activités liées au bien-être et à l’éducation des jeunes enfants. sa mission l’acje s’est donné comme mandat de faire entendre une voix canadienne sur les questions essentielles ayant trait à la qualité de vie de tous les jeunes enfants et de leur famille. ses objectifs 1. jouer un rôle sur le plan des orientations et sur la qualité des politiques et des programmes touchant au développement et au bien-être des jeunes enfants canadiens. 2. créer un forum pour les membres de la communauté canadienne oeuvrant dans le domaine de la petite enfance afin de susciter une collaboration active dans l’élaboration de programmes appropriés au développement des jeunes enfants. 3. encourager et offrir des possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel au personnel responsable du bien-être et de l’éducation des jeunes enfants. 4. promouvoir des occasions pour une meilleure coordination et collaboration entre tous les responsables des jeunes enfants. 5. récompenser et souligner les contributions exceptionnelles faites en faveur des jeunes enfants. exécution des objectifs de l’acje 1. le congrès national: il constitue le grand évènement de l’acje. des sommités de renommée internationale en matière de petite enfance y prononcent des conférences et on y participe à des ateliers, des débats, des expositions, des démonstrations, et à des visites guidées d’écoles. 2. les évènements provinciaux et locaux: l’acje encourage ses membres à organiser des conférences, des séminaires ou des congrès au niveau local et régional afin de débattre des problèmes relatifs aux jeunes enfants. 3. la revue : publication bisannuelle et multidisciplinaire de premier ordre, la revue regroupe des articles traitant de questions d’éducation et de formation des jeunes enfants. on y retrouve également des articles écrits par des experts de renommée nationale et internationale. la rubrique inside caycrenseigne les lecteurs sur les activités de l’association. abonnement et cotisation des membres les cotisations doivent être réglées au moment de l’adhésion et celle-ci doit être renouvelée chaque année. pour se prévaloir de son droit de vote, tout membre doit acquitter sa cotisation au moins 60 jours avant l’assemblée générale annuelle. les members de l'acje reçoivent la revue, et bénéficient de tariffs spéciaux pour participer au congrès national et aux évènements régionaux. tarif des cotisations annuelles: général; 55 $, général 2 année 100 $, étudiants/aîné: 30 $, associations : 120 $, international : 135 $ (ca) acje 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca the canadian association for young children (cayc) grew out of the council for childhood education and was officially recognized in 1974 by the granting of a federal charter. it is the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children, birth through age nine, at home, in preschool settings and at school. members of the multidisciplinary association include parents, teachers, caregivers, administrators, students and all those wishing to share ideas and participate in activities related to the education and welfare of young children. contents 1s p r i n g / p r i n t e m p s 2 0 1 2 vo l . 3 7 n o . 1 journal of the canadian association for young children spring / printemps 2012 vol. 37 no.1 visit our website: http://www.cayc.ca in search of printable articles? please refer to ebsco-host. except where noted on the article: reproduction of material in this publication is hereby authorized, provided the use of the material is both non-commercial and educational, and the number of copies does not exceed 100. permission to reprint articles must be obtained in writing from the editor (or the original source, where noted). opinions expressed in the articles and book reviews are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the members of cayc. © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 graphics & printing by john abbott college press, mtl., qc editors' desk dr. laurie kocher douglas college, new westminister, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw university of victoria, victoria, british columbia publications chairperson iris berger university of british columbia vancouver, british columbia editorial review board dr. anne carr capilano college north vancouver, bc dr. sylvia chard professor emerita university of alberta edmonton, ab dr. patricia dickinson program director bachelor of early childhood studies charles sturt university-ontario susan fraser early childhood educator/author west vancouver, bc dr. jan hare faculty of education language & literacy university of british columbia vancouver, bc carol jonas children's program coordinator nova west island beaconsfield, qc dr. caroline krentz professor emerita university of regina, sk dr. harriet petrakos faculty of education concordia university montreal, qc dr. larry prochner elementary education, university of alberta edmonton, ab dr. gretchen reynolds early childhood education algonquin college nepean, on dr. kelvin l. seifert department of educational psychology university of manitoba dr. patricia tarr faculty of education university of calgary, ab marion thiessen assistant director school programs ministry of education, bc dr. selma wasserman faculty of education simon fraser university burnaby, bc dr. pam whitty faculty of education, university of new brunswick, nb dr. carol anne wien faculty of education york university, on cover photo: by sylvia kind 02 author guidlines 03 from the editors veronica pacini-ketchabaw and laurie kocher articles published in this section of the journal have been reviewed by the editorial review board 04 pedagogical narrations’ potentiality as a methodology for child studies research b. denise hodgins articles published in this section of the journal have been reviewed by the editorial review board 12 british columbia's full day kindergarten program guide: a critical race analysis jennifer moule 21 art making as a political and ethical practice vanessa clark 27 on opening spaces for conversation: the book club antje bitterberg 31 in their words: voices of children with inflammatory bowel disease maria gordon 40 integral yoga as a daily physical activity? karen ragoonaden, stephen berg, sabre cherkowski 42 teaching critical thinking: practical wisdom b. hooks, reviewed by ingrid anderson 44 look at me – i’m learning everyday. tips for parents. laura doan, margaret patten, and cindy piwowar, reviewed by bev superle 45 from the publications chair iris berger 47 friends of children guidelines 47 call for submissions 50 cayc national conference announcement professional resources directions and connections child study invitational news contents cover photo by: sylvia kind dr. anne carr university of cuenca ecuador dr. allie cleghorn concordia university montreal, qc dr. enid elliot camosun college victoria, bc susan fraser author/consultant west vancouver, bc dr. martha gabriel university of prince edward island charlottetown, pei dr. rachel heydon university of western ontario london, on dr. luigi iannacci trent university peterborough, on dr. sylvia kind capilano university north vancouver, bc dr. rachel langford ryerson university toronto, on dr. patrick lewis university of regina regina, sk dr. larry prochner university of alberta edmonton, ab dr. carmen rodriguez de france university of victoria victoria, bc dr. sherry rose university of new brunswick fredericton, nb dr. wayne serebrin university of manitoba winnipeg, mb dr. patricia tarr university of calgary calgary, ab dr. affrica taylor university of canberra canberra, australia dr. pam whitty university of new brunswick fredericton, nb dr. carol anne wien york university toronto, on editors’ desk dr. laurie kocher douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw university of victoria, victoria, british columbia publications chairperson dr. iris berger university of british columbia vancouver, british columbia spring / printemps 2014 vol. 39 no. 2 except where noted on the article: reproduction of material in this publication is hereby authorized, provided the use of the material is both noncommercial and educational, and the number of copies does not exceed 100. permission to reprint articles must be obtained in writing from the editor (or the original source, where noted). opinions expressed in the articles and book reviews are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the members of cayc. © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 graphics & printing by the printing house, vancouver, bc visit our website: www.cayc.ca in search of printable articles? please refer to ebsco-host. guidelines for authors from the editors’ desk by laurie kocher and veronica pacini-ketchabaw young children representing numbers: what does the literature say? by gabriela arias de sanchez voices from the field: full-day kindergarten teams in ontario share their wisdom by monica mcglynn-stewart and kimberly bezaire using play as a key to unlocking the silence for children with selective mutism by poling bork, debra harwood, and sheila m. bennett 21st century vision using a 20th century curriculum: examining british columbia’s kindergarten curriculum package by laura teichert are we ready? early childhood educator students and perceived preparedness for school-based special education by kimberly maich and carmen hall beyond red week: working with inquiry in early years settings by kim atkinson seeking the otherwise: attending to the complexities of listening by vanessa clark and deanna elliott conversations behind early childhood pedagogical documentation. edited by alma fleet, catherine patterson, and janet robertson by sydney gurewitz clemens child study directions and connections professional resources 5 15 24 34 42 53 58 64 2 3 1fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 canadian children is the journal of the canadian association for young children (cayc), the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children of preschool and elementary age in canada. the journal is published twice yearly and contains articles, book reviews and announcements of professional conferences. canadian children is a multidisciplinary journal concerned with child development, child studies and early childhood education. authors from across canada, and elsewhere, are invited to submit articles and book reviews which reflect the variety and extent of both research and practice in early childhood education and child well-being. content: submissions should appeal to an audience that includes parents, professionals in the field of childhood education and child services, as well as teachers and researchers. most issues are multi-theme in nature and the editor will attempt to balance articles that are research related with articles of a practical nature relating to programming, curriculum, classroom practice or child well-being. form, length, and style: • articles may be of varying length, written in a readable style. style should be consistent with the publication manual of the american psychological association (6th edition). • articles should be sent as an e-mail attachment to the email address below. • all submissions should be accompanied by a copy of the signed permission form available at the website (cayc.ca) • authors are to obtain releases for use of photographs prior to e-mailing the manuscript. signed permissions must be included in the submission. • please include a brief biographical sketch (4-5 sentences) including the author(s) full name, title, professional affiliation, and other relevant information. • an abstract should be included at the start of the manuscript, and should not exceed 100 words. • in order to enable blind review, manuscripts must be anonymized. no author information should be included in the manuscript. • all author information (including full name, mailing address and biographical information) must be included in a separate document. • it is expected that authors will not submit articles to more than one publisher at a time. acceptance and publication: the editors will acknowledge receipt and will review all solicited and unsolicited manuscripts received. the final publication decision rests with the editors, and will be communicated within three months. deadlines: submissions for publication are considered in february & august. canadian children est la revue de l’association canadienne pour jeunes enfants (acje), la seule association vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants de niveau préscolaire et primaire au canada. cette revue publiée deux fois l’an regroupe des articles, des comptes rendus de livres et des avis de conférences professionnelles. canadian children est une revue multidisciplinaire axée sur le développement de l’enfant, les études de l’enfant et l’éducation à l’enfance. les auteurs du canada et d’ailleurs sont invités à soumettre des articles et des comptes rendus de livres mettant en évidence la variété et l’étendue de la recherche et de la pratique dans le domaine de l’éducation à la petite enfance et du bien-être de l’enfant. contenu: les articles doivent s’adresser à un public composé de professionnels des domaines de l’éducation à l’enfance et des services à l’enfance, de parents, d’enseignants et de chercheurs. la plupart des numéros traitent d’une multitude de thèmes et le rédacteur en chef tentera d’y inclure tant des articles portant sur la recherche que des articles portant sur des aspects pratiques de l’éducation, comme la gestion et la mise en œuvre de programmes d’études, de méthodes d’enseignement en salle de classe et de techniques utilisées pour assurer le bien-être des enfants. forme, longueur et style: • les articles peuvent être de longueur variée et doivent être rédigés dans un style accessible à tous les lecteurs. la présentation doit être conforme aux normes du publication manual (6e édition) de l’american psychological association. • les articles devront être joints à un courrier électronique et envoyés à l’adresse de courriel indiquée ci-dessous. • toutes les soumissions devront être accompagnées d’une copie signée du formulaire d’autorisation disponible sur notre site web (www.cayc.ca). • les auteurs devront obtenir une autorisation de publier pour l’utilisation de photographies avant de nous faire parvenir le manuscrit par courriel. les autorisations signées doivent être incluses dans la soumission. • veuillez inclure une brève notice biographique (4 ou 5 phrases) comprenant le nom complet, le titre et l’affiliation professionnelle de l’auteur ou des auteurs, ainsi que tout autre renseignement pertinent. • un résumé de maximum 100 mots devra être inclus au début du manuscrit. • afin de permettre un examen aveugle des manuscrits, ceux-ci doivent être anonymes. aucune information relative à l’auteur ne doit être présente dans le manuscrit. • tous les renseignements relatifs à l’auteur (y compris le nom complet, l’adresse postale et l’information biographique) doivent être inclus dans un document à part. • il est entendu que les auteurs ne soumettront leurs articles qu’à une seule revue à la fois. acceptation et publication: les rédacteurs en chef accuseront réception et tiendront compte de tous les manuscrits reçus, qu’ils aient été sollicités ou non. la décision définitive de publier un article relève de la responsabilité des rédacteurs en chef, et elle sera communiquée à l’auteur dans un délai de trois mois. échéance: les soumissions sont acceptées en tout temps. 2s p r i n g / p r i n t e m p s 2 0 1 2 vo l . 3 7 n o . 1 guidelines for authors guide a l’intentiion des auteurs please send all publication correspondence for consideration to: co-editors, laurie kocher & veronica pacini-ketchabaw canadian children journal cdnchildren@gmail.com canadian children est la revue de l’association pour les jeunes enfants (acje). elle demeure la seule association vouée exclusivement au bienêtre des enfants de niveau préscolaire et primaire au canada. cette revue bisannuelle regroupe des articles, des comptes rendus de livres et des avis de conférences professionnelles. canadian children est une publication multidisciplinaire qui traite du développement de l’enfant et de son éducation durant la petite enfance. les auteurs du canada et d’ailleurs sont invités à soumettre des articles et des comptes rendus de livres qui mettent en évidence la variété et l’étendue de la recherche et de la pratique dans le domaine de l’éducation à la petite enfance. contenu: les articles doivent s’adresser à un public composé de parents, de professionnels de l’éducation et de services à l’enfance, ainsi qu’aux enseignants et chercheurs. chaque numéro traite de divers thèmes et le rédacteur en chef tentera d’y inclure tant des articles portant sur la recherche que des articles portant sur des aspects pratiques de l’éducation comme la gestion et la mise en oeuvre de programmes d’études, de méthodes d’enseignement en salle de classe et de techniques utilisées pour assurer le bien-être des enfants. forme, longueur et style : les articles peuvent être de longueur variée et doivent être rédigés dans un style accessible à tous les lecteurs. la présentation doit être conforme aux normes du publication manual (6ième édition) de l’american psychological association. les articles devront être attachés à un courrier électronique et envoyés au rédacteur en chef à l’adresse indiquée cidessous. les auteurs devront obtenir le permis de reproduction des photographies avant de les faire parvenir au rédacteur. il est recommandé d’inclure une brève note biographique contenant le nom complet de l’auteur, ses titres, affiliations professionnelles et autres informations pertinentes telles que remerciements, supports financiers ou organismes de subvention. il est entendu que les auteurs ne soumettront leurs articles qu’à une seule revue à la fois. révision, acceptation, et publication : le rédacteur en chef accusera réception et tiendra compte de tous les manuscrits reçus, qu’ils aient été sollicités ou non. la décision de publier est sous la responsabilité du rédacteur en chef et sera communiquée à l’auteur dans un délai de trois mois. échéancier : publication d’automne : 2 juillet publication du printemps : 2 janvier canadian children is the journal of the canadian association for young children (cayc), the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children of preschool and elementary age in canada. the journal is published twice yearly and contains articles, book reviews and announcements of professional conferences. canadian children is a multidisciplinary journal concerned with child development, child studies and early childhood education. authors from across canada, and elsewhere, are invited to submit articles and book reviews which reflect the variety and extent of both research and practice in early childhood education and child well-being. content: submissions should appeal to an audience that includes parents, professionals in the field of childhood education and child services, as well as teachers and researchers. most issues are multi-theme in nature and the editor will attempt to balance articles that are research related with articles of a practical nature relating to programming, curriculum, classroom practice or child well-being. form, length and style: articles may be of varying length, written in a readable style. style should be consistent with an acceptable professional manual such as the publication manual (6th edition) of the american psychological association. articles should be sent as an email attachment to the email address below. authors are to obtain releases for use of photographs prior to mailing. please include a brief biographical sketch including the author(s) full name, title, professional affiliation, and other relevant information, such as acknowledgements, grant support or funding agency. it is expected that authors will not submit articles to more than one publisher at a time. acceptance and publication: the editors will acknowledge receipt and will review all solicited and unsolicited manuscripts received. the final publication decision rests with the editor, and will be communicated within three months. deadlines: submission deadlines are as follows: fall issue: july 2 spring issue: january 2 guidelines for authors guide a l’intentiion des auteurs 2fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 it’s been an uncommonly beautiful spell of weather here on the west coast of canada. vancouver’s reputation as a grey and dismal place is so undeserved! as we roll into fall weather, a season of sitting by the fire with a warm of mug of cider and good reading at hand seems in order. this issue of canadian children brings you a fascinating range of articles. gabriela arias de sanchez, in her article young children representing numbers, summarizes a body of research in the area of symbolic and numeric development in young children that is supported by socio-constructivist ideas. de sanchez invites readers to reflect on pedagogical principles and conceptual frameworks that support current early childhood mathematics education. in voices from the field: full-day kindergarten teams in ontario share their wisdom, authors monica mcglynn-stewart and kimberly bezaire examine the perspectives of teaching teams with varying backgrounds and status as they implement innovative approaches to full day, school-based early years education for 4-5 year olds. re-establishing roles is one of their key findings. poling bork, debra harwood, and sheila m. bennett consider using play as a key to unlocking the silence for children with selective mutism in this article, the authors propose that play is a valuable and necessary medium to meet the needs of the child with selective mutism, foster resiliency, and promote well-being. play provides a much-needed context to lessen the anxieties associated with being seen or heard speaking. 21st-century vision using a 20th-century curriculum: examining british columbia’s kindergarten curriculum package, by laura teichert, provides a critical analysis of british columbia’s early learning curricula concerning 21st-century education and the role of digital technology in the early years. as children navigate an increasingly digital world, one with blurred lines between content and advertising, critical thinking and critical analysis skills are essential in order for children to effectively manage the vast amounts of information available to them. educators and policy makers, through curricula developed reflecting digital media use, can play an important role in educating young, technologically engaged students. kimberly maich and carmen hall, in their contribution are we ready? early childhood educator students and perceived preparedness for school-based special education, describe a small-scale, single-region research project to investigate early childhood educator (ece) students’ understanding of special education in the kindergarten context that has been in place in ontario schools since 2010. the perceived preparedness of ece students on placement in kindergarten classrooms is evaluated and suggestions for ece preparedness and ece curriculum changes are made. kim atkinson draws on her own experience and that of her colleagues in beyond red week: working with inquiry in early years settings. this article explores moving from a theme-based curriculum in early years settings to an inquiry-based approach. new possibilities for doing curriculum are described as educators challenge themselves to engage in processes of critical reflection, enact democratic principles, and adopt an inquiry as a focal point for discussion among children, colleagues, and families. vanessa clark and deanna elliott, in seeking the otherwise: attending to the complexities of listening, attempt to move beyond both canadian children from the editors’s desk editors dr. laurie kocher dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw 3fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 canadian children 4fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 from the editors’ desk developmental and reggio emilia guidelines for listening. situating their efforts within a wounded colonial context—what is now called victoria, british columbia—they consider listening within unequal spaces of power, and wonder what ethics such arrangements might require. sydney gurewitz clemens brings us a review of the australian volume, conversations: behind early childhood pedagogical documentation, edited by alma fleet, catherine patterson, and janet robertson. as sydney says, “i haven’t felt this excited by a teaching book in some years!” the thoughtful, critically minded authors gathered in this book present nontrivial thinking about ideas educators are learning from reggio emilia. the publication of this journal represents a labour of love on the part of many authors, reviewers, and volunteers. a very significant, long-term contributor to this effort has been dr. carol anne wien. we wish to express our deep appreciation to carol anne as she steps down from the editorial board to take up some new, some familiar interests in her retirement. carol anne has been a valued member of the editorial board of canadian children for 17 years. her work as a professor at york university has made her a significant mentor for many educators in ontario, and her willingness to travel to work with groups in other provinces has elevated her impact to the national level. throughout her academic career, carol anne has ensured that she kept in contact with the experience of children and educators, and as such, her thinking is informed by practice. carol anne has also influenced the development of curriculum frameworks, either directly or through colleagues and former students. she has been a keynote speaker at major conferences across the country and in the united states, and her long-standing interest in the reggio experience and emergent curriculum has led her to author books and articles that have been influential throughout north america. two titles, in particular, that will be familiar to readers of this journal are emergent curriculum in the primary classroom (teachers college press), and the power of emergent curriculum (naeyc). a new book, documentation as relationship: “i am in your eye”, co-authored by jason avery, carol anne and fellow cayc board member karyn callaghan, is soon to be published by davis art. canadian children has benefitted from carol anne’s wisdom, and we wish her well on her retirement--and at the same time hope to see her name on upcoming publications and conference rosters. and if you happen to hear the some jazz riffs tickling the ivories, look for carol anne. she has an uncommon ability to find a piano just about anywhere! grazie mille for your generous contribution to the quality of canadian children. *a special online version of canadian children will be available for cayc members at the website: cayc.ca this special issue will focus on professionalism in the canadian early childhood education and care sector. look for it in february. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 5 vol. 39 no. 3 gabriela arias de sanchez has a degree in early childhood from the university of rio cuarto, argentina. in 2010, she completed the master in education and leadership at the university of prince edward island. she is currently a sshrc doctoral student at upei. her research interests include early years pedagogy, particularly early childhood mathematics education. prior to completing her med, gabriela worked in the early years for more than two decades as an educator and director as well as teaching at the postsecondary level. email: gsanchez@upei.ca young children representing numbers: what does the literature say? gabriela arias de sanchez maria hurried into the early childhood centre. the child’s preschool classroom was noisy and everybody was busy. some children were building, others were drawing on large posters, and others were dressing up. “maria,” said her teacher, “could you go to the kitchen and ask for five spoons? there are not enough for the snack table.” returning from the kitchen, maria realized she had only four spoons in her hand. she went back to the kitchen and asked the cook for one more. then maria chose to play in the dramatic play area. she played teacher with her friends and everybody seemed enthusiastic. “there are 10 boys in the class today” said maria, printing seven tally marks on the whiteboard. later, during work time, maria received a pencil and a sheet. her teacher asked her to count the objects on the page and to write the number inside the empty square. looking at the page, maria could see a flower, butterflies, and something she was not sure about—“maybe flies?” beside each picture she could see the empty square at which the teacher kept pointing. maria took a long time to complete the activity. her eyes roved the classroom and her face was tense. she finally traced a big square around the smaller, empty one, passed the sheet quickly to the teacher, and ran outside to the playground. as an early childhood educator (ece) in argentina and canada for more than two decades, i have observed situations like the one above in many different early childhood settings. attitudes similar to maria’s were expressed by many young children in both countries. it seemed to me that when young children printed numbers and the printing was not influenced by adults’ expectations, the notations and the attitudes were quite different. like maria, most children’s responses to formal requests were fragile and lacked enthusiasm, as if they did not know anything about mathematics. my interest in mathematics and young children’s development caused me to question why young children’s strategies changed so drastically in routines like the ones described above. why were children’s responses, including their body language, so different from one situation to the other? why had maria printed numeric ideas when she played teacher, yet was not able to respond when the educator asked her to write numerals? early childhood mathematical and cognitive studies have shown that young children use their own notations to represent quantities (bialystok & codd, 1996; carruthers & worthington, 2006; hughes, 1986; munn, 2008; sinclair, siegrist, & sinclair, 1983; teubal & dockrell, 2004). this issue was also explored by well-known researchers in the early childhood field, such as constance kamii, who, with other researchers, showed that young children represent numbers in their own way according to their levels of abstraction (kato, kamii, ozaki, & nagahiro, 2002). however, using conventional mathematical symbols in their spoken (rote counting) or written form (numerals) are mathematical practices that generally receive considerable attention in early childhood mathematics education (ecme). in general, there appears to be a tendency to rush children into using symbols in the name of “academic learning,” whereby young children are expected to practice and master the use of numerals (e.g.,1, 25, 100) before they enter school (brosseau, 2006; ginsburg, sun lee, & boyd, 2008). hughes (1986) argues that asking young children to print conventional numerals is equivalent to asking them to replace their use of informal ways of representing numbers (e.g., tally marks) with a system that is contrived and has no meaning to children are exposed to written numerals from a very young age, and the practice of using written numerals is encouraged in early childhood educational settings. further, many mathematical assessments are based on young children’s understanding of conventional numerals. supported by socio-constructivist ideas, this review summarizes a body of research in the areas of symbolic and numeric development in young children, providing a synthesis for early childhood educators and teachers. this work is an invitation to reflect on both the pedagogical principles that underline “pencil-pushing practices” and the conceptual frameworks that support current early childhood mathematics education. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 6 vol. 39 no. 3 them. one curriculum department in the u.s. calls these practices pencil pushing and argues that “pencil pushing has helped produce generations of people who see mathematics as little else” (plainfield board of education, 2006, p. 24). in my teaching experience, i have observed that many children are exposed to conventional numerals from a very young age, and children are expected to print numbers earlier and earlier. furthermore, many mathematical assessments are based on young children’s understanding of numerals. are these kinds of exercises necessary to build foundational mathematics knowledge? do these assessments lead children to learn the meaning of numbers ? do they inform educators about what children can really do? sadly, pencil-pushing activities are completed most of the time by young children with no opportunity to explore and comprehend the meaning of numbers. this review summarizes a body of research that focuses on early symbolic and numeric development. the review invites educators and early childhood policy makers to reflect on the pedagogical principles that underlie pencil-pushing practices in early childhood settings. background to the study a literature review, as a reflective summary of previous knowledge and ideas, is fundamental to understanding current issues in research. literature reviews provide research evidence and facilitate the possibility of critically examining what others have done in a particular area of endeavour. this literature review is informed by the idea that knowledge construction does not happen in isolation but within culturally shared understandings and practices (cobb, 1994; rogoff, 1990, 2003; vygotsky, 1978). this socio-constructivist perspective suggests that mathematical learning is a process of individual active construction that occurs when individuals engage in mathematical practices with others. symbols appear to play a particular role within the socio-constructivist framework because they carry a shared social meaning that individuals have to construct. from a constructivist perspective, mathematical knowledge evolves through different phases in which individuals understand and make sense of the world in ever more complex ways. research-based evidence about the value of foundational mathematics teaching has been accumulating in the last decades (anderson, anderson, & thauberger, 2008; baroody & li, 2009; gifford, 2003; 2004; kamii, 2000; siegler & booth; 2004). however, more studies are needed to align this evidence with meaningful early childhood mathematical practices (clements & sarama, 2009; ginsburg & golbeck, 2004; sophian, 2009). likewise, the processes that young children appear to follow when developing their ideas of numbers and numerals have been extensively explored (bialystok & codd, 1996; carruthers & worthington, 2006; deloache, 1995a, 1995b; gifford, 2005; hughes, 1986; kato et al., 2002; munn, 2008; piaget, 1952; piaget & inhelder, 1971, 1983; sinclair et al., 1983). yet, most early mathematics teaching regarding the use of numerals has been oriented to school preparation with a tendency to teach content rather than to scaffold mathematical process (ginsburg et al., 2008). i believe that many misconceptions about young children’s mathematical learning and a lack of pedagogical research about this matter have been guiding early childhood educators to rely, in some cases, on practices that are not appropriate and that lack clear mathematical intentionality. the purpose of this paper is to highlight research that has focused on exploring the trajectories followed by children ages 2 to 5 when they print numbers. this review also proposes a context for discussion about mathematical practices throughout the early years and challenges us to reflect on the ways that pencil pushing happens in isolation during a time when young children are discovering their world. methods a review of relevant literature was conducted via keyboard searches using various electronic databases. these included academic search complete, eric, google scholar, mathscinet, psycinfo, and sage premier collection. practice-oriented texts, researchbased texts, reports, and research-based peer-reviewed articles were selected according to four main topics: children’s mathematical learning trajectories, children’s number learning trajectories, individuals’ use of symbols, and approaches to early childhood mathematics education. the selection criterion was that the resources had to address at least one of the above-mentioned areas. the selection was focused on children ages 2 to 5. however, resources that explored children’s developmental ages 0 to 8 were also included when findings reported children’s numeric and symbolic trajectories within this age range. a total of 71 resources were selected for review. the final selection included the following: (a) 5 practice-oriented texts; (b) 12 researchbased texts; (c) 49 research-based peer-reviewed articles; (d) 4 reports; and (e) 1 conference proceeding. studies that highlighted children’s cognitive development and children’s mathematical competences were explored in depth. the selected resources involved canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 7 vol. 39 no. 3 both qualitative and quantitative research-based investigations. resources were written in english with the exception of one book written in spanish. data analysis the selected resources were read independently and summarized in tables. the tables included author, title, purpose of the study, context of the study, findings, and conclusions. by using a thematic analysis approach (joffe & yardley, 2004), i explored in depth trends, similarities, and differences across the summary tables. recurring consistencies and inconsistencies (patton, 2002) were then identified and organized in four main descriptive findings related to the previously chosen search areas: children’s mathematical learning trajectories, children’s number learning trajectories, individuals’ use of symbols, and approaches to early childhood mathematics education. findings four themes emerged as a result of this literature review: (a) understanding early childhood mathematics education (ecme); (b) the meaning of symbols; (c) using symbols to represent numbers; and (d) children’s knowledge. i discuss each of these themes below. understanding early childhood mathematics education (ecme) mathematics in the early childhood field appears to be widely influenced by the ideas of the constructivist school. for kamii (1985), constructivism is the theory according to which children build their own knowledge “from the inside, through [their] own mental activity, in interaction with the environment” (p. 6). constructivists believe that knowledge is not directly transmitted from the teacher, but that teachers can facilitate knowledge acquisition. the vision of the child as an active learner, capable of understanding abstract concepts through exploration and manipulation, grew tremendously in the early childhood field during the 1980s, especially in opposition to the passivity often related to the traditional school system. these ideas were mainly supported by piaget’s theory and the three kinds of knowledge he described: physical, social, and logico-mathematical (piaget, 1953, 1962). each kind of knowledge is related to the others and, according to piaget and inhelder (1971, 1983), empirical and constructivist abstraction facilitates their acquisition. empirical abstraction supports the individual’s focus on different properties of the objects (e.g., colour, size, and weight) while constructivist abstraction involves mental relationships that the individual makes among objects (e.g., two, the same, and different). with a constructivist approach, play and hands-on activities became the main strategy used to facilitate young children’s learning. hands-on activities and manipulation were related to free exploration and oriented toward facilitating empirical abstraction. however, misconceptions of abstraction led those in the field to believe that young children could learn abstract mathematical ideas by just touching objects (kamii, lewis, & kirkland, 2001; williams & kamii, 1986). consequently, these types of activities lacked clear mathematical intentionality, and the educator’s role was limited to providing objects and observing (kamii et al., 2001; williams & kamii, 1986) the idea of exploration, mostly related to play, is still very important in the field. the environment and the presence of various manipulatives are considered key components of mathematical learning. however, the variety of manipulatives and free exploration do not necessarily facilitate or guarantee learning (williams & kamii, 1986). when talking about the value of play, kamii and kato (2005) suggest that “play has always been valued in early childhood education; it is important for educators to know precisely why a playful activity is educational and what the teacher can do to maximize its value” (p. 382). the latest mathematical research emphasizes that the only way manipulation can become meaningful in a rich environment is if it is guided through reflection and problem solving (brosseau, 2006; clements & sarama, 2009; van de walle, 2001). in other words, empirical abstraction should be supported by a challenging environment where constructive abstraction is encouraged, challenged, and scaffolded. the meaning of symbols it is interesting to observe that ecme has primarily related the use of symbols to what is known in the field as “academic learning.” mathematics has often been lumped with literacy under this label (sun lee & ginsburg, 2007), and many early mathematics outcomes that involve the use of symbols have been oriented to school preparation. in the case of mathematics, it appears that “academic learning” mainly related to the use of mathematical symbols in their written or spoken form. thus, intensive practice on paper to write numerals and represent sets was required in many early childhood settings during the 1970s and 1980s. as in the example of maria that opened this article, these “ready-made” activities (sun lee & ginsburg, 2007, p. 135), also called worksheets, were given to children from a very young age. sun lee and ginsburg (2007) report that, in general, early childhood educators who expressed a strong commitment to academic education were the ones who approved the use of these kinds of activities. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 8 vol. 39 no. 3 writing numerals is a practice that still receives considerable attention, formally and informally, during early years education. the practice involves young children using symbols and symbolic notations. the studies chosen for this review that focused on investigating the role of symbols in children’s cognitive development showed the same understandings when referring to the term symbol. overall, these studies agreed in defining symbol as a tool that enables humans to represent ideas. vygotsky (1978) differentiated between a first and second order symbolic system. for him, first order symbols convey a pictorial message, where the symbol can be decoded just by looking at it (i.e., a picture of a cat resembles a cat). the second order symbolic system uses a graphic form that represents an abstract unit of meaning, like a phoneme or a quantity. it is in these situations where, even by looking at the form, the conventional meaning will not be revealed (e.g., “100,” “a,” “casita”). according to vygotsky, understanding the meaning of conventional notations is more difficult than understanding the meaning of pictures. for deloache (2004), the child needs to understand the social intention of different symbolic systems. for example, the child needs to understand what the printed notations “12,” “mom,” or “58” mean. this idea implies that the meaning of symbols is grounded in social patterns and patterns of communication. according to deloache (2004), “symbols are a characteristic of humans. a vital function of symbols is to enable humans to acquire information without direct experience. our vast store of cultural knowledge exists because we can learn through symbolic representation” (p. 68). for this researcher, intention and communication are the basis of symbols, and children need to figure out how people intend symbols to be interpreted. deloache suggests that symbols can represent, are general, and are intentional: symbols represent because they denote; they are about something. according to deloache, anything can be used to represent, including numbers, words, sounds, fingers, blocks, maps, and many other possibilities. she states that the intentionality of symbols is grounded in social contexts; therefore, there has to be a person who intends to represent. the same approach was suggested by piaget (1953, 1962) when he explained that it is people who represent, not symbols. for hobson (2000), intentionality is the foundation of symbols: “intention is at the heart of symbolization” (p. 2). he describes this intention as an intention-to-refer and intention-to-mean where there is a mental relationship between the symbol and what it represents. this mental relationship between the symbols and what they signify is the unique dual nature of symbols (uttal, scudder, & deloache, 1997). based on her theoretical model, deloache (1995a; 1995b) calls this relationship between a symbol and what it represents dual representation. she explains that dual representation allows individuals to understand, for example, the abstract relation between the idea of “5” and the word “five,” the numeral “5,” or the notation “iiiii.” this ability implies mentally representing the concrete object itself and its abstract relation to what it stands for. a clear example is provided by macconnell and daehler (2004), who state that a child is capable of dual representation when s/he is capable of perceiving a model train as both a toy and a representation of an actual train. macdonnell and daehler (2004) refer to the capability to use dual representation as symbolic insight. for piaget (1952, 1962), the individual has to “see” an idea mentally to be able to represent it. researchers agree that dual representation is an important cognitive milestone that children need to achieve to understand symbols (bialystok, 2000; bialystok & codd, 1996; deloache, 1995a, 1995b, 2004; deloache & burns, 1994; deloache & marzolf, 1992; deloache et al., 1997; huttenlocher, vasilyeva, newcombe, & duffy, 2008; klein & bisanz, 2000). researchers also concur that dual representation is learned progressively following age-based developmental trajectories. therefore, the younger the child, the more difficulties s/he will have in understanding dual representation. using symbols to represent numbers according to mccloskey (1992), it is important to distinguish between numbers and numerals. a number is an abstract entity, the domain of knowledge. a numeral is defined as the conventional written form for numbers (e.g., “1,” “5,” “77”). a numeral is an abstract symbol that stands for a certain quantity, for example, 6 apples, 10 fingers, 20 crayons. to be meaningful, the numeral has to be linked to a number in terms of cardinality. cardinality is a complex issue in number development that takes time to develop (bermejo, 1996; bermejo, morales, & garcia de osuna, 2004; zhou & wang, 2004). while ordinality refers to the order of natural numbers (e.g., 1st, 4th, 10th), cardinality refers to the classificatory meaning of natural numbers (e.g., 1 refers to all classes containing 1 thing; 6 refers to all classes containing 6 things). cardinality and ordinality are both aspects of number (piaget & inhelder, 1983). cardinality, according to bermejo (1996) “is a way to quantify the items in a set” (p. 263). according to piaget (1952), the cardinal principle implies the largest number word in a set. in other words, to understand cardinality, children need to understand that “6” includes “1,” “2,” “3,” “4,” “5,” and “6.” additionally, children need to understand that “6” is always “6” whether the numeral represents 6 balls, cars, or dolls, and so on. the last number’s word is the spoken symbol used to identify the size of the set (e.g., “seven,” “fifty,” and “twelve”). by extension, it could be suggested that numerals are the written symbols to communicate the total amount in a set (e.g., “7,” 50,” and “12”). in other words, both the oral word and the written symbol serve the same function, which is to represent the total amount of items in a set. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 9 vol. 39 no. 3 some researchers maintain that conceptual mathematical knowledge should precede children’s exposure to the use of symbols (kamii, 1986; kato et al., 2002; teubal & dockrell, 2005). these researchers argued that numerals are not relevant for the child without a conceptual understanding of number and, as result, young children should have a solid foundation of mathematical concepts before using numerical symbols. other researchers argue instead that there is a parallel development between conceptual understanding and children’s different forms of representing, such as drawing or invented spelling (bowers, 2000, cited in teubal & dockrell, 2005; carruthers & worthington, 2006; sfard, 2000). with this approach, numerals become relevant as the child has the opportunity to write the idea of sets in many different forms. children’s knowledge young children are surrounded by a world of symbols. from a young age, children need to deal simultaneously with a variety of symbols, such as letters, numbers, signs, and pictures. in order to participate in their own societies, children are expected to learn about different symbol systems and how they function. today, as deloache (2004) states, “children must learn to use more varieties of symbols than ever before” (p. 66). exposure to this tremendous variety of symbols happens even before children enter the formal school system. during the early years, the quality of this exposure will facilitate, or not, children’s understanding of these symbols (i.e., letters, numbers, and what they mean). children then need to explore what social intention these symbols have in their social context. children’s use of symbols progresses from a general symbolic ability (deloache, 2004) to a more conventional and intentional ability. for example, the use of sounds to label objects at 13 months changes to a preference for using words at around 18 months (deloache, 2004); the use of scribbles while drawing at 2 years of age changes to intentional drawing by 5 years of age. for teubal and dockrell (2005), children’s numeric notations could be considered in terms of quality and accuracy. for example, if the child uses a perfectly executed “3” to represent the number “6,” the quality is good, but the accuracy is not. accuracy and quality, according to these researchers, are important elements in the development of number notations. this review has identified three major research trends investigating how young children write numeric ideas. an early trend in cognitive research highlighted that children’s numeric representations follow developmental trajectories that appear to be related to children’s ages (sinclair et al., 1983; hughes, 1986; munn, 2008). these previous studies, which were mostly conducted in clinical contexts, suggested that with age children produce more accurate representations and use digits more often. a more recent research trend that has examined children’s forms of numeric representations acknowledges the value of understanding children’s developmental trajectories, but highlights the idea that children’s trajectories are impacted not only by age but by children’s learning contexts (including home and formal education), the types of experiences those contexts provide, and children’s emotional and physical development (carruthers & worthington, 2005; gifford, 2005). for example, a recent study conducted in the uk by carruthers and worthington (2005) collected 700 children’s number representation samples in scenarios such as home, school, and terminology the extensive body of research investigating how young children develop numeric ideas defines and explains key terms and concepts with different nuances of meaning. to clarify the terminology used throughout this review, a brief list of terms is provided below. number: an abstract entity of knowledge. piaget maintained that number is constructed in close relation with an understanding of a system of inclusions (that relates to classes). for piaget, number is at the same time both class and order. understanding numbers implies, for example, that 6 includes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. for piaget (1952), this understanding is constructed by individuals through different developmental stages. cardinal meaning: the value of the number in terms of quantity. cardinality, according to bermejo (1996), is a way of quantifying all the items of a set. cardinality responds to the question “how many?” and refers to the fact that the last number counted is the total amount of items in a set (e.g., three [3] refers to one [1], two [2], and three [3]). numerals: conventional written symbols used to represent a number (e.g., “6,” “100,” or “35”; kato et al., 2002). numerals are the conventional written symbols that communicate the total amount in a set. numeric notations: children’s own written ways to represent numbers (teubal & dockrell, 2005), such as tally marks. accuracy and quality of the representation is sometimes not contemplated. for example, a child might represent “five” by printing four tally marks, or a perfectly drawn 3 (teubal & dockrell, 2005, p. 259). marks: children’s forms of representation on paper. according to carruthers and worthington (2006), marks represent “identities, events, objects, and meanings of their world” (p. 7). canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 10 vol. 39 no. 3 outdoor activities. these samples were collected during children’s spontaneous play as well as in direct teaching situations. carruthers and worthington (2005) describe how children represent numbers as “common forms of graphical marks” (p. 15), thus providing a broader meaning that is not restricted to age when describing children’s trajectories. table 1 below summarizes the main findings of sinclair, siegrist, and sinclair (1983), hughes (1986), and carruthers and worthington (2006). to help the reader, i have organized the summary table into four representational forms that emerged through the review: scribbles, pictures, one-to-one correspondence, and conventional forms. an example of these forms of representation is also provided. table 1. summary of findings reported by sinclair, siegrist, and sinclair (1983), hughes (1986), and carruthers and worthington (2005). findings reported by sinclair, siegrist, & sinclair (1983) hughes (1986) carruthers and worthington (2005) representation type scribbles idiosyncratic: the representations are ambiguous and do not relate to quantity. dynamic: graphics that are characterized by change and/ or activity. pictures representation of the objectkind: the representation focuses on the qualitative aspect of the set. pictographic: the responses represent the quantity as well as the characteristics of the objects, such as shape, position, colour, or size. pictographic: graphics that represent something that is present to the child. one-to-one representations one-to-one correspondence with symbols: this is the first notation type in which numerical ideas appear. one-to-one correspondence with numerals: the child represents each object separately. iconic: the responses marks are in one-to-one correspondence with the objects. iconic: graphics that represent sets one by one. conventional representations cardinal value alone: the child uses conventional numerals. cardinal value and objectkind: notations represent the child’s ability to think simultaneously about numeric quantity and object type. symbol responses: consist of the use of conventional numerals or written number words written: graphics that represent using words or invented spelling to denote sets. symbolic: graphics that use standard forms. a third research trend was found in a series of studies that clinically explored the relationship between children’s use of numerals and their ability to understand what those numerals represent (bialystok & codd, 1996; kato et al., 2002). these studies have shown that even when young children knew how to write numbers, the children did not use this understanding and instead used their own forms of numeric notations. why? the researchers agreed that the numerals, as a resource to communicate and gather mathematical information, were not fully understood. for example, in bialystok and codd’s study (1996), children ages 3 to 6 were individually asked to represent small sets and subsequently read their own representations. the researchers found that although children were screened about their carlos’ representation of “3” julia’s representation of “3” connor’s representation of “3” mili’s representation of “3” canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 11 vol. 39 no. 3 knowledge of counting and number recognition, their knowledge was limited when they were asked to represent and read three different tasks that involved quantities. overall, these studies suggest that familiarity with symbols does not guarantee that young children understand the mental relationships represented by the symbols, and there is a general tendency to believe that children have mastered the numerical domain because they are familiar with some structures of the domain (e.g., counting up to 20 or “1, 2, 3...go!”) implications the major focus of this review was to explore the theoretical ideas and research frameworks that refer to number printing during the early years, particularly with children ages 2 to 5. the review strongly shows that before they use numerals, children use their own ways to represent numbers. both studies conducted in control settings and studies conducted in the field concurred. and even though these investigations name children’s trajectories differently, the progressions they describe follow similar paths. the studies show that a pattern of development exists for children’s numeric representations that progresses from global marks into symbols that involve notions of quantity. however, the studies differ in how the researchers understand the meaning of children’s writing of numeric ideas. earlier studies (hughes, 1986; munn, 2008; sinclair et al., 1983) asked children to write numeric ideas and explored these marks’ accuracy and quality (teubal & dockrell, 2005). in other words, the studies investigated how well those representational forms aligned or did not align with conventional forms. and even though children’s trajectories were described in depth, the studies had a general tendency to stress what children could not do. most recent investigations (carruthers & worthington, 2006; gifford, 2005) considered children’s marks as a social practice and explored how they happened in children’s most meaningful environments: home and school. for this line of research, these marks constitute a valid representational form because they show how children make meaning of their realities. furthermore, this latest research proposes that it is the practice of using invented marks that helps children make sense of numbers and symbols. the development of how symbols work, according to these studies, is parallel to understanding what the symbols are intended to represent. according to zhou and wang (2004), “invented symbols provide a foundation for children’s learning of written number symbols” (p. 254). some studies (bialystok, 2000; bialystok & codd, 1996; deloache, 1995a, 1995b; deloache & burns, 1994; deloache & marzolf, 1992; deloache et al., 1997) found that the understanding of quantity (cardinality) and the understanding of how symbols work develop gradually during the first years of life. however, the exploration of pedagogical approaches in early childhood settings (sun lee & ginsburg, 2007) highlighted a tendency to rush children into the use of conventional symbols. based on this line of thought, it could be suggested that what was emphasized in those educational practices was the accuracy and quality (teubal & dockrell, 2005) of children’s marks rather than the progressions that young children follow. an important finding of this review refers to what deloache (1995a; 1995b) defines as dual representation. this researcher highlights dual representation as an important milestone that allows individuals to understand how symbols work and what they mean. deloache’s research explains that dual representation develops gradually and that young children need time to understand this relationship. if at young ages children are still not aware of the relationship between numeric and symbolic domains, providing practices where they are asked, for example, to relate a set of flowers with a numeral instead of printing what they know about flowers seems pedagogically inappropriate. this review indicates that children’s forms of representing numbers cannot be ignored. therefore, early childhood mathematical practices cannot be supported by approaches that aim for production of conventional printing of numbers only, especially during a time in life when key domains (mathematical and symbolic) are still developing. the research evidence provided in this review supports the idea that children’s marks are not inaccurate or developmentally wrong but are instead a representational form that shows how children think of numbers and quantities. as such, they could become a tremendous source of information for early childhood educators. based on the research findings presented in this review, paying close attention to children’s marks could facilitate educators (a) better understanding of how each of their students thinks about numbers and numerals; (b) scaffolding a child’s current level of numeric understanding; and (c) enriching mathematical activities regarding numbers and numerals. final thoughts the meanings of numeric symbols are part of a sociocultural heritage. according to geary (1995, cited in bialystok & codd, 2000), the meaning of conventional symbols is something that children need to learn. adults play a valuable role in teaching and sharing this knowledge. under this framework, early childhood educators’ role in supporting children’s understanding of numbers and numerals is crucial. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 12 vol. 39 no. 3 from a sociocultural constructivist perspective, educators provide scaffolds for children’s learning processes and facilitate children’s processes of enculturation (which involves, for example, understanding the conventional meaning of numerals). scaffolding and guiding children through the process of number construction and number representation requires an adult with a solid understanding of the mathematical processes generally followed by children (franke & kazemi, 2001). knowing this sequence and knowing what children can do is crucial for early childhood pedagogical practices. the research findings shared in this review illustrate that consideration of young children’s thinking processes is critical for early childhood educators. this review reveals that the numeric notations children use to represent numeric ideas are the main source of information about how children understand numbers. the observation of, documentation of, and, most of all, respect for these representational responses are essential for meaningful and appropriate early childhood mathematical practices. after all, early childhood mathematics education should be for young children. it is my aim that this review will contribute to early childhood education and expand previous mathematical and cognitive studies about the developmental process of number printing. as an early childhood educator, it is my hope that my review will both encourage and challenge early childhood mathematical practices, especially those regarding number printing. reflections about the way we do math in the early years, in particular reflecting about the rationale of certain practices, could lead eces to the valuable consideration of young children’s mathematical thinking processes. epilogue the educator came closer. she wanted to see the pictures of the lighthouses maria had posted on the bulletin board. “can you see this one?” said maria. “can you see how tall it is? it is the tallest lighthouse in the world…this one, the small one had lots of windows.” the educator looked at the pictures and asked, “could you tell me something else about the light houses? could you write something about them?” maria went to the art shelf and took some large paper and a bucket full of markers. she worked for a long period while her friends were getting ready to go outside. when she finished, she showed her teacher what she had done: several tally marks with yellow circles on top. “we saw lots of lighthouses,” she said. “we saw seven.” then, she added blue for the ocean and one bigger bright yellow circle. “it was sunny,” she said to the teacher. maria and her teacher posted the picture on the bulletin board for everybody to see. maria smiled with pride. references anderson, a., anderson, j., & thauberger, c. 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(2004). preschool children’s representation and understanding of written number symbols. early child development and care, 174(3), 253–266. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 15 vol. 39 no. 3 monica mcglynn-stewart, phd, is a former elementary teacher, consultant, and principal. she now works as a professor in the school of early childhood, george brown college, toronto, ontario, where she teaches courses in curriculum, early childhood program delivery models, and research methods. she is currently researching beginning elementary teachers’ literacy practice and the teaching teams in the new full-day kindergarten program in ontario. email: mmcglynnstewart@georgebrown.ca kimberly bezaire, phd, is a professor in the school of early childhood, george brown college, toronto, ontario, teaching courses in play-based curriculum, child observation and documentation, and pedagogical leadership. she is a regular contributor to professional learning in the early years sector, consulting and collaborating with childcare, lab school, and elementary school professionals. kimberly’s research background includes classroom-based research, and play-literacy in the early years. voices from the field: full-day kindergarten teams in ontario share their wisdom monica mcglynn-stewart and kimberly bezaire understanding that the early childhood educator and kindergarten teacher have different but complementary skill sets is important. give yourself time to figure out how all the pieces fit together. building a team that is cohesive and effective takes time. you will both be used to working in a particular way and i think it is important to go slow and figure out how to make it work together. (registered early childhood educator, march 12, 2013) in ontario, educators and policy makers are in the midst of implementing an innovative approach to education for 4and 5-year-olds. the province is investing billions of dollars of public funds in the promotion and operation of universal full-day kindergarten (fdk). the success of this program relies heavily on the effectiveness of a new staffing model: teams made up of reces (early childhood educators registered with ontario’s college of early childhood educators, ontario) and octs (teachers certified by the ontario college of teachers). this study examined the successes and challenges of this new model as experienced by these innovative teaching teams. team members who had been teaching in the new full-day kindergarten during the first three years of operation offered advice based on their experience in the new program. their suggestions for creating equitable and effective teaching teams ranged from interpersonal team-building strategies to enhancing systemic program supports. partnerships in child care and kindergarten friendly (2008) notes that kindergarten programs and regulated child care are quite different in several respects, including the education, training, and approach of the educators who staff them. the education of early childhood educators focuses primarily on child development, whereas the education of public school teachers is primarily focused on teaching methods (friendly, 2008). however, early childhood education programs do have courses and meet vocational standards in play-based curriculum design and implementation, working with children with special needs, and working collaboratively with families and professionals from other disciplines (ontario ministry of training, colleges, and universities, 2012). in his report to the premier of ontario on full-day early learning, pascal (2009) considered these differences to be a source of strength and suggested that interprofessionalism would provide an innovative foundation for the new integrated program. he recommended that the new program be staffed with a team of one teacher and two early childhood educators to “add to the strengths of the professional preparation and skill sets of both teachers and eces” (pascal, 2009, p. 33). he cautioned, however, that there are challenges inherent in this team approach and argued that it is critical that both preand in-service learning for all team members focus on “how to engage in respectful, reciprocal mentoring, always with their learners in mind” (pascal, 2009, p. 37). in fdk practice in ontario, only one early childhood educator has been paired with each teacher. canadian educators and policy makers are in the midst of implementing an innovative approach to education for 4 and 5-year olds. this study examined the perspectives of the teaching teams who are making this new full-day school-based model work: registered early childhood educators and ontario certified teachers. these two groups have different professional backgrounds, status, salary, and professional development opportunities. survey and interview results highlighted the complexity of the new teaching model and identified conditions that support interprofessional team building and effective team teaching in school settings. themes arising from the data include the importance of relationship building, rethinking practice, sharing knowledge/specialization, and reestablishing roles. implications and recommendations for teaching teams and system administrators are provided. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 16 vol. 39 no. 3 different professionals from early childhood education and care services have successfully worked together in pilot projects in ontario in the recent past. both better beginnings, better futures (bbbf) and toronto first duty (tfd) integrated early childhood services demonstration projects revealed the challenges and benefits of collaboration and partnerships. findings from the bbbf project demonstrated the importance of a shared vision for collaboration among the professionals, the importance of clarifying partner roles, and the development of trust and positive working relationships (corter & peters, 2011). the goal of the tfd project, which began in 2001, was to promote the healthy development of children from birth through primary school while supporting parents in their work and their parenting roles (corter & peters, 2011). findings from this study highlighted the existence of struggles over “professional turf,” the importance of strong leadership, and the need for time for staff team development (corter & peters, 2011). in their recent report for unesco, caring and learning together: a cross-national study of integration of early childhood care and education within education, kaga, bennett, and moss (2010) discuss the complexities inherent in integrating ecec and education for young children within the education system. they looked at several countries who have completed this integration, focusing on brazil, jamaica, new zealand, slovenia, and sweden. they note that successful integration “requires re-thinking as well as re-forming structures, such as funding, regulation and workforce” (kaga, bennett, & moss, 2010, p. 13). the potential benefits of integration include changed perceptions of ecec among the workforce, parents, and the wider public (kaga et al., 2010). potential risks include the “schoolification” of ecec and increased costs due to the creation of a better qualified and paid workforce, increased access, and the introduction of new curricula (kaga et al., 2010). evaluation of the first two years of implementation of ontario’s full-day kindergarten identified that the new staffing model has successfully brought the two groups of professionals—reces and otcs—together to provide an enriched play-based kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2013). yet the study also indicated that the educator teams are “not fully leveraging the collective expertise of the two professions” (ontario ministry of education, 2013, p. 13) and that the ministry of education needs to “foster continued growth in the educator teams” (p. 18). interprofessional team learning and practice little research has been done on the interprofessional relationship between teachers and eces working in school classrooms. the literature on interprofessional teams in other sectors provides a useful framework for considering the fdk teams. in the health care field, interprofessional practice has been defined as “two or more professions working together as a team with a common purpose, commitment and mutual respect” (dunston et al., 2009, p. 6). the research on interprofessional teams in the health sector (hall, 2005; norsen, opladen, & quinn, 1995; sargeant, loney, & murphy, 2008) highlights both the benefits and challenges of collaboration in terms of positive identity development, professional development, and outcomes for clients. an ongoing study of hospital play specialists in the u.k., many of whom have a background as early years educators, revealed that although they do not have a medical background, they are able to effectively advocate for children with the hospital medical team (nuttall, 2013). the centre for the advancement of inter-professional education (2011) outlines key principles drawn from the literature, including keeping best practice central to all teaching and learning, acknowledging but setting aside differences in power and status, and utilizing distinctive contributions to learning and practice. the present study contributes to our understanding of the nature of the working relationship between teachers and eces in school kindergartens and the practices that support an effective collaborative working team. full-day kindergarten in ontario integrating public education and child care in canada is a recent development and is a “work in progress” (muttart foundation, 2012). child care throughout the country is largely private, while kindergartens in public schools are publicly funded (friendly, 2008). in their review of canadian early learning and care, the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd; 2004) advised that a greater integration of kindergarten and child care would be advantageous to canadians. beginning in the 2010–2011 school year, the ontario ministry of education (2011) began offering 4and 5-year-old children full-day kindergarten. the program will be offered in all public schools by september 2014. each fdk classroom is staffed by a unique team of educators who come from dramatically different professional backgrounds: teachers and early childhood educators. certified kindergarten teachers in ontario (otcs) have an undergraduate degree, typically in a discipline other than education, and a one-year (bed) or two-year (mt or mat) preservice teaching degree specializing in teaching from kindergarten to grade six. they have the option of taking an additional qualification (aq) course in kindergarten, but it is not mandatory. in publicly funded schools, they are represented by a province-wide union. registered early childhood educators (reces) in ontario typically have a two-year community college diploma specializing in child development, though a minority have an undergraduate degree in early childhood education. reces are not certified to teach in publicly funded schools. many reces in fdk are unionized, canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 17 vol. 39 no. 3 but through a patchwork of different unions. unlike the octs, they are not part of a single provincial union that can speak for them with a united voice. in addition, they receive a lower salary relative to teachers and have significantly lower social status than kindergarten teachers. although the two professionals are meant to be a team, the kindergarten teachers in fdk are paid a much higher salary, have paid preparation time, and have more paid professional development time. the reces typically are not compensated for preparation or professional development time. the study the purpose of this study was to explore the nature of the interprofessional teaching team experience from the perspectives of the two types of education professionals working in fdk classrooms. specifically, our research question was this: from the perspectives of teaching teams at the forefront of this new program, what supports the process of creating equitable and effective teaching partnerships in full-day kindergarten classrooms? this study employed a qualitative approach (merriam, 2009; punch, 2009) although some quantitative data was collected. the participants were fdk teams (registered early childhood educator/ontario college of teachers certified teacher) from ontario, canada. data were collected through an anonymous online survey and in-person interviews. the survey included open-ended questions and was distributed through professional networks during the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 academic years. the purpose of the survey was to gather information about team members’ experiences, perceptions, and recommendations for program improvement. the hour-long semistructured interviews with self-selected fdk teams were conducted during the same time period in order to explore the emerging themes in more depth. total survey participation was 297 educators with a nearly even split between reces (46.5%) and octs (53.5%). all of the educators were part of a fdk teaching team in ontario during the 2011–2012 and/or 2012–2013 school years. for the purposes of this article, we analyzed one of the open-ended questions on the survey which asked participants for suggestions that they would offer to new fdk teams. we analyzed the responses from reces (104 replies) and octs (126 replies) separately, and then compared and contrasted them. findings there was a remarkable degree of agreement between the two groups of professionals regarding the advice they would give to new kindergarten teaching teams. the advice largely fell into two categories: interpersonal and structural. in terms of interpersonal relations, the educators talked about building relationships, communicating effectively, and negotiating roles and responsibilities. building relationships by far the loudest call from both groups of professional educators was to focus on building the team relationship. as one oct put it: being successful in this program is all about relationships. that doesn’t mean you have to be ‘best friends’ or even friends outside of work, but it does mean that a mutual relationship built on trust and respect is built slowly from the beginning of the year. (oct, march 12, 2013) the importance of trust and respect in building a positive and effective working relationship was echoed by the majority of participants in the study. they reported that mutual trust and respect helped them feel valued in the team and increased their enjoyment of their jobs. the following two quotes are typical of the advice we heard on this topic: treat each other as equals and respect each other. (rece, august 1, 2012) build a strong partnership and respect one another. have fun together! (oct, may 28, 2012) team members gave specific advice about how to achieve a positive team relationship. both eces and octs were clear that creating an effective team takes work. it involves considering each other as partners and deliberately recognizing each other’s experience and expertise, as the following responses indicate: see the team as a partnership. (rece, may 6, 2012) canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 18 vol. 39 no. 3 build your relationship deliberately. (oct, april 30, 2012) remember that you both bring a lot to the table and that you can learn a lot from each other. (oct, march 15, 2013) although the participants pointed out that teams do not need to be best friends (as an earlier quote mentions), nor do they have to be the same as each other, many reflected on the importance of building a personal as well as a professional relationship. the following quote exemplifies many of the comments we received on this topic: spend time getting to know each other before the year begins. for instance, my partner and i went out for tea and shared about our families, teaching philosophies, and experience. this way we got to know each other as human beings as well as teachers. (oct, march 12, 2013) given that eces and octs needed to work closely with each other daily, it is not surprising that the issue of relationships was strongly represented in their comments. however, the new challenges that each set of educators faced made the issue of relationships more salient. most of the eces had experience working in teams in child care, but were new to working in the school system. most octs had experience teaching kindergarten in schools, but had not worked with a teaching partner. the new full-day, play-based kindergarten curriculum was new to both sets of professionals. in the face of so many novel elements, the study participants advocate making the most of the partnership to create an effective program. communicating effectively is key one of the key ways to create and maintain a positive partnership is through effective communication, according to a great many of the participants. nearly every survey response mentioned ongoing communication in some way. many participants qualified the type of communication that was most beneficial. having “open” communication was valued, but mentions of it were often accompanied by cautions about being caring and respectful at the same time, as in the following participant quotes: communicate ideas, opinions, and plans with care and respect for the person you are working with. (rece, may 17, 2012) be open to sharing new ideas, challenging your partner, and listening to their viewpoint. (oct, march 12, 2013) many participants noted that while open communication is necessary for an effective partnership, it can be difficult to discuss some topics, and some things may be better left unsaid. both rece and oct participants shared this caution, as the following statements illustrate: have the hard conversations. it helps in the long run to express your feelings about things that are happening in the classroom. (rece, march 16, 2013) communication is key. always be open and honest with each other. know when to speak up and when to keep it to yourself. (oct, march 10, 2013) it is easy to understand why communication between two educators collaboratively running a program is important. it is also important to understand why it may be difficult in the context of fdk. the two groups of educators have had different professional education and training, which in most cases utilized different pedagogies of education and practice teaching in different educational settings. even if two team members had similar philosophies and approaches to educating young children, they likely had a different professional vocabulary to describe them. furthermore, fdk takes place within school boards, the “home turf” of octs. many reces are from outside the school system and are therefore “newcomers” who may not be as familiar with the procedures, routines, and terminology in that context. however, some reces have previously worked in the school system as educational assistants (eas) to octs. in this role, asserting their professional knowledge and practices may not have been considered appropriate, particularly when their perspectives offered a differing viewpoint. in contrast, the new integrated team teaching model in fdk requires both the rece and the oct to communicate their distinct knowledge and perspectives to form an innovative, dynamic team. in practice, this becomes very difficult when all octs have paid preparation time daily and most reces do not. therefore, there is not a built-in opportunity for the team to meet and discuss their work. the issue of preparation time will be addressed more fully in a later section. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 19 vol. 39 no. 3 negotiating roles and responsibilities the issue of establishing roles and responsibilities within the program was evidently an important one for team members. many participants wrote about the importance of clarity, but also of flexibility when deciding who would be responsible for different aspects of the program. participants reinforced the point that responsibilities needed to be shared based on the individuals in the team and not on a predetermined formula. indeed, being flexible, sharing responsibilities, and working from each other’s strengths were three of the most often cited pieces of advice for prospective team members. as one oct put it: find each other’s strengths and build on them. for example, i can’t sing but my partner sings beautifully. i have a strong interest in teaching literacy and my partner is strong in math instruction. (oct, march 12, 2013) many participants recommended meeting early in the year to discuss each other’s strengths, goals, and expectations for their working relationship and then basing individual responsibilities on this. they noted that doing so would not only make for a happier and more harmonious team but would also benefit the children. the following quotes from participants represent these responses: meet as early as possible as a team and get to know each other’s and your own goals for the coming year. find out what each other wants out of this experience and work together to ensure you are both happy—the kids know if you are not! (oct, march 12, 2013) everyone has strengths and weaknesses. figure out yours as individuals and as a team. use this knowledge to your advantage for a stimulating program. (rece, february 27, 2013) participants acknowledged that while conversations about roles and responsibilities are important, they can also be difficult, as this oct participant expressed: talk to each other about expectations, even if it is awkward. recognize each other’s strengths and try to divide duties that way. the way we have always done it doesn’t make it the best way. focus on the kids and building a program together. (oct, may 7, 2013) again, it is not difficult to understand why establishing roles and responsibilities is important yet challenging. in the course of a busy day in kindergarten, there is no time to stop and discuss how each part of the program will be handled and by whom. as trailblazers in a new early learning delivery model, team members need to know who will facilitate which parts of the program. yet fdk is a unique program and many aspects of it are left to the teaching team to figure out for themselves. while the fdk curriculum document is clear about some role differentiation between the two educators in the team (e.g., the oct is responsible for completing report cards), many other responsibilities are left to the team members, principals, and boards to allocate. while teaching team members strongly voiced that they value the flexibility inherent in the partnership, they also called for more training and support to help them manage the process. this point will be discussed more fully in a later section. implications the reflections and advice that the kindergarten teams shared have many implications at the classroom, school, school district, and education ministry levels. the teams were clear that the challenges they face are both interpersonal and structural, and that it will take time and continued support to effectively build on what they have started. in particular, they talked about holding on and letting go, structure and support, and recognition that the team is a work in progress. holding on and letting go for both reces and octs, building a positive and collaborative working relationship appeared to involve a dance of old and new, a process of holding on and letting go. both groups commented on the importance of bringing their past skills, experiences, and interests to the partnership, while acknowledging that the new program requires them to leave behind some familiar practices. the following quotes from participants exemplify this sentiment: be prepared for a different environment than child care. know the play-based curriculum! (rece, march 18, 2013) think long and hard about whether you want to be put in a position of sharing these responsibilities. it is not at all like working with an ea [educational assistant] who supports your program. (oct, may 10, 2013) although both reces and octs appear to be dealing with the process of holding on to aspects of their past professional practice while canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 20 vol. 39 no. 3 figuring out the new model, the advice from octs was far more focused on letting go of control, while the advice from reces focused on holding on to their professional knowledge and experience. the following comments from octs sought to reassure prospective fdk octs that the program is different from a traditional kindergarten program in which the teacher needs to control everything alone. in fdk they have a partner who not only shares what were the typical responsibilities of a kindergarten teacher, but who brings new skills and experience that will enhance the program. oct participants expressed it this way: let things go. don’t feel that you have to control everything. embrace the ece and learn from her skills/experience. have fun together! (oct, may 28, 2012) teachers need to learn to let go. (oct, march 13, 2013) be open to relinquishing some of your past roles and responsibilities. you are a team now and you need to give yourself permission to not do it all yourself! (oct, march 15, 2013) while octs advised prospective oct team members to take a step back from the central role in the classroom, reces advised prospective rece team members to assert themselves in their positions on the team. they advised “being confident,” “speaking up,” and claiming their role in the team, as the following participant quotes illustrate: be confident in your knowledge of early childhood education but understand that play-based learning does look different in the school boards. trial and error goes a long way. (rece, march 14, 2013) remember that you bring experience and expertise to your classroom. speak up about your experiences and work as a team. your knowledge of child development is an asset to the classroom. (rece, march 2, 2013) it’s not just the teacher’s job. it’s your job, too! (rece, january 23, 2013) the difference in the nature of advice given by octs and reces may be due to the nature of the position they occupy in the team. octs, as kindergarten teachers, are well recognized for what they do in the program. reces as teaching team members in kindergarten school classrooms, however, are a new phenomenon. many reces commented that they were regarded as teaching assistants (eas) by administration, other staff, and parents, and not as full team members. they called for widespread education about their role, as the following participant comments illustrate: why do all school staff mistake eces as eas? (rece, may 7, 2013) make parents understand that they can speak to either member of the team. make your school staff aware that you are a team. (oct, may 9, 2013) educate families and administration regarding team teaching. this is not an ea role. (rece, may 7, 2013) structure and support although the octs and reces gave a great deal of advice about building and maintaining a positive working relationship from within the partnership, they also had advice and suggestions for how other staff, administration, and the ministry of education could support the fdk teaching team. the success of the team was not seen as solely an interpersonal endeavour. the quotes in the previous section speak to the need for understanding and recognizing the nature of the teaching team by other groups, such as parents, staff, and administration. however, participants had advice about many other kinds of support that are needed from outside the team. regarding the earliest stages of team creation, team members had suggestions about how to create teams that were more likely to be effective and harmonious. the following participant comments raise the issue of compatibility. to have an effective team, they emphasize that consideration has to be given to the individuals being paired: the key to success would be both team members having the same philosophy and expectations regarding learning, behaviour, and classroom organization. this has been underestimated when hiring and creating teams, but it is the ‘make or break’ factor for harmony in the classroom and maximizing the learning experience for the kids. (oct, march 19, 2013) once the team has jelled successfully, the principal needs to let them work together in subsequent years. it takes time to find the right canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 21 vol. 39 no. 3 person to work with. (oct, may 12, 2013) team members in the study also specified particular types of training that they felt they needed to be successful. training in child development, curriculum content, pedagogy, and school terminology were all identified by the participants: give eces more training in teaching practices and terms that are used within the school classroom. (rece, may 17, 2012) eces need some literacy and numeracy training. (rece, may 18, 2012) we need more on child development for octs and more curriculum exposure for eces. (oct, may 28, 2012) in addition, team members in the study noted that they needed training and support in how to work together: we need more support in learning to work together (teachers especially). we need support in conflict resolution—how to deal with challenges. administrators need this support, too. (oct, may 14, 2013) these positions were created and implemented quickly, and no follow-up had been given to help teams learn and work together. . . . further training needs to be given in all areas. what training has been given has always been ‘share what you are already doing’ and not focused on directing both teacher and rece toward best practices. (oct, may 7, 2013) a major structural support that participants noted was lacking was a provision for daily planning time for the teams. octs have paid planning time as part of their collective agreement, but most reces do not. many teams reported planning before or after school, which is unpaid time for reces. joint planning time was seen as essential for collaborative learning and communication about the program and the children, as these participant quotes illustrate: allow eces and teachers planning time together. we need to work together and learn from each other. (oct, april 20, 2012) advocate for shared prep time. it is vital to planning a curriculum jointly and communicating meaningfully about children’s learning and other issues. (rece, may 17, 2012) a work in progress the full-day kindergarten teaching team members’ urgent call for increased outside support highlights the high expectations that have been put on team members to manage this new program and their roles within it largely on their own. full-day kindergarten is an innovative new program with a new play-based curriculum, staffed by two groups of education professionals who have not worked with each other in this capacity before. the program demands that octs and reces quickly build a working relationship through learning from and with one another while together planning and implementing a new curriculum. the challenges they report facing are not surprising given the newness of the program and the relative lack of key systemic supports for team building, team communication, and team professional learning. given the challenges they have faced over the first few years of this new program, it was all the more remarkable that the teams were able to share such wisdom and commitment with prospective fdk teams, as the following participant quotes illustrate: it is about coming to a middle ground with both teaching styles and making it work with everyone. a little give and take goes a long way while maintaining open communication. take it one step at a time. it can be overwhelming. . . . it will likely take several attempts to find a way that works best for you and your team. every team is going to be different. (rece, march 14, 2013) understand that each of you has things to learn and remember that the children come first. (oct, march 12, 2013) discussion and conclusion the advice given by members of fdk teaching teams in their first or second year of the new program echoes many of the findings and recommendations of recent research on ecec and school integration, and interprofessional learning and practice. as the better beginnings, better futures (bbbf) study found (corter & peters, 2011), the participants in this study emphasized the importance of clarifying roles and creating positive, trusting working relationships. they advocated deliberately building strong partnerships through recognizing each other’s expertise in order to help manage the new elements of the full-day, play-based, interprofessional teaching team canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 22 vol. 39 no. 3 program. they identified ongoing effective communication amid the challenges of different professional educations, vocabularies, and statuses as key. fdk teams also called for strong leadership from administration to support the team, and time for paid staff development, as was recommended in the toronto first duty (tfd) study (corter & peters, 2011). administrative leadership and support was requested by the fdk teams in the form of purposeful team creation for compatibility, recognition for the team and specifically for the role of the rece, and education and training opportunities. specifically, the fdk teams advocated training in child development for octs and in school curriculum and processes for reces. although the participants in this study had no formal training in interprofessional learning and practice, they clearly identified some of the key principals advocated by the centre for the advancement of inter-professional education (2011). the fdk teaching teams’ experience led them to advise future teams to set aside differences in power and status and to utilize their distinctive contributions to learning and practice. for both members of the team, this entailed holding on to some aspects of their previous knowledge and practice and letting go of others. the octs in the team advised letting go of control, while the reces advised holding on to their knowledge and skills and entering assertively into the partnership. the teams went beyond interpersonal advice, however, and focused on necessary structural changes and supports, similar to the recommendations of kaga, bennett, and moss (2010) in their international study of the integration of ecec into the school system. while the new fdk program does contain innovative structural changes, a full day for 4and 5-year-olds, a new curriculum and a team of one rece and one oct, the participants in this study agree with the recommendations of the unesco study (kaga et al., 2010) that more structural change and support is required in the form of paid preparation time and professional development for the team. the participants in the study addressed both the benefits and risks to integration that kaga et al. (2010) identified in their study. kaga et al. (2010) noted that a potential benefit of integration is the higher valuation of the ece workforce. the reces in this study recognize that greater valuation of their skills and expertise is needed, but note that it has not been sufficiently realized, and they call for this increased valuation. they also acknowledge that a potential risk identified by kaga et al. (2010) is also a risk in ontario’s fdk program: the “schoolification” of young children. in this study, the reces caution future reces in fdk teams to remember and speak up regarding their knowledge and experience of developmentally appropriate practice. the fdk teams also called for structural support in the form of joint professional education and training. in fact, this education and training were part of the original program vision as set out by pascal (2009) in his recommendations for the new fdk program. pascal advocated interprofessional preservice as well as in-service education for reces and octs so that the two professionals would be able to experience reciprocal mentoring (pascal, 2009). while there have been some joint in-service opportunities, as of yet there is no provision for interprofessional preservice education and training. the health care research literature also emphasizes the importance of joint professional development at both the preand in-service levels (hall, 2005; norsen, opladen, & quinn, 1995; sargeant et al., 2008). furthermore, the in-service opportunities that have been offered are insufficient and inequitable because octs have paid professional development time and reces typically do not. opportunities for joint learning are largely left to the discretion of the principal. a recent evaluation of the fdk program found that where professional learning was available to support program implementation during the first two years, it was most often the octs who attended (ontario ministry of education, 2013). however, fdk teams identified the efforts and advocacy of the teacher federations “to support the advancements of knowledge and day-to-day practice” within the first years of implementation (ontario ministry of education, 2013, p. 15). moreover, the structure of the fdk team and the structure of the kindergartens’ full day has not been implemented as was originally envisioned (pascal, 2009). pascal advocated for two reces, one starting early to staff the early morning before the start of the typical school day and staying until past midday, and the other to start before midday and stay until the late afternoon, after the end of the typical school day. one oct would join the team for half the day. kindergarten children would not need before and after school child care. therefore, the children would experience a “seamless” day in one room from early morning until late afternoon, and the three educators would overlap at midday. what is happening instead in most schools is that one rece and one oct staff the traditional full school day, and other reces staff the before and after school programs, either in the same room or elsewhere. a significant result of this change to the original vision, apart from the loss of the seamless day for the children, is the loss of the second rece. two reces in the team could have supported each other in the transition to the school system and this innovative approach to kindergarten. it is remarkable that in a program that was so rapidly launched, in just over a year from the tabling of pascal’s summer 2009 report to the beginning of fdk implementation in september 2010, the new fdk teams achieved this level of wisdom and insight into their interprofessional teamwork. these voices from the field remind us that this new program requires a great deal from the interprofessional canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 23 vol. 39 no. 3 educator teams in terms of professional innovation, flexibility, and collaboration. the ontario government has invested heavily in this new program, both financially and politically. they have continued to roll out the implementation yearly, with full implementation across the province expected by september 2014. to further support a smooth implementation of the program and the ongoing work of the kindergarten teaching teams in fdk, key supports need to be reinforced, such as the coordination of equitable professional learning by colleges and universities, professional organizations, school boards, and the ministry of education; more common planning time for team members; and more clearly defined roles and responsibilities of team members, which would still allow for flexibility to draw on individual and professional strengths. acknowledgments we would like to thank the fdk team members in ontario for sharing their wisdom and expertise. references centre for the advancement of inter-professional education. (2011). principles of inter-professional education. retrieved from: http://www.caipe.org.uk/about-us/principlesof-interprofessional-education/ corter, c., & peters, r. (2011). integrated early childhood services in canada: evidence from the better beginnings, better futures (bbbf) and toronto first duty (tfd) projects. retrieved from: http://www.eyeonkids.ca/docs/files/corter-peters_article.pdf dunston, r., lee, adrian, lee, alison, matthews, l., nisbet, g., pockett, r., thistlethwaite, j., & white, j. (2009). inter-professional health education in australia: the way forward. retrieved from: http://www.health.wa.gov.au/wactn/docs/wayforward.pdf friendly, m. (2008). building a strong and equal partnership between childcare and early childhood education in canada. international journal of child care and education policy, 2(1), 39–52. hall, p. (2005). inter-professional teamwork: professional cultures as barriers. journal of inter-professional care, supplement 1, 188–196. kaga, y., bennett, j., & moss, p. (2010). caring and learning together: a cross-national study of integration of early childhood care and education within education. unesco: paris, france. retrieved from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001878/187818e.pdf merriam, s. (2009). qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. muttart foundation. (2012, october). integrating childcare and early education: a central theme in early learning and care. muttart foundation: edmonton, ab. retrieved from: http://www.muttart.org/ norsen, l., opladen, j., & quinn, j. (1995). practice model: collaborative practice. critical care nursing clinics north america, 7, 43–52. nuttall, j. (2013). inter-professional work with young children in hospital: the role of ‘relational agency.’ early years, 33(4), 413–425. organisation for economic co-operation and development. (2004). canada country note. thematic review of early childhood education and care. paris, france: author. ontario ministry of education. (2011). full-day kindergarten. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/kindergarten/whatwillmychildlearnanddo.html ontario ministry of education. (2013). a meta-perspective on the evaluation of full-day kindergarten during the first two years of implementation. retrieved from: http://www. edu.gov.on.ca/kindergarten/fdkreport2013.pdf ontario ministry of training, colleges, and universities. (2012, december). early childhood education program standard. retrieved from: http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/pepg/ audiences/colleges/progstan/humserv/eerchedu.pdf pascal, c. (2009). with our best future in mind: integrating early learning in ontario. retrieved from: https://ozone.scholarsportal.info/bitstream/1873/15094/1/293046.pdf punch, k. (2009). introduction to research methods in education. london, uk: sage. sargeant, j., loney, e., & murphy, g. (2008). effective inter-professional teams: “contact is not enough” to build a team. journal of continuing education in the health professions, 28(4), 228–234. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 24 vol. 39 no. 3 poling bork is a doctoral candidate in educational studies at brock university. having devoted over six years to researching selective mutism (sm) to help her son overcome this “unfamiliar” anxiety disorder, poling is dedicating her research to psychoeducational assessments and interventions for children with sm and other related anxiety disorders. with her undergraduate degree in computer science, poling is currently investigating how to incorporate technology in the sm intervention program. email: mentor@brocku.ca dr. debra harwood is an associate professor in early childhood education at brock university. her current research endeavours include an exploration of parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of early literacies, making learning visible in early years contexts, and student engagement and successes within aboriginal communities. dr. sheila bennett is a professor and current chair of the department of teacher education in the faculty of education at brock university. co-author of special education in ontario schools, dr. bennett’s current research interests include special education service delivery, inclusion, and policy. using play as a key to unlocking the silence for children with selective mutism poling bork, debra harwood, and sheila m. bennett johnny is a quiet boy who is about to turn 5. his mom wants johnny to have the opportunity to make friends and be prepared for his transition next year to kindergarten at the local elementary school, so johnny is currently attending westlake’s full-day play-based child care program. his educator has often noticed that johnny plays with and whispers to only one of his fellow playmates, jacob, a neighbourhood friend who also joined the child care program. a few months have passed, and it has become apparent that johnny does not speak to anyone else in the program, including the educator. if johnny needs anything, he asks jacob to convey his needs (e.g., asking for a snack, a toy, or going to the washroom). during circle time, the educator can’t get johnny to participate or speak one word. he often appears to be frozen on the spot when approached by anyone and he “refuses” to make a sound. feeling frustrated, the educator asked a resource teacher to intervene, but johnny remained silent. both professionals then contacted johnny’s parents to discuss their concerns. children like johnny (a pseudonym) have an anxiety disorder known as selective mutism (sm). sm is defined as the persistent failure to speak in specific social situations (such as child care programs and school) where speaking is expected, despite the child’s ability to speak in other situations (american psychiatric association, 2013). children with sm have the ability and desire to talk, yet persistently fail to speak in social situations where speaking in front of others is expected. and, despite prevalence rates estimated as high as two percent (kumpulainen, räsänen, raaska, & somppi, 1998), many children with sm spend years without a diagnosis. frontline educators often face the challenges of including a child with sm in classroom activities with limited resources, support, or knowledge. in most cases, parents are unaware that a problem exists. often parents have been told by health care professionals that their child is simply shy and that he or she will “outgrow” the behaviour (shipon-blum, 2003, 2011). for many children like johnny, sm is not discovered until the child’s educator notices the child’s consistent failure to speak and reports a concern (sharp, sherman, & gross, 2006). in this purely theoretical article, we posit that play is an invaluable medium to both meet the learning needs of the child with sm and provide a context to lessen the anxieties associated with being seen or heard speaking, thereby fostering more abilities for the child to engage in communicating. the educator’s role as an informed and intentional co-player is specifically highlighted as an added resource needed to meet the needs of children with sm in the early years classroom. imagine being 4 and not being able to ask for a toy or snack when you attend your early years program. selective mutism (sm) is the persistent failure to speak in specific social situations where speaking is expected. it results from intense anxiety and occurs in spite of a child’s ability to speak in other situations, like the home environment. children with sm can have lifelong issues with being able to engage with others, speak publicly, and succeed academically. in this article, the authors propose that play is a valuable and necessary medium to meet the needs of the child with sm, foster resiliency, and promote well-being. additionally, play provides a much-needed context to lessen the anxieties associated with being seen or heard speaking. the educator’s role is specifically assessed as an asset to meet the needs of children with sm in the early years classroom. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 25 vol. 39 no. 3 selective mutism—what is it? what’s it like? because they may speak in one context and not others, children with sm are often misunderstood. historically, their “refusal” to speak was thought to be intentional and defiant (kratochwill, 1981). today, although awareness of sm continues to rise, the disorder is not recognized as a federal category of disability in the united states. consequently, many children with sm are still not identified early and provided with needed support. the longer the mutism persists, the more entrenched the condition becomes (shipon-blum, 2011). sm persists into adulthood and can negatively impact a person’s emotional, educational, occupational, and socialization experiences across the life span. thus, finding ways to support children with sm is of paramount importance and needs to start with a child’s first transition to any formal learning environment (schwartz, freedy, & sheridan, 2006). many children with sm tend to blush, avoid eye contact, fidget, and exhibit social withdrawal when speech is expected, and/or they may appear to be frozen in a spot when spoken to directly. diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fifth edition (dsm-v) defines sm as consistent failure to speak in specific social situations in which speech is expected (e.g., at school), despite speaking in other situations. dsm-v also states that:  the disturbance interferes with educational or occupational achievement or with social communication.  the duration of the disturbance is at least one month (not limited to the first month of school).  the failure to speak is not due to a lack of knowledge of, or comfort with, the spoken language required in a social situation.  the disturbance is not better explained by a communication disorder (e.g., childhood onset fluency disorder) and does not occur exclusively during the course of autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, or another psychotic disorder. (american psychiatric association, 2013, p. 195). a formal learning context can be intimidating for many young children because it often represents their first transition from home life to a more formalized environment. this feeling of intimidation may explain the early age of onset of sm, which typically occurs between the ages of 3 and 5 (garcia, freeman, francis, miller, & leonard, 2004). the environment, expectations, and individuals can all be vastly different within an early learning environment compared to a child’s experience at home. for a child, the idea that “i need to ask for play dough, request a snack, or sing the morning welcome song” can be daunting and anxiety provoking. and, since sm appears most predominantly within, and appears to be triggered by, the learning environment, researchers (cline & baldwin, 2004) suggest that strategies and interventions need to take place within the classroom context. unfortunately, many children with sm might experience delays of up to four years in having these interventions and support plans operationalized (sharp et al., 2006). thus, it is not surprisingly that 63% of children with sm are also described as withdrawn (kumpulainen et al., 1998). despite a lack of noticeable differences in arithmetic and overall academic performance, older school-age children with sm tend to have lower reading test scores (cunningham, mcholm, boyle, & patel, 2004). however, because young children need ample opportunities to practice with oral communication and receptive and expressive language (morrow, 2012; morrow & dougherty, 2011), it is not surprising that children with sm often suffer from speech and language delays as well. children with sm also tend to experience difficulties in social skill development resulting from this lack of practice with social engagement in comparison to their peers (cunningham et al., 2004). additionally, it is estimated that only 30% to 40% of children older than 12 who are diagnosed and treated properly will speak to a wide circle of schoolmates throughout their schooling experiences (bergman, piacentini, & mccracken, 2002). therefore, finding ways to accommodate and support young children’s needs within an early years environment is extremely important and sets the foundation for lifelong learning. unfortunately, educators are rarely provided with proper information, and additional supports for children with sm vary. these inconsistencies and lack of knowledge may result in educators unintentionally reinforcing the child’s mutism behaviour through actions such as making eye contact when speaking to them, asking direct questions, attempting to persuade the child to talk, bribery, or accepting the child’s silence (omdal, 2008). so how can an educator meet the needs of a child with sm in a classroom or program? using play as a key to well-being children’s play seems to be an obvious place to start in considering three important factors: (1) play “is important in a child’s experience”; (2) play “provides a useful window for assessing development”; and (3) play “is an important domain for intervention” (lifter, mason, & barton, 2011, p. 282). play is multifunctional and serves many intellectual and social-emotional purposes for the developing child (saracho & spodek, 2003). canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 26 vol. 39 no. 3 adapting lifter and bloom’s (1998) definition of play, we too propose that “play is the expression of intentional states—the representations in consciousness constructed from what children know about and are learning from ongoing events—and consists of spontaneous, naturally occurring activities with objects that engage attention and interest.” (p. 164) however, because lifter and bloom restricted their framework to object play, a significant area of research and theoretical exploration, we offer that play with others (i.e., the social aspect of play) is also significant for children with sm in that social play affords a major context for social-emotional development (fromberg & bergen, 2006; rubin, fein, & vandenberg, 1983) for the child with intense fears of being seen or heard speaking. as samuelsson and carlsson (2008) state, “in play, children communicate and interpret continuously in the negotiation with peers and role play” (p. 627), thus the social aspect of play is significant for children with sm. additionally, play has long been held as one of the important contributors to fostering resiliency in vulnerable children (berger & lahad, 2010; fearn & howard, 2012; mortimer, 2004; nowakowski et al., 2011). and children with sm are vulnerable to a variety of social-emotional and communicative delays the longer the mutism persists (omdal, 2007). play as a medium for learning various conceptualizations of play have resulted in distinct definitions of what constitutes play. relational play, pretend play, symbolic play, object play, and rough-and-tumble play are just a few examples of these varied conceptualizations and meanings (lifter et al., 2011). several researchers informed mayfield’s (2001) compiled list of constructs that defines children’s play as voluntary, nonliteral, active, and meaningful. mayfield adds that play is “child-directed, intrinsically motivating, flexible, fun, often spontaneous, and free from external rules” (p. 257). learning, on the other hand, is often associated with adult-initiated activities within an educational context. often play and learning are separated by time and structures within classrooms (e.g., circle time as instructional time versus free play; literacy centre versus outdoor playground; samuelsson & carlsson, 2008). like samuelsson and carlsson, here we wish to highlight and examine the symbiotic and mutually interdependent constructs of play and learning to address how the two are related—a topic that remains largely undiscussed. certainly, from a child’s perspective, play and learning are not always mutually exclusive practices (samuelsson & carlsson, 2008). and perhaps the historical paradox between play and learning within early years education is no longer pertinent and one can examine the commonalities shared by play and learning to counter the enigma of pitting one against the other. play and learning share several theoretical concepts, such as creativity (miller, cable, & goodliff, 2010; russ, 2003), divergent thinking (russ & schafer, 2006), and mindfulness (langer, 1993). creativity is significant in both play and learning because both cognitive and affective processes are implicated (russ, 2003). here, we emphasize the significance of the creative process (versus the creative product) as a legitimate outcome of children’s play, particularly pretend play (russ & dillon, 2011; torrance, 1962). in pretence, children’s creativity is cultivated because pretend play involves make believe, the imagination, fantasy, innovative problem solving, and assigning literal meaning to the nonliteral (singer & singer, 1990). in pretend play, children can create a magical castle with an alligator-filled moat and a pet dragon from an empty cardboard box. in pretend play, children negotiate complex roles through action and language. they also sustain the theme of the play by utilizing a complex system of problem solving and divergent and creative thinking. divergent thinking has long been recognized within learning as a highorder skill (bloom, 1956). in play, divergent thinking is naturally involved as children generate multiple ideas and solutions and make literal and remote associations with playmates and playthings (russ & dillon, 2011, p. 330). play (like storytelling and play acting) is the “universal medium” through which children express themselves (paley, 1990, p. 10). and, as nicolopoulou (2005) emphasizes, “both play and storytelling should be viewed as complementary expressions of children’s symbolic imagination that draw from and reflect back upon the inter-related domains of emotional, intellectual, and social life” (p. 496). mindfulness is described as “a state of mind that results from drawing novel distinctions, examining information from new perspectives, and being sensitive to context” (langer, 1993, p. 44). in the learning process, mindfulness means remaining open to possibilities, being creative in exploring alternative perspectives, and being able to recognize the diversity of possible answers and explanations. an observation of a selectively mute preschooler playing with a train track illustrates this mindfulness concept in action. as the 4-year-old child trials countless track and train configurations to achieve the goal of transporting her passengers between town and the station, one can see the endless possibilities and responses to meet the needs of her goal. this is mindfulness. in sum, when play is construed as a reflection of a “child’s construction of knowledge about objects, people, and events” (lifter et al., 2011, p. 282) the value of play within early years settings cannot be overestimated. for the child, play is voluntary, self-initiated, engaging, pleasurable, and self-motivating (rubin et al., 1983). play is a medium of creativity, expression, communication, and thinking that the child is well versed with and immersed in within daily life. as paley (1990) highlights, “there is a tendency to look upon the noisy repetitious fantasies of children as non-educational, but helicopters and kittens and superhero capes and barbie dolls are storytelling canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 27 vol. 39 no. 3 aids and conversational tools” (p. 39) as well as mediums of children’s meaning making. perhaps by examining play and learning as complementary constructs, new avenues can be explored that challenge the more “verbocentric” (fueyo, 1991) and traditional program practices of early years education (harwood & bork, 2011). for the child with sm, play provides a mode of communication that she or he is already familiar with and comforted by—making it an obvious and necessary avenue for the child’s success. play as a medium for intervention and accommodation play provides a mirror of the child’s level of development (russ, 2003). moreover, play offers a context for practicing skills and fuelling developmental change. thus, play serves as an important conduit for intervention strategies that are both developmentally appropriate and contextually relevant for the child with sm (lifter et al., 2011). additionally, play offers a suitable alternative to standardized forms of assessing children’s learning that are often required of an early years educator (linder & linas, 2009). the role that play can have in addressing the needs of a child with sm in an early years program is apparent. selective mutism can severely limit a child’s ability to engage in some of the more formalized traditional program practices, such as circle time, the morning greeting song, calendar time, question and answer story recall, and many others. formal practices that rely on direct eye contact, overt verbal communication, and whole-group formats present a particular challenge for the child with a debilitating fear of being seen or heard speaking. often children with sm are unable to communicate or raise their hands to participate in these everyday classroom routines, and many of the children may also be socially withdrawn (kumpulainen et al., 1998). hence, it is important that educators plan play activities and tasks that do not rely solely on direct involvement of speech (e.g., whole-class dramatizations of the morning welcome song). educators must include the child in varied ways to avoid reinforcing the child’s exclusion (bork & harwood, 2010). table 1 (bork, 2010) highlights a few play activities that are age appropriate and important to consider including within an early years program, since the onset of sm coincides with entry into a formal learning environment. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 28 vol. 39 no. 3 table 1. some learning activities that involve play to help engage children with selective mutism (adapted from bork, 2010). sm severity type of engagement rationale/benefit for children who are severely mute (unable to make a sound or eye contact) … to those who are mute but somewhat relaxed and are ready to risk speaking 1. play that involves puppets children have vivid imaginations. some children with sm may lose themselves during play and believe that the puppets are speaking, not themselves! pair children who are extremely anxious with a partner in case they fail to make a sound and are put on the spot. the gentlest way to carry this out is to involve the child as a silent character and gradually move on. 2. sign language and/or symbolic language teach everyone in the classroom some basic sign language and use it daily. encourage students to use sign language to ask to go to the washroom. signs such as “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad” can also be very helpful. an important note: do not make it obvious that sign language or other activities are specifically implemented for the child with sm. incorporate sign language in some of the program’s routines, such as the “good morning” greeting song. if sign language is not an option, then any symbol system can be used for communication. giving each child a set of simple shapes in red, green, and yellow can help them communicate when concepts are too challenging (red), are easy to understand (green), or the child needs more time to fully understand (yellow). 3. imitate animal sounds although children with sm are unable to speak, many of them will make funny sounds and laugh out loud. if the child is unable to repeat words, try to induce play and have the children imitate animal sounds (bark, roar, etc.). try using maurice sendak’s classic where the wild things are as a starting point. 4. turn off the lights children with sm are afraid of being heard or seen speaking (mcholm, cunningham, & vanier, 2005). turning off the light in a bright room (in a safe place and ensuring that every child is alright with this) and teaching them new words can be fun. for instance, inside a dark room, the educator (who turns her back to her students) yells, “let’s bring some light to this room” and spells l-i-g-h-t. once the students repeat the spelling, a tiny little light illuminates. then the teacher can move onto other words, such as candle, lamp, sun, star, etc. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 29 vol. 39 no. 3 sm severity type of engagement rationale/benefit for children who are severely mute (unable to make a sound or eye contacts) …to those who are mute but somewhat relaxed and ready to risk speaking 5. blindfold the educator the educator is usually the most anxiety-provoking figure inside the classroom (mcholm et al., 2005). the reason behind this remains unclear; however, it is safe to assume that the anxiety associated with the educator may be caused by the fact that, besides being larger in size, the teacher has expectations of the children (including the expectation of speech) and is usually facing them (making eye contact). therefore, blindfolding the educator as part of a safe, game-related activity may entice a child with sm to engage in speaking opportunities. 6. blindfold everyone this idea has the same rationale as 4 and 5. the idea is to create multiple opportunities for the child to practice hearing his own voice inside the learning environment. the child will eventually realize it is fun to take part in activities, and believe in her ability to do so. 7. clapping and chanting include hand clapping and foot stomping in music and games. teach the class simple rhythmic chants with simple choreographed physical movement to convey messages. for instance, use “we want lunch!” clap-clap to signal lunch and “we want drink!” to signal drinks. if no one is paying attention, the child with sm may loosen up and take part in the physical movement. therefore, do not face or look at the child initially to lessen this anxiety (johnson & witgens, 2001). this activity also teaches children that two claps means food and two stomps means drinks. this way, a child with sm who is hungry or thirsty may be able to convey that message to the educator. 8. hide and seek this is a great way for everyone to learn how to count numbers from 1 to 100. encourage everyone to take part in counting while hiding. 9. go fish and others playing games is another good way for children to learn their numbers that requires minimal speech. card games like go fish and board games (e.g., cadoo®, funglish®, twister®) are fun and educational. it is important to note that the suggested list of play activities is not exhaustive, and by no means do the authors intend to imply that by simply including play, the selective mutism will be alleviated. rather, we posit that play offers an accessible, equitable, universal medium that values the sm child’s way of knowing and being in the world, empowering that child to feel comfortable and included in all program activities. the intentional educator also has a significant role in ensuring that the child’s strengths, interests, and abilities are reflected in the microcosm of classroom life. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 30 vol. 39 no. 3 the educator as co-player informed, intentional, authentic educators can help create an inclusive environment, one that fosters well-being and resiliency for a child with sm. the educator as co-player is a keen observer and documents children’s interests, learning approaches, and rhythms to inform both their own teaching practices and the educational experiences that are made available in the classroom context (jones, 1999). educators’ interactions with children as a co-player demonstrate a greater impact on children’s oral language development than either more directed approaches or noninvolvement in children’s play (enz & christie, 1993). by engaging the child with sm as a co-player in authentic ways, the educator can lessen the anxiety inherent in their role as the teacher and promote greater agency for the child to find suitable mediums for more expressive communication. in addition to the educator as co-player, other varied approaches can be used by educators to create opportunities for young children with sm to participate and succeed within situations that do not produce anxiety. strategies such as getting to know the child in different contexts (e.g., at home), collaborating with other professionals, and incorporating play can all contribute to reducing anxiety and encouraging speaking in the classroom environment. understanding the child with selective mutism it is imperative that educators know that speaking is not a choice for children with sm. most children with sm want to speak, but are unable to do so. as such, children with sm will go to extremes to avoid verbal communication. younger children often have accidents inside the early years program because they are unable to ask to go to the washroom. as they get older, they learn to avoid drinking water unless there are other outlets for them to communicate. over time, these children become very adept at avoidance strategies and thus often suffer from a wide variety of social developmental issues, such as low self-esteem and substance abuse, and helplessly “allow” their mutism behaviour to persist into adulthood (remschmidt, poller, herpertz-dahlmann, henninghausen, & gutenbrunner, 2001). educators hold an important and unique position to identify these children, and they play a pivotal role in facilitating the much-needed timely intervention. as with all children, building rapport with a child with sm is important. to connect with a child with sm, educators need to gain the child’s trust. simple approaches, such as avoiding direct eye contact and letting the child know there is no initial expectation for speech, can greatly reduce the child’s anxiety. the educator can also make home visits to establish rapport with the child, discover the child’s interests and strengths, and “prepare the environment and curriculum to reflect these needs” (allen, paasche, langford, & nolan, 2011, p. 64). in addition, children should be encouraged to visit their new program with their parents and pay conversational visits prior to officially starting in the new educational environment. create an inclusive classroom to make the child feel less anxious by definition, children with sm “shut down” when there is an expectation for speech. therefore, any attempt to force or trick them to talk may strengthen their refusal to speak and deepen the child’s social exclusion. the following general guidelines are helpful in creating a program that does not provoke anxiety for a child with sm:  most children with sm do not wish to be noticed. avoid putting the child on the spot or making the child the centre of attention.  do not insist on making eye contact initially, and avoid speaking to the child face to face.  do not pressure or bribe a child to speak. give the child time to conquer fears slowly.  assist children to convey their needs by providing them with a variety of alternative means (e.g., simple written notes, pictures, communicative devices like a go talk now© application).  help children feel more at ease inside the classroom by pairing them with someone they are comfortable with.  avoid asking questions that the child is unable to respond to through alternative means.  assess the child through a process of observation and documentation versus direct tools that rely on speaking (e.g., direct questioning, call and response techniques).  include playful activities that involve minimal speech so the child will be more likely to join in.  act as a co-player alongside the child, authentically engaging in the child’s play and encouraging the child to take the lead and canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 31 vol. 39 no. 3 direct the play.  if the child has a sibling attending the same centre, provide plenty of opportunities for the child to practice audible speech inside the program with the sibling present.  invite immediate family members into the program regularly to converse with the child within the early learning environment.  when the child speaks for the first time, do not show extreme excitement. it is best to pretend that nothing unusual has happened and carry on the conversation to ensure the child feels there is no turning back.  it may take several years for a child to overcome sm, so be patient and communicate with the child’s next educator. note that the important goal is to reduce anxiety while creating a setting that fosters communication through both direct and indirect speech. to accomplish this goal, consider combining strategies such as reorganizing the room’s physical layout, incorporating play into all learning activities, collaborating with other personnel, and using assistive technologies (e.g., ipads, go talk now©, audio/video recorders). it is important to remember that each child with sm is unique, with anxieties and level of mutism that may be distinctly different from other children with sm. thus, each plan and strategy will need to be tailored to the specifics of that child’s comfort level. strategies and goals for fostering communication and reducing anxieties will need to consider children’s existing patterns of speaking according to the location (where the child feels most comfortable), people (who the child speaks with or avoids speaking to), and activities; aim for a balance of activities that require speaking and those that do not, and plan activities of interest to the child (mcholm et al., 2005). conclusion children with sm predominately fail to speak inside the early years setting although they are fully capable of speaking in other contexts, such as the home environment. thus, educators are on the front line and need to collaborate with parents and experts to provide an inclusive classroom that accommodates and maximizes the children’s social, educational, and emotional experiences. throughout this article we proposed that play offers an accessible and invaluable medium to meet the needs of the child with sm. the view of the playing-learning child (samuelsson & carlsson, 2008) can help fuel a dialogue within education and impel research to examine play as a context for addressing the needs of children with sm within early learning settings. the educator’s role as an informed and intentional co-player was also specifically highlighted as an added resource to meet the needs of children with sm in the early years classroom. we contend that through an inclusive play-based philosophy and an early identification system, children with sm will be able to express their thoughts and ideas and participate as full members of the early learning environment. by providing the child with plenty of “speaking” outlets through play 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(1962). creative thinking of children. journal of teacher education, 13(4), 448–460. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 34 vol. 39 no. 3 laura teichert is a phd student at the university of british columbia in the department of language and literacy education. previously, she worked as an early literacy specialist in ontario and completed earlier degrees at western university (london, on) and deakin university (australia). email: teichert.la@gmail.com 21st-century vision using a 20th-century curriculum: examining british columbia’s kindergarten curriculum package laura teichert in an increasingly digital and technological world, it is perhaps to be expected that many young children are using digital technologies and new media from an early age (plowman, mcpake, & stephen, 2008). for example, approximately 70% of american children aged 4 to 6 years have used a computer, spending an average of one hour per day using the computer, with approximately 56% of these children having used one independently (hisrich & blanchard, 2009). it is thought that children develop their understanding of the role of media and technology in society through observation as technology is used in socially and culturally relevant practices (marsh et al., 2005) by older siblings, parents, caregivers, and so forth. as such, “preschoolers are there, inextricably intertwined within the interaction of people, language and digital media” (hisrich & blanchard, 2009, p. 242). in canada, data from the 2009–2010 school year indicate that more than 71,000 students were using the learnnowbc online system and that one out of every three students takes at least one online course before graduating from secondary school (premier’s technology council, 2010). during the 2011–2012 academic year, the courses with the highest enrollment were at the senior secondary level; however, courses from kindergarten to grade 12 are available to bc students through distributed learning schools (british columbia ministry of education, business, technology, and online service, 2012). distributed learning schools offer courses for any school-aged student or nongraduated adult in bc in accordance with bc ministry of education quality standards. tutorials and early learning supports are also available on the learnnowbc website (http://www.learnnowbc.ca), including information for parents, students, and teachers about online learning. created in 2001, bc’s premier’s technology council (2010) has noted a need to emphasize technology and e-learning in addressing potential future shortages in work force skills. yet, early childhood educators and primary teachers, although technologically savvy in their personal practices, appear not to embrace digital tools in classrooms. a deficit model of digital engagement suggests that media make children “passive learners” and take away from more worthwhile activities, such as outdoor play (razfar & yang, 2010). wolfe and flewitt (2010) found that their participant early childhood educators were concerned that a technology-dominated childhood was toxic because of increased inactivity and “an inability to critically evaluate competing sources of information” (p. 391). further, they were concerned that technology was damaging to “family time” in that communication among family members suffered as children were allowed to absorb themselves in digital worlds. other reasons for the lack of digital uptake by educators comes from a perceived lack of experience and expertise and limited curriculum instruction supports (murphy & beggs, 2003; plowman & stephen, 2005; robertsholmes, 2013; wolfe & flewitt, 2010). educators also believe that children spend enough time engaging with digital screens, yet not all children have the same level of access to new technologies and digital media. children enter schools with varying levels of technology experience. for example, dodge, husain, and duke (2011) found that 16% of their kindergarten to grade 2 participants were unable to successfully connect to the internet, 16% of participants needed assistance opening a website, and 54% needed the researcher to open the site entirely and did not understand the “back” button. schools can play a role in addressing equity issues by providing opportunities for children to learn and engage with this article provides a critical analysis of british columbia’s early learning curricula concerning 21st-century education and the role of digital technology in the early years. the data sources were the premier’s technology council: a vision for 21stcentury education (premier’s technology council, 2010), bc’s education plan (british columbia ministry of education, 2011), and the kindergarten curriculum package (british columbia ministry of education, september 2010). rapid advances in technology call for a review of traditional curriculum standards and active movement toward a realization of 21stcentury education beyond mere vision. as children navigate an increasingly digital world, one with blurred lines between content and advertising, critical thinking and critical analysis skills are essential in order for children to effectively manage the vast amounts of information available to them. educators and policy makers, through curricula developed reflecting digital media use, can play an important role in educating young, technologically engaged students. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 35 vol. 39 no. 3 digital media. the national association for the education of young children (naeyc) has acknowledged that early childhood care settings could narrow the gap between children from homes with less access and those with more access through “skillful teaching and complementary resources” (2012, p. 4) and access for exploration of digital tools, such as digital cameras or audio and video recorders. lankshear and knobel (2004) describe the “world of texts” (p. 5) as significantly changed, becoming multimodal and incorporating print, images, and sound, yet print is the major focus of instruction in many kindergarten and primary classrooms. schools maintain differences between old and new technologies while children move seamlessly between technologies and do not distinguish between them (davidson, 2009). the purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of british columbia’s early learning curricula concerning 21st-century education. the data sources were the premier’s technology council: a vision for 21st-century education (premier’s technology council, 2010), bc’s education plan (british columbia ministry of education, 2011) and the kindergarten curriculum package (british columbia ministry of education, september 2010). the paper critically examines the discourse in the premier’s technology council’s vision and bc’s education plan as well as the current educational review underway in british columbia, and compares and contrasts these visions. the paper then examines the kindergarten curriculum package, the prescribed document for bc teachers to use in classrooms, for aspects of 21st-century educational visions that could be implemented into classroom practice if schools and/or educators wished to integrate a 21st-century vision into an earlier curriculum model. theoretical background conceptions of early literacy development have experienced a significant shift in the first decade of the millennium. print-based literacy is no longer seen as the exclusive medium toward children’s literacy development; rather, it is recognized that a more “robust semiotic field that includes a variety of electronic media” (razfar & yang, 2010, p. 122) has proliferated into the daily lives of adults and children. both adults and children are “expected to fluently interact in an increasingly diverse world using multiple mediational tools and modalities” (p. 122). yet, literacy within preschools and schools remains entrenched in a print-based literacy model despite educational theorists and researchers arguing that literacy needs to be redefined to reflect new literacies. street (1984) distinguishes between “autonomous models” and “ideological models” of literacy. autonomous models of literacy adhere to a belief that literacy development occurs individually within the learner’s head, while ideological models recognize the social and cultural aspects of literacy development, which are unique within differing communities. in the 21st century, an ideological model of literacy would recognize and value the digital literacy practices used in modern society. redefining literacy to an ideological model perspective would allow schools to respond to new literacies and not risk using a curriculum that bears little connection to children’s current or future lives (burnett, 2009; gee, 2004; goodwyn, 2000; pahl & rowsell, 2005). one rationale for the lack of recognition of new literacies is that some educators are not ready to recognize the implications technology holds for literacy because they may not problematize the socially and culturally embedded practices relating to print literacy (reinking, labbo, & mckenna, 2000). rather, educators may focus on the ways in which technology can be used to teach about print, such as mastery of the alphabetic principle. although marsh and singleton (2009) argue that communication has always involved many and varied modes, such as the symbol and drawing depictions found in caves of prehistoric peoples, they argue that “letters, words and symbols will continue to be an integral part of many texts” (p. 1). reading and writing will remain integral to human life; however, the world has changed. people now use electronic devices for their reading and writing activities. these devices have developed to such sophisticated levels that searching the world wide web is easily done from a cellular phone and communication en masse is completed instantly through social media sites such as twitter and facebook. and, while technology and literacy continue to intertwine in the real world, most curricula and educational systems remain focused on developing and testing print-based literacy skills through standardized attainment tests which prioritize print literacy skills (burnett, 2009). like the term literacy, digital literacy has a wide-ranging definition (burnett, 2009). marsh’s (2004) techno-literacy refers to literacy practices and events conducted through new technologies, along with old technologies that are embedded in new technologies through updated tooling, such as cellular phones. digital literacy may be narrowed in definition to focus on digitally based text production (burnett, 2009). this paper follows marsh (2004) and burnett (2009) to define digital literacy as practices and events conducted through digitally based text production, such as a redramatization of a favourite television or movie sequence or creation of a story through photovoice software. also relevant to this paper is a focus on varied and situated social practices informing and guiding digital text production, following a sociocultural model. learning, from a sociocultural viewpoint, is fundamentally social and is mediated by signs, symbols, and cultural canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 36 vol. 39 no. 3 artifacts used over generations (razfar & yang, 2010). within this perspective, literacy learning cannot be “abstracted from cultural practices in which it is nested” (razfar & gutierrez, 2003, p. 34), and it must be recognized that each generation transforms the symbols, signs, and tools of the earlier generations to better suit its purposes (razfar & yang, 2010). in a digital age, children engage in meaning making by using and experiencing the digital tools of the relevant adults in their lives. adults scaffold children into technoliteracy practices by demonstrating uses of a variety of devices (plowman, stevenson, stephen, & mcpake, 2012; shifflet, toledo, & mattoon, 2012). children can then “pretend their way into literacies by ‘playing at’ using computers, ipads, or cellphones as they try on technologically savvy user identities” (wohlwend, 2010, p. 145). like traditional literacy practices, digital texts operate within social and cultural traditions and may not be isolated once inside a classroom, whether physically available or not. for example, wohlwend (2009) describes a kindergarten boy cutting and pasting paper to create his own ipod. his ipod included headphones and an “lcd screen display” (p. 126) so that he could read and view “thomas and friends” (p. 126) with his classroom peers. burnett (2009) argues that studies examining technology use in the classroom focus on print-based notions of literacy and narrowly review technology’s use and appropriateness in the classroom. she writes: some studies seem to neglect aspects of technology use because they are preoccupied by print-based literacy outcomes or teaching approaches. . . . it may be that when assumptions relating to print literacy drive the focus and methodology of studies, research inevitably reinforces rather than challenges existing models of literacy. (p. 31) in a similar vein to burnett (2009), marsh (2004) argues that a focus on literacy as a “paper-based activity” (p. 52) is no longer appropriate given the range of digital tools children access daily in their lives, such as televisions, computers, and smartphones. a focus on literacy as “relating to print-based texts” (marsh, 2004, p. 52) further marginalizes some children’s vast skill set that is brought with them upon entry to the classroom. suggested reasons for a lack of attention to children’s burgeoning digital literacy skills may stem from educators’ own lack of knowledge and understanding of digital device uses or a negative viewpoint toward technology and digital media use in childhood by educators (marsh, 2004; wolfe & flewitt, 2010). despite concerns over children’s digital uses, children are still engaging in techno-literacy practices in their homes (e.g., using ipads to draw or search engines such as google for information retrieval). thus researchers have begun to examine the digital activities of children in their homes and classrooms. in examining primaryand secondary-aged children’s homeand school-based computer activity through questionnaires, murphy and beggs (2003) found that, at home, children had choice surrounding computer activities which left ample time for exploration and incidental learning. in contrast, school-based activities were teacher controlled, and limited time was designated for use. in her survey of internet use among grade 1 and 2 students, johnson (2010) found that children enjoying internet use in the home had an inverse effect on those children enjoying internet use in the classroom. students who used the internet more in their homes used the internet less in school, which johnson suggests may be due to restrictions and limitations placed on internet use in the classroom by the teacher. johnson explains that, in the home, children using the internet enjoyed fewer restrictions and controls. wolfe and flewitt (2010) documented how 3and 4-year-old children used traditional and new technologies in their home and preschool to develop literacy knowledge and skills. in one particular subset of participants, the researchers found that the three-and-a-half-year-old twin female participants had a strong interest in computers and were provided opportunities, with their mother’s encouragement, to engage with the technology. they observed the girls developing ability to read and respond to graphic images on the computer screen, even when audio functions were muted. although computer use was not encouraged in their preschool, computers were accessible, and toward the end of the study the girls were observed learning how to log in to the computer, a procedure that “tested their abilities to match upper and lower case letters in their names with the symbols on the keyboard” (p. 395). wolfe and flewitt conclude that some young children are capable of “navigating around screens, connecting and taking meanings from a myriad of interrelated images (still and moving), words and sounds” (p. 397), while others may not have similar access to computers and internet. therefore, they argue, schools and educators need to provide children with opportunities to become proficient and literate in the digital world. given the influx of digital tools and media within society which are consistently being accessed by younger and younger children, it is necessary for schools and school boards to begin reflecting these practices through classroom activity and curriculum. i next examine british columbia’s vision of 21st-century education and the province’s desire for a “knowledge-based society.” 21st-century education in british columbia in august 2001, then british columbia premier gordon campbell announced the formation of the premier’s technology council (ptc), which included 23 members from the private sector and academia, and gave them the responsibility of reporting to the premier on all technology issues concerning british columbia and its citizens. currently, the ptc has urged government to work toward the creation of a knowledge-based society in british columbia, arguing that a knowledge-based society improves the lives of british canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 37 vol. 39 no. 3 columbians through improved health and education services and the creation of more jobs, which could generate economic growth and improved government efficiency. to accomplish these outcomes, three key areas were recommended to act as pillars in development: infrastructure, government services, and a knowledge-based economy. as a government service, bc’s education system underwent review. the ptc suggests including smooth delivery of services across government organizations and elementary, secondary, and postsecondary e-learning portals. a special report was issued, premier’s technology council: a vision for 21st-century education (2010), envisioning how an education system responsible for creating citizens of a knowledge-based society could operate and function. separately from the premier’s technology council, beginning in 2010, the ministry of education, in conjunction with stakeholders throughout bc, began a review of the education system with a goal of transformation to better meet the needs of learners (bc ministry of education, 2012). bc’s education plan (2011) was established to outline and guide the ministry of education’s directions and actions as the education system transformed. november 2011 saw the formation of the curriculum and assessment framework advisory group. the role of this group was to make recommendations to the ministry of education on curriculum and assessment directions. to date, the bc ministry of education has stated that it is clear that an education system redesigned with 21st-century priorities in mind must remove the barriers that limit teachers’ ability to innovate and personalize learning based on students’ needs and the community context. . . . however, to truly transform education, the bc education system must empower innovation throughout the province. (2012, p. 2) with a desire for bc to situate itself as a knowledge-based society, both the ptc and bc’s education plan (bc ed) envision an education system operating on the notion of “personalized learning,” which would give students a larger responsibility in creating an individual and personalized curriculum so as to “explore an educational path that is best suited to their interests, their capabilities, and their chosen future” (premier’s technology council, 2010, p. 2). learning would emphasize skill over content, with project-based learning being central and technology being used to assess student progress continually, rather than at the conclusion of units. the use of technology in the classroom would provide a “better link between what kids learn at school and what they experience and learn in their everyday lives” (bc’s education plan, 2011, p. 2) and would also provide parents a better opportunity to be involved in planning their child’s education. it is worth noting that bc ed, although promoting greater student self-assessment, will continue to monitor student progress through “rigorous province-wide assessments” (bc’s education plan, 2011, p. 4). the rationale for these assessments is that “effective classroom assessment” (p. 4) is seen as necessary for student success, and will be “even more vital in a more personalized learning environment” (p. 4). however, province-wide standardized examinations seem to counter 21st-century learning notions of personalized learning. bc ed argues that technology will provide greater access to “richer information, and more consistency across the province on student progress” (p. 4), yet it does not indicate how these tests will be constructed given that students will be responsible for creating an individual and personalized curriculum. current assessment prioritizes print-based literacy skills and requires all students to be assessed with the same test during a predetermined examination period. methods discourse on 21st-century learning has gained traction in the education community through the creation of documents and websites, yet schools and teachers are still bound to learning outcomes contained in earlier curricula. the aim of this paper is to present a critical analysis of bc’s early learning curricula concerning 21st-century education. a classical content analysis (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2008) of bc government documents was undertaken. specifically, premier’s technology council: a vision for 21st-century education (premier’s technology council, 2010) and bc’s education plan (bc ed; british columbia ministry of education, 2011) were analyzed. the discourses of these documents, concerning 21st-century learning, were then compared to the learning outcomes contained in the kindergarten curriculum package (british columbia ministry of education, 2010). the aim of this analysis was to juxtapose the vision of the premier’s technology council (ptc) and the reality of the current curriculum that guides teachers’ practice in bc in the early years of schooling. the kindergarten curriculum package was analyzed for words and/or phrases consistent with the ptc’s vision and bc ed as needs associated with a knowledge-based society. for example, the needs for “technology literacy,” “communications and media literacy,” and “collaboration and teamwork” were noted within each document as core skills and needs for citizens to successfully function in a knowledge-based society. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 38 vol. 39 no. 3 21st-century discourse and the kindergarten curriculum package although bc ed and the ptc envision an educational system built on 21st-century realities, everyday teaching is still restricted to a structured curriculum guided by prescribed learning outcomes, which reflects a traditional orientation. content in the kindergarten curriculum package focuses on prescribed learning outcomes that children are expected to meet within a school year. content is categorized into domains of english/french language arts, social studies, mathematics, science, physical education, arts education (dance, drama, music, and visual arts), health and career education, and daily physical activity. regardless of the document’s prescriptive nature, it provides this caveat for schools: schools are responsible for ensuring that all prescribed learning outcomes for each required area of study are met; however, schools have flexibility in determining how delivery of the curriculum can best take place. (p. 5, emphasis added) although the current curriculum provides little flexibility as to what may be taught, there is space for schools and/or educators who so desire to implement aspects of 21st-century education visions into classrooms. the next section of this paper examines aspects of the kindergarten curriculum package which could align with the ptc’s and bc ed’s discourses. the two kindergarten domains most suited to 21st-century education discourse are english language arts and art education, specifically, the visual arts domain. although examples of “suggested achievement indicators” remain entrenched in print-based literacy, there is space for children’s digital understandings and knowledge to become apparent to teachers. as dyson (2003) shows in the brothers and sisters learn to write: popular literacies in childhood and school cultures, children bring popular literacies from outside school into classroom practice. dyson showed how her participants were able to mediate school-based literacy practices with knowledge gained through popular music, sports culture, and video games. just as rita, dyson’s participant teacher, provided space and opportunity for her students to engage in writing activities based on popular media culture, bc kindergarten teachers may allow a space for their students to utilize knowledge and skills learned from the digital devices they use outside the classroom. under “learning reading (and viewing) and extended thinking,” prescribed learning outcome b2 states: “respond to literature through a variety of activities (e.g., role playing, art, music, choral reading, talking)” (p. 13) and describes a suggested achievement indicator of “connect information and events in texts to self, personal experiences, and to other texts including media texts (e.g., television shows and movies)” (p. 13). although not expressly indicating digital texts, the use of “media” allows teachers to make assessments based on students’ articulations and connections to texts such as video games, websites, or smartphone applications. also suggested as an indicator is “create a representation (e.g., draw a picture, dramatize feelings, create a new page for a story” (p. 13). this description is quite open ended and allows for teachers to recognize a variety of ways that something may be represented, including digital creations. following a 21st-century education vision, allowing students the opportunity to create as they so desire aligns with the vision of greater flexibility and student choice. granted, choosing to create a representation is unequal to designing and articulating one’s own educational path; however, it is this type of open-ended indicator that would allow for student design. another suggested achievement indicator for b2 states: “make connections between literary experiences and imaginative play (e.g., puppets, housekeeping centre, dress up centre)” (p. 13). wohlwend (2009) describes two first-grade boys in a print-centric classroom engaging in a paper-based invented game based on their favourite video game, digimon rumble arena. on a single sheet of paper, the boys created a “screen view,” including a “life bar” to gauge the health of each of their characters. the boys took turns attacking one another until completion of the game. a close observer of these young boys engaged in peer play in their classroom environment might see these boys as responding to the “literature” of their favourite videogame and producing a paper-based version of the game. the complex understanding needed to create their own game might indicate a strong comprehension that could be applied to other texts read and used in their classroom. prescribed learning outcome b7, under “learning reading (and viewing) and extended thinking,” requires students to “demonstrate understanding of concepts about print and concepts about books” (p. 15) and suggests achievement indicators such as the following: “demonstrate understanding that letters represent sounds that written words convey meaning (e.g., read short labels, familiar signs)” (p. 15) and “use sounding out to demonstrate that the sequence of letters in a written word represents the sequence of sounds (i.e., phonemes) in a spoken word (i.e., alphabetic principle)” (p. 15). northrop and killeen (2013) provide a framework for teachers to “teach letter-name phonics with ipad integration” (p. 533), using “abc pocketphonics (apps in my pocket ltd, $2.99; lite version is free)” (p. 533). they lay out a lesson plan which seamlessly integrates non-ipad use instruction with ipad-use instruction and argue that canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 39 vol. 39 no. 3 this process will highlight the learning children will be undertaking, and not have them simply “pushing buttons and going through the motions” (p. 536). while helpful to less “technology savvy” teachers, some researchers (marsh & singleton, 2009; reinking, labbo, & mckenna, 2000) may argue that this type of lesson uses technology to improve print literacy skills. another feature of the english language arts domain is “learning writing (and representing) and extended thinking.” prescribed learning outcome c1 states: “create simple messages using a combination of pictures, symbols, letters, and words to convey meaning” (p. 16) and suggests that a student achieving this standard will “write and represent using a variety of tools and media (e.g., crayons, paper, computer, chalkboard, coloured markers, cardboard)” (p. 16, emphasis added). the suggested achievement indicator “write and represent for a variety of purposes and in different forms” (p. 16) could allow for individual student-teacher discussion or larger classroom discussions about different types of writing and the different ways people write, extending beyond grocery lists to include online and/or smartphone-based texts. for example, teachers might ask students to reflect on ways that parents or significant adults in their lives use their smartphones to write and record information. the arts education domain, specifically the area of visual arts, contains aspects that connect with 21st-century visions of education. prescribed learning outcome a3, “experiment with a variety of materials, technologies, and processes to make images” (p. 31), suggests that achievement may be indicated by students “us[ing] technologies, such as computers, paint brushes, scissors, and cameras to create a variety of images” (p. 31, emphasis added). as well, b2, “identify and apply a variety of materials, technologies, and processes to create images” (p. 32), suggests that students could name and use technologies such as computers and cameras to fulfill this prescribed learning outcome. for example, children could use digital cameras to photograph themselves creating particular facial expressions and label these images using appropriate vocabulary, which would also target learning outcome a7, “experiment with language and demonstrate enhanced vocabulary usage [such as] begin to use descriptive words to describe own feelings and the feelings of others” (p. 11). under the learning area “drama,” specifically “presenting and performing,” prescribed learning outcome d2 asks students to “respond to a drama presentation” (p. 25) and suggests that this activity may be completed by a student using “stories, pictures, or movement to communicate personal thoughts, images, and feelings experienced in response to drama” (p. 25). although not specifically referencing digital texts or media, a response using digital tools is foreseeable, such as the reenactment of the digimon rumble arena vignette (burnett, 2009) or students using digital storytelling software to articulate their responses. software such as imovie or photostory allows users to create stories using still photographs, video, audio, and printed text. hill (2010) describes a year 1/2 classroom in australia using photostory during a fairy tale unit. digital media lessons were incorporated into a mix of traditional print-based methods, such as reading fairy tales, with new media, such as watching hoodwinked (edwards, 2005), an animated movie that tells the little red riding hood story from multiple perspectives. using an interactive white board, the teacher scaffolded the children’s learning through brainstorming, mapping, and communication using audio, visual, and kinesthetic means. she deconstructed fairy tale features, such as good versus evil and heroes/heroines. eventually the children created their own fairy tales, first in print and later adapted to photostory. not only did children fulfill print-based learning outcomes, they learned to communicate meaning through pictures and were learning about “the choices authors and film directors make about what to include and leave out, how to create visual and sound effects to create meaning” (p. 330). finally, under the domain “social studies—economy and technology,” students are required to “identify examples of technologies used in their lives” (d3, p. 51). d3 suggests that students “use pictures and discussion to identify examples of technologies they use at school and at home (e.g., pencil, photocopier, computer, telephone, television, refrigerator, bicycle, assertive technologies for people with special needs)” (p. 51) to achieve this standard. this prescribed learning outcome presents students with the opportunity to articulate knowledge and understanding of the 21st-century core needs of technological literacy and communication and media literacy, as outlined by the ptc (2010). as well, conversations about home and classroom technologies could spark a discussion of similarities and differences between home and school environments. they would also allow teachers an opportunity to discover some of the devices and tools students are using in their homes. students could be asked to take pictures of different technologies used in their homes and bring the images to class for discussion. students could explain why each image was selected and what it represents to them. to summarize, in this researcher’s view, although not explicitly suggested, there are aspects of the kindergarten curriculum package that incorporate aspects of 21st-century learning. more specifically, the domains of language arts and arts education present opportunities for educators to provide digital media and technology for children’s uses that would allow children to show their learning and growth in accordance with prescribed learning outcomes. yet it is noteworthy that the domains of science and social studies, areas one might expect new technologies and digital media to be referenced in, present no meaningful opportunities for teachers to incorporate 21stcentury education ideals as expressed by either the ptc or bc ministry of education documents. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 40 vol. 39 no. 3 conclusion bc is experiencing “an exciting time of change for education” (british columbia ministry of education, 2011, p. 2). these proposed changes will significantly alter the education system as society has come to know it and will present many challenges. undergoing educational and curricular change is not an easy feat. many stakeholders hold differing beliefs and positions about what should be taught and how. while many schools and teachers are ready and willing to embrace techno-literacies, many others believe that digital practices are developmentally inappropriate for young children. dissenters argue that digital media create passive learners and that early education should focus instead on providing children with “real” materials, such as plants, animals, books, and traditional play centres, to explore meaning. there are also concerns about screen effects on developing brains and increased inactivity leading to obesity and other health issues (american academy of pediatrics, 2011; national association for the education of young children, 2012). but there are also concerns about schools continuing to ignore the increased use of digital media by their students and using outdated curricula irrelevant to students’ out-of-school lives (burnett, 2009). the premier’s technology council and bc’s education plan are supporting visions of how the bc education system can build a knowledge-based society by advocating that students engage with digital knowledge during school hours. however, with standardized tests that continue to privilege print literacy skills, those skills will continue to drive large portions of the curriculum. and although we have moved from using digital technology in schools to measure print literacy skills, schools need to address “literacy of technology and literacy through technology” (razfar & yang, 2010, p. 123) and provide spaces for children to become aware of the “multiple functions of language and literacy content, as well as how the medium/technology shapes it” (razfar & yang, 2010, p. 123). although bc’s ministry of education has developed an action plan, the bc education plan, in an effort to foster and encourage 21stcentury education, there is still a long road ahead before the transformational education system envisioned by the premier’s technology council comes to fruition. until that time, creative teachers will continue to find spaces for 21st-century education practices in 20thcentury curricula models. references american academy of pediatrics. 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(2010). digital, hybrid and multilingual literacies in early childhood. language arts, 88(2), 114–124. reinking, d., labbo, l.d., & mckenna, m. (2000). from assimilation to accommodation: a developmental framework for integrating digital technologies into literacy research and instruction. journal of research in reading, 23(2), 110–122. roberts-holmes, g. (2013). playful and creative ict pedagogical framing: a nursery school case study. early child development and care, 184(1), 1–14. doi:10.1080/0300 4430.2013.772991 shifflet, r., toledo, c., & mattoon, c. (2012). touch tablet surprises: a preschool teacher’s story. young children, 67(3), 36–41. street, b. (1984). literacy in theory and practice. cambridge, uk: press syndicate of the university of cambridge. wohlwend, k. (2009). early adopters: playing new literacies and pretending new technologies in print-centric classrooms. journal of early childhood literacy, 9(2), 117–140. doi:10.1177/1468798409105583 wohlwend, k. (2010). a is for avatar: young children in literacy 2.0 worlds and literacy 1.0 schools. language arts, 88(2), 144–152. wolfe, s., & flewitt, r. (2010). new technologies, new multimodal literacy practices, and young children’s metacognitive development. cambridge journal of education, 40(4), 387–399. doi:10.1080/0305764x.2010.526589 canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 42 vol. 39 no. 3 kimberly maich, phd, oct, is an assistant professor in the department of teacher education at brock university in niagara, ontario. her background has been primarily as a resource teacher in the k–12 school system from coast to coast in canada, and her research is focused on students with autism spectrum disorders and other exceptionalities, their peers, and their teachers. she is completing a graduate degree in applied behaviour analysis at brock university. email: kmaich@brocku.ca carmen hall, mc, ccc, bcba, is a professor and the coordinator of the autism and behaviour science program at fanshawe college in london, ontario. she comes to postsecondary education from a clinical background, focusing her teaching on applied behaviour analysis and her research on peer-mediated social skills instruction for children with autism spectrum disorders. she is a phd student in clinical psychology at saybrook university in san francisco. email: clhall@fanshawec.ca are we ready? early childhood educator students and perceived preparedness for school-based special education kimberly maich and carmen hall in 2010, ontario began to implement a new province-wide, government-sponsored initiative for all early learners—including children with special needs—which continues to be piloted in school boards until its full implementation, namely, full-day kindergarten (fdk; ontario ministry of education, 2010b; ontario ministry of education, 2013). kindergarten itself, of course, is not a new concept in the sphere of publicly funded, institutionally based education. with the advent of friedrich froebel’s first usage of the term kindergarten in the 1800s (allen, 1986), it was conceptualized for supporting the growth and development of young children. by the mid-1800s, its outgrowths were already established in the well-populated region of what is now known as southern ontario (nixon, 1994). by september 2014, fdk for young children aged 4 and 5 was fully implemented across the province (ontario ministry of education, 2013). one of the new initiatives to support this unique project is the on-site collaboration among educators with varied roles, designed to share educational responsibilities (legislative assembly of ontario, 2010) and meet the needs of all the young learners in a play-based early learning classroom environment (ontario ministry of education, 2010a). more specifically, this initiative is supported by professional collaboration between early childhood educators registered with the college of early childhood educators (2012) as registered eces (reces) and teachers registered with the ontario college of teachers (n.d.) as ontario-certified teachers (octs) working as a teaching team to support the learning and development of junior and senior kindergarten students (lewington, 2010). this collaborative strategy was envisioned in this local context by charles pascal (2009), who imagined the possibility and potential of ontario’s fdk—with our best future in mind—as follows: “a blend of kindergarten teachers and eces would work best [and] educator teams have been found to add to the strengths of the professional preparation and skill sets of both teachers and eces” (p. 33). it is important to recognize that this initiative supports all learners in the publicly funded fdk program, and that these youngest learners are a diverse group in many ways, including students with special educational needs. in other words, educators need to support all students—and future educators need to learn to support all students—from the perspective of universal design, rather than as a strict dichotomy of “typical” students and those with “special needs.” instead of circumventing the development of specialized knowledge, however, a framework of universal design for learning (udl) assures the proactive development of educational strategies for all learners with diverse needs, creating “a foundation for likely success from which [educators] can later address the particular needs of individual students” (stockall, dennis, & miller, 2012, p. 10). future educator team members, teacher candidates, and ece students—the latter being the focus of this project—engage in multiple, sustained engagements as practicum experiences in the school system as part of developing such a foundation. such experiences undergo this paper describes a small-scale, single-region research project to investigate early childhood educator (ece) students’ understanding of special education in the kindergarten context that has been in place in ontario schools since 2010. the perceived preparedness of five ece students on placement in kindergarten classrooms was evaluated through preand poststudy questionnaires and through interviews with five ontario-certified teachers teaching early learners and experienced with mentoring ece students. results demonstrated that ece students’ selfratings of combined knowledge, exposure, and experience with school-based special education did not significantly change, and these student rankings fell in the very low to moderate ratings overall (i.e., scores of 1 to 2 on a 5-point scale). comments from the ontario-certified teachers emerged in three main themes, including (1) strong foundations (i.e., skills and knowledge); (2) education for all (e.g., students who may not yet be formally identified); and, (3) universal frameworks (i.e., for all students with diverse needs). suggestions for ece preparedness and ece curriculum changes are included. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 43 vol. 39 no. 3 not only academic supervision, but onsite professional mentoring in order to “connect effective strategies to a teacher’s actual interactions with young children” (chu, 2012, p. 19). david kolb’s holistic experiential learning theory (1984) emphasizes the role of experience in learning. in the context of experiential learning theory, learning is characterized as a continuous process where concepts and ideas are “derived from and continuously modified [and] formed and re-formed through experience” (p. 28). throughout this everyday process, self-directed learners open themselves objectively to new experiences, and thus experience tension, conflict, and resolution as they reflect and integrate these new experiences as learning. this process applies not only to new information but to the cyclical adaptation of the whole person throughout life in all settings, or the “integrated functioning of the total organism—thinking, feeling, perceiving, and behaving” (p. 31). the environment is an essential component in the back-and-forth transactional nature of learning, which is not only intrapersonal but also active and objective, or socially based. these transactions between the subjective and the objective develop knowledge; kolb writes that “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (p. 38). with today’s emphasis in ontario on inclusive school and class environments (bennett & dworet, 2013), all educators—both octs and reces—will encounter children with exceptionalities and will need to respond to such needs with knowledgeable navigation of school-based special education programs and services as a team of what the ontario ministry of education (2010a) refers to as “key educators of children who have special education needs” (p. 29). in the 2010/2011 school year, for example, 15.56% of all students in the entire school-based population in ontario were receiving special educational services, for a total of 319, 214 students. eighty-three percent of these students were taught in inclusive classroom environments, and only 60% were formally identified with exceptionalities through the identification, placement, and review committee (iprc; bennett, 2012). in the kindergarten context, it is likely that the kindergarten teaching teams will also encounter such students every year in each kindergarten classroom as part of their responsibility in supporting inclusive classrooms (pascal, 2009); however, these students may not yet be either clinically diagnosed or identified as exceptional in the school system. since the seminal special education transformation (bennett & wynne, 2006) report emphasized “improved learning for all students receiving special education programs and services” (p.25) through the coordination of “all ministry initiatives related to improving student achievement (e.g., student success, literacy and numeracy secretariat) to include students who have special education needs” (p.25), it seems reasonable that this edict would apply to all of our classroom-based educators in the fdk initiative, as well. after all, early intervention is multidisciplinary. this is an important difference from school age supports for children with disabilities and/or special educational needs. in schools, while there may be itinerant supports such as child and youth workers, social workers, speech and language pathologists, and psychologists, the primary service providers are teachers. (underwood, 2012, p. 127) these changes mean that reces will be adjusting to a novel role in a new environment, supporting all students in kindergarten with diverse skills and abilities (bennett, 2009; stockall, dennis, & miller, 2012). this role includes exposure and support in the area of school-based special education services, for needs that may be undetected prior to school entry (canning & lyon, 1989). for example, a 2012 report on the implementation of fdk noted that 43% of 107 students referenced as having special educational needs in this extensive study were reported as “not specified” with a special needs identifier (vanderlee, youmans, peters, & eastabrook, 2012). it is not apparent, however, whether community-college-based ece experiences address this shift. in the context of this project, the involved postsecondary institution offered a semester-long course focused on inclusion, but this course was limited to early childhood programs, excluding any mention of school-based special education in its stated outcomes. perhaps, though, ece students are developing more knowledge, being exposed to, and/or are experiencing school-based special education within the context of an in-school practicum placement and daily, in-depth mentoring (doan, 2012), in this case from experienced classroom-based octs. therefore, the purposes of this project are to (1) delineate the current role of ece students from one community college postsecondary setting in school-based special education from multiple perspectives; (2) explore the preparedness of ece students for involvement in school-based special education from multiple perspectives; and, (3) provide curriculum recommendations for an ece community college postsecondary setting. methodology the information below outlines a small-scale, single-region research project designed as a first investigation into the above purposes of this study. participants in the study were comprised of two groups: ece students and ontario-certified teachers, referred to throughout as octs or simply “teachers.” various methodologies and instruments were utilized in a mixed methodology approach to attain the unique perspectives of involved participants and to enhance findings with both quantitative and qualitative views. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 44 vol. 39 no. 3 participants and setting ece students. the student participants in this research included five female ece students enrolled in their final term of studies in one community-college-based postsecondary ece program in southwestern ontario—a two-year diploma program. during this term, ece students were completing their final program placements with early and/or primary-aged learners in various levels and programs from junior kindergarten (jk) to grade 1. all participants in this project had a placement role in a kindergarten setting. during the fall term of 2011, this research project was presented and explained from an exploratory, emergent standpoint by the authors prior to the placement experience, and interested ece student volunteers accompanied the researchers to an adjacent classroom to complete preplacement questionnaires. following approval from both postsecondary research ethics boards and the involved school board’s research and assessment services, ece students completed preand postplacement questionnaires. preplacement questionnaires were typically completed on-site, but postplacement follow-up questionnaires were completed through electronic and/or mail-out options. over two academic terms from fall 2011 to spring 2012, 13 students participated, but only a total of five ece students completed both preand postplacement questionnaires. although all ece student participants were given follow-up reminders and the incentive of a textbook gift related to school-based special education, this lower completion rate for postplacement surveys was likely influenced by the following factors: student placements were the final program requirement and students did not return to campus; students had a decreased level of contact with researchers; and the necessarily web-based and/or mail-out postplacement options tend to produce lower response rates (kaplowitz, hadlock, & levine, 2004; sax & bryant, 2003). only one of these five participants was in a classroom placement simultaneously with an oct participant. ontario-certified teachers. five classroom-based teacher participants employed in one public school board in southwestern ontario also volunteered for this project on-site at their local schools. they offered their involvement following a letter of invitation distributed electronically from school board personnel to school administrators and then to school staff, according to the initiative of the involved parties. all five participants were octs with responsibility for early and/or primary-aged learners in various levels and programs from jk to grade 1, including ontario’s new full-day learning program, and various combined grades (e.g., sk/grade 1). these five oct participants ranged in their experiences mentoring ece students, from three who had one-time, recent, or current experiences with ece students, to two who have had numerous experiences with supporting ece students in school-based placements. lily is an early years teacher with less than 10 years of experience in school settings and a long history experience in the child care setting, rose is a jk/sk teacher with close to 15 years of experience, violet and daisy are fdk teachers, and iris teaches a combined sk/grade 1 class. materials and procedure the materials for this study consisted of a student pre-post questionnaire completed by the ece students and a teacher interview guide completed with octs in a semi-structured interview. questionnaire. five ece student participants completed both preand postplacement 37-item questionnaires in either paper or electronic versions. due to a lack of existing, replicated tools specific to ontario’s bachelor of education curriculum or the inclusion of special education in the ontario college of teachers act (service ontario e-laws, 1996) prior to its planned amendments in 2015, an authordesigned questionnaire was created from the eight areas of school-based special education in ontario schools (e.g., learning disabilities), as outlined in a bachelor of education special education syllabus from one mid-sized ontario university. each question was overlaid with a five-point rating scale ranging from very low or none to very high self-reported ratings of knowledge, exposure, and experience in these areas related to school-based special education. for each question, participants were asked: on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the most comfortable and 1 being the least comfortable, how comfortable do you currently feel about your current level of knowledge (e.g. understanding the topic), exposure (e.g. having observed) and intervention (e.g. having done) experiences related to school-based special education? the following are sample questions from these preand postplacement questionnaires, which were identical for both pre and post measure: “my knowledge about “individual education plans”; “my exposure to differentiated instruction”; “my experiences with children with a behaviour exceptionality.” completed questionnaires were converted to electronic files, and visual results were constructed using excel. semi-structured interview. five octs participated in on-site, preand/or post-ece-student-placement semi-structured interviews using a prepared yet flexible interview guide consisting of 14 items and additional prompts for verbal interviews. while potential participants were invited to complete both preand postplacement interviews, one-time interviews are typically carried out on a onceonly basis (dicicco-bloom & crabtree, 2006). five participants chose to take part in preplacement interviews, and two participants also completed postplacement interviews, for a total of seven oct interviews over the course of this study. interviews were audiotaped with a digital recorder as well as a backup cassette tape recorder, transferred to a computer-based file, transcribed, and explored for emergent canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 45 vol. 39 no. 3 themes and common perceptions in both within-case and between-case perspectives: both within questions and across topics (frels & onwuegbuzie, 2013). conversations ranged from 12 to 52 minutes, with the longer lengths being shared interviews with on-site teaching partners, at the request of involved participants. the interview guide was related to recommendations for knowledge around schoolbased special education, likely exposure and interventions during practicum placements, and knowledge of local and provincial policies, practices, and documents. questions included, for example, what types of knowledge do you feel ece students should have related to special education before they are placed in—or are employed in—the school system? for each interview question, responses from each participant were delineated and summarized, and responses from all participants were grouped together into a detailed, comprehensive overview. from these detailed overview statements, summary statements were developed, with stronger commonalities indicated by the number of teacher participants who provided responses which could be grouped together. from these summary statements, overall points of view and themes were constructed related to the purpose of this study. results and discussion the following results and related discussion are presented from the vantage points of the ece students and oct participants, providing both a quantitative and a qualitative view. a student view ece students’ self-ratings were converted into a comprehensive document summarizing their pre and post responses. for this authordesigned scale (see table 1), a summed score of 41 self-rated items was calculated to create a summed score for preplacement measures (m=81) and postplacement measures (m=96). canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 46 vol. 39 no. 3 table 1. replicated ece student preand postplacement questionnaires. topic area related questions (1) introduction to special education (1.1) my knowledge of bill 82. (1.2) my knowledge of “regulation 181/98.” (1.3) my knowledge of the “in-school model.” (1.4) my exposure to the “in-school model.” (1.5) my knowledge of assessment in special education. (1.6) my exposure to assessment in special education. (1.7) my experience with assessment in special education. (1.8) my knowledge of the “identification, placement and review committee” process. (1.9) my exposure to the “identification, placement and review committee” process. (1.10) my experience with the “identification, placement and review committee” process. (1.11) my knowledge about “individual education plans.” (1.12) my exposure to “individual education plans.” (1.13) my experiences with “individual education plans.” (1.14) my knowledge of the document “education for all.” (1.15) my knowledge about “differentiated instruction.” (1.16) my exposure to “differentiated instruction.” (1.17) my experiences with “differentiated instruction.” (2) intellectual exceptionalities: mild intellectual disability & developmental disability (2.1) my knowledge about children with a “mild intellectual disability.” (2.2) my exposure to children with a “mild intellectual disability.” (2.3) my experiences with children with a “mild intellectual disability.” (2.4) my knowledge about children with a “developmental disability.” (2.5) my exposure to children with a “developmental disability.” (2.6) my experiences with children with a “developmental disability.” (3) communication exceptionality: autism spectrum disorders (3.1) my knowledge about children with “autism spectrum disorder.” (3.2) my exposure to children with “autism spectrum disorder.” (3.3) my experiences with children with “autism spectrum disorder.” (4) intellectual exceptionality: gifted (4.1) my knowledge about children who are “gifted.” (4.2) my exposure to children who are “gifted.” (4.3) my experiences with children who are “gifted.” (5) communication exceptionality: learning disability (5.1) my knowledge about children with a “learning disability.” (5.2) my exposure to children with a “learning disability.” (5.3) my experiences with children with a “learning disability.” (6) behaviour exceptionality (special need) (6.1) my knowledge about children with a “behaviour exceptionality.” (6.2) my exposure to children with a “behaviour exceptionality.” (6.3) my experiences with children with a “behaviour exceptionality.” (7) physical exceptionalities (special need) & multiple exceptionalities (more than one) (7.1) my knowledge about children with a “physical exceptionality.” (7.2) my exposure to children with a “physical exceptionality.” (7.3) my experiences with children with a “physical exceptionality.” (7.4) my knowledge about children with “multiple exceptionalities.” (7.5) my exposure to children with “multiple exceptionalities.” (7.6) my experiences with children with “multiple exceptionalities.” using a graphical display of preand postplacement summed total of ece students’ self-ratings of combined knowledge, exposure, and experience with school-based special education, figure 1 (below) provides an overview for all five participants. overall, no ece student canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 47 vol. 39 no. 3 participants had individual average scores in the very high or high range; rather, even in postinterview self-ratings, they fall equally between either very low to none (rating of 1) and low (rating of 2), or between low and moderate (rating of 3). only one of the five participants’ self-ratings, overall, falls between moderate and high (rating of 4). although most ece students rated themselves slightly higher in postplacement ratings, it seems clear that these ece students see themselves as having “less” rather than “more” overall when it comes to school-based special education, even following a sustained, full-time on-site experience. in fact, one ece student rated herself with lower scores following the practicum placement than before. figure 1. preand postplacement summed total of ece students’ self-ratings of combined knowledge, exposure, and experience with school-based special education. it is clear that the eces in their final field placements are undergoing environmental, socially based objective experiences; however, it is unclear whether there is sufficient opportunity for personal and/or socially mediated reflection—using piagetian language—to assimilate and/or accommodate schemas about special education into cognitive growth within this time frame of the final practicum experience (kolb, 1984). one anomaly existed in the direction of self-ratings (refer again to figure 1, above). one ece student rated herself with lower scores following the practicum placement than at her preplacement scores. perhaps this student’s outcomes suggest a learning style which is different from the remainder of the group. like kolb suggests, she may “apprehend and transform [her] experiences differently” (kovac, 2008, p. 148). perhaps her learning happens through concrete experience rather than reflective thought, or she is an accommodator who prefers “concrete experience and active experimentation” (kovac, p. 147). perhaps this student is moving toward a conscious, metacognitive, attentive experience of the learning process (kolb & kolb, 2009) while moving away from a probable lack of awareness when “what we don’t know we don’t know” (p. 628). these processes describe the first stage of learning in everyday events and significant activities from an unconscious incompetence to a conscious incompetence or “a sense of our own ignorance and limitations” (p. 628). a teacher view a somewhat dynamic, universal flow emerged out of the contemplations and conversations of teacher participants in the kindergarten field when it comes to the special-education-related knowledge needs of ece students: we are different, but we are the same. this dominant representation unifies the following emergent themes: (1) that a strong foundation of professional knowledge and practical skills is necessary to support students with special needs; (2) that education, care, and support must be in place for all students, including those with special needs; and, (3) that universal frameworks are needed to support all students proactively, not “just” those with special canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 48 vol. 39 no. 3 needs. these three themes are discussed below. strong foundations. as a group, the teacher participants expressed a significant list of new learning related to professional knowledge and practical skills that eces working in inclusive early years placements should have prior to entering the school setting (i.e., in their preparation programs). many of these areas of need are easily grouped and categorized (see table 2 below for a comprehensive list). table 2. areas of knowledge for ece students prior to entering school-based employment. suggested areas of knowledge number of oct participants individual education plans (e.g., accommodating, modifying, differentiating, universal design for living [udl]) 5 autism spectrum disorder (e.g., treatment and education of autistic and related communication handicapped children [teacch], picture exchange communication system [pecs]) 4 behaviour (e.g., choosing battles, adhd, data collection, identifying needs, observation) 3 general knowledge (e.g., special needs, setting up the environment, main areas of disability, red flags) 3 identification, placement, and review committees (iprcs) 2 the three most common areas expressed as knowledge needs for new ece graduates entering school-based employment focused on knowledge of (a) individual education plans (ieps), which are legislated documents that outline school-based special education services geared to the needs of individual students, (b) autism spectrum disorders (asd), and (c) behavioural concerns. for example, one teacher participant stated: “special education [and] special needs students are on the rise in general. and i think most of them are being mainstreamed, so i think any general knowledge of special education and what iep stands for, and those sorts of things are always going to be beneficial to these students” [daisy]. lily expressed a need for knowledge around behaviour—behaviour that is beyond what is commonly considered to be typical classroom management issues: i don’t think [the ece students] realize the extent of the behaviours that they will work with when they’re in the school system; the range as well as the intensity of some of these kids. they work in day care with kids that are a lot younger and it’s calmer, and yes, you have temper tantrums in child care and there are issues in child care too, but when you get into the school system you could have a kid that’s bigger than you are sitting beside you, that’s having a full-fledged whatever, meltdown, temper tantrum, whatever it is, right? i don’t know how to prepare them more for that, but just to be aware of it when they think, oh, i want to work for the board. they pay lots of money; it’s a great job. be prepared for what you’re getting into here first. (emphasis added) interventions that ece students and/or future eces might implement include behaviour support for all students (e.g., understanding the functions of behaviour), supporting transition to school, proximity, cueing, redirection, providing individual, small group, and centre-based support, hands-on support, using visuals for communication, using a visual calendar, a first/then board, and social scripts. however, the teacher participants emphasized that the implementation of supports and interventions might look different between child care and school contexts: i think the hard part that we have found with [ece students] is for them to differentiate the difference between day care and school. it’s very different and sometimes it’s hard for them to see that. i think in day cares, they are a lot more hands on; they want to be more buddy-buddy with them, and where here they have to take on a little bit more of an authoritative role, and i think that’s hard for them sometimes to make that distinction. sometimes i think they think we’re a little bit tough because if somebody’s having difficulty we’ll let them sit and kind of just think about it for a bit before we come back to them, and they’re always there trying to make it into a positive situation. but sometimes they just need that time. so it’s just very different philosophies trying to merge into one. and i think that is sometimes hard on their aspect and our aspect trying to make two worlds collide in a positive light. [rose]. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 49 vol. 39 no. 3 most of these recommendations would be described as hard competencies, sometimes known as cognitive, functional, or technical skills; in other words, “what people should know and are able to do to complete the work successfully” (kovac, 2008, p. 144). education for all. all teachers shared that, in careers within the school system, ece students and/or reces will most definitely have exposure to special educational needs, though this exposure will vary in place and time. it is significant to note that the majority of these interviewees also emphasized that we might not know these students have special needs at the time: their special needs may just be “blossoming” just as their overall development is doing. students in the kindergarten system who may eventually be identified with an exceptionality may not yet be diagnosed or may not yet be identified, but we provide education, care, and support for the characteristics observed. interestingly, this perspective aligns with the approach provided to school-aged special education in toto for some canadian jurisdictions, like new brunswick, with the longest history of a fully inclusive model. for example, in a study of programs and policies related to services for students with emotional/behavioural disorders, the researchers reported that “there are no categories that are used for criteria to either determine eligibility, funding, or service provision’’ (dworet & maich, 2007, p. 36). these children might be facing multiple potential barriers or red flags, such as emergent issues, behavioural problems, peer difficulties, lack of clinical support, and/or lack of diagnoses; in addition, these children might not be identified, and they might not have an iep, but they are still present in the classroom every day being supported by educators. this is not a new situation, however. the first province-wide study of young children with special needs in nova scotia (canning & lyon, 1989) noted an increase in identification past the preschool level. teacher participant rose explained that observing and responding to perhaps more subtle needs, in order to support all students regardless of any “label,” takes time, experience, and exposure. she shared that: we have 3-year-olds to 6-year-olds, students that might later on be diagnosed with a [learning disability] but might be having certain areas of difficulty even at [the] jk/sk level. with experience comes that awareness. i can usually pick [them] out when they come in: this is what their needs are right now, and usually down the road, a diagnosis is made. but it just comes from experience and exposure and learning what the characteristics are. universal framework. one message that was clear in the conversations and contemplations of these teachers is that special needs are not the only diversity in the classroom setting. although ece students as a group were exposed to what were presented as diagnosticspecific behaviours, related, at times, to students with diagnoses in place (e.g., asd, oppositional defiance disorder, developmental delay), oct participants suggested that it is necessary to develop a range of proactive and reactive strategies related to both general classroom management, social skills (e.g., kelso’s choice), and the management of oppositional behaviours (i.e., watching for cues that behaviours are escalating)—in other words, a universal design approach that focuses on the proactive development of a teaching and learning environment to support a range of present and potential needs (ontario ministry of education, 2011). two teacher participants shared that special needs are only part of the diversity in classrooms and issues. violet explained a little further regarding the exposure of ece students to the classroom environment: we sort of felt like our students were here to, yes, get experience with special needs kids, but the overriding goals of students is to get experience programming for kids at large, so the special needs of all. they can be part of the process of helping little johnny who’s got asd, but no more with him than they are with suzy who has emotional problems because she’s lost a parent. in other words, student experiences should not focus more on special needs than on other concerns, such as those related to emotional issues (i.e., feelings), management (e.g., playground), transitions (e.g., parental separation), academics (i.e., programming), english as a subsequent language, and speech and language concerns, for example. violet further reflected on the reaction of her ece student to such diversity: “on more than one occasion she expressed a disbelief at the behaviours [be]cause—it’s so diverse—there [are] so many different needs. this is a very, very, very diverse group. very. i think it’s just the sign of the times.” violet further described her views: we’re working with what we have and we want to make our program meet the needs of the child. so, what different strategies we can use to make everyone successful. and it might have to vary: it can’t be just one thing across the board because they’re all coming in at different levels. it is clear that the teacher participants in this study recognize the diversity in students with special needs as important in their classrooms and, subsequently, in their professional development and related skills development; however, they value and respect all diversity in their classroom settings and want to approach it in a proactive manner. while most teachers—including the group in this study—no doubt utilize a strategic combination of approaches, a clear sense of first utilizing a proactive, universal approach emerged from this study as a recommendation for educators entering the field. inspired by architectural design, a framework of universal design for canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 50 vol. 39 no. 3 learning (udl) fulfills the understanding that essential strategies that may be recommended for one student (e.g., a student with special needs) may be beneficial for many other learners, thus allowing for multiple means of engagement, expression, and representation. the core concepts of udl are simplicity, safety, classroom design, universality and equity, and flexibility and inclusion (ontario ministry of education, 2011). overall, the teachers in this study are firmly grounded in a complex understanding of inclusion for all students. deluca (2013) provides a relevant theoretical foundation for examining inclusion specific to canadian schools, moving away from a deficit or “psycho-medical response” (p. 309) to a sociological one, through four perspectives in a framework that includes special education as a contributing discipline. these four conceptions and treatments of diversity are normative (assimilation focused), integrative (where difference are recognized, but a dominant versus minority duality exists), dialogical, and transgressive. as a group, these educators from one school board in southern ontario are likely hovering between two of these perspectives. first, a dialogical conception is evident in which cultural complexities are respected, diversity is invited, “differences are recognized and accepted by institutions with provisions for equitable access to education leading to the same educational standards” (p. 332), and interactions “bring forward knowledge as rooted in the lived, cultural experiences of diverse students” (p. 333). second, a transgressive conception is apparent that includes an “idealistic benchmark” (p. 336) where “student diversity is used as a vehicle for the generation of new knowledge and learning experiences” (p. 334) and issues such as a social justice, power, inequity, discrimination, stereotypy are recognized, yet individuality is empowered and celebrated as foundational to knowledge. conclusions and next steps the purposes of this project were to delineate the current role of ece students from one community college postsecondary setting in school-based special education from multiple perspectives, to explore the preparedness of ece students for involvement in schoolbased special education from multiple perspectives, and to provide recommendations for curriculum for an ece community college postsecondary setting. the below conclusions and related next steps, however, must be taken in the context of this small-scale, singleinstitution study. the questionnaire utilized to gather data was author-prepared, and further work needs to be done to assess its validity and reliability, which low response rates inhibited. these low response rates also precluded statistical analysis. however, unique conclusions and next steps for future recommendation can be made without an intention for extensive generalization of findings. the current role of ece students from these results, it can be presumed that ece students in this study are not significantly expanding their knowledge, exposure, and experience levels related to school-based special education during their practicum placement—at least in their own estimation. however, it is clear from the reflections of the mentoring educators that the ece students are interacting with children with identified exceptionalities in the kindergarten classrooms and also children who may later be identified and children with challenges and needs of a diverse nature that may or may not be related to an exceptionality. the preparedness of ece students further, ece students as a whole, in this study, did not see themselves as high in knowledge, exposure, and/or experience with schoolbased special education, even following full-time sustained placements in a kindergarten setting with a mentoring classroom relationship, including the requisite modelling, observation, discussion, feedback, and gradual release of responsibility (doan, 2013). exposure and/or experience will come with time and future employment in the field if it is indeed true that “everything begins and ends in the continuous flux and flow of experience” (kolb & kolb, 2009, p. 300). however, it would be a positive outcome for students to envision themselves as at least highly knowledgeable in school-based special education as a foundation for entering the field as professionals (kovac, 2008). recommendations for ece programming given the inclusive perspective of the teacher participants in this study, a positive recommendation for college-level preparation for ece students entering kindergarten settings would be to develop strategies for students not only with special educational needs, but with a range of other needs related to diversity in the whole child and all of its related challenges. as stated above, a universal design approach that focuses on the proactive development of a teaching and learning environment to support a range of present and potential needs would be ideal (ontario ministry of education, 2011); however, it is important not to dismiss the potentially significant outcome of a diagnosis or an identification. as one teacher participant suggested, these conclusions mean that we must make such experiences part of school-based placements and/or adapt the college classroom curriculum. as recommended for octs, reces working together in fdk teaching teams should have a similar foundation of basic knowledge in school-based special education. special education transformation emphasizes that all newly certified teachers should complete “a minimum of a half-course on special education before [being issued] an ontario teaching certificate” (bennett & wynne, 2006, p. 12). our ece students perhaps should emerge with the same canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 51 vol. 39 no. 3 foundation, covering topics such as ieps, iprcs, asd, behaviour, and general knowledge about special education (e.g., red flags). in their research in nova scotia, canning and lyon (1989) similarly concluded that programs for early childhood educators “should prepare for work with young children with special needs, most of whom will be in regular programs. all trainees preparing to work with young children should be educated in both [typical and atypical] development and in methods of designing and implementing programs for all children” (p. 378). at the same time, a documented barrier for effective service provision for children with exceptionalities is the very heterogeneity found within any given diagnosis, identification, or “label,” rendering potential matches between such labels and their interventions more complex than simple. in other words, it is important to retain a focus on inclusion, but also to include a deliberate focus on school-based special education topics, with a special emphasis on future identification. these areas of emphasis should come not only from a postsecondary classroom emphasis, but also from professional and collegial mentoring. kohut’s self-psychology model emphasizes the importance of developing a robust, resilient self (kohut & wolf, 1978), necessitating “different kinds of experiences throughout their lifetime” (grady & cantor, 2012, p. 402). grady and cantor apply this idea to the professional development of social workers; perhaps it can also be applied to the development of others in the helping professions, such as ece students. positive, meaningful experiences called selfobjects help to develop stable, strong, resilient people—including professionals—who are “vibrant, productive, and [feel] confident” (p. 407). the context for much of this learning and self-development is through the critically important supervisory relationship, but also through peer-to-peer relationships. colleges and hosting schools could continue to maintain and improve supervisory mentoring at the college and school levels which focuses on moving students through cycles of experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation, ensuring that “crucial links between the different moment in the process are made” (de jong, 2006, p. 253). however, a helpful addition could be adding a time, place, and /or method for reflective practice, and develop a purposeful peer-to-peer learning community throughout their practicum placement(s) as a “conversational space” (baker et al, 2005, p. 411). both colleges and hosting schools can fulfill learning through “conversational learning, a process whereby learners construct new meaning and transform their collective experiences into knowledge through their conversations” (p. 411). for the purposes of this paper, this would be for the development of critical knowledge around school-based special education; however, it appears that such practices can potentially be of widespread benefit. over a lifetime—throughout the inevitable career-long development of knowledge, exposure, and experiences with school-based special education—a goal for any professional would be to reach a place where “our mastery of facts and decision-making in certain areas will become so automatic that we work mainly through intuition and past experience, a state of mind described as ‘unconscious competence’” (launer, 2010, p. 628). for ece students just entering a professional role supporting all children in ontario’s kindergarten classrooms and just concluding a program of professional preparation, an appropriate goal would be comparable to that of inclusion and universal design—to support all students in the classroom, including careful preparedness in knowledge, exposure, and experience for co-teaching children with special needs in a school environment. references allen, a.t. (1986). gardens of children, gardens of god: kindergartens and day-care centers in nineteenth-century germany. journal of social history, 19(3), 433. baker, a.c., jensen, p.j., & kolb, d.a. (2005). conversation as experiential learning. management learning, 36(4), 411–427. doi: 10.1177/1350507605058130 bennett, b. (2012, november). current trends and issues in special education. presentation to the regional special education committee, grand bend, ontario. bennett, s., & dworet, d. (2013). special education in ontario schools. st. david’s, on: highland press. bennett, s., & wynne, k. (2006). special education transformation. toronto, on: queen’s printer. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/speced/ transformation/ bennett, s. (2009). including students with exceptionalities. literacy and numeracy secretariat: what works? research into practice monograph series, 16. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/whatworks.html brewer, c., gasko, j.w., & miller, d. (2011). have we been here before? lessons learned from a microhistory of the policy development of universal kindergarten. educational policy, 25(1), 9–35. doi:10.1177/0895904810386603 bryant, d.m., & clifford, r.m. (1992). 150 years of kindergarten: how far have we come? early childhood research quarterly, 7, 147–154. canning, p.m., & lyon, m.e. (1989). young children with special needs: prevalence and implications in nova scotia. canadian journal of education, 14(3), 368–380. doi:10.2307/1495365 chu, m. (2012). observe, reflect, and apply: ways to successfully mentor early childhood educators. dimensions of early childhood, 40(3), 20–28. canadian children child study fall/automne 2014 52 vol. 39 no. 3 chung, s., & wash, d.j. (2000). unpacking child-centeredness: a history of meanings. journal of curriculum studies, 32(2), 215–234. college of early childhood educators. (2012). public register. retrieved from: http://collegeofece.on.ca/en/members/pages/public-register.aspx de jong, w. (2006). from ‘doing’ to ‘knowing what you are doing’: kolb’s learning theory in teaching documentary practice. journal of media practice, 7(2), 151–158. doi: 101386/jmpr/7.2.151/3 deluca, c. (2013). toward an interdisciplinary framework for educational inclusivity. canadian journal of education, 36(1), 305–348. dicicco-bloom, b., & crabtree, b. (2006). the qualitative research interview. medical education, 40(4), 314–321. doan, l.k. (2013). mentoring: a strategy to support novice early childhood educators. canadian children, 38(2), 21–24 durlak, j.a. (2009). how to select, calculate, and interpret effect size. journal of pediatric psychology, 34(9), 917–928. dworet, d., & maich, k. (2007). canadian school programs for students with emotional/behavioural disorders: an updated look. behavioural disorders, 1(33), 33–42. frels, r.k., & onwuegbuzie, a.j. (2013). administering quantitative instruments with qualitative interviews: a mixed research approach. journal of counseling & development, 91(2), 184–194. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2013.00085.x grady, m.d., & cantor, m. (2012). strengthening the professional selves of social workers through the lens of self psychology. smith college studies in social work, 82, 401–417. doi: 10.1080/00377317.2012.717027 kaplowitz, m.d., hadlock, t.d., & levine, r. (2004). a comparison of web and mail survey response rates. public opinion quarterly, 68(1), 94–101. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfh006 kohut, h., & wolf, e.s. (1978). the disorders of the self and their treatment: an outline. international journal of psychoanalysis, 59, 413–425. kolb, a.y., & kolb, d.a. (2009). the learning way: meta-cognitive aspects of experiential learning. simulation & gaming, 40(3), 297–327. kolb, d.a. (1984). experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice-hall. retrieved from: http:// learningfromexperience.com/research_library/the-process-of-experiential-learning/ kovac, d. (2008). competence model in education and training process. tourism and hospitality management, 14(1), 141–152. launer, j. (2010). unconscious incompetence. postgraduate medical journal, 86(1020), 628. doi: 10.1136/pgmj.2010.108423 legislative assembly of ontario. (2010). bill 242: an act to amend the education act and certain other acts in relation to early childhood educators, junior kindergarten and kindergarten, extended day programs and certain other matters. retrieved from: http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&intranet=&billid=2269 lewington, j. (2010, september). all-day kindergarten comes to ontario. professionally speaking. retrieved from: http://professionallyspeaking.oct.ca/september_2010/ features/kindergarten.aspx nixon, g. (1994). the first years of kindergarten in canada. canadian children, 19(2), 6–9. ontario college of teachers. (n.d.). requirements. retrieved from: http://www.oct.ca/~/link.aspx?_id=25cd74ddd6a14f3ba968490666fb1733&_z=z ontario ministry of education. (2013). full day kindergarten: a question and answer guide for parents. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/multi/english/ fdkfactsheeten.pdf ontario ministry of education (2011). learning for all [draft]. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/learning.html ontario ministry of education. (2010a). the full-day early learning-kindergarten program. draft version. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/ elementary/kindergarten_english_june3.pdf ontario ministry of education. (2010b). full day kindergarten schools. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/kindergarten/fulldaykindergartenschools2.asp pascal, c. (2009). with our best future in mind. toronto, on: queen’s printer. retrieved from: http://www.ontario.ca/education-and-training/early-learning-report service ontario. (1996). ontario college of teachers act, 1996. retrieved from: http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/regs/english/elaws_regs_020347_e.htm smith, j.g. (2011). abstracting the concrete, concretizing the abstract: reframing diversity education through experiential learning theory. journal of diversity management, 6(4), 1–8. sax, l.j., gilmartin, s.k., & bryant, a.n. (2003). assessing response rates and nonresponse bias in web and paper surveys. research in higher education, 44(4), 409–432. stockall, n.s., dennis, l., & miller, m. (2012). right from the start. teaching exceptional children, 45(1), 10–17. underwood, k. (2012). mapping the early intervention system in ontario, canada. international journal of special education, 27(2), 126–135. vanderlee, m., youmans, s., peters, r., & eastabrook, j. (2012). final report: evaluation of the implementation of the ontario full-day early learning-kindergarten program. retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/kindergarten/fdelk_reportfall2012.pdf canadian children directions & connections 53fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 kim atkinson is an early childhood educator and a pedagogical facilitator with the university of victoria’s unit for early years research and development. she also co-coordinates, with danielle davis, the images of learning project—an exhibit, blog, and series of presentations that highlights the work of eces and the competencies of children (www.imagesoflearningproject.com). email: klatkins@uvic.ca beyond red week: working with inquiry in early years settings kim atkinson it is 1995 and i am working with a group of 4-year-olds in a preschool. i have cut a large circle out of red construction paper and printed the word red in the centre. at group time, i explain that this week is red week and we will be collecting red items to post on the red circle, doing red art projects, and wearing red clothing. next week will be yellow week. in thinking back, i wonder why i chose to engage with themes based on colour. i don’t think i found the colour red particularly interesting, nor, i suspect, did the children. did i think children did not know about red? did i think they should know about red? can one really know red by wearing red clothes? shifting to an inquiry-based approach i was not alone in my thematic approach to creating curriculum. it was standard practice in early childhood education at that time to plan and implement a weekly or monthly topic and introduce art, stories, and materials accordingly. fortunately, in the ensuing years, many early childhood educators and teachers have begun to shift their practice, moving from preplanned activities toward an inquirybased curriculum. with the introduction of early years education frameworks in british columbia (government of british columbia, 2008), saskatchewan (government of saskatchewan, 2008), ontario (ontario ministry of children and youth services, 2006) and new brunswick (government of new brunswick, 2008), and with the influence of the philosophy and pedagogical documentation practices of early childhood programs in reggio emilia, italy, sweden, new zealand, australia, and elsewhere, early years professionals have begun reflecting on their image of the child, their image of the educator, and the values they hold about knowledge and education. in these curriculum frameworks and philosophies, children are viewed as competent, as constructing knowledge and theories as they investigate their world (government of british columbia, 2008; government of new brunswick, 2008; langford, 2010). this image of the child moves away from viewing children through a “future citizens” lens where childhood is understood as preparation for the future. instead, children are considered citizens who are “full of potential; as persons with complex identities, grounded in their individual strengths and capacities, and their unique social, linguistic, and cultural heritage” (government of british columbia, 2008, p. 4). critical reflection and democratic principles this image of the child invites educators to critically reflect on the beliefs and assumptions we hold about children, and to consider how these beliefs play out in our daily practice. if we believe that children are capable and competent, do our environments and programs reflect that belief? do we, as the new brunswick framework proposes, “acknowledge children as curious and communicative individuals in their own right: young citizens actively constructing, co-constructing and reconstructing their understanding of the world within various communities of learning” (government of new brunswick, 2008, p. 8)? through processes of critical reflection, educators have begun to shift to new understandings of practice. we are becoming observers and researchers of children and their theories, paying close attention to what children know. we recognize that knowledge is not something to be transmitted from teacher to child, with the teacher determining the content of that knowledge. rather, knowledge is co-constructed between and among children and adults. langford (2010), in her analysis of the canadian provincial early education frameworks, summarizes this image of the educator: “this educator is an observer, documenter, listener, researcher, creator of stimulating drawing on the experience of the author and her colleagues, this article explores moving from a theme-based curriculum in early years settings to an inquiry-based approach. new possibilities for doing curriculum are described as educators challenge themselves to engage in processes of critical reflection, enact democratic principles, and adopt an inquiry as a focal point for discussion among children, colleagues, and families. the article shares examples of educators reimagining curriculum as they embrace both the flow and uncertainty of an inquiry. canadian children directions & connections 54fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 environments, co-constructor of knowledge, negotiator, supporter of children’s participation in decision-making, facilitator of small group learning, supporter of social relationships, partner with parents, and supporter of diversity” (p. 17). through this image of the early childhood educator, democratic principles are brought to early childhood practice in which listening and reciprocity between children and adults structures the process of learning and being together. the new brunswick framework terms this living democratically, stating: “we value the everyday enactment of democracy that gives children a voice in matters that concern them and provides opportunities to participate in making and questioning collective decisions” (government of new brunswick, 2008, p. 7). the saskatchewan framework suggests an “expanded role” for educators in which educators “respect children as competent learners who are able to participate in decisions that affect their learning opportunities. children share in decisions about routines and schedules to accommodate their ideas and needs” (government of saskatchewan, 2008, p. 17). reimagining curriculum but where do these shifts in understanding leave us? what does curriculum look like if our role is reimagined as co-constructor of knowledge, if we invite democracy? where do we go when the themes that used to structure our days and weeks are taken away? what do we do instead? in my roles as pedagogical facilitator in the investigating quality (iq) project at the university of victoria (pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, forthcoming) and as co-coordinator of the images of learning project (http://imagesoflearningproject.com/ info/), i work with early childhood educators to support new thinking about practice by sharing new perspectives and ideas. we discuss moving away from preplanned activities toward an inquiry-based practice. as we begin to reflect on our practice, educators often tell me they would like to embrace these ideas. yet, many questions arise: how do we choose an inquiry? how does one start? won’t some children be left out if they are not interested? how do i know when to end the inquiry? what does one actually do in an inquiry? to engage with some of these questions, i provide some insights by presenting a moment in my own practice. it is valentine’s day and the children are making and giving cards to one another. alice makes a card for william. handing it to him, she looks him straight in the eye and says, “i love you.” this bold declaration surprises me and makes me curious about what children think about love, so at group time the next day i ask, “what is love?” this is the dialogue that ensued: arlo: love means you fall in love and you are going to marry. briar: it means you want to be nice and help your little brother. alice: it means you love them. ronan: when someone dies you love them. it means you miss them. you have to find a new family if they die. briar and alice: no! no! alice: every single person will die. william: he said then you get another family. but that’s wrong. arlo: wrong! arlo: if someone dies you turn into a skeleton, then a ghost, then a spirit. alice: spirit means you’re dead. arlo: it means that you’re a ghost that sneaks into people, that’s evil. amisha: love means if you die you put something over the hole so you know where they are buried. ronan: a tombstone. once again i am utterly surprised—a conversation about love has turned into a discussion about death! it seems clear to me that children want to talk about death and that perhaps we adults are reluctant to broach the subject. i am also intrigued by ronan’s assertion that you have to find a new family if your family dies. i revisit the conversation in subsequent group times, and the theme of what to do if one’s parents die continues. the children discuss whether parents can die when they still have children to care for, and if they did die would you have to marry a new family? they agree that people die because they are old, and decide their parents are only a “tiny bit old.” i video-record these dialogues, transcribe them, and share them with parents, who then tell their stories: two preschool-age sisters drawing a grave with chalk on the basement floor claiming it is the grave of their great-grandmother, despite the fact that the woman is very much alive; a boy wondering if his mother needs a new father now that her own father has died. this inquiry into death arose from questions i had when i observed a girl giving a boy a card. it went in an entirely different direction than i had intended, but was far more interesting as a result. i had not previously considered death as a topic to pursue in my work with young children, but once the children brought it up, i was intrigued and wanted to find out more. i was interested in the children’s canadian children directions & connections 55fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 thoughts and theories, and i wanted to be led by them to discuss death in the ways they wanted to discuss it, following threads they began. i pursued the inquiry during our group time by listening and asking questions about the ideas that emerged. together we explored causes of death, the importance of graves as markers of remembrance, and the possible ways a child would find someone to care for them if their parents died. the discussions spanned a few weeks, and when i sensed that the children’s interest had waned, that the topic was no longer of such urgent importance to them, the inquiry ended. unlike red week, this inquiry on death had no clear outline of how it would proceed. there were long gaps between discussions. i needed time to think, to discuss my thoughts with families, and to reflect with colleagues. in this way, an inquiry is an organic process: it moves forward and backward in ways not necessarily dictated by the calendar. it emerges from our questions, curiosities, and new thinking. ann pelo (2006) puts the idea of a culture of inquiry beautifully: “like life, it unfolds moment by moment, one step at a time, with surprises and detours and new questions to take up” (p. 50). i initially had questions about children’s conceptualization of love, which quickly shifted into a question about conceptualizations of death. while these questions emerged as i listened to children’s dialogue, it was my own curiosity that spurred the inquiry. i wanted to investigate and provoke both my own and the children’s thinking by pursuing this inquiry. so while the topic originated with the children, it was my decision to delve into it more deeply. a framework to think with thus an inquiry is generated with educators. it may emerge from observation of theories the children are working with, or it may emerge from questions the educators are working with, or it may be a combination of both. i am reminded of some questions that an educator at a preschool i worked with posed: “why do i do what i do as an educator? are there other ways of being that i can explore as an educator?” she stayed with these questions for a year, challenging herself to reconsider her role. by continually returning to the questions, she shifted how she responded to children’s encounters with materials, with mess, and with “chaos.” she altered the schedule and rules as she listened to the children’s ideas, and she invited parents to create provocations that would extend the children’s thinking. an inquiry becomes a framework to think with (v. pacini-ketchabaw, personal communication, october 2012, original emphasis), to struggle with, and to bring some focus to our pedagogies. an inquiry should provoke us to challenge ourselves to see and do differently without having clear answers. it becomes a focal point for discussion among colleagues, parents, and children. an inquiry can emerge from something that challenges us, or from conversations or events that leave us uncertain and not knowing how to respond. the following was one of those moments for a group of educators: a group of 3-year-olds sit at a table eating lunch. one boy begins a loud high-pitched rhythmic chant, “yah, yah, yah, yah!” the other children at the table quickly pick up the idea and join in, and the room becomes filled with sound. over the next few days this scenario is repeated at group time, snack time, as the children get ready to go outside. the educators are uncomfortable with the noise, but the children appear to love it. the educators are curious about why this sound making fascinates the children, and they ask themselves questions: what is our relationship with sound? our perceptions of a good/bad binary of sound? or the sound/noise binary? artists work with sound and “soundscapes,” creating acoustic environments that listeners experience as surrounding them in space. what is the soundscape of a children’s environment? do we attend to soundscapes? what does listening do? in ece, we often relate listening to behaviour. how can we complexify listening? how can we listen to the classroom, the children, the educators? what experiments could we consider to explore sound? can we collect sounds on a tape recorder? ask families to collect sounds with children? what sounds would children want to collect? as the educators thought with these questions, they experienced a heightened awareness of sounds around them. they attended to the different sounds children noticed, or did not notice, and to the sounds the adults noticed or did not notice. they observed the unexpected ways children experimented with making sound and paid attention to their own responses to the different sounds in the environment. an inquiry can weave in and through the daily life of a program as ideas and questions arise. experiments with sound did not happen every day or every week, but flowed with the interests of those involved. sometimes there were large group experiments and at times canadian children directions & connections 56fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 only one or two children investigated an idea. different educators and children had different interests within the inquiry. but thinking together enriched all of the various interests. pedagogical narration as a tool for reflection integral to the process of thinking together with an inquiry is pedagogical narration or pedagogical documentation. understanding the bc early learning framework: from theory to practice defines pedagogical narration as the process of observing, recording, and, individually and collectively, interpreting a series of related ordinary moments in your practice. the process should be ongoing, cyclical and based on the art of critical reflection on the part of a community of learners. importantly, it ‘is contextual and involves children in a process of co-construction with teachers’ (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2007). (government of british columbia, 2009, p. 13). within an inquiry, educators make notes, take photos, or video children in ordinary moments of investigation and theory making. educators revisit pedagogical narrations to reflect on the theories the children may be working with and collaborate with one another, with families, and with children to invite multiple perspectives. through critical reflection, educators can begin to see different possibilities and thus plan for further investigations or provocations. in the example below, anne is intrigued as she observes a boy making a ramp. the process of documenting her observations leads to further investigation and a deeper understanding of the complexity of a seemingly simple moment. anne is an educator in a family drop-in program. she observes a boy using a long plank to make a ramp that he then rolls cars down. anne is fascinated and takes dozens of photos as the boy adjusts the angle and slope of the ramp to ensure that the car will end up in a precise spot. the boy and the ramp stay in anne’s mind, and she pores over her photos, curious as to the boy’s intention and wondering why it holds such fascination for her. she begins researching ramp construction, reading about engineering, physics, gravity, and newton’s laws of motion. she takes photos of bridges, sloped roads, and on-ramps and discusses her pedagogical narration with engineers, friends, and colleagues, all of whom share different perspectives. anne makes this observation: “the more i reflected and researched on my own, and the more people’s perspectives and reflections i invited and subsequently pondered, the more knowledge i gained, which sent me delving into even more research to only spiral into even more thoughts and questions.” inviting multiple disciplines thinking with an inquiry often takes our practice in unexpected directions, and we are led toward disciplines outside the “typical” realm of early childhood. anne’s research into motion, gravity, physics, and construction enabled her to think differently about an ordinary moment of block play. as anne learned about the complexity of the engineering involved in building a ramp, she was able to more fully see the complexity of the boy’s ramp making, to more deeply appreciate the theoretical knowledge he was thinking with. inviting knowledges from many disciplines creates openings for new perspectives. by looking into the worlds of art, philosophy, engineering, dance, music, indigenous knowledges, architecture, history, or biology, among others, we can begin to see ideas, ways of being, and encounters differently. allowing these other disciplines to ‘blur the edges” of our field of knowledge allows us to see children’s theories, their meaning making, their play, and their relationships with materials in ways that unsettle our taken-for-granted thinking. as one educator put it: “as educators, what we think and expect can narrow our perceptions. we see what we expect to see and assign our own meaning.” in the following example, lindsay draws on relational materialist theories (clark, 2011) to inspire new ways of thinking about children, art, and art materials. lindsay became intrigued with the agency of materials, how materials invite particular responses. she read articles by artists and philosophers who challenged the idea that objects can be neutral subjects that humans act upon. she began to see materials differently, as having a presence, and to recognize that “materials, ideas, and the environment continually come together, connect, and break apart” (clark, 2011, p. 3). she began to experiment with materials in her centre, putting clay on the floor, arranging blocks under tables, stacking two tables and putting paint jars and brushes on the very top, turning the easel upside down, all the while observing, questioning, and reflecting. she documented many moments of children’s encounters with materials and posted these in her centre, inviting dialogue and multiple perspectives. her inquiry into materials and materiality led her to think deeply about the “truths” we hold canadian children directions & connections 57fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 about children, and how challenging these truths can lead us into new ways of being as an educator and transform practice. finding joy in uncertainty red week did not challenge me to see or think differently. i did not reflect on what the children understood about red, or how they might investigate red. red week progressed along a predictable trajectory with each group of children, year after year. inquiries, on the other hand, involve unpredictability and invite uncertainty. they flow with the group that undertakes them and take many unanticipated twists and turns along the way. the challenge and the wonder of an inquiry is that there is no prescriptive manual. finding joy with, and becoming comfortable within, the uncertainty of the flow of an inquiry is to take a risk. it means putting trust in yourself and the children—trusting that together you can create, investigate, challenge, and surprise one another. it means embracing an openness to listening deeply to children, to colleagues, and to families, knowing that all are partners in a collaborative process. references clark, v. (2011). art making as a political and ethical practice. canadian children, 37(1), 21–26. dahlberg, g., moss, p., & pence, a. (2007). beyond quality in early childhood education: languages of evaluation (2nd ed.). london, uk: falmer press. government of british columbia. (2008). british columbia early learning framework. victoria, bc: ministry of health and ministry of children and family development. government of british columbia. (2009). understanding the british columbia early learning framework: from theory to practice. victoria, bc: ministry of health and ministry of children and family development. government of new brunswick. (2008). early learning and child care curriculum. fredericton, nb: department of social development. government of ontario. (2006). early learning for every child today. toronto, on: best start panel on an early learning program. government of quebec. (2007). meeting early childhood needs: quebec’s educational program for childcare services. québec city, qc: ministry of family and children. government of saskatchewan. (2008). play and exploration: early learning program guide. regina, sk: ministry of education. langford, r. (2010). innovations in provincial early learning curriculum frameworks. ryerson university occasional paper #24. retrieved from: http://www.childcarecanada. org/ pacini-ketchabaw, v., nxumalo, f., kocher, l. elliot, e., & sanchez, a. (forthcoming). journeys: complexifying early childhood practices through pedagogical narration. toronto, on: university of toronto press. pelo, a. (2006). growing a culture of inquiry: observation as professional development. exchange, nov/dec, 50–53. canadian children directions & connections 58fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 vanessa clark is a phd student and a sessional instructor of early childhood studies in the school of child and youth care at the university of victoria. she worked as an atelierista with a sshrc-funded project entitled “encounters with materials in early childhood education.” her research and presentations focus on colonialism and art pedagogies in early childhood spaces. email: vanessa.vondruska@gmail.com deanna elliott is a lead infant/toddler educator at university of victoria child care services and the mother of two young children. she is a participant in the same sshrc-funded project referenced above. her presentations at various practitioner and academic conferences focus on her interests in ordinary spaces, materials, project work, and collaborations. email: dinnieelliott@yahoo.ca seeking the otherwise: attending to the complexities of listening vanessa clark and deanna elliott i ask sam, “do you think the sound is a colour?” he says, “yes” and moves to select the white charcoal. he draws first on the dark paper and then switches to the graphite on the white paper. i ask, “are both the sound?” he replies, “no” and points to the white charcoal. within developmental frameworks, children are typically expected to learn to sit and listen during circle time and during “teachable” moments. children need to demonstrate listening, while educators might instruct and encourage children in the appropriate way to listen. listening is shown by certain body postures, such as sitting upright and looking forward, by certain facial expressions, such as eye contact and appropriate emotional expressions, through the medium of language, using age-appropriate words to communicate, and by self-regulation, such as taking turns talking (garforth, 2009; mosley & myilibrary, 2005; yifat & zadunaisky-ehrlich, 2008; zaghlawan & ostrosky, 2011). the environment is generally understood as passive within these listening contexts, and the child and educator act (macnaughton, 2003). a developmental understanding of listening might help us see that sam has good listening skills. our focus would be on the humans talking in english. we might assume that an educator is asking the questions and a child is responding. sam replies appropriately to the questions he is asked, he does not get distracted by the materials he is playing with, and he waits his turn to respond. the pedagogical project of reggio emilia in italy has generated important new directions for listening through rinaldi’s (2001) pedagogy of listening. rinaldi presents guidelines for educators to listen to children in which she suggests several meanings of listening. listening is a difficult task that involves many aspects, such as suspending judgment, recognizing, and remaining open to difference, change, and uncertainty. a search for meaning is a central component of listening. listening also means being influenced by children through the many languages in the arts that they speak. within these listening contexts, reggio emilia has also presented the understanding of the environment as a “third teacher” (gandini, 1998, p. 177). the pedagogy of listening might help us focus on the meanings sam is making. we might listen deeply to sam’s voice, and really hear what he is saying with our whole bodies. he is telling us that sound can be a colour—perhaps making visible what he is learning about sounds. we would be challenged to listen to the languages of sam’s drawing, to also explore the meanings he is communicating to us. the white charcoal, graphite, and paper are also teachers to us. we attempt to move beyond reggio emilia’s guidelines for listening because we are interested in expanding beyond human conversations. we attempt to pay attention to the complex, political spaces of listening relationalities among educators, children, and more-thanhuman others. we question the assumption that we can “do” listening, as though it is a demonstrable skill. rather, we pay attention to the spaces of listening, and to how and why listening takes shape. we also move beyond reggio emilia’s human-centred approach to listening, which also means thinking beyond children’s hundred languages. we wonder where the spaces of listening with children to more-than-human others might take us. our challenges of listening have provoked us to question whether we need a common language to talk. we therefore also focus on moments where we might not understand what we hear, and we are curious about the ways in which listening fails. who and what are privileged through listening, and who and what become blocked out? our questions and curiosities have provoked us to engage with the more difficult conversations we encounter. our hope is that our struggles with listening point to an ethics in practice. this article presents our attempt to move beyond both developmental and reggio emilia guidelines for listening. we situate our efforts within our wounded colonial context—what is now called victoria, british columbia. our effort is to begin to consider listening within unequal spaces of power, and to wonder what ethics such arrangements might require. in our engagements with clay and stones with the children, we noticed the sound the stones and clay made. in this article, we work with several stories of our investigations into sound, which have helped us to think about the complexities of listening in childcare spaces. canadian children directions & connections 59fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 the context of our work our work is located on unceded coast and straits salish territories. specifically, we work in the territory of the lekwungen (esquimalt and songhees nations). through colonization, this territory has also become known as victoria, british columbia. we find this location meaningful for listening to more-than-human others because we are continually grappling with what it means to live ethically in these “wounded places” (rose, 2004) where our worlds are made up of many more-than-human others that do not belong to us (taylor & guigni, 2012). our worlds are continually in contact with difference—with indigenous bodies, land, and dignity (hill, 2008; watts, 2013). together with the children, we have been engaging with grey clay for six months, beginning in a “forest studio” and then moving inside our childcare centre’s atrium. vanessa clark acted as an atelierista during the project and deanna elliott acted as an infant/toddler educator. each week we would meet, moving between outside and inside, and participate with clay. sometimes we would set out the clay in a large lump and the children would grab pieces of it as needed. sometimes we would place balls, slabs, and chunks of clay out on the ground. sometimes the children would help us set out the clay and tell us where to put it. each time we worked with the clay, a different element would also be there. when we met outside, the forest presented us the challenges of working with stones, sticks, dirt, trees, a cigarette wrapper, bits of glass, fallen tree needles, and so on. inside our atrium, we engaged a low table, walls, branches, stones, hair and bits of dirt from the floor, and so on. the stories deanna tells next attend to the moments within our work where we grapple with the complexities of listening to an assemblage of clay, stones, dirt, sticks, sound, and, and, and. deanna’s stories are not a linear description of our project. we seek out and follow the diverse relationalities that listening takes us into. we move between deanna’s stories and theories to begin to complexify listening, to provoke new thinking and ask new questions in our practices. we begin by telling stories and theories of listening as being shaped through spaces, and we work to complicate the voices we attempt to listen to. next, we attend to our responses to the sound, and we wonder about our failed replies and the resistances of silence. we then point to an ethics of listening that focuses on difference. finally, we provide concluding remarks. telling stories listening spaces the educators, children, and researchers are in the atrium located in the centre of the childcare centre’s three buildings. this area connects management, reception, two rooms for 3to 5-yearolds, and one toddler room. we are seated on canvas that covers the floor in the atrium. the clay is resting in shira’s hand as she says, “lets make the crackle sound.” she picks up and invites sticks, leaves, and other objects into the clay. i sit silently beside her as she bangs, squishes, and drops the materials into one another. we listen, but it’s not the crackle sound. eventually she recalls that we need rocks to find the sound. we ask ty what the name of the sound is, and he reminds us that it’s the crackle sound. shira walks as i crawl along the floor next to her searching for the rocks. we find a few. they are big, and shira taps one onto the other. the crackle “speaks” quietly and quickly. shira drops the rocks. her visit is over. the story above makes us think about listening as being shaped by our location, what is in the room, what is in the air, what ways we understand and can’t understand. the clay, sticks, leaves, stones, the sound, the children, we, and our thoughts and questions are continually relating and come to matter in this complex space. how and why all these bodies relate and come to matter is never natural, innocent, or equal; it involves structures of power. we notice these power structures through the design of the buildings we are in, separating us by age and number of bodies, by the languages that are typically spoken in our childcare spaces, by the bodies that are present and the bodies that are absent, by the ways we typically think and act in our childcare setting and the ways of thinking and acting that become extinguished. these are the spaces of listening, and where listening takes shape (birla, 2010; byrd & rothberg, 2011). we are deliberately experimenting by engaging listening in the atrium—an area of connection within the diverse structures of power. the sound from the clay and bits of sticks, leaves, and other objects and the sound from the rocks make “noise.” we and the children listen, searching for the familiar sound, the sound we have come to know and like. listening takes shape and produces us unequally (birla, figure 1. children and educator engaging stones and clay. canadian children directions & connections 60fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 2010) as the “noisy” more-than-human others and human listeners. we make no claims for our bodies and the land to be one (watts, 2013). instead, we are interested in the contact zones (pratt, 1992), the spaces that shape us in contact with rocks, clay, dirt, and sticks. these spaces, fraught with complex histories, hold our attention. we continue to listen with another story we tell to take these spaces of listening further so that we might think about voice. complicating voice who notices the sound first? is it me, ty, shira, or sam? either way, it pulls us all in together. we lean into it. we cradle it beside our ears. it makes us wonder. it makes us laugh. maybe it’s a little funny. it invited others to listen. i wonder what it wanted to tell us. is it telling the story of how we created this bowl, or is it more? is it asking us to find others to play? an invitation by something unliving, yet finding a way of speaking. it was heard. was it understood? bella brings her head close to the sound. “i want to hear,” she says. whatever the sound is telling us it brings with it wonder, smiles, and movement. dressed in rain gear, i sit on the forest floor covered in water, mud, and clay. my hands are tired, cold, wet, and covered in a mix of dry, paste-like clay. my hands say they are finished. i ignore them. i lift my arms into the air near the children’s ears and squeeze the clay-rock-water assemblage, creating the sound. the children jump, stomp their feet, and shake their hips while my upper body moves along with them. we dance around the sound. maybe it knows some of our songs. the story above makes us think deeply about hearing, and about the ways we understand what we listen to. in these intricate listening relationalities, we specifically select spivak’s (2010) concept “failure of hearing” instead of “failure of speaking” to suggest that the responsibility and work of understanding resides more with those more powerful. spivak’s (2010) understanding of “failure of hearing” is extremely complex and involves the notion of voice. birla (2010) brings forward the issue of an “authentic voice.” she is cautious about the notion that we are able to understand a “voice” without mediation. in other words, we cannot have direct access to a voice without some way of understanding the voice. children and we want to listen in the story above, but we wonder if we understand. what ways of understanding are shaping our listening to the sound? in this sense, we are interested in the generative possibilities of considering our responsibilities in hearing and understanding and all the messiness that comes along with the voice we attempt to listen to. indeed, our hands and bodies are messy, covered in clay, as we attempt to listen. listening takes effort, as our bodies become tired and cold and our hands ache. listening is physical. we move and get into the clay. we also wonder about our actions and responses within the listening spaces that continue to shape us. below we continue with another story of listening from our practices with children as we attempt to grapple with an ethics of responding. responding to sound the assemblage of clay, stones, and sound is in the forest. i am sitting on the forest floor, legs crossed in front of me. the outside edges of my hands press together as i cradle the now formed clump of clay, stones, pine needles, earth, and water. the children add to the clay bowl, filling it with dirt, small stones, and water, then i fold the bowl into itself. at first the clay is quick to move through my hands, giving in to me easily, gliding in my fingers with no protest. as more stones merge with the clay it becomes firm, resisting my hands and forcing me to work harder and harder. the stones are first hidden then take over the clay. i listen to the stones as they crash into each other through the clay. reggio pedagogy suggests that listening is emotion. i wonder what the rocks are feeling. what are they telling me? is the message important? are they beginning to complain as they crush through the clay and into one another? the sound makes itself heard. is it protesting or thanking me? ty names the sound. it becomes the “crackle.” it is important; we name things when they are important. everyone hears the crackle. are we understanding? it is lunch, we are cold and hungry, but the crackle asks us to stay, saying something to each of us before we leave it with veronica and vanessa in the forest. luckily they carried it back for us. the bowl-clay-rocks-water-crackle found its way into our atrium. figure 2. children and educator in forest with clay. canadian children directions & connections 61fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 we are curious about listening when we might not understand what we hear. the story above makes us consider misunderstanding, and failing to hear the sound’s message. what might we do when we cannot know what we hear? have we heard the sound correctly? what are the consequences of thinking we have understood when we might not have? part of the work of listening, birla (2010) contends, is learning how to represent ourselves as those who are powerful. representing ourselves is about learning to be responsive. birla (2010) states: in asking us to represent ourselves, spivak asks us to supplement the benevolent intention of “speaking for” with an ethics of responsibility—in the sense of cultivating a capacity to respond to and be responsive to the other; without demanding resemblance as the basis of recognition. (p. 93) an ethics of responsibility takes us away from demanding to know the crackle, to seeking out ways of fostering responses to what we hear. we are also interested in ways of responding when we might not understand the message. in the stories we have been telling, we continue to try to understand, to grapple with the complexities of the message, and to question ourselves. we and the children continue to stay and attend to the sound—the assemblage of “noisy” more-than-human others. we notice that the children continue to foster responses to the sound. what can we learn from them? what ways of understanding do the children draw from? we also consider that we all make mistakes and we continue to wonder, how we will know when our responses have failed? for example, can naming also be risky? what might naming “the crackle” do to it? below we present another story as we continue to think through the complexities of listening. failed reception we find a few rocks on the floor. sam brings one to me and asks me to “hide the rock.” i lift the rocks from his hand and place them into the clay, folding the clay in. more rocks become hidden. the crackle whispers. sam lifts another rock and bangs it into the clay-stone. the crackle is quiet. he bangs a few more times. it “speaks,” loudly. “i found it!” he laughs. is it telling a new joke, or repeating the old one? sam piles rock-clay-rock-clay into a pile and begins smashing the tower over and over. the crackle is playing a game. it hides and “speaks” only when it’s ready to jump out and surprise us. isabella walks over to us and is introduced to the crackle. she listens. the crackle explains the game to her and she joins in. byrd and rothberg (2011) help us think about the idea of “the gap” in listening. we take this gap to be an intensely political space, where the message can get distorted between the sender and receiver. translation by the sender to the receiver changes the message; it is an incommensurable relation. byrd & rothberg (2011) state: it is important to be precise about the kinds of non-reception at stake. failed reception can certainly mean a complete lack of reception, that is, a relegation of subaltern subjects to silence, absence, and non-recognition. but perhaps more invidious are forms of partial and distorted reception: reception that fails to acknowledge an incommensurable relation to the source of the message, an incommensurability that is not a “natural” product of cultural difference but derives from established power differentials. (p. 6) we and the children, in the story above, draw on ways of understanding that are not a natural product of cultural differences. we listen to the sounds—the more-than-human assemblage of clay and rocks—within structures of power. in the story above, we hear the crackle and laugh; we play a game with the crackle. what would an ethic of attending to and responding to “lack of reception” (byrd & rothberg, 2011, p. 6) be like? so, we attempt to pay attention to gaps, and to partial and distorted listening. we wonder where attending to these gaps might take us in our collaboration with the children. we notice gaps of sound when we sit silently and wait, gaps of searching and not finding the sound, gaps of space between bodies, rocks, clay, the floor, walls, and, and, and, gaps of understanding when we question ourselves, gaps of time waiting to get back to the sound, and, gaps in getting back to other moments in our day. next we tell another story of a gap in sound to take us deeper into the ethics of listening. silence and refusing to be heard we are seated on the atrium floor surrounded by sticks, ivy, rocks, and dry and damp clay. there is a buzz of activity in the room with fellow researchers of various ages moving fast, moving slow, or resting. the area is loud with everyone engaged in various levels of conflicting yet collective work. ty is seeking the crackle. he walks over to two hard balls of clay. i notice the clay balls look like rocks. ty collects a few balls and bangs them together. the crackle’s voice has changed. is it telling a similar story? ty and i are both interested. as ty bangs the clay balls, the balls bounce off each other, and this time knock a small piece to the floor. we notice it falls beside bits of dried clay clinging to the canvas. he picks it off. someone brings a few rocks and places them on the floor. ty and i pick up the rocks canadian children directions & connections 62fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 and begin to smash the clay with the rocks. the crackle breaks. it becomes dust. the dust begins to grow as we continue to smash the clay. it is suddenly silent. razack (1998) describes the unsettling idea of silence when we engage with spaces of listening. the story above makes us wonder about the sound’s ability and power to refuse to be heard. although we may seek it out and try to engage it, the sound becomes silent. silence reminds us that we are not all-powerful in listening. the sound refuses to be heard: it transforms, it breaks, it becomes dust and resists our recognition. in the stories we have been telling, the sound is difference (hall, 1990). we search for the familiar sound, but sometimes we find a different sound, the sound speaks quietly, it surprises us, and it is silent. we wonder how familiar the sound is. we notice that the spaces of listening continually shift in the stories we tell. what does this mean for the becoming of the “voice” we attempt to listen to? what does this mean for us as listeners? we continue with another story of engaging with the difference of the sound. becoming seen vanessa has sparked a curious question by asking if the crackle can be seen. sam is washing his hands in the bathroom. i ask if he thinks the crackle could be a colour. he said “yes” and chooses white. i asked if he would like dark paper and white pens in the morning to draw it. he says “yes.” next morning, i set up a table with white and black paper along with graphite and white charcoal. when sam arrives i remind him about our discussion and wait patiently for his invitation to show me the crackle. we sit at the table as sam lifts the white charcoal, his hand racing over the black paper. circles form quickly on the paper. i hear the brush of charcoal over paper in the silent room. “there it is!” he exclaims. he switches to the graphite on white paper. the motion and image is similar, so i ask if both are pictures of the crackle. he says, “no, just the white charcoal is the crackle.” ashlynne enjoys quiet time with the crackle. she moves away from the group seeking distance and intimacy with the sound. her movements are slow and purposeful, her conversations quiet. without showing her the image or telling her the colour, i share with her the story of sam drawing the crackle. she tells me the crackle is red. we walk together gathering white paper and red pencil crayons and find a spot on the floor next to the light table. the paper brightens as we place in on the table. i ask what the crackle looks like and ashlynne replies, “i’ll show you.” her right hand grips the pencil as her body gently leans over the paper on the light table. she slowly draws a small circle on the paper. she tells me it is a small one, and then draws a big one. other children join us. once again, the crackle has called them to play. in the story above, the sound is becoming again. the sound is white, it is red, it is fast circles, it is a small gentle circle, it is a big circle. we wonder how to continue engaging ethically with listening, with the sound, when it is difference, when it is becoming. can we continue to seek the otherwise, while at the same time engaging in these intense spaces of contact with difference? conclusion the stories we have told help us move toward communities of listening, which centre more-than-human others as “speakers.” we grapple with the complex spaces of power and ethics as listeners—who are both powerful and humbled by the power of the message. our ethics engage with difference and we considered our responsibilities and accountabilities in responding. where might such an ethics of listening take us in our practices with children? references birla, r. (2010). postcolonial studies: now that’s history. in g. c. spivak & r. c. morris (eds.), can the subaltern speak? reflections on the history of an idea (pp. 87–99). new york, ny: columbia university press. figure 3. child drawing. canadian children directions & connections 63fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 byrd, j. rothberg, m. (2011). critical categories for postcolonial studies. interventions, 13(1), 1–12. doi:10.1080/1369801x.2011.545574 gandini, l. (1998). educational and caring spaces. in c. edwards, l. gandini, & g. forman (eds.), the hundred languages of children: the reggio emilia approach to early childhood education—advanced reflections (pp. 161–178). norwood, nj: ablex. garforth, s. (2009). attention and listening in the early years. london, uk: jessica kingsley. hall, s. (1990). cultural identity and diaspora. in j. rutherford (ed.), identity: community, culture, difference (pp. 222–237). london, uk: lawrence & wishart. hill, s. m. (2008). “travelling down the river of life together in peace and friendship, forever”: haudenosaunee land ethics and treaty agreements as the basis for restructuring the relationship with the british crown. in l. simpson (ed.), lighting the eighth fire (pp. 23–45). winnipeg, mb: arbeiter ring. macnaughton, g. (2003). shaping early childhood: learners, curriculum, and contexts. berkshire, uk: open university press. mosley, j., & myilibrary. (2005). circle time for young children. new york, ny: routledge. pratt, m. l. (1992). imperial eyes: travel writing and transculturation. london, uk: routledge. razack, s. (1998). looking white people in the eye: gender, race, and culture in courtrooms and classrooms. toronto, on: university of toronto press. rinaldi, c. (2001). the pedagogy of listening: the listening perspective from reggio emilia. innovations in early childhood education: the international reggio exchange, 8(4), 1–4. rose, d. b. (2004). reports from a wild country: ethics for decolonization. sydney, australia: university of new south wales press. spivak, g. c., & morris, r. c. (2010). can the subaltern speak?: reflections on the history of an idea. new york: columbia university press. taylor, a., & guigni, m. (2012). common worlds: reconceptualising inclusion in early childhood communities. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 108–119. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2012.13.2.108 watt, v. (2013). indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (first woman and sky woman go on a european world tour!). decolonization: indigeneity, education, & society, 2(1), 20–34. yifat, r., & zadunaisky-ehrlich, s. (2008). teachers’ talk in preschools during circle time: the case of revoicing. journal of research in childhood education, 23(2), 211–226. doi:10.1080/02568540809594656 zaghlawan, h. y., & ostrosky, m. m. (2011). circle time: an exploratory study of activities and challenging behavior in head start classrooms. early childhood education journal, 38(6), 439–448. doi:10.1007/s10643-010-0431-z canadian children professional resources 64fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 i haven’t felt this excited by a teaching book in some years! the thoughtful, critically minded authors gathered in this book present nontrivial thinking about what we’re learning from reggio emilia. as a person who lives in the united states, i found some of the australian context unfamiliar, but the struggles with issues of racism and cultural diversity and the search for authentic growth in teaching were what i have learned, much of it from the reggiani, to think about, too. each reader may approach this book in his or her own style. you may wish to “dip into” pieces that reflect your interests and concerns, which is the way this review is organized, or you may be more systematic. the editors have a logic in their sequence of chapters which moves from ideas that are more foundational (e.g., the first section on “opening the conversation”) to confront some of those early ideas with others that bring more balance and choice to the story (e.g., the final section on “disrupting the conversations”). in any case, whereas you might be tempted to skim over the collegial “responses” at the end of each section, they are, in fact, integral because they invite conversations from other readers—friends and colleagues—with important ideas to share. many things intrigue me about this book, which opens with editors alma fleet and catherine patterson defining the scope of this big book and the role of pedagogical documentation in the life of the program for young children. next comes the remarkable critique by britt and rudolph in chapter 2. they raise many questions about “normalized” conceptualizations of pedagogy: why, for instance, does the majority of ‘learning’ or ‘work’ time seem to take place indoors? why does ‘learning’ seem to need to happen sitting down? why are children ranked against each other as if they are quantifiable data? why is strength in some subject areas seen as ‘intelligence’ but not in others? (britt & randolph, 2012, p. 25) and later: the distrust and narrow accountability measures applied to teachers also creates an environment in which teachers are expected to be factory-like technicians assuming a standardized product (the student, and one form of pedagogy) rather than creative, flexible, critical researchers interested in discovering more about the best ways their unique group of students learn and relate in the world. (britt & randolph, 2012, p. 25) and still later: it is important, however, to remember that these ways of thinking about and practicing pedagogy in primary school are not necessarily fixed, stable or inevitable (citing st. pierre & pillow, 2000). . . . there is still potential for hope to be offered in disrupting ‘that which is taken as stable/unquestionable truth’ . . . to create new trajectories.’ (britt & randolph, 2012, p. 26) illustrating these ideas, the authors offer us a documentation panel (pp. 32–35) showing sixand seven-year-old children’s photographs, paintings, and language about how their hands are voices, their hands, moving, a language. book review: conversations: behind early childhood pedagogical documentation edited by alma fleet, catherine patterson, and janet robertson reviewed by sydney gurewitz clemens sydney gurewitz clemens has been teaching young children and their teachers for almost 60 years. she is focused on “hot cognition” in the work of sylvia ashton-warner, vivian gussin paley, and reggio emilia practice. her most recent book, seeing young children with new eyes: what we learned from reggio emilia about young children and ourselves, written with leslie gleim, was published in august 2014 and is available from itunes and lulu.com. email: sydney@eceteacher.org canadian children professional resources 65fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 a child is quoted saying: “if our hands went to the circle we could pretend that they were littler thoughts and when we put them all together they are one big thought. if we put them together in the circle we are one big community and we work together.” (britt & randolph, 2012, p 35) as a reader i found this rich conversation among young children about community extraordinary and wonderful. i imagine the children and teachers cited had similar feelings. in another section, doranna wong, studying in australia but coming from singapore, writes about the cyclical process of observation: discussing, planning, and documenting, then moving on to observation once again. she says: the learning from the constant listening and talking could communicate the voices of the children and of me. it made all the listening worthwhile as it was not just an exercise. . . . documenting grounded me as it meant the end of one cycle of listen-review-plandocument and the start of the same cycle again. . . . each discussion resulted in many ‘un-doings’ of my image of the child and a better understanding of myself—finding a balance between how i was as a teacher in the australian context and wondering how i would be when i went back to singapore. (chng & wong, 2012, p. 50) she says later: i often felt i had to ‘deny’ a part of who i was to fully embrace who i wanted to become by working in this way. . . . i had to choose between acknowledging the value placed on the education of children from my culture (primarily children’s knowledge and success in the academics) or advocating for a change in this value, this way of thinking and being with children in my work. this also meant a change in the way my relationships developed with children. the most uncomfortable aspect of this way of working with families was the notion that i was learning with the children rather than structuring what they were to learn. (chng & wong, 2012, p. 52) doranna’s fellow student and writing partner, angela chng, who is also from singapore, writes: i considered how this new way of thinking could be applied in an entirely different culture and context. what was going to be relevant? what could be implemented immediately and what would take time? . . . pedagogical documentation had shaped my philosophy. it felt strange, it was viewing how things were done in a very familiar and yet unfamiliar fashion, striking at the core of my understandings of the singapore context with newfound eyes. it was never about abandoning one pedagogy for another, but in essence developing a deeper understanding of why things were the way they were and what i could do from there. (chng & wong, 2012, p. 55) conversations is a brave book. for example, in the chapter “get over yourself: the ethics of respect,” janet robertson asks and begins to answer an important question: how do white people, couched in western thinking, engage in conversations to gather information about local aboriginal culture? how do we learn about the dance of questions and answers, where the western cultural mores of an entitlement to an answer, and the aboriginal value of censoring a reply depending on gender, wisdom and the relationship, shapes a conversation? the sensitive nature of some material, values, and expectations require some conversations to be choreographed and rehearsed. the most salient point is that if we, the second australians, don’t ask about aboriginal culture, we will remain ignorant and that it is more offensive not to ask than to risk asking an inappropriate question. (cave, connerton, honig, & robertson, 2012, p. 61) the lengthy discussion of this question is important, not only to australians, but also to americans and canadians, to people in new zealand and hawaii and south africa. while the people who were colonized have different stories and different ways of expressing and protecting their culture, the second comers, whoever we are, need to learn to find out how to live together with the first. in the book’s second section, “locating the conversations,” new zealanders slavica jovanovic and john roder write: our taken-for-granted assumptions, however, need to be continually re-visited; to be unpacked and taken to deeper levels, in order to know what it entails to understand a person. making ‘the other’ visible through cultural days, songs and stories, pictures, language and other ways of representing culture has its place, but does this tell us a story about who this cultural ‘other’ really is or how the very same ‘other’ made us change? it if does, what then is this story? how do we know we have created the space for him/her to be and to become, and offered a place in our hearts because it is there that our teaching starts? (jovanovic & roder, 2012, p. 129) canadian children professional resources 66fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 this matter of questioning our assumptions builds thoughtful teaching practices. its absence is deadening to the classroom. there are continuing instances in this wonderful book of the questions of protecting agency in the children, a deep and important question from reggio emilia for us to take home to our countries, since each country has its own ways of snuffing out the spontaneity of children and their creativity. in the same piece the authors say: pedagogy should not only be directed towards children and their learning, but also be an important transformative force in our own learning, learning about our own ‘self ’. this learning is not so much about ‘being’, but about being that is always ‘becoming’. it is our reflective being that leads to action revealing another possible ‘self ’ and impacting on our values and belief systems. (jovanovic & roder, 2012, p. 130) as i write this review, i tell myself that i’m quoting too much, and yet i don’t stop myself— the quotations give the flavour of this book, a rare flavour, worth my five-star review. how could i find the audacity to reframe slavica’s statement that “there is no boundary between what the child is and what the child is continuously becoming. i feel it is the same for the teacher” (jovanovic & roder, 2012, p. 135)? pamela wallberg, similarly, gives us this: educators give voice to tensions that arise through day-to-day interactions, and will often provoke conceptual tensions by introducing a binary dilemma that the children must somehow find a third solution to. i believe this kind of problematization matters to reggio emilia thinking, to helping children exercise agency, and to mental health at a fundamental level. (wallberg, 2012, p. 135) this attention to problematization is an important facet of reggio emilia thought, and is well presented here. in section 3, “materials matter: a conversation on matters material” by louisa schwartz and janet robertson takes a strong look at materialism in the program for young children, arguing for materials that have possibilities rather than ones that dictate how they are used. in their writing they raise, and interestingly answer, a question borrowed from lenz taguchi (2010): “is it possible to think of the material in early childhood practices as having agency of its own?” this chapter reminded me strongly of andy goldsworthy’s work, and of how children approach tape, paper, glue, and other materials if they aren’t told how to use them. robertson asks us: if pedagogy and its materials always supply answers, then what problems do children encounter? we shape our pedagogy to create problems that can be solved. thus the solution is our way of making thinking complicated. from these complications we often derive the kernel of a piece of pedagogical documentation. (schwartz & robertson, 2012, p. 177) many of the authors are connected with mia mia, the early childhood centre at macquarie university. one of the themes of the faculty there is that they should resist “the normalization of practice and working conditions” (schwartz & robertson, 2012, p. 223). i found this idea exciting, since many fine practitioners i’ve know have been hamstrung by conditions that seemed permanent and would oppress their work for all of their future in that institution. we read stories in the book about changes that were needed and brought to fruition. as i think about the history of the schools of reggio emilia, they have these stories also, important stories to fuel our own struggles about issues of naming the program, of making part-time attendance a thing of the past, of attending to an outdoor program, and of changing relationships with families of the children. conversations is full of metaphors, but my favourite one is to seek the stone in your shoe, which means interrupting the ordinary to pause and refocus and gather your thoughts. this metaphor comes from robertson, and i, for one, am grateful for it. when i briefly worked with teachers in australia, they kept referring to each other as “girls” and i kept correcting them, annoying them in the process. on the last day i was there, one young woman challenged me: “why do you insist on our calling each other ‘women’?” i told her that her work was important and difficult, and that we don’t give hard, important work to children, but to adults. and that she should model that respect to anyone coming through the childcare centre. this book includes the idea that we must give ourselves “permission to regard our work in early childhood education programs as important and worthy of attention and respect” (schwartz & robertson, 2012, p. 241). toward the end of the book we are told that “a skilled person ‘lives his/her knowledge’ which is different to how a skilled person canadian children professional resources 67fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 ‘lives his/her skills’ ” (semann, proud, & martin, 2012, p. 255). if you are wanting to live your skills in an early childhood context, conversations is a strong companion for your journey. this book isn’t for the introductory reggio emilia class but for a grown up and mindful mature exploration of how we bring the best strategies and ideas of the reggiani into our daily lives with children. get your library or your school to order it. it is expensive, but not so costly that its riches can be skipped. references davies, b. (2004). introduction: poststructuralist lines of flight in australia. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 17(1), 3–9. lenz taguchi, h. (2010). going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: introducing an intra-active pedagogy. london, uk: routledge. canadian children 68fall/automne 2014 vol. 39 no. 3 children’s artistic engagements are increasingly taken seriously as investigative, relational, and meaning making processes involving various fabrications and compositions and multiple ways of knowing. this is a shift from thinking about children’s artistic engagements as primarily individual, self-expressive, emotional representations. rather, artistic engagements are understood as complex, intertextual, performative, material practices that produce particular worlds and meanings. as such, we are interested in what art is, what it does, and how it matters in early childhood educational settings. we invite submission of papers that address the visual arts in early childhood from a variety of perspectives, particularly those that offer an alternative to conventional understandings of children’s art making. in addition we are interested in contributions that: a. propose innovative ways of thinking about the visual arts in early childhood education. b. conceptualize children’s artistic engagements and experimentations through relational-materialist, deleuzian, and indigenous perspectives. c. explore the interconnections of contemporary art/artists and early childhood contexts. d. experiment with visual/textual forms of representing children’s artistic experimentations and forms of world making. educators, researchers, and artists are invited to submit a 250 word abstract for this issue of canadian children focused on visual arts in early childhood education to sylvia kind by august 15, 2014. if the abstract is accepted, the manuscript is due by january 31, 2015. once the review process has been completed, accepted papers must be resubmitted by july 31, 2015. abstracts and papers can be submitted via email to sylvia kind (skind@capilanou.ca) guidelines for authors canadian children is the journal of the canadian association for young children (cayc), a national association specifically concerned with the well-being of young children in canada. the journal is published in print twice yearly and online once a year. canadian children contains invitational articles, peer-reviewed articles, articles from professionals in early childhood related fields, and reviews of books and other resources. canadian children is a multidisciplinary journal. authors from across canada, and elsewhere, are invited to submit articles and book reviews which reflect the variety and extent of both research and practice in early childhood education and child well-being. submissions should appeal to an audience that includes professionals in the field of childhood education and other child related fields, as well as researchers. we welcome manuscripts between 4000-6000 words for the invitational & child study sections, and between 1500-3000 words for the directions and connections section. form, length and style: • articles may be of varying length, written in a readable style. style should be consistent with the publication manual of the american psychological association (6th edition). • articles should be sent as an e-mail attachment to the email address below. • all submissions should be accompanied by a copy of the signed permission form available on the website. • authors are to obtain releases for use of photographs prior to submitting the manuscript via e-mail. signed permissions need to be included in the submission. • please include a brief biographical sketch (4-5 sentences) including the author(s) full name, title, professional affiliation, and other relevant information. • an abstract should be included at the start of the manuscript and not exceed 100 words. • 4-5 keywords should be included following the abstract • footnotes should not be used. endnotes need to be located in the text by numbers. • in order to enable blind review, manuscripts must be anonymized. no author information should be included in the manuscript. • all author information (including full name, mailing address and biographical information) must be included in a separate document. • it is expected that authors will not submit articles to more than one publisher at a time. submission email address: to submit a manuscript, email to cdnchildren@gmail.com, copied to sylvia kind (see below). contact information: for further information or inquiries, please contact special issue guest editor directly: sylvia kind, skind@capilanou.ca call for contributions special issue on ‘the visual arts in early childhood education’ for canadian children, 2016 on-line edition guest editor: dr. sylvia kind, capilano university president deirdre leighton 4019 16th street sw calgary, ab, t2t 4h5 deirdre.leighton@cayc.ca secretary margaret fair 31 alfred penner bay winnipeg, mb, r2g 4g1 margaret.fair@cayc.ca past president dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca interim vice president / publications chair dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca treasurer lynda noble 21 lupin lane hatchet lake, ns, b3t 1p8. lynda.noble@cayc.ca director at large melanie janzen 50 scotia street winnipeg, mb, r2w 3w8 melanie.janzen@cayc.ca advertising inquiries advertising@cayc.ca provincial directors national directors the canadian association for young children what is the cayc the canadian association for young children (cayc) grew out of council for childhood education and was officially recognized in 1974 by the granting of a federal charter. it is the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children, birth through age nine at home, in preschool settings and at school. members of the multidisciplinary association include parents, teachers, caregivers, administrators, students and all those wishing to share ideas and participate in activities related to the education and welfare of young children. mission statement cayc exists to provide a canadian voice on critical issues related to the quality of life of all young children and their families. the aims of the cayc 1. to influence the direction and quality of policies and programs that affect the development and well-being of young children in canada. 2. to provide a forum for the members of canada’s early childhood community to support one another in providing developmentally appropriate programs for young children. 3. to promote and provide opportunities for professional development for those charged with the care and education of young children. 4. to promote opportunities for effective liaison and collaboration with all those responsible for young children. 5. to recognize outstanding contributions to the well-being of young children. implementing the aims of the cayc 1. the national conference: the national conference is a highlight of the cayc. the program includes lectures by internationally renowned authorities on children, workshops, discussion groups, displays, demonstrations, school visits and tours. 2. provincial and regional events: the organization of members at the local and provincial level is encouraged to plan events to deal with the issues and concerns pertaining to young children. these events may take the form of lectures, seminars or a local conference. 3. the journal: an outstanding multidisciplinary journal is published twice yearly. articles by nationally and internationally known experts in early childhood education and child rearing are presented in the journal of the cayc. inside cayc provides information on association activities. subscriptions and membership membership fees are payable on application and renewable annually on an evergreen basis. to be considered a voting member, fees must be paid no later than 60 days prior to the annual general meeting. cayc members receive two issues of canadian children as well as favourable rates for national and regional conferences. regular $55.00, 2 year regular $100.00, association/institution $120.00, student/senior $30.00, international $135.00 (ca). cayc 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants qu’est ce que l’acje l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants, issue du council for childhood education, a reçu sa charte fédérale en 1974. elle demeure la seule association nationale vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants, de la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de neuf ans, dans leur foyer, à la garderie et à l’école primaire. l’acje est composée de parents, d’enseignants, de professionnels de la petite enfance, d’administrateurs et d’étudiants, ainsi que de tous ceux et celles qui sont intéressés à partager leurs idées en participant à des activités liées au bien-être et à l’éducation des jeunes enfants. sa mission l’acje s’est donné comme mandat de faire entendre une voix canadienne sur les questions essentielles ayant trait à la qualité de vie de tous les jeunes enfants et de leur famille. ses objectifs 1. jouer un rôle sur le plan des orientations et sur la qualité des politiques et des programmes touchant au développement et au bien-être des jeunes enfants canadiens. 2. créer un forum pour les membres de la communauté canadienne oeuvrant dans le domaine de la petite enfance afin de susciter une collaboration active dans l’élaboration de programmes appropriés au développement des jeunes enfants. 3. encourager et offrir des possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel au personnel responsable du bien-être et de l’éducation des jeunes enfants. 4. promouvoir des occasions pour une meilleure coordination et collaboration entre tous les responsables des jeunes enfants. 5. récompenser et souligner les contributions exceptionnelles faites en faveur des jeunes enfants. exécution des objectifs de l’acje 1. le congrès national: il constitue le grand évènement de l’acje. des sommités de renommée internationale en matière de petite enfance y prononcent des conférences et on y participe à des ateliers, des débats, des expositions, des démonstrations, et à des visites guidées d’écoles. 2. les évènements provinciaux et locaux: l’acje encourage ses membres à organiser des conférences, des séminaires ou des congrès au niveau local et régional afin de débattre des problèmes relatifs aux jeunes enfants. 3. la revue : publication bisannuelle et multidisciplinaire de premier ordre, la revue regroupe des articles traitant de questions d’éducation et de formation des jeunes enfants. on y retrouve également des articles écrits par des experts de renommée nationale et internationale. la rubrique inside cayc renseigne les lecteurs sur les activités de l’association. abonnement et cotisation des membres les cotisations doivent être réglées au moment de l’adhésion et celle-ci doit être renouvelée chaque année. pour se prévaloir de son droit de vote, tout membre doit acquitter sa cotisation au moins 60 jours avant l’assemblée générale annuelle. les members de l'acje reçoivent la revue, et bénéficient de tariffs spéciaux pour participer au congrès national et aux évènements régionaux. tarif des cotisations annuelles: général; 55 $, général 2 année 100 $, étudiants/aîné: 30 $, associations : 120 $, international : 135 $ (ca) acje 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca british columbia / yukon contact cayc president alberta / north west territories rosanne perrin 4447 dalhart rd nw calgary, ab, t3a 1b8 rosanne.perrin@cayc.ca saskatchewan beth warkentin 608 9th ave nw moose jaw, sk, s6h 4h8 beth.warkentin@cayc.ca manitoba / nunuvat susan piper (sue) 66 wildwood park drive e winnipeg, mb, r3e 0c8 sue.piper@cayc.ca ontario karyn callaghan 80 south oval hamilton, on, l8s 1r1 karyn.callaghan@cayc.ca quebec fiona rowlands 4 circle road pointe claire, qc, h9r 1x1 fiona.rowlands@cayc.ca new brunswick/prince edward island/nova scotia sherry riggs 5594 morris street, halifax, ns, b3j 1c2 sherry.riggs@cayc.ca newfoundland/labrador contact cayc president (see above) membership service vicki brown 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 phone:902-852-2954 email: membership@cayc.ca the journal editor's desk co-editors, laurie kocher and veronica pacini-ketchabaw cdnchildren@gmail.com board of directors check our website www.cayc.ca regularly for updates to this page president deirdre leighton 4019 16th street sw calgary, ab, t2t 4h5 deirdre.leighton@cayc.ca secretary margaret fair 31 alfred penner bay winnipeg, mb, r2g 4g1 margaret.fair@cayc.ca past president dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca interim vice president / publications chair dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca treasurer lynda noble 21 lupin lane hatchet lake, ns, b3t 1p8. lynda.noble@cayc.ca director at large melanie janzen 50 scotia street winnipeg, mb, r2w 3w8 melanie.janzen@cayc.ca advertising inquiries advertising@cayc.ca provincial directors national directors the canadian association for young children what is the cayc the canadian association for young children (cayc) grew out of council for childhood education and was officially recognized in 1974 by the granting of a federal charter. it is the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children, birth through age nine at home, in preschool settings and at school. members of the multidisciplinary association include parents, teachers, caregivers, administrators, students and all those wishing to share ideas and participate in activities related to the education and welfare of young children. mission statement cayc exists to provide a canadian voice on critical issues related to the quality of life of all young children and their families. the aims of the cayc 1. to influence the direction and quality of policies and programs that affect the development and well-being of young children in canada. 2. to provide a forum for the members of canada’s early childhood community to support one another in providing developmentally appropriate programs for young children. 3. to promote and provide opportunities for professional development for those charged with the care and education of young children. 4. to promote opportunities for effective liaison and collaboration with all those responsible for young children. 5. to recognize outstanding contributions to the well-being of young children. implementing the aims of the cayc 1. the national conference: the national conference is a highlight of the cayc. the program includes lectures by internationally renowned authorities on children, workshops, discussion groups, displays, demonstrations, school visits and tours. 2. provincial and regional events: the organization of members at the local and provincial level is encouraged to plan events to deal with the issues and concerns pertaining to young children. these events may take the form of lectures, seminars or a local conference. 3. the journal: an outstanding multidisciplinary journal is published twice yearly. articles by nationally and internationally known experts in early childhood education and child rearing are presented in the journal of the cayc. inside cayc provides information on association activities. subscriptions and membership membership fees are payable on application and renewable annually on an evergreen basis. to be considered a voting member, fees must be paid no later than 60 days prior to the annual general meeting. cayc members receive two issues of canadian children as well as favourable rates for national and regional conferences. regular $55.00, 2 year regular $100.00, association/institution $120.00, student/senior $30.00, international $135.00 (ca). cayc 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants qu’est ce que l’acje l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants, issue du council for childhood education, a reçu sa charte fédérale en 1974. elle demeure la seule association nationale vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants, de la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de neuf ans, dans leur foyer, à la garderie et à l’école primaire. l’acje est composée de parents, d’enseignants, de professionnels de la petite enfance, d’administrateurs et d’étudiants, ainsi que de tous ceux et celles qui sont intéressés à partager leurs idées en participant à des activités liées au bien-être et à l’éducation des jeunes enfants. sa mission l’acje s’est donné comme mandat de faire entendre une voix canadienne sur les questions essentielles ayant trait à la qualité de vie de tous les jeunes enfants et de leur famille. ses objectifs 1. jouer un rôle sur le plan des orientations et sur la qualité des politiques et des programmes touchant au développement et au bien-être des jeunes enfants canadiens. 2. créer un forum pour les membres de la communauté canadienne oeuvrant dans le domaine de la petite enfance afin de susciter une collaboration active dans l’élaboration de programmes appropriés au développement des jeunes enfants. 3. encourager et offrir des possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel au personnel responsable du bien-être et de l’éducation des jeunes enfants. 4. promouvoir des occasions pour une meilleure coordination et collaboration entre tous les responsables des jeunes enfants. 5. récompenser et souligner les contributions exceptionnelles faites en faveur des jeunes enfants. exécution des objectifs de l’acje 1. le congrès national: il constitue le grand évènement de l’acje. des sommités de renommée internationale en matière de petite enfance y prononcent des conférences et on y participe à des ateliers, des débats, des expositions, des démonstrations, et à des visites guidées d’écoles. 2. les évènements provinciaux et locaux: l’acje encourage ses membres à organiser des conférences, des séminaires ou des congrès au niveau local et régional afin de débattre des problèmes relatifs aux jeunes enfants. 3. la revue : publication bisannuelle et multidisciplinaire de premier ordre, la revue regroupe des articles traitant de questions d’éducation et de formation des jeunes enfants. on y retrouve également des articles écrits par des experts de renommée nationale et internationale. la rubrique inside cayc renseigne les lecteurs sur les activités de l’association. abonnement et cotisation des membres les cotisations doivent être réglées au moment de l’adhésion et celle-ci doit être renouvelée chaque année. pour se prévaloir de son droit de vote, tout membre doit acquitter sa cotisation au moins 60 jours avant l’assemblée générale annuelle. les members de l'acje reçoivent la revue, et bénéficient de tariffs spéciaux pour participer au congrès national et aux évènements régionaux. tarif des cotisations annuelles: général; 55 $, général 2 année 100 $, étudiants/aîné: 30 $, associations : 120 $, international : 135 $ (ca) acje 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca british columbia / yukon contact cayc president alberta / north west territories rosanne perrin 4447 dalhart rd nw calgary, ab, t3a 1b8 rosanne.perrin@cayc.ca saskatchewan beth warkentin 608 9th ave nw moose jaw, sk, s6h 4h8 beth.warkentin@cayc.ca manitoba / nunuvat susan piper (sue) 66 wildwood park drive e winnipeg, mb, r3e 0c8 sue.piper@cayc.ca ontario karyn callaghan 80 south oval hamilton, on, l8s 1r1 karyn.callaghan@cayc.ca quebec fiona rowlands 4 circle road pointe claire, qc, h9r 1x1 fiona.rowlands@cayc.ca new brunswick/prince edward island/nova scotia sherry riggs 5594 morris street, halifax, ns, b3j 1c2 sherry.riggs@cayc.ca newfoundland/labrador contact cayc president (see above) membership service vicki brown 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 phone:902-852-2954 email: membership@cayc.ca the journal editor's desk co-editors, laurie kocher and veronica pacini-ketchabaw cdnchildren@gmail.com board of directors check our website www.cayc.ca regularly for updates to this page president deirdre leighton 4019 16th street sw calgary, ab, t2t 4h5 deirdre.leighton@cayc.ca secretary margaret fair 31 alfred penner bay winnipeg, mb, r2g 4g1 margaret.fair@cayc.ca past president dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca interim vice president / publications chair dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca treasurer lynda noble 21 lupin lane hatchet lake, ns, b3t 1p8. lynda.noble@cayc.ca director at large melanie janzen 50 scotia street winnipeg, mb, r2w 3w8 melanie.janzen@cayc.ca advertising inquiries advertising@cayc.ca provincial directors national directors the canadian association for young children what is the cayc the canadian association for young children (cayc) grew out of council for childhood education and was officially recognized in 1974 by the granting of a federal charter. it is the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children, birth through age nine at home, in preschool settings and at school. members of the multidisciplinary association include parents, teachers, caregivers, administrators, students and all those wishing to share ideas and participate in activities related to the education and welfare of young children. mission statement cayc exists to provide a canadian voice on critical issues related to the quality of life of all young children and their families. the aims of the cayc 1. to influence the direction and quality of policies and programs that affect the development and well-being of young children in canada. 2. to provide a forum for the members of canada’s early childhood community to support one another in providing developmentally appropriate programs for young children. 3. to promote and provide opportunities for professional development for those charged with the care and education of young children. 4. to promote opportunities for effective liaison and collaboration with all those responsible for young children. 5. to recognize outstanding contributions to the well-being of young children. implementing the aims of the cayc 1. the national conference: the national conference is a highlight of the cayc. the program includes lectures by internationally renowned authorities on children, workshops, discussion groups, displays, demonstrations, school visits and tours. 2. provincial and regional events: the organization of members at the local and provincial level is encouraged to plan events to deal with the issues and concerns pertaining to young children. these events may take the form of lectures, seminars or a local conference. 3. the journal: an outstanding multidisciplinary journal is published twice yearly. articles by nationally and internationally known experts in early childhood education and child rearing are presented in the journal of the cayc. inside cayc provides information on association activities. subscriptions and membership membership fees are payable on application and renewable annually on an evergreen basis. to be considered a voting member, fees must be paid no later than 60 days prior to the annual general meeting. cayc members receive two issues of canadian children as well as favourable rates for national and regional conferences. regular $55.00, 2 year regular $100.00, association/institution $120.00, student/senior $30.00, international $135.00 (ca). cayc 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants qu’est ce que l’acje l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants, issue du council for childhood education, a reçu sa charte fédérale en 1974. elle demeure la seule association nationale vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants, de la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de neuf ans, dans leur foyer, à la garderie et à l’école primaire. l’acje est composée de parents, d’enseignants, de professionnels de la petite enfance, d’administrateurs et d’étudiants, ainsi que de tous ceux et celles qui sont intéressés à partager leurs idées en participant à des activités liées au bien-être et à l’éducation des jeunes enfants. sa mission l’acje s’est donné comme mandat de faire entendre une voix canadienne sur les questions essentielles ayant trait à la qualité de vie de tous les jeunes enfants et de leur famille. ses objectifs 1. jouer un rôle sur le plan des orientations et sur la qualité des politiques et des programmes touchant au développement et au bien-être des jeunes enfants canadiens. 2. créer un forum pour les membres de la communauté canadienne oeuvrant dans le domaine de la petite enfance afin de susciter une collaboration active dans l’élaboration de programmes appropriés au développement des jeunes enfants. 3. encourager et offrir des possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel au personnel responsable du bien-être et de l’éducation des jeunes enfants. 4. promouvoir des occasions pour une meilleure coordination et collaboration entre tous les responsables des jeunes enfants. 5. récompenser et souligner les contributions exceptionnelles faites en faveur des jeunes enfants. exécution des objectifs de l’acje 1. le congrès national: il constitue le grand évènement de l’acje. des sommités de renommée internationale en matière de petite enfance y prononcent des conférences et on y participe à des ateliers, des débats, des expositions, des démonstrations, et à des visites guidées d’écoles. 2. les évènements provinciaux et locaux: l’acje encourage ses membres à organiser des conférences, des séminaires ou des congrès au niveau local et régional afin de débattre des problèmes relatifs aux jeunes enfants. 3. la revue : publication bisannuelle et multidisciplinaire de premier ordre, la revue regroupe des articles traitant de questions d’éducation et de formation des jeunes enfants. on y retrouve également des articles écrits par des experts de renommée nationale et internationale. la rubrique inside cayc renseigne les lecteurs sur les activités de l’association. abonnement et cotisation des membres les cotisations doivent être réglées au moment de l’adhésion et celle-ci doit être renouvelée chaque année. pour se prévaloir de son droit de vote, tout membre doit acquitter sa cotisation au moins 60 jours avant l’assemblée générale annuelle. les members de l'acje reçoivent la revue, et bénéficient de tariffs spéciaux pour participer au congrès national et aux évènements régionaux. tarif des cotisations annuelles: général; 55 $, général 2 année 100 $, étudiants/aîné: 30 $, associations : 120 $, international : 135 $ (ca) acje 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca british columbia / yukon contact cayc president alberta / north west territories rosanne perrin 4447 dalhart rd nw calgary, ab, t3a 1b8 rosanne.perrin@cayc.ca saskatchewan beth warkentin 608 9th ave nw moose jaw, sk, s6h 4h8 beth.warkentin@cayc.ca manitoba / nunuvat susan piper (sue) 66 wildwood park drive e winnipeg, mb, r3e 0c8 sue.piper@cayc.ca ontario karyn callaghan 80 south oval hamilton, on, l8s 1r1 karyn.callaghan@cayc.ca quebec fiona rowlands 4 circle road pointe claire, qc, h9r 1x1 fiona.rowlands@cayc.ca new brunswick/prince edward island/nova scotia sherry riggs 5594 morris street, halifax, ns, b3j 1c2 sherry.riggs@cayc.ca newfoundland/labrador contact cayc president (see above) membership service vicki brown 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 phone:902-852-2954 email: membership@cayc.ca the journal editor's desk co-editors, laurie kocher and veronica pacini-ketchabaw cdnchildren@gmail.com board of directors check our website www.cayc.ca regularly for updates to this page president rebecca kelly alberta secretary melanie janzen manitoba past president margaret fair manitoba director peggie olson saskatchewan technology integration chair karyn callaghan ontario treasurer, membership chair lynda noble nova scotia director/vice president angela woodburn ontario publications chair iris berger british columbia british columbia kathleen kummen manitoba joanna malkiewicz new brunswick vacant newfoundland/ labrador vacant nunavut vacant alberta sherry moores ontario anne marie coughlin nova scotia sherry riggs yukon vacant saskatchewan darlene dixon beth warkentin quebec sara iatauro prince edward island vacant northwest territories vacant cayc board of directors president deirdre leighton 4019 16th street sw calgary, ab, t2t 4h5 deirdre.leighton@cayc.ca secretary margaret fair 31 alfred penner bay winnipeg, mb, r2g 4g1 margaret.fair@cayc.ca past president dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca interim vice president / publications chair dr. wayne eastman college of the n. atlantic p.o. box 822 cornerbrook, nl, a2h 6h6 wayne.eastman@cayc.ca treasurer lynda noble 21 lupin lane hatchet lake, ns, b3t 1p8. lynda.noble@cayc.ca director at large melanie janzen 50 scotia street winnipeg, mb, r2w 3w8 melanie.janzen@cayc.ca advertising inquiries advertising@cayc.ca provincial directors national directors the canadian association for young children what is the cayc the canadian association for young children (cayc) grew out of council for childhood education and was officially recognized in 1974 by the granting of a federal charter. it is the only national association specifically concerned with the well-being of children, birth through age nine at home, in preschool settings and at school. members of the multidisciplinary association include parents, teachers, caregivers, administrators, students and all those wishing to share ideas and participate in activities related to the education and welfare of young children. mission statement cayc exists to provide a canadian voice on critical issues related to the quality of life of all young children and their families. the aims of the cayc 1. to influence the direction and quality of policies and programs that affect the development and well-being of young children in canada. 2. to provide a forum for the members of canada’s early childhood community to support one another in providing developmentally appropriate programs for young children. 3. to promote and provide opportunities for professional development for those charged with the care and education of young children. 4. to promote opportunities for effective liaison and collaboration with all those responsible for young children. 5. to recognize outstanding contributions to the well-being of young children. implementing the aims of the cayc 1. the national conference: the national conference is a highlight of the cayc. the program includes lectures by internationally renowned authorities on children, workshops, discussion groups, displays, demonstrations, school visits and tours. 2. provincial and regional events: the organization of members at the local and provincial level is encouraged to plan events to deal with the issues and concerns pertaining to young children. these events may take the form of lectures, seminars or a local conference. 3. the journal: an outstanding multidisciplinary journal is published twice yearly. articles by nationally and internationally known experts in early childhood education and child rearing are presented in the journal of the cayc. inside cayc provides information on association activities. subscriptions and membership membership fees are payable on application and renewable annually on an evergreen basis. to be considered a voting member, fees must be paid no later than 60 days prior to the annual general meeting. cayc members receive two issues of canadian children as well as favourable rates for national and regional conferences. regular $55.00, 2 year regular $100.00, association/institution $120.00, student/senior $30.00, international $135.00 (ca). cayc 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants qu’est ce que l’acje l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants, issue du council for childhood education, a reçu sa charte fédérale en 1974. elle demeure la seule association nationale vouée exclusivement au bien-être des enfants, de la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de neuf ans, dans leur foyer, à la garderie et à l’école primaire. l’acje est composée de parents, d’enseignants, de professionnels de la petite enfance, d’administrateurs et d’étudiants, ainsi que de tous ceux et celles qui sont intéressés à partager leurs idées en participant à des activités liées au bien-être et à l’éducation des jeunes enfants. sa mission l’acje s’est donné comme mandat de faire entendre une voix canadienne sur les questions essentielles ayant trait à la qualité de vie de tous les jeunes enfants et de leur famille. ses objectifs 1. jouer un rôle sur le plan des orientations et sur la qualité des politiques et des programmes touchant au développement et au bien-être des jeunes enfants canadiens. 2. créer un forum pour les membres de la communauté canadienne oeuvrant dans le domaine de la petite enfance afin de susciter une collaboration active dans l’élaboration de programmes appropriés au développement des jeunes enfants. 3. encourager et offrir des possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel au personnel responsable du bien-être et de l’éducation des jeunes enfants. 4. promouvoir des occasions pour une meilleure coordination et collaboration entre tous les responsables des jeunes enfants. 5. récompenser et souligner les contributions exceptionnelles faites en faveur des jeunes enfants. exécution des objectifs de l’acje 1. le congrès national: il constitue le grand évènement de l’acje. des sommités de renommée internationale en matière de petite enfance y prononcent des conférences et on y participe à des ateliers, des débats, des expositions, des démonstrations, et à des visites guidées d’écoles. 2. les évènements provinciaux et locaux: l’acje encourage ses membres à organiser des conférences, des séminaires ou des congrès au niveau local et régional afin de débattre des problèmes relatifs aux jeunes enfants. 3. la revue : publication bisannuelle et multidisciplinaire de premier ordre, la revue regroupe des articles traitant de questions d’éducation et de formation des jeunes enfants. on y retrouve également des articles écrits par des experts de renommée nationale et internationale. la rubrique inside cayc renseigne les lecteurs sur les activités de l’association. abonnement et cotisation des membres les cotisations doivent être réglées au moment de l’adhésion et celle-ci doit être renouvelée chaque année. pour se prévaloir de son droit de vote, tout membre doit acquitter sa cotisation au moins 60 jours avant l’assemblée générale annuelle. les members de l'acje reçoivent la revue, et bénéficient de tariffs spéciaux pour participer au congrès national et aux évènements régionaux. tarif des cotisations annuelles: général; 55 $, général 2 année 100 $, étudiants/aîné: 30 $, associations : 120 $, international : 135 $ (ca) acje 356 b prospect bay road prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z7 membership@cayc.ca british columbia / yukon contact cayc president alberta / north west territories rosanne perrin 4447 dalhart rd nw calgary, ab, t3a 1b8 rosanne.perrin@cayc.ca saskatchewan beth warkentin 608 9th ave nw moose jaw, sk, s6h 4h8 beth.warkentin@cayc.ca manitoba / nunuvat susan piper (sue) 66 wildwood park drive e winnipeg, mb, r3e 0c8 sue.piper@cayc.ca ontario karyn callaghan 80 south oval hamilton, on, l8s 1r1 karyn.callaghan@cayc.ca quebec fiona rowlands 4 circle road pointe claire, qc, h9r 1x1 fiona.rowlands@cayc.ca new brunswick/prince edward island/nova scotia sherry riggs 5594 morris street, halifax, ns, b3j 1c2 sherry.riggs@cayc.ca newfoundland/labrador contact cayc president (see above) membership service vicki brown 31 pinedale drive prospect bay, nova scotia b3t 1z6 phone: 902-852-2954 email: membership@cayc.ca the journal editor's desk co-editors, laurie kocher and veronica pacini-ketchabaw cdnchildren@gmail.com board of directors check our website www.cayc.ca regularly for updates to this page for additional information check our website www.caya.ca editors’ desk consider a cayc membership gift ...for the education students or graduates in your life refer to our website www.cayc.ca consider a cayc membership gift ...for the education students or graduates in your life refer to our website www.cayc.ca www.cayc.cacanadian association for young children association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants www.cayc.ca the canadian association for young children l’association canadienne pour les jeunes enfants c a n a d i a n journal of the canadian association for young children fall 2012 / automne 2012 vol. 37 no. 2 june 2023 16 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice re (imagining) water pedagogies in early childhood education and care programs georgiana mathurin georgiana mathurin is a graduate student in the early childhood studies ma program at toronto metropolitan university. she is a registered early childhood educator [rece] who has practiced in a greater toronto area childcare centre for ten years. georgiana is interested in water pedagogies in ecec, black childhood futures in ecec, black feminist thought, and black mothers with precarious immigration status in canada. email: georgiana.mathurin@torontomu.ca presencing black land relations and geographies i am a first-generation immigrant of afrocaribbean descent on turtle island. i acknowledge that i live, write, study, and work on the traditional territories of the mississaugas of the credit first nation, huron-wendat, anishinaabe, and haudenosaunee. i am responsible for respecting, honouring, and caring for the land. i am in the process of decolonizing my mind through un(learning) and re(learning) about indigenous peoples and their relationship to the land. i recognize that my ancestors were stolen and involuntarily displaced through the trans-atlantic slave trade. they were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in africa, and placed across various lands, including the caribbean, latin america, canada, and the united states. i acknowledge black land relations with places in canada such as amber valley, alberta; hogan’s alley, vancouver; africville, nova scotia; holland township, grey county, and owen sound, ontario; and many more geographies where there is an erasure of black presence, black families, black children, and black communities. relationship with water my childhood was in st. lucia, and my connection to water is part of my history and ancestors. the island of st. lucia is surrounded by water and situated in the caribbean sea. st. lucia is also a volcanic island with steam fumaroles and boiling pools on the southern part of the island in the town of soufriere (ander et al., 1984). i view water as powerful, yet there is a sense of peace, hope, life, and abundance in its stillness. my childhood was filled with fun exploring water in many ways that enabled my curiosity always to want to know more about its existence. i was curious to find out if the water i used for drinking, cooking, bathing, swimming, fishing, and playing was the same water my ancestors used or if it had been the same water from the earth’s formation all along. is there anything like new water, or is the same water going in a circular motion for all humans and nonhumans to share? hurricanes may seem dangerous and unsafe to many people, but after the storm had passed and it was raining, this was one of my favourite learning moments with water. water brought many treasures to the surface and at this paper discusses possibilities of relational world making with water. many canadian early childhood education and care programs continue to engage water through a developmentalist lens, such as through practices that focus on containing, extracting, and trapping water. children’s explorations, such as with sensory water bottles and water tables, are predominantly viewed through narrow learning and developmental milestones. this deficit perspective maintains colonial and commodified relations with water. this paper presents some ways children and early childhood educators can create liveable worlds with water. key words: liveable worlds; water pedagogy; worldmaking; early childhood education and care programs june 2023 17 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the same time created new tracks and ravines to explore. i often visited the rivers/creeks with my teachers, and the learning that occurred impacted my childhood. learning about and with little tadpoles in water was also a reminder that water always invites children to explore. i observed those tadpoles grow and never took them out of the water because i knew that the water was their home. practicing in an ecec program, i noticed that children were not allowed to jump in puddles or play outside while it was raining due to the educators’ notion that they would get cold, wet, or dirty. this belief conflicted with my views of childhood because water has been a significant part of exploring and learning in various ways, such as rainfall, creeks, rivers, ravines, oceans, dew, waterfalls, and many water sources. there is so much knowledge to learn while engaging with water. for example, the sound of raindrops on leaves differs from the sound of raindrops on a window. children can learn with water when space is made for them to explore in many ways instead of trapping water through water tables and sensory water bottles. i never entirely understood the filling and dumping of water tables and its eurocentric way of viewing children from a developmentalist lens. during my childhood, water was never trapped or contained for learning, playing, or exploring. is there a chance for world making with water? caring for water in ecec programs early childhood educators (eces) could consider care in creating liveable worlds when children explore water in all its forms. for deborah bird rose (2017), “care is an ethical response involving tenderness, generosity, and compassion” (p. 58). what does care look like with water? is it about not wasting? is it about protecting water from containment, pollution, extraction, and environmental damages, among many others? rose states, “care is an ongoing assumption of responsibility in the face of continuing violence and peril” (p. 58). this quote makes me think of the water table when children splash and dump the water on the floor. the educators’ responsibility is to fill the water table even though water is intentionally dumped out of the water table. i imagine this as water violence, knowing that many children, families, and communities in canada and globally are without drinking water. such pedagogical approaches “focus on what water can do for children’s learning and development” (nxumalo & tepeyolotl, 2020, p. 212). the absence of water presence as noncontainment exploration is entangled with settler colonial relations (nxumalo, 2016) that perpetuate rampant consumption justified by developmentalism as the primary focus of children’s learning. decisions can determine whether educators and children want to live well with water. for instance, learning alongside situated indigenous water relations and knowledges can be an important part of water pedagogy (nxumalo, 2021). living well in relation to water includes attunement to well-being, belonging, a sense of community, interdependence, and reciprocity. how do educators and children live well together with water? i want to imagine water pedagogy with liveable futures. but i am compelled to ask, how are liveable futures with water possible when humans possess and oppress an extension of life that continues to be “taken for granted” (nxumalo, 2016) “through human-centred ways of knowing” (nxumalo & tepeyolotl, 2020)? water can be silent, calm, loud, and unruly with so many entanglements, tensions, and complexities to grapple with because many humans have not understood how to make liveable worlds with water. through normative human engagement with water, children mimic adults’ ways of knowing to engage with water. those tensions make me wonder who decides if the water table should be an integral part of the ecec program. what is in the spray and sensory water bottles to normalize this as essential to children’s learning? is there world making with water or are children living well with water containment in a bottle and table? june 2023 18 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice soufriere sulphur springs and diamond waterfalls i want to start this conversation by sharing one of my experiences with water through my relationship between soufriere sulphur springs and diamond waterfalls in st. lucia. my great-grandparents and their generations (elders) have passed this relationship down to the younger generations like myself. during my childhood, soufriere sulphur springs and diamond waterfalls were a place for physical and emotional healing. i visited this place at least twice a year but very early in the morning, from 4 am to 6 am, because by 9 am, the water in soufriere sulphur springs would be too hot to take a bath. my family drove about two hours to get there, and as a child, i was aware that this water had healing properties. my family always discussed how vital the sulphur springs’ water was to the well-being of humans. the sulphur springs are one of the main tourist attractions (geothermal energy in st. lucia, 1989) and the world’s only drive-in volcano (caribbean journal, 2016). figure 1. soufriere drive-in volcano. the soufriere drive-in volcano is situated in soufriere sulphur springs park. during my childhood, i walked through the volcano with my family beside the circular grey steam fumaroles shown in figure 1. the volcano is the primary source of nourishment for the sulphur springs’ water and diamond waterfalls, which i will discuss. at the time of my encounter with the sulphur springs’ water and diamond waterfalls, i also visited family members who lived in soufriere. the town of soufriere is located within the caldera of the soufriere volcanic centre, known as qualibou (ander et al., 1984). soufriere is also known for its rich fertile soil, agriculture, and abundance of locally grown foods due to the minerals from the sulphur springs. soufriere sulphur springs and diamond waterfalls have also been captured as anthropocentric sightseeing commodities for capitalism. in these places water has also come to be viewed by some as a capitalist commodity. even in these places water has become susceptible to containment for tourism. june 2023 19 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 2. soufriere sulphur springs stream. i visited the sulphur springs every year throughout my childhood. the sulphur springs are waters that connect me to my ancestral roots, knowing that this tradition was a significant part of my childhood, identity, and connection to the land. my family believed in taking a trip or two to the sulphur springs every year. figure 3. soufriere diamond waterfalls. i visited the sulphur springs’ stream first and then the diamond waterfalls for another bath; this was always the order which continues even to this date. the water rejuvenates and gives life to plants, rocks, and the land. the minerals in the diamond waterfalls from the sulphur springs showcase the strength of water without human extraction. june 2023 20 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 4. soufriere diamond river. the water in the soufriere diamond river, shown in figure 4, flows straight from the diamond waterfalls and is mineralized by the volcanic activity upstream, which turns the water into a shade of graphite from the volcanic mud (diamond botanical gardens, 2022). the soufriere diamond waterfalls and the diamond river caused me to think of how humans can live well with water as a way of healing that invites positive energy in humans, nonhumans, and the earth to preserve life. water epistemologies vary based on culture, local/traditional knowledge, and the connection of humans and nonhumans to water, among many other factors. for example, marlen villanueva, a pame educator, wrote about “relational ontologies of water that include the capacities of water for emotional and physical healing; inseparability of water from human bodies; and the many places through which waters come together, including the rains and rivers” (villanueva, 2018, as cited in nxumalo & villanueva, 2020, p. 217). in all its abundance, water provides knowledge of how life is sustained and preserved through various channels such as rivers, oceans, creeks, rain, dew, and lakes that have been taken for granted by human ways of capitalist consumption, extraction, and anthropocentrism. water through an anthropocentric lens anthropocentrism and extractivism are interconnected with children’s inheritances of “ecologically damaged worlds such as those related to water vulnerabilities” (nxumalo & villanueva, 2020, p. 211). viewing water through the lens of extraction “privileges humans as the central actors” (nxumalo, 2016, p. 650) and creates a ripple effect on children’s learning and how children are approached through a deficit lens. there is anthropocentrism in the everyday exploration of water when children only view water in the form of play, sensory stimulation, and consumption through the water relations of child development (nxumalo & villanueva, 2020). it is an anthropocentric practice that maintains ongoing settler colonialism and childhood innocence when water is not viewed as a central part of world making. here, i refer to world making as children having a relationship with water and learning with water instead of learning about water. many children are protected from the precarities of water through discourses of childhood innocence. for instance, figure 5 shows how the sulphur springs’ water is trapped through human-made objects to keep it safe for tourism and enjoyment. many local and visiting children may be unaware of why the sulphur springs’ water is in constructed mud baths. some children may need help understanding what the sulphur springs looked like dating back to the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and even earlier when the warm volcanic water flowed only like rivers and streams without being sectioned into mud baths, which is evident in figure 1. my childhood experiences with the sulphur june 2023 21 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice springs differed from that of constructed mud baths being accessible all day. throughout my childhood, humans could not access the sulphur springs by noon and onwards or sometimes earlier due to how hot the water was. hence, my family travelled early in the morning to access the sulphur springs, as stated earlier. the photograph shared in figure 5 is an example of water through the lens of anthropocentrism. humans have taken the natural flow of water from the sulphur springs and converted it to eurocentric containment, where water needs to be trapped to enable healing properties and enjoyment in the name of tourism or revenue. rose (2017) notes, “in an ecologically attentive recursion, we find that man is the only animal to voraciously, relentlessly, and viciously wreck the lifeworld of earth” (p. 55). some humans destroy water in ways that are normalized, creating anthropocentric worlds instead of liveable worlds. water needs its freedom from the various ways that some humans have oppressed it. figure 5. soufriere sulphur springs mud baths. reconfiguring pedagogical relations with water water needs careful attention to create liveable worlds that enable us to participate in what rose (2017) calls “the shimmer of life” (p. 58). for instance, refiguring presences (nxumalo, 2016) in ecec programs can be an invitation to reconfigure pedagogical relations with water in anticolonial ways. in this regard, indigenous knowledges are necessary to counter anthropocentric imaginaries of water and enact liveable futures with water. early childhood programs can learn from and with indigenous reciprocal ontologies and epistemologies in relation to water. educators can inquire into how they might learn, in nonappropriative ways, alongside situated, emplaced indigenous acts of living well with water, including caring reciprocal practices such as water songs (nxumalo, 2021). importantly, “refiguring presences are non-innocent” (nxumalo, 2016, p. 648); they are forms of liberatory practices and thought that are active and unfolding without innocence and neutrality (vintimilla & pacini-ketchabaw, 2020). refiguring presences in relation to indigenous peoples, lands, and waters reimagines relationalities with water outside of ongoing settler colonialism while interrupting the erasure of indigenous knowledge in ece (nxumalo, 2019). in my un(learning) and re(learning) about indigenous peoples’ relationships to water, i imagine that anticolonial water pedagogy is not necessarily preprogrammed, structured, or routine, like the eurocentric ways of practicing, planning, or engaging children in most ecec programs. instead, it centers june 2023 22 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice intentional relations focused on living well with humans and nonhumans that go beyond the eurocentric ways of depicting water as only for commodity, consumption, and pleasure. with anthropocentric ideologies, capitalist movements, global extractions, and ongoing settler colonialism, how can children and educators navigate these challenges to create more liveable worlds in ecec programs? these acts of ongoing settler colonialism are present in early childhood education. how can water be invited to early childhood education spaces without being oppressed by containment? educators could also learn how children in different geographies engage with water when with their families. is it the same or different? while taking care to avoid a single story of certain childhoods, educators could also take an interest in learning how children from different parts of the world relate to water. as a child, learning with water did not only exist through a faucet or tub. i went to the ocean, rivers, ravines, and creeks a couple of days a week. it was part of my childhood and upbringing. quite often, the primary source from the reservoir that distributed water through the taps in my community would be shut off without warning for hours or sometimes days. the children in my community understood that this was an opportunity to explore our imagination and extend our learning with water with our families through the rivers, ravines, or oceans where we spent eight to ten hours a day. disrupting developmentalism in water pedagogy there are many ways that educators could engage children in conversations about learning with water. to reconceptualize ece water pedagogies, educators should acknowledge that learning and exploring with water is where the making of liveable worlds could happen. these adventures could occur in rain, puddles, creeks, lakes, rivers, oceans, and ravines, which are beyond the experiences of a water table, sensory water bottles, and spray water bottles. that makes me think of reimagining how water is typically contextualized, approached, and explored in activities, experiments, and learning with children. as nxumalo (2016) calls it, “anthropocentric imaginaries” (p. 641). while visiting the soufriere sulphur springs and diamond waterfalls as a child, i never brought plastic bags or bottles to extract water. i understood that the water stayed in this space, and i respected the surroundings. i also knew that the water allowed humans to explore the therapeutic benefits of a specific temperature for a certain amount of time. my family taught me that the plants, waters, rocks, and everything in soufriere sulphur springs park are connected. the interconnectedness was evident in the colours of the rocks, the greenery around the sulphur springs and the diamond waterfalls, with the many species of plants and flowers that bloomed. with all these childhood experiences, what does it means for me to live well and engage in world making with water? as an ece who practiced in a childcare centre, i recognized that water is not only for consumption. for example, the sulphur springs’ water is rich in minerals and has many benefits to humans, but it is not for drinking or cooking. however, it is a good food source for nonhumans, such as plants, rocks, and nature. on this note, i think about how water comes in various colours, such as reddish-brown due to the nutrients and richness of the soil. i reflect upon the learning that could occur if children were exposed to discussing the many bodies of water, which may be still or move from one place to another depending on geographical features. for instance, the soufriere sulphur springs, diamond waterfalls, and diamond river differ in colour, temperature, and flow even though they are interconnected. i am aware that my relationship with water could be similar yet different from many educators’ practices. here is an example of similarity in practice. my colleagues and i often placed food colouring in water for the children to explore sea creatures, bubbles, and sensory bottles. the colour of the water was never the primary focus of the children’s play; however, they explored the objects in the sensory bottles and water table and popped or june 2023 23 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice blew the bubbles. most times, water was only acknowledged and discussed when the floors or the children’s sleeves were wet. the children also announced when the water became very foamy due to the bubbles or when they shook the sensory bottle and observed the movement of objects in the water. other examples where water was seldom recognized were around washing fruits and vegetables, dishes, or baby dolls. to enrich the children’s experience, my colleagues and i always thought that adding objects to the water would encourage learning. the main focus was always on how the children could explore the objects in the water in connection with the developmental domains and skills in learning for every child today: a framework for ontario early childhood settings (excerpts from elect, 2014). reflecting on these practices, i recognize how a developmentalist approach plays a significant role in how some ecec programs engage children with water. the shimmer in water water can be unruly and messy simultaneously, whether in its loudness and stillness to invite humans to its abundance where it gives life and causes humans and nonhumans to flourish together, which is the epiphany of the “shimmer of life” (rose, 2017). some children have the opportunity to experience this abundance of water in its fullness without it being trapped or contained for sensory stimulation, experiments, and play. such experiences illustrate that “pedagogy is interested in creating an experience” (vintimilla & pacini-ketchabaw, 2020, p. 631) with children instead of on or for children. such experiences make me think of shimmer, world making, and liveable worlds that can occur with water in all its forms. what is the shimmer in water that educators need to consider alongside children in ecec programs? as blaise and hamm (2019) assert, shimmer exceeds human action. it captures our attention, like the ways in which leaves, wind, and sun bring together a brilliant sparkling effect of leafy light patterns and connections that can literally stop us in our tracks or take our breath away for the slightest moment. (p. 94) this quote makes me think of how the shimmer in water exceeds normative ece views of water through consumption, sensory experience, or sink and float. i think that if all educators allowed themselves to create liveable worlds with water, they would experience its fullness. what does this mean for living well for 21st-century childhoods? anticolonial practices with water dominant early childhood pedagogies primarily focus on learning about water instead of learning with water (pacini-ketchabaw & clarke, 2016). vintimilla & pacini-ketchabaw (2020) note that “pedagogy commonly engages with the arts as a medium for making the familiar strange and proposing otherwise possibilities” (para. 11). the authors make me think of new ways to engage and relate to water. these new ways are complexities that educators and children need to grapple with, knowing how water containment is continuously normalized through ongoing settler colonialism and childhood innocence. for example, when it rains, children could explore the sound of water on various surfaces, such as on leaves, rocks, concrete, windows, and slides. with this exploration, children could observe the distinct smell that arises when water touches the ground on a hot summer day as opposed to when it is cold in the fall or winter. these are all ways that children and eces could learn with water. children cannot have these experiences if they are not allowed to go outside in the rain to explore and learn with water. rose (2017) points out, “we are called to acknowledge that in the midst of all we cannot choose, we also make choices” (p. 61). therefore, the choice is with all humans, including the educators and children in ecec programs. june 2023 24 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references ander, m., goff, f., hanold, b. heiken, g., vuataz, f., & wohletz, k. (1984). evaluation of the st. lucia geothermal resource: geologic, geophysical, and hydrogeochemical investigations. u.s. department of energy. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6267659 blaise, m., & hamm, c. (2019). shimmering: animating multispecies relations with wurundjeri country. in b. d. hodgins (ed.), feminist research for 21st-century childhoods: common worlds methods (pp. 94–99). bloomsbury academic. caribbean journal. (2016, october 5). the story of a volcano crater in st. lucia [youtube video]. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ecjshey418s diamond botanical gardens. (2022). about diamond botanical gardens and soufriere estate. https://www.diamondstlucia.com/history excerpts from elect. (2014). foundational knowledge from the 2007 publication of early learning for every child today: a framework for ontario early childhood settings. https://www.dufferincounty.ca/sites/default/files/rtb/excerpts-from-early-learning-for-everychild-today.pdf geothermal energy in st. lucia (1989). minerals and energy. raw materials report, 6(4), 16–19. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ abs/10.1080/14041048909409933 nxumalo, f. (2016). towards “refiguring presences” as an anti-colonial orientation to research in early childhood studies. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 29(5), 640–654. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2016.1139212 nxumalo, f. (2021). decolonial water pedagogies: invitations to black, indigenous, and black-indigenous world making. bank street occasional paper series, 45, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1390 nxumalo, f., & tepeyolotl, m. (2020). (re)storying water decolonial pedagogies of relational affect with young children. in b. p. dernikos, n. lesko, s. d. mccall, & a. d. niccolini (eds.), mapping the affective turn in education: theory, research, and pedagogy (pp. 209–228). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003004219 nxumalo, f., & villanueva, m. (2020). decolonial water stories: affective pedagogies with young children. the international journal of early childhood environmental education, 7(1), 40–56. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1233594.pdf pacini-ketchabaw, v., & clarke, v. (2016). following water relations in early childhood pedagogies. journal of early childhood research, 14(1), 98–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718x14529281 rose, d. b. (2017). shimmer: when all you love is being trashed. in a. l. tsing., n. bubandt., e. gan., & h. a. swanson (eds.), arts of living on a damaged planet: ghosts and monsters of the anthropocene (pp. g51–g63). university of minnesota press. vintimilla, c. d., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2020). weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. european early childhood education research journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 january 2023 1 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor editorial zsuzsa millei and camila rosa ribeiro image 1. “futures in display” by felipe ávila the special issue’s cover photo extends time and the critique of modernity’s structured developments to a visual terrain, enacting the image of a time calcified with the materiality of everyday life. this everyday materiality also includes dumped waste and its residual contamination, confusing linear perspectives of time by stretching the present to the future making the waste a relic of the past. in the piece futures in display (image 1), the brazilian artist felipe ávila puts together small cast sculptures, modelled by combining traditional sculpture materials such as cement and plaster with contaminated residues, alongside objects and debris collected from polluted areas in different regions of northern europe. the objects were found in multiple sites where largescale industrial activities or environmental disasters have taken place. by assembling and isolating the objects in the glass cabinet, ávila has brought their uncanny aspect to the fore, allowing visual contact but rebuffing the possibility of defining their temporal and spatial origins. displaying these objects as artifacts separated from the position where they were collected enhances their panoptic presence in spatial-temporal terms: as contaminated debris/waste that could be found anywhere, and as perduring apparitions due to their inorganic materiality that ensures their long-lasting static present accompanying future generations. futures in display causes a strong sensorial impact for assembling objects that make visible how material and temporal domains entangle across a ruined reality. the piece aligns with this special issue’s interest in bringing together a critique of modernity’s january 2023 2 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor destructive telos to acknowledge and celebrate the coexistence of multiple temporal patterns and to demonstrate its effects on the physical reality of earthly nature. this special issue dwells in time entangled in practices, materialities, affect, and the unfolding of children’s lives. time, which is unseen for not bearing an intrinsic materiality in itself, grants us creative pathways to confront children’s apparent lives in ways that have not yet been exhaustively explored in academic circles. here time is handled as a transdisciplinary frame cutting across this special issue’s contributions; however, time is taken by authors as a uniquely flexible and transfiguring kind of frame, due to its formidable extension of intellectual traditions and disciplinary approaches (sandbothe, 1999). each contribution draws our attention to the myriad ways time materializes in children’s lives, or critically appraises how time prefigures thinking within fields of critical childhood studies and education. consciously or not, these fields of study activate conceptual timeconfigurations to explore topics pertaining to children and childhood. conceptual apparatuses of time are mobilized to discern what and who a child is, and to create age categories or sequential modes of observation and documentation of children’s everyday lives, as just a few examples. authors seek to unsettle the tyranny of linear modern time over childhoods and children’s lives by introducing a variety of time theorizations to describe and critique its operation. authors’ use of nonlinear conceptions of time allows readers to take a fresh look at children’s everyday lived experiences. the applied philosophical and epistemological positions expand the types of questions that can be posed about children and childhood once the imagination is released from the grip of linear temporality. two thematic axes compose this special issue. the first addresses the intersections of time, politics, and childhood seeking to repoliticize humanist progress and liberation so entangled with notions of linear time. the second explores time within the flow of life, dethroning the linearity of human-centered time and its onto-epistemologies from the fields of childhood explorations. politicizing time and childhood modernist, eurocentric, and industrialist notions of linear time and historicity have been questioned since the 1960s, more pronouncedly in physics, evolutionary biology, and postmodernist philosophy. some of the alternative theoretical, cultural, and historical notions of time return to premodern notions of temporality or pay attention to nonhuman temporalities in postanthropocentric thinking. these are also the intellectual resources to which some authors in this special issue turned for inspiration. however, despite new attempts at theorizing time, the vexing question stays with us: how are progressive social, political, and environmental transformations possible “if we can no longer ground our theories and political practices in enlightened narratives of humanist progress and liberation” (rossini & toggweiler, 2017, p. 6)? some of the special issue authors attempt to respond to this question either by investigating how childhood and time are used by policies, interventions, and politicians to reinstate social and geopolitical hierarchies, or through the political activities of children and youth in which they politicize time and temporality to make a stance on their futures. annie mccarthy reveals how linear time inscribes children’s bodies through visualization of growth and with “untimely” development reproducing also societies as lagging behind western trajectories of growth. exploring photographic media of children’s stunting allows mccarthy to understand how the biomedical paradigm prevalent in developmental discourses utilizes a temporal regime that imposes an irreversible lack over children’s lives, and, by extension, their societies. by focusing on before and after photographs portraying western feeding interventions on children from the global south, and images of children having their bodies measured, the author indicates the ways in which time is marked and made visible in developmentalist projects to record, monitor, and predict children’s growth. the article’s archival approach brings into sharp contrast how such type january 2023 3 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor of documentation practices has been utilized to construe the distinctions between savages and human beings, or between the highest and the lowest categories of children and societies. linking mobile childhoods and time, vijitha rajan depicts temporary migrant children’s move between villages and cities in india and how the children become subjected to educational inclusion that, in a paradoxical manner, made them abject finding themselves on the margins of modern childhood. without receiving ageappropriate education which is only possible if one stays put, developmental and learning outcomes are not achieved. in this way, via discourses of linear temporality, educational practices and policies construct mobile children as educationally deprived and uneducable. education that emphasizes personal and moral fulfillment in this way only remains in the reach of those who are sedentary, and in turn sedentariness is reinforced as a moral demand. the attention to ngos renders perceptible how ngos preserve and persevere on this “sedentarist mindset” when they school migrant children and are unable to accommodate to the fluid spatio-temporalities of those on the move. the modern ideals of developmental sequential time, and the educability and sedentariness of modern childhood produce migrant children as irremediable, thus a failure to modern teleology and progress. scrutinizing president modi’s nationally televised engagements with children as part of teachers’ days in india, nisha thapliyal includes a temporal perspective to the ways in which elite childhoods and children in the global south serve as important raw materials and narrative resources for his exclusivist hindutva nationbuilding purposes (while other childhoods are discarded). paying attention to multiple temporalities, such as mythological racialized time, cyclical and “idealized patriarchal dominant caste hinduized notions of time,” mixed with capitalist, neoliberal, protestant christian and colonial notions of time appearing in these speeches, thapliyal demonstrates how time is linked to values, hierarchies, and belonging. thus, time and childhood appear as highly politicized in modi’s speeches, creating legitimation for the hierarchies of a hindu nationalist nation. young people’s sense-making of their own activism is interpreted by eleni theodorou, spyros spyrou, and georgina christou in their analysis of the movement youth for climate cyprus. the climate crisis is presented as an intergenerational justice issue as the youngsters see themselves as those who must bear the burden of past generations’ choices. activists articulate intergenerational collaboration and confrontation as necessary for shifting the current exterminatory, profit-driven value systems. thus, they utilize multiple temporalities to legitimize their voices and to destabilize generational and interspecies hierarchies. the youth achieve this goal by connecting with people and places that are not within their space and time and by decentering the supremacy of humans’ time over other species’ cycles and temporalities. time in this way serves as a potent political resource for youth activist practices. threading intergenerational relations further, georgina christou renders visible the multispecies, multigenerational, and multispatial entanglements activated by young activists. while what she calls chronocratic practices govern subjects’ actions by constraining them to age norms, children and youth build alternative communities and forms of relationality that challenge age norms hegemonic in modernity. for instance, by escaping school, children engage in “degrowing” or “becoming minor” in public domains as political actions. their activism is achieved through a conscious antihegemonic practice to linear development and anticipated progress, and against the image of the isolated, schooled, and individualized child subject of modernity. youths’ antihegemonic practices broaden time with attention to irregularities, inconsistencies, and overlaps of time— what christou terms disordered time and distended time—and draw on the existence of alternative subjectivities in these disfigured notions of time. child climate activists in australia enact with their poster slogans complex temporal compositions that are january 2023 4 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor explored by lucy hopkins. politicians’ climate-denialist perspectives utilize a linear temporal logic to position child activists in a paradoxical position of valuable future citizens and yet presently unsuited to claim political and economic changes. rendering present and future as separated temporal domains, a focus on the child’s futurity allows adults to defer present action and engagement by ignoring and discursively disempowering children in the political sphere. hopkins shows through these cultural artifacts of protest how children challenge dominant discourses of childhood, time, and climate activism through their representational politics to free themselves from confining adult politics in australia and to reconstruct the climate emergency on their own terms. children’s temporal compositions trouble childhood’s futurity with precarity as the basis of childhood subjectivity. troubling human-centered time and its onto-epistemologies time is present in human life as part of complex interactions at biochemical, cellular, and systemic levels. relationships between circadian time and life-forming microscopic processes can hardly be claimed as fully dimensioned and measured for they involve an enormous array of cyclic, rhythmic, and seasonal tendencies converging within one functional phenomenon, such as the links between the human circadian clock and the rhythmicity of cells, microbes, and viruses, for instance (murakami & tognini, 2020). what is known and partly described is the mutual influence that different living forms have upon each other through evocative connections or speculative possibilities of linkages. no matter how blurred these zones of knowledge might be, they draw our attention to life circumstances when correlations and regulating moments seem to interlink apparently disparate points. in circumstances such as these, for biologists time operates as a connecting tissue between events independent from exterior forces. instead of trying to describe time as a thing or a what that can be known and submitted to the regulatory practices of a scientific truth, such investigations focus on how time is creating conditions or qualities of dynamics for sensing and effect in a complex choreography of operations that sustain life. time connects the experiences of children and the more-than-human world narrated in autobiographical memory stories of adults in mnemo zin and camila da rosa ribeiro’s article. the authors pay attention to the entanglements of biographical, generational, historical, and political times in memory stories taking place during the cold war. barbara adam’s concept of timescapes—connected to life as biographical and generational time or lifespan—helps the authors to make unfamiliar the modern(ist) narratives of linear progress and to bring into view a world outside the brackets of technical development. life organizes into timescapes the complex dimensions of human and more‐than‐human temporal cocompositions. the emotionally charged stories present different rhythms as the children pick berries in the forest, collect cucumbers on a collective farm, or harvest apples in a family orchard. children in the memories experienced time as more-than-human life’s temporal orders, which often collided with the temporal norms and expectations mastered at school and home. the multitemporal nature of memories is the tool for ketevan chachkhiani, garine palandjian, iveta silova, and keti tsotniashvili to trouble linear time and socialization to modern progress and temporality through early literacy textbooks. memories inherently connect the past with the time of telling in the present and with a view of the future. the authors pay attention, with a diffractive analysis using childhood memories, to the multiple temporalities that have always coexisted alongside each other in children’s experiences, unlike those portrayed in the books. memories help the authors to introduce and politicize the concept “pedagogies of time” as it captures normative modern socialization and opens space for noticing other temporalities and the possibility of change. their thought and speculative experiments recreate early literacy texts to reflect different temporal experiences composing the time of “being a child.” january 2023 5 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor the boundaries of the zoom screen frame ruth boycott-garnett’s exploration. the zoom frame however is made leaky by tiny babies. leaky zoom screens serve as a constant reminder of that which is unseen and unknowable and is still always present when considering the lives of babies. zoom undercuts the ethnographic authority of an authentic “being-there and perceiving-while-there” position. the lives of the babies in this research are never fully knowable to the researcher because encounters on zoom keep a question mark beside what we can see and interpret of babies’ lives. between focusing in on the zoom screen and foregrounding the flickering presents, time serves as a connective tissue for dynamics to take shape which then become those researchable but fleeting moments. time as it follows its own path creates conditions and dynamics for understanding babies. the philosophical, ontological, and epistemic (posthumanist and indigenous) scholarly positions of a collective of authors (camila da rosa ribeiro, zsuzsa millei, riikka hohti, walter omar kohan, césar donizetti pereira leite, norma rudolph, ingvild kvale sørenssen, karolina szymborska, tuure tammi, and marek tesar) are used as starting points to release time and childhood from a linear trajectory and the civilization project brought upon children by the modern nation-states and their institutions. through multidisciplinary engagements, the article collectively unsettles standardized progressive development, the linear trajectory that constitutes the child as less than an adult, the liberal progressive teleology of childhood, and attempts to rescue childhood by the humanitarian west and presents paths to alternative temporalities and onto-epistemologies to research childhoods. as these contributions indicate, there are abundant benefits in disturbing linear temporality for scholarship delving into childhood and children lives. perhaps the most important is acknowledging how linear time operates as the cornerstone of the coloniality of western thought. therefore, educational projects interested in dismantling such framework must devote critical attention to coloniality’s underlying assumptions about children’s subjectivity and capabilities spined by modern time. what if, instead of resigning childhood scholarship to the reactive tendency of observing and analyzing children’s present, the field could repurpose itself as an activator of unorthodox futures? this could happen, for example, as in the understanding of circadian time, by paying attention to dynamics for sensing and effect in a complex choreography of operations that sustain life. for that matter, we would like to invite you to notice other senses of time, such as those presented drifting freely in heini aho’s fool’s time iii. (images 2 and 3). time flows as sand, trapped in a bend and then it moves again. in its self-dynamism of affecting, time evades human control. the hourglass, the device to measure time, is reshaped to allow the sand to flow, and the gravitation makes the glass turn. instead of arresting and measuring time with the hourglass, here the glass is turned as an effect of gravitation, releasing time from human control. earthly energy releases time from the modernist quests for control and civilization, sensorially affecting our perception in the dynamisms of life. january 2023 6 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor image 2. “fool’s time iii” by heini aho image 3. “fool’s time iii” by heini aho january 2023 7 vol. 48 no. 1 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references murakami, m., & tognini, p. (2020). the circadian clock as an essential molecular link between host physiology and microorganisms. frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology, 22. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2019.00469 rossini, m., & toggweiler, m. (2017). editorial: posthuman temporalities. new formations, 92(6), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.3898/ newf:92.intro.2017 sandbothe, m. (1999). the temporalization of time in modern philosophy. in p. baert (ed.), time in modern intellectual thought (pp. 17–35). elsevier. https://www.sandbothe.net/244.html january 2020 33 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research ethics of care in practice: an observational study of interactions and power relations between children and educators in urban ontario early childhood settings rachel langford and brooke richardson rachel langford is a professor in the school of early childhood studies at ryerson university. she is the principal investigator of an sshrc-awarded project that seeks to theorize and frame a robust and coherent integration of care, ethics of care, and care work into canadian childcare advocacy, policy, and practice. she is a co-editor of an edited volume, caring for children: social movements and public policy in canada (ubc press), and the editor of an anthology, theorizing feminist ethics of care in early childhood practice: possibilities and dangers (bloomsbury academic press). email: rlangfor@ryerson.ca brooke richardson is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of sociology at brock university. she is currently working on an sshrcfunded project examining the increasing privatization of childcare in canada and editing a forthcoming anthology, mothering on the edge: a critical examination of mothering within the child protection system (demeter press). email: brichardson@brocku.ca dominant discourses around care and care workers in canadian early childhood programs conceptualizes care as instrumental1 and carried out by women with a “natural” propensity for the work. the idea that care is “natural” to women (increasingly, poor and racialized women) has undermined, and continues to undermine, its social and economic value while situating it as immune to change. at the same time, dominant conceptualizations of care work in early childhood programs are relegated to outcome-based activities and interactions instrumentally addressing children’s immediate physical and social needs. these discourses and understandings contribute to care’s taken-for-granted nature, with care often taking place in the private sphere, and systematic devaluation in the formal market economy (daley, 2012). ironically, “care is so fundamental to our capacity to live together that we simply cannot see its significance and it becomes possible to ignore it” (barnes, 2012, p.3). the marginalization/occlusion of care work is particularly poignant in early childhood education (ece), where the contemporary trend in most western, english-speaking nations (e.g., canada, the us, the uk, australia, and new zealand) has been to separate care and education policy and provision. one problematic consequence has been the inferior positioning of care relative to education in early childhood programs. the widespread belief that care work carried out in ece programs comes “naturally” to women legitimizes its subordination and glosses over the inherent complex, messy, contextual, and emotional nature of working with young children. instead, the primary path to professionalization in the field has been to focus on technocratic, standardized teaching and “learning” discourses distancing the profession from care (langford, 2019). this article explores observations of care practices in interactions between early childhood educators and children in two urban early childhood settings in ontario. analysis of these care practices is informed by a feminist ethics of care. findings show that the care actions of educators were more often instrumental in nature, often incomplete, and/ or interrupted. children’s experience with and perspectives on their care were not taken into consideration. structural factors such as staffing levels appeared to interfere significantly with the possibility of care as conceptualized from a feminist ethics of care framework. practice and policy implications for the absence and presence of an ethics of care in canadian early childhood settings are discussed. key words: care; ethics of care; early childhood education; observation study january 2020 34 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research from an ethics of care perspective, the ability to navigate and respond to the complexities of care is precisely what makes work in early childhood settings both challenging and valuable. joan tronto’s (2013) articulation of the four phases of care are helpful in identifying the complex processes of caring well for others through an ethics of care lens. these phases are: caring about (discerning a need), caring for (accepting responsibility), caregiving (the practice of giving care), and care-receiving (response from person receiving care). it is important to highlight the final phase, which requires active participation, acknowledgment, or feedback from the person receiving the care. this phase of care positions children as simultaneously dependent and agentic whereby the unequal power relationships between children and educators become a focal point of care practice. drawing on tronto (2013, p. 21), we see these care practices nested within other caring practices that create complex care interrelationships within (un)caring institutions and democracies. we are not alone in attempting to reposition care as central to children’s and educators’ experiences of early childhood programs. other scholars have attempted to bridge the care/education divide through proposing new terms in which “care” and “education” are more closely linked. examples include “educare” (löefdahl & folkefichtelius, 2015; van laere & vanbenbroeck, 2016), “care-full pedagogy” (luff & kanyal, 2015), and “relational pedagogy” (papatheodorou, 2009). in contrast, while noting that care is an important concept for its “ethical nature,” peter moss (2017) maintains “we should not encourage a view that ‘care’ is of exclusive or even particular relevance to young children by including it in the term we use to describe the field” (p. 13). on this basis, moss prefers the term “early childhood education.” we agree with moss that care is inherent in all education. however, we maintain it is particularly relevant to early childhood programs for two reasons. first, we argue that a denial of young children’s particular need for care (extended to include their bodies, emotions, and minds) reduces children to a negative view of dependency (gilson, 2014). we do not regard children’s need for care as a limitation or deficit. as erinn gilson states, “the valorization of independence and self-sufficiency [in western contexts] both reduces care to a means to an end (that of independence) rather than a value in itself and renders dependence incompatible with dignity” (2014, p. 9). we view needing care as a normal aspect of the human condition, necessary for human flourishing and wellbeing (sevenhuijsen, 1998). on this basis, we see the early childhood setting as a site of “inevitable dependence and inextricable interdependence” (kittay, 2015, p. 57) whereby ethical care practices are central to the work of early childhood educators. however, we resist the idea that children are passive, helpless recipients of care. on the contrary, we assert that when power relations are acknowledged and explored within the context of care relations, and as an ethics of care insists, children are then placed in a greater position of competency. mediated also by context, children can become active participants in their own (and others’) care. we agree with virginia held (2006) that care relations are always embedded in social and historical contexts of power, which have profound effects on how care needs are interpreted and responded to by caregivers (p. 46). without an appreciation of an ethics of care, one effect is that care receivers, which includes children, are denied participation in their own care as competent social agents. therefore, an ethics of care in early childhood education requires more complex understandings of children’s needs and more complex educator responses to them, and the presence and absence of children’s responses to the care given. second, when we do not give particular relevancy to care in early childhood education, we deny the chronic exploitation of early childhood educators whose work is grounded in care. advanced industrialized societies have only recently created a class-based system of care in which care work (once done by women now in the workforce) is carried out by poor, racialized, and female early childhood educators (tronto, 2013). because of overarching january 2020 35 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research exploitative conditions, the ability of early childhood educators (henceforth educators) to engage in ethical caring relations is compromised. their work is taken for granted and made invisible amid market mechanisms that overtly deny the value of their work. thus, the power relations occurring within early childhood settings are complicated: it is not only the power relations between children (whose participation in care relations is often involuntary) and educators that are important to critique but also the power relations between the educators and those responsible for constructing the class-based system of care. in this way, educators are simultaneously powerful in their interactions with children but powerless in the context of a care economy that sidelines the value of care work. from our perspective, it is therefore important to name, critically research, and analyze care and care work in early childhood settings from an ethics of care framework. the purpose of our observational study was to identify and describe the complexities of care with attention to how power relations play out in care practices in early childhood programs. an ethics of care orientation, specifically tronto’s (2013) identification of the process-oriented phases of caring, provides the tools to do this. through our observations, we attempt to give real substance to care as a relational and ethical practice and to appreciate, document, and communicate the complexities of care relations beyond a “naturalized,” gendered discourse. applying a feminist ethics of care analysis to our observations of care practices seeks to name the exploitative and oppressive conditions under which care relations and care work currently operate in early childhood settings. in this way, the seemingly impermeable wall of “naturalized” care can begin to be dismantled. theoretical framework: feminist ethics of care ethics of care is feminist in its history and orientation, arising out of a validation of women’s moral experiences with caring for others (held, 2006). ethics of care critically analyzes the existing discourses, politics, and state systems whereby care work is allocated to women and racialized groups (tronto, 2013). as marian barnes, tula brannelly, lizzie ward, and nicki ward write, the critical feminist political position in which care ethics is based makes it more than a set of characteristics for the pursuit of good; it is a broad set of theories for the pursuit of justice that require actions within political and institutional systems as well as within interpersonal caring relationships. (2015, p. 12) we assert that an ethics of care is still a contemporary and valuable framework because care remains so central to people’s lives. as tronto (2015) notes, care is at the core of power and politics: “care is always infused with power. and this makes care deeply political” (p. 9). we maintain that there is something profound and political about how children and educators experience care (or not) in ordinary encounters, all day, every day. these experiences are the crux of children’s and educators’ well-being. our study is, therefore, decidedly humanist. the ethics of care, with its focus on the complex processes of care and power as a practice and its insights into the systematic devaluing of care at a societal and political level, provides one means to identify and assert the value of caring well in early childhood settings. care ethics begin with the claim that “relations of interdependence and dependence are a fundamental feature of our existence” (robinson, 2011, p. 4). within these social relations, maurice hamington (2015) describes caring as “a series of actions, some large and explicit actions and some small and subtle actions that inform the quality of a relationship [over time], thus making it caring” (p. 280). in other words, care is revealed only through social relations (randall, 2018). hamington further distinguishes between care as virtue and care as action to emphasize that care is a concrete practice or activity experienced physically, emotionally, and/or intellectually by both a caregiver and care receiver. this means that while holding caring values is necessary, such values are insufficient january 2020 36 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research for care as a practice, because it is through action that we know and realize caring (hamington, 2015, p. 689). nel noddings (2015) also makes a distinction between what she calls caregiving and caring for, maintaining that “caregiving is an important element in care ethics, but, as a set of activities or occupations, it can be done with or without caring” (p. 73). we also offer a clarification: it may seem as if our focus is on two distinct categories, the caregiver and the care receiver. however, we see people, including children, always engaged in an “infinite spiral of relationships” (kittay, 2001, quoted in barnes, brannelly, ward, & ward, 2015, p. 16) as both givers and receivers of care in multiple contexts. to practice care as conceptualized here is to decide to act in a caring way in response to the needs of another, recognizing inherent power imbalances and the broader context in which the practice is embedded. to act with care is therefore an ethical decision, involving critical reflection on the caring action (dahlberg & moss, 2005). critical reflection involves an evaluation or judgment about whether the processes of care ethics are present or absent. these processes are dynamic, contextual, nuanced, complex, and qualitatively different from one interaction to another (engster & hamington, 2015). as veronica pacini-ketchabaw, fikile nxumalo, laurie kocher, enid elliot, and alejandra sanchez (2015) state, an ethics of care calls for more than just a technical code of ethics; it “calls for total engagement of heart, mind, and spirit in intensely relational encounters” (p. 173). although the processes of care often overlap in messy ways, tronto (2013) begins the relational encounter with the caring person “caring about” another’s needs. the caring educator then enters a caring interaction, noticing and attending to expressed needs. entangled in this recognition is a sense of responsibility, an openness to personal disruption, particular caring values and motives, an other-directed disposition or attitude, the imagination that the care can have an effect, and sensitivity to the particular context of children’s needs, ideas, interests, goals, and concerns (hamington, 2015; held, 2006; pettersen, 2012). at this point, knowledge of children’s expressed needs may be partial, thus open to communication and negotiation in the giving of care. an ethics of care embraces the unknown and unpredictability of human relations. the deliberation involved in recognizing need is both affective and intellectual, with emotions, thought, and competencies all contributing to the giving of care (collins, 2015). in moving from recognition of children’s needs to action in meeting needs, the carer must have the competence to act. careful listening to children’s needs, ideas, interests, concerns, and goals communicated in multiple ways without judging, classifying, or fitting them to match preconceptions of the child is paramount (noddings, 2013). the meaning of children’s needs is jointly constructed between educators and children and remains provisional. choosing dialogical and inquiring communication, rather than monological communication, with children signals to children that they are active participants in their care (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015). working through what children want often requires time, negotiation of misunderstandings, flexibility, and adjustment. these complexities indicate that the giving of care, infused with ethical decision making, is much more than a technical skill of providing instrumental care. care in this sense is not a means to an end but rather a value in itself and the ways in which human relations deepen and flourish (gilson, 2014). tronto’s final phase of care involves the perspectives of the caregiver and the care receiver on the caring encounter. including the perspectives of the care receiver is necessary if we are to understand care to be relational. noddings (2002) states that ethics of care: asks after the effects on recipients of our care. it demands to know whether relations of care have in fact been established, maintained, or enhanced and, by extension, it counsels us to consider effects on the whole webs or network of care. (p. 30) in other words, care is completed when we know more about how children feel and experience their care and january 2020 37 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research respond to it in varying ways. moments of completion may involve multiple modes of communication such as bodies, language, and emotions. talking with children about their care may require more dialogue and inquiry, with room for fluidity and change in the educator’s response to a child’s response to care. children’s responses inform future caring interactions and relationships between educators and children. integral to the processes of care is an acknowledgment that care relations are asymmetrical in terms of need and ability to exercise power (held 2006). therefore, the care of young children requires an ethics to highlight the unequal relations between educators, who typically hold power, and children, who do not. the more power exercised by the educator in caregiving—in nodding’s sense and often evident in paternalism and teacher direction—the more likely it is that the possibility for ethical care will be diminished. however, educators cannot separate themselves from embodied and subjective experiences of their social locations and the inequities in the political and policy contexts in which their care is practised. therefore, educators need to critically reflect on their subject positions, their power and lack of power, and their strengths and limitations in caring interactions. observations methodology the study involved non-participant observation of care practices in a naturalistic setting: preschool rooms in two different childcare centres. nonparticipant observation is used in research situations in which the observer is not involved in the activities being observed (liu & maitlis, 2010). in conducting the observations, we aimed to identify and explore the complexities of care. we brought to the observations our own experiences with caring for others and being cared for and our reading of ethics of care literature. the two selected childcare centres are part of multiservice agencies with unionized staff. each preschool room could have up to 24 children with a staff-children ratio of one to eight. observations by two researchers (one principal investigator and one research assistant) were conducted in the selected preschool rooms on the same morning each week from approximately 8:30 to 10:30 for four weeks. it was anticipated that observing a preschool room multiple times in two different sites would deepen an understanding of the complexities of care practices. once all observations were concluded in one centre, a second set of observations commenced at the second centre. prior to conducting the observations, research consent was obtained from educators, parents, and children. children were asked if we could write down (the observation tools were shown along with a picture of where the observers would sit) “what they did with their teacher.” children provided a yes or no answer. when possible, we discussed our interest in the challenges of care and care work in the early childhood education field with the educators prior to conducting the observations. all the educators consented to being observed; only children who both consented and had parents who consented were observed. as will be described later, some educators were the sole adult in the program room for most of the observation period; other educators came into the room sporadically to assist with transitions. one objection to these observations may be that they are narrowly focused on a human dyad and do not capture all the possibilities of care in an early childhood program. however, we argue that interactions between educators and children matter. they matter to educators who hold caring values in relation to children and they matter to children who directly experience the presence or absence of caring encounters. at the same time, we agree with tronto’s (2013) rejection of a dyadic understanding of care because, as tronto argues, care transcends the personal into the policy and political realms. in concrete terms, educators’ caring practices at the interpersonal level can be significantly constrained when early childhood policies and politics do not take care seriously. in order for the researchers to be open to the complexities and challenges of caring well in an early childhood program, templates or observational coding sheets were not used. however, we wondered if, in our analyses january 2020 38 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of the observations, we would discern processes associated with care ethics such as attentiveness, compassion, responsiveness, sensitivity to contextual variations, and dialogical communication between educators and children. we were also interested in how the observations might illustrate the completion of care, tronto’s (2013) final phase of caring that embraces children as active participants in their care. the observers were trained to write by hand independent, detailed, and objective running records on all spontaneous or planned (in the case of group time) interactions between the educators and children. the fundamental premise behind all the observations— whether they were concerned with children’s bodies, emotions, or minds—was that every interaction had the potential to be caring. in focusing on an interaction, we sought to reveal the relation between individuals and, within that relation, the nature of the care. the observation notes captured the following: the beginning and end of an interaction, how the educators and children talked and behaved together, contours of talk (intonation), and emotional states and body behaviour (e.g., facial expressions and eye gaze). immediately upon completing each observation session, the two observers met, compared points of similarities and differences in field notes, discussed these points in relation to an understanding of care ethics, and wrote additional analytic memos. our aim was to produce thick descriptions of care practices. we acknowledge the limitations of our methodological approach. we were not able to adequately explore educators’ perspectives on their care decisions and interactions with children or children’s perspectives on their care. we were thus limited to interpreting care practices, and responses to them, at the time of the interaction. we also recognize that our observations, conducted in only two early childhood centres, are not necessarily a comprehensive reflection of care practices in all canadian early childhood settings. we were explicit in approaching these two centres in that they both had unionized staff and administrative support from larger organizations. in this way, we hoped these centres would be positioned as well as possible (within a fundamentally market system) to encourage ethical care interactions. findings three themes emerged from an analysis of the observation data. first, the care interactions observed between the educators and children can be described as instrumental. second, the interactions the educators had with the children were frequently interrupted and therefore brief. when lengthier interactions appeared possible, they were disrupted when the educators needed to direct their attention elsewhere. third, the children’s participation in the interactions was typically limited. each of these findings, supported with concrete examples from the observations, will be described and discussed below. in reporting on our findings, we are aware that we are both interpreting and evaluating the practices of the observed educators in relation to an ethics of care. we faced a difficult, ethical dilemma as to whether publishing our findings would be helpful for early childhood educators and the sector more broadly because, as the findings reveal, for the most part, we did not see the practice of ethical care. our intention is to always honour the work of early childhood educators, who we trust are doing the best they can with little structural supports. in the end, we felt that it is important to describe the care we found in our observations and to assert that structural factors and the devaluation of care rather than the personal limitations of the educators shaped the nature of the care given. as selma sevenhuijsen (1998, p. 151) remarks, “how we can care depends to a great extent on how we give shape to our society.” conversely, the priorities of societies dictate the possibilities for caring relations in everyday settings. instrumental caregiving many observed interactions involved educators assisting children with dressing, toileting, eating, cleaning up, self-regulating, sharing, resolving conflicts with other children, and choosing activities. the actions of educators in these interactions can be described as instrumental in that the action of assistance was the means by which the january 2020 39 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research interaction was completed. the examples below illustrate this instrumentality in which the children’s independence is the end goal. a child has sand in her boots and expresses her frustration. the educator crouches down, asks, “where are your shoes?” and then says, “sit down. i’ll help you.” the educator helps the child dump out the sand and put her boots back on. the educator says, “ask mommy to bring shoes—it’s too hot for boots.” the educator hugs and then directs a child to the washroom. she says, “dad says you are going pee and poo in the toilet. no more diapers. can you try going to the bathroom now?” the child runs away from the bathroom. later the educator tells the child, “superheroes don’t use diapers. superheroes go to the toilet.” two children want to play with the same toy. the educator addresses one child, saying, “you need to talk to [other child].” the child says, “i need it.” the educator responds, “it’s not ‘i need it.’ you need to wait your turn.” interactions in which the educators and children came together for songs and stories accelerated instrumental management of the children’s behaviour. the children were required to “keep hands to themselves,” “sit down,” “keep their eyes on me,” and “listen.” in other interactions, the children’s interests were first acknowledged and then managed. for example, an educator tied blankets on some children and said, “we have supermen.” she immediately added: “[child’s name] walking feet or maybe we need to take the cape away.” many interactions involved educators assisting children with conflicts as in the following examples: two children have a conflict over a toy. an educator asks, “sharing is what?” another child says, “caring.” the educator repeats, “sharing is caring.” the children share and the educator asks one of them to say, “thank you.” the child adds, “we’re sharing!” the educator says, “good job.” a child tells an educator that another child is not sharing, saying, “he has too many.” the educator and the child approach the child with the toy. the educator crouches and says, “you can share with your friends. there are three sets.” the children share and briefly build a tower together. one practice—intentionally limiting the amount of materials—increased the number of interactions in which the educator was drawn into conflicts between children. for example, an educator introduced one activity: “my friends, i am going to bring only three squeeze bottles. we are going to share.” all interactions thereafter involved managing turn taking. when one child wanted to join the activity and have a squeeze bottle, the educator said, “when [another child’s name] is finished, you can have a turn.” the child left and did not return to the activity. program activities set out on tables also tended to be instrumental, with educators soliciting children’s cognitive knowledge of colours, sizes, and letters. in one preschool room, most activities required the children to colour or paint, cut paper, and glue or tape things together (stickers, sand, pipe cleaners, and popsicle sticks). the educators tended to sit at the tables to assist the children and ask questions. the following example characterizes most program activities: at the art table, children are painting small paper plates yellow. they glue pre-cut black stripes on them. the educator sings the “bumble bee song.” later the educator says to a child, “i love your bee. that’s [another child’s] bee. what does the bee say? tomorrow we can add eyes, wings, and mouth.” the child says, “yes.” one program activity offered the possibility of more sustained educator–child interactions focused on the children’s needs, interests, and ideas. a basket of books, with one book about princesses, prompted children to january 2020 40 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research ask for crowns, which the educator began to make with construction paper and tape. many children joined in the crown making—boys, too, because “crowns are not just for girls.” children gathered up small triangles cut out of the crowns by the educator for other uses. other children fetched sheets of paper to cut or rip up to make smaller pieces. however, when the educator left the activity, the children followed, and a clean-up process commenced. drawing on these observation examples, the instrumentality of educator responses to children’s needs illustrates nodding’s (2015) description of caregiving activities, contrasted with caring informed by the processes of care ethics. certainly, educators made decisions to respond to children’s needs and acted accordingly. however, the brevity of educator-child interactions showed limited opportunities for educators to engage in the complexities of caring, such as listening, inquiry, negotiation, flexibility, and adjustment (hamington, 2015). the absence of these complexities reinforced the instrumentality of the interactions as discrete exchanges of assistance between an educator and child. the messiness and complexities of care processes—their overlap and interweaving—were not evident in these discrete exchanges. therefore, the observations indicate that in thinking about care practices in early childhood settings, the focus must not only be on what care is (the caregiving) but also on how the care is given and completed (the caring). instrumental caregiving was particularly evident in educator interventions in children’s conflicts. for example, the children were directed by the educators to follow classroom rules to get what they wanted. in invoking abstract rules and a technical skill (giving rules), little ethical understanding of the children’s conflicts was required. indeed, several observations indicate that educators misunderstood and mismatched rules with a situation because they did not (or could not) take the time to understand the conflict from the children’s perspectives. that said, in some situations observed, instrumental care in the children’s conflicts may have been necessary in the short term for the children’s safety. however, ethical caring can follow instrumental caregiving when educators and children work together on resolving the situation that provoked the safety concern. similarly, observed program activities can be characterized as instrumental caregiving designed to meet and assess preschool children’s developmental skills and needs. the observation data shows that the simplicity of the program activities did not provide opportunities for more complex processes of ethical care, such as responsiveness to the children’s ideas and goals, dialogical communication, and creativity. in addition, educators’ decisions to limit the amount of materials to promote sharing (and caring) exacerbated children’s disengagement in activities and/or increased conflicts between children. this pedagogical choice then required more instrumental caregiving from the educators to manage disengaged children and conflicts between children. together, these findings suggest that there is an association between the complexity of a pedagogical activity and the depth of ethical care possible. care interrupted we observed a higher-than-expected ratio of children to educators. in ontario, a provision in the child care and early years act 2014 allows for reduced ratios when children are arriving, leaving, or during the rest period. for programs that run for six hours or more in a day, a staff/child ratio may be reduced to two thirds of the required ratio for up to 90 minutes after the program starts each day. consequently, in the two preschool rooms observed, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., a single educator could be with up to 18 children. with this number of children, the educators were observed simply trying to stay afloat and maintain the safety of the children. observation notes from one particular morning (see below) show an educator moving from area to area every couple of minutes, the children flitting from activity to activity, and the room getting messier and messier, which then required the educator to devote more time to cleaning up. in the block area and with hammers and cardboard tubing, an educator briefly plays with a child whose january 2020 41 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research arrival has been difficult. the educator leaves to clean up the dramatic play area. the child calls out to the educator from the block area, showing her two hammers. the educator says, “that’s my hammer. i will come in five minutes. i am coming back. save my hammer.” the educator continues to clean up the dramatic play area. she returns to the block area and briefly plays with the child and the hammers. later, when the child follows another child shaking the hammer, the educator says, “i understand that you want to play with [child’s name], but she’s not going to want to play with you if you do that.” the educator gets a book to read with the child. other children join the book reading. another episode shows how the educator’s capacity to sustain caring interactions was interrupted by other demands: the educator and several children are at the art table with some paper and trays. the educator asks, “what are you making? a rolling pin?” some children roll up the paper. the educator asks, “what do you need to put it together?” the children say, “tape.” the educator puts on music, and then leaves the art table to deal with an issue. the children do not have the tape. they put trays on their heads. the educator says, “i don’t think you are ready for tape.” later, the educator gives the tape to the children. observations of the children’s behaviour revealed that the constant interruptions in their interactions with educators affected them. some children repeatedly tried to get the educator’s attention but, absorbed in managing other problems, the educator often missed the children’s calls. on occasion, an educator multitasked, responding to a child’s call from a distance while continuing to do something else. in some cases during the observation period (approximately two hours), certain children did not experience any interactions with an educator. in other interactions, the educator’s recognition of children’s needs was disjointed. a child calls to an educator from the art table, “i made this sword.” the educator asks, “you made it? how did you make it?” the educator suddenly turns to help with a conflict. the child does not respond to the questions. later, the educator and the child pretend to talk on the phone with each other about going to the supermarket. later, the educator asks the child, “what should we put on the art table?” the child says, “pipe cleaners,” but does not continue with the activity. as observers, we were deeply concerned about the educators’ struggles to be responsive to the children. we could see that the educators had caring values and sought to be caring. however, structural factors clearly constrained their care practices. in particular, insufficient staffing levels meant that the educators scrambled to respond to the children’s needs and to provide adequate time for meaningful and deeper caring actions. our observations poignantly show that when structural supports are not in place, the potential for caring is diminished. barnes (2012) captures how even in the best of times ethical care is difficult to practice: [ethical care] requires not only an emotional and ethical sensibility, but the capacity to understand different personal, economic, social, and cultural contexts; to read particular responses to acts of care; and to draw from diverse sources and types of knowledge to make good judgments with others about the right things to do in situations that may be messy, confused, and changing. and this has to be done in situations where there may be conflicts between caregivers and receivers, and between different caregivers; where paid care workers may feel unsupported or that they are operating in a policy context that does not reflect the values of care (p.172). care incomplete our observation notes reveal it was most difficult to ascertain children’s participation in interactions with educators. after the first week of observations, we carefully watched for verbal and other modes of communication that could, at least partially, indicate what the caregiving or caring meant to children. some examples show children’s january 2020 42 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research satisfaction with an educator’s response to their needs. an educator comforted a crying child and said, “you know that i made a ball [from playdough]. you try it.” the child stopped crying and made their own playdough ball. on other occasions, particularly with more verbal children, educators recognized a child’s need, interest, or goal, and the child acknowledged this recognition. for example, when an educator began to clean up the art area, a child told her that she had not done the art activity. the educator suggested the child could set up the activity in the afternoon. the child replied, “ok.” however, our observations of interactions between the children and educators, from playing with hammers to donning superhero capes, illustrate an overall denial of children’s experiences of “care.” the observation data points to three reasons for children’s lack of participation in their own care. first, the instrumental nature of the caregiving did not leave any room for children’s responses, as the following example shows: two children run into each other. one child explains what happened to an educator. the educator says, “you do not hit your friend. if your friend falls, you help pick them up. superheroes, do they help people or hurt people? you need to help; otherwise you are not a friend.” the educator takes the superhero scarf away from the child. the child hugs a stuffed animal and walks away. the other child continues to play. children were not asked if, for example, solutions to conflicts or problems helped and/or satisfied them. sometimes in a conflict an educator would instruct a child to say sorry to another child, but the children’s responses (saying sorry) were not spontaneous. second, the brevity of educator-child interactions did not allow any time for the children to respond to the caregiving. many educator-child interactions were interrupted by something else happening in the room, as in this example: an educator says to a child, “do you want to paint? what colour do you want?” the child looks at the paint and points to yellow. the educator suddenly notices another child running with a stroller, and says, “careful! do you need a baby for your stroller?” and does not see the first child pointing to a colour. the child says, “i want yellow.” the educator walks to another area. finally, our observation data suggests that the instrumental goals of the educators’ responses to needs discouraged children from talking about how they felt about the care given. particularly when staff-child ratios were high, the goal was to return the children to a state of safety and positive feelings. taking time to discuss with the children their perspectives on the care received would have been contrary to this goal. for example, in one observed interaction (during group time), a lesson in children’s safety was prioritized over exploration of emotions: an educator reads a book about “being mad.” the children show their “mad faces.” at the end of the story the main character says, “he might wait to run away until tomorrow [now that he isn’t so mad].” the educator states, “it’s not safe to run away from mommy and daddy.” the children say, “no.” the story ended. the prioritizing of safety and suppression of negative emotions were also evident when children expressed strong emotions and resisted educators’ instrumental caregiving, as in this example: a child repeatedly hits another child with a phone. while tending to the hurt child, the educator says, “last chance” to the other child, who responds, “i’m not going to talk to the teacher anymore. _____ is rude and i don’t want to talk to her anymore.” the educator asks the child, “do you want me to talk to mommy?” the child spits at the educator, who says, “all done. excuse me!” the child starts to cry. the educator tells her, “it’s ok to be upset, but it’s not ok to hit your friends.” later the educator asks january 2020 43 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the child why she hits her friends and tells her she cannot spit on a teacher’s face. the educator asks the child if she understands. when the child does not respond, the educator asks her to say, “yes, [educator’s name].” on many levels, this last example underscores the difficulties the educators and children experienced with caring ethically in contexts that were frequently not conducive to supporting care relations. the educators appeared to have a clear expectation of what the children needed—or should need—lacking the time to negotiate with them what they themselves perceived they needed. working in difficult conditions, the educators appeared to expect the children to receive “care” passively with little resistance or questioning of the “caring” interaction. in this way, the children were rarely able to complete their care, having little opportunity to acknowledge how, or even if, they had experienced care. in denying the children the opportunity to be active agents in their own care, the competency of both the children and the educators was undermined. it could also be argued that the educators were denied the opportunity to engage in caring practices consistent with their values as educators. it is unarguably very difficult to complete care encounters when simultaneously attending to multiple other (often urgent) demands. thus, the educators did not experience care themselves, which denied them the structural conditions necessary to care well. discussion in our study, we observed many, among hundreds, of ordinary moments in early childhood settings in which educators and children interacted. we were not interested in applying any technocratic approaches or developmental theory vis-à-vis, for instance, behaviour guidance strategies to understand these educator-children interactions. we wanted to go beyond the assumption that care is implicit in the work of early childhood educators. from an ethics of care perspective, care is understood as a set of valuable processes within complex power relations, rather than a means to an end in which the caregiver exercises power over the care receiver. we considered how care relations represented responsiveness from both the caregiver and care receiver, sensitivity to context, and emotions as motivating ethical resources (engster & hamington, 2015). from our perspective, all interactions in all activities, whether they involved removing sand or a painting, have the potential for ethical care. it is not the activities in the early childhood setting per se that are significant for an ethics of care and create meaning (or not) for those involved, but rather the processes involved in human interactions. our study indicates that an ethics of care was typically absent in observed interactions. rather, interactions were instrumental in nature and the children passively received and/or rejected the care. because instrumental care is a dominant way of understanding care across western, english-speaking nations, it is fair to ask whether the instrumental care we observed is common in canadian early childhood settings. our observations offer insights into how children experience such instrumental interactions with educators and also the practical challenges for educators who hold caring values but struggle to provide ethical care experiences with children (and for themselves) amid constantly competing priorities. it became apparent during our observations that the educators experienced frustration in their interactions with the children, particularly when the children did not receive “care” as the educators had intended. while the educators communicated caring values in interactions with the researchers, there appeared to be a sense of alienation from these values in their interactions with the children. simply put, the educators were not able to practise the caring values they held within the sociopolitical context of their practice. while we recognize that the educators have some agency to be caring in conducting acts of caregiving, the number of children in need of care at any one time made it near impossible for this to consistently occur. there was simply no time or space to receive a child into their “centre of being” (noddings, 2015, p. 77) and respond in thoughtful, open, and compassionate ways given the simultaneous competing needs of several other children in the room. this may lead an educator to feel incompetent, unable to january 2020 44 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research adequately engage with the children and the complexities of care. it is further possible that the educator’s feelings of powerlessness may lead to a greater assertion of power over the children through instrumental interactions. the powerlessness of the educator is heightened by the oppressive socioeconomic conditions under which educators attempt to practise ethical care. therefore, we cannot hold educators solely responsible for the outcomes of our observations. indeed, we seek to avoid making educators personally responsible for the problems in ecec. the state of care in early childhood programs is a systemic problem in need of a systemic solution. our observations raise questions about not only the ethical nature of care in practice, but also the necessity of situating care practices within a sociopolitical context. barnes, brannelly, ward, and ward (2015) argue that “recent years have witnessed multiple evidences of the failures of neoliberalism” (p. 7). the observed absence of an ethics of care in early childhood settings is one such failure. while neoliberalism purports that work can be made more “efficient” (i.e., raising staff-child ratios during certain times), this logic simply does not apply to the practice of good care. as stated by tronto (2003), “little in caring can be enhanced by being forced in a time/space compression” (p. 123). therefore, the structural inequities at the sociopolitical level have concrete consequences for the care experiences of children and educators in early childhood settings. on a very basic level, there needs to be a sufficient number of educators to address the constant, changing, complex needs of children. similarly, there needs to be space for educators to feel supported, valued, and heard by those who create and produce the structures and policies that undermine their caring practices. in eva kittay’s (2015) care-based conception of justice, those who care for others in the human condition of inevitable dependency and interdependence must be protected from “exploitation and deprivation of resources and opportunities” so that they can care well (p. 63). the question therefore becomes: is there an alternative? it seems that educators and children alike want more care in their interactions with each other. furthermore, to address power imbalances in care relations, children’s participation in their own care is ethically significant. at a political level, tronto’s (2013) vision of a caring democracy is helpful in that it seeks to position care as the central organizing feature of society. if this were the case, institutions and structures would encourage the systematic support of care ethics in early childhood practice. even within the existing neoliberal political climate, however, we argue that educators can collectively begin to resist the unrelenting neoliberal drive for technocratic instrumental caregiving in early childhood settings. it is possible that, in care relations between educators and children, complexity, difference, and an openness to uncertainty, unpredictability, and wonder are encouraged and embraced, even within difficult working conditions (moss, 2017, p 20). at the same time, if we value care relations and understand the purpose of care differently, some of the structural barriers to caring ethically can begin to be addressed. for example, staffing could be reconfigured in a way more conducive to an ethics of care. while we acknowledge that the number of educators may be limited (although they should not be) by economic resources (and the sociopolitical climate), it may be possible to create greater cohesiveness and collective responsibility for each other within a centre through bridging existing group / room divisions. full-time educators could be systematically encouraged to engage with all the children in a centre (rather than only their group/room), thus fostering stable, continuous care relations in circumstances where more educators are needed. in addition, in contrast to the observed sporadic delivery of instrumental care by less familiar early childhood educators, educators could engage full-time (or at least consistently) with the same children. this would support the conditions necessary for meaningful, ethical care work. similarly, it is possible to address the systemic isolation of educators through both acknowledging this isolation and engaging in democratic conversations around the complexities of caring well. when we have the space and time to critically engage with care ethics and identify the barriers to it, we move toward realizing a vision and practice of caring well in early childhood settings. moreover, when educators are valued discursively and materially as attentive, responsible, january 2020 45 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research competent, and responsive citizens, we will begin to build a democracy that is truly caring (tronto, 2015). acknowledgments we wish to acknowledge jacqueline white for her involvement in the project, particularly her ability to push our thinking regarding what caring relations mean and look like on a practice level. we also thank anonymous reviewers who helped us think through ways to communicate our findings. a social sciences and humanities research council of canada grant supported the research described in the article. january 2020 46 vol. 45 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references barnes, m. (2012). care in everyday life: an ethic of care in practice. bristol, uk: policy press. barnes, m., brannelly, t., ward l., & ward, n. (2015). (eds.) ethics of care: critical advances in international perspective. bristol, uk: policy press. collins, s. (2015). the core of care ethics. basingstoke, uk: palgrave macmillan. dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. london, uk: routledge. daly, m. (2012). making policy for care: experience in europe and its implications in asia. international journal of sociology and social policy, 32(11/12), 623–635. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443331211280674 engster, d., & hamington, m. (eds.) (2015). care ethics & political theory. oxford, oxford university press. gilson, e. (2014). the ethics of vulnerability: a feminist analysis of social life and practice. london, uk: routledge. hamington, m. 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(2018). values in good caring relations. feminist philosophy quarterly, 4(3), article 4. https://doi.org/10.5206/ fpq/2018.3.5781 robinson, f. (2011). a feminist approach to human security. philadelphia, pa: temple university press. sevenhuijsen, s. (1998). citizenship and the ethics of care: feminist considerations on justice, morality, and politics. london, uk: routledge. tronto, j. c. (2003). time’s place. feminist theory, 4(2), 119–138. https://doi.org/10.1177/14647001030042002 tronto, j. c. (2013). caring democracy: markets, equality, and justice. new york, ny: new york university press. tronto, j. c. (2015). who cares? how do reshape a democratic politics. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. van laere, k., & vandenbroeck, m. (2016). the (in)convenience of care in preschool education: examining staff views on educare. early years, 36(5), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2016.1252727 endnotes 1. we prefer the term “instrumental” over the more commonly used term “custodial.” from our perspective, instrumental care more clearly communicates that this care is a means to an immediate predetermined end. 111 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research pedagogies of time: “editing” textbooks, timelines, and childhood memories ketevan chachkhiani, garine palandjian, iveta silova, and keti tsotniashvili ketevan chachkhiani is a phd candidate in educational policy and evaluation at arizona state university. her research explores discourses of teacher autonomy, the nature and process of achieving teacher agency, and manifestation of different dimensions of teacher autonomy in classroom practices and student achievement. ketevan also studies students’ awareness of environmental sustainability and childhood memories in postsocialist educational contexts. garine palandjian is a faculty associate at mary lou fulton teachers college, arizona state university. her current research focuses on the study of post-soviet transformations, pedagogies, and practices in (post)conflict spaces, social constructions of childhood, and teacher training. for her dissertation rethinking borders and identities in armenian education for peaceful and sustainable development, garine used a critical educational ethnographic approach to examine how (re)thinking borders can help redefine education and identities in more inclusive ways. iveta silova is a professor and associate dean of global engagement at mary lou fulton teachers college, arizona state university. her research explores education at the intersections of postsocialist, postcolonial, and decolonial perspectives. she is especially interested in exploring childhood memories, ecofeminism, and environmental sustainability. keti tsotniashvili is a phd candidate in the educational policy and evaluation program at mary lou fulton teachers college, arizona state university, usa. her research interests include higher education systems, higher education policy change, academic life and identities in the context of postsocialist transformations, childhood memories, collective memories, and biographies. email: ktsotnia@asu.edu all authors contributed equally to this research and are listed in alphabetical order. in the science fiction novel the future of another timeline, annalee newitz (2019) imagines a time when editing may entail not only texts but also historical timelines. in such a world, travellers who move across timelines to make “edits”—or those who experience “edits”—return “with memories of lost histories, previous versions of the timeline they had witnessed” (p. 57). as the sci-fi adventure suggests, future temporal trajectories may shift based on the edits made in the past, disrupting seemingly linear, irreversible trajectories set in motion by the arrow of time. but while newitz’s novel requires time travel to edit past events in order to influence possible future trajectories, similar editing practices have been routinely conducted in the real world by scholars (especially historians) who write— and consistently rewrite—school curriculum and textbooks. in particular, many imperial histories have been repeatedly rewritten in a concerted effort to erase and forget—rather than to remember—the dark side of imperialism, including its violence, crimes, and injustices. in a more recent history of the cold war, school textbooks on both sides of the iron curtain were promptly edited after the fall of the berlin wall to redraw maps, to correct controversial narratives about political events, or to replace old heroes with the new ones. drawing on the concept of “pedagogies of time,” this article analyzes early literacy textbooks and our own childhood memories of temporal socialization in (post)soviet armenia, georgia, and latvia. while textbook analysis reveals purposeful socialization of children into modern linear timelines, memory stories interrupt these predetermined trajectories and shift attention toward multiple forms of temporalities that coexist alongside and entangle with each other. using a speculative thought experiment, we “edit” a chronological timeline in one of the stories from early literacy textbooks as an attempt to simultaneously (re)write the dominant timespaces of socialist modernity and the way childhood appears there. key words: childhood memories; collective biography; time; time traveling ; diffractive analysis; (post)socialism; textbooks 112 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research notwithstanding different historical and geopolitical contexts, most of the official efforts to edit timelines have focused on keeping the arrow of time moving forward in an abstracted, linear, irreversible, and infinite timespace continuum. in this process, schools have played a central role in socializing children into strictly linear temporalities to accelerate progress toward predetermined futures, whether socialist or capitalist ones. in particular, temporal socialization of children has been primarily shaped by the concepts of (western) modernity/coloniality where time is perceived as “structured and measurable, as a ‘ duration’ and as an ‘occasion’ during which an action, process or condition exists and continues, or is extinguished” (tesar et al., 2016, p. 360). it has been also presented as “a series of linear instances,” the flow of which could be carefully regulated and “(re)routed through human intervention and to predetermined outcomes” (tesar et al., 2016, p. 360). in early childhood settings and schools, for example, clocks and “clocking practices” have been enforced to coordinate behaviours, activities, and arrangements throughout the course of the day, producing particular knowledges about what it means to be a child (pacini-ketchabaw, 2012, p. 155). in the socialist state contexts, precise clocking practices were used to ensure that children’s learning experiences across the vast territory of the soviet union—from riga to tbilisi and yerevan—were synchronized to such an extent that the same lessons were taught “from the same books with the same methods at the same time” (hamot, 1996, as quoted in silova, 2006, p. 40). in this way, both children— and the futures they represented—were firmly positioned on a developmental trajectory toward teleological notions of adulthood, progress, and development as part of the much bigger imperialist project to “modernize the world” (common worlds research collective, 2020; see also burman, 2021). aiming to better understand the role of school textbooks in temporal socialization of children, we chose to focus on early literacy textbooks, which were commonly used by us (and previous generations) to learn our first languages—armenian, georgian, and latvian respectively. as we delved deeper into the textbook analysis, lessons about linear temporalities were unexpectedly interrupted by our childhood memories of time, which refused to diligently follow the linear timelines meticulously mapped in textbooks. rather than ignoring these disruptions, we decided to engage with them. in this process, we wove together critical discourse analysis of early literacy textbooks with our own childhood memories through a collective biography approach to examine both official efforts of temporal socialization and our own memories of engaging with different temporalities of childhood. we have analyzed our memories vis-à-vis textbook narratives of time through a diffractive analysis (barad, 2007), reading memories both through each other and simultaneously through the textbooks’ narratives. in the process of diffractive analysis, temporal dimensions that appeared to be firmly “settled into an apparent fixity, a binary, a category” started “moving, not in repetitive iterations but in leaps and bounds toward the new” (davies & gannon, 2012, p. 371). we followed the entry points triggered by the memories to complicate the dominant education narratives about childhood socialization in time by bringing into focus multiple temporalities that have always coexisted alongside each other. taking our diffractive analysis a step further, we engaged in a speculative thought experiment to reimagine what the early literacy texts would look like if we edited them to reflect the different temporal experiences brought up in our childhood memories. in this article, we invite you to time-travel with us to edit early literacy textbooks along different epistemological and ontological timelines, while simultaneously (re)writing the dominant timespaces of socialist modernity and the way childhood appears there. childhood, time, and memory literature on childhood socialization is often shaped by concepts of western modernity where time is presented as future oriented and linear, leading toward a predetermined future. in western societies, the child has been commonly presented as a “signifier” of western modernity and was simultaneously perceived as “the key arena in which to instill such civilization” through education for a capitalist economic workforce (burman, 2008, p. 77). meanwhile, in a socialist version of modernity, a child has been generally seen as “malleable tabula rasa” that could be carefully shaped through 113 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research proper social, psychological, and pedagogical techniques to become a powerful agent of building a socialist future (mead & silova, 2013, p. 197). despite differences, childhoods on both sides of the iron curtain have had much more in common than may have initially been apparent, especially in terms of positioning a child on a journey toward linear, irreversible trajectories of modern progress and development. the linear and irreversible concept of time has emerged from the dominant western culture, which is founded on the idea of progress and development (lee & liebenau, 2000). mignolo (2011) points out that the modern linear conception of time is an epistemic tool that is rooted in the logic of modernity/coloniality. emerging from a similar modernity/ coloniality logic, childhood temporality is likewise controlled by the ideas of progress, development, and productivity, as well as by the dreaded scenario of falling behind. such linear, irreversible time takes away children’s presence “in their own right” ( james & prout, 1997, p. 230), rendering the child a subject of “becoming an adult” and seeing childhood as a time of preparation for adulthood separated from the notion of “being a child” ( james & prout, 1997; mead & silova, 2013). prout and james (1997) further argue that the concept of child socialization downplays and suppresses “childhood’s present tense” (p. 27), focusing on past mistakes or future goals rather than on children’s participation in constructing their own lives and relationships. shifting attention to a broader conceptualization of time, we turn to the idea of the “pedagogies of time” that encompasses multiple temporal dimensions—linear, segmented, circular, iterative, or lived time, among others—which are viewed, not as oppositional or independent of each other, but rather as relational and coexisting (silova, 2019; see also rappleye & komatsu, 2016). similarly, ancient greek philosophy describes different temporal dimensions in terms of chrónos, kairós, and aión. according to kennedy and kohan (2008), the chrónos is a chronological, linear conception of time where time stages are defined in continuity or hierarchical order. this is the conception of time that governs modernity’s futures toward predetermined destinations. in contrast, kairós is defined as “‘measure,’ ‘proportion’ and, in relation to time, ‘critical time,’ ‘season,’ opportunity’” (p. 6). kairós is understood as the time when conditions are aligned or for the right moment. finally, aión is defined as “the intensity of time in human life—a destiny, a duration, an unnumbered movement, not successive, but intensive” (p. 6). during aión, the lived time is nonlinear and is marked as a period of time. while all three are temporal references, each serves as a distinct type of time and each can be simultaneously present in our daily experience. in approaching this research, we specifically focused on these various dimensions of time to examine how the socialization of the child—through textbooks and in our memories—has been premised on particular epistemologies and ontologies of time and its progression, or what we refer to here as pedagogies of time. such a broader conceptualization of time is helpful in several ways. first, it disrupts the modern concept of linear time and brings into focus multiple temporalities that coexist alongside each other. second, it enables us to see how different pasts, presents, and futures affect and entangle with one another (barad, 2018; murris & kohan, 2021). and third, it makes visible the connections between time and space, connecting child socialization to particular contexts and more “emplaced” ways of being (massey, 2004; strang, 2015). shifting attention away from the dominant (western) form of temporality, the pedagogies of time thus offer a unique lens for analyzing children’s early literacy textbooks together with our own memories across soviet and post-soviet temporalities of childhood in armenia, georgia, and latvia. examining pedagogies of time: methodological approaches and speculative experiments methodologically, this article approaches the study of childhood and time by combining critical analysis of texts and illustrations from early literacy textbooks with our own memories of reading these textbooks through a diffractive analysis approach. as newman and paasi (1998) explain, educational narratives found in school texts provide a special “reading” of social norms, values, and symbols attached to them (see also mead & silova, 2013). critical discourse analysis is productive 114 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research in unpacking these special “readings,” allowing us “to analyse opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in language” (wodak, 1995, p. 204). in particular, our analysis was guided by searching for and examining concepts representing multiple temporalities across texts and images, which included words associated with time, such as clocks, calendars, and schedules, but also more broadly concepts that represented a change across periods of time, which included milestones in childhood, changes in seasons, or intensity of time experienced in children’s lives. using critical discourse analysis, we analyzed the different dimensions of childhood time across our textbook sample. first, each of us individually and independently (re)read textbooks in our subsamples to identify the themes and images reflecting different dimensions of time. we then met frequently to share our notes and findings, corroborate our interpretations, and identify commonly recurring (as well as diverging ) themes about the pedagogies of time within and across each of the subsamples. for the purposes of this chapter, we decided to highlight the examples that resonated with us and the literature in interesting and unexpected ways. for the analysis of early literacy textbooks, we used convenience sampling to obtain textbooks published in georgia, armenia, and latvia. overall, we examined 4 armenian, 5 georgian, and 5 latvian early literacy textbooks which were published in the soviet union between the 1950s and early 1990s (for a complete list of the textbooks, see the appendix). all of the textbooks in the sample were approved by the ministries of education and were widely used in schools in each of the respective countries at the time of publication. importantly, some of the textbooks included in the sample were the ones we ourselves had used as children to learn our native languages of armenian, georgian, and latvian respectively, which helped us both to make inferences into what the books communicate to their child readers and to examine how readers may interpret and experience the texts. importantly, we analyzed pedagogies of time through a diffractive analysis, reading the textbooks’ narratives through each other and simultaneously through our own memories, which interrupted textbook analysis in critical and productive ways—sometimes adding contextual and affective details and sometimes telling different and divergent stories compared to those found in the textbooks. inspired by donna haraway’s (1988, 2016) and karen barad’s (2007) work, we understand and approach diffractive analysis as an embodied engagement with the materiality of research data. in our research, this engagement entailed analyzing textbook data alongside other materials—our own perspectives, memories, experiences, and emotions—to provide insights into the pedagogies of time. in this process of reading materials, memories, and emotions through each other, we paid particular attention to how differences make a difference and how they matter, rather than identifying sameness or looking for similarities through themes or categories. we specifically focused on a collective biography approach, which was initially articulated by friga haug and collective (1987) and further developed through the poststructural lens by brownyn davies and susanne gannon (2006) and more recently through the decolonial lens by iveta silova, nelli piattoeva, and zsuzsa millei (2018, 2021). in our collective biography research, we followed memory stories that emerged during the textbook analysis and shared these memories in a group, aiming to fill in the gaps, recapture details, images, tableaus, glimpses, and scents through which memory first emerges and focusing on the commonalities and differences of our childhood experiences (haug et al., 1987, pp. 71–72). by moving from individual perceptions to the affective and perceptive life of the research collective, the collective biography approach constitutes “the process that is involved in escaping from the tedious repetitions of the clichés and explanations that go to make a story of “me” and “my life” or the official metanarratives (davies & gannon, 2012, p. 369; see also millei, silova, & gannon, 2019). in this process, memory work became “a lived process of making sense of time and the experience of it” (keightley, 2016, p. 55)—collectively and diffractively—enabling us to navigate complex temporal narratives and structures we had learned through school socialization, while ascribing new meanings, not only to the past, but to the present and future. it is inevitable that our diffractive analysis of early literacy textbooks and childhood memories led us to a speculative 115 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research thought experiment aimed at (re)imagining what school textbooks would look like if they were edited to capture multiple and entangled childhood experiences of time. inspired by science fiction time-hopping journeys (hayashi, 2010; newitz, 2019) and related speculative fabulation in academic research (barad, 2010; haraway, 2016; murris & kohan, 2021), we thus engaged in a speculative thought experiment to edit textbooks with our own childhood memories in an effort to reclaim and decolonize our childhood experiences of school time, as well as to trouble the dominant concepts of time constructed by school textbooks. as barad (2010) explains in reference to kyoko hayashi’s (2010) novel from trinity to trinity (which strongly resonates with our research), what is at stake is not setting time aright (as if that were possible), but rather the undoing of time, of universal time, of the notion that moments exist one at a time, everywhere the same, and replace one another in succession.… it is also a story of time-being that undoes modernity’s unified notion of self and what it means to be human. (barad, 2010, p. 70) by working diffractively across texts, images, and childhood memories we thus engage in an ongoing labour of cutting through and undoing the logic of modernity/coloniality in order to bring into focus alternatives and rewrite childhood and time along different epistemological and ontological lines. learning (linear) time before diving into a speculative thought experiment, we will first outline the dominant concept of time—chrónos— which consistently appears across all early literacy textbooks in our sample. the linear, chronological, and consecutive time underpins most of the stories, poems, images, sentences, words, and even letters presented in the soviet early literacy textbooks, diligently mapping children onto strict schedules and predetermined timelines. across textbooks, children are consistently portrayed—literally and figuratively—as “adults in the making” or “miniature adults, moving towards ‘correct’ understandings and habits” (kirschenbaum, 2001, p. 117). for example, one georgian textbook shows an image from the soviet household, where children mirror the actions of the adults: the girl sits at the table and talks to her mother with the same engaged and thoughtful face as her dad when talking to the grandmother. a little boy is depicted reading as diligently as his grandfather. similarly, in a soviet latvian textbook, an image of adults going to work is complemented by a mirror image of children going to school on the opposite page (see figure 1). furthermore, textbooks show children engaged in “socially useful labour” of various kinds—harvesting grapes, picking apples, or taking care of poultry in the farms. even when portraying children at play, the activities are often simulations of their future— adult—lives building rockets and ships, marching as soldiers, teaching children, or driving tractors (see also palandjian et al., 2018). as kirschenbaum (2001) notes, such purposeful blurring of childhood and adulthood, or play and work, reflects the soviet government’s efforts to “put children’s interests first” in the name of the soviet future, insisting that the life of the child should revolve around “work rather than play” (p. 120). the clock, a symbol of the chronological, measured, and successive time, takes a central place in all early literacy textbooks. when teaching letters of the alphabet, a clock is introduced while teaching the letter “s” in georgian (the first letter of the word for saati, or clock), “p” in latvian for pulkstenis and ժ or “zhuh” in armenian for zhamatsoyts. texts also tell about children receiving watches as gifts as well as being proud of wearing a watch and being able to tell the time of the day. chronological time is further reinforced by the expectation for children to master clock time by following schedules, meeting deadlines, and managing time for homework and afterschool activities. textbooks also introduce children to the concept of calendar time by recounting months and seasons, often aligning chronological time or calendar months with changes in nature or the passing of different seasons. from the change of seasons, children learn that new beginnings are marked by flocks of birds returning, flowers blossoming, and the lush green of mother nature re-dressing the forests. even the structure of the textbooks itself presents content through seasons where the beginning of the school year is associated with the mark of fall harvest followed by winter landscapes, then a return of spring flowers and birds, and ending with 116 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research images of the summer months by the end of the school year and the end of the book (silova, 2019; see also mead & silova, 2013). latvian textbook by ņesterovs and osmanis (1984), pp. 6–7 georgian textbook by botsvadze and burjanadze (1957a), p. 99 georgian textbook by ramishvili (1989), p. 3 georgian textbook by botsvadze and burjanadze (1957a), p. 41 georgian textbook by botsvadze and burjanadze (1957a), p. 55 armenian alphabet book der-krikoryan (1987, 1990), pp. 2-3 armenian textbook der-krikoryan (1988, 1989), p. 117 armenian textbook der-krikoryan (1988, 1989), p. 61 figure 1. mapping childhood onto adulthood in early literacy textbooks. 117 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research above all, the textbooks place a strong emphasis on careful management of the daily routine, focusing on the hourly activities of the children. for example, almost all of the reviewed textbooks include texts describing the morning routine of a child, precisely timing every step and each activity from the moment the child wakes up to the moment he or she gets to school. while most textbooks describe the morning routine of an everyday child, some begin by sharing the morning routine of vladimir lenin, or volodya (his child name), setting an example for all children to follow. a story from a latvian textbook published in 1965 contains such a story, “in the morning” (lubāniete et al., 1965): volodya wakes us at a specific time. exactly at seven, he wakes up on his own—without anyone waking him up—and gets up right away. he brushes his teeth, washes thoroughly, and makes his bed himself. then volodya begins to review his homework, which he already studied well the night before. during this time, his mother makes him breakfast. then children gather in the dining room and eat everything they were given. volodya is especially keen that everyone finishes their food. he always had a great appetite and he laughed at those who ate unwillingly… figure 2. “in the morning”: volodya’s daily routine. source: lubāniete et al., (1965), ābece 1. klasei [abc for the 1st grade], pp. 190–191 interestingly, volodya (lenin), as an exemplary student and pioneer, is far ahead even of those students who accurately manage their daily routines by diligently following the clock-dictated time. volodya has already overcome the bodily and emotional struggles and is in no need of anyone waking him up in the morning. his natural bodily time is now entirely identical to the clock time. thus, he has learned to function in precisely measured temporal units without even looking at the clock. other students are also expected to perceive and feel clock time with the same accuracy and precision. otherwise, they will be considered lazy, slow, or empty-headed human beings. in addition, an armenian textbook describes volodya as a “very capable, hardworking and punctual” student (der-krikoryan, 1988, 1989, p. 108), setting an example for others. the text “volodya in school” describes how a hard-working boy listens to his teachers and manages to learn all his lessons at school instead of bringing school work home. we see clock time here as a tool of modernity/ coloniality, which is introduced in humans’ lives from the schooling years to categorize children and manage their lives (fabian, 2002; mignolo, 2011). a story from a georgian textbook echoes lenin’s morning routine, describing a meticulous timing and precise management of the child’s movements as soon as the day begins. in this text, however, children are introduced to the morning routine of a regular girl—just like them—who appears to practically mirror all of lenin’s movements step by step, including the exact timing and sequence of activities from waking up to eating and rehearsing (or reviewing ) the homework in the morning. 118 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research natela “natela got up at 7 am. the girl rehearsed the lessons for the day, had breakfast, and went to school. on her way to school she walked very carefully. natela got to school on time. she always gets to school on time.” source: georgian textbook by ramishvili (1989), p. 48 while setting expectations for schedules and routines, the early literacy textbooks contrast well-behaved, organized, responsible, and hardworking children like volodya and natela against lazy and careless ones who are unable to follow the clock time. in an armenian alphabet book, for example, zaven is portrayed as an irresponsible boy whose bedroom is messy and who often arrives late to school (der-krikoryan, 1987, 1990, p. 146). the two questions at the bottom of the text offer a discussion point to remind—and to further instill in—children the expectation that they will never be late to school. if children take care of their things, they will not be late and can be more efficient because they are able to locate their things or organize themselves well. furthermore, by focusing on the clock and its role in defining, regulating, scheduling, and organizing children’s lives, the early literacy textbooks set a well-structured pathway from childhood to adulthood, focusing children on their future as adults and what they need to do at present to accomplish those dreams and expectations, while ignoring the children’s lives in the present. remembering time as we engaged in a critical discourse analysis of texts and illustrations across the three countries, our own childhood memories emerged unexpectedly, interrupting linear presentations of time in the school textbooks. because we had used some of the same textbooks during our own schooltime, we began to remember, not only what it felt like to read these books as children, but also how we had experienced time differently from what we learned from textbooks. although the texts were intimately familiar, we were surprised by how much these texts aimed to “time” childhoods, managing children’s time and placing them into linear, predicted, and prescribed timelines. at the same time, we were doubly surprised by the intensity of the childhood memories that these texts triggered in us. while our memories have generated many stories about different experiences of time, given the limitations of space we will primarily focus on one iterative moment in children’s everyday lives—the time of going to school in the morning. we chose to focus on children’s morning routine because it appeared in all of the early literacy textbooks in our sample, both visually and in the text, mapping children onto linear and predictable timelines and creating strict, predetermined schedules for children to follow. when we (re)read the textbooks, we were surprised—by the strong emotions that emerged when sharing memories, by the small details of the experiences we remembered, and also by the details that the textbooks glaringly omitted. our memories started filling in these gaps almost intuitively. the sound of tv wakes the girl up. she cannot see what time it is. but if the tv is on, this means her dad is already getting ready. she also gets ready, as fast as her dad does—she needs to be prepared to leave the house together with her dad. she gets dressed and gets her backpack ready. “your tea is getting cold”; she hears her mom’s voice in the kitchen. “don’t be late”—dad’s voice comes next. this means he is already having breakfast. she starts her breakfast, eating as fast as her dad does. she is done with her breakfast. her favourite 119 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research cartoon starts on tv. what if she watches it for two minutes? but dad’s voice calls again, “we are late, hurry up.” she immediately takes her eyes off the tv. but what if they are a little late? once? the girl asks herself and right away answers her own question—“no, dad cannot be late to work.” she cannot be late for school either. no time for her favourite cartoon. instead, she follows her dad into the street. she walks as quickly as her dad. no time for falling behind. dad’s steps are so big. she needs to make two steps for every one of his steps to catch up and keep pace. she tries hard, walking as fast as her dad does. her dad gets to work on time. the girl also gets to school on time. the memory story follows exactly the same timeline as presented in early literacy textbook stories about volodya and natela, describing their morning routine. it recounts the chronological order of the activities—from waking up and dressing, to eating breakfast and rehearsing the lessons—revealing a strict management of different segments of time. just like in the textbooks described above, the girl is expected to imitate the behaviour of adults, her parents, waking up when her father wakes up, eating breakfast when her father eats breakfast, leaving the house when her father is ready to leave the house. there is no time for the child to be on her own. rather, the girl’s morning revolves around the adult timeline, making sure that the rhythm of the adults’ lives is not interrupted. it also follows the same pace as that of the adults— walking or working fast, being efficient with time. the girl thus becomes a clear manifestation of the child-as-becoming or adult-in-the-making rather than a young human being in her own right (uprichard, 2008, p. 304; see also mead & silova, 2013). in this process, the girl is tuning out everything else (including her favourite cartoon) to fit into the adult world and ignore any urge to be—be a child. and although the girl silently and momentarily remembers how to be a child (e.g., when her interest was piqued by the sound of her favourite cartoon on tv), she still obediently follows the timeline planned for her by the adults to make sure that she is ready and on time for school—and eventually, ready and on time for work. thinking about this childhood memory and the textbook images and texts diffractively, we see a parallel between the girl’s experience and that of the cosmonaut boy (standing in front of the space shuttle) from the armenian textbook. there is a sense of uneasiness about their participation in these adult-like activities and perhaps even a hint that each child is eager to escape the destination planned for them by the adults, although neither one acts on it. in a memory, the girl already knows that time is something that passes, something that is counted very accurately, and something that she has to follow unconditionally and use effectively. as a child masters how to follow these temporal expectations, her agency gradually weakens, threatening her capacity to make her own decisions and foreclosing the possibility to exist in the now. the girl is also acutely aware that she is not allowed to introduce any novelty into the carefully planned schedule. instead, she lives the life that revolves around an adult-structured and normed temporality. her memory invokes feelings of anxiety and stress that signal the girl’s concern for her father and his obligation to be on time for his important work. everything and everyone else fades into the background. but as we “travel hop” deeper into our memories, along with the chronological time we also remember the time in a moment, as an embodied lived experience, duration, intensity, nonlinearity—or kairós and aión (heraclitus, as cited by kennedy & kohan, 2017). without knowing the exact clock time, the girl recognizes the temporal meanings of specific events. for example, if she hears her dad’s voice it means he is already having breakfast and it is breakfast time for her too. she knows that she needs to catch up with and tune into her dad’s morning rhythm because they need to leave the house together. this knowledge accelerates the intensity of her aiónic experience of time. she becomes excited about the possibility of watching a cartoon and even though it is a short one—lasting only a couple of minutes—she decides against it because there is “no time.” the memory also captures the intensity of the girl’s walking and the double effort she has to put into her strides to keep up with her dad’s big steps. drawing on the connections of time and temporality in childhood education, tesar et al. (2016) claim that there are 120 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research “multiple, and often contradictory, philosophical and practical enactments” of time (p. 360). against this context, childhood is considered to be a “culturally and historically contingent space that embodies, encloses and lets loose different possibilities in its performance … constructed as discursive spaces in our imagination against the normal process of leaving ‘childhood’” (p. 362). given the emotional intensity of experiencing precisely timed and strictly scheduled childhoods, delinked from bodily and emotional experiences (shahjashan, 2015), remembering time allowed us to collectively “undo the injustice” (murris & kohan, 2021, p. 583) inflicted on our childhood selves in the dominant timespaces of socialist modernity—from subordinating children’s bodies and minds to dismissing their emotional struggles. we can begin undoing the injustice by unsettling the dominant relationship to time, including the adult/child binary and adult temporalities, through our own childhood memories, which bring into focus different and diverse dimensions of time. remembering a strict morning routine associated with school time triggered memories of different time experiences during the summer months, especially the time of spending summers with grandparents in the countryside. for example, one girl remembers summer as “the best time of the year” when she could enjoy playing ball with her friends, picking apples, riding her bike, playing with the dogs, swimming and hiking, and eating “yummy cheese bread her grandma makes for her.” but the memory zeros in on the presence of a calendar book that hangs on the kitchen wall. the grandmother starts each day by tearing out a page in the calendar, marking the day passing by. at the same time, the girl counts the summer day passing by. although this marking of time does not bother the girl during the first weeks of the summer, she becomes more anxious about this morning ritual as the summer comes to an end. “the thinner the calendar book gets, the sooner summer will end,” she remembers worrying about. the girl even asks her grandmother to take the calendar off the wall, as if to prolong the experience of the unstructured summer time. without having to look at the calendar, she can spend the rest of the summer “neither counting the days, nor worrying about the remaining days of the summer.” our memories included other attempts at avoiding linear, chronological time to escape the routine of the school time. for example, a girl in one of the memory stories remembers filling out the dates in her school diary and unconsciously extending the month of december infinitely by going beyond december 31—adding december 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and further. she only stops when her mother notices the mistake and scolds her for being so silly and inattentive. “how can a month have 66 days?” the girl’s mother asks. the girl’s emotions shift from shame to sadness at the realization that the winter break is almost over and she has to go back to school, which also means going back to a rigid morning routine. in her mind, she wonders how great it would be “if the winter break would last a little longer, if there were simply more than 31 days in december.” despite mastering the clock time in school, our childhood memories tell about digressing and “reconfiguring humanclock boundaries and relations” on a daily basis (pacini-ketchabaw, 2012, p. 156), reminding us that human (child) bodies are always in relationships with other nonhuman bodies that coexist in different, intersecting timespaces. remembering these intra-actions enables us to notice and engage again with temporalities that have always coexisted alongside the chronological one. although these memories had become dormant as we grew older, they reemerged during our textbook analysis. this reawakening is well illustrated in a memory about a more leisurely and slow routine of going to a kindergarten every morning. a girl and her sister are going to the kindergarten in the village. on their way to the kindergarten there is a pond. girls know that “tavkombalas” (small fish with a big head and thin body) are living in the pond. in the morning, they walk by the pond silently. it is so difficult for the girls to wake up in the morning ; they do not want to wake up tavkombalas, too. but on their way back from the kindergarten, the girls are getting excited to get closer to the pond. they stomp their feet as they pass by the pond and tavkombalas are starting to swim and jump around. girls are happy that their tavkombala friends are “playing” with them. probably tavkombalas were waiting for the girls to come back from school in the afternoon, too. 121 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research in this memory, the girls’ morning routine is set within the familiar linear timeline (or chrónos) that includes routine preparation to attend the kindergarten in the morning. unlike textbook stories about enthusiastic children waking up with the alarm clock or on their own, the girls in this memory feel sleepy and recall the difficult time of waking up so early in the morning. unwilling to enforce the same chronological routine on others, they walk very quietly by the pond in order not to wake up the fish sleeping there. the girls seem to be fully aware of their surroundings, including the pond and the fish that do not have to follow clock time or adhere to the same strict schedule as the girls. the end of a strictly organized school day is marked by the lapse of time as the girls return home from school. on their way from school, the girls’ time is no longer measured by the clock, allowing them to experience aiónic time. unaware of the wishes of the fish, they happily stomp their feet as they walk by the pond, looking forward to playing with their fish friends. when time is not measured by the clock, the girls become fully aware, more attuned, and deeply connected to the worlds they are a part of, where the ponds are awake and their inhabitants—the fish, the frogs, and the long cattails—are impatiently waiting to play with them. our childhood memories share some interesting similarities in terms of the chronological sequence of the daily routines, the emotional and bodily intensity of lived experiences, as well as the temporal dissonances present in our childhoods. at the same time, each memory is full of unique features, highlighting different temporal dimensions and our various experiences with them. what connects our memories and the textbook narratives together is the persistent coexistence and deep entanglement of different temporal dimensions that cannot be undone—neither by textbooks nor by memory. (re)learning time to relearn time is to acknowledge that multiple temporalities always coexist simultaneously. it also means remembering that all lived experiences are not confined to one space and time but rather unfold and entangle across multiple temporal possibilities. having engaged with our collective memories and textbook narratives diffractively—listening to each other’s childhood memories and (re)reading textbooks and memories through one another, picking up the threads and weaving them together apart—we aim to trouble the uniform narratives and create a new “superposition,” that is, a state of being between two positions: “not be[ing ] here or there, or even simply here and there: rather, it is to be indeterminately herethere” (barad, 2007, p. 65). it means being simultaneously “here-there” also in terms of childhood/adulthood temporal relationships: “adult is also child and … child is also adult” (murris & kohan, 2021, p. 585). from this perspective, different coexisting temporalities contribute to the overall pattern of time. being in this timespace of superposition opens an unexpected opportunity to imagine how textbooks could be edited, altering the temporal trajectories they have imposed on our childhoods and adulthoods. engaging in a speculative thought experiment, we therefore return to the original (and recurring ) textbook story about the child’s morning routine in order to make edits—literally and figuratively—by infusing it with our own memories and experiences, including the story about keeping up with father while preparing for school and caring for the tavkombalas in the pond. we used these edits to add details to the original textbook story, highlighting sensations in the girl’s body, her observations and thoughts. collectively, these edits illustrate the here-there of multiple temporalities that inevitably entangle with the linear, mechanical flow of the morning routine. natela: edited timeline the girl woke got up at 7 am, with the warm rays of sun reaching through her bedroom window. it took her a while to wake up, but she heard the sound of her favourite cartoon on tv, and she jumped out of her bed right way. natela was so happy that she was able to watch a few minutes of tv before rushing to school. she rehearsed the lessons for the day, had breakfast, and went to school. on her way to school she walked very carefully fast, trying to keep up with her dad who was always in a hurry to get to work on time. they walked by 122 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research the pond, but they were too busy to stop and enjoy the reflection of the slow-moving clouds in the water. natela wondered whether the fish were still asleep. natela got to school on time. she always gets to school on time. but she wishes she could slow down on her way to school to say hello to the fish in the pond and look at the reflection of the clouds and the sun in the water. although the edited story is only one of many possible edits, it helps us imagine how textbooks could be written (or edited) differently to open the timespaces for multiple temporal possibilities beyond the single trajectory of linear, chronological time. it also helps us imagine what might happen if textbooks continue to insist on a universal mastery of linear, chronological time, as if nothing else exists outside of it. in such a spacetime, children would have mastered the rigid schedules and straight timelines so well that they forgot to notice the pond and the tavkombalas swimming in it. over time, they would have also failed to notice how the pond was drying up and shrinking. and now, travel-hopping in time 30 years after the “tavkombala” story, when children pass by the pond on their way to school, their experience is different. the pond is now empty. it has dried up, and there are no tavkombalas there anymore. the girls do not walk silently along the pond in order not to wake up the fish in the mornings. they are no longer looking forward to playing with the tavkombalas on the way back from school, and there are no tavkombalas waiting for the girls to play with them in the afternoons either. figure 4. the pond 30 years after the tavkombalas and the girls played there. the dried-up pond is a powerful metaphor for the disappearing future—a “bright future with infinite possibilities” (millei, 2021, p. 62)—which was so clearly sketched in early literacy textbooks and which seemed guaranteed if we only followed its predetermined linear path. but although the pond from the childhood memory has dried up, its disappearance does not signal an erasure of memory or disappearance of time. as barad (2010) states, “memory—the pattern of sedimented enfoldings of iterative intra-activity—is written into the fabric of the world. the world ‘holds’ the memory of all traces; or rather, the world is its memory” (p. 261). from this perspective, editing linear timelines with childhood memories creates new possibilities for noticing and engaging with the multiple temporal traces in the fabric of the world. such broader conceptualization of time brings attention to intra-actions between human and nonhuman bodies, encompassing affective and bodily experiences of time—from communicating with tavkombalas to losing track of calendar time during the summer holidays—making visible multiple, coexisting temporalities. more importantly, engaging with pedagogies of time opens up the possibility for (re)learning how to live with one another—and with human and more-than-human worlds—in ways that rupture narratives of historical progress and reshape our possible futures. 123 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research appendix latvian textbooks cimdiņa, r., lanka, a., & krustkalna, l. (1993). riti raiti, valodiņa [run smoothly, language]. zvaigzne. lubāniete, z., bērzāja, l., ramša, a., & vuškalne, l. (1965, also 1966–1969 editions). ābece 1. klasei [abc for the 1st grade]. liesma. karule, a., & kauce, a. (1980). ābece: eksperimentāli mācību uzdevumi sagatavošanas klasēm [abc: experiential learning exercises for kindergarten]. lpsr izglītības ministrija. ņesterovs, o., & osmanis, j. (1975, 1980, 1984 editions). ābece [abc]. zvaigzne. georgian textbooks botsvadze, n., & burjanadze, k. (1957a). dedaena: part 1 (based on i. gogebashvili). state publishing house. botsvadze, n., & burjanadze, k. (1957b). dedaena: part 2 (based on i. gogebashvili). state publishing house. ramishvili, v. (1978). dedaena (based on i. gogebashvili). ganatleba publishing. ramishvili, v. (1989). dedaena: part 1 (based on i. gogebashvili). ganatleba publishing. armenian textbooks der-krikoryan, a. (1987). aybenaran. loys publishers. der-krikoryan, a. 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(1995). critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis. in j. verschueren, j. ostman, & j. blommaert (eds.), handbook of pragmatics (pp. 204–210). benjamins. 30 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research migrant childhoods and temporalities in india: a reflective engagement with dominant discourses vijitha rajan vijitha rajan is a faculty member in the school of education, azim premji university, bangalore. prior to joining the university in 2020, vijitha was a senior research fellow at the university of delhi (2015−2020). in 2018/19 she was a commonwealth scholar in the school of politics and international studies, university of leeds, uk. her doctoral research is on understanding educational exclusion of migrant children and foregrounds the discord between mobile childhoods and immobile schools in the indian context. email: vijitha.rajan@apu.edu.in this paper explores the varying temporalities through which marginal childhoods (and their educational inclusion), particularly those situated in contexts of temporary internal migration, are constructed in the indian context. temporary migration is short term, circular, and seasonal in nature and one of the significant livelihood strategies adopted by the poorest and marginalized communities in rural india (keshri & bhagat, 2012). educational inclusion of children belonging to temporarily migrating families is particularly challenging because, as opposed to permanent and semipermanent migrant families, they not only live more transient lives but also face multiple forms of structural exclusion in both source and destination sites. drawing on ethnographic data from the city of bangalore, this paper problematizes how dominant ideals around migration, childhood, and schooling frame the lives of migrant children (situated in contexts of temporary migration) through linear temporalities. furthermore, the paper argues that policy interventions that ostensibly include migrant childhoods do not engage critically with the politics of linear temporality which, in turn, is central to the exclusionary dynamics of migrant children’s schooling. temporality and its socially constructed nature are recognized in contemporary times as central forces that shape experiences of childhood (james & prout, 2015; tesar et al., 2016). far from being neutral, natural, universal, or equalizing, dominant constructions of temporality may in reality be deeply contested (gupta, 2002; knight, 2019; nuttall & thomas, 2015; tesar et al., 2016). for instance, gupta (2002) points out that children’s journey through age classes in schools is a “forced step-march” (p. 42); it is neither natural nor universal but constructed through specific western imaginations of childhood, mediated through the epistemic category of age (gupta, 2002). in a similar vein, dhankar (2017) argues that in the indian context educational policies such as detention or no-detention are bound to fail in the “unbending” and “ironclad” class-wise structure of our schooling system (p. 37). he argues that a temporality is recognized as critical to the understanding of childhoods by contemporary scholars of childhood. this paper explores the varying temporalities through which marginal childhoods (and their educational inclusion), particularly those situated in contexts of temporary internal migration, are constructed in the indian context. drawing on ethnographic data from the city of bangalore, this paper problematizes how dominant ideals around migration, childhood, and schooling frame migrant children’s lives through linear temporalities. furthermore, the paper argues that policy interventions that ostensibly include migrant childhoods do not engage critically with the politics of linear temporality which, in turn, is central to the exclusionary dynamics of migrant children’s schooling. key words: linear temporality; marginal childhoods; educational inclusion; temporality of schooling; migrant childhoods and temporality 31 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research class-wise system, in line with which the entire infrastructure, resources, and processes of the education system are arranged, does not ensure meaningful learning. in the context of childhood, the “timed” developmental pathways have long been critiqued by scholars for varying reasons, such as their propensity to “perpetuate inequalities, homogenize children, and essentialize childhoods” (tesar, 2016, p. 400) and to neoliberalize childhoods through “discourses of efficiency and effectiveness” (nuttall & thomas, 2015, p. 3). furthermore, canons of neutral, linear temporality exclude categories of children for whom the temporality of life is “out of sync” and therefore cannot be reified through temporal fixations that define policy and practice (knight, 2019). the first part of the paper builds on the aforesaid critiques of linear temporality by exploring its constructions in dominant discourses of migration, childhood, and education. after a brief introduction to the research site, participants, and methods, the later part of the paper explores the ways in which dominant constructions of temporality shape educational experiences of children situated in the context of temporary internal migration in india. through ethnographic narratives from the indian city of bangalore, multiple vantage points of temporality that affect migrant children’s schooling and educational inclusion are discussed. marginal childhoods, schooling, and temporality this section explores constructions of temporality as manifested in dominant discourses of migration, childhood, and education. this discussion conceptually situates the current study in an endeavour toward engaging with migrant childhoods and their educational inclusion beyond the ontological security of linear temporality. this is done through unpacking the dominant and taken-for-granted temporal understandings of (1) migration as a progressive movement toward development; (2) marginal childhoods as a project of moral reformation; and (3) modern schooling as a temporally neutral site. first, dominant economistic accounts of migration understand it as a process of optimal labour distribution— resulting from rational decision making of individuals—and as an indication of economic growth and development. such accounts are closely aligned with theories of economic growth and modernization that evaluate the predicaments of different societies to be situated in distinct spatio-temporal junctions of varying linear models of development. the marxist interpretations of migration—often serving as a counternarrative to economistic accounts—question how growth, development, and modernization are contingent upon the historical, structural, and global relations of dependence and exploitation. nevertheless, the latter too fails to radically question the linear spatio-temporality circulated through the “eurocentric, historicist metanarrative of modernity” (gidwani & sivaramakrishnan, 2003, p. 189). furthermore, it can be argued that both economistic and marxist theorizations of migration fail to address the lived realities of temporarily migrating families, as for them, the village and the city are neither waiting rooms to be escaped nor archetypal terminuses to be reached. it is by breaking these binaries that their mobility and association with multiple places shape their lives. the “temporary” nature of their migration itself disrupts linear models of understanding migration journeys and development. de haan (1997) states that such “unsettled settlers” represent the failure of “standard categories” (p. 929). experiences of families and children whose mobility is embodied by “circulation and simultaneous commitment” to multiple places cannot be understood adequately through straightforward spatio-temporal dichotomies such as origin/destination or permanent/temporary migration (haas, 2007, p. 56). far from being straightforward, decisions about migration and return are often “haphazard, spontaneous and opportunistic” (parry, 2003, p. 220) particularly in the case of temporarily migrating families. these contingencies are central to migrant life worlds, and based on my own study, i have argued elsewhere that formal schooling system is implicated upon linear spatio-temporal ideals that exclude temporally mobile childhoods from accessing meaningful learning and education (rajan, 2021b). in this light, the prominent assumption that children’s migration alone creates conditions that undermine their education may be 32 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research insufficient to explain their educational exclusion. second, children on the margins are constructed as educationally “deprived,” “lacking,” “uneducable,” and, more importantly, “in need of reform” in the dominant discourses of education and development (balagopalan, 2003; dalal, 2015; velaskar, 2005). the ontological fixity and politics of such temporal constructions around children on the margins have been problematized by various indian scholars. it has been argued that discourses of lack and educability construct children from marginalized communities as “nonepistemic” beings (batra, 2015) and as responsible for their learning failures (dalal, 2015). these constructions have “damaging” impact on children’s educational experiences (balagopalan & subrahmanian, 2003) and expose the slow pace of meaningful educational inclusion in the indian context despite the efforts toward “formal inclusion” (subrahmanian, 2003). such temporal construction of development of children on the margins is empirically validated in varying contexts of rural and urban india. for example, in her ethnographic exploration of rural schools in karnataka, sriprakash (2016) argues that “being placed so firmly outside the normative citizen-subjecthood, the ‘poor child’ is positioned as a governable subject in need of reform” in the development narratives of global india (p. 154). she argues that while the nation’s “aspirations for consumption, economic growth and an international outlook” and the construction of “urban english educated as bearers of modernity” and of “normative citizen-subject as middleclass urban” constitute the dominant and desired imaginary of education and development, the image of the poor rural child is absent from the dominant narrative of developing india (pp. 152–153). this absence, she points out, is not only because of the marginal socio-cultural and economic backgrounds of families but also because of the insignificance of rural livelihoods to the development of india’s knowledge economy. in a study in western india, dyer (2014) demonstrates how pastoralist livelihoods and situated learning are framed based on notions of “deficit” in the dominant discourse of schooling. she critiques modernity’s “normative framing” of “education inclusion and policy” for mobile pastoralist children as sedentarizing them and uprooting them from their families’ “traditional” livelihood means (p. 24). such field engagements with children’s lives and educational experiences have reiterated the deficit temporal construction of marginal childhoods, not only in state-sponsored formal sites of schooling, but also in “alternative” ngo sites. balagopalan (2014), in her ethnographic study of urban street children in calcutta, discusses how “agents of good governance” construct “reformist moral telos” of saving the “reified” category of “street children” (pp. 30, 31). this, she argues, is done through “homogenizing and hegemonic assumptions” around street children as requiring protection and disciplining. for example, children’s “case files” written by ngo workers encompass stories of street children in ways that reaffirm their identities as “abandoned,” “neglected,” “victimized,” “vulnerable,” and norom mati (soft clay). third, in addition to the temporal reference of formal schooling around ideals of adulthood, discipline, moral reformation, and progress as discussed above, there are other straightforward ways in which time and temporality are integral to the workings of modern schooling. for instance, ways in which “time is used effectively to produce, control and order the everyday lives of children” (james & prout, 2015, pp. 227–228) are evident in the institutional site of schooling. school plays a major role in enabling the growth and development of children as “natural beings passing through biologically determined developmental stages” and as “marginalized beings awaiting temporal passage…into the social world of adults” (prout & james, 2015, pp.10, 11). saul (2020) problematizes four temporal assumptions around schooling: (1) the “neutrality bias”: the idea that time is neutral which is independent of educational oppression; (2) the “uniformity bias”: the idea that school time presents equal opportunities for all students toward achievement; (3) the “spatial bias”: the priority given to space above time in the discourses of educational inclusion; and (4) the “developmental bias”: the idea that children pass through foreseeable ages and stages and that the resulting individual and social relations of time are both normal and utopian (p. 2). in my own research with migrant children, i have shown that these biases have serious implications for children 33 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research of temporarily migrating families and take particular relevance through the normative construct of age-gradelearning-level correspondence in modern schooling (rajan, 2020, 2021b). i have discussed how policy and practice in education that operate along notions such as age-appropriate learning disfranchise the migrant child subject. the indian state has created a parallel world of “alternative” and “substandard” schooling for migrant children primarily through ngo interventions because these children cannot fall in line with the temporal order of modern schooling. the field narratives shared in later sections of the paper strengthen this argument by exposing other temporal dynamics through which dominant constructs of migration, childhood, and education are manifested in children’s lives. research site, participants, and methods there are 30 revenue districts in the indian state of karnataka, which are further divided into 34 educational districts. the fieldwork sites for the current study are located in and around bangalore east taluk (of the revenue district of bangalore urban) and bangalore south 4 block (of the educational district of bangalore south). situated in the southeastern part of karnataka state, bangalore urban district, according to the latest census data, has a total population of around 9.6 million constituting 5 million males and 4.6 million females (government of india, 2014). having a geographical area of 2,196 square kilometres, bangalore urban district’s population density has increased from 180 persons per sq km in 1901, to 4,381 persons per sq km in 2011 (government of india, 2014). it is also the most urbanized district in karnataka having around 91% (around 8.7 million) of its total population residing in urban areas (government of karnataka, 2016). studying circular migration between the agriculture and construction sectors in raichur and bangalore respectively, pattenden (2012) argues that due to changes in the forces and relations of production, “the trickle of migration” to bangalore became a “stream” in the early 2000s (p. 171). a study of migrant construction workers in bangalore shows that most migrant workers come from northern districts of karnataka (such as yadgir, kalburgi, and raichur) and also from other states like andhra pradesh, tamil nadu, west bengal, madhya pradesh, rajasthan, uttar pradesh, bihar, orissa, maharashtra, chhattisgarh, and jharkhand (premchander et al., 2014). another study in the city points out that when levels of migrants’ social and educational marginalization are higher, they are likely to be “pushed out of rural areas” (sridhar et al., 2013, pp. 300–301). in line with these trends, a considerable proportion of migrant families who participated in the study were largely from northern districts of karnataka such as gulbarga, raichur, and yadgir. the interstate migrants were primarily from the states of andhra pradesh, west bengal, and uttar pradesh. the current study was conducted for a period of 13 months between january 2017 and may 2018. families and children were approached through three ngo schools (hereafter referred to as ngo-1, ngo-2, and ngo-3) that offer bridging programs for migrant children (living within and around 10 km from the schools) and attempt to mainstream them to formal schools in the city. all three ngos were located in east bangalore, which has witnessed rapid expansion of the it sector and giant construction projects in recent decades, the reasons for a significant presence of migrants. most families belonged to marginalized socioeconomic backgrounds, occupied the squalors of the city, and were employed in informal labour sectors with extremely vulnerable conditions of living and labouring, though there were variations in the profiles of migrant families that different ngos catered to. ngo-1 largely works with intrastate migrants who are also comparatively longer-term migrants than in ngo2 and ngo-3. their duration of stay in bangalore is longer and they are also employed in comparatively stable informal sector jobs such as contract pourakarmikas (sanitation workers) in bruhat bengaluru mahanagara palike 34 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research (bbmp). ngo-2 works with both intrastate and interstate migrants who are employed in the informal labour sectors of construction and domestic work. their migration is more short-term and circular in nature. ngo-3 largely works with interstate migrants. their duration of stay in the city is longer than those in ngo-2 but shorter than those in ngo-1. while some of them are employed in the comparatively stable informal labour sectors of painting and driving, others work on construction sites and as rag pickers. children in ngo-1 largely belong to north karnataka, and kannada is the most-spoken language among them. about half of the children from ngo-2 are from north karnataka and speak kannada. the other half are children from different states of india speaking different languages. in contrast, ngo-3 has a small number of children from north karnataka and children in ngo-3 largely belong to east and north indian states of west bengal and uttar pradesh and speak bengali and hindi. also, more than 85% of the children in ngo-1 and ngo-2 belong to the hindu religion, while ngo-3 has a fairly uniform distribution of hindu and muslim children. among those who reported as hindus, more than 90% belonged to marginalized caste categories such as scheduled castes (sc) and scheduled tribes (st) in all three ngos. profiles of participants indicate that temporary migrant families and children in the city stand at the intersection of multiple marginalities in terms of their caste, class, and occupation. secondary literature and data indicate a similar trend, showing that the poor and socially marginalized communities in rural areas are more prone to temporary migration than others (see, e.g., keshri & bhagat, 2012; mishra, 2016) and that they face multiple vulnerabilities in both source and destination areas. the narratives discussed in this paper are specifically from the ngo-3 school. out of a total of 88 children who participated in the study, 24 children (11 females and 13 males; 16 in the age group 7–12 years and 8 in the age group 13–18 years) were from this ngo. formally founded in 2010, ngo-3 was started through the voluntary effort of one of the founding members to identify many out-of-school children (oosc) and motivate them to join the formal schooling system. ngo-3 currently works with oosc in three indian cities including bangalore. it aims to provide migrant children access to basic education, enable them to enroll in age-appropriate classes in englishmedium private schools, and provide after-school support. the parents are required to pay half of the private school fee (and are counselled by the ngo about the importance of doing so); the other half is provided by the ngo through individual sponsors. transforming an “illiterate child into an english-speaking child” (founding member, ngo-3) and through that process developing the individual and the family is proposed to be the organization’s major focus. out of the many programs that the ngo runs, fieldwork for the current study was situated in one of the bridging schools it runs near east bangalore. ethnographic methods were employed in the conduct of fieldwork. these methods are about researching “with, rather than on, children” (christensen & james, 2017, p. 1) and, by extension, with, rather than on, adults, since migrant children’s families and ngo functionaries were also a significant part of my research. the method of participant observation, integral to ethnographic inquiry, helped me to engage deeply with participants in a variety of settings. the actual processes of participant observation employed in the study, namely observation and informal conversation, were made possible by being there, hanging out, and going along with children in their everyday spaces. the most important methodological process that enabled me to engage with the field was “being there to observe, to ask seemingly stupid but insightful questions, and to write down what [was] seen and heard” (fetterman, 2009, p. 9). in the context of ethnographic research, mechanisms such as hanging out are not identical to their colloquial meaning of “having fun and letting things happen” (murchison, 2010, p. 84). deep hanging out (geertz, 1998), as a research method, entails immersing oneself in a social experience by having long, informal conversations with people. similarly, going along involves accompanying research participants in their natural settings—asking questions, listening, and observing—to understand and interact with them and their environments and bring a “phenomenological sensibility” to ethnography, expressing the “fundamental reflexivity 35 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research of human engagement with the world” (kusenbach, 2003, p. 478). such ethnographic methods can be theorized as a form of place making in which the researcher and the research participants are together implicated (pink, 2008). temporal modalities: age, reformation, and aspirations “they can neither go forward nor backward” kenny and danaher (2009) argue that the traditional “sedentarist mindset” of the formal school system is predicated on the norm of fixed and permanent residence accommodating children who are able to attend the same school for prolonged periods of time. the mismatch between such a system and the “deviant” realities of mobile children who “arrive and depart at varying times over the school year” (kenny & danaher, pp.1, 2) have worsened the marginalization of migrant lives. in similar lines, dyer (2014) argues that “geospatially-fixed schooling”—schools that are fixed in place and time—by capitulating to “modernising political economies of development” (p. 177) aggravate the educational deprivation of pastoralist migrant children in india. building on these arguments, my own study finds that the discord between mobile childhoods and immobile schools along the axis of spatiotemporality is the fundamental problematic in the educational inclusion of migrant children in india (rajan, 2020, 2021b). due to the temporary nature of migration undertaken by their families, children who participated in the study often had to drop out of their village schools. though some of them would get mainstreamed into formal schools through ngo bridging programs in the city, only a very few were able to continue their schooling in the city. children and their families either kept moving between the village and the city or between various locations within the city for varying sociocultural and economic reasons such as conditions of life and work, seasonal labour, better livelihood opportunities, extended family visits, and village festivals. the temporal order of neither state schools nor ngo schools could accommodate such fluid spatio-temporalities of migrant families and children. migrant children step out of the multiple slices of space and time of the spatio-temporality that defines the school and therefore get pushed out. moving in and out of the system periodically, migrant children are compelled to “catch up” with their “normal” sedentary peers in the mainstream school. elsewhere i have discussed the following field narratives by one of the ngo-3 teachers (addressing children) that reflects the need to “catch up” their lost slice of time (rajan, 2020). close your eyes. breathe in and breathe out. imagine that you are going to a mainstream school, okay? after two months. tell yourself that you would go to mainstream school, study well and participate in all cultural activities. there will be many “normal” children coming to that school, those children may be coming from montessori or after completing lkg, you have to develop in par with them. you can play outside, that is fine. but once you come inside, whatever you want to read, keep on reading—english, kannada, evs, whatever you want to read. do not waste time. first of all, you have already wasted half of your life. there is no time to rest now. how long will you keep playing like this? till your old age? you do not want to study? you do not want to earn? who plays like this for 24 hours? these narratives indicate how teachers place migrant children outside the temporal order of schooling unless they are able to “catch up” without wasting any more of the limited time that is left for them to complete schooling within a specific age. furthermore, “falling behind children in time” makes the ngo’s job of mainstreaming children to age-appropriate schools in the city all the more difficult. enrollment in grades that do not correspond to children’s age is not preferred in a system where the temporal relationality between age and grade is assumed to be linear and static. as the principal of a government school put it, “they (migrant children) can neither go forward nor backward” if they do not catch up. ngo teachers therefore constantly reminded children of the realities that their “age has 36 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research gone past,” their “age is falling behind,” or “they have exceeded age.” such an age-class system that determines entry, progress, and exit from the school structure creates social stigma, particularly for those children, such as the participants in this study, who are “out of time with their contemporaries” (james & prout, 2015, p. 234). such discourses of the “becoming” child are problematic on two accounts: first, the becoming child is unequivocally future orientated and second, this discourse bets on “that which the child will be” and the present incompetency of children (uprichard, 2008, p. 304). this means that notions such as “time past” and “time future” assume critical significance during childhood, which in turn “denies time present in the life of the child” (james & prout, 2015, p. 235) and connects to the western teleological drive—that is, the historical obsession with origins and endings (gupta, 2002). tesar et al. (2016) ask a pertinent question that is relevant in this context. referring to the seminal ideas on childhood of rousseau, pestalozzi, and piaget they ask: “what experience of time appears as real, as taken for granted, through their machinations of learning, teaching, and thinking?” (p. 360). furthermore, tesar et al. argue that in contemporary neoliberal and future-focused educational frameworks that give primacy to economic productivity and profitability, both temporality and children’s becoming have become commodities which in turn shape the ways in which “measurements, treatments and pedagogical experiments” (p. 361) are enacted upon children. in the context of educational interventions for migrant children, states and ngos are caught up in the temporal order of development and education wherein age-appropriate mainstreaming is the norm. not only is such mainstreaming considered ideal for schooling and child development, but it is also in line with funding and future prospects of the ngos themselves because quantitative targets of mainstreaming out of school are central to how development work is imagined by national and international agencies. and for migrant children in the margins of the city, this normative temporal movement in the school structure connects not only to their journey toward adulthood but also toward moral reformation, as we will see in the following section. “some people will remain dirty, what to do?” the fundamental discourses around the exclusion of marginalized children are reinforced through their everyday use in formal learning spaces, and such exclusions are historically inherent to indian modernity, for which the institution of formal schooling played a “civilising role among marginalised populations” (balagopalan, 2003, p. 56). one of the prominent ways in which children from marginalized communities are “civilized” in educational spaces is through labelling their bodies as “unhygienic” and “undisciplined.” this study found that ngo-3 constructs and reinforces such temporal assumptions about migrant children on the margins of the city. the ngo’s overarching objective to mainstream children to english-medium private schools and help children escape their marginal sociocultural and economic locales (and thereby attain middle-class life ethos) is in itself an indication of morally reformatory educational temporality. this had multiple manifestations in the everyday workings of the ngo3 school. for instance, teachers in the school thought that “these” parents were “ghatiya” (stubborn) who were fine with feeding their children junk food but were not sending them to school. the teachers were “scared” to go for community visits because it was very “unhygienic” and “risky,” and “these” people were “alcoholic and talked disrespectfully to teachers.” one of the teachers said, you cannot imagine how these children were when they first came, they were so raw, so dirty. even to talk to them, you needed to maintain some distance. and now you can see the improvement, how they are coming. still, a few of them are dirty, it is okay. some people will remain dirty, what to do? we have started from basic things, from “how to wash your hands” to “understanding english,” even if they cannot speak english. initially they stayed blank when something is asked in english. now at least they will be able to tell the answer in one word, even if they cannot complete the sentence. but they will give you answer, for sure. that too in nine months, we did this. 37 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research such dispositions of migrant families and children are assumed to shape the access to and retention in school. it is perceived that migrant families in the city are not “impoverished” as one might imagine. at the same time, they are blamed for investing in food items, clothing, mobile phones, and cultural events extravagantly instead of prioritizing children’s education. see the following narratives by functionaries in ngo-3 for instance. though we assume that migrant children are vulnerable, at the end of the intervention, we feel that they are no longer vulnerable. they get everything free for their education. migrant families also have their own system of survival and perceptions, their own decision making. they spend a lot during festivals and marriages. they buy smart phones and eat a lot of non-veg food too. but when it comes to investment in their children’s education, they are not willing. sometimes we think poor are really poor, but they earn good amount of money. (founding member, ngo-3) these kids, you know, are so irregular. they come for two days, become absent for one day. then again come for one day, then again absent. how do we make them understand? today i teach something and next day the child is not in class. what to do in such situations? simply they will not come, this reason, that reason, stomachache, and other silly excuses. most often their parents are not sincere. sometimes parents want their children to do their housework. they are not understanding that they are playing with their children’s lives. they do not understand the value of education. some people understand, and their lives become quite different. (teacher, ngo-3 school) these narratives reflect the temporal reformatory projects that are central to how migrant childhoods and migrant children’s educational inclusion are perceived by education functionaries. furthermore, such projects are often mediated through children’s religious, regional, and social class identities. consider the following classroom conversations in ngo-3. teacher: are you a muslim? mamata (a 12-year-old muslim child from bengal): yes. teacher: how come? everyone is converted these days. (addressing other children) have you ever heard the name mamata in a muslim community? it is a bad state of affairs, they are converting everyone. overnight an entire village will be converted. in calcutta, muslims will not let you live, either they will convert you or kill you or you have to run away from your place. what is your mother’s name? mamata: tanya. teacher: oh, they have converted tanya to taslima!? (addressing another muslim child from karnataka) in bijapur also, i heard there is population jihad. in another instance, the teacher scolds an eight-year-old girl from uttar pradesh (up) because some children complained that she had lied about returning a book to the school library. i know, you do not have to tell me. it is the birthright of up people to tell lies. they learnt to tell lies even before they learn to say, “mummy pappa.” uttar pradesh is the land of such great people. learning to tell lies will be useful for their future, right!? they have spoiled the entire system…. can you imagine the height of corruption there? … the whole up and bihar have become like that. such derogatory remarks (in the above cases about children’s religious and regional backgrounds respectively) were constantly made against children by the teachers. children were denigrated if they were not regular in attending school or did not score well on a test. insensitive comments such as “you would have been reading quran at home, but not your textbook” and “go pick waste like your family, anyways you will be doing that in the future” were a 38 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research regular feature. in one instance, when a child was seen to have missed turning off the water tap in the school, one of the teachers remarked, “in their own homes they don’t have water for four days, but they are wasting water here.” as hanson (2017) argues, children, in addition to their journey of becoming adults, are “also “waiting for economic prosperity, social justice and peace permitting everyone to live a joyful childhood and thriving adulthood without poverty, exploitative labour or discrimination” (p. 281). such waiting, he argues is central to projects of development. particularly in the context of development in the global south, the marginal child at once becomes immature (in comparison to the adult) and primitive (in comparison to “normal” children within and outside the nation). this construction of the marginal child has its roots in the equivalence formed, in colonial formulations of development, between “european past and cultural others in the present” (gupta, 2002, p. 42), which, in turn, creates taken-for-granted temporal categories such as “primitive, backward or underdeveloped, developing, and developed or advanced” (gupta, p. 50). in the indian context, not only has the metaphor of childhood been equated to primitivism and thereby used to rationalize imperialism (nandy, 1984), but marginal childhoods, in particular, were differently employed in the colonial registers of educational provision and expansion (balagopalan, 2014). the colonial myths of “parental indifference” and “aspirational lack” among poor families have been further reinforced in postcolonial indian policy, though they have been invalidated time and again by various studies (probe team, 1999; rajan, 2021a; sharma, 2021). therefore, it is pertinent to go beyond the binary of “being” and “becoming” and understand childhoods—particularly those situated in marginal contexts—through the “triolectical prism composed of ‘been’, ‘being’ and ‘becoming’’’ (hanson, 2017, p. 284). doing so will enable us to unpack the linear temporality of reformatory politics through which marginal childhoods are acted upon in the indian context and to foreground inequality and exclusion in the question of how educational interventions are differentially imagined for migrant children. “do you want to become like your parents?” the dominant idea of education as a means of social mobility and empowerment was evident in this study in the manner in which the scope and purpose of education was typically presented to migrant families and children by the state and ngos. prominent narratives included the following: “do you want your children to struggle and suffer like you?” “do you want to become like your parents?” these questions also implicitly convey that the current sociocultural and economic locations of migrant families are not worthy of being characterized as forms of aspiration that families and children ought to have. education is presented and perceived as a temporal act that would change the nature and direction of migrant lives. it is portrayed as a claim toward a rupture from the marginal locations of migrant families and children. migrant families and children themselves are often seen embracing such views. during community surveys undertaken by ngos, most families and children expressed their interest in school education. there were a few exceptions, particularly in the case of older children, for reasons of disinterest in school, huge learning gaps, or gendered cultural expectations. most of them believe that schooling would help them escape their current context of manual labour, which is “difficult,” “dangerous,” and “precarious.” in one of the migrant children’s words, in my family no one has completed school. if you complete schooling, you have a future (bavishya). life will be good. you will get many good things in life. and you will get a udyoga (professional occupation), won’t you? if you do not go to school, you will go for pani (work/job, typically manual labour) not udyoga. pani is difficult. we have to carry heavy things on our head. sometimes people die in worksites. recently ten people died because of an accident in the worksite where my father was working. my parents and aunty were working there when this happened. they were all shocked when this happened. should we also go to pani? 39 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research many children articulated a similar difference between pani and udyoga and the perceived role of education in obtaining a udyoga. some of them articulated education as a means for “becoming big.” in one of the children’s words, “odidre doddavarakubothu” (if you study, you can become big). and “big people” (doddavaru) meant people who had good jobs, lived in big buildings, and had more money. many children articulated this perceived scope of education through the idea of aage badna (to progress). it was reflected in their words such as “duniya mein kaise jeevit rahe padai ke bina?” (how do we survive in this world without studying?) or “padega thabi tho badega” (you grow when you study). temporal aspirations around education and its perceived role in social and economic mobility are also seen to be closely tied to the idea of “english” education. in the indian context, english learning is generally perceived to be “synonymous with modernity, progress and social mobility” (advani, 2009, p. 22) and a determining factor of better employment prospects (boyden, 2013). the majority of migrant families cannot afford to enroll their children in english-medium private schools. yet, their aspiration for learning english stems from its perceived importance in obtaining white-collar jobs in the city, facilitating social mobility, and constructing a refined sense of self and identity. aspiration for learning english is also augmented by the discourse of its global reach, as expressed in the words of many migrant families and children: “english sab jagah chalta hei” (english applies everywhere). the city is thought of by many migrant families and children as a site where they can construct new identities, emulating the english educated middle class. english is aspired to, not only in terms of its functional benefits but also in terms of the ontological transformation it can bring to their lives, including new behaviours and lifestyle. consider the following narrative from the conversation with a parent, gopal, from purnia district of bihar. my sister’s daughter is enrolled in an english-medium private school, and she can talk english very well. it was so nice to listen to her talking in english. that is when i thought my children also should talk english like this. that is why i closed my shop in the village and brought my entire family to the city. you should listen to her talking in english. whatever you ask, she can reply to you in english. don’t you think every parent wishes their children to speak english like that? everything is in english. you can also see differences in their behaviour, talking, and style of reading and writing. when i see how children in private schools behave, i felt my children also should be like that. if their lives get settled, our lives are fulfilled. we middle-class people cannot do anything further without english. we do not have the knowledge of english. we have the knowledge of hindi, but what is the value? if you learn english, you can earn well. here (in bangalore) you have to know both english and kannada. english has its unique worth. my ambition is to make my elder son a doctor and younger son an engineer. now it is up to them to study. but we have to keep some targets as parents. dr prateek singh and engineer aswin singh, imagine that tag in front of my sons’ names! thus, education is clearly perceived as a window of opportunity for social mobility and white-collar occupations. it is strongly associated with english learning and the possibilities of the city, albeit only a miniscule number of migrant families likely have concrete long-term plans or even the means to pursue these aspirations. empirical research in the indian context further reveals how the educational aspirations of communities and children on the margins are shaped around the projected imaginaries of education as a means of escaping poverty and accomplishing upward social mobility (boyden, 2013; drèze & sen, 2002), acquiring distinct cultural dispositions (jeffrey et al., 2004), and facilitating social and economic transformation (ganguly, 2018). yet in reality, marginalized communities are differently placed in the grand promises of education and development, such as white-collar occupation. for instance, jeffrey et al. (2004), in their ethnographic study with educated young men belonging to the chamar caste of dalits in the bijnor district of uttar pradesh, demonstrate the complex ways in which formal education acts upon the lives of the marginalized. they argue that in hierarchical societies with limited job opportunities, 40 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research schooling of people on the margins does not necessarily lead to a “simple upward trajectory” (p. 964). while schooling is central to the aspirations and identity formation of chamar young men, their failure to convert the presumably obtained “cultural capital” of schooling to secure employment reveals the complex structural equations of inequalities that determine their lives. this observation is particularly relevant to communities and children on the margins as their lived realities do not fit neatly into the projected development ideals of modern india, and their homogeneous construction as outliers of the nation’s development makes them into objects of reform. their inscription on the margins is part of the very ontology of education and development in contemporary india and not an accidental offshoot of its corollaries. in terms of understanding the temporal modality of educational aspirations that families have, it is important not to simply invert the dualism from “becoming” to “being” but to understand the intricate links between them (holloway et al., 2019; uprichard, 2008), as families themselves aspire towards the “becoming” potential of education and thereby temporally move forward from the status quo in line with ngo constructions. despite migrant families’ concrete engagements with (and marginalization in) multiple places, as opposed to dominant discourses of migration, the city as site for mobility and progress is still not fully foregone by the participants. in fact, it is by their very participation in the dominant project of temporality that migrant families can hope to overcome their marginalization. it is another matter, though pertinent, that the real prospects and materialization of aspirations are mediated through politics of education and development that shape the lives of children in the margins. conclusion this paper has looked at dominant constructions of temporality through which migrant children’s lives and education are acted upon in the indian context. the linear temporality of migration, childhood, and education put forth ideals of progress and development that make migrant children’s lives out of sync with the temporal order of schooling. furthermore, temporal imaginations around moral reformation construct migrant childhoods as lacking and in deficit. the paper also engages with how educational aspirations of migrant families and children, articulated along the lines of english learning, white-collar jobs, and social mobility, reflect the complex interactions between aspirational and temporal futures of schooling. the paper highlights that a simple reversal of linear temporality may not be adequate to understand and act upon migrant children’s educational inclusion. what is needed is a close reading of dominant modes of temporality and their location in exclusionary politics of inequality and marginalization of migrant childhoods. the idea of linear temporality within development—individual and social—need not be rejected outright for its determinism or universalism but should be decentered to open way for multiple development accounts (nielsen, 2015) and their exclusionary politics. or in other words, we should critically engage with the dominant myth that time is a neutral mechanism—an “apolitical, ahistorical force, objective in its function, a structuring means from a nameless above” (saul, 2020, p. 1)—disconnected from social and educational questions related to “inequity, discrimination, oppression, and exclusion” (saul, p. 18). more pertinently, we must ask, “what temporal considerations should we bring to policy change?” (nuttall & thomas, 2015, p. 3), as childhoods on the margins are not only labelled as situated outside the normative temporality of schooling and development but are also actively denied a chance to inhabit such temporality, which is at the least the discourse with power. 41 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research references advani, s. 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(2008). children as “being and becomings”: children, childhood, and temporality. children & society, 22(4), 303–313. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2007.00110.x velaskar, p. (2005). educational stratification, dominant ideology, and the reproduction of disadvantage in india. in s. m. dahiwale (ed.), understanding indian society: the non-brahmanic perspective (pp. 196–220). rawat. _goback _hlk93162852 _hlk93160773 _hlk93162911 _hlk93161097 44 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research duty, discipline, and dreams: childhood and time in hindutva nation nisha thapliyal nisha thapliyal teaches at the university of newcastle, australia. she is a migrant settler academic who lives and works on unceded awabakal land. her teaching and research center on comparative education, critical childhood studies, and social movements for public education. email: nisha.thapliyal@newcastle.edu.au time and temporality are central to how we signal values and construct meaning, belonging, and connection for ourselves and each other. burman (2021, in conversation with millei, 2021) reminds that social constructions of time serve to structure social relations and the pace and rhythm of life. the language of time performs the work of making and marking relationships through and across time—for the individual (e.g., biological time) and between people (e.g., biographical and generational time). the language of time also implicitly and explicitly signals values—values that are worth preserving and celebrating (continuity) and those that need to be replaced (change)—and, relatedly, the rate and order/sequence of change. discourses of time (as in periods of time as well as time in) are central to establishing social relationships and order and therefore the control and regulation of societies and social change (adam, 2008). childhoods as symbolic sites of change and continuity are central to nationalist projects of regulation and domination that emerge in times of intensified economic and cultural conflict (millei & imre, 2021). however, the influence of time on contemporary ethno-religious nationalist discourses of childhood located in the global south remains an underresearched area. since his first national election victory in 2014, the indian prime minister and avowed hindu nationalist narendra modi has regularly communicated with his “young friends”—the children of india—through large televised meetings, radio programs, social media, and books written for children. modi is not the first indian politician to incorporate children into his political discourse of nation and nationalism or to promote national identity through schooling. this precedent was set by the first prime minister of india, jawaharlal nehru, who came to be known as chacha, or uncle nehru, in popular discourse because of his frequent interactions with children. his grandson, prime minister rajiv gandhi, made history with a nationally broadcast and apparently unscripted televised q&a session with school children in 1985. like all nationalist political speeches, modi’s discourse appears to be full of jingoistic clichés and aphorisms. however, this paper undertakes to read the teachers day speeches against the childhood and time constitute key sites of regulation for nationalist authoritarian regimes. however, the influence of time on contemporary nationalist discourses of childhood located in the global south remains an underresearched area. this paper critically analyzes two spectacles involving hindu nationalist indian prime minister narendra modi and secondary school students on the occasions of teachers day 2014 and 2015. temporal language, markers, and symbols rooted in discourses of colonialism/orientalism, brahminical hinduism, and capitalist development are deconstructed to show how nationalist constructions of childhood can penetrate deep into the everyday lives of particular children who are deemed worthy to serve their nation. the paper concludes by highlighting specific ways in which time and temporality are weaponized to reproduce and legitimize a social hierarchy of childhoods that is necessary to sustain hindu ethno-religious nationalism. key words: childhood and time; hindu nationalism; india; teachers; populism 45 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research backdrop of the hindu nationalist movement asserting political power at a scale at which it has never been done before.1 specifically, this paper critically analyzes two spectacles involving hindu nationalist indian prime minister narendra modi and secondary school students on the occasion of teachers day in 2014 and 2015. it draws from a larger qualitative research project of similar spectacles involving schoolchildren between 2014 and 2019. for the purposes of data analysis, transcripts of what was said at these events were either downloaded from modi’s official website or transcribed in hindi and english from official recordings by the public service broadcaster doordarshan tv and made available on youtube. other texts that informed this analysis include modi’s monthly radio broadcast “mann ki baat,” (inner thoughts) where he regularly directedly addressed children, as well as news media reports and government policy documents. the analysis of language, markers, and symbols rooted in multiple discourses of temporality, including brahminical hinduism and capitalist development, are deconstructed to show how nationalist constructions of childhood can penetrate deeply into the everyday lives of particular children who are deemed worthy to serve their nation. the paper concludes by highlighting specific ways in which time and temporality are weaponized to reproduce and legitimize a social hierarchy of childhoods that is necessary to sustain hindu ethno-religious nationalism. hindu nationalism and modi hindu nationalism is a hundred-year-old supremacist ideology that aspires toward a hindu ethno-state in india. early influences include anticolonial hindu nationalist activism and european fascism. the ideas and imaginaries of hindu ethno-religious pride and power that we see in the transnational hindutva movement today are also shaped by neoliberal ideologies of economic and technological globalization along with contemporary local or vernacular public cultures that are highly mediatized (see, e.g., chatterji et al., 2019). these ideologies (not always unified or coherent) are promoted and pursued by a vast transnational network that revolves around the central organizational nexus of a paramilitary volunteer activist organization, the rashtriya swayamsevak sangh (rss, national volunteer corp). it includes the political party that represents the movement, the bharatiya janata party (bjp, indian people’s party) which now holds political office across india. prime minister narendra modi is currently in his second five-year term in national office. prior to becoming pm, he held office for 12 years as chief minister of gujarat. the 2002 godhra genocide against muslims included the murder of at least one thousand muslims—men, women and babies, countless more rapes of muslim women and girls, and permanent dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people. he participated in rss activities as a child and joined the movement as a teenager as full-time grassroots organizer. he quickly developed a reputation for anti-minority oratory as well as organizing, and he quickly rose through the ranks to elected office (see jaffrelot, 2021). since 2002 modi has rebranded himself from a powerful and virulently anti-muslim hindu nationalist to a hitech, pro-business, populist statesman with national and global presence. he was amongst the first, if not the first, indian political leader to fully harness the communicative power of digital networking platforms and encourage “selfie nationalism”—a performance of nationalism mediated by economic and technological globalization (see, e.g., pal, 2015). these early investments enabled modi to craft a persona as not only the most capable but also the most selfless leader the nation could desire—epitomized in his 2014 election campaign slogan of chowkidar, or watchman (see, e.g., chakravartty & roy, 2015). as a master orator, modi composes his speeches with a rich vocabulary of time and temporality to communicate intensely affective messages about the chaos and crises facing india and how true indians can save and reclaim their 46 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research nation. the teachers day speeches are no exception. in constructing childhood in the hindutva nation, he uses the language of biographical or lifespan time (birth, child, parent, young, old, death) and clock and calendar times (days, nights, hours, weeks, years, seasons), as well as the languages of timing (right/wrong time), tempo (speed, intensity, and rate of change), duration (timepoints, instantaneity), and sequence (order, priority, instantaneity; see adam, 2008). in particular, modi conveys an intimate knowledge of the temporal routines, schedules, and habits of the children in his audience (e.g., school assembly time, confiding in teacher time, sports time, coming home from school time, homework time, leisure time, and so forth). the knowledge and ability to relate to these significant moments in children’s daily lives create an instantaneous sense of familiarity and proximity. this is consistent with a defining feature of his oratory: the ability to present himself, not as a politician or elected representative, but as an ordinary yet exceptional indian citizen (chakravartty & roy, 2015). another key strategy is the use of banal, instant feel-good polysemic messaging about moral purity, positivity, growth, and development (pal, 2015). these messages simultaneously convey multiple and even contradictory images and meanings about nation (e.g., traditional majoritarian hindu symbols juxtaposed with modern corporate values) and modi himself (e.g., as both ordinary man and exceptional statesman). the skill with which modi is able to insert nationalism into everyday practice and as a worldview has earned him a cult following unlike any other contemporary indian politician (see, e.g., visvanathan, 2014). as a whole, these strategies maintain the image of a great leader and savior who is directly and intimately familiar with his people (despite modi’s steadfast refusal to speak directly to professional journalists). time and the pedagogy of hindutva modi is a product of the pedagogy of the hindu right, which simultaneously seeks to educate into tradition and modernity (patel, 2000); both teachers and students are objects of hindu nationalism. the hindutva education project spearheaded by the rss is purportedly oriented toward undoing the effects of colonization (and more broadly westernization) and reclaiming and remaking the hindu nation by drawing on a combination of ancient, patriarchal brahminical hindu knowledge and culture and modern technology (manjrekar, 2011; t. sarkar, 1994). it calls on all hindus to work together to restore the glorious hindu nation that existed in the time of the vedas (brahmin hindu scripture). mother india is both feminine and divine, all hindus are referred to as indigenous children, and all good hindus must serve her as good and dutiful children serve their parents. since independence, the organization has devoted its considerable energies and resources to establishing a national network of formal schools through front organizations2 as well as less formal educational spaces for poor communities in urban slums and indigenous communities in remote areas. according to bhatty and sundar (2020), this network currently encompasses an estimated 12,800 formal schools located in urban and semi-urban areas with approximately 3,465,600 enrollments; an estimated 4,900 informal schools for poor communities; 6,400 schools specifically for adivasi (indigenous) children; and free private tutoring for students in government schools (see also iwanek, 2022). there is no room for questioning or open-ended inquiry in the schools of the hindu right (sundar, 2004). like colonized peoples, the child is treated as an unknowing, passive blank slate—to be acted upon by supposedly well-meaning others. the discursive configuration of time has always been part of political projects. recently, we have seen one populist radical-right movement after another construct particular orders of past, present, and future time to attract people to their cause (taş, 2022). the discipline of history occupies a central position within the hindu ethno-religious nationalist imagination akin to what the “science” of race difference was to nazi ideology, according to historian 47 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research tanika sarkar (2019), where political mission is exalted as “accredited truth” (p. 152). contemporary discourses of hindu nationalism are rooted in idealized patriarchal dominant-caste hinduized notions of time where the world cycles continuously through four periods—of moral and social perfection, deterioration, corruption, and recreation of perfection (t. sarkar, 1996). these discourses feed into and are fed by longings to move away from the crisis-ridden present toward a future timeless, true india that recaptures a glorious if mythical brahminical hindu past. hindutva discourse has also incorporated the protestant christian and capitalist utilitarian temporalities introduced by british colonialism, for example, the discipline of work bounded by the constraints of clock time (t. sarkar, 1996). the technology of the clock of course did not just change the way we worked but how we came to understand and value what constituted work and related social and cultural practices (t. sarkar, 1996). moreover, patel (2000) points out that affective protestant christian temporal notions of good and bad and salvation or the possibility of future redemption resonate with the longings, fears, and desires of brahmin and other dominantcaste hindus—that is, nostalgic longing for the past, anxiety/fear of a present ruined by muslim invasion and british colonialism, and desire for a future that guarantees redemption and reinvention. rss curriculum and pedagogy narrate a historical time that requires learners to inculcate collective but gendered conceptions of a past, present, and future hindu national identity. for example, rss textbooks and books only refer to historical periods, events, and great men who contribute to the historicization of a hindu nation. hindu gods, mythological figures, and male hindu nationalist leaders, scientists, and politicians are routinely presented in a single continuum that blurs myth and reality to create a narrative structure where “demons, colonialists and muslims occupy the same undifferentiated space” (t. sarkar, 1994, p. 13).3 this repeated, seamless conflation of myth and history work to inscribe patriarchal brahminical hindu thinking into the consciousness of learners of all ages (t. sarkar, 2019). the teachers day spectacles as with authoritarian populist movements elsewhere, highly mediatized spectacle has long been central to the political modus operandi of the hindu right in india. notorious examples include the 1996 spectacle of the apparently spontaneous brick-by-brick destruction of the 14th-century babri masjid (mosque) by a mob of hindu youth in ayodhya and the 1998 unprovoked nuclear tests by the vajpayee-led bjp administration. in addition to digital communications, narendra modi has proved himself as a master in using spectacle to advance his personal brand and political project and to manufacture a brand and cult following (see also, e.g., visvanathan, 2014). his brand appears to remain untarnished despite stunning failures on virtually every promise related to economic development and social welfare (in his tenure both as chief minister and prime minister) including most recently the failed response to the deadly covid-19 pandemic (sirimane & thapliyal, 2020; the caravan, 2021). the first teachers day spectacle was organized on september 5, 2014. teachers day itself was first instituted in 1962 to honour dr. sarvapalli radhakrishnan, the second president of independent india, scholar of hindu philosophy and religion, and life-long educator. about 800 secondary school students from elite urban and rural government schools4 attended the two-hour event staged at the maneckshaw auditorium in the capital city of new delhi. the students who asked questions after the speeches proudly introduced themselves as students of either kendriya or jawahar navodaya vidyalayas. these well-funded government schools are part of a national network of approximately 2,000 schools established for the children of urban and rural civil servants (darak, 2014). they have little in common with the approximately 1.4 million government schools attended by the majority of indian children. instead, they offer all the privileges of elite, private schools, including highly selective admissions, english-medium instruction, ample resources, and a high-stakes exams-driven curriculum and pedagogy. while affirmative action policies for public education institutions have increased to enable participation of students from 48 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research oppressed caste and indigenous backgrounds, the culture of schooling in these institutions remains oriented to the aspirations of dominant-caste and middle-class families (see also thapliyal, 2016). the human resources development (hrd) ministry ordered all schools to virtually attend the teachers day proceedings through video conferencing and report attendance information. to comply, government schools had to expend scarce funds and teachers had to organize the purchase of televisions, mount projection screens, order backup electricity, and maintain attendance lists (darak, 2014). television crews contributed to the build-up by interviewing school children—not teachers—across india. the event had an estimated 90 million viewers and received in-depth coverage in english and hindi newspapers and through modi’s official digital media accounts, including his website and twitter (#teachersdaylive). the event was repeated once more in 2015 and then stopped, perhaps because some members of the media helpfully pointed out that teachers appeared to be incidental in these spectacles. the two spectacles followed a similar format consisting of introductions by students and the hrd minister followed by an approximately 20-minute speech by modi delivered without notes or prompter. both speeches began with some preliminary remarks about the importance of recognizing teachers and talked about the lasting influence that teachers have on students’ lives, the responsibility of teachers, and the respect that students should have for their teachers. the main themes in both speeches were the meaning of education and relatedly service to the nation. these narratives were interwoven with commentary on the problems facing the nation and the hashtag-friendly solutions introduced by modi in response to the challenges facing india. in 2014, flagship programs named in the spectacles included clean india clean toilets (swachh bharat swachh vidyalaya abhiyaan), digital india, save daughters, educate daughters (beti bachao, beti padhao) and made in india and in 2015 named programs included skill india #kalautsav (arts festival). the final segment consisted of 45 minutes of question and answer (q&a) with the students in the audience. students asked questions primarily in english, but modi always replied in hindi. in 2014, most of the students who spoke during the q&a session were physically present in the audience in delhi, but in 2015 modi used videoconferencing technology to respond to students located in different regions of india. he had previously used videoconferencing in the 2014 election campaigns with great success to connect with the so-called ordinary indian as part of the chai pe charcha5 (literally, talking over tea) component of the 2014 national election campaign (rai, 2019). there is little information available about the selection process for student speakers. however, comments made by modi in 2015 suggest that academic and extracurricular accomplishments (e.g., participation in the math olympiads and special olympics) played a role in selection. teachers were mentioned briefly in the speeches, but the q&a segment focused exclusively on modi. six main themes emerged across the 15 questions asked in 2014 and 17 questions asked in 2015: modi as leader (9), problems facing the nation (8), modi as child and student (5), how children could serve the nation (5), the purpose of education (4), and teaching (3). of the three questions related to teaching, two again focused on modi. the three questions were as follows: did you learn from your life experiences or your teachers? (question 2, 2014); if you were a teacher, who would you concentrate more on— an intelligent student who is lazy or an average student who is very hard working? (question 8, 2014); and how can you attract the best of the youth today to the teaching profession and motivate them to become the next sir sarvapalli radhakrishnan of tomorrow? (question 8, 2015). despite the short amount of time devoted to the profession during the teachers day spectacles, the construction of the teacher and the work of teaching centers again on what is and is not of use to the nation. as patel (2000) writes, producing nationalism as a collective fantasy requires “at least three ways of telling time at once” (p. 47). constructions of teachers and teaching refer to time as past or what has been, time as present or what is to be, and 49 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research time as future or what could be and will be. modi began by talking about the role that teachers play in the lives of great men: ask any successful person in the world, the person will definitely say two things. firstly, he or she will give credit to his mother and secondly, credit will be given to the teacher. in the lives of almost all the great men, we get to hear these things. (modi, 2014) in every person’s life you can see, any biography or autobiography you read, one thing is always mentioned—a mother gives birth and a teacher gives life. (modi, 2015) his listeners were encouraged to aspire to future greatness by reading about the lives of great men, as modi himself did as a child. teachers were reminded that they have a great responsibility because students spend “maximum time” with teachers, more than with their families (modi, 2015). for modi, the work of a teacher is similar to the work of an illiterate gardener who grows plants out of manure (modi, 2014) or an illiterate potter who shapes pots out of earth (modi, 2015). for a teacher, there is no child above or below the other, nor ahead or behind the other. all the students are equal for the teacher. one has to identify the potential in each and every student. (modi, 2014) what is key here is lifelong dedication to serving the nation, as exemplified by the great man and teacher whose birthday is honoured with teachers day: despite reaching the pinnacle in his lifetime dr. radhakrishnan kept the teacher within him alive. he never let the teacher inside him die. a teacher is never tied to age; a teacher never retires, that is, if he is a real teacher. (modi, 2015) the call to imagine and work toward a better future was accompanied by reminders of a present time where the indian nation is mired in crisis, confusion, and loss. in vedic times, the relationship between the brahmin teacher and his brahmin students was a sacred one, but according to modi there is little respect or remembrance for them today: there was an era where there was such reverence towards a teacher. in every village the most respected person had to be the teacher. gradually, the situation has changed. we can reestablish that situation. (modi, 2014) today all the teachers here who are listening to me must also be wondering—so many students have studied under us but nobody remembers us. what kind of relation was that, what was missing, this feeling of closeness. (modi, 2014) the deprofessionalization of teaching as public service takes multiple forms. on the one hand, modi admonished his listeners for forgetting hallowed traditions of teaching as serving, and on the other, he blamed teachers for their current predicament. he repeatedly referred to the lack of talented teachers while also suggesting that teachers did not require training, as indicated above. in 2014, he proposed the following solution to the problem of teacher shortages: “if in india all the educated people can take one period every week, no matter how big an officer they are, can they sit with children and educate them?” he also suggested that teachers were not teaching what children really needed to learn: the children with whom we are living, who are growing up in the age of technology, we should not deprive them. if we deprive them, then this will be tantamount to a big crime. it is a social crime. it should be our endeavour that our children should be tuned in with the modern technology. (modi, 50 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research 2014) modern technology as a vehicle for progress has always been central to modi’s speeches and policies. in 2014, digital india became a national slogan and digital technologies were proffered as solutions to everything from communication infrastructure, to corrupt governance, to the shortage of teachers. online education was presented as a key strategy to increasing girls’ access to secondary education in this way: we want to use technology to its maximum potential for quality of education. today what is the solution when a good teacher is not ready to go to a distant village? long distance education technologies can be promoted. just as i am talking now with children from all the corners of the country … from leh, tirupati, port blair … similarly, in the future good teachers can teach using this medium. one teacher from the center stage can teach good things to millions of students. children have a very good grasping power; they will internalize this immediately. if we are able to do this then we will be successful in giving quality education to girls also. (modi, 2014) these remarks foreshadowed a policy regime focused on accelerated privatization of a chronically underresourced and multitiered public education system (bhatty & sundar, 2020). technology also serves as another polysemic symbol which reminds listeners that the hindutva project values modern technology as well as ancient brahminical hindu traditions. in fact, hindutva history of science has made origin claims on modern scientific discoveries ranging from mathematics, medicine, surgery, spaceships, and nuclear power, to genetics (nanda, 2016). simultaneous and multiple tellings of time to collapse myth and reality is a central feature of ethno-religious narratives of nationalism. in the next section, i continue to analyze the politics of time that underpin constructions of the idealized child and childhood around three main themes: time to remember, time to dream, and time to serve. time to remember the ideal nation requires an ideal child who knows what is important to remember (and to forget). faced with an unstable, disordered present and an uncertain immediate future, hindu nationalism offers a temporal anchor rooted in reclaiming the values and social order of a brahmin-vedic hindu past. the idealized child must be taught to remember the idealized past in order to understand the kind of nation that is to be reclaimed and recreated in the future. this kind of moralized collective memory making is a distinctive feature of cyclical narratives of past glory, present decay, and future redemption. remembering three particular periods of historical time was highlighted by modi: a perfect if distant ancient vedic past before the time of invasion by foreign invaders (i.e., muslims and christians); the time of hindu resistance to colonizers (muslim and british); and what might be referred to as the time of modi. for example, to link the immediate present to the ancient past, modi (2015) reminded listeners that president radhakrishan’s birthday coincides with the birthday of the hindu god krishna in the hindu calendar. similarly, to link the immediate present to the time of hindu resistance, modi told his listeners to read about the lives of great indian men, such as dominant-caste hindu philosopher swami vivekananda, who opposed british colonialism (s. sarkar, 1992). these kinds of slippages between time periods and anticolonial historical figures present hindu nationalists as freedom fighters and conveniently obscure the historical fact that leaders of the hindu nationalist movement colluded with the british. in the next two excerpts, modi moved seamlessly between these moralized constructions of past, present, and future to suggest that india’s environmental challenges can be solved through traditional hindu culture. 51 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research when we are children then what does our mummy tell us? see this moon, this moon is your maternal uncle. this sun is your paternal grandfather. these things were taught to us very simply and they gave us environmental education in the most simple and easy manner in our simple lives. but i do not know how this change came and everything that we know became bad. we were scolded and punished, and we were forced to believe that all this is not good and because of that we have come to our present situation. (modi, 2014) there is no climate change; we have changed and our habits have changed. we have got bad habits and because of that we have damaged the entire environment. if we change then that is also ready to change. god has kept such a mechanism that equilibrium is reached immediately. but the first condition is that humans should not come into conflict with nature. humans should love nature, be it water, air, or plants; love everything. and that is why here in our scripture plants are called supreme souls; rivers are called mothers. but since we have forgotten about all this even ganga has been polluted. (modi, 2014) in the above excerpts, modi did not explicitly name hinduism as the reference point. instead, in talking about bedtime stories and scriptures, he reminded his audience of unspoken but widely shared knowledge. similar to his acclaimed speech about yoga to the united nations (puri, 2019), modi did not need to use the word hindu because of “settled associations between antiquity, epistemology, and upper-caste hinduism even outside of india” (p. 323). this allowed him to evoke a mythical hindu past where all hindus lived in harmony with nature, a present in crisis due to the loss of true or right values, and a way forward to a better future if ancient values and habits are reclaimed. of course, modi’s track record on environmental policies is dominated by the exploitation of nature, often to the benefit of his good friend and mining magnate gautam adani (kothari, 2018). however, modi is not alone today in looking for a past time when humans lived in harmony with other forms of life on this planet. stereotypes about inherently ecologically sensitive indians (read hindus) abound within india and beyond, despite evidence of a diversity of precolonial hindu attitudes to nature including both preservation and destruction—for example, clearing of forests and traditional lands of adivasis (indigenous peoples). in the absence of critical historical consciousness, these kinds of utterances are easily read as emancipatory and even decolonial. if what the ideal child should remember about the past is highly circumscribed, the future appears to be open and full of possibility. here, modi draws on his own childhood as well as adulthood to convey desired ways to be and become. specifically, modi encourages children to see themselves as individuals and to see childhood as a time to be playful and to dream and discover their own interests and aptitudes. time to dream modi began his 2014 speech by thanking his audience for the opportunity to speak to the children “whose eyes shine with dreams of future india.” the invitation to dream is intrinsic to the work of making spectacle; dreams hold the potential to bridge desire and reality, whether the present or the recent past (kaur & hansen, 2016). during his 2014 election campaign, modi sold voters a collective dream of new and better times to come, and of course undivided india is a longstanding dream for hindu nationalists. when encouraged by a leader like modi, dreaming becomes a national duty. modi repeatedly exhorted children, teachers, and parents that childhood is a time to be playful, to explore, and to dream. your age is such, you should run so much, have lots of fun, take time out so that you sweat at least four 52 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research times a day. otherwise, what will your life become? (modi, 2014) this is the age when you come to know many things, you understand many things, and you have a lot of courage to try things. (modi, 2014) the respect which the students have for the teachers, the dedication of teachers towards teaching, and a feeling of bonding between teachers and students is a combination which does not only serve knowledge but also teaches the skill of living a life and inculcates a habit of honing dreams. (modi, 2015) the references to play and exercise and the linkages between physical health and moral strength construct a discourse of nation as body (neuman, 2022). for modi, dreaming is also necessary for becoming and doing something meaningful in the future. during the q&a segments, the highest number of questions from students focus on how to deal with the pressure of doing well on school examinations. in response, modi tells students to change how they think about the belief that future success is guaranteed by performing well on school-leaving exams. being a student, even you would be having many dreams. i do not believe that circumstances can stop anybody in life if the person who has to rise has strong determination. and i believe the youth and the children of our country have this potential. (modi, 2014) there is a problem in most of the people: if they become unsuccessful then they make a graveyard of their dreams. failures should never be allowed to make a graveyard of the dreams. actually, failures should become a base for us to learn the lessons to fulfill our dreams. (modi, 2015) as an alternative to academic success, modi advocated for the value of the arts, which prevent people from “becoming robots” (modi, 2015). as evidence he cited his own successes—as an orator, a published poet, as well as becoming prime minister. when we set ourselves free and decide that i like to write poems so i will write poems and i shall see what happens. you will become your own rembrandt, and if you like to paint then do it. (modi, 2015) he half-jokingly issued multiple warnings to parents who deprive their children of their present (childhood) through unrelenting pressure to do well in school: parents who pressure their children like this [academic performance] don’t know their children—their ability, their inclinations.… they should spend more time with their children. (modi, 2015) and in case these words were not enough, modi evoked fear about the loss of childhood by confiding that the questions students asked made him feel “scared that somewhere the child in you is withering away. questions from children should be children’s questions” (modi, 2014). it was at these moments in the speeches, that modi was able to present himself as someone who was closer to the realities of children than their own parents and teachers. he offered his own ordinary yet exceptional childhood as an exemplar to his audience. the picture he painted of his journey from humble beginnings to prime minister was coloured by themes of playfulness and curiosity balanced with humility, self-discipline (particularly in terms of cleanliness and physical fitness), and a driving desire to be of service. did i also play pranks? can there be any child who does not play any pranks or do any mischief? is it possible? if there is such a child then i really worry that the childhood is dying very fast these days. the time of childhood should be long lived. there should be pranks; there should be a lot of fun. it is 53 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research essential for development in life. (modi, 2014) i have come to understand that sometimes grand ambitions [becoming pm] can become a big burden. i have seen many people who are depressed because of the fact that they had an ambition to become something. one should have dreams, but instead of dreaming about what to become one should dream about how to do something meaningful. (modi, 2014) modi presents himself as a child who was not only determined to learn but was someone for whom the most valued learning took place outside the classroom through reading about great men and observation. for me observation was my personality type. i used to observe a lot of things in great details. i wanted to understand things, not only in the classroom, but also outside the classroom. i used to keep looking for opportunities to observe. when the war of 1965 broke out we were very young. there was a station next to our village from where army men were going to war. the people from our village took sweets for them. i went with them and that is the first time i saw and registered a very different world. i saw that people are going to give their lives away; they are going to die for the country. when i started seeing these things then i felt there is a vast world out there, so gradually i started trying to learn from these things. (modi, 2015) here an example of a moment of learning through life observation also delivers a message about learning patriotism since the war of 1965 refers to the second war between india and pakistan over kashmir. these encouragements to children to be true to themselves and to resist the regimentation of schooling and even home socialization were enmeshed with reminders to serve the nation. this mix of unapologetic individualism and selfless service is unique to modi in a movement built on self-effacing service (jaffrelot, 2021). it has enabled him to cultivate an image that combines a bold entrepreneurial spirit that is not afraid to strike out on new and different paths but always regulated by majoritarian hindu cultural frameworks. time to serve sewa, or selfless and self-effacing voluntary humanitarian service, has always been a core building block of character in hindutva pedagogy, as well as a highly effective recruitment tool across the nation (t. sarkar, 1994). the politics of hindu elites giving time or giving up time for sewa draws on multiple temporalities, including hindu and christian religious temporalities as well as capitalist clock-time conceptions of work time, free time, and so forth (bhattacharjee, 2016). modi told his listeners that they could perform sewa in many small ways, for example, by saving electricity at home, planting trees to save the environment, and above all making “no compromise in cleanliness and hygiene” (modi, 2014). as an exemplar, he recounted observations made during a visit to japanese primary schools: i observed many small things which i really liked. technology is being used to its full capacity. even small children are trying to understand and learn things with the help of technology. i have seen that they stress two things: they have a lot of scientific temperament and their discipline is very simple; they are very comfortable with maintaining hygiene and sanitation and also with giving respect. (modi, 2014) in this excerpt, sewa, technology, physical discipline, and cleanliness are interwoven as ideal attributes of an indian child. the use of an example from japan is no coincidence given japan’s hi-tech brand as well as the historical ties between indian and japanese nationalist thinkers and modi’s longstanding relationship with former prime minister shinzo abe. 54 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research modi’s discourse of sewa also incorporates capitalist and neoliberal managerialist temporalities. volunteering to help in this way is underpinned by a capitalist temporal discourse that normalizes and legitimizes a social order where elites (the time rich) control both their own time and the time of non-elites (the time poor; julkunen, 1977). this discourse assumes that we all, whether adults or children, have the same amount of time at our disposal, that individuals are responsible for managing their own time, and relatedly, that decisions on whether and how to use or waste our time are a matter of personal choice. modi’s solutions to india’s problems are always presented as simple, instant, and easily measurable. in 2014, he proposed the following solution to the problem of teacher shortages: if in india all the educated people can take one period every week, no matter how big an officer they are, can they sit with children and educate them? ... let us transform nation building into mass mobilization, add everybody’s strength. we are not that type of a country which needs to be so backward. we can go very far ahead, and that is why our effort and emphasis should be to determine our national character. (modi, 2014) this message was repeated in 2015 as follows: “those in our society who have achieved a lot—engineers, doctors, lawyers, judges—could take one hour a week or 100 hours in a year to teach—this would infuse new strength in our schools” (modi, 2015). these moral-temporal relations normalize rather than question a deeply unequal social order that places an elite few adults and children in the position of “helping” others. the welfare of the have-nots is dependent on the beneficence and patronage of the haves. in the following excerpt, modi used intersecting markers of age as well as gender and class to highlight this unequal social order: suppose we are educated and some woman comes to our house to do the laundry. her age is 40-50 years. has it ever occurred to you that i should make her sit and learn. that i can give half an hour to you and make you learn how to read and write? i believe that these elderly women who work in our houses, if we educate them and teach them how to read and write then they form a large section of the society and it is a big service to the country. there is no patriotism bigger than millions of people doing these small things for our country. (modi, 2015) it is worth noting that while in his late 60s at the time of this utterance, modi avoided referring to himself as elderly. an agile, virile, and celibate masculinity remain key to his image through regular advocacy of fitness and public performances of yoga. he repeatedly conflated control over one’s own body with saving the nation. in sum, this discourse of service for salvation recognizes and affirms particular children and childhoods as worthy and valuable in the present and future nation. before concluding the analysis, i make a few additional observations about the social hierarchies constructed by this moral-temporal discourse of childhood and nationalism. time and social hierarchy i have shown that while these teachers day events may have been broadcast to all students in india, the idealized constructions of childhood are not meant to be universal. as previously indicated, the composition of the physical audience mirror the hindu caste and class groups known to be predominantly modi and bjp supporters (chatterji et al., 2019). it is their concerns about the chaotic present and uncertain futures that modi has continuously sought to assuage by framing himself as a vikas purush (man of development) and using rhetoric about economic prosperity, military strength, and unapologetic nationalist pride. it is also children from these aspirational (and privileged) classes that are vital for the promises of acche din (good days) to come—a key campaign slogan. these children have the time and other means (e.g., digital connectivity) to attend and complete 12 years of formal schooling. they have time to study, time to play, time to dream, and time to serve their nation albeit in gendered ways. 55 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research this temporal narrative of childhood of course assumes not only time to attend school and the possibility of disposable time but also control over what occurs in this free time. the narrative therefore excludes children who live and experience time in schools and childhood very differently from those in the audience. to begin with, the vast majority of indian children—migrant, poor, and working-class children from muslim, dalit, bahujan, and other oppressed castes and adivasi (indigenous) children—continue to be denied rights to and in education (thapliyal, 2016). these same groups are constructed as dangerous impediments to neocolonial projects of the modi administration ranging from the use of colonial-era sedition laws to imprison student protesters, to the use of hi-tech bio surveillance, the unchecked proliferation of anti-minority violence, and the intensification of the settler-colonial project in kashmir. modi himself points to a social hierarchy of children: “there are two types of children. you have to decide if you live in an organized manner and if you are serving your country or not” (modi, 2014). time is being used here to mark out expectations, responsibility, ability, and desirability. as previously mentioned, cleanliness is a central trope in the pedagogy of the hindu right; in particular women and girls carry a disproportionate burden of responsibility for protecting and maintaining the physical and cultural purity of their families and homes (manjrekar, 2011). read against this context, the attributes and dispositions of the ideal, desired child are clearly superior to those of the undesirable or problem children, and perhaps even the child who is dirty, lazy, and unwilling to serve or is of no use to the nation. waste and cleanliness are inherently nationalist symbols in that they indicate order and place, who belongs on the inside and who on the outside, and for whom there is no place at all (chakrabarty, 1992). this temporalized binary and hierarchical construction of childhood contributes to the production and maintenance of an ethno-religious nationalist social order based on brahminical hindu fears about purity and pollution. conclusion in this paper, i have explored how an authoritarian hindu nationalist leader deploys time to naturalize brahminical hindu heritage and construct ethno-religious imaginaries and narratives about childhood and nation in contemporary india. the 2014 and 2015 teachers day spectacles provided this populist leader with a channel to establish connections to every aspect of the moral-temporal lives and relations of the children in his audience. idealized, affect-laden, religious notions of children and childhood play a vital role in communicating a desired social order, distribution of power and a way to achieve the dream of a future hindu india. at the time of completing this manuscript, all talk of good days to come has quieted. in his second administration, modi has reverted to his earlier avatar of being a crusader for the hindu cause. after a short hiatus, modi published a book titled exam warriors6 in january 2018, after which the spectacle involving school students was revived under the auspices of pareeksha pe charcha (let’s talk about exams). the annual event is timed early in the year ahead of the school-leaving examinations for government schools. since 2019, participation is determined through a transnational online competition where students and parents submit writing about what they have learned about success and failure from modi’s book (outlook india, 2019). through this time-infused discourse, modi continues to communicate what is desired and expected of dutiful indian children in order to progress toward an ordered and prosperous future. acknowledgments i would like to thank felix pal, zsuzsa millei, and the three reviewers who read and provided feedback which was crucial in developing the ideas and analysis in this paper. 56 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research references adam, b. e. 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(2014). narendra modi’s symbolic war. economic and political weekly, 49(22), 10–13. https://www.epw.in/journal/2014/22/ commentary/narendra-modis-symbolic-war.ht 58 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research endnotes 1 hindu nationalist aggression intensified dramatically in the first two years of the modi administration through accelerated neoliberal assaults on the secular and public character of indian universities, crackdown on political dissent, intimidation of news media and judiciary, exponential and unpunished rise in gendered violence against dalits and muslims (including beef lynchings, rapes, and tortured murders), and widespread hypermilitarism (see, e.g., chatterji et al., 2019). 2 prominent institutions include the vidya bharati and vivekananda kendra networks of schools. 3 however, the rss is not the only nationalist education project in india. schooling for “emotional integration” or patriotism was a founding goal of post-independence education policy, as documented extensively by the scholarship of krishna kumar, manish jain, and veronique benei, among others. 4 in fact, media reports highlighted complaints about being excluded from participation by principals of elite private schools located in the capital city of delhi (economic times, 2014). 5 the chai pe charcha campaign connected 1,000 tea/chai shops across 300 parliamentary constituencies across india using the internet and satellite television. a radically different format from political rallies and televised debates, this format was used by modi on a weekly basis to connect with and respond to questions from voters. 6 the book is a 200-page 25-chapter compilation of mantras (chants) and pictures for parents and students on ways to deal with exam-related stress for 10thand 12th-standard students. a twitter account called @examwarriors was created to accompany the book release. december 2021 74 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice common worlding pedagogies: opening up to learning with worlds affrica taylor, tatiana zakharova, and maureen cullen affrica taylor is a founding member of the common worlds research collective and an adjunct associate professor with the centre for sustainable communities, university of canberra, and the centre for people, place and planet, edith cowan university. she has a background in indigenous australian education and a phd in postcolonial geography. both have shaped her abiding interest in the interdependent relations among people, place, and other beings and entities on damaged settler colonized lands, and in the need to decolonize these relations in ecologically precarious times. she has published three books and many articles on these themes. email: affrica.taylor@canberra.edu.au tatiana zakharova, mla, is a playground designer and is pursuing her phd in the faculty of education at western university, london, ontario. tatiana’s research focuses on the entanglement of pedagogy and design. in her multidisciplinary work, she thinks with feminist posthumanist scholars to trouble the notion of play as a means of progress, imagining instead relationship-attuned play as worlding. her work is a collaborative experimentation, as it wishes to reimagine play/grounding potentialities in wondering how can we respond, through both design and pedagogy, to the question of living [well] together. email: tzakharo@uwo.ca maureen cullen is an early childhood educator and a professor of early childhood education at fanshawe college. she has a bachelor’s degree in early childhood leadership, ma in education from western university, and is pursuing a phd in curriculum studies at western university. some areas of research that interest her are the practices of early childhood educators and curriculum making with young children in ways that move toward reconstituting relations and exploring possibilities with human and more-thanhuman others. email: mcullen2@uwo.ca common worlding is a collective pedagogical approach that deviates significantly from the individualistic and humancentric developmentalist charter that dominates early childhood education. at the most fundamental level, it is a move to open up education to worlds beyond narrow and self-serving human preoccupations and concerns and beyond its standard framing as an exclusively social practice. common worlding pedagogies recognize that children grow up, live, and learn within more-than-human worlds—within complex and diverse ecological communities, not just in human societies. our common worlds are the interdependent, life-sustaining ecological communities that we share with all manner of other beings, entities, and forces on earth. in recent times, they have become increasingly destabilized. in some cases, they have been critically threatened by acts of self-serving human ignorance and greed, as evidenced by the current crises of global warming and mass extinctions. common worlding is an ecologically attuned and recuperative pedagogical approach that seeks to make education relevant and responsive to the planetary-scale ecological challenges that all children now face—no matter where they live. common worlding is a collective pedagogical approach. it is also a deliberate move to open up education to worlds beyond narrow human preoccupations and concerns and beyond its standard framing as an exclusively social practice. in this article, we identify some of the guiding principles that underpin this approach and explain how they work out in practice. we do so by offering a selection of illustrative vignettes drawn from the walking with wildlife in wild weather times early childhood research project in canberra, australia, and from the witnessing the ruins of progress early childhood research collaboratory in ontario, canada. key words: common worlding; multispecies pedagogies; walking methods; place stories; speculative mapping; decolonizing pedagogies mailto:affrica.taylor@canberra.edu.au mailto:tzakharo@uwo.ca mailto:mcullen2@uwo.ca december 2021 75 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice in this article, we outline some of the significant ways in which common worlding approaches depart from developmentalist orthodoxies. to illustrate these departures, we offer some examples from australian and canadian early childhood education programs in which we have taken part. as common worlding pedagogies cannot be reduced to techniques and lesson plans alone, there is no teachers’ manual to refer to. they rely on an openness to seeing ourselves as members of the wider ecological community in which we live. they require that, as teachers and learners, we deepen our own understandings of our relations with the more-than-human world around us and find our own ways of incorporating this understanding into our everyday pedagogical practices. that said, a number of ethical principles, or beliefs, guide our early childhood common worlding pedagogies. these have been informed by years of experimental pedagogical practice and are thoroughly elaborated in previous works (see, e.g., common worlds research collective, 2020; hodgins, 2019; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015; taylor, 2017a, 2017b; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015a, 2015b, 2018). they have also been shaped by our engagement with the thinking of first nations and feminist scholars from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., haraway, 2008, 2016; le guin, 1986/2020; martuwarra riveroflife et al., 2020; liboiron, 2021; massey, 2005; plumwood, 1993; rose, 2011; shotwell, 2016; stengers, 2015; tallbear, 2015; tsing, 2015; tuhiwai smith et al., 2019). we are indebted to them. the following list of principles is far from exhaustive but nevertheless identifies a number of key axioms that underpin our common worlding pedagogical practice. • common worlding pedagogies are generated through curious, creative, and collaborative interactions with the multifarious worlds around us. they do not follow prescribed curricula. instead they unfold through real-life encounters. • common worlding pedagogies strive to find ways of thinking and learning with the worlds around us. they try and avoid teaching about the world (out there) as if it is a singular knowable entity which we are separate from and superior to. • common worlding pedagogies are primarily concerned with our relations with other beings, entities, and forces. they are not framed by human development theories, nor are they centered around individual learners. they are collectively oriented. • common worlding pedagogies take an ecological world view. they stress the interconnection of all earthly beings, entities, and forces. they resist divisions—such as between subjects and objects or nature and culture—that separate human learners off from the world that they study. • common worlding pedagogies respond to global and local ecological challenges. they seek ways of recuperating settler-damaged worlds in collaboration with first nations peoples and the land itself, not through grandiose and instrumentalist western science techno-fixes. • common worlding pedagogies contribute to the ongoing process of decolonizing pedagogies. they recognize that the lands we now occupy have been stolen from first nations peoples and that ecocide is inextricably linked to indigenous dispossession and cultural genocide. they work to uncover multiple modes of knowing beyond dominant settler colonial narratives. they foreground stories that have been erased by the singular, dominant perspective of totalizing, settler colonial narratives. • common worlding pedagogies are concerned with the common good and with finding ways of learning how to live well together with our differences (human and more-than-human). they are neither individualistic december 2021 76 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice nor competitive. to show how we put these principles into practice, we provide a brief overview of two different early childhood common worlding pedagogical research projects in which we have been involved. we illustrate them with select vignettes. these are drawn from the ongoing pedagogical documentation we have produced in the course of undertaking these projects. walking with wildlife in wild weather times the first example is an australian research project called walking with wildlife in wild weather times that i (affrica) undertook with my colleague tonya rooney (from australian catholic university) from 2017 to 2018. over a period of 18 months, we went on fortnightly walks with a group of preschool children and their teachers in a lakeside grassy woodlands urban reserve on the australian national university campus, close to the civic centre of canberra. this is ngunnawal country. figure 1. ngaraka: shrine for the lost koori. at the beginning of each walk, we visited a first nations sculpture in this reserve called ngaraka: shrine for the lost koori (mundine & foley, 2001) and paid our respect to the ngunnawal people who have walked and cared for this country for millennia (see figure 1). this regular shrine visit helped us to orient ourselves toward the ancestral and ongoing presence of the first nations ngunnawal people of this country. it was a ritual that enabled us to enact a practice that fikile nxumalo (2016) refers to as refiguring presences, or bringing back into consciousness the presence of those who are often forgotten or rendered invisible. the children were always drawn to handle and inspect the kangaroo bones scattered around the base of the shrine. these bones served as a material reminder that the ground on which we walk is literally composed of the bodies of others who came before us, and that we always walk in their footsteps (see instone & taylor, 2015). the past is always in the present. we just need to learn how to look for and recognize it. we also need to remember that it is not just us humans who walk, traverse, and shape country. by adopting december 2021 77 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice multispecies walking methods (see ingold & vergunst, 2008; kirksey & helmreich, 2010), we paid close attention to the plants and animals that live in this place, noticing their movements and interactions, sometimes in response to our encounters with them but also independent from us. we looked for traces and signs of the intersecting multispecies stories of this place (van dooren & rose, 2012). the children needed very little encouragement to do this; in fact, they showed us how it is done. as they enthusiastically explored every part of these grassy woodlands, tonya and i observed their interactions with the urban wildlife, with the natural features, and with other material objects in the landscape. we noted the multispecies pedagogical relationships that emerged through such interactions and also how these dynamic relations were affected by the changing elements and weather patterns. we learnt a lot about common worlding pedagogies from observing these interactions and recorded them in an online research blog (taylor & rooney, 2017). the purpose of this project was to design a different kind of environmental pedagogy—a slow, sustained, decolonizing, and more-than-human relational pedagogy that accords with common worlding principles and which might contribute, in some small ways, to supporting new and recuperative ways of living and learning with other species in “the new climatic regime” (latour, 2018). we did not want to revert to teaching children about the natural world as if it exists “out there,” so we deliberately avoided using environmental science texts or programs that reinforce a sense of division between us (the teachers and learners) and the environment as the thing we are teaching and learning about. instead, we started from the time-immemorial premise held by first nations peoples everywhere and more recently articulated by non-indigenous environmental philosophers—that far from being separate from the natural world, we are already an integral part of the local ecology, and our human lives and fates are inextricably bound up with those of the other beings and forces around us (see, e.g., plumwood, 1993; rose, 2012). in line with this shift from learning about to learning with, we focused on the pedagogical affordances of the everyday relations that unfolded on the walks. as we returned to the same places over and again on these walks, the children routinely crossed paths and interacted with local wildlife across the seasons and in varying weathers. they became more and more familiar with the plants and animals that lived there and more and more involved in the everyday events and dramas of this place. they also felt themselves to be more and more comfortable and integral members of this local ecological community. the following vignette, a descriptive snapshot drawn from our online pedagogical documentation, illustrates the kinds of things that happened on the walks. it was published on the research blog in late winter 2016, six months into the project. we started this walk by following our noses—like dogs do—and immediately stumbled across some sweet-smelling signs of spring-to-come! a flowering daphne bush and a lone bunch of jonquils. we experimented with rubbing leaves between our fingers and sniffed the oily scent that they left on our hands. a small pack of “dogs” ran into the tree cubby to have a quick sniff around, but after noting the damp smell of bark and a whiff of wet rabbit poo—everyone seemed to burst into faster-paced animal play. there was more yapping, leaping, bouncing, flapping, screeching and growling than smelling going on. standing on the lookout wall, the children took in the panoramic view—sweeping down the newly greening slope to the tall kangaroo grasslands, the large eucalyptus trees, the lake, and beyond to the distant mountains. “it’s beautiful” one boy observed as he gazed out. at the bottom of the hill, we caught sight of the first rabbits we’d seen out and about for ages. they were just little dots, cautiously hopping around the edges of the long grass where they love to hide. below the rise, some of the children spotted some leafy branches sticking out on an odd angle. as they ran down the hill, the full story revealed itself. it was a whole clump of toppled eucalyptus trees. “the big storm must have blown them over” someone observed. it was clearly the work of a massive force, for the trees had been lifted out by their roots and smashed to the ground. their broken limbs were lying about, all entangled. in the stillness of the december 2021 78 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice aftermath, we could only imagine the scale and force of the storm that caused this destruction. it was quite sobering. figure 2. the children swarmed over the fallen trees. after a moment of reflection, the children swarmed over the fallen trees (see figure 2). everything was at eye level so there was much to see. they inspected the mangled branches (see figure 3), the exposed roots (see figure 4), the crumbling bark and soil, the wrinkled elbows on the trunks (see figure 5), the marks and bugs on the leaves. it didn’t take long before they were wrapping their own limbs around those of the entwined trees. figure 3. inspecting the mangled branches. december 2021 79 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 4. inspecting the exposed roots. figure 5. feeling the wrinkled elbow. december 2021 80 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice they spent a long time climbing along the horizontal branches, straddling them, wriggling along on their bums, lying on their tummies and gripping with their arms (see figures 6 and 7). they were immersed in the experience of becoming tree creatures. a group of the tree climbers turned into growling “tree bears” and one boy became a whistling bird. his whistles seemed to prompt a nearby magpie to break into song. figure 6. straddling branches. figure 7. lying on tummies. december 2021 81 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice the children could have played here for hours, but lunchtime was fast approaching. reluctantly, they dragged themselves away and made their way back up the hill towards the centre, already eagerly planning to revisit these same fallen trees on the next walk. this vignette gives a small taste of the kind of wildlife and wild weather encounters the children experienced on the walks. there were multitudes of others over the course of the project (see rooney, 2019; taylor, 2019a). but even the brief details of this one eventful walk convey how the dynamic nature of the local environment captures the children’s curiosity and draws them in to learn with it in collaborative, interactive, embodied, and multisensory ways. this pedagogical experience was not planned. it unfolded through unexpectedly coming face to face with the powerful consequences of elemental forces. the children were clearly affected by the storm-ravaged trees, compelled to get as close as possible to them and interact with them in a range of physical and sensory ways. they did so through inspecting, smelling, touching, listening, through wrapping their own limbs around those of the trees and becoming part of this entangled and weather-ravaged multispecies community—through joining not separating. speculative mapping of children’s place stories like the australian common worlding project, the work in canada is also structured around preschool children’s everyday encounters during walks through their local neighbourhood. however, in this case, the neighbourhood is a new suburban residential development: a grid of streets and look-alike houses punctuated by patches of forest, leftovers from hedgerows that separated former farm fields. our (tatiana and maureen’s) small study focuses on speculative mapping: paying attention to and layering of the children’s place stories that emerge during these walks, as a way of crafting pedagogies that are responsive to the complexity of place. we think through place’s constructive potentialities and histories, its “loose ends and missing links” always in process (massey, 2005), where patterns of different worlding possibilities emerge as imaginations, and “facts” compost and compose together (haraway, 2016). the work is part of the witnessing ruins of progress collaboratory, based in ontario, one project within a large multinational cluster of climate action childhood network sshrc-funded research studies (climate action childhood network, 2021). as the name suggests, this research network aims to generate pedagogies that engage with the complexity of issues related to climate change. our canadian component project addresses the connections among place, the stories we tell about place, and climate change through mapping the “ruins” created by settler colonization and neoliberalism in the name of “progress and development” (see tsing, 2015). we, the researchers and educators involved in this project, are white settlers working with settler children. so, as this project brings us into intimate proximity with (a particular piece of ) land and what we conjure as its ideation as a material-discursive place/maps/stories, we are reminded that our work must remain laden with everyday refusal to take comfort in thinking that our critical anticolonial orientations are “enough.” our labour is an ongoing, although “always incomplete” response (nxumalo, 2019, p. 160), as we burn with the need to reconcile orientations and actions and avoid the tokenistic and superficial uptake of decolonization as metaphor (tuck & yang, 2012) that has been evident in early-childhood education. like affrica, and following nxumalo (2016, 2019), we also work with refiguring presences as both an anticolonial orientation and a practice for decolonizing place. we conduct our pedagogical research with educators and children in an early years learning centre located in a newly built neighbourhood in a city in southwestern ontario. suburban mazes like this one are springing up on the outskirts of the city, replacing farm fields that were, in turn, carved out of unceded lands of first nations peoples: anishinaabek, haudenosaunee, lūnaapéewak and attawandaron peoples. december 2021 82 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice our research, pedagogical work, and everyday moments with children are united by situating educational practices in a particular place and, simultaneously, situating place within particular educational practices. place stories offered to us by children are taken seriously as a contribution to this practice in so far as they become the web that captures our everyday dwelling within our place and time. our intent is to craft pedagogies that are responsive on both global (climate change, human/nonhuman relations, colonization, urbanization) and local (within/ of a particular educational setting) scales. by mapping children’s place stories within these pedagogies, we also intend to foreground alternative stories that are often overlooked within the dominant developmental pedagogical narratives (see land et al., 2020; vintimilla & pacini-ketchabaw, 2020). working within the common worlding framework we discussed in the introduction, we are guided by two principles. first, we resist the divide between nature and culture by intentionally merging the outdoor walks (nature) and indoor classroom (cultural) activities. second, we avoid reinforcing dominant western totalizing narratives. in this case we challenge the map as a transcendent “view from above” (haraway, 1988) and closedended instrument of the colonial gaze, which charts and reinforces dominant western representations of place as knowable, measurable, and claimable. the particular map we wish to tear through, cover over, tease apart, and blow up, an image that was captured via satellite by a corporation that wishes to “efficiently” navigate our daily movement, is the very manifestation of doreen massey’s (2005) poetic and prosaic musing over a problem that “comes if you fall into thinking that that vertical distance lends you truth” (p. 107). we wish to rage against the colonial mountaintop cataloguing stance that aims to render landscape “a dormant machine waiting to be cranked into activity” (pratt, 1992, p. 149). instead, the mapping of stories we practice with children is a process open to uncertainty, curiosity, multiple ways of knowing and storying and other-than-human influences. there is no goal of certainty-seeking, but there is an intention for muddling, wondering, not finishing, never finishing. here, the attention we pay to children’s imaginings (pumpkin eaters, banana tree, etc.) as they arise from encounters with place is far from admiration over children’s imagination. rather, our actions are pedagogical choices aimed at troubling the object integrity of a colonial mapping project as it zooms in on a single neighbourhood. we print out a black-and-white satellite image of the early-learning centre and adjacent streets on a large sheet of paper. to trouble the image of the map as a flat surface, we crease it and lay half on the floor and half up the wall. to disrupt the concept of the map as a complete and accurate representation of our neighbourhood, we set out to overlay it with new lines, new words, new images, and new kinds of information. this information emerges from unconventional sources like imagination, nonhumans, and practices of wondering, noticing, and collective retelling. to gather it, we must first walk the neighbourhood, have encounters, and make our own place stories. it is midwinter and we are slowly walking with a group of preschool children to a nearby small forest. the walk takes us past an old pumpkin patch that somehow persists from a farm now gone. at this time of the year the patch is bare, but the children know it’s still there. they explain: “pumpkin eaters have taken all the pumpkins.” further into the new suburbs, we walk past front lawns with well-cared-for shrubbery. one showcases a pruned specimen of a single weeping white mulberry. unlike the native canadian red mulberry, the white mulberry is an introduced species. hardy and tolerant of most soils, it is a regular on the list of plants recommended for children’s gardens. it’s advertised as a “nature-made secret hideout”: “just cut an opening in the branches, or prune shorter for easier supervision!” last year, the homeowners decorated their weeping mulberry with christmas ornaments, which reminded the children of bananas. they named it banana tree. there hasn’t been anything on the tree since last christmas, but the story remains, and a stop by banana tree is a must on the walks to and from the forest. today, the children exclaim, “somebody stole the bananas!” they trace evidence of stolen fruit through a series of rust circles on the pavement (see figure 9). we believe they know that prized things have been taken from this place, and that their remains are etched onto the ground. december 2021 83 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 8. banana tree sketch. figure 9. following the rust. december 2021 84 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice on another late winter day, we enter the forest with the swishing of snow pants and the clunking of winter boot heels dragging across the concrete sidewalk. “the squirrel is still died!” shouts a boy. the children stumbled upon this dead squirrel on the previous day. they find it again easily because they’d marked the spot with a discarded fluorescent orange plastic lid. despite the frigid temperatures, the squirrel’s body has further decomposed and is now covered with bugs. one child worries that the squirrel is “sad and missing his family.” another suggests that he was “asleep for a long, long day.” they agree that he needs to be covered in a warm blanket of fallen leaves. the leaves are gathered and carefully placed. everyone is quiet as the bed is marked with a large pine bough laid across the top. figure 10. squirrel under the leaves. back in the classroom, we gather around the map and tell the stories of the dead squirrel, the banana tree, the pumpkin eaters. we print photos from our walks and place them on top of our oversized map. the work from previous days is not removed. instead, it is covered by more layers of images, paper, lines, and stories. the children use pens and charcoal pencils to draw long, light lines and forceful, thick, dark ones onto the new layer of semitranslucent vellum we have placed on top of the map. they trace these lines with their fingers and feet, pushing their weight against the paper. multiple bodies crowd into the small space on top of the map. foreheads are pushed against the hard surface. pencils move slowly, and then so vigorously that they tear through the paper. the children shift their bodies to follow the lines of roads, roofs, treetops. a child steps onto the map with both feet: “i’m walking here!” there is nothing transcendent about this mapping practice. december 2021 85 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice figure 11. mapping and tracing in the classroom. the preceding vignettes offer a view into a common worlding pedagogy that maps children’s speculative stories of everyday place encounters. like our australian colleagues, we did not plan or stage these encounters. they emerged when children’s movements unexpectedly intersected with those of others—with living settler colonial histories, remnants of previous agricultural land use, suburban gardening practices, and debris, and with stories of loss and discovery, death, decomposition, and care. the mapping work inside the classroom reverberates with the same rhythm as our walks. it emphasizes points of view attuned to small stories of difference which have the potential to make a difference (see le guin, 1986/2020). our common worlding speculative mapping does not illustrate place. it unfolds both alongside and within place, and alongside and within our own bodies, when we walk, touch, speak, imagine, speculate. unlike the satellite map we reinscribed, our mapping vantage point is not the lofty, totalizing “view from above” looking down with authority that donna haraway (1988, 2008, 2016) rails against. rather, our mapping is embedded in the real-life grounds of place, and the children’s view is an immersive one—looking around, looking out, looking in, and looking up. the pedagogical compositions of walking and speculative mapping practices are thus intensely attuned with intimate entanglements of human and more-thanhuman forces, facts, imaginings, histories, and futures. conclusion common worlding pedagogies are never about studying the world in a way that sets us (humans) apart from it or above it. as you can see from the vignettes from these two projects, they do the opposite. they open us up to the world in a way that deepens an appreciation of connectivity. they counteract the conceits and dangerous delusions of human separation and dominion that are perpetuated by dominant western-style education systems and which have caused the current ecological crises (taylor, 2019b). they teach us that we are one among many in our interdependent heterogenous common worlds and not the only movers and shapers of this world. they bring december 2021 86 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice us “down to earth” (latour, 2018). this kind of pedagogy requires us to stay open to learning with the worlds around us in all their unfolding uncertainty. it emphasizes that we learn by being attentive to these interactive worlds of which we are part and which regularly surprise us. however, this openness to learning with and being in unpredictable worlds neither precludes nor excuses us from adhering to ethical principles and having clear pedagogical intentions. not everything goes. in small and incremental ways, common worlding pedagogies deliberately foster the kinds of firmly grounded, anticolonial, collective and recuperative dispositions and actions that are so desperately needed in these precarious times. december 2021 87 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references climate action childhood network. 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(2020). weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. european early childhood education research journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil2012918 https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843323 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452 https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1583822 https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050 https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050 https://walkingwildlifewildweather.com/ https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630 https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630 https://humanimalia.org/article/download/10046/10484 https://humanimalia.org/article/download/10046/10484 https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 october 2021 42 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research covid-19 and childcare in canada: a tale of ten provinces and three territories martha friendly, barry forer, rachel vickerson, and sophia s. mohamed martha friendly is the executive director and founder of the childcare resource and research unit. she is a policy researcher on early childhood education and care and has been engaged in canadian and international ecec and family policy research for many years with particular interest in structural and governance issues. martha is currently co-investigator on a sshrc partnership grant exploring the alignment of childcare, parental leave, and work for families. she is an active participant in the cross-canada childcare movement that has been advocating for a universal public system of high-quality childcare since the 1970s. email: martha.friendly@ gmail.com dr. barry forer is a research methodologist and statistician at the human early learning partnership (help) at ubc. over the past 32 years, he has worked both as an independent consultant and a university research associate, specializing in early childhood development, learning, and childcare. his research projects have included studies of childcare quality, usage patterns, affordability, and stability; a number of childcare needs assessments of parents and operators; research on workforce-related issues in the childcare sector; studies on the effect of neighbourhood socioeconomic status on child development and how early developmental vulnerability influences later school achievement; and validation research on the psychometric properties of the early development instrument. his phd was completed in the measurement, evaluation, and research methodology program in the ubc faculty of education. email: barry.forer@ubc.ca rachel vickerson is a research officer with the childcare resource and research unit interested in the broader intersections of childcare and other areas of public policy. she has a master’s degree in public policy from the munk school of global affairs and public policy, university of toronto. sophia s. mohamed is a research officer with the childcare resource and research unit with special interest in the ecec workforce and the care economy. she is a registered early childhood educator and has a master’s degree in early childhood studies from ryerson university. sophia is also a part-time faculty member at george brown college in the school of early childhood education. it was the worst of times, it was the best of times… when covid-19 began to spread globally, it didn’t arouse public alarm in canada until the world health organization classified it as a pandemic on march 11, 2020. in mid-march, provinces and territories, which bear the main government responsibility for both public education and childcare in canada, began closing nonessential workplaces, public schools, and licensed childcare.1 many families whose children were usually in childcare or school shifted to working at home, caring for children or supervising schoolwork while juggling their paid work. other parents who continued working at workplaces or who became unemployed lost their childcare. it became widely apparent that childcare was not a luxury but a fundamental necessity for children and parents and for a well-functioning economy. although this is not a uniquely canadian story, the childcare crisis created by the pandemic became a driver for historic childcare policy change in canada. this paper examines the effects of the covid-19 pandemic’s first wave on canadian childcare. using results from 8,300 responses to a canadawide survey of centres and regulated family childcare, it illustrates how limited public funding and reliance on parent fees made childcare unsustainable when services closed. the lack of public funding created financial stress and uncertainty about the future among centres canada wide, including in provinces offering more robust support. the paper concludes by considering how dynamics set in motion by the pandemic shaped political developments and may ultimately contribute to the transformation of canadian childcare to a publicly funded systemic approach. key words: childcare; covid-19; policy; survey; pan-canadian mailto:martha.friendly@gmail.com mailto:martha.friendly@gmail.com mailto:barry.forer@ubc.ca october 2021 43 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the pandemic created chaos for childcare service providers, hardship for families, and anxiety for equality-seeking women. when the parent fees that are the main revenue stream for canadian childcare became uncertain or disappeared as services closed, a sustainability crisis affected service providers across most of canada. because the federal government has had little role in childcare, the provincial/territorial governments responded by supporting emergency childcare for parents deemed to be essential workers, along with some financial supports and emergency health and safety protocols. given canada’s fragmented childcare situation, what was funded, what was required to close, who was eligible, and health and safety rules varied enormously across canada. as the pandemic went on, policies were modified and remodified as policymakers and service providers scrambled to respond to an unknown, shifting, anxiety-producing situation. canadian childcare was vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic research, policy analysis, and everyday lived experience illustrate that the root cause of canadian childcare’s fragility is that it is neither publicly funded nor publicly managed (ballantyne et al., 2021; child care now, 2021). a key starting point for the pandemic-created childcare disarray was that canadian childcare is a parent-feefunded patchwork yet is delivering an essential societal service. reliance on parent fees is one key element of canada’s childcare market model, “in which the state has relatively little influence on or interest in how services for young children are set up, maintained and delivered rather than a public or publicly managed system based on the ideas of communal obligations and social citizenship” (lloyd & penn, 2012, p. 19). the pandemic had immediate effects. when regulated childcare was shut down by provincial/territorial governments, some fee-reliant childcare services were forced to charge parent fees for services not used. some lost tenancy or could not pay the mortgage or rent without government support to cover funding gaps. the childcare workforce was also profoundly affected by the pandemic. it is almost entirely female, often poorly paid and working in less-than-professional conditions. pre-pandemic, centres’ reliance on parent fees created budgetary tensions between decent staff wages and affordable parent fees. without fee revenue during the pandemic, many staff were laid off while others worked in circumstances in which they feared for their health and safety. an ontario survey on covid-related concerns of almost 4,000 centre staff showed high health and safety concerns including lack of paid sick days and need for increased health and safety protocols, smaller group sizes, and improved staff:child ratios (powell & ferns, 2020). some services closed permanently in the pandemic’s first wave in the spring of 2020, and others in the second wave (in the winter of 2020–2021), creating concerns about a depleted supply of childcare. it was feared that the reliable supply of quality childcare needed to recover a vigorous economy—as well as to ensure children have “the best start in life” and to support families and ensure women’s equality when the pandemic eventually ends—was in jeopardy (bezanson et al., 2020). how childcare fared: pan-canadian survey of regulated services purpose and method to understand how childcare was faring when most services were shut down during the first wave of covid-19, we carried out a canada-wide online survey (available in both official languages) of regulated childcare provision. this section presents key survey results on licensed centres. the survey’s purpose was “to collect information about the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the childcare sector.” it was to be completed by the person most responsible for each childcare centre or regulated family childcare october 2021 44 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research home2 during the reference week april 27–may 1, 2020, before provinces/territories began reopening childcare services in the summer of 2020. the database included 8,300 responses (5,729 centres and 2,571 family childcare providers), taking into account that some respondents answered on behalf of multiple centres (e.g., ymca) or family childcare homes under an agency aegis. the survey should not be assumed to be a representative sample of the larger pool of total childcare centres (17,542 in 2019), but there was substantial representation in all jurisdictions except nunavut and the northwest territories and of english and french respondents, centres and family childcare, and for-profit and nonprofit centres. nevertheless, participants self-selected to participate, and it is possible that service providers that were entirely closed may not have received the survey. results for centres and family childcare were analyzed separately. due to space considerations, this paper only discusses data on centres. a brief summary of survey data for regulated family childcare is included in a section below. results: centres closed centres. during the reference week, 72% of centres reported being closed except for essential workers’ children (emergency childcare). in almost all jurisdictions, closures were mandated by provincial/territorial governments. in british columbia, where centres had the option to be open or closed, 44% elected to close. open centres. of the 28% of responding centres that reported being open during the reference week, 74% were open only for emergency childcare. all provinces/territories except nova scotia provided emergency childcare, but implementation and funding varied considerably. in most of canada, open centres were mostly reserved for emergency childcare. in alberta, 94% of open centres were open exclusively for emergency childcare; 67% of saskatchewan centres reported being open—more than any jurisdiction—but only 35% of these were exclusively for emergency care. reported policies on parent fees varied by jurisdiction. of open centres not restricted to essential workers (n = 397), 82% charged all parents the same fees. this was the practice in manitoba, saskatchewan, and british columbia. ontario and quebec centres were only open for emergency childcare; essential workers paid no fees. in alberta, most centres charged essential workers full fees. enrollment compared to pre-covid enrollment. open centres reported drastic enrollment drops in all jurisdictions; nationally, median centre enrollment during the reference week was 5.5 children, representing an 89% drop from the pre-covid median enrollment of 50 children. there was only a small difference in enrollment drop between jurisdictions where childcare was completely or mostly closed (90% drop) and the four jurisdictions (quebec3, saskatchewan, british columbia, yukon) where many centres were open for regular use (88% drop). the childcare workforce. provinces’/territories’ covid-19 funding policies had a clear impact on centres’ staffing decisions. nova scotia centres received regular funding and were compensated for lost parent fees with the agreement to retain staff; more than 90% reported no staff layoffs. in contrast, in alberta, which did not compensate for lost parent fees, 56% of centres reported laying off all staff, including managers/directors, and an additional 28% laid off all staff except the manager/director. in alberta, which offered little provincial assistance with lost parent fees, childcare providers were directed to access the federal government’s emergency funding benefits, which are discussed below (the muttart foundation & cccf, 2020). unsurprisingly, open centres were more likely to have no staff layoffs (41% of open centres compared to 24% of closed centres). among closed centres, 26% canada wide laid off all staff except the director, and an additional 32% laid off all staff. closed centres laying everyone off were most prevalent in alberta (64%) and in the for-profit october 2021 45 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research sector (63%). taking these two together, 83% of closed for-profit centres in alberta laid off all staff, compared to 48% of closed alberta nonprofit centres. in ontario, 61% of for-profit centres laid off all staff, compared to 9% of nonprofit centres. one could speculate that, for for-profit centres, maintaining staff who needed to be paid was a lower priority than profits. use of federal benefit programs. federal emergency benefits had just been introduced around the time of the survey, both benefits for which employees could apply and those for which the employer could apply. the survey asked respondents4 whether their laid-off staff had applied to the canada emergency relief benefit (cerb), employment insurance (ei) or the top-up for low-income workers. overall, 93% of the respondents indicated their laid-off staff had applied for either cerb or ei. at the time of the survey, two federal employer benefits had begun to be taken up by centres. thirty-six percent of centres had applied to or received the canada emergency wage subsidy (cews), while 25% had applied for or received the canada emergency business account (ceba). closed centres were more likely to have applied for and/or received both cews (32% compared to 19% of open centres) and ceba (28% compared to 17% of open centres). forty-five percent of nonprofit centres had applied for or received cews, compared to 16% of for-profit centres while fewer had applied for or received ceba (12% compared to 48% of for-profit centres). it’s important to note how recently these employer benefits had been introduced at the time of this data collection; preliminary data from our follow-up survey of the same pool of centres a year later (described below) shows much higher takeup rates. overall, 19% of centres had applied for no federal employer benefits. this rate was highest in yukon (68%), newfoundland and labrador (48%), and nova scotia (47%) and lowest in ontario and alberta (both 9%) and manitoba (10%). when centres not applying for federal employer benefits were asked why, more than 90% of respondents from prince edward island, nova scotia, and newfoundland and labrador said it was because their provincial government was providing adequate funding. in comparison, only 21% of ontario respondents said it was because their province was providing adequate funding. these responses correspond with jurisdictions’ funding provision described in a section below; for example, ontario provided limited provincial funding to closed centres, while nova scotia provided full funding, including compensation for lost parent fee revenue. it should be noted that survey responses, particularly open-ended comments, highlighted community confusion surrounding availability, eligibility for, and which level of government was providing these funds. financial situation and concerns. asked to rate their current financial situation compared to before the pandemic, 38% of all centres reported being in a “much worse financial situation.” this rating was highest in alberta (63%) and yukon (53%) and lowest in newfoundland and labrador (0%) and prince edward island (8%). twenty-five percent of centres reported their financial situation was about the same or better, highest in newfoundland and labrador (72%) and prince edward island (65%) and lowest in ontario (11%) and alberta (12%). there were substantial differences between open and closed centres on this question, with 22% of open centres and 45% of closed centres reporting their financial situation during the pandemic to be “much worse.” closed for-profit centres (61%) were more likely than nonprofits (37%) to report a much worse financial situation than before the pandemic, perhaps because for-profit centres differ from their nonprofit counterparts in having an additional financial consideration—earning a profit. almost all centres (98%) reporting a “worse” financial situation than before covid-19 attributed this change to lost or reduced parent fees, demonstrating the reliance on parent fees. more than half (56%) of open centres reported receiving all or more than their normal government funding, october 2021 46 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research compared to 30% of closed centres. eighty-four percent of closed centres in nova scotia reported receiving all or more of their normal funding, compared to 23% of closed centres in ontario. overall, 17% of closed centres reported receiving none of their pre-covid government funding, compared to 4% of open centres, with a very wide range by jurisdiction, from 1% in nova scotia to 64% in alberta. closed forprofit centres were more likely than closed nonprofit centres not to be receiving any of their normal government funding (30% vs. 12%), which may account in part for their reporting their financial situation to be considerably worse than closed nonprofit centres. anticipated problems post pandemic. respondents were asked about specific problems they anticipate upon resuming pre-covid operations, both right away and six months later. notably, regarding the short term after reopening, 93% of respondents selected multiple concerns; only 2% had no concerns. the top four concerns in both the short term and longer term were health/safety costs, lower enrollment, staffing difficulties, and reopening costs. a strong majority of respondents chose all four of these concerns, the percentages declining slightly for longerterm concerns. responses were quite similar across all jurisdictions, with “covid health/safety costs” and “lower enrollment” the most common responses in almost every province/territory except quebec, where only 55% of respondents were concerned about lower enrollment. this relatively lower quebec concern is consistent with data about centre enrollment drops following reopening from another canada-wide childcare survey conducted from september to november 2020 (macdonald & friendly, 2021). quebec’s publicly funded low-fee centres reported only negligible reduced enrollment—the only centres not reporting the dramatic, persistent low enrollment seen everywhere else in canada (macdonald & friendly, 2021). asked about intentions to reopen, while a majority of closed centres said they would definitely reopen (64%), 36% expressed various degrees of uncertainty. the proportion of centres that chose “definitely reopen” was highest in prince edward island (81% of centres), followed by saskatchewan (73%) and nova scotia (72%). family childcare. regulated family childcare, which was surveyed but is not described in detail in this paper, showed similar but somewhat milder trends than centre-based childcare. about 61% of family childcare homes were open, of which 24% only accepted children of essential workers. their median enrollment had dropped by about 50% from pre-covid levels. more than 60% reported their financial situation to be worse or much worse than it was pre-pandemic. like centres, family childcare providers were mostly concerned about lower enrollment and health/safety costs in the post-covid future. not surprisingly, few reported accessing federal benefit programs, for which many family childcare providers would be ineligible. provincial/territorial policy responses to the pandemic this section describes the childcare policy landscape at the time the survey was conducted. in response to the pandemic, childcare officials in each jurisdiction developed a variety of detailed policy responses on funding, eligibility rules, limitations on childcare use, and health and safety. the following section provides a table and a summary of provincial/territorial policies on five key policy questions that impact childcare services.5 october 2021 47 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 1: provincial/territorial policy responses to the pandemic reference week: april 26–may 1, 2020 p/t were childcare centres closed for regular use? was emergency childcare provided for essential workers? were families required to pay for emergency childcare? were services permitted to charge fees if they were closed? was there financial support from the p/t to cover lost parent fees? nl yes yes no no yes pei yes yes no no yes ns yes no n/a no yes nb yes yes yes yes1 yes2 qc yes yes no no yes on yes yes no no no mb yes yes yes no no sk no3 yes yes no no ab yes yes yes yes no bc no yes yes no4 no5 yt no no n/a yes no nt no no n/a n/a no nu yes no n/a no yes were childcare centres closed for regular use? by march 23, 2020, provincial/territorial governments in nine of canada’s 13 subnational jurisdictions had closed childcare centres to regular use. in saskatchewan, only centres in publicly funded school spaces were required to close. in british columbia, yukon, and the northwest territories, centres could choose whether to close. by june 30, all provinces/territories had reopened childcare services except in several areas in quebec and in manitoba, where centres reopened in august 2020. was emergency childcare provided for essential workers? emergency childcare was provided in all jurisdictions except nova scotia and nunavut, where all childcare was closed. prince edward island did not provide emergency childcare in centres for children under 2, but in-home care was offered. were families required to pay for emergency childcare? 1 if staff were not laid off. 2 the province covered fees for families who could not pay due to lost income. 3 centres in schools were closed. 4 if receiving temporary emergency funding. 5 temporary emergency funding was available and covered some portion of lost parent fees. october 2021 48 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research emergency childcare was free in newfoundland and labrador, prince edward island, quebec, ontario, and yukon. in new brunswick, “essential worker” families not paying full childcare fees for other childcare paid fees for emergency childcare. saskatchewan families paid 50% of fees, while families in alberta and british columbia were responsible for full fees. were services closed to regular use permitted to charge fees for services not used? most jurisdictions eventually did not permit centres to charge parent fees for closed services to “hold their place.” in new brunswick, these fees were permitted if staff were not laid off, while the government covered fees for families who could not pay due to lost income. british columbia did not permit closed centres receiving temporary emergency funding (tef) to charge fees. was regular and/or additional funding available for open or closed centres? most centres across canada that remained open either for essential workers or for all parents continued receiving their regular funding. in british columbia, regular funding was replaced by the tef, which paid different rates for open and closed services. under this plan, open services received seven times the average monthly funding, which was assumed to cover 75% of average operating expenses. closed centres in nova scotia (if there were no staff layoffs), prince edward island, quebec, saskatchewan, yukon, nunavut, and northwest territories continued to receive regular funding, while in manitoba, closed centres were funded for three months. all british columbia closed regulated childcare services with 2020/21 funding agreements were eligible for the lower-level tef payments, which covered approximately 20% of average operating expenses. six provinces/territories covered lost parent fees in all or some instances. newfoundland and labrador (those willing to offer emergency childcare), prince edward island, nova scotia, quebec, and nunavut covered lost parent fee revenue. new brunswick covered parent fees for parents receiving fee subsidies. a variety of other funds for open centres were available in most jurisdictions, including one-time payments for enhanced ppe / cleaning, staff wage increases, or full coverage of 24-hour care. some provincial governments (e.g., ontario and alberta) encouraged service providers to apply for federal emergency benefits. pandemic funding in all provinces/territories came to an end when childcare services reopened in the summer of 2020. discussion this paper began with an overview of regulated canadian childcare pre-pandemic, followed by survey data about its state during the first phase of the pandemic and then a description of provincial/territorial policies on five key issues. the survey data illustrates that childcare services (outside quebec’s publicly funded sector), which depend heavily on parent fees to support their normal operations, became unsustainable after the pandemic was declared. without parent fee revenue when centres closed, a plethora of difficulties were experienced by both centres and their staff. because each jurisdiction operates as an independent entity in its childcare decisions, each province/ territory was unique in its pattern of policy decisions on five dimensions: (1) mandating closures for nonessential use; (2) providing care for essential workers; (3) charging fees for emergency care; (4) charging fees to parents for closed services; and (5) funding centres (both regular and supplemental funding). the survey found that when almost all regulated childcare was closed to regular use by government authorities to prevent contagion, there were many reported differences in how childcare services reacted and fared, but overall, october 2021 49 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research childcare in all jurisdictions reported sustainability problems. these problems are linked both to pre-pandemic reliance on parent fees and to the unique provincial/territorial policies defining childcare’s operation during the pandemic, played out in terms of the number of open/closed centres, enrollments, staff layoffs, take-up of federal emergency benefits, financial health of services, and concerns and plans about the future. of course, the results are only a snapshot during a very fluid time of changing policies and practices. conclusions drawn about the causes of differences in survey responses between jurisdictions and status of the centres at the time of the survey are based on the survey results, as well as the variety of and shifts to provincial/territorial responses to the pandemic situation. the data shows that childcare services were severely affected by the pandemic closings across canada. at a canadawide level, results can be summed up as follows. during the reference week of april 27–may 1, 2020, only 28% of all centres in canada were open; of these, 74% only accepted children of essential workers. as a result, the median enrollment at open centres dropped by about 90% from pre-covid levels. similar to schools and other congregate settings, it is understandable that childcare was either closed or open with significantly decreased enrollment in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic amid so many unknown factors. the limited public responsibility for childcare and the reliance on parent fees meant that, for the most part, providers of regulated childcare were financially unstable and unsure if they would weather the pandemic, while a majority of centres laid off staff. at the same time, the level of public support from provincial/territorial governments ranged widely. for example, alberta provided quite limited support, while prince edward island provided centres with their usual funding as well as covering lost parent fee revenue. overall, 38% of centres reported their financial situation to be much worse than before covid, but this percentage ranged from 8% to 68% by jurisdiction, related to the level of support provided by the jurisdiction. in terms of anticipated problems once the pandemic is over, 88% were concerned about health/safety costs, 85% anticipated lower enrollment, and 65% anticipated staffing difficulties. thirty-six percent of closed centres said they had at least some uncertainty about whether they would reopen. the childcare workforce was severely affected by the situation. fifty-eight percent of closed centres had either laid off all staff or all but the director. even among open centres, only 24% had no staff layoffs. the large number of childcare staff laid off from their jobs as a result of the pandemic has the potential to create difficulties for growing an accessible childcare system, so must be addressed going forward. this data, contextualized by canada’s pre-pandemic inadequate childcare policy and provision and the varied policy responses during the pandemic, suggests several conclusions that are useful for understanding how to best respond to the important shift that has occurred in public and political aspirations for childcare. first, the survey showed most childcare services were functioning poorly during the first wave of the pandemic in all regions of canada. that most services were closed in the first wave was to be expected, because the unknown virus caught public health officials, childcare policymakers, service providers, and parents by surprise everywhere. but the loss of parent-fee-driven revenue was a key factor that determined how childcare services were able to respond to the pandemic. canada wide, they generally faced financial uncertainty and insecure futures, highlighting that they are not publicly supported to be sustainable, stable services. in countries in which childcare is more robustly publicly funded, providers did not face bankruptcy or mass layoffs upon closure because they did not need to rely heavily on parent fees (blum & dobrotić, 2021). in market systems, when parent fees ceased, services collapsed— not unlike other private sector industries, such as restaurants—during covid. looking forward, these effects of the pandemic make a clear argument that childcare must be adequately publicly funded to ensure its sustainability october 2021 50 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research if it is to be recovered and built as an essential service. second, while childcare services were fragile canada wide, the survey results and the diversity of provincial/ territorial policy responses show that the level of financial support for childcare services varied significantly. the policy choices made by provinces/territories in key areas such as funding, eligibility, and requirements clearly made a considerable difference in how childcare fared. for example, alberta had the highest level of centre respondents identifying a “much worse” financial situation; as an alberta-specific report using this dataset speculated, this might have been because the province paid only a set payment for unfilled emergency spaces and a one-time payment of $500 for health and safety costs (the muttart foundation & cccf, 2020). by comparison, in prince edward island, which compensated for parent fee revenue and provided operational funding for most centres, only 9% of centres described themselves in a much worse financial situation. as well, attaching conditions to funding appeared to be a powerful behavioural incentive, as seen in nova scotia’s funding requirement that staff not be laid off during closures or british columbia’s requirement, tied to funding, that essential workers not be charged fees. thus, attaching conditions and restrictions to funding has demonstrably been a very useful policy tool in gaining desired results during the pandemic. third, although the pandemic has had a substantial impact on canadian childcare, and childcare has been a muchdiscussed public and political topic, there has been little data collection or research on this. beauregard et al.6 (2020) observed that “the only reliable source of information on the supply of childcare spaces is a one-time survey taken the last week of april” (i.e., the survey described here). no in-depth and little focused data was collected about early learning and childcare and covid-19 by statistics canada, and no research or data collection was motivated or funded by the federal government, whether by the public health agency of canada or employment or social development canada. as the covid-19 pandemic continued in successive waves through 2021, we conducted a follow-up survey of the 66% of respondents who agreed on the 2020 questionnaire to be recontacted. this follow-up survey took place in the field one year later, during the week of april 26–30, 2021. the results, when complete, will provide insights into the effects of the pandemic on the same childcare services at two different points in time. these findings will allow directly linked comparisons between the first wave, when most services were closed by provinces/ territories, and the third wave, when most childcare remained open to regular use. the 2021 survey used more open-ended questions about funding programs accessed and financial information than the first survey to gain a better understanding of how providers understood and accessed federal and other funding. conclusion in the late spring of 2020, when canada was emerging from the first wave of the pandemic, childcare began to be recognized by a broad spectrum of people as a missing piece of social policy that is fundamental for meeting multiple agendas. new allies, such as the governor of the bank of canada, argued that it is “a policy win aimed at spurring recovery and growth” (poloz, 2020, as quoted in langrish, 2021). bezanson, bevan, and lysack (2020) wrote: “childcare is key to canada’s capacity to reopen and rebuild from the covid-19 crisis” (para. 1). as mothers of young children have joined the workforce over the last three decades, the economy has come to depend on childcare to allow them to work. analyzing how a universal childcare system could contribute to canada’s economy, stanford (2020) calculated childcare’s financial benefits, primarily using the dual benefits of creating good childcare jobs and supporting mothers’ employment to determine that childcare generates “$17 billion to $29 billion per year—more than enough to pay for the cost of universal elcc services” (p. 6). october 2021 51 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the most salient of the characteristics of canada’s childcare provision for this analysis is that services in most of canada have largely been supported by parent fees7, a characteristic that has been key in perpetuating the fragile service patchwork that has been so severely impacted by the pandemic (friendly, ballantyne, & anderson, 2020). canada’s limited, uneven service availability, low staff wages and high parent fees—defining features of childcare pre-pandemic—are a direct result of low public funding and concomitant reliance on parent fees. as the pandemic demonstrated writ large, in most of canada, whether a service can operate sustainably depends largely on whether a critical mass of parents who can pay the fees is available. evidence about struggles that parents, especially women, have experienced across canada, across income levels and in all kinds of jobs has had a profound impact on public, expert and political opinion. publicly funded, highquality childcare for all has long been considered to be “a necessity, not a luxury” in canada by feminists, social justice advocates, educators and many others. but it took a pandemic for two powerful realities to gain wider recognition by previously unconvinced supporters who spoke out for the first time about the necessity of reliable childcare in a prosperous, post-pandemic economy (saba, 2020). first, the pandemic threw the necessity of childcare for economic recovery from the crisis into sharp relief. second, it simultaneously revealed the precariousness of canada’s fee-based childcare provision. the government of canada’s policy response, outlined in the april 2021 federal budget, includes historically significant funding and policy to follow up on previous commitments to develop a childcare system to “build a high-quality, affordable and accessible early learning and child care system across canada” (government of canada, 2021). as plans have begun to be put in place across canada in agreements between the federal government and each province and territory (childcare resource and research unit, 2021), lessons from the pandemic are being concretized in the form of substantial public funding to reduce reliance on parent fees, recognition that the childcare workforce is key to childcare provision and emphasis that reliable childcare requires a system, not a market. while the pandemic has interrupted families’ lives and strained public finances on a massive scale, it has also paved the way for rethinking and rebuilding the status quo. what is needed to transform childcare is not new. what is new is the political opportunity to build an equitable, publicly funded childcare program for all children across canada. post-pandemic, lessons learned about how quickly our current childcare arrangements can fail, and why, can lead the way to childcare’s transformation in a just and effective recovery for canada. 1 many working parents in canada use unregulated childcare arrangements. this paper does not address how unregulated childcare fared during the pandemic, in part because there is no information on who provides it or how to contact them. 2 all provinces/territories offer regulated family childcare, which is either individually licensed/monitored or under the aegis of a licensed/ approved agency. 3 quebec did not close centres but restricted them all to providing care for essential workers. eventually, the “non reduced contribution” for-profit sector centres were closed. 4 the survey was completed by the director, so this response is by their report. 5 the information in this section, which is derived from publicly available sources, was collected and updated weekly in an online resource on the childcare resource and research unit’s website during the first phase of the pandemic. 6 the beauregard et al. article references the preliminary report on the survey reported here. 7 apart from quebec, which operationally funds the main elements of its childcare services. https://childcarecanada.org/sites/default/files/covid-19-provincial-territorial-summary-chart-05-20-2020_0.pdf https://childcarecanada.org/publications/other-publications/20/07/canadian-child-care-preliminary-results-national-survey-during october 2021 52 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references 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https://news.westernu.ca/2021/01/poloz-predicts-economic-recovery/ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/thealarm https://www.aeceo.ca/from_reopening_to_recovery https://www.aeceo.ca/from_reopening_to_recovery https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/09/23/business-leaders-welcome-child-care-strategy-and-wage-subsidy-extension.html https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/09/23/business-leaders-welcome-child-care-strategy-and-wage-subsidy-extension.html https://centreforfuturework.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/elcc-report-formatted-final-final.pdf https://www.muttart.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/the-pandemic-and-early-learning-and-child-care-in-alberta-final-july-20-1.pdf https://www.muttart.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/the-pandemic-and-early-learning-and-child-care-in-alberta-final-july-20-1.pdf july 2020 1 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor editorial: child-animal relations and care as critique tuure tammi, riikka hohti, and pauliina rautio, guest editors multispecies relationships animals and children are a classic combination since the days of rousseau, based on the assumed natural and innocent qualities, the need of protection, and the lack of reason associated with both categories (taylor, 2011). affrica taylor, for one, has traced this romanticized grouping to the persistent and characteristic nature/culture binary of western thinking. the vast majority of the studies made on children and animals have not disrupted this binary or the hierarchies that are produced with it, and research settings have mostly remained instrumental—it has been other animals’ role as facilitators or catalysts for children’s development or skills that has been seen as interesting. multispecies relationships can be seen as a sidelined topic in the study of childhood, but at the moment this is changing. for example, the so-called childhoodnature research (cutter-mckenzieknowles et al., 2020) and scholars belonging to the common worlds research collective (https:// commonworlds.net/ ) look at childhoods lived at the intersections of bodies in the large frame of “more-than-human” world. this research often takes theoretical influence from donna haraway, whose concept of natureculture—referring to the unfolding of nature/culture dichotomy—allows for studying children as relational becomings together with other humans and animals, rather than accounting for children’s activity against a certain environment or background. this issue on child-animal relations aims to contribute to the “animal turn” that is beginning to take place in the fields of childhood studies and education. with pedersen and pini (2017) we acknowledge the assertive theoretical and methodological provocation this turn entails. in their special issue on more-than-human epistemologies, it was suggested that the more-than-human paradigm has, in many cases, been taken up too lightly and too quickly, leaving the profound consequences of the ontology intact. we are proud to deliver this issue with a collection of articles that both seek to go beyond the generalized categories of “child” and “animal” and do not take lightly the methodological challenges of a morethan-human paradigm. the articles of this issue offer a set of fresh approaches: intra-active analysis of agential cuts (aslanian & rigmor moxnes); historically conscious analysis of child-horse relationships (mukherjee); witnessing as a relational research practice (drew & mcalpine); storying as part of a caring assemblage (molloy murphy); response-ability as an intra-active encounter in the field (ejlertsen); slowing down and strangeness as a way of troubling categories childhood scholars have for some time worked toward the idea that instead of being situated in their own micro worlds, waiting rooms, or margins, children should be viewed and accounted for as full participants of society. this special issue aligns with this aspiration, while broadening the notion of what counts as society. it asks how to live and care in a society that does not consist of adult human individuals only, but instead counts children and other-than-human animals in the realm of the social and the societal. by inviting authors to think about child-animal relations and care, we wish to shed light on the ways in which other animals are relevant for human children’s lives, and vice versa, and to argue for the importance of these relations for society in the conflicting times we live in now. july 2020 2 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor of childhood/nature/culture (mulvenna); and touch as a way of knowing and making worlds (tammi & hohti). in various ways, all of these approaches impose an ontological engagement or entanglement where the researcher subject “recasts herself as sensibility” (mulvenna, this issue). care as critique according to joan tronto’s (2010) broad definition, care is “everything that we do to maintain, continue and repair ‘our world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible” (p. 160, italics added). the authors of this special issue engage in various explorations of what this “we” and “our world” involves, suggesting that a relational notion of care can disturb the anthropocentric thought systems that have long framed our understanding. thinking about how other animals participate in and do care work, for instance, is important considering that many animals are now facilitated as therapeutic and pedagogical animals in a range of children’s spaces (see e.g., mukherjee in this issue). this collection of articles suggests that care can help us to explore the complexities of lived relations—situated assemblages of different scales of vital yet noninnocent world making. care is not a promise of a “happy ending” (molloy murphy, this issue) because, as maria puig de la bellacasa (2017) suggests, care is ultimately about thick and impure involvement in the world. care is thus active world making that still insists on the uncertain ethics of “as well as possible.” care as a research practice means giving specific attention to those situations in which the question of how to care is persistent but not easily answerable. the impetus of not knowing—a lack of solutions that could establish final peace—but acknowledging the need to respond anyway is well present in the articles of this selection. but why think about care in connection with children and animals? after an era of intense theoretical development in the field of childhood studies, we find that there is currently a moment of frustration in reviewing what can be accomplished by material and relational theorization. the topic of this issue is our effort to surpass the general reaffirming of relationality and interdependence and to take at least one tiny step toward what might come after (kraftl, 2020). recent feminist perspectives, such as those offered by tronto (2010) and puig de la bellacasa (2017), have shown us that care is a topic worth serious thought in today’s world, but also, and perhaps more crucially, a tool for doing situated critique within the frame of relational ontology. and importantly, care is not necessarily associated with warm affects or good intentions: caring can also be burdensome, undervalued, even coercive (murphy, 2015), and practices of care can be seen as ultimately uncertain and impure—in all, “noninnocent” (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). talking about research interests as “matters of care” allows us to embrace the simultaneous dimensions of feelings— fondness, worry, trouble, concern (murphy, 2015)—and work. in addition, care shapes research beyond the choice of topical interest, gesturing to a close examination of the affective, material, and ethical/political dimensions of particular situations, dimensions which can also be in tension with each other (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). the materiality of care emphasizes the hands-on work that living in relations involves. in connection with other-thanhuman animals, engaging with care in research can help us broaden our conceptions of knowing to encompass not knowing, as well as approaches such as nonverbal “attuning” (despret, 2016) and “passionate immersion” in multispecies relations (van dooren et al., 2016). ultimately, care provides a mode of critique that might matter more than ever amid the complexities we live in right now—the multiple overlapping environmental crises of mass extinction, deforestation, and (at the time of writing this editorial) the covid-19 pandemic. this critique is neither critical in a corrosive fashion nor naïve in its optimism but primarily constructive and affirmative. it offers a way to disturb our sense of comfort and accomplishment in a way that does not paralyze, helping us to “stay with july 2020 3 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor the trouble” (haraway, 2016) while not losing the “horizon of hope” (braidotti, 2013). one of the political and ethical dimensions that come under scrutiny with the notion of care as critique is the commercial assemblages that turn animals into commodities and resources for human use. while animals have always been present in children’s lives, today’s urbanization and industrialization have diminished the variety of such encounters (rautio, tammi, & hohti, forthcoming). at the same time, societies have made themselves dependent on industrial farming, and the pet industry is growing. indeed, the dominant strand within the study of child-animal relations reports on the positive effects that pets have on children’s socio-emotional skills and wellbeing (daly & morton, 2003; jacobs bao & schreer, 2016; vidovic et al., 1999). the anthropocentric hierarchization of species is noninnocently entangled in these “affective economies” (ahmed, 2004) and assemblages of biopower, highlighting the importance of a deeper examination of the productions and practices of care. those animals not fit for the human temporalities and spaces of care become dropouts of the companion animal industry complex—”rescue” animals (if not euthanized). the conclusion is an acknowledgement of the inherent and difficult complexity of child-animal relations. while emotionally rewarding, characterized with love and proximity, and often significant for the children and nonhuman animals involved, most child-animal relations in contemporary societies are situated on a continuum of what thom van dooren (2014) calls “violent-care.” troubles full of wonder the seven articles included in this issue contribute to the growing archive of multispecies stories of children’s worlds. while activating the speculative potentials of storytelling (e.g., haraway, 2016) that effort to broaden the existing and dominant vocabularies and imagination, these stories are not told without hesitation and uncertainty concerning the possibility to tell about other animals’ worlds. thus, speculative storytelling is regarded as a practice of care itself, given that stories need work to endure long enough to be told and retold; they involve affects and produce versions of bodies while drawing connections and boundaries between them. adapting haraway’s (2016) thinking, it matters what stories we tell stories with. for example, amy mulvenna (this issue) explores the ways responsibility and accountability are embedded in our storytelling practices; she encourages us to tell stories that think with “the liveliness of our own more-than-human world that is so full of wonder.” the special issue is opened by an “ideas from practice” entry by angela molloy murphy. situated in a homebased setting, the article grapples with the question “when our care for another cannot ensure them a ‘happy ending,’ how does our care matter?” the practices of care as well as actual lives and deaths involved in the fostering activity of the early childhood centre provoke the author to revisit the enduring question regarding the value of our care for creatures with precarious futures. a particular encounter with a piglet sparks a deeper inquiry into how environmental problems (forest fires), the sometimes-forceful practices of feeding, emergence of trust and attachment, and practices of the animal industry entangle in the material complexities of care. when the day comes to bring the pig back to the farm, there is no promise of a happy future. in their article on touching, tuure tammi and riikka hohti draw attention to material caring practices and the ways human hands are involved in them. focusing on how the bodies of both humans and nonhuman animals engage in practices of care and the common touching practice of stroking, they consider touch as a world-making dance in which embodied knowing and not knowing are at play. the authors argue that both humans and other animals participate in the politics of regulation and boundary making through touch. such bodily dances are likely to involve unequal power relations—taken-for-granted human exceptionalism and superiority—however, they also remain “open and precarious, thus also allowing the disruption of these very same ideas as well as other toxic imaginaries.” july 2020 4 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor a story about both real and imaginary relations with more-than-human others unfolds in john drew and kellyann macalpine’s article on witnessing the ruins. starting from the observation that early childhood educational approaches to care are often decontextualized from ecological and more-than-human precarities, as well as the economic influences contributing to such precarities, the authors ponder how educators and scholars might reclaim and augment the politics of care. through storying everyday encounters with “real, shadowy, and mythical” animals of the forest and children’s questions about them, they explore the possibility of crafting pedagogies that would, instead of escape, embrace the instability and precarity of everyday environments. the article works against outcome-driven and data/evidence-based approaches in early childhood education, emphasizing the value of cultivating curiosity while acknowledging the troubling productions of structural injustices between humans, other species, and landscapes that the children and the educators are embedded in. the notion of vulnerability is central to marija ejlertsen’s article that discusses conflicting enactments of care among the researcher-educator, children, and rescue animals in the context of a school for marginalized children. working beyond “naturally” positive, unidirectional, and binary notions, the author argues that being exposed to the other and becoming vulnerable through this encounter could be productive for the emergence of care as it allows a shift or a move away from the commonplace positions of carer and cared for. they insist that a more-thanhuman relational lens can open possibilities of caring otherwise. ejlertsen writes: “by being open to be affected and undone by the multiple possibilities of caring in the encounter, i experience the encounter in a new light, which offers everyone involved greater ontological possibilities to respond and be otherwise, not least myself.” care is regarded as ontological engagement in teresa aslanian and anna rigmor moxnes’s article. they show how representations of animals, specifically the common cow figurine used in kindergarten play, entangle with both warm affects toward animals and more aggressive histories of human-cow relationships that are largely made imperceptible through displacement. through their analysis of children’s play with holstein cow figurines as noninnocent care practices in the context of early childhood education, they explore how relations between children and animals and representations of animals can involve care, but not necessarily moral care. the idea of displacement is also picked up by amy mulvenna, who offers readings with care of two children’s tales by the author shaun tan. mulvenna speculates on what becomes possible for the child reader of these stories of childanimal encounters, suggesting that the weirdness, surreality, and strangeness in these tales provide a possibility to depart from humancentric forms of knowing by offering an open-ended engagement and interconnectedness with the material surroundings. what emerges is a specific kind of becoming-with, one linked with slow movements and “unhurried processes of deliberation, noticing, and attending to that which is present.” utsa mukherjee writes about the idea of “becoming with” in his article on child-horse relationships. the discussion is based on one case in particular where the child preferred tasks of caring for the horses (mucking stables, feeding, organizing stuff ) to riding the horses. mukherjee interprets the materiality and richness of the “horse world”—the scents, sounds, practices, and habits of both horses and people caring for them—to be a world-making experience, allowing for “becoming with the horse” more than just riding a horse would. mukherjee also stresses that the role of the horse is an active rather than a dominated one in this world making. conclusion traversing the currently popular theoretical and methodological lines of posthumanism, postqualitative inquiry, and new materialism(s) and emphasizing a relational ontology, as many child-animal scholars do, is not an innocent or straightforwardly nonanthropocentric endeavour. peter kraftl (2020), for one, points out things to look out for. first, the prefix “post,” in his view, indicates an approach that can become enamoured with continual july 2020 5 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor search for newness and endless going “beyond” and thus cease to be able to make a real difference in the here and now. second, the focus on relations can blur the existence of others—things and beings—outside of their relations with humans. this can lead to effacing or erasing the other, exhausting the very being of the other to the relation in focus. kraftl’s concern is that unless critically examined and situated, studies focusing on relations and stories within the “post paradigm” can unintentionally end up reinforcing white / middle-class / european privilege. one of the rationales for creating this special issue around the notion of care as critique has been to interrupt essentializing discourses and discuss child-animal relations as situated. an idea common to many earlier studies of children and animals is the “biophilia hypothesis” (tipper, 2011), which claims that the “universal human instinct” to care for all life is especially strong in children (e.g., melson, 2001). such understandings not only essentialize children (and humans) but also idealize and romanticize care as some “wholesome or unpolluted pleasant ethical realm” (puig de la bellacasa, 2017, p. 8). caution regarding essentializing the experiences of others as well as idealizing and romanticizing care is critical. childhood and child-animal relations are important contexts for exploring the complex and far-reaching effects of care because in them the above-mentioned tendencies are continuously brought to present. it is seemingly easy to have an opinion on what constitutes good care with regard to children and other animals. approaching care as a situated practice, however, allows for more complex analyses and staying with the joyous trouble of care. acknowledgements as guest editors we thank all the contributing authors for sharing their passion and insights and for their patience during the process of refining this issue. we wish to especially thank the many committed reviewers for their invaluable feedback as the papers in this issue took form. echoes of your voices and encouragement sound in the following pages. wonderful meagan montpetit, thank you for guiding us through and keeping us abreast of the editorial process. finally, we would like to remark that the editing of this special issue has been an equal contribution between the three guest editors, and the same goes for writing this editorial. july 2020 6 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor references ahmed, s. 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(1999). pet ownership, type of pet, and socio-emotional development of school children. anthrozoös, 12(4), 211–217. https://doi.org/10.2752/089279399787000129 march 2021 1 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research privileging power: early childhood educators, teachers, and racial socialization in full-day kindergarten zuhra abawi dr. zuhra abawi is an assistant professor of education at niagara university, ontario. her work focuses on the ways that discourses of race and identity are negotiated, mediated, and socialized in education. her research seeks to recenter the voices of racialized and indigenous children, families, and educators by problematizing whiteness and eurocentric developmentalist discourses and curricula embedded in educational institutions. email: zabawi@niagara.edu while there has been extensive research pertaining toward the importance of diversifying the teacher workforce in order to represent student diversity and provide equitable and inclusive education (e.g., abawi, 2018; abawi & eizadirad, 2020; james & turner, 2017; ryan, pollock, & antonelli, 2009; turner consulting group, 2015), there is limited study on the racialized power relations informing the relationship between the coteaching team of early childhood educators (eces) and ontario certified teachers (octs) within the full-day kindergarten (fdk) context. while both professions are predominantly feminized, the overwhelming majority of teachers in ontario are white and middle class, whereas eces in fdk programs are more likely to be racialized and marginalized due to low wages and diminished professional status as care workers rather than educators. dominant psychologicaldevelopmentalist discourses depict young children as too young to notice racial differences or engage with performances, negotiations, and mediations of racialization and identity. however, reconceptualist scholars counter such narratives and suggest that young children actively engage in meaning-making processes concerning race and identity (iannacci & whitty, 2009; lubeck, 1994; macnaughton & davis, 2009; paciniketchabaw & nxumalo, 2013; silin, 1995; taylor, 2007). moreover, young children hold positive and negative beliefs and dispositions about their own racial identity as well as other races (escayg, 2019). dominant developmentalist paradigms depict and frame children and families through surveillance practices in accordance with this paper critically unpacks the racialized and gendered hierarchies between the co-teaching model of early childhood educators (eces) and ontario certified teachers (octs) in full-day kindergarten (fdk), and how such positionalities speak to racial socialization in early learning spaces. while young children and early learning spaces are often portrayed as raceless, ahistorical, and apolitical, extant literature suggests that children as young as two years of age are aware of visible and cultural differences between themselves and other groups. the paper employs a reconceptualist framework by drawing on critical race theory to explore how racialized power relations between eces and teachers inform hierarchies of dominance and impact processes of racial socialization in fdk learning spaces. while both professions are predominantly feminized, the overwhelming majority of teachers in ontario are white and middle class, whereas eces in fdk programs are more likely to be racialized and marginalized due to low wages and diminished professional status as care workers rather than educators. although there has been great emphasis on the importance of diversifying the teacher workforce, there is minimal study on the impact of the hierarchies and racialized power relations between eces and octs and their impact on racial socialization in fdk programs. this conceptual paper seeks to address this gap. key words: racialization; early childhood educators; ontario certified teacher; full-day kindergarten march 2021 2 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research predetermined developmental milestones that often pathologize and other racialized and indigenous children and families (abawi & berman, 2019). although young children are often constructed as too young to understand and engage with racial differences, they are constantly receiving racially coded messages embedded not only in classroom materials, curriculum, representation and resources, but also in interactions between educators and children and between octs and eces, whereby teachers hold considerably more power in terms of classroom decisions and programming than eces (daniel & escayg, 2019). eces are significantly more likely than teachers to be involved in precarious work, which is both gendered and racialized. the dichotomies between teachers and eces are perpetuated by highly stratified roles, statuses, salaries, and education (abawi, berman, & powell, 2019; hossein, 2014). this paper considers how racial socialization transpires in ontario’s fdk program against the backdrop of the power relations and dichotomies that frame the relationality between octs and eces. racial socialization refers to the direct or indirect messages that are transmitted about race and racial differences through various mediums, including the media, education, and family or upbringing (gaskin, 2015). ontario is often touted as the most ethno-racially diverse region in the world, with the largest share of immigrants and refugees in canada (statistics canada, 2016). moreover, over a quarter of ontario’s demographic is racialized, with indigenous communities the fastest growing demographic in canada (statistics canada, 2016). when i use the term racialized, i am referring to people of non-european heritage, regardless of whether they are canadian born or not (statistics canada, 2016). i intentionally separate the term indigenous from racialized to avoid conflation of the terms. while school boards are not required to collect demographic-based data, studies (e.g., abawi, 2018; abawi & eizadirad, 2020; turner consulting group, 2015) suggest that the ontario teacher workforce has not kept pace with student demographics and is largely white and middle class. eces working in fdk are confined to precarious employment, devalued labour, and low wages, all of which disproportionately affect racialized and indigenous communities. my interest in this topic stems from my experience having been both an oct and an ece working in the fdk program in both roles. i identify as white passing of mixed race; my father is afghan and my mother is scottish. the paper is divided into the following sections: an overview of the fdk program; reconceptualizing and racializing childhood; race and fdk; and discussion and conclusion. reconceptualizing and racializing childhood the reconceptualist movement in early childhood education materialized in the late 1980s and provided an epistemic shift that decentered traditional psychological-developmentalist conceptions of children and childhoods through a multidisciplinary framework (bloch, swadener, & cannella, 2014). hegemonic narratives of psychological development framing children and childhoods have widely been narrated as ahistorical, apolitical, colour blind, and neutral, all of which have become normalized in early childhood pedagogies, curricula, and policies (abawi & berman, 2019; iannacci & whitty, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2013). these dominant discursive practices have been largely based on scholarship and studies completed by and with white, able-bodied, cis-gendered scholars, children, and families. reconceptualists thus recenter multifaceted lived experiences and ways of knowing to counter dominant paradigms. reconceptualist scholarship, while important and much needed to shift away from dominant developmental discourses, remains largely conceptualized from a white onto-epistemological positioning (see perez, saavedra, & habashi, 2017). the most notable concept of the traditional psychological-developmental framework is developmentally appropriate practice (dap), developed and promoted by the (american) national association for the education of young children. reconceptualist scholars dismantle dap by problematizing the ways it others minoritized children, families, and communities, ascribing standardized trajectories of human development and milestones that privilege children who meet these march 2021 3 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research standards and pathologize children and families who do not (abawi & berman, 2019; brown, souto-manning, & tropp laman, 2010; lubeck, 1994; macnaughton & davis, 2009; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, & rowan, 2011). dap, which ascribes learning goals, outcomes, and expectations in accordance with age, fails to consider children’s diverse needs, variations, and lived experiences (escayg, 2019). scholars who draw on a crt approach deconstruct concepts such as dap as racially coded terms weaponized to track, document, and enforce conformity on children according to dominant developmentalist norms that are informed by whiteness, without room for counternarratives or other possibilities of conceptualizing children and childhoods. reconceptualist frameworks center on power relations by interrogating which bodies, identities, and ontological dispositions are privileged and which are oppressed by a developmentalist narrative. this paradigm provides a conceptual framework to consider how hierarchical and raced relations between eces and octs in settler colonial educational spaces such as fdk operate, materialize, and subsequently normalize racialized labour power relations between the two roles. race-ing eces and octs ontario was the first province to initiate the fdk program, a co-teaching model that combines the expertise of a registered ece and an oct. the implementation of fdk for 4and 5-year-old children provided a more comprehensive early learning strategy, one that is publicly funded and which offset the financial burden of childcare fees from families to the provincial government (gananathan, 2015). the co-teaching model of octs and eces was meant to provide a collaborative approach that would merge a play-based ece focus with an oct curricular and “educational” focus. octs and eces were contextualized as equal partners in teaching through the fdk model. on the one hand, the fdk program raised the status of eces through the establishment of the college of early childhood educators (cece), in which the designation of registered ece became a protected professional title. the cece is the first professional regulatory body for eces in canada. it established a code of ethics and standards of practice similar to those of the ontario college of teachers (association of early childhood educators ontario, 2016). on the other hand, while eces obtained professionalization, their equal status as partners with octs in the classroom is fundamentally untrue. although both the teaching and ece professions are characterized by feminization, octs have been discursively characterized as educators, while eces have been framed as care workers within a neoliberal context that devalues care work (langford, powell, & bezanson, 2020; richardson et al., 2013). moreover, the binaries between eces and octs in fdk are highlighted by eces’ poor working conditions, characterized by job precarity, lack of recognition and value for their work, and limited opportunities for income and professional growth. the precarious status of eces in school boards is characterized by hourly contracts, unpaid summer vacations, and limited job security, as their job permanence depends on the enrollment rates of 4 and 5-year olds (abawi, berman, & powell, 2019). finally, many eces are required to take on split shifts between different schools, requiring them to travel, often long distances, from one school to another, whilst losing break and planning times (abawi et al., 2019; association of early childhood educators ontario, 2016; ganananthan, 2015; moss, 2006). further, while teacher pay increases with years of service, ece pay remains relatively stagnant, further widening income and opportunity gaps between octs and eces. ece testimonies speak to feelings of being undervalued as an assistant to the teacher, with differing working conditions and an overall lack of respect from parents and colleagues toward their role (gibson & pelletier, 2016). racialized communities are overrepresented in precarious employment, such as within the early childhood education and care (ecec) sector, and they experience income and earning gaps; racialized earning gaps between white and nonwhite ontarians are at an all-time peak (colour of poverty, 2018; united way, 2019). march 2021 4 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research while publicly funded school boards are not required to collect demographic-based data, extant research suggests that ontario teachers are overwhelmingly white and middle class and have not kept pace with the increasing diversity of students in ontario classrooms (abawi, 2018; abawi & eizadirad, 2020; ryan, pollock, & antonelli, 2009; turner consulting group, 2015). ontario has repeatedly been called to diversify its teacher workforce; many of its policies pertaining to hiring for diversity are based on bias-free hiring approaches as best practice for closing the teacher diversity gap (abawi, 2018). the power relations between predominantly white, middle-class octs as educators and precarious, poorly paid eces as caregivers, although both are gendered, are also racially stratified. the racial socialization of young children in fdk is permeated by the dichotomies between octs and eces, which transmit messages about whose bodies can hold authority, power, and control and whose bodies are subjected into submission. differences in salary and professional status in the school community are often correlated to educational background, whereby octs are required to have a threeor four-year undergraduate degree and eces must complete an early childhood education program, most commonly an ontario college diploma (gibson & pelletier, 2011; hossein, 2014). the binaries between teachers and eces are manifested in the privileges afforded to teachers in terms of decision making, programming, and assessment practices. the polarization of the two roles others eces as having less autonomy, less power, poorer working conditions, and limited status within the school community (abawi et al., 2019; gibson & pelletier, 2011; hossein, 2014). critical race theory critical race theory (crt; crenshaw, 2011; delgado & stefancic, 2017; ladson-billings, 1998; matias et al., 2014; sleeter, 2017) problematizes narratives of colour-blindness often perpetuated in early learning curricula (bonilla-silva, 2003, 2006). the concept of colour-blind neutrality conjures up discourses of a postracial society in which racism is a phenomenon of the past and not an ongoing systemic, structural, and institutional barrier for racialized and indigenous communities. crt acknowledges that intersecting social identities such as gender and race must be contemplated when exploring processes of racial socialization to consider the myriad ways that multiple positionalities structure power relations (crenshaw, 2011). scholar gloria ladson-billings (1999) outlines the four pillars of crt as follows: (1) attention to the normalization of racism in society; (2) storytelling as a counternarrative to white dominance; (3) the critique of liberalism where systems of racism and racialization are silenced; and (4) an emphasis on race realism. crt challenges racism and processes of racialization by centering these processes and thus dismantling neutrality and colour-blindness. research using a crt framework is often focused on k–12 and postsecondary education; crt is an important lens to reconceptualize race and racialization in early childhood spaces (berman et al. 2017; bryan, 2018; macnevin & berman, 2017). a fundamental tenet of crt is storytelling as a counternarrative. stories provide space for racialized and indigenous communities to provide perspectives of historical and ontological experiences of racialization. ladson-billings (1998) highlighted the importance of counternarratives as resistance to dismantle white experiences as the norm. personal narratives provide a critical and transformational practice through “the naming of one’s own reality with stories that can affect the oppressor” (p. 14). crt speaks to the ways in which eces’ knowledge, skills, and experiences are marginalized and their roles in the fdk program are ambiguous within the larger school community. crt provides space for counternarratives that allow eces to be valued and contributing members of the fdk teaching team. under the dominant developmentalist lens of childhood and children, racial socialization is minimized and dismissed as inappropriate. thus, young children are socialized to not talk about race and to pretend not to notice differences between people, especially differences of those who do not conform to social norms (diangelo, 2018). the widespread assumption that children are blind to racial differences is rooted in reductionary western epistemologies of child learning and development which assert that children are too incompetent to understand, engage with, and navigate race and identity (di tomasso, 2012). the psychological-developmentalist paradigm march 2021 5 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research that frames children as helpless and oblivious to race is underlined in numerous studies that posit that many preservice teachers and eces alike do not notice race or racism as issues in their learning environments and thus perpetuate colour-blind dispositions toward children, families, and communities (berman et al., 2017; han, 2013; macnaughton & davis, 2009). a critical race lens supports an understanding of the gendered and racialized hierarchies that constitute the positionalities of octs and eces, one group privileged and included in the school community and the other precarious and excluded. young children in fdk receive such messages concerning gendered and racialized inclusion and exclusion, which assist in shaping their norms and perceptions about power and privilege. race and children in full-day kindergarten early learning spaces must be reconceptualized and reimagined as contested sites of cultural and social reproduction and transmission within a settler colonial context such as ontario (butler & teasley, 2019). while text as policy or curriculum is never neutral but is permeated by power relations, embodiment and subjectivity are pivotal to teaching and learning. marginalized families and children are often subjected to multiple forms of ethnocentric oppression, such as pedagogies that privilege whiteness at the expense of non-eurocentric epistemologies. curricular approaches such as ontario’s kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016) fail to engage children in critical discussions, pedagogies, and practices that center power relations, race, racialization, and whiteness (escayg, 2019). when incidents of racism emerge in early learning spaces, they are often minimized or downplayed and overwhelmingly unreported (berman et al., 2017). studies suggest that children of all races hold pro-white biases and that educators of young children in fact reinforce stereotypes by enacting colour-blind and neutral approaches toward incidents of racism and performances and mediations of race and identity (boutte, 2008; macnaughton & davis, 2009; macnevin & berman, 2016). therefore, it is important to consider how intersectionalities of oppression are perpetuated as status quo within fdk hierarchies, such as the hierarchies of power between teachers and eces, and how these racially coded messages impact young children’s engagement with racial socialization. many of the colour-blind narratives that inform curricular and pedagogical practices have their roots in the usbased derman-sparks anti-bias curriculum (1989). the anti-bias curriculum reinforced positive views of diversity and recognizing differences as a mechanism to strengthen social cohesion in multicultural societies. however, the anti-bias curriculum framed diversity from a eurocentric developmentalist lens while simultaneously glossing over any dialogue on the impact of power relations on social constructs of racial identity (escayg, berman, & royer, 2017; friendly & prentice, 2009; vandenbroeck, 2010). ontario’s kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016) is the curricular document that informs pedagogical and assessment practices in the fdk program. the kindergarten program mentions the word race on two occasions, the first in the introductory section of the document as a footnote in reference to the ministry of education’s achieving excellence: a renewed vision for education in ontario (2014). the second time race is mentioned is under section 3.1 “equity and inclusive education in kindergarten,” which generically notes: in an environment based on the principles of inclusive education, all children in kindergarten, their parents, other family members, and other members of the school community—regardless of ancestry, culture, ethnicity, sex, physical or intellectual ability, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or other similar factors—are welcomed, included, treated fairly, and respected. diversity is valued and all members of the school community feel safe, comfortable and accepted. (ontario ministry of education, 2016, p. 101) although race and diversities of social location are mentioned in the kindergarten program, the document provides march 2021 6 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research an all-encompassing statement that proclaims that all communities are welcomed and included, speaking on behalf of those communities and thus speaking over the myriad lived experiences and positionalities of marginalized communities. the statement moreover conceals the power imbalances between teachers and eces by emphasizing the role of colour-blindness and discourses of “racial innocence” (escayg, 2019) that speak to the dominant framing of young children’s understandings and encounters of and with racialization. while there has been a shift in discourse from multiculturalism and equality to equity and inclusion, the narratives pertaining to difference and diversity are constructed from an anti-bias paradigm (segeren, 2016). moreover, the curriculum does not discuss issues of race, racism, or discrimination, and it conforms to eurocentric psychological-developmentalist discourses of children and childhood. the curriculum embedded in fdk is insufficient for decentering white privilege or the pervasive developmentalist norms permeated in early childhood epistemological norms and practices (berman et al., 2017; pacini-ketchabaw, nxumalo, kocher, elliot, & sanchez, 2015). education in canada is a provincial responsibility, and thus there is no federal oversight to ensure coherence between the provinces and territories (robertson & doyle-jones, 2015; simpson, james, & mack, 2011). the omission of a cohesive federal ecec policy framework is also evident as ecec policies are responsibilities designated to the provinces to establish their own policy priorities. however, as it stands, ontario, as canada’s most diverse province, lacks an ecec policy to ensure the proposed commitment to equity, inclusion, and social justice translates into pedagogical action rather than diversity “happy talk” whereby diversity becomes an increasingly prevalent talking point without critical action (ahmed, 2012). as robertson and doyle-jones (2015) note, there is a competing policy agenda enveloping early childhood learning in ontario. the agenda places the dominant initiative of highquality programming and safety in conflict with policies of equity and inclusion, and high-quality programming with its focus on child development milestones takes precedence. berman et al. (2017) contend that eces in the anglosphere might perpetuate racism and processes of racialization through colour-blind interactions and practices. current policy and curricular definitions of equity and inclusion are articulated in such a manner that they shall never materialize into more than “laminated equity” (lopez, 2013) as there is no naming of race and racism. rather, the kindergarten document (ontario ministry of education, 2016) encourages a gentle self-reflexive approach that offers no accountability to addressing or removing systemic, institutional, and structural barriers encountered by racialized families, educators, and communities. a crt analysis makes racialization and intersectionalities of identity salient in narratives about children, childhoods, families, curriculum, materials, and relationships between educators and students as well as educators themselves. the lack of acknowledgement of the inequitable power structures within policy documents highlights the dichotomies between octs and eces in fdk programs. the exclusion of ece epistemologies, contributions, and experience are often subjugated by the privileging of teacher’s educational qualifications, decision-making and professional status within the school and wider community. teachers are often conceptualized as more powerful than eces and these hierarchical differences detrimentally impact the dynamic between octs and eces. these hierarchies are embedded in positionalities and intersectionalities of race, gender, and socioeconomic status and play out in the daily interactions between the two, while children in the classroom are constantly receiving messages and inferring meaning in relation to racial norms, representations, power, and oppression. discussion and conclusion when considering how power relationships between eces, whose employment is characterized by precarity, devaluation of labour, and low wages—all of which are hallmarks of gendered and racialized labour—in comparison to overwhelmingly white, middle-class teachers, it is important to consider the implications such march 2021 7 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research hierarchies have on the children in fdk spaces (abawi, 2018; escayg, 2019). although canada is conceptualized through dominant narratives of settler colonialism and as a place of opportunity for diversity and multiculturalism, racialized and indigenous communities in ontario and canada are often denied access to the labour market (galabuzi, 2006). this form of social exclusion manifests itself throughout the labour market through low-paying jobs and poor working conditions, employment precarity, and insecurity, all of which define the devaluation of the ece profession in ontario. dominant relationships between eces and octs are fraught with intersectionalities of gender and race; these relationships are not neutral, ahistorical, or apolitical but socialized and embedded as a facet of white privilege in fdk learning environments. when considering racialized intersectionalities of power, such as race, gender, and economic precarity, it is critical to center on whiteness and white supremacy, whereby whiteness is an intact marker of racialized power (bonilla-silva, 2003). the benefits of racialized power manifest in systems of white supremacy, notably education in settler colonial contexts such as ontario. ansley (1997) defines white supremacy as “a political, economic, and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources” (p. 599). the normalization of whiteness is perpetuated and embedded in white children’s racial dispositions, beliefs, and attitudes toward themselves and nonwhite communities, in conjecture with prowhite biases among racialized children that are perpetuated and normalized through dichotomized interactions between eces and teachers (escayg et al., 2017). as the majority of teachers in ontario are white and middle class, these positionalities inform curricular delivery, classroom materials, assessment practices, and representation. the dominant positionality of teachers further normalizes white middle-class identities, while eces as precarious workers are undermined on the margins of the school community. the utilization of crt reveals the gendered and racialized power relations that inform relationships and interactions between eces and octs in a manner whereby whiteness is always normalized and exerts power. racial socialization and meaning-making processes thus play out through hierarchical interactions between dominant white groups and nondominant racialized groups. studies suggest that white canadian children between the ages of 4 and 6 harbour positive attitudes toward their own racial identities and are significantly more likely to associate nonwhite groups with negativity (aboud & doyle, 1995; johnson & aboud, 2013). racial meanings that privilege whiteness and white supremacy are compounded by the hierarchical racial power dichotomies that frame the relationship between eces and octs. these power relations speak to and send messages to young children in fdk programs about which bodies are afforded positions of authority, power, belonging, and control, as well as which bodies are deemed as “other” within the stratification of white supremacist settler colonial educational landscapes. social identities such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status are therefore never neutral but are constructed through hierarchies in relation to white-settler normalcy, where narratives of citizenship and belonging are also intimately influenced (abawi, 2018; lopez, 2013). dei (2003, 2007) posits the importance of educators in acknowledging the complexities of identity, noting “a key tenet is that educators must begin to understand their students through the lens of race as a salient part of their myriad identities” (2003, p. 3). when it comes to resisting the racialized and gendered power relations that are often manifested in the dichotomous relationship between octs and eces, there must be acknowledgement that children are not blind to such interactions. by employing a critical race and reconceptualist lens to rethink children and childhoods, one views children as constantly engaged in meaning-making processes, not only from messages of racialized socialization transmitted by the curriculum, materials, and resources, but also between teachers and eces. providing space for eces to engage in counternarratives in order to share their wealth of knowledge and experience and become vital and equitable members of the school community is essential in order for administrators and teachers to understand the important role of eces in the fdk and larger learning communities. well-meaning colour-blindness and apathy to race and positionality perpetuate whiteness as the status quo and oppress eces and nonwhite children, families, educators, and communities (gay, 2010). as ontario’s racial diversity continues to grow, educational march 2021 8 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research spaces in ontario, such as fdk, must be reconceptualized as critical sites to resist, problematize, and deconstruct the racialized dichotomies, institutional, systemic, and structural inequities and relationships that privilege white dominance over othered bodies. march 2021 9 vol. 46 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references abawi, z. 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(2010). moving beyond anti-bias education: changing conceptions of diversity and equity in european early childhood education. european early childhood education research journal, 15(1), 21–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/13502930601046604 october 2021 16 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research pandemic effects: ableism, exclusion, and procedural bias kathryn underwood, tricia van rhijn, alice-simone balter, laura feltham, patty douglas, gillian parekh, and breanna lawrence dr. kathryn underwood is a professor in the school of early childhood studies at ryerson university and the project director for the inclusive early childhood service system project. her research spans disabled childhoods, childhood studies, family experiences, and policy in early childhood education, care, and schooling. she has been part of over 20 research projects. email: kunderwood@ ryerson.ca dr. tricia van rhijn is a registered early childhood educator and an associate professor in the department of family relations and applied nutrition at the university of guelph. her research interests include early childhood education and care, family relations, work–life integration, and the experiences of nontraditional students in formal postsecondary education, in particular mature students and student parents. dr. alice-simone balter is a postdoctoral fellow working on the inclusive early childhood service system project in the department of family relations and applied nutrition at the university of guelph. she is an interdisciplinary educator and researcher, where the common thread to her work is to promote educator, child, and youth health and well-being. her research interests include preand post-service education, social-emotional competencies, and sexuality education. laura feltham is a project coordinator for the inclusive early childhood service system project in the department of early childhood studies at ryerson university. their research interests include gender and disability inclusion in the early years, as well as childcare and parental leave policy. dr. patty douglas is an associate professor in disability studies and inclusive education in the department of educational psychology and student services at brandon university. her research interests concentrate on critical, phenomenological, and creative research approaches to autism, radical inclusion, disruptive pedagogies, and histories of science and care. she currently leads re•storying autism in education, an international, collaborative, interdisciplinary multimedia storytelling project speaking back to deficit perspectives of autism in educational research and practice. for more, go to www.restoryingautism.com. dr. gillian parekh is an associate professor and canada research chair in inclusion, disability, and education within the faculty of education at york university. as a former teacher in special education and research coordinator with the toronto district school board, gillian has conducted extensive system and school-based research in toronto in the areas of structural equity, special education, and academic streaming. in particular, her work explores how schools construct and respond to disability as well as how students are organized across programs and systems. dr. breanna lawrence is an assistant professor in the department of educational psychology and student services at brandon university. her research centers on social contexts of mental health concerns, and the intersections of learning, career, and substance use. dr. lawrence’s research interests have largely been shaped by her professional background working in educational and clinical mental health settings as a counsellor. the covid-19 pandemic has changed social organizations and altered children’s worlds. as part of an ongoing longitudinal study of the institutional organization of disabled children’s lives, since march 2020 we have conducted interviews with families in rural and urban communities across canada (65 families at the time of writing). the narrow focus of governments on the economy, childcare, and schooling does not reflect the scope of experiences of families and disabled children. we describe emerging findings about what the effects of the pandemic closures demonstrate about the social valuing of childhood, disability, and diverse family lives in early childhood education and care. our research makes the case that ableism, exclusion, and procedural bias are the products of cumulative experiences across institutional sites and that it is critical we understand disabled childhoods more broadly if we are to return to more inclusive early childhood education and care. key words: disabled children’s childhood studies; covid-19; inclusion; early childhood education and care; family support mailto:kunderwood@ryerson.ca mailto:kunderwood@ryerson.ca http://www.restoryingautism.com october 2021 17 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the covid-19 pandemic is having catastrophic effects on people globally and disproportionately impacting marginalized people and communities through inequality and discrimination (brennan, 2020). substantial social changes are occurring due to government responses to the public health crisis, but we do not yet know the longterm, pandemic-related outcomes for disabled children and families. governments and media have focused almost exclusively on getting childcare and schools reopened because of their impact on the economy. in this article, we present emerging findings from the inclusive early childhood service system (iecss) project in which disabled1 children’s family experiences inform us about institutional power, its demands on people, and the values it lays bare. this longitudinal study began in 2014, with 133 family members (to date) participating in annual interviews. this article focuses on interviews conducted between march 13, 2020, when lockdowns were declared throughout canada, and november 30, 2020. focused on institutional responses to disability in childhood, our research positions us to understand how institutions have responded to the pandemic and where closures and restructuring have illuminated mechanisms that organize disabled childhoods. we draw on disabled children’s childhood studies and international research on disability rights and inclusion (runswick-cole & curran, 2013; underwood et al., 2021) to situate our findings. our purpose in centering disabled childhoods is to highlight how disabled children and their families are often asked to interact with many services, professionals, and procedures and therefore offer a unique standpoint from which to examine early childhood institutions. disability in this theoretical tradition is a sociological categorization used to organize children for the purposes of services. disability is also a part of children’s identity and a valued way in which children may understand the world (runswick-cole & curran, 2013; underwood et al., 2021). pandemic effects across canada and the world the closure, reopening, and further closures of services for children give us a rare opportunity to study which services are considered to be essential and most valued by government. this time is also, however, an opportunity to better understand what children’s and families’ daily experiences can tell us about canadian societal values. governments have made pandemic-related decisions advertised as supporting collective well-being but have “magnified the [social inequities] for persons with disabilities” (unicef, 2020, p. 5). following the world health organization’s global pandemic declaration on march 11, 2020, states of emergency were declared in every canadian province and territory (bronca, 2020). within a few weeks, gradually increasing restrictions and closures of nonessential businesses and services resulted in the loss of physical access to childcare, schools, “nonessential” health care, early intervention, and most family support programs. our research indicates that exclusions take place in many settings in the early years (van rhijn et al., 2021). examining pandemic closures from the standpoint of family experience leads us to recognize that exclusion and inclusion in childcare are affected by many sites of related participation for young children, including health care, recreation, family support, and other social and educational settings. these sites form an interconnected network of institutional procedures and power that affect each site of participation, as we have seen in our research to date and present in our findings specific to the pandemic in this article. the canadian government has focused on childcare throughout the pandemic response as an economic strategy. childcare has been a focus of public discourse about which services are deemed essential for our economy (stanford, 2020). for this reason, it was one of the first services to be reopened (see childcare resource and research unit [crru], 2020a, for a detailed overview of childcare reopenings in each province and territory). school reopenings were also prioritized in some provinces but not others. the switch to online learning in spring 2020 was quick and unplanned and, arguably, not implemented in consideration of disabled children (baker, 2020; jeste et al., 2020; patel, 2020). of the 3,028 ontario kindergarten teacher participants in a covid-19 impacts study, almost 80% october 2021 18 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research reported that disabled children had difficulty with online learning (janus et al., 2020). the public discourse was preoccupied with public health measures to ensure schools reopened safely—a critical conversation—but lacked focus on what disabled children needed in order to fully participate in childcare and other early years education and care sites (brandenburg et al., 2020; thomas & lopez-martinez, 2020). this omission, combined with concerns that disabled children might be at higher risk of severe covid-19 infection, forced some families to keep their children (and the children’s siblings) at home rather than attending school or accessing childcare (plante, 2020). in many jurisdictions, school closures began with announcements of extended march breaks with schools remaining closed to in-person learning in almost all provinces and territories for the remainder of the 2019–2020 school year. exceptions included quebec, where schools reopened in all areas except for montreal in mid-may 2019, and british columbia, where schools reopened on june 1, 2019, on a part-time, voluntary basis, both with strict public health guidelines. for the 2020–2021 school year, all provinces and territories planned to reopen schools with in-person learning, except where there was a documented health risk to children or staff, with the exception of ontario, which offered parents the choice between in-person and online learning (see crru, 2020b for a detailed overview of school reopenings in each province and territory). in-person learning included varying public health requirements such as cohorting, physical distancing, reduced classroom size, and mask mandates. as the pandemic progresses, individual schools have temporarily moved back to online learning when outbreaks occur and enforced remote learning during periods of provincial lockdowns (e.g., ontario ministry of education, 2021). while this special issue is focused on childcare, in order to understand the scope of decisions made that centered nondisabled experiences (i.e., ableism) and to illuminate the scope of exclusions for disabled children through the pandemic, it is necessary to also examine schooling and other settings as noted by global disability scholars and discussed throughout this article. childcare responses have been more varied than schools’, with some jurisdictions not mandating closures at any point to our knowledge (e.g., northwest territories, yukon, and british columbia, although many still chose to close in bc; crru, 2020a). in many provinces and territories, childcare centres were not initially considered essential services and were required to close along with all businesses and services that were deemed nonessential. most areas reopened a limited number of centres to provide emergency childcare for essential workers, with the exception of nova scotia and nunavut (northwest territories and yukon did not provide emergency childcare; however, their centres were not mandated to close; crru, 2020a). childcare centres in other provinces reopened between may 11, 2020 (i.e., quebec; newfoundland & labrador) and june 12, 2020 (i.e., ontario). nunavut reclosed childcare centres to all families except essential workers on november 18, 2020, due to increased cases (nunavut department of education, 2020). public health guidelines in place for childcare are similar to those for schools (crru, 2020a). these local restrictions are situated within a global concern on the part of disability advocacy groups about the effects of pandemic closures on disabled people. the covid-19 disability rights monitor has declared a global “catastrophic failure” to protect the rights of disabled people through the pandemic (brennan, 2020). documented human rights violations include dismal protection for persons with disabilities in residential institutional settings, loss of community supports, and inaccessibility to healthcare. these rights violations are rooted in an ableist and systemic disregard of disabled people in every country in the world (brennan, 2020). for disabled children specifically, stigma and discrimination against [disabled children] often lead to increased exposure to abuse and neglect, reduced access to services, and general lack of recognition. moreover, children with disabilities and their families are more likely to live in poverty, and they are overrepresented among the homeless population and those living in residential care and shelters, which further exacerbates their october 2021 19 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research marginalization. (unicef, 2020, p. 5) disability’s effects intersect with “gender identity, age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, origin, location and legal status, among other factors, [and persons with disabilities] carry a heavier burden of the immediate and long-term economic and social consequences of the pandemic” (unesco, 2020, p. 8; see a. smith, 2020 and underwood, ineese-nash, & haché, 2019 for analysis of intersectionality in the iecss project). the un has pushed for disaggregated data to identify covid-19 rates in disabled populations, which would better inform responses to the pandemic and future planning (unesco, 2020). we are concerned with disability-specific effects of the pandemic and ongoing references to risk and vulnerability for those with “underlying medical conditions” (statistics canada, 2020). these discourses allow paternalistic protections, as well as the possibility of deeming some lives as essential and limiting whose participation is valued. under the guise of safety, many disabled children experienced exclusion from childcare before the pandemic. this ableism has created procedural biases that risk being exacerbated by the pandemic. preexisting systemic barriers going into the pandemic our analysis of the initial pandemic effects on disabled children is situated within our pre-pandemic knowledge of the procedural and policy contexts experienced by children and their families from the iecss project. we have identified some key features of early childhood education, care, intervention, healthcare, family support, and social services that are structural barriers to inclusion. we have documented that families do a lot of work to gain access to services including childcare and other early childhood settings, especially when they have a disabled child (underwood et al., 2020). this work involves time, money, emotional energy, and ongoing monitoring. we have found that the more services a family accesses, the more the system needs from them. this is particularly true at transition times, such as entering kindergarten, transitioning home from hospital, when referred to a new program, and moving or other family changes that lead to changes in services (underwood, frankel, et al., 2019). we have seen that institutions hold power through procedures, policies, and qualifying criteria for services (church et al., 2020; van rhijn et al., 2021). this power comes through professionals’ decisions, as well as requirements for families and frontline workers to comply with policies and procedures in order to gain and maintain access to programs and services. we have found that this compliance requires families to conform to western medicalized values of early childhood education and care, such as autonomy over relationships, as well as health care services (underwood et al., 2020). the accessibility of early years services is impacted by geography, financial resources of families and programs, staffing, and alignment between the worldview of families and programs (frankel et al., 2019; ineese-nash et al., 2017). inclusion requires social policy, support for families, and professional collaboration (frankel et al., 2020). we have shown that the responses in the system are generic, meaning they do not necessarily fit the families’ circumstances or the children’s individual characteristics. instead, systems respond to standardized categorizations of child development and family circumstances (frankel et al., 2019; ineese-nash et al., 2017). attending to preexisting systemic barriers matters for institutional responses to childhood disability during the pandemic because it allows us to see what needs to be carried forward to achieve more inclusive childcare and early childhood settings. research approach the iecss project is a longitudinal study employing an institutional ethnographic approach (e.g., d. e. smith, 2006, 2009). institutional ethnography (ie) seeks to ground research in the everyday experiences of people, not to october 2021 20 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research give them voice, but to consider how people are ruled through their interactions with institutions. descriptions of people’s everyday lives provide an entry point into the institutional ruling relations that govern people’s work— including unpaid labour such as parenting (kearney et al., 2019; ng et al., 2017). since 2014, the iecss project has conducted annual interviews with families whose children were between infancy and two years old at the first interview. the interviews ask participants about institutional responses to disabled childhoods and families in order to map the regulatory and conceptual power of institutions. the annual interviews—typically in person—are extensive, lasting up to two hours and asking about the processes and procedures required to gain access to all programs and services for their disabled child and other family members. after march 13, 2020, we shifted to conducting shorter interviews (45–60 minutes) by telephone. as of november 30, 2020, we had conducted 65 interviews with participants living in new brunswick, quebec, ontario, manitoba, northwest territories, and british columbia. these interviews have been dominated by family experiences during the covid-19 pandemic. these 65 interviews are a snapshot taken within a particular time during the pandemic. these are not the first interviews conducted with many of the families, who were participants in the study prior to the pandemic. the interviews analyzed for this paper range from the first to sixth annual interview. our analysis focuses on how the effects of the pandemic have altered the organization of children and families in institutions. we are aware that services differ in response to income inequality, and that income inequality has been a factor in pandemic effects (oronce et al., 2020; wherry, 2020; wildman, 2021). for this reason, we begin with an analysis of differences in how services are organized around family income. we then examine other ways in which families are generalized by service systems. our analysis focuses on income; however, we know that income is linked to race and that racial inequality has had a direct effect on everyday experiences of the pandemic. the city of toronto has been publishing data that documents these linkages throughout the pandemic (city of toronto, n.d.). focused on institutional responses to disability in childhood, our research positions us to see how institutions have responded to the pandemic and to understand its organizing effects on families. pandemic effects: our findings our findings are organized into examples of inclusion and exclusion. interestingly, the examples of inclusion are situated primarily in interactions that are outside of the typical institutional conceptualizations of inclusion. these examples may not have been as well understood or illuminated had the pandemic not happened. the examples of exclusion highlight several structural barriers in early childhood institutions. ie uses description of the everyday activities of individuals to build understanding of the institution. the unit of analysis is the institution itself not individual interview participants. as ng et al. (2017) note, “[dorothy] smith proposed ie partially in response to grand theorising in sociology, which, she argued, abstracted and objectified people’s everyday experiences and living conditions” (p. 53). ie seeks to see the theory that is entrenched in institutional processes and that emerges in the descriptions of how everyday activities work. as such, we divide the subsections within our exclusions section below into key sites of power that organize people, including disability-specific programs and services, childcare and respite services, family employment and work, and both children’s and families’ relationships. inclusion the pace of each day, the physical spaces in which children and families spend time, and relationships have all changed as a direct effect of the pandemic. many examples of deeply inclusive interactions between people were described in our interviews as the result of individuals making decisions outside of the typical rules and regulations of institutions, which was possible during these unusual times. in our examples of inclusion, which we touch on in this section, it was human actions rather than policy that facilitated the inclusion of disabled children in their october 2021 21 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research communities. the policies and procedures families had been navigating pre-pandemic were altered by the new reality. some families during this time describe benefits from the lockdown. these include children making gains in language, academics, and development. other children appear calmer and happier because they are home with family, particularly the youngest children. families also mentioned support individuals who are important contacts for families, for example, an educational assistant in the northwest territories who made physically distanced home visits. in peel region, a speech pathologist created engaging activities tailored to the interests of two children in the program, with one mother noting how engaged her 2-year-old son was in the therapy. in new brunswick, a parent described the importance of being in a small community where the school guidance counsellor, a social worker, and teachers were regularly checking in and sending home weekly activity packages. in toronto, we heard about a family who struggled pre-pandemic with communication between private therapists and the school improving the communication links and finding value in improved coordination. in brandon, we heard about a grade 1 teacher who sent home a school welcome package, had regular telephone meetings to coordinate development of the individual education plan (iep), and helped the family to find a tutor. in hamilton, a parent reported that their child felt abandoned during the pandemic, but they were able to get friends and family to share photos of themselves. in quebec, a mother noted the stronger relationship her child had with cousins because of daily virtual communication. these specific examples of individuals acting outside of the typical rules of institutions were found in every community, which tells us that this type of “pandemic” inclusion is happening across different localized policy contexts. families also noted the structured or unstructured schedules that emerged from pandemic living. some families created routines that included connection with services; others created their own structure, or limited the amount of structure in their schedule. one participant identified that positives have emerged from having less structure: i’ve seen the benefits of unstructured time for both my kids. they play together in a really nice way.… for a few years now, all these different programs [gave] us a bit of a breather, but through this pandemic i’ve realized actually those programs just bring more stress to our lives. these examples of inclusion are characterized by being outside of the regulations that typically governed institutions before the pandemic lockdowns. overall, the loosening or removal of procedures that were required prior to the pandemic created the conditions for some of the examples of inclusion, indicating pre-pandemic procedural bias toward exclusion. exclusion our findings around pandemic exclusions, in contrast to those on inclusions described above, are situated within institutional structures and processes. while there have been positive changes in children’s routines and activities, we have also heard about significant losses of services and supports throughout the pandemic. economic inequality. our research on pre-pandemic conditions that lead to inequality in early years systems has directed us to consider differences in how institutions interact with people based on their economic circumstances (underwood et al., 2020). we began our analysis by organizing the data into three family net annual income categories—low (n=15, $34,999), middle (n=19, $40-99,999), and high (n=25, above $100,000)—with n=6 not reporting. these categories allowed us to identify differences in how services govern families, or generalize their needs, in income groupings. in this way, we were able to see that the number of private services that were part of the early childhood service system prior to the pandemic has exacerbated inequality among disabled children postpandemic. in the low-income group of families, many lost all the support services that they had pre-pandemic. october 2021 22 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research for example, one child’s transition plan to move from three days per week to full-time attendance was interrupted. in addition, there were disruptions in application processes and assessments for subsidy and other monetary supports for low-income families. several middleor high-income participants reported that their privately funded services were not interrupted during the pandemic restrictions. some private schools provided families access to both hardware and software that facilitated instruction and participation as a standard part of their programs. several families had private therapists (some of whom continued to attend family homes throughout the lockdown) who helped with schoolwork and communication with educators and provided families with activities to do with their children. this analysis demonstrates a significant disparity in how services are organized for families at different income levels. as the pandemic has evolved, families have experienced disparate access to critical services for their children, revealing a lack of prioritization for family and disability services. the impact of the pandemic on disabled children, economically diverse families, and access to inclusive childcare and school must be understood within this larger institutional context. disability-specific programs and services. some services are specific to disabled children, organizing these children and their families into a particular category. we found that most disability-specific early childhood programs were not considered to be essential during the various pandemic-related closures, with some moving online or being cancelled. our findings indicate that many services that were critical for gaining entry into institutions prepandemic (e.g., assessments, assistants, adaptations; underwood et al., 2018) were no longer classified as essential. families experienced significant disruptions in existing policies and procedures, which affected intake processes and mechanisms to qualify for services. some children waiting for meetings about developmental assessments, ieps, or individual support plans (isps) in childcare or school had them delayed or cancelled altogether. participants across all communities where we conducted interviews described the cancellation of disabilityspecific services in speech and language, occupational therapy, mental health services, and resource consultation in childcare. in addition, children who outgrew adaptive equipment could not get new assessments or fittings. children who previously had regular contact with principals, social workers, and other school staff often had none of these due to physical distancing and maintaining “bubbles” in some provinces. the redeployment of frontline staff, either to reduce group sizes in childcare and school or to other essential programs, resulted in the loss of entitlements for disabled children. similarly, resources to support educators (early childhood educators and teachers) to create inclusive environments were also lost or reduced. for example, families reported that assessments or visits from resource consultants in childcare and schools intended to support staff have not occurred or have been substantially delayed. activities in online learning environments were often described by families as not suitable, too difficult, or not engaging. some families noted online work was too easy because the teachers did not know about gains children had made during the initial lockdown and the summer. some parents were adapting the work themselves. for example, one mother downloaded the grade 1 curriculum to adapt material for her child in grade 2. other families simply did not engage with the materials. some parents who previously provided in-school support for their child found that they could no longer do so with covid-19 restrictions. for example, one parent had been attending her child’s school to teach classmates american sign language and, despite their child being back in school full time, the parent could no longer enter the school. childcare and respite. many families rely on institutional support to care for young children either through childcare (both paid and unpaid) or through disability-specific care support, often called respite. regardless of october 2021 23 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research whether care was paid or unpaid, we saw disruptions to the support that families received due to the pandemic, which also interrupted their interactions with institutions. during spring 2020, every iecss family who had access to childcare lost that service. some childcare centres continued to provide connection through virtual meetings, but these connections were sporadic and did not serve the same purposes for children’s development, social participation, and support for employment, studying, or other family activities. childcare was not inclusive to many families in our study prior to the pandemic (van rhijn et al., 2021). several families had relied on grandparents for childcare pre-pandemic, in part because childcare centres were not inclusive. with older adults considered high risk for covid-19 infection, these families lost this important support. in addition, some families relied on respite services which were lost and, for some, have yet to be reinstated. care of children was affected by family circumstances. the ability of parents to care for their own children was impacted by the support services they previously accessed, with some losing all their support services due to the pandemic. one participant who had a baby during the pandemic could no longer advocate for services for her other child. another participant, whose child lost their place on several waitlists for assessment and services, had three other children who also lost services. this participant moved one of her children to a group home, relinquishing custody in order to have the capacity to support her other three children. access to services was also affected by family economic status. families who paid for private services, in general, had more communication with them, and these services seemed to be less affected by pandemic restrictions. family employment and work. differences between families are often connected to their work arrangements, including whether they work shifts or are on salary, have flexible or fixed hours, and whether their work is considered essential or not. work arrangements had a significant impact on how families cared for their children during the pandemic and, in turn, their interactions with early childhood education and care institutions. we heard from families where one or more parent had lost their job, some of whom qualified for the canadian emergency response benefit (cerb) while others did not. a central finding of the iecss project to-date is that early childhood services require work by families of disabled children (underwood et al., 2020). the current analysis indicates that this work has been amplified by the pandemic. therapists, educators, and other professionals rely on families to implement therapies, adapt curricula, and help children to access online programs. our participants report a high degree of exclusion of disabled children, particularly from school programs where children and/or their families need skills to physically operate a computer and knowledge of programs to help children participate. providing this support requires families to be physically, emotionally, and intellectually able and available. some families have engaged in this work, but others have given up. the work that has been downloaded to parents has impacted their own lives, including their employment and mental health. several parents also found it difficult to find employment because they had lost childcare or because the support their children needed at home required at least one parent to be available. one participant said: we were basically working three jobs at a time: we were doing our full-time work that we needed to do to afford all the masks and food and the toilet paper. and then we had to do the parenting and then all of sudden we became special needs educators. so that four months, middle of march to middle of july, that was the worse part of the year for me. thankfully, none of us got affected by covid health-wise, but in terms of our mental health, that was an absolute nightmare. families’ employment circumstances, including job loss, whether they were frontline workers, and flexibility in working, and their income have led to differences in whether families could continue to participate in early childhood education and care, as well as disability services. employment differences among families in our study have led to disproportionate negative effects of the pandemic. october 2021 24 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research relationships. family relationships impact the support they get to participate in institutional processes and relationships and have impacted whether their children have had social interactions throughout the pandemic. in addition, social relationships are one of the most important aspects of children’s participation in early childhood education and care, as well as other early years environments. an important site for community participation is recreational activities (e.g., swimming, soccer, gymnastics, arts programs, clubs), one of the most common losses for social participation during the pandemic. some children lost access due to restrictions to adaptive programs. for the majority of these families, the closure of recreational programs resulted in the loss of an important place where their children had been active members of their community, as well as the loss of a space for children to practice their gross motor, social, language, and communication skills. we noted that discussion of recreational activities was more prominent in interviews during the pandemic than in pre-pandemic interviews. relationships within the household have also been impacted by the extended period of time that households are spending together. multiple participants had children join or rejoin their household through birth, fostering, or older children coming home. some families reported improvements in sibling relationships while others described tensions. parent-child relationships also shifted, with many parents taking on new roles, including educator and therapist, during the pandemic. one father working from home now spent more time with his children; another father learned more about the mother’s work supporting their child because of working from home. family support groups were also interrupted. some, but not all, groups went online. some parents reported that face-to-face meetings were vital for their well-being and for both children’s and parents’ opportunities for social relationships. most of these services have not yet returned to face-to-face activities. many families reported that their children were experiencing extreme social isolation. one participant noted that her child saw only their immediate family from march until september 2020. in one case, a child was exhibiting concerning anxiety symptoms, becoming fearful of situations not previously feared. other children in foster care or shared custody arrangements were not allowed in-person visits with biological parents. yet, for some children, staying at home and not engaging with peers was a relief. in either case, families expressed concerns about their children’s emotional well-being, social skill regression, and the impact of isolation resulting from childcare and school closures. many families commented that communication with professionals they previously worked with was sporadic and in many cases nonexistent during the spring closure of childcare centres and schools. as the fall approached, many participants had yet to hear from their children’s teachers, special education staff, or resource consultants. families did not know who their children’s teachers would be, what supports would be in place, and whether agreements established pre-pandemic would be honoured. finally, other systems interrupted by the pandemic have also impacted disabled children and their families, such as the court system, with one family’s adoption interrupted and their child’s custodial status in limbo. the effects of closures and exclusions underscore how disability services and supports in addition to childcare, school, and recreation programs for disabled children have been (de)valued as essential services, and how disruption in social relationships has led to isolation of children and families in our study. conclusions while some families may be satisfied with the tele-education and medical services they accessed during the pandemic (espinosa et al., 2020; jeste et al., 2020; provenzi et al., 2020), our study indicates variable experiences, with many children disengaging from learning, finding work to be too difficult, and struggling without adapted supports. designating disability-specific services as nonessential is a reflection of the lack of value placed on october 2021 25 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research disabled lives. emerging research on the pandemic demonstrates that families of disabled children are concerned about their children’s loneliness or isolation, mental health, academic success, behaviours, stress levels, and emotions (arim et al., 2020). our research finds families of disabled children experiencing similar stresses related to economic wellbeing, employment security and benefits, and concerns about health, especially for older relatives. their experiences of stresses, however, are compounded by services families describe as critical for inclusion in communities, as well as for children’s social and emotional well-being, being deemed nonessential. there has been a lack of disability-specific considerations during the covid-19 pandemic on the part of governments. the choices made by public health officials and governments illuminate tensions that have always existed for disabled children—tensions that appear heightened during the pandemic for disabled children and their families—laying bare their vulnerability to the disabling effects of ableist values held by early childhood systems. as one of the participants stated, “i’m already seeing examples of how covid is being used as sort of an excuse for rolling back rights and access for disabled people.” closures of “nonessential” health care and early intervention services are pushing families of disabled children into the role of therapist or early interventionist. strong social and education institutions should ameliorate inequality. however, many of the entitlements that parents fought hard for pre-pandemic have not been reinstated at the same level or at all. this is a concerning development in the historical struggle for inclusive early childhood services. nevertheless, services alone will not address the ableism inherent in decisions that lead to disabled children being pushed out of the institutions of childhood. inclusion is a moral and pedagogical principle that involves recognition and valuing of differences, leading to respect and trust, social participation and relationships, and learning and development. international conventions, including the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (united nations general assembly, 2007) and the convention on the rights of the child (united nations general assembly, 1989) declare that childcare, education, and inclusion are all inalienable rights. these rights require a wider view of childhood than that which is represented in childcare and education alone. we must recognize that disabled children’s childhoods are experienced in diverse economic and geographic circumstances, as evidenced by the families in this study. we conclude by noting the urgency for a response to the pandemic that enshrines the right to “equally access services and ensure that all people are treated with dignity and respect” (schiariti, 2020, p. 661, italics in original). this right will only be upheld if the childcare and early years community recognizes and values disabled childhoods, the work of families, and the policy and procedural contexts that placed a burden of work on families and which the effects of the pandemic demonstrate to be ableist and exclusionary. the examples of inclusion that emerged from the pandemic provide a starting point for better serving families and for designing inclusive early childhood education and care that centers disabled children’s experiences rather than treating them as “special” or having “additional” needs. instead, childcare will recognize the need for meaningful relationships and will advocate for disabled children across the many important sites of institutional participation that support inclusion, including school, recreation, and family support, rather than approaching disability as an “extra” to be referred out to specialists. 1 our use of the term disabled (rather than the more common institutional “person first” language) is the preferred term in disabled children’s childhood studies. this term puts identify first rather than the person first and is largely accepted by disabled activists. early childhood and education programs at universities have long encouraged language that is considered in disability theory and by disabled people’s october 2021 26 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research organizations to be informed by medicalized understandings of disability, which are driven by institutional interests in categorizing people for the purpose of service delivery. further reading on this can be found in the style guide of the u.s.-based national center on disability journalism (https://ncdj.org/style-guide/) and in a recent article on disability terminology (mccoll, 2019). october 2021 27 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references arim, r., findlay, l., & kohen, d. 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journal of childhood studies articles from research childhood, futurity, and settler time bridget stirling bridget stirling is a phd student in the department of educational policy studies, university of alberta. she is interested in questions of temporality and the political instrumentalization of childhood. this article draws on research supported by the social sciences and humanities research council. email: bstirlin@ualberta.ca within settler environmental discourses, childhood serves as a major signifier, while children themselves are frequently peripheral to environmental social movements, even when they serve as figureheads within those movements. instead, the child stands in for the future as a symbolic replacement for future generations. children become the repository for the hopes and fears of adults. environmental discourses reinforce the not-yet-human status of children and childhood within euro-western frameworks, reifying children’s futurity while rendering children as others, not yet persons who are also disconnected from nonhuman others. within this structure, to grow up is to become a person—that is, to move across the settler colonial division of the nonhuman to the fully human world occupied by adults. in the 1980s, environmental justice emerged as a concept within the broader environmental movement as a means to address the disproportionate impacts of environmental harms on indigenous people, racialized communities, and people living in poverty. distributive justice— that is, the principle that harms and benefits should be equitably shared (sze & london, 2008)—is an essential principle in environmental justice movements. establishing a model of environmental justice that is temporal as well as spatial, social, and political calls for a forwardthinking interpretation of distributive justice that includes the interest of future citizens. to be truly democratic, environmental justice must consider temporality as more than simply the futurity of environmental decision making (stirling, 2020). to establish environmental justice, we must also consider barbara adam’s call for care relations that extend across time (adam & groves, 2007). environmental education in the face of the climate crisis must be relational with children in their present and future lives as well as with generations past and future settler childhood’s futurity is grounded in settler time: the colonial temporal structures of settlers that view time as strictly delineated, in opposition to indigenous temporal heterogeneity—the coexistence of a multiplicity of temporalities. mark rifkin describes this temporal heterogeneity as having the power to unsettle settler frames of reference. in response to adam gaudry’s call for settlers to engage in insurgent research by engaging with indigenous research and worldviews while focusing on settler problems, turning to the tension of settler time with indigenous temporal sovereignty alongside barbara adam’s conception of temporal care relations offers a way to unsettle settler childhoods. bringing together two ways of rethinking temporality through dwayne donald’s conception of ethical relationality enables a critique of colonialism without seeking to take up indigenous childhoods to fill the broken spaces in settlers’ own. this effort reflects alexis shotwell’s warning to attendees of the common worlds colloquium responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods: an interdisciplinary colloquium on climate pedagogies to be attentive to epistemic extractivism and the problem of settlers seeking to resolve the damage of colonialism through seeking to behave as if they are indigenous. instead, i propose a way forward in which children are reentangled in both common worlds and common fates. key words: childhood; futurity; decolonization; temporality; settler colonialism; relationality june 2022 35 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research in a network of more-than-human1 relations (shotwell, 2016; stirling, 2020). however, within settler colonial frameworks, children’s relationships become displaced into their future selves; children become objects on which time and social forces act to produce future persons. settler environmental education is often oriented toward the development of environmental knowledge and concern in adulthood, grounding children’s relationship with the environment in their futurity as humans-in-themaking rather than as present persons. the futurity of settler childhood enables us to displace children’s interest in environmental protection and adults’ hopes for resolutions to environmental risks into the lives of future adults. childhood as the site of adults’ utopian imaginings distances us from responsibility toward children’s present, allowing us to view children as future persons rather than equal relations in environmental decision making and knowledge. by recentering children in temporalized environmental justice, we make room for children in an other-responsive interdependency in which distributive justice includes temporal justice, not merely in imagining forward but also in considering how a settler colonial structure of childhood affects the temporal and environmental experiences of present children. settler childhood’s futurity is grounded in what mark rifkin (2017) names settler time: the colonial temporal structures of settlers that view time as strictly delineated, in opposition to indigenous temporal heterogeneity and temporal multiplicity—the coexistence of a multiplicity of temporalities or ways of “being-in-time that are not reducible to being in a singular, given time” (rifkin, 2017, p. 3). while there is no one universal indigenous understanding of time and temporality, indigenous temporalities are grounded in relations with land, human and nonhuman animals, ancestors and descendants, and other beings past and present, frequently in tension with linear settler temporalities (buhre & bjork, 2021; kidman et al., 2021;voinot-baron, 2020). rifkin describes this temporal heterogeneity as having the power to unsettle settler frames of reference. in response to adam gaudry’s (2015) call for settlers to engage in insurgent research by engaging with indigenous research and worldviews while focusing on settler problems, turning to the tension of settler time with indigenous temporal sovereignty alongside adam’s conception of temporal care relations offers a way to unsettle settler childhoods. bringing together two ways of rethinking temporality enables a critique of colonialism without seeking to take up indigenous childhoods to fill the broken spaces in settlers’ own. this effort reflects alexis shotwell’s (2020) warning to colloquium attendees to be attentive to epistemic extractivism and the problem of settlers seeking to resolve the damage of colonialism through behaving as if they are indigenous. instead, i propose a way forward in which children are reentangled in both common worlds and common fates. settler critique i begin with the problem of epistemic extractivism and the double tangle of settlers seeking to resolve settler colonialism through a turn to indigenous knowledge. as a settler living and working in amiskwaciwâskahikan— the place more commonly known as edmonton, alberta, canada, part of treaty 6 territory—i have grappled with how to address my work in the context of settler colonialism and the knowledge that euro-western, neoliberal ways of thinking about childhood are not the only ways to think about childhood. frequently, i am faced with the suggestion, well intended, that i address the problems i uncover in my work by turning to indigenous ways of thinking about childhood and shaping adults’ relations with children. this suggestion has, certainly, made me deeply uncomfortable, but i knew that i would have to recognize that my work has holes in it shaped like other childhoods than those of white, settler children. as erica burman (2008) describes, dominant imaginaries of childhood tend toward an abstract, singular, and—in discourses about canadian childhood—white settler child. this child often sits at the centre of work on the politics of childhood (stirling, 2020). i have felt a tension june 2022 36 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research between the desire to decolonize and unsettle and the danger of appropriation and recolonization through taking indigenous childhoods as our own. this tension has led me to a kind of avoidance of talking about the problem of settler childhood, conscious of the risk of colonial knowledge production as a means of extraction (smith, 2012). i am additionally conscious of the difficulties raised by sara ahmed (2004) regarding the nonperformativity of antiracism in whiteness studies, and of how similar problems emerge when settler scholars take up anticolonialism as a move to settler innocence (tuck & yang, 2012). this has left me feeling frequently caught in a conflict between colonial extractivism and colonial unknowing—the double tangle. i turn, then, to gaudry’s (2015) call to insurgent research and, in particular, for settler scholars to reflect on indigenous worldviews and recognize colonial processes while turning their research lens on settler colonialism through settler problems. following on the common worlds colloquium’s focus on staying with the difficulty, in this writing, i stay in the difficulty of settler relations with childhood without trying to patch the gaps over with stolen knowledge—i do not think it is right to take up indigenous childhoods to fill the broken spaces in settlers’ own. those teachings and those childhoods are not mine, and it is for indigenous people to choose to share—or not—their knowledges of childhood. however, it is for me to take up the critique of settler colonial childhood, following on ahmed’s (2004) call to a double turn in which white subjects stay implicated in what they critique. as shotwell (2020) concluded in her keynote talk to the colloquium, we can shape aspirational solidarities from our various positions, orienting together in such a way that we build a world that currently exists only unevenly and in patches, where to live in such a world would permanently undo some of the ontologies and selves that currently trap us. staying in the difficulty requires a careful walk between the risk of epistemic violence through colonial representations of indigenous ontologies (hunt, 2014, p. 29) and the dislocation of specific indigenous placethought (watts, 2013, p. 33) and the danger of perpetuating the practice of “discovering” ontologies based in indigenous thought by drawing on european intellectual heritages (todd, 2016, p. 8)—a form of colonial violence that reifies the white supremacy of the academy (todd, 2016, p. 18). as zoe todd notes, this is a particular failing within posthumanist discourses of relationality and the more-than-human in which i am engaged; however, she also proposes taking up dwayne donald’s concept of ethical relationality as a way to negotiate our sameness and difference through a reciprocity of thinking (todd, 2016, p. 19). donald (2016) describes ethical relationality as an ecological understanding that does not deny difference nor does it promote assimilation of it. rather, ethical relationality supports the conceptualization of difference in ecological terms as necessary for life and living to continue. it guides us to seek deeper understandings of how our different histories, memories, and experiences position us in relationship to one another.… it is an ethical imperative to remember that we as human beings live in the world together and also alongside our more-than-human relatives; we are called to constantly think and act with reference to those relationships. (p. 11) ethical relationality, then, offers a way to think in relationship with indigenous ontologies without presuming to take them up as one’s own. it is fitting, given the need to engage with indigenous place-thought with specificity, that todd (métis/otipemisiw) and donald (papaschase) are indigenous people from amiskwaciwâskahikan. reflective of the reciprocity intended in treaty relations, i shape my work through their guidance as i work to think along with indigenous ontologies without recolonizing. at the same time i recognize the trouble of incommensurability at the heart of the decolonial project (tuck & yang, 2012). june 2022 37 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research childhood as structure from here, i turn to what i mean by settler childhood within the context of this critique. i choose here to work from a structural rather than a developmental definition of childhood. as burman (2008) highlights, developmental psychology and economic development discourses are deeply entangled with one another and in neoliberal and colonial discourses. developmental psychology, then, presents one prospective avenue through which to critique settler colonial childhoods through the use of an ecological approach (tatlow-golden & montgomery, 2021) that recognizes the context of settler colonialism and how it shapes settler children as well as indigenous children. however, i choose to frame my analysis within a structural understanding of childhood as a way into thinking about the social structure of settler colonialism as it emerges through settler temporality and settler childhood. jens qvortrup (2009) notes that “childhood as a structural form is defined in terms of economic, social, political, technological, cultural, and other parameters at the social level” (p. 645). understanding childhood as a structure rather than a developmental life stage allows us to view childhood as socially produced, with childhood as the other against which adulthood can be understood (burman & stacey, 2010; castañeda, 2001). a structural approach allows for the disambiguation of the biological and psychological development of individual children from the figuration of the child as a category of person onto which social meaning can be inscribed. while developmental psychology is also culturally mediated, a structural approach enables an analysis of children as a class and childhood as a symbolic space. as laura rosenbury (2015) notes, “childhood is not simply a social construction; it is the construction that makes the category of adult possible” (p. 10). this figuration of the child as adulthood’s other is rooted in colonialism (castañeda, 2002), much as other forms of hierarchy have been superimposed through processes of colonialism and capitalism. settler futurity settler childhood as grounded in the linear fixedness of settler temporality can be understood through the lens of displacement. in the case of childhood, this becomes a temporal displacement, shifting children’s well-being from the present to the future by viewing their interests only “in the light of their becoming” (qvortrup, 2009, p. 639). children’s interests are shifted into their adult futures rather than viewed in their childhood present. within the linear structure of settler time, this places children into the category of not-yet-human, closer to the category of nonhuman other, within the settler colonial division of the human and nonhuman worlds. it is only by growing up that children cross the divide to the fully human world of adulthood. through this displacement, childhood becomes a signifier of futurity, with children seen as a form of human becoming rather than human being. as qvortrup (2009) describes, children are not-yet-adults who are imagined always as the next generation, not the present one. this becomes particularly problematic when childhood is framed as a site of investment, depriving children of their subjectivity. by shifting the interests of children from the present to the future, children’s present interests become unintelligible through discourses that view childhood as a site of investment in the future, rather than understanding children as present persons deserving of present care and concern (stirling, 2020). peter kraftl (2009) suggests that children are often figured in relation to futurity as the future of an imagined and frequently simplified utopian society. he refers to the broader assumption that children somehow represent “the future,” and that therefore our hopeful intentions for them should be geared in terms of a vague, medium-to-long-term, large-scale temporality and spatiality. generationally, then, children represent a rather widespread hope that the next stage of june 2022 38 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research social development might—usually in some unspecified way—be better than the last. (p. 76) this figuration leads to two questions: whose next stage of development do we hope for, and what do we mean by better? hope is central to adult narratives about childhood, something that can be given to children by the (adult) world, and vice versa, often without explanation or justification (kraftl, 2009). additionally, children are the site of anxiety about the future of society, with the failure to produce the idealized future entangled with the failure to produce the idealized adult. this hoped-for future for children within neoliberalism imagines their adult futures as individualized producers and consumers, with education systems and parenting models directed primarily toward producing this idealized future citizen by developing the child’s imagined “full potential.” adults’ hopedfor futures are inscribed overtop of children’s present interests, rendering children’s interests unintelligible. children’s futurity is intimately tied to neoliberal modernity; however, in late modernity this has become a kind of nostalgic futurity that connects childhood with a hoped-for future that returns to a more innocent time. chris jenks (2005) writes: “as children, and by way of children, we have, through modernity, dreamt of futures, and in doing so we have both justified and sought justification for modernity’s expansionist urges in the post-darwinian conflation of growth and progress” (p. 106). adults understand and relate to children as a form of nostalgic vision of the child as a metanarrative of society itself; children become the guardians of our future, as well as those whose futures require guarding (jenks, 2005). this forward-looking nostalgia for childhood is connected to settler conceptions of childhood as entangled with unspoiled nature. as affrica taylor (2011) notes, “loss, danger, purity, contamination, protection and recovery are all recurring tropes that are reiterated within and across the parallel discourses of wilderness and childhood innocence” (p. 429), creating a form of mutually supporting essentialist assumptions about both nature and childhood that shape both as others in opposition with the fully human adult. the tendency to examine children’s relationship with the environment through adult memories should be viewed critically, because “adult perceptions of childhood relationships with natural environments may, in part, be saturated with socially constructed concepts of children and nature that have evolved over centuries.” (gurevitz, 2000). this tendency reflects jenks’s (2005) claim that, in late modernity, adult hopes for children’s futures are caught up in nostalgia as well as futurity. essentialist and generalizing assumptions about children as more intimately connected to the natural world than adults echo discourses that place women as uniquely connected to nature within masculinist discourses that place (adult) men as rational rulers over the natural world (stephens, 1994; taylor, 2019). children’s experiences of the environment cannot be generalized; seeing children as generic beings in generic environments loses the specificity of children’s lives in social and local contexts (stephens, 1994). this consideration of social context must also include the specific time in which children live, rather than a generalized, speculated future. the sheltering effect of futurity acts to benefit childhood but not the complex and intersectional lives of everyday children, particularly those who are “unbecoming” (nolte-odhiambo, 2016) within the normative structures of the settler colonial nation state, in which racialized, queer, and otherwise other children are denied futurity’s shelter (muñoz, 2019, p. 95). within settler colonialism, only some children are figured as those who will cross the line into fully human adulthood—that is, an adulthood shaped by whiteness and settler norms. carmen nolte-odhiambo (2016) explains: whereas the child as a figure of futurity is sheltered from the present-day violence of class, race, gender, sexuality, capitalism, and neoliberalism, real children and their presents as well as futures do not enjoy this shelter, even as a symbolic war is waged presumably on their behalf and to protect their innocence. (p. 148) through our severing of children’s relationships from their specific and present worlds, we also remove their june 2022 39 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research temporal subjectivities, turning children into objects on whom time and social forces act to produce adult subjects in the neoliberal state. temporal objects adam’s (1996) principle of temporal democracy describes citizenship as grounded in our relationships over time, as well as with our social and natural worlds. she later expanded this notion beyond the voter/nonvoter language of her initial work on temporal democracy to describe social relations of care as interconnected, not only across ecological and social systems but also across an individual’s temporal reach (that is, both during and beyond the lifespan), and therefore relating to those who share common fates (adam & groves, 2007). this principle of common fates is similar to the principle of common worlds, in which we are entangled with our more-thanhuman kin (taylor, 2019; tsing, 2015). common worlds, as described by taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2019), are an active process of “worlding” in which the collective relations of human and nonhuman beings, entities, and forces shape and reshape one another in a permanently evolving relationality (p. 2). i here build on adam’s common fates and taylor and pacini-ketchabaw’s common worlds to consider what it means to structure relations of care temporally through the idea of temporal relationality—that is, that our relations with one another are conducted not only in time but also across time, with past, present, and future selves and others entangled across temporal as well as social and spatial landscapes. temporal relationality runs counter to settler colonial constructions of futurity. andrew baldwin (2012) notes that whitenesses are made and maintained in relation to futures; eve tuck and rubén gaztambide-fernández (2013) further highlight that settler colonialism is configured in relation to the future, in particular through the project of replacement—that is, settler futurity is predicated on the “continued and complete eradication of the inhabitants of contested land” (p. 80), a process enacted through both physical and epistemological replacement. both of these constructions of futurity depend on settlers’ linear understanding of time in which future proceeds from past in a narrative of progress that lays claim to the future as structured by whiteness. through this future-oriented narrative, temporal relationships can only be understood as forces working forward through linear time, not as reciprocal across temporal landscapes. this narrative, then, shapes the disjuncture created through the temporal displacement of childhood. as children’s interests are displaced into their future selves, so too are their temporal relationships shifted from the present child to the future adult. relationships with children become relationships with the imagined future person, with children becoming temporal objects rather than subjects. within settler temporalities, children therefore are child-objects who become adult-subjects through the action of time. the function of child development and educational processes becomes that of transforming the childobject into the neoliberal subject to whom is ascribed full personhood. this shifting also represents the shifting of the child away from connection with nonhuman relations into a techno-rational adult human subject distinct from the natural world. the transition to adulthood can be understood, then, as one of moving from nonhuman to human, object to subject. this shifting not only displaces adults’ relationship with children into the child’s future adult self; it also displaces settler children’s own temporal relationalities into their future selves. the structures of neoliberal education are oriented toward the production of the adult subject, influencing not only adults’ view of children but children’s understanding of themselves and their worlds through an adultcentric lens. growing up becomes a process not only of moving toward adulthood and therefore subjectivity but also moving away from relationship to the childjune 2022 40 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research self and the more-than-human world. to become adult and therefore human is to sever relations with nonhuman worlds and view oneself as no longer entangled in common fates. temporal subjects, temporal heterogeneity to return children to their own temporal subjectivity and restore their temporal relationships, i turn back again to adam (1996), who asserts, “once we recognize our world as inextricably interconnected, and once we understand nature as an extension of self and cultural activity, such time-politics becomes rational” (p. 335). this idea relates to feminist and childist discourses on care and relationality and children, which attempt to reinterpret childhood, not as adulthood’s other, but rather as a particular type of social position within a network of interdependence and relationship. considering childhood within a network of human relations and responsibility “replaces the implicitly adult-centred ethics of rational individuality in modernity with a child-inclusive ethics of otherresponsive interdependency” (wall, 2008, p. 539). it becomes tempting, then, to take up indigenous principles of relationality to repair this disjuncture in settler childhoods—to indigenize our children as a way to restore them to a common world and common fate with the more-than-human. in the indigenous ontology—the place-thought—of the land on which i live, the concept of wahkohtowin is often attractive to settlers seeking a pathway out of colonialism by way of indigenous knowledge. wahkohtowin translates to english simply as kinship or relatedness to each other; however, matthew wildcat (2018) describes the wider meaning of wahkohtowin for nehiyawak (cree people): first, it references the act of being related—to your human and other than human relatives. second, it is a worldview based on the idea that all of existence is animate and full of spirit. since everything has spirit it means we are connected to the rest of existence and live in a universe defined by relatedness. third, there are proper ways to conduct and uphold your relationships with your relatives and other aspects of existence. thus, wahkohtowin also includes the obligations and responsibilities people have to maintain good relationships. (p. 14) to settler ears, this can feel like a solution to the problem of settler childhood and finding our way back into those common worlds in which we can live in relation with more-than-humans. but it is here that settlers risk repeating engrained practices of extraction and erasure (tuck & gaztambide-fernández, 2013) to restore the broken relationships of childhood and take up indigenous ontologies as a move to settler innocence. instead, i turn back to anna tsing’s (2015) suggestion of a third nature—that which survives despite capitalism— and along with that, i believe we can consider that which survives the structure of settler colonialism, which is inextricably entangled with capitalism. to consider this third nature, we have to ask not only about indigenous survival but also about the survival of that within non-indigenous lives that is resistant to settler colonialism and might offer something to follow the foreclosure of settler epistemologies: what can we turn to that is resistant to the damage and allows us to think of a third “something else”? it is here that we might head off into left field with the minor players (taylor, 2019). taylor’s (2019) stories of children’s encounters with settler-introduced rabbits offers a way to think about a third way of encountering settler colonial childhoods, one in which children’s relationships with their worlds offers a space before settler binaries take hold. much as their relationships to nonhuman kin do not yet play by the rules of settler colonial adult worlds, children’s relationships to and across time are not yet fixed: their imagination of different futures and different pasts opens space to think about multiple temporalities and relationships across time. i think here of a child who asks her pregnant mother if it is possible for the baby to be an older sibling, a child’s curiosity about future and past selves and others, and the way in which children can easily imagine many june 2022 41 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research possible futures. while settler languages in themselves structure time in particular, linear ways, children are not yet tied to those structures. the left field of childhood’s temporalities offers a space of reconciliation2 for settler time. rifkin (2017) describes this reconciliation as “the presence of discrepant temporalities that can be understood as affecting each other, as all open to change, and yet not as equivalent or mergeable into a neutral, common frame” (p. 3). this flexibility suggests that a decolonial approach by settlers, rather than taking up indigenous temporalities, might understand that settler time is harmful both in its imposition upon indigenous temporalities and in the harms inherent to settlers themselves, through the neoliberal regulation of time, and, specific to childhood, the ways in which this regime severs children’s temporal relationalities. in this way, understanding the critique of settler time in opposition to indigenous temporalities also opens space to question settler time in opposition to the temporalities of childhood. that is, through recognizing other ways of knowing time, we can interrogate the structures of time that also render children as others. rifkin (2017) calls for a recognition of temporal multiplicities—the prospect that varied ways of living time can be copresent, with the implication that the coexistence of multiple temporal formations provides a means of resisting the presumptively modern present. within this principle, then, is the possibility of opening a third way of living in a temporally heterogenous world in which relationality does not require sameness. taylor (2011) suggests a direction toward that heterogeneity: for if we can resist the nostalgic longing to recapture that peter pan in neverland childhood, if we can refuse its seductive promise to absent all imperfections and impurities, we might be better able to focus on the rich tapestries of children’s real lives as an abundance of heterogenous presences: human and more-than-human. ironically, it would seem that such a move to re-presence might at the same time reintegrate that “lost child” back into the imperfect, real and messy world of fascinating “socionatures” that we all embody and coinhabit. (p. 431) taylor, then, offers us a way to move past the imagined connection of childhood and unspoiled nature into the reality of children’s present lives and a relationality that includes children, adults, and the natural world across temporal as well as spatial landscapes. temporality and care this recognition of heterogeneity moves us back into the space of relationality and how to find an ethical foundation through which to live in ethical relationality with indigenous ontologies. donald’s concept of ethical relationality is grounded in two concepts from nehiyawak (cree) teachings: wahkohtowin, as described above, and wicihitowin, the “life-giving energy that is generated when people face each other as relatives and build trusting relationships by connecting with each other in respectful ways” (donald, 2016, p. 10). within ethical relationality, rather than seeking to erase or assimilate difference, difference can be understood as necessary for life and living to continue when we are in relation to one another (donald, 2016, p. 11). through this relational space, we can position our ways of knowing as part of futures that are entangled with each other and with more-than-human relatives. rather than seeking to take up indigenous ontologies, i turn now to feminist ethics of care and relationality, which offer one possible way to begin thinking about how to structure our relationships with one another through relations of care rather than through settler colonial logics of capitalism and neoliberal individualism. much as we cannot patch over the problems of settler time by taking up indigenous temporalities, we cannot patch over settler individuality by simply taking up indigenous kinship relations. instead, we must find a path to ethical relationality. however, again, there is room for a third way of recognition in which settlers take up the critique of capitalist social june 2022 42 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research relations and seek ways of building new relationalities that, in their copresence, can offer a shared resistance to a politics that structures social relations through the logic of markets. feminist theories of care offer one possible avenue to think through temporal relationality while also thinking in new ways about a “something else” after settler societies. political theorists of care have noted that under the neoliberal order, care and relationality are privatized and not of concern to the state (sevenhuijsen, 1998; tronto, 2013); these structures are inherent to settler colonial states. relationality, therefore, is not a requisite aspect of citizenship in the neoliberal society, which is structured through frameworks of rights, law, property, and markets. a feminist politics of care instead calls for democratic citizenships that are structured through relationality. joan tronto (2013) describes the idea of caring with in opposition to caring for: caring must not only involve caretaking but must also be grounded in principles of justice, equality, and freedom. while virginia held (2006) moves care for children to the centre of the responsibilities of a caring society, tronto moves children into the space of who can be conceived as an equal citizen with equal rights by thinking of equality as grounded in the idea of citizens as care receivers who all, in varying ways and at varying times, rely on one another. if all persons are in need of care, they all become equally needy. equal neediness does not mean that all people have the same needs, but rather that we should understand citizenship as bound up in interdependent relationships of need that form a society. a child’s need for specific forms of care, then, is not a determining factor in whether they are a full member of society but rather that which makes them equal to all members of that society. still, it is necessary to interrogate what the word citizenship means. if citizen in this context is defined by the settler colonial construction of citizens as legal members of a state entitled to particular rights, privileges, and duties, then it must be rejected as useful to a decolonial critique. however, if the broader definition of a citizen is a member of a society with obligations to other members of that society, then there is space to take up the politics of care to build a something else that resists settler colonialism and settler temporality. however, to move toward a third nature that offers a means of resistance to settler temporalities, feminist care ethics must also move beyond a politics that is only centered on human relations with one another. marti kheel (2008) offers an expansion of feminist ethics of care into relationships with other-than-human animals. rather than thinking about caring for the environment, kheel’s work resists the critique that a feminist ethics of care must be inherently limited to one’s own circle of acquaintance while also proposing an environmental ethic that is grounded in care and empathy for individual beings across the whole of the environment, rather than viewing some beings as more morally considerable than others. care, then, becomes a relationship with more-than-human kin, moving beyond the social into common worlds and common fates. children’s own caring practices toward the environment can be used to understand an environmental politics of childhood through reading children’s values and concerns for their environment through their caring practices— that is, the ways that children maintain, continue, and repair their own worlds (bartos, 2012). the political and environmental concerns of children can be understood, not only through what they say in adult spaces of political discourse, but also in children’s lived relationships to the world around them (taylor, 2019). thinking through childhood using the ethics of care thus offers a way into thinking about children in their present beings and present relationalities, resisting the transition of child-object to adult-subject by restoring children to their temporal subjectivity. this does not mean an end to children’s temporal relationship to their future selves and future worlds but rather returns children to the full web of deep connection to present, past, and future common worlds. if we think of children as citizens within societies of care while also opening the space of caring-with to our more-than-human relations, children are restored to entanglement within common fates. june 2022 43 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research conclusion i am mindful here of the dangers inherent in third spaces. while they offer an avenue to a future beyond settler colonialism, third ways can also be appropriated by settler colonialism and capitalism (mitchell, 1997) to further their own survival in a performance of decolonization that in reality stays in the realm of harm reduction (tuck & yang, 2012, p. 21), allowing settler colonialism to continue with a gentler face. the shaping of this third way is not decolonization but rather a way into disassembling the structures of settler futurity and confronting the problems of settler childhood through ethical relations that do not steal from others to heal settler wounds. i am aware of the shortcomings of articulating a critique of settler colonialism: it does not give back land or disassemble the structures of settler sovereignty. living in relationship does not resolve incommensurability. a decolonial critique does not, in itself, decolonize. thinking through the temporality of settler childhoods through a decolonial critique of settler time enables us to imagine a third nature in which our common worlds include our common fates. rifkin’s call to temporal multiplicities opens a space in which to imagine temporal relationalities that offer a way to begin to dismantle settler time and settler childhood without replicating the harms of colonization through epistemic extractivism. i do not pretend to be an expert in pedagogical practice as a sociologist of education; however, donald’s (2012) ethical relationality, which seeks to tear down “fort pedagogy” of incorporation and exclusion, is both ethical orientation and pedagogical imperative (p. 45) and offers a path for teachers and teacher educators to further the work of moving past settler temporality into a something else in the unfixed space of childhood (taylor, 2019). settlers cannot heal the gaps in settler childhoods through the appropriation of indigenous epistemologies. instead, we must seek to live with and beyond the damage through a third way of establishing relationships of care that allow for the copresence of all our multiplicities in more-than-human worlds. by staying with the critique of settler time, we can begin to dismantle settler constructions of childhood and move out into that left field of childhood where we may find our common fates. endnotes 1 the more-than-human world can be understood as a complex web of interdependencies between all those that share earth, including human societies and all other beings. 2 the use of reconciliation in this article is not intended to be synonymous with reconciliation as part of the process of truth and reconciliation in the canadian context but rather in the more conventional sense of harmonizing or making compatible. june 2022 44 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references adam, b. 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(2018). wahkohtowin in action. constitutional forum, 27(1), 13–24. https://www.ualberta.ca/wahkohtowin/media-library/ data-lists-pdfs/wahkotowin-in-action.pdf october 2021 63 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research unpacking the childcare and education policy response to the covid-19 pandemic: insights from the canadian province of quebec sophie mathieu sophie mathieu is a postdoctoral fellow at the université teluq. she holds a phd in sociology and has published in french and in english on childcare, parental benefits, and family policies in quebec. email: sophiemathieu@hotmail.com the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic led to the closing of schools, childcare centres, and nonessential workplaces around the world, a unique situation that had important consequences on gender inequality (carli, 2020; oecd, 2020). as parents with young children were required to work from home, mothers more than fathers adjusted (yerkes et al., 2020) or reduced (collins et al., 2020) their working hours to perform caregiving activities, including homeschooling (zossou, 2021). following the initial shock of the outbreak of the pandemic and the closing of the economy, governments faced dilemmas between different objectives, such as the need to protect public health and work-family balance, in their plan to reopen schools and childcare centres. this paper offers insights into these dilemmas in the canadian province of quebec through an account of the government’s childcare and education policy responses during the first two waves of the pandemic. more specifically, i document the circumstances of the different phases of the reopening of childcare centres and schools between march and december 2020. in a range of policy domains, including childcare, canada’s provincial governments choose their own and sometimes different paths (friendly, ballantyne & anderson, 2020; prentice, 2020). while much has been written on the success (jenson, 2002; fortin et al., 2013) and challenges (japel et al., 2008; turgeon, 2014) of the “quebec model” of childcare, very little research has been done to document the province’s childcare response to the pandemic. this is an important gap to fill. quebec is the canadian province with the highest percentage of children aged 0 to 5 attending regulated childcare (friendly, ballantyne, & anderson, 2020), thanks to the province’s well-established network of subsidized and low-cost childcare. consequently, quebec has the greatest workforce participation of mothers with children aged 0 to 5 and 6 to 15 (friendly et al., 2020). quebec also stands out as one of the provinces1 with the highest proportion of childcare centres that remained open in the early weeks of the pandemic—60% of them in late april 20202— while that was the case for only 28% of childcare facilities in canada (friendly, feltham, et al., 2020). finally, the importance of learning from the quebec experience has recently been reinforced by finance minister chrystia freeland, who stated, “just as saskatchewan once showed canada the way on health care and british columbia building from blum and dobrotić’s conceptual framework, this paper shows that the decisions to reopen childcare centres and schools in the canadian province of quebec in 2020 were influenced by four goals: (1) protecting public health, (2) promoting academic success / fostering early education, (3) addressing social inequalities, and (4) helping parents to reconcile employment and care activities. although the first three objectives were considered in the sequence of reopening, the government quickly chose to prioritize work-family reconciliation above other objectives. quebec’s tight sequence of reopening childcare centres and schools is not simply a consequence of evolving research showing lower risks associated with covid-19 for young children, it also reflects the province’s cultural norms toward mothers’ employment and the high legitimacy of the state in subsidizing childcare. key words: pandemic; childcare; work-family reconciliation; quebec mailto:sophiemathieu@hotmail.com october 2021 64 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research showed canada the way on pricing pollution, quebec can show us the way on childcare” (government of canada, 2020). for all of these reasons, one contribution of this paper moving forward with upcoming waves or other pandemics is to offer insights on what can be learned from quebec’s childcare policy response to the covid-19 pandemic. the paper is organized as follows. i begin by introducing quebec’s pre-pandemic childcare system for preschool and school-aged children. in line with the social investment paradigm, one objective that led to the implementation of a childcare network in the late 1990s was the development of the full potential of children. however, the other objective, helping parents to balance earning and caring activities, has received more political attention, because the network has been unable to meet the demand, due its popularity and the lack of space to accommodate every child. in the second section, i build from blum and dobrotić’s (2020) conceptual framework to examine four policy goals for reopening childcare centres and schools, as parents, especially those with elementary school children, rely on schools to provide care while they work (friendly, ballantyne, & anderson, 2020). these goals are (1) protecting public health, (2) promoting academic success / fostering early education, (3) addressing social inequalities, and (4) helping parents to reconcile employment and care activities. quebec’s childcare and education policy response is documented in the third section. although the quebec government did not openly emphasize one objective at the expense of another, the protection of public health was prioritized for a very short period of time, when the number of people infected with covid-19 was relatively low. as the childcare policy-response to the pandemic evolved, the government had to make decisions about who would access childcare services, at what cost, and under what conditions. similar decisions had to be made with the reopening of schools, and quebec had to prioritize which students—the youngest, the oldest, the most vulnerable, or those in transition years—would have access to the classroom for in-person schooling. these decisions reflect the dominance of the issue of work-family balance above the three other policy goals. this dominance is made obvious by quebec’s decision to reopen childcare centres and schools more rapidly than most other provinces, despite having the worst epidemiologic situation in canada. in the conclusion, i discuss some the lessons of quebec’s childcare policy response as it relates to quebec’s pre-pandemic approach to childcare. subsidized and low-cost childcare at the heart of quebec’s family policy quebec is known both by national and international standards as the province that most closely mirrors the egalitarian model of the nordic countries, and it has even been referred to as a “paradise for families” (godbout & st-cerny, 2008). quebec has been successful at reducing gender inequalities as it has managed to support the combination of paid work and family responsibilities. for example, quebec is the province that offers the most accessible and the most highly compensated parental leave, including “take-it-or-lose-it” paternity benefits, through quebec’s parental insurance plan (mathieu et al., 2020). at the heart of quebec’s family policy is its childcare network of subsidized and low-cost childcare. while a thorough discussion of the social and policy context that led to the implementation of quebec’s family policy is beyond the scope of this paper, it is worth highlighting that the introduction of the provincial childcare network signalled a sharp turn toward social economy (arsenault, 2018). as in other provinces, quebec’s social economy policies were influenced by a business-case frame (prentice, 2009) and social investment ideas (jenson & st-martin, 2003) under which childcare is designed as an investment with exceptional payoffs. in the words of then-premier lucien bouchard in 1997: our primary motivation meets a simple and unavoidable requirement: the development of children and equal opportunities. as the very title of the document eloquently states [children at the heart of our choices], we firmly place children at the heart of our choices.... we are making this collective investment october 2021 65 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research primarily for children, to ensure they have the best chance of success. the benefits to children of early stimulation programs are widely demonstrated.... it has also been shown that such programs have a particularly positive effect on children from disadvantaged backgrounds. early intervention reduces the risks associated with learning and behavioural problems and reduces the chances of dropping out. (archives politiques du québec, 1997, translated by the author)3 explaining the implementation of childcare as a shift from a “citizenship regime” to a “social investment state” (jenson & st-martin, 2003), however, does not mean children have had access to high-quality childcare. in their analysis of 1,574 childcare centres between 2000 and 2003, japel et al. (2008) showed that only 27% of them offered “good,” “very good,” or “excellent” quality of care, an observation that has not significantly changed in recent years (observatoire des tout-petits, 2018). quebec’s network of childcare is complex and the quality of care varies significantly between nonprofit and forprofit centres. table 1 shows the different types of licensed childcare in quebec as of march 2020. the “centres de la petite enfance” (cpe) are the cornerstone of quebec’s family policy; they are nonprofit and reduced contribution childcare facilities that can accommodate up to 80 children. although the cpes provide the highest quality of care (japel et al., 2008; japel & friendly, 2018), they offer less than one-third (31.6%) of all childcare spaces. table 1. licensed childcare in quebec, march 2020 number of spaces proportion noncommercial services centres de la petite enfance (cpe) 96 703 31.6% commercial services subsidized centres nonsubsidized centres 47 424 70 421 15.5% 23.0% childcare in family environment 91 604 29.9% total 306 152 source: famille québec (2020a) commercial childcare services come in two forms. subsidized commercial centres, known as garderies (15.5% of all childcare spaces), offer services at the same cost as the cpes. childcare costs are low in quebec; in 2021, a subsidized space for one child (whether in a commercial childcare centre or in a cpe) cost $8.50 per day, including 10 hours of care, two snacks, and one lunch. there are also nonsubsidized commercial childcare centres (23% of childcare spaces) where parents pay the full fee for childcare and where the quality of services is the lowest (japel et al., 2008), notably due to a low proportion of trained staff (ministère de la famille, 2020). in montreal, a nonsubsidized childcare space can cost up to $80 per day (schué, 2019), but parents are entitled to a tax credit for a portion of that amount. finally, both subsidized and nonsubsidized licensed childcare spaces are offered in “family environments.” childcare in family environments is typically of better quality than in the commercial garderies yet of lower quality than services provided in cpes (japel et al., 2008). inconsistent with the objectives of developing the full potential of children and addressing social inequalities is the fact that vulnerable children—those who arguably need the most “investment”—are underrepresented in childcare centres, let alone in facilities that offer the highest quality of care, the cpes. in 2018, the median family october 2021 66 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research income of families with a child aged 5 and under was $82,000 in quebec, but $98,000 for families with a child in a cpe (ministère de la famille, 2020, p. 18). in parc-extension, st-michel, and montreal-nord, low-income neighbourhoods in montreal where the median family income for families with a child aged 5 and under is $38,000, one childcare space out of seven is provided by a cpe. in addition, children with special needs such as autism have a lower placement rate (73%) than children without special needs (83%; ministère de la famille, 2020, p. 12). access to a childcare centre, more than its quality, has been a political issue since the early 2000s, mainly because the network has been very popular and unable to meet the demand. parental pressure to open new childcare spaces rapidly and tax incentives to use for-profit centres paved the way for a rapid increase in lower-quality commercial childcare centres since 2003 (mathieu, 2019). yet, many parents in need of childcare are confused by the differences between cpes and subsidized garderies because they are both licensed and regulated and because they offer services at the same cost (mathieu, 2019). recently, the social movement “ma place au travail,” created by women unable to return to work after their maternity leave due to the lack of childcare, has pressured the government to create new spaces rapidly, setting aside the issue of quality. as a way to fulfill its promise to create more spaces, the government has recently relaxed the hiring criteria for childcare workers, a point further discussed below. in addition to its network of preschool childcare services, quebec offers beforeand after-school services. elementary schools typically provide childcare services between 7:00 a.m. and the beginning of class time, after school until 6:00 p.m., and during lunchtime. parents who do not wish to send their child to beforeand/or afterschool care can choose to pay only for lunchtime childcare services at a daily cost of $1.76 per child (in 2020). both childcare for preschool children and beforeand after-school programs are offered roughly at the same cost and are very popular. in 2019, 64% of preschool children were cared for in a cpe or a garderie (ministère de la famille, 2019), and 59% of children attending a public elementary school (between kindergarten and grade 6) attended beforeand/or after-school childcare (conseil supérieur de l’éducation, 2020). the two programs are administered by different ministries: the ministry of families for preschool childcare and the ministry of education for before and after-school childcare. another key difference is that while waiting lists to access preschool childcare are long, access to beforeand after-school programs is universal, because services are provided by the schools. beforeand after-school childcare was not officially part of quebec’s 1997 family policy but has nonetheless been closely associated with it (tougas, 2002). despite differences between the provision of preschool and beforeand after-school childcare, i examine the sequence of reopening of childcare for preschool and school-aged children in tandem rather than separately. this means that i also examine governmental decisions regarding the reopening of schools. as friendly et al. (2020) note, the pandemic highlighted the fact that parents with school-age children depended on schools for childcare as much as for education. furthermore, some of the objectives (like facilitating work-family reconciliation) and decisions (such as having older children pursue their education remotely) in the sequence of reopening childcare and schools were intertwined and cannot be examined separately. building from blum and dobrotić’s conceptual framework in their paper “childcare-policy responses in the covid-19 pandemic: unpacking cross-country variations,” blum and dobrotić (2020) develop a conceptual framework to explain cross-country differences in pandemic childcare-policy responses. drawing on public health research, they identify two ideal prevention strategies: the population approach, which has a stronger prevention potential than the second strategy because it addresses the whole population, and the high-risk approach, which targets individuals and avoids generalized intervention. beyond the decision to keep childcare centres and elementary schools open (as in sweden) or closed (as in italy), the types and timing of childcare-policy responses to the pandemic have varied widely. in the words of blum and october 2021 67 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research dobrotić, many countries exhibit hybrid approaches, varying not only from more lenient to strict, but also from universal to selective closures/re-openings, i.e. allowing certain groups to keep access or re-enter earlier. in such an uncertain situation, countries’ approaches may be affected by factors that go beyond public-health concerns (e.g. specific regime paths, government constellations) and have different implications for the groups targeted (or not) and therefore gender and social inequalities. (p. s546) as countries move through a sequence of partial reopenings, different childcare and education priorities shed light on who gains early access to services, when, and under what conditions. in accordance with, and building from, blum and dobrotić’s argument, i identify four nonmutually exclusive goals that guided the reopening of childcare centres and schools in quebec (table 1): (1) protecting public health, (2) promoting academic success / fostering early education, (3) addressing social inequalities, and (4) helping parents to reconcile employment and care activities. each of these goals has theoretical and practical implications. for instance, if the objective is to protect public health and to apply physical distancing rules, getting older children and young adults, who can more easily follow health recommendations, back into the classrooms will be prioritized over in-person schooling for younger children, who may have difficulties following physical distancing rules. the first objective, protecting public health, is the closest to the population approach, and it is the only objective that was not an explicit part of quebec’s family policy prior to the pandemic. at the other end of the spectrum is the fourth objective of helping parents reconcile paid and family responsibilities. following this goal, younger children, who are more likely to struggle with independent online learning, will be given priority access to in-person schooling, not only because older children and young adults can more easily pursue online education with minimal supervision, but also because younger children require more supervision and need to be cared for while their parents work. the objective of helping parents balance earning and caring responsibilities, as we have seen above, is a key component of quebec’s family policy, though the second and third objectives, promoting academic success / fostering early education and addressing social inequalities are also in tune with the “social investment” paradigm, and the official government discourse in quebec. october 2021 68 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 2. government objectives for reopening childcare services and schools and theoretical and practical implications of these decisions objective theoretical implications practical implications 1. protecting public health. applying rules set by public health (physical distancing and the use of face coverings). • giving priority access to older children who can follow physical distancing rules. • allowing children with health conditions (or living with parents and/or grandparents with health conditions) not to attend school in person. • decreasing the number of students in the classroom to reduce risks of transmission. • adding more ventilation to classrooms. • modifying school hours to limit contact among students of different ages. • strictly enforcing social distancing rules. 2. promoting academic success / fostering early education. prioritizing children in transition years and children with learning difficulties and/or with special needs. • giving priority access to children in the first and last years of elementary and secondary. • giving priority access to students enrolled in their first semester of cegep or university. • giving priority access to children with learning difficulties. • giving priority access to children with special needs (such as autism) who are in childcare. 3. addressing social inequalities. reducing class inequalities. • giving priority access to “disadvantaged” children (e.g., families who receive social assistance payments, immigrant families, etc.). • offering computers and tablets to facilitate remote learning during temporary lockdowns. 4. helping parents to reconcile employment and care activities. reducing work-family conflict, especially for single parents, dual-earner families, and families with young children or children with special needs. • giving priority access to younger children (in childcare centres and in early years of schooling). • giving priority access to children whose parents fit certain predetermined criteria (e.g., single parents and dual-earner families). source: adapted from blum and dobrotić (2020). as research on covid-19 evolved, so too did the practical implications of each objective. for instance, although teenagers and young adults appear to adhere more easily to physical distancing rules than young children, it has also been argued that young children are less contagious, which makes childcare facilities less dangerous to reopen (boast et al., 2020) than workplaces and schools, where teenagers and young adults are more likely to disregard social distancing rules and gather in large groups. thus, strategies to protect the public’s health adapted as the heath crisis continued to unfold. as we will see below, although they were not addressed equally, none of the quebec government’s four ideal objectives was openly prioritized to the detriment of another. the objective october 2021 69 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research of helping parents to reconcile employment and care activities, however, emerged quickly and clearly in quebec, despite an increasing number of people infected with covid-19. quebec’s childcare and education policy response to the pandemic in the first days of the covid-19 crisis, public health concerns across canada, including quebec, led provincial governments to adopt strong childcare-policy responses. under the population approach, strict containment policies resulted in universal childcare closures, with emergency childcare provided for key workers (blum & dobrotić, 2020). on march 13, 2020, the government of quebec announced that schools and childcare centres would close for 14 days. the government also announced the following monday that subsidized childcare centres, both cpes and garderies, as well as emergency school childcare services, were to remain open for children of healthcare and essential services workers. unlike in other countries (such as austria and belgium), where childcare centres remained operational for children of both key workers and of working parents without other care options (blum & dobrotić, 2020), the provincial government made it clear that in quebec, childcare services were only to be used by a limited group of essential workers without other childcare options. to some extent, quebec’s approach was more restrictive than the path chosen by some of the other provinces. in early may, 95% of open childcare centres were restricted to children of essential workers in quebec, a proportion well above the canadian average (73.8%) and in sharp contrast with saskatchewan, where this was the case for only 35% of open centres (crru, 2020). parents in quebec were encouraged not to use emergency childcare and had to show proof of their employment in an essential service. the minister of families, mathieu lacombe, even posted a video on social media asking two-parent families with only one parent classed as an essential worker to keep their children home and rely on a friend or older child to help with childcare. the social acceptability of relying on emergency childcare services quickly dwindled as this option was framed as a last resort. between march 16 and march 20, 2020, 6,200 children attended emergency childcare daily. that number dropped to 5,200 the following week, meaning that only 1.7% of preschool children were being cared for in an emergency centre (famille québec, 2020b). emergency childcare for preschool children was offered exclusively in subsidized facilities and, for kids aged 5 to 12, in 400 designated elementary schools. subsidized home childcare providers affiliated with a cpe were given the choice to either offer emergency childcare or close. nonsubsidized commercial childcare spaces, whether in facilities or in family environments, were not given that option and were told they had to close by april 3. this meant that parents whose children were cared for in nonsubsidized garderies and who needed emergency childcare had to relocate their children to a new childcare facility (dion-viens, 2020). emergency childcare for both preschool and school-aged children was offered monday to friday, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., as was the case before the pandemic. quebec’s universal population approach translated not only into the decision to impose a general lockdown, but also into the decision to universally eliminate childcare costs while emergency childcare services were being offered. quebec was not the only province to waive childcare fees to essential workers: four other jurisdictions, newfoundland and labrador, prince edward island, ontario, and yukon also offered free childcare for frontline workers. in contrast, almost all essential workers were asked to pay their full childcare fees in new brunswick, manitoba, and saskatchewan (friendly, forer, et al., 2020). in quebec, however, the decision was made not to impose fees to anybody from the start, meaning that neither parents who used emergency childcare services nor those who kept their children home but who wanted to keep their space were charged childcare fees. while most other provinces eventually did not permit centres to charge parent fees for closed services to hold their place, in october 2021 70 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research new brunswick childcare fees were permitted if staff were not laid off. emergency childcare operated under strict new rules. for instance, ratios were revised and cpes operated at 30% capacity (from 80 children down to 24), with each éducatrice (educator / childcare provider) having no more than 50% of the normal number of children in a group. emergency childcare ratios for school-aged children were reduced from 20 children per educator to 10. parents were not allowed to circulate in the childcare facility; a designated staff member was responsible for welcoming and leading children into the childcare centre and returning them to their parents at the end of the day (association québécoise des cpe, 2020a). these new rules reflected the dominance of public-health concerns over other issues, such as work-family balance—given the restricted access. in the cpes, toys that could not be easily washed (e.g., plush toys, costumes, blankets) were removed; childcare workers were also instructed to avoid activities that necessitated physical contact among children, such as holding hands. although educators were not encouraged to wear face masks or gloves (association québécoise des cpe, 2020a), this directive changed rapidly (association québécoise des cpe, 2020b). childhood educators and home childcare providers were quickly required (in early may 2020) to wear a visor or goggles and a procedural face mask at almost all times (and that is still the case now, at the time of writing). this requirement has led health specialists to argue that language development for young children may be impaired and that communication and interactions with children are more difficult (cloutier, 2020), especially for children with special needs, such as autism. moving towards a hybrid approach although childcare centre closures happened simultaneously across the province, the progressive return to “normal” was conducted in different phases, spread over several weeks. as blum and dobrotić (2020) explain, “under the re-openings, the variety of childcare-policy responses increased, as these have developed into more long-term strategies” (p. s552). although quebec’s reopening model was a “hybrid” approach, falling midway between the “general” approach used in the first week of the pandemic and the “high-risk” approach implemented in the fall, the province moved forward with reopenings at a faster pace than in the other provinces, though the epidemiologic situation was the worst in the country. for example, on may 1, quebec reported 1100 new positive tests for a population of 8.6 million; this represented 67% of all new cases in canada (1635) for that day. meanwhile, ontario, with a population of 14.7 million, reported 620 new cases. quebec nonetheless went ahead with the reopening plan it had announced on april 27. that plan consisted of a sequence of targeted reopenings that began on may 11, making quebec one of the three provinces to reopen childcare facilities the earliest (with newfoundland and labrador and alberta).4 in phase 1, in mid-may, childcare centres welcomed back between 30% and 50% of their children. in phase 2, that proportion rose to 50%, and it reached 75% in phase 3. all children were given the option to return to their childcare facility in the fourth phase of reopening, on june 22 (table 3). october 2021 71 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 3. original multiphase reopening plan for childcare services in quebec, spring 2020 phase number and date childcare facilities quebec (except montreal metropolitan community)5 montreal metropolitan community capacity children per educator ratios* capacity children per educator ratios * phase 1 may 11 may 19 30–50% 2-4-5 emergency childcare services 30% 2-4-5 phase 2 may 25 50% 2-4-5 50% 2-4-5 phase 3 june 8 75% 3-6-8 75% 3-6-8 phase 4 june 22 100% 5-8-10 100% 5-8-10 *educator ratios represent three categories of infants/toddlers: under 18 months, 18 months to under 48 months, over 48 months. source: famille québec (2020b) a similar strategy was developed by the government for reopening schools (table 4), as the objective of helping parents reconcile earning and caring responsibilities emerged as a top priority in the spring. again, despite having the highest number and proportion of cases in canada, quebec became the first province to reopen elementary schools (except in the montreal metropolitan community, where the number of cases was too high; table 4), closely followed by manitoba and british columbia (friendly, forer, et al., 2020). other provinces chose to keep schools closed until september 2021. in line with the objective of helping parents to balance earning and caring responsibilities, but in contrast with the goals of promoting academic success and addressing social inequalities, all students enrolled in secondary and postsecondary education had to pursue their education remotely. table 4. reopening plan for elementary and secondary schools, cegeps, and universities in quebec, spring 2020 elementary schools secondary schools cegep universities quebec (except montreal metropolitan community) montreal metropolitan community across the province date of reopening may 11 originally set to open may 19. postponed to september 2020. sep 2020. sep 2020. most courses are online. sep 2020. most courses are online. quebec’s decision to prioritize a return to normal activities for children under 12 as soon as may is not surprising. as discussed above, since the late 1990s, work and family reconciliation has been at the heart of the province’s family policy. supporting parental employment (jenson, 2002), especially mothers’ employment (fortin et al., 2013) has risen above other family policy priorities, such as fostering children’s development, despite the official government discourse of the need to invest in the development of children’s full potential. to help nonsubsidized october 2021 72 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research childcare centres resume service during the progressive reopening period, and despite the lower quality of care in these centres, the government provided them with $22 million in financial support. that meant that commercial childcare centres received $10.10 per spot once childcare centres reopened to help make up income lost due to reduced educator-child ratios. the government of quebec had already paid $30.5 million to nonsubsidized childcare centres to cover part of their fixed costs in mid-may to avoid major financial hardship. the other three objectives—protecting public health, promoting academic success / fostering early education, and addressing social inequalities—did not completely disappear from the government’s agenda, but they were lower in priority. for instance, in line with the goal of protecting public health, parents who kept their preschool child home had the option of maintaining that child’s childcare space until september (provided they paid the usual fee for care at their facility). in addition, in-person attendance was not mandatory for elementary school children. with regards to the objectives of promoting academic success / fostering early education and reducing social inequalities, childcare facilities were permitted to accept up to 50% of the children registered under their permit during the first phase of reopening. this measure was intended to ensure childcare for vulnerable children or children with special needs, who were given priority during reintegration. in sharp contradiction with this objective, however, the quality of services was compromised by a ministerial order in may, when the government relaxed the hiring rules for childcare workers as a strategy to overcome a labour shortage and maintain services. since then, only one out of three educators must have a college diploma to work in a childcare centre, compared to two out of three workers previously. in elementary schools, attendance remained on a voluntary basis at the time of reopening, even for children with learning difficulties or in their last year of elementary school. for vulnerable school-age children, the government launched “pedagogical camps” in early june, which required a partial reopening of some school buildings. school boards determined which students were eligible for the camps, where social distancing measures were implemented, and classes were kept small. educational camps were made available for elementary and secondary students in the greater montreal area and for secondary schools across the province; overall, around 70% of secondary schools offered pedagogical camps (robillard, 2020).6 again, though, and to some extent in contradiction with the objective of promoting academic success for vulnerable students, attendance was not mandatory for eligible students, and because they adhered to the academic calendar, the pedagogical camps were only offered for three weeks. a high-risk childcare policy response amid an increasing number of cases the government’s first priority, helping parents reconcile earning and caring responsibilities, led the province to adopt a “high-risk” policy response to the pandemic as early as the end of june. since then, all childcare establishments, including childcare provided in family settings and in nonsubsidized centres, have been allowed to deliver childcare services to the maximum number of children indicated on their permit, even in “hot” zones. high-risk strategies avoid generalized interventions in favour of targeting vulnerable groups in need of special preventive care and treatment. according to blum and dobrotić (2020), applying high-risk prevention approaches results in less stringent interventions, such as the rules regarding keeping a child at home if they exhibit mild symptoms. the government of quebec chose this path even though the province still had the highest number of infections and deaths due to covid-19 in canada and despite warnings from the national public health director that if people were not careful, the first wave would pale in comparison to the impending second wave.7 this high-risk approach was made apparent in other initiatives early in the fall, when the government announced the implementation of a four-level colour-coded regional alert system (green, yellow, orange, and red, representing escalating levels of danger). the system aimed to keep the public informed about the current level of risk and help october 2021 73 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research them understand the actions the government would take in case of a serious outbreak. for instance, “red zone” restrictions could prohibit certain nonessential activities in order to avoid a province-wide lockdown. although the transition from an orange to a red zone entailed new restrictions in elementary and secondary schools (e.g., the suspension of extracurricular activities), this same logic did not apply to childcare. indeed, in its original version, action plan in the event of a second wave, the ministry of families’ (2020) plan stated: “educational childcare services are an integral part of our social safety net because they promote the full development of young children and enable their parents to continue working” (p. 5) and, in accordance with these two objectives, that “no educational childcare services will be shut down except in the case of an outbreak in a facility” (p. 10, emphasis added). in other words, in the event of a targeted renewed lockdown aimed at a specific region or activity sector, the plan would still be to keep childcare services open. in such a case, attendance would be voluntary, but the regular childcare rate would be paid by parents regardless of whether their child used the service. the government’s high-risk approach was also reflected in the decision to have beforeand after-school childcare services resume as normal, with regular fees and the same 20-to-1 student to educator ratio. for schools located in red zones, childcare services were organized on the principle of stable class groups: students remained within the same bubble during school hours, both indoors and outdoors.8 accordingly, students were not permitted to play on school grounds upon arriving in the morning. rather, they immediately entered their classroom to avoid contact with children outside their bubble and ate lunch and played after school with the same group of classmates. children attending beforeand after-school programs were not required to stay physically distanced from other children attending these programs. the reopening of beforeand after-school childcare went hand in hand with the decision to reopen elementary and secondary schools, while cegeps and universities remained closed. unlike in ontario and british columbia, where parents were given the option of remote education for their children, in-person school attendance was made compulsory for all elementary and secondary students in the province, though schools became important sites of transmission. only students with a serious health condition that made them more vulnerable to covid19 were exempted from that rule. classrooms, not schools, closed for a period of two weeks when a child tested positive for covid-19. in quebec, only students with a serious health condition that made them more vulnerable to covid-19 were exempted from compulsory in-person attendance at school. schools hours in quebec did not change,9 nor did the school calendar and student/teacher ratios. students continued to be taught all subjects (including arts and physical education) without physical distance. schools’ pandemic safety protocols included mask wearing (for students in grades 5 and higher), limiting student contact by keeping children within a consistent bubble, opening classroom windows in schools with inadequate ventilation systems, and advising children to dress appropriately for colder classrooms and more outdoor time during the school day. parents were also asked to keep their child home for a determined period of time in case of mild symptoms such as a runny nose. starting in early october and as the number of cases rose, a “blended” learning format was implemented for students in secondary 4 and 5 (the equivalent of grades 10 and 11 in other canadian provinces). this approach, which combined in-person teaching and distance learning with in-person classes every other school day, was later extended to secondary 3 (grade 9) students. in addition, children attending schools in red zones were required to wear a face mask at all times while on school grounds. quebec’s colour-coded regional alert system allowed the government to meet its objective of helping parents continue to work while also avoiding generalized interventions. a consequence of prioritizing employment goals october 2021 74 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research was that academic success played second fiddle. for example, the needs of students in their last year of secondary school and in their first semester of cegep or university, who had already missed many weeks of class in the spring and who continued to face the challenge of adapting to changing, inconsistent, and insufficient educational formats and learning platforms, were not the top concern. students with learning difficulties, special needs, or low motivation in secondary 4 and 5 only had limited access to in-school learning. students’ age and, in the case of cegep and university, the suitability of remote learning for specific subjects, became important variables in determining priority access to in-person learning. discussion and conclusion building from blum and dobrotić’s (2020) conceptual framework, this paper has provided insights to unpack quebec’s childcare and education policy response to the covid-19 health crisis, around four nonmutually exclusive goals. three of these goals, protecting public health, promoting academic success / fostering early education, and addressing inequalities, were not highly prioritized in the sequenced phases of reopenings, though they were always given some consideration. for example, the reopening of elementary schools in montreal was delayed due to the high number of people infected with covid, vulnerable children were prioritized in the early phases of the reopening of childcare, and pedagogical camps for vulnerable students were implemented in june 2020. somewhat paradoxically, however, as the number of daily covid-19 cases reached new heights, with 75% of outbreaks occurring in workplaces and schools (rivard, 2020), the government moved from a universal general approach toward a riskier targeted strategy. that new strategy reflected the government’s decision to prioritize work-family reconciliation above other considerations. accordingly, access to childcare and education services was offered for all children in an effort to enable as many parents as possible to continue to work full time. what can we learn from quebec’s childcare and education policy response to the pandemic? that quebec seems to have been more agile than the other provinces at responding to the need to close and reopen childcare services. this agility can be seen in the province’s tight sequence of universal closure of services to all children (except for those of frontline workers), to reopening of elementary schools in mid-may and the full reopening of childcare centres in june 2020. quebec’s childcare and education policy response was not simply a consequence of evolving research showing that childcare settings represented low risk for the transmission of covid-19. as linda white argues (2017), the primary mechanisms that lead to policy decisions are not purely rational and grounded in evidence-based arguments; they are also cultural. in quebec, gender norms regarding mothers’ labour market participation are persuasive and rooted in an institutional and policy context that has promoted a dual breadwinner/caregiver model. the legitimacy of that model was not challenged during the lockdown, though mothers reported having more difficulties than men in coping with their new caregiving constraints (mathieu & tremblay, 2021). similarly, the state has a legitimate role in subsidizing the provision of childcare in quebec; thus the government did not face any opposition when extending financial assistance to nonsubsidized commercial centres, which, by definition, have not been publicly funded in the past. the alternative, the closing of many childcare centres due to bankruptcy, was not a viable political option. quebec’s transition toward a high-risk approach was facilitated by the quebecoises’ highest employment rate in canada among those aged 25–44 (83%); in comparison, the employment rate of women in the same age group is 77% in ontario (statistics canada, 2020). most importantly, quebec was able to rely on a solid and well-established childcare network in which most childcare spots are being subsidized by the government. in october 2021 75 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research other provinces, childcare subsidies have been low, mainly because canada’s historical liberal welfare state and trend toward maternal provision of childcare have translated into cash-for-care models that impede better care structures (bezanson et al., 2020). universal access to low-cost subsidized childcare seems to have been the buffer against closure. while it was reported that as many as 837 childcare-in-family-environment services permanently closed between march and november 2020 (samson, 2021), the provision of beforeand after-school childcare services was not affected by the pandemic, because those services were provided in elementary schools, where each child is guaranteed a space. by focusing on the instrumentality of childcare to help parents combine earning and caring responsibility, the mobilization of childcare in quebec—both before and since the beginning of the pandemic—has never really sidestepped the issue of gender equality and mothers’ role as breadwinners. on the downside, because of the strong focus on the need to create and maintain childcare spaces, less attention has been given to the issue of quality of care to foster early education and address social inequality. the balance between offering childcare to a larger number of children—37,000 spaces are currently missing in the network (ouellette-vézina, 2021)—and providing quality educational services, especially for vulnerable children, could be the biggest challenge quebec’s childcare network has yet to overcome. acknowledgments the author is grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the paper and their insightful comments and suggestions. 1 yukon had a slightly higher percentage of their childcare centres opened (63%). 2 data was collected between april 27 and may 1. 3 the original text reads: notre motivation première répond à une exigence simple et incontournable : le développement des enfants et l’égalité des chances. comme l’indique de façon éloquente le titre même du document [les enfants au cœur de nos choix], nous plaçons résolument les enfants au cœur de nos choix. […] cet investissement collectif, nous le faisons d’abord pour les enfants, pour leur assurer les meilleures chances de réussite. les effets bénéfiques pour les enfants de programmes de stimulation précoce sont largement démontrés […] il est également prouvé que de tels programmes ont un effet particulièrement positif pour les enfants des milieux défavorisés. une intervention en bas âge diminue les risques liés aux problèmes d’apprentissage et de comportement, elle réduit les probabilités de décrochage. 4 in british columbia, child care centres were not mandated to close but many chose to close and some provided emergency care (crru, 2020). 5 on may 14, 2020, premier françois legault announced that the first phase of reopening was postponed to june 1 for the montreal metropolitan area. services were fully resumed on july 13, 2020. 6 some schools offering specialized educational services to disabled students reopened their doors as well. 7 in the words of dr. h. arruda, “quand ça flambe dans une deuxième vague, la première vague, c’est de la petite bière par rapport à la deuxième” (bossé, 2020). 8 when this was not possible, (when two groups would be in the library or the gymnasium at the same time, for instance), physical distancing of 2-metres was used to separate the groups. 9 small adjustments were made to recess and lunch time schedules in schools to avoid crowding in common areas. october 2021 76 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references archives politiques du québec. 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https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1173660/garderies-privees-quebec-cpe-palces-aide-parents-ministre-famille-lacombe https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410001801 https://childcarecanada.org/sites/default/files/op17eng.pdf http://induecourse.ca/grandeur-et-misere-du-systeme-quebecois-de-services-de-garde-a-lenfance/ http://induecourse.ca/grandeur-et-misere-du-systeme-quebecois-de-services-de-garde-a-lenfance/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242249 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2020001/article/00081-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2020001/article/00081-eng.htm october 2020 1 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research friendly guns: power, play, and choice in preschool kortney sherbine kortney sherbine is an assistant professor in the school of teacher education and leadership at utah state university. her research examines teacher identity, literacies, and children’s encounters with popular culture. her work has appeared in the journal of early childhood literacy, the journal of language and literacy education, and policy futures in education, among other journals and edited volumes. she is a former elementary grades teacher. email: kortney.sherbine@usu.edu snack time has finished and the children slowly clean up their areas around the table. they discard their trash, put lunchboxes away, and retrieve damp cloths to wipe down the table. almost simultaneously, henry and annie begin to sing under their breaths: we will, we will, rock you. we will, we will, rock you. moments later, the teacher reaches for the stereo and turns up the volume, drowning out the children’s voices with tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. this brief vignette emerged from field notes compiled over the course of an eight-week study of a (montessori) afterschool program. i bracket montessori intentionally as the afterschool program existed in a liminal space between the preschool where it was housed, which was heavily influenced by the philosophies of maria montessori, and a space that was more open to children’s intentions, personal experiences, and preferences. that is, the afterschool program was one where children had access to materials that were not part of the montessori curriculum and were permitted, to an extent, to engage in fantasy play, which was oftentimes inspired by—or at least integrated—ideas from popular culture. at the time of the study, i was interested in young children’s encounters with popular culture and the ways in which popular culture texts and materials permeated their play and conversation. further, i was interested in responses to that play and conversation in a setting that was built on philosophies of teaching and learning that did not necessarily embrace popular culture as an appropriate part of the early childhood curriculum. in this paper, i focus on the children’s play with one another and the relationships between and among the human and more-than-human in this afterschool program. in particular, i attend to the entanglements of power between the children, teachers, and materiality of popular culture, which seemed to highlight the ambiguity of the afterschool program as one that was both influenced—and not—by montessori philosophies. popular culture and montessori education children’s encounters with popular culture have long been a source of agitation and concern for adults as notions of what counts as appropriate permeate early childhood settings. much of this concern emerges from romanticized this paper examines the power relations that emerged during an eight-week study of an afterschool program in a montessori preschool. drawing from a theoretical assemblage that engages foucault’s theory of biopower and bennett’s conceptualization of thing power, i analyze the intra-actions between the human and more-than-human and consider how children’s bodies were disciplined to do and be certain things during a time of day when children could choose their play activities. a critical discourse analysis of ethnographic data details the ways in which certain intra-actions normalized some children’s ways of knowing, being, doing, and playing while marginalizing others. i conclude by attending to the potential of children’s relationships with popular culture in early childhood classrooms. key words: childhood; popular culture; montessori; power; foucault october 2020 2 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research perceptions of childhood as a time of innocence, when children should be protected from capitalist consumer culture and images of sex and violence, and is tied to a dichotomous distinction between what is considered “high culture” and involves things like the classics and the canon, and “low culture,” or the inferior culture of the people (fiske, 1992; nespor, 1997; sherbine, 2017; storey, 2018). in the classroom, popular culture texts and materials are often considered a distraction from an early childhood curriculum that “features play using more concrete play materials, such as wooden blocks, paint, and modeling clay” (henward, 2015, p. 208). despite adults’ concerns, however, children’s encounters with their everyday culture often include popular culture things and, frequently, those things are brought to school—montessori schools included—on their bodies in the forms of clothing, lunchboxes and backpacks, toys, and ideas for stories to be shared and (re)composed with one another (alvermann & xu, 2003; buckingham & sefton-green, 1994; dyson, 1997, 2003; hagood, alvermann, & heronhruby, 2010). maria montessori (1964, 1965, 1974) shared strong opinions about the play that emerges around children’s encounters with cultural texts that involve something other than those affiliated with “high culture.” the fantasy play that often emerges alongside popular culture does not coincide with montessori’s belief that children belong “to a people for whom the delights of the mind are to be found in the great works of art, and the civilizing constructions of science, and in those products of the higher imagination which represent the environment in which the intelligence of our child is destined to form itself ” (montessori, 1965, p. 256). cultural texts that emerge outside the great works of art were not considered by montessori to contribute to the intelligent development of the child. further, montessori believed play to be a natural characteristic (o’donnell, 2013), though she also believed that a child’s play should be grounded in reality and should aid in the child’s development as “through play, [the child] brings perfection to himself ” (p. 111). lillard and taggart (2018) wrote, “montessori teachers use children’s fantasy play behaviors as clues to how they might help connect children to what is real” (p. 3). in sum, the kind of play that often emerges amidst children’s encounters with popular culture is negated by montessori philosophies, in favour of play that is connected to reality and that enables the child to develop into a particular kind of person. after describing the mountain montessori school (names of people and places are pseudonyms) where this study took place, i detail how i went about composing data during my time as a participant observer in the afterschool program. then, i describe the entanglements of the afterschool program and engage with a theoretical assemblage that considers appropriation and power in the relationships between the human and more-than-human. in doing so, i consider the ways in which power functioned to normalize certain ways of be[hav]ing in the afterschool program. the mountain montessori school: the garden room the mountain montessori school (mms) was situated in a small college town in the northeastern united states. accredited by the national association for the education of young children and keystone stars, the school was opened in 1993. in 2000, the director purchased the facility where the preschool was located at the time of this study, a light green split-level house with a sprawling yard and expansive interior. there were 45 children, ages 3 through 5, enrolled in the preschool and approximately 20 of those stayed for the afterschool program, which began at 2:30 each afternoon and was housed primarily in the garden room of the school. the garden room was a multipurpose room of sorts. the walls were lined with bookshelves, which displayed writing and drawing tools, paints, musical instruments, and other assorted materials. there was a block centre against one wall and an area in one corner with overstuffed chairs and bookshelves that was designated for reading. the dramatic play area was in another corner. there was one large table in the room where i sat with children as we october 2020 3 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research drew pictures and played with play-doh. a large green rug covered the floor in the wide-open centre of the room. figure 1. my sketch of the garden room. october 2020 4 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2. annie’s sketch of the garden room. soon after my arrival on wednesday afternoons, i sat on the green rug with the children, listening as the school’s director shared picture books with the group. following a read-aloud, half of the group retreated to the upstairs rooms for rest time while others stayed in the garden room playing with materials and completing art projects october 2020 5 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research until they left for the day. i stayed in the garden room, too, and engaged with the children while they built structures with legos and transformed the dramatic play area into a restaurant, a grocery store, and a bank. i sat with children at the art table while they used crayola markers and scrap pieces of paper to draw pictures for themselves, their teachers, and their family members. the garden room was a unique space at mms because many of the materials available for the children’s play were not part of the montessori curriculum, unlike other spaces in the school that were designed with the philosophies of maria montessori in mind and where materials could not be used unless a teacher had first demonstrated how to do so (lillard, p. 2013). methods of inquiry i became acquainted with the director of mms through our shared graduate coursework. upon learning of my interest in children’s encounters with popular culture, she invited me to visit and subsequently study the afterschool program at mms. she had recognized the way popular culture permeated the children’s play and was interested in thinking more about those relationships with me. employing ethnographic research methods, i spent approximately three hours each week over the course of eight weeks as a participant observer in the garden room at mms. drawing on corsaro’s (2003) ethnographic inquiries alongside young children, i engaged with the children and things while they played and created in various centres of the room in hopes that i might be able to “suspend my adult perspective … and consider things from a kid’s point of view” (p. 39). i built ships with legos and constructed veterinary hospitals for sick plastic animals with magna-tiles. i did not intervene when conflict arose between children, and i did not offer redirection if a child was not following the directives offered by the staff members. further, i always asked for permission before joining the children’s play, and i told them i might jot notes so that i could remember things from our time together. gaining children’s consent for me to document their experiences and to be part of those experiences in more direct ways was a critical piece of my approach to conducting ethical research alongside the children. my goal was to be as accessible to the children as i could be with the intention of understanding the entanglements of relationships in the afterschool program from their perspectives, ever mindful of my position as an adult researcher, whose notebook and digital recorder presented me as someone from the outside who was interested in what the children said, how they played, and how they intra-acted with one another and their teachers. wolcott (2005) alluded to this mindfulness and suggested that there is the potential in participatory research to be “agonizingly self-conscious” (p. 89) about being in the field. uncertainty is an inevitable part of relational research that involves following the lead of another without knowing exactly what will be encountered. participant observation as i embraced this inevitable uncertainty, i jotted fieldnotes as i played and listened alongside the children and more-than-human things. following geertz’s (1973) suggestion to employ thick description, i began to process the elements of the afterschool program’s culture through expanded field notes in order that i might examine the ways in which children’s play, language, and the montessori philosophy became entangled. a participant-observer in the garden room, i was positioned to experience the activities of the afterschool program as both an insider and outsider, and so, drawing from wolcott’s (2005) and eisner’s (1998) approaches, i engaged in self-reflection as i expanded my notes, attending to my “mood, personal reactions, [and] random thoughts” (wolcott, 2005, p. 93) that emerged during each visit. this reflection was particularly crucial given the ways in which my own personal philosophies about childhood and learning differed from montessori philosophies (e.g., i find children’s encounters with popular culture to be highly intriguing and tend to welcome play and conversation that builds on their experiences with these texts) and the extent to which moments of cognitive dissonance arose in the field. october 2020 6 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research interviews i also conducted informal interviews as i drew pictures of my little pony with eliza at the art table and played alongside other children in different areas of the garden room. as tammivaara and enright (1986) wrote, interviews with children often are “taken up with children literally playing with items in the setting and figuratively playing with the questions and answers that are given” (p. 230). figure 3. eliza’s drawing of my little pony with a cutie mark. as my time at mms drew to a close, i engaged the school’s director in a formal interview. this allowed me to clarify—or not—my observations and interpretations of the ways in which the children, teachers, and materials constructed the culture of the afterschool program. my questions facilitated a conversation that offered the director the flexibility to “talk on [her] own terms” (hammersley & atkinson, 2007, p. 110) and so our discussion included her interpretations of maria montessori’s philosophies, particularly related to popular culture, and how that philosophy manifested in the afterschool program. polkinghorne (1995) suggested that such clarification or triangulation creates opportunities to consider multiple realities, in this case, of the children, teachers, and morethan-human things in the afterschool program, in an effort to understand the culture of the community from many different perspectives. october 2020 7 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research critical discourse and multimodal discourse analyses after compiling expanded field notes and transcripts, i engaged in critical discourse analysis (cda), which allowed me to consider threads of power within the social actions of discourse. walshaw (2007) wrote that cda allows for an investigation of “how language functions, in a very strategic manner, to fashion subjectivity” (p. 44). cda as i employed it here is not limited to an analysis of spoken language or, as gee (1996) described, as little d discourse. rather, cda attends to big d discourse, which involves both language and additional meaning-making practices that produce particular ways of constructing and experiencing a social reality. these additional meaning-making and identity-development practices are often multimodal in that they integrate multiple semiotic resources such as music, visual images, sound, and objects (jewitt, 2017). employing multimodal discourse analysis alongside cda enabled me to avoid theorizing about language as “an isolated process” (o’halloran, 2004, p. 1) and to consider the children’s and teacher’s encounters with bodies, multimodal texts, and materials. after composing vignettes from my expanded field notes, i attended to the entanglements of bodies and objects and the ways in which encounters with and responses to popular culture materials also strategically functioned to produce particular subjectivities. in this way, i analyzed the data for how language and encounters with materials in the afterschool program positioned the children and adults. i examined conversations, artifacts, and intraactions to “locate, define, and regulate people in different ways” (walshaw, 2007, p. 45). attending to the process for cda outlined by macnaughton (1998), i looked for ways in which the children and adults were categorized and how meanings of these categories were constructed through social practices. in doing so, i considered the ways in which some children benefitted from the employment of particular discourses while others did not. theoretical entanglements a number of theories are helpful in considering the human and more-than-human encounters in the mms afterschool program. i draw primarily from foucault’s (2003) notion of biopower to consider the ways children’s play and storytelling were at times denigrated in the name of maintaining a particular kind of culture in the garden room. further, i employ the bakhtinian (1981) concept of appropriation as i consider how language functioned to create space for children’s creative improvisations while also normalizing some behaviours while marginalizing others. finally, bennett’s (2010) conceptualization of thing power is useful in considering the generative nature of the relationships between children and the materials associated with popular culture. the theoretical assemblage of biopower-appropriation-thing-power enables me to engage with data in ways that attend to numerous possibilities of what might have been emerging in the relationships between bodies and things as the children, teachers, and more-than-human objects constructed the culture of the afterschool program. in analyzing the data through this theoretical assemblage, i attend to the complexities of entanglements of bodies, language, and objects in the garden room. biopower poststructuralist thinkers recognize discourse as inextricably linked to the functions of power relations. as walshaw (2007) wrote, “power relations are an integral part of our personal and public lives. always in tension, they are exactly the stuff that knits us all together” (p. 68). foucault (1977) understood power to be neither positive nor negative; it is opportunistic, so its effects on individuals and populations vary depending on the context. power is also productive in that it “allows bodies, gestures, discourses, and desires to be constituted as something individual” (p. 30). that is, power circulates through, between, and around individuals—and objects—and works through techniques of discipline and normalization (foucault, 1977, 1978). october 2020 8 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research foucault (1977) described biopower as “the numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations” (p. 140). biopower accounts for the ways in which minds and bodies are shaped by the discourses of ideologies in an effort to create a certain type of subject in the mms afterschool program (boldt, 2001; foucault, 1978). considerations of biopower alongside the data foster analysis of how the children were affected by disciplinary power and the ways in which children self-monitored and subjugated themselves to the discourses around them. embedded within biopower are the many mechanisms and techniques of discipline. not always overt or coercive, disciplinary techniques include the organization of bodies, souls, space, materials, and time (foucault, 1977). discipline is a means by which bodies become members of an efficient machine, a machine in which “each pupil, each level, and each moment, if correctly combined, [are] permanently utilized in the general process of teaching” (p. 165). disciplinary power permeates every aspect of society; we accept it because it suggests that some level of normal or acceptable existence is attainable. walshaw (2007) elaborated that disciplinary power “makes us want to conform and comply … without knowing it, we make sure that what we do, think, and say is in line with what is expected of us” (p. 129). drawing on these notions of power, i analyze the ways in which children’s encounters with popular culture in the mms afterschool program were normalized and marginalized. appropriation bakhtin (1981) suggested that our words are not our own because they carry with them the meanings of those who used them before us, the meanings of those with whom we speak, and the constructed meanings within dialogue itself. he wrote that, “in all areas of life and ideological activity, our speech is filled to overflowing with other people’s words, which are transmitted with highly varied degrees of accuracy and impartiality” (p. 337). language is purposeful and productive; it is employed to construct meanings and to take up subject positions. children appropriate words, images, gestures and actions in order to “create situated meanings and fashion identities for particular purposes” (nespor, 1997, p. 185), and teachers who espouse montessori philosophies dictate particular ways of being and learning in relation to materials. considerations of appropriation allow for analyses of both children’s conversation and fantasy play as they create connections between their realities and their imaginations, expanding the possibilities of what is possible in the stories they compose and embody and the teachers’ redirections of those connections toward behaviour more aligned with their images of childhood. thing power bennett’s (2010) theory of thing power emerges from the posthumanist turn in educational research, which attends to the entanglements of humans and objects (barad, 2007; lenz taguchi, 2010; sherbine, 2018). hers is part of a larger philosophical project which seeks to disrupt the hierarchical position of human over the rest of the world, instead focusing on the capacity of all things—human and more-than-human—to affect change and transformation in their relationships with one another. thing power suggests that objects—the more-thanhuman—have the potential to create something new in their relationships with other objects and human bodies. these considerations are particularly significant in the context of montessori philosophies, which carry specific expectations for the materials associated with the curriculum. considerations of thing power alongside data from this study involves analyzing the relationships between the language, people, and the roles that objects play in the construction of identities, in how storylines play out, and in how discipline functions. october 2020 9 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research power, play, and choice in this theoretical analysis of how power circulated and what it produced in the garden room, i focus on two elements that emerged: power in pop culture entanglements and disciplinary power and the child’s body. these explications of power relations were considered in child child, child adult, and child object intra-actions. the arrows i employ here denote what foucault (2003) described as the “interplay” (p. 168) of power relationships and what lenz taguchi (2010) and others (barad, 2007; sherbine, 2018; thiel, 2015) consider the “intra-actions” between bodies and materials. in other words, it is not a child acting on an adult or on an object; it is, rather, the mutual constitution of the child and adult and material that emerges in encounters. power in popular culture entanglements as evidenced in the opening vignette, the children’s entanglements with popular culture permeated their intraactions and play in the garden room. as henry and annie sang we will rock you, i asked annie about the song. “i have it on my dad’s phone,” she said. “there’s a white button and it turns green and then, we will, we will rock you. we will, we will rock you.” annie took great pleasure in entertaining me with a song that she knew other adults listened to. she positioned herself as artist-performer-singer who had captivated a guest in the garden room. only moments before the singing and my conversation with annie, the children had been eating their snacks as the sounds of tchaikovsky filled the air. a teacher, who noticed my conversation with annie as it was unfolding, walked to a nearby stereo and turned up the volume. the juxtaposition of music was striking and served as a metaphor for the entanglements of discourses in the afterschool program. while many of the children appropriated from popular culture, many of the teachers appropriated their language and behaviours from montessori philosophies, which promote an enlightened, peaceful, and disciplined child, one who should embrace the classical music of tchaikovsky as it moves the child toward intelligence and true creativity more than the rock and roll of queen (montessori, 1964; soundy, 2008). much like henry and annie, other children in the mms afterschool program appropriated (bakhtin, 1981) images, language, and storylines in their encounters with the materials, space, and with one another. frequently, children physically embodied ideas from popular culture in their play, reifying storylines and characters and repurposing them in ways that allowed them to reposition themselves and each other in the power relations circulating through the garden room. throughout the study in the afterschool program, children’s entanglements with popular culture emerged in their play as teachers—to varying degrees—intervened and redirected the children toward activities that were more aligned with montessori philosophies. for example, one afternoon two children, ron and william, and john, a high school student who cleaned mms in the afternoons, engaged in prolonged play with legos. ron jumped up from his spot on the floor and clasping both hands together and keeping his arms straight, sliced through the air with an invisible light sabre. “you can’t get me! i have a force field! you can’t get me!” exclaimed william. ron continued to wave the light sabre in the air for a few seconds and then returned to his work mat, where he resumed building his lego ship. john sat next to the boys and dug around in the lego bin. “you know what, guys? i’m making friendly guns,” he said. “what are friendly guns?” asked william. “you know, they’re nice,” john replied. ron employed the language of star wars battles to position himself and william in a good guy / bad guy binary. october 2020 10 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research nespor (1997) wrote that children appropriate from popular culture in order to explore subjectivities that might “position them favorably in their conflict” (p. 188). in this way, the language, gestures, and [invisible] objects from star wars functioned as tools that mediated the children’s play and that made particular storylines possible. ron could be a bad guy because “bad guy” was performed as part of recognizable star wars play and was removed from direct hostility with other children (i recognize that ron could have actually been a good guy; that point was never made clear). the nature of good guy / bad guy play created an oppositional binary, but one that was required in order for the storylines to make sense to be expanded on by the children. as paley (2004) wrote, children experience “emotional highs and lows of the hero and victim” (p. 15) in their storytelling and play. the quick embodiment of a light-sabre-wielding villain (or hero) enabled ron and william to construct and experience a fleeting moment of nonviolent violence, domination, resistance, and recovery. brenda, a teacher and the school’s director, explained that “warrior play,” during which all players must feel safe, was permitted in the afterschool program, but john, with his mention of “friendly guns,” effectively stopped the good guy / bad guy play, at least for a few moments. perhaps john drew from montessori’s philosophies on friendship, which values the growth of a peaceful child, not one who would engage as a bad guy. perhaps john was performing the role of “responsible adult” in his efforts to redirect ron and william. he may have been drawing from the discourse of school violence, which often carries messages of zero tolerance for talk about—or play involving—violence in any form. it could have been that john was aware that parents were coming into the garden room to pick up their children and that he understood that some of them may have valued the encouragement to be a friendly child who refrains from violent play. whatever the case, john’s interjection about friendly guns clashed with the play in which ron and william momentarily found great pleasure. the culture of the afterschool program was constructed by these clashes in discourse; as children found ways to use popular culture to negotiate their play and interactions, they did so alongside messages of what the “right kind” of play and conversation looked and sounded like. foucault (1978) wrote that power relations are “distributed in irregular fashion: the points, knots, or focuses of resistance are spread over time and space at varying densities, at times mobilizing groups or individuals in a definitive way, inflaming certain points of the body, certain moments in life, certain times of behavior” (p. 96). as a productive force, power influences individuals, groups, and objects as they negotiate their environments (dyson, 1997; foucault, 1978). children understand the effects of power as they interact with one another, taking up identities for themselves that enable them to perform in certain ways. ron and william were playing star wars in accordance with certain rules dictated by the series itself (e.g., the use of light sabres, the good guy / bad guy binary, the protective force field). how to engage in play the “right” way was determined by the discourse of star wars; the performers/players must do and say certain things. resistance in power relations allows for room for improvisations and agency in children’s play (nespor, 1997). in these ways, power normalizes behaviour and determines whose actions are considered appropriate and whose actions marginalize them from the rest of the community (dyson, 1997; foucault, 1978; luke, 1992). popular culture encounters that count children’s knowledge and language about popular culture places them at a certain advantage among their peers, an advantage akin to what bourdieu (2010) described as symbolic power. he wrote that “utterances are not only signs to be understood and deciphered; they are also signs of wealth, intended to be evaluated and appreciated, and signs of authority, intended to be believed or obeyed” (p. 480, italics in original). brenda hinted at her own observations of the children’s language about popular culture as she described how children with older siblings often had more experience with the media than other children and thus were in a better position to talk about such october 2020 11 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research things. however, children who had less exposure to television, movies, or series such as my little pony or star wars found a way to slip into popular culture play. in describing the playful tendencies of the children with less exposure to popular culture, brenda explained: some children don’t have a fixed way of thinking and so some kids can come up with those things outside of the good guy / bad guy and sometimes those kids are our most creative kids, who are hearing snippets of this and snippets of that and make their own thing. brenda valued children’s abilities to think beyond the images and storylines that appeared in various popular culture texts as they made their play “their own thing.” this notion of “making” was an important component of the culture of the afterschool program. the children had a certain level of freedom to play with language, to find commonalities in their interests, to gently argue for their opinions, to extend existing storylines, to be heard, and to defend their preferences for certain things. there were limits on the children’s agency, however, and as i describe below, teachers and children employed certain tactics to redirect other children who pushed the limit of what was acceptable. disciplinary power and the child’s body one afternoon, teacher mary sat with a few children at the art table. sam sipped out of a spiderman water bottle. beth wore a high school musical shirt. henry’s shoes bore the image of iron man, and daphne wore ruby red slippers, like those worn by dorothy from the wizard of oz, on her feet. annie shared with those around her that she would soon be visiting disney world with her family. as sam began to interject something about disney world, teacher mary interrupted and asked annie to tell the other children about her family. as quickly as it began, annie’s story about traveling to disney world ended and she talked instead about her older brothers and sister and eventually her pet. teacher mary sat back and listened, allowing the children to engage in the conversation without further intervention. in an interview, i asked brenda about the timing of teacher mary’s interjection, and she clarified the montessori stance on disney and popular culture more broadly. brenda: most montessori schools don’t allow any logos on clothing. clothing has to be plain and nonadvertising. part of montessori’s approach to education was to love the fabric, to be more aesthetically appealing. so there would be a lot of wood, ceramic, plants in the environment. but you start into pop culture, it’s plastic. it’s red, blue, yellow, pink. those colours overtake and those colours start to have gendered meaning, and montessori was really against that. kortney: and so, where does disney fit into all of that? i’ve heard the children speak briefly about dis— brenda: we don’t do disney books. we encourage children to bring books from home, but we usually say, like caldecott or children’s literature. you know, a different genre. if a child brings a [disney] book, we don’t say, “oh, that’s bad. you have to take it back.” we hold it up and show it, but we don’t read it. so we’re not promoting any kind of pop culture materials, but we’re not having a total ban on clothing or toys, either. montessori philosophies that undoubtedly influenced the afterschool program at mms disparaged popular culture as being unnatural or artificial and thus unsuitable (though somewhat tolerated) for the garden room. could it be that it was not only annie’s naming of disney world that prompted mary to intervene? i argue that the thing power of the popular culture images and artifacts—the spiderman water bottle, the high school musical shirt, the iron man shoes, and the ruby red slippers—that emerged within the assemblage of bodies around the table also october 2020 12 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research influenced teacher mary to redirect annie toward a more appropriate story to share. that is, it was not annie’s statement about disney alone but the confluence of popular culture materials in their relation to the children and the teacher’s expectations that prompted teacher mary to intervene. another example of disciplining the body in relation to children’s fantasy play and popular culture emerged as ron approached brenda with an elaborate lego ship. brenda, who was surrounded by other children playing with play-doh, engaged in the following conversation with ron as he stood next to her and pushed his lego ship into her arm: ron: i’m here to kill you. brenda: now why would you want to do that? ron: your dog got on the computer and said you were going to kill me, so i’m going to kill you. brenda: well, that’s not possible! i don’t have a dog. i only have thirteen cats! brynnan: whoa! thirteen cats! ron: [appearing distracted, lowers his lego ship and picks up a piece of play-doh] brenda [to me]: see? even the kids know how weird that is. ron positioned his teacher as being inferior, on the receiving end of his threats of violence, which accompanied his lego ship that quite literally applied pressure on brenda’s body. brenda’s response to ron was one of resistance, albeit a resistance masked by questions expressing her own misunderstanding. as she responded to ron, she modelled appropriate ways of participating in conversation and play. as brenda’s exchange with ron suggests, the exercise of power is not a negative force but is productive in the sense that it disciplines children to interact with others in particular ways. foucault (1977, 1978) wrote extensively about the ways in which the body is disciplined to be and do certain things. whereas punishment is often considered physical force that comes after an offence, discipline is a component of power that influences one’s psyche. the following is from an interview with brenda. she described the school’s philosophy on discipline in relation to beth, a 5-year-old who was accused of bullying other children in the afterschool program: what we do in our classroom is have free choice time, and they love that. but when someone has behaviour issues, they lose their choice, and that’s the term we use. we say, “are you going to be able to make a good choice or are you going to lose your choices now?” so we decided as a staff about a week and a half ago that beth’s bullying just wasn’t getting any better, so there have been a few times in the past few weeks that she’s had to hold the hand of a teacher and go wherever the teacher went. and she was mortified. and that’s all there is. there was no negative punishment whatsoever. it was just holding the teacher’s hand and losing your freedom. and that’s the most effective behaviour management i’ve ever seen. brenda did not consider having to hold a teacher’s hand and follow her around as negative punishment, though beth’s resulting mortification suggests otherwise. still, brenda and the staff ’s attempts to redirect beth to more appropriate interactions with her peers involved practices that were intended to shape her psyche, to guide future decisions she would make in her peer interactions. october 2020 13 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research coding the body foucault (1977) described the types of discipline brenda described—holding the teacher’s hand, following the teacher around, losing free choice time—as “coding the body” (p. 153). a subject is trained that there are appropriate ways to be and anything outside of that (e.g., bullying) is considered pathological or abnormal and in need of improvement. coding the body and other mechanisms of discipline are ubiquitous in early childhood education (jones, 2013; macnaughton, 1998; nespor, 1997). montessori (1965) devoted portions of her entire method to discipline and wrote that discipline creates “a good child:” the goodness he has conquered cannot be summed by up inertia—his goodness is now made up of action. as a matter of fact, good people are those who advance toward the good—the good which is made up of their own self-development and of external acts of order and usefulness. (pp. 352–353) techniques of discipline work to create a particular kind of child—a good child—who contributes to the construction and maintenance of the montessori culture. foucault’s (2003) notion of biopower describes how, in order to maintain the ideal population, members of the classroom community are disciplined as subjects and producers of the classroom norm. in the following vignette, an encounter between ron, his peers, teacher pam, a paper cup, and a trash can demonstrates how biopower was enacted in the garden room through the assemblages of the human and morethan-human. snack time was ending and children began to clean up their areas, a skill that is taught explicitly in the montessori curriculum as a part of developing more independence (montessori, 1964) a paper cup flew through the air and landed on the shelf next to the trashcan. “aw, man!” said ron, dropping his arms from above his head. immediately, teacher pam was next to him. “ron, what in the world? you will get up and throw that away the right way,” she said. ron slowly got out of his chair and grabbed the cup and placed it in the trashcan. “no, you will go back to your seat and show me that you can throw it away the way that you should.” ron took the cup out of the trashcan, returned to his seat, sat down, then stood up, walked to the trashcan, and placed the cup inside. the other children watched in silence until beth spoke up: “and now he can’t have a cup anymore!” “that’s right,” pam responded, “he can’t until he remembers how we throw our cups away after snack time.” she turned to face the group of children watching her. “we do not throw them through the air. we take them and put them in the trash.” it was clear from the reactions of both teacher pam and beth that ron’s initial method of cleanup was atypical of, and unacceptable in, the mms afterschool program. pam’s shift from referring to ron as “you” and then “he” functioned simultaneously to dictate to ron what he had done wrong, to distance ron from the norms of the group, and to remind the other children of the expectations for cleanup time. beth’s linguistic contribution to the event further reified the established norms and identified consequences for acting outside of those norms. this language of subjectification (walshaw, 2007) is another technique of disciplinary power, one that positions a child as aberrant whose behaviour in a particular moment and in a particular context alienates him from the rest of the population. october 2020 14 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research further, the cup and the trashcan—in relationship with ron’s embodiment of an nba point guard’s shooting motion and pam’s redirection—imbued a thing power that carried potential for play, disruption, and discipline at once. the cup-as-basketball and trash-can-as-basketball-hoop created with ron an enactment of fantasy play that, if only momentarily, freed him from the routines of cleanup time toward something more visceral and playful. when the cup was relegated to trash and the trash can to a receptacle in their intra-actions with ron, the teacher, and beth, the objects reified the expectations of the afterschool program: routine, order, and usefulness. conclusion in this paper, i described the many tensions between children, teachers, philosophies, and popular culture materials in a montessori afterschool program. drawing on foucault’s (1977, 2003) and bennett’s (2010) conceptualizations of power, i engaged with expanded field notes and interview data to understand how and the extent to which children’s encounters with popular culture were diminished. in doing so, i recounted how the culture of the afterschool program, with its ambiguity in terms of its relationships with montessori philosophies and the availability of non-montessori materials for play, was constructed through the intra-actions between bodies and materials in the garden room. one limitation of this study involves the time i was able to spend at mms. this study was limited to the afterschool program housed in the school, and though interviews with the school’s director did offer useful background information as to montessori philosophies and how they play out in curriculum and interactions, there might have been more of an opportunity to contextualize the afterschool program had i engaged in participant observation throughout the course of the school day. further, i did not conduct formal interviews with teachers and other adults (e.g., john and teacher mary). while i can infer their intentions based on what i understand about montessori philosophies and the context of the afterschool program, i recognize that their perspectives were not amplified in this work. it is notable that the disciplinary tactics that emerged in the afterschool program at mms are not unique to montessori programs. schools function, in many ways, to construct particular ways of acting, thinking, and being (varenne & mcdermott, 1998). while the study highlighted in this paper focused on the relationships between montessori philosophies as they were enacted at mms in relation to children’s play and talk with popular culture texts, what is sanctioned in many educational settings is often limited to that which can be assessed and quantified. policies and routines are enacted to regulate children’s behaviour and learning, and often these policies discount children’s relationships with popular culture (dyson, 2003; nespor, 1997). however, as dyson (1997, 2003, 2016), wohlwend (2009, 2011), and others (alvermann et al., 1999; marsh, 2006; ranker, 2006; sherbine, 2019; williams, 2007) have described, popular culture texts in the classroom carry great potential for fostering children’s development of critical literacy and playful identities. when teachers foster play and talk with popular culture, children have opportunities to plan, remix, revise, and improvise storylines from their favourite movies or television shows. further, engaging with popular culture in the classroom through a permeable curriculum that “allows for the interplay between teachers’ and children’s language and experiences” (dyson, 2016, p. 24) offers opportunities for teachers to collaborate with children about topics for exploration and inquiry. in doing so, children might engage in critical media literacy, which recognizes the pleasure that children take in their relationships with popular culture (alvermann et al., 1999), while also making commercially driven texts “malleable and open to renegotiation” (wohlwend, 2011, p. 111). what opportunities might be missed if teachers employ disciplinary power in ways that redirect play and conversation away from popular culture texts with which children are experimenting? october 2020 15 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research this study contributes to research on the ways in which certain images of childhood permeate our intra-actions with children and the extent to which children are encouraged or dissuaded from particular activities and ways of being. sorin (2005) suggested that constructions of who children are—the innocent child, the evil child, and the miniature adult, to name a few—inform what we think children are capable of and what we believe their potential to be. power relations that function to reify particular notions of what counts as childhood impact what is allowable and, as in the afterschool program at mms, have the potential to silence children’s singing, fantasy play, storying, and embodiments. my time playing, listening, and watching alongside the children, teachers, and materials at mms served as a reminder that, despite the best intentions to create child-centered environments and opportunities for children, engrained beliefs and values about children can invariably create a hierarchy of what matters and what is worth time and attention in early childhood. the children’s relationships with popular culture materials in tension with the montessori teachers’ philosophies of what belonged in the afterschool program composed an ambiguous and liminal space where children, teachers, and materials—in their relationships with one another—recognized the potential of popular culture to create, disrupt, challenge, and reinvent. october 2020 16 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alvermann, d., moon, j., & hagood, m. 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(2005). the art of fieldwork (2nd ed.). altamira press. december 2021 32 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the aura of the trace in one child’s projects in the world: collecting as rescue, repetition, rupture, and refrain elliott kuecker and melissa freeman elliott kuecker is a faculty librarian and researcher at the university of georgia. he studies research methodology, craft work, and labour. his scholarship can be read in qualitative inquiry, international review of qualitative research, journal of new librarianship, library philosophy and practice, and other venues. email: elliott.kuecker@uga.edu melissa freeman is a professor of qualitative research and evaluation methodologies at the university of georgia. her research into philosophically informed traditions has been to understand the variety of analytical strategies used to make sense of the world, to disrupt conventional ways of thinking about research, and to open up new trajectories for research and evaluation. her most recent book is modes of thinking for qualitative data analysis (routledge, 2017). email: freeman9@uga.edu trace and aura. the trace is appearance of a nearness, however far removed the thing that left it behind may be. the aura is appearance of a distance, however close the thing that calls it forth. in the trace, we gain possession of the thing; in the aura, it takes possession of us. (benjamin, 1999a, p. 447) figure 1. gus_07010. source: prospect archives and center for education and research. from 1965 to 1991, the educator and theorist patricia carini (1932–2021) ran a small experimental school for children in north bennington, vermont, using many of her own pedagogical methods and modes of assessment. carini’s methods emphasized careful observation of children as they engaged in their everyday activities of doing, interacting, acting, making, playing, arguing, and so forth. resisting the popular developmental models of children of the time, carini (1979) saw it as her task to see a child “not as a ‘case’ but as a person” (p. 17). this conviction led her to create several descriptive documentary processes that teachers at the prospect school carried out for every child. the processes involved collecting children’s works, such as their art, written texts, constructions, and crafts, as well as the field notes teachers kept through the day on “the children as they engage in a spontaneous activity— that is, as they play” (carini, 1977, p. 16). the drawing introducing this collection is by gus and is just one of 870 artifacts collected between 1972 and 1980, using one child’s archival collection, found in the prospect archive of children’s work at the university of vermont, we consider the methodological complications involved in attempting to analyze material traces of childhood, created by the child. the experimental school where these artworks were originally completed practiced methods of deep observation and descriptive review of materials collected, rather than sending children’s work home. we ponder these pedagogic methods alongside concepts delivered by the german cultural critic walter benjamin in order to suggest how the purpose of collecting and presenting traces of childhood can be an act of rescue. key words: archives; artwork; qualitative research; patricia carini; walter benjamin; childhood mailto:elliott.kuecker@uga.edu mailto:freeman9@uga.edu december 2021 33 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research when gus was a student at the prospect school. creations such as this one were not sent home with children, and nothing got thrown away. instead, teachers collected everything in “response to the children’s passion for making things. a passion expressed sometimes by persistence, sometimes by delight, sometimes by frustration and anger, sometimes by playfulness, sometimes by deep seriousness—and all of these together and more” (carini, 2011, p. 28). collecting did not seek to tame these mixed sensations by tidily organizing them, but rather to understand the complexity of children’s lived life by gathering all their traces into one place. as carini (1986) expressed: to be a child ... is not only to be full of wonder and curiosity but also, in many respects, to be powerless— prey to fears, to the actions of others, and to one’s own impulses. vulnerability and resilience, terror and hope, wisdom and innocence are thus counterpointed in a period of life remarkable for the intensity and the vividness of its experience. (p. 15) we encountered gus’s drawings in the prospect archive of children’s work at the university of vermont libraries, where archivists have arranged and digitized the drawings and writing of many of the prospect school’s students and the related descriptive notes from teachers. these materials show the creative, everyday lives of individual children over several years, offering pedagogues and methodologists an unusual trove of potential “data.” the archive as a whole serves as an afterlife of a once-vibrant school, where the material traces, or what carini (1979) called “a person’s projects in the world” (p. 63), help reanimate the school itself. our interest in these materials came from, in the first place, a mutual interest in studying children’s play and creations, and a curiosity about how qualitative researchers can approach such topics when the child’s presence is long gone but their traces remain. elliott heard of the prospect archive upon asking a friend for advice on how to save his preschool daughter’s art. she mentioned going to a memorable workshop in north bennington, vermont, when she was a schoolteacher in troy, new york, many years ago. she recalled everyone sitting in a circle and closely studying a single piece of art, only to learn that the prospect school teachers kept everything created by all the children. quickly, elliott was able to locate the archive of the school from the clues available and mentioned it to melissa, given that she had lived in bennington for so long. melissa did not know that the archive was being held at the university, but her life had crossed with pat carini’s in many ways: as a bennington college student of carini’s husband, lou, years later as a hopeful researcher at the prospect school during her graduate studies, and as an admirer of her work. together, we studied the artifacts in the collection and read carini’s articles and books, only to find that our conversations always came back to methodological conundrums in trying to figure out how one set of researchers could operate within another researcher’s (carini, in this case) collection. we wanted to do what carini was after and bring life back to childhood by attending to these artifacts. in our selections of different artworks to include in our study, theorists we wished to cite, and specific portions of carini’s concepts on which we wished to draw, we found that we were not really bringing life back to childhood at large, or even to the prospect school. we were only bringing life to our own new collections, and therefore could not say much about the prospect school, the children, or anything within its original context. there are problems in representing childhood, individuals, or education through fragments of evidence (or any evidence for that matter). for us, the inability to represent something or someone on the basis of any evidence, no matter how comprehensive a collection of data we believe we have actually obtained, is not actually a problem as much as being a worthy methodological discussion about the intersections of collecting and researching. rather than simply problematize the tradition of representation, we ask: what can coming to research as a collector of fragments rescued from the past offer? the collector has a “very mysterious relationship” (1999c, p. 487) to the objects collected, wrote walter benjamin (1892–1940), the german theorist known for his many amateur collections of books, toys, postcards, and quotations, december 2021 34 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research among other things. he added that the true collector “does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value … but studies and loves them as a scene, the stage, of their fate” (p. 487). benjamin viewed the act of collecting objects as a way to create a scene, set a stage, or determine a new fate, a useful insight that seems to give the collector the power of creating life. weaving themes from benjamin’s writing and carini’s educational theories—rescue, repetition, rupture, and refrain—we illustrate a way to see collecting as a worthy research mode, particularly in the context of studies of the everyday life of children. to keep the child present in the work, we have integrated gus’s artwork in ways that seem to argue with or aid our points. rescue figure 2. gus_08_044_4. source: prospect archives and center for education and research. in carini’s method, the objects collected and the notes created during the week form the basis for the “descriptive review,” a weekly collective process led in turn by each teacher focused on a particular child around puzzling questions. for example, a teacher might ask: “how is it ... that this child seems always to slip by me? how can i get a clearer picture of where she is making her presence felt in the group?” (carini, 2000, p. 13). the presenting teacher would share their notes on the child and invite the others not only to reflect on each selected piece of the child’s work but to follow the question as well, brainstorming the various meanings of “slip” and “slips” (carini, 2000, p. 13). everyone in the room would then describe what they saw in the artwork or text presented, being mindful to never focus on what was missing, always remaining respectful to the child. the power of this review was the attention given to each detail, the focus on a single student and the singularity of each work, far from the bustle of daily classroom life. carini had this penchant for deep description of quotidian life in common with benjamin, who is most known for his masterpiece, the arcades project, a large volume made almost entirely of collected scraps of other writers, in german, french, and english, organized thematically. he wished to include so many details that he miniaturized his handwriting in order to fit as much as possible into his notebooks. these collections were so dear to him that upon facing exile during nazism, he sent them off to friends for safekeeping so that the nazis could not destroy them, exhibiting his desire to rescue cultural objects from oblivion. hannah arendt (1968) would explain his method, writing, “collecting is the redemption of things which is to complement the redemption of man” (p. 42). benjamin, like carini, saw observing as similarly central to research. he famously elevated the concept of walking research in his image of the flâneur, taken from the french writer baudelaire. the flâneur, for benjamin (1999b), was “the priest of the genius loci ... [an] unassuming passer-by, with his clerical dignity, his detective’s intuition, and his omniscience” (p. 264). the flâneuse is not concerned with tourist traps or walking by the birthplaces of december 2021 35 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research idols, but rather ponders the “single weathered threshold or the touch of a single tile—that which any old dog carries away” (1999b, p. 263). idle observation of even the most profane of details was an important act of research for benjamin, inspiring arendt (1968) to say that benjamin’s flâneur was capable of catching the “secret meaning” of things (p. 12). once gathered, his observations and objects would be arranged in order to be rescued back to life within a magical, “charmed circle of fragments” (benjamin, 1999b, p. 446). carini similarly saw her collections as acts of construction in which objects and observations formed a tapestry of each student’s life. over time, these tapestries actually validated not only that one child’s life but the importance of childhood in general, bringing visibility to a child’s own “organization of reality at different ages” (1977, p. 16). collecting the children’s work provided evidence for each life’s unique patterns of continuity and transformation (carini, 1979). carini’s method acknowledged the way different people and different age groups operate within different, and yet valid, realities. likewise, benjamin claimed that when the past, present, and future are brought into communion through collections, the collector is able to disrupt any idealized organization of reality and “experiment with a discontinuous form of representation” (kany, 1990, pp. 328–329). conventional historical methods often weave evidence to create an illusion of factual and singular representations of events and people, while benjamin’s mode emphasized the way society is “completely fragmented and derivative” (benjamin, 1996, p. 39). when we experiment with forms of presentation that move beyond representational thinking and offer different versions of reality, the fragments in a collection form a disruptive force that reveals something new. benjamin and carini shared an interest in rescuing the reality of children from immanent destruction, which, for both, was a small world within a larger one. for example, in one text carini relays an observation while watching children interacting with ant piles. the children build mazes for the ants with little sticks, and one child sings “mrs. ant” as she works. carini (1977) realizes that, “in miniature, exists a whole world, a world as the child has constructed and represented it” (p. 15). she described how she was drawn to collecting scraps of work children left behind because of the power of the work itself (himley, 1991). besides the many questions these materials raised for educators, carini recognized the value of collecting itself, and archive boxes were placed in each classroom “for children to submit works for their own files” (himley, 1991, p. 32). through years of observation, carini recorded how children interacted with materials that the school provided, or objects children found on their own. she noted that engrossment with materials revealed the child’s unique ways of relating to things. she reported about one child, jack, for example, that his gestures and movements were only meaningful as viewed in relationship to things—books, trees, persons, rockets, balls—and in the context of the pervasive orientation or perspective of his body, which is toward things, in reaction to them, and in anticipation of them. (carini, 1979, p. 56, emphasis in original) carini writes here that the relationship between the child and the object is reciprocal, as the child does not merely act against or with the object but responds to it, anticipates its next move, creating worlds by coconspiring with each object. benjamin would similarly observe the child’s interest in materials, suggesting not only that these materials were already alive but that children gave them renewed lives through their processes of collecting and arranging: “a bit of wood, a pinecone, a small stone—however unified and unambiguous the material is, the more it seems to embrace the possibility of a multitude of figures of the most varied sort,” noted benjamin (1999b, p. 115). it was in these unions of surprising materials that benjamin saw the life-giving magic children offer inanimate things (benjamin, 1999b). carini’s desire to keep children’s creations acknowledged the ways children have great agency as makers, december 2021 36 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research experimenters, and producers. providing spaces and materials for children, and carefully collecting and observing what is produced, carini was able to salvage bits of childhood and make visible things that were hidden from those who did not carefully look at or acknowledge children’s ways of being. this way of thinking of children overlaps with benjamin’s general interest in the quotidian. he saw the value, not in grand narratives and major events, but rather in minutiae, making “the chronicler” (benjamin, 2003, p. 390) a person of great import. the concept of rescue, then, comes from the way in which carini and benjamin saw collecting as a life-giving method which takes an original moment and puts it into new arrangements, creating new contexts and meanings along the way. moments put together form a collection, and these collections offer a literal “rebirth” (1999c, p. 487), to use benjamin’s term. in contrast to a nostalgic worship of the past, pfeifer (2018) describes this sensibility in benjamin as a “noah-esque impetus to preserve,” wherein he “acts as an ethnographer who seeks to save indigenous cultures by documenting them” (p. 51). but unlike the ethnographer, benjamin was not collecting indigenous cultures but rather moments and objects from everyday life, such as toys, books, quotations, and photographs. for carini, what is collected is a child’s presence in the world, their artwork, writings, moments at the ant pile, interactions with a ball, and so forth. these small things exist all around us as traces, which benjamin (1999c) saw as “the primal phenomenon of all the habits that are involved in inhabiting a place” (p. 473). importantly, however, the concept of rescue also suggests the idea of urgency and the risk of loss. there is a darkness to the concept of rescue, and it is no surprise given that benjamin was grounded in the context of the rising holocaust, where losses of both literal and figurative childhood plagued millions of europeans. but all childhoods, like the many carini witnessed as an educator, are temporary. carini seemed to dwell in this understanding, choosing to keep traces of childhood to later create those tapestries of each child in a kind of rebirth through material. in looking through the collection of art and writing from gus, we realized that what we are able to say or understand about gus exists more on the affective level than anything else. all data collection strategies offer unique challenges and prospects. analyzing the traces left by gus likely says more about our own preconceptions and preoccupations than anything about the actual gus. his pictures show burning chimneys and green mountain landscapes, which suggest vermont in the 1970s. there are many drawings of houses, often standing alone or in pairs, many with invisible walls so we could see the staircases inside, or colour blocked so that each level or section was coloured in with a different colour. there are also a few drawings involving figures or rescue vehicles of different sorts. there are pictures of a stabbing and a car accident, ambulances and blood. all we could do was pile on questions and wonder about his interest in houses, his use of colour, his choice of subject matters. had there been a stabbing in vermont that year? had he seen an actual rescue or watched one on the news with his family? had he been asked to draw a holiday scene or did he just choose to draw a big christmas tree with a star on top? what materials were available to him? these questions get at something that benjamin and carini both knew regarding the life of objects. we were not merely there to interpret them, but they were actually summoning us, taking hold of us as we enlisted them into our collection. we selected drawings of gus’s work, trying to deem what was worthy to discuss among the hundreds of available items, knowing that what we selected would be what was “rescued,” at least for the moment. in a review of studies looking at this phenomenon, russell belk (1988) explained: “apparently, in claiming that something is ‘mine,’ we also come to believe that the object is ‘me’” (p. 141). the objects that people collect are not separate entities in the world, inanimate and given value only in their use. in this light, it makes sense to look at a piece of artwork or a collection of objects as a kind of evidence of another’s being. it also sanctifies the objects, even small collections of pinecones, as sacred enough to be worthy of keeping, which is precisely what carini december 2021 37 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research did by archiving the children’s works. attaching this kind of power to objects seems intuitive, given that most of us have experiences where “things provoke thought, incite feeling, circulate affects, and arouse in us a sense of wonder” (barnett & boyle, 2016, p. 1). but more complicatedly, as benjamin suggested in saying things can “gaze back,” objects do not exist purely for human use: “they are also vibrant actors, enacting effects that exceed (and are sometimes in direct conflict with) human agency and intentionality” (barnett & boyle, 2016, p. 1). in conventional research, we might try to find the individual child through the drawings and teacher accounts left behind—traces of productivity, living, practicing life—but what assumptions lurk beneath this move? what does it say about how meanings circulate when we assume that what we make is a part of us, represents something about us, is us? and isn’t this what we are always assuming when we “collect” data, any data? isn’t the question of our relationality to past, present, and future precisely what our encounters with gus have opened? working against the carini method now, where we might have been able to create a tapestry, we could not say much about gus in a representational way, particularly given that these images contradict each other and any argument we formed eventually proved wrong. the artifacts, it seems, do not only gaze back but try to argue. this is perhaps suitable, as benjamin (1999c) proclaimed: “for what else is ... [a] collection ... but a disorder to which habit has accommodated itself to such an extent that it can appear as order” (pp. 486–487). composing any kind of coherent narrative about the collection brought out the “dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order” (benjamin, 1999c, p. 487). instead, we simply cherished the distinctive auras, “standing ... with our ears open and listening” (vilhauer, 2010, p. 54) to what kind of new life our little collection was conjuring. repetition through memory, the person as the carrier of meaning is indeed kin (both as a time and as a person) to other times. thus, whatever it is the person seeks to know, it lies within his own meaning and time, and also it lies in the meaning and time that have preceded his existence and are now passing through him. (carini, 1979, p. 61) figure 3. gus_07_135. source: prospect archives and center for education and research. while carini and benjamin both believed in the careful process of conducting repeated observations, collecting numerous fragments of material over time, they also believed that history should not be repeated but changed, as is evident in the concept of rescue. for them, repetition was not an empty gesture but carried along with it a formidable ethical responsibility. for changed understandings to occur, new adaptations of old methods were december 2021 38 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research necessary. each in their own way believed that the kinds of chance encounters that might spark new insights required habits of observation, documentation, and description. “good history,” noted friedrich nietzsche (as cited by pfeifer, 2018, p. 50), “does not preserve [bewahren] life, but rather, generates it [zeugen].” reflecting on the development of her method, carini (2000) wrote that “the design of the multifaceted inquiry” she and the teachers at the prospect school practiced must “focus on process” (p. 9, emphasis in original). the process was one in which ongoing observation of “the child in motion” would allow the teacher “to adjust her or his own approaches to the child accordingly” (p. 9, emphasis in original). in this way, even the repetition of attention toward the same child was done for the sake of changing the future ways of relating to and teaching that child. equally, in looking at gus’s artwork as it stands today, we find that it is better to attempt to understand it in its current context, as one of the repetitions of its existence. the helicopter, car, and building may have represented something for gus when he first illustrated them, but in thinking with the concept of the “child in motion,” it seems more useful to view this illustration as it stands now in its new life, rather than go chasing after representations we could never really know. carini’s drive to see a child in motion was based on this faith in repetition, which she saw as a necessary element of life: “recurrence is the thread that holds the life fabric.... however, if recurrence maintains the fabric, choice is the thread that transforms the recurrence from empty repetition into a vivid pattern or tapestry that displays a lived destiny” (1979, p. 9). benjamin (1999b) similarly assumed that repetition was a life-giving act rather than an empty practice. he asserted that “repetition is the soul of play” (p. 120). by doing “the same thing again and again ... a child creates the entire event anew and starts again right from the beginning” (p. 120). in carini’s daily life at the prospect school, she would have had enough to observe for many lifetimes, particularly because of the nuance of her observations. in collecting details of the children, for example, she attended to medium, which for her “refers to the material or form in which a motif is treated such as paint, clay, blocks, sand, or writing ... [as well] as play, reading, and thinking” (carini, 1979, p. 62). in attending to medium, the observer could refer back to their notes and rework them over time to find the recurrences and motifs in the children’s activities. carini (1977) believed that we can learn a lot about the value of a thing by thinking carefully about it through descriptive writing, which will then serve as a textual source for hunting down patterns of repetition that have been noticed over time. in this way, again, carini and benjamin shared an approach. benjamin did not work in a school but instead walked through many european cities, sometimes for travel and often as refuge during exile. he is said to have repeated his walks in the same cities so often that he had to make maps in order to get lost and create new repetitions. he, too, oriented himself toward the nuance of the routines of the day and recorded his observations in notebooks. mcmurtry (1999) thought this was benjamin’s strongest mode of research, saying he “was best when composing a kind of critic’s notebook, in which he let his intelligence play over what he saw and smelled, whether a new city or a new book” (p. 184). while both the schoolhouse and the city street make up quotidian aspects of life, both benjamin and carini understood their projects to be interventions to the status quo, with the goal of impacting the world of the future. finding instances of repetition helps locate motifs and patterns. carini’s belief that a child’s material traces form a fabric of life is only possible when recorded moments are curated in ways that reveal patterns of repetition and difference (carini, 1979), offering the possibility of putting singular instances together into arrangement. an idea like this matches well with benjamin’s interest in the jewish mystical tikkun, a concept that suggested the “vessels of god’s attributes were broken and this breaking of the vessels scattered divine sparks in fragments throughout the material world” (leslie, 1998, p. 12). collectors of the fragments were seen as responsible for the messianic task december 2021 39 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research of putting the fragments back together and recreating the vessel. gathering the repeated pieces scattered across many lands and then putting them back together was “a task both secular and divine. much like the meshing of shards of montage, or the restorative practice … the world is to be put back together” (leslie, 1998, p. 12). it seems that carini saw the gathering of fragments as a kind of messianic action, particularly given that her method of observation had a devotional quality to it. writing and observing constantly, carini seemed to collect as if life depended on it, as if some kind of rescue were at stake. carini (1979) wrote, “the act of writing keeps the observer focused and attentive, although if the recording should dominate seeing, then the record would limit the observation rather than intensify it” (p. 45). in addition to the labour of attention toward both recording and seeing, she also labelled and preserved the creations of each child. she was practicing the professional archivist’s task of arrangement and description, creating an ever-growing storage space in a small, little-known school. coming to the archive as a researcher today, an uncanny kind of force takes over where one must track that work, trace ideas, and create a record of the connections from the artworks to personal readings. very quickly, the role of description falls into the lap of anyone looking at carini’s collection, as a strange repetition of duty. order, it is no wonder, is not easily achieved when dealing with tons of fragments. benjamin (1999a) wrote, “for the collector, the world is present, and indeed ordered, in each of his objects. ordered, however, according to a surprising and, for the profane understanding, incomprehensible connection” (p. 207). in other words, the strings that connect one thing to another are subjective, tricky, and sometimes unconscious things. made from observations like those of the flâneur, a city-walker who “moved freely in all directions on the societal grid[,] benjamin’s ventures always represented approaches to the threshold, the other, the forbidden” (birkerts, 1982/1983, p. 169). the flâneuse does not have a destination, or an easily traceable trajectory, but rather the freedom to cross familiar and unfamiliar terrains. disobeying a sense of order allows for unpredictability, where flashes of insight are provoked, moments of recognition amidst the comatose actions of humankind. benjamin’s words act as caution for us to not rely upon typical orientations to objects, but instead to seek new perceptual relationships, an idea carini (1979) also explored. qualitative methodologists are most likely already familiar with this need for creating perceptual relationships beyond the clichéd connections and conclusions that merely repeat the world as it is. renewing it, changing it, would have to break some repetitious connections, giving research the power to summon us to take seriously the relationships between the methodologies we employ and the worlds we are, and envision, curating (kuntz & pickup, 2016). patti lather (2001) offers the wisdom that “the task is not whether to repeat but how to repeat in such a way that the repetition displaces that which enables it” (p. 204), a task which gus seemed to perform well. december 2021 40 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research rupture and refrain benjamin ... dismembers as in a mortuary; he too creates new contexts, and imparts new meanings. (kany, 1990, p. 328) figure 4. gus_07_142. source: prospect archives and center for education and research. gus’s artwork helps make the point that it is difficult to address the work of others. unbeknownst to gus, this drawing, like the others, keeps us questioning and continues to shape our thinking. for example, what could we possibly say about this strange group of figures facing sideways except for the one on the far left? we could compare it to other figures in gus’s collection. we would soon realize, however, that even if there were similarities to note across drawings we could not interpret these in the sense of trying to understand what they might mean or represent. but this does not mean they are not worthy of our contemplation, that they do not offer us much to consider, unmoored as they are from any context. looking more closely at this picture, can we even call it a group? might it not be the same figure mutating or moving across and out into the distance? or perhaps they are marching off to extinction, a ghostly voyage towards an unknown destiny. like gus’s figure on the left, we grit our teeth and allow ourselves to be transformed. carini and benjamin shared a belief in the transience of objects and the need to rescue them because of the way objects pointed to historical meanings that risked extinction. for carini, the loss was that of childhood, a childhood that symbolized more for humanity than the life of children. for benjamin, the loss was the movement of allegorical understanding (kany, 1990), unique insights scattered across multiple landscapes. we too are moved to bring out of the past images, philosophies, and strategies that help us further carini and benjamin’s efforts to disrupt. how do we collect materials from the past and present to rupture static and preconceived understandings clogging our systems of meaning? marx and colleagues (2007) describe benjamin’s approach: benjamin repeatedly treated the elements of his text according to the principle of building blocks: he copied them out, cut them out, stuck them on new sheets of paper and arranged them anew, long before such procedures became established in electronic word-processing under the name “copy and paste.” ... benjamin’s idea of composing a work entirely out of quotations ensures that the material december 2021 41 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research within the collection can remain mobile, elements can be shifted at will. at the outset all material is of equal value: knowledge that is organized in slips and scraps knows no hierarchy. (pp. 93–94) benjamin was fascinated by artists who disrupted the norms of art, particularly people like paul klee, who purposely drew like a child. benjamin’s own archives are replete with examples such as casting a piece of paper into the wind hoping it will reveal the plot for a novel, a fragment that itself was taken from an account quoting another source altogether (1999a, p. 441). other influential sources for benjamin were children themselves, who are known to collect flotsam and jetsam and put them together in novel ways. for benjamin, young children have a kind of genius in their propensity to enliven odds and ends, naming them as if they were live beings, endlessly creating, or as carini called it, making. this creating is to be taken seriously, as benjamin found in it a potential “to renew the old world” (p. 478). elsewhere, he noted that children reveal through gesture “a signal from another world, in which the child lives and commands” (benjamin, 1999c, p. 204) and which, he said, is the future to come. like many of ours today, benjamin’s research context was urgent—from the mundane struggle to pay rent to the grand struggle to survive the holocaust (he didn’t). his concerns remind us of other scholars who have found themselves moved by the important, ethical task of their work. at the same time, so many of these researchers found it challenging to create a world of meaning with minoritized perspectives without subsuming them into preconceived discourses. for example, lather and smithies’ (1997) book troubling the angels: women living with hiv/aids split the text horizontally creating juxtaposed accounts of the experiences of women living with hiv/ aids while also including intertextual matter, in this case, images and textual fragments about angels. speaking to the readers directly, the authors explain that angels helped them provide “a reversal of the ‘demonizing’ attitudes that many have towards people with hiv/aids” and act as “bridges between worlds” (p. 48). collecting angels in their different forms across time and disciplines created a refrain, a space in-between chapters that provided a break from the devastating accounts of the women while also deepening a sense of responsibility towards them and prompting a collective fight against the disease. as lather and smithies explain: “these are angels who trouble our sense that all is right with the world, that aids is something ‘out there,’ unrelated to each one of us, and from which we can afford to distance” (p. 230). twenty years later, maggie maclure (2016) also conjures the “refrain”—to interrupt the flow of meaning, cause a rupture in the plot, and create a break in the logical order of language. repetition, refrain, and rupture are practices of the collector as well as the researcher, practices that, for better or worse, we cannot not engage in. the collector has the power—and thus responsibility—to rearrange pieces of the past, whether or not they see themselves doing historical work. we are not interested in the view of collecting that emphasizes forms of commodity fetishism but rather the kind of collecting that brings out critical appropriation, or really, critical appraisal, critical selecting, and careful reappropriation. if we can gather what is worth keeping and put it into new circles, we might create a world that does away with that which should not be kept. as kuntz and pickup (2016) write, “to be critical one must work towards truth-claims that disrupt the normative flow of common-sense; critical work cannot replicate what is already known” (p. 172, emphasis in original); neither, however, should this process overlook the way the things themselves carry the past within them. we hope our paper demonstrates that research is often a kind of collecting that leads to creating and rescuing. as such, it is fraught with ethical tensions, detours into the unknown, problematic connections that need revising, and it requires the help of the multitude of objects scattered throughout historical landscapes, many of which remain elusive and inaccessible. in other words, it requires an understanding of the way all things, past or present, have material effect on our understandings. benjamin often tried to dialogue with objects and things from the past through his use of the “generic” term aura “to denote ... the enigmatic within the other: the simultaneous december 2021 42 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research manifestation of sameness and difference” (loveluck, 2011, p. 182). what really makes something a work of art, according to benjamin, is its “capacity to engage in dialogue with the onlooker, to return the gaze since there is something essentially human about them” (p. 182). the capacity to dialogue and gaze back is heavy in gus’s individual works, and made much heavier by carini’s accumulation and volume, granting it a substantial aura. collecting, researching, writing, then, are all part of world-creating processes, where life is given. as benjamin said, that is indeed a kind of child’s play. this, of course, is not a new idea but one that is often stripped of its seriousness. what we are interested in here is a kind of experimentation that is redemptive and messianic. this kind of experimentation, or play, is not without risk, and cannot prevent us from doing harm along the way. nevertheless, we must keep ourselves “in play” (vilhauer, 2010, p. 55, emphasis in original), attuning ourselves to “‘troublesome’ moments as indicators of the potential for creation” (maclure, 2016, p. 180), while learning from “the refrains of children [as these] attest to the interconnections of mind and body, of sounds, matter, affects, words, and thoughts” (maclure, 2016, p. 180). the aura of the trace: on being (critically) enchanted figure 5. gus_08_057. source: prospect archives and center for education and research. we believe that the collector’s sensibility found in carini’s and benjamin’s work offers a methodological approach that speaks to the need for renewed ethics, requires reflection on our work as researchers, collectors, and writers, and demands a relentless concern for the state of things. carini and benjamin reveal the way in which this sensibility can work in any circumstance, whether it be in the midst of one of humanity’s greatest disasters or in the midst of small-town-elementary-school life. both worked to collect in order to rescue something deeply important and then to use it as a generative force for the new. each avoided treating collections as evidence for some grand claim, bypassing what lather (2001) calls “historical sedimentations” (p. 200) which act to preserve a truth that will go on to be circulated nearly invisibly. opposing this view, carini and benjamin preserved as forms of intervention, making fragments and traces that critically reappropriated parts for the creation of something better, something still within possibilities-to-come. in following their ethics directly, we see that historical sedimentations, or grand narratives, are replaced with more messianic conjuring. in trying to understand how one goes about “rescuing” objects without reinscribing them with similarly unjust meanings, we realize that operating with a purely critical sensibility merely shines light into darkness, illuminating what one wishes to show and leaving the rest in the dark. these ethics don’t match the critical mode of carini and december 2021 43 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research benjamin, who used criticality to make note of what needed their attention—childhood realities, the agency of making, the freedom to walk through the city. each, in their own way, wrote urgently on the power of the insights generated through careful observations to speak back to the destruction of ways of being, some of which have never historically had a chance to fully materialize. each also understood that creation of things to come required attentiveness to re-collection as well as collection, that one of neoliberalism’s effects is to separate models, such as, for example, the scientific method from the discursive contexts in which it was created and debated (carini, 1979). the present and future should not be reconstrued without also accounting for these often competing effects. this is not a call to return to an original, either in regards to historical context or in regards to the objects collected— neither carini nor benjamin believed in the possibility of representing an original context or object—but one that points to the gravity of our work as collectors and composers. regardless of our intent, we are always folding the past into the future; our games are not frivolous. when we build a new world on and with some of the ruins of the old, we get to decide what stays. benjamin (2003) warned, if we don’t, the enemy will do it on their own, folding traces and fragments into their own schemes, which will already be sedimented when the flood comes to take the rest away. the long, slow devotion of attention toward things and the rescue of some things in our acts of creation mean that each one of us partakes in this messianic power (benjamin, 2003). beyond the theoretical matters of this approach, there is a great simplicity to enacting it. carini and benjamin both believed that their work required habits of careful observation, documentation of everyday things and activities, and detailed description. they both drew inspiration from the habits of children, relying on children as teachers of method as much as subjects of study. and as we have shown, in both of their work there is an encouragement to be open and attuned to seeing things afresh, much as the child does. this is not a romanticizing vision of the child and childhood but an acknowledgment of the value of the play of creation, not for play’s sake but as a form of negating the world as it is, for worlds that could be. figure 6. gus_09_021. source: prospect archives and center for education and research. december 2021 44 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references arendt, h. 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(2010). gadamer’s ethics of play: hermeneutics and the other. lexington books. https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033x-4269850 october 2021 3 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research critiquing ontario’s childcare policy responses to the inextricably connected needs of mothers, children, and early childhood educators brooke richardson, alana powell, and rachel langford brooke richardson is a care activist and scholar motivated by the belief that good care is foundational to meaningful lives and a democratic society. she is currently an adjunct faculty in the department of sociology at brock university and lecturer in child and youth studies at carleton university. her research and scholarly work focus on the privatization of childcare in canada, political representations of the childcare policy “problem,” reconceptualizing and reasserting care in early childhood education, and reimaging child welfare systems through an ethics of care perspective. she has published and presented internationally on topics related to canadian childcare policy and is currently working on two edited volumes: feminisms and the early childhood educator: critical conversations (bloomsbury) and mothering on the edge: a critical examination of mothering within child protection systems (demeter press). email: brichardson@brocku.ca alana powell is a registered early childhood educator (rece) and the executive director of the association of early childhood educators of ontario (aeceo). at the aeceo she seeks to advance the voices of reces in policy and advocacy spaces. her research engages in critical exploration of care ethics in early childhood and seeks to reposition care as central in politics, practice, and advocacy. email: apowell@aeceo.ca rachel langford is an emeritus professor in the school of early childhood studies at ryerson university. from 2006 to 2016 she served as the director of the school. drawing on feminist critical discourse analysis and feminist ethics of care, she has published widely on workforce issues, policy, activism, and care as ethic in early childhood education. her books include caring for children: social movements and public policy in canada (coeditor, ubc press) and theorizing feminist ethics of care in early childhood practice: possibilities and dangers (editor, bloomsbury academic). an upcoming book (coeditor, bloomsbury academic) focuses on how feminist theories can provide new insights into the work, lived experiences, and agency of early childhood educators in diverse contexts. email: rlangfor@ryerson.ca the covid-19 pandemic has exposed the chronically inadequate childcare infrastructure in canada and across much of the world. the mass closure of regulated childcare programs across canada throughout the pandemic brought heightened attention to the importance of childcare, at least instrumentally. toddlers photobombing zoom meetings became a normal part of the workday as parents struggled to be both full-time workers and caregivers (with no breaks on either front). similarly, the regular pings and dings of phones and laptops became a steadfast interruption for children learning to navigate their place in the world. meanwhile, educators often sat on the the covid-19 pandemic has exposed the chronically inadequate childcare infrastructure in canada and across much of the world. government responses have been many and varied within and between countries, provinces, municipalities, and local communities. embracing a feminist ethics of care lens, this paper examines how the needs of mothers, children, and early childhood educators were recognized as interconnected (or not) in ontario’s childcare policy discourse and action throughout the pandemic. findings indicate that children were rarely discussed beyond being a “burden” to their parents (and therefore the economy) while children’s and early childhood educators’ childcare experiences and needs were largely absent in any policy discussion or action. the only group to receive widespread media and political attention were mothers, whose ongoing struggle to “balance” paid and unpaid (care) work became heightened and visible en masse throughout the pandemic. we offer overarching observations and recommendations for childcare policy stakeholders and actors as we look to build new possibilities for canadian childcare beyond the pandemic. key words: covid-19; childcare; gender; early childhood educator; policy; politics mailto:brichardson@brocku.ca mailto:apowell@aeceo.ca mailto:rlangfor@ryerson.ca october 2021 4 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research other side of those pings and dings frustratedly trying to engage the minds of young children while divorced from the children’s physical bodies and spaces. the hard truth was that there was and continues to be overwhelming anxiety, uncertainty, and disruption in our daily lives due to the covid-19 pandemic. with no roadmap, children looked to adults and adults to each other and their elected leaders for immediate and ongoing guidance. government responses have been many and varied within and between countries, provinces, municipalities, and local communities. embracing a feminist ethics of care (feoc) lens, this paper examines how the needs of mothers, children, and early childhood educators (eces) were recognized as interconnected (or not) in childcare policy discourse and action throughout the pandemic. after a brief overview of feoc theory, we analyze the canadian childcare policy context heading into and throughout the pandemic, arguing that governments have adopted a care-less approach to children, mothers, and early childhood educators. we next look specifically at how each group was positioned in ontario’s pandemic policy responses, noticing if and/or how the inextricable needs of mothers, children, and educators were considered. finally, we offer overarching observations and recommendations for childcare policy stakeholders and actors as we look to build new possibilities for canadian childcare beyond the pandemic. feminist ethics of care feminist ethics of care (feoc) theory is commonly perceived as a framework to examine caring relations at the interpersonal level, but there has always been and continues to be a parallel focus on policy and politics (barnes, 2012; engster & hamington, 2015; sevenhuijsen, 1998; tronto, 2013). the intersection of feminist care ethics with political theory challenges dominant neoliberal political, social, and economic structures that systematically devalue, if not occlude entirely, the caring relations necessary for human life, societies, and cultures to flourish. working in the uk, marian barnes (2012) asserts: “good social policy decisions are not only those that generate workable solutions, but also ethical ones” (p. 160). to achieve these good decisions, she argues that care-full policy outcomes require care-full policy deliberations whereby joan tronto’s five principles of caring relations (attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness, and trust) are upheld. in this way, barnes makes the case that participatory democracy itself is not enough. all stakeholders must not only be included in the process but have the opportunity to actively deliberate with care. working in the united states, tronto (2013) adds a fifth stage of caring to her theorizing of the care process: caring with. while caring about (noticing need), caring for (taking responsibility for addressing the need), care giving (care work), and care receiving (response from person being cared for) have always been acknowledged as occurring within a broader sociopolitical context, the addition of caring with brought attention to the idea that “care needs, and the ways in which they are met, need to be consistent with democratic commitments to justice, equality and freedom for all” (tronto, 2013, p. 23). for tronto, similar to barnes, care is not only something that is valuable for individual people in relation with other individuals but is a dynamic process foundational to a democratic political order. the “feminist” component of feoc is also important to discuss. while recognizing that gender intersects with other social variables, which differentially affects power relations, a central tenet of feoc theory is that care has been and continues to be gendered. while women are no more reliant on care than men, neoliberal societies are structured in a way whereby care is seen as “natural” for women, of little value to contemporary economies/ society, and impermeable to change. while the complex and constant nature of caring about/for others as well as the actual acts of caregiving are left to increasingly marginalized and racialized women (97% of eces in canada are women), their (our) voices and experiences are sidelined in the political/policymaking arena. the canadian october 2021 5 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research legislature, for example, currently has the most female members of parliament in history though they still comprise only 30% of the legislature. in less observable ways, the voices of women—particularly those with time-intensive caregiving responsibilities (mothers, early childhood educators) or those who require care (children)—do not have the same opportunity to be active in public discourse and/or the political arena. the end result is that gendered caregivers—those doing the ethical, time-intensive, complex cognitive and emotional work of care work—become an afterthought rather than a starting point in the policy process. similarly, the needs of children—who have no formal mechanism of participation in public/political life—rarely, if ever, enter political discourse. in this paper we explore how childcare policy, heading into and throughout the covid-19 pandemic, grappled with (or did not) the intersecting needs of mothers, children, and early childhood educators. we use the term intersecting to pay particular attention to how public narratives and policy responses throughout the pandemic created care affinities and tensions related to the inextricably connected care needs of these three social groups. care tensions occur when the care needs of one group are pitted against the care needs of another group, creating conflict. care affinities are established when the care needs of different groups are understood to be inextricably interdependent, generating solidarity. the national childcare context childcare policy process and outcomes in canada are consistent with the care-less approach tronto and barnes problematize (powell et al., 2020). while it has long been recognized that the federal government has an important role to play in the leadership and funding of childcare in canada, the approach of “passing the buck” has historically left provinces with more responsibilities related to the provision and oversight of childcare programs with fewer resources to address childcare needs of canadian children, families, and educators (friendly & white, 2012). prior to the pandemic, trudeau’s minority liberal federal government signalled an interest in revisiting the childcare file after over a decade of federal policy neglect (richardson & langford, 2018). in 2017, trudeau’s majority liberal government released the multilateral early learning and child care framework (melccf) organized around the principles of quality, accessibility, and inclusivity (government of canada, 2017). commitments to the melccf were reaffirmed in 2019. while welcomed by the sector, advocates pointed out that the funds allocated were a far cry from the $8 billion (1% of the national gdp) that the oecd recommends wealthy nations spend on childcare (oecd, 2006). in relation to the policy process, the federal government did make strides toward participatory policymaking with the establishment of the expert panel on early learning and childcare in 2018. one of the key outcomes of this panel was the recommendation that a national childcare secretariat be established. just prior to the pandemic, establishing this secretariat was included in the federal minister of families, children, and social development hussen’s mandate. while the pandemic put a hold on this work, $4.3 million was earmarked for the secretariat in 2021–2022 in the november 30 federal financial update with the promise that funding would be “ongoing” (government of canada, 2020c). without strong federal or provincial leadership, the status quo is a residual market model positioning childcare as a fee-for-service commodity. a market conceptualization of care continues to occlude the possibility of childcare being positioned as a public good/responsibility whereby all children and families have access to pedagogically enriching, meaningful learning/care experiences (beach & ferns, 2015). similarly, a failing market model of caring for children perpetuates the systematic exclusion of timeand resource-strapped caregivers (mothers and educators) from the policy process. october 2021 6 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research there is room for optimism, however. on september 23, 2020, amid growing public awareness and concern about the gendered impact of the pandemic through language such as “she-cession” and “she-covery” (trichur, 2020), former governor general julie payette made the monumental announcement that “the government will make a significant, long-term, sustained investment to create a canada-wide early learning and childcare system” (government of canada, 2020b). this announcement was followed by an astonishing commitment of $30 billion in new federal funds earmarked to build a pan-canadian childcare system (government of canada, 2021). currently (revisions completed in july 2021), the federal and provincial/territorial governments are in the process of negotiating bilateral agreements to guide provinces in relation to these childcare funds. while each province/ territory differs in approaches to childcare policy, that the federal government has expressed a preference for expanding regulated childcare programs in the nonprofit sector is promising. a pan-canadian childcare system that is funded by the federal government has the potential to meaningfully interrupt the status quo market model of childcare provision across canada. in provinces where provincial governments prefer tax breaks and/or funding the for-profit sector (e.g., current conservative governments in ontario and alberta), there is both great potential and great danger in terms of imminent ecec policy (in)action. we remain hopeful that strong leadership and funding at the federal level will create the necessary infrastructure to reposition caring for children as a public, rather than private, responsibility. what happened to childcare during the pandemic? as mentioned above, the covid-19 pandemic spurred multiple and varied policy responses—some directly related to childcare and others less so. within the pandemic federal childcare context described above, this analysis focuses primarily on what happened in ontario, the most populated province, which experienced and continues to experience some of the highest numbers of covid-19 cases. ontario is also an interesting case because the childcare community is well organized. both the association of early childhood educators of ontario (aeceo) and the ontario coalition for better child care (ocbcc) actively engage educators, sector leaders, and families in the childcare policy conversation through regular outreach and networking activities while also seeking to maintain collegial working relationships with government officials. on march 17, 2020, just less than a week after the world health organization (who) declared the pandemic, the ontario government ordered all regulated childcare centres to close immediately. three days later, with the recognition that childcare was necessary to keep essential services running, the ontario government announced they would open “emergency” childcare for “essential” workers. the first emergency childcare centres were opened in municipal childcare centres in toronto. the cost was exclusively covered by municipal and provincial governments, resulting in no parent fees. such a collaborative emergency response across municipal and provincial governments has not been seen in canada since the federal province wartime day nurseries act (1943–1945), when governments organized to fund and deliver childcare for women contributing to the war effort during wwii. by early may, the provincial government partnered with other private (mostly nonprofit) childcare providers to open over 100 emergency centreand home-based childcare programs. what was unique about emergency centres was their significantly smaller group sizes coupled with a heightened focus on decent work for educators. many childcare programs offering emergency care used their own funds to top up educators’ wages. preliminary feedback from the sector suggests that emergency childcare programs allowed more care-full interactions between children, educators, and families because there was more time and space for meaningful, sustained interactions (powell et al., 2021). still, most licensed childcare programs (over 5,000 licensed centres) were left to fend for themselves in a failing october 2021 7 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research market-system. licensed home-based providers (who were allowed to remain open) received no directives from the province. with no source of revenue (centres were banned from collecting parent fees through a provincial order on april 10, 2020) and no end to the pandemic in sight, ece leaders expressed concern about the shortand long-term viability of both individual childcare programs and the sector more broadly (powell & ferns, 2020). furthermore, surviving the pandemic was an administrative nightmare for childcare program supervisors and directors. in order to receive the provincial funds on which they relied prior to the pandemic, childcare programs were required to apply for pandemic-related funding through two federal initiatives: the canadian emergency wage subsidy (cews) and the canadian emergency rent subsidy (cers). given that the government of ontario did not increase its expenditures on childcare during this period, it appears as though the provincial government was to trying to ensure that all businesses (cews and cers were not specific to childcare) accessed all other paths to funds before turning to them. however, with childcare programs already overwhelmed trying to navigate daily changes to operating requirements amid immediately dangerous conditions (physical distancing is often not possible when working with very young children and widespread access to ppe in childcare centres was not available until well past the first wave), applying for these funds was burdensome to leaders of an exhausted and scared workforce. not surprisingly, public policy solutions that served other businesses well were not appropriate for childcare programs fundamentally incongruent with market principles (richardson, 2021). international childcare policy scholars have expressed similar concern as to whether “market-based systems are most effective for future-proofing the ecec sector in different countries” (park et al., 2021, p. 261). the aeceo and the ocbcc came to play a key role supporting regulated childcare programs, early childhood educators, and families struggling to navigate the unprecedented pandemic waters. in collaboration with the sector, they created 27 specific recommendations to inform the government’s plan for reopening childcare programs. this report was overtly ignored by the provincial government in its abrupt june 9, 2020 announcement that childcare centres could reopen 3 days later (june 12, 2020). despite calls for financial support, it was not until september 2020 that new funds flowed to the sector to materially support childcare programs’ safe reopening. childcare was identified as a priority area of the federal government’s safe restart agreement in july 2020, whereby $127 million was earmarked for childcare in ontario (government of canada, 2020c). while the funds were welcome, they were not nearly enough to stabilize the sector (most of these funds went to purchasing ppe for staff ). on october 2, 2020, just after the federal announcement of its intentions to pursue a pan-canadian childcare system in september 2020, premier ford’s conservative government released proposed changes to the child care and early years act. the changes stood in stark contrast to the federal announcement about a pan-canadian childcare system, acting to roll back regulatory standards by allowing for younger children in larger groups with less staff, reducing the staff qualifications, and proposing an unlicensed childcare “registry” (essentially giving the false impression that unlicensed childcare programs will have government oversight). there appeared to be little, if any, awareness on the part of ontario’s conservative government about the dangerous consequences of these changes for mothers, children, and educators. it was at this point that we (the authors) became acutely concerned that policy actions at the provincial level were failing to consider the intersecting needs of ontario’s mothers, children, and educators in pursuing these significant, harmful policy changes. methods data consisted of formal policy documents published by the government of ontario that directly related to the funding, delivery, and/or operation of childcare programs between march 2020 (when the pandemic was declared) to december 2020 (the second wave occurring at the time of writing). five press releases issued by the october 2021 8 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research government of ontario and one guide to operations published specifically by the ministry of education were analyzed. a handful of easily accessible popular media documents were purposefully drawn upon to illustrate and/ or contextualize insights that emerged from the policy document analysis. informed by a feoc, the authors read the policy documents with the following questions in mind: 1. are mothers/children/educators mentioned in the document? how? in what context and in what way? 2. are the needs of mothers/children/educators represented at all? if yes, how? 3. what care tensions (conflicting needs) and/or care affinities (congruent needs) emerge in relation to children, mothers, and educators? each of the three authors reviewed the documents separately with a particular focus on one group (children or mothers or educators). we then met virtually to further discuss emerging care affinities and tensions in relation to each other’s analysis. after these conversations we each wrote up findings related to our assigned group, placed our findings in one document, and collaboratively sent the document around for each of us to review, add to, and/ or edit. a lack of policy attention to the intersecting needs of mothers, children, and educators the next three sections describe how childcare policy responses and public narratives failed to address the fact that the needs of mothers, children, and educators are inextricable. children were rarely discussed beyond being a “burden” to their parents (and therefore the economy), while children’s and early childhood educators’ childcare experiences and needs were largely absent in any policy discussion or action. the only group to receive widespread media and political attention were mothers, whose ongoing struggle to “balance” paid and unpaid (care) work became heightened and visible en masse throughout the pandemic (government of canada, 2020c; gregory, 2020; ho & dunham, 2020; pinsker, 2020). mothers the on-the-ground-reality was that mothers, overburdened with care responsibilities prior to the pandemic, were left to pick up the pieces of inadequate childcare policy planning and responses. the expectation quickly became that parents, typically mothers, could simultaneously work and care for their children at home. the largely invisible work that goes into caring for children increased exponentially as any support to do this work (let alone do it well) evaporated. according to researchers in australia, canada, and the united states, a more gender-balanced household division of labour did not make up for the lack of external supports in caregiving responsibilities (alon et al., 2020; johnston et al., 2020; qian & fuller, 2020). johnston et al. (2020) found the opposite: “existing asymmetrical distributions of childcare obligations in canada and australia were amplified during the pandemic” (p. 1). canadian data further revealed that “gender employment gaps among parents of young children widened considerably between february and may 2020, net of differences in job and personal characteristics” (qian & fuller, 2020). while governments expressed explicit concern about “parents,” the concern was not initially gendered. the word mother did not emerge in either of the statistics canada reports examining the pandemic’s impact on parents and children (statistics canada, 2020a, 2020b). policy responses at all levels of government across canada have prioritized getting “parents” back to work and the economy “back on track.” the first key policy action was the opening of no-fee emergency childcare programs for “essential workers” (doctors, nurses, police, grocery clerks), october 2021 9 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research staffed by qualified early childhood educators. parents who fell outside of the “essential” category (i.e., most parents) were left struggling to keep up with paid employment while simultaneously ensuring their children received at least minimal care. continuing to ignore gender, a press release from the ontario government published june 9, 2020, titled “helping parents return to work” (government of ontario, 2020c), announced childcare centres were allowed to reopen and all emergency childcare centres would close by june 26, 2020. at the federal level, the policy narrative around the safe restart agreement was to ensure there was “childcare for returning workers” (government of canada, 2020c). “restarting” the economy was the clear goal of the $19 billion allocated to this policy. in both cases, the term parents was preferred over mothers, whereby parents were understood to be valuable in as much as they could contribute to the formal market economy. media coverage, however, consistently emphasized the struggles of mothers to maintain their careers amid increased childcare responsibilities (e.g., fuller & qian, 2020; gregory, 2020; perelman, 2020; pinsker, 2020). gender then entered the political context when a female economist first remarked that the pandemic had caused a “she-cession” and needed a “she-covery” (trichur, 2020). subsequent reports from various public and private sector organizations (dean, 2020; royal bank of canada, 2020; stanford, 2020; sultana & ravanera, 2020) reinforced the necessity of a covid-19 “she-covery” with a focus on increasing the labour force participation rate of mothers. this language was picked up by politicians (notably deputy prime minister chrystia freeland) and ultimately came to a head in the speech from the throne announcement whereby addressing the “she-cession” appeared to be the main motivation to pursue a pan-canadian childcare system. in this way the impact of the pandemic was acknowledged to be gendered, though the solutions were limited to objectifying mothers as untapped economic producers. children throughout the pandemic, conceptions of children appeared to shift quickly from pandemic innocents to pandemic problems. initial policy analysis shows an intensification of a medical/hygienic approach to caring for young children in out-of-home settings, positioning children as a “risk” or “super-spreaders” who were incapable of adhering to and/or coping with public health measures (e.g., being unable to limit social contacts and/or physically distance). between april and mid-august popular media downplayed the importance of children in covid-19 responses with headlines such as “children do not appear to be covid-19 ‘super-spreaders’” (payne, 2020). by june, researchers began to challenge policymakers to consider vulnerable children and the effects of covid-19 on them. the raising canada 2020 report suggests that many of the top 10 threats to children (poverty, physical inactivity, food insecurity) are in danger of worsening as a result of covid-19 (children first canada, 2020). then, by late august, as more childcare programs reopened, newspaper coverage turned to alarming headlines positioning children as a risk, as in “how do you detect the young silent spreaders of coronavirus as canadian schools reopen?” (miller, 2020). other concerns emerged that young children would not wear masks properly and/or that children would be fearful of educators wearing ppe. perceptions of children’s innocuous role in the pandemic appeared to be shifting. children’s pandemic experiences entered the policy arena quite accidentally in relation to emergency childcare. while the essential service discourse driving provision occluded children from the childcare policy conversation in that it became a service to prevent complete economic shutdown and social chaos, the policy results of this discourse were in many ways helpful for children, mothers, and educators. in the context of the pandemic, october 2021 10 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research some emergency childcare centres were characterized by smaller groups of children, better working conditions for educators, and free cost for mothers. this approach appears to have created clear care affinities for mothers, children, and educators. feedback from the sector indicates that children, mothers, and educators had positive relational experiences in publicly funded emergency childcare programs (powell et al., 2021). once emergency childcare centres closed, two conflicting narratives about children in childcare emerged. on the one hand, the government communicated in its operational guidelines to reopening (ontario ministry of education, 2020) that it “recognizes that physical distancing between children is difficult and encourages childcare staff and providers to maintain a welcoming and caring environment for children” (p. 18). similarly, another official government document, building on how does learning happen (hdlh), asserted: “[the] emotional well-being of the child should be given the same level of care and attention as immediate health and safety needs” (government of ontario, 2020d). at the same time, the ontario premier, along with the ministers of health and education, stated that when childcare centres reopen, the “number one priority is the health and safety of our children” reinforced by extensive covid-19 protocols (government of ontario, 2020e). this focus on regulations was heightened when the ontario ministry of education released and prioritized the regulatory amendments to the child care and early years act. in opposition to messaging in the documents quoted above, these amendments significantly affect the capacity of educators and children to engage in safe (i.e., smaller group sizes reducing transmission) let alone meaningful (i.e., reflective, thoughtful) care relations. the regulatory changes sought to increase the number of children in groups and reduce educational qualifications of educators. economic bottom lines superseded both the medical/hygienic and care-full/ethical approaches to caring for young children. furthermore, the limited energy and resources of advocacy organizations, those doing the care-full work to acknowledge children’s needs, had to be diverted to prevent this major step backwards. in canada, little policy or media attention was given to the actual perspectives of young children on covid-19 and their capacities to care about what was happening in their families and communities. one of the few studies that explores children’s perspectives on covid-19 is a uk research project, froebel young voices on covid (pascal, 2020), in which children voiced narratives of resilience and a desire to “get on with life” (particularly reconnecting with friends and family). importantly the children’s narratives reveal that they understand the reasons for covid protocols and are aware of political announcements about covid-19. from the perspective of these researchers, children must be seen as active, competent humans who are capable of making connections between their own lives and the wider world. therefore, they argue that children’s perspectives should contribute to childcare policy making. early childhood educators early childhood educators (eces) were largely invisible in covid-19 childcare policy responses and discourse in ontario. outside of emergency childcare, programs were given little direction throughout the closure period and have faced, and continue to face, constant hurdles in the reopening process. the minister of education, stephen lecce, minimally acknowledged the existence of eces, noting the importance of keeping them “safe” when he stated: “we need to protect the safety of the staff and children at these [emergency] centres” (government of ontario, 2020a). what was and continues to be missing is a real acknowledgement of the care needs of all eces. failing to acknowledge these needs creates care tensions among educators, children, and families whereby educators are positioned as mere system components, their care needs increasingly in contest with the existing system. the conceptual divide between educators and families/children was particularly pronounced when minister lecce october 2021 11 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research made the announcement that the government of ontario was “protecting parents” (conceptualized as consumers) through prohibiting childcare programs from charging parent fees during the closure period (government of ontario, 2020b). following up on this press release, minister lecce stated: “we are defending the interests of consumers and protecting parents’ hard-earned money by ordering child-care centres to stop charging fees for services not rendered” (rushowy & monsebraaten, 2020). while we do not dispute that families deserve relief from fees during the closure period (and beyond for that matter), this narrative positions educators as taking advantage of families and children without any acknowledgment of the financial uncertainty/pressure they were under, having received no financial support from the province. this care-less approach to policy had a direct impact on eces, already in a precarious financial position pre-pandemic and now struggling to manage their own care responsibilities alongside the stress of returning to work during a pandemic. lack of attention to the childcare workforce throughout the pandemic is not a result of an unorganized or uninterested sector. as previously noted, the aeceo and the ocbcc worked collectively with eces, childcare programs, and other allies to create recommendations for government as they planned for the reopening of centrebased childcare (powell & ferns, 2020). their report made a concerted effort to acknowledge educators’ needs, both as care-receivers and care-givers, ensuring educators were a priority rather than an afterthought. powell and ferns (2020) outline concrete actions (e.g., paid time to prepare for reopening, access to paid sick days, increased training on trauma-informed practice) that would allow educators to deliver the quality care the government purported to support. these recommendations were grounded in the idea that educators and the care they provide is foundational to social (rather than solely economic) recovery. when the report was ignored in the province’s reopening plans, the inherent care tensions between educators and children/families in a failing market model were exacerbated rather than reconciled. powell and ferns (2020) further observed that the “invisibility of the workforce was amplified during the closure period” (p. 1) as the province explicitly restricted operators from using any provincial funding to support staff wages during the closure period and refused to extend pandemic pay to eces. ironically, eces were essential for essential workers (i.e., mothers) to work yet were not regarded as essential enough to warrant the use of resources to support their wages, entrenching their position as a second-class group of women. perhaps most frustrating was the wide gap between the ministry’s messaging in formal policy documents and their concrete policy actions. the beyond hdlh document includes quotes from parents and educators giving the impression that there had been widespread consultation with the sector and acknowledgement of their intersecting needs. the reality was that there had been no systematic consultation at all. the ministry played up the success of emergency childcare without acknowledging the lack of support for the rest (most) of the sector. upon reopening, when emergency childcare centres were closed, the meaningful pedagogical experiences that occurred in emergency childcare were more out of reach than ever. not only was this care-less policymaking alongside careless policy outcomes, it was in many ways deceitful because it misrepresented what was happening in childcare programs for children, families, and educators. conclusion through an analysis of provincial childcare policy responses to the pandemic, it becomes evident that the inextricably connected needs of mothers, children, and eces were never cohesively acknowledged and/or considered at public policy level. the overwhelming focus of ontario government was getting the economy “back on track.” mothers were reduced to essential (emergency childcare) and/or untapped workers impeded by the constant needs of their children at home. policy responses rooted in market logic drove a wedge between families october 2021 12 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and educators, impeding advocacy efforts. instead of highlighting the fact that families and educators ultimately have similar needs in relation to creating rich care and learning experiences for children, the ontario government generated and then promoted the idea that educators/providers were out to take advantage of children/mothers/ families through gouging them on fees for “services not rendered” (government of ontario, 2020b). perhaps what is most troubling is that the pandemic could have been a moment for care: stories about the importance of good care—from long-term care to childcare—were plentiful (armstrong et al, 2021). there was a great deal of space for parents to appreciate the work of eces, thereby promoting the potential for greater care affinities and solidarity among all three groups. instead of seizing this moment as an opportunity to expose the intersecting nature of children’s, mothers’ and educators’ care needs and fundamentally rethink the care economy (armstrong et al., 2021), government policy actions created care tensions—even when their own documents explicitly communicated the importance of good care. tronto’s (2013) insight that “the purpose of economic life is to support care, not the other way around” (p. 39) becomes more relevant than ever. the neoliberal, market-driven idea that well-being, and the care on which it depends, is a product of market success prevented the possibility that life has meaning and value beyond mechanisms of economic growth or profit. it is also surprising is how little changed between the first and second waves of the pandemic when the major crevices in the care infrastructure of our society were exposed. childcare programs that prioritized caring relations between children, families, and educators (i.e., implemented smaller group sizes, topped up wages, maintained staff wages through some of the closure period) faced massive deficits in the absence of government support. many of the community-based, smaller, nonprofit providers who prioritized responsive caring relations struggled, and continue to struggle, to outlast the pandemic. as has always been the case, the market continues to fail all three social groups. if the status quo continues, it is deeply troubling to recognize that market-entrenched for-profit providers (who have access to significant capital quickly) will be best positioned to reopen childcare “services” in the post-pandemic era. the one glimmer of hope we have is that care-full early care/learning experiences became possible for a small subset of the population in the form of publicly funded emergency childcare programs. while these programs were only open for six weeks and to those deemed essential, a small group of educators, children, and mothers had a taste of care beyond the market model. educators, operators, municipalities, public health, and the ministry of education came together, opening emergency childcare within two weeks of the pandemic being declared, illustrating that where there is political will there is a way. as 2021 comes to a close, optimism related to childcare policy and the needs of the childcare community is focused at the federal level. it remains to be seen what policy mechanisms will be put in place to achieve the canada-wide system promised in the speech from the throne. that “significant” “long-term” “sustained” funding to childcare was written into the 2021 federal budget is unprecedented and provides much-needed optimism (government of canada, 2020b, 2021). shifting our gaze from ontario to the national policy context is pressing as policy (in)decisions in the next few months hold significant weight for mothers, children, educators, families, and all citizens. now more than ever, the childcare community must continue to build solidarity through recognizing their inextricable care needs and advocating for policy responses that create conditions for care affinities. october 2021 13 vol. 46 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references alon, t., doepke, m., olmstead-rumsey, j., & tertilt, m. l. 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https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/200417/dq200417a-eng.pdf?st=ilfpj2m9 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/200417/dq200417a-eng.pdf?st=ilfpj2m9 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11-631-x/2020004/pdf/s8-eng.pdf?st=9qlestej https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11-631-x/2020004/pdf/s8-eng.pdf?st=9qlestej https://www.feministrecovery.ca/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-legislators-must-prioritize-women-combat-workplace-gender/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-legislators-must-prioritize-women-combat-workplace-gender/ 59 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research the future is now from before: youth climate activism and intergenerational justice eleni theodorou, spyros spyrou, and georgina christou eleni theodorou is an associate professor in social foundations of education in the department of education sciences at european university cyprus. her research interests include inter alia sociological and anthropological constructions of childhood, multicultural education politics and policy, and children’s identities, investigated through qualitative research methodologies. her work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals and in edited book volumes. email: e.theodorou@euc.ac.cy spyros spyrou is a professor of anthropology at european university cyprus. his work is mainly located in the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies where he has worked on questions related to children’s political lives and identities (especially in relation to nationalism, migration, and borders) as well as issues related to poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization. he is currently engaged in research on youth participation in climate action. spyros is the author of disclosing childhoods: research and knowledge production for a critical childhood studies (palgrave macmillan, 2018) and coeditor of reimagining childhood studies (bloomsbury, 2019) and children and borders (palgrave macmillan, 2014). he is also an editor of the journal childhood (sage) and of the book series studies in childhood and youth (palgrave). georgina christou is a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of social and political sciences at the university of cyprus where she currently works on the funded project youth autonomous politics, contested urban spaces and the right to the city. the project expands work undertaken during her phd. her research interests include youth social movements, the politics of childhood and youth, gentrification policies, and right to the city struggles. in her doctoral work, she researched cypriot youths’ autonomous horizontal politics and the role of public space in processes of political becoming. she has published in edited volumes and international peer-reviewed journals. the participation of youth in the struggle against human-induced climate change has seen a surge over recent years, inspired by greta thunberg’s school strike outside the swedish parliament that set the scene for a global youth movement on climate change. youths’ motivations, feelings, and experiences of activism, and of climate activism in particular, have been explored from various angles looking, for example, at the broader issue of youth political participation (kallio, 2015), at intergenerational relations in the context of social movements (taft & gordon, 2015) or at intergenerational climate justice and youths’ education (stapleton, 2019). the notion of time, usually in the sense of generational or future time, has been directly or indirectly engaged with in such endeavours. yet how this notion can be made sense of and used by young activists in their struggle against climate change has been discussed less extensively. this paper draws on data from a qualitative study of young climate activists in cyprus to explore the notion of temporality implied in how children and young people interrogated intergenerational relations in the context of their struggle against climate change, and the tensions and ambivalences therein. youth in our study spoke of the climate crisis as an intergenerational justice issue, often expressing feelings of this paper draws on data from a qualitative study of youth climate activists in cyprus to explore the notion of temporality implied in how youth interrogate intergenerational relations in the context of their struggle against climate change and the tensions therein. acknowledging the structural age inequalities that limit their actions, youth activists drew on multiple temporal frames of present, future, and past to delineate a sense of urgency for action to prevent an irreversible catastrophe in the future and to forge a future of hope. in the process, they invited other/older generations to the climate struggle, an opening that came with expressions of ambivalence among some activists. key words: intergenerational justice; climate activism; youth; temporality 60 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research anger, frustration, and despair as they saw themselves bearing both the burden of past generations’ choices and the weight of responsibility for taking action for the sake of generations to come. acknowledging the structural age inequalities that limit their actions and have historically been used to delegitimize their voices, youth activists mobilized multiple temporalities that encapsulated notions of both continuity and terminality, and times of present, future, and past, to serve different purposes: disrupt adult climate narratives of denial, summon to action to avert an apocalyptic end of time, legitimize their stances as “future-makers” (spyrou et al., 2021), and call for intergenerational justice. appropriating different temporalities and temporal conceptualizations was crucial to how the notion of intergenerational justice was mobilized among youth in our study to critically reassess generational relations. in calling on intergenerational solidarity young activists acknowledged the limits of their activism as well as the magnitude of a problem that they argued requires a global, intertemporal, intergenerational, and interspatial approach. yet inviting other/older generations into the climate change struggle came with expressions of ambivalence among some young activists who, on the one hand, identified with their role as “custodians of sustainable futures” (skillington, 2019, p. 8) who challenge social inequities and promote an alternative vision of the future, yet on the other hand acknowledged that the need to be open to forming alliances with other generations comes with gains, losses, and risks. in what follows we explore how youth activists in cyprus navigated such tensions, ambivalences, and generational power differentials as part of their broader struggle for political participation by (re)appropriating traditional categories of adulthood and childhood and mobilizing multiple temporalities as they narrate themselves as young activists. we begin with a discussion of the theoretical concepts and ideas with which we engage. we then proceed to the methodological details of our study before discussing our findings in two broad sections and concluding with some thoughts on temporality and intergenerational climate justice. literature review anthropogenic climate change has been characterized as the greatest crisis humanity is facing and will need to face in coming decades. the gravity and extent of human intervention on the planet has led some to argue that we have entered a new geological time, the anthropocene, defined by the (detrimental) effects of humans’ choices on the climate and all of the planet’s living creatures. despite mounting social pressure and scientists’ dire warnings, political efforts for a global alliance, such as the paris agreement in 2015, to slow down climate change and fend off its impacts have been accused of falling far short of meeting any objectives that could have a tangible effect on delaying the catastrophic course we are on (see nguyen, 2020, for a discussion on the paris agreement and intergenerational justice). amid rising general dissatisfaction with the way the political establishment has handled the climate crisis, the last few years have seen the mobilization of youth across the globe against climate change. though youth participation in climate action is not new, the appearance on the scene of greta thunberg, who in 2018 as a young girl went on a “school strike for climate” outside the swedish parliament, inspired a global youth activist movement called fridays for future, which has seen young people all over the world rally to protest adult inaction and inertia with regard to the climate crisis (de moor et al., 2020; wahlström et al., 2019), raising questions of intergenerational equity (see puaschunder, 2020) and intergenerational climate justice. the arena of youth activism lends itself suitably for examining and interrogating adult-youth relationships (taft & gordon, 2015), potentially even destabilizing their inherent hierarchy, even if research has shown this can occur with questionable success. for example, taft’s (2015) study on the intergenerational movement of peruvian working children shows that despite an overall positive outlook toward and appreciation of adult involvement in a youth social movement given that adults may provide structural infrastructure, access to authorities, and continuity in the movement, structural efforts to privilege youth “voice” and ownership of the movement are 61 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research not always enough to escape the age-stratified nature of adult-youth relationships. as taft (2015) notes, despite a tradition of intergenerational dialogue, power struggles and tensions between youth and adult activists did in fact arise in ways that eventually constrained youth political activism. when it comes to youth climate activism in particular, young people’s claim to their right to be heard as equal interlocutors in the present but with a legitimate interest in their capacity as heirs to/of the future can be situated in a debate about intergenerational (climate) justice that has been growing over the past decades. given that the kinds of future(s) generations-to-come can both envision and pursue highly depend on the kinds of decisions other generations make today and have made in the past, the debate on intergenerational justice is heightened by a grave concern that past and current generations’ choices will soon / already have curtailed severely the ability of youth and future people to lead livable lives and forge futures of their own. the question of temporal responsibility emerges as a significant ethical dimension in examining intergenerational issues, and there has been some discussion in the literature as to how existing generations could be encouraged to forge ethical links with future generations that will allow for the sustenance of environmental responsibility, particularly in the face of everyday pressures and competing moral responsibilities that may weaken such commitment (shirani et al., 2013). a significant challenge to thinking intergenerationally comes from questions of rights and obligations that refer to multiple generations, not only of synchronous temporalities, but particularly in relation to those who belong to the distant future in terms of “how far obligations to future people reach, what can be done for their benefit without imposing excessive economizing on the generations alive today, and where the motivation comes from if there is no basis in social cooperation and practical accountability” (diprose et al., 2017, p. 9). youth activism on climate change has tended to highlight a more collective or generational rights-based approach, envisioning a more just society and underlining the need for an intergenerational effort toward its creation (skillington, 2019). in her analysis, skillington (2019) argues that youth “emerge as societal carriers of alternative visions of climate justice” (p. 7) who call out the deeply seated social, temporal, and spatial inequalities in the course of humanity’s path to “progress” the western world’s industrialization has historically led to the depletion of natural resources at the detrimental expense of those who contributed least to it in different times across generations of past and present and in different spaces as the rich north and west have reaped the material benefits of industrialization. yet, the industrialized world has not been held accountable for the damning consequences both to the natural environment and with regard to the unequal distribution of the generated wealth. youth, skillington argues, dare to challenge these inequalities and have the audacity to propose an alternative vision of the future that requires an intergenerational partnership for democracy built on principles of (intergenerational) justice. as children and youth are asked to bear the burden of past generations’ choices, they are put in a rather precarious position: they are far more susceptible than adults to direct and indirect harmful effects of anthropogenic climate change given that, for example, their physiological defence systems are less able than adults’ to deal with the direct consequences of droughts, natural disasters, and extreme heat, such as the increase in parasitic diseases that will result from warmer temperatures and environmental toxins (sanson & burke, 2020). they are also more vulnerable to indirect consequences of a psychosocial nature due to their dependency on adults, such as the rise of intergroup conflict due to increasing scarcity of food and natural resources and of economic and climate migration. the climate crisis also impacts their ability to dream and plan for the future (sanson & burke, 2020) and has been found to be associated with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness among children and young people (ojala, 2012). notably, these negative effects are not experienced by children equally; rather, they are suffered disproportionately 62 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research by those who are exposed to more risk factors and fewer means through which to protect themselves. all of the above, sanson and burke (2020) argue, highlight the urgency to approach the anthropogenic climate crisis as both an issue of intergenerational justice and an immediate threat to peace due to the risk of climate-related extreme violence. relatedly, looking at youth climate activism as part of the broader field of youth political participation, it is critical, bartos (2015) argues, to understand that it is not the endeavour of the autonomous individual child whose voice commands attention but rather the project of intergenerational coalition. she reminds us that silencing or jettisoning adults does not necessarily lead to a more empowered child. understanding the criticality of the role of relationships for children (as well as adults) moves us away from the notion of the self-reliant autonomous individual to a conceptualization that highlights our interdependence as living beings with (other) humans (bartos, 2015), other living creatures, and more-than-human others (rooney, 2019). it also brings forth the temporal dimension of these relationships: as children transition in and through childhood toward other stages of their lives they are enmeshed in encounters with other beings, both human and more-than-human, and their times (rooney, 2019), as both beings and becomings of/in the future (bartos, 2015). as such beings and becomings, they/we are implicated in relationships of affect, affecting others (human and more-than-human) and being affected by them (instone & taylor, 2015). and with this mutual affect comes the question of inheritance, of how we came to be and have what we have, and how we pass it on to others to come, bringing us right back face to face with the issue of intergenerational climate justice. as instone and taylor (2015) put it, “geo-history is inheritance, and we are deeply implicated in the conditions of our common inheritance in personal, political and intellectual ways” (p. 140). we do not, in fact, exist outside of this inheritance for which we are accountable. these dimensions of relationality and temporality are precisely what youth activists in our study highlighted as they discussed adult involvement in their movement and their visions of the future. they were also reminiscent of what groves (2011) discussed as the political imaginary of care and the connected futures. this political imaginary of care is at times invoked in climate change discourse by reference to “our children” and the concern for their future. as kverndokk (2020) argues, the mobilization of family cycles, namely “our children,” to refer to generations in texts of interest she examines, effectively succeeds in reducing deep geologic time to the imminent future of the subsequent one or two generations. this reduction enables youth activists, she notes, to successfully reappropriate this trope as they claim their right to be heard as children and on behalf of the children of tomorrow (kverndokk, 2020), very much like the participants in our study. children playing with the trope of children (kverndokk, 2020) in climate discourse opens up the question of (generational) time and temporality, inviting us to rethink time(s) as plural. to accomplish the latter demands that we be attentive to (the time[s] of ) others: to ice time and water time (loveless, 2013), forest time, tree time, crow time (pacini-ketchabaw & kummen, 2016), weather time (rooney, 2019), and many other times, so that we “may orient [ourselves] into a different ecological accountability” (loveless, 2013, p. 130). drawing on scholars working in environmental humanities, pacini-ketchabaw and kummen (2016) discuss the pedagogical implications of raising awareness on temporal diversity among young children to urge for the decentering of human time. following a similar train of thought, in her discussion on different conceptions of time and the implications for early childhood education, farquhar (2016) challenges the notion of linear, teleological, and sequential time valued in early childhood education curricula to propose the reconceptualization and broadening of time to account for irregularities, inconsistencies, and overlaps in the concepts of disordered time and distended time, and the possibilities of alternative subjectivities in these alternate notions of time. drawing on social analyses of time 63 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research emphasizing how the meaning and experience of time are socially ascribed, organized, and structured, farquhar suggests an escape from linear time as reflecting and reflected in a teleological evolutionary route to modern “progress,” to other times that allow us to reconfigure and negotiate other subjectivities with/in the world around us. she discusses the concept of disordered time as associated with chaos, messiness, and irregularity and distended time as more fluid, as “a formulation involving irregular patterns of memory (past) and expectation (future), both of which are interpreted in the present” (p. 416). distended time thus “allows us to conceive of intergenerational projects, either historical or futuristic” (p. 416). drawing on the work of philosophers such as heidegger and ricoeur, farquhar argues that distended time destabilizes our understanding of time as fragmented, as distinct periods of time in the past, present, and future, and reconceptualizes them “as sometimes overlapping, sometimes co-present, and sometimes one subsumed within the other” (p. 410). this is precisely the generational time youth climate activists in our study used to challenge the temporal understanding of adults and claim their right to be heard in the now—but while calling out the past and into the future, subsuming one into the other to expand the sense of subjectivity that can be rendered possible in realizing our entanglements with worlds and times of humans and more-than-humans. methodology this paper draws on data collected in the course of a qualitative project conducted between january 2020 and may 2021 on youth activism for climate change through the case study of youth for climate cyprus (henceforth y4c, an acronym activists themselves used for their group), which is a grassroots youth movement set up in 2019, run and organized by young people in cyprus to fight against climate change. according to young activists, y4c was inspired by the work of greta thunberg and has maintained ties to the global fridays for future (fff) movement. the project originally sought to explore, via the use of qualitative methods such as textual analysis, interviews, and observations (creswell, 2013), how young people made meaning of their activism and the ways and forms in which they self-organized and operated. more specifically, a total of 20 individual interviews (an initial interview and a follow-up interview with each of 10 participants) and two focus group interviews (with 4 participants in each) were conducted with 18 young activists (13 girls and 5 boys) 14 to 22 years of age. participants were recruited through the snowball method and were selected based on the criterion of having active involvement in y4c, mostly in leadership positions. the first individual interview focused on young activists’ experiences and meanings of climate activism. during the second interview, participants were asked to share and discuss photos they had taken themselves or of their choosing that exhibited their understanding of climate change activism and climate change in general. likewise, the two focus group interviews were also conducted with the method of photo elicitation (meo, 2010). most of the interviews were conducted online due to social distancing measures precipitated by the covid-19 pandemic, the onset of which coincided with the period of data collection for the study. in addition to the interviews, a number of observations were originally planned of events organized by y4c, such as protests and environmental awareness activities. however, only a very small number of these observations and events eventually materialized due to the pandemic. the study obtained ethics approval from the cyprus national bioethics committee, and all participants (as well as their parents/guardians, where applicable) provided their informed consent and/or assent prior to their participation in the study. all participants’ names below have been replaced with pseudonyms. 64 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research mobilizing time: framing the fight against climate change as an intergenerational justice issue in this first section of our findings we discuss how youth in our study introduced multiple temporalities in their discourse on climate change as a means of legitimizing their voice as political actors as well as destabilizing generational hierarchies. climate change as an intergenerational justice issue to understand these young activists’ fight against the climate crisis is to first and foremost acknowledge how they framed climate change primarily as a social issue rather than an environmental one. all of our participants provided a sophisticated understanding of the causes and ramifications—individual, structural, institutional, and social—of human-induced climate change, which have been contributing to it across space and time. more precisely, they saw human-driven climate change as (1) the outcome of choices being made since the industrialization period in the northern and western hemisphere aimed at maximizing profit in the name of progress and in the interest of “industries, corporations, the big funds” (chara, aged 18), (2) the result of the prevalence of a consumerist lifestyle driven by the capitalist economic system that has permeated all facets of society, and (3) the outcome of decisions (or the lack thereof ) of a political structure susceptible to corruption by the corporate world at both the national and the global level. as mirto (aged 19) explained to us, a modernist way of life that is based on consumption (of food, material products, transportation vehicles, fuels, etc.) and driven by profit maximization makes it hard to point fingers and renders everybody an accomplice and a contributor to the problem. yet, despite the almost universal contribution to the problem, young activists were eager to note that there are important disparities in the share of responsibility for the problem, in the distribution of its negative effects, and in the ability to deal with them. the recognition of the complexity and historicity of related dimensions and factors is what prompted our participants to frame the climate crisis as primarily a social problem that is shouldered unequally across space, social groups, generations, and even species. they pointed to the unsustainable extractivist practices of international corporations that exploit the natural resources of poor countries. in reconceptualizing the climate crisis as a social issue, young activists were particularly concerned with how nations in less industrialized countries, which have historically contributed the least to climate change, will suffer and are already suffering the most from its adverse effects, with their populations experiencing dislocation, food and water shortages, and/or violence associated with climate change. even in the industrialized world, youth stressed, people from the more socially and physically vulnerable social groups, including the poor, children, and the elderly, are already or will soon be less able to counter the negative consequences of climate change for their quality of life brought by, for instance, the impact of further rise in temperatures. the rather apocalyptic scenes narrated by some of the young activists were often accompanied by feelings of anger and exasperation when they were invited to envision their futures. addressing the politics of emotions is paramount to understanding the experiences of youth activism. media representations of youth activists’ emotions of anger or anxiety have been found elsewhere to maintain prevalent societal images of youth as “rebellious truants” or “anxious pawns” (mayes & hartup, 2021, p. 9), thereby trivializing youths’ commitment to their social cause. our participants were acutely attuned to such deficit representations of youth (see also liou & literat, 2020). evi (aged 16), for example, said, “yes, we are having a peace protest […] but you can tell how enraged we are with the way they deal with youth demonstrations. the fact that for some reason they think we are, that we will create chaos or that we will cause destruction all around us.” yet, bringing to the fore the expression of emotions such as anger, anxiety, fear, and hope, which the participants identified and named themselves, speaks to the ways in which 65 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research emotions critically shape youth activists’ experiences on both personal and collective levels, as well as lays bare the inherent political and cultural nature of emotional repertoires that renders the expression of some emotions more appropriate or intelligible than others. most of our participants struggled to strike a delicate, if tense, balance between pessimism and optimism as they offered their predictions of a dire future, worried that the people of the future will be left to lead unlivable lives on account of the actions and inactions of past generations. a different value system was seen by young activists as a prerequisite for social and environmental change and the articulation of alternate futures (see spyrou et al., 2021). such shift in values would move away from a system of valorizing profit toward one of privileging intergenerational collaboration, equity, and interspecies and intergenerational respect as humans and the more-than-human become entangled in their mutual encounters across space and in “multispecies knots” of time (rose, 2012). these are the values that groves (2010) refers to when he speaks of “an ethics of global and intergenerational care [that] requires us to extend our circle of concern and connection out from our space and our time, to encompass those who we will never meet but whose fates are already inextricably bound up with our own” (p. 124). well, my personal vision is basically a community that works together to not just fight climate change, but generally strives for something better and more towards a positive change. sustainable. same time, a community where there is respect between each other as well as of the environment, ’cause there’s a lot of disrespect towards our environment in general. and basically respect between people, mainly between the generations, because it’s very important because usually the old generation doesn’t take us too seriously. (louis, aged 22) chara elaborated on the notion of interconnectedness of people and nature as she spoke of the different ways in which humans and the more-than-human become entangled in multispecies temporal relationships: if we take into account darwin’s theory and biology in general, we know that organisms want some x time, time duration to adjust to changes, whatever these may be. and now that everything is happening so fast, it’s very difficult for the food chain and biodiversity to adapt to this. it’s a problem because it affects every aspect of the animal kingdom, the flora, the fauna, everything, the whole planet…. the ice could melt, the sea level could rise, and it sets everything into a chain reaction. if the sea level rises, other problems will come. if the ice melts, another [set of problems]…. precisely because the ice has melted which has been lying there frozen for so long, and we caused climate change and it melted, so many microorganisms will be released that we will have no idea as to how to deal with them because we have never lived with them before. i mean, the earth is so many billions of years old, humanity is a very small percentage of life on earth that has been living here. chara’s words beg the decentering of humans / human time and allude to an ethical obligation that stems from acknowledging the ramifications of its oppressive dominance. challenging anthropocentricity potentially opens up more egalitarian ways of relating with others, both human and more-than-human, as it calls into question the supremacy of the human species. occupying but a small fraction of the time of the more-than-human on the planet, the tyranny of human time becomes apparent as the time of biodiversity, the time of water, the time of the ice, and the time of bacteria are forcibly expedited, compelled to shrink by/in the time of humans, setting every being on a course of collision. it is in/through youths’ discussing of this complexity of multispecies entanglements, multispatial crossings, and multi/intergenerational inheritances (rooney, 2019) that the ethical convolution of the ramifications of human-driven climate change becomes apparent. the entanglement of entanglements (multispecies, multigenerational, and multispatial) is rendered visible at the backdrop of multitemporal frames that young activists in our study used to achieve different purposes. it is to this 66 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research mobilization by youth of time and its effects that we now turn. mobilizing time: introducing time(s) in climate change discourse in historically contextualizing the climate crisis as one whose root causes can be situated in the past and which has been slow in the making, youth operationalized the temporal notion of continuity to establish climate change as the outcome of practices of past generations and, therefore, as an essentially intergenerational issue. at the same time, the use of the temporal notion of terminality acted to disrupt certain adult narratives of climate denial that often seek to normalize human-induced climate change as a repeated natural occurrence. references by young activists to “not much time left” worked to subsume the time of the (at-risk) future into the present in order to sensitize older generations to the severity of the situation and summon them/all to action: yes, and even more burden if the youth don’t do it, meanwhile also trying to awaken the more elderly people, older people, because we are running out of time too. we don’t really have much time to undo many of the consequences. (chara) a discourse of urgency due to the imminent danger of an absolute and irreversible catastrophe functions to condense time: as deep time becomes collapsed in the time of one or two generations, it shrinks (see kverndokk, 2020, for a similar effect of the trope “our children”). the dea(r)th of time becomes thus a vehicle for the introduction of multiple temporalities and youths’ claiming of generational time. introducing the latter enables young activists to transcend linear time, bringing in what farquhar (2016) would call distended time. in doing so, youth lay claim concurrently to present time, future time, and the collapse of one into the other—the futuresent. the multiplicity of temporalities allows young activists to assert their right to save an/their endangered future and to act in a present that determines it. temporality thus becomes a means for legitimizing youth voice and reconfiguring generational relations: we all are the future as young people and we also live in the present and we all would like to be able to enjoy many of the goods we enjoy today, but unfortunately if we keep up like this for another 11 years we won’t be able to…. we are also the present because many times when we say we are the future we leave out a little bit the social responsibility a young person has to act now. (erica, aged 18) as young people striving to amend past errors in the present in their capacity as future heirs and future makers (spyrou, 2020), young activists mobilized multiple temporalities instantaneously in such a way that the lines between past, present, and future become blurred as each penetrates decisively, even if subtly, the other. the subtle and very real permeation of multiple temporalities and historicities into one another enables youth activists to speak in the now as “custodians of sustainable futures” (skillington, 2019, p. 8) on behalf of others to come who are in need of protection from the injustices of the past. in doing so, many of the young activists in our study succeeded in framing the climate crisis, not merely as an environmental, a social, or an intergenerational issue, but also as one of intergenerational justice: that sustainability is, let’s say, looking into other generations and making sure that you’re gonna have what you have, and we’re completely disregarding that…. nature is just the best thing in the world, literally. and we’re just destroying it. why? so, we too die after a while? … these people, let’s say, will die at some point and all of this that’s already happened we will have to fix or be fixed now by us or by, by your generation and in this generation. so i feel it’s a bit unfair what’s going on in a sense. (mirto) often reeling with feelings of anger and fear on the verge of despair, many of our participants spoke of how unfair it felt to be put in the position of shouldering the burden of past generations’ bad choices without being allowed 67 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research to be part of the solution. bleak visions of the future filled with climate anxiety were often expressed among young people who turned to activism to demand to be heard, to awaken older generations and hold them accountable for their actions. raising awareness/awakeness and exerting pressure on politicians and the adult-led society, seeing themselves as “catalysts” for change (louis), were the basic aims driving their social movement repertoire, which was quite variegated. although activists commonly shared that activism was at heart a collective form of action (rather than an individual[istic] one), this expression took sundry different forms as different members of the group were comfortable with undertaking different forms of action. this repertoire ranged from street protests (e.g., a school strike and street protest leading to the headquarters of the ministry of energy, commerce, and industry on september 20, 2019), which was seen as the quintessential form of activism owing to its visibilizing and potentially disruptive effect, as well as satire and artistic forms of activism like role playing or silent protests (e.g., on may 3, 2019, outside the parliament), to the deployment of awareness-raising campaigns that included the provision of training and educational seminars for schools or others, in addition to the collection and dissemination of scientific data on climate change through social media, to the organization of environmental actions such as beach-cleaning expeditions and clothes-exchange events (e.g., the fashion event co-organized with μοτιβω, a self-described responsible fabric store, to celebrate the first year of y4c on february 20, 2020). it also included forms of everyday activism, such as striking conversations with family members and friends on the issue, and adopting lifestyle choices which they saw as more eco-friendly, such as recycling, veganism, and a conscious effort to reduce consumerism and energy consumption at their home. the notion of time and its mobilization featured prominently in the slogans youth used, such as “11 years left listen to science”; “if you don’t act now, this theatrical play will finish”; “your apathy towards my future scars me” (emphasis in the original); “you are stealing our future” [in red in the original]; “μέλλον ή μάλλco2ν” (a word play using the words future [μέλλον], maybe [μάλλον], and carbon dioxide [co2] meant to cast doubt on the future generation’s survival). in all of these slogans, temporality was utilized to both highlight the intergenerational aspect of the issue manifested in the trope of “(my) future” used to signal both the personal and the generational future and to transmit a sense of urgency for action before the end(ing) of time, expressed in the words “now,” “will finish,” and “years left.” the absence of a tradition of public and civil protest, combined with the presence of entrenched ageism in cypriot society that created hurdles in their dealings with authorities and the press, forced young activists to adopt mostly lower-profile forms of activism than, say, those of civil disobedience and opt for a more “gentle activism” as one of the participants put it, even though there were also voices who saw this gentler activism as ineffective in light of adults’ evident unwillingness to listen. hence, although they saw themselves as affiliated with the global fff movement, these youth made a conscious effort to localize their strategy to respond to the particularities of cypriot society. this effort points to the need for more nuanced and contextual approaches to how young activists understand and enact their activism locally as well as globally and what this might mean for collective intra-, intergenerational, and global youth solidarity and adult allyship, as socioeconomic and sociocultural factors nationally and globally may render some forms of activism more or less feasible, and the suffering caused by climate change harsher for some than for others (walker, 2020). for young participants in our study intergenerational injustice was linked with pervasive ageism, which they saw as a major structural obstacle to their political participation on equal footing. as young people narrated institutional, social, and interpersonal barriers in their pursuit of their right to everyday politics and/or more organized forms of collective action, ageism became in fact inseparable from intergenerational injustice. many spoke of being treated with disdain by adult institutions and authorities such as the police, politicians, governmental authorities, and the press in their effort to gain presence in the public sphere such as when organizing public protests and strikes, and others recounted how family members discredited their efforts to be heard by naming their positions kid-talk. 68 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research interestingly, in the face of ageism young activists seemed to (re)appropriate the category of the child (and thereby also of the adult) as a strategic means to counter it. asked by us to comment on one of the banners used by y4c in one of their protests, which read “if you don’t act like adults, we will” next to the image of an ending hourglass that seemed like it was bleeding, focus group participants shared: josie: i think this is a banner where we try to shame them. they are not acting as adults and they are making us, who in their eyes are babies [kids], do things they should be doing. mariza: i think that they were supposed to have the responsibility to, the responsibility of different things, because like i said before, we are babies who do not have much freedom yet, our brain is not developed, all these things everyone is saying, and it’s their job to protect the babies or to have various responsibilities like developed adults. by calling out adults’ irresponsible behaviour, young activists sought to highlight an inconsistency between the socially perceived role of adults (and therefore also of children) and their actual practices in order to achieve a delicate subversion of the adult-child hierarchy and, in the process, propose a reimagining of generational relationships on more egalitarian and relational grounds. cognizant of the perils of such (re)appropriation, mariza was quick to qualify her statement above, adding, “okay, and we, i didn’t say we have no brain, that we can’t do anything.” nevertheless, young activists in our study strategically opted to (re)use the very same categories they wished to destabilize, in an effort to reconceptualize the category of the child from helpless to active(ist), from ward to custodian, from risk(y) to at risk, from knowledgeless to knowledgeable, from dependent to in(ter)dependent. it was on the acknowledgment of this interdependence among generations (and species) that young activists founded their claims to intergenerational justice, seeing intergenerational (and interspecies) respect, solidarity, and relationality as avenues for dealing with the climate crisis and, importantly, as an ethical obligation of older generations to younger and future generations who are left with little to hope for. in the face of profit valorization manifested in the uncontrollable operations of the corporate world and attributed to a stance of presentism by past generations that has led to and still perpetuates the cementing of a series of injustices across time and space, generational time was mobilized to rupture the prevalence of linear, teleological time of capitalist modernity and to introduce alternative ways of conceptualizing time as a means of recasting generations as relationally connected (see groves, 2011). nevertheless, the quest for intergenerational coalition was met with reluctance among some young activists who were concerned about the perils of abandoning the movement’s generational character. we explore this tension in the final section of our discussion below. intergenerational solidarity and ambivalence calls for intergenerational solidarity and alliance were not expressed without ambivalence as intergenerational equity and collaboration can come with costs (taft, 2015). in our conversations with young activists, it became apparent that despite a general wish for intergenerational collaboration, this brought up tensions within the movement as it touched on issues of y4c’s core identity. young activists acknowledged the importance of adult contribution for the success and endurance of their collectively organized form. youths’ lack of political power, especially in the form of institutional political participation through voting, was a major instigator for seeking adult aid. similarly, adult support in terms of resources, both material and symbolic such as in the form of knowledge transfer from adult activist organizations, was much appreciated by youth activists who made the strategic decision to forge collaborations to counter inequalities structured along age, and in so doing alleviating their political marginalization: 69 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research because we may be youth for climate, but we want to affect the opinions of our parents and our grandparents maybe…. [t]hey’re the people who are voting, so they’re the people who have actual power. but also because, especially in cyprus, change is only being brought when we have a collective and unified front…. and we also want to target people other than the youth, because managing the climate crisis is all about changing the mentality. (pandora, aged 17) the importance of intergenerational alliance was also emphasized, not only between/for more organized forms of activism, but also in terms of the need to engage in everyday activism manifested in the mundane of individual choices and practices. youth activists underlined the need for a “change in the mentality” that characterizes older generations, whom the youth see as more complacent, passive, and suffering from self-interested presentism. this is precisely the niche they saw for themselves as young activists: the duty to a/rise, awaken, sensitize, mobilize, and pressure. and, because the success of mounting pressure on the “right” kind of people, namely those in power to enforce change, depends on size, youth activists solicited intergenerational support, acknowledging the limits of their own activism in anticipation of their imminent political power as future voters: of course, it’s youth for climate. youth…. but ... we don’t believe that there is a difference, and that all ages and every person are welcome at a protest, an event by youth for climate. we just think that young people are an easier and more achievable target at this moment…. if young people show the politicians that look, we are the generation that will vote for you in two years, in a year, or now ... they will want to make us happy. (erica) yet opening up the movement to older generations does not bring only benefits. this question has also led to some unease within the movement, as there were differing perspectives regarding how open, to whom, and for what y4c should be. hesitation was expressed by some young activists as to whether the participation of older generations would undermine the political legitimacy of a movement by young people for young people and ultimately work against establishing a niche for youth in the political sphere. branding the movement as a youth movement was seen as important for legitimizing youth messages of change and future-making (see spyrou, 2020; spyrou et al., 2021) and for the movement’s political identity locally and affiliation globally. it is this branding, in fact, that enabled youth to mobilize multiple temporalities to claim space and voice in a world dominated by adults: well, i think it [y4c] will lose its character if it opens up ’cause there are other movements, like mothers rise up for like mothers which (sic) are the older, and it’s how do we know we have a target audience of people, older people, but we want to focus on the youth because we identify the youth as the main driver for change. (pandora) a possible elimination of the movement’s distinctly generational character would lead to the jettisoning of generational time and therefore the diminishment of youths’ ability to claim political participation, destabilize adult power, and disrupt linear, teleological conceptions of time linked to adult-centered notions of capitalist modernity. this speaks to an inherent tension and dilemma youth activists are called on to resolve. on the one hand, conceding to multispecies and multispatial entanglements (rooney, 2019; rose, 2012) requires the pursuit of intergenerational respect and collaboration built on common interests that evade the socially imposed category of age. on the other hand, an intergenerational character to a youth climate movement undercuts young activists’ deployment of time, manifested in the mobilization of multiple temporal frames, such as generational time, futuresent time, and condensed time, as a tool in their quest for intergenerational justice, political participation, and the reordering of generational relations. 70 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research conclusion in this paper we sought to explore how young activists brought multiple temporalities in their discourse on climate change as a tool through which to establish themselves as legitimate political actors, destabilize the hierarchical stratification of intergenerational relations, and claim their right to an alternative future of intergenerational and interspecies respect. using multiple notions of time, such as generational time and condensed time, young activists framed climate change as an intergenerational justice issue that commands a radical shift in values. they argued that this necessitates a move from an individualistic valorization of profit of a presentist outlook to a future-oriented ethic of generational and multispecies responsibility premised on the recognition of multispecies, multispatial, and multigenerational relationality (groves, 2011; rooney, 2019; rose, 2012). to avert dystopic futures, youth summoned older/all generations to action, acknowledging the limits of their activism in an age-stratified society. in broadening the notion of time by using different temporalities of past, present, future, and futuresent, youth essentially introduced alternative ways of connecting to others, both human and more-than-human, and in doing so, opened up different possibilities for subjectivities. for these youth, destabilizing the centrality of human / human time was premised on the realization of multispecies and multigenerational entanglements in ways that bring to the fore the frailty of human existence as well as question the morality of its dominance. acknowledging the time of others and other times opens up possibilities for new subjectivities of human decenteredness and possibly more egalitarian relationships of species interdependence. time, thus, is political, and youth in our study were able to utilize the politicality of temporality in their quest for intergenerational justice as an act of subversion of the established generational order that operates to exclude them. thus, one might say that mobilizing time serves as the quintessential manifestation of youth political participation. acknowledgments we would like to express our gratitude to the young activists who participated in our study and the two anonymous reviewers for the insightful comments. the study was funded by the a. g. leventis foundation and the hellenic observatory of the london school of economics and political science. 71 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research references bartos, a. e. 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(2020). climate change and children: an issue of intergenerational justice. in n. balvin & d. j. christie (eds.), children and peace (pp. 343–362). peace psychology book series. springeropen. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03022176-8 shirani, f., butler, c., henwood, k., parkhill, k., & pidgeon, n. (2013). disconnected futures: exploring notions of ethical responsibility in energy practices. local environment: the international journal of justice and sustainability, 18(4), 455–468. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/13549839.2013.779236 skillington, t. (2019). climate change and intergenerational justice. routledge. spyrou, s. (2020). editorial: children as future-makers. childhood, 27(1), 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568219884142 spyrou, s., theodorou, e., & christou, g. (2021). crafting futures with hope: young climate activists’ imaginaries in an age of crisis and uncertainty. children & society, 36, 731–746. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12529 stapleton, s. (2019). a case for climate justice education: american youth connecting to intragenerational climate injustice in bangladesh. environmental education research, 25(5), 732–750. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1472220 taft, j. (2015). “adults talk too much”: intergenerational dialogue and power in the peruvian movement of working children. childhood, 22(4), 460–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568214555148 taft, j. k., & gordon, h. r. (2015). intergenerational relationships in youth activist networks. in s. punch & r. m. vanderbeck (eds.), family, intergenerationality, and peer group relations (pp. 217–237). geographies of children and young people, 5. springer. wahlström, m., kocyba, p., de vydt, m., & de moor, j. (eds.). (2019). protest for a future: composition, mobilization and motives of the participants in fridays for future climate protests on 15 march, 2019 in 13 european cities. https://protestinstitut.eu/wp-content/ uploads/2019/07/20190709_protest-for-a-future_gcs-descriptive-report.pdf walker, c. (2020). uneven solidarity: the school strikes for climate in global and intergenerational perspective. sustainable earth, 3(5), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42055-020-00024-3 june 2023 25 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources a future “after childhood”: engaging the anthropocene in early childhood education book review of peter kraftl’s after childhood, by paolo russumanno paolo russumanno is a human geographer pursuing his doctor of philosophy in the faculty of education at western university. his interest is in the lived curriculum and exploring the potential of space, place, time, and land as provocations for deeper learning. email: prussuma@uwo.ca overview of after childhood peter kraftl’s work after childhood: re-thinking environment, materiality, and media in children’s lives (routledge, 2020) demands a strenuous exercise in reading, thinking, and imagining new ways of seeing and becoming within the field of childhood studies. broadly speaking, this is a methodological experiment that mostly uses the theoretical positioning of new materialist and posthumanist thinking to unlock the potential for further interdisciplinary research. in this pursuit, kraftl relentlessly breaks open scholastic silos, humanist languages, and widely agreedupon ways of knowing to present a carefully curated hodgepodge of disciplinary endeavours that reimagine the child and the world. at its core, this is the motivation for thinking with after childhood. as a human geographer and childhood studies scholar who embraces the spirit of new materialism, kraftl has a unique disposition that encourages him to experiment with different methods across multiple disciplines. his entire work is a sensibly frenetic, gradual, and meandering procession in, out, and across a variety of scales. in each chapter, kraftl pulls the reader into an unravelling exploration of intellectual curiosity, cautiously guiding the reader while simultaneously hurrying them to keep pace. kraftl acts as a metaphorical tour guide in foreign lands, introducing wide-eyed child scholars to traditionally taboo disciplines and an emerging culture of embraced unknowns and becomings (haraway, 2008). this tour of the unknown is necessary, not just for kraftl’s work, but for understanding and embracing the very difficult work of decentering oneself to embrace, welcome, and explore the entanglements, relations, and affects that emerge when we actively and insecurely position ourselves within the common worlds to think and become alongside the more-than-human (kraftl et al., 2020; nxumalo & vintimilla, 2020; pacini-ketchabaw & kummen, 2016; taylor, 2017; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015; vintimilla & paciniketchabaw, 2020; vintimilla et al., 2021). at times, this is an uncomfortable, tenuous, and exhausting toil—but in doing so, kraftl not only shakes directly at the root of childhood expertise but excavates and suspends it within the commons of other, other(ness), and other(ing). at a much higher scale, the ripple effect of this precise work has an unsettling impact on the firm terrain that the humanist ethos is built upon, and the in-between space in which the epoch we call the anthropocene thrives. by encouraging readers to reimagine the world, its underpinnings, and constitutions, kraftl lays bare the possible realities beyond their purview. for kraftl, critique of the modern man is no longer necessary—the damage is done. rather, he decenters the human, stripping it of its mastery before entangling it amid the variegated relationships that exist to demonstrate our world’s vulnerability within the anthropocene, as well as our own vulnerability as a species (pacini-ketchabaw & kummen, 2016) this purposeful act of undoing and becoming is an embrace of chaos, disorder, and “trouble”—the goal is to enmesh ourselves within the unknown, its potential and perpetuity. though he acknowledges that it is too late for human and nonhuman actors to emerge from the anthropocene unscathed, kraftl hopes that by “cutting” (pp. 39–53) across it, we can find connections and common ground that will guide future generations. kraftl is clear in this regard; he does not “purport to solve these problems” but rather is attempting to refashion and reimagine ways of thinking that might “broach the complexity and intractability june 2023 26 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources of those challenges” (p. 158). for kraftl, after is the encompassing of these methods and reimagination process. it is his contribution, not just to the field of childhood studies, but also to the multidisciplinary body of knowledge materializing around issues and solutions of climate change and their impacts on the future of humanity. in this review, i reflect on kraftl’s critical view of the humanist ethos and how, by welcoming an embrace of the knowledge revealed in trauma, silliness, and interface, we can exercise a method of interdisciplinary work that navigates and broaches the anthropocene. the anthropocene kraftl describes the anthropocene as a multiscalar and delinear temporality with “complex, knotty, intractable challenges that affect communities in particular places” (p. 2). to navigate such a tenuous landscape (both physical and intellectual), kraftl dedicates himself to “loosening control”—ontologically and epistemologically—to embrace states of trouble, play, silliness, and violence (p. 3). it’s here, in the gaps that emerge from relinquishing control, that kraftl goes in and out to suspend—even if only briefly—the variegated and overlapping issues that coalesce under the broad ethos of the anthropocene. kraftl frames the entirety of his work within a divergent parallel. in the very first pages, he demonstrates how the same encompassing force of climate change can inflict diverse casualties across physical landscapes and cultural identities. such dynamism shares a genotype lineage with that of neoliberalism and colonialism—existing both in-here and out-there (peck & tickell, 2002), making it difficult to capture and hold. all we can do, as kraftl demonstrates tirelessly throughout, is to stop, slow, speed up, rewind, and fast forward accordingly. his industrious efforts to capture and scrutinize the legacies of the anthropocene are illustrated throughout each chapter. through discussion about such things as plastic (p. 73), bones (p. 115), tire fires (p. 83) websites (p. 96) and their larger ties to consumerism (p. 113) race/gender (p. 27), colonialism and global trade (p. 35), kraftl cuts through the anthropocene to reveal entanglements between climate change and children. he achieves this by drawing attention to these anthropocentrically etched phenomena while also artfully sliding the child in and out of the frame, masterfully demonstrating the reciprocal impacts of these multiple, seemingly unrelated objects (human and nonhuman), before skilfully sliding the child out again. this practice of decentering and recentering, or “pulling in and pulling out” of focus, emphasizes the way “childhoods cut across and are cut across by” the realities of the anthropocene (p. 45). it positions children as unassuming victims caught in the crossfire of the anthropocene (and to a greater degree the humanist project) as well as the most vulnerable (before, during, and after childhood) to impacts of “pollution, malnutrition, and lack of access to sustainable energy sources” (p. 138). much more than that, and integral to this work, is this idea that a rethinking of our understanding, perception, and categorization of children and their agency in relation to the anthropocene can also be the solution (p. 3). for kraftl, undermining centuries of human mastery requires discarding and reinventing symbols, ideas, and languages—new concepts that do not lend themselves to the hegemony of humanist forces but rather to collaborative exploration and imagination (ødegaard, 2021). after, before, and around human arguably, if language has the power to build and shape realities, it is impossible to imagine a future detached from the humanist/anthropocene, if those same linguistic tools were redeployed in a new world-building process. by uttering the language of the humanist project, we inevitably recreate a world based on these traditionalist notions of reality. keen to not recreate the past, kraftl takes on the arduous task of crafting new linguistic mechanisms to forge new concepts and ways of understanding that could potentially help scholars break through the firmament june 2023 27 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources of the anthropocene and into the world after. as alluded to earlier, kraftl’s reimagining of after is a proposed method for the contemporary childhood scholar. kraftl rethinks after as something that can be much more than a historiographical or linear categorization. instead, he puts the term through a rigorous reclamation process equipped to work through “a series of tensions, decentering and recentering the human subject; scaling up and scaling down; speeding up and slowing down” (p. 43). having reproduced the term in this way, kraftl argues that after childhood affords childhood scholars the capability to look beyond notions of agency and the permanence that holds normalized child constructs. kraftl’s use of after also creates room for ancillary mediums that would allow childhood scholars to move uninhibited across various contextual planes—both physical and intellectual. terms such as nexus, cuts, resourcepower, circulation, interfaces, visibility, energetic phenomena, synthesis, and stickiness are developed by kraftl to further catapult our thinking “beyond the scale” (p. 44). most valuable to this hard work is a reframing of the terms generations and intergenerational relations. for kraftl, these terms are the proverbial hammer and nail in his after toolbox. however, to meet the demands of his labour within the anthropocene, he believes they are of better use as infra-generational relations. infra implies “more-than-generational and more-than-human processes, energies, materialities, technologies, media, affects, and more that constitute the temporalities in which childhoods are enveloped, and of which they are productive” (p. 44). for kraftl, these infra-generational sensibilities (p. 113) are the technologies that will help navigate temporalities and geographies within the after—and further help to define after childhood as something that is always present, even in adulthood and in death (p. 115). this purposeful and intentional reconceptualization stems from kraftl’s belief that “conventional social-scientific conceptual and analytical tools” of critique are no longer sufficient to address the anthropocene (p. 133). perhaps more importantly, this determined and conscious act of reimaging language and shedding academic distinction creates space for an interdisciplinary approach so that kraftl that can better manage the variegated impact and hegemony of the anthropocene. interdisciplinary work when thinking about issues of climate change, kraftl notes that in most instances, there is a “rush” to solve the issue with “smarter, bigger, and better human interventions (p. 44). though this endeavour is notable and commendable, kraftl believes there are gaps in it to be filled by a diverse field of childhood studies in the after. as a geographer and childhood studies scholar, kraftl approaches the contentious nature of the anthropocene by considering the possibilities existing in scale and intermingling of disciplines. to further his point, kraftl argues that “childhood studies are well positioned to scale down and cultivate ‘arts of noticing’: the small and seemingly insignificant events taking place on the common grounds of minor players” (p. 44). this art—one of noticing and not noticing—demands of scholars a diffracted way of seeing and doing (juelskjaer & schwennesen, 2012). it requires a dogged persistence that moves the gaze away from the child towards spaces, places, and objects that intuitively surround, play, tussle with, and pull our very idea of “child.” more specifically, kraftl, borrowing directly from affrica taylor and her criticisms of the humanist “man-tothe-rescue” script that seeks to save the world within the anthropocene, is encouraging childhood scholars to look at “the how of children’s world-making with more-than-human others” and ways it can “contribute to the collective task of refiguring our place in an anthropogenically-damaged world without recourse to the conceits of the anthropos” (taylor, 2019, as cited in kraftl, 2020, p. 44, emphasis in original). here, with taylor’s help, kraftl slowly guides childhood scholars away from the expectations of their traditional disciplines into a space that is both unknown and becoming. june 2023 28 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources throughout the book, kraftl repeatedly stands up to his own convictions by working to “engage meaningfully and consistently with feminist, queer and critical race theorisations of difference and matter that sit alongside and in tension with certain forms of ‘post-’ child thinking (including deployments of actor network theory (ant) and new materialist theory” (p. 5). determined to push his work and the childhood scholar further, he also wades into the somewhat uncharted territories of “speculative-realists” and “object-oriented ontologies.” as mentioned already, this act of loosening control is done to provoke the scholar towards new insights that would otherwise be unconsciously or obliviously overlooked (p. 5). kraftl’s willingness to embrace a variety of theoretical positionings is paired with an admiration for interdisciplinary collaborations that range from “artists, architects, engineers and environmental nano-scientists” (p. 5). in each chapter, with acknowledgment of these various methods and their findings (considered summarily as stickiness, toxicity, and pull focus) kraftl makes connections between the anthropocene and childhood. in each chapter, he demonstrates this “methodology” time and again, outlining the possibilities for childhood scholars. for kraftl, the synchronized act of pulling children in and out of frame alongside the application of “discordant disciplinary traditions” (p. 45) must be harmonious and intuitive. actively moving “in and out of focus in different ways” and utilizing “different modes of (re)presentation” makes this process as “important as ‘high’ theory to stretching ways of thinking and doing, after childhood” (p. 45). by refocusing throughout the book, kraftl continually reaffirms how after is now temporal, contextual, physical, and metaphorical; it is applicable in archeology, psychology, and geography—a multifaceted concept that serves as a theory of childhood but also a method of understanding and rethinking it within and beyond the anthropocene. by making after an interdisciplinary concept, kraftl (with the help of donna haraway) can take experimental steps into the trouble that arise from his process of decategorization of theory, concept, and language. it is also here, in the trouble, that we see kraftl’s laborious efforts of rethinking in acts of “decentring and recentring, speeding up and slowing down, scaling up and scaling down” (p. 44, emphasis in original). amid the trouble(s) with frustrated compassion, kraftl drags the childhood scholar into trouble (haraway, 2008) and uncertainty across each chapter. using his reconceptualizations of after childhood and infra-generations (among other reimagined concepts), he emphasizes childhood’s anterior (what comes after) and what it means for “contemporary phenomenological horizons” (p. 115). this march into the trouble of the anterior is drenched with anticipation of the unexpected, the alternative, and reorientation of “ethical dispositions to childhood, generation and the earth, and to intractable challenges—like climate change—that past-present-future-infra generations face” (p. 34). his immersion into trouble(s) emphasizes a need to be immanent amid the chaos (maclure, 2015) and embrace a knowing that does not categorize, or assume determinations, but rather tumbles, shifts, and rolls alongside the varied assemblages that both inform and are informed by entanglements (maclure, 2015). to not get lost amid the trouble, kraftl leans heavily into scale, both spatially and temporally. using the concepts mentioned above, such as after and infragenerational, kraftl hovers along scale, parachuting into and out of the “inherent tensions and troubles” found along the way (p. 41). kraftl makes the researcher as elusive and malleable as the anthropocene, and in doing so, grants childhood scholars the ability to go beyond child, agency, and local. with permission to ride the scale, childhood scholars are now flung into the messiness and unfamiliarity of those childhood experiences, “divorced from the broader regimes of power and generational inequality upon which their lives, agency and emergent subjecthood depend” (p. 42). for kraftl, and hopefully for contemporary childhood scholars, amid the trouble and among the stuck is a good place to be. june 2023 29 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources trauma, silliness, and interface throughout the book, kraftl offers contexts steeped in trauma, silliness, and/or the interface between the two. it’s amid these “three strands” that the trouble and tensions of the “major conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions of this book” are tied (p. 205). trauma is perhaps most evident throughout the book and can be identified in each chapter. whether it’s a lost doll inside a derelict apartment somewhere in luz sao paolo (p. 56), a car tire in aleppo (p. 83), biological remnants of the roman empire (p. 125), or a brick in birmingham (p. 157), kraftl weaves together webs of trauma across histories and geographies that underline the dualistically harmful impact felt by children and environments in the anthropocene. despite a potentially overwhelming sense of despair, kraftl finds hope in the promise of childhood and its intuitive “silliness” (p. 206). he frames silliness as an act of play and imagination, a state of becoming that embraces spontaneity and “modes of being, interacting, researching, writing, and experimenting” (pp. 206–207) that have the potential to create ways of seeing not possible without intuition. as scholars operating within this concept of after, silliness is the willingness to look beyond preferred methodology to seek “ways of knowing” and “other stories about childhoods” (p. 207) not conceivable within traditional silos. by being silly, childhood scholars (or any scholar within the after) can remain unperturbed by scrutiny or failure, preferring instead to pursue the potential rewards of possibility. finally, interface is the agglomeration of both these things, and much more. the interface is the very relations between humans and materials, as well as the conditions, traces, and legacies that shape these connections (p. 208). for kraftl, the interface is where the links and commonalities are identified and explored—it’s in the interface between trauma and silliness that kraftl encourages us to think and do after childhood, which, as discussed throughout, means children are both “out of the picture” (p. 207) and central to it. thinking after after-childhood kraftl’s after childhood: re-thinking environment, materiality and media in children’s lives is a strenuous and vigorous exercise in pushing conceptual and theoretical boundaries beyond current comprehension. kraftl takes care to intricately fashion new concepts and means of thinking that help guide childhood scholars beyond the realm of agency and into an expansiveness of space, time, scale, and place—to dig deep into pressing issues of the anthropocene and its impacts on childhood. while, broadly, this is a demonstration of potential methodology, it is also a glaring testament to the impacts of climate change on generations past, present, and future. throughout the book, the pressure of the anthropocene and its impacts on childhood are immense. however, to instill calm, kraftl methodically discusses his designs for a new language that, when articulated with intention, can begin the process of deconstructing and producing new worlds in the after. he also carefully, and daringly, maps out interdisciplinary possibilities by allowing his expert gaze to drift beyond his own proficiencies into places unknown. it’s here, in these places unknown, that we find the potentials and rewards of staying with trouble. for kraftl, it’s in here, amid the trouble, that new knowledge can be wrought and crafted. finally, we come to understand all these movements, orientations, and decentering as traumas, silliness, and interfaces—the loose and haphazard results of what happens when we loosen control. in doing so, this book achieves the difficult task of connecting the most pressing issues facing our society to a common goal that can be applied in various ways by different scholars toward variegated solutions. kraftl’s work is a culmination and expression of all the work that has come before it: feminist, queer, critical race, actor network, and new materialist theories. more importantly, it is a work that must still come to fruition, serving as an invitation to aspiring scholars to grow from. personally, as a human geographer who has only recently june 2023 30 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources entered the field of childhood studies, the timing of this text is fortuitous. kraftl has provided a road map equipped with concepts and directions that can be applied to my own field of research. his extraordinary efforts to push theoretical positioning forward has afforded me the luxury of building research that could potentially be innovative enough to transcend traditional applications of study, research, and ways of knowing. more importantly, kraftl’s assembled arsenal, when taken up by a multiplicity of scholars and disciplines, will inevitably begin the long infragenerational process of dissolving the insidious nature of anthropocene and reimagining human and nonhuman within the after. june 2023 31 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies reviews of books and resources references haraway, d. 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(2021). manifesting living knowledges: a pedagogists working manifesto. journal of curriculum and pedagogy. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2021.1955051 march 2022 56 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research nnedi okorafor’s binti: african science fiction and the reimagined black girl janet seow janet rosemarie seow, phd, is an instructor in the humanities department and a research associate at the centre for research on latin america and the caribbean at york university, toronto, ontario. her research interests include participatory research with afro-canadian children and youth and their engagement with material culture; global cultures of children and youth; children’s rights; young adult literature; indigenous literature; afrofuturism literature; critical theory; critical race theory; gender studies; social justice pedagogy; and antiracist pedagogy. her most recent publication, “black girls and dolls navigating race, class, and gender in toronto,” appeared in girlhood studies. email: xjrs2@outlook.com nnedi okorafor’ s binti (2015) is a science fiction horror novella about a 16-year-old african girl who is a mathematics genius. in this article, i show how okorafor uses binti to explore the ways in which popular images of young black females can be reenvisioned and how science fiction and africanfuturism are effective strategies to reclaim personhood and notions of futurity for black childhood. binti presents a reimagined future for the black child (and the black female in particular) beyond adult confines and beyond the stereotypes of an underachieving, hypersexualized, and unintelligent other. the article further explores how okorafor uses the framework of africanfuturism, which combines technoscience and traditional indigenous african ways of knowing, to bridge the cultural divide between normative understandings of european cultures and african cultures. the power of science fiction to stimulate our imagination to envision a different future cannot be ignored. locating the main action in a spaceship seems fitting in the sense that it places blackness in a future where the use of technology is an everyday occurrence, thus inviting us to think outside of society’s preconceived and deterministic notions of blackness and being an african. plot binti, the main protagonist, lives in an african community with resemblances to contemporary namibia, but on a futuristic earth-like planet with social structures that combine technocultural advancement and indigenous practices. binti’s tribe, the himba, is a minority group skilled in the construction of specialized communication devices, but which chooses to maintain a traditional lifestyle in their village. they are dominated and oppressed by the khoush, a group that wields a significant amount of power over the planet’s inhabitants. binti runs away from her himba tribe to attend university in outer space. while in transit to oomza university, an alien species called nnedi okorafor’s binti unsettles harmful depictions of black childhood and reconceptualizes the role of young black females in racialized communities with an acute awareness of the challenges they encounter in the real world. using the speculative form of binti as an allegory for the present, this article turns to the character of binti to highlight ways to overcome obstacles of exclusion and otherness. inspiration is found in how okorafor utilizes africanfuturism as a framework that artfully integrates and retains african indigenous cultures in a technologically advanced world. additionally, childhood studies informs how this article examines the impact of africanfuturism as a defamiliarizing strategy to address normalized (western, white) childhood and notions of futurity for black children and youth. key words: black childhood; race; africanfuturism; identity; science fiction; representation march 2022 57 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the meduse attacks the spaceship. many of the passengers are massacred, but binti is spared. she is taken hostage and modified with meduse dna before being brought to the planet of oomza and allowed to attend the university, where she is given the position of mediator between humans and meduse. binti stays for a year then returns to her home planet. we accompany her as she struggles to integrate into a world that is no longer as safe or predictable as the himba had her believe before her departure to oomza university, a complex world that forces her to recognize that there are multiple ways of understanding social reality, including how she sees herself. her journey is one on which the reader also embarks, as okorafor forces us to reexamine the dominant discourses surrounding young black females. western constructions of childhood: diverse childhood in western cultures, the dominant narrative of the child is one who is innocent, free of worries, vulnerable, and protected by adults (ariès, 1962; ennew, 2005; jenkins, 1998; rousseau, 1762/1889). the homogeneous figure of the child in human rights discourse does not, however, reflect the diversity of the material experiences of children and young people, including their differences in age, culture, or economic circumstances. one of the most significant challenges to understanding diversity in childhood today is the global marketing of western norms around how children should be represented. these guidelines are circulated through transnational nongovernment organizations (ngos), international law, and global media. for example, the united nations’ (1989) convention on the rights of the child (uncrc) defines individuals from birth to 18 years of age as children, and it constructs an idealized childhood model predicated on western societies’ understanding of childhood, which includes innocence and protection from adult worries and responsibilities. children from non-western cultures are considered diverse, a term that is multilayered and ambiguous. diverse children are often viewed as being outside the normative spaces of childhood and family, and consequently outside western adult imaginations of the innocent child (bernstein, 2011; montgomery, 2008; valentine, 1996). in the majority world or global south, however, children are sometimes placed in challenging circumstances, including civil wars and poverty. in multiple regions, including africa and the caribbean, an individual over the age of 18 may not necessarily be considered an adult if they lack economic resources and capacity for financial independence (evans & davies, 1997; twum-danso, 2008). conversely, children under 18 may be gainfully employed and contribute significantly to the household’s disposable income and may also assume the role of primary caregiver of adult family members (payne, 2012). some children, such as soldiers, labourers, sex workers, and those who are homeless, have received considerable media coverage and been evaluated through a western lens (ansell, 2005; boyden, 2015; payne, 2012; wells, 2015), but the contextual circumstances in children’s and young people’s lives should be considered in discourses about children and youth. unfortunately, the universal child and child rights discourses are dependent on the dominance of western conceptualizations of the child. international media images and child-saving organizations construct diverse childhood as aberrant, and they obfuscate the root causes of the adverse conditions under which children are forced to live. the diverse child may experience multiple childhoods due to social and structural variables such as social class, geographic location, culture, gender, race, ethnicity, and history (beazley, 2000; chakraborty, 2016; james & prout, 2015; montgomery, 2008). hence, universalism, the blurring of the line between adult and child, and the cultural relativity of the uncrc have made it difficult for some non-western cultures in the global south to fully embrace the scope and operations of the articles of the convention within those nation states (jefferess, 2002). it has also caused others to question the metrics used to judge this “universal child,” and some, like pence and hix-small (2007), point out that these metrics privilege western constructs: the western-driven image of the child that dominates media, science and policy today is not valued for who she or he “is” but what he or she can “become” as part of a broader, global economic agenda. while march 2022 58 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research 90% of the world’s children live in the majority world, over 90% of the published child development literature comes from the minority world.… minority world images and understandings dominate early years’ discussions internationally. (p. 84) in other words, a one-size-fits-all approach has been detrimental to a more nuanced understanding of nonwestern cultures and childhoods. such a narrow approach forecloses “other possibilities [and] other ways of understanding” (pence & hix-small 2007, p. 84). the stories written for and about children and young people have impacts and implications for the way certain groups see themselves and are treated by others from different cultures or ethnicities. this is what nigerian novelist and activist chimamanda ngozi adichie addresses in her 2009 ted talk, when she outlines how a single story is created and is invariably detrimental to racialized individuals. in adichie’s words, “show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” historically, the field of childhood studies saw differences in childhoods with respect to the north american and european cultures versus non-western cultures. however, recent scholarship suggests that, rather than assigning essential frameworks to the cultures in the minority and majority worlds, we instead look carefully at the expectations and lived experiences of different social classes, racial, religious, and ethnic groups, and girls and boys. this approach demonstrates that childhood as a category is not universal and the difference between children and adults in each culture or society cannot be read only from biological categories (balagopalan, 2008; chakraborty, 2016; saldanha, 2002; wells, 2015). despite the preeminent stature of the uncrc, other non-western cultures have formulated alternative child rights conventions that are specific in scope and reflect their unique cultural values and traditions. the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc; african committee of experts, 1990) is one such example. the acrwc difference lies in its emphasis on the child’s obligation to local community, state community, family, and african cultural values. the focus on children’s duties and responsibilities highlights an attempt to articulate the values of communal cultures where access to rights is moderated by respect for parents and community elders. one of the primary goals of the acrwc is to counter the eurocentrism of the uncrc (cregan & cuthbert, 2014). as abebe and ofosu-kusi (2016) note, various research conducted in different african countries reveals that not all african childhoods are about narratives of victimization and loss, especially when taken from the context of multiple social, political, and economic realities. abebe and ofosu-kusi argue that failure to acknowledge the wide experience in african countries misrepresents african childhood as diverse experiences that are no different from western childhoods, with children from economically stable families that are experiencing opportunities and privilege while others, despite living in the same country, are poor and marginalized. this lack of awareness of similarities and parallel experiences of childhoods in african countries and western countries perpetuates ideas of a deficit african childhood for all children residing on the african continent (see said, 1978). very little attention is given in the media to children’s ability to thrive in the face of these adversities in african countries (abebe & ofosu-kusi, 2016). recent scholarship on african childhood from countries with diverse histories, social structures, and cultures, including zambia, rwanda, south africa, and ethiopia, has critiqued the tendency to flatten african children’s varied experiences by promoting two main approaches. one is the “tribal child” highlighted by james et al. (1998), which exoticizes african childhood experiences as indigenous and in this context is removed from technologies and modern infrastructures. the second homogenizing approach references the “crisis child” who lacks technological, economic, cultural, and political support. the ultimate effect is that these two approaches minimize the realities of african childhood and the impact of other generations’ social transformation on children’s lives, social contexts, and the opinions of african children (abebe & ofoso-kusi, 2016; ruddick, 2003). it is against this backdrop of an understanding of black childhood that 16-year-old binti could be read as a rejection march 2022 59 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research of the stereotypes and essentialist tropes of black childhood. binti, being the second-youngest child and possessor of the talent to succeed her father as heir to the family business, was given an extensive education from an early age, which contradicts the notion of children as incompetent in adult matters. her early exposure to technology as an astrolabe builder—typically an adult activity—does not make her innocent from a western outlook that often views black girls as older, less feminine, and more experienced in the ways of the adult world than girls in the west (epstein et al., 2016, p. 5). in addition, from a white western perspective, binti’s work in her father’s shop places her outside the norm as a child labourer. binti’s academic brilliance disrupts dominant discourses about black females in north american culture, including discourses of black girls being underachievers. instead, binti is cast as the hero and potential leader countering the disapproval of the village and family members. binti’s ability as an aspiring leader commands political attention at oomza uni and on the alien spacecraft and affords her the opportunity to negotiate peace. yaszek (2015) suggests that “casting lead characters as scientists and engineers who actively create the theories, techniques, and things that can change race relations forever” (p. 2) ensures futurity for the black race and the planet. binti reimagines the young black female as dynamic, generative, and capable of making meaningful contributions in society with a voice that advocates for change. representations of binti as a child prodigy and scientific genius challenge stereotypes of young black females as poor role models, aggressive, and hypersexualized (epstein et al., 2017, p. 4). in binti’s case, she is a mathematician and a master craft builder and is considered an exceptional talent in the intricate creation of the astrolabe communication technology. i brought my astrolabe to my face. i’d made the casing with golden sand bar that i’d molded, sculpted, and polished myself. it was the size of a child’s hand and far better than any astrolabe one could buy from the finest seller. (okorafor, 2015, p. 34) one could infer that binti’s early lessons in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) developed her critical thinking skills, which affords agency (law, 2007). hence, the decision to leave home and pursue a higher education might have taken root at a very early age. none of my family had wanted me to go to oomza uni. when i’d received the scholarship to study at oomza uni, i’d gone into the desert and cried for hours. with joy. i’d wanted this since i knew what a university was. (okorafor, 2015, p. 28) working with complicated mathematical formulas and algorithms would likely have developed binti’s mental acuity and, as she grew older, the means to exercise agency as an independent thinker. i powered up the transporter and said a silent prayer. i had no idea what i was going to do if it didn’t work.… i was defying the most traditional part of myself for the first time in my entire life. i was leaving in the dead of night, and they had no clue. (okorafor, 2015, pp. 9–10) binti breaks free of black female stereotypes that are assigned to individuals and which designate the way one should behave within society (foucault, 1995). binti’s family expects her to get married and settle down like her sister. binti’s rebellion and subsequent flight suggest nonconformity, which may force one to exist outside the normative boundaries of society, the outcome sometimes resulting in social isolation and feelings of otherness. i was the only himba on the ship, out of nearly five hundred passengers, my tribe is obsessed with innovation and technology, but it is small, and, as i said, we don’t like to leave earth. we prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward.… no himba has ever gone to oomza uni. so me being the only one on the ship was not surprising. (okorafor, 2015, p. 21) march 2022 60 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research binti: black childhood and personhood in binti, okorafor forces us to question how black identities are perceived by others. wells (2015) notes that race is a key factor in forming young people’s lives. as she points out, “race structured children’s lives regardless of whether or not they experienced themselves as racialized people” (wells, 2015, p. 53). representations of black children and youth as outsiders or culturally marginal characters place them against an ideal standard they can never achieve. in the new york times article “let black kids just be kids,” bernstein (2017) writes: people of all races see black children as less innocent, more adultlike and more responsible for their actions than their white peers. in turn, normal childhood behavior, like disobedience, tantrums, and back talk, is seen as a criminal threat when black kids do it. these essentialist tropes of black childhood reinforce black children’s otherness and exclusion from participating in society in the way their white peers can. for binti, prejudice from within society on the planet situated her as an embodied other. everything about her was out of place: her dark skin covered with red clay and her exotic-looking clothing, which worked well in the hot desert but made her stand out in khoush society. i was the first himba in history to be bestowed with the honor of acceptance into oomza uni. the hate messages, threats to my life, laughter and ridicule that came from the khoush in my city made me want to hide more. (okorafor, 2015, p. 29) this revelation of death threats demonstrates the magnitude of binti’s decision to venture out into the world alone, with no previous contact with a culture that is known for their marginalization of her people. perhaps this is an attempt on okorafor’s part to highlight how much it takes to break out of systems that restrict the individual from growing. sometimes it might cost the individual’s life to be liberated, and risk taking is part of character development (see james, 2013). thomas’s (2018) research highlights how racialized individuals are confronted with racism and erasure at the material level. thomas demonstrates how popular media perpetuate the erasure of the “dark other.” the racialized subject is always situated in a state of pathology, as villain and evil. thomas writes: narratives with liberated dark others are rare and are rarely as popular as those that feature trapped dark subjectivities. this positioning occurs because subverting the traditional positioning of the dark other in the fantastic requires radical rethinking of everything that we know … whether the story in question is a novel, a television show, or a comic book. the principles of the dark fantastic are so ingrained in our collective consciousness that when the expected pattern is subverted, audiences cannot suspend disbelief. (pp. 7–8) according to thomas (2018), it takes significant effort to defamiliarize black negation from common perceptions. binti’s challenges in khoush society are no different as she attempts to navigate the uneven landscape of cultural and racial discrimination. when binti boards the shuttle to leave her home planet, she experiences racial discrimination for the first time: who knew what i looked like to these people who didn’t know my people so well? a woman leaned away from me as i passed, her face pinched as if she smelled something foul.… two girls who might have been a few years older than me covered their mouths with hands so pale that they looked untouched by the sun. everyone looked as if the sun was his or her enemy. (okorafor, 2015, p. 11) in this moment, binti is forced to come to terms with anti-black racism and the exclusionary tactics that are used to situate black people as the dark other. yet, from binti‘s perspective, her dark skin and the sun are vital parts of march 2022 61 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research her existence, a natural part of her environment. however, as nxumalo and cedillo (2017) point out, there is also a gap in situated and responsive engagements with the specific environmental challenges that young children face in their particular locations.… many differently located indigenous knowledges are rooted in the intrinsic relationality of human and non-humans within the particularities of specific places. (p. 102) reflecting nxumalo’s and cedillo’s nuanced description of place-based childhood, a significant portion of binti’s life and identity is tied to the relationship between the individual and nature, but the khoush are ignorant of the himba’s relational ties to the land. this knowledge gap on the part of the dominant group is causing the tension that binti experiences in the spaceship that she is travelling in to oomza uni. binti’s childhood is understood best as a place-based environment where knowledge and ways of knowing are tied to the land. one could also interpret the himba’s relationship with the land as a decolonizing approach that recognizes the sacredness of the land to the identity and heritage of a group of people situated in a black space. for example, the act of making the otjize and covering the body with this mixture of red clay and scented flowers in binti could be viewed as “performance practices that make indigenous life visible” and introduce the west to other ways of knowing (cesaroni et al., 2019, p. 116) . through binti, okorafor seeks to eliminate the myth of maladjusted racialized others from the consciousness of racialized readers whose participatory engagement has been ingrained and historicized to observe mainly the destruction of the racialized subject. the dark other is redeemed in binti by emphasizing the racialized other as a symbol of power and hope. for example, just before the spacecraft was attacked by the meduse, there was a poignant moment when a student named heru showed curiosity around the intricate patterns in binti’s braided hair. “you have exactly twenty-one and they’re braided in a tessellating triangle. is it some sort of code?” i wanted to tell him that there was a code, that the pattern spoke my family’s bloodline, culture, and history. that my father had designed it, and my mother and aunties had shown me how to braid it into my hair. (okorafor, 2015, p. 23) the complex and sophisticated knowledge of science that is a part of the himba culture is hidden in plain sight, such as the mundane hairstyles of the women—another way of highlighting the importance of other ways of knowing that are outside the realm of western knowledge. binti embodies the pride and academic brilliance of her people as she thinks about the codes that her father created to record her family history, a counter action to avoid erasure and misrepresentation. this perspective dispels the deficit notion of the tribal child that homogenizes the multifaceted experiences of african childhood to exoticism and being uninformed about the ways of the world, including technology (abebe & ofosu-kusi, 2016). binti’s effectiveness as a scholar is reinforced throughout the novella. her pride in her traditions and family values breaks away from the negation of the black family as normative. my mind was moving fast now. i was seeing numbers and then blurs. good. i was my father’s daughter. he’d taught me in the tradition of my ancestors, and i was the best in the family. (okorafor, 2015, p. 31). binti’s efficacy as a brilliant scientist and her evolving capabilities to realize her full potential and change the fate of her people permeate the novella. binti signals a generative black futurity (yaszek, 2015). africanfuturism as a framework for the reimagined black child binti’s references to the education she received from her father as a child highlight how okorafor reinstates march 2022 62 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research indigenous knowledge as a valuable resource and a means to introduce western scholars to other ways of knowing (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017). in this case, stem fields are situated within the grounding of indigenous knowledge as a focal point. the combination of braids and coding brings to the forefront two seemingly incongruous material items that showcase the ways okorafor uses africanfuturism to foreground black intellectual abilities while problematizing their current reality. in an online blog, okorafor (2019) states: i am an africanfuturist and an africanjujuist. africanfuturism is a sub-category of science fiction. africanjujuism is a subcategory of fantasy. africanjujuism is a subcategory that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing african spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative.… africanfuturism is similar to “afrofuturism” in the way that blacks on the continent and in the black diaspora are all connected by blood, spirit, history, and future. the difference is that africanfuturism is specifically and more directly rooted in african culture, history … and it does not privilege or center the west. (para. 6) for okorafor, african science and technoculture are interlaced with traditional practices and beliefs. in a 2016 interview with qiana whitted, okorafor stated, “to be african is to merge technology and magic” (p. 209). binti’s time at oomza university was influential in who she was and who she was becoming. the core conflict hinges on the intersectionality of race, culture, and gender, which can be a source of strength as one builds resiliency from such experiences over time. binti overcomes these obstacles of marginalization by holding on to her culture, which is rife with indigenous knowledge of the land and its relations to the himba people. she is strengthened and fortified by traditional practices and beliefs. the bond between the himba people and the land reinforces the importance of indigenous knowledge and practices to identity formation in non-western cultures. binti responds to the alien, okwu’s, questions about her traditional customs as follows: okwu: what is that substance on your skin? …none of the other humans have it … binti: it is otjize, only my people wear it, and i am the only one of my people on the ship … okwu: what is it? binti: mostly clay and oil from my homeland. our land is desert, but we live in the region where there is sacred red clay … okwu: why do you spread it on your skins? binti: because my people are sons and daughters of the soil.… and it’s beautiful. (okorafor, 2015, p. 47) binti’s realization that she didn’t need to fundamentally change who she was but be open to other ways of seeing and interpreting the world was a significant turning point in her growth. “and it’s beautiful” could be seen as her epiphany. the otjize is an important aspect of the himba culture and closely aligned with their self-concept. okorafor unsettles the typical colonial relationship to land by “considering how place can be encountered as more than a mute backdrop for young people’s discoveries” (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017, p. 104), thus implying that there are other ways of knowing. stories such as binti that merge western and african indigenous knowledge provide opportunities to understand other cultures and share common aspects of their humanity. the interplay between africanfuturism, afrofuturism, and science fiction is important in our understanding of binti. okorafor’s africanfuturism combines conventional western science fiction, african technoscientific traditions, and traditional ways of knowing. africanfuturism may involve mythology and magic to explore ways that africans can overcome alienation and the legacy of various colonial incursions in the past while striving to build new futures. march 2022 63 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research afrofuturism is a multidisciplinary cultural movement based on a unique connection between people of the african diaspora and technology, fantasy, and science fiction. the term afrofuturism was coined by cultural critic mark dery (1994) in reference to “speculative fiction that treats african-american themes and addresses africanamerican concerns in the context of twentieth-century technoculture” (p. 180). nelson (2002) sees afrofuturism as “sci-fi imagery, futurist themes, and technological innovation in the african diaspora,” which is presented in “original narratives of identity, technology, and the future” (p. 9). according to womack (2013), afrofuturism is a way of looking at future or alternate realities through a black cultural lens. it is an artistic aesthetic that may include music, dance, visual art, and literature. afrofuturism began as a scholarly theory of african american science fiction and a critical response to the works of african american writers and artists (anderson & jones, 2017; womack, 2013; yaszek, 2006). over the decades, the term afrofuturism as instead denoting a theoretical argument became a catch-all phrase for various works by black creatives (anderson & jones, 2017; elia, 2014). given how racism affects cultural productivity, including decisions around marketing and publishing, african american literature and music in specific genres have ended up being relegated to niche markets and sections in bookstores as a subcategory called afrofuturism, as opposed to the broader descriptions of science fiction and fantasy. afrofuturism is now a designated cultural and ethnic product. africanfuturism and afrofuturism texts are like conventional science fiction and fantasy texts. they focus on elevating black people in roles that are aspirational and emphasize their humanity. they promote inclusivity and project racialized people into the future with positive outcomes. at their core, they are about the recognition and reimagining of oppressive pasts and a meditation on power and its ability to shape human consciousness. as a rule, afrofuturism authors attempt to give young people a voice. stories like binti are often told from the point of view of the black character (imarisha & brown, 2015). binti’s experience on the spaceship with the meduse and at oomza uni engenders her awareness of a broader social reality. through counter storytelling, binti changes the single story that dominates expressions of black childhood as a place of violence, poverty, despair, and neglect (bernstein, 2011; elliot, 2013). the location of a black genius in the future suggests futurity and survival of black people as generative citizens. this form of storytelling in the science fiction genre parallels traditional science fiction that locates primary protagonists with exceptional skills. yaszek (2015) highlights the importance of the black genius in the works of early afrofuturists who established the genius as an essential feature of the black hero. yaszek’s argument locates academic brilliance within a racialized history—the only black figure who can succeed is the superhuman. yaszek claims that afrofuturists “treat such genius in a general way, as the birthright of afrodiasporic people everywhere” (p. 2). by normalizing the ability to excel, okorafor disrupts the white imaginary that blacks do not have a relationship with technoculture and opens the imagination for countless possibilities. okorafor makes binti’s technoscientific ability a central part of the story as well as of her identity. the representation of a hybridized binti as an amalgam of technology and biological enhancements questions the present, reconstructs the marginalized human as more, and offers a possible new future (haraway, 1991; suvin, 1979). delany (2012) states that “science fiction is not about the future; it uses the future as a narrative convention to present significant distortion of the present.… science fiction is about the current world—the given world shared by writer and reader” (p. 26). armillas-tiseyra (2016) sees science fiction and speculative narratives as a continuous invitation to theorize and question in a critical way the past, present, and imagined or possible futures. moving beyond human through technoscientific changes interrupts normative black childhood. it could also be seen as a way to avoid effacement and overcome exclusionary and anti-black systems of oppression that plague black children and youth in their social interactions. march 2022 64 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research joy james (2013), in her discussion around fanon’s black cyborg, suggests that to succeed blacks must be willing to give up their humanity. in other words, to succeed one must be willing to give up an already precarious existence on the scale of human development: always becoming. a scale where blackness is always positioned as less than whiteness—the supposed ideal. okorafor (2015) reimagines even this, by making the meduse’s integration of their dna with binti’s push her further along the evolutionary scale to become more than a marginalized human. the meduse physically alter binti to be stronger, with the capacity to communicate with both humans and meduse. she is “no longer a conventional human,” similar to fanon’s black cyborg, but a bridge to forge peace in the future (james, 2013, p. 63). okwu explains to binti that she was transformed “because you had to understand us, and it was the only way” (okorafor, 2015, p. 82). binti’s hybridity forms a cultural link between humans and alien species in her role as intermediary and the first human to communicate with the meduse on behalf of the oomza university leaders. she now sees both perspectives. one of the tenets of critical thinking is the ability to understand another’s point of view (law, 2007). many argue that unity can only be achieved by understanding the lens and contextual experiences of the racialized other (delgado & stefancic, 2012). binti’s innate skills as a harmonizer facilitate her transformation into an enhanced human. binti’s supernatural change becomes what james (2013) describes as “the new being, the rebel intellectual, [who] is now cyborg … biological, mechanical, divine (p. 61). despite hardships, binti grows in her capacity as a black intellectual and leader and transcends the limitations of being only human or less than human. binti: reimagining black futures writer and filmmaker kodwo eshun (2003) notes that “science fiction was never concerned with the future, but rather with engineering feedback between its preferred future and its becoming present” (p. 290). for eshun, afrofuturism is an ideal way to reimagine black futures. okorafor uses a similar approach in binti to inscribe the black presence in the future, signalling that black people survive and that technology is in the hands of black cultures. this action disrupts the notion of the “digital divide,” often perceived as the “tech inequities that exist between blacks and whites” (nelson, 2002, p. 1). the developmental and technological strength of black subjects is clearly defined as something that existed in the past and the evolving present. for example, binti found her edan when she was 8 years old while playing in the desert. the edan is a technological artifact with origins unknown: i … touched the edan in my pocket. i let my mind focus on it, its strange language, its strange metal, its strange feel. i’d found the edan eight years ago while exploring the sands of the hinter deserts. (okorafor, 2015, pp. 16–17) the speculative world of binti imagines black futures where technology is not restricted to the dominant group. black subjects are immersed in technology with prospects of becoming stronger and better. binti’s tribe, the himba, are master astrolabe builders and are the machines’ major suppliers on the planet. binti and her family are extraordinary creators of this cutting-edge technology, a communication device very similar to smartphones in contemporary society. the travel security officer scanned my astrolabe, a full deep scan.… i had to give them access to my entire life—me, my family, and all forecasts of my future.… he’d coaxed it opened by whispering a few choice equations and his suddenly steady hands worked the dials as if they were his own. (okorafor, 2015, pp. 13–14, emphasis in original) binti’s tribe demonstrates technological innovations that belie stereotypes of non-western societies’ lack of technological skills and development. the astrolabe in binti is not a new invention but occurs in relation to previously existing customs or practices. this restorying of the potentialities of african cultures “unsettles the march 2022 65 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research dominance of euro western knowledge in both normative and critical encounters with nature/culture” (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017, p. 99). the nature/culture tension arises from the ignorance of western cultures about other ways of knowing, described as indigenous cultures. binti struggles with this dichotomy during her early encounters with other cultures, but when her life is in danger on the spaceship, she comes to realize that the traditional knowledge from her village is vital to her survival. the edan activates itself and prevents the meduse from attacking her (p. 45), while the otjize (red clay) miraculously heals the injured meduse (p. 48). and by making the astrolabe the central piece of technology in the novella (pp. 34–35), okorafor is positing that scientific knowledge and creativity are not the domain of the west. the insertion of this little-known fact into the story recovers the effacement of technological achievements by nonwestern cultures, in this case from the islamic world (winterburn, 2011). winterburn notes that the astronomical instrument was created around 1230 ad in syria, and it predates the telescope’s use by over four centuries. the astrolabe was known, at least in theory, to the ancient greeks, but it was within the islamic world that it developed into a precision calculating instrument and essential tool for any astronomer. the astrolabe was used in the islamic world, and later in europe for many centuries, for everything from astronomy to surveying to time keeping. an adapted form was even used for navigation. (winterburn, 2011, p. 1) okorafor used poetic licence and made the astrolabes in binti interactive and intuitive. in binti, okorafor projects a world where young people’s relationship with technology is significant and black childhood is represented in context to their relationship to family and community. binti’s employment in her father’s shop as astrolabe designer and builder is also part of community building, a social relationship that resonates with the underlying principles of the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (african committee of experts, 1990). okorafor’s characterization of binti embodies africanfuturism as “literature of cognitive estrangement” (suvin, 1972, p. 372) that uses “speculative technology” (armillas-tiseyra, 2016, p. 279) to question the likelihood of black futurity. suvin (1972) summarizes science fiction as a strange newness that distances or alienates the subject reader to the extent that the reader is engulfed in an imaginary world far removed from the reader subject’s reality. this projected “strange newness … novum” (p. 373, italics in original) is the technology that separates the imagined world from the reader’s empirical reality and facilitates defamiliarization, or emotional distance, which stimulates insight and openness to other perspectives that are both “cognitive and creative” (p. 374). adejunmobi (2016) proposes that distancing the reader or viewer from their reality facilitates a critical perspective, that is, the purpose of the alienating effect or strangeness is to effect a paradigm shift rather than a distraction or an escape. as with suvin’s cognitive estrangement, the speculative technologies in binti introduce tension between the diverse array of knowledges that exist in various african cultures and the homogenizing of african cultures in the eurocentric imaginary. binti reveals that african cultures are a wide array of different experiences and knowledges that are valuable even from a eurocentric perspective. conclusion representations of binti as a brilliant scientist should not be lost on racialized youth reading the story and imagining themselves in a similar situation. in essence, okorafor is seeking to expand speculation, or our ability to conjecture beyond technology, to imagining “possible alternate futures as well as critically reimagining the past” (armillastiseyra, 2016, p. 278). for armillas-tiseyra (2016), it is this interweaving of old (familiar) and new (unfamiliar), rather than the fact of the speculative technology itself that produces the “strange newness” characteristic of the novum. the sf tropes … march 2022 66 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research [in binti] at once provide a critique of essentialist assumptions about africa (in particular in relation to technology). ( p. 279) in this act of recovery, okorafor relocates and repurposes technological and intellectual progress as the founding pillars of western greek and roman thought to the ancient islamic world and the african continent. by so doing, she is also reclaiming notions of futurity for black children and youth and the notion of the marginalized other always being on the path to civility and humanity (wynter, 2003). delany (2012) contends that “science fiction is a tool to help you think” (p. 13). and thinking is what okorafor requires of both binti and the reader—to think about possibilities; to reimagine a future for the black child. the liberating impact of science fiction on the imagination increases the likelihood of building alternative futures that offer other possibilities. bick (1989) declares: this “playing” with possibilities makes science fiction an ideal medium within which the adolescent may imaginatively extend beyond known horizons. the many aliens who populate science fiction are the paradigms against which the adolescent measures his own degree of alienation. (p. 738) accordingly, bick observes that representations of young people in science fiction place protagonists in spaces of malcontent and restlessness to facilitate development and growth. bick’s comments are particularly relevant to binti because, like any teenager, she is on a quest to find herself and establish an identity. binti could be read as an allegory for contemporary society. the story provides relatable and plausible situations and acts as a conduit to explore and identify transformation, resistance, and advocacy as key tenets when discussing young black females’ representation in the face of marginalization. afrofuturism and africanfuturism facilitate innovative and intersectional approaches to the impact of race, gender, science and technology, and children’s rights. binti’s story shows that africanfuturism narratives have the power to shift perspective with respect to gender, science, history, geography, and our view of black youth. the black girl in popular culture is reimagined in a way that demonstrates brown and imarisha’s (2015) conceptualization of visionary fiction that presents inclusive and aspirational narratives, so black girls and young women can imagine themselves in a different light. visionary stories eliminate sexist tropes and troubling backstories rife with racial stereotypes, and they challenge the conventional portrayal of black female characters. characters are presented with specific challenges and unique narratives that explore experiences of intersectionality in a manner that is meaningful to racialized subjects. stories by okorafor with alternative representations of childhood inspire us to rethink the present moment and envision a future in which black people survive in a world where technology is firmly established as part of their culture as they build a better world in which their individual and collective humanity is recognized. okorafor offers binti for careful scrutiny, an invitation to seek understanding of our cultural differences and to challenge systemic structures that dominate the majority and privilege a few. finally, as a visionary text, binti repurposes images of the young black female as worthy and smart. challenging norms, okorafor posits the notion that black girls and young women can succeed in stem by changing perceptions and expectations with stories of what black girls can do. march 2022 67 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references abebe, t., & ofosu-kusi, y. 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(2015). afrofuturism in american science fiction. in e. c. link & g. canavan (eds.), the cambridge companion to american science fiction (pp. 58–69). cambridge university press. september 2022 50 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research “somethings about me”: slanted conventions in children’s letters to beloved authors elliott kuecker elliott kuecker is a teaching assistant professor in the school of information and library science at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. he teaches courses on archival science and publishes interdisciplinary research on craftwork in schools, qualitative research methods, and academic writing. email: ellio@unc.edu in this study, i look at letters written by american children to two authors of juvenile fiction. these letters were housed in the two respective archival manuscript collections at the university of georgia’s hargrett rare books and manuscript library, filed among other materials like book manuscripts, payment receipts, and missives from publishers and librarians. the child admirers were largely elementary-school-aged, with a few middleschool-aged writers, writing from the 1960s through the 1980s. each letter was handwritten on stationery or notebook paper, many were adorned with added illustrations or supplementary media such as photographs and full-page drawings, and most were tucked into their original envelope. my interest in these letters has little to do with the authors of the fiction to whom the children wrote—i have not read their literature and i am not investigating the correspondence as evidence of literary circulation and reader reception, though i appreciate how carefully each author kept the letters from the children who wrote to them. instead, in studying the several hundred letters in these two collections, i found myself drawn to the way the child writers conformed to the genre of the letter very well, correctly following the conventions of proper letter correspondence. and yet, in the same instant, these letters slipped away from pure convention, showing use of various oblique tactics that would be unlikely to appear in adult-penned letters. the letters are intimate, funny, and generative. the german critic walter benjamin (1892–1940) once noted, in his essay detailing the revolutionary value of children’s theatre, that when an adult is observing children play or create, they are likely to catch a “signal.” he writes, “not so much a signal of the unconscious, of latent processes, repressions, or censorship (as the psychologists like to think), but a signal from another world, in which the child lives and commands” (1929/1999, p. 204). he noted that in the gestures of children were small signals of another world—the world of the child, which was not completely separate from the adult’s but profoundly different. i found benjamin’s assessment to fit my experience of reading these letters—how the child writers chose to detail their own thoughts and feelings, their pushiness in wanting to know personal information about the authors, and their ways of sharing their own writing and illustrations with these authors whom they considered to be experts on the matter all seemed to signal something about the lifeworld of the child. this article is a study of letters written by american children to authors of juvenile fiction. it emphasizes the rhetorical and material choices children made in bridging the distance between themselves as writers and the authors who were to receive the letters. focused on notions of convention, the study uses the theoretical concept of the slant to analyze the way the child writers conformed to conventions of writing and communication while also rendering those expectations askew. ultimately, the stylistic techniques and content choices reveal methods children used to cocreate a world with the authors to whom they wrote. key words: letter writing; children’s writing; archives; writing style; friendship september 2022 51 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research these noticings cannot merely be signals from the world of the child, however; benjamin (1929/1999) himself notes that the child is in constant negotiation with the world into which she has been summoned by the previous generation (p. 116). indeed, these letters reveal that tension between an adherence to convention—writing rules, social norms, expectations—and deviations from those conventions—tactless questioning, unusual details, and inventive phrasing. in other words, these letters contain an inherit dialectic between the expected and unexpected. within them is a drive for reciprocity and an invitation that ultimately reads similar to the theories of “common worlding” put forth by affrica taylor and miriam giugni (2012) and others. taylor and giugni write, “we approach the collectivity of common worlds not only as descriptor of ‘things we share or hold in common’, but also as an opportunity to actively assemble or bring together” (p. 110). while they center this theory in early childhood education, it also works well for thinking about the generative quality of writing and reading. in this case, the authors, literature, child writers, letter texts and illustrations, and themes of importance to both the authors and children all work in relation like a little community. as taylor and giugni note, we can think of “relations as generative encounters with others or shared events that have mutually transformative effects” (p. 112). the letters the children wrote show a natural dialectical tension between the expected and unexpected, an important facet to consider given that it shows the way children negotiated manipulations and adaptations of tradition. i call this tension between conforming and skewing the slant. the slant is a way to describe how these letters slip away from expectations. each letter is both conventional and slightly askew in the hands of the child. i prefer the concept of the slant over using something more straightforward, like dialectic, because the slant comes directly from several of the children’s letters rather than an outside theory. i came to the concept while analyzing a few letters in which the child writers had written their words on a formal, straight plateau, either using a ruler to draw lines (figure 1) or just neatly conforming to an invisible line on the blank stationery (figure 2). in these cases, the writer attempted neatness, but the results look like words falling downhill. while the words themselves are written on a straight plane, the plane’s trajectory is askew, perfectly illuminating what was impactful about the child letters in general—they conform, but not quite. figure 1. st. john, 1971–1974. september 2022 52 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 2. smith, 1970–1979. beyond the slanted plane, the concept of the slant becomes its own theoretical principle that is useful in discussing how the children’s letters effectively coconstrue this common world with the recipient of the letters, who—though a stranger in the formal sense—is not a stranger at all. the child who has read their books seems to feel intimately connected to the author, the characters, the thematic choices—it is as if the world the author initiated is not merely the author’s, but a shared world for the readers who were motivated to write letters to the author. after i settled on the concept of the slant, i remembered having seen the phrasing somewhere before. it was in emily dickinson’s poem, “tell the truth but tell it slant,” which suggests that we should always hide our truths just below the surface so that they might surprise upon close reading. dickinson writes, “the truth’s superb surprise/ as lightning to the children eased/ with explanation kind/ the truth must dazzle gradually/ or every man be blind” (dickinson, 1998). it seems dickinson is encouraging that when telling truths, they must come in layered, veiled fashion, so that they can be slowly unfolded. otherwise, the truth might blind those who encounter it. the children writing these letters seemed to follow this slanted advice, layering their own constructions within the veils of formal convention. archival sources in childhood studies while archival collections of children’s creations are growing, they are still quite rare. many archival collections are more likely to represent things done to or about children but not created by children. shurlee swain (2016) notes that while “there is data in a range of archival and demographic sources about children, this rarely provides the historian with access to how practices and policies directed toward children were experienced” (p. 8). those attempting to write the history of childhood, in particular, find the topic “an ‘illusive subject’ … burdened by ‘unstable’ records, ‘contaminated inevitably by more and immaturity superseded by adult authorities’” and thus “much of this scholarship has focused not on the child, but on the way in which society dealt with children” (swain, p. 3). plenty of archives contain things about children—media, policies, laws, objects created for them, etc., but it is more difficult to find artifacts of children as creators, authors, illustrators, or speakers, largely because such things are artifacts of mundanity. as historian of childhood james marten (2013) points out, children are “literally without political power. as a result, it is very difficult to get their points of view, and most treatments shape the lives of children and youth rather than flesh-and-blood youngsters” (p. 53). children do not, by most standards, “feature in traditional measures of progress” (p. 52), and thus their artifacts are not considered to be of great value by many measures. the experiences of children, like those of many other populations, are at times marginalized because of their lack of september 2022 53 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research archival representation, and to further complicate matters, many archives with child-created objects and texts are largely documenting trauma and war. marten (2013) notes that “wars create conditions that help historians access the lives of children and parents in ways that peacetime rarely offers” (p. 60). research like jack hodgson’s (2021) study of aerial drawings created by children, for example, were kept because they are products of the spanish civil war. carolyn kay’s (2021) study of children’s visual art comes from artifacts of world war i. saheed aderinto’s (2015) study of letters written by nigerian boys testifies to letter-writing’s place as a “cornerstone of elementary and secondary education” (p. 247), though the letters are also largely evidence of the trauma of living under colonial rule as child migrant workers. in other words, when we do find the trace of child creations within the archives, they are often linked to childhood trauma and atrocities. while such collections are extremely important, it is equally important to find children’s creations made during quotidian or joyful parts of life. most of the time, researchers obtain information about children’s everyday lives by partnering with children to collaborate on research, or asking them to create documents or art for the sake of their research, rather than using archives. some examples of this great work include pia christensen’s (2004) participatory ethnography, john wall’s (2019) notions of “childism,” and michael armstrong’s (2006) child-written narrative inquiries. children’s voices are indeed taken seriously in these studies, though the children also worked closely with the researcher to create the objects, which can stipulate what kind of interpretations can be made about the objects. further, this mode of research is limited for those who use interactive or discussion-based methods, and it can be hard to find child participants and get such research approved. for these reasons, the letters i look at are valuable as commonplace creations unrelated to any historical event and in that they were created unrelated to any kind of research goal. they are quotidian creations that function somewhat like researching “found objects of childhood” (burman, 2022) in that those who created them would likely not remember them now, in their older adulthood. found objects of childhood are things not “deliberately produced for research or exhibition” and thus “they pre-exist the moment of the encounter of being noticed, recognized, and—perhaps—collected” (burman, p. 2). found objects of childhood are often “previously disregarded in terms of aesthetic or material value” (p. 2). often, this means that they are thrown away as waste products or were left in a public space to be found, such as a flyer posted around a neighbourhood or a toy left behind. sources like these, when integrated into a study or exhibit, “transcend … the individual acts giving rise to their appearance and documentation” (p. 2). this allows for the third quality of found objects—they become endowed with an aesthetic or analytic quality and “incite critical reflection and generate plural understandings” (p. 2). in this way, found objects become provocations for interpretation far from their original intention. in my study of children’s letters, the sources are indeed child-created materials, but they are not pure found objects of childhood because they were never considered waste. the authors who received them carefully placed them among their personal effects, which means they were of value to the individuals who received them. they were not ever solicited by a researcher, but some were clearly elicited by teachers as thank-you correspondence after an author attended school assemblies to speak about their writing. these, to use karen sánchez-eppler’s (2019) terms, generally “under-utilized resource(s) for childhood studies” (p. 41) are the material traces of children (p. 41). like any other research matter, these letters should not be viewed as any kind of pure source of representation or authentic voice. quite often, childhood studies is committed to taking the voice of the child seriously at the expense of criticality of the concept of voice itself. though this task has good intentions, it is also fraught, given that the concept of voice has been slanted by researchers who point out that “this preoccupation with children’s voices, which is well deserved both in an ethical and a research sense, has mostly failed to scrutinize itself and to attend critically to issues of representation” (spyrou, 2011, p. 152). in the context of my research, then, it is notable that september 2022 54 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the letters i found were written by children themselves outside of the context of research, but it is further important to know that regardless, “children’s voices are constantly constrained and shaped by multiple factors such as our own assumptions about children, our particular use of language, the institutional context in which we operate, and the overall ideological and discursive claims which prevail” (spyrou, p. 152). like all communications, the letters are not representations of a child’s unmediated voice, somehow more pure than all other communications. after all, one of my major points is the way these children conformed to the traditional conventions of the letter, and in some cases the children wrote these letters in classrooms under the expectations of a teacher. so too, they wrote them in the context of communicating with an author whom they may have wished to befriend or impress, and they also wrote them in relation to fictional texts that inspired their letters in the first place. i say all this to mention that i am mindful that these letters are wonderful artifacts worthy of study—and also products of a specific context that may include limitations, power dynamics, and other critical factors. perhaps this is what makes them rich sources in the first place. methodology and theoretical orientation i performed archival research with print materials in the university of georgia’s hargrett rare books and manuscript library in the collections of two juvenile fiction authors. one collection comes from the author wylly folk st. john (1908–1985), who published her juvenile literature, which amounted to numerous books popular with young readers, with viking. the other comes from doris buchanan smith (1934–2002), who published with viking and putnam. her first novel, a taste of blackberries (1973), is well known for its realistic treatment of death and grief (ulin, 1980). in it, a young boy navigates carrying on with life after his best friend dies from a bee sting, a theme that showed up often in the letters. my method is descriptive and interpretive. i read hundreds of letters in my research, though i only cite some representative samples within this article. the letters were most often singular transmissions centered on particular novels the authors wrote, though some contain evidence of ongoing correspondence. having read over almost every letter in each collection, i was able to see the general traits of these letters, which informed my descriptive themes and analysis. my method is closely aligned with eve sedgwick’s (1997) notion of generous reading, a broad epistemology that embraces the affect and surprise we may experience when reading. sedgwick explains that academics are often taught to study texts with an “aversion to surprise” (p. 9) in order to keep a critical distance from the text. problematically, this critical distance, often termed the “hermeneutics of suspicion”—a phrase coined by french philosopher paul ricoeur (1965)—stipulates that the reader comes to the event of reading with suspicion of the text and its authorship, thereby preventing good or bad surprise that might be elicited by the text. sedgwick believes that the range of interpretive possibilities in the academy is epistemologically narrow, given that “paranoid inquiry comes to seem entirely coextensive with critical theoretical inquiry, rather than being viewed as one kind of cognitive/affective theoretical practice among other, alternative kinds” (p. 5). so, while we could be suspicious of a variety of things—like whether or not the thank-yous were enforced by a teacher, whether the cursive is indicative of systems of formalism in schooling, whether the children were too performative in their compliments to the authors, and so on—i am after learning something from the children’s rhetorical choices, material additions, and techniques for generative communication. embracing the decades-long rupture between the moment they were written and the moment that i read them, i embraced “the unexpected current that may jolt between present and past” (sedgwick, 1997, p. 28). as quotidian objects, these letters are hard to find and minor, but additionally, letters as a genre “belong to the micro view of history … it is not fiction but it is not fact” (bland & cross, 2004, p. 7). the letters i look at are, to conjure elizabeth freeman’s (2010) descriptions of her quotidian archival subjects, “history’s flotsam and jetsam” september 2022 55 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research (p. xvi). it turns out that in studying these letters, simply attuning to the moments where things did not add up was a successful way to find something worthy to say about them. the philosopher gadamer (1986) wrote that we can see creators and creations in the world as potential partners in dialogue with the one who is studying them. interpretive efforts can be a “reciprocal endeavor” with the original creator and their original audience, helping us “stretch beyond” our prejudices and beliefs (george, 2009, p. 16). thus, i feel that generosity and reciprocity serve as theoretical grounds for taking the children’s writing seriously, allowing me into the “symbiotic linkage” across time and space that those like gadamer promoted (auguiste, 2015, p. 9). the letters in the child-written letters in my study, the children’s ability to stick with conventional form and manipulate conventional form represent a great deal of the dialectical tension between expectation and surprise. interestingly, letters as a genre already accommodate for this dialectical quality because of two factors: (1) “the genre of the letter activates practices, norms, codes, and materials without which the ‘dear you … sincerely, me’ letter form would be unintelligible,” and yet, (2) “’a letter has no peculiarity but its form’” (king, 2018, p. 12). in other words, all letters are prone toward dialectical qualities because they are both very strict documents and very loose documents, in the same instant. more complexly, their strictness operates in form and content, and their looseness does the same. letter writing has been used in education from at least the 18th century (harris, 2009) to the 20th-century school curriculum (hall et al., 2000) because it teaches writing while also teaching socialization and norms. as harris (2009) notes, writing letters has historically figured as an “important [tool] for learning grammar and spelling, and polite and refined methods of socializing” (p. 334). so too, writing letters remains relevant in curriculum because it emphasizes the social structures of writing itself and helps the writer tangibly grasp the concept of audience, which is essential in writing and literacy pedagogy (hall et al., 2000). the child-written letters in my study would formally be called the social letter, the kind of letter that displays affection, offers an introduction to a potential new friend, or corresponds with an old friend (westlake, 1883, pp. 12–13). social letters range in content, and even though they are personal in nature, their form is expected to contain a header with address, a salutation, indented paragraphs, a complimentary close, and a signature (p. 17). these elements of form are strict, and adherence to these conventions is actually significant when considering the slant, given that the slant operates between the borders of the expected and the unexpected—conventions are merely expectations, and “arbitrary” ones at that (hall et al., 2000, p. 143). even something minor, like adhering to the format of letter writing, is significant in demonstrating one’s ability to fit into the norms of the world in which one was born. these conventions “operate to regulate transactions between people; they operate as guidelines for behaviour” (hall et al., p. 143) and inevitably mark one’s participation in human customs. in the letters i looked at, the child writers introduced themselves to the authors they had encountered by reading their books. many of the children were writing to notify the authors that they would be using their literature for book reports. many letters were also entirely out of the blue, written in the spirit of expressing admiration or criticism. other times, children wrote the letters because their teacher had instructed them to write a favourite author of their choosing, and thus their letter is part of a literacy activity. in a few instances, the children had met the authors in person at school assemblies or book fairs or were writing in anticipation of either event. the letters sometimes mentioned writing tips given by the author—from the content of these letters it was clear that smith often encouraged teachers to let children daydream during the school day. shana, in 1979, wrote, “i wish you could come again.… our teacher let’s [sic] us day dream sometimes” (smith, 1970–1979). smith also shared stories of her manuscripts being rejected from publishers during her assembly visits, a fact that seemingly resonated with september 2022 56 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research children, who often mentioned it in their thank-you letters. the slant shows up in letters throughout both form and content. a strong example is amy’s (1979) letter (figure 3). she wrote smith on beginner writing paper—the kind with lines that run along the landscape of the paper and contain a dashed line in their centre for assisting with scaling lower case and upper case letters. the second-grader tells smith, “i wrote because i wanted to tell you that i might be an author when i grow up” (smith, 1970–1979) and includes in the envelope her “best book the little lost boy [sic]” (smith, 1970–1979). it is significant that amy’s letter is written on beginner’s writing paper, suggesting that she is still learning how to write her letters correctly. at the same time, however, amy presents herself to smith as an amateur author who not only plans to become a professional author when she is old enough, but has already written enough books to be able to select a “best book.” having a “best book” means one has written many books and is self-reflective in evaluating their own output. further, in identifying herself as a writer, she is creating a commonality with smith, showing smith how they are similar in their career selection. so too, she is interested in smith’s feedback. figure 3. smith, 1970–1979. like amy’s supplemental book, many letters contained writing samples and often illustration samples. scott’s (1981) letter did not contain a separate book but rather a lengthy retelling of a story he wrote called “homer,” a classic baseball tale where a hapless athlete becomes a hero when he wins the world series for the mets (smith, 1970–1979). robert (1981) included a “sample” image of woody woodpecker for smith to consider, explaining that he needed her thoughts on his potential future as a book illustrator (smith, 1970–1979). judy’s (1973) letter to st. john contained various media. she adorned her plain writing paper with red flowers on a vine and included a separate pencil drawing of the school yard. her p.p.s. read “i got you a picture but its [sic] not to good!” her drawing, titled “summer,” also continued the apology below the art: “can’t color good! love ya, judy!” (st. john, 1928–1975c). this additional media may signal several things. on one hand, letters written in this vein show savvy communication because in asking for feedback on writing and illustration, the children are creating a space of reciprocity. letters, while written alone, are actually supposed to represent pieces of dialogue, though it is just as easy to write them as monologues. by asking for feedback on an area in which the reader has expertise, the children are setting up september 2022 57 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research an expectation to receive a letter back, and specifically, to receive a letter with customized information about their particular creations. the letters also create a sense of similarity between the writer and the reader, leaning into the common worlding notion (taylor & giugni, 2012) that emphasizes generative exchange and transformative change. the child’s act of sending text or illustration samples suggests i too am an author seeking another author’s feedback. as taylor and giugni note, children, adults, and nonhuman relations form communities through tactics such as “sharing of lives, mutual interest … and common experiences” (p. 110). this sharing of lives, mutual interests, and common experiences speaks to my concept of the slant continuously, given that a child like amy is writing on beginner’s writing paper and yet identifying herself as an author. or, in the case of judy’s letter, she has carefully created media and sent it to the author, but is uncertain of herself and continually apologizes about the quality of her art. these interesting tensions show that the child is in many ways asking for the collaboration of the author to whom they write—they want reinforcement, affirmation, or perhaps even a witness to failure. in taylor and giugni’s (2012) descriptions of common worlds, they note the importance of kinship, which in their formulation leans into donna haraway’s notion of queer kin relational ontology (taylor & giugni, p. 113), which includes animals, nonhuman entities, and things of all sorts. in such a frame, “queer kin encapsulates the possibility of sustaining relations with unlikely and very different but nevertheless significant others” (p. 112). the attempts for feedback and reciprocity from children seem to draw on the desire for kinship, but in the acts of pointing out commonality, they have also amplified their difference. this act of reaching out is a way of testing if those differences will be accepted, for which some of us, like judy, cannot help but admit our own doubts. clearly the added media and materials are as significant as the text in these letters. many children included drawings, like a portrait of a horse, a top hat, flowers, renderings of books, or drawings of people writing (figure 4) on the letter paper or on separate drawing paper. photographs, such as school portraits, were also common. some media defy explanation, like a photograph i found loose in one of smith’s folders. it was a polaroid of a young girl laying on a bed in wallpapered bedroom. the child looks to be sleeping on top of the covers in her day clothes. there are no details that would relate the photo to any of the letters’ text, nor any writing on the photograph itself. this photograph is a slant, as well, in that it is reasonable to send a photograph of oneself when making a pen pal, though many adults might think it inappropriate to send a photograph of yourself while sleeping or pretending to sleep. september 2022 58 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 4. smith, 1970–1979. like the use of photographs, many children were excited to share personal details, which ranged from expected to surprising, with their reader. for example, one child began her letter to smith saying: “here are somethings [sic] about me” (smith, 1970–1979). the somethings are grade (7th), stature (very small), and a list of authors the child will require her students to read when she becomes a teacher in adulthood: “the only books i am going to read to them are judy blume’s, ellen conford, alfred hitchcock’s, and yours” (smith, 1970–1979). this letter is emblematic of the kind of personal details the child writers often included. age, grade, school information, and family details are common. at the same time, children would often include other information that was specific and nuanced, such as stature. the added details about the readings she will require when she becomes a teacher act as personal information in that it begins a conversation about future career choices and how the child thinks of her own strengths. it also shows her evaluative abilities, particularly with a compliment given to smith in placing her books among alfred hitchcock’s and others’. in many letters, the children shared what might normally be mundane information—such as how many pets one has—thought it was not mundane given how the children presented it. for example, judy (1973) wrote to wylly folk st. john saying that she liked st. john’s first name very much. this led to her telling the story of how she was named: “my whole name is judith elaine. the way i got my name was my brother wanted to name me judy and the nurse wanted me to be named after her so i was named judith elaine and called judy” (st. john, 1928–1975c). similarly, in dawn’s letter (figure 5) to st. john, she mentioned that she included a photo of her and her dog, katri kahn of pakistan. the photo is missing from the folder, but importantly, she wrote, “my dogs [sic] father is september 2022 59 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research mr. whiskers of walfor (who is dead) and her mother is mitzi van linzich (linzick). i am 8½, my birthday is on january 16, born in 1964. my dogs [sic] birthday is on march, 14. she is 6½ ” (st. john, 1928–1975b). in each case, the child writers included basic and expected information, but delivered the information as part of larger narratives that surprise and delight, slanting far from the typical presentation of age, name, and similar information. in fact, these examples show that the children were not merely interested in sharing facts, but were actually interested in sharing their own origin stories. figure 5. st. john, 1928–1975b. similar tactics were used when children shared stories about how they had obtained the authors’ books in the first place, or when they relayed their experiences of reading the literature. these details often included information about librarians and teachers who had introduced the books to the children. terri (1973) wrote to st. john, saying that her class reading room had 138 books, adding, “our english teacher, ms. dixie, is so thrill [sic] over you” (st. john, 1928–1975b). she further requested, “when you write back, please write ms. dixie a little note” (st. john, 1928–1975b). troy (1973) described to st. john that the copy of her novel the ghost next door was overdue at the library, but that he was keeping it to read one chapter per night in his bed. after reading, he wrote, “every little noise in my room scares me!” particularly because of an illustration on page 3 (st. john, 1928–1975b). similarly, theresa (1972) explained to st. john that she could no longer take her trash out at night without fear of “spooks”— though her parents told her there was no such thing, she assured st. john that she had told them “yes, there are” (st. john, 1928–1975b). writing these kinds of details about one’s personal life, origin story, experience of reading, and so on exhibit a letter-writing technique that hall, robinson, and crawford (2000) call the tell you about me strategy, which they september 2022 60 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research identified in their study of 5-year-old letter writers (p. 139). they note that “this strategy reflects a recognition of the ‘distanced other’” (p. 140), that is, the one who is not physically present at the moment of writing the letter and to whom the letter is directed. thus, when the child writer supplies details about their lives to the person to whom they are writing, this is a tactic for creating intimacy with someone who is physically distant. hall et al. point out that the child’s understanding of the distanced other contrasts with piaget’s claim that children largely operate from an egocentric worldview (p. 140). children write letters that are thoughtful about the shared world at large, not merely sharing egocentric information but rather supplying “maps of the most significant part of their world” (p. 140). this unknown person who is receiving the missive from the child is indeed not unknown at all, and with the details the child provides, they can see the way in which they are already in a common world with the child. the sharing of details provides proof of the common world the two parties have already cocreated through the relations among author, literature, and reader. in this case, the children are strangers in the normative sense to the author to whom they write, and yet the content of these letters reveals that they see themselves as constituent parts of a common world, connected through the books and themes of the literature shared between author and reader. taylor and giugni (2012) note that it takes a constellation of relations to form a common world (p. 112), and in this case the constellation consists of the child, author, literature, and even the letters themselves. thus, when a st. john admirer mentions being scared after reading her mystery novels, the child seems to be corroborating the existence of scary things with the author, in spite of parental disagreement. such was the case for the child who noted that taking out the trash was now scary, though her parents did not affirm this. in this way, the child was writing to an author in solidarity of their common world, in which spooks and fear were legitimate and normal. hall et al. (2000) note that in their study, children emphasized ways in which they had crossed paths with the stranger to whom they wrote. sometimes this was as minor as a shared emotion over an event—the child might say i was excited too, for example. this strategy eases the reader into the dialogic zone of letter writing, where anything that might count as shared experience becomes an entrance and preexisting connection (p. 138). in this way, the children accomplished very sincere and deep gestures of connection through the craft of writing. as kathy eden (2012) explains in her work on renaissance letter writing, the genre originated as a way to remedy physical distance between interlocuters (p. 30). writing a letter is an activity meant to close the distance between one’s self and the other, which requires that the text written effectively draws the reader into the writer’s lifeworld. further, the children were participating fully in a tradition that preceded their existence—the tradition of letter writing. in this way, the children were initiating contact with a stranger by means of an established method loaded with norms and expectations. even the use of “dear” and the closing of “your friend” reveals a great degree of what gadamer would have called tradition—not in the negative sense in which something is considered outdated and outmoded, but rather how, as humans, we are “conditioned by the inheritance of the past” (george, 2009, p. 16) in our creations and transmissions. many times, the children opted for the most intimate of rhetorical moves within the conventional framework, such as the closings “love,” “with love,” or “your new friend.” similarly, some played with tradition to adapt things like the postscript to be a place for loving emphasis, rather than afterthought, like shannon (1981) telling smith in the letter’s text that she should feel free to “drop in anytime,” only to follow up with a p.p.s. that emphasized the point: “p.p.s. drop in anytime” (smith, 1970–1979). the invitation to get together was warm and repeated. the children who wrote these letters were thus very good at fulfilling a major goal of the genre itself—connection and closed distance. they did this through creating small textual moments and media. it is these moments of success that also read as slanted—they are surprising and unlike the kinds of rhetorical moves we might expect. september 2022 61 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research this is due, in part, to what writing theorist ken macrorie (1984) said young children could do better than all adult writers—write honestly about what they know well: “this is the first requirement for good writing: truth; not the truth (whoever knows surely what that is?), but some kind of truth—a connection between the things written about, the words used in the writing, and your real experience in the world you know well—whether in fact or dream or imagination” (p. 14, emphasis added). rhetorically speaking, then, the child writers cure the problem of physical distance through their ability to tell “some kind of truth” (p. 14), not to be confused with the truth, a stricter notion of authenticity than i am operating with in my study. another representative sample of the common world between the children and their letter recipients is found within one of my favourite letters, from a girl named mamie who wrote to smith. in her letter, mamie included details about her family farm, a new home by the lake, and a postscript that read: “p.s. my brother he is 16 years old and he loves to write storys [sic]. he is gone [sic] be a preacher” (smith, 1970–1979). what stands out here is the fact that she mentioned having five siblings, but only provided information about the one brother. why was this brother singled out in the letter? in my interpretation, this brother was mentioned because mamie saw him as a connection to smith. it is as if she were saying, you are a writer and there is also a writer in my family. in addition, the final detail “he is gone [sic] be a preacher” has no immediate relevance but contains a world of information about what is significant in the personal life of this young girl writing from south georgia. it is simple, accurate, and contains that honesty macrorie attributed to child writers. finally, it operates as a strange letter in terms of its contents, which in the same stroke is a perfect letter because of the intimate view it opens into the child writer’s world—in other words, it is pristinely slanted. in many letters, this ability to share great details about one’s own lifeworld is matched by an excitement for learning more about the author’s thoughts and feelings, as evidenced by the numerous personal questions asked in the letters. sandra (no date) told st. john about roller skating with a group of methodists, adding, “i’m a baptist, (what are you)?” (st. john, 1928–1975b). inspired by the content of st. john’s thrilling novels, which included some witchcraft, tracy (1973) inquired, “i am very curious to know if you ever went to a séance, or if you are married?” (st. john, 1928–1975b). like many children who wrote st. john and smith, carol asked for a photograph and more, writing, “do you have a picture i could have of yourself … could you give me some info about yourself ? i am writing in love for your book” (st. john, 1928–1975a). questions about children, family, requests for photographs, and more, are common, illustrating how the letter writers expected to be in ongoing relations with the authors. tracy (1973) ended her letter saying, “i write letters alot [sic] but usually dont [sic] get a reply” (st. john, 1928– 1975b), suggesting that she was using the questions to, as another child writer described, “be friends by writing” (smith, 1928–1975b). some of the questions children asked throw the notion of convention into new tension, given that the questions could easily be seen as impolite or too nosey for introductory communication. if convention is meant to help teach and dictate social behaviour, the children defied some aspects of convention by lacking what we would consider tact. a lack of tact, on the other hand, serves to slant convention toward intimacy, thereby making it somewhat effective in curing that problem of physical distance. gadamer (1975/2009) theorized that tact is a tricky thing because it is “tacit and unformulable” (p. 15), and requires a “special sensitivity and sensitiveness to situations and how we behave in them for which knowledge and principles do not suffice” (p. 14). but surprisingly, he explained that in choosing to be tactful, one purposely averts their gaze from something they have seen. he wrote, “tact helps one to preserve distance. it avoids … the violation of the intimate sphere of the person” (p. 15) by slipping past the thing in question rather than knocking on it. asking a nosy question of a stranger is a common tactless move, but in a more positive way, it is also a strategy for getting at that truth content that macrorie argued children are particularly good at expressing. september 2022 62 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research for example, the child writers sometimes criticized or challenged the content and style of the authors’ novels, exhibiting the way in which common worlds should not be naively thought of as spaces without conflict. many letters to smith mentioned her novel a taste of blackberries, in which a young boy dies of a bee sting and the narrator, who was a close friend of the deceased, must grieve through the rest of the text. david (1981) told smith: “your book … was good. i would have liked it better if you put the part where jamie died at the end. i would have also liked it more if it had been longer. sincerely yours, david” (smith, 1970–1979). daven (1981) liked the book but “hated the grandfather,” asking “how come you made the grandfather so mean?” (smith, 1970–1979). an unknown correspondent (1977) challenged the realism of death by bee sting, telling smith, “i didn’t think it made much sense. it is true that you can die of a bee sting if you are alergic [sic]. but it does not come att [sic] your first bee sting” (smith, 1979–1970). similarly, some of st. john’s novels were in the mystery genre, which led readers like john to critique the realism of some scenes: “i liked uncle roberts secret very much except i don’t think dynamite will explode from a jar” (st. john, 1928–1975c). these letters are important for showing the way that children did not merely accept the narrative choices authors made but grappled with whether or not they were reasonably realistic, timed appropriately, or needed at all. if we think of the relations among the child, author, literature, and letter as a shared world, then we see that the children are pushing against decisions made about what happens in that world, displaying tensions that arise in any shared political and communal space (as discussed by taylor and giugni [2012] in their formulation of shared worlds). in both cases of the child asking personal questions of the authors and challenging their authority over their writing and the research of their content, their doing so displays a kind of tactlessness that goes against the conventions of letter writing. interpreted in light of gadamer’s notion of tact, however, we see that the child is transparently announcing the desire to be intimately involved with the writer and the narrative choices, pushing to have a place of importance in the shared world. while these kinds of rhetorical choices go against conventions of letter writing— which emphasize politeness and constraint—the slant of it all is that going against those very conventions actually serves the original purpose of writing letters in the first place: to close the distance between people who are not physically close together. in this way, the child’s lack of tact is in some ways an improvement on the genre. getting directly into conversations about religious choices, family structure, and challenges of writing choices attempts to break down distance, implicating the child writer and letter reader into new, sometimes uncomfortable, terrain. ultimately, many of these child writers wrote to the authors because they already felt close to them and wanted to offer up their favourable assessments of the literature. robert (1969) told st. john, “your story really impressed me” (st. john, 1928–1975a) and sherry (figure 6) told smith that her publication was “considerate, reliable, and well crafted” (smith, 1970–1979). many children also described how reading about grief was meaningful in light of recently losing grandparents and others. in many cases, it is clear that the letters not only helped create intimate relations, but that the relations clearly preexisted the letter being written. the shared world was already there, and the letters acknowledge it and complicate it by offering up more democratic communication between the authors and the child readers. now, the children have the chance to address the authors, proving that they do more than simply receive the literature. september 2022 63 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 6. smith, 1970–1979. in some cases, the child admirers wrote smith or st. john with such familiarity that it took very careful readings to understand their relationship. pam’s (1970) letter to st. john, for example, begins with an apology: “i’m sorry that i haven’t written in such a long time” (st. john, 1928–1970b, p. 19). this is immediately followed with evidence that pam and st. john do not actually know each other, given that pam goes on to introduce herself, explaining, “i have a cat and a dog and some goldfish” (st. john, 1928–1975b). similarly, sandra apologized for not having written st. john recently, and went on to offer to halt her correspondence so that st. john could finish her next book (st. john, 1928–1975c). in the same letter, however, she asked for the title of the next book. it seems that st. john must have corresponded with both of these girls, who each signed their letters with “love,” but given that each letter contains introductory data, st. john was not a regular pen pal of the children. in many of these cases, the slant occurs due to the instability of roles—the letters slip between notions of familiarity and distance very quickly. these kinds of letters redraw the normative lines of text to author, making elements of the novels active players in the shared world between author and reader (who becomes letter writer). this fits, indeed, as it is well understood that it is not merely humans who act, but also nonhumans—the novels, the letters, and even characters and themes that the novels conceptually consider become active participants in creating the common world. in another study of letters from admirers, linda m. grasso (2013) studied notes from women who wrote to georgia o’keeffe and argued that “’knowing’ the paintings means also ‘knowing’ the artist who created them. this fantasy produced the illusion that viewers were intimately connected to the artist and her work” (p. 29). in other words, the artifacts become active participants in creating the common world—as products of the creator and also things themselves, beyond the creator. several letters illustrate this part of the slant, revealing the way this complex intimacy is felt. tammy’s and cheri’s letters to st. john each reference the other, seemingly because the girls met st. john together at a book event. it appears that st. john used their names in one of her novels because they were her admirers. tammy began, “i am taking the privilege to write you and thank you for using my name in your book” (st. john, 1928–1975b). september 2022 64 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research she included a wallet-sized headshot and with blue pen, drew a horse’s head on the bottom of the page, next to her phone number. she had not read the book that included her name, but said, “i’m sure i’ll enjoy it” (st. john, 1928–1975b). she ended with, “thank you for your interest in me” (st. john, 1928–1975b). cheri’s letter begins, “i don’t know what to say but, ‘thank you’ for putting me in the book, “the ghost next door’ i have read the book and think its wonderful. i also like [sic] the part i play in it” (st. john, 1928–1975b). despite using the girls’ names in a novel, st. john did not know the girls well, as evidenced by the fact that she misspelled cheri’s name in her book. cheri pointed this out, only to forgive st. john, writing, “well don’t think its your mistake because everyone spells it that way. it’s the thought that counts” (st. john, 19728–1975b). the girls both saw the use of their names as more significant than the author simply borrowing a name for a book—these girls felt that they had been integrated into the text. for tammy, the naming of a character after her was akin to “an interest” in her as a person. she noted she would buy several copies of the book to give to her nieces for christmas, which may suggest that she assumed her nieces would also see her name within the book as some indication of a certain level of fame. cheri’s name was misspelled, revealing the lack of connection st. john and she had, and yet still, cheri understood this naming as if she had been cast as an actor in the text. in fact, in her own letter, she quoted herself as if she were a character speaking dialogue: “i don’t know what to say but, ‘thank you’…” and “well i better be going now ‘bye’!” (st. john, 1928–1975b). it does not require meeting the authors in person to feel connected to their texts. laura’s (1979) letter to smith contained the most inventive closing: “berrily yours, laura” (smith, 1970–1979). laura’s penmanship is perfect and her letter contains all formal conventions of letters, making her “berrily” jarring. at first i thought it might be a misspelling or an error—but it does not closely resemble any normal closings for letters. while it sounds like the word barely, a skilled writer like laura would know that is not an appropriate closing for a letter. in this letter, laura calls smith’s book “touching” and speaks about a taste of blackberries resonating with her because she recently lost her grandfather. it is most likely, then, that laura’s word berrily is a beautiful portmanteau. it combines the title of the book, a taste of blackberries, with the 19th-century letter closing verily yours. laura’s invented word is impactful because it actually only works in reference to smith’s own book. it is a word for one occasion and one relationship, created to express something new. it is as if she were telling smith i am confidently yours and also i have adopted your language into my own. the potential of this word expands even more in light of an earlier error in the letter, where laura wrote, “i am to you because i read your book a taste of black berries” (smith, 1970–1979). here, it seems like laura may have intended to write, “i am writing to you because…” (smith, 1970–1979), but the word writing slipped away before being written down. grasso (2013) found that in the fan mail to o’keefe, many writers felt prompted by the art to enter into “intense, intimate connection in which distinction between subjectivities is eradicated … [and] merging is the transformative result” (p. 29). similarly, many of the child writers’ letters described the way in which lives had already merged into a new space, a world dictated by the complex relations among many different things, both human and not. tammy, cheri, and laura all found themselves as part of the texts in various ways, suggesting that the material boundaries of the novels were irrelevant. tammy saw her name in the text as an interest in her as a human being, meaning that the name carried her with it into the new text, a thing that was created, not only due to the author writing it, but also because of her existence. cheri saw herself as part of st. john’s novel and believed st. john wrote her, so to speak, granting st. john’s abilities enormous consequence. laura extended the text into her letter, cocreating new words/worlds that merged sentiment with smith’s own language. september 2022 65 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research conclusion the “chief virtue” of letter writing, writes kathy eden (2007), is its ability to foster “‘close relatedness’,” which “ applies not only to the subject matter and the language but also the character of the writer” (p. 235). letters are meant to bring people together in spite of distance, time, difference, and anything that “hinders intimacy” (p. 237). and even under such romantic intentions, they are still a formal genre with strict stipulations of style and form. in fact, learning how to successfully compose them according to convention is used as a way to teach norms of behaviour and communication at large. these letters written by children to beloved authors show how the goal of close relatedness is often best met through slanting conventions, allowing for many relations to mingle in the new world created among the author, reader, text, conceptual themes, letters, and other elements. the drive to manipulate, extend, and play with expectation can coincide with sophisticated rhetoric, nuanced techniques, and carefully negotiated layers of family, politics, pets, humour, fears, grief, postscripts, photographs, and anything that can fit into a missive and an envelope. september 2022 66 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aderinto, s. 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(2003). in gale literature: contemporary authors. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/h1000086490/ litrc?u=uga&sid=litrc&xid=a1601d81 june 2022 1 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies from the guest editor holes, gaps, and openings: crafting collective climate pedagogies with/in complex common worlds nicole land, lisa-marie gagliardi, and meagan montpetit, guest editors holes, the concept that holds together this special issue of the journal of childhood studies, may seem a strange choice as a metaphor for a collective project like this, yet holes poke through each article we share in “responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods.” in this editorial we ask what centering holes, gaps, and openings might make possible for reinvigorating the relations of the interdisciplinary colloquium on climate pedagogies that sparked, and shares its name with, this special issue. held in february 2020, the colloquium took place on the lands of the anishinaabek, haudenosaunee, lūnaapéewak, and attawandaron peoples, at western university. this special issue picks up strands of thinking shared at the event and asks: how might we, more than two years later—two viral, extraordinary years—reenter the colloquium’s openings and explore its gaps and holes? we see holes as endemic to climate realities: we dig literal holes, large and small, into the ground while the profound erasures and egotism of anthropocentrism pretend not to notice the holes increasingly needled into the euro-western fallacy of its impenetrable skeleton. concurrently, we see holes as a practice of hope—a mark worth tending to and ready to be cared for as a way of immersing ourselves into the mess and vitality of our contemporary worlds. as we worked on this special issue, we met many holes: covid-shaped holes in our timelines, holes in our memories, and increasingly urgent holes in our own scholarship as we imagined how we might respond well to our ever changing common worlds. before visiting with each article and its hole-making, we propose three manifestations of holes that poke through the articles: holes as fragile reading practices, puncturing holes in the human, and thinking holes with climate pedagogies. we invite readers to experiment with these holes. within neoliberal logics of individualized perfection, romanticized holistic approaches to education, and ontologically indestructible relations with knowledge, a hole might seem almost an apology, akin to a marker of unavoidable imperfection or a highlighting of something too slippery to be contained by the margins of an article. these manifestations of holes certainly hold energy in this special issue, as authors name their positionality and the limits of perceptibility that accompany their situated relations, where not everything is knowable to everyone. but holes also matter otherwise throughout this gathering of articles. holes, as isabelle stengers (2005) proposes, are about “giving to the situation the power to make us think” (p. 185). in early childhood education and beyond, the drive for certainty and solutions during the climate conditions of the anthropocene (drew & macalpine, 2020; hodgins et al., 2022; nelson & hodgins, 2020; taylor et al., 2021) urge us to read toward innovation, explanation, and stopgaps. this is reading animated by the panic felt by the all-knowing, powerful human amid ongoing settler colonialism (nxumalo, 2019) who feels a neoliberal responsibility to become a better steward of the world (taylor, 2017). a steward reads in the name of acquiring the knowledge necessary to rescue the earth from the holes we have carved in land, atmosphere, and more-than-human species. instead we want to advance holes in our reading practices as we engage this special issue—not seeking holes through critical analysis in the name of negating scholarship that does not echo what we are familiar with, but taking holes as an invitation to notice how and why it is we tune to the fissures, the slowness, the beautiful frailty of our writing and theorizing amid the complex common worlds we share with children and our more-than-human kin. thinking beyond the arrogant human of humanism (taylor, 2020), the one who patches holes in the sidewalks they’ve paved across the soil as they dig holes to mine and consume the earth, we know that holes draw us into particular relations: relations that attune to the work of living in a world ripe with holes both inherited and created, june 2022 2 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research both life-giving and stripped of vitality in the name of progress. in weaving together the pieces shared in this special issue, we want to see holes as an active common worlding project (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2018) and a political ethic oriented toward living well together. to think holes here is to puncture the image of the human who, depending on the context, both drills holes in geographical relations (nxumalo, 2017) or is overly apologetic—almost performatively atoning—for the holes in their own work and lively relations (one iteration of a practice tuck and yang [2012] name as “settler moves to innocence” [p. 1]). paying attention to holes becomes one practice in the careful work of imagining life beyond the human. here, we echo a question laid out by a sister symposium: “what might the figure of the anthropocene provoke within twenty-first-century childhood studies and education?” (kraftl et al., 2020, p. 335). we respond with a tentative gesture toward holes, asking what holes do to the anthropocene and amid the anthropocene. extraction, commodification, and harm are made through holes oriented toward capitalist destruction and human exceptionalism, but in the same gesture, noninnocent holes also serve as tunnels and arteries in worlds built of reciprocity, vulnerability, and relationality. holes, then, are a high-stakes, shifty, situated project, one against solutions but toward recognizing that we are implicated in complex networks of holes and hole-making, where holes are not imbued with morality, but it is how we respond with the holes that animate our lives and our conceptions of the human that matters. finally, as we move to spending time with holes with each of the articles, we want to get to know holes with pedagogy. pedagogy, which we think alongside cristina vintimilla and veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2020), is about figuring out how to live well together, where “life-making is not a process created through consensus or through applying an already decided definition of life” (p. 638). with vintimilla and pacini-ketchabaw, we “propose that [life-making] happens in the midst of struggles, interruptions, and even failures” (p. 638). how might we think holes as life-making? how might getting to know holes as collapse or strife that stretches beyond our own individual experience and instead orients toward becoming implicated shift how we might learn to respond with climate pedagogies—especially given the suspension-ridden holes of a global viral pandemic (phelan & hansen, 2021)? we want to take up rooney, blaise, and royd’s (2021) question: “what can the practice of ‘muddying’ or being in a ‘muddle’ offer as a pedagogical approach in early years environmental education?” (p. 111). we want to ask how holes implicate us in muddles that deepen our pedagogical thinking and acting. we can fall down holes, trip over holes, lower ourselves into clefts, punch holes in walls, fill the void of our empty gas tanks, and gouge out earth ripe with metals needed to keep our bodies and worlds in motion. how then does thinking with holes become a proposition of pedagogy and not just a lived reality? we propose, as do the articles that follow, that attending to holes as a practice and a process doused in the thick of life might be a tentative method toward thinking pedagogically with climate realities. as deborah bird rose (2017) wrote, we are called to live within faith that there are patterns beyond our known patterns and that, in the midst of all that we do not know, we also gain knowledge. we are called to acknowledge that in the midst of all we cannot choose, we also make choices. and we are called into recognition: of the shimmer of life’s pulses and the great patterns within which the power of life expresses itself. we are therefore called into gratitude for the fact that in the midst of terrible destruction, life finds ways to flourish, and that the shimmer of life does indeed include us. (p. g61) holes, here, are about life-making: how do we do the intensely, acutely difficult work of figuring out how to live well together with holes and hole-making as a commitment to creating and nurturing otherwise—responsive, mutual, answerable—relations and climate pedagogies within our common worlds? we turn now to thinking with each of the articles in this special issue, taking as a common theme how holes orient us differently to our messy, lively worlds. june 2022 3 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research hole-making and tending within this special issue opening our special issue by working in the holes of settler epistemologies, virginia caputo experiments with interdisciplinarity and expansive thinking as a settler response-ability in her article “entangle, entangled, entanglements: reimagining a child and youth engagement model using a common worlds approach.” caputo brings children’s rights and common worlds into dialogue, with the intention to drop these two approaches together into the hole we call early childhood studies and to listen to the echoing incommensurabilities and overlapping commonalities that bounce back. engaging in diffractive listening, caputo pays attention to synchronicities and clashes and the possibilities for “how a rights-respecting approach can be productively reconfigured in envisaging a dynamic climate pedagogy” (p. 8). thinking specifically with a youth engagement model called shaking the movers, caputo tangles concepts of the “postchild” (aitken, 2018), more-than-human agency (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2019), and ethics of interdependency and alliance in human rights (khojamoolji, 2017) to amplify the asymmetrical power relations and settler logics inherent in human-rights-based discourses. this responsive entangling of recomposes euro-western definitions of what the human is made of and aims to reconfigure the shaking the movers model by inviting a generative and expansive reconsideration of children’s entanglements in more-than-human worlds. listening and then responding to the messy and entangled echoes that resound from dropping children’s rights and common worlds approaches into a dialogical hole, caputo widens and deepens the contours of child rights and restorative justice approaches in the shaking the movers model. in “keepers of the night stories,” the second article in this special issue, janna goebel writes of child-earth stories, wondering who the keepers of such stories are. anchored in an ethic of becoming-with the world, goebel shares stories generated in a school in southeastern brazil where, through care-full walking conversations, she came to know and participate in children’s already existing stories of more-than-human relationships. in thinking goebel’s article with our provocation of holes, we might ask how we story holes: how do our natureculture stories (blaise & rooney, 2019) not just embody holes, but how do we story with holes, and why might such a proposition be relevant to thinking climate pedagogies in the 21st century? goebel writes of how stories are continually in motion and asks readers to practice speculative diffraction in reading —a strategy against reading too readily for coherence, as the figure of the anthropocentric human asks us to enact. reading holes alongside the practice of storying goebel performs, we might start to see the stories we tell with holes as ways of not simply examining or better understanding a hole—be this a literal hole in the ground or a more conceptual hole in the literature—but as an ethical commitment toward storytelling and storylistening. storying holes makes perceptible the modes of getting to know the lively politics of a hole through moving slowly, linking to systemic analyses and worlds, and having the patience to avoid reiterating an already existing, all-too-easy humanist narrative of how and why a hole has come to be. how do we story holes? why? in a sense, goebel is storytelling against teleology—a practice very relevant to storying the holes of climate change against chronicles of solutiongenic human exceptionalism. in the wake of certitude, goebel tells stories of entanglement where readers are asked not to read nonuniversality as a hole in the scaling up or universalized applicability of her research, but to instead make stories with holes that matter, to “story-with the vignettes to speculate about what might come into focus if we were to decenter the humans from the story and instead foreground the damage that humans collectively cause” (p. 30). in the third piece in this collection, bridget stirling labours with concepts of temporal care and ethical relationality to unsettle settler time in relation to constructions of childhood in “childhood, futurity, and settler time.” situating this work as a decolonial project, stirling offers critique as a way to rupture settler constructions of time and childhood. the article looks for the gaps in settler constructions of time and childhood; rather than steer clear of these potholes, she pauses to offer them as a third space—not in the guise of june 2022 4 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research decolonization, but as a space to resist the dominance of settler childhood and allow multiple ways of knowing time and the temporalities of childhoods to take up space. here, we experience holes as temporal gaps that are “shaped like other childhoods than those of white, settler children” (p. #) and engendered by the persistent image of the settler child living through settler linear time. these temporal gaps, like potholes in the road, collect water, trash and debris; they crack and widen, get patched up and crack again as the ground shifts and settles. stirling spends time in the temporal gaps, while also staying implicated in her own critique by resisting a settler move to innocence and taking care to avoid appropriating indigenous knowledges as a recuperative solution to tentatively patch the holes in settler epistemologies and the damage of colonialism. taking seriously this responsibility to think otherwise, stirling grapples with what it might mean “to live with and beyond the damage through a third way of establishing relationships of care that allow for the copresence of all our multiplicities in more-than-human worlds” (p. 43). “‘watch out for their home!’: disrupting extractive forest pedagogies in early childhood education” revisits a moment from practice in which nancy van groll, heather fraser, and a group of children meet a decaying log. in this fourth article, holes show up in many places. most obviously and literally are the holes in the log, from which tiny insects emerge after human disruption. but here we want to take up the metaphorical holes that inhabit place. van groll and fraser think through the child / decaying log narrative with haraway’s (2016) proposition to stay with the trouble. this proposition is often taken up as a thin gesture to gloss over the troubles of our times or make them less threatening. the authors defy this trend by returning to trouble as one might return to a scab: they pick at the trouble and refuse to let it heal. this is a commitment to pick and pick again at “romantic, extractive, and redemptive discourses” (p.48) that perpetuate settler colonial narratives and flourish in much of early childhood education’s engagement with climate relations. this wound they pick open again and again challenges humancentric conceptualizations of child-forest assemblages and offers possibilities for creating responsive, imperfect pedagogical practices. the metaphor of picking a scab helps us as readers to notice the vulnerability associated with refusing the selfcontained human subject and offers opportunities to rethink human relations with the climate crisis and the world through collective, nonredemptive entanglements. it asks the unsettling question, what if we, as humans, can’t fix this? what if this humanist wound we have chosen to keep picking at has been opened too many times to heal? in the fifth contribution to this collection of articles, will parnell, julianne cullen, and michelle angela domingues write of a layered process of engaging teacher educators, early childhood educators, and local artists with a documentary about albatrosses dying from having swallowed great quantities of plastic waste. in tending to bundles of plastics, birds, and humans, parnell and his colleagues detail the immense affective complexities of presencing the sharp violences of climate change across early childhood education contexts—and the hard work of insisting on bringing such a documentary to a vein of research-practice that often rests in colonial narratives of childhood innocence. holes become quite literal as we see the holes wrought by decay, as bird bodies die and rot around the enduring plastics that once lived in their stomachs. staying with these holes made by bird deaths, by the liveliness of rot-making microbes and the stubbornness with which plastics resist decay, we are haunted by holes in this story of birds and plastics: holes linger behind plastics. we think of the holes brought by petroleum extraction, mined deep into the prairie soil and threaded across landscapes of grass. holes made by gas transported across the continent in massive pipelines both dug into and laid over the ground. the pipeline too is a hole, one made of progress and capitalism and filled with expensive sludge that motivates wars and suffocates marine life. holes that haunt the experience parnell et al. describe are more local, too—holes made of hydro or geothermal heat that warms the rooms at academic conferences and inventing remida portland, the sites of this work. these holes are less overt than the holes in june 2022 5 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research dead birds and the gap left in delicate ecosystems by the annihilation of these creatures, but this proposition toward tracing the holes that haunt our climate pedagogies is ripe for thinking in the company of parnell et al.’s article because, as the authors offer, “this research offers a re-turning in ways of relational living with our lands, rocks, waters, earth and with humans, birds, and nonhuman kin” (p. 70). a re-turning, we suggest, deepened by thinking of the holes that haunt our own work. in “dis/orientating the early childhood sensorium: a palate making menu for public pedagogy,” alex berry, jo pollitt, narda nelson, b. denise hodgins, and vanessa wintoneak write of the work of curating and sharing an interactive exhibit that invites visitors into the complexities of thinking climate pedagogies as alterpolitics in the making. a key connection that berry and her colleagues make is between palatability and public pedagogy, where publics and pedagogies are made in the politics of what is deemed palatable in education—and how. in dialogue with our curiosity about holes, we might infiltrate this trinity of palatability, pedagogy, and publics with holes, wondering about which holes are made perceptible within which pedagogical commitments. that is, we cannot attune to all holes at all times, nor can we make and unmake all holes perceptible at all times. invoking the early childhood sensorium as a question whereby we might ask how we do perceptibility—what becomes perceptible with which sensorial entanglements?—berry et al. highlight perceptibility as an embodied and political activity. might we too think of making holes perceptible as embodied work? how do we attune to holes and to which holes can we not attune? berry et al. take up similar questions by sharing a speculative menu that details the curatorial work of the exhibit, arguing that climate pedagogies might take up practices of insatiability and aftertaste to unsettle grandiose narratives of human exceptionalism and consumption. this is a making-perceptible that traffics in traces, in muck, in hunger, in necessary irresolution. we might extend such a practice to thinking holes: how do we notice the holes berry et al. center as carefully curated provocations toward thinking pedagogically with insatiability and aftertaste? which holes are made perceptible in enlivening climate pedagogies and which become irrelevant, erased, or escape the scope of our curatorial practices? as berry et al. provoke, “how does a connoisseur come to savour what they are already eating yet may be able to ignore?” (p. 86) finally, as the closing move of this special issue, in “speculative child figures at the end of the (white) world,” emily ashton interlaces theoretical dispositions from childhood studies, anthropology, feminist science, black feminism and anthropology to create uneasy reconceptualizations of the world’s end. thinking with the zombie child melanie from the speculative novel and film t he girl with all the gifts, ashton offers questions about the end of the world that puncture a universalized understanding that the world ending would be “bad” for everyone. centering race as a consideration in end-of-the-world discourses, the article acknowledges that climate crisis disproportionately affects racialized bodies and moves beyond existing identity politics to imagine the end of the world as the end of the “human exceptional world of whiteness” (p. 96). ashton moves through defined holes, lacing together theory, fiction, and current events to challenge the reader to think carefully about who the human is and how taken-for-granted conceptualizations of the human slip through the cracks when thinking about relations with the world through singular perspectives. pulling together these particular genres and theoretical perspectives might gesture toward the possibility of a comprehensive theoretical understanding that could propel toward “the solution” of the ails of our world: racism, climate crisis, a virus. instead, ashton refuses to collapse them into one identifiable big bad and is unapologetically against the logics of redemptive status-quo engagements with our troubled world. this refusal produces tensions in between the holes and incommensurabilities that pull toward ethical responsiveness and difficult questions about who the human is and who is made killable. reading holes june 2022 6 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research we have presenced a provocation of thinking with holes amid climate pedagogies as a practice for drawing common threads through the articles to follow in this collection of articles concerned with responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods. moving into thinking with each article, we invite readers to grapple with these questions surrounding holes: which holes do our climate pedagogies dialogue, resence, puncture, and make perceptible? why? how do particular holes haunt or scab our thinking, embodying fissures in settler epistemologies that matter toward thinking climate pedagogies? what do we make of holes when thinking climate pedagogies? or, put differently, as you spend time with the articles in this collection, how might holes serve as a generative ethic, politic, and practice of listening in the name of crafting collective climate pedagogies together with children within complex common worlds? june 2022 7 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aitken, s. 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(2017). beyond stewardship: common world pedagogies for the anthropocene. environmental education research, 23(10), 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452 taylor, a. (2020). countering the conceits of the anthropos: scaling down and researching with minor players. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 41(3), 340–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1583822 taylor, a., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2018). the common worlds of children and animals: relational ethics for entangled lives. routledge. taylor, a., zakharova, t., & cullen, m. (2021). common worlding pedagogies: opening up to learning with worlds. journal of childhood studies, 46(4), 74–88. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs464202120425 tuck, e., & yang, k.w. (2012). decolonization is not a metaphor. decolonization: indigeneity, education, and society, 1(1), 1–40. https:// jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630 vintimilla, c. d., & pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2020). weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. european early childhood education research journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1817235 july 2020 14 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research touching is worlding: from caring hands to worldmaking dances in multispecies childhoods tuure tammi and riikka hohti tuure tammi, phd, formerly an elementary school teacher, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the university of oulu in the animate research group. his research is situated at the intersection of childhood studies and education with a focus on multispecies relations. his current research interests include matters of care in child-animal relations, the role of microbes in (environmental) education, and toxic embodiment in childhood. tammi’s research article on participation and posthumanism that was co-written with riikka hohti and published in the finnish journal of historical and societal educational research kasvatus & aika was awarded article of the year in 2018. email: tuure.tammi@oulu.fi riikka hohti conducts research on child-animal relations, and materiality, digitality, and temporality in education. she has worked as a lecturer in the faculty of education, university of helsinki, as a postdoctoral researcher in the animate research group, university of oulu, and as a postdoctoral research fellow in the educational and social research institute in manchester metropolitan university. her current project at the university of helsinki focuses on more-than-human education and care. hohti has published peerreviewed articles in journals such as childhood, kasvatus & aika, and qualitative studies in education, and she is coauthor of the book lasten ja eläinten suhteet: monilajista yhteiseloa (child-animal relations; forthcoming in 2020). email: riikka.hohti@helsinki.fi it is time for the animal club. primary school students rush inside the greenhouse. one of the kids, jaana, puts her hand in the terrarium in which fudge and marshmallow live. she holds some seeds on her palm to make the gerbils interested. fudge and marshmallow come to sniff the hand and to climb on it. jaana attempts to grab the gerbils, misses, then tries again. after a while she holds fudge in her hands and smiles. “is it soft?” i ask. “quite, but it has sharp nails.” there is something mesmerizing in the dance the gerbil and the hands make together. (storytelling fieldnotes) this article examines the phenomenon of touch to illustrate child-animal relations and care within encounters between young humans and other-thanhuman animals. these encounters take place within a multispecies educational zoo, built in a big greenhouse in the atrium of a finnish comprehensive school. in the greenhouse, a caretaking practice has been established that involves training volunteer students as responsible carers for their respective animals. through looking closely at situations in which bodies touch each other, our analysis aims at addressing the embodied, lived, and fleshy dimensions of child-animal relations while troubling anthropocentric habits of thinking about care, touch, and research. a growing amount of childhood scholarship examines childhoods as relational, material, and more than human, thus challenging the divided notions of nature/culture and human/animal (see, e.g., childhoodnature in this article we analyze the phenomenon of touch to discuss care and knowing within child-animal relations. the empirical part was conducted as a multispecies ethnography in a comprehensive school with an educational zoo built in a huge greenhouse. storytelling, despret’s idea of “versions,” and insights drawn from dance are used to take a close look at touching events between the research participants. from observations of caring hands and the materialdiscursive dimensions involved in stroking, the article moves on to consider ways of knowing and not-knowing that intertwine and are produced in touch. finally, touch is discussed as a complex worlding dance that always takes more than two. key words: touch; child-animal relations; care; multispecies ethnography; dance july 2020 15 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research scholarship, cutter-mckenzie-knowles et al., 2018; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2018). we have previously analyzed engagements between children and other animals in the greenhouse, theorizing childhood, childanimal relations, and care beyond essentializing “natural” and innocent imaginaries (hohti & tammi, 2019). following the premise of human nature as an interspecies relationship presented by anna tsing (2012) and richard grusin (2015), we presented the concept of multispecies childhood that entails defining human childhood through connections and interdependencies among species rather than through the distinction between humans and other animals (hohti & tammi, 2019). in this paper we build on this empirical and conceptual work by focusing on multispecies bodies and touch. what a body can do and become is a central question in the current body and affect theory (blackman, 2012; despret, 2016; manning, 2007, 2014), one that needs to be thought along with the complexities of lived bodily connections. in the words of feminist scholar maria puig de la bellacasa (2017), dealing with noninnocent care requires hands-on “impure involvement” in the world. our analysis draws on spinozian-deleuzian conceptualizations of the body as processual, emerging from relationality, always in movement or in a “becoming” state, and more than human (blackman, 2012; manning, 2007). our approach to the interspecies encounters between humans and other animals in the greenhouse is informed by the more-than-human ethics of care presented by puig de la bellacasa (2017), who theorizes care as consisting of three necessarily coexisting dimensions: the material (embodied) dimension of labour, the affective dimension, and the ethico-political dimension. the tensions between these three layers give her concept of care its critical edge: for her, care is always noninnocent. crucially, these theories urge us to move from asking what a body is, to what it does and can do in situated practices—to an emphasis on the capacities of the body to affect and to become affected (blackman, 2012; despret, 2014; manning, 2007, 2014). puig de la bellacasa (2017) notes that there is a specific promise in touch about embodied modes of thinking and knowing, modes that would be “in touch” with materiality and thus not restricted to the otherwise dominant visual and linguistic forms of meaning making. similarly, this promise emerges in discourses regarding various dance forms, such as tango (manning, 2007) and contact improvisation (paxton, 1993; turner, 2010). moreover, touch is also a phenomenon deeply related to politics and ethics. for karen barad (2012), touching involves the inseparable dimensions of physicality, virtuality, affectivity, and emotions, and moreover, touch is a matter of ethics through her notion of response-ability: touching, sensing, is what matter does, or rather, what matter is: matter is condensations of responseability. touching is a matter of response. each of “us” is constituted in response-ability. each of “us” is constituted as responsible for the other, as the other. (barad, 2012, p. 215) thus, knowing does not come from observing the world from a distance but from engagement with(in) it. donna haraway (2008) speaks about “critters” being involved in co-making of worlds in the processes of worlding, in which the question of who gets to live and die and how are at stake. world, in other words, is a verb or a gerund—worlding—an ongoing, more-than-human patterning through which species and their histories meet, and in which possibilities for invention, speculation, proposal, response are opened. in the context of dance, specifically contact improvisation, touch has been regarded as potentially offering emancipatory possibilities through developing sensations and reflexes required for overcoming the restricted identifications available (paxton, 1993; turner, 2010). importantly, in steve paxton’s thinking (paxton, 1993; turner, 2010) , improvisation moves toward new embodied modes of knowledge through orienting to that which is not yet known. this definition of improvisation emphasizes experimentation with the changing physical environment with appropriate placement and energy. july 2020 16 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in her theorization of touch through the metaphor of tango, erin manning (2007) points out how this dance is historically linked with national identity and cultural territory. however, these striations are continuously worked on by the dimension of not knowing involved in touching itself. touch also necessarily affects and changes those involved in touching: after having touched or having been touched, we will literally never be the same again, even if the shift is sometimes microscopic, as we will discuss later. touch is thus directed toward bodies and worlds yet to come, and its improvisational and responsive nature entails that the futures present in touch are never fully settled (manning, 2007). the relation between the possibility of embodied knowing and the stance of not knowing is the creative tension underpinning our exploration of touch in a multispecies context. in what follows, we will first describe the context of our research—the school greenhouse zoo—and our storytelling approach. then we will take a closer look at the noninnocent practices of care among the human-animal relations in the greenhouse, specifically, selected touching events that involve gerbils and their young caretakers. multispecies ethnography: storying, touching, and being touched as part of a larger multispecies ethnographic research study, we spent five months (two days a week) with a group of young people, other animals, and school staff in a comprehensive school located in a suburb in southern finland. the school houses one of the biggest educational greenhouses in the nordic countries, complete with all the technology required to create a subtropical climate in the middle of the surrounding arctic environment. established in the 1990s and first used as a rescue facility for homeless pets, the greenhouse has evolved into an unofficial educational zoo inhabited by both rescue animals and purchased ones and the offspring of both. the school is located in a disadvantaged, largely immigrant-background suburb, which is why the municipality directs the school some extra funding for the greenhouse, according to the so-called positive discrimination policy. during the fieldwork period, the greenhouse inhabitants included some 40 bigger other-than-human animals such as turtles, rabbits, a parrot, a dove, cockatiels, a green iguana, a water dragon, a corn snake, mice, guinea pigs, gerbils, a rooster, and a hen. there were also smaller critters such as stick insects, ants, snails, mealworms, and flies. plants included tropical fruit trees, jacarandas, hibiscuses, and more. some other-than-human animals (such as the chicken and iguana) moved relatively freely around in the greenhouse, while most of them were in cages and terrariums. the birds mostly flew around and sat on beams close to the glass ceiling. the doors of the greenhouse were open to visitors, but an inner circle of some 20 students (aged 13–16) liked to spend most of their free time in the greenhouse. the young students appointed as caretakers of the other animals were mentored by two biology teachers, armi and taina. some of the secondary school students also were leading socalled animal clubs, which were afternoon clubs for smaller children, aged 8–12. often, no adults were present in the greenhouse. the young people spent time there on their own, taking full responsibility for feeding, cleaning, and other daily tasks related to maintaining the greenhouse and taking care of the other-than-human animals. our fieldwork made us engage with a stream of stories told by the children and the teachers about the inhabitants of the greenhouse. we quickly adopted storytelling as our primary way of writing fieldnotes and analysis, of which examples are shown in this article. in practice, during our field work, we would spend time in the greenhouse and listen, wander around, make contact with the other-than-human animals, and chat with people. we also took photos and videos. we would write down the stories we heard and go on working with the stories in an online document, allowing theoretical concepts and further empirical events to blend in in a rhizomatic manner. at the end of the field work period, the storied materials proved to be an engaging way july 2020 17 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to talk about our findings to the child research participants. in our storytelling-fieldnote writing we leaned on haraway’s (2016) ideas about the material-semiotic mutations of life, illustrated by her metaphor of “compost” and in her insistence that stories do things: “it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with” (haraway, 2016). accordingly, while telling and retelling stories about touch, we also witnessed how these stories fuelled and encouraged further modes of touch in the greenhouse. äijä the iguana occupies a central place in the greenhouse. we usually find him standing (or sitting?) on a branch in his special glass-walled, extra-heated hut. äijä is respected and acted upon with a certain cautiousness: already an eye contact with this slow, stiff reptile feels hypnotic. tuure and i spend weeks in the greenhouse keeping distance from him. one morning, however, a previous student of the school comes to visit. we witness him caressing äijä, stroking his cheek in a spot where the skin is softer and looser. he tells how he used to be äijä’s responsible caretaker; he still comes every now and then to see him and to check if he still remembers him. “he does.” encouraged by this, tuure touches äijä and strokes him, and soon i stroke it as well. (storytelling fieldnotes) the example above illustrates how bodies and stories become ingredients of a kind of material-semiotic “compost” (haraway, 2016). it was through listening to the stories of the lizard’s former caretaker and watching him touch äijä that we also gained the courage to touch äijä ourselves. this event then continued to affect life in the greenhouse. the aim of troubling the anthropocentric gaze in ethnographic work presents a vast methodological challenge. how might we justify calling our storytelling approach “multispecies”? we follow earlier multispecies ethnographic scholarship in that our ambition is not to make claims about “capturing” an authentic (animal) perspective; rather, the focus of our study is multispecies relationality, or “questions of kinds and their multiplicities” (van dooren et al., 2016, p. 1). animal philosopher vinciane despret (2016) suggests that scientists could work through creating “versions” and refers to speculative and poetic modes of knowledge, which do not need to be harmonized or coherent. one of her research protocols, “visiting,” points at an approaching of the other in a polite and respectful manner, with an awareness of the possibility of mutual and intra-active shaping of the other. this kind of research can hardly be generalized or normative; rather, it is anecdotal and situated (snaza, 2019; also puig de la bellacasa, 2017). multispecies scholarship at large emphasizes the impossibility of outside observing, and instead suggests “passionate immersion” in the field (tsing, 2010; van dooren et al., 2016). most conventional qualitative research ethics are based on human individuals’ integrity and safety, and they reflect the wish to control any unpredictability that might occur during the research. this wish becomes complicated in a multispecies research setting. how, for example, could you ask for informed consent from the other-than-human participants of the study? multispecies research reveals how the formative steps of research ethics adhere to an anthropocentric worldview (pedersen & pini, 2017). when a research setting is understood as a multispecies one, the ideas of individuals begin to be replaced with those of multiplicity. in these kinds of settings, participants are “always more than one” (manning, 2013; van dooren et al., 2016), or in fact, regarding touch, always more than two, as we are going to discuss later. eventually, we suggest that touching itself can be considered as a mode of multispecies methodology that involves aspects ranging from research ethics to the epistemological and ontological premises of inquiry. when we first came to the greenhouse to begin fieldwork, we went to see all the kids and their teachers, but also our other-than-human research participants. walking around in the greenhouse from one cage to a terrarium and back, we made ourselves present to the other-than-human animals by touching the glass of terrariums, kneeling july 2020 18 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in front of the cages, making eye contact, noises, and movements, talking, and breathing/sniffing. without giving it a further thought, it so happened that we touched the other-than-human animals whenever it seemed safe and appropriate (sometimes we were responded to by a bite). however, in addition to the researchers approaching the other animals, the other animals also approached the researchers. when the turtle jimi hurried across the greenhouse floor to gnaw our leather shoes—which, according to the stories we were told, was his habit of “dancing” with his previous owner—the necessity to inquire through means other than only verbal or visual became evident. caring hands a greenhouse, once established, needs daily maintenance and care. human hands are involved in almost every aspect of organizing and taking care of this technical construction, in this case the home of many other-thanhuman animals. we followed how the children and young people moved coops and terrariums from one place to another, decorated them, wiped the floor, changed new materials for dirty ones, threw garbage away, fed the other-than-human animals, chopped food, and brought fresh water for them. human hands were involved even in the reproductive processes of the other animals at the greenhouse (see hohti & tammi, 2019). the final encounters between the hands of the caretakers and the smaller animals like gerbils had to do with death: the caring hands (the hands of one of the biology teachers) filled a glass tin with ether, dropped the gerbil in, and closed the lid tightly. this is how the smaller animals in the greenhouse were sometimes euthanized. the last time the bodies of the humans and their small companions touched each other was when the gerbils were buried or dissected during a biology lesson. who gets to live and die, and how, are matters of worlding (haraway, 2008). the greenhouse world is hand led and hand dependent, shaped and conditioned throughout by the capabilities of human hands and their prostheses, such as technologies. it is along these lines that pet keeping and “animal rescue” are possible, but also uneasy questions of pain, freedom, birth, death, and killing are propelled. of course, we do not claim that humans with hands are the only possible actants of care. however, the work of human hands in the greenhouse drew our attention because of the ways in which care and touch materialized in and through them. the capabilities of the caring hands became illuminated as noninnocent. the material, the affective, and the ethico-political dimensions of care were also brought up by the children. at the animal club, the young leaders asked the participating children to make a list of a gerbil’s daily needs on the blackboard: food water hay box cage sawdust tail (for balancing) sand social animal (needs other gerbils) seed mix vegetables berries insects stroking july 2020 19 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the list gathers together some of the things a greenhouse gerbil is daily in touch with. besides maintenance and provision of food, water, and a suitable environment, the children also included social and affective aspects of care in their list. but as puig de la bellacasa (2017) theorizes, along with the material and affective dimensions of care, the ethical and political issues emerged at once. the hay, the sawdust, the seed mix, and the cage relate to the ethically dilemmatic histories of captivity and commercial pet industry: the inherently asymmetrical power relation between humans and gerbils is the background from which the specific lives of the greenhouse gerbils emerge. the existence of an individual in isolation is rendered an illusory figuration. be it humans or their tiny companion species gerbils, the greenhouse critters depend on assemblages of electricity, fresh water, economic resources, curricular discourses, and more. the histories of humans and their other-than-human companions intersect in complex ways. in the course of processes of coevolution, some animal species have been bred toward the needs and desires of humans, and on the other hand, humans have become attached to and dependent on the capabilities and qualities of some otherthan-human animals: for scent, playfulness, intimacy, and so on (e.g., haraway, 2008). how gerbils became pets is a source of stories in itself. pet gerbils are said to descend from 20 pairs of gerbils that were captured in mongolia in the 1950s and sent to the usa for laboratory research (new world encyclopedia, 2019). one story about the domestication of gerbils is that they bred too rapidly, and the laboratory started giving them to the workers. another version of the story, told to us by a pet store keeper, maintains that some workers in the laboratory understood that gerbils were sensible beings with souls and therefore started caring for them. the assemblages through which gerbils became popular pets can only be speculated on, but what is evident is that these assemblages made the gerbils “not killable” (see also despret, 2016) but instead “strokable.” fudge climbs on jaana’s sleeves and she takes the gerbil back onto her palms. “how did you first become interested in gerbils?” “in 2016 i was here the first time. i wondered what these are ... i was told they are gerbils. ever since i have come to greet them every time i come here. usually i don’t take the other gerbils in my hands, just this one. this has got used to me.” (storytelling fieldnotes) ultimately, the noninnocent shared histories of gerbils and humans have to do with bodies, hands, and rhythms. jamie lorimer (2007) talks about “nonhuman charisma” as a relational variable that emerges from the material and ecological properties of interacting sensory bodies. the reasons for the popularity of gerbils as pets can be found in the fact that gerbils are day-active beings, but also, their small size makes them easy for humans to accommodate, to transport, and to hold in hands. when jaana forms a little nest with her two palms, fudge fits into them perfectly. stroking relations of care are not only situated in time and space, but they interfere with time and create specific “care time” (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). ultimately, in our study, stroking had the capacity to interfere with the temporal structuring of school. “i always come here,” said one of the children. in this sense, the idea of “getting used to” hardly concerns the other-than-human animals only (see despret, 2016). in the course of a longer period of care time, stroking can become a way of getting to know how the other is doing and what she might need. one day salla, one of the caretakers, approaches us with a gerbil in her palms. “here is musetta. it no longer does all those funny things; its ribs can be felt; its caretakers are not spending time with it.” (storytelling fieldnotes) good care at the greenhouse included the assumption of human caretakers spending time with their “own” july 2020 20 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research greenhouse animals in physical closeness. in the case of jaana and several other students, this meant visiting the greenhouse before, during, and after the school day, lifting the gerbils from their terrariums, taking them into their hands, stroking, caressing, and talking to them. an intense mix of affect and care emerges along with stroking. touch as an aspect of care has been considered as reinforcing the affective bond between individual animals and thus as elementary for the survival of the beings (lemma, 2010). the stroking of a purring cat is one of the most rewarding experiences of cat lovers. these kinds of engagements also belong to the obvious forms of human-animal interactions that are believed to enhance the well-being of humans, which is a dominant focus of many studies on humans and their pets (e.g., esposito et al., 2011; prokop & tunnicliffe, 2010). as puig de la bellacasa (2017) notes, while care is born in relationality, it also creates new relations, also surprising ones. we found one such surprise in the greenhouse when a group of boys devoted themselves to taking care of giant african snails, giving them baths and stroking them, although we had considered these creatures among the least charismatic animals in the greenhouse—their housing used to be behind the gerbils’, the glass of their terrariums covered in slime. puig de la bellacasa (2017) talks about “the mingling of literal and metaphorical meanings that make of touch a figure of intensified feeling, relating, and knowing” (pp. 98–99). situated in the school environment, stroking could be simply another mode of constructing empirical species-specific knowledge about other-than-human animals. learning to know the other as a particular significant other living in an “associated world” (despret, 2016), however, multiplies the dimensions at hand. the precarious dance of touch let us return to jaana and fudge and the relation between them that we have come to think of as “love at first touch.” we watch the video of the small gerbil and the girl over again, mesmerized. fudge climbs up jaana’s sleeves and she carefully takes the gerbil back onto her palms, stroking it, making sure it does not drop. however, jaana is not holding the gerbil down, but the gerbil and the girl engage in a continuous exchange of movements and response to movements whereby a mutual balance is maintained. “how can you tell if it likes it or how it feels about being in hands?” “well, at this moment it is a bit afraid.” “do you feel it, or how do you know it?” “like, i don’t feel it, but for so long i have only taken this gerbil ...” “okay. so it’s different each time?” “yeah.” (storytelling fieldnotes) even though the movements might seem repetitive, touch is invented differently in each repetition. in addition to larger movements, this improvisational dance includes an infinite number of smaller movements—movements so minute they are close to imperceptible. manning (2014) draws on gil’s ideas on bodies as more than, talking about how seeming balance always requires such micro movements, as well as virtual movements: intervals, intensities, forces. she suggests that each balance is a multiplicity—there is no single axis of the body, no single point of stasis, rather only something she calls “metastability” or precarious equilibrium. for manning, the micro movements are vibrational forces that make moving bodies multiple and complexly active. when jaana and fudge touch each other, they are invited into a precarious dance that demands continuous rearticulation, july 2020 21 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research exchange, and response—a contact improvisation that is actually intra-action involving the creation of a specific spacetime. within this field of vibrational forces consisting of smells, visions, sounds, microbes, hormones, and other chemicals, we can begin to perceive how their bodies exist beyond their skin. the human being and the gerbil as bounded individuals are not the only entities in touch here. when consisting of micro movements and in-betweens, touch is multisensory, or better: multiple. along with the world-making dance, a specific kind of thinking—“thinking-with”—can emerge. the partaking entities do not necessarily merely think together, however, but the micro movements make it something like thinking from within. following manning (2014), this kind of thinking or knowing might feel like nonthinking. thinking with is different than thinking about, because in it thought and movement become one in a shared dance. such a process does not have an aim outside of itself. rather it is a way of relating, or making space for relations, knowledges, and bodies yet to come. what emerges is not only knowledge about the other but a sort of dancing-knowing that cannot easily be put into words. theorizing touch and dance together suggests that where lived and fleshy relationships are at stake, neither stability nor a perfect balance can be found. there are only balancing events that render those relationships always already porous, never stable, and lively. do not touch above, we analyzed touch as a balancing event emerging between a child body and other animal bodies. touching events between species, those that can be likened to a dance, however, are sometimes heavily regulated. when we started our fieldwork in the greenhouse, our attention was caught by some of the notes on the walls of the terrariums and cages: “do not touch” or “only appointed animal carers allowed to touch.” stress was an issue constantly brought up by the greenhouse kids. we were told that stress could be induced by too much stroking by too many hands—a situation very realistic, for example, during the breaks, when there often was a rush to the gerbil terrariums. while the children were expected to be in physical contact with their companion animals and were sometimes scolded by other caretakers if they had not done so, the stress discourse indicated the existing need to balance between the desire of touching and its effects. the bunnies are sometimes so stressed. you notice it when you go to their cage and open it, they don’t come to the human, for example. if you hold them on your lap, they start to nibble, and so on. (one of the student caretakers) one of our participants, mikael, contemplated why she had difficulty taking other animals in her hands. for her, physically touching the gerbils and stroking them were overwhelmingly uncertain acts, and the not knowing involved in them became too much. she did not want to touch the animals without being sure how they would feel about it. touch offers us the possibility of asking and sensing what the other might be experiencing, but it also opens space for speculating what kinds of new relationalities might become produced (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). for mikael, the possible consequences of touch were too precarious and uncertain, potentially exposing the participants to new vulnerabilities. paula is sitting with the other kids on a table, telling them about the rabbits she has at home. all the kids have gerbils in their hands. the hands do not stay still: with gerbils they have to adapt to another rhythm and movement, they become different hands, and the gerbils in turn have to adapt to another rhythm and movement with the hands ... now paula holds a black gerbil so hard it can’t move. it sinks its teeth into paula’s hand, biting it for a july 2020 22 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research really long time; it did not stop for 30 seconds or so. paula keeps yelling and screaming: “help! help me, what can i do!” then the gerbil finally lets go followed by a blood spill. armi the teacher takes paula to the water sink, cleans the wound, and puts a band-aid on. paula is still crying. armi tells paula that all the best caretakers have been bitten by their animals. paula is not that sure: “i will never hold gerbils again, at least not black ones!” (storytelling fieldnotes) the events storied above have provoked us to go even closer to touch, following haraway (2016), who insists in looking at the details of a situation because they matter. as one version of touch, biting does not occur merely between two bodies: the gerbil and the child are differentially enmeshed within a larger relationality. the nose of the gerbil moves. so does the mouth of the child, and the body of the researcher is not outside of this assemblage either. this way, it is not only the skin as the boundary of distinct bodies that is involved in touching. rather, touching emerges in between multiple moving bodies in relation. throughout this paper, we have used dance, specifically tango and contact improvisation, as points of reference when making sense of moving bodies in multispecies touching events. dance helps us to understand how movement produces bodies that did not exist before. a fundamental difference, however, emerges in connection to the ethical issue of consent. the principle of mutual consent means that contact improvisation can be stopped any time. but in the interactions storied above, the possibility of escaping from the dance was not equal. following despret (2016), we could ask what this kind of a dance asks from us. her approach does not try to imagine the gerbils’ point of view of the dance as a truthful representation; rather, she suggests thinking with “versions”—a methodology that leads to a multiplication of definitions and what is possible, to make more experiences visible, to cultivate equivocations, in short, to proliferate narratives that constitute us as beings who are sentient, connected with others, and affected. to translate is not to interpret, it is to experiment with equivocations. (despret, 2016, p. 176) thus, we hereby offer our version. the nibbling pushes the hands-in-sensation to move differently. during the movement, or dance, biting is sometimes disciplined (“don’t bite”) or essentialized (“gerbils always bite”; “they bite almost everything”). sometimes the biting pushes the humans to listen to the dance differently (“maybe it wants to go back to the terrarium”) or to meet the limits of their understanding (“help, i don’t understand this gerbil”). biting, we might insist, is an example of contact improvisation gone violent. perhaps violence was always present in the turns of the dance as a potentiality. we might also think about the shared interspecies histories in terms of dance. this way, animal captivity, commodification, and utilization for human purposes in homes, in laboratories, and in factory farming could be understood as movements on the same continuum—as violent materializations of dance. but returning to armi’s comment on the importance of bitings in learning to care, we might also consider the ways in which touching events themselves teach us abilities to respond, or response-abilities (barad, 2007). understood this way, care in human-animal relations cannot be standardized or taken for granted—it is relational, complex, and noninnocent. always more than two in western anthropocentric worldview there is a long tradition of thinking about relationships in terms of oneto-one interactions. as the saying goes, it takes two to tango. but as we have shown, when bodies reach out to touch each other, the consequences are never certain. with manning (2007) we have suggested that touch cannot be separated from other sensations and movements: a body (as movement) also expands outside of its skin. a new supply of hay had been brought in just before a winter holiday. some students had negotiated july 2020 23 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research with the housemaster that they could come to the greenhouse to meet the other animals despite the holidays. one day they noticed two wild mice in one of the food baskets and put them into an empty terrarium, covering it with a blanket. the plan was to keep them until spring and then release them somewhere outside of the city. a warning sign affixed to the blanket says: “do not touch—risk of contamination.” (storytelling fieldnotes) by tuning to the microbial level, any wish to “know” or control touch has to be abandoned, as the number of potential participants in touch is multiplied by millions. the mice, not much different from gerbils in their physical characteristics, are “made unstrokable” due to their coexistence with potentially pathogenic microbes, such as salmonella and helicobacter. this provokes a speculation of how potentially myriads of microbial communities are in touch each time children and the other animals are (yong, 2016). the aspect of not knowing multiplies when microbial life is given serious thought. in this sense, the greenhouse is not only a place where a multitude of animals (including humans) undergo various metamorphoses through touch inventions. to touch something or somebody means engaging in relational sensation and movement with uncertain and unforeseeable consequences. we have not heard stories about those consequences, and perhaps never will. while the majority of the existing research examines child-animal relations as one-to-one relationships and focuses on the potential benefits of those relationships for human beings, multispecies touch opens up a radical indeterminacy, one that concerns materials and bodies and numbers of bodies, but also spaces and times. touch involves “always more than two” (adsit-morris & gough, 2017). one of the turtles has been taken to the vet. its shell didn’t look well. the vet explains that as turtles develop new layers of shell under the old one, the old one needs to be scratched away. the turtles cannot do it themselves. we are intrigued to hear that under the layers of old and new shell there is a fungus living. turtle shell is made of the same substances as human nails. as satu, one of the teachers, was spreading the medicine prescribed for the turtle shell, she wondered to us whether the rash she had developed on her hands could be made by the same fungi. (storytelling fieldnotes) microbes help us understand the material grounds for the statement that bodies have no clear boundaries. for example, scents that are emitted due to perspiration and that add to the stress worries discussed earlier are actually metabolic products of microbes living on the skin. “getting used to each others’ smells” is an oftenrepeated imperative in the multispecies community of the greenhouse. when microbes are involved, the scale of the epistemological and methodological challenge of multispecies research starts to appear (ogden et al., 2013; tammi, 2019). such research might require the ability to “zoom” into the tiny details of an event and beyond, toward speculation as a mode of inquiry (despret, 2016; haraway, 2016; puig de la bellacasa, 2017). microbes urge us to realize that we are dealing with multiple overlapping worlds that differ from each other and that we know very little about. touching is worlding the anthropocentric notion of other-than-human animals being beneficial for children is frequently brought up as if it is fact. our own research project started from the observation that direct animal contacts are fast diminishing in western societies, and from curiosity about the significance of animal contacts for children. however, we engaged above with touching events using theories of body, touch, and care to argue that childanimal relations are not to be simplified in this complex world. our analyses illustrate how interspecies relationships and caring events, such as the one between jaana and fudge, indeed are complex because these relationships always take more than two. the specific focus on touch allows us to examine multispecies multiplicity and to observe how worlds are connected and made, including microbial ones. in addition, july 2020 24 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research speculative worlds are involved, those created and actualizing in the very moment of touching. human-animal relations are precarious and never certain. when thinking about care in child-animal relations, the beautiful, affective, and productive aspects of care easily surface. the historical and cultural aspects of pet keeping involved in mundane, everyday interspecies encounters remind us that pets, as well as pedagogical and domestic animals, are often “made strokable” through situated political (colonial), economic (commercial), and technological (industrial) assemblages. through the “desiring machine” (pedersen, 2019) of pet keeping, unflattering histories are often inherited. the “greenhouse kids” themselves sometimes noted that the greenhouse is an artificial, technologically mediated, and politically and economically ambivalent environment: “this is not nature!” we claim, echoing puig de la bellacasa (2017), that it is in this impure world that contact zones (haraway, 2008) are formed and questions of care need to be asked. while acknowledging the urgency of the questions concerning animal captivity, commodification, treatment, and utilization, we have here presented an extension to these problematics by zooming into the details of touching events. touching dancing events makes both humans and other animals participate in the politics of regulation and boundary making, or choreographing an “interspecies etiquette” (warkentin, 2010). even if this dance is likely to involve unequal power relations and destructive ideas about human exceptionalism and superiority, it also remains open and precarious, thus allowing the disruption of these very same ideas, as well as other, toxic imaginaries. in terms of education, our study perhaps opens up alternative ways of thinking about the value of children sharing their lives with other animals. pedagogies could embrace more risky and uncertain understandings of care and touch. they could also cultivate stories that take us from “truths” toward “versions” of coexistence while embracing the noninnocent dimensions and vulnerabilities that belong therein. touching could be seen as a way of knowing about the other or about the world, but we suggest it is more than that. touching is worlding, because bodies are not settled prior to their encounter. this way, touching involves both not knowing and knowing, because we can neither fully trace, follow, nor predict the worlds involved (including ourselves as parts of them). july 2020 25 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references adsit-morris, c., & gough, n. 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(2016). i contain multitudes: the microbes within us and a grander view of life. harper collins july 2020 40 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research vulnerability, resistance, and reciprocity: recasting responsibilities of care in schooling through troubling animal-child-adult encounters within a school for marginalized children maria ejlertsen maria ejlertsen is a doctoral researcher at the school of education, the university of queensland, australia. she has lived, studied, and worked in denmark, kenya, and australia. her interests include (more-than) inclusive education, alternative approaches to education, more-than-human relational perspectives, and multisensory and participatory research methods. currently, her research focuses on enactments of marginalized children’s belongings and identities in a special assistance school, using visual methods and attention to affective material-discursive entanglements. she is a qualified teacher with experience working with marginalized students in primary and secondary schools. additionally, she holds an msc in animal husbandry and welfare and has worked as a project facilitator in international development. email: m.ejlertsen@uq.edu.au the notion of care is central to our ideas and expectations about schooling. as argued by mills, keddie, renshaw, and monk (2017, p. 70) the vast majority of schools are concerned with constructing their school as a “caring place.” however, what it means to care in schools is often taken for granted as binary human relationships of a “carer” and a “cared-for,” with the teacher firmly placed as the active carer of passive, caredfor students (mills et al., 2017; noddings, 2012). furthermore, such caring relations are often seen as “natural” and positive adult-child relations and are seldom interrogated in detail (ailwood, 2017). yet, discourses of care are also used to support exclusionary practices in schools, where children with “disruptive” nonconforming behaviours are pushed out of mainstream schooling on the grounds of caring for both them and the other, compliant, children (graham et al., 2015; mills et al., 2017; thomson & pennacchia, 2016; tuck, 2011). at the same time, enactments of care focusing on therapeutic approaches in working with marginalized students are becoming increasingly common in both alternative schools and mainstream schools, parallel to discourses of care as segregation and exclusion (mills & mcgregor, 2016; mills et al., 2017; thomson & pennacchia 2016). other-than-human animals are increasingly being incorporated into schooling approaches in support of children’s learning and well-being in such therapeutic approaches (brelsford et al., 2017; jalongo, 2015; serpell et al., 2017). such approaches tend to employ a humanist and developmental perspective that portrays animals as instrumental to supporting the normative development of the child (hohti & tammi, 2019). this support can either be given through providing a caring role for the child’s well-being or learning, or through teaching the child caring skills, such as responsibility, empathy, and self-regulation (e.g., jalongo, 2015; serpell et this paper troubles enactments of care in schooling and open possibilities of caring otherwise through engaging with a more-than-humanist relational lens of animalchild-adult relationships within a school for marginalized children. i explore two encounters with an animal, child, and myself that challenge my self-perceptions as a caring educational researcher and educator and, within that, what counts as care. by attending to my affective responses within these encounters, i explore how thinking with the concepts of resistance, vulnerability, and intra-action can offer generative possibilities of care in schooling. through this, possibilities of care grounded in ontological reciprocity and openness emerge to enable a reimagining of how we might care differently with children and animals. key words: care; animal-assisted interventions; alternative schooling; intra-action; affective response-ability; morethan-human(ist) july 2020 41 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research al., 2017). additionally, perspectives of animals as nonjudgmental, innocent, and unable to “speak back” tend to dominate (tipper, 2011). however, while children frequently draw attention to the importance of animals when asked about what matters to them in their lives, these relations are rarely explored in depth (tipper, 2011). furthermore, as thomson and pennacchia (2016) warn, therapeutic and animal-assisted approaches to care in schools often retain a core function as “disciplinary regimes of care” that ultimately aim for behavioural compliance and normativity within the frames set by schooling. for children who are marginalized in schools, such a lens of caring animal-child relations invites a deficit perspective of them as flawed and in need of being fixed in order to “fit in.” for the animals, it reduces them to passive instruments. yet, it is noteworthy that, while educator-child care relations tend to maintain presupposed, fixed carer and cared-for roles, the caring roles in animal-child relations are often less clearly defined and more dynamic. hence, animal-child relations provide promising avenues for exploring possibilities of care beyond normative notions of adult-child care relations in schools. the role of animal-child relations in reworking how we view and do education is increasingly being explored in educational research (e.g., hohti & tammi, 2019; somerville, 2018; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015; tooth & renshaw, 2018). this paper contributes to such work by exploring what a focus on animal-child-adult encounters through a more-than-human(ist) relational lens can offer to understanding enactments of care in relation to marginalization of noncompliant children in schools. in doing so, the paper responds to thom van dooren’s (2014) call to hold ourselves accountable to our enactments of care by asking, “what counts as care and why? how else might care be imagined and practiced? in short, what am i really caring for, why, and at what cost to whom” (p. 293, italics in original)? how might placing care at the centre of our work “remake ourselves, our practices and our world” (van dooren, p. 294)? and, following haro woods et al. (2018, p. 46), “how might we mobilize care to “do otherwise” … [and] what might be required of us … to open up space for such possibilities to emerge?” making sense of animal-child-school encounters this study is grounded in a relational “ethico-onto-epistemology” (barad, 2012a) that is attentive to the “more-than human(-ist)” relationships we, as beings on earth, are part of. this perspective does not see any beings (animate or inanimate) as fixed, separate, and independent beings. rather, we are continuously expressed and defined through our relationships with the human and other-than-human world that we are part of and responsible to. this also implies that there are no fixed truths to be known about the world from a detached perspective. instead, we can only ever know through being in relation with others. knowing is therefore not primarily a function of the rational mind. instead, knowing is a doing that is continuously emergent and embodied through our more-than human relationships. as such, being, knowing, and responding ethically to another are not seen as separable from each other. such ways of making sense of the world have long been articulated from various indigenous perspectives (e.g., deloria 1979; kimmerer, 2013; kuokkanen, 2007; lloyd et al., 2012) and have been taken up by other perspectives, such as eco-phenomenology (e.g., abram, 1997) and the posthumanism and new materialisms (e.g., barad, 2007; braidotti, 2013; haraway, 2008). the term more-than-humanist builds on more than human, coined by david abram (1997). i use more-than-human(ist) to (1) emphasize the importance of considering other-than-human beings rather than solely focusing on the human and (2) to move beyond a rationalist, cartesian perspective of the human in the world. i chose such a perspective because it resonates with how i have always already experienced the world i am of and because it allows me to make sense of and articulate important aspects of the research. i do not aim to “decenter” the human, “move beyond the human,” or pretend to be able to speak for other-than-human beings. in this paper, i primarily draw on karen barad’s concepts of posthumanist performativity and intra-action to set out the specific conceptual frames for analysis within the above-described relational lens. i do so because of the distinctive possibilities for analysis the concept of intra-action offers, as will be apparent in later sections. july 2020 42 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research more-than-human(ist) performative intra-action there need not be “a doer behind the deed,” the “doer” is variably constructed in and through the deed. (butler, 1990, p. 181) existence is not an individual affair. individuals do not precede their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating. (barad, 2007, p. ix) barad draws on judith butler’s notion of performativity, which troubles the humanistic perspective that subjects exist prior to their interactions with the world around them and accounts for the processes through which subjects are constituted as intelligible (butler, 1990). as the above quotes illustrate, performativity sees individual subjects as being given meaning (i.e., coming into being) through continuous iterative enactments. while butler tends to focus on how human beings are given meaning and come to matter, barad insists more explicitly on exploring the ways both human and other-than-human beings come to matter in relation to each other (niesche & gowlett, 2019). furthermore, while butler arguably maintains interactions between separate human subjects and nonhuman objects as the centre of analysis, barad not only questions the distinction between subjects and objects but also explores how the very boundaries between any subject/object are enacted and how this comes to matter. to this end, her idea of intra-action is central. intra-action, as opposed to interaction, makes explicit the ontological inseparability of subjects/objects prior to the iterative acts that define their boundaries. it emphasizes that the boundaries that separate beings are continuously cut and recut through our performative intra-actions within the entangled relations we are of. as such, individual beings (animate and inanimate) never exist in singular but are always plural as individuals emerge through their relations to each other. the subject/object boundaries that sediment depend on which (intra)actions are given attention and made to matter. hence, questions of individual agency are decentered and responsibility for the different cuts that are enacted and how they come to matter is put centre stage. here, the term “being” simultaneously signifies a materially embodied form and an active performative verb of be-ing in the world (butler, 1991), a beingin-doing and doing-in-being continuously shaped through our relational intra-actions. i use the term being rather than becoming to counteract the future-oriented focus on the child becoming a rational autonomous adult that is common in developmental childhood studies, as well as to maintain a focus on the responsibilities to that which is already being enacted and enabled rather than the not-quite-here-yet of becoming. affective response-ability as an embodied, emergent approach to research the research approach for this study emerged during the research as i sought to make sense of my own and others’ responses within the research process. based on my experiences in participatory agricultural development and as a teacher and teacher aide working with marginalized children, it was important to me to reject the role of an authoritative, expert researcher. therefore, i did not set out to employ a set of clearly outlined and predefined methodologies and methods. i aimed to be open to how those (not) participating in the research shaped the process and to relinquish some control over what the research should look like. i conceptualize the emergent research approach as “affective response-ability.” several scholars engage with the term response-ability within a more-than-human relational lens, including kuokkanen (2007), haraway (2008), and barad (2012a, 2012b). in alignment with the conceptual framework presented above, i mainly draw on barad’s writings here to articulate the perspective of response-ability engaged with in this study. barad suggests that being response-able requires an openness to be in relationship with an “other” that allows for the other to respond otherwise, as well as being responsive to their responses by accounting for the cuts that are intra-actively made (barad, 2007). such a response-ability cannot be intentionally calculated as july 2020 43 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research this would limit what can be imagined by a response-able “i” (barad, 2007, 2012a). being response-able holds me accountable for my own intra-active entanglements within the research and the responsibilities this entails in how certain ontological and individualizing “cuts” come to matter over others in the research encounters. it requires being attentive to the affective responses i experience in the research encounters and “staying with the trouble” they pose (haraway, 2016). affect is here conceptualized as a material embodied form of knowing-in-being that is felt as physiological sensations of (dis)comfort in my intra-actions with the world i am of, without necessarily belonging to me alone. this perspective differs from notions of affect that draw on brian massumi’s work to conceptualize affect as the ability to affect and be affected, and a nonconscious, pre-personal intensity that moves between bodies (massumi, 2004). rather, as an approach to research, affect is what alerts me to the continuous process of boundary making and remaking taking place through my performative intra-actions with the more-than-human world within specific encounters. it is not the process of boundary making itself but rather the knowing-in-being of the process. this knowing-in-being is often beyond cognitive articulation and reasoning but not beyond consciousness. it is what makes me drive my spouse crazy by trying out numerous different seats at a café before being at ease, and the visceral sense of dis-ease when attempting to fulfill “perfectly reasonable” expectations of social engagement that nevertheless leave me feeling compromised. and it is what forces me to return to certain encounters in this research again and again. ubuntu school and helping hearts animal rescue centre ubuntu school is an independent school located in south east queensland, australia, catering to approximately 115 boys aged 8–15 years. most of the children at the school have been pushed out of mainstream schooling through multiple suspensions and exclusions due to disruptive, nonconforming behaviours. the starting point for the research project with ubuntu school which this paper draws on was student belonging in school. working with marginalized students in mainstream schools, i had experienced the complex processes of students, and myself, oscillating between various levels of engagement, resistance, and resignation with the prevailing frames of schooling. i was interested in exploring these processes of becoming a subject of schooling in a manner that would embrace complexity and nonlinearity, as well as allow a focus on what matters to the students themselves. belonging as a dynamic and relational concept invites exploration of affective, spatial, nonhuman, and material aspects in shaping processes of subject formation (cuervo & wyn, 2014; wood & waite, 2011; wright, 2015; yuval-davis, 2006). as such, a focus on student belonging in school served as a rich conceptual and methodological entry point. i visited ubuntu school approximately twice a week over a four-month period in 2018. during my first visit, staff and children were informed about the research project and their potential participation in detail, and they had invited me into their classrooms. throughout the visits, i participated in whole-school events, classroom activities, and excursions with the children and staff. during my visits, i would take part in group activities, assist the classroom staff with activities, and support children as requested. i recorded conversations with eight children and 13 school staff about what matters to the children’s sense of belonging in school. conversations with participating children centred around photos taken by each child of places and things that “matter to how they feel about school and their sense of belonging at school.” each child was given a tablet and asked to take any photos they wanted while at school or on excursions. based on consultations with school staff, i walked with each child as they took their photos to provide support and supervision. the conversations and encounters referred to in this paper involved children aged 9–12 years, as well as staff. all names used in reference to places, animals, and humans are pseudonyms. july 2020 44 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research animal-child relations at ubuntu school the school offers a broad range of co-curricular activities, including a weekly visit to helping hearts, a small, local animal rescue centre. helping hearts is the home of “joyce,” who runs the centre on a semi-suburban acreage. the number of animals living with joyce varies; however, the “regulars” include four dogs, one horse, two ponies and several cats, chickens, ducks, and guinea pigs. the visits to helping hearts are largely unstructured. the children follow a loose routine of first going to the paddock. here they are free to roam around and interact with the animals there, typically the horse, ponies, dogs, goats, and sheep. next, they go to joyce’s house, where they collect eggs, interact with the smaller animals on her veranda, and have a drink and a snack. each class at the school also has one or more “class pets” which are regularly brought to school by the teacher they live with. when asked to take photos of things that matter to how they feel about schooling and their sense of belonging in school, the children participating in the research repeatedly photographed and later talked about animals, including the class dogs and the animals at the rescue centre. [of all the photos, which matters most to you?] oh, well, obviously, it’s the dog … because the dog is cute. (“reuben,” student) when asked why, several children referred to being calm in the animals’ presence but were somewhat tentative in articulating why being with the animals made them feel calm: [how does “daisy” (class dog), her being there, make a difference to you?] … i don’t know. (reuben) because … animals can calm down people … like since daisy has been here, i’ve felt a lot more calmer. [so what do you think it is about daisy being here that makes you feel calmer?] well, i don’t know … it’s like … when we feel angry, they let her off the lead, because she is on a lead. and daisy comes to me, or other boys. yeah, and it’s good. (“austin,” student) [being with animals] keeps people calm, it’s a reward for people being good … it’s just calming, they understand you and everything. they understand you in ways humans can’t. (“ben,” student) when school staff were asked about why the animals at school seemed to matter to the children, similar sentiments of keeping them calm were expressed: “bear” [class dog] was here the other day and they all loved having some kind of [interaction with him]. and that’s their kind of coping mechanism to calm themselves down too. (“mike,” youth worker) i think it’s just like, they [the animals] are just so peaceful and you just get such a calm feeling when you’re feeling crappy. like for me personally, i know she’s my dog, but in the afternoons if we’ve had a really bad day and she’s been in there [staffroom next door], if i open the door and let her in here, it’s almost like everything’s better. like you lose that anger and that feeling of just not … feeling crap. i don’t know, it’s just like an automatic release of that. (“hannah,” teacher) here, children and staff alike reinforce perspectives of the children at the school being angry individuals whose belonging in school rests on managing their anger and remaining calm. the animals are instrumental in supporting this agenda. this can be seen as reproducing dominant enactments of care in mainstream schools that focus on teachers ensuring behavioural compliance (mills et al., 2017; thomson & pennacchia, 2016). however, the above quotes also illustrate the sense that there is more to these animal-child-school relationships that cannot easily be articulated—something which is also noticed by a teacher in hohti and tammi’s (2019) research with animals and school-age children. july 2020 45 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the two encounters that are the focus of the remainder of the paper are from one of the weekly excursions to helping hearts. in both encounters, a child is on their own with an animal and in different ways is disrupted by me. i use these unintended disruptions as entry points for exploring the notions of care these encounters disrupt and to suggest how attention to the entangled animal/child/researcher/school relations might allow for other, potentially more subversive, responsibilities of care to emerge. care through resistance, vulnerability, and reciprocity in an animal-child-researcher encounter cookie is grazing as i walk across the paddock toward him and kevin, skipping over the small stream winding through the grass. kevin took cookie for a walk in the paddock but now seems anxious to take the pony back to the shelter up the hill. he stands in front of cookie holding the lead rope attached to the halter, calling for him to follow. the other staff and children are leaving the paddock, and i move toward kevin and cookie to offer my help. as i get closer, kevin does not appear to want my help. torn between not wanting to impose and not wanting to leave kevin on his own, i discreetly walk up behind the pony, hoping this will make him move along. cookie continues to graze without looking up, while kevin appears to get increasingly frustrated watching the others leave. it is his first visit to this place, and i imagine that he does not want to be left behind. i give cookie a gentle but firm push on the hindquarters to get him moving. the reaction from kevin is instant and strong: “you can’t do that!” i tell kevin that it won’t hurt him. “it will just let him know what you want.” “you can’t make him do that” kevin responds, upset. cookie continues to graze, and i offer to stay with cookie so that kevin can catch up with the others. rather than answering, he attempts to take off cookie’s halter. he struggles with opening the buckle and i again offer to help. he reluctantly accepts my help after further unsuccessful attempts. the halter strap is old and frayed, and as i lift the buckle to wedge the strap out, kevin yells, “stop! you’re hurting him!” the next moment, the halter comes off and falls to the ground, leaving cookie to continue his grazing without once lifting his head. kevin runs after the other children and staff and i follow behind with halter and lead rope in hand. this encounter could be brushed off as an insignificant event in an otherwise intense school setting, where my wellmeaning offer to help was unwanted yet necessary to ensure kevin was not left behind on his own with cookie. it could be seen as kevin overreacting and shouting at an adult without valid reason and thus being in need of reprimand, as would be the case in many mainstream schools. however, the encounter stays with me and will not let go. tuck and yang (2011) speak of youth resistance as “identify[ing] and exploit[ing] hair-line fractures and fault lines within systems” (p. 525). here, kevin’s and cookie’s resistance within the encounter offer an opportunity to interrogate the fractures and fault lines of paternalistic and therapeutic perspectives of care in animal-child relationships and schooling. through a lens of more-than-human performative intra-action, i draw on butler’s (2016, 2020) writing on vulnerability and resistance and kuokkanen’s (2007, 2010) writing on reciprocity and learning to further consider how this might enable us to imagine caring relations in schools differently. butler (2020) troubles the justice in characterizing specific groups or individual beings as vulnerable and in need of care, if “by care we mean an ongoing and unconflicted ... disposition of paternalistic care” (p. 3). rather, she encourages an exploration of how vulnerability and resistance work together to variously enable and disable opportunities for care. she uses the phrase “resistance to vulnerability” to show how dominant authorities’ responses to resistance, such as public demonstrations, often are harsher than seemingly necessary because the resistance by “vulnerable” groups exposes their own vulnerability. hence, she highlights how, through groups or individuals being designated as “vulnerable,” powerful resistance can also emerge, that is, resistance through vulnerability. therefore, attending to the multilayered resistances in an encounter and the vulnerabilities that emerge in acts of resistance may create possibilities for being otherwise. july 2020 46 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research both children and companion animals are often seen as inherently vulnerable and in need of care (gorur, 2015; hohti & tammi, 2019). from a lens of performativity, this is a precarious positioning that requires continued reenactment in order to be upheld; both kevin and cookie challenge this positioning. in schools, the perceived resistance by some children who are unable or unwilling to comply with expected behaviours negates their claim to vulnerability and care in favour of the school’s (i.e., principal’s, staff ’s, and other parents’) resistance to vulnerability. instead, the children are positioned as risky and “at risk” (te riele, 2006) to themselves, others, and the system of schooling itself. similarly, a companion animal’s claim to care rests on conforming to our human lives and expectations of what makes an agreeable companion. stepping outside of the parameters of innocence and vulnerability, regardless of the underlying issues, can quickly lead to sympathy being withheld, as anyone living with an anxious, reactive dog will know. many of the animals coming to helping hearts are, like the children, there because they were unable or unwilling to conform to expectations and/or became too burdensome to care for. being response-able to the discomforts i experienced through kevin’s and cookie’s resistance to my help forces me to stay with the vulnerability it exposes in my perception of myself as a caring researcher, educator, and animal lover. when my (to me) discreet attempts to help kevin were resisted by cookie’s indifference and kevin’s strong reaction, my position as a knowledgeable and caring researcher / educator / horse owner helping kevin to “care” for cookie was challenged. our roles shifted: i, the knowledgeable researcher/educator caring for the vulnerable student in need of help with the aid of the instrumental and willing pony became a perpetrator, while kevin became the carer and cookie the vulnerable cared-for. however, cookie, by being seemingly indifferent to the unfolding drama, powerfully unsettled any such simplified notions of care by disrupting both our claims (mine and kevin’s) to the role of carer. rather than teaching kevin about horses and positioning him as a nonreactive horse carer through my caring, i was taught about what it might mean to care by both kevin and cookie. my involvement shifted, from needing to intervene and manage both kevin’s and cookie’s resistance, to acknowledging and allowing possibilities for response that change the caring relation. thus, exploring the complexities of multiple threads of caring taking place in the animal-child-researcher encounter (hohti & tammi, 2019) offers every-body involved alternate ontological possibilities. embracing rather than resisting vulnerability and the discomforts that may follow enables possibilities of care as ontological reciprocity. it suggests a possibility of care where “the sense of exposure to the other is crucial” (barad, 2012b, p 217). it is an ontological reciprocity that accepts uncertainty and letting go of control and is open to everyone involved being affected through the caring relation. like the circular reciprocity of the gift offered by kuokkanen (2007), such reciprocity does not rest on symmetrical relations of giving and taking between individuals. it cannot be reduced to moral obligations or zero-sum transactions. rather, such reciprocity emphasizes the primacy of relationships over individuals and embraces the mutually beneficial opportunities for learning and being differently. here kuokkanen (2010) importantly distinguishes between a learning which seeks to “know the other” and a learning in order to receive. rather than assuming the entitlement (or even possibility) to know the other, or to know what is best for the other, a reciprocity grounded in a willingness to learn to receive allows for sedimented boundaries of “oneself ” to be loosened and reworked in ways that extend this opportunity to the others in the encounter without imposing whether and how the opportunity is taken up. i cannot speak on behalf of kevin and cookie. nevertheless, by being open to be affected and undone by the multiple possibilities of caring in the encounter, i experience the encounter in a new light, which offers everyone involved greater ontological possibilities to respond and be otherwise, not least myself. in the next section, i build on this idea by exploring how a child/cat/living-room/researcher encounter might further add to such possibilities for caring otherwise in schools. july 2020 47 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research care as infinite alterity in an animal–child–living-room encounter while sitting on the veranda with children holding ducklings and guinea pigs, i notice that ben has moved into the adjacent living room. he is crouching on the floor across from a scrawny black and white cat with only a small stump for a tail. he is patiently holding out his hand, waiting for the cat to touch it. after initial hesitation, the cat moves forward until his nose touches the hand. then his whole face and body touch and rub against ben’s arm and legs. i came along to the animal rescue centre because ben asked me to be here. he wanted to take photos of the animals and needed me to bring the school’s tablet. i move toward the living room, but before i get to the doorway, ben stands up and leaves. i stay on the veranda talking to some of the other boys and ben walks back in to sit with tux. a few minutes later, i walk back to the living room entrance and quietly tell ben that the tablet is available if he wants to take any photos. he answers “no” under his breath and walks away from tux and the living room again. i feel like i have unwittingly intruded on something important. fifteen minutes later we leave the animal rescue centre without having taken any photos. again, the encounter stays with me and will not let go. i am left with the struggle to make sense of and articulate what unfolded and how the camera’s and my presence altered this. here i have found barad’s concepts of intra-action and the inhuman indispensable. barad (2012b) employs the concept “inhuman” to signify the “indeterminate non/ being non-becoming of mattering and not mattering … the liminality of no/thingness” (p. 216) and the “infinite alterity” (p. 218) which is possible within our intra-acting. in other words, an infinity of constitutive possibilities for ontological boundary setting, and thus possibilities of being, exists within each and every encounter but is often not acknowledged and thus the encounter is limited to finite, expected ways of being. to me, this indeterminacy and infinite alterity of the inhuman is what comes closest to describing my experience of the intra-active encounter with ben and tux. rather than merely reframing the boundaries of who ben can be (e.g., a child who is good with cats) or identifying with the story of the cat, a suspension of individual subject boundaries of ben and tux within the encounter is made visceral. in their entangled encounter, ben ceases to be a boy needing to be calm and manageable to fulfill the role of a viable student and tux similarly ceases to be an angry, shy rescue cat. instead, i argue, the encounter allows for momentarily letting go of notions of “self ” and “other.” this letting go provides a freedom for both from needing to be or do anything and thus allow a momentary reimagining of what it means to be a “good” student and companion animal. it takes the notion of reciprocity in caring relations even further by suggesting a caring relation beyond a giver and receiver altogether. there is no designated carer or cared for, yet the encounter is caring and rewarding for both involved, as is hinted in later conversations with the woman who runs helping hearts animal rescue centre: i got a new cat here that was really angry and one little voice said: “can i go in and see tux? because tux really likes me.” so, each week [ben] wanted to go in and see tux and tux actually started to trust people. so, his company has actually helped the cat as well. (joyce) my presence with the camera interrupted and altered the caring relation between ben and tux and i therefore reduced rather than expanded the ontological possibilities of everyone involved in the encounter. this action resedimented them as a student and a cat separate from each other, forcing questions of who is what to whom— boy taming cat? cat taming boy?—questions that unwittingly interrupt caring relations of shared vulnerabilities within the cat-boy intra-action and invite a (re-)instatement of (self-) care as resistance to vulnerability, which ben enacts by leaving. july 2020 48 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research responsibilities of caring differently for more(-than) inclusive schooling: care as ontological reciprocity and indeterminacy how would we feel if it is by way of the inhuman that we come to feel, to care, to respond? (barad, 2012a, p. 81) exploring care in animal-child-school relations through a lens of intra-action, vulnerabilities-in-resistance, and the inhuman has allowed for a dynamic and complex perspective of what counts as care in animal-child relations and schools to emerge. as evident in my encounter with kevin and cookie, this is not to romanticize animal-child relations or resistance. the role of the animal-child relationship in schooling lies not in their innocent and mutual ability to care for each other, although this possibility may be present and rewarding at times. it does not rest on animals being inherently nonjudgmental, nor passive and unable to “speak” back. rather, it offers us, as adult human beings involved in education with children, an opportunity to question how our animal-child-adult-school relations can teach us to do schooling differently. might it be possible, as hohti and tammi (2019, p. 11) suggest, “that animals as teachers intervene and ask us to listen differently”? while i cannot speak for the children and animals in this study, i have pointed to how being response-able to animal-child-adult relations in schools expanded the possibilities of being educator/student/animal and allowed me to be educator/researcher/animal-lover differently. it is my hope that this approach might open possibilities to think and do schooling and animal-child relations differently in ways that will make a positive difference to all involved. rather than seeing children’s noncompliance as defiance or lack of self-regulation (or even theirs alone), perhaps we might see it as a shared expression of “a deep yearning for something better” (nolan, 2011, p. 570) and an invitation to everyone involved to open up the possibilities of caring differently in schools. you, as the reader, may gain your own insights from these encounters based on the particular entangled relations you are part of. what i have gained, as i return to and am rewoven by the encounters, is an urgency to be present to and responsible for the possibilities of being, knowing, and caring that our everyday acts of care create for everybody—every day. for me, this includes considering how the more-than-human relationships we engage in, within and outside of the classroom, contribute to or detract from the ontological opportunities offered in our caring relations. it also importantly involves recognizing that being in care-full relation as an educator is not just something i do, but something that does me, and is done with (haro woods et al., 2018) rather than for or by the more-than-human relations i am of. i suggest that such relations of care with animals and children alike require loosening resistance to vulnerability and being open to vulnerability through resisting normative notions of what it means to care and be cared for in schools. however, the aim of this paper is not to advocate for uncritically bringing (more) animals into schools. rather, it is to pause to consider how our relations with animals—domesticated and wild, large and small—may offer us opportunities to learn and explore what might be possible in schooling and beyond if we pay attention and are willing to be challenged and changed in our “caring” encounters with children and animals alike. such an openness cannot solely be rationalized, but rather requires attention to our affective responses within continuous processes of ontological intra-acting and boundary setting. as barad (2007) notes, “the ethical subject is not the disembodied rational subject of traditional ethics but rather an embodied sensibility” (p. 391, italics added). it is through being open to suspend sedimented ontological boundaries and “risk[ing] a shared sense of vulnerability” (barad, 2017, p. 81) that caring relations emerge. “jean,” a youth worker at ubuntu school, alludes to this when sharing “what it takes” to work at the school: you’ve got to face yourself … you’ve got to be prepared that you may have to grow, you know. that you may be challenged in ways that you didn’t imagine was gonna be part of your experience. but july 2020 49 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research ultimately, that’s awesome. because to me you grow and become more of who you already are. research within alternative schooling consistently emphasizes the importance of adult-child relationships when working with students who are being marginalized in their schooling (mills & mcgregor, 2016; shay et al., 2016; thomson, 2014). this paper contributes to understanding how these relationships may come to matter in schools. it offers an opportunity for those working with children in schools to consider the ontological opportunities that are enabled and made to matter in every intra-action. it suggests a perspective of care as emerging through being in reciprocal relation beyond a designated carer and cared-for. this perspective requires recasting rigid notions of adult-child relations in schooling and enabling respectful reciprocal relationships where every being can learn from each other and has something to give and receive in any encounter. hence, the concepts of vulnerability and care are untangled from being political and paternalistic tools for making abstract claims of sympathy, labelling individuals and groups, and quantifying variables for “fixing” individuals and systems (gorur, 2015). rather, vulnerability and care are reworked to insist on everyone being accountable to the ontological work of the caring relations and responses to vulnerability we are always already enacting. this requires acknowledging the ontological reciprocities and multiplicities of care possibilities in these encounters and suspending simplistic notions of who and what beings can be. rather than attempting to control and manage the “self ” and “others,” it invites the question of how we can enable and acknowledge windows of infinite alterity in schooling encounters to allow us all to be otherwise. july 2020 50 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references abram, d. 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(2006). belonging and the politics of belonging. patterns of prejudice, 40(3), 197–214. https://doi. org/10.1080/00313220600769331 126 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice zooming with babies: troubling a shared present ruth boycott-garnett ruth boycott-garnett is a doctoral student at manchester metropolitan university in the uk studying babies’ interactions with space, matter, and movement in collaboration with manchester art gallery. her research is currently orientated around babies lives within the covid-19 pandemic and how interdisciplinary working can support midand post-pandemic babyhood. email: ruth. boycott-garnett@stu.mmu.ac.uk attempts to conduct research in the social sciences throughout the covid-19 pandemic highlight just how messy social research can be. this paper was created from the messy middle of doctoral research attending to babies’ interactions with space, material, and matter and documenting the everchanging process of creating research with families during the covid-19 pandemic. the ethics and practicalities of conducting research with families has been considered by many researchers since 2020 (cortés-morales et al., 2021), including garthwaite and colleagues’ (2020) question as to whether it is ethical to conduct research with families at all during the additional stresses of a pandemic. this paper attempts to document how the practical changes in method that occurred in this work resulted in creating new and unexpected trajectories that rippled through every aspect of the research and brought focus to the unknowability of babies’ lives. this outcome is particularly made evident by the inclusion of virtual communication technology and gathering online from separate homes rather than meeting in person within a semipublic space. data collection for this research included a range of sessions with babies adapted to the ebb and flow of the covid-19 pandemic and the resulting changes in restrictions in the uk. as a result of these restrictions, all data collection for the research was moved from observations of lively events to online. zoom sessions with tiny babies from 2 months to 4 months old and their mothers were conducted during 2021. zoom and other virtual meeting platforms have rapidly been adopted by many social researchers (archibald et al., 2019, howlett, 2021) as a tool for data collection, though typically in research with speaking adults or older children. as a virtual platform organized around a speaking, centered subject, zoom initially appeared to be a ridiculous research method with tiny babies that would never have seemed productive, enjoyable, or even possible. yet it is the specific constraints of virtual technology that have stirred new thinking for the researcher around what research—and what knowledge—is possible with babies. because this work only came to form through adaptations and undulations throughout the research process, the following section of this paper outlines and reflects on the research conducted so far and the changing methods and expectations. then, the paper shares snippets of data from the zoom sessions and initial thoughts on how this paper outlines how the specific constraints of virtual communication technology have stirred new thinking around what kind of research and what knowledge is produced with babies. during zoom sessions, the 2–4-month-old babies were frequently present but out of shot, or glimpsed as a small limb or movement or sound on the other side of the screen. the babies’ bodies, movements, and sounds exceeded the boundaries of the screen. through a posthuman lens, presence, time, and agency unravel the zoom screen as an active participant that interferes with what can happen in a shared present in a liminal space. key words: zoom; babies; pandemic; discursive; time mailto:ruth.boycott-garnett@stu.mmu.ac.uk mailto:ruth.boycott-garnett@stu.mmu.ac.uk 127 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice playing with babies, zoom, and discursive field notes troubles how we experience a shared present with others through virtual platforms and provides insights into how time plays out over virtual liminal spaces. origins of the research originally this research was based within manchester art gallery, where an interdisciplinary team of artists, educators, and health visitors delivered a weekly play installation and baby clinic. in the uk, a baby clinic is a drop-in service where it is possible to speak to a health professional, often focused around weighing the baby and marking their weight trajectory in a little red book. this collaboration between the different services and the space that it created was the original source of interest for the research. the original method intended for the research was to spend a year in this space taking short video clips of the babies as they navigated and contributed to this lively space of intertwined bodies, both human and nonhuman, and filming momentary encounters between babies and the stuff, people, and space around them. the note below describes how this space might look if you were to come across this weekly event in the gallery. at the back of the gallery, a crowd of babies, mums, grandmas, dads, aunties and friends would lower themselves to the floor, the older bodies trying to get comfy on mats or throws while the babies were propped on cushions or cuddled in laps. the assembled would be surrounded by scratchy fabrics, silver trays of sand, dangling broccoli, bendy mirrors and pastry brushes. babies would lift themselves up on the backs of strangers. speedy crawlers would weave their way through bodies and stuff. perhaps a toddling girl would roughly pat the head of a tiny baby and shout “baby!” in delight. perhaps two babies would wrestle over a silicone spoon. perhaps a practitioner would cuddle a crying baby as their carer temporarily disappeared out of sight. around the edges, mums would wait on chairs, watching other mums, while a baby slept on their lap, wrestled for freedom, suckled in their arms or grasped at soft sticks of something tasty from tiny tupperware tubs. at the back of the room, hidden by hanging cloth, were weighing scales and women with answers and reassuring words. one at a time, the babies would have their turn behind the curtain, stripped and weighed and watched. (discursive field notes, 2020) the text highlights the mingling of bodies and sharing of objects that are only just becoming possible again within the uk. since march 2020, sessions for babies have occurred in various forms, sometimes in person and sometimes online. when in person, sessions have been carried out under covid-19 restrictions, including families having their own equipment in their own “pod” or on their own play mat and staying spaced from other families to avoid contact with other families and moving around the room. sessions that resemble the above description are only just being introduced back into the gallery at the start of 2022. adapting the pandemic has played with time, on minute and major scales. as the pandemic caused the closure of the gallery and a temporary loss of these spaces for babies and their families, donna haraway’s words resonated in the work of the interdisciplinary gallery team. in reference to extinctions and exterminations, haraway’s (2016) discussion of urgencies rather than emergencies is relatable to the covid-19 pandemic: i name these things urgencies rather than emergencies because the latter connotes something approaching apocalypse and its mythologies. urgencies have other temporalities, and these times are ours. these are the times that we must think; these are the times of urgencies that need stories. (p. 37) haraway’s words move from the impossibility of comprehending deep time and global impact to considering 128 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice the pandemic through the everyday moments, the daily encounters with babies, and the possibilities for small, meaningful actions. the gallery began to meet more frequently in an urge to do something. the need for urgency was balanced with the need to build something meaningful, useful, and delightful. slow thinking emerged through discussions, and attention moved from the fast, virtual space to the slowness of posting items, the weight of objects, and the ritual of gifts. as a result of this slow thinking, 3000 gift boxes were created for all the babies of the city and delivered to their doorsteps. through developing the gifts a series of zoom sessions were set up for the babies and their families. where families would usually be invited to share a space, they were instead invited to share time together while exploring the objects in their gift boxes from their homes. originally, these sessions were imagined as an immersive, shared sensory experience using sound, lighting, and the sensory objects in the gifts. the zoom sessions happened once a week over an eight-week period. most families joined the session through mobile phones and the researcher hosted the session through a laptop. the sessions were attended by a handful of regular attendees and often a few new families would join each week. most families had their cameras switched on throughout the session so that families and babies could see each other, and parents often moved the screen close to their babies’ faces so that the group could say hello to them or to show the group if the baby was doing something particularly interesting like a big smile or a funny expression. the size of the visible area on zoom and the number of other screens that were displayed differed for each family depending on the device they used. for example, a laptop could usually display multiple screens simultaneously so that the whole group was visible, whereas a phone screen usually only displayed one face at a time. the content of the sessions varied from discussion between parents, to playing with the sensory bags and other creative activities that grew out of the discussions and interests of the group, for example, sharing songs. as the researcher clung to the need for video of the babies for the research, the intention was to record the sessions and be able to focus in on the details of the babies and the objects as they encountered each other. video has been a common tool for qualitative research in education, opening up audio and visual possibilities, as elizabeth de freitas (2015a) suggests: “video has allowed researchers to zoom in on hands and faces, and to focus on any given moment, in order to study the micro gestures” (p. 553). glimmers in the data through this wriggly situation the process of data collection for the doctoral research became quite a contrast to the original plan, attempting to replicate something of the original through virtual technology. from a messy mingling of bodies in a spacious gallery, the process shifted to families in separate places joining together through their phone screens. during these sessions, the babies were frequently present but out of shot, or glimpsed as a small limb or movement or sound on the other side of the screen. the babies’ bodies, movements, and sounds exceeded the boundaries of the frame and in so doing shattered the potentially rich visual recordings that were imagined of babies in their ongoing interaction in the world. the limitations of zoom with babies contrast with the traditional uses of video and its long history in educational research where video is considered as “raw data” and “indexical of a given time-space relationship” (de freitas, 2015b, p. 318). the role of recording apparatus and seemingly objective technology has been acknowledged by previous researchers as having effects on the data that is collected. in the posthuman child, karen murris (2016) found that the microphone used to collect children’s stories interfered with the recording and the knowledge being produced. from this posthuman perspective, the zoom screen is not something that alters pure data that exists independently from the researcher but becomes an active participant in creating what can be seen and done and what can happen 129 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice in the liminal space. the screens create a layering of living rooms, bedrooms, offices—spaces that leak into each other with boundaries that break and rebuild. the small rectangular space created by the screen determines what is visible and sharable of these different spaces. babies’ momentary movements in and out of the field of vision resist meaning or interpretation and displace the site of the encounter. through the zoom screen, the families and the researcher found themselves in multiple presents that were not fully translatable in one event or in descriptive field notes. the tangling of babies’ uncapturable bodies and the limited screen view moved the researcher’s attention away from the “phenomenological image of the body, and its desire for presence, and directly links to the force and shock of time itself ” (de freitas, 2015b, p. 323). drawing on gilles deleuze’s concept of the time-image, de freitas suggests reconsidering the capture of video data in which “many presents coexist” (p. 328). in this research, it is the babies’ actions in, out of, and around the screen that create multiple presents of data. susanne gannon (2016) asserts that “posthuman research practices demand attention to materialities and affects, and they prompt experiments and interferences with data” (p. 144.). working through zoom draws attention to these affects and breaks the habit of veering toward more conventional data collection methods. carol taylor (2016) warns against adding posthuman analysis to the interpretation of data that has been conventionally collected (p. 18). instead of attempts at playing with snapshots of collected video to tune into micro moments, as was the initial intention of the research in the gallery, zoom generates “thing power” with the “curious ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, to produce effects both dramatic and subtle” (bennett, 2010, p. 6). this ability to trouble and agitate the event does not fall solely within the power of zoom itself and is not necessarily present in all zoom meetings. rather, zoom is in between the babies’ movements, the speaking mums, the visible living rooms, the mobile phones and the laptop screen in a congregational distribution of agency. while filming with a group of girls, gabriella ivinson and emma renold (2016) describe an “affective intensity” that grew between the camera, landscape, bodies and histories of the area and suggest that the camera became a posthuman participant that “interrupted dominant flows” (ivinson & renold, 2016, p. 169). in this case the affective intensity lies between the zoom screens, the babies’ bodies, the different spaces and the myriad of movements in each moment. with the leaky boundaries of the zoom screen and the transient babies’ bodies, any attempt at description or tuning into the babies’ experiences of the sensory gifts falls instantly flat. the babies and the zoom screen are a reminder of taylor’s (2016) warning: the presumption “that one can access, know about and represent the ‘experience’ of an ‘other’s’ ‘reality’—[is] not so easily dispersed with” (p. 17). field notes created after each zoom session turn from describing the detailed micro-actions of the babies to more poetic and speculative writing to try to grasp something of what is happening in the babies’ often invisible movements and the less tangible encounters. in discussing silences in spoken interviews, lisa mazzei (2007) evokes a poetic understanding of silence. she suggests that by focusing on data that can be catalogued or named, “what we often fail to do is give voice to the poetic among them” (p. 57). can this poetic understanding also be applied to the liminal boundary and space of the zoom encounters between the different screens? to open up to the poetic in these encounters, i turn to what kathleen stewart (2007) describes as “a speculative, concrete attunement” (p. 4) that can provoke attention to the sensations and resonances of the “weighted and reeling present” (p. 1). through attempting writing that is tied to the present it is possible to consider what is (un)knowable and what is (un)representable. this writing seems to find a place in stewart’s suggestion that thought is “something that takes off with the potential trajectories in which it finds itself in the middle” (stewart, 2007, p. 128). the next section of this paper expands on two snippets of discursive notes generated from encounters with the liminal field site of zoom that trouble the notion of a shared ethnographic present. 130 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice discursive notes we see the babies in momentary sweeps of the phone or as they move their bodies into the periphery of the screen. as a mum tells us a story of her day, the baby’s hand stretches out to the ceiling and stays in the centre of the shot, fingers splayed, a solid silhouette. sometimes the weight of their bodies, and the movements they make in their mum’s arms, causes moments of juggling, shifting and rearranging of baby and phone so that the phone lies at an angle and i see the whole room on a slant. (discursive field notes, january 2021) babies, mums, and the researcher cannot share the same space and present. in separate squares they find their bodies in different physical spaces, different rhythms attuned to different sounds and movements outside the periphery of the screen, different speeds and different air around them. the screens cannot fully contain the babies’ bodies and yet become boundaries that cannot be crossed to merge into one time and space. the researcher encounters the sleeping or snuggling babies as their bodies slip in and out of the screen, yet they are wrapped in a present moment of sleep or play or snuggling that the researcher is only present to as the camera turns and a different viewing position emerges. they are not present in the same moment. the entangled performativity of time with other agencies seems to be at work here. marc higgins (2016) in his discussion on barad and indigenous ways-of-knowing-in-being suggests: considerations of time as enfolded and time as always already more than an inert, immutable and linear backdrop upon which nature and culture play out invite an ongoing consideration of the ways in which time makes itself intelligible through its entangled performativity with other agencies. (pp. 201–202) within the zoom, the mums’ stories are shared in fragments as they momentarily turn the screen so the baby comes into view, or the baby, as in the note above, splits the screen with an outstretched arm, or causes a pause in the telling with a continuous babble or a cry in need of some action. the group stops and starts and returns to the beginning of a story or anecdote, and the researcher’s stillness while watching from her room feels in conflict with the swift, blurred action and movement captured on zoom as mums attend to babies. there appears to be an overlayering of timeframes, similar to those proposed by jay lemke (2009), where “we find ourselves trying to forge connections between worlds where time may be flowing at different rates” and “where space can have different relative scales, where we can move backward and forward in virtual time” (p. 13). there is no set boundary between the mum’s zigzagging story, the baby’s hand, the swerving of the screen as they all play out in multiple temporalities. there is also no boundary that separates the past of these stories from the present. all time is layered in this moment like sheets wrapping into separate spaces. the zoom sessions do not happen in isolation from the rest of the world or the rest of the research, and in some instances they brought out connections with the live sessions that had been carried out during seasons of relaxed covid-19 restrictions. the last snippet is a crossover from a face-to-face session where families gathered together in one space with a moment on zoom. it happened again! there is a memory, perhaps the sharpest memory from the live sessions, where she conducted the world. this tiny baby watched me, and when the moment came, she took it. with the elegance and grace of a film star she caught the attention of the room then waited patiently for me to play my part. she is singing. she wriggles and smiles and makes the sound of babbling music. we start a pattern: i sing, she sings. it is a rehearsed show that we have performed for hundreds of years and yet it is the first performance. all mums watch; all babies watch. it could carry on forever and eventually it’s me, the amateur, that fumbles and breaks the spell. 131 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice i think of how the space, the time we spent together, the acoustics of the room, the babies positioned so far away from each other but somehow connected all play in to making this one moment. then it happens again. and the space and the spacing, the acoustics and the timing are different for each of us zooming in from separate rooms on phones and laptops. and it’s a different baby and a different mum and a different song, and yet she watches and waits and then takes the moment. and even though we are miles from each other she catches us all in her web. how can she make eye contact? there is no eye contact on zoom. so why does it feel like she made eye contact with everyone there? (field notes, january 2021) the layering of time in the connections of separate events feels evident in this discursive note. each event affects the other and displaces assumptions of what’s going on in each moment. these moments could be considered as “multiple space-time-matterings” (higgins, 2016, p. 202) that appear “in singular instances in bi-directional causal ways” (p. 202). through this concept i can begin to see how each moment not only is shaped by previous events but continues to be shaped by the events to come and the myriad possible futures that stem from each moment. considering these moments through multiple space-time-matterings brings the perception of babies to the fore as it places them within the entanglements of past, present, and future. as murris (2016) suggests, “we cannot reflect on a past as distant observers moving as atomistic fleshy units through time and space: past and future are already ‘in’ the present of which we are a part” (p. 229). to consider these moments as space-time-matterings we must acknowledge a disruption of linear trajectories. this breaks away from traditional conceptualizations of babies that are structured around models of development and maturation. by focusing in on these layers of moments within the data i am drawn to veronica pacini-ketchabaw and fikile nxumalo’s (2014) call to embrace “mutuality, mess, multiplicity, and contradiction” in “continually emergent past-present-futures” (p. 134). thoughts on babies in research when conducting research with young children in any format it is hard let go of the idea that the experiences of others can be fully known or represented. this is brought to the fore by zoom. while doing in-person fieldwork is a multisensory experience (beyond vision), we still tend to create field notes or visual materials based on what we perceive and can make sense of. in that sense, the field is a site of extraction (of meaning), but at the same time it is also a site of production through the encounter—through “being there.” as a virtual field site, zoom undercuts the ethnographic authority of authentic being-there and perceiving-while-there. the lives of the babies in this research are never fully knowable to me as the researcher, and our encounters on zoom keep this unknowability in tension. these zoom encounters bring into being the unknowability of babies’ lives, and the discursive notes are an attempt at accepting and working with the unknowability by focusing in on the “concrete” (stewart, 2007) of the zoom screen and foregrounding the flickering of different presents. in the beginning, zooming with tiny babies seemed impossible and of little use from a research perspective, yet these moments were made possible by zoom’s ability to continue over and through different temporalities. the boundaries of the zoom screen, made leaky by the tiny babies, are a constant reminder of that which is unseen and unknowable yet always present when considering the lives of babies. 132 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 ideas from practice references archibald, m., ambagtsheer, r, c., casey, m, g., & lawless, m. (2019). using zoom videoconferencing for qualitative data collection: perceptions and experiences of researchers and participants. international journal of qualitative methods, 18, 1–8. https://doi. org/10.1177/1609406919874596 bennett, j. (2010). vibrant matter: a political ecology of things. duke university press. cortés-morales, s., holt, l., acevedo-rincon, j., aitken, s., ladru, d, e., joelsson, t., kraftl, p., murray, l., & tebet, g. (2021). children living in pandemic times: a geographical, transnational, and situated view. children’s geographies, 20(4), 381–391. https://doi.or g/10.1080/14733285.2021.1928603 de freitas, e. (2015a). the moving image in education research: reassembling the body in classroom video data. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 29(4), 553–572. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2015.1077402 de freitas, e. (2015b). classroom data video and the time-image: an-archiving the student body. deleuze studies, 9(3), 318–336. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/45331818 gannon, s. (2016). “local girl befriends vicious bear”: unleashing educational aspiration through a pedagogy of material-semiotic entanglement. in c. a. taylor & c. hughes (eds.), posthuman research practices in education (pp. 128–148). palgrave macmillan. garthwaite, k., wright, k., patrick, r., & power, m. (2020). researching poverty in the pandemic: thinking ethical issues and challenges. social policy association. http://www.social-policy.org.uk/spa-blog/researching-poverty-in-the-pandemic-thinkingthrough-ethical-issues-and-challenges-by-kayleigh-garthwaite-et-al/ haraway, d. (2016). staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. duke university press. higgins, m. (2016). decolonising school science: pedagogically enacting agential literacy and ecologies of relationships. in c. a. taylor & c. hughes (eds.), posthuman research practices in education (pp. 186–205). palgrave macmillan. howlett, m. (2021). looking at the “field” through a zoom lens: methodological reflections on conducting online research during a global pandemic. qualitative research, 22(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120985691 ivinson, g., & renold, e. (2016). girls, camera, (intra)action: mapping posthuman possibilities in a different analysis of camera-girl assemblages in research on gender, corporeality and place. in c. a. taylor & c. hughes (eds.), posthuman research practices in education (pp. 168–185). palgrave macmillan. lemke, j. (2009). multimodal genres and transmedia traversals: social semiotics and the political economy of the sign. semiotica, 173, 283–297. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.2009.012 mazzei, l. (2007). inhabited silence in qualitative research: putting poststructural theory to work. peter lang. murris, k. (2016). the posthuman child: educational transformation through philosophy with picture books. routledge. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & nxumalo, f. (2014). posthumanist imaginaries for decolonising early childhood praxis. in m. n. bloch, b. b. swadener, & g. s. cannella (eds.), reconceptualising early childhood care and education (pp. 131–143). peter lang. stewart, k. (2007) ordinary affects. duke university press. taylor, c. (2016). edu-crafting a cacophonous ecology: posthumanist research practices for education. in c. a. taylor & c. hughes (eds.), posthuman research practices in education (pp. 5–24). palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919874596 https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919874596 https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.1928603 https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.1928603 https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2015.1077402 https://www.jstor.org/stable/45331818 https://www.jstor.org/stable/45331818 about:blank about:blank https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120985691 https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.2009.012 _goback december 2021 1 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research compensating for stigma: representations of hardto-adopt children in “today’s child” daniella bendo, taryn hepburn, and dale spencer daniella bendo is an assistant professor in the department of childhood and youth studies at king’s university college at western university. daniella holds an ma in child and youth studies and a phd in legal studies. her research interests include child and youth advocacy, children’s rights, the united nations convention on the rights of the child, the sociology of childhood, child and youth participation, and participatory research methods. daniella is a member of the canadian coalition for the rights of children, the landon pearson advisory board, the child rights academic network, and the canadian sociological association. email: dbendo@ uwo.ca taryn hepburn is a phd candidate at carleton university in the department of law and legal studies. taryn’s research interests focus around the intersection of young people and canadian criminal law. this includes the development and application of youth criminal justice in canada, the policing and imprisonment of young people, as well as spaces and instances in which youth come in contact with adult justice. email: taryn.hepburn@carleton.ca dale spencer is an associate professor in the department of law and legal studies, carleton university. a former banting fellow and ontario early research award recipient, his main research interests are violence, sport, victimization, policing, youth, and conceptions of homelessness, domicile, and the law. since arriving at carleton in 2014, he has won the fpa research excellence award and the outstanding faculty graduate mentor award. email: dale.spencer@carleton.ca the today’s child column began in 1964 as part of a concerted effort to make the stigmatized act of adoption, particularly of nonwhite children, socially acceptable. daily columns in the toronto telegram and toronto star (syndicated across north america) that pictured one or more children with descriptions of their background and characteristics served to both define “hard-toadopt”1 children and convince would-be parents of the value of the respective child(ren). the column’s author, helen allen, worked to convince parents of the life they could have if they adopted the advertised child and offered compensation for stigmas attached to the child. in this article, we elucidate the compensations offered to potential parents as a way of understanding how values and stigma intersected in advertisements of children. research regarding stigma and media is in no short supply given the power of media portrayals to perpetuate stereotypes and assign value to traits (dahl, 1993; farnall & smith, 1999; kitzinger, 1999; valkenburg et al., 2016; waller & mccallum, 2018; yeshua-katz & martins, 2013). stigma literature has described media as a powerful tool (lonne & parton, 2014; lu et al. 2018) for shifting narratives surrounding oppressive demographics. this article contributes to the literature on both stigma and the sociology of adoption by examining the intersections between media and stigma as they apply to adoption. while consequences of the stigma of adoption for children and families is a prevalent theme in sociological studies of adoption (dansey et al., 2019; jacobson, 2014; kline et al., 2006; leighton, 2014), this article addresses the gap regarding practices to mitigate stigma that lead to we examine 4,300 advertisements of children who were featured in today’s child, a daily newspaper column written by helen allen in the toronto telegram and toronto star (1964–1982) and syndicated across north america. we highlight how stigma and values were attributed to adoptive children featured in these advertisements. our findings reveal how the advertisements perpetuated and attached stigma to these children and how this stigma had to be compensated for the children to appeal to prospective parents. compensatory strategies were ultimately required to manage stigma and increase the value of the featured children. key words: compensation; stigma; adoption; child welfare; children mailto:dbendo@uwo.ca mailto:dbendo@uwo.ca mailto:taryn.hepburn@carleton.ca mailto:dale.spencer@carleton.ca december 2021 2 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research adoption. further, research on positive stigma has traditionally presented practices of compensation as beneficial; strategies of compensation can reduce interpersonal discrimination in job applications and can make a person more likeable or socially desirable (singletary & hebl, 2009). our investigation demonstrates that allen engaged in compensatory strategies on behalf of the featured children but understands the today’s child column’s use of compensation for stigma management as a harmful practice. normalized language in the column reflects a form of symbolic violence because it lessens specific forms of life while valuing other forms (bourdieu, 1984/2000; zizek, 2008). symbolic violence is a “gentle, invisible violence, unrecognized as such” (bourdieu, 1990). the language creates hierarchies that can be perceived as “disinterested and legitimate” despite “support[ing] relations that are … suffused with power” (topper, 2001). this language creates hierarchies between forms of life and imputes different degrees of value upon groups of adoptable children. for example, the column imputes inherently racist ideals upon nonwhite children, informing the reader of the stigma attached to the child that developed through historical structures of race and settler colonialism2. whereas children of various ethnicities and races, abilities, ages, and genders were featured, the column’s portrayal of the most desirable and adoptable children explicitly cite able-bodied, bright females under 2 years old with no health issues and of anglo-saxon descent. this article analyzes 4,300 entries of today’s child columns from 1964 to 1982, but draws specifically on entries between 1967 to 1971 to demonstrate how advertisements of hard-to-adopt children both devalued children based on stigmatized conditions and tried to compensate for this devaluing. the use of advertisements to sell traits of children to parents is not an area that has yet been teased apart by social researchers. children of various racial backgrounds were featured in the today’s child column, but displayed indigenous children (1118 total featured) were part of a larger system of indigenous child removal (see strong-boag, 2005). although we do not singularly discuss indigenous children in this article, we acknowledge the conditions of settler colonialism in relation to adoption whereby the adoption of indigenous children into non-indigenous families is a tactic of the settler colonial state. regarding settler colonialism in canada, we are not engaging with the residential school system, but draw attention to the equally destructive period of indigenous child removal and forced adoption known as the “60s scoop” (sinclair, 2007, spencer, 2017). the 60s scoop was predicated on child welfare that presented a positive façade; the forced removal and assimilation of indigenous children occurred under auspices of a child-saving rhetoric. amendment 88 of the indian act (1951) enabled provincial laws to be enforced on reserves, allowing provincial child welfare services to apprehend children in reserve communities. the child welfare system emerged with the demise of the residential school system, was staffed by social workers, and was procured with federal-provincial transfers through the canada assistance plan (1966). white acculturation and assimilation were encouraged by social workers, while children’s indigeneity was deliberately diminished in social history records (sinclair, 2007). we now know that over 20,000 indigenous children were subjected to this adoption program in canada (brown v canada 2017). as we discuss adoption and the child welfare system, we acknowledge that the system was built on imperialist and racist foundations and has failed to sufficiently account for the elimination-based perspectives and processes that it perpetuates. this article has three main parts. first, we connect the sociology of values literature to stigma as a way of framing how today’s child offered compensations for stigmatized traits in children. second, we provide an overview of the today’s child column. third, we explain the methods of the study. in the fourth section, we analyze how stigma and values figure in compensating for “hard-to-adopt” children. december 2021 3 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research values, stigma, and adoption values are defined in two primary ways: first, as something directly attached or ascribed to preferred objects; second, as persisting beliefs or conceptions that assert something as preferable or desirable (thome, 2015). values are underpinned by evaluative standards that are often revealed in binary codes in the sense of judgments being made, for example, good versus evil, true versus false, beautiful versus ugly. these judgments correspond to moral, cognitive, and aesthetic standards that vary by culture and social group. in sociological terms, every culture offers social values that are conveyed and inscribed through the socialization process and buttressed by social practices and interaction rituals. concomitantly, a single act usually touches upon manifold and competing values. as a single value is related to a greater set of actions, values come into play, as a plurality, which in turn signifies that they must be harmonized and arranged in comprehensive sets of value orientations that are hierarchically oriented (thome, 2015). values contribute to normative agreements as moral and cultural beliefs that dictate the rationales of actions. they have power in their ability to dictate what is desirable and undesirable through forms of socialization. values also influence choices and decisions and control ways of thinking and acting. they can be formed and shaped by ideas impressed upon one through interpersonal and institutional beliefs. values are often inferred and internalized by individuals or systems, which dictate and instigate behaviours based on these ideas. values serve to organize behaviours and ideas and are often hierarchically ordered to promote efficient and consistent living. when a valued object is not available to an actor, a different valued object may be offered in exchange. justification provides a logical, mutually agreed upon basis for the actor to accept something valued less. in relation to standards of value in moral, cognitive, and aesthetic realms, recipients of objects of lesser value in one realm may be compensated through another realm. for example, a person may accept an object that is of lower aesthetic value based on higher moral values. the stigma attached to the children in the descriptions in the today’s child advertisements, as lower aesthetic objects, compromises their value. while stigma once referred to the bodily signs of a physical disorder, erving goffman (1963) considered the ways in which the physical manifestation was lost and replaced by societal categories. members of a society learn to categorize other members through a collection of attributes considered “ordinary” or “natural” for members of each category. these categories cannot be apolitical or derived without social historical context (tyler, 2018). for example, stigma attached to indigeneity is necessarily tied to settler colonialism and imperialism. marking advertised children with gender, race, ability, and other categories is “highly suggestive about the construction of normalcy” (strong-boag, 2005). as social individuals interact with each other, they form expectations about each other’s “social identity” from the displayed attributes. if an individual does not fulfil the initial expectations, they are “reduced in our minds” (goffman, 1963), the subject of a discrepancy of the assumed and actual social identity. if this discrepancy regards a “deeply discrediting” attribute, the individual is the subject of stigma, or “spoiled identity,” which influences how other individuals relate to them (goffman, 1963). goffman (1963) operationalized stigma as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting ... really, a special kind of relationship between attribute and stereotype” (p. 3. stigma is socially contextualized (e.g., major & o’brien, 2005; swartz et al., 2009) and represents a perceptive lens rooted in ideological understandings. these understandings deem a certain attribute or status tied to an attribute as indicative of a person’s identity. a negative attribute indicates stigma and a “spoiled identity,” considered inferior, dangerous, and unworthy—a lesser being (goffman, 1963). the trait tied to this stigma is associated with negative stereotypes or preconceived judgments that shape an individual’s perceived identity and becomes their primary identifying attribute: their master status (fothergill, 2005; hannem, 2019; swartz et al., 2009). december 2021 4 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research placed in the framework of value, categories of spoiled identities are imputed value; “normal” and “stigmatized” as roles in a social process are connected (goffman, 1963) in the ongoing production of the value assigned to categorical attributes. stigma continues to be produced through belief in an imputed value assigned to a category or attribute. the values imputed to the attributes are directly connected to how the actors feel about and react to the attribute. considering the “spoiled identity” relation to the “normal” as an ongoing negotiation of value allows us to pose stigma as a value-laden position in relation to moral, cognitive, and aesthetic culturally understood standards, as well as posing the production of spoiled identities as serving an end. such spoiled identities infect objects of lower value but can be compensated for through competing values. for example, in the case of child adoption advertisements, spoiled identities can be compensated through attributions of higher value that compensate for lower value attributes associated with stigma. the literature on stigma and adoption points to a decline in adoption since the 1970s (fisher, 2003) and the considerable discrimination and stigmatization faced by adoptees (goldberg et al., 2011; march, 1995; small, 2006; wegar, 2000). such stigma, according to mandell (2007), emanates from the norm of the patriarchal nuclear family in western societies that views deviations like adoption as illegitimate and transgressive. wegar (2000) illustrates the effects of dominant north american genetic family ideals on community attitudes towards adoption, adoptees, adoption research, and the beliefs of adoption case workers. social stigma related to adoption not only negatively affects adoptees, but also the practices of case workers. march (1995) indicates that such stigma manifests in motivations to reunite with birth family members as adoptees seek to shed the stigma of being adopted through reunion. goldberg and colleagues (2011) indicate that adoptive parents in their study, regardless of sexuality, internalized adoptive stigma, and participants who reported internalized stigma, were more depressed than those who did not report internalized stigma. today’s child began as a column dedicated to convincing would-be parents that the featured children were worth adopting and that it was virtuous to adopt hard-to-adopt children. such an adoption movement dovetailed with and fed into the baby scoop and the 60s scoop (andrews 2018; stevenson, 2020). previous work on today’s child by strong-boag (2005) illustrates that the column began as canadians were “reconsidering” adopting children; it described potential adoptees as “long-stigmatized youngsters.” picking up on this assertion, we probe how today’s child promulgated such stigmatization and adoption. whereas the broader literature on stigma bring attention to the presence of stigma and its effects in relation to adoption, the following analysis brings into focus the role of value and stigma in the selling of adoption to would-be parents. further, this article unearths the discriminatory hierarchies underlying how potential adoptees were described and advertised to primarily white adoptive parents. to begin this analysis, in the next section we provide an overview of helen allen and the today’s child column. helen allen and today’s child in 1962 james band, provincial deputy minister of welfare, travelled through ontario visiting orphanages and institutions (adams, 1982). band was appalled to find “hard-to-adopt” children residing in institutions; this category included children with physical or mental disabilities, racialized children, and children older than 2 (leach, 1977). band approached the toronto telegram’s managing editor andrew macfarlane in 1964 and proposed advertising these hard-to-adopt children in the newspaper (adams, 1982). at macfarlane’s direction, then-reporter helen allen began producing the today’s child column in 1964. allen’s column appealed to would-be parents to adopt hard-to-adopt children by advertising each child’s characteristics, including appearance, race, sex, and disability, with a photo of the child and an address to contact allen if the reader was interested in adopting the child. the proposal experienced initial pushback from all but four children’s aid societies, as the societies’ employees worried about the harm of advertising the children (adams, 1982). when the first four societies had 18 of the 23 featured december 2021 5 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research children adopted, the column became used by societies across ontario (srikanthan, 2006). today’s child gained traction and grew through the end of the 1960s, reflected in the increase in the numbers of children featured in the column and participating children’s aid societies. in 1972, the column moved to the toronto star and continued to expand; by 1974, today’s child was running in 23 daily newspapers, 150 weekly newspapers, and “racial and ethnic presses” (leach, 1976). with the success of today’s child, in 1968 allen proposed further advertising with a television program, family finder, run by the production company cfto. the program ran on channel 9 television network and was made available “without charge” on 12 other ontario television networks (leach, 1975). allen hosted the program alongside david devall, bringing children available for adoption for a half-hour of unscripted interview and play on camera. over the program’s 13 years, each episode featured 4 or 5 children, who had agreed to be featured or whose case worker felt it would be beneficial to have them featured (adams, 1982). as in today’s child, prospective parents were given an address to contact allen, who responded and forwarded their letter to the children’s aid society responsible for the child. today’s child and family finder were ontario ministry of welfare projects and received praise and funding from the ministry, including receiving provincial funding for the travel of children and their case worker to be on the television program (macdonald, 1977). the project was supported federally by the national adoption desk, which eventually employed allen to work alongside victoria leach. leach recommended the use of today’s child or columns of a like kind for “unadoptable” children in her correspondence with provincial ministers of children and welfare (leach, 1976). over her tenure with today’s child and family finder, helen allen was an adoption advocate and speaker, reporter, television host, and ministry of welfare employee. she spoke at international conferences and attended meetings with adoptive parent advocates (e.g., canadopt) and official gatherings such as adoption resource exchange meetings (leach, 1980). allen was the public face of adoption in canada, labelled the “fairy godmother of adoption” (srikanthan, 2006). she was a celebrated figure, and in 1970 was given the order of canada (martin, 2014). outside of canada, she was involved with adoptions across the border which were featured on “that’s my line” with television host bob barker. contemporary with the american “operation baby lift” in vietnam, helen allen was part of a canadian team that moved vietnamese babies for adoption overseas. allen had a dramatic impact on the movement of children from canada and abroad into adoptive parents’ homes. indeed allen estimated that she was responsible for the adoption of 11,000 children across north america (srikanthan, 2006). methods the study utilized a mixed methods design (hanson et al., 2005) where the today’s child columns were coded for quantitative analysis and more in-depth qualitative analysis was done subsequently. qualitative data was prioritized and shaped the analysis of the current paper, while the quantitative data is presented in descriptive form to situate the broader qualitative themes. strengths of the techniques complemented one another through the integration of the two methods to understand the breadth and depth of stigmatizing traits. a mixed methods design enriched the analysis of value inscription in hard-to-adopt children in today’s child. sample this research analyzes the child adoption advertisements between 1964, when helen allen started her column, and 1982, when she retired from the toronto star and her column3. we analyzed all 4,300 children featured in 3,299 columns. the toronto telegram (1964–1971) was accessed through library and archives canada in ottawa, ontario. the toronto star (1972–1982) was accessed online through proquest historical papers4. a column featured between one and seven children; one child was the most common number of children per column. december 2021 6 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research quantitative analysis we conducted descriptive analysis of eight characteristics that demonstrate children’s categorization as hard to adopt by allen in the first today’s child column to illustrate the population featured in the column. we report on frequencies and percentages of the eight characteristics: eye colour, skin colour, hair colour, sex, age, origin and descent, mental disabilities, physical disability. “eye colour” was collapsed into four categories: not stated5, brown, blue, and green. “skin colour” was collapsed into three categories: not stated, not white, white. “hair colour” was collapsed into three categories: not stated, not blonde, blonde. “sex” was collapsed into two categories: female, male. “age” was collapsed into two categories: 2 and under, over 2 years old.6 the “origin and descent” variable was collapsed into four categories: not stated, european, indigenous, non-european/non-indigenous racialized other. “mental disabilities” was collapsed into two categories: no disability, mental disability. “physical disabilities” was collapsed into two categories: no disability, physical disability. qualitative analysis we conducted thematic analysis to determine how media representations ascribed value onto children portrayed in the today’s child column. we define four emergent themes (altheide & schneider, 2013) regarding the means of inscribing value: intrinsic compensation, extrinsic compensation, temporality of negative traits, and positive reframing of negative traits. tracking negative and compensatory traits allowed us to understand the ascription of value placed onto children considered hard to adopt and how value was communicated and perceived through media by today’s child. we used creswell’s process of winnowing to truncate the codes used to represent the themes (creswell, 2013). using the framework of value production and stigma, we interpret what it means for a child to become an object of value as a hard-to-adopt child. results: compensating for hard-to-adopt children quantitative results table 1: percentage distribution of children ascribed with adoptable attributes advertised in today’s child column sex female male 36.2% 63.8% 1555 2745 age 2 years old or younger older than 2 years not stated 30.2% 68.5% 1.3% 1300 2944 56 december 2021 7 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research origin of descent european indigenous n o n e u r o p e a n / n o n i n d i g e n o u s racialized not stated 34.3% 26.0% 9.7% 30.0% 1477 1118 415 1290 eye colour blue brown green not stated 28.4% 44.0% 6.7% 20.9% 1221 1898 284 897 hair colour blonde not blonde not stated 17.3% 58.2% 24.5% 742 2504 1054 skin colour white not white not stated 39.0% 13.7% 47.3% 1679 587 2034 mental disability no disability disability 94.6% 5.4% 4068 232 physical disability no disability disability 79.6% 20.4% 3421 879 quantitative results today’s child was intended to find parents for hard-to-adopt children; therefore, the range of attributes of featured children demonstrates the respective adoptability of the child. for instance, boys were featured far more frequently than girls, suggesting that boys are considered harder to adopt than girls. this finding was reflected in allen’s first article on june 6, 1964; allen outlined the mission statement of today’s child and suggested that a baby girl was the ideal adoptable child. having a higher presence in the column then indicates the child being farther from the ideal, and thus a lower hierarchical ranking (bendo et al., 2019; hepburn et al., 2020). december 2021 8 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research there are two noteworthy points in our quantitative results. first, in the first article allen indicated that she would not include children with mental disabilities; this deliberate exclusion indicates that such children are particularly unadoptable. second, while the statistics indicate that children with physical disability and racialized children are the minority of the featured children, both categories are overrepresented compared to their presence in the general population. at the time of the column’s tenure, indigenous peoples made up between 1.2 and 1.5 percent of the total population (saku, 1999) yet composed 26% of children featured in the column (bendo et al., 2019). similarly, 20.4% of children in the column had physical disabilities, despite physical disability (including shortterm disability) being prevalent in only around 5% of children in canada in 1978 (wilkins & adams, 1983). qualitative results the today’s child advertisements serve as a vehicle to communicate stigma, and thus inscribe value onto featured children, which defines their rank in a hierarchy of adoptability. to address lower hierarchical rankings, the column offered socially desirable attributes as a compensatory strategy. the strategy informed the readers that there was a stigma to be compensated for and offered an appropriate compensation. this practice informed prospective parents of the severity of the stigmas attached to respective children in its effort to engage in compensatory strategies. intrinsic compensation. children in the today’s child column were often described by the negative characteristics, traits, or dispositions they displayed, which were then compensated for by alternative positive characteristics, or characteristics that were portrayed as positive, attempting to increase the child’s value. this is particularly evident in excerpts that focus on indigenous children. in the columns, settler colonial attitudes about indigenous children suggested that their indigeneity could be compensated for by the labour they could offer to prospective parents. these descriptions of positive traits possessed by the child served as the compensatory elements in the advertisements to convince prospective parents to value the child as adoptable. consider these quotes: march 28, 1969—you’d certainly expect ross to grow up to be a football player with his broad shoulders and substantial body. his allergies are completely compensated for by his cheerful, happy disposition. while ross was initially described as a boy who had the potential to grow up to be a football player, he was subsequently characterized as having a lower physical value based on the stigma surrounding his allergies. this stigma was compensated by the desirable quality of a happy disposition. ross’s characteristics of allergies, happiness, and masculinity were inscribed with value, informing the reader of valuable characteristics more generally. the value of each of these characteristics was preestablished and placed onto the child. the characteristics were inscribed onto other children who were featured in the column and defined their adoptability; ross’s allergies were compensated for with his masculinity and happiness, which informed readers and prospective parents of the appropriate compensation for allergies. the compensation informed readers that allergies were stigmatized and further informed readers that the stigma was attached to other featured children. the amount of compensation offered indicates to the prospective parents the severity of the stigma. march 5, 1971—corinne has had some unhappy experiences which may make it hard for her to adjust to a new home. but she is an affectionate girl, anxious to belong to a family, so she wants to try. the child was described as having a blemish of character that the parents would have to accept—her unsettling former experiences that impact her ability to adjust to a new home. despite this fact, the child’s value had the potential to increase because she was affectionate and willing to try and overcome her blemish of character. what she lacked, she could compensate for herself, if she was willing to try and overcome her blemish of character and establish a sense of belonging in the family. december 2021 9 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research january 23, 1971—and as you see in the full-length picture, he has a problem.... his foster mother thinks nature has made up mentally for what david lacks physically, because she finds him a very bright boy…. though he can’t manipulate his legs well, he is expert with his hands. this good-natured child has a winning personality. he is cuddly and affectionate and loves to be read to. the column described david not as a person with characteristics but rather by the fact that he had a problem (listed as spina bifida). david was physically stigmatized and advertised as a child whose value was in his intelligence and character to compensate for the fact that he was physically less valuable. the column attempted to make up for david’s disability in multiple ways, demonstrating that his negative trait required more compensation than others, such as allergies. while there was potential that convincing prospective parents to care for a child with spina bifida required additional care, the advertisement informed the reader that david’s characteristics were much more stigmatizing than those of other children and required much more compensation to redeem his value as an adoptable child. may 14, 1971—he has been diagnosed as a dwarf and has the characteristics of that condition—legs and arms shorter than average.… danny knows he is a dwarf and likes the attention he gets. like david, danny was described solely by his dwarfism. the description suggested that he was of lesser value than other children who were not described by a condition. marked with physical stigma, danny was described as compensating for his condition. his condition was stigmatized and therefore value-less; to compensate for his condition he was described as liking the attention he received for it. extrinsic compensation. when featured children were defined by the negative characteristics or dispositions they possessed, these traits were compensated for by the potentially beneficial offerings they could provide, including their ability to economically benefit the family through labour and monetary value. extrinsic compensation, such as work or income, was most present for children who were described as indigenous. consider these quotes: february 28, 1969—this earnest young workman is ralph, aged 2. everything about him looks purposeful from the intent expression on his face to the sturdy way he’s planted his feet. ralph is a healthy, solid little boy with broad shoulders and the dark eyes and hair of his indian ancestors. although ralph was of “indian” descent, this was compensated for by what he could offer the family through his ability to work as a sturdy, solid, broad workman. while his origin of descent was portrayed as tribally stigmatized, these work traits inscribed value onto the child through a valuable service they offered a prospective family. the language that was chosen to describe this child was strategic and showcased his capabilities as a potential worker. this form of compensation framed this child and other similar children as useful, competent workers who could provide output for the prospective families, rather than valuing them for who they were as children. below, dean and ken were also strategically described by the physical traits that they possessed as workers on a farm: january 25, 1970—these good-looking boys are dean ... and ken, brothers aged 8 and 10.… the boys are english and objibiwa (sic) in background, both sturdily built and healthy.… the boys are living on a farm and they really love the life. they are interested in the animals, like helping with the chores, and find the barn a great place to play. the boys were not described by their personalities but were conceptualized as children who had the physical build to work on a farm, as well as personal interests in engaging in farm work and farm living. the brothers were overwritten with tribal stigma by being described as indigenous, suggesting that the stereotyping of “who” they were mattered in adoptive parent decision making (timberlake et al., 2015). the advertisement was not interested in describing who the children were but rather what they could offer to prospective parents to compensate for december 2021 10 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research their ancestry. this finding reflects the findings of engel and colleagues (2012), who discuss the practice of forced labour of indigenous children who were transracially adopted or placed in boarding schools. to compensate for dean and ken’s racial background, the boys provided extrinsic compensation through work as indigenous farm workers. thus, the column showcased these children as adoptable workers rather than adoptable children. other columns highlighted the benefit of adopting indigenous children for the economic gain they could provide to the family. consider this excerpt: june 3, 1967—ruth and terry look just as unhappy as you’d expect of two children who have no parents and don’t know what the future holds for them.… they are anglo saxon and objiwa (sic) indians and are registered as indian so they are eligible for government health and educational grants. this does not change whether they are adopted by white or indian parents. like dean and ken above, ruth and terry were inscribed with tribal stigma as “registered indians.” the final lines of the excerpt marketed the children as monetarily valuable to their prospective family regardless of the heritage of the family. the extrinsic gain was intended to compensate for the children having decreased value due to their racial background. transitory and permanent compensation. negative characteristics or traits in children featured in today’s child were often described as temporary. the need for compensation was lessened when the negative trait was temporary, as choosing such a child had a calculated benefit of being able to perform normalcy at a point in the future. more compensation was necessary if the characteristic or disposition was permanent, as those children would not have the benefit of normalcy. consider: february 15, 1967—she has dark, almond-shaped eyes, a thick crop of light brown hair and fair skin.... ruthann has a small extra thumb on her right hand which can be removed by surgery when she is a year old. the small extra thumb on ruthann’s hand could be removed shortly, which made this flaw removable. while it was stigmatizing while it was there, the extra thumb was temporary, and thus would not permanently impact ruthann’s value as an adoptable object. due to its temporary nature, the thumb required very little compensation to account for it. ruthann’s value decreased while she possessed this physical stigma, but once it was removed, her value would increase. may 13, 1971—margaret is in good health but has the temperamental ups and downs that go with adolescence. undoubtedly the “downs” are complicated by concern over her future. this young girl needs a warm, stimulating home with stable, understanding, relaxed parents, preferably in an urban setting. the advertisement explicitly emphasized the child’s good health to combat her undesirable temperament. her temperament was not permanent and instead was something that she was experiencing as an adolescent. this suggested that this was a temporary state and shortcoming addressable by relaxed parents who could offer support as she developed. the child’s value would increase as she overcame this temporary adolescent stage. april 22, 1971—doctors feel only one problem remains—the fingers on her right hand are stiff but she uses it well. her right eye is turned in and this is due for correction soon. although the child had issues with her right eye, the advertisement suggested that the limitations should not be a concern for prospective parents as the temporary condition would be corrected by surgery and thus would not be a permanent stigma. december 2021 11 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research december 6, 1969—at 19 months mark is just at the age when a child is busy exploring his expanding world where there are always new places to go and new things to see and new skills to develop. for mark the exploring is different. he can’t run and climb like most children his age. he can’t feel things with his hands. mark was born with no legs and only the upper parts of his arms. extensive tests have revealed no reason for his condition…. it wouldn’t be all give for parents who could take mark to their hearts. he’s such a happy, friendly little boy, so enthusiastic and eager to try anything. in comparison to the advertisements above, which suggested a temporarily lowered value, this advertisement described a permanent physical stigma. mark’s disability was permanent, and he was inscribed with many positive characteristics to compensate his value as an adoptable child. while the column never directly stated that the disability was permanent in the same way that it explicitly described the temporality of conditions, the permanence was demonstrated as impacting mark’s value as an adoptable object by requiring far more compensation than a temporary disability would require. discussion the expressed intent of the today’s child’s progenitors—dr. james band, andrew macfarlane, and helen allen— was to have more children adopted out of institutions. past the age of 2, caregivers in institutions did not expect children to ever be adopted (adams, 1982). hannem (2019) outlines the way that discourses mobilizing support for children and families of incarcerated people often inadvertently perpetuate stigma despite any intent to a public good; our research demonstrates that many consequences of the today’s child column had negative implications for children, including being the object of colonial expansion (bendo et al., 2019) and having negative stigmas attached to them. the results above indicate that the children featured were grouped into collections of different stigmas which required different compensation. the individual featured child served as an example of a child with a particular stigma and of a particular value; the featured child indicated to potential parents what kind of compensation they might expect with a like child. allen indicated this further in her column: one of the large children’s aid societies reports the happy adoption of four children of mixed race this week, a new record for them. none of the youngsters had appeared in today’s child, but all of them went to parents whose interest was first kindled by seeing other children with similar backgrounds in this column. (february 13, 1971) prospective parents who indicated interest in a specific featured child were sent information on a like child if the featured child was not available (adams, 1982). the success of replacing one child with another indicates that the value of the children featured in the column was determined by the way their attributes were described in the column. the descriptions signalled to prospective parents that they needed to be able to accept or overcome the child’s shortcoming(s); they also stigmatized and inscribed a lesser value onto that child and like children. the descriptions created variation in value and stigma; some children required further acceptance or more compensation than others. as evidenced in the findings, children were characterized by negative traits which were then combatted with descriptions of positive characteristics to increase the child’s value through a form of intrinsic compensation. this was also evident on an extrinsic level, whereby children’s negative characteristics were compensated for by positive extrinsic aspects that they could offer to prospective parents, such as labour and profit. these extrinsic compensatory traits were heightened in the daily columns to showcase the children’s potential value. finally, findings also reveal a sense of transitory and permanent compensation whereby children with permanent negative traits were presented with enhanced compensatory descriptions within the columns compared to children whose negative characteristics were described as temporary and therefore short term. collectively, the findings highlight december 2021 12 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research the various forms of compensation that shifted throughout the columns to inscribe or detract value to, from, and upon children featured in today’s child. it is worth noting that all the quotes featured in this article come from four publication years: 1967, 1969, 1970, and 1971. while these were not all of the available quotes regarding compensation, they were the quotes deemed most directly relevant to the discussion. the timeframe likely points to evolving contexts of value in relation to child adoption. for instance, children’s aid societies coined the term “hard to adopt” in the 1950s to describe adoptive children in institutions with undesirable characteristics that contributed to their status as hard to adopt (adams, 1982). internal use of term by child service workers generally referred to children over the age of 2 (wolkomir, 1974). in the late 1960s, the term was carried out of the institutional context by james band, the deputy minister of welfare in ontario, who initiated a campaign to advertise children available for adoption. helen allen popularized the term and articulated it to the wider north american public through the today’s child column, while social workers, parent advocates, legislators, and the press contributed to the mobilization of the term. the study presents some limitations and recommendations for future research. due to ethical considerations, this article does not include the pictures of the children from the today’s child column. featuring the photos of the young people in published work without their explicit consent would only serve to further stigmatize and harm these individuals. additionally, we did not want to reaffirm any indigenous communities’ negative feelings towards the photos but rather highlight the importance of investigating how compensations, values, and stigma intersected in advertisements of children and figured onto hard-to-adopt children. this article offers space for future research to explore the perspectives and viewpoints of the children featured in today’s child as well as the adoptive parents to understand the impact of advertisements on the parent’s decisions to adopt and how projected stigma figured in the family. future consideration could be given to the reception of prospective parents to the compensatory strategies. this article opens space for future research to investigate specific stigmas and value, including racialized, sexualized, or ability-based values. conclusion this article provides a thematic analysis of the mobilization of compensation and stigma of adoptive children employed in the today’s child column. in an analysis of 4,300 column excerpts from the today’s child, we employed a mixed method design to demonstrate the breadth of the column’s featured children and how the advertisements attached stigma to those children. findings reveal three main themes relevant to compensating for stigma: intrinsic compensation, extrinsic compensation, and transitory and permanent compensation. these themes reveal that compensation figures on to the child based on the child’s portrayed characteristics; different stigmas require different compensation to rehabilitate the child’s value for prospective parents. given the current gap in the literature regarding the use of advertisements to sell traits of adoptive children to prospective parents, this study contributes to the field of child adoption, child welfare, and child and youth studies more broadly. we also contribute to the study of stigma and value by contributing an analysis of theoretical and practical mobilizations of stigma and value overwritten onto children. for instance, the article conjoins considerations of value to goffman’s foundational sociological work, and thus contributes to research and broader theory within areas of sociological inquiry. we contribute to the development of literature around stigma and stigma management by accounting for an external party compensating for stigma using other values. this article demonstrates how conceptions of value overlap with understandings of stigma and indicate ways in which stigma is compensated for. while stigma reaffirms “the normal” in this context, it reveals ableist and racist ideals of the time. this article shows how stigma was attached to children in the process of making those children december 2021 13 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research acceptable for adoption. this legacy remains part of how the colonial government justifies both the removal and adoption of what are considered hard-to-adopt children. take for example, the millennium scoop (spencer, 2017) in the canadian context, whereby indigenous children are disproportionately removed from their homes to be adopted. this continuing child welfare practice demonstrates the durability of stigma and conceptions of value that remain with us today. 1 today’s child columns conceptualized hard-to-adopt children as boys, those older than 2, racialized, or disabled children who were not considered desirable to most prospective parents. 2 settler colonialism refers to a process whereby foreign peoples from a centre of imperial power move as a large group to a region and displace people indigenous to the land through genocide, expulsion, or segregation. for patrick wolfe (2006), settler colonialism follows a logic of elimination. it is an engrained system committed to the eradication of the indigenous population. forced indigenous adoption is part of this larger eliminationist logic. 3 after allen retired, the today’s child columns became less frequent over the next three years, though continued for years afterwards. 4 strong-boag’s (2005) previous research highlighting the importance of helen allen in adoption in ontario only sampled the first three years of her today’s child columns. 5 for precision, any characteristic not given was coded as “not stated.” 6 the separation of 2 years and above reflects the original finding of band’s investigation of institutions and orphanages, in which children over 2 years old were considered by care workers to be unadoptable (adams, 1982). december 2021 14 vol. 46 no. 4 journal of childhood studies articles from research references adams, j. 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(2008). violence. picador. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01154.x https://doi.org/10.1111/tsq.12076 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.00214 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0038026118777450 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0038026118777450 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033608 https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718754650 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2000.00363 https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240 https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240 https://archive.org/details/sim_child-welfare_1947-02_26_2 https://archive.org/details/sim_child-welfare_1947-02_26_2 https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2012.699889 https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2012.699889 _goback _hlk501389320 _goback _enref_11 _enref_18 _enref_23 _enref_32 _hlk78984965 _hlk78985009 _goback _hlk87288128 85 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research “the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown!”: reflections on childhood, climate action, and futurity lucy hopkins lucy hopkins is an academic and researcher in the field of childhood studies at edith cowan university. her research focuses on representations of children and childhoods and their attendant cultural politics. she has a particular interest in global childhoods and climate justice. email: lucy.hopkins@ecu.edu.au this paper grew out of my dismay at watching, in 2019 and beyond, the ways in which the urgent, informed, articulate, independent, and politically and socially engaged climate activism of young people in australia was being at once diminished and belittled, and nodded to and dismissed by adultist responses, which seek to embed differences between the “adult-self ” and “child-other” (biswas & mattheis, 2022). specifically, my interest in the ways in which children were presenting themselves as climate activists was piqued when on march 15, 2019, i stood in a playground in glebe park in central canberra. it was the day of the worldwide school strike for climate action, and i had taken my two children, 4 years and 6 months old, to the protest. the playground was at the site of the rally’s end, and there were families and children who had attended the rally milling around, playing. it was there, in the playground, that i was struck by a placard that read “the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown!” the sign was sitting unattended as its owner, a perhaps 5or 6-year-old climate activist, played in the playground. i spoke to the parent standing nearby who said their child had chosen the wording for the placard themselves. i was immediately struck by the confluence of these signs of childhood (the playground) and protest (the placard) and wondered at the ways that children’s subjectivities were being imagined and enacted within the space of the protest/playground itself. the very location of the placard with all its attendant symbolic weight of political expression within this very strongly demarcated childhood space—and here i reference the historicity of playgrounds emerging as a response to the victorian delineation of childhood as a separate space to adulthood and thus as a powerful symbol of this (kincaid, 1994)—this confluence of politics and childhood alerted me to the potential for children’s climate activism to blur the boundaries between dominant notions of childhood and adulthood, innocence and agency. the notion that this child, like many children everywhere, was able to position themselves as both playful child and political activist, set me to thinking about the ways in which dominant, limited discourses of childhood might be genuinely disrupted by child activists themselves. in 2019 it was clear that in australia, the dominant and pervasive responses from adults and adult institutions to children’s participation in the worldwide school strike for climate action sought to rehearse the positioning of child climate activists either as immanent future adult subjects or as agents of hope for the future. i noted, with dismay, this paper’s reading of a specific cultural artifact to emerge from children’s climate activism in contemporary australia enacts an argument that children themselves can be seen to be redefining childhood and futurity through their climate activism and demonstrates how their placards are evidence of this. it argues that we as critical childhood scholars can follow their lead by uncovering the discourses that underpin their activist slogans. in doing so, we can set about contesting the limiting and disempowering discourses of childhood that would dismiss the very idea of children as political participants in the fight to save the planet. key words: climate activism; childhood; futurity 86 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research the ways that, in their focus on futurity within a neoliberal conceptualization of time as linear and progressive, both these positionings were engaging in a double manoeuvre of obscuring childhood and activism in the present, reinscribing still dominant modernist (and adultist) positionings of children as other-to adults (balagopalan, 2021; millei, 2021; raby & sheppard, 2021). but i wanted to consider how activist children were positioning themselves through and within their activism. in this paper, then, i discuss the placard “the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown!” (figure 1) and the social and political context in which it sits, to explore how children’s climate activism brings forth a challenge to dominant discourses of childhood, time, and climate activism. in particular, i argue that this placard can be read in ways that signal how—through their activism—children are seeing themselves differently, and through reshaping the representational politics of childhood, are breaking through discourses that confine them to be passive recipients of adult decision making to become players in the discursive construction of the climate emergency. building on the work of ketaki prabha (2020) and ben bowman (2019), who each advocate for opening up fresh ways to make sense of children’s activism, and within the context of contemporary children’s climate activism in australia, i read the implicit and explicit messages encoded in the placard “the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown!” to suggest that children themselves are carving out new ways of being and doing in the face of climate catastrophe. making use of possible understandings of futurity that challenge dominant understandings of linear progressive time, and holmberg and alvinius’s (2020) understanding of precarity as the basis for childhood subjectivities, i illuminate through this reading the ways that children’s climate activism can be understood to unpick and dismantle modernist conceptualizations of childhood subjectivities and enable understandings of children’s climate activist subjectivities that are not constrained by such discourses. ultimately, i suggest that we as critical childhood studies scholars can take the lead from children themselves to incorporate a newly nuanced discourse of childhood into our research and writing about the experience of the child. framing the analysis a key starting point for this paper is the work of critical childhood and feminist poststructuralist scholars that highlights the ways in which the discursive construction of the child shapes and is shaped by children’s ontologies and material practices (burman, 2020, 2022; burman & millei, 2022; castaneda, 2002; robinson, 2008; baird, 2008). how children do their activism in relation to how they imagine themselves, and how that activism is taken up and responded to more broadly within adult institutions, is inextricably linked to how childhood is discursively constituted (raby & sheppard, 2021). consequently, central to children’s engagement in the political space of climate activism is the examination and reframing of discourses of childhood themselves (spyrou, 2020). critical childhood scholars highlight and critique the dominant discourses that childhood studies hinges on: the oppositional politics of adult-child relations which reinforce adult power and childhood innocence and figure 1. placard. 87 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research vulnerability (balagopalan, 2018, hopkins & sriprakash, 2016); humanist understandings of agency that propose an autonomous state relative to adult competence, to which children have little access (burman, 2020; davies, 2004; spyrou et al., 2018); and notions of child development that naturalize and embed within ontologies of childhood an understanding of linear time (burman & stacey, 2010, millei, 2021). examinations of such understandings have long been central to research on children’s activism (nissen et al., 2021; spyrou, 2020). i, too, draw out these ideas through my exploration of the social and cultural context of children’s climate activism and seek to unsettle them via my analysis of the placard text. (for a review of childhood studies’ engagements with these ideas, see canosa & graham, 2020; spyrou et al., 2018.) the analysis for this paper draws on critical theoretical approaches from critical childhood studies (burman, 2016, 2022; burman & stacey, 2010; hopkins & sriprakash, 2016) deconstruction (burman, 2020), and foucauldian analysis (macnaughton, 2005). these approaches inform a discursive analysis of the cultural artifact that is the protest placard. as these methodological approaches demand, the discourse analysis of the placard is situated within a broader analysis of the ways in which dominant discourses of climate action and childhood, and attendant ideas of agency, power, and—centrally—time, are rehearsed within the public political and social sphere in australia and elsewhere. the analysis of this particular cultural text of children’s climate activism, then, works not to present a series of findings on the situation of children’s climate activism in australia but rather to open up a suite of readings of childhood, futurity, and activism that allow us to interrogate and complicate the ways in which we engage with the discursive constitution of the child activist subject, and attendant discourses of childhood. the methodological approach of analyzing the text as a sign of climate activism in relation to broader political and cultural discourses of childhood and activism engenders a series of readings and rereadings of the text that move my own thinking forward and challenge more traditional or habitual interpretive lenses we might bring to bear on childhoods and activisms. as such, the paper is structured as an unfolding: i trace a shift in my own interpretation and analysis of how young climate activists constitute their subjectivities and represent childhoods via this close reading of the cultural artifact of the placard. in doing so, i ask the reader to accompany me on my journey in situating the broader contemporary political and discursive positioning of the child activist in australia in relation to dominant discourses of childhood and activism; to bear witness to my initial interpretations of young climate activists’ representations of subjectivity and childhood in relation to a broader suite of activist placards; and then to think through this analysis via the central placard to a potential reframing of discourses of childhood and activism. thus, before providing my reading of this particular placard, it is necessary to provide a glimpse of the political, social, and discursive context into which children’s climate activism is being received. the australian context the choice of the australian context for an examination of children’s climate activism is not unintentional: for the past decade australia has been considered worldwide to be a laggard in climate adaptation and mitigation and is considered to have contributed to the railroading of the 2021 conference of the parties (cop26) goals in glasgow (eckersley, 2021). in 2021, australia was ranked near to last of 64 countries in terms of policy responses to the climate crisis by the climate change performance index (burck et al., 2021). until recent shifts in climate politics in australia signalled by the “climate election” of 2022 that saw the election of numerous independent candidates on the basis of climate activist policy platforms (cave, 2022), political debate on climate change in australia had for more than a decade been hijacked by right-wing climate deniers. rather than focusing on how best to respond to global climate change, this debate questioned whether climate change is real (brett, 2020), and what should be a straightforward discussion of scientific fact and possible responses has instead become a mire of misinformation and denial that has paralyzed policy, clogged investment, increased 88 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research power prices and delayed change. (taylor, 2019, para. 1) this dominant political narrative has driven climate (in)action in the nation (crowley, 2021), despite large-scale public support for climate action (quickie, 2021) and children’s activism that is buoyed by global children’s activist movements (cloughton, 2021). clearly the disparity between national and political narratives on climate change in the past decade and children’s activist agendas in the nation is stark. during this time, australia’s policy response to climate change was intrinsically tied to the positioning of children in and by the nation. despite the 2021 high court ruling that the australian government has a responsibility to take climate change seriously to protect the futures of australian children (schuijers, 2021), the australian government, led by then prime minister scott morrison, sought to appeal this ruling in order to disentangle political motivation from duty of care for children (wooton, 2021). the australian government’s dismissal of children’s interests in relation to the climate crisis was arguably underpinned by understandings of children that dismiss and discount both their activism and their legitimacy as citizen-participants. i contend that this particular moment and context for climate action in australia illuminates clearly the need to pay attention to children’s activism and to reconceptualize children’s place as activists and citizen-subjects. adultist responses to children’s climate action given the inextricable relationship between the discursive construction of childhood and how children take themselves up as activists and are read as activists by and in relation to adult institutions, in the section that follows, i identify and unpack two discourses of childhood that underpin public and political responses to children’s activism in australia. these are the figuration of the child as immanent future subject and the discourse of children as the hope for the future. i argue that via their reliance on modernist conceptualizations of the subject, the child, and ideas of time, these discursive constitutions of childhood work to constrain and delimit the activism of children and, crucially, the ways in which it is interpreted and responded to by adults. these adult interpretations are framed by what biswas and mattheis (2022)—in discussions of the reception of children’s activism within adult institutions—define adultism: a way of understanding and framing adult interpretations of children’s subjectivities and behaviours in opposition to those of adults. within adultist perspectives, biswas and mattheis identify a problematic “need to differentiate the ‘adult-self ’ from the ‘childother’ [that] is so pronounced that children are often perceived as a separate species which enables adults to gain power over them and perpetuate injustice” (p. 149). adultism offers a way of conceptualizing specifically the normalization of relations of adult power and children’s incapacity and the attendant disempowerment that accompanies this; here i follow biswas and mattheis (2022) to unpack adultist responses to children’s climate action in the australian context that draw on dominant discourses of childhood in order to constrain and delimit the power and credibility of children’s climate activism. in doing so i come—alongside other theorists and scholars of childhood, time, and activism (biswas & mattheis, 2022; holmberg & alvinius, 2020; millei, 2021; spyrou 2020)—to the limits of such discourses, which beseech us to turn to children’s framing of their subjectivities, activist selves, and conceptualizations of childhood (bowman, 2020; prabha, 2020; skovdal & benwell, 2021). the first adultist discourse of childhood that emerges from this context of australian responses to climate action— that of immanent future subject—emerged strongly in then australian prime minister scott morrison’s responses in 2018 and 2019 to the burgeoning youth climate movement. morrison urged children to “be less active” and decried the politicization of children under the guise of creating unnecessary anxiety, claiming, in response to greta thunberg’s un climate summit speech, that that “we’ve got to let kids be kids” (glenday, 2019). “what we want,” he said, “is more learning in schools and less activism in schools” (australian associated press, 2018). 89 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research together, these statements reinforce the positioning of the child within the space of childhood, represented in part by the idea of school which, sarada balagopalan (2008) reminds us, signifies a “normal” childhood with its attendant emphasis on innocence, nurture, and a clear separation of the roles of adult and child (p. 270). according to alexander and colleagues’ (2021) analysis, such understandings, which exclude children from participation until they reach adulthood, shaped much of the public discourse around children’s climate action in these 2019 youth climate strikes in australia. these discourses seek to position children as innocent and in need of protection from what kerry robinson (2008) calls dangerous “adult knowledges,” and the child, as subject-in-the-making, is juxtaposed with an idealized, rational adult, here imbued with knowledge, power, and agency (hopkins & sriprakash, 2016; raby & sheppard, 2021). in this context, the notion of childhood innocence, as alexander et al. argue, is framed as intending to protect children, but has a dual effect of diminishing their opinions and political actions and of limiting their opportunities so as to protect that “innocence” from climate concerns. (p. 3) importantly, these discourses frame children’s value to society in relation to their futurity, discounting their present subjectivity, voice, and potential for agency. this conceptualization of children’s subjective positioning within society disempowers children by repudiating their competence and their conceptualizations of themselves as knowledgeable agents and by removing their right to political (and even societal) engagement (raby & sheppard, 2021; spyrou et al., 2021). this positioning of the child figure as an innocent becoming in relation to the modernist adult subject is simultaneously long critiqued (see, e.g., james & prout, 2015) and amazingly tenacious within contemporary political and social discourses (burman, 2022). naturalized through the pervasiveness of developmental understandings of the child as in the process of a linear trajectory of growth from dependent child to autonomous, complete, rational adult, the child subject as developing body is made use of as a powerful mirror to and object for shoring up the modernist project of progress and is rehearsed and reproduced powerfully across myriad situations (burman, 2020; hopkins & sriprakash, 2016). here, through a focus on how futurity is used within and in relation to children’s climate activism, i point to the ways that the modernist child-adult subjectivities and relations are inextricably linked to the acceptance of a neoliberal understanding of time as linear and progressive: this long contested and simultaneously seemingly intractable developmental construction of the child as a body on a trajectory from dependent child to autonomous adult naturalizes and renders immutable the understanding of time as linear and progress linked (burman, 2020; millei, 2021). here, then, i signpost the need to rethink child-future relations, to unpick and dismantle this dominant temporality in order to make space for novel ways of thinking about childhood and the child subject, as i attempt later in this piece. a second site of australian adultist responses to children’s climate activism to emerge in the 2019 school strikes can be found in responses that draw on the politics of hope (e.g., we’re building a better world where our children are our future leaders) and its attendant futurity. problematically, the (often well-intentioned) adult acknowledgment of the need to engage with children’s activism because of an abstracted right to participate and be heard (a manoeuvre that tanu biswas (2020) calls ethical nodding) positions children as future citizens and change makers. this focus on futurity allows adults to ignore the structural and discursive disempowerment of children in the political sphere and to defer action and engagement (holmberg & alvinius, 2020; spyrou et al., 2021). rousell and cutter-mackenzie-knowles (2020) suggest that 90 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research while children … are being positioned as future leaders whom the public expects to overcome the legacies of environmental inaction … they currently have limited opportunities to cultivate, voice and express their understandings, concerns and imaginings within their local environments and communities. (p. 192) by focusing on futurity rather than children’s need for agency now, adultist responses permit and praise activism while maintaining the status quo in terms of adult power and children’s powerlessness. in public commentary ben bowman points to the impact of this deferral, saying, “it’s an open wound for young climate activists who hear adults applaud them for having a voice, but continue to act as if the catastrophe scientists warn is already here will never come” (bowman, 2020, para. 6). the problematic nature of this temporal dislocation of action and agency under the guise of support was called out by greta thunberg in her 2019 un climate summit speech in which she addressed adults and adult institutions, saying, “you come to us for hope—how dare you!” (in united nations, 2019, n.p.). thunberg’s reproach highlights the ways in which this discourse divests adults of responsibility in the present and (endlessly) postpones both climate action and the children’s subjecthood toward a future adult subject. this adultist focus on the future (child) subject is inextricably implicated in the politics of hope, a politics called out by thunberg as a deferral. she argues, “adults keep saying, ‘we owe it to the young people to give them hope. but i don’t want your hope. i don’t want you to be hopeful. i want you to panic” (in united nations, 2019, n.p.). while thunberg calls for action and in doing so pleads for an urgent revision of adult-child power relations, zsuzsa millei (2021) critiques the ways in which adultist investments in narratives of hope reinscribe the modernist project: hope accompanying possible alternative futures is associated with human empowerment and redemption, with solving problems by intervening, adapting and being resilient, which are all based on a belief in progress and human mastery and remain an “unchecked privilege of the moderns.” hope engendering alternative possibilities is thus a flight from staying with the trouble of the reality of extinction. (p. 69) such an investment remakes “modern futurity,” problematically again “bestowing an epic agential power in ‘man’’’ (clarebrook, 2015, as cited in millei, 2021, p. 69), which reinscribes the status quo, business as usual, that children’s climate activism is seeking to challenge. crucially, such an investment in linear time, progress, and mastery as part of the modernist project are shored up by understandings of the child as a future citizen subject. such adultist responses are not confined to the australian setting. ketaki prabha (2020), writing of youth activism in india, argues that these adultist discourses around children’s participation shape and constrain the possibilities for children’s taking up of activist subjectivities. she interrogates the ways in which the aforementioned adultist stance works to “acknowledg[e] children’s voices only insofar as it allows us to mould them,” which, she argues, “obscures our imagination of children as political actors in their own right” (para. 3). based on human rights discourses that permit children the right to participation in matters affecting their lives while maintaining their status as vulnerable and in need of protection, this participatory stance fails to unsettle or unseat the modernist child subjectivities underpinning these discourses and entrenches binaries between adult/child subjectivities. additionally, raby and sheppard (2021) point to the ways in which the uncrc focuses on children’s “evolving capacities” in attributing rights to participate: they critique the ways that the focus on competence, signalled by “adult-like traits such as maturity, articulateness, rationality and working within established institutional systems” (p. 387) reinscribes rather than counters the fiction of the rational, autonomous adult subject. spyros spyrou (2020) illuminates the potential for participation to be read as patronizing rather than empowering: “the current understanding of children’s participation with well-intentioned adults seeking to open up spaces for children to participate may be reaching its limits” (p. 6). given the pervasive effects of climate change in all domains of human life, what constitutes children’s own sphere in which they have the right to participate is exponentially growing, yet 91 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research adult invitations for participation are clearly not. in her critique, prabha (2020) draws attention to the ways in which adult understandings of the possibilities for children’s participatory political engagement limit children’s climate activism. she calls for adults to “overcome our protectionist impulses to make space for political expression that takes on less familiar forms, not always legible to an adult vocabulary of the same” (2020, n.p.). similarly, bowman (2019) argues that methodological framings of research into children’s activism take on an adultist assumption about how political and social engagement occur. he advocates too (alongside others such as nolas, 2021) for a shift in the ways that we research and discuss children’s activism, which open up spaces for different structural and discursive understandings of children’s political engagement. in light of these discursive positionings of children and climate activist ontologies, which so limit and constrain the possibilities for children’s activism to be read and acted upon as a call for action now, for the future, and in response to prabha’s (2020) call for making space for that which is not legible within an adult vocabulary, i sought to look at children’s self-representation and negotiations of these discourses as portrayed through cultural artifacts of australian children’s climate activism. preceding my critical discourse analysis of the text of the placard, i looked briefly to multiple other cultural artifacts that represented children’s climate activism, to engage with children’s voices and understandings as a means of working through my own adultist lenses on children’s climate action. in engaging with these slogans here briefly, i set out to demonstrate the shift in my own thinking in relation to children’s self-representation via climate action. children’s self-representation through cultural artifacts: a stitch in time a suite of children’s placards and slogans drawn from rallies and protests around australia signal the responsibility of adults in taking action on behalf of children for children’s future. the slogan “our future, in your hands,” written on the hands of young people, alongside the sign “give us our future” point to the responsibilization of adults to protect, save, and act on behalf of children. indeed the large-scale 2019 study “protest for a future” stated that “the entire framing of this movement is about young people demanding that adults take responsibility for safeguarding their future” (wahlstrom et al., 2019, p. 10). when i began to investigate these artifacts, i understood that children’s mobilization of adult responsibility for safeguarding their future was working to shine a light on the structural and political marginalization of children, yet i was perplexed by the use of notions of vulnerability, future citizenship, and the need for adult protection that were being drawn upon by children themselves in the climate movement. the call for adults to save children’s futures seemed to play into those very notions of immanence and futurity that we in critical childhood studies, human rights advocates, and others have for so long repudiated (spyrou et al., 2021). i grew concerned that children’s climate activism was directed towards arguing for their future, instead of their present, as though their present was not of concern, was invisible, disappearing from view. as holmberg and alvinius (2020) suggest, “using the abstract concept of future generations … dehumanize[s] and partly distance[s] itself from today’s children as subjects in relation to the climate crisis” (p. 5). i worried that the future focus of climate discourses around children would decenter the child’s present, enacting an erasure of the childhood of children in order to focus on their impending adulthood. i worried that this focus would reinforce children’s obscurity in policy, planning, and action and so reinforce their relocation to the edges of political consciousness, to the “garden” of childhood. at the same time, though, i noted that child activists were also demanding that their voices be heard, and that their concerns be taken seriously; slogans such as “the oceans are rising and so are we” and the placard held by 13-year-old australian climate activist izzy raj-steppings during the raging bushfires of summer 2019 which reads 92 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research “look what you left us, watch us fight, watch us win” foreground children’s conceptualizations of themselves as activist subjects, perhaps—using this war metaphor—as combatants, in the fight for climate justice. here i found myself reading children’s activism as drawing on discourses of action, dissent, and political engagement as they see themselves—and demand to be seen—as political agents, as active participants. however, i found in these initial readings of these artifacts a reproduction of the adultist readings of children’s activism that i critique—which focus either on futurity or on present—a reinscription of the being/becoming divide that has so plagued childhood studies and stitched up understandings of child subjectivities (burman, 2022; spyrou, 2020). the bottleneck in my thinking here, i saw, was around understandings of time, the disjuncture between futurity and present activism. i felt that in reading these slogans in relation to traditional notions of linear time, i was, as prabha (2020) warned, narrowing the field of interpretation. i turned, then, to veronica pacini-ketchabaw’s exhortation to “multiply our understandings of time” (as cited by spyrou in millei, 2021, p. 62) when thinking with and about childhood and, as spyros spyrou puts it, to “think beyond linear time” (interviewed by millei, 2021, p. 62). i sought to complicate understandings of futurity and the present as expressed through these slogans. returning, then, to the slogan “our future, in your hands,” i wondered if this imagining of the future in the present could represent a compression of time or indeed a circular notion of time, described by kverndokk and eriksen (2021) as a loop: the future being literally brought into the present to be placed in the hands of adults. this notion aligns with kverndokk and eriksen’s (2021) figuration of child climate activists as “symbolic time travelers, travelling back from the future” (p. 3). analyzing greta thunberg’s addresses, they argue that “she places herself in the future, looking back at the present” (2021, p. 4). rethinking notions of futurity in this way allows us, then, to move away from these adultist conceptualizations of child activist subjectivities and to read climate activism as a push back against both neoliberal, linear progressive time and, consequently, the modernist child (and adult) subject that accompanies it. the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown with these thoughts in mind, i turn now to an examination of what is signified by the placard “the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown!” in so doing i move toward a conceptual framing of the ways in which children’s climate activism can be read in relation to notions of precarity (holmberg & alvinius, 2020) and ambivalence to consider alternative ways of conceptualizing childhoods. in the critical analysis that follows, i argue that within this cultural artifact of children’s climate activism can be seen a repudiation and in fact dissolution of both linear progressive time and consequently of the modernist adult-child binary that underpins adultist responses, and its accompanying binaries of (adult) logic, rationality, and power and (child) fantasy, illogic, and dependency. the ice is melting and i don’t want santa to drown. the shock value of the placard is surely in its bringing together of two quite different ways of knowing—climate science and childhood fantasy—to argue for immediate interventions to prevent catastrophe. the text of the placard places the urgent climate crisis revealed by climate science (the ice is melting) alongside the magical thinking of childhood (santa). by holding both of these ideas together as equal, the text unsettles traditional binaries between adulthood and childhood that put against one another adult knowledge, competence, and institutional power in the present, and children’s innocence, “irrationality,” disempowerment, and futurity. it dislocates dominant and pervasive privileging of adult knowledge and that adult, rational subjectivity over children’s ways of thinking, being, and knowing. crucially, the child activist is centrally positioned here: through the use of “i,” this child’s voice is not diminished 93 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research or hushed in relation to adult discourses of science, nor covered over in childhood’s symbolic loss. here the child stands between science and fantasy, to be at the centre. this entanglement of science and magic, of rationality and fantasy seen through the eyes of a knowing child subject, represents, i think, an important space through which children’s activist ontologies can emerge. childhood, here, cannot be separated from the reality of the climate crisis, and children themselves are able to draw on scientific paradigms to call for immediate action, not by leaving the space of childhood to enter adult political dialogue (as morrison’s paradigm would have it) but by drawing the science into and alongside the space of the playground. the conceptualization of time is central to this unpicking of the modernist logic of adult-child relations and the subsequent separation of children from logic and rationality here: the present tense of this text (the ice is melting) works against the obscuring of childhood by ideas of children as future citizens and draws attention to the ways that climate action is working on childhood now. it works against abstraction of the child subject being impacted by climate change through discourses of futurity (holmberg & alvinius, 2020) and in doing so it opens a space for consideration of the relationship between climate and child rather than climate and future adult. this text also points to children’s vulnerability to temporality in itself: holmberg and alvinius (2020) argue that children are forced to think about their future and evaluate their actions in the present time in terms of their future implications in a way that seems unprecedented. in a way, the present is stolen from the climate precariat [children]—children cannot allow themselves to live in the present and carelessly consume or act without repercussion. (p. 7, emphasis in original) this argument stages children as in-between: they can no longer exist only in the present or in relation to a future citizen subject. however, this very focus on temporality—on climate change in the present—is what allows children’s double bind in time to be seen, and, as holmberg and alvinius (2020) suggest, it is what allows the social, cultural, and discursive impact of climate change on children to be foregrounded and attended to. thus the acknowledgement of the impact of climate change on children in the present works again—as i articulated above—to muddy the distinction between future and present: futurity is again compressed with the present. holmberg and alvinius (2020) suggest that the future impinges on the child’s present, that they are unable to live in the present without reference to the future: “the temporality of the present and the future is interwoven, which means it cannot be captured by a linear conceptualization of time” (p. 7). therefore, in bringing climate destruction into the present tense of the text (the ice is melting), this phrase works against modernist conceptualizations of the future in relation to what chandler (2019) calls “an optimistic telos of universal knowledge and progress” (as cited in millei, 2021, p. 69). rather, the attendant destruction embedded within the image of polar ice cap disintegration perhaps calls on apocalyptic narratives of the future: the understanding articulated by hanne warming (2021) that “increasingly the future appears as a discursive/material matter of a threat and a failed promise” (interviewed by millei, 2021, p. 61). the destabilization of the notion of the future-as-promise embedded in this statement asks us to consider the future not in terms of progress but in terms of failure. important to note here is the repudiation of the future-as-failure through the refusal of i don’t want, which, put together with the reality of the present-day ice melt, perhaps allows us to consider “staying with the trouble of the reality of extinction” (millei, 2021, p. 69), forging futurity as a kind of space of ambivalence rather than a space of progress, hope, and success. this delinking of (future) time and progress works against the “modernist imaginary” and, with it, unsettles the fiction of the agentic, powerful adult subject and its other: the dependent, vulnerable child (millei, 2021). finally, figuring the future in terms of failure—or in terms of the loss of imagined progress-oriented futures—speaks to holmberg and alvinius’s (2020) use of the notion of precarity as “the experience of living with an unpredictable 94 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research future” (p. 7). this understanding of precarity is used by holmberg and alvinius to suggest that children’s activism and agency can be understood in relation to and in resistance to their very vulnerability. thus the centering of the child now—and foregrounding of their vulnerability to an apocalyptic future—that is enacted through this placard spurs action in the present and calls attention to children’s vulnerability to climate change in the present and in the future, and asks for their climate action to be attended to. children’s very real vulnerability to climate change is embedded in the placard’s call to action, and environmental destabilization of the realities of childhood is central to the activist impulse of the text. in a literal sense, if we consider the causal link between melting ice and the possibility of santa drowning, we can read in the text itself a literal commentary on the impact of climate change on children and lived childhoods, evoking the very real effects of climate change on children’s life chances, well-being, and health. in the summer of 2019, bush fires raged across australia; in the summer that this placard was used, children in canberra spent the bulk of the summer indoors due to the smoke particles hanging in the bowl-shaped canberran geography. that summer, in our bush capital, air quality was poorer than in the worst polluted cities in the world. galleries and museums shut; air purifiers sold out; schools kept children inside. the childhood ideal of a summer of play-based, outdoor, roaming, carefree time was very much under threat. but rather than see the symbolic drowning of santa as a loss of an idealized symbolic childhood that climate childhoods can no longer embody (à la postman, 1994), i read this as a radical disassemblage of traditional dominant discourses of childhood, as a breaking down of fixed, dichotomous discourses of childhood that render children speechless and silenced, vulnerable and nonagentic. rather, the threat of santa’s drowning alongside this call for action rehearses an understanding of childhood as precarious in the face of climate change, as conceptualized by holmberg and alvinius (2020), in which the vulnerability of childhood to climate change is the very premise on which activism and resistance take place. importantly, to read this placard as a triumph of discursive and political disruption is to read it as a fiction: clearly, the clause i don’t want at once speaks to the agency of the child to protest and to the limits of that agency. science tells us that the ice is melting. we are reminded that the child’s agency to enact change beyond protest is still structurally and discursively hampered via adult power over political and social action. this refusal (i don’t want) against the inevitability of climate change highlights for me the contingency of children’s—or indeed all subjects’— agency on the discursive construction of the self (davies, 2004). bronwyn davies (2004) suggests that agency is necessarily read, not as “freedom from the discursive constitution of the self … [not as] autonomy in the sense of being an individual standing outside social structure and process” (p. 4), as modernism would have it, but as always implicated in and constrained by discourse. here we can read the child subject, not as torn between positionings of abjection and autonomous agency, but as taking up childhood subjectivity in relation to a complex suite of competing discourses and social structures (davies, 2004). this foregrounding of contingency of children’s—and adults’—agency is perhaps what permits children to simultaneously draw on discourses of savoir and futurity and discourses of action, dissent, and political engagement. finally, then, i don’t want points to this dissolution of childhood, not as a triumph, but as an ambivalent site of change. the mourning of childhoods in the present and the future is wrought here and the destabilization of childhood is resisted, even while it engenders a reworking of traditional discourses. this ambivalence, however, rather than being a site of stasis, becomes a site through which new ways of being and doing, of imagining childhood in relation to climate action and activist subjectivities, can be enacted. in this reading of the placard in the context of wider children’s activism i suggest that the environmental destabilization of childhood and children’s futures is here being mirrored in children’s (self )representations. 95 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research arguably, the space of uncertainty or precarity that children inhabit in a changing climate can be seen to allow for the holding of multiple narratives of self and childhood that enable old discursive regimes to be challenged. in this uncertain space children are carving out new ways of being and doing in the face of catastrophic environmental destabilization. discursive shifts do not themselves stir politicians to act with urgency to avoid irreversible environmental catastrophe. but discursive shifts can allow for new ways of thinking and fresh insights into a problem that has clearly not been addressed by adults responsible for saving the planet. if, as i have argued here, child activists are disrupting conventional notions of childhood and time, we as critical childhood studies scholars could do well to take the lead from children themselves to incorporate a newly nuanced ontology of childhood into our research and writing about the experience of the child. 96 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research references alexander, n., petray, t., & mcdowall, a. 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(2018). introduction. in s. spyrou, r. rosen, & d. cook (eds.), reimagining childhood studies (pp. 1–20). bloomsbury. spyrou, s., theodorou, e., & christou, g. (2021). crafting futures with hope: young climate activists’ imaginaries in an age of crisis and uncertainty. children and society, 36, 731–746. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12529 taylor, l. (2019, october 16). australia wasted decades in climate denial and must break free of the mire of misinformation. the guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/australia-wasted-decades-in-climate-denial-and-must-break-free-of-themire-of-misinformation united nations. (2019). greta thunberg (young climate activist) at the climate action summit 2019: official video. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=u9kxe4kv9a8 wahlstrom, m., kocyba, p., de vydt, m., & de moor, j. (eds.). (2019). protest for a future: composition, mobilization, and motives of the participants in fridays for future climate protests on 15 march, 2019 in 13 european cities. https://protestinstitut.eu/wp-content/ uploads/2019/07/20190709_protest-for-a-future_gcs-descriptive-report.pdf wooton, h. (2021, october 20). sussan ley cannot avoid duty to protect kids from climate change: sc. australian financial review. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/sussan-ley-cannot-avoid-duty-to-protect-kids-from-climate-change-sc-20211020-p591ky _hlk116154656 _hlk116156237 _hlk93089226 _hlk93091229 _hlk92361997 _hlk93092615 june 2023 32 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy of oppression?: a critical discourse analysis of ontario’s early years pedagogical framework richard a. e. stronach richard a. e. stronach is a registered early childhood educator who, since graduating from sheridan college in 1993 with a diploma in early childhood education, has filled many roles, including ece classroom lead, childcare supervisor, childcare cook, and educational consultant. richard also graduated from st francis xavier university with a master of adult education and recently from the university of british columbia with a master of education, specializing in early childhood education. currently, he is a full-time professor in the early childhood education program at st. lawrence college in kingston, ontario. email: richard.stronach70@gmail. com on march 28, 2022, prime minister justin trudeau announced a five-year deal with ontario to “deliver affordable, inclusive, and high-quality child care for families in ontario” (government of canada, 2022a, para. 1). with this announcement, the canadian and ontario governments promised to add 86,000 new high-quality childcare spaces, with each family paying only $10 a day (ontario government [ongov], 2022). before this announcement, ontario had been making changes to childcare policy to increase quality, improve accessibility, and lower the cost of childcare (ontario ministry of education [moe], 2013). in 2017, the renewed early years and child care policy framework (ontario moe, 2017) was published to guide the modernization of early learning and care in ontario. a key goal for the universal childcare initiative and the policy framework is to determine what “quality” means in childcare (ontario moe, 2017). in a report to the premier of ontario, pascal (2009) stated that “the program quality that young children experience depends on educators” (p. 32). pascal went on to explain that in quality childcare, many “elements, such as group size, adult–child ratio, and supportive working conditions, influence how effective educators can be, but the evidence consistently shows that what matters most is whether a quality educator is with the children” (p. 32). the policy framework promises to “provide enhancements to create an integrated continuum of learning for children while supporting ontario’s world-class early years professionals” (ontario moe, 2017, p. 5). with the exception of increased professional development, however, it does not describe any supports for ece professionals regarding working conditions, income, or mental health and well-being. over the last decade, the role of the ece in ontario has changed drastically. in ontario, the profession is recognized by law and overseen by the self-regulatory college of early childhood educators (cece). the profession continues as canada begins to establish universal childcare, the market-based neoliberalism of the early learning and care system continues to undervalue, underpay, overwork, and overpolice early childhood educators (eces). ontario’s resource how does learning happen? (hdlh) has been celebrated for its sociocultural stance and identified as transformative and central to the modernization of ontario’s childcare system. critical discourse analysis reveals how hdlh and the ontario ministry of education continue to oppress eces. the implementation of universal childcare provides an opportunity for the government to include eces to make real changes in working conditions, wages, and the provision of quality childcare. key words: how does learning happen?; critical discourse analysis; neoliberal; early childhood educator; oppression; cwelcc; canada-wide early learning & child care system june 2023 33 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to be introduced to new policy requirements, procedures, and practices at a fast rate, yet the impact of the changes on ece professionals is an afterthought. quality childcare needs quality eces who have been well educated, are well paid, feel valued, have a sense of purpose, and have support for their well-being and mental health (a. davies et al., 2022; pascal, 2009). for decades, ece professionals have been an unheard, invisible, female-dominated workforce marginalized socially, economically, and politically (halfon & langford, 2015; langford, 2006; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021; powell, langford, et al., 2020). a prominent reason for the continued oppression of eces is the neoliberal governance that is dominant in society today (a. davies et al., 2022; m. jones et al., 2019; richardson & langford, 2022; young, 2015). neoliberalism neoliberalism crept into western governance in the 1970s, gaining more appeal in the 1980s with encouragement from leaders such as margaret thatcher and ronald reagan (b. davies & bansel, 2007; moss, 2017; steger & roy, 2021). brian mulroney and his conservative government brought neoliberalism to canadian governance in the early 1980s (steger & roy, 2021). neoliberalism focuses on the economy for the survival of the individual and promotes the consumption of goods (b. davies & bansel, 2007). citizens are viewed as independent consumers whose success is tied to economic wealth. they are responsible for their own economic well-being, as well as that of their employer or business, as the government focuses on supporting “the greater good” of the local and global economies (b. davies & bansel, 2007). neoliberalism is an economic system that promotes a global free trade marketplace, minimizes government interference, and focuses on individualism, competition, and consumerism (b. davies & bansel, 2007; johnston, 2021). governments take on a marketplace model that reduces taxes, limiting their ability to provide services to citizens, and that filters all policies and programs through a risk and reward business model. many countries worldwide have adopted neoliberalism as overarching governing bodies have been created to direct the neoliberal global economy (arar et al., 2021; b. davies & bansel, 2007). some western economies have adopted structural adjustment policies to maintain their global competitive advantage (arar et al., 2021); structural adjustment has also been imposed as an economic experiment by international monetary bodies such as the international monetary fund, the world bank, and the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd). as b. davies and bansel (2007) have stated, “neoliberalism is still accepted as the only possible economic and social order available to us. it is taken without question as true that future security and prosperity are linked to market solutions which solidify cooperation between economically interdependent nations” (p. 253). wealthy corporations and business owners direct government policy through donations, lobbying, and threats of economic consequences. the marketization and privatization of services put profit ahead of care. in the neoliberal economy, government spending on services such as geriatric care, nursing, and early childhood is focused on return on investment, the creation of a flexible workforce, and human capital. the oppressed ece the ontario government’s neoliberal stance on education policy and curriculum oppresses eces through the marketization of services, which in turn encourages profits over quality, performance evaluation, and surveillance of professional expectations (cotton, 2001; courtney, 2016; a. davies et al., 2022; johnston, 2021; perryman et june 2023 34 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research al., 2017; richardson & langford, 2022). this oppression is amplified by poor working conditions, the absence of supports, and burnout. for decades, eces have been underpaid, undervalued, overworked, and overpoliced. underpaid in ontario and across canada, most childcare programs are not government funded. rather, they are operated by for-profit and nonprofit businesses, municipalities, or private individuals and corporations. parent fees are the primary source of funding for wages and daily operations. for over three decades, the ontario government has provided grants to subsidize ece salaries (bird & halfon, 2015), a practice best described by freire’s (1968/2012) terms false generosity and false charity. in pedagogy of the oppressed, freire (1968/2012) unveiled the unconscious acceptance and complexities of oppression by the government and the social elite. freire stated that oppressors use injustice, education, and exploitation to maintain power over the oppressed. the oppression is normalized and maintained through cultural and societal expectations and the “banking” method of education. when the oppressed fight the injustice, the oppressors offer false generosity. on the surface, the false generosity would not seem to help the oppressors, but it serves to reinforce their power and maintain social norms (freire, 1968/2012). the government appears to address the issues eces face by making announcements that seemingly solve problems, but even with the false charity subsidies, most eces do not receive a living wage, and many receive just over minimum wage (halfon & langford, 2015; langford, 2006; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021; powell, langford, et al., 2020). as a result, eces who are passionate about teaching young children leave the profession. as one former ece stated: i knew my profession was valuable and socially important . . . but i could no longer live with the povertylevel wages i was earning. it was incredibly frustrating that i could earn a better living wage as a bartender than as an early childhood educator. (powell, as cited in m. jones et al., 2019, pp. 128–129) undervalued eces are undervalued to the point of being an invisible workforce. as a result, many eces feel disrespected, unheard, helpless, and unsupported (powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021). some do not reveal their profession to others (jones et al., 2019), hesitating to identify themselves because of stigma and negative views of the profession. powell, fearns, and burrell (2021) surveyed 1,875 eces and early years staff about job satisfaction, stress, working hours, planning time, wages, mental health and well-being, professional role and autonomy, working conditions, and the retention crisis. they received responses such as, “it’s been made clear by parents and the governments that we are not respected the same way that many other professions are and that we are merely babysitters, so people with ‘real jobs’ can keep the economy going” (powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021, p. 7). this statement was corroborated by discrepancies in how eces were supported during the covid-19 pandemic compared to other essential workers. the ontario government provided most essential workers early access to vaccines, improvements to work environments including new ventilation systems, quick access to n-95 masks, and wage increases. eces, on the other hand, were not offered early access to vaccines or wage top-ups, nor were they provided with ventilation systems or masks as quickly as schools (a. davies et al., 2022; richardson & langford, 2022). overworked with the introduction of new policies and procedures and a regulatory body with standards of practice, the daily work requirements of eces have doubled since 2007 (johnston, 2019; powell, fearns, & burrell). this increase june 2023 35 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in workload and regulations happened before pandemic protocols were added (johnston, 2019; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021). in powell, fearns, and burrell’s (2021) survey, one ece stated, “there is so much stress of not knowing current rules and regulations. they are always changing, what seems to be daily. my mental health and anxiety have increased a lot. crying on the job, overwhelmed with no support” (p. 6). in addition, eces are subjected to marketized practices and are prodded to complete more pedagogical documentation reports to parents than competing programs complete (johnston, 2019). most early learning and care programs do not provide eces with time to collaborate with peer educators, plan activities or a curriculum focus, create pedagogical documentation, prepare for meetings, or do professional development that is not outside of work hours (johnston, 2019; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021). most interactions with other professionals take place while the ece is in the classroom with the children or on a break. work hours and sick time are often contingent on the number of children, as child–staff ratios dictate when a shift ends. in my experience, eces who are sick and unable to go to work must often find their own shift coverage; if a substitute is not available, the sick ece would be expected to come to work. overpoliced page (2017a, 2017b, 2018) introduced a model to illustrate how eces are policed to comply with rules and regulations, consisting of three surveillance levels: (a) vertical, (b) horizontal, and (c) intrapersonal. vertical surveillance is top-down oversight from management and governments; horizontal surveillance comes from inside and outside the classroom and includes students, parents, professional visitors, and peers. intrapersonal surveillance is a form of self-surveillance. vertical surveillance of ece practices occurs at multiple levels. government agencies use program advisers to ensure compliance with rules. eces are investigated and cited for any violation of the early childhood educators act (2007), education act (1990), or child care and early years act (2014). the cece investigates complaints about violating standards of practice. municipal health inspectors check for food handling, diapering, and infectious disease control violations. child protection services and the local police investigate allegations of abuse or neglect. other forms of vertical surveillance come from local children’s service departments, which inspect and observe for quality and pedagogical guidance. these inspection reports are frequently made public. for example, the city of toronto (n.d.) posts program offerings and detailed quality ratings for all licensed childcare centres that have service agreements with the city. horizontal surveillance comes from community agencies’ resource consultants, behaviour guidance counsellors, and support workers (page, 2017a, 2017b, 2018). coworkers, peers, and parents are encouraged to report any concerns about the performance of eces. many programs also use live and recorded camera feeds, accessible through the internet, so parents can watch the interactions between the ece and their children. this surveillance is offered as a selling feature to potential customers. managers and supervisors review the camera feeds to ensure regulatory compliance and use them as evidence of any perceived misconduct. intrapersonal surveillance comes in the form of self-reporting and self-managing behaviours. eces are influenced by fear: of being viewed as incompetent, suffering consequences for not complying with policies and regulations, enduring consistent surveillance, or being punished (courtney, 2016). together, these levels of surveillance suggest that the profession needs policing, which perpetuates a lack of confidence in eces’ professional capabilities. june 2023 36 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research hdlh: the catalyst for change? the renewed early years and child care policy framework (ontario moe, 2017) was described as the “plan to transform ontario’s early years and childcare system” (p. 5) and positions ontario moe’s (2014) how does learning happen? ontario’s pedagogy for the early years (hdlh) as central to the changes in practice and increased quality in ontario’s early learning and care system. hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) is implemented in all early learning and care programs across ontario and has been celebrated as a “transformative document” (p. 3) for its sociocultural stance and its potential to change practice (johnston, 2019; school of teacher education at charles sturt university, 2014). given that hdlh is characterized as central to the modernization of childcare in ontario and the government’s promise to increase quality and accessibility while reducing cost (ontario moe, 2017), a critical reading is paramount. when unveiled in 2014, hdlh was presented as a shared resource for educators working in childcare (ontario moe, 2014). hdlh reflects the fundamental principles of the reggio emilia approach to early learning and care, which focus on the view of the child, building relationships, and provoking questions that challenge children’s thinking (ontario reggio association, 2021). hdlh proposes a sociocultural approach to learning, emphasizing the importance of a play-based curriculum, and positions children as “competent, capable of complex thinking, and rich in potential” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 6). it also promotes relationships with children and families by providing educators with guidance on creating a sense of belonging, nurturing healthy development, fostering an engaging environment, and supporting communication and expression. yet strikingly, “ontario’s world-class early years professionals” (ontario moe, 2017, p. 5), the majority of whom are eces, are not supported in ontario moe’s policies, resource documents, or frameworks. as i reread hdlh more critically, a question arose: is hdlh a transformational sociocultural document, or does it reinforce current power structures, neoliberalism, and normalization of the oppressed ece? method a content and critical discourse analysis was used to determine if the language and content in hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) promote neoliberalism and current power systems, which are used to reinforce the oppression of eces. the overarching research question was, “does hdlh reinforce current power dynamics and a neoliberal narrative that underpays, undervalues, overworks, and overpolices eces in ontario?” discourse for foucault (1972, 1978, 2001), discourse is related to the relationship between power and knowledge and, more specifically, how knowledge is used to create and maintain power. he suggested that discourse is about more than what is spoken: it is about who is permitted to speak about certain topics and who is not, what is permitted to be spoken and what is not, where something can be spoken and where it cannot. foucault (1978) wanted “to explore not only these discourses but also the will that sustains them and the strategic intention that supports them” (p. 8). he used discourse to identify how knowledge was used and manipulated to reinforce and maintain a specific discourse. he suggested that the power traditionally held by monarchs has shifted to corporations and governments. power is maintained through the distribution of knowledge in educational institutions, policies, laws, governments, religious institutions, and corporations. surveillance by police services, regulatory bodies, the military, and self-surveillance maintains order and ensures that the overarching discourse is maintained. in addition, discourse encompasses how people view themselves, and how they speak and act based on social expectations (fairclough, 2011; gee, 2011, 2014). according to fairclough (1989, 2011), social power structures june 2023 37 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research are produced and maintained through the ideology created by language. language and word choice generate what becomes an accepted power structure that evolves into “common sense.” for example, one may label a person as a freedom fighter or as a terrorist, and each presents a different picture. authors choose words to generate a specific emotion and highlight a particular side of a story. in this perspective, discourse can be defined as how language represents reality (fairclough, 2011; gee, 2014; willey-sthapit et al., 2022). critical discourse analysis critical discourse analysis is used to analyze the effects power has over groups of people and the outcomes of that power (rogers, 2011). rogers (2011) states that “power is a central concept in critical discourse studies. it tends to be defined in terms of negative uses of power, articulated through and within discourses and resulting in domination and oppression” (p. 3). there are many methods of discourse analysis. the one applied in this paper examines text or speech to reveal how the language is used to reinforce and legitimize the current dominant discourse, oppressive power structures, and perceived social reality (fairclough, 2011; gee, 2011, 2014; willey-sthapit et al., 2022). fairclough (1989, as cited by waring, 2017) suggests that those in power make “arbitrary beliefs and practices look as if they were natural and legitimate” (p. 188) and manufacture a common-sense understanding labelled naturalization. through critical discourse analysis, researchers can uncover naturalization and question these created beliefs and practices that continue to oppress and reinforce current power structures. gee (2011) states that language is always used for action. he suggests using verbal actions such as encouragement, manipulation, and insults to build or take down particular worlds and realities (gee, 2011). gee (2011) also suggests that people continually build on or take down things in their reality in one of seven “building tasks” when using written or spoken language: (a) significance, how words are used to make something trivial or important; (b) activities (practices), a socially or culturally agreed-upon set of actions that combine to define an activity or practice; (c) identities, the language used to support a role or identity; (d) relationships, the use of language to create or maintain relationships with others; (e) politics (the distribution of social goods), the use of language in creating and maintaining what is considered normal and good in a given circumstance; (f ) connections, how language connects to other things (which can sometimes be hidden or unclear until a content analysis is conducted); and (g) sign systems and knowledge, using language to strengthen or weaken communication systems within specific groups, cultures, and professions. gee (2011, 2014) advises that six tools for inquiry be used to unveil how these building tasks reinforce the dominant discourse and current power structures: social languages, capital “d” discourse, situated meanings, intertextuality, conversations, and figured worlds. social languages are the languages of a profession or culture; people use various languages depending on the setting and the identity they wish to portray (gee, 2011, 2014). capital “d” discourses examine how people construct and maintain identity through language, actions, and accessories. for example, a person who identifies as a hockey player uses words typical of a hockey player, acts as a hockey player by playing hockey, and wears hockey clothing and equipment. the person must display the “right” characteristics, with particular values, beliefs, acts, and thoughts, to be recognized as a hockey player. situated meanings suggests that how someone is writing or speaking implies a certain level of understanding of the topic to understand the meaning of the word or phrase within that stance. intertextuality introduces the concept that all text borrows and references other texts, suggesting that an author’s words are not entirely their own (gee, 2014). gee (2014) refers to intertextuality as a type of cross-referencing to reinforce certain narratives. fairclough (1992) suggests that authors can use intertextuality to promote or reinforce a discourse or to change the discourse of the referenced text: “texts can transform prior texts and restructure existing conventions (genres, discourses) to generate new ones” (p. 270). conversations, says gee (2011, 2014), june 2023 38 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research can be best described as recognizing the stance or position a person takes in a debate or discussion. recognizing that stance implies understanding its underlining assumptions. a person’s stance influences the interpretation of what is said or written. finally, figured worlds suggests the normal or conventional meaning of a word, phrase, or story (gee, 2011, 2014). these stories create a simplified worldview that is created and shared socioculturally. for example, if an author writes, “the kindergarten class was hectic today,” this statement may paint a picture of a stereotypical kindergarten classroom, with a female teacher, art on the walls, and several young children playing with toys and sitting at tables. when the word “hectic” is added, i envision the children in the same classroom but noisily, busily moving around the room engaged in pretend play. others with different experiences and sociocultural backgrounds may have a different mental picture of the same statement. procedure gee (2014) proposes that making a critical discourse analysis valid follows the same principles of any empirical research study in that it “is built around making arguments for a specific claim (or claims) or hypotheses. the claim or hypothesis is the point of the analysis” (p. 142). for my analysis, to answer the research question, i created a list of questions guided by gee’s (2011, 2014) six tools of inquiry to examine whether the building tasks in hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) are constructing and maintaining current power structures and oppressive practices. the questions focused on how each building task may be used to continue the oppressive narrative of the ece: how are social languages, capital “d” discourse, situated meanings, intertextuality, conversations, and figured worlds (the six tools) being used to (a) build relevance or significance for things and people in context; (b) enact activities or practices in context; (c) enact and depict identities (socially significant “kinds of people”); (d) build and sustain (or change or destroy) social relationships; (e) create, distribute, or withhold social goods or construe particular distributions of social goods as “good” or “acceptable” or not; (f ) make things and people connected or relevant to each other or irrelevant to or disconnected from each other; and (g) privilege or deprivilege different sign systems (language, social languages, other sorts of symbol systems) and ways of knowing? results my critical examination of hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) suggests that it has contributed to and reinforced neoliberalism and a narrative that manufactures a common-sense understanding that it is normal for eces in ontario to be undervalued, underpaid, overworked, and overpoliced. using gee’s (2014) tools of inquiry, i found that all seven building tasks were used to construct a particular reality, but most often, significance, activities (practice), identities, and relationships were employed. in addition, of the six tools used, discourse and situated meaning uncovered the language that most contributed to the promotion of neoliberalism and the naturalization of the oppressed ece. although the discourse of developmentalism is also present in hdlh, i did not analyze the impact or the effect of this discourse. instead i focused on analyzing the effect the ontario moe’s use of neoliberalism has had on eces’ status and identity, working conditions, levels of surveillance, and naturalization of low wages. hdlh and the promotion of neoliberalism market-driven neoliberalism infiltrates hdlh (ontario moe, 2014), which uses intertextuality through subtle statements and mixed messages of education policy and frameworks packaged in a sociocultural context. my critical discourse analysis unveiled many neoliberal messages and unsubstantiated assumptions about eces in the document that conflict with the overall sociocultural discourse, undermine the assertion that all “educators are competent and capable, curious, and rich in experience” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 7), and promote the narrative that continues to oppress eces. for instance, neoliberalism is prominent in the market-based structure of the june 2023 39 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research early years education system and in the discussion of a return on investment when it comes to high-quality early learning programs. the neoliberal stance is one of human capital, promoting education as a mechanism to produce workers with specific skills and create a strong workforce that will strengthen the global economy (moss, 2017). neoliberalism also sees early childhood education and care as a mechanism to allow parents, specifically women, to enter the workforce while others care for their children. in hdlh, the ontario moe (2014) uses intertextuality of the ontario early years policy framework (ontario moe, 2013) and the renewed early years and child care policy framework (ontario moe, 2017) to promote a neoliberal stance. for example, the renewed framework discusses “health, learning, and economic outcomes of positive early years experiences” (ontario moe, 2017, p. 9). these positive outcomes highlight economic benefits, suggesting that high-quality early childhood education is an investment in the future, in future school success, and in immediate and lifelong financial savings for the government (ontario moe, 2013, 2017). similar statements can be found in hdlh: “high-quality early childhood settings are associated with immediate and long-term positive outcomes for children” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 11). hdlh also cites the oecd, stating that high-quality early childhood frameworks have many benefits to high-quality child care and future outcomes (ontario moe, 2014, p. 15). many scholars/researchers have cautioned against the oecd’s influence on government policies and the message regarding high-quality, high-return investment in early years education (berkovich & benoliel, 2020; delaune, 2019). delaune (2019), for example, states, “the oecd promotes particular and narrowly defined domains of learning as ‘best,’ couching their educational ‘values’ within the neoliberal economic discourse, and setting a narrow scope for children to learn and develop within” (p. 63). due to the consumer-based nature of childcare in ontario, these pressures are heightened and may be viewed as oppressive (johnston, 2021; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021). the competition to be the highest quality is driven by parents, who are the consumers of childcare services and who choose what program is the best for their child, increasing the pressure for eces to perform—and naturalizing the oppression of eces. hdlh and the narrative of the undervalued ece of the building tasks in gee’s (2014) discourse analysis, hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) uses identities, significance, relationships, politics, and sign systems and knowledge to reinforce the undervalued ece narrative. first, when examining how language is used to enact the identity of the ece, other than two specific instances, the professional title of ece is intentionally omitted. on the two occasions that the professional designation of ece is cited, it is followed by threatening reminders of expectations and standards enforced by the cece (ontario moe, 2014, pp. 15, 24). little argument can be made that the role of the educator and implementation of program expectations presented in hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) are directed at the over 58,000 professionally registered eces (cece, 2021) who teach and care for children in licensed childcare and early learning programs across ontario, but the title used is “educator.” some may suggest that the term educator includes all who work with the children and avoids the suggestion that the ece is in a more dominant position. and the title educator would be inclusive and appropriate, except the title ece is not used in hdlh’s definition of educator: “we have used the term ‘educator’ throughout this document to refer to all who work with children and families in early years programs (e.g., centreand homebased childcare, child and family programs, before and after school programs)” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 5). even when highlighting the significant role of professional eces, hdlh does not use the professional designation; instead it notes that “the value of early years [emphasis added] educators cannot be overstated” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 19). june 2023 40 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in contrast, in the british columbia early learning framework, “early childhood educator” is used more than 25 times (government of british columbia, 2019). the term educator is defined as an adult who works in early years settings, school-based settings, community-based settings, and postsecondary settings, including early childhood educators and teachers. while it is acknowledged that many terms are in use and people may have preferences on what they call themselves, this framework recognizes that adults who work in these settings are all educators. (government of british columbia, 2019, p. 4) other frameworks published by the ontario government such as early learning for every child today (best start expert panel on early learning, 2007), ontario early years policy framework (ontario moe, 2013), and ontario’s renewed early years and child care policy framework (ontario moe, 2017) all use the professional title ece. ontario’s early policy framework (2013), written before hdlh, distinguished between eces and others working in the field in statements such as “registered early childhood educators and other early years professionals” (p. 17). the deliberate exclusion of the title ece in hdlh matches a practice used by some eces, who, in casual conversations, avoid identifying themselves as an ece or “sidestep the question . . . to avoid unpleasant questions and negative assumptions” (m. jones et al., 2019, p. 127). not wanting to label oneself as an ece emphasizes how devalued and oppressed eces are in ontario. freire (1968/2012) stated, “self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them” (p. 63). hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) uses the building tasks of identities and significance to minimize the importance of the ece role in the early learning and care system. using the tool of discourse, hdlh tries to construct and maintain the identity of the educator, which neither includes the ece professional nor acknowledges their unique skills and identity. another way eces continue to be undervalued is through the social language of practice. hdlh employs technical vocabulary when defining pedagogy, first by using intertextuality and referencing the best start expert panel on early learning’s (2007) definition: “pedagogy is ‘the understanding of how learning takes place and the philosophy and practice that support that understanding of learning’” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 5). but in the next sentence, hdlh simplifies the definition of pedagogy to “how learning happens” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 5). the choice of these definitions minimizes the importance of the ece and the art of teaching. a second term missing from hdlh—a pedagogical guide—is the word “teach.” “teaching” is used but once, in reference to a practice to avoid: “the focus is not on teaching” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 15). the word “teacher” is used only four times in reference to the profession and three times in reference to the environment. yet these words are prominent in definitions of pedagogy elsewhere. for example, merriam-webster (n.d.) defines pedagogy as “the art, science, or profession of teaching” (para. 1); the cambridge dictionary (cambridge university press & assessment, n.d.) defines it as “the study of the methods and activities of teaching” (para. 1). the textbook empowering pedagogy for early childhood education states, “pedagogy is how you approach your professional practice in relation to teaching and learning. the image of who you are or will be as a teacher, combined with a view of the child as a learner, forms a pedagogical orientation” (dietze & kashin, 2016, p. 19). pedagogy is the art of teaching. in the sociocultural context, this art includes listening to children, knowing when and how to ask questions, understanding the children’s interests, planning ways to explore those interests through play and inquiry, and guiding learning. according to hdlh (ontario moe, 2014), educators work; they do not teach. policymakers appear to have avoided specific titles and dumbed down certain concepts to avoid confusion and promote working with children and building relationships with families. this tactic contrasts with the view of educators as “knowledgeable . . . professionals” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 7). june 2023 41 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research hdlh highlights the importance of the environment in the early years by calling it “the third teacher . . . valued for its power to organize, promote relationships, and educate” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 20). the situated meaning of the words “teach,” “teacher,” and “teaching” hold value and status. in hdlh, they are used to promote the value of the learning environment over the value of the eces, who are not teachers: they are workers who work with children. hdlh and the narrative of the underpaid ece although hdlh does not address the underpaid ece directly (ontario moe, 2014), it promotes the narrative of the underpaid ece highlighted in the building tasks of significance, identity, and politics through discourse, situated meanings, intertextuality, and figured worlds (gee, 2014). eces have recited variations of the statement “i’m not in this profession for the money” for years. hdlh reinforces the notion that eces teach and care for children not for money, but rather for the child and the emotional rewards of teaching. statements include “there is no more important work than this” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 28); educators do “meaningful work” (p. 7); “children’s early experiences last a lifetime” (p. 4); “there is perhaps no relationship that holds greater responsibility or reward than relationships we develop with children” (p. 4); and “the value of the early years educators cannot be overstated” (p. 19). through these statements, hdlh can be viewed as maintaining the illusion that society respects and values the ece for their charity, commitment, and contribution to the common good. eces have been literally subsidizing childcare in ontario for the good of society by receiving grossly inadequate pay and are encouraged through hdlh to maintain the fictional reality that being overworked and underpaid should be the norm. hdlh and the narrative of the overworked ece the building tasks of significance, practice, politics, and identities (gee, 2014) are used in the hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) to normalize the profession’s work demands. the statement “all educators who deliver high-quality early years programs know that you are never done” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 9) highlights the expectations. cumming and wong (2019) state that an ece’s “work is highly complex and challenging, characterized by distinctive emotional, intellectual, relational, economic and discursive demands” (p. 266). in contrast, hdlh uses significance and politics to suggest that the challenges eces have in caring for and educating young children are normal, and this hard work is for the overall good of society. the continued use of politics and identities highlights who is a “good” educator: “the best educators” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 19) develop relationships with children, coworkers, families, and the community; they are reflective practitioners and colearners who play, observe, reflect, plan, engage in professional development, create pedagogical documentation, support the development of self-regulation and overall wellbeing in children, and deliver high-quality programs. for years eces have been vocal about being overworked; most are not provided time for planning, reflection, peer meetings, or engaging in meaningful conversations about curriculum and pedagogical approaches (johnston, 2021; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021). in a video, ontario early learning and care program supervisors dismissed the notion that eces do not have the time to engage in reflective practice and advised that this practice can be accomplished in the classroom while they are with the children (ongov, 2014b, 1:19). the supervisors suggested that the best professional learning is done in the classroom, focusing on critical reflection and collaborative inquiry with peers and in communities of practice (ongov, 2014a). just as hdlh uses practice, politics, and identities to reinforce oppression, by having the supervisors acknowledge eces’ complaints regarding the lack of time, money, and formal professional development, they normalize the overwork as part of being a “good” ece. further assumptions made in hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) include the understanding of what pedagogical documentation is and how it is created and used to inform practice, methods to support self-regulation, and the type of play that supports the holistic benefits the document promotes. these complex concepts are left to the june 2023 42 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research ece to figure out alone by characterizing the educator as a lifelong learner. outside of a few conceptual videos discussing these concepts, eces are expected to find or create their own professional development and attend it outside of their teaching hours. hdlh suggests, using practice, politics, and identity, that a “good” ece can not only find the time but also know how to complete pedagogical documentation and support children’s developing selfregulations skills. this tells eces who do not understand or have not been taught how to meet these expectations that they are incompetent or “bad.” shortly after australia introduced a new early years framework conceptually similar to hdlh, kilderry et al. (2017) interviewed five eces about how the australian government supported its implementation. the educators reported feeling “out of the loop” (kilderry et al., 2017, p. 350), wanted to know more about the concepts being presented, and expressed stress, confusion, and apprehension. when the researchers asked educators, “what does it [pedagogy] mean to you?” the responses included “i don’t use it” (kilderry et al., 2017, p. 347). kilderry et al. suggested that with just a basic introduction and little to no support or additional training in how to implement the framework, educators developed a superficial understanding of the new concepts and practices. hdlh does not provide examples or suggest steps to create pedagogical documentation (ontario moe, 2014), eliciting confusion and stress (kilderry et al., 2017; livingstone & hydon, 2019). the key to a deep level of understanding is meaningful adult learning opportunities and professional development with the ability to discuss and use new strategies and practices. in ontario, when professional development is offered, eces are usually responsible for the training fees, the time is unpaid, and sessions are in the evenings or on weekends. despite not receiving paid planning time to complete or interpret pedagogical documentation (johnston, 2021; powell, fearns, & burrell, 2021), educators are mandated to create a minimum number of pieces weekly and monthly (johnston, 2021). this process has created an oppressive competition among childcare programs to generate the most documentation (johnston, 2021), implying that volume equals quality, when in fact eces have pointed out that it impedes quality. taking time away from engaging with children, interrupting their play to stage photos, and generating as many documents as possible seems counterintuitive to quality and adds to the overall workload (johnston, 2021). in a market-based neoliberal system, parents want the highest quality early learning and care option for the lowest possible cost. this creates competition between early learning and care programs and eces to show how they are better than others, increasing workload and stress for eces as they write more pedagogical documentation to prove their worth (halfon & langford, 2015; johnston, 2021; powell, langford, et al., 2020). by normalizing unpaid overtime, defining what a “good” ece is and does, and positioning this work as being for the overall betterment of society, hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) uses the building tasks of politics, practice, and identity to set the expectation of overworked eces and reinforce their oppression. hdlh and the narrative of the overpoliced ece hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) promotes the policing of eces, ensuring certain practices are engaged in and others are not. employing gee’s (2011, 2014) tools, my analysis revealed that hdlh uses the building tasks of practice, identities, connections, and significance to continue the oppressive narrative and promote neoliberalism. page’s (2017a, 2017b, 2018) model of surveillance highlights the levels of oversight to which eces are subjected, reinforced by hdlh. first, hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) uses significance in promoting vertical surveillance. for example, a year after hdlh’s publication, the ontario moe issued a policy statement changing the child care and early years act (2014) and requiring licensed childcare programs to use hdlh to guide pedagogical practice and policies (ontario june 2023 43 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research moe, 2015). this manoeuvre moved hdlh from a resource to a mandated policy for childcare programs overseen by ontario moe program advisers. these advisers police childcare programs and eces to ensure compliance with regulations, standards of practice, and pedagogical practices such as pedagogical documentation. program advisers will issue noncompliance orders directly to the ece and inform the cece of any infractions. hdlh threatens eces with reminders of the expectations and requirements of eces registered with the self-governing body. hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) uses practice, identity, and connections by correlating reflective practice with the “good ece.” perryman et al. (2017) state that “the phrase ‘reflective practitioner’ is now normalized within the discourse of the ‘good teacher’ and feeds into the translator’s role of encouraging teachers to ‘own’ that which the school defines as good practice” (p. 748). reflective practice is prominent in hdlh and in the competency lists of the good educator. through reflective practice, “educators consider their own practices and approaches and the impacts they have on children, families, and others” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 19). hdlh states that the process of reflective practice is “the basis of high-quality programs” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 20) and that “through critical reflection, educators test long-standing views and taken-for-granted practices and consider new approaches and ways of thinking about their work” (p. 20). reflective practice is a metacognitive process where a person thinks about their thinking, questioning their actions and feelings. self-reflection and critical reflective practice in education is not an intuitive process. it takes education, practice, and training to master. when a practitioner writes down their private reflective thoughts but must share them, those thoughts move into the public domain (cotton, 2001; cushion, 2016; denison et al., 2017; page, 2017a; 2017b). once the thoughts are public, they are open for scrutiny and analysis; “they may be controlled by the dominant discourse” (cotton, 2001, p. 515). cotton (2001) suggests that reflective journals intended to be private and confidential could be used as evidence against the educator. they could also be viewed as a confession and interpreted in ways outside the original context and meaning. cushion (2016) states, “reflective or ‘critical friends’ can serve to reinforce practitioners’ self-surveillance as well as contribute to the construction of docility” (p. 90). by endorsing the practice of collaborative inquiry, where eces must make their thoughts public, hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) promotes a method of self-surveillance. reflective practice is essential to the education profession and teacher growth. it becomes a concern when the practice is mandated by governments and those in positions of power because it can be used as a method of surveillance (cotton, 2001; courtney, 2016; johnston, 2021; perryman et al., 2017), especially when it is mandated to be shared with colleagues and superiors. this surveillance method should be viewed as oppressive, especially when the acts of writing and interpreting the reflection are expected to be completed during lunch breaks or after work (johnston, 2021). perryman et al. (2017) state that “the reflective practitioner is an accepted and expected characteristic of the ‘good teacher,’ and good schools” (p. 748), again normalizing oppressive practices. the reflective practitioner is also highlighted in a section of hdlh boldly titled “what’s most important” (ontario moe, 2014, p. 11): what is most important is that educators are provided with ongoing opportunities “to engage in critical reflection and discussion with others about pedagogy and practice to support continuous professional learning and growth” (p. 11). sharing reflections with others in meetings can create a hierarchy of “good” and “bad” reflectors, reinforcing hdlh’s characteristics of the “good educator.” the hierarchy of good and bad reflectors is reinforced in a video entitled “pedagogical leadership: guiding teaching and learning in early years settings” (ongov, 2014a), in which a supervisor discusses her disappointment in an ece who was unable to verbally explain her practice. personal and confidential critical reflection of teaching practice is an important part of professional development but should not be mandated to be shared with others. june 2023 44 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research pedagogical documentation can also be viewed as a form of intrapersonal surveillance. eces create and present pedagogical documentation to parents, children, peers, managers, supervisors, community agencies, and the ontario moe (johnston, 2021). pedagogical documentation includes pictures and stories of what has taken place in the classroom and an interpretation and critical reflection of the activities, which others are asked to comment on (johnston, 2021). the documentation and reflection are scrutinized for quality and depth, and feedback is provided. madrid and dunn-kenney (2010) discussed the emotions connected to teaching and the guilt, fear, and stress eces feel to comply with regulations and be “good.” these strong emotions were related to the feeling of being watched at all three levels of surveillance. eces are expected to be happy, caring, helpful, selfless, competent, and capable, all while regulating their own emotions (a. davies et al., 2022). eces who developed mental health conditions due to stressors such as the high level of surveillance, overwork, lack of respect, and financial stressors are no longer considered a “good ece” (corr et al., 2017; a. davies et al., 2022). the cece requires its members to self-disclose mental conditions or disorders within the licensing renewal program. a. davies et al. (2022) suggest that the cece and hdlh send the message that eces who have “experiences of emotional distress are presented as incompatible with being a ‘good educator,’ ‘good mother,’ or helping professional” (p. 25). in short, hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) uses the identity of the “good ece” as a reflective, nurturing, capable, and competent person, while normalizing the amount of oversight and surveillance placed on them, adding to the naturalization of the oppressed ece. discussion and recommendations hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) is celebrated as a transformative sociocultural resource for all early learning and care programs in ontario, and policymakers will likely look to hdlh to guide the development of an assessment for quality early learning programs. however, my examination of the document’s language using gee’s (2011) method of critical discourse analysis suggests that neoliberalism and the naturalization of the oppressed ece are prominent in the resource. in answer to the research question, hdlh adds to the oppressive narrative of the underpaid, undervalued, overworked, and overpoliced ece. these oppressive practices are presented as normal and to be expected by anyone entering the field. the canada-wide early learning and child care (cwelcc) program will see over 86,000 new childcare spaces in ontario (ongov, 2022). to support this incentive, 14,000 new eces must be hired (cheese, 2022). however, eces are not mentioned on the federal and provincial websites that outline the implementation plan (government of canada, 2022b; ongov, 2022). there is a critical need in ontario for eces; classrooms and entire childcare programs are closing due to a staffing shortage. yet, ece cries for help due to burnout, stress, and lack of support are not heard by any level of government (a. davies et al., 2022; powell et al., 2021). as a result, eces leave the profession, and new graduates do not stay in the field for long if they even enter it (a. jones, 2022). with the current expectations presented in hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) of what is “normal” to be a “good” ece, it is unlikely that preservice eces will stay in the field longer and even more unlikely that people will consider the ece profession. to begin to transform the current power dynamics for eces in ontario and disrupt the neoliberal narrative, i present five recommendations. recognize registered eces as professionals the first action must be for ontario to recognize registered eces as professionals different from others working in childcare programs. the cece (2022) states, “the training, knowledge, and competencies of early childhood educators are distinct and unique from other professions. the specialized skills of eces provide for collaborative june 2023 45 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research opportunities with other regulated professionals” (para. 1). this knowledge and the skills and training of the ece must be highlighted within policies and curriculum documents published by ontario’s moe. this recognition must happen outside of the generic definition of the educator. this recognition is imperative. also, given that eces are professionals, they need to be paid more than a living wage and valued for the education and care they provide. they need support with their mental health concerns and paid sick days. they need paid time outside of lunch and breaks to discuss, plan, and reflect on their practice privately. eces in ontario do not need more oversight, policies, or quality indicators. view early learning and care as a right second, to minimize the influence of neoliberalism and market-based practices that oppress eces, early learning and care must be viewed as a right. for this shift to occur, the early learning and care system must be deprivatized. provincial and federal governments must fully fund childcare and pay eces more than a living wage. they need to recognize eces as essential to implementing quality early learning and care programs for children. engage in a transparent consultation process with eces when creating policies third, before creating a method to assess quality early learning and care programs or any new policies or frameworks, eces need to be consulted and asked what they need, with input into a fully transparent consultation process. the government cannot make these changes independently. a token consultation must not be celebrated. real effort must be made to connect with eces. eces must have a full and active part in this change implementation, not simply be informed afterwards. freire (1968/2012) stated, “leaders cannot treat the oppressed as mere activists to be denied the opportunity of reflection and allowed merely the illusion of acting” (p. 126). including frontline eces at the table so that they may provide their first-hand knowledge and insights into the daily reality of early learning and care and what is needed to support them is vital to the success of high-quality universal childcare in ontario. support eces fourth, eces need support. they need classroom support and strategies to help the many children in care who need guidance to regulate their emotions. they need support to learn how to reflect critically on their practice without the requirement to share their reflections. they also need a clear explanation of the process of pedagogical documentation. the ontario moe should look to jurisdictions beyond italy for resources and ideas to create a solid sociocultural discourse in early learning and care. examples from british columbia’s early learning framework (bc elf; government of british columbia, 2019a) and accompanying resources such as play today (2019b) provide eces with pedagogical direction, information, and documentation examples. the bc elf also contributes “to reconciliation through implicitly and explicitly honouring indigenous authorities in education” (p. 4). the bc elf includes first nations, métis, and inuit ways of knowing. another framework to consider is te whāriki (new zealand moe, 2019), new zealand’s early childhood curriculum, which “was one of the first national curriculum frameworks for early childhood education” (p. 7). te whāriki takes a sociocultural approach to learning (bennett, 2005; blaiklock, 2010; hedges et al., 2018) that integrates settler and māori ways of knowing. it has been widely praised worldwide by eces and academics alike (blaiklock, 2010). te whāriki and additional resources provide a clear explanation and examples of pedagogical documentation to support the implementation of a sociocultural curriculum. integrate settler and indigenous ways of knowing finally, the ontario moe should take inspiration from the bc elf and te whāriki and create a new framework june 2023 46 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research that integrates settler and indigenous ways of knowing. with the implementation of cwelcc, the ontario moe has an opportunity to make a change. it can create a multicultural curriculum framework and guide that takes an authentic sociocultural approach to learning. this document could inspire collaboration among first nations, métis, inuit, and settlers in ontario. the new framework must recognize the professional ece and provide clear pedagogical directions, examples of play, play-based learning projects, self-regulation, and documentation from multiple ways of knowing. conclusion the planning of canada’s national childcare system presents an opportunity to provoke change. in ontario, more research is required to understand how the moe uses discourse to maintain the status quo. specifically, further study is required to examine the influence of developmental discourse in moe policy and frameworks. researchers may wish to examine how these policies and frameworks are manipulated to include developmentalism while simultaneously discouraging its use in hdlh. i firmly believe that hdlh (ontario moe, 2014) offers false generosity (freire, 1968/2012) by appeasing the advocates for a more holistic approach to education while continuing to normalize the oppressive practices brought on by neoliberalism and developmentalism. ontario’s moe deliberately chose to add or withhold particular words to highlight a particular narrative. those choices, in turn, served to manipulate meaning, construct the ece identity, and maintain neoliberalism’s power through the distribution of knowledge (foucault, 1972, 1978, 2001). the instructions and principles dictate what is normal for a “good ece.” and through constant surveillance of eces by the cece, moe advisers, parents, coworkers, peers, and themselves, power and oppression are maintained. freire (1968/2012) stated, revolution is achieved with neither verbalism nor activism but rather with praxis, that is, with reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed. the revolutionary effort to transform these structures radically cannot designate its leaders as its thinkers and the oppressed as mere doers. 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(2015). supporting a high quality ecec workforce: unionization. our schools, our selves, 24(4), 145–152. https:// policyalternatives.ca/our-schoolsour-selves-summer-2015 october 2020 44 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research researching the moral experiences of young children: a pilot study nora makansi and franco carnevale nora nader makansi holds an undergraduate degree in dentistry. she completed her master’s and doctoral studies in the division of oral health and society at mcgill university’s faculty of dentistry. later, nora joined the voice (views on interdisciplinary childhood ethics) project in january 2015 as a postdoctoral trainee working with drs. franco carnevale and mary ellen macdonald. through her doctoral and postdoctoral training, nora developed her research experience in qualitative and mixed methods research. she is currently a research associate and lecturer with the faculty of dentistry, mcgill university. she is also involved as an instructor in the faculty’s annual summer institute on innovative research methodologies. email: nora.makansi@mcgill.ca franco a. carnevale is a nurse, psychologist, and clinical ethicist. he completed his undergraduate nursing degree, three master’s degrees (in nursing, education, and bioethics) and a doctorate in counselling psychology at mcgill university. he also completed a master’s degree in philosophy at université de sherbrooke and a second doctorate in moral philosophy at université laval. in addition, he completed graduate studies in health law, anthropology, and cultural psychiatry. dr. carnevale’s primary research interests include a wide range of concerns in pediatric ethics. he is the founder and principal investigator for voice (views on interdisciplinary childhood ethics), a mcgill-based international initiative to advance knowledge and practices relating to ethical concerns in childhood. dr. carnevale’s current academic appointments (all at mcgill university) include full professor, ingram school of nursing; associate member, faculty of medicine (pediatrics); adjunct professor, counselling psychology; affiliate member, biomedical ethics unit. his clinical appointments include co-chair of the pediatric ethics committee, nursing advisor, and associate member of pediatric critical care, all at montreal children’s hospital–mcgill university health centre, as well as clinical ethicist for child, adolescent, and family services at the douglas mental health university institute and clinical ethics consultant at le phare, enfants et familles (pediatric hospice and respite care). the epistemological standpoint from which we study the lives and experiences of children (defined here as legal minors) has shifted remarkably. marked by the 1989 united nation’s convention on the rights of the child, the “rights” discourse and the recognition of children’s voices and their right to be heard has propelled a shift in ethical frameworks concerning children. this shift is dealing with important ethical issues such as the narrow conception of the best interests standard (bis) and how it should be reconciled with the recognition of children as agents with their own views and interests (cantwell, 2017; carnevale, 2012). the bis is supposed to ensure that children derive the greatest benefits in proportion to burdens from all actions and services that are directed to them. it operates on the basis of children’s inability to exercise their rights fully and independently, and physical/emotional limits on their ability to assert their interests. these limits require that surrogate actors hold the power to make decisions on their behalf (brock & buchanan, 1989). surrogate actors include all adults with a “duty of care” toward a child (e.g., teachers, health professionals, community workers). notwithstanding the importance of bis, there are significant concerns about how it should be understood the aim of this pilot study was to develop a research design and refine data collection and analysis methods to examine moral experiences of children in an education context. we piloted two data collection methods: participant observation and one-on-one interviews in preschool classrooms and with school-aged children, respectively. our thematic analysis revealed how children coconstruct their daily experiences in this particular context; when and how they resist rules; and what moral experiences may look like in preschool interactions and how they may be understood and expressed by schoolaged children. we also discussed methodological reflections on rapport building and power dynamics within these research methods. key words: children; agency; moral agency; research methods; qualitative research october 2020 45 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research (kopelman, 2010; salter, 2012; sayeed, 2010). the limited conception of this standard risks framing children as moral “objects” whose interests are determined by adults (lee, 2001; wall, 2010). on the other hand, advancements in the recognition of children’s voices and agency have been well underway in the field of childhood studies. regarding children as social “actors” propelled the development of the concept of agency in childhood and the recognition of children as moral “subjects” (esser et al., 2016; montreuil & carnevale, 2016). esser et al. (2016) argued that agency is a dynamic and relational concept “produced in conjunction with a whole network of different human and non-human actors” (p. 9). moral agency begins with and is shaped by children’s engagement with the world around them. as moral beings, children are able to act deliberately in light of moral issues, actively reflect on their moral experiences, and shape the world around them based on these reflections and/or actions (montreuil & carnevale, 2016). through this operationalization of agency and moral agency, children participate in the construction of their social relations (e.g., son/daughter, students, friend, research participant) and form their own world of meanings (pufall et al., 2003; wall, 2010). such meanings orient children’s everyday experiences and are rooted in the social and relational context in which experiences take shape (carnevale, 2016). adapting an earlier general definition by hunt and carnevale (2011), children’s moral experiences are defined as a “(child’s) sense that values he or she deem important are being realized or thwarted in everyday life. this includes a (child’s) interpretations of a lived encounter, or a set of lived encounters, that fall on spectrums of rightwrong, good-bad or just-unjust” (p. 659). on a societal level, efforts to address childhood needs are shaped by social institutions such as education, child welfare, and law. childhood socialization, moral education, protection, discipline, and cultural transmission are examples of social processes enacted within the aforementioned social institutions, making them ideal settings for studying children’s moral experiences. the education context educational institutions such as schools and preschools are an integral part of children’s social lives. schooling practices have evolved over time. traditional classrooms are typically teacher-centered with children as passive “becomings” and at the receiving end of information, skills, and discipline (lee, 2001). modern classrooms, on the other hand, adopt increasingly child-centered approaches where children play more active roles in their learning and teachers break away from adultcentric authority to adopt the role of a facilitator of children’s experiences in the classroom. these shifts are most evident in infant and primary education in affluent western societies where free play and child-led activities are part of the educational practices. however, lee (2001) argues an ambiguity remains in the way children are viewed in the context of education and that this evolution in schooling practices does not necessarily alter the view of children as “becomings,” albeit now active learners. interactions between and among children and educators are constantly shaping the socio-moral atmosphere of modern educational settings. children’s agency may be enabled or thwarted by adult educators in different situations, and children may resist or negotiate institutional norms in ways that shape their everyday lives and the collective experiences of the children. moreover, the classroom culture and behavioural expectations will influence how children interact with their educator and among themselves, how they resolve conflicts, and the extent to which they engage in negotiation (devries & zan, 1994; nieme, 2016). background to the pilot study in 2014, an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by franco carnevale launched the voice project (https:// www.mcgill.ca/voice/). the principal aim of this ongoing initiative is to advance interdisciplinary research and october 2020 46 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research knowledge mobilization and thus address ethical concerns relating to childhood. the specific objectives of the research program are to (1) examine the moral experiences of children in situations involving a determination of their best interests and/or their engagement as moral agents; (2) investigate how children’s best interests and moral agency are conceived by four key social institutions (child welfare, education, law, psychology); (3) identify significant concerns that emerge within and between children’s moral experiences and institutional practices; and (4) highlight priorities for the development of norms, policies, practice standards, research, and educational programs for child-related professions and develop materials to respond to these recommendations, based on the findings of this research. theoretical framework this research draws on a sociological and an ethical framework. the former is james and prout’s (2015) new sociology of childhood. this framework challenges the dominant developmental conception of childhood and promotes understanding childhood as a social construction where children are seen as “active in the construction and determination of their own social lives, the lives of those around them, and of the societies in which they live” (p. 7). the latter framework, known as the voice childhood ethics (ce) framework, is a subspecialized field of inquiry within childhood studies developed by franco carnevale. the framework focuses on developing knowledge and practices regarding children’s moral experiences and advancing understanding and recognition of children’s experiences, interests / best interests, aspirations, voices, and agency (carnevale, 2016). ce is particularly concerned with dominant binary moral conceptions of young people as either incapable and in need of protection of their best interests or as quasi-autonomous capable agents. ce acknowledges complex intersections between these two polar opposites. as a field of inquiry, it recognizes that all children have voices and a right and interest to be heard (with agential capacities and aspirations), as well as vulnerabilities and a right to be protected in light of their best interests. ce seeks to better understand these dimensions of children’s moral lives by developing methodological approaches that can optimize these research aims. the focus on moral experience entails interpretive research approaches, such as ethnography, examining how children construct, defend, or negotiate their agential capacities and how the social context of institutions, like schools, shapes their experiences of right/wrong, good/bad, just/unjust. aim of pilot study this pilot study preceded larger-scale data collection in a broader, ongoing research project with a central focus on critiquing the bis and moral agency by examining the moral experiences of children in different social settings. the aim of this pilot study was to develop and refine data collection and analysis methods to examine the moral experiences of children in the context of education. two data collection methods, ethnographic observations and individual interviews, were used. analysis of these diverse sets of pilot data aimed to (a) demonstrate potential results that could be generated and (b) foster an examination of methodological challenges involved in researching moral experiences of children with these methods. methodology this pilot study was conducted in a community centre that operated a preschool facility and ran an afterschool program for school-aged children. we piloted ethnographic participant observation (po) in the preschool and conducted interviews with primary-school children in the afterschool program. october 2020 47 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research po involves the immersion of the researcher in the social world of participants through participating in and observing what goes on in everyday social settings (spradley, 2016). this approach allows for data to be collected in a natural and flexible manner, while providing the time and space for building relationships between the researcher and the child (morrow & richards, 1996). in contrast, interviews are a useful tool to elicit children’s own accounts of their experiences and perspectives. since the aim was to pilot test these methods of data collection, we assigned one data collection method to each group. we did not conduct po in the afterschool program given the low and inconsistent rate of attendance. child-adapted strategies given the shift toward seeking agential views of children, methodological considerations have been raised in the literature concerning doing research “with” children. these include addressing the power differential between adults and children, listening “authentically” to the voices of children to better access their worlds, and using childadapted research methods (carnevale, 2012; christensen, 2004; mayeza, 2017; punch, 2002). mandell (1988) proposes adopting the “least-adult” role in po to help the researcher gain entry into the world of children. she defines being least-adult as a “role which suspends adult notions of cognitive, social, and intellectual superiority and minimizes physical differences by advocating that adult researchers closely follow children’s ways and interact with children within their perspectives” (p. 464). consequently, children begin to relate to the researcher more like a child and less like an authority-figure. the researcher then develops friendly and playful connections with children leading to more child-centered relationships (mayeza, 2017). however, this approach has been criticized for oversimplifying power issues and the complex representations of adult roles and adulthood (christensen, 2004). for po in this research, we adopted christensen’s recommended approach of continually balancing the recognition of the researcher as an “adult” while attempting to avoid connotations and practices associated with “adulthood” and adult roles (such as parent or teacher). this approach supports children in implementing their own “rules” or “practices.” other increasingly used strategies include activities such as drawing, photography, and diaries (ford & campbell, 2018; punch, 2002). we gave our school-aged participants the option to fill a journal/diary that was provided to them after the first interview. they were told they could use it to keep a record (in writing or drawing) of any incident or event that took place in school (e.g., something good/bad, fair/unfair, right/wrong). research process research ethics approval was obtained from mcgill university’s research ethics board. once access was granted by the community centre, an administrator coordinated meetings between the researcher and educators from both the preschool and the afterschool team. the purpose of the meetings was to describe the project and seek the educators’ help in distributing consent and assent forms. a researcher (nm) was available on preannounced dates to answer parents’ questions or queries. in the preschool section, seventeen signed parental consent forms were returned to the researcher. the ages of the children ranged between 2.5 and 5 years. there were two classrooms and the children were grouped according to age (2-3 years old and 4-5 years old respectively). the pilot po lasted two weeks and was preceded by two introductory visits. po time was divided between the two classrooms depending on their schedule and activities. nm observed and directly engaged with children in the classrooms and in other spaces in the centre where they had activities (i.e., library, gym, or outdoors). the researcher tried to orient some interactions with guiding questions and recorded data in field notes. an example of the guiding questions is, how do children demonstrate october 2020 48 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research moral agency in situations when adults seem to be determining for the children what is in the child’s best interests? despite the common educational program used in both classes, each classroom had its own characteristics influenced by the approach of the educator. the relative balance of researcher’s participation and observation activities varied depending on the nature and structure of activities, interests of the children, and classroom “rules.” we introduce two vignettes at the beginning of the results section to illustrate the characteristics of the observed classrooms. in the afterschool program, only three parental consent and child assent forms were signed and returned. all three participants were 9-year-old boys. they all attended the same public primary school. each participant was interviewed three times, with a oneto two-week period between interviews. meetings were scheduled based on the children’s availabilities and preferences. open-ended questions were used to initiate the conversation and were paraphrased from guiding questions such as: describe a situation where you were faced with deciding what was the right or fair thing to do. what seemed right/wrong, good/bad, or fair/unfair?; who was involved? what did you think/ do? how did you feel? what happened? itunes gift cards ($20 each) were given as a form of compensation at the end of the research. analysis po data consisted of handwritten field notes, informal conversations, and critical reflections. nm regularly added interpretive comments to the field notes, making contextual links to help illustrate the observed interactions and describing self-reflections in different situations. raw po data was synthesized into a narrative format (i.e., reflective comments were built into the recorded observations and interactions, creating a narrative text to facilitate reading). interviews with the school-aged children were transcribed verbatim. documents were regularly shared with the coauthor for discussion of findings and interpretations. although we did not use a coding guide during the inductive coding process (rivas, 2012), our data analysis was influenced by the guiding theoretical frameworks. an iterative process of coding, categorizing, and constant comparison (memon, umrani, & pathan, 2017) led to the development of the illustrative themes presented below. results the following is an overview of the data and analysis that were generated from pilot po and individual interviews. the aim here was to illustrate the types of findings that can be obtained when researching moral experiences of young children. we also highlighted data that reflected methodological issues concerning doing research with children. all names have been changed to maintain anonymity. po data institutional context: curriculum. the educational curriculum adopted by the institution had a “child-led” focus. according to the three educators (including one substitute), the curriculum encouraged child-led activities and adapting lessons to the children’s curiosities and interests. every educator attended a two-day training course on this approach. however, one educator described the curricular training as insufficient and mostly focused on communication with parents (e.g., communicating program information and newsletters). the activities we observed were aligned with the aforementioned curriculum goals. for example, a newsletter that was posted to the parents in classroom b explained the source of inspiration for an art project completed by the children and displayed on the classroom walls. the educator had noticed the children’s interest in a particular october 2020 49 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research animal when she was reading a story from a picture book, so she developed an art project around it. the art project also served an educational goal: teaching children the motor skill of handling scissors. institutional context: classrooms. the following vignettes are intended to help the reader visualize the researcher’s view of the classrooms. vignette 1, classroom a: 4to 5-year-old children. this morning, there were seven children and three adults: one educator and two volunteers (this classroom welcomes community service volunteers). it was “free play” time for the children, and the educator was completing some documents in the corner. one volunteer was playing with a child, while the other was sitting on a small chair looking tired and uninterested. some children were building a train track and two were playing pretend cooking. a child was getting into a car-race driver costume and asked the researcher if she wanted to help him repair tires. they carried their imaginary tires to the corner and pretended to pump air into them. “wait! if we push one more time, the tire will pop!” the researcher said. the child smiled mischievously and pretended to push harder. the researcher made a popping sound, “boom!” the child started laughing and asked that they repeat the scene. later, the educator stood by the door and turned the lights off. he chanted a few words indicating that it was time for a new activity (snack time). the children abruptly stopped what they were doing and rushed to their cubbies to bring the lunch boxes. vignette 2, classroom b: 2to 3-year-old children. mornings started with a free-play period in this class also. there were no volunteers here. the educator was preparing playdough as an optional activity for the children. she told the researcher it was homemade playdough that she had prepared herself. there were organized activity stations for the children to choose from (painting and playdough, book corner, toy corner). there was an uncovered clock on the wall with a pink dot-shaped sticker on one arm and a blue flower-shaped sticker on the other. later, the educator made a distinctive sound: “eyes on me everybody!” once everyone was looking at her, she pointed to the clock and said, “you see where the pink dot is? when the pink dot reaches the blue flower, it will be cleanup time. do you know why? we’re going to see emma! that means we have what today?” some children responded in unison: “library!” as the specified time approached, the educator repeated her instruction to look at the clock. “is the pink dot at the blue flower?” a couple of children answered, “no, not yet.” “that’s right,” she responded, “but it’s almost time.” the two classrooms described above had different social atmospheres. despite the similar schedules (periods of free play, gym time, or library time), the dynamics and social order varied. classroom a appeared more relaxed in terms of structure. the children were more forthcoming with the adults in the room, and there was more child-adult negotiation. also, transitions between activities were sometimes ad hoc and rushed. some children occasionally responded by objecting and refusing to cooperate. on the other hand, classroom b was evidently orderly and neat. the daily schedule typically ran in a smooth, predictable manner, and the educator always gave the children multiple cues prior to switching activities. there was a high sense of self-efficacy and confidence among most children in this classroom, despite their younger age. po themes. through observation of interactions, we identified how children acted and reacted in different situations and how their agency and moral agency shaped and were being shaped by the educational context of the preschool and the other social actors involved. the following themes point out how children actively constructed their day with the support of educators, how they voiced their resistance to control, and their interactions or reactions that reflected a sense of moral agency. children’s choices valued. some learning activities in the two classrooms were child led, as encouraged by the institutional curriculum. additionally, there were opportunities for the children to voice their own interests and october 2020 50 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research choose an activity, albeit within a structured schedule. for example, during free play in classroom b, the educator was leading a playdough station and a painting activity. she invited the children to join her. two children chose to participate, while james said “no, thanks” and continued to play with blocks. the educator nodded and said “okay.” in another example, the educator in classroom a turned off the lights to signal transition to snack time. then he added, “it’s snack time, so if you would like to eat you should…” “clean up five things!” the children replied. “and if you don’t want to eat, you...” “keep on playing!” responded the children. one girl continued playing while the rest cleaned up their toys. these examples demonstrate instances where educators facilitated or encouraged children’s agential voice. sometimes, however, educators resorted to using their power without attention to individual children’s voices, as we describe in the paragraph on moral agency below. children challenging authority. in both classrooms, some children tried to negotiate adult authority or challenge rules. when the educator told elise to put the doll away for cleanup time—“counting till five … will take it away if i reach five!”—elise held on to the doll until the last count, then put it away. nm frequently noted such interactions in both classrooms. despite reminders and countdowns, some children repeatedly expressed objection by resisting or ignoring warnings and pushing boundaries to the limit. sometimes, when they were able to break a rule, children appeared thrilled by the notion of resisting authority: one day during lunch, sarah and sandy sat together at the far end of the classroom. they knew they were not allowed to share lunchbox foods (a rule that the educator repeatedly stated), but on that day they realized that by sitting at the farthest table in the classroom, they could discreetly exchange foods without being noticed. they were aware they were breaking a rule (they exchanged food quietly and kept an eye on the educator). the girls managed to taste each other’s food and they giggled triumphantly. they repeated this on two other occasions, until they were caught by the educator. the educator restated the rule but did not engage with the children nor give reasons for this rule. grown-up glory and moral agency. when the children interacted with each other, they enacted being older or bigger as a sign of independence and power. it was good to be big and bad to be small, or worse, a “baby.” being labelled a baby was always ill received among the children. during a pretend-play activity in classroom b, elise (who was physically the smallest) took charge of assigning roles to the pretend family she was forming with her friends. she said to dave, “you will be sister.” dave did not object, but soon after there was a conflict and elise spoke loudly and firmly: “i am a big girl! and i can do anything i want since i am a big girl (she put her arms up in the air to appear bigger). you’re a tiny baby!” dave became evidently upset and responded tearfully: “i am not a tiny baby! you said i am a sister.” another excerpt from the po data illustrated this theme: liam (5 years old, while lining up to go to the library): “are you a teacher?” researcher: “yes i am. i teach big kids, though.” liam: “but big kids don’t need to be teached because they’re big already.” we also noted instances where the children expressed their sense of right or wrong. in one example, while the researcher was reading a picturebook titled little dino don’t yell to some students in classroom a, she stopped at a page with a picture of a little dinosaur yelling at his father. the children were looking in disapproval. “is this okay?” she asked. the children shook their heads negatively. “why?” she asked. “because it hurts someone’s feelings,” one of them answered. the child here did not make a specific reference to the father in the story, and when the researcher probed a little, asking, “how about when you talk to your friends or siblings?” the child affirmed, “it’s not okay to yell at anyone!” october 2020 51 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research sometimes, however, expressions of agency were thwarted due to educators’ inability to balance being attentive to children’s voices with exercising power. for example, when the substitute teacher asked children to clean up their toys in preparation for lunch (“the train tracks can stay out, but anything we could trip on should be cleaned up!”) one child expressed confusion as he tried to make a judgment about whether or not the train tracks could be left out. the educator did not pay attention or listen and just wanted him to hurry. such instances came in stark contrast to the examples above where children’s voices were encouraged. tension between moral agency and best interests. an interesting adult-child interplay on best interests and agency emerged during po. in one example, during snack time, the educator of classroom b was encouraging the children to eat their “growing” foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables) before eating less healthy snacks, such as energy bars or cookies (children come with home-prepared lunch boxes). this educator was keen on teaching healthy eating habits. bob picked his energy bar, saying, “i want to eat this.” the educator peeked into his lunch box and said, “no, you have strawberries. remember, growing foods first.” “i want to eat my bar, i don’t want strawberries,” bob repeated a couple of times, but the educator gently insisted on the rule. bob eventually put down the energy bar and started eating strawberries. he soon asked if he could stop, but the educator encouraged him to have a few more. after he had eaten a few more (seemingly reluctantly but not complaining), the educator told him he could have his energy bar. surprisingly, bob responded, “i don’t want the bar anymore, i don’t feel like it” and he happily ate a couple more strawberries before packing away his lunch box. this situation highlights how, when a child’s well-being is concerned, adult interference could be morally justified when coupled with a willingness to give reasons for rules and to refrain from arbitrary coercion. yet it also raises the question, to what extent can acting in the best interest of the child be adapted to their preferences here and now? interview data in the interviews, we asked direct questions about what it means to be good or bad, fair or unfair. two out of the three interviewed boys in the afterschool program revealed quite distinctive dispositions. alex was quiet and waited for the researcher to initiate conversation. he sat still and appeared nervous at the beginning of each interview. mike, on the other hand, did not appear nervous but was easily distracted and kept moving about in his chair. none of the participants kept journal entries, and they seemed to forget about their journals between interviews. themes. meaning of moral values. when asked what “being good” meant to them, the boys described this notion in different ways. alex spoke about being good within the context of interpersonal relationships, referring to good actions and good deeds. he then elaborated on the boundaries of doing good and being helpful: [being good is] helping someone, like if they get hurt…. there was like a person today at recess, he like helped someone but he didn’t actually ask if they were okay, like ask, “do you need some help?” when they [students] were having trouble with a question, she [his teacher] came over to them and gave them a little hint, like on what the first syllable is, and they got it ... like not too helpful but like helpful enough so that they get it. on the other hand, mike described “being good” in the context of hierarchical relations between adults and children, where being good was equated with obedience and following the rules: [being good is] listening, not getting in trouble … and no um, um hurting others.… listening is just hearing what the teacher says because in tests you have to actually listen, because if you don’t, you not know anything about the test. october 2020 52 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research researcher: how do kids “get in trouble”? mike: pushing, um bullying … um not listening. and not listening to a teacher.… i was playing with my friends on the mountain and i was not supposed to. the teachers watch from far away and um they were not paying attention so um, like my friend and me went on the mountain and every time the teacher came, we went down, then um one time, we both got in trouble.… i feel um bad for myself … and kind of annoyed … annoyed that i got caught! because i don’t like getting caught. if you get caught, you’re doomed, you can’t run away! if you run away, you get in more trouble. if my friends weren’t at school, i’ll be the um, i would be a real good listener ... with my friends i go crazy, out of my mind! similarly, when asked what “fairness / being fair” meant to them, our participants responded differently. alex described fairness in the context of interpersonal situations: letting someone play with you [is being fair] … teachers who choose hands [are fair], if someone always raises their hands, she doesn’t always pick them.… also if you’re working in a team and you both have the same answers, she doesn’t give you like an a and give the other person like a b, that’s not fair.… it’s unfair when you always make rules that will help you but not other people.… i was like playing tag and someone kept touching me … we had a time-out and my friend asked him to play fairly and to touch everyone else too.… i feel good, it’s like they’re standing up for me. i didn’t want to say anything because i thought he was gonna get mad at me. then he explained how he makes moral judgments, relating to how the process works for adults, whom he described as good at handling tough situations: i usually think in my head before, like if i do this, for example, like the tag example, if i keep on touching someone, how would they react, or how would i react if they do it to me? i think that they (grownups) do it good because they always think a lot before. i usually think in like one way, or two ways, to figure like bad and good, but grownups will think in like four ways about like bad and good. they have a bigger brain than us and they’ve learnt more. mike, on the other hand, did not elaborate on fairness as a moral concept but redirected the conversation toward his perception of adult authority. [to be] fair is to give equal amounts, like … when you split up a cake … i don’t know what it means [for a teacher to be fair]. my teacher is strict and funny in the same time.… my science teacher, he always yells, he’s a real strict man. i don’t know why but he was always strict … just like never smiles. i feel bad for him, like why does he [not smile], like i really want to figure out why … um maybe people when he was a little kid, um, were annoying him.… people be strict to me if i do like one tiny mistake! the above excerpts highlight the different meanings children attach to moral concepts based on their interactions with other children and the adults in their lives. for example, being good was on one hand associated with being helpful and considerate, and on the other hand, it was explained in terms of discipline and abiding by rules. although we did not observe these children in context, they engaged differently with the topic of moral experiences. such findings indicate the uniqueness of children’s experiences within the same educational institution. indeed, other factors besides lived experiences may influence the interview data, including being interviewed by an adult (representing an authority figure) and the character disposition of each child. building rapport and power dynamics we examined relational engagement with child-participants in our operationalization of this research, which we october 2020 53 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research frame here as “rapport.” during po, two factors facilitated building rapport with the young children. the first was contextual: one group of children was accustomed to having adult volunteers in the classroom who helped the educator with daily activities; therefore, nm noted that her integration into this class was easier than anticipated. second, nm found that by genuinely participating in children’s play and following their “rules,” she was able to foster a sense of trust with the children, who responded by inviting her to play with them. in one example, sarah and elsa were playing inside a pretend home they built using mini-furniture toys. nm asked if she could join them, but the girls refused and told her she was “too big.” nm suggested they could use a pretend magic wand to make her smaller. the girls agreed happily, and nm pretended to shrink as one of the girls waved the pretend wand at her. later, before stepping out of the pretend home, sarah said, “wait!” she held up her arm pretending to wave the magic-wand and said, “now you’re big again!” in a similar example, while the children were lining up for gym time, the following conversation took place: researcher: may i line up here with you? mike: no. researcher: why? mike: you’re not a kid! researcher: hmm, what if i pretend that i am one? (kneeled on the floor to match his height) how about now? mike (smiling): yes, now you’re the same size. the other kids were all smiling in approval. in both examples, the young children displayed agency in their interactions, setting rules for belonging to their world. these two instances highlight the value of reducing children’s perception of adult power as a way to gain entry into their worlds. on the other hand, interviews required different strategies for building rapport. for example, the institution’s policy stated that a child could not be alone with an adult in any of the rooms/spaces within the centre. thus, interviews had to be conducted in an open space, which meant that (a) the child had limited choice in terms of where the interview would take place, and (b) there were constant interruptions and distractions. nm tried to mitigate this barrier by asking the child to decide on the day and time of the interview and to select one of the permissible space options. on one occasion, despite having decided on the time and day, one participant appeared reluctant to have the interview as scheduled. although nm had made the trip specifically for that interview, she asked the child if he did not feel ready for it and assured him they could reschedule. indeed, the child immediately appeared more relaxed and asked to reschedule. during the interviews, the researcher noted certain elements that she perceived as helpful in terms of rapport building, such as having general conversations, sharing her personal interests, and, where possible, avoiding sitting across from the child in a standard desk-interview position (one interview was conducted while sitting on the floor side by side, allowing the child to move freely and reducing eye contact with the researcher). october 2020 54 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research discussion the aim of this pilot study was to develop and refine data collection and analysis methods for examining the moral experiences of children. the context for this study was an educational setting where moral experiences of children shape and are shaped by regulated socialization processes. in this section, we discuss the limitations and implications of our data collection methods, as well as tensions between “agency” and “best interests.” data collection methods in terms of methods, we found that po allowed for collecting data that is enriched by observing the context within which children’s actions and interactions took place. indeed, ethnographic approaches, such as po, are well suited for exploring the experiences of children in their social environments (carnevale et al., 2008). we also believe that the personal characteristics of the researcher contributed to how much she was able to employ certain rapportbuilding strategies. nm enjoyed playing with children. the combination of her affinity for young children and her personal experiences as a mother and volunteer teacher in primary schools may have facilitated her integration and helped reduce the power differential. in this pilot study, we did not interview the children in the preschool classrooms, considering po a better-adapted data collection method for this group of children (although some informal conversation took place with the children throughout the po). we anticipate that a combination of po and interviews (formal or informal) could generate the richest possible insights into the moral experiences of young children. interviews remain an important method to elicit children’s own voices and opinions as opposed to adult interpretations of observed interactions (eder & fingerson, 2002). this said, establishing rapport with the school-aged children in this study was more difficult due to some contextual barriers and institutional policy. familiarization with the setting in which the study will take place might help researchers adapt their methods to maximize outcomes. moreover, the nature of the interview (questions and answers) represents a classic classroom model (initiation-response-feedback), which could emphasize the power differential. unequal power between the adult researcher and the child stems from evident differences like age and status. a child who views the adult researcher as an authority figure might feel obliged to respond or act in a certain manner, especially within certain contexts (such as schools). to improve on the conventional model, nm used various strategies that were helpful, to some extent. methodologically speaking, multiple interviews over time and the introduction of journals with the older children were intended to facilitate relationship building and help the researcher relate to the children’s experiences. the latter did not succeed, possibly due to the children’s lack of familiarity with journalling or a lack of interest/ motivation. the three children who agreed to be interviewed happened to all be boys. we imagine that diverse gender perspectives could enrich the types of data that can be generated regarding moral experiences, although we were unable to explore this dimension with our pilot study sample. reconciling “agency” and “best interests” tensions between recognizing children’s agency and protecting their best interests are a core focus in childhood ethics (ce). within the ce framework, agency and best interests are reconcilable, although at times protection may require doing things that counter children’s expressed preferences (e.g., eating healthy foods, holding hands to cross the street) these protective actions should be adapted, to the greatest extent possible, to the child’s preferences. recognizing agency does not mean forgoing guidance. however, what strategies can help maintain a balance between best interests and agency? if we take a closer look at the description of the classrooms observed in this october 2020 55 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research study, we may find that in classroom b, the educator’s operationalization of resources and activities in a consistent and orderly manner may have helped her maintain a balance between protecting the children’s best interests and recognizing their agency. when this educator was trying to instill healthy eating habits, she gently insisted that the child eat his fruit first, reminding him that “growing” foods help him grow up healthy and strong. she also did not forsake the child’s desire to eat his snack and reminded him that he could eat his favourite bar once he had eaten a certain amount of fruit. sometimes adults use their power to get children to do what is convenient for them, or just inadvertently do not take them seriously. however, this educator consistently took the time to explain reasons for setting rules, just like she took the time to prepare children for transitions between activities. finally, the interview data we presented offers an example of the distinct experiences and perceptions of two boys from the same school. these examples highlight that, in the context of education, individualized assessments of a specific child’s best interests should be maximally informed by that child’s views and experiences. within project voice, we are promoting the recognition of children’s agency as inherent in protecting their best interests— seeing agential respect as a child’s interest. adults who have power over children and are indeed in a position to contribute to the child’s well-being must refrain from using their power arbitrarily and combine it with willingness to engage with children and to let them know that they are heard. conclusion despite the limitations of a pilot study, we were able to show examples of several instances where children’s agency and moral judgment could be examined. even within the same institution, every child is unique and every educator contributes to shaping the dynamics of the classrooms based on their own character and approach. in terms of methods, researching the moral experiences of children requires a constant adaptation of what is methodologically feasible to the specific contexts within which children’s actions and interactions take place. researchers are encouraged to take adequate time to familiarize themselves with any given context and to consider the development and refinement of the research strategies as an ongoing process that is molded by the specific encounters with the children. october 2020 56 vol. 45 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references brock, d. w., & buchanan, a. 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(2010). ethics in light of childhood. georgetown university press. june 2022 54 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research plastics, birds, and humans: awakening and quickening ecological minds in young children and their teachers will parnell, julianne cullen, and michelle angela domingues will parnell, edd, is a professor in early childhood education, department chair of curriculum and instruction, and a pedagogical liaison to the helen gordon child development center at portland state university, oregon. his specialty areas are rethinking readiness in the early years, disrupting traditional early childhood research, creating learning designs, and documenting and making young children’s learning visible. will cofounded the inventing remida portland project and currently serves as past-president of the national association of early childhood teacher educators and consultant for the international school of beijing early years. he has coedited and authored three books: making meaning in early childhood research, disrupting research in early childhood education, and rethinking readiness in early childhood education. his other scholarly research articles and book chapters focus on children’s, teachers’ and parents’ lived experiences. his background includes work in lab schools, parent cooperatives, and public school settings, and he has started many schools for young children, working with architects on place making, space planning, and pedagogy in architectural design. email: parnellw@pdx.edu julianne cullen is a parenting education coordinator for child and family development programs in northwest oregon. she graduated from portland state university in 2010 with an ms degree in curriculum and instruction. her passion is teaching staff to reveal to children and new teachers ways that we can reuse waste materials and at the same time preserve the natural environment for generations to come. she loves spending time with her four grandchildren. her paid positions are to encourage parents’ development in their various stages of parenting. michelle angela domingues’ (she/ella) educational background includes a post-bac in chicano/latino studies, a master’s in sustainability education and a doctorate in educational leadership with a specialization in constructivism in early childhood studies. she serves on the board of the inventing remida portland project and is currently a lead teacher at helen gordon child development center, where she belongs to an antibias committee and is chair of the just sustainabilities committee. michelle’s research focus is leadership in early childhood ecology, culture, and learning. her work as an adjunct instructor supports ece practitioners to critically examine and resist historically constructed, normative views of young children, their families, schools, and communities. working with educators, artists, young children, and materials to make meaning with place affected by human environmental impacts, this study zooms in on a documentary of dying birds who’ve swallowed plastics. the birds’ habitat is an eyeopening 2,000 miles from the nearest continent and is infested with trash and plastic. the birds ingest many shiny plastic bits and slowly die. this research paper focuses in on experiences of sharing this documentary with teacher educators at a reconceptualist conference, then educators in our own context, and then with early childhood artist-educators working in reuse materials. this study captures a series of dialogues and materials interactions at each of the three gatherings about possible ways to research with young children on daunting ecological issues in perilously turbulent times. working with educators, artists, young children, and materials to make meaning with place affected by human environmental impacts, this study zooms in on a documentary of dying birds who’ve swallowed plastics. the birds’ habitat is an eye-opening 2,000 miles from the nearest continent and is infested with trash and plastic. the birds ingest many shiny plastic bits and slowly die. this research paper focuses in on experiences of sharing this documentary with teacher educators at an international conference, then educators in our own context, and then with early childhood artists working in reuse materials. the research captures a series of dialogues and materials interactions at each of the three gatherings about possible ways to research with young children on daunting ecological issues in perilously turbulent times. key words: early childhood; ecology; ethical care; reuse materials; remida centre reggio emilia june 2022 55 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research contexts and weaving together: inventing remida portland’s ethical, political, and pedagogical ethos the context for this research study with plastics, birds, and humans is nestled inside of our inventing remida portland project (irpp). there is a long history and making of many remida centres around the world (reggio children, 2005)—the initial centre is a repository for discarded materials in reggio emilia, italy, and a place for learning with reuse materials in schools for young children. now, there are 17 named remida centres worldwide, each with their unique point of view on bringing young children, community, culture, and families together with discarded materials to embellish and fashion works, create something together, look closely at the former and new life of tossed-away items, find and make deeper meaning in projects, locate ourselves in and through materials and their stories (domingues, 2019), and on and on. our irpp centers on an early childhood master’s program, an unconventional and reconceptualist full-day and full-year laboratory preschool, and our community. irpp is reconceptualist as we attempt to refuse human exceptionalism, push out past traditional developmentalism, and attend to ethical mindsets and political actions. our reconceptualist approaches manifest an orientation toward inquiry and questioning as we think and labour with scrap materials. with irpp, we undertake a cultural project with the aims of reclaiming and repurposing industrial discards and educating ourselves, community, and young children on possibilities for reusing invaluable materials in classroom, school, and community projects to reduce, reclaim, and reimagine as well as reconfigure our worlds. our irpp work was born out of an ethos of care: caring with planet, human, and more-than-human others. situating ourselves in an ethos where maria puig de la bellacasa’s (2017) “speculative ethics” guide us, we are recalled to her pressing idea that “relations of thinking and knowing require care and affect how we care” (p. 69). puig de la bellacasa continues by saying, “in tune with a nonnormative approach to care as a speculative ethics, the grounds of this premise are ontological rather than moral or epistemological: not only relations involve care, care is relational per se” (p. 69). activating this commitment to rigorous caring with, we, as early childhood teacher educators, began to question more and more whether environmental collapse was imminent. we reached for hope through asking our community to reconceptualize early childhood practices with us. thus, our inventing remida portland ethos and practices were ignited through offering innovative and ideological community engagements—workshops—to crack open changes in our educational community’s practices and foster a mindful moderation of earthly resources. irpp conceptualizes educational projects as community based, hands on, eco-politically oriented, mind expansive, and relational with place, care, culture, questioning, and rethinking. our first major irpp research project looked at connecting place culture with reuse materials and education for young children (see parnell, downs, & cullen, 2017). in this study, we engaged with freshwater, farm-raised, and genetically modified fish located in our pacific northwest culture. we asked community educators to curate old, shiny, unused, perhaps even unloved objects from garages, drawers, shelves, and from around their homes to bring to our workshops. we referenced fashioning our shiny objects as depictions of fish in a way to honour the complex and difficult lived experiences of fish and waterways, which activates our pedagogical commitments, because, for us, to honour means to bring shape to an ethos of care and affects how we care. this shiny fish educational project became a widely known workshop and was repeated for many years in various places around the world. across the years of our inventing remida portland project reimaginings, we held many workshops ranging from loose-parts play with materials and a big idea topic such as engaging extended family in school reuse (parnell, justice, & patrick, 2018); wind, water, and reuse; light, ice, and reuse; and so on. this labour has had many twists and turns as we have kept learning and relearning, and unlearning, in order to enact local and relevant changes in our own living, doing, and being, breathing in life to our ethos of planetary, human, and june 2022 56 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research more-than-human care. this irpp work has been a long and slow 10 years in the making, thus we have kept inventing in the name of what we do—inventing remida portland project. building a conceptual framework around re words has also helped us to foreground attitudes of care we hope to proliferate. we resist the stale, commonplace, and neoliberal words of reduce, reuse, and recycle, like postfoundational scholars around us (liboiron, 2019; mcdermott, 2016; molloy murphy, 2020a). thus, we more carefully selected rewords to think with because they are more grounding and grounded in our irpp ethos of care. for example, we continue to search and re-search material reduction, reconsumption, redemption, reclassification, rebuilding, reidentifying, reclaiming, relieving, and so on. through these re-searching efforts, we can embody a continuous cycle of inquiry to raise awareness, change habits and practices, and remake our ecological efforts. meeting the midway atoll islands, birds, plastics, life, and death travelling along side our ongoing irpp work, we undertook a particular re line of study that came to us via an irpp member, meeting a documentarian of bird deaths and sharing the documentary encounter with us (explained in more detail later). the midway atoll islands’ plastic besiege resulting in bird deaths asked us to engage this trouble— to seek to understand reawakening and quickening young children and their teachers’ ecological considerations. we deliberately say reawakening because we recognize that we all already live with death, change, plastic waste, and so on, but we wondered how to put these ideas together to study with children and with the messages our planet and the more-than-human are evoking. we also add the word quickening to evoke the pregnancy sense of the word rather than the capitalistic logics of acceleration or constrained and forced time commitments. in pregnancy, quickening is the moment when fetal movements in the uterus are felt for the first time. this can be a precious and gifted moment that, here, symbolizes the pregnant mind drawing what deleuze and guattari (1987) aptly named “lines of flight”—that is, we hope to draw lines between our interconnected actions and the resulting degradation and death on midway atoll back toward a change and perhaps a rebirthing in our interconnected actions. further, lorraine tamsin (2010) informs us, “a ‘line of flight’ is a path of mutation precipitated through the actualisation of connections among bodies that were previously only implicit (or ‘virtual’) that releases new powers in the capacities of those bodies to act and respond” (p. 147). in this work, we are creating ebb and flow dialogues of actions by taking lines of flight to release new powers—searching for new entanglements. for example, for us, the concepts of developing ecological minds and experiencing quickening are such close accomplices, even as quickening seems body-embedded and primal whereas a mind evokes lofty intellect; these can be disassociated in a cartesian sense of the mind/body divide. releasing the powers of cartesian dualism and humancentric thinking by seeing into lines of flight offers new tensions in the world. early childhood scholar candace kuby (2017) demonstrates this concept between children and materials, saying, “our experiences with children indicate that often it is in the moment of playing-with, becoming-with that something appears. the speaking back-and-forthbetween child-and-the-materials produces newness” (p. 883). we associated this child and materials production with our irpp workshops and resulting research. this reawakening and quickening research was threaded through three particular venues where we collected a variety of thinking, ideas, and photography. the outpouring of data offered us an opportunity to see various narrative expressions of experiences with chris jordan’s albatross video documentary—the film that first brought the high-stakes ecology of plastic and birds in the midway islands into proximity with our educational ethos—and the admittedly complicated content the film raises for thinking about ecologies and care with children. coming across jordan’s youtube video by way of a close friend of an irpp member who is stationed and working june 2022 57 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research in the midway islands and has met chris jordan—an artist and documentarian travelling there—we were brought to a precipice of ecological thinking by connecting our own and our material lives to those on midway atoll, a group of islands situated 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. albatross (https://www.albatrossthefilm.com/) was written, directed, and edited by jordan. the video shares footage from within the land and the birds’ eye view: birds landing, nesting, eating plastics, suffering, writhing in pain, dying, decaying, and leaving behind the plastic—often plastic bottle caps. as teacher educators thinking to our own quickening moment, watching this video instantaneously awoke in us a question about whether we could or should share this video with young children: what would happen? what would children think? what might this mean for attuning to care, ecologies, and accountabilities within more-than-human worlds? as educators and artists, we thought we had better open this dialogue up in our own community to more closely consider how to go about this sort of community engagement where we would share such a documentary and ask co-protagonists to think together and with these questions in mind. we imagined offering a variety of venues through which we could draw lines of fight, acclimatize to care in our collective thinking and doing, and share in irpp’s pedagogical orientations together. working collectively with the birds and plastics with reconceptualist scholars at our first venue, a reconceptualist conference (established as part of a much larger conference) that brings together a community of early childhood teacher researchers from various parts of the world to share findings, listen in, and engage with their colleagues, we offered our research discussion engaging in the topics outlined in this paper and the video documentary. many of the folks at the conference walk with or alongside the word reconceptualist as a way of being in practice and research engagement (bloch et al., 2018). many scholars who influence our thinking (hamm & iorio, 2021; pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015; taylor, 2017; and so many more) brought with them their own sense making of care and ecologies that enabled us, through irpp, to toil in the labours of our collective quickening via showing the documentary and entangling our ethos of care through witnessing, questioning, mindful listening, and dialogue. as a great starting point, we offered a small group of reconceptualists to re-turn to our question “would you share chris jordan’s video with young children and why or why not?” we did this huddled in a small corner of a quieter space off a hallway of a big conference hall with colleagues who had answered our verbal call earlier in the conference. for our allotted presentation time at the conference, we chose a public location that was very quiet— nobody passed us during this 35-minute session. after explaining the prompt to our small group of about 12 participants, we then prefaced the video by telling about what we saw inside of the video for ourselves and offered folks an opportunity to engage the video material, inviting them to respond to the video with their emotional reactions. we ended our preface by saying that we felt that the video honoured the birds and atoll lands and that we could watch and listen in to honour them as a way to build upon our ethos of care. this was important, because we could collectively bring shape to an ethos of care while exploring ecologies; we could also consider our quickening more collectively. after viewing the video on our laptop, we then engaged the discussion openly regarding whether participants would share/show this video to young children and why or why not. examples of findings follow in our “exploring findings” section below. confronting the birds and plastics with local educators the second venue centered on a workshop for local educators in our hometown of portland, oregon. at that workshop, we engaged the video, our provocation (would you share chris jordan’s video with young children, june 2022 58 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and why or why not?), a hands-on activity, and discussion of what might happen if we showed and shared jordan’s documentary with young children and their families. at this venue, we invited local community educators to participate in a workshop on plastics, birds, and humans. about eight educators responded to our call and came to the open community forum we hosted in our local laboratory school’s classroom space adjoining the irpp reuse materials repository. first, as at the reconceptualist conference, we asked the question and prefaced the video showing. then, we watched the four-minute youtube documentary. following this, we offered a handson experience whereby our own hands retrieved plastic bottle caps from a tub of water as if our hands were these birds. we reminded folks of how we could honour the birds’ memories by engaging in these activities, by reawakening, quickening, and activating our ethos of care together in the process. we finished by discussing the educators’ thoughts on sharing this video in their own contexts. examples of these findings are also found in our “exploring findings” section below. encountering the birds and plastics with local arts educators the final event unfolded through a call to arts educators to explore these same ecological issues with us and examine ways to express the meaning we make of the documentary. we set up this final workshop in our reuse atelier in the inventing remida portland project. we collected tons of plastic caps and sorted and stored them in a few ways for our child and adult visitors to explore in the lab (see figure 1). all these separate but threaded experiences were converging between a group of artist-educators who wanted to connect with our studio, a studio teacher working with our university’s sustainability offices on a new plastic bottle cap project, and a research study on plastics, birds, and humans. the bottle cap project was an undertaking on our campus to raise awareness of how the little plastic bits infiltrate our everyday, from waterways travel to ostensibly garbage on our streets. university students engaged our university sustainability movements across our campus and were at that moment preoccupied with the idea that garbage can become something otherwise—something new—if refashioned rather than discarded. simultaneously, those of us at the irpp lab were bubbling up this research project around plastics, birds, and humans. we met with the early learning centre’s atelierista (studio teacher), who shared that she was on a campus sustainability committee and could take in bottle caps for the plastics/birds/humans project, furthering the project’s momentum by collecting materials to offer to and think with the artist-educators during their workshop. we gathered up many of these bottle caps, and the atelierista and a small group of children in a neighbouring class for 4-year-olds stored a plethora of plastic caps which they sorted as a rainbow of colours. the children wished to offer the caps for the visiting artist-educators who came to express their thoughts and feelings during our upcoming workshop (see figure 2—the image in this figure is explained in more detail in the data below). the participants who attended this event and engaged with our project were racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse and valuable early childhood educators, arts educators, and teacher educators. we wanted this variety of perspectives so we could interrogate with a cross-sector of early childhood folks who touch our lives and influence our local ways of thinking back in our context. our initiative also guided us on how to ignite ecological practices in important ways, coming directly back to the irpp’s commitment to more-than-human, human, and materials’ care and building an ethos around us. this perspectives taking also entangles us in the lines of flight that introduce new powers for acting and responsiveness in/through our ethos. june 2022 59 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. reuse bottle cap collections. figure 2. artists’ rendition. situating ecological problems and finding purpose and meaning situated in a much larger problem of planet disregard, waterways are carrying debris toward the ocean; oceans are filling with plastics (see le guern, 2019); plastics are being entangled around, and ingested by, animals and marine life (choy et al., 2019; vegter et al., 2014); and contaminants infiltrate all of our bodies (the earth, human, and animal), eroding our health and ecosystems to the point of catastrophe (russill & nyssa, 2009). this cycle of catastrophic contamination continues even in the face of education, awareness raising, and humans attempting to establish new human habits (parnell, downs, & cullen, 2017; shotwell, 2016). some humans refuse to believe that such problems even exist. many want to do something but do not know where to begin. influencing us greatly at the 2020 colloquium on responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods in london, ontario, alexis shotwell spoke about the implications of extractivism for early childhood educators. in her 2016 book, shotwell “champion[ed] the usefulness of thinking about complicity and compromise as a starting point for action (p. 5). shotwell aligns with donna haraway’s “modest yet difficult framing of situatedness as a place to start” (shotwell, p. 5). it is within the difficult work of inheriting and responding to june 2022 60 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research complex, inequitable worlds of life and death that irpp begins to understand the ecological problems we confront daily and in ongoing projects, including our work with jordan’s midway islands documentary. as pedagogical leaders for the irpp, we take seriously that the seemingly insurmountable tide of larger forces at play—all-consuming capitalism, colonialism, and human exceptionalism—ties to the plastic debris in portland and in the midland islands, and ignites breakdown of the planet’s and our own abilities to planet-care and cope with the swirling downward spiral of death and decay, even 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. jason moore (2017) reminds us that “the web of life is obviously larger than any one species” (p. 599). he goes on to suggest that at stake is how we understand capitalism in the web of life—which in turn shapes emancipatory strategies. philosophy will of course not solve the problem of capitalism’s unfolding crisis and the contemporary, horrific, dangers to life. but it will be hard to develop a politics of emancipation for all life without a philosophical commitment to precisely that: emancipating all life. (p. 599) this problem begs a question: what would happen if the planet, humans, and more-than-humans (and all life) could toil out beyond the old philosophical thinking of duality of humans and nature as separate? how might this activate irpp’s pedagogical ethos of care? how might doing so connect to an early childhood reconceptualist project that refuses universalization, corporatization, and commodification in education? how might we practice staying with the trouble, as haraway (2016) suggests? the question of what this labour might look like and be moves us to continue to seek the trouble—of how all life might be emancipated and unshackled from neoliberal notions of perfect nowadays and futures so that we can live with the trouble, alongside of it, knowing it is there with us in the now and entangled … so we can navigate, manoeuvre, and live within it while taking lines of flight and making space for an ethos of care. further, as leaders within the irpp and its communities, we are influenced by early childhood research on place, place making, and disrobing neoliberal notions when considering early childhood in the contexts of global to local (chawla & cushing, 2007; duhn, 2016, garrard, 2010). iris duhn’s (2016) notions of place making as political and cultural practices that are locally specific and require indigenous knowledges and connections encourage our own seeking and working. irpp is situated on unceded lands of more than eight native american tribes, including the multnomah, kathlamet, tumwater, clackamas, watlala band of the chinook, tualatin kalapuya, and many indigenous peoples of the columbia river. this acknowledgement is doubly important for us for both the pedagogical and decolonizing influences brought through irpp, which stem from our situatedness. on our advisory board of 16 people, folx have brought their own indigenous, black, and chicana heritages and have influenced irpp greatly over many years, expanding our ethos of care and lived experiences in entangled and crisscrossing ways. these heritages and knowledges are entangled with one another, and with pedagogy, dialogues, massacres, the ongoing colonial tensions. this makes our work complex in perpetuity; we must interrogate our ethical-political accountability in order to open ourselves to our complicit and “assimilationist assumptions and relations … to challenge the innocent presumptions that pervade” (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2015, p. 3). our members bring many cultural assets, as well as linguistic, cultural, and racial plurality and a multiplicity of identities (domingues, 2019) that influence our stories, narratives, and ways of thinking, knowing, and doing. irpp, an educational project in the making (and remaking), allows us access to communities of practice wherein educators desire dialogue and action on issues of environmental degradation, early education, and rehabituation. we build connections together within our community and place to consider our deep and long-lasting impacts with our kin (iorio et al., 2017). perhaps these are ways into staying with the trouble, as haraway (2016) proposes, as a means for attending to complexity and implication, allowing us to respond in our worlds. june 2022 61 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research and still, as an irpp emergent community, we remain disquieted and find that what we do to educate and to foster moderation in material reconsumption and also to engender an ethos of caring means that we are still in deep places of trouble (iorio et al., 2018). our core project and research team stay in dialogue weekly, negotiating our space, place, philosophy, and what to do next. for example, our irpp research team hit a crossroads as we listened to hess and hutton’s (2019) the atlantic video “recycling is like a band-aid on gangrene.” here we uncovered suggestions that even recycling is unhelpful—we moved to utter despair in a meeting when we walked away to go off and breathe. coming back together, we were aptly reminded of a visiting scholar—natalie jeremijenco—who presented in our community and once stated that her students came to her and asked her if they should just die by suicide since they had come to the notion that humans are at the root of the planet’s sickness. in evans (2011), jeremijenco stated, i’ve had two students independently come to me and say i care about the environment; i think i should commit suicide. of course it’s the logical extension: they’ll have a smaller carbon footprint .... [it’s a] whole paradigm of what we can do less of, versus what we can do and how we can make it good. (n.p.) jeremijenko has visited and spoken on our campus on multiple occasions and influenced our irpp advisors and educational research and projects greatly over time. her research into biochemistry, physics, neuroscience, and precision engineering mixed with the arts and teaching demonstrate many instances of finding ways through particular ecological problems (see https://advance.org/meet-natalie-jeremijenko-ao-an-environmental-health-physician/ for more details). while we recognize that some of her ideology stems from and operates out of human-centered performance arts approaches, we still find that her position on encouraging interactive relations with the morethan-human gives us some new layers of hope for our own work ahead, where human actants cohabit with plastic, bird, island, and waterways actants, as we think through the following ideas. can we imagine a world without plastic? max liboiron (2019) reproposes to us that “plastic is our kin, it’s our relation. it’s from ancestors—organic ancestors from a long time ago” (para. 10). angela molloy murphy (2020b) adjoins this notion, saying, “even when plastic discards are causing harm, they are not alien beings encroaching on a pre-existing and fixed natural world” (p. 24). plastic is a huge problem because it takes so long to degrade; it is piling up and is becoming microscopically lodged in our, our kin’s, and our planet’s veins, creating mass illness. all the while, plastics can store, keep sterile, and preserve goods such as blood for transfusions. this tossthe-ball-back-and-forth perspective taking is essential to our care-building ethos and conversations in order to problematize and veer away from binary and simplistic thinking. so, where do we go from here? what is our part to play? oslo naturalist, philosopher, and storyteller georgiana keable, who has presented on research projects while in the pacific northwest with storyteller and sami vocalist and composer torgeir vassvik, has influenced our irpp. martin mueller (2017) pushes us through his works, especially through being salmon, being human. mueller compels us to reconsider the narrative of cartesian nature-and-human separation, reconnecting our own animal nature with empathetic understanding to regenerate something more inside of us. for us, we consider this regeneration a part of affecting how we care. this notion relates powerfully to the thinking of early childhood scholars fikile nxumalo and stacia cedillo (2017), who state, “early childhood education is one site where colonialist discourses that bifurcate human from non-human persist” (p. 101). they examine the romanticized ideal of the child with/in nature that implies they were meant to work together seamlessly and effortlessly with no thought to the places where children play or to the systematic erasure of peoples, places, animals, lands, and stories written into the blades of grass, sands, dirt, and the blood of so many. the weight of these atrocities is heavy. here we believe we find lines of flight and again june 2022 62 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research more of stories in our worlds that generate complexity. the weightiness and complexity in these lived stories are important to our dialogues because they can open us to our ethos of caring in our thinking, doing, and being. we believe we must look directly at them to engage the conversations meaningfully. moreover, the purpose of irpp’s research is to elicit the help of children, adults, place, and birds as co-protagonists and wayfinders to reclaim and reassert alternative conceptions of waste and planet-caring together. as we looked toward professional colearning events and involving children, we planned for inspired experiences, exchanging ideas, and making these devastating and disturbing ideas visible and valued in a way to reignite mueller’s ideas of empathetic understanding in us. mueller’s notion of empathetic understanding connects to our orientations toward care and ecologies, because we can fill up our ethos of care by what nxumalo and cedillo (2017) state as putting “forth conceptualizations of place that aim to create movement toward unsettling the absent presences of indigeneity” (p. 103). we dare go on to say absent presences in so many devastating reoccurrences retold in stories across the world, such as in ours of midway atoll bird deaths from plastics in their bellies, and on and on. so, through a series of planning workshops and an ongoing professional development series, we developed questions to begin our inquiry: what will participant-educators learn and think by experiencing how birds, plastics, and humans live and coexist? what if we resist humanist dictates of separating the human from the world and emphasize instead how we are deeply entangled with the birds and plastics? how might we create pedagogies and curriculum if we take seriously that our lives only unfold alongside the precarious lives of birds and plastics? methodology and research design: presencing birds and plastics with narrative storytelling this research project utilizes a storying design and approach (quintero & rummel, 2014) and living in and with documentation (parnell, 2011), taking a page from burri’s work as expressed in vecchi and guidici (2004). narrating experiences connects to the minds and heartstrings of those engaged in the narrative exchange. storying as an organized research approach offers meaning making and interpretation from one set of contexts and forms relationships of ideas to another set of contexts. in other words, when we hear stories of experiences we tend to think of those stories in relationship and relate them to our own backgrounds, life stories, and daily events. this idea also relates to the more-than-human worlds: when humans narrate in multispecies worlds we can take a different perspective, for example, of looking with frog to think with frog. the stories jump contexts, build relationships, and push into our expanding ethos of care. in our gatherings, educators now have the capacity to share digital video, audio, and photography to strengthen, support, confound, disrupt, and give general or specific meaning (and so on) to learning for participants engrossed in a narrative stream. we often practice this storytelling and meaning-making work in what we reconceptualize as documentation and narration processes (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2015; parnell, downs, & cullen, 2017). david seamon (2012) calls this deepening of learning through narratives mixed with other mediums “cross-hatching” (p. 1). we find cross-hatching useful as a tool to deepen the meaning of our multispecies narratives and documentation as we entangle photo sets and digital video and narratives. cross-hatching relates similarly to quickening, which is a way to feel the birth of something new through the narrative, photo, and video entanglements. researchers as entangled colearners as researchers, we are a small group of three concerned early childhood education leaders in a mid-sized west coast city in the united states. we have entangled ourselves in ecological research practices that allow us to come and go, write together or separately, walk down tangential data paths, and forge ahead in threaded research topics june 2022 63 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research near to each of us. we come through three strands of stories and, when threaded together, find loosely or tightly woven narratives that sustain us in our process of therapeutically cocurating our ethos of care with/in the world. the lead author of this study, professor will parnell, is a teacher educator at our local state university. he works with master’s and doctoral students studying in early childhood education and is currently the department chair of curriculum and instruction, working with over 100 faculty and 12 education degree and licensure programs. he maintains a deep love of re practice and research, wanting to move in the world through an ethos of care, hospitality, and co-response-ability for shaping and being shaped by life and experiences. co-researcher michelle domingues describes herself as a mixed-race chicana feminist. she recently graduated from our university and her doctoral studies in educational leadership focused on the multiplicity of identities through reuse materials. michelle is currently a lead teacher in the lab school at our university. as a graduate research assistant and central protagonist in the irpp for a good number of years while studying in her doctoral program, she found herself curious and open to the many ways of thinking, doing, and being in re work. she also pushed at our comfort zones when she found us complacent. michelle most always seemed eager for the experiences and open to our shared growth, change, and inquiry. another ongoing co-researcher, julianne cullen, is a parenting educator coordinator focused on grant writing for evidence-based early childhood parenting education programs through community event planning. her master’s degree at our university focused on ecology and sustainability in early childhood. she is a founding member of the irpp and maintained very heavy lifting to get the project up and going in its momentum toward research practices. her passion for re creates a propelling movement toward our aims. we all come to this reuse and remida-inspired work with a shared focused attention on desiring connected and sustainable living solutions, and a commitment to wanting to cultivate, with children, a healthy and vibrant environment rich with more-than-human multispecies life. importantly, we all choose our writing paths, sometimes together and at times separately depending on the stories we are engaging. our approach to this research and writing work is collective and threaded while at times taking dissimilar directions. data collection and processing during the three events we kept notes of our experiences in professional and reflective educator journals, used photography and videography during meetings, and collected materials, thinking made visible, and other artifacts in the narratives. supporting research evidence came from the artists in the form of photography and videography. photography adds to the narration offering visual stimulus of our collected experiences. as data is collected of these experiences, we return to how our storying process is constructed. reminding ourselves of our former lived experiences with the fish research (parnell, downs, & cullen, 2017), we continue to believe that narrating experiences connects to the minds and heartstrings of those engaged in the narrative exchange. using our bird’s-eye view approach of us engaging with the albatross video we described earlier in this paper, we recognized that this narrative building would include actants beyond our participants and that their words would help us build the narratives. these actants would include the documentarian, the birds, the plastics and debris, the decay, death, the video construction, and more. our ongoing and collective narrative process allows us to make meaning from one set of contexts to form relationships of ideas in local or unfamiliar contexts. these lines of flight bring us back to the moments of quickening, where we come to a feeling of kicking, moving, and living inside of us. this quickening matters because it leads us to, and june 2022 64 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research reminds us of, our understanding of care, which expands our ethos. now, we turn to the data stories and what we found as understandings. exploring findings through data stories we begin with a recap: in all three venues we hosted as part of this project, we engaged with jordan’s albatross, a documentary centering the lives of birds profoundly entangled with and put at risk by plastic discards. we asked, in each session, what might happen if we shared this documentary with children—what might this open toward in our complex worlds? how might we bring this documentary into our work with children? in venue one, we connected with early childhood educators and scholars at a reconceptualizing ece conference. in our second event, we worked with local teacher educators. artist-researchers and artist-educators joined us for the third event. an initial review of the stories and happenings of our events indicates that teacher educators from a variety of contexts around the globe who engaged in our first venue were more willing to share the documentary with early childhood educators and young children than educators in our own (portland) context were (second venue). the dilemma for educators in the local portland context stemmed from their view of the child and their thoughts and perceptions on children’s developmental levels. they were unsure that children were ready to engage in and with our documentarian’s video of birds dying. the artists’ views (in the third venue) of children’s capabilities were similar to those of educators from our own context. the artists’ thoughts illustrated that they would create lessons with bottle caps and plastics when engaging children but hesitated to share the video, thinking children were too young. this initial review of the findings points us toward early childhood postdevelopmentalists and reconceptualists who offer us a different purview on children. for example, william ayers (2015) says that children live with us, always embedded in a messy local world wherein “every child comes to school [education] a question mark and an exclamation point. her work after all is an assembling not only of a life but of an entire world” (p. xiii). a challenge in seeing the child in their potential can sometimes be in also seeing their power and recognizing their potential as well as the blurry life experiences and circumstances that interact with their (and all of our) being at any given time. such experiences and circumstances influence who they (and we) are and what they (and we) know and do. this view is similar to how often materials are locked into a single-use perspective as though they cannot morph, change, and become something else over time. for example, can a bottlecap only ever be used to cap a bottle (tick boxing the rubric that says this is its use) or could it change shape, become an embellishment in an artistic rendering or find its use as a water collector for insects (leaving room for something otherwise)? these ideas go on and on out into who and how children and humans perpetually become, be, unbecome, rebecome and so forth. further, we see developmentalism as conceptualized under the imperial gaze and patriarchal ideologies (burman, 2017) that lead to neoliberal thinking of the binary or lock step (macnaughton, 2000; prioletta, 2020; and russell, 2011 to start!). this pedagogical gaze harkens to growing toward more and to becoming the next-level version of oneself that is “better,” more “sophisticated” or “civilized.” but, is that what happens in real and messy life? we know that we can encounter multiple becomings of more and/or less at any given moment along the way. this is an ebb and flow of assembling and reassembling with/in lifeworlds. the roots in decolonizing and postfoundational approaches are in these notions as well (nxumalo, 2019) and inform our irpp pathways as well as our ethos of care. these ways of thinking are, in large part, our impetus into this very work on ecology and our particular questions for early childhood educators, artists, and teacher educators in this research study, which interacts with death and dying concepts (nelson, 2020) and inequities of environmental education (nxumalo, 2019). to note, educators and artists in our own contexts asked for tissue and remarked about their own tears, sadness, june 2022 65 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research anger, and despair when viewing the video. these actions seem quite similar to what robin diangelo (2018) speaks of as “white women’s tears” that stop antiracism conversations. in our context, we can look back and say that we saw this as participants’ opportunity to (re)center the human through human feelings and self-reflection. the content brought up a lot of emotions, and yet we persisted and pressed in on the narrative approaches and workshop research anyway by attending to our ethos of care and pedagogical orientation of staying with the trouble. first venue: teacher educator conference at the conference, which was attended by folks from various places in the world (e.g., canada, united kingdom, denmark, australia, new zealand, kenya, china, korea, japan, and so on), we shared the video and asked what these teacher educators thought of the romanticized view of young children. should they be shielded, we asked, from this video? why? why not? responses passionately poured in. several wondered if the video was appropriate to share and worried that it was perhaps out of context. one participant stated, “i wonder if this is better shared through preparations at a community and adult level first.” another interjected, “i think i would want parents to participate first.” additional folks nodded their agreement. a handful of participants agreed this method would be practical: to approach the parents, guardians, educators, and adults in the lives of the children first and garner their ideas and potential support. another participant shared, “i would show them [children]! they see this death in their everyday lives … their lived experiences.” another said, “yeah, i don’t see the problem here. in our setting, children may see a dead bird in their play yard even.” more participants shared that they were moved and felt sad while watching, and that the film not only affects children’s sensibilities but also those of adults. we came to wonder if perhaps this work needs what peter moss (2016) terms “a relational ethos, an ethics of care, encounter, and hospitality” (p. xiv). moss, an emeritus professor in early childhood and longtime editor of the book series contesting early childhood, considers relational ethos along deeply ethical lines. we also turned toward more recent works of indigenous scholar erica violet lee (2020), who shared notions of “reciprocal relationality” at her keynote on childhood climate action pedagogies. lee’s ideas make us think with the connective tissues that require movements among nonhuman bodies, more-thanhuman bodies, and our human bodies, activating the linked realms of living and blurring experiences to expand hospitality in our encounters. reciprocal relationality draws us into merlin sheldrake’s (2020) book about fungi, entangled life, where sheldrake shares, “many of the most dramatic events on earth have been—and continue to be—a result of fungal activity” (p. 4). sheldrake goes on to explain that fungi connect networks, serving as root systems that proliferate plant life and allowing trees to communicate across networks. “this ancient association,” sheldrake offers, “gave rise to all recognizable life on land, the future of which depends on the continued ability of plants and fungi to form healthy relationships” (p. 4). sheldrake reveals our interconnectedness—that of earth, more-than-humans, and humans— time and again , showing us how we are enmeshed in webs of life, experience, and relationality. we recognized that lee’s and sheldrake’s entanglement with/in our research not only produced a quickening in ourselves to understand why we think out beyond the linear models of child development toward relationality, interconnectedness and cooperation, but also strengthening our core ethos of care to pedagogically think and enact otherwise. second venue: educators back home at our second event, our conversations with educators situated in our own context provided an important narrative thread example. a teacher, amelia, offered her response to our question about whether she would share the documentary with young children 3–5 years of age. she stated, june 2022 66 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research in considering froebel’s perspective of the child being ready to live in the world, i think children need more time to feel safe in their own context. and, we may be deliberately altering their development if we push children out of their context of safe world and into a perspective that the world is unsafe. if we do this as educators, the child may not recover into a position of ever feeling like their world is a safe place to live. as one of the researchers noted in their own journal writing when working with the teachers, “there were many points of view in the room and the discussion became heated after amelia’s expression.” instances such as this can be seen throughout our narrative data, indicating the different pedagogical orientations and divergent views of child development, developmentalism, and postfoundational approaches. moreover, in reply to amelia, one participant suggested, perhaps you are more of a developmentalist. this is not a philosophy i have ascribed to because, as a gay person living in a context where i was told my whole life what my sexuality should be—based on “developmental ideology”—i never fit. is this how we should think about children? are they capable of hard truths? what does that do to them? our research notes reveal that “the conversation [took] a pause and silence linger[ed] in the room for what seemed long.” hanging onto the silence, we asked folks to dig into the recycled materials at the tables, prompting them to create something to express their thinking—to make thinking and feeling visible with our material kin. bird wings formed as one group discussed how to help the birds fly away (figure 3). one person noted that she could “see the birds dive to pick up the shiny and colourful objects thinking of them as something to eat.” this participant wanted to fill a bucket and have us pretend our hands were birds flying toward the water to pick up the shiny objects. she suggested that we could “teach through doing” about “how these materials may seem attractive so we would want to better care for them rather than throw them on the ground or into waterways and sewers.” these kindnesses expressed about birds flying away and teaching by doing brought us directly back to coconstructing our social ethos of care. this storyline centered on caring for by taking action (doing). in this particular narrative stream, we found ourselves wondering about the complexity material-reuse offered as an entanglement of thinking with the life of the birds’ ecologies, materiality, and children. these conversations brought the room into a space held with hope for potential ways of working with young children on such difficult topics. at this second venue, the tension rose quickly and abruptly created a silence in the room. when we turned to the materials, the tension broke, allowing for a different sort of vision to come through—a way back into working with young children. as our time continued and participants engaged with the materials, we noticed more agreement figure 3. making a wing to fly away. june 2022 67 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research emerge about not feeling quite ready to embark directly on sharing the video with children. folks shared ideas such as, “i would share with the parents and ask them first.” or, “i would share photos rather than the video to start and as a way into the discussion—a provocation, if you will!” such commentary in the research data led the team to reflect back on the experiences we had together with these local educators thinking with how we could cultivate children’s awareness of human and nonhuman effects of climate change. we talked about dipping our toes in big waters, where we were only part and partial, and how we could only be part of change agency. so many of our research and literary influences, such as shotwell (2016), haraway (2016), puig de la bellacasa, (2017) and more, also think with being partial. there is a certain aesthetic quality in relativity and in only being partial; this state of mind-being places us directly in community, engaging our ethos of care and our desire to live with and alongside nonhumans, more-than-humans, and other humans, forging connections along the way. as we neared the end of our session, a participant encapsulated many of our narrative streams: “it seems we wax and wane between feeling powerful to make our living circumstances better and feeling powerless to make no effect at all. we probably live somewhere in between?” puig de la bellacasa (2017) most aptly reminds us that we care for “by situating in-between (inter-esse), not to divide, but to relate” (p. 79). in the moment of our waning time together at the workshop, we told folks of this reminder, and we decided to let that paradox of feeling simultaneously powerful and powerless linger between us as we got ready for our third set of events. third venue: artist educators at our third venue, we worked with artists and bottle caps after a brief viewing of the video and a discussion of what we had found to date. the artist educators wished to recast the images of plastics in a way to “honour the birds,” as they determinedly stated to us. honouring the birds became an overarching point of discussion with the artist group especially. they explained that their desire to honour stemmed from wanting to share a publicly constructed artwork that would “evoke and possibly awaken an emotional response in onlookers.” for us, this desire was another element in our ethos of care to work alongside of materials, which then would carry messages to inspire quickening. further, knowing more fully what the pathways of our bottle caps really meant actually made us want to change our practices of doing. our awakening here harkens us back to our friend who went to atoll islands to enact cleanup, then met jordan and discovered the documentary to bring back to us. our friend’s quickening prompted us to share the documentary and inquire in our community in order to build toward an ethos where mindfulness and care center our knowing, doing, and being—creating a cyclical journey into this work. a journal entry from a participant in this session noted that “a sense of mixed emotions and loss hung in the air. people were deeply moved, and i began to stream tears. how would we face this problem? it feels head on and headlong all wrapped into one.” such narratives of emotional distress and sadness, confusion, and questions of what to do next bubbled to the surface. our ability to address this question does not come through neoliberal human exceptionalisms, so instead, we asked the artist-educators to create with the bottle caps that had been purposefully prepared for them by the children in the lab as a way forward, to persist with and to live inside of these narrative experiences. we noted that, similar to the second venue, offering the materials to guide our process transformed moods, conversations, and the energy of the group’s work. in small groups, the artists discussed, picked up materials, and moved their arms around, their voices going up and down. we, as documenters, watched, took photos, and madly wrote down some of their thoughts. the experience felt full of possibilities and weighty, both in the room and afterwards when we all looked at what we had collected along the way, almost as if trails and traces of our thinking were made visible. this expectancy brought us back to june 2022 68 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the feeling of quickening and pushed into our thinking and feeling in the ethos of care arena. as we hovered over each of three small groups’ artistry and expressive works, we came to understand that the artists felt “deeply and catastrophically moved” as one stated while sharing a green and white skull made of bottle caps (figure 2). “this is our death!” one exclaimed. “the skull shows us so.” they had moved into despair and anger. as one reminded us, “we are these birds. the birds are us!” this declaration broke a tension, piqued our curiosity, and allowed us to think together about places of relational living—where we live in and through what one artist educator termed “hard life stuff.” we look to robin wall kimmerer’s (2013) thinking on this matter of living in, with, and through. self-described as a scientist, botanist, mother, professor, and founder of the center for native peoples and the environment, kimmerer influences our thinking as we come alongside her knowledge in a multiplicity of ways. here, she counsels us: our elders say that ceremony is the way we can remember to remember. in the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift that we must pass on, just as it came to us. when we forget, the dances we’ll need will be for the mourning. for the passing of polar bears, the silence of cranes. (p. 383) kimmerer moves us toward what she terms “the moral covenant of reciprocity” (p. 384) whereby we spread out our blankets and give our gifts “of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision” (p. 384) in order to give back to earth and renew the world. she also moves us toward notions of hospitality, allowing us to open our hearts and minds to what can be seen as a paradox both too simple and vastly complex simultaneously in a participant’s notion that “we are these birds. the birds are us!” we realize that we can carry this message forward, as kimmerer declares, “in return for the privilege of breath” (p. 384). building understandings: awakening and quickening the documenters could also feel a great sense of emotion as they looked back through the pictures and read through the documents to continue making sense with narratives. we were committed to thinking with and living in the documentation as continued relational living. one participant reminded us that “out of death can also come a new beginning. maybe we get to be the new beginning?” this sense not only gives us hope to want to go on living but reminds us, as researchers, of a great quote from barbara marx hubbard (1997). she recounts that the ocean wave comes crashing down and creates tremendous new energy at the end of its life cycle. the wave’s entropy (the random disorder and deterioration) eats itself and in this process becomes something wholly different. hubbard goes on to share that she sees this crash of the wave as the place where we can move, too. like through pedagogies of hope, where hope can bring lines-of-flight ways of thinking and regenerative powers for persistence, we can find an expansive sense to puig de la bellacasa’s speculative ethics, where “relations of thinking and knowing require care” (p. 69). significantly, in this moment of refinding care, of quickening too, we see that these relations of thinking and knowing “affect how we care” (p. 69) through persistence. our caring comes through the crash of the wave—which creates new energy—reminding us of jeremijenco’s potential for perseverance, and learning with and from more-than-human and human encounters. rather than believing there is some sort of magic pill or saviour plan that will sustain us all, we seem to be embarking on a journey that is bigger than us and will remain bigger than us as we pass along our ideas and research. thus, we become conduits of energy and ideas: actants who persist in living in the land and with one another and the more than human. june 2022 69 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the late anthropologist and founding editor of environmental humanities deborah bird rose (2017) declared for us, “at the very least, we who have not yet been drawn into the vortex of violence are called to recognize it, name it, and resist it; we are called to bear witness and to offer care” (p. g56). these are ideas that can be passed along from one to another, adult to child, child to adult, child to creek, creek to bird, and so on. as a part of our practices of living in and with complex worlds, we can pay attention to and bring forward an ethos for caring through our workshops and a narrative-building approach whereby we bring one set of narratives to another context as hopeful and generative ways to construct moments of quickening and illuminating lines for flights. thus, we can work to curtail our planet-disregard and perhaps find ourselves toiling at the precipice of entropy inside the cycle of the wave. this notion positions us in a place where we remember how slowly and methodically we move together with the planet—to enact reciprocity and to more authentically and purposefully engage in our work with young children and in our communities of practices. all the while, there is a tension that asks us to pay attention to the quickening inside of ourselves—a feeling of life within us—to act as leverage, pushing us to ways of thinking, doing, being in our ecologically relational and reciprocal actions. further, in listening, walking side-by-side, and being with earth, sky, rock, creek, bird, and on and on, we can find relational footing. with relational footing, we can take more steps toward the narrativebuilding process that guides our research and pushes us toward places in deep care. implications can teacher educators, families, teachers, and children work with and through our entangled meanings of birds, plastics, deaths, and humans? we do not ask this question lightly. we want to think with nonhuman, human, and more-than-human endurance and perseverance rather than with human exceptionalism. educators and artists in our own context searched for alternative ways to explore “the plastic problem,” as one of the artists reminded us. we found that, across our three contexts, participants wanted to thread their thinking, doing, being, and ethos of care with ours so that children could relate in solidarity with our material planetdisregard and engage with planet caring. care matters to irpp work because we feel there is no other way to persist in living with, through, and alongside our nonhuman, human, and more-than-human kin. as we look with these findings, we stay with the care-filled question of whether this work and ethos-establishing does good in the paradigm of hyper-consumerism and planet disregard? we ask: what does it mean to reengage materials over and over (reimagine and moderate consumption) and care for and with the planet (help clean and clear waterways, and so forth) one day and one step at a time? living in and with … like the documentarian with the birds, plastics, and camera. in reviewing this research data, we wonder if side-by-side research projects involving teacher educators, educators, artists, young children, plastics, and the more-than-human would shift the romanticism of the images of us (humans and world) as fragile and offer a new resiliency of planet-regard, helping us to stay with the trouble, as haraway (2016) asks us to do. what will we do to be proactive together—to live in and persist in time and space when material consumption, our actions, and the presence of the materials still cause death, decay, and destruction? we are in an unavoidable position, so how we act, teach, lead, and live are important to the irpp ethos of care and ongoing dialogues, narratives, and work. our threading narratives remind us of affrica taylor’s (2017) feminist, queer, decolonizing perspectives. she states, “the challenge now is to learn how to inherit and inhabit damaged worlds by pursuing recuperative responses in tandem with other species” (p. 1454, italics in original). taylor calls june 2022 70 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research for a “low-key, ordinary, everyday kind of response that values and trusts the generative and recuperative powers of small and seemingly insignificant worldly relations” (p. 1459). this call quickens in us a message to keep the work going—to persist! our research also replies to taylor’s provocations by suggesting we might continue to build an ethos for caring with the more than human, children, families, educators, teacher educators, and nonhumans. our research offers many possible avenues for investigating and fostering what puig de la bellacasa describes as a “speculative ethic” and our expansive ethos of care in nonhuman, more-than-human, and human contexts, connecting one story to the next in learning to inquire narratively. this is a narrative pathway that actively presences the documentarian, the birds, their lives, plastics, deaths, decay, and what is left over. if we keep our eyes, ears, and minds open to what is possible in the narratives that animate our worlds, then our heart-centered work of planet care can lead us toward possible stories that narrate the world otherwise, paying attention to what can be considered in the worlds we inherit and create for children. this research offers a returning in ways of relational living with our lands, rocks, waters, earth, and with humans, birds, and nonhuman kin. june 2022 71 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references ayers, w. 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(2014). global research priorities to mitigate plastic pollution impacts on marine wildlife. endangered species research, 25, 225–247. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00623 march 2022 20 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations childhood, youth, and identity: a roundtable conversation from the global south divya kannan (moderator), anandini dar, sarah e. duff, hia sen, shivani nag, and clovis bergère divya kannan is an assistant professor in the department of history, shiv nadar university delhi-ncr, gautam buddha nagar, india, and a historian of modern india who is interested in histories of education, gender, childhood, and oral histories. she is cofounder of the critical childhoods and youth studies collective (www.theccysc.com), which began online in april 2020. email: divya.kannan@snu.edu.in anandini dar is an assistant professor in the faculty of sociology & school of education studies, ambedkar university delhi, india. she is trained in childhood studies and works on issues of childhood and youth, geographies, migration and diasporas, feminist pedagogy, ethnography, and research methods for young subjects. with dr. kannan, she cofounded the critical childhoods and youth studies collective. sarah e. duff is an assistant professor of history at colby college, maine. she teaches african and world history. a historian of modern south africa, she is interested in histories of age, gender, and christianity. hia sen is an assistant professor in the department of sociology, presidency university, kolkata, india, and works in the fields of sociology and the history of childhood. she is interested in the histories of christian missions and travel writings on children, middle-class childhoods in bengal, and, more recently, developing questions about acting and acting skills in theatre. shivani nag is an assistant professor in the school of education studies, ambedkar university delhi who works in the field of psychology of education with a special focus on critical pedagogy, cultural psychology, feminist pedagogy, and educational philosophy. clovis bergère is the assistant director for research at northwestern university, qatar, and a visual ethnographer whose research examines the politics of youth as they are realized in relation to digital media in guinea, west africa. young people’s ability to operate in-between (and traverse diverse spaces and times) makes childhood and youth best positioned analytical categories for examining our complex, shifting, mobile world and invites us to transform how we conduct research. this roundtable conversation highlights the diversity of current research on childhood and youth in, on, and from the global south. yet, despite significant scholarly interventions in the conceptualization of individual agency, identity construction, and the postcolonial condition, debates in the fields of childhood and youth studies have continued to be largely anchored by epistemological frameworks and theoretical concepts foregrounded by scholars and institutions situated in the global north . unfortunately, even as new research trajectories are being forged, several studies continue to frame young people in the global south as either victims or heroes, limiting their contributions to the empirical / field informant domain, rather than producers or sources of knowledge in and of themselves.1 against this backdrop, the growth of dedicated university departments and research funding for scholars, especially in europe and the usa, reiterates and demonstrates the pressing need for a more inclusive dialogue among scholars spread across various political and cultural contexts, especially those working in, on, and among young people in the regions of the global south, which constitute major sites of research enquiry. in fact, the ongoing global covid-19 pandemic has aggravated these disparities. this roundtable session initially took place as part of the international conference “childhood, youth, and identity in south asia,” organized by the department of history, shiv nadar university, greater noida, and the centre for publishing, ambedkar university delhi, india, on january 6–7, 2020. key words: childhood; youth; global south; pedagogy; history march 2022 21 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations this gulf between theory, activism, and praxis on topics of common interest prompted a stronger self-reflexive conversation among several of us as early career scholars engaged in designing and teaching graduate courses on these topics across various institutional locations.2 on the one hand, we wished to pry open certain dominant analytical lenses and call for greater interaction across the regions of the global south, and on the other hand, we also recognized the interplay of individual and institutional locations in promoting such a field against the backdrop of widening inequalities, assaults on various freedoms, the rise of populist governments, and the commodification and privatization of education. as scholars of the global south, we are already adept at reading beyond siloes. not only do we have to be conversant with the scholarly literature pertaining to our own regional focus, but we are expected by the publishing enterprise to keep abreast of the developments and scholarship produced in the global north while often, vice versa is not the case. for instance, recent debates have led to a partial reevaluation of the field of history of childhood, and yet most young researchers working in, on, and from the global south find themselves having to engage with that same dominant scholarship of the global north in a bid to be academically recognizable and legitimate. the present piece, which unfolds as a conversation among scholars across disciplines and geographical locations, challenges these problematic processes of scholarly pursuit and is not merely an exercise in retrospection: it is simultaneously an attempt to make sense of how we engage with the transcultural academic community. we resist depicting an essentialized picture of the global south and think we could certainly do more to speak to one another across the regions. our conversation here is an initial and important step in that direction. we hope this piece will provoke new collaborations and strengthen ways of understanding the centrality of childhood and youth perspectives in making sense of our past and present, for the lives and bodies of young people are shaped and transformed constantly by the way all of us think and live. by tracing some of the career histories and influences on the conversing scholars, we offer a glimpse of the epistemological foundations of such multidisciplinary scholarship. in effect, it complicates a south-north separation because many of the participants have been influenced by a cluster of disciplines/institutions/research that transcends this distinction. it also brings to the fore some of the challenges that scholars from the global south must contend with, such as the imperative to write about the “ordinary,” particularly given how disciplines like history from the south are sometimes committed to an “anticolonial project.” scholars writing about childhood and youth of the global south must consider national and regional histories but must also engage with and reflect on the legacies of their disciplines influenced by colonial pasts and national politics. we ask: is it possible to write about “normative” childhoods from the south? our exchanges spell out a question, otherwise a spectre in many other conversations, discussions, and reflections even about one’s own research. they compel one to question the worth of such scholarship apart from its empirical contribution. this conversation is both an assertion and a question about why scholarship of childhood and youth from the global south might at all be needed. divya: as early-career academics trained either in parts of the global south or abroad, what motivated you to pursue childhood/youth studies? what are your thoughts on your positionality as you traverse this field? anandini: my introduction to postcolonial literature and critical feminist thought during my ba in literature in india and later as a graduate student of sociology and anthropology in australia inspired me to engage with questions about culture, power, and inequality concerning childhood. afterwards, i engaged with conceptual challenges of the cultural relativist approach implicit in the references about “diverse childhoods” (prout & james, 1997, while making sense of sharon stephens’ (1995 critique of this perspective and her suggestion, instead, of a need to explore the global processes that are transforming childhood itself. when i returned to india to work in the children’s rights sector, i realized that a deeper engagement with multidisciplinary frameworks was required to understand the lives of marginalized children in the context of globalization. i felt the absence of interrogation of “childhood” in how this sector addressed issues impacting the young. hence, i deliberately chose to pursue a phd march 2022 22 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations in childhood studies from rutgers university, usa, to make sense of the most marginalized populations and local, global, and transnational flows from a multidisciplinary perspective. however, my training was challenging as we grappled with varied disciplines such as literature, history, sociology, and psychology around childhood and youth issues. yet, these intersectional engagements continue to inform my current location in a school of education studies. hia: i became familiar with childhood studies (cs) as an mphil student in sociology in 2007. i was interested in research that would foreground children’s experiences, but there was little in our disciplinary training to enable this perspective. my approach was informed by a catenation of transdisciplinary and transcultural switches. at jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi, mphil students were encouraged to work on secondary data. this allowed the overview of the different kinds of research and conversations on children and childhood. some of these rarely interacted, which was exasperating, like the “new” cs and the indian response to the uncrc. listening to anandini i can relate to the bewilderment that came from engaging with very diverse literature. and all the time one had to think about how to factor in the indian context. researching and teaching in departments that were not very childhoodcentric shaped my interests. during my phd at the university of freiburg, i found that concerns within german academia were unlike those generated by the “new” cs. the childcentric approach in germany was inflected by political shifts like the kinderladen movement of the 1960s as much as by developmental psychology and education (baader, 2016). researchers were less wary of talking about socialization. moving in and out of these diverse fields helped me see these conversations historically and to also historicize discussions about childhood in the context of india. this and the contemplations that emerge from teaching “mainstream” sociology in an indian university over the last few years inform my present approach. shivani: while childhood studies may not aptly describe the focus of my work, i engage with the imagination of an inclusive and transformative education that is responsive to the subjectivities, contexts, and needs of children. my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in psychology from the university of delhi, where i was exposed to psychological and psychoanalytic literature (works of erik erikson, erich fromm, donald winnicott, carol gilligan, nancy chodrow, sudhir kakar, among others) that helped me to engage with issues concerning children and youth. while pursuing my master’s, i got an opportunity to interact with children and young adults in clinical settings. engaging with them, i often felt that the symptoms witnessed or reported in these settings were not always manifestations of difficulties of the self but often of unequal and unjust societal structures (caste, class, gender, and others). i felt uncomfortable waiting for a breakdown to happen before i could begin listening. i became interested in exploring how their sense of self, agency, and interaction with the social, cultural, and political were mediated and negotiated. this negotiation occurs across multiple sites, of which formal educational spaces are crucial since they carry a transformative possibility. hence, i chose to do my mphil and phd research in educational studies from jawaharlal nehru university, where my training was in cultural psychology and critical pedagogy. my approach to researching with children in education has been a critical, reflexive, sensitive, and dialogic exploration of contexts and experiences, guided by a critical theory perspective. i feel it is an approach that enables a sensitive hearing of others’ voices through an active acknowledgment of positionality and power. sarah: i still think of myself mainly as a historian of childhood rather than someone at work in the field of childhood studies, largely as a result of my training. when i started my phd in the uk, the history of childhood was a relatively small field there, and so my research was framed regionally—as a phd in modern south african history. i came to the history of childhood out of a linked set of interests in histories of education, gender, and christianity, which all pointed me to the same question: how was the notion of the child useful to churches and the state in march 2022 23 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations the making of racialized identities in the second half of the nineteenth century? more recently, while my current project is still focused on childhood and youth, i am beginning to think more broadly about age as a category of historical analysis. i am interested in the debates within childhood studies as they pertain to the historiographies in those areas. questions of agency, for instance, resonate within childhood studies but also in african history. clovis: even though i consider childhood studies a home discipline of sorts, i also have a foot in other disciplines: media studies, communication, and african studies. this multi/cross-disciplinarity (cook, 2010) is very common for childhood and youth studies scholars, in part imposed by the realities of academic institutions and the job market. i very much agree with anandini, who also came out of the same phd program at rutgers, that crossing disciplinary boundaries is essential to studying children’s lives. while many academic fields and departments claim to be interdisciplinary, the realities are often different. the ability to be conversant with several disciplines and their specific methodological, epistemological, or theoretical approaches makes our practices exciting and very well suited to contemporary problems’ multidimensionalities and multilayered nature. however, it does come with significant challenges when it comes to being recognized by longer established fields with strong affiliations with certain methods, such as anthropology or history. i have found fields that also emerge out of multior crossdisciplinary practices such as media, gender, urban, or area studies, for instance, to be great allies of childhood and youth studies as they also seem to embrace the kind of critical openness required by scholarship that draws on disciplinary traditions but is not bound by them (kraidy, 2018) divya: conceptual categories such as transnational/transregional/translocal, to name a few, have gained currency. yet, we are also witnessing the emergence of right-wing populism on the ground based on narrow, parochial ideas of nations and nationalisms. how can scholars working on and in the global south, given political and institutional constraints, undertake comparative studies that some of these frameworks may require? do you think such a spatial reimagining affects the debate on who can speak for whom and how much? clovis: this is a key issue of our times. in my own work, i have looked at how the global circulation of internet protocols such as imsi numbers and ip addresses—these seemingly neutral protocols that govern the internet and which we know are highly political (denardis, 2009)—become key mechanisms through which state power become remade, often along increasingly authoritarian lines with key consequences of the dispensation of power and the regulation of citizenship (bergère, 2020). regarding knowledge production, i recently read joseph tonda’s l’impérialisme postcolonial: critique de la société des éblouissements (2015), which provides a good example for thinking about these issues. tonda, an african scholar based at the omar bongo university in libreville, offers a rare example of research based in the majority world doing “global” research, an issue raised in a prior roundtable discussion (hanson et al., 2018). the chapter called “éclairage” traces the author’s intellectual trajectory in arriving at the concept of éblouissement—bedazzlement in english—to describe a specifically postcolonial mediation of power in the digital age. in doing so, he notes several key moments, conversations, film screenings, and exchanges that shaped his thinking, including the time he spent at the institute for advanced studies in nantes (as well as research in congo). this is not in any way a question of being enlightened in the west but simply that the kind of work he does requires him to spend time in other african countries and in the west, since he studies media phenomena that often originate there. so, who can speak for whom? that question has regained urgency today and for good reasons. issues of representation and the coloniality of knowledge production continue to shape how and where knowledge is produced, by whom, and how it circulates. at a minimum, those of us working for institutions based in the global north should leverage our access to resources to support the work of scholars based in the global south in ways that go beyond paying lip service to that idea. this is in part what we are currently doing at northwestern university in qatar, where we march 2022 24 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations are setting up an institute for advanced study specifically focused on the global south. our goal is to provide a space that can support the work and voices of those living and working outside of the global north. the difficulty however is to do this without reproducing the kinds of essentialisms or claims to authenticity that we are trying to oppose. in other words, the goal cannot be a kind of purity but a plurality of voices and perspectives. in this regard, the work of souleymane bachir diagne on a universalism of encounter (2017), which echoes similar arguments made by mignolo and walsh (2018) or escobar (2020) in latin america, is particularly informative: who controls the networks through which knowledge on the global south is shared and studied. shivani: a work that has hugely inspired me is renato rosaldo’s (1993) culture and truth, where he provides a powerful critique of detached, “objective” examination of cultures as being static and monolithic and offers chaos as an image for depicting the postcolonial situation, as in “nothing is sacred, permanent or sealed off.” the text questions “comparative studies” where the orient is made a benchmark “against which to measure western european progress” (p. 42). this concern assumes particular significance for me as a cultural psychology and critical pedagogy researcher, since cross-cultural comparisons have often strengthened the understanding of some cultures/communities as deficient, where the deficit is defined in comparison to a positivist truth (the norms established in the global north). however, any response to this conceptual framing is through an uncritical and methodologically uninformed search for the “indigenous” (a category more popular in psychology), which increases the danger of narrow-minded and parochial ideas gaining strength. anandini: i think it is important first to locate the context in which these theories of transnationalism/ transregionalism gained relevance. in his classic work on ethnic minority cultures, vernon van dyke (1974) argued that the basis of the formation of modern nation-states, inspired by western political tradition, rests precisely on the erasure and neglect of minority cultures. therefore, insular ideas about the nation are not new but far more complex. in my work, i engage with questions about south asian immigrant teenagers’ identities and political geographies, at a time when a new racialized identity—of the south asian, arab, and muslim—had emerged as a result of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the us (dar, 2018). what it meant to be south asian, american, young, and working class was bound to be distinct for that generation because widespread islamophobia and hate crimes were part of their daily geographies. in this context, i found theories of transnationalism offered what some globalization theories elided: that state interests continue to marginalize young people’s voices and sideline their concerns. metaphors of “transnational connectivity” (grewal, 2005), and of “circulation” and “flows’ (tsing, 2000) help explain how young people draw upon cultures that are global, local, and multinational, all at once, in their responses to the constraints imposed on their lives by the state and find transnational spaces to articulate their concerns. however, despite new spatial reconfigurations, the young and minority cultures remain on the margins, or in alternate spaces, making spivak’s poignant question “can the subaltern speak?” still relevant for childhood studies. hia: most scholars unwittingly develop a comparative framework to straddle the worlds of their training and their research. the discussions of the 1990s within the “new” cs had recognizable locales yet appeared to imply a certain universalism, which was challenging for researchers like me at the time, who found their contexts at odds with the methodological requirements of cs. my doctoral research, which was on ideas of protected childhood among the bengali middle class, was forged in this crucible. it then felt important to talk about children’s lives inscribed within a regional rather than a national context. at that time i imagined zinnecker’s (2000) work on childhood as bildungsmoratorium, emphasizing families and leisure careers, as mitigating the tensions between the theoretical and empirical. the conceptualization and reception of that work was fraught with these scalar considerations (h. march 2022 25 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations sen, 2013). i wasn’t sure how or how much to speak about regional histories. i engage with spatial frameworks differently today, especially since i started engaging with more scholarship on transcultural connections and am more at ease seeing regions as also projects today. in a recent work i examine performances of childhood in the national children’s theatre scene. while categories of the national, regional, and transcultural are important, it was liberating not to expound on spatial questions or those of decolonization that i once saw as compulsion. spatial frameworks also inflect writing practices. the work of sociologists trained in the global south often tends to be read as ethnographies, regardless of the researchers’ intentions. the spatial apportioning of who can say what is produced by larger academic practices. fewer scholars writing from the indian context would be likely to engage in theory making unencumbered by regional specificity. historians of the global south are perhaps better positioned to address spatial tensions in their work than anthropologists and sociologists. fields like dalit studies however are exceptions which, while engaging with continental debates on experience and knowledge (see guru & sarukkai, 2012), self-consciously seek epistemological alternatives. sarah: the scholarship on children’s mobility in africa demonstrates how research focused narrowly on the nation-state produces only a partial account of children’s lived realities. this is true for the present but as much for the past. scholars of the continent have been particularly effective in working through the relationship between the emergence of modern childhood globally and the changing definitions and experiences of childhood and youth in africa, especially during the colonial and postcolonial eras. in her work on girlhood in colonial lagos, abosede george traces how the idea of the african child was mobilized in justifying philanthropic and colonial interventions in poor lagos families in the early twentieth century. along with george, other scholars such as corrie decker (2018), saheed aderinto (2015), and sacha hepburn (2019) show how definitions of childhood were negotiated and interventions aimed at african children formed in the interactions between colonial officials, colonial elites, and, to a lesser degree, children and young people themselves. however, there is a tension in the production of knowledge about childhood and youth in africa: frankly, most historians of africa interested in childhood and youth are based in northern universities. without denying the obvious inequalities between the global north and south, i would also point to the messy circulations of people and knowledge between, for instance, african and european institutions—as clovis describes. the question of who gets to speak for or on behalf of children is particularly interesting in this context—and rendered even more so when state and aid agencies so frequently use images of african children to raise funds for various projects. for historians, children’s voices—african or otherwise—are often muted in the archive, or heavily mediated by adults. instead of uncritically seeking out and centering those voices, sociologist allison james (2007) reminds us that no voice emerges pure or authentic from the archive (or elsewhere). drawing on kristine alexander’s (2012) work, my point is, then, that no historian is especially well positioned to act as a medium for children’s voices from the past. instead, we must remain attentive to the uses of children’s voices—in the past and in the present—and to the specifics of the subject voices themselves. divya: in a similar roundtable discussion, the childhood studies scholar sarada balagopalan remarked that postcolonial theorists provide a way to break away from the “epistemological-empirical binary” of children’s lives in the western and non-western worlds (hanson et al., 2018). how relevant has the work of postcolonial theorists been to your case studies? does it pose new methodological challenges? anandini: i would like to pick up where hia left off in the previous question. indeed, larger academic practices regulate how knowledge is produced and consumed. for instance: does my work, where i theorize the notion of political agency of young south asians in the us, get read as a new theory on agency or as an empirical piece? several disciplines, such as cultural anthropology, gender studies, development studies, and cultural studies, have march 2022 26 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations provided alternative epistemologies for knowledge production and offered new methodological insights. given my area of research, of course, i have engaged with postcolonial theorists. for instance, homi bhabha’s conceptualization of third space and hybridity were important to make sense of immigrant children’s subjectivities in the diaspora. however, while it is useful to think of hybridity as enabling other positions to emerge (bhabha, 1994), i found it problematic that hybridity, for bhabha, can also displace the histories that constitute the very being of subaltern subjects. what may be useful then in rethinking postcolonial theory for cs is an applied epistemology (horsthemke, 2020), as postcolonial theories do not offer tangible ways or methods to historicize. in addition, scholars such as gopal guru (2021) argue that postcolonial theory does not fully capture the concerns of the subaltern dalit subject. hence, to me no single theoretical tradition, including postcolonial theory, is sufficient for examining the lives of children in western and non-western worlds. the field needs to turn to decolonial, dalit, critical race, and indigenous theories as well. sarah: my current work draws on a 1986 essay by the south african writer and literary scholar njabulo ndebele, “the rediscovery of the ordinary.” ndebele expresses irritation with south african writers for responding to apartheid with what he terms “spectacular” literature, which reduces the country’s complexities to caricature. individuals become ciphers for groups; every interaction between people becomes an allegory for the apartheid system. instead, he argues, writers should attempt the far more difficult task of depicting the ordinary and banal life experience under apartheid. one of the overlaps in conceptual debates within both african and childhood history recently has been a readdressing of the question of agency. as fred cooper (1994) and lynn thomas (2016) have suggested, defining agency only as resistance risks casting those who did not resist, for whatever reason, as collaborators, but also risks ignoring anyone who did not act in ways easily recognized as resistance. i have found ndebele’s (1986) interest in the ordinary instructive in thinking my way out of what historian mona gleason (2016) has described as the agency trap. for historians of africa, so much of the work of excavating the continent’s history has been devoted to a broader anticolonial project, and that has—necessarily—tended to emphasize protest, social movements, and other forms of action. perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the literature on youth is on politically engaged young african men in their teens and twenties. what happens when we broaden the category of youth to include girls and younger children, as well as those who do not fit neatly into the racial category of african? and what happens when we do not seek out agency in the archive—and focus on the “normal” and, indeed, on the normative? shivani: my research (nag, 2018) on educational experience and participation of children and young adults has been informed by sociocultural theories of learning that focus on concepts of mediation, activity systems, situated and distributed cognition, and communities of practice (cole & engeström, 1993; engeström, 1987; lave & wenger, 1991; vygotsky, 1978; and others) and critical pedagogy that appreciates the significance of counternarratives. works of scholars like sudhir kakar (1978, 1990) and ashish nandy (1983) have also been extremely significant in providing insights about the cultural context of the development of self and psyche. kakar’s engagement with life histories, narratives, analysis of popular culture (cinema, folk tales, mythologies, rituals, etc.), and recollections from his own childhood suggest possibilities for an interesting and innovative methodology. more recently, the scholarship of psychologists like sunil bhatia (2017), which challenges eurocentric understandings of identities and subjectivities of youth, could also offer useful conceptual and methodological insights. clovis: i thoroughly enjoyed sarada balagopalan’s argument that postcolonial theories move us away from notions such as multiple childhoods that reinforce binary understandings of childhoods as either western and epistemological or non-western and empirical (hanson et al., 2018, p. 281). in my work, i draw on the work of mbembe (2001, 2016), chatterjee (2004, 2011), appadurai (1993), diouf (2003), bidima (2002), tonda (2015), march 2022 27 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations or diagne (2011, 2017) to situate young guineans’ current engagements with digital technologies within a longer political history shaped by colonial occupation. this provides the context for the current states’ engagement with what i term the digital addressing infrastructure and the attraction of internet protocols for tax collection (bergère, 2020). more generally, what i find provocative about a postcolonial lens is the centrality it accords to the moment of encounter, understood as a profound reconfiguration, a “transmutation” (tonda, 2015, p. 107) traversed by specific relations of power. suppose “youth” is built into the mythology of social media in unique ways in guinea. in that case, youth as a social category is also necessarily at the heart of these transformations and the relations of power and violence that traverse them. i am currently working on a piece that highlights specifically the western genealogy of dance (characterized by a separation of the public and the stage and of the choreographer and the dancer) that is often embedded—and therefore naturalized—in the interpretation of protest organizing as “choreography” (see gerbaudo, 2012). what would a different historiography (mbembe, 2016; santos, 2007) of dance based on west african dance traditions such as doundoumba offer us conceptually when thinking about youth activism? postcolonial theories are diverse and follow several traditions that loosely map onto continental realities, including african, south asian, and latin american lenses, each emphasizing specific dimensions of colonial power. working across these terrains allows for interesting south-to-south conversations to emerge, which i find conceptually stimulating. hia: for my earlier work on the imaginaries and experiences of childhood in bengal, works of scholars like partha chatterjee (2004, 2011) helped me calibrate my view of the field. the importance of colonialism in shaping reforms, producing and inflecting new anxieties and debates about education, family, pedagogy, and producing various disjunctures is integral to understanding the contemporary lives of children. like sarah, the insights of the subaltern studies scholars were relevant to me. but the nature of approach and methodological challenges of engaging with postcolonial theories varies across disciplines. satadru sen’s (2007) work on mixed-race children, for example, is not in direct conversation with a self-conscious cs approach, but it deeply engages with the works of other south asianist scholars. a certain reflexivity is built into the fabric of the historical enterprise where researchers cannot but take stock of the context which constitutes their subject and produces the archives. the importance of colonial history is far more tacit in sociological research on childhood. the degree of engagement also varies when addressing an audience/ readership unfamiliar with south asia (see h. sen, 2016). i worry about the other possibility: young researchers feeling compelled to engage with something because they are from a certain context. also, at the end of the day postcolonial theorists belong to a “conversational community” (alanen, 2018), much like cs scholars. and researchers of childhood from the global south must know how to manoeuvre their way through different communities and their language without detracting from their main analytical concerns. concluding remarks we began this conversation by emphasizing the invitation to think across and through the boundaries of disciplines, institutions, geographies, or knowledge productions that are contained in young people’s abilities to traverse, to operate in-between, liminally. our responses illustrate, in small ways, the multiplicity of disciplinary sites, archival and research practices, and institutional locations from which new kinds of traversing can be envisioned, as well as why this is a matter of necessity today. collectively, our responses insist on the devastating effects for knowledge production of the sustained inequalities in relation to research funding and institutional resources between the global north and global south, as well as the racial, gendered, and colonial histories these continue to reflect. as a conversation about research in the global south, it may seem surprising that it includes the voices of scholars working at institutions with home bases in the global north. this clearly reflects the kinds of continued research inequalities we seek to call attention to. yet, if we are to take seriously children and young people’s invitation to march 2022 28 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations operate across boundaries, we need to find a way to both denounce the histories, canons, and institutions of which our practices are necessarily a part and resist a kind of response that would essentialize or authenticate the global south, and global south research. if there is one lesson to learn from a sustained engagement with young lives in the global south, it is that—and here we echo newell and pype (2021) and embrace nyamjoh’s (1996) concept of convivial scholarship—we are all amakwekwere (outsiders, recent arrivals). bidima’s (2002) notion of philosophical traversée or traversing is also a productive way to guide how we both tell stories and share meaning. this roundtable dialogue is not exhaustive in any way. although the concerns raised by the scholars are diverse, this discussion shows why self-reflection from the scholarship on childhood and youth from and of the global south is imperative. as scholars speaking from varying positions, with disciplinary training and scholarship that cut across geographical locations, this piece encourages an interrogation of a range of theoretical and epistemic perspectives—such as the decolonial, postcolonial, and subaltern—that remain largely absent even in emerging scholarship on childhood studies in the global south. it has also brought forth the need for scholars within the global south to extend solidarities in conducting research and shaping useful theoretical frameworks together. between wanting to make one’s field comprehensible for those unfamiliar with southern realities and also halting at the reiteration of familiar epistemologies, researchers working on southern childhoods end up treading a fraught space, constantly looking at other conversations, often in other fields, to chisel out their way amid the crises of thought, representation, and knowledge itself. acknowledgments the participants would also like to thank the society for the history of children and youth and centre for publishing, ambedkar university delhi, for their financial support. 1 an exception is the edited collection by zazie bowen and jessica hinchy (2015) on children and knowledge in india. 2 to address some of these concerns, a collaborative international conference on childhood, youth, and identity in south asia was coorganized by the department of history, shiv nadar university, greater noida, and ambedkar university delhi in january 2020. march 2022 29 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies invitational articles and urgent conversations references aderinto, s. 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(2000). kindheit end jugend als pädagogische moratorien. zur zivilisationsgeschichte der jüngeren generation im 20. jahrhundert. zeitschriftt für pädagogik 42 beiheft, 36–68. https://www.pedocs.de/volltexte/2013/8442/pdf/zinnecker_2000_ kindheit_und_jugend_als_paedagogische_moratorien.pdf july 2020 7 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice no happy endings: practicing care in troubled times angela molloy murphy angela molloy murphy, edd, is a lecturer in early childhood education with the melbourne graduate school of education at university of melbourne. she has been an early childhood educator since 1990, founding schools of her own, including her current school, rowanberry school, in 2006. angela serves as a materials specialist with inventing remida portland project at portland state university and recently completed her doctoral studies in the curriculum and instruction edd program. her doctoral research engages critical posthumanism and new materialism to research the relational material-discursive encounters that are present in children’s everyday narrative processes. email: angela.molloymurphy@unimelb.edu.au twitter: @23angelas when our care for another cannot ensure them a “happy ending,” how does our care matter? this question has developed over 20 years of providing care for nonhumans alongside humans in a home-based preschool. in that time, we have cared for dozens of chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, cats and dogs, a hedgehog, and even an injured squirrel. our rabbits and chickens have been killed by racoons or possums on countless occasions— violent deaths that leave us feeling temporarily shattered. there have also been the inconspicuous deaths—when a child runs to the chicken coop to collect eggs and discovers that a chicken has quietly died in the night. each of these deaths has affected us in unique ways and caused me to revisit this enduring question regarding the value of our care for creatures with precarious futures. there was, however, one particular encounter with an animal that sparked a deeper inquiry into this wondering. that encounter is the subject of this article. one summer my 11-year-old daughter and i visited a petting area at a local organic farm to feed the goats and the piglets. one of the piglets fell asleep in her arms and we were both quite moved. the farmer in the petting area, visiting from his own farm in sherwood, oregon, told us about a program they were starting where one could foster a newborn pig that required special care to survive. he told us a story about runts who were successfully fostered until they were large enough to get their share of food and survive the weight of their mother when nursing. the experience with the piglet paired with the story had done its job … we added our names to the list of potential foster families to contact when an endangered runt was born on the farm. within a few weeks we received a call from the farmer, who was looking for a foster family to provide immediate care for a piglet. he told me he had acquired the animal from a sister farm in central oregon. the piglet was suffering from respiratory issues due to smoke inhalation, and when he and his brother were delivered to the farm, he was chronically sneezing and his eyes were caked shut. the smallest in the newly assembled drove, he was the last to eat, and as a result was languishing. the farmer had been looking for a placement for the piglet with no success. even with human intervention, his survival was uncertain. this article uses a multispecies inquiry to research the relations between human children and other-than-human animals, specifically, a piglet, in a home-based early childhood setting. the focus of this work is to activate critical posthumanism and common worlds scholarship to consider the ethics of relations of care in which the fate of the cared-for is uncertain. i draw on puig de la bellacasa’s theory of care to consider the implications of our school community’s care for the piglet, which was offered freely and in full awareness of uncertain consequences and precarious futures. key words: child-animal relations; theory of care; multispecies inquiry; common worlds july 2020 8 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice we were torn. my daughter and i had collectively imagined a sweeter, more innocent scenario that positioned us as rescuers of a fragile but otherwise healthy newborn pig in need of care. as we described the pictures we had unknowingly been holding in our imaginations and contrasted it with the reality of the current situation, i realized that i had been envisioning our role as foster care providers as epitomized by a particular scene in one of my favourite childhood books, charlotte’s web. in this dramatic passage, fern bravely steps in to save the runt of a new litter of piglets from her father’s axe. her father argues that killing the piglet is the humane choice because he is likely to die anyway. fern vows to personally provide care for the animal to save his life. from her compassion for and dedication to the animal she would call wilbur, a beautiful multispecies friendship emerges. fern’s care for wilbur enables him to peacefully live out his twilight years on the farm surrounded by human and animal companions, essentially providing him with a “happy ending.” although the pull of this fictional narrative was a powerful one, i recognized that the present moment required ethically informed action as opposed to romanticized imaginaries. fires had been burning throughout central oregon all summer. people and animals had lost their lives and been otherwise injured or displaced. every living thing in the region was impacted. in this context, providing care for a damaged animal with an uncertain future held what maria puig de la bellacasa (2017) refers to as “vital material implications—for human and nonhuman worlds” (p. 42). after grappling with the ethics of the circumstances with my daughter, we made arrangements to drive out to the sherwood farm and pick up the piglet to bring home. the animal we would call moon was a cross between three small breeds, a runt american guinea hog, kunekune, and juliana. he was bred to stay small—small enough to live on an urban farm, but big enough to eventually slaughter if deemed appropriate. we were given an instruction sheet and training time with the farmer, who wanted to ensure we had adequate space and resources available to care for a growing baby pig, because he had experienced problems with fostering piglets to people who were ill equipped for the demands of the job. in fact, while we were talking to the farmer, a woman approached him to return a piglet she had taken home only days before. the scene was strange and unforgettable: a well-polished woman in business dress marching up the dusty path of the rural farm with a piglet in a box, “returning” the animal as if it were an unsatisfying item of clothing. “we heard screaming all night,” she told the farmer. “it was the most terrible sound you can imagine.” i was distressed by the experience she described, and equally disturbed by my association with her. i wanted to view my role as a caregiver or companion, not a customer. looking back on this moment, i realize that although bringing an agitated piglet back to a farm in a box did not look like care as i had imagined it, or perhaps had idealized it, it may have been the most caring, ethically sound move the woman could make. when the farmer returned from his conversation with her, he made a disparaging comment about how some people foster baby pigs for the instagram photo opportunities and are not prepared for the real work it will entail. my daughter and i exchanged a guilty glance with one another. just that morning we had spoken about posting photos of the piglet on instagram. referring to the ethics of caring practices, de la bellacasa (2017) states, “we do not always know in advance what world is knocking, or what will be the consequences” (p. 91). this is the sense i had as my daughter and i drove home with the piglet in a bright pink cat carrier. he brayed loudly the whole way, terrified, and surprisingly loud. the “unnatural” feeling of the situation was undeniable. still a very young pig, he required bottle feeding every four hours with warmed goat milk. i enlisted the help of my daughter and her neighbourhood friends for this task … an easy recruitment. at this stage in his development the piglet was not unlike a newborn human, tiny and vulnerable, and we all soon discovered that bottle feeding him evoked tremendous feelings of care. i set up a playpen in the lower level of our house where my preschool classroom resides. the picture was both tender and absurd, and july 2020 9 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice blurred the lines commonly drawn between human and nonhuman infancies—a piglet in a playpen, surrounded by baby blankets and stuffed toys. common worlds scholars have argued that it is “timely for early childhood scholars to make a greater contribution to broader ‘more than-human’ or post-humanist conversations that have been gathering momentum in the social sciences over the last couple of decades” (taylor, pacini-ketchabaw, & blaise, 2012, p. 81). multispecies inquiries (e.g., hohti & tammi, 2019; lloro-bidart, 2018; pacini-ketchabaw, taylor & blaise, 2016; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015) offer one compelling approach to attend to research with the more-than-human. for example, fikile nxumalo and veronica pacini-ketchabaw (2017) enact multispecies ethnography in considering the implications of classroom pet pedagogies; they call for “radically different ways of viewing our relationships with more-than-human others” (p. 1423). this critical posthumanist practice (barad, 2011; braidotti, 2013; llorobidart, 2018; murris et al., 2018; rice, 2016; rotas, 2015; snaza, 2015) advances a framework of relational learning with material, place, human, and nonhuman actors as opposed to a child-centered and exclusively human social framework. experimental multispecies/posthumanist methodologies work to shift our perspective away from solely human ones and make space for nonanthropocentric ways (bell & russell, 2000) of seeing and being both in classrooms and in the larger world. informed by critical posthumanism, as well as my experiences with the multispecies nature of children’s everyday school lives (pederson, 2010), i initiated a multispecies inquiry into child-animal relations between the human children in my neighbourhood and at my preschool and the piglet we collectively cared for. it was september, the beginning of our school year, when moon came to know the preschool children. several of the children had experience with a “rescue” animal in a school context (molloy murphy, 2018), as our community had previously provided care for an injured squirrel. consequently, we held an institutional awareness about what it meant to provide care for an animal that is resistant to physical touch and other signifiers of care and affection (gunnarsson, 2018) that we might be accustomed to with domesticated pets. further, we had established an “ethic of kinship and care” (rose, 2017) within our multispecies classroom community that provided a hospitable climate for an injured animal. we watched the piglet carefully, “attuning and attending” (rautio, 2017) to his ways. we discovered that the piglet enjoyed roaming around in our play yard on sunny days, comfortable in the contact zone (haraway, 2008) where children, chickens, and the occasional dog come together. we learned to sit on the ground and let the piglet nuzzle up to us rather than trying to pick him up as one would a dog or cat. he struggled against being cradled, even for bottle feeding. in fact, he resisted every anthropomorphic fantasy i had unconsciously developed from idyllic depictions of care, such as the classic illustrations in charlotte’s web. in one such image, for example, fern cradles wilbur the piglet in her arms, holding his head upright as one would bottle feed a human baby. moon, not being a storybook piglet, instinctively wanted to stand upright and drink from a bottle as he would nurse from his mother. the oldest children invented a way to scoop moon up with a blanket to reduce the kicking and squirming when we carried him, which was as little as possible. he ran away when approached by humans. if we needed to move him back inside the house, for instance, we had to corner him to pick him up. he habitually rubbed his side against the trunk of a tree, which led to bald spots and badly scraped skin. unsure of the practical need for this activity, we began putting a dog sweater on him during our outside play to prevent him from further wounding himself. in essence, we were attending to the problem of “how to care” (de la bellacasa, 2017) for the piglet in the context of this particular time and place, in a multispecies coexistence and without the guidance of a pig mother. moon, in turn, quickly adapted to his human, predominantly child caregivers, who offered him vegetables when he climbed on their laps. on chilly days he burrowed inside children’s coats, poking his head out only to eat. july 2020 10 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice there were multiple ethico-political complexities to consider regarding our care of the piglet. in our common worlds, where past, present, and future lives are entangled (blaise, hamm, & iorio, 2016), the intentional centering of curriculum which is “otherwise” (nxumalo, vintimilla, & nelson, 2018) from safe and sterilized curricular engagements is a critical aspect of the work of mattering with children. thus, when uncomfortable discussions about the cause of the piglet’s predicament or his potential future arose, we attended to the children’s inquiries, resisting the urge to look away (haraway, 2016) from the matters of concern (iorio, hamm, parnell, & quintero, 2017; latour, 2004) that made their way into the classroom along with the piglet. for example, climate change was a prominent factor in the fires that burned that summer along the west coast of the united states, compromising the air quality in california and oregon and rendering conditions harmful. though the broad concept of climate change was abstract to the children, the topic of air quality was tangible, as it held immediate material consequences for our multispecies community. even in our urban neighbourhood, far from the fires, there were days we could smell smoke and were advised to stay indoors due to compromised air quality. in addition to this, the children were aware that the piglet had been evacuated from his original farm due to poor air quality caused by wildfires. looking at his eyes and listening to his laboured breathing, it was apparent that his exposure to smoke had damaged him. a few of the children had a schema regarding the dangerous potential wildfires have for vulnerable populations because they had grandparents living in california, where the fires were the worst. one child shared his understanding of the predicament in saying, “my oma lives in california. she can’t go outside on the red days.” moreover, children openly wondered about the piglet’s future—of what would become of him when we returned him to the farm. during a discussion about farms and farming practices at a class meeting, a 5-year old stated plainly, “bacon comes from pigs.” this declaration hung heavily in the air. i confirmed the child’s statement; unable to offer assurances or escape the plain fact. bacon comes from pigs, and the animal we had come to care for was a pig. truthfully, i was given no guarantees about the piglet’s future; the farmer’s answers to my queries had been decidedly vague. i surmised that it was possible we were caring for moon until he was healthy and strong enough to be butchered on the farm. if our care of the piglet was part of an economic and practical scheme to prepare him for his eventual slaughter and consumption, were we not actively participating in it by providing excellent care for him, for example, by feeding him well and causing him to trust humans? joan tronto (2010) might suggest that our care of the damaged animal was serving to “maintain, continue and repair ‘our world’ so that we [could] live in it as well as possible” (p. 16). i find hope in this proposition. conversely, i consider the possibility that our care practices contributed to objectifying and commodifying farming practices (singleton & law, 2013) and reinforced colonizing, extractive human-animal relations of power (cutter-mckenzieknowles et al., 2018). it seems more likely, however, that each of these propositions coexist despite their multiple “tensions and contradictions” (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). ultimately, our care of the piglet led us to stay with the trouble (haraway, 2016) of forest fires and animal/farm/food assemblages, enabling these “matters of concern” to also become “matters of care” (puig de la bellacasa, 2011) for our multispecies community. moon grew quickly from a tiny piglet with silky black fur to a large, bristly boar whose hunger seemed insatiable. i was no longer able to feed him solely on vegetable scraps and resorted to processed pellets from a local feed store. the farmer specifically warned against this practice as it was likely to “prematurely fatten him up.” my choice to supplement the pig’s diet with commercial feed was burdensome—i worried that i was promoting the piglet’s slaughter by causing him to gain weight. winter was approaching and we were spending less time outdoors due to cold weather and rain. the piglet was often muddy and was not getting enough exercise. he began to look july 2020 11 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice preposterous and overgrown in the baby blue playpen. the classroom perpetually stank of urine regardless of how often we changed the bedding. just as the practical care demanded by a growing pig in a small house began to feel unmanageable, our allotted three-month foster period came to an end. it was a very emotional drive to the farm. the farmer assured me i could come back and visit, saying, “pigs are smart animals. he’ll remember you.” this was both reassuring and somehow terrifying. i felt as if my responsibility to the pig did not end—would never end, despite his uncertain future. i return to my enduring question: when our care for another cannot ensure a “happy ending,” how does our care matter? informed by the theory of care proposed by puig de la bellacasa (2017), i now regard our care for the piglet as an act of “cultivating a speculative commitment to contribute to livable worlds” (p. 67), a conscious striving to live as well as possible (tronto, 2010) on a damaged planet. our care for moon was freely undertaken (hoy, 2004), meaning it was “not forced upon [us] by a moral order” (puig de la bellacasa, 2017, p. 70), and was offered in full awareness of uncertain consequences and precarious futures. i cannot claim it was valiant or innocent, or that it ensured the piglet’s survival. however, this caring assemblage produced ways of relating with other species that are otherwise (nxumalo et al., 2018) than comfortable human-rescue narratives (taylor, 2017) with promises of mutual salvation. these old, familiar storylines ring hollow in our current era of great planetary suffering. thus, our care mattered in that it was an ethical and political practice in living well with human and nonhuman others (taylor & giugni, 2012) when no guarantees of salvation were possible. our shared futures are always already uncertain. we care anyway. july 2020 12 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice references barad, k. 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(2010). creating caring institutions: politics, plurality, and purpose. ethics and social welfare, 4(2), 158–171. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/17496535.2010.484259 133 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research childhoods and time: a collective exploration camila da rosa ribeiro, zsuzsa millei, riikka hohti, walter omar kohan, césar donizetti pereira leite, norma rudolph, ingvild kvale sørenssen, karolina szymborska, tuure tammi, and marek tesar camila rosa ribeiro is a doctoral researcher at tampere university, finland, and a practicing performance artist. her research explores the intersections between art practice and philosophy, focusing on devising performativity through collective practices of memory storying. she focuses on processual intensities and irregular movements of time and how they oppose the modern colonialist logic that constructs and activates raciality and violence. her research lies at the intersections of performance studies, education, and memory studies. email: camila.darosaribeiro@tuni.fi zsuzsa millei is a professor in the faculty of education and culture, tampere university, finland, and in the department of education, communication, and learning, university of gothenburg, sweden. her interdisciplinary research explores child politics in its broadest sense under three areas: everyday nationalism and childhood; socialism and childhood; and biopolitics of childhood. email: zsuzsa.millei@tuni.fi riikka hohti is a postdoctoral researcher at the helsinki institute of sustainability science, where she studies child-animal relations and more-than-human education. her research is situated at the intersections of childhood studies, human-animal studies, and education, and she has published on multispecies care relations, digitality, temporality, and the anthropocene. she is a docent in the field of childhood studies in the university of tampere. email: riikka.hohti@helsinki.fi walter omar kohan is a professor of philosophy of education at the state university of rio de janeiro, brazil. he is also a researcher at the national council for scientific and technological development and the carlos chagas filho research support foundation. he was previously president of the international council of philosophical inquiry with children and has been coeditor of the journal childhood & philosophy. his research focuses, theoretically and practically, on the relationships among childhood, education, and philosophy. email: wokohan@gmail.com césar donizetti pereira leite is an associate professor of psychology and education in the department of education at paulista state university in são paulo – brazil. he is experienced in the field of psychology, with an emphasis on developmental and educational psychology, working mainly on the following topics: education, childhood, experience, language and teaching and learning, image production and cinema. email: cesar.leite@unesp.br norma rudolph is a postdoctoral researcher at tampere university. her research interests include post-apartheid south african policy for young children, autoethnography, and decolonial theories and praxis. her most recent publications are “revealing colonial power relations in early childhood policy making: an autoethnographic story on selective evidence” (2021); “equitable recovery from covid-19: bring global commitments to community level” (2021); and “corrigendum: data practices and inequality in south african early childhood development policy: technocratic management versus social transformation” (2019). email: norma.rudolph@tuni.fi ingvild kvale sørenssen is an associate professor in the department of education and lifelong learning at the norwegian university of science and technology. as a childhood studies, media studies, and education scholar, her research interests revolve around children’s age identity, socialization, and meaning making in the interplay of popular culture, friendships, and family life. her theoretical focus is on the relationality of human and nonhuman actors in different sociomaterial assemblages. email: ingvild. sorenssen@ntnu.no karolina szymborska is affiliated with the university of białystok, poland, in the department of 19th-century literature and regional cultures. her research evolves around children’s archetypes in literature, particularly on topics related to child mortality and immortality. email: karolinaszymborska@yahoo.co.uk tuure tammi is a postdoctoral researcher at the university of oulu, finland, in the faculty of education. his research transverses environmental education, child-animal relations, and multispecies citizenship. email: tuure.tammi@oulu.fi marek tesar heads the school of learning development and professional practice and is associate dean international in the faculty of education and social work, university of auckland, new zealand. he is also the director of the centre for global childhoods. his award-winning scholarship is focused on early childhood education in both new zealand and cross-country contexts. his academic work and consultancy focus on educational policy, philosophy, pedagogy, methodology, and curriculum and draws on his background as a qualified teacher. marek’s scholarship and activism merges theoretical work with a practical focus on the everyday lives of children and their childhoods in aotearoa new zealand and overseas. email: m.tesar@auckland.ac.nz 134 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research prologue: childhoods and time marek tesar when thinking about childhoods and time (in their broadest sense), notions of time and temporalities may lead toward historical narratives about how childhoods have changed. one may consider the future of childhoods, including the most preferred or probable futures. furthermore, one may drift toward philosophical narratives which can present different ontological, epistemological, and axiological positionings toward childhoods. in my earlier explorations, i used philosophy as method developed with colleagues from the global south and north to experiment with western and non-western philosophy in theorizing childhood. some of the most intriguing notions, however, are the explorations that are grounded in the question “what is the relationship between childhoods and time?” in collectively exploring this question, we linked the idea of childhood with educational spaces and places, such as early years classrooms, and associated curricula or pedagogies. in this prologue, i move toward a different line of thinking formed through prior collective writings regarding who is a child and what is childhood and how we research these concepts (tesar et al., 2021). by looking at a much broader foundation of the formation of childhood and its relation to time, this new thinking allows the concept of childhood to be liberated from the classroom, and its pedagogical or curricular disciplinary powers. this experiment should not be taken for granted. the idea of taking a broader, relational, worldly—if not planetary—outlook has of course been debated for some time. i am keen on walter benjamin’s (1999) approach where he discusses the histories of “time.” he argues how in the past various festivities, rituals, and ceremonies enabled humans (including children) to connect past times with the times in the present. this connection had implications for how childhoods were formed and how children experienced their childhoods. by today we have mastered a different sensibility; we count hours and days, mornings and afternoons, holidays and festivities; children experience time and the concept of waiting differently. children wear watches, calendars determine what activities are encouraged, and age dictates when certain activities are appropriate. the powers of time and the calendar in childhood are invisible and, at the same time, very visible, simultaneously discursive and material. time is not just a concept but is activated in policies measuring childhoods according to years. or we can just look at children’s clothing and consider whether the child is dressed “on time,” “in time,” or “for the time,” or is completely “out of time.” posthuman childhood studies are useful to consider when exploring questions of childhoods and time (malone et al., 2020), and new materialist theories have recently become a productive space and testing ground for thinking childhoods (diaz-diaz & semenec, 2020). time, together with concepts of being, becoming, and agency, have become important to explore children and childhoods at both local and global levels and especially in relation to changing climate and global discourses. these explorations are not always about the genealogies of these concepts (or time), but they are often about the performance of these concepts in our everyday life. posthuman and new materialist studies of childhoods acknowledge that childhoods are shaped by how children spend time both inside this collective piece explores the philosophical, ontological, and epistemic potentials of analyzing the relations between childhood and time, proposing thought experiments and fieldwork analyses that release childhood from a linear temporality toward (modern) adulthood. each experiment originating from the authors’ distinct scholarly positionings fractures “modern childhood” and its civilization project, built from the hegemony of linear, sequential, progressive, and principled time. key words: modern childhood; time; non-linear time; temporality 135 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research and outside of the structured educational, pedagogical, and curricular environments. these studies identify how children resist structured time in how they live their childhoods inside and outside of these environments (e.g., murris & kohan, 2021; pacini-ketchabaw & kummen, 2016; tesar et al., 2016). the shift toward posthuman and new materialist readings of childhoods and time continues to challenge existing time-tested theories and concepts that have for such a long time determined and governed our understanding and construction of childhood. these new approaches to reading childhoods and time from decolonial, posthuman, and new materialist perspectives have expanded both the philosophical and scholarly disciplines with a clear impact on the experiences of childhood. the traditions of many eurocentric theories have not addressed the diversity of children’s lives in the majority world (the global south). these theories have also not addressed the time that children utilize to live their childhoods. these “times” are diverse, interfacing with various artifacts, toys, homes, landscapes, animals, and foods. the human/nonhuman relations open and produce new conceptual spaces that cater for children’s timely and contemporary experiences. this provokes thinking about childhood and time beyond language, discourse, and culture to reconsider the affective nature and influences of matter and materialities in children’s lives and reduce the discursive power of language. introduction: releasing childhood from temporal linearity camila da rosa ribeiro and zsuzsa millei clock time, calendar time, schedules, routines, habits, and celebrations underpinned by linear time, rhythms, and temporal patterns matter the social and material environments of childhoods, discourses of childhood, and children’s feeling of belonging today (e.g., hanson, 2017; millei, 2021; murris & kohan, 2021; pacini-ketchabaw & kummen, 2016; tesar et al., 2016). time also bestows ideals and norms of childhood, such as hurried childhood or standard development. time separates children from adults as a social category. patterned linear time played a major role in creating the ideal of modern childhood. “modern childhood” extends over adolescence, designates places for children in the home and school, and understands growing up in time sequences. the model of modern childhood was in place by the end of the 19th century in the lives of north america and western europe’s bourgeoisie. reformers and policy makers have used and still rely on this model today in their civilizing efforts, for example, in anti-slavery and enforced civilization and assimilation projects worldwide (marten, 2018, p. 137). would time, if differently construed, open possibilities for fracturing modern childhood and its civilization project, built from the hegemony of linear, sequential, progressive, and principled time? we have invited participants of the “childhood and time” conference (may 10–12, 2021, tampere, finland) to help us respond to this question. authors came from multiple disciplinary fields, such as philosophy, childhood studies, early childhood education, education, and literature. they seek to challenge, on the one hand, the figure of the unitary modern child adorned with standardized development, an ideal that colonizes childhood by pathologizing, moralizing, and “rescuing” the children who exist outside the humanitarian purview of the west (ibrahim, 2021). on the other hand, contributions interrupt some of the mechanisms that create the “modern child” as less-than adult who is on his way to a future built on the ideal of liberal progress (burman, 2020; millei, 2021). this collaborative text operates as a springboard to decompose or release child/childhood from temporal linearity. we engage in this task with a postqualitative approach, as authors experiment with “provocations that come from everywhere in the inquiry”: from reading, from research, and from life (st. pierre, 2018, p. 603). by listing these responses, we invite the readers into a collective thought experiment to release categories, norms, and commonsense idea(l)s that bind child and childhood in the sequential timeline of liberal personhood. 136 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research aion, chronos, and kairos: time, childhood, and education walter omar kohan my thought experiment starts from a vision of building an errant and philosophical pedagogy in response to the question inspired in both poststructuralist and latin american intellectual traditions. from this view, childhood is time, and we relate to childhood as we relate to time. usually, adults allocate their childhood to their past assuming a chronological notion of time. as aristotle shows in his physics, chronos has only two parts, past and future, being present just a limit, an instant, a now. there is no substantial present in chronos, as it is the number of movements. so that when chronos governs the descriptions of human life, it is presupposed that life is several continuous, consecutive, and irreversible movements and childhood needs to be abandoned to enter the other stages of life: there is no way to stay in childhood if we want to turn ourselves adults. according to this logic, every movement affects the following: this is probably why education has been so often considered a preparation for the future. in this framework, education fills under the logic of cause-effect and means-ends: every educational action is explained by another and expected to fill an aim outside itself; thus, in neoliberal societies educational institutionalized time needs to show its productivity, impact, and good consequences. time in educational institutions cannot be lost and needs to be spent efficiently. nevertheless, the etymology of the word school points to a different, almost opposed, notion of time. precisely, the greek word scholé means free time, leisure. pedagogists in the 19th century, like venezuelan simón rodríguez, and contemporary scholars jan masschelein and maarein simons (2013) have shown elsewhere that the origin of the greek school is not related to a place to learn (we do not need a school to learn) but to an arrangement, a form where we can “lose time”—that is, conditions need to be created so that a “nonproductive time” can be experienced to think, study, read, write, and put the world into question. in ancient greek there are at least two other words for time (kairos, meaning opportunity, and aion, duration). the greek understanding of school is less connected with chronos and more with aion, a word which heraclitus related to childhood in his iconic fragment 52: “time (aion) is a child playing: a realm of a child.” in fact, more literally, the fragment might be translated as “aion is a child childing,” being that the words for child and playing are the same word (pais, paizon) in the form of a noun and a verb respectively. aion is time not as quantity of movement but as intensity of experience. as such, aion is mostly present, a durative sense of present. in aion, where a child governs, according to heraclitus, time does not pass but stays. on the contrary, in modern school where chronos governs, we form children to be the desired adults of the future. but when aion enters the educational space, we need to be attentive to what governs in aion: a child. we need to experience the time of a child childing (playing): be present in the present. what time does govern our educational relationships at school? the realm of what time is school? the preceding paragraphs make us think that if it is the realm of chronos then school might not be able to be a school in the sense of offering the unproductive and free time needed to read and question the world as well as to dream with other worlds. giving some attention to aion and kairos might also inspire a reconsideration of the ways educators consider, experience, and relate to childhood. since heraclitus, thinkers of different cultures and times have suggested that childhood is more a time than an age, closer to aion than to chronos. in that case, the education of childhood (aged children) calls for a childhood (childlike time) of education: an aionic time that educators need to keep alive in themselves to educate people of all ages. among them, paulo freire, the brazilian educator, calls our attention especially because he was focused less on the education of (chronological) children than that of (chronological) adults. nevertheless, his commitment to (aionic) childhood is remarkable. among many other awards, paulo freire was honoured as a “permanent child” by the communal library of ponsacco, pisa, italy, when he was 68 years old. as he aged, he remained in the time of 137 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research curiosity, surprise, and enchantment, and he considered that keeping alive the child we are and the child we haven’t been able to become is a necessary condition for educators of people of all ages (freire & faundez, 1989; kohan, 2021). this formulation is challenging and instigating. it seems to suggest that childhood is something that goes far beyond a biography and that there are many chronological children with no experience of childhood. maybe this is why freire dedicated himself to adult education: because in illiterate adults, the robbing of their time of childhood is more dramatic and greater. therefore, as paradoxical as it might sound, it can be argued that paulo freire dedicated his life and thinking to adult education because of his commitment to childhood, understood as “when it is never too late” (couto, 2011). the pedagogical and philosophical implications of this connection between childhood and time are diverse and promising, and we can only suggest them here. if being an educator has to do with experiencing and offering some time, the time of childhood experienced and offered by an educator is also a time of curiosity, art, love, and revolution, and the education of childhood calls to a childlike pedagogy of the question (freire & faundez, 1989; kohan 2021)—which is not a method but inspires a loving, artistic, and revolutionary educational life. actor-network theory in exploring childhood and time ingvild kvale sørenssen my thinking orients from childhood studies inspired by science and technology studies in an attempt to open up the field by decentering the child and exploring the world through a relational ontological lens to avoid essentializing humans and nonhumans. within the social studies of children and childhood, the notions of being and becoming were intrinsic (uprichard, 2008). the goal was to move from focusing on the future of children, where the “becoming child” implicitly bore with it a linear temporality and progression (millei, 2021), to a focus on the here and now of children, the “being child” (qvortrup, 2009). uprichard (2008) explores being and becoming as two manifestations of time: in the being child, time can be seen as external, and in the becoming child, time is an ontological property of the individual. however, rather than moving beyond the binary while still categorizing and differentiating between being and becoming and between time as internal and as external, if we stay with the binary, with the being and becoming, we can explore time as multiple and complex. this both disrupts the notion of time as singular and gives possible new insights and understanding of how childhood and time are constructed. we can explore how children and time, as the time of childhood and time in childhood (james & prout, 2015), are mutually enacted depending on, among other things, materialities used to do childhood with and social norms regarding age performances. by employing a sociomaterial perspective, specifically, actor-network theory (ant), we can explore age and time in childhood by including nonhumans as actors and considering how these can take part in, facilitate, and restrict the multiplicity of doing age, thus disrupting the notion of time as singular. by staying with ambivalence and complexity, we can avoid reducing children and time into presupposed a priori understandings of what childhood and time are, and rather embrace an open-ended relational understanding of how both unfold empirically. age has been argued to be a social category, albeit not a stable category, and age can be understood as the social practice of doing age (frønes, 1995). to do age is to perform age in relation to normative cultural understandings of acceptable behaviour or acceptable activities for certain age groups. within the notion of doing age, age is implicitly detached from time in the sense that it is a social performance that can vary according to the assemblages within which it is enacted. there are limits and restrictions to one’s age performance in given situations, and certain expectations of what children should be able to do and how they should behave according to different age norms. age is not merely biological; therefore, it is not a manifestation of time. rather, age is done in heterogeneous 138 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research networks by individuals and in relation to other actors, both human and nonhuman, in varying social contexts. this doing of age facilitates operating with multiple age performances in different contexts. drawing on ant and an open-ended relational perspective, we can perceive doing age as flexible, negotiable, and continuously constructed and reconstructed. or, in the language of ant, assembled and reassembled. within an ant framework, first, nonhumans are understood as actors, meaning that nonhumans have an impact on what is and can be done (latour, 2005). second, these actors are in relational symmetry with other actors (humans and nonhumans), discarding any presupposed a priori understandings of nonhuman or human actors. this leads to the third aspect, which is that all actors, human and nonhuman, are relationally, and mutually enacted, that is, they are brought into being in the meeting between them, in what can be understood as assemblages (law & mol, 2008). through ant, we can explore the multiplicity of age facilitated by nonhuman actors that take part in the enactment of age, as well as by human actors and implicit expectations of how to do age in given situations. using tweens (children 8–12 years old) in a norwegian setting as an example, we can see how, by incorporating a sociomaterial perspective, time as singular becomes troubled. implicitly, the word tweens conveys what this age group consists of: those who are between childhood and youth. contrary to seeing tweens as residing in a liminal stage, or in between, they are rather both: they are a being child and a becoming teenager and engage in what i term age-shifting. age-shifting is the possibility to shift between ages, drawing on childhood and teenager repertoires depending on the situational and relational assemblages (sørenssen, 2015). in my study, girls in their tweens described themselves as being in-between younger children and teenagers, as being able to be small and big in different situations (sørenssen, 2014). age-shifting could be induced due to both social frames and material objects, such as makeup. the girls explained what type of makeup was, or was not, appropriate depending on their biological age, where time serves as an ontological property of the tween, but also on the materiality of the makeup and the relational setting, which thus disrupts the singularity, increments, and sequence of time constructed by developmental stages. the girls were too young to wear lipstick at school but could wear lipstick at parties, while lip gloss was defined as being acceptable in a school setting. ant can open for multiple enactments of age by not essentializing age. doing age is not merely social; ageshifting is enacted with both human and nonhuman actors. it is facilitated and limited in different assemblages, allowing the girls to be children and to be becoming teenagers in different age performances. the notion of ageshifting allows us to view age as a social strategy but also as flexible and contextually and relationally dependent. in addition, age-shifting and the ant perspective can reveal how time in childhood can be understood not as singular but rather as multiple. by staying with ambivalence and complexity, this view can further our understanding of childhood, suggesting that both time and childhood need to be explored through an open-ended, relational, and antiessentialist perspective to avoid premade categories. multispecies caring relations and childhoods riikka hohti and tuure tammi we have been collaborating for years in research at the intersections of childhood studies, education, and humananimal studies. as we employed critical posthumanist and feminist new materialist theories, multispecies methodologies, and feminist storytelling, we have become attentive to a multitude of relations also involving intersecting unequal (e.g., speciesist and colonial) histories. in our multispecies ethnographic work on childanimal relations, the most thought-provoking setting was the greenhouse. the greenhouse is an educational zoo built in the atrium of a regular secondary school building, complete with all the technology needed to maintain a subtropical climate, which is the home of dozens of different animals and plants. we spent four months in this 139 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research place, following the engagements between animals such as gerbils, roosters, and birds with a group of students who took responsibility for caretaking of these animals as part of their schooldays. inside the school building we cross the entrance hall, one knows these kinds of secondary school entrance halls by heart, they are so familiar, always similar but when we open the greenhouse door, another world overwhelms. scents and smells from blooming and decaying plants, bright lights, cries, shouts, sounds and chirps, accompanied by smaller rustles and the humming sound of a humidifier, stable rotation of the air conditioner in the ceiling. we are anxious to go there and hear what’s new, how the kids, other animals and plants are doing. institutional linear time heavily shapes the school life, from the fixed structures of lessons and breaks, which distribute bodies and movement in specific ways across the school building, to how learning is organized according to age groups and curricula based on the teleological idea of progress. in the greenhouse, however, we observed— and indeed felt—how the institutional time became blurred and multiplied. foregrounded here were cycles of life that were not human only, such as the intersecting metabolic cycles shaping the caretaking practice: rhythms involving food, excrement, cleaning, getting dirty, feeding, eating, drinking, getting dirty, and cleaning again. cycles of births and deaths intertwined with practices such as breeding and euthanasia. various life modes and life spans mixed and mingled: movements and speeds belonging to animals such as the 80-year-old turtle matilda, the slow pace of giant african snails, the quick-to-hide gerbils, the almost imperceptible insects feeding on the plants of the greenhouse, the microbial smells of decay. these processes took place in created conditions, yet with further temporal cycles such as the short moments of daylight in mid-winter above the glass ceiling. immersed in the above-described more-than-human rhythms and temporalities, it happened often that we did not leave the place as planned but stayed there, feeling energized. and so did some students, we noticed, who often left only when the janitor closed the doors late in the evening. coming from fieldwork conducted in another school, we both noticed a clear difference in atmosphere and experience of time. perhaps it was this opening of singular institutional time into a multiplicity of times that created this energy and, on the other hand, made us halt and refrain from taken-for-granted research procedures that leaned on humancentric theories and ethics. weaver and snaza (2017) write about the necessity of listening in more-than-human research, which for them enables us to reenter the worlds we are examining “as students, as newcomers” (p. 1061). to make sense of the caretaking practices involving young people and their respective care animals, we turned to the relational feminist theory of care by maria puig de la bellacasa (2017), which helped us to approach childanimal relations as not only axiomatically positive but also as messy, tense, and difficult. according to this theory, care involves three intertwining dimensions: material, hands-on maintenance work, affective engagement (e.g., feeling responsible for someone), and ethical-political involvement (e.g., speaking of “good care”). handling animals was what the carers of the animals often did, as the shared understanding was that the young people needed to keep the animals company so that the animals would get used to their “own” humans’ touch. these repetitive encounters allowed a sensitivity to the other’s needs and responses to emerge through micro movements (see tammi & hohti, 2020). it was in such encounters that students made observations of the animals becoming old, possibly having a tumour, perhaps being pregnant, or having eaten too much because they weighed more than before. through repeated physical touch, this knowledge emerged from the care relation, further shaping and 140 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research affecting the very relation. these repetitions are different from those normally included in school days, because they do not serve linear ideas of progress. multiple times and scales of lives across species are brought into a dynamic relation with each other through care in the greenhouse. care draws the young caretakers of the animals into intra-active relations, which introduces a transformative state concerning both, one that is not based on the one-directional temporalities of human progress. puig de la bellacasa (2017) writes that “the work of care takes time and involves making time of an unexceptional particular kind” (p. 206). the particularity of care time comes from maintaining and sustaining, from the mundane repetitions. in short, particularity emerges from banality. care at the greenhouse, however, is not innocent as it does not necessarily serve better futures for all beings involved (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). the caring assemblages can be intimate and intensive, but these “hot” intimacies sometimes flourish thanks to other, more distant and slower assemblages involving humans and animals, such as care in intensive chicken farms. in our broader effort to rethink childhoods and education as more-than-human phenomena, we have discussed encounters between nonhuman animals and young humans. it is human-centered temporal constructs and notions that keep species hierarchy in place (see hohti & maclure, 2022; schrader, 2012). the events in the greenhouse showed how focusing on multispecies caring relations makes more-than-human rhythms and temporalities surface, which is when other kinds of histories and childhoods can begin to be accounted for, ones that introduce us to a more modest way of being and growing up as human on earth. “six fridays and one sunday,” “axolotl time,” and “unintentional time”: figures for other child-times césar donizetti pereira leite i research children and image production to rupture colonial ways of thinking about childhood, children’s development, and educational practices with children guided by the philosophy of difference. from this position, it is practically impossible to talk about childhood without addressing time as well. as childhood studies researchers and pedagogues, in our educational practices and our analytical categories in the field of psychology and pedagogy, the ways in which we conceive childhood have a close relationship with the ways we approach children; similarly, our practices with children indicate our ways of thinking about childhood. allied to certain conceptions of time, in our daily practices, we always insert time—or temporality—into a certain perspective of space—or spatiality. time, mostly in our educational practices at school, always puts us in front of a composition, stratification, spatial organization. starting from nursery school, school builds—through an idea of childhood and a temporal and spatial organization—a way of life and a way of existence in the world that shapes and modulates children’s bodies, which is a colonizing process. shaping and modulation create, within the child, the passage to the world, to the system, to adult life. children’s bodies and passage to the world are modulated by discourses of developmental psychology and pedagogy. in developmental psychology, there is a precise chronological and linear demarcation of time—an evolutionary and accumulative way of thinking of the child’s development. knowledge is also broken up, from minor complexity to major complexity, and is delivered in the curriculum. all of that is justified by a model of development that underlies ways of living time, organizing time, thinking about childhood, and approaching the child. within this perspective, the relationship between childhood and time creates a “political regime” that inserts the child in a predetermined world. 141 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research besides this adult-structured world, there are children and their ways of living, their ways of being in the world and dealing with different situations. i introduce three examples that may open new perspectives on the discussion of childhood and time. (1) pinocchio by carlo collodi (2021) and its film version directed by roberto benigni (2002) tell the story of a puppet boy. during his wanderings, pinocchio meets lucignolo, who will become his dearest friend. lucignolo problematizes the practices and purpose of school. he often insinuates that he will never give his body to stultifying and disciplinary practices, which modulate bodies and subjectivities through domestication, chronologization, and the regulation of time. lucignolo takes pinocchio to the land of toys, where time has a different dimension and the calendar follows another perspective presenting other possibilities. in this playland, each week is made of six fridays and one sunday; also, the holidays start on the first day of january and end on the last day of december. these time dimensions foreshadow possibilities of occupying spaces, creating a clear rupture with the time measured by a fixed calendar, which is predetermined, rhythmic, and ritualized. in those other space-times it is possible to crack, twist, tear, and break up common perspectives of time. (2) the second example is idea of childhood by giorgio agamben (2012), which presents a very curious figure: a salamander that inhabits the fresh waters of mexico. this salamander, called axolotl, belongs to a curious type of evolution called evolutionary regression. in other words, to survive the axolotl had to stay in its infantile body, and from this point develop its reproductive system. in the same direction, agamben presents a certain explanatory model of human evolution in which man would also have evolved, not from adult individuals, but from the offspring of a primate that had prematurely acquired the ability to reproduce. child to adult progression and evolutionary progress are both troubled by this example. (3) in my research with colleagues, we produced images with children and teachers in public early childhood education in brazil (leite, 2012; leite & cammarota, 2020). we observed that the images (photos and films) produced by children are marked by accidental, casual, unintentional cuts, consequences of quick looks, unfocused glances, and noises. this childlike state of images shatters linear filmic and photographic narratives of our culture. it is as if the children, far from the predetermined linearity of time, mess with our perceptions of the world. it is as if they set us as strangers in this world and create a world that is presented as blocs of sensations (deleuze & guattari, 1994). a world as such is a “a compound of percepts and affects” (p. 164); like an art piece that exists independently of the meanings and sensations individuals attribute to them, so is childhood. puer tempus: the child within the philosophy of beginning karolina szymborska my thoughts approach questions from childhood studies, a field that engages in highlighting and questioning childhood’s temporal nature. i bring those questions together with a shift caused by a philosophical dispute that took place in 19th-century children’s literature. until the 19th century, childhood identity was often shown in literature and philosophical treatises (from augustine’s de civitate dei to kierkegaard’s fear and trembling) as established in relation to the sacred or profane understanding of time. when forms of nonempirical reasoning described the child as bearing a “transcendent cognition,” children were perceived as temporal and finite. in the situation of a fundamental crisis of faith, revealed by modern philosophy and science, this way of thinking has lost its validity. a new paradigm emerged in which the child was granted messianic power and their being became infinite, although stripped of sacred connotations. this transition from secular to postsecular models of experiencing time was accompanied by a reconstruction of the temporal perceptions of a child’s being—and that required a new beginning and validation in children’s literature. thus literary discussions around the child 142 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research inherited the complexities of two intricate philosophical debates: one on the child’s finitude and the other on their rebirth through beginning. on the threshold of the 20th century, philosophy moved away from finiteness toward a new paidocentric modus i term here the “philosophy of beginning.” one of the most important features of this breakthrough was the reflection on the child’s “inner temporal consciousness” (sokolowski, 1964), conceptualizing the nature of children in relation to temporality and, in turn, attributing children’s nature as a recurring process of existential and eschatological beginnings. while the child’s inner temporal consciousness draws mainly on their individual experience of a changing image of the self, the existential and eschatological aspects emphasize the child’s archetypical temporal essence: universal and infinite. literature challenged the superposing of both tendencies, questioning the alignment between children’s agency with the sacred explanation of being in time. this transformation in modern europe triggered the establishment of a new form of “time” narrative in children’s literature that emerged from the adult genre known as the novel of time—zeitroman. this term was first used in “adult” literature by clemens brentano in the 18th century to describe an expanded form of a social novel that portrays the society of the time and its effect on the individual. zeitroman in children’s literature went in a different direction, expressing in the 18th century the awareness of time’s effect on a child’s identity and maturation, provoking the child’s perpetual return from the linear to the eternal chronotope described by bakhtin. in 20th-century children’s literature, zeitroman concentrates on showing the psychological and moral growth of the child protagonist, as an alternative model for recognizing the child’s temporal nature. however, at the beginning of the 21st century, the genre directed philosophical tensions from universal to existential concerns, depicting life and death, not in the abstract terms of the infinity versus finitude of a child’s life, but in terms of the universe of a child’s temporal consciousness. in the literary plot, a child’s being is established during temporal rites of passage: through time travel, time loop, precognition, time war, time slip, etc. these time-based encounters shape the existential and ontological dimensions of a child’s psyche, their temporal introspection, suggesting that in their subconsciousness lies a temporal “mirror stage”—paraphrasing lacan’s (2007) terminology. when the hero enters such encounters, she or he must develop tools to conceptualize themselves as a finite or infinite being and recognize their own reflection as a time-being. facing the mirror of identification, the child establishes their temporal image, integrating the fragmented chronotope of the self. this identification process introduces a new ambiguous narrative figure—puer tempus—that introduces a new mode of experiencing time consciousness. this archetype embraces the dialectic that takes place between the beginning and the end of the child’s life, epitomizing the temporal mirror stage. in this archetype, there is still a residual difference between immanence and transcendence. we see the intertwinement of the child’s present and future, underlining how children generate a conscious experience of time that affects how they perceive, think, or act. this intertwinement is best visualized in ransom riggs’ novels (e.g., miss peregrine’s home for peculiar children, 2011), as the author tries to inhabit a material reality that rejects infinity, creating an immersion in chronos like never before. it contemplates the child’s time-being and the hero’s escape from a time loop as the keys to understanding the child’s implicit temporal structure of consciousness. such depiction illustrates the child being entangled in chronos and in history, tying the child to the present, but also shows the child’s tarnished finitude. contemporary writings such as natalia sherba’s cycle time wizards or monika kowaleczko-szumowska’s gallop ’44 seem to show that the child’s being is entangled in the perspective of eternity. however, children are torn apart by history and acquire the trauma of death. to constitute self-recognition, the textual child must recover and interiorize, or reject and remodel, the sacred and profane eternal time and reestablish a connection within their beginning. in this manner, they can learn to inhabit the world and not dwell in eternity. the experience of inner temporality transforms children in literature: they choose life over death, beginning over the end. 143 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research ubuntu philosophy, relational time, and childhood norma rudolph i write from my experiences of living and learning with diverse communities in southern africa that straddle research and activism, revealing hierarchies of knowledge and colonial thinking. different visions of childhood and society emerge from different epistemologies, philosophies, cosmologies, and knowledges. the dominant global construction of childhood and schooling is entangled with the linear notions of time and progress. a relational notion of time and knowledge emerges in epistemologies of the south (escobar, 2020) that challenge the colonial view of time by finding new ways to think about time that “make strange our understandings of pasts, presents and futures” and imagine the possibility of past frustrated hopes motivating action in the present (craps et al., 2017, p. 502). nsamenang (2006) describes how human existence in african contexts is perceived as cyclical, beginning with spiritual selfhood, when the mother becomes pregnant, moving to a social selfhood, and ending with biological death, which again is the beginning of ancestral selfhood. epistemologies of the south offer a way of knowing that does not separate “thinking from feeling, reason from emotion, knowledge from caring” (escobar, 2020, p. xxxv). i understand this way of knowing and being to extend beyond the connectedness of all humans to include the living dead (frequently referred to ancestors), the yet to be born, and everything else. in indigenous cosmology, everything is connected, not only humans but all beings, including plants, rocks, rivers, sea, sky, sun, and moon. henderson (2016) vividly illustrates this by documenting children’s everyday pursuits, including collecting water and herding cattle in ukhahlhamba, south africa. she shows that “children can depict both the concrete forms of the world—flora, fauna, geologies, and waters—and the ways that these are crisscrossed with human and morethan-human relations” (ross & pentecost, 2021, p. 8, referring to henderson). western metaphysics describes “the natural” and “the social” as separate realms. however, from children’s stories of their activities, as documented by henderson, we learn that these realms are woven into and through one another and absorbed in the play of everyday life as children live it and acquire valued dispositions. henderson also describes how the daily activities of even the very young offer forms of independence. the construction of time as nonlinear in african indigenous cosmology has implications for different visions of childhood in communities across africa. time is relational and cyclical, and transitions of the soul include physical and supraphysical realms. as an example, i share here a snippet from an unpublished animation, indlela yokuphila (mayniham, 2021), in which one story about the soul’s journey is told to a group of children by an isizulu-speaking sangoma (healer) whose spirit family is the whale. the storyteller explains to the children that when your time comes you will join the ancestors in the ocean. your soul travels along the river into the ocean following the songs of your great-great grandmothers and learning much and exploring on the way. it is an endless realm of knowledge, wisdom, and wonder. when you arrive in the deep ocean, your ancestors are waiting to receive you with the greatest love, and they know exactly who you are and where you came from. you are welcomed by your great-great grandmother, and you become an ancestor. you spend a long time in the ocean until “pressing matters” need your knowledge back on earth and you are called back to the physical realm by the song of your next mother (maynihan, 2021). from this perspective, children are born with wisdom and experience of previous lives on earth and as ancestors. beliefs in reincarnation influence conceptualizations about children and their humanness, personality, and agency (einarsdottir, 2004). in many indigenous groups, from the beng of west africa to the west african papel, babies are seen as reincarnated, born with the soul of an ancestor (einarsdottir, 2004; gottlieb, 2004). babies, thus, are considered as beings (rather than human becomings) already having a particular personhood that has been 144 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research inherited at the time they are born. however, this construction of personhood exists in relations and interactions with others and is always in process rather than completely formed. for the ng’ombe in zambia, the baby has become a spiritual being when the mother feels its first kicks (ross & pentecost, 2021). as a pure spiritual being, the unborn or newborn infant can communicate between worlds, “and as such, wields considerable power” (ross & pentecost, 2021, p. 14). from this perspective, the parent-infant relations are understood to reflect the surrounding complex spiritual and social relations. in some communities, illnesses and deaths of babies are often assumed to be the ancestors’ punishment for the wrongdoings of the parents or other community members. an infant can act to restore harmonious relations, for example, by prompting a parent to apologize for an indiscretion. from a ng’ombe perspective, this capacity is not of the individual baby, but it is a relational, spiritual, and social capacity as the “baby and parents share and move each other’s emotional states” (smørholm, 2016, p. 355). given that in many communities adults generally perceive babies, even before they are born, as spiritual and social beings, this means that they are products of, and produce, relations with others (smørholm, 2016, p. 349). this conceptualization in turn influences constructions of caregiving. from an ubuntu perspective, the primary role of caregivers is understood by many to be helping the child remember who she is and what she already knows. the emphasis is on listening to children and recognizing them as spiritual beings. this does not exclude learning new skills and gaining new understandings. for the beng in west africa, young children need help to become fully human after living as “lively, energetic, and multilingual beings” (smørholm, 2016, p. 349). constructions of childhood emerging from relational notions of time challenge the globalized and universalized model of early childhood development policy and practice with its normalized ideas of agency, vulnerability, development, family, and care and invites us to think otherwise. inconclusive remarks: childhood and time as mutually affecting multiplicities camila da rosa ribeiro and zsuzsa millei readers were invited to follow the thought experiments of the authors as they moved from showing the ways in which time as progression is foundational to western educational thought or how releasing childhood from linear and sequential time removes the singularity of childhood and age norms. other thought experiments sought to highlight the “coldness” and singularity of linear time in contrast to the temporal cycles and multiple temporalities of plants and animals and children’s unconstrained time experimentations. still other thought movements decoupled the unitary child and the inner temporal consciousness of life advancing from birth to death from the profane (finite) conception of time. the last movement brought into view plural selfhoods of african indigenous cosmologies and the understanding of children as ancestors. these movements together contribute to challenging and providing alternative viewpoints to modern liberal childhood and perhaps will set off similar thought experiments that lead to the construction of new research onto-epistemologies. making strange understandings of pasts, presents, and futures, as well as sequences of childhood to adulthood and birth to death, the authors provided multiple openings by highlighting intensities, rhythms, tempos, micro movements, parallel timespaces, circularities, and finite or infinite dimensions of the time of childhood and time in childhood and children. these conceptions and perspectives signal the significance of moving our attention to the duration of childhoods as a child childing, inspiring a disposition to open-endedness and antiessentialism that cannot be reduced to one onto-epistemological engagement. we performed here a form of practice by bringing into conversation thought experiments and fieldwork analyses to bear on childhood and time as mutually affecting multiplicities. 145 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research references agamben, g. 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(2017). against methodocentrism in educational research. educational philosophy and theory, 49(11), 1055– 1065. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2016.1140015 march 2022 14 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research memories of a girl between worlds: speculative common worldings esther do lago e pretti, jieyu jiang, ann nielsen, janna goebel, and iveta silova* *coauthors’ names are presented in random order to reflect the equal contributions of each individual in producing this article. esther do lago e pretti is a phd candidate in the educational policy and evaluation program in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university. her work focuses on the relations between human and more-than-human beings in urban gardens and the worlds that can be built or entered through these places. she spent her childhood days playing outside in her parents’ backyard and her grandmother’s garden in brazil, and at night she dreamed of noisy rooms. email: edolagoe@asu.edu jieyu jiang is a phd student in the educational policy and evaluation program in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university. her research interests focus on teacher professional qualities and subjectivities in the global educational context and educational policy borrowing and travelling in an international background. she grew up in a one-child family in anqing, a small city of anhui province in china. without siblings around, she chatted with the air and dreamed about having more friends after entering school. ann nielsen, edd, is the director of the office of global education in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university. her interests in education and research have focused on teacher professional subjectivities, teacher leadership, and school leadership using visual and postqualitative methodologies. she grew up in iowa as a middle child who spent her early years teaching and engaging other beings from the sanctity of her family’s kitchen bathroom. janna goebel, phd, is an assistant professor of sustainability education in the school of sustainability at arizona state university. as an ecofeminist scholar, janna’s work focuses on the ways that education can be conceptualized beyond the human and explores how relationships among humans and the more-than-human world matter in how we approach sustaining life on earth. she spent her childhood playing in a 40-acre preserve behind her home in new jersey and, later, dreaming about playing with dolphins from her bedroom in illinois. iveta silova, phd, is a professor and the associate dean of global education in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university. her research stands at the intersections of postsocialist, postcolonial, and decolonial perspectives in envisioning education beyond the western horizon. she is especially interested in childhood memories, ecofeminism, and environmental sustainability. iveta grew up in latvia in a small town called aizkraukle. as an only child, she loved playing outside with friends and enjoyed daydreaming, especially during school hours and music lessons. as children, we were playful, imaginative, and maybe a little bit odd and wild. growing up in a one-child family in asia and europe, we learned to make friends with air, enjoyed the company of imaginary friends, and found solace in daydreams. spending time with many siblings and cousins in south america, we disappeared into our grandmother’s quiet garden during the day and roamed the noisy dreamworld at night. we sat alone in our bedrooms in north america and dreamt of the day we would greet a dolphin or teach another lesson to an invisible this article combines collective biography, diffractive analysis, and speculative fabulation to weave together the authors’ childhood memories of “common worlding.” our collective biography brings into focus how we engaged in common worlding in our childhoods through dreaming, metamorphosis, and play by tactfully moving across different worlds and learning with the human and more-than-human others we encountered. as we foreground childhood memory and its potential to reimagine pasts, presents, and futures, we explore what kind of conditions are necessary to (re)attune ourselves to the multiple worlds around us in order to maintain and nurture children’s—and our own—other-worldly connections. key words: collective biography; childhood memories; sf; diffraction; pluriversal pedagogies march 2022 15 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research class waiting for us in the bathroom. our dreams, imaginary friends, and fantastical encounters with other worlds and beings were all part of the “common worlds”—“the real life-worlds” that we inherited, shared, and cohabited with human and more-than-human others (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2016, p. 1), without hesitation or fear. as we grew older, we were often told and repeatedly reminded that our encounters with the common worlds were just a dream, a creepy fantasy, or a wild imagination. although we tried to keep the moments of common worlding protected from adults—behind closed doors, inside warm blankets, or under heavy eyelids—they were eventually relegated to our childhood, a period of life through which we had presumably “progressed” (adams, 2011, p. 89). the western culture of scientific empiricism and child developmentalism had further shut out the experiences of common worlding to our collective pasts, childhood memories, or simply imaginations. eventually, we traded in our days of common worlding and shapeshifting for days of intersecting identities of adult daughters, wives, sisters, mothers, and educators. as boundaries between different worlds continued to grow into impenetrable barriers, we feared that our childhood memories too would fade away one day, along with the remaining connections to other worlds that they had kept. but, as barad reminds us, “memory is not a matter of the past”; it “recreates the past each time it is invoked” (quoted in dolphijn & van der tuin, 2012, p. 67). it is often compared to “traffic” that flows between interconnected pasts, presents, and futures—always moving in multiple directions, although at variable rates—making possible a radical rethinking of temporal experience (keightley & pickering, 2012, p. 38). in this process, memory disrupts the concept of linear unfolding of time that presupposes the sequential progress of childhood into adulthood and instead opens space for alternative understandings of childhood—ones that are neither timed nor clocked based on biological and psychological growth (pacini-ketchabaw, 2012; tesar, 2016; tesar & koro-ljungberg, 2016) nor measured against western standards of development (burman, 2019; millei et al., 2017; silova, 2019; taylor, 2017). from this perspective, children are perceived as beings in the present rather than developmental becomings on predetermined paths to adulthood (james & prout, 2015). simultaneously, the concept of childhood itself is transformed from a noun into a verb—to child—describing an experience rather than a stage in life, “something all of us can do” (haynes & murris, 2017, p. 977; see also kennedy & kohan, 2008). childhood becomes “a possibility, a strength, a force, an intensity” (kennedy & kohan, 2008, p. 7) that is capable of resisting—and rewriting— the dominant narrative of the individual child moving along a linear developmental trajectory, separated and abstracted from the world, into powerful alternatives. our focus on childhood memory is therefore concerned less with documenting what happened in the past and more with exploring “how we actualize alternative trajectories of living” (middleton & brown, 2010, p. 241, emphasis in original). in particular, keightley and pickering (2012) explain how memory and imagination are inextricably linked “as part of the same activity within temporal consciousness” (p. 78), not only linking together past, present, and future but also enabling a process of mutual transformation of ourselves, our past experiences, and our possible futures: through imagination we develop a sense of the temporal relations between different experiences, different episodes and different stages in our lives. without this sense of temporal interconnectedness, ranging across the recollected past and the contingent present of the remembering subject, lived lives are unliveable. (p. 51) in this sense, memory research resonates with the sf genre, referring to “a potent material-semiotic sign for the riches of speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, speculative fiction, science fact, science fantasy … and string figures” (haraway, 2013, p. 9). in looping threads across multiple times and spaces, the sf practice is “a model for worlding,” where sf also stands for “so far, opening up what is yet-to-come in protean march 2022 16 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research entangled times’ pasts, presents, and futures” (haraway, 2013, p. 10, emphasis added). by bringing together childhood studies, memory research, and sf practice we thus aim to (re)animate the processes of ongoing common worlding that have been primarily associated with childhoods but have always already been a part of us, regardless of age. more importantly, childhood memories enable us to string together the “playful imaginings of what might have been or what is still to come” (keightley & pickering, 2012, p. 51), while offering important pedagogical provocations for (re)attuning to our pasts, presents, and futures in the multiple, pluriversal worlds. with the goal of revisiting our own experiences of common worlding, we came together to reflect deeply and collaboratively on the memories of our childhoods in/with the wilds.1 over the course of seven months, we practiced collective memory work to reengage our relationships with multispecies, multimattered kin (barad, 2007; chandler, 2013; haraway, 2015). in this article, using collective biographical methods (davies & gannon, 2006, 2012) and diffractive analysis (barad, 2007; davies & gannon, 2012; mazzei, 2014), we pick up the threads of our childhoods and weave together stories from our own childhood memories in a speculative thought experiment to (re)animate our experiences and relationships with more-than-human worlds and explore new pedagogical possibilities for ongoing common worlding. animating childhood memories through collective biographies and diffractive analysis memory works in multiple directions. this is something that we may have experienced in our own childhoods or read in popular children’s books and scholarly literature (see keightley & pickering, 2012; also barad, 2010; davies & gannon, 2006, 2012). memory work helps us to address and work through the many paradoxes of scholarly research, including the long-established divides between space/time, culture/nature, childhood/adulthood, reality/ imagination, and self/other. therefore, it seems only appropriate to approach this study from the perspective of a collective biography, which is located in the interstices of yet another paradox: the one “created when researchers individually and collectively put the individual, liberal humanist subject under erasure” (davies & gannon, 2012, p. 357). originally associated with feminist research (haug et al., 1987) and subsequently developed in a poststructural vein (davies & gannon, 2006; gonick & gannon, 2014), collective biography is an intimate, embodied, generative methodology where researchers are also simultaneously research subjects, working with their own memories and producing interpretations in the intersubjective spaces of their interrelations with each other and between their pasts, presents, and futures (see also millei et al., 2019). rather than a fixed methodological approach, collective biography requires the “constant undoing of method” (gonick & gannon, 2014, p. 12, emphasis added) as each research collective decides how to approach their work in terms of choosing topics, invoking memories, or writing, rewriting, and analyzing the memories (see haug et al., 1987; also davies & gannon, 2006; gonick & gannon, 2014). our research was organized in four phases. in the first phase, we formed a reading group to ground this research methodologically in the literature focusing on memory work, collective biography, and childhoods (davies & gannon, 2012). after discussing the methodological foundations for the study, in the second phase, we dove deeper into the theme of the wilds to center our discussions more specifically on childhood and childhood ontologies, and multispecies encounters in human and more-than-human worlds with the goal of reacquainting ourselves with the wilds within-beyond us. the third phase of the project called for the independent memory work of writing our childhood memories in/ with nature / other species / other worlds. once our childhood memory narratives were individually crafted, we held weekly virtual writing retreats for sharing and collectively elaborating on these memories. in phase four of the project, we shared, wrote, and rewrote our stories in an iterative process to bring out the details, bodily sensations, and the texture of memories until we were able to experience each other’s memories from inside ourselves, until march 2022 17 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research our bodies began to be affected by each other’s memories. davies and gannon (2012) describe this process vividly: the original holder of the memory writes and rewrites the memory in light of this collaborative attention to the detail until, with a collective sigh, or with tears, the assembled memory-workers say—yes, that is it exactly—we know this moment from inside itself. the story telling and writing and re-writing thus take the form of an encounter, not so much between individual subjects and discourse, though it is also that, but working with the intensities and flows that, collectively, move us. (p. 360) working with memories required us to listen to our bodies and let our bodies speak. writing our memories allowed us to remember the embodied details and sensations of past encounters and to bring them back to life in our narrations (davies & gannon, 2012). in this process, our memories appeared, not as static images in our minds or as a recollection of past experiences, but as material presences that were made alive by the emotions and embodied sensations they evoked in/with us then and also now (davies & gannon, 2012). as we read aloud and (re)read our memories collectively, we experienced moments when our bodies brought to the surface memories in their “ongoingness,” which were difficult to articulate because the lines between childhood and adulthood were no longer distinct. in such moments, memories often appeared fragmented in language and intelligibility, which was perhaps an example of “an ontological performance of the world in its ongoing articulation” (barad, 2007, p. 149). barad (2007) places this experience in a broader perspective: memory is not a replay of a string of moments, but an enlivening and reconfiguring of past and future that is larger than any individual. re-membering and re-cognizing do not take care of, or satisfy, or in any other way reduce one’s responsibilities; rather, like all intra-actions, they extend the entanglements and responsibilities of which one is part. the past is never finished. it cannot be wrapped up like a package, or a scrapbook.…; we never leave it and it never leaves us behind. (p. ix) as we collected the threads of our childhoods and shared our memories aloud, they were no longer isolated, hidden, or bound by time and space. together we were able to see and experience new pasts, presents, and futures. oftentimes the reading of one memory evoked other memories, creating an interference pattern (haraway, 1997) in each other’s bodies and memories and opening up the “possibility of a diffractive mo(ve)ment” (davies & gannon, 2012, p. 371). the iterative and collaborative approach of the re-membering inherently entangled our memories among and across each other, not as an intertwining process but as an exploration of the multiplicity of the memories (barad, 2007; davies & gannon, 2012, haraway, 2016; murris & bozalek, 2019), allowing our embodied memories to remain entangled and affecting us “in a process of becoming different” (davies & gannon, 2012, p. 361). in short, we experienced the collective biography method not as reflective but as diffractive work (see davies & gannon, 2012). diffraction is “the practice of reading insights through one another while paying attention to patterns of difference” (barad, 2011, p. 3). collectively (re)membering activates the polyhedral lens in the kaleidoscope that reveals common worlds and opens them to us. it helps us understand the multiple worlds that were entangled in our childhood memories by providing us with “a way to illuminate the complexity of the always/already entangled processes of dis/continuous becomings that make up what we are used to calling ‘world’” (thiele, 2014, p. 207). the concept of diffraction also helped us through our weaving of collective memories by “a mapping of interference, not of replication, reflection, or reproduction” (barad, 2014, p. 168) where difference in our memories, and in the worlds that we visited as children, is constitutive of those entangled worlds. the concept of diffraction was also present in our analysis of the collective biographies. in our collaborative practice, we worked to dissolve the illusion of separate, preexisting selves (davies & gannon, 2012) and did not search for sameness (mazzei, 2014). attending to mazzei (2014), our diffractive analysis of the memory stories moved away march 2022 18 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research from an attempt to reflect theory and away from a search for themes that emerged from the stories. instead, we identified entry points that invite the reader into the stories of common worlding. mazzei (2014) describes this process as reading the data “through multiple theoretical insights [moving] qualitative analysis away from habitual normative readings (e.g., coding) toward a diffractive reading that spreads thought and meaning in unpredictable and productive emergences” (p. 742). a diffractive reading of our memories allowed us to read through each other’s memories to discover how they made differences and produced situated interferences (haraway, 1992). it helped us to “resist the urge to separate in order to clarify” (thiele, 2014, p. 209) and allowed us to follow the entry points that the memories triggered in us, either together and/or separately according to what rippled in our bodies. we weaved together our childhood memories into a speculative fabulation story, highlighting connections between our encounters with other worlds—and each other—across space and time. we called this collectively written story “a girl between worlds.” a girl between worlds the girl loved daydreaming. she was really good at it. she could daydream anytime, anywhere. standing in her room by the window, staring outside. the colours blurring, the sounds fading away, the window getting foggy from her breathing. she could daydream sitting at her desk at school, listening to the teacher talking ... the teacher’s voice slowing drifting away. she could daydream riding a train, watching the trees go by, watching train stations passing by ... one, then another, then another. she could daydream singing in a choir, her voice merging with the voices of others, no longer able to tell them apart. daydreaming felt like floating into another world, into an outer space. weightless. peaceful. quiet. no thoughts rushing through her head, no noise. simply tuning out and slipping away. “are you listening?” the girl suddenly heard a voice, followed by a loud snapping of fingers inches from her face. the sound startled her. “pay attention when i am speaking!” said the teacher, with a growing irritation in her voice. and just like that, the girl was snapped back into the classroom. *** the girl liked to snap her fingers to let her students know she had arrived in class. the girl’s students faced her in their desks under the sink along the baseboard in the kitchen bathroom. at least she assumed they sat at desks. she couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there. the girl would talk to her students every day when she used the kitchen bathroom. it didn’t matter what time of day, when she sat in her large white chair, class would resume in real time with whatever was going on with the students. the girl was a little small for her teacher chair. her legs didn’t always touch the ground, but the round seat was comfortable. when the girl checked in on her students, she discussed their problems, sang songs with the students, and once in a while, solved their disputes. one night, the girl’s parents went out to a party. her older brother was babysitting her, but he was not really the best at it. even though the girl was younger, she often felt she babysat her brother. that night, the girl went to visit her class. as usual, she snapped her fingers to let the students know she had arrived. she was busy talking with her students when she heard giggling from outside. she looked up and saw her brother laughing at her. she hadn’t quite closed the door, and he could see her talking to her students. the girl was embarrassed and hurt. she looked down to get comfort from her friends, but they had disappeared. her students were gone. they never came back again, and the girl was crushed. her brother laughed and laughed at her that night. the girl was pretty sure that he knew how mean this was but she never said anything. it didn’t matter anyways. her friends were gone. she was march 2022 19 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research all alone. *** the girl spent a lot of time alone, sitting there without friends to accompany her. she was the only child in her family, and adults were always busy working, preparing meals, washing clothes, or doing other important things. they never sat or laid down during the daytime—they were always so busy. when she was alone, the girl loved to talk to the air. she knew nothing or nobody was there, only air, but she still talked. the air would always hear her crying, laughing, thinking, self-talking, grumbling, and sharing. although nothing was around her, the girl developed a habit of leaving some space for the air, pretending there was “something” there. she sat in the chair, but she would only sit in the large half of the chair and leave a little space on the other side. she lay in bed covered with a heavy quilt on snowy nights—the outside was so cold, but the space inside was warm and comfy—making some space for many little homeless animals to join her inside the warm quilt. “i am opening an animal shelter,” she said to the warm air inside as she buried her head in the quilt. “little duckling, chick, dolphin, and baby panda, you are safe and warm now! i will protect all of you and all good night.” she whispered and whispered. this would make her feel comfortable, protected, and warm. so many animals were with her, and she knew she loved them, her nonexistent little animals. “what did you just say? are you talking to yourself ? don’t do it again! it’s creepy.” her mother opened the door and came into the bedroom, but nobody answered. there was nobody in the room but the little girl who was sound asleep—small in a huge empty bed. *** sitting on the edge of her bed, she had never felt so small. her dreams had been crushed. for as long as she could remember, she had been captivated by dolphins. the girl was in awe of them. this was more than a fascination. she loved them. her room was painted to look like the ocean, she had dolphin colouring books, and, one christmas, her parents gifted her a small lamp shaped as a dolphin riding a wave. on the bottom, in her father’s handwriting, it said: “follow your dreams.” the girl knew she would grow up to work with dolphins. she thought she might become a dolphin trainer. she had been told she had a better chance of becoming a professional football player, but if she tried really hard in school, she might achieve her dream. a professional football player? the girl knew there were no women or girls who were professional football players. did this mean there was no chance that she would meet and work with dolphins someday? she loved being near the water. she and her mother, kindred spirits in their love of the sand and waves, would take afternoon walks on the beach alternating their gaze between searching for seashells in the sand and scanning for dolphins on the horizon. on this day, to the girl’s delight, there was a pod of dolphins near the sandbar. the moment had arrived. she would finally meet a dolphin. the girl and her mother walked toward the pod. the dolphins charged toward them and spun around just six feet from where they were standing. these creatures were not being playful. they were powerful. they were fishing, and the girl and her mother had wandered into their space. the girl fled back to the safety of the shore, her mother running right behind her. as she slunk into bed that evening, the girl looked longingly at the painted horizon where the sea met the sky on her bedroom wall. she turned off the soft light of her dolphin lamp, closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep with march 2022 20 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research the sound of waves echoing in her ears. *** ever since she was a girl, it took her a while to fall asleep. thoughts and sounds floated in and out of her hazy mind as she tried to wind down for the day. as she finally closed her eyes, she’d suddenly find herself immersed in an empty dark space filled with music. the instrumental sounds would start off mid-song and increase in volume like an orchestra building up, until the suddenly very loud music woke her up. as she dozed off again, the loud music would start playing again and would wake her up a few times before she was finally able to silently fall asleep. she didn’t know the music. there were just increasingly louder instrumental sounds filling her ears and her mind until they were so loud that they woke her up. as the years went by, she got used to that and didn’t think much of it. then, one night, as she fell asleep, instead of instruments, there were people talking—a chatter of which she was not part but a listener. it was as if she had entered a room filled with several people who were talking to each other, having long conversations that she just started to hear midway, and they carried on with no regard to her coming into their space. much like the music, those indistinguishable conversations increased in volume until the loud chatter woke the girl up again and again. she could never identify a voice, a word, or a sentence. there were too many people. it was too loud. at some point while falling asleep, she crossed through a loud space where people talked or music was played. some days she’d get right back to her awakened self, and some days she’d cross through and go somewhere else for the rest of the night. sometimes she wondered if one day she would be able to figure out a way to stay there a while longer and listen. speculative diffractions: (re)reading childhood memories through one another entangled in a speculative fabulation story, our childhood memories invite analyses that foreground a collaborative and participatory process of reading—and (re)reading—memories “through one another” (barad, 2014, p. 179) rather than a reduction of data like a traditional thematic or theoretical coding would require. drawing inspiration from karen barad’s (2007) concept of diffraction as a methodological practice and its extension by lisa mazzei (2014) and bronwyn davies and susanne gannon (2012), we engage in a diffractive analysis by reading insights from our memory stories through one another and following wherever they lead. as mazzei (2014) notes, such an approach “keeps analysis and knowledge production on the move” (p. 742). it takes on a rhizomatic (rather than hierarchical and linear) form, following different trajectories of children’s engagement with different worlds and beings. in this process, we pick up the threads of our memories to weave together a narrative of playfulness, dreaming and metamorphoses, tactfulness, and fragility. just like our childhood memories animated portals to other worlds (e.g., dreams, play, or physical places), the pedagogical openings that emerge through our diffractive analysis help us articulate the kinds of conditions necessary for living “well together in the more-than-human common worlds that we inherit” (common worlds research collective, 2020). following these entry points, we elaborate on the new pedagogical possibilities that emerge from speculative fabulations inspired by our childhood memories. on playfulness: the intragenerational and multispecies nature of play learning through play has long been studied in the major language of academia where researchers have been “keen to dissect, identify and categorize” play across the academic spectrum (adams, 2011, p. 28). defining childhood play as a marker of human development has become a dominant driver in pedagogical approaches to early childhood teaching and learning (adams, 2011). joanna haynes and karen murris (2017) suggest that when play is march 2022 21 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research understood through [a] binary logic, the concept of play involves the real/fantasy binary—children play at pretend, or imitate what adults do in the real world, as, for example, in playing “mummies and daddies.” conceived as such, play becomes synonymous with childhood. such a notion of play puts the activity in the service of formation, of becoming an adult. (p. 8) positioning play as something that is only available to children arbitrarily time-bounds this concept and negates “a pedagogy of emergent and transitional subjectivities” (haynes & murris, 2017, p. 2; see also adams, 2011). as we engage in collective memory work, our attention shifts to the minor language of childhood memories as pedagogical practices, reminding us how “many power producing binaries”—dream/reality, human/animal, inside/outside, work/play—“structure what counts as real learning and who and what is included and excluded” (haynes & murris, 2017, p. 7; see also adams, 2011). in this context, play and playfulness reemerge as one of the central elements of learning about and with different worlds and beings, disrupting not only the notion of a binary distinction between humans and others but also our understanding of our own place in the world(s). in our collective memories, play and playfulness transform all kinds of beings into children’s interesting playmates: a girl can teach an entire class in her bathroom and students are always eager to see their teacher; a girl can become friends with air, who is the girl’s best listener, and animals can be sheltered in warm blankets; dolphins magically transform into play companions in dreams; and every dream may have its own unique background music harmonizing with the girl’s rhythm of dreaming. playfulness enables children to walk through multiple parallel worlds. and in this process, the memories—and the worlds—simultaneously interlink and transform through play. our work with childhood memories simultaneously unravelled the complexity of our own play as children and its entanglement in our adult lives. multisensory triggers of our childhood playfulness invoked memories across our worlds through the mention of a time of day, a location, a seasonal event, or an engagement with animals creating an assemblage that exposed “a complex network of human and nonhuman agents” (mazzei, 2017, p. 680). play in this way arose as a “being and knowing that can be available, regardless of age” (haynes & murris, 2017, p. 9) and our memories served as agential cuts exposing “the possibilities for the iterative reconfiguring of the materiality of human, nonhuman, cyborian, and other such forms” (barad, 2007, p. 178). playfulness was not only woven into our memories, our memories played with each other. a spontaneous air of playfulness was inherent in our engagement with our childhood memories both for ourselves as adults and for ourselves as children. memory meetings often evoked bursts of laughter, a physical leaning into each other and excited interruptions of each other where the play embodied within our memories (re)surfaced in our own bodies. intra-actions of memories played with each other. at times, a single word in one person’s memory generated memories in others. at other times, memories from one person stirred up memories in other bodies. for example, a memory about a child travelling through a dream-world brought forth other memories among members of the group: it reminds me of being asleep but waking up in a dream but unable to open my eyes and not knowing how that is occurring. i also have experienced the feelings of being confused in which worlds, especially when i just woke up from an impressive dream. this is an in-between moment—two worlds are both real and clear, but i cannot separate from any one of them immediately. writing this article itself felt like play as we realized how remembering and revisiting our memories activated playfulness across time and space. play was no longer time-bound to childhood nor were our memories of play march 2022 22 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research “over.” it afforded us the opportunity to engage in an ongoing reconfiguration of our selves and our common worlds too. on metamorphoses: dreaming and waking in different worlds there is a dream-like nature to childhood memory stories. in this speculative reimagining of our collective memories, dreams appear as portals through which we can enter and exit different worlds, as well as a space—and time—for transformations that blur distinctions between day and night and between dreaming and waking life. like a reflection of the moon in water and flowers in the mirror, this interpretation of the dream world refuses the independent existence of other worlds and draws clear distinctions between human’s reality, imagination, other beings’ worlds, and even rationality and emotions. from this perspective, other worlds or “illusions” are produced by the human mind and they cannot exist without humans and human mind activities. this interpretation further requires ontological differentiation between human and nonhuman, facts and imaginations, and real and dream worlds. however, the sf memory narrative about the girl’s encounters suggests that dreams may open up other worlds instead of illusory nonexistence. dreams create a parallel world in simultaneous existence to the waking world, but the only way to enter this space is to temporarily leave the space that our awakened body occupies, and even abandon the shape of our bodies, to float weightlessly, peacefully, and quietly in a different world. the world of dreams and the waking world share our memories, laughs, feelings, experiences, pressures, communications, wishes, and even more than those. dreams help us store our valuable but subtle ideas silently and present them when we are ready to enter that world. in the sf imagining of the girl’s encounters, dreaming is a speculative thought experiment. in a dream world, the girl takes the train seeing trees passing by and sings in a choir; she can become a professional football player, a dolphin trainer, and open an animal shelter at the same time; she builds intimate relationships with lovely dolphins and plays with them in the sea; she commands the attention of a whole class; she shuttles back and forth in the spaces and worlds where she is willing to stay. those experiences may not come true in this world filled with reality, but if you access it, the dream world will keep them real and vibrant, never fading away. dreaming is also a space of transformation, which is most vividly illustrated by a butterfly dream of zhuangzi, an ancient chinese philosopher. zhuangzi once dreamed of turning into a butterfly and later, after waking up, was unable to figure out whether he was dreaming of being a butterfly or whether a butterfly was dreaming of being zhuangzi (see roberts, 1979). zhuangzi’s dream blurs the boundary between illusions and reality, as well as between the human and more-than-human worlds. similar to experiences of dreaming in many indigenous cultures, the fluidity between many worlds does not merely exist in illusory imagination and can be achieved through our own transformation or metamorphosis (abram, 2012; silova, 2020; warner, 2007). zhuangzi’s dream reflects the integral onto-epistemological view of inseparable and interrelated transformations of multiple worlds and beings. in this sense, although there are clear distinctions and differentiations among entities—whether beings or worlds—we are not “making invidious distinctions” (hall & ames, 1998, p. 58). furthermore, these worlds and beings also transform as they interweave within each other instead of impacting each other in isolation. in our sf memory narrative, the girl has an unerring instinct for her own transformation and that of other beings in multiple worlds, because she sees and acknowledges the interconnectedness of different worlds and beings within them. through such transformations, the girl becomes an equal and tactful listener in other worlds—she passes by the noises, feels the wind, enjoys the harmony with animals, pours out her secrets to her class, and communicates with music. she also transforms herself. when the girl is sitting at her desk in the march 2022 23 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research classroom at her school, she is a child “—but not only” (de la cadena, 2014, p. 256, emphasis in original). the desk is a train, and she is a passenger whizzing by the trees. when she visits the bathroom, the girl is transformed into a teacher in front of a class. when she appears to be alone, or feels that she is alone, she realizes that she can never be alone for she has the air with her always. there is no distinction between the observed and the observer, subjective and objective, or the girl’s dreams/memories and the authors’ dreams/memories. there is no hierarchy and superiority among beings and other worlds, and the girl does not feel upset for being in a dream rather than awake nor for becoming a dolphin instead of a god. she is just excited about entering the dream world and metamorphosing there. she may transform into one of the “others” and become a part of the events and activities to continue the unfinished story in other multiple worlds. she may also just scurry by and catch a glimpse of multiple worlds as an outsider passing by. on tactfulness: expanding awareness and attuning with other worlds remembering encounters with other worlds brings into focus the importance of expanding our awareness, of opening up our senses, of attuning to other worlds, and of learning to see beyond what immediately meets the eye (abram, 2012; jensen et al., 2016; rose, 2013). it may feel like drifting moments, like floating and letting go, because one is moving to a state of being that allows openness to multiple senses, to what else is there, to an awareness beyond vision, and beyond the immediate incitement of this reality (abram, 2012). the expansion of awareness is a useful thinking tool to “resist the bifurcation between reality and fiction” (jensen et al., 2016, p. 165), meaning resisting the idea of leaving the “real” world to enter another, supposedly fictional world. considering other worlds as fictional, especially when focusing on the multiple worlds explored in our childhoods, may be working to maintain the ontological duality that separates them in western scientific discourse. our perception of other worlds may therefore be a matter of how open we are to those worlds, depending on how much our awareness is expanded or contracted. jensen et al. (2016), in a discussion of spirit worlds in japanese ontograph, argue that worlds can be animated if we attune to them. minakata kumagusu, a japanese scientist, calls this a “tactful” encounter and “a mode of attunement,” making hitherto invisible beings and powers perceivable (jensen et al., 2016, p. 149). for jensen et al. (2016), we don’t leave or enter other worlds, we carefully tune into worlds, and what follows “is a process of mutual interference” (p. 154). jensen et al. discuss how the existence of other worlds can be perceived by “learning to be affected by different entities and relations” (p. 164), and how other worlds are activated by those same relations based on attunement. our sf childhood memory stories imagine how this may occur: a girl may tune out of the physical reality through dreaming, daydreaming, or playing and expand her awareness to tune into other worlds, causing her to be entangled with, be affected by, and sometimes interfere with those other real worlds she activates. rose’s “expansion of awareness,” jensen’s “attunement,” and abram’s “falling through space” represent different moments of the same state. the moments when the girl entered the space that was filled with music and chatter felt like a seemingless floating state, as if she had just stumbled upon this room, this world where things were already going on. similarly, the girl could daydream easily at any point and had developed the ability to dim her bodily senses to tune out of spaces she didn’t want to be in and to drift, unbothered, into more desirable timespaces/ realities. likewise, a girl passionate about dolphins activated a world where she was surrounded by dolphins, where she loved dolphins and was loved back by them. in all cases, the girl’s awareness shifted, blurring the supposed boundaries between the rational awareness of the present and other possibilities of existence. in our memories, the girl was able to pass through (un)consciousness states, to inhabit becoming-zones that allowed her to tune into other worlds and intra-act with other beings in a process of mutual interference (barad, 2007; jensen et al., 2016). march 2022 24 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research jensen et al. (2016) explain that to have such encounters in and with other worlds, one needs “tact,” an ability to navigate life as it unfolds as an “interweaving of visible and invisible webs” (p. 159). much like the worlds visited by the girl in our collective memory work, the existence of spirit worlds and other “mysterious workings of the universe” discussed by jensen et al. (2016, p. 161) falls outside of the world of concrete, material things, which is accepted and explained by western science. therefore, jensen et al. (2016) argue that in order to perceive and grasp such worlds, one needs to rely on something other than conscious rationality; one needs tact: tact can be seen as the limit point where that which one has consciously learned encounters worldly surprises that go beyond this learning. it concerns the cultivation of a receptive attitude toward the surprises of (nonhuman) things; even things that might lie hidden in plain view. (p. 162) in our memories, tact may induce a heightened attentiveness that allows the girl to notice and encounter beings that exist in ways that cannot be explained rationally. when the girl used her expanded awareness to visit her classroom in the bathroom, tact allowed her to notice the students who were there and to encounter her classroom waiting for her. she was often in that bathroom and sometimes forgot that her class was under the sink. but as soon as she remembered, she was able to tune in and activate the world in which her students were waiting for her. or when the girl wandered into the dreamworld, tact allowed her to walk through it curiously but quietly. listening to the hum of indistinguishable conversations, she did not seem to be bothered by her inability to comprehend these conversations or by being unnoticed in the space she was passing through. in another memory, in a different space and time, the girl shared her world with air, always leaving a little space for air besides her, whether sitting on a chair or lying in her bed under a heavy blanket. the girl’s heightened attentiveness animated various worlds, many of which she visited regularly, and sometimes intentionally. the girl’s expanded awareness allowed her to notice and encounter other beings that were there but that were made accessible to her by the tactful activation of those worlds. curiously though, the girl’s inability to understand the conversations and recognize the music in the loud room could also be related to how tact works. as jensen et al. (2016) explain, tact may or may not change what occurs in other worlds, meaning that in some worlds “tact is required not only to notice but also to be noticed” (p. 164). perhaps the girl in the loud room noticed that other world but was not noticed by it. on fragility: when boundaries become impenetrable barriers in crossing worlds we wander curiously but cautiously into other worlds—the worlds of plants and animals, spirits and ancestors, invisible friends and fantastical beings, daydreams and night dreams. in our childhood memories, the boundaries between these worlds are porous and permeable, sometimes separated only by a blurry vision, a fleeting sensation, a shadow, a sound, or a bathroom door. we remember crossing these boundaries effortlessly as children, slipping in and out of different worlds while taking walks, playing, studying, sleeping, or going to the bathroom. sometimes we stumble upon—and unintentionally intrude into—worlds where human presence may not be welcome or may not be what we, humans, imagined it to be. in such moments (like in the memory of the encounter between the girl and the dolphin), we are reminded that we are just visitors there. although our worlds are interconnected, they are distinct from each other. we intuitively know that we need to tread these worlds carefully so as not to disturb the delicate order of the pluriverse and the multitude of worlds within it. a girl who shares her world with air intuitively knows that she needs to protect it from adults, especially from her parents. when her mom enters the room, irritated by hearing the girl talking to air again and asking her to stop because it is creepy, the girl pretends she is sleeping. by pretending that she is fast asleep, she protects the world of air from an unwanted intruder. a girl entering a march 2022 25 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research dreamworld is careful not to share her night wanderings with adults, perhaps anticipating that her dreams may be dismissed by adults as just that, only dreams. but the fragility of the boundaries between the different worlds is not always intuitively felt or known to children. a girl who enters the bathroom to talk to her class is so excited about the encounter that she forgets to close the door behind her one day. her lively conversation with the invisible class is overheard by her older brother, who “laughs and laughs” at her all night long. crushed, hurt, and embarrassed, the girl returns to the bathroom that night hoping to see her friends and be consoled by them, but nobody is there. her friends are all gone and they never return. what appears to be simple laughter or an off-the-cuff remark dismissing children’s stories of unseen worlds and invisible friends—and labelling them creepy, weird, or just “a product of the child’s imagination” (adams, 2011, p. 21)—can shut the doors to other worlds forever. but it is not other worlds closing their doors to humans; rather, it is humans who refuse to see these unseen worlds, building the barrier higher and higher. as years pass by, these entrances to other worlds—doors, windows, sounds, or beams of light—may too forget that they once connected different worlds. and then, the boundaries between different worlds become impenetrable barriers, separating worlds and the beings within them. losing connection with other worlds does not necessarily mean that these worlds vanish, or even that they lose importance (jensen et al., 2016). as long as these worlds remain real to children (or adults), their “realness” gives them significant meaning (adams, 2011, p. 21). from this perspective, our capacity to encounter and engage with other worlds depends on our-selves. commenting on encounters with the japanese spirit worlds, jensen et al. (2016) suggest that whether or not we meet spirits in everyday life depends on who we are: “inasmuch as ‘we’ are middle-of-the-road westerners, including would-be ethnographers of spirit worlds, perhaps it is true to say that we tend to ‘look in vain’” (p. 156, emphasis in original). they explain that “a resolutely material focus” that aims to “steer clear of the problem posed by supernatural being” is neither adequate nor sufficient for engaging with other worlds (jensen et al., 2016, p. 156). what is required is a modification of “the bodily and perceptual capacities” in ways that allow for interaction with spirit ecologies. in other words, there is “an ontological dimension to ‘seeing’ aside from what immediately meets the eye” (jensen et al., 2016, p. 156). looking back at childhood memories, we suggest that childhood ontology—even within the western rationality confines—enables one to wander along “a temporal as well as a spatial edge” (abram, 2012, p. 26), where subtle boundaries between different worlds are not yet fossilized into impenetrable barriers, animating not only us but also the very entrances into different worlds. in lieu of conclusions: imagining pedagogical possibilities for common worlding children live simultaneously in multiple worlds: “worlds of magic and mystery which often stand in stark contrast to their parents’ world which seems dominated by mundane daily routines” (adams, 2011, p. 12). through school (and with age), these worlds often grow apart even further, sometimes fading into the background of adult lives or disappearing altogether into childhood memories. yet, this does not mean that other worlds—with all of their magic and mystery—disappear, or that we lose the ability to engage in common worlding beyond our lived childhoods. the collective biographical nature of our research and resulting speculative fabulation—deliberately approached through the diffractive practice—have illustrated the interconnectedness and interdependence of common worlds across time and space. as the practice of collective biography wove us together and apart, it (re)connected us with worlds that may have become unseen or inaccessible to our adult selves. it also helped to (re)animate our selves to be able to notice again—and be noticed by—other worlds and beings. the assemblage of childhood memories into a work of speculative fabulation was a deliberate act, deterritorializing ourselves from the major language of childhood studies and qualitative methodology while opening the space march 2022 26 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research to imagine differently what might have been or what is yet to come. drawing on the work of haraway (2016), barad (2007), mazzei (2017), and others, this approach allowed us to animate relationships among memories of our childhood experiences where “concepts resonated with other concepts, perhaps with existing concepts, establishing relations with others, thus laying out the plane on which they converged” (mazzei, 2017, p. 676). we realized that our childhood memories wove together in threads that came from “many kinds of worlds, many ontologies, many ways of being in the world, many ways of knowing reality” (querejazu, 2016, p. 3, emphasis added). we also (re)connected with these memory threads continuing to weave into our adulthoods—sometimes entangled, sometimes fragile, but always intense and intensive. we drew upon the playfulness of our memories; we were open to metamorphoses and changes that created connections to other worlds; we tactfully navigated the memories as they emerged within and among us, and we exposed the fragility of memory stories when they were partial, difficult to explain, or dependent on our recollections of past events and experiences. as we followed the threads of our memories into the pedagogical literature, we found that they often diffracted from the major literature of education practices and pedagogies that continues to insist on human exceptionalism and “enact onto-epistemological divides through education and schooling, separating humans from other species and other worlds” (silova, 2020, p. 141). noting that our memories were “mapping where the effects of difference appear” (barad, 2007, p. 72, emphasis in original; see also jackson & mazzei, 2012), we attempted to map differences while articulating new analytical questions and pedagogical possibilities that would enable and encourage the practice of common worlding. among many conditions necessary for common worlding, our memories brought into focus the importance of playfulness and tactfulness. for example, through playfulness, children (and adults) may recognize the complexity and uniqueness of beings and worlds in their own imaginative and equal ways. furthermore, playfulness entails the intention of exploring multiple worlds without deliberately refusing others, keeping open the possibility of (re)connecting with other worlds at any time. similarly, tactfulness extends and connects to this awareness and sensitivity of engaging with other worlds and beings. it allows receptivity to attune to the visible and invisible worlds that surround us both as children and as adults. more importantly, common worlding requires the capacity for the transformation of our selves. whether through dreams, play, or imagination, the transformation or metamorphosis is a process of “reanimating our selves”—a practice of moving beyond the narrow confines of rationality and autonomy of our modern “selves” and becoming “entirely a part of the animate world[s] whose life swells within and unfolds all around us” (abram, 2017, p. 3, emphasis added; see silova, 2020). as we step into these worlds—whether by chance or intentionally—we (re)gain the capacity to child once again—with full intensity and without any restriction of age—rewriting the dominant narratives of the individual and autonomous child into powerful alternatives of common worlding. and if the connections to other worlds become fragile and fractured at any time, we know that we can always turn to our childhood memories to (re)member and (re)animate ways of being and becoming with our common worlds. just as we did here through the collective memories of “a girl between worlds.” 1 this research was initially inspired by an online gathering of “the wilds: beyond climate justice,” which took place from may 31 to june 4, 2020. it also drew inspiration from the “reconnect/recollect” project, an international collective biography project that focused on the memories of childhood experiences during the cold war, bringing into public view alternative and multiple personal histories that have the potential to transfigure divisions into connections in new ways. march 2022 27 vol. 47 no. 1 journal of childhood studies articles from research references abram, d. 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(2007). fantastical metamorphoses, other worlds. oxford university press. 99 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research timescapes in childhood memories of everyday life during the cold war mnemo zin and camila da rosa ribeiro mnemo zin is a composite name for zsuzsa millei (faculty of education and culture, tampere university, finland, and department of education, communication, and learning, university of gothenburg, sweden), iveta silova (arizona state university), and nelli piattoeva (tampere university). by adopting a collective name, we foreground our entangled, perpetual becoming-with as researchers and human beings who refuse to single out or rank our contributions. our collective name is inspired by the figure of mnemosyne from greek mythology, goddess of memory and mother of the nine muses. spanning almost ten years, our research examines childhood memories through the collective biography method, which contributes to writing alternative histories and informs our current thinking about (post)socialist and (de)colonial pasts, presents, and futures. email: iveta.silova@asu.edu camila da rosa ribeiro is a doctoral researcher working interdisciplinarily, intersecting decolonial thinking, posthumanism, memory studies, and performance pedagogy. her phd dissertation explores relationships between time and subjectivity, specifically how they become entangled to produce visions of futures. she uses collective biography and collective artistic practices to explore how futures are produced in memory accounts of people raised in postcolonial places. during the cold war, the political control and management of time was critical in a global race for political and economic domination. linear, future-oriented, and irreversible temporalities were enforced to accelerate the transformation of social life and landscapes on both sides of the iron curtain. from five-year plans in socialist countries to economic rationalism in capitalist states, the pursuit of modern(ist) futures entailed unprecedented levels of standardization, mechanization, administration, and synchronization in the management of time, leaving little to chance (scott, 1998). stemming from the assumption that humans were fully in control of their own destiny, both socialist and capitalist modernities strived to establish “a socioeconomic temporality seemingly emancipated from natural time ... from the cycles of weather and seasons and the limited power of organic—human and nonhuman—work” (folkers, 2021, p. 228). in all spheres of life—from factories and collective farms to schools and family life—the goal was to bracket the natural environment and control human conditions in order to propel societies toward new modern(ist) futures. in this article, we explore different experiences of time, which we encountered as children and narrated in our own memories as adults. in a “tyranny of time” over childhood, the modernist quest to control time also colonized childhood: developmental trajectories were mapped onto children’s lives in a “rigid production schedule” and children were expected to act with clocks (wien, 1996, p. 377; pacini-ketchabaw, 2012). in particular, a chronological and sequential order of modern western epistemologies located childhood at the beginning of human life, which was organized in stages and ended with puberty (burman, 2021; tesar et al., 2016). childhood was also implicated in a different form of during the cold war, linear and future-oriented temporalities were enforced to accelerate social transformation on both sides of the iron curtain. despite efforts to control time by bracketing complex human conditions, children were routinely engaged in everyday activities that followed different rhythms. building on barbara adam’s notion of timescapes and drawing on collective biography research, this article examines different temporal experiences through childhood memories of harvesting in a forest, a family garden, and a collective farm. these memories reveal emotionally intense—embodied and embedded— temporal experiences of children entangled within timescapes of multiple and sometimes contradictory dimensions of human and more-than-human times. key words: collective memory; childhood; time; harvest; timescape 100 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research colonization in which colonized populations were framed as children by mapping their cognitive capacities on the lower rungs of human development (burman, 2021; murris & kohan, 2021). closely intertwined with modern human and humanity’s development, time and childhood thus became the subject of intense control. during the cold war, for example, state socialist societies governed childhood and time so intensely that childhood—and real children—came to represent an iconic image of the future as a generation a step closer toward communism (silova, millei, & piattoeva, 2017). although children’s lives were simultaneously regulated by the “physical and biological circles that go beyond human agency” (shahjahan, 2018, p. 10) as well as nature’s rhythms (silova, 2019), modern technological and scientific development aimed to tame nature’s unpredictability, nature’s cycles, cosmic rhythms, and children’s (vital) biological rhythms in an attempt to (re)align the sequencing of time with human plans for a predetermined future. although the enforcement of modern linear temporality aimed to act as a “steam iron” that flattened “the temporal folds, knots, and wrinkles of geological time” (folkers, 2021, p. 228), it failed to create a perfectly smooth temporal surface for modernity’s projects to unfold upon. furthermore, the fall of the berlin wall represented both the turbulent opening of geopolitical space and the simultaneous “awareness of temporal velocities and incongruities” on both sides of the iron curtain (walker, 1993, p. 3; see also mckay, 2016). the effects of these incongruities intensified in the decades following the end of the cold war, making visible the impossibility of the modern(ist) horizon of progress. what previously appeared to be an open horizon of infinite progress and development, had already, during the last decades of state socialism, turned into “the sinister prospect of ecological obligations” (folkers, 2021, p. 238) and “accumulated injuries” (mah & wang, 2019)—from exploitation and poverty to environmental degradation, toxification, and illness—all in the name of progress. while acknowledging coercive violence inherent in modern(ist) temporalities, we are less interested in discussing time as a disciplinary technology (foucault, 1977) or its role in regulating, managing, and controlling human bodies and land. rather, we aim to examine the temporal incongruencies—the dense folds, knots, and wrinkles of time—in an effort to consider possibilities for alternative temporal imaginaries that have always existed beyond the linear, irreversible, and teleological chronology of socialist modernity. in particular, we will focus on barbara adam’s (2008) notion of timescapes to understand the relationships, interdependencies, and embeddedness of “the complex multifaced temporal domain that is inseparable from its spatial and material expression” (p. 10). furthermore, we will use a number of related concepts in our interpretations of memories to highlight the diversity of the context of time, including tim ingold’s (1993, 2017) discussion of taskscapes and deborah bird rose’s (2012) attention to the “multispecies knots of time” that tie together the human body and landscape as perpetually coevolving. combined, these different perspectives bring into focus “the generations of living things, ecological time, synchronicities, intervals, patterns, and rhythms, all of which are quite legitimately understood as forms of time” (rose, 2012, p. 128; see also adam, 1998). more importantly, they enable us to see modern humans, not as independent shapers of the land’s surface and its future (no matter how much they attempted to inscribe these roles in five-year plans), but as beings entangled with the land, their lives being inseparable from an ecological and geological landscape of the earth and its more-than-human inhabitants. using the collective biography approach, our collaborative international and interdisciplinary research project “reconnect/recollect” examined childhood memories of everyday life during the cold war. in collective biography research, participants recall and analyze memories generated in a group together (e.g., davies & gannon 2006; millei, silova, & gannon, 2019; silova et al., 2018; zin & gannon, 2022). childhood memory stories connect private and public remembering, as well as individual and collective interpretations (millei et al., 2019). working with memories, we explored how we “participated in our own past experience” (haug et al., 1987, p. 35), focusing on the commonalities and differences in the remembered practices and emotions of our own childhoods. in this 101 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research process, we focused on how childhoods are contoured by the “tyranny of time” and the associated discourses and practices of progress and development, while being aware of other discourses, silences, and openings to give way to alternative interpretations. as we delved into the analysis of our childhood memories to explore time and temporality, we noticed a series of memories related to harvests and harvesting, taking place in the forest, family orchards and gardens, and collective farms, which were charged with intense emotions. these were often experiences of urban children who found themselves in unfamiliar surroundings (e.g., rural or agricultural landscapes) and engaging in unfamiliar tasks (e.g., working on collective farms, in family gardens, or spending time together with their grandparents collecting berries or mushrooms in the forest). not only were these spaces described as being “in the middle of nowhere” in childhood memories, but the experiences themselves were often described as dull, monotonous, slow, or never ending. memories also carried strong emotions associated with these activities, including feelings of being angry, upset, scared, ashamed, or bored, and sometimes even provoked crying. we decided to explore these memories further to understand what these memory stories might signal in terms of children’s experiences of different temporalities. by bringing attention to these different experiences of time in memory stories, our goal is to make unfamiliar the modern(ist) narratives of linear progress and to make strange the modern(ist) ideal of the capitalist and socialist landscapes as objects of technical development devoid of the complex human and more‐than‐human dimensions. timescape as a methodology problematizing time as a “linear linking of past to future,” adam (2008) explains that it is “a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that involves biographical time, which covers that lifespan from birth to death, generational time, which provides links and attachments across generations of kinship relations and historical time, locating individual and family lives in the wider frames of external events, environments and political landscapes” (p. 7). the concept of timescape emphasizes the complexity and multidimensionality of time, highlighting how it is more than linear or divisible. timescape has a number of irreducible elements that together with biographical, generational, and historical time construct a timescape. the elements of the timescape include: • time frame—bounded, beginning and end of day, year, lifetime, generation, historical/geological epoch • temporality—process world, internal to system, aging, growing, irreversibility, directionality • timing—synchronization, coordination, right/wrong time • tempo—speed, pace, rate of change, velocity; intensity: how much activity is performed in given timeframe • duration—extent, temporal distance; horizon: no duration = instantaneity, time point/moment • sequence—order, succession, priority: no sequence = simultaneity, at same time • temporal modalities: past, present and future—memory, perception/experience and anticipation. (adam, 2008, pp. 7–8) adam explains that when several of “these elements are brought together we begin to see patterns of rhythmicity, periodicity and cyclicality” (p. 8). moreover, the elements of time do not operate in isolation but implicate each other. they do not necessarily add up to a coherent whole, and the more elements are involved, the more difficult it is to establish compatibility. 102 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research experiencing incompatibility as different elements come together might be what child protagonists in memories describe as feelings of anger, frustration, or dullness. adam’s (2008) analysis grants us granular theoretical and methodological lenses into the study of time and helps foreground the sticky nature of time and the time of nature, that is, time’s inseparability from space and matter (adam, 2004). elsewhere adam (2005) discusses the common understanding of time in relation to nature understood as calendar and clock time. this singular understanding of time allowed the inclusion of the land’s productivity in socialist five-year plans. searching time in memories through granular lenses shows, as adam (2005, p. 8) explains, that the environment is “not merely matters of space but fundamentally temporal realms, processes and concepts. their temporality, furthermore, is far from simple and singular.” the modern attempts at time management have sought to streamline human and natural times and to disentangle human time from space and body to make it “truly” abstract (see adam, 2004, referring to paul virilio, p. 130). however, in daily practice, nothing was replaced but merely changed or overshadowed, adding more elements to the timescape rather than hollowing it out (adam, 2004). this layeredness may cause clashes, such as when children need to adjust to the tempo of their working parents or school schedules, or, as our stories show, tension emerges when the lifespan of a growing plant does not coincide with the timing of the school year. the complexity of time however is not given; rather in studies of time it is determined by the chosen temporal frame, and the combination of temporal elements selected, which then delimit what will be possible to see in the analysis. for instance, adam (2008) exemplifies how a narrower temporal frame of the minutiae of everyday life in a school day foregrounds the linear sequence of events in time, while a wider perspective, such as a whole school year, might also expose recurring cycles and rhythms. we therefore proceed in our interpretation of memories by interweaving the broader time context with everyday events and other temporalities. we also identify elements of the timescapes that might not be immediately recognizable if only the event in the memory was kept in our analytical focus. harvesting blueberries and lingonberries in the forest in the summers, the girl’s family left their home in the city of luleå, northern sweden, to go to her mother’s new husband’s parents’ home in what seemed to be a remote place in the north of finland. it was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest and gravel roads. the dense forest with its fir and pine trees made her feel isolated, trapped, and as if it were going to eat her up. now and then, her mother forced her and her sibling to go into the forest to pick blueberries and lingonberries. they had to do it by hand, and with the blueberries, her hands and legs got all blue and sticky, and it was hard to wash it off. the sticky thing from the blueberry was not even good to lick from the fingers. picking berries in the forest was scary. it was as if the dense forest never ended, and she was always afraid of getting lost and never being found. she had heard stories about that: people getting lost and never found. that scared her. she always felt a huge relief when she got out of the forest, back to the road and into the yard of the house. the memory about picking berries in a forest portrays a timescape that is brought together by ecological and social relations and the distinct temporalities of human and more-than-human inhabitants. the merging of different timescape elements produces a deeply felt response as the girl becomes disoriented in both space and time. the spatiality of berry picking is not delimited by a clearly mapped, well-known landscape. movement through the forest is disorienting as it is determined by the berry bushes’ abundance or scarcity and the girl’s pace of picking the berries. the girl is overwhelmed by her inability to demarcate the forest’s boundaries, which also confuses her sense of time: if the forest never ends, when, if ever, will her task be completed? it seems the berry picking does not have a timeframe. the direction of the movement is as unknown to the girl as the time she is spending on the task. 103 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research the timescape emerges as unfixed or limitless. unlike school time with its distinct beginning and end, its division into standard-length lessons, the experience of picking berries seems infinite. time and space fold into each other, leaving the girl with no temporal or spatial anchor and causing a strong emotional response marked by fear, anger, anxiety, and a strong desire to return to the predictability and certainty of her urban life. the plants in the forest bring a different element of time to the timescape. they live at a different tempo. trees and berries grow in an asynchronous symbiosis. the growth of trees unfolds over a span of decades and centuries, composing a dense forest whose timeframe and change is hard to discern in the short span of the girl’s visit time. the berries’ life cycle is shorter and, from a human perspective, perhaps more clearly composed of distinct, visible sequences scripted by human consumption of berries tied in with their timing of ripening. human’s attention to growing plants is determined by their extractive value. the intensity of the forest captures human attention during spring and the ripening season. trees offer protection for berries, and somewhere beneath the surface their roots interweave, sharing nutrients and mingling with insects, fungal threads, and microbial life. their cohabitation is composed of the rhythms of changing cosmos, seasons and weather conditions, soil richness, water, gradations of light, the biological rhythms and life expectancies of coexisting plants and animals. for the girl in the story, perhaps due to the unknown elements of time foreign to the linear and predictably sequenced urban life and school-time, the cohabitation experienced in the multiple timescape elements within the forest environment is not evident. more-than-human species seem to exist in a different time to her; not understanding them and their proximity might even be scary for her. she does not consider her own well-being as dependent on the nutrients offered by berries. just as berries depend on soil, microbes, fungi for nutrition, or trees for protection from excess sun, the girl too is part of this relationality that she is not aware of. in the modernist idea of nature—dismembered into discrete elements with some becoming conceived of as “natural resources” to be subjected to human manipulation and control (merchant, 1980; scott, 1998)— nature’s more‐than‐human dimension is rejected, including the agency of its other‐than‐human inhabitants and their codependence on each other. the mother imposes a task on the girl to collect berries in the forest during their summer break. the timing of the berries’ ripening gives reasons for picking. the girl is taken by surprise: her mother made her go to the forest only “now and then,” signalling unpredictability of the task that probably interrupted the girl’s other plans for the day. she is not aware of the cyclical time and rhythms of the seasons defining the timing of these tasks. school or work schedules are human designed and governed. the growth of berries in the forest is neither dictated by nor adhering to the scientifically modified approaches of growing fruits and vegetables on farms where plants are scheduled to ripen uniformly and in a sequenced manner to provide food all through the year. and yet, the thread of mechanized nature haunts the story, as the narrator accentuates how the girl picks berries with her bare hands. the berry juice is described as a “leaking thing” that stains her entire body causing disgust and marking her further alienation from the surroundings of the forest. picking berries by hand, as opposed to by machinery, puts humans literally “in touch” with more-than-human worlds, leaving enduring marks on them (e.g., stained hands from the juice of blueberries and lingonberries). the berries and the mother create the temporal modality of the future. through the berries ripening over the coming years along the cycle of seasons, the linked tasks of the girl to collect and clean the berries and the mother to preserve them, and later on their family enjoying the berry jam during the nongrowing seasons, together produce a synchronization of plant and human tasks. the berries thus connect present and future, as well as different seasons and tasks performed throughout the year. planning for cold winters, when nutritious food is unavailable or too expensive, the mother conserves berries to maintain a healthy diet and protect the family from colds in her 104 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research roles of a caring mother and a prudent wife. illness would disrupt the family’s everyday routines, determined by standardized work and school times. berries thus mediate by bringing nature’s temporality into the family’s life while simultaneously helping the family to synchronize with the temporalities of their urban lives later in the year. as such, the very acts of picking and preserving berries simultaneously bring attention to the “multispecies knots of time,” signalling a silent acknowledgment that “all living things owe their lives not only to their forebears but also to all the other others that have nourished them again and again, that nourish each living creature during the duration of its life” (rose, 2012, pp. 130–131)—blueberries and lingonberries included. off from school to harvest cucumbers it was a gloomy, gray day in early fall. but for the girl there was a bright side to it. school was cancelled and instead the children piled up in a big bus that took them to the farm fields on the outskirts of the city. it was a day to help the collective farm pick the last harvest of cucumbers. it was wet and cold, but it did not matter much, because the kids were excited to skip school and spend the day together outside. the instructions from the collective farm worker who was assigned to supervise the children were strict and clear: “take metal buckets and begin collecting the cucumbers. leave behind large, overgrown ones, because they are too big to be used by anyone. only collect the medium and small sized cucumbers. once the bucket is full, bring it back and empty it into a large box.” the supervisor stood there counting the buckets of collected cucumbers to increase productivity. it felt like a competition. the cucumbers were cold and wet. the leaves of the plants were prickly. the buckets full of cucumbers were heavy. why didn’t she take the gloves her mother suggested earlier this morning? why is time moving so slowly? what to do with the large cucumbers? just leave them behind? this just did not sound right. making sure that neither the collective farm supervisor nor the teacher saw them, the kids smashed a few big cucumbers against a huge rock. the cucumbers exploded everywhere, fresh smell and cold juice landing on the kids’ faces. this definitely gave a great feeling of satisfaction and added some entertainment to an otherwise boring day. but the supervisor noticed it soon, so the secret fun activity was abruptly interrupted. it was just the beginning of the day. how would they survive the rest of the boring day? the big, overgrown cucumbers were still there, peeking through the leaves, waiting to be picked up. what to do? then another idea. why not hide the big cucumbers in the middle of the bucket, between the small ones on the bottom and the top? then, the bucket would fill in fast—super fast!—and the productivity would increase, too. surely the supervisor would be happy! another great moment of fun and entertainment. but then, caught in the act again. scolded and shamed, the girl and her friends went back to picking the cucumbers. still a few more hours left and a large field ahead of them. the big, overgrown cucumbers were everywhere, staring at them. not letting them pass by. surely, there is another way to use them. what will it be? and children continued to explore new solutions. cucumbers are growing on a large monoculture plantation. the timing of their ripeness is not synchronized: if they are not checked and collected regularly, they will grow too large. to synchronize the harvest process requires adjusting the timing of picking with the tempo of growing cucumbers. their asynchronous growth becomes obvious in the presence of large cucumbers on the field. the cucumbers simply grow; they can’t wait until child labour is available to pick them at the start of the school year in the fall. when children arrive, the cucumbers are already 105 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research too big and unusable, clearly illustrating that the land has its own rhythm, whether humans attend to it or not. calendar time defines the duration of summer vacations and the start of the school year. although children return to school in the fall, the timing of the harvest, determined by the tempo of growing cucumbers, takes precedence over schooling. in the rural town especially, the modern, linear school time seems to coexist with the circular rhythms of the seasons in the sequence of school schedules too. the five-year plans sought to calculate food demand and laid claim to statistical certainty mandating productivity prescribed thereon in volume projections (bockman, 2011). the system needed to ensure that volumes of food matched or exceeded production, and it needed the workforce at hand for timely harvest. modern technology and science were tasked to ensure and control high and timely productivity through fertilizing, pesticidal protection, machine tilling, and watering. in the memory story, the strictly planned timeframe is interrupted by weather events, lack of sun, floods, or drought. for that reason, crop timing continues to be open and unpredictable; risks arise despite modern knowledge and mastering. the economic value of harvest is defined by its size, yet large cucumbers have no value for people as they are not good for consumption. they are economic loss and excess. timing, especially synchronization with nature, appears as part of control over nature. the excess large cucumbers are left on the plant or thrown away, played with, considered as not of value anymore. children interrupt the temporality of harvesting by smashing cucumbers hence the tempo of harvest is altered. big cucumbers also trouble the temporality of harvest as they grow outside its timeframe. children decide not to ignore the excess of big cucumbers and interfere with the temporality of the harvest in this way as well. the intensity of the harvest changes as children smash cucumbers into rocks, exploding their fresh smell and cold juice into the environment and onto kids’ faces, or hiding big cucumbers in the middle of the bucket, speeding up productivity. children seem to enjoy this intensity. school competition is exchanged with picking competition. modern socialist productivity sits at the core of both timescapes. the temporal modality of the harvest is manifold. there is a future-oriented calculation originating in the five-year plans and their competitive spirit. entwined with that, the future orientation of education and childhood is also present. children, while glimpsing future-orientedness as they compete, experience the harvest intensely in the present both in its fun and its numbing monotony. although children are excited about a day off from school, their experience of harvesting cucumbers turns out to be boring and monotonous. their feelings make the duration of the harvest day even longer. the morning is gray and cold, the cucumber plants are wet, and the buckets are heavy. children feel uncomfortable in this space. the temporality of the harvest in this context is further altered. the repetitive and sequential process of bending, picking cucumbers, filling the buckets, and emptying them is interrupted by the creativity of children’s play. this disruption affords the rhythm of the timescape in which the changes of intensity and tempo are absorbed in the monotonous activity for the rest of the day. while momentarily creating a much-needed disruption of the monotonous day, these various experiences of time do not appear to knot together into a single tapestry. rather, they seem to be abruptly cut off—cucumbers being towed away without offering nourishment to those who harvested them, children leaving the fields without an expectation to return, and the aroma of freshly crushed cucumbers quickly fading from children’s memory. apple harvest it is a weekend in autumn. the girl goes with her whole family to the village where her grandparents and aunt live. the girl loves going to the village as it is a place where usually all her aunts and cousins gather for weekends. it is apple picking season, and everyone is trying to make it to the village for the weekends to help grandparents with the harvest. it is a sunny but chilly and windy morning. everyone 106 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research gets ready to go to the orchard, taking all the necessary tools. once they get to the orchard, grandpa gives everyone the instructions and divides the workforce to pick the apples from the lower branches of the trees, to use the stairs, to climb the trees, to distribute apples in the boxes, to load the boxes onto the farm tractor and take them home. grandpa knows who is good at what. the girl loves climbing the trees, but because she is the youngest (12 years old) everyone is worried for her to do so. they warn her to pick the apples in the right way—with the stems—and put them in the bucket gently so the harvest will keep longer. grandpa finds a smaller bucket for her so that she does not have to carry a heavy load. as the girl starts climbing the tree with her bucket, her mom and aunts check on her and tell her not to go onto higher branches, which annoys the girl. the trees are about 8 to 10 metres high. she knows that she can reach the branches that others cannot. she feels it is risky to climb onto higher and thinner branches, especially when the wind is moving the branch she is standing on or holding on to. however, the girl has been climbing the trees for as long as she remembers, and she can sense how much pressure she can put on and distribute onto the branches so that they don’t break, and she trusts that the branches will also hold her. to reach the apples, she pulls down a branch with one hand and picks the apples with the other one. as the branch gets free from the fruit and she lets it go, the branch jumps higher and the girl feels that she is liberating it from the heavy weight. she becomes more enthusiastic to reach the thinner branches that could break if the fruit weight is too heavy. she also enjoys taking breaks by sitting comfortably on a branch and eating apples. although she gets tired and feels pain in her legs, she wants to help relieve the trees from the heavy weight, and she moves from one branch to another and then to another tree. apple trees are grown and harvested manually in the family village in the autumn, usually on a weekend when everyone is able to leave their busy working lives to travel to the countryside. the girl recognizes the circular pattern that marks her anticipation of the season and particular days of the week—a long-awaited weekend. this is the time and space for the communion of a family spread out across multiple spaces. this communing intensifies tasks at each season, in a synchronic pattern between fruit ripening and human assembling. the memory story narrates a choreography of tree, girl, wind, thin branches, apples, preceded by the pollination dance of the bees and apple flowers during the springtime. the intense tempo of these interactions does not break apart from the apples’ sequential time (from seed to fruit, orchestrated according to the sequence of seasons). tempo and sequence are indivisible, “knotted,” temporal elements composing the webs of time patterns that renew and perpetuate life (rose, 2012). therefore, life always happens as “a multispecies project” (p. 131) in knots of temporal patterns manifested on embodied rather than metaphysical levels, through alliances with members of different species. the familial gathering is composed of distinct timeframes: a generational timeframe that reinforces intergenerational links and kinship and a biographical one that becomes a part of the girl’s childhood experiences and reminds her of growing up, because she can now perform particular tasks and take risks. there are also distinct temporalities related to growing and aging. human tasks are prominently related to the tempo (speed and intensity of performing tasks) during a weekend-long (timing) activity. the trees’ monumental stature announces their wide lifespan, which contrasts with the girl’s youth and small body. the smallness of her able body mirrors the particular period when the physiological, metabolic, and biochemical processes work to assemble expanding flesh tissue. the body, as “a network of cross-kingdom alliances” (margulis & sagan, 2000, as cited in rose, 2012, p. 127), is not emphasizing end points, thus marking the child’s desire for climbing, working, and pushing her physical achievements further. 107 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research the girl gets on with her work with a (small) basket but hears female commands for her not to climb too high. the pickers’ sense of safety is extrinsically determined by the height of each tree, not according to the support the tree offers. but the girl’s own sense of physical preservation is not simply dismissed for the sake of productivity. her disregard for the warning is informed by a sense of safety activated through the improvised dance (manning, 2007) with the tree, when hands, branches, head, legs, and balance respond synchronously to the swing of leaves, branches, wind, apples. the girl’s confidence and improvisation are supported by the more-than-somatic memory acquired while climbing other trees, as other branches held her. trees have bounced the girl’s weight time and time again, so she recognizes that the precarious feel of branches swinging is part of a familiar sway. thus the temporal distance between the previous fumbling and ascending trees to the present of picking apples is compressed, even if unconsciously. the challenge triggered at each particular apple branch reconnects with previous climbing experiences, at the same time that new memory is cocomposed at multiple levels. the improvisational journey with previous and current trees, with apples and basket, are fully implicated in her crafting of herself as belonging to the work community. even if the girl’s work rhythm is accelerated, it could still pulse through intervals for comfortably sitting down and eating apples. nevertheless, the family’s working rhythm contrasts with trees’, as humans’ work pace can only be considered fast or slow in relation to the amount of apples available on the trees. this dictates how the timing of every task can be measured, from filling baskets, distributing the apples in boxes, loading the boxes onto the tractor, and taking them home. while the human work is bound to the calendar timeframe of the weekend, and the efficiency of collecting apples is considered according to the amount of fruits in this timespan, in a parallel temporality, the apple trees’ productive rhythm is spread out across seasons and years in multispecies cyclical cooperation. the memory story thus alludes to an intertwined relationship of care and reciprocity between the human and the apple tree. in this memory story, the different temporal elements unfold and complement each other in ways that highlight interdependence, producing a harmonious emotional atmosphere retold in the memory. concluding reflections the three memories analyzed here offer interesting insights into how time and temporality appear in childhood memories of everyday life during the cold war. despite the modern(ist) efforts to control time and space by bracketing complex human conditions and flattening nature’s temporal cycles, these memory stories tell about a whole world outside the brackets that continuously haunted and reshaped the technical vision of modernity on both sides of the iron curtain. while children were socialized to function within the tightly managed environments that focused primarily on social and human taskscapes and relied on modern, linear clock time, they were also routinely engaged in different tasks and activities that followed different rhythms, such as picking berries in the forest, collecting cucumbers on a collective farm, or harvesting apples in a family orchard. within these taskscapes, children experienced and felt different temporalities coexisting at the same time, often colliding with the temporal norms and expectations mastered at school and home—the unpredictable timing of ripening berries in the forest interrupting the children’s summer holidays, or the monotonous harvesting of cucumbers on a collective farm demanding precise selection and repetitive movements. the various experiences of time tell about emotionally intense, embodied experiences of children finding themselves entangled within a timescape consisting of multiple interwoven dimensions of human and nonhuman times. in two memory stories, the unfamiliarity of these multiple, nonlinear temporalities often triggers a strong emotional response—ranging from anger and boredom to a sense of total disorientation and desperation—bringing into focus children’s awareness of different temporalities and their varying rhythms. ingold (2011) explains that the rhythmic quality of taskscapes—whether picking berries, or harvesting grapes and apples—occurs “not against 108 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research a static background but in a world whose manifold constituents undergo their own particular cycles,” requiring the practitioner’s rhythmic gestures to attune to the multiple rhythms of the environment (p. 60). therefore, any task is itself a movement unfolding within the “network of movements” both within and without the body where rhythms constitute “a dynamic coupling of movements” and “every coupling has a specific resonance, the synergy of the practitioner, the tools they may be using, the environment within which they are performing the activity” (p. 60). when this resonance is not synchronized with others—when the rhythm is off—a taskscape provokes strong emotional responses narrated in children’s memories. unable (and sometimes unwilling) to fully attune to the rhythms of the taskscapes—either emerging from nature’s own temporal orders or those of the modernist project—children may feel disoriented, not only in time but also in space. yet, the memory of apple harvesting tells the story of attuning to different temporal elements within the taskscape, including those of trees, daylight, wind, apples, and more, forming interwoven threads that fold into each other, resulting in a different emotional state of joy, comfort, and satisfaction. using a collective biography approach, we followed different time elements and their relationalities to bring into focus the different timescapes that (have always) exist(ed) alongside the modern(ist) linear ones, reminding us that the temporalities of human activities cannot be severed from the web of life and the unfolding trajectory of other‐ than‐human temporalities. by making visible the multitude of timescapes of the cold war—by following their lines, knots, and tangles and exploring relationships among them—we can see how modern humans constitute an ecological and geological whole with the earth and its more‐than‐human inhabitants. in this tapestry, “there are no insides or outsides, no enclosures or disclosures, only openings and ways through” (ingold, 2011, p. 84). as we begin to attune to and follow these different temporalities, we can see that the modern(ist) story of linear, irreversible, future-oriented temporality is neither a singular nor a universal one. it exists alongside and within knots entangled with other temporalities, offering possibilities for alternative temporal imaginaries. by focusing on embodied and embedded time in childhood memory stories, we can thus see the points of intersection between different patterns of time that reflect both the temporal diversity and complexity of the world, which is never fixed but is constantly transforming itself. 109 journal of childhood studies january 2023 vol. 48 no. 1 articles from research references adam, b. 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(1996). time, work, and developmentally appropriate practice. early childhood research quarterly, 11, 377–403. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0885-2006(96)90013-7 zin, m., & gannon, s. (2022). scenes from a collective biography of cold war childhoods: a decolonial ethnodrama. cultural studies <–> critical methodologies, 22(3), 235–244. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086211068194 september 2022 32 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research reconceptualizing imaginary friends: interdisciplinary approaches for understanding invisible companions kate adams, emma stanford, and harpreet singh kate adams, phd, is a professor of education at leeds trinity university, uk. her research interests lie in childhood, with a specialism in children’s spirituality. she has been researching, publishing, and presenting work internationally for over two decades. kate has an interest in hearing children’s voices and applying findings to education so that teachers and other adults may better understand children’s (inner) worlds. kate earned a phd from the university of glasgow, uk, with a thesis on children’s spiritual dreams. email: k.adams@leedstrinity.ac.uk emma stanford holds a first class bachelor of arts degree in english literature from the university of winchester, uk. she currently works for a community foundation and aspires to further her career within the charitable sector while developing her research experience. emma has a broad range of research interests including 17thto 19th-century literature by women writers, as well as texts that focus on the slave trade and matters of human rights. she is also interested in researching childhood experiences of illness or death and the ways these have been communicated historically. harpreet singh holds a bachelor of arts degree in history and modern liberal arts from the university of winchester, uk. he is currently engaged in both independent and collaborative research within the uk’s sikh community, focusing on sikh religious and cultural heritage and its contemporary representation in western institutions. harpreet is interested in pursuing master’s accreditation in the humanities. his career aspirations center on investigating the historicity of esoteric / less popularized historical narratives, using interdisciplinary research frameworks. imaginary friends, or imaginary companions (ics) as they are more commonly referred to in contemporary academic literature, have walked alongside us for decades. these enigmatic characters have been immortalized in a range of popular media. in matthew dicks’s (2012) novel memoirs of an imaginary friend, the protagonist, budo, tells readers how lucky he is to be in max’s life. max created budo, blessing him with the freedom to travel, the wisdom of an older child, and lots of time to learn because he didn’t need to sleep. in the 1991 hollywood film drop dead fred, an adult woman suffered a stressful time, losing her purse and job while battling problems of an unfaithful husband and a domineering mother. she found herself reconnecting with her childhood imaginary friend, fred, for support (hallowell, 2007). such fictional depictions are entertaining, and people’s narrative accounts of their own experiences are intriguing. studies suggest that most ics bring fun and friendship, usually acting as playmates. while most disappear during childhood never to be seen again, others live on into the adolescent years, with a few remaining into adulthood (taylor, 1999). research demonstrates that imaginary companions are a common part of everyday experience for many children. imaginary friends or invisible companions are common features of cross-cultural childhoods. research is primarily located in developmental psychology, where invisible companions are considered part of imaginary play. we argue for a reconceptualization of the core phenomenon, to one of regularly interacting with a person who is not normally perceptible to others, instead of uncritically adopting the dominant euro-western ontology of imagination. analyzing the central experience through other branches of psychology, anthropology, religion, and spirituality shows that different fields are potentially discussing the same phenomenon, albeit obscured by disciplinary boundaries. we outline some implications of this new approach for the development of childhood studies. key words: imaginary friends; invisible companions; imaginary companions; children’s spirituality; children’s imagination september 2022 33 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research indeed, fernyhough et al. (2019) describe interacting with them as a “natural part of childhood for many” (p. 1), and while most empirical research has been conducted in euro-western contexts, wider studies demonstrate them to be a cross-cultural phenomenon (taylor, 1999, and see armah & landers-potts, 2021; lin et al., 2018; moriguchi & todo, 2019; wigger, 2018). prevalence varies both within and across cultures. for example, wigger’s (2018) study in kenya, malawi, nepal, and the dominican republic found that in a sample of 443 children aged 4–8 years, an average of 21% of them had an ic. however, the rates varied considerably across each country, from 5% in nepal to 34% in the dominican republic. in other parts of the world, particularly in north america and europe, higher percentages tend to be found. hoff ’s (2005) study in sweden recorded ics in 52% of 60 children; singer and singer (1990) noted 65% in a study with 111 children in the uk; and taylor (1999) reported 63% of 152 children in the usa. wigger (2018) and mclewin and muller (2006) observe that studies use different methodologies, with some involving parents as well as their children, which may account for some of the differences. varying definitions of ics in studies, detailed below, also account for different rates, making it difficult to produce definitive figures and to compare studies (adams, 2010; klausen & passman, 2007; trionfi & reese, 2009; wigger, 2018, 2019). furthermore, mills (2003), majors and baines (2017) and wigger (2018) also note that culture plays an important part in shaping the acceptance of the concept, which may in turn affect results. nevertheless, ics are a familiar feature of many cultures. developmental psychology has become the dominant field for the study of ics, in which the relationships between having ics and various aspects of child development have been explored. these have included theory of mind, creativity, social and language development, object relations, imagination, and reality testing (klausen & passman, 2006). for readers seeking more detail on work in the field, we refer them to klausen and passman’s (2006) historical overview of the phases of research into ics, and to armah and landers-potts’ (2021) comprehensive literature review on ics and children’s development. as the word imaginary implies, the majority of studies—and particularly those in developmental psychology—do not challenge the underlying assumption that ics are creations of the mind. here, we refer to the concept of the imaginary as understood in developmental psychology, while acknowledging that other conceptualizations exist in different fields. we propose a different direction for the conversation: one which challenges this fundamental assumption that underpins the concept of ics in most euro-western thinking. mills (2003) unintentionally highlighted this assumption when she aimed to compare ics in the usa with those of children in india, initially assuming that a comparison would be straightforward. however, adults in india told her that children did not play alone and therefore had no need to create an imaginary friend, but they advised that children did speak to invisible companions. these were considered to exist in a spiritual realm and/or be part of the child’s past-life memory. we embrace mills’s (2003) approach for engaging with a different worldview, not least because it challenges the privileged euro-western perspective but also because, by crossing disciplinary boundaries into religion, it begins to contest academic silos that inadvertently strengthen the dominant discourse of imagination. however, we propose that a more substantive challenge is required. in an earlier book exploring different worlds children inhabit, often unseen to others, the lead author of this paper (adams, 2010) noted that there was often a blurring of categories of unseen beings, which are labelled differently, including imaginary companions, spirits of the deceased, and ghosts (p. 43). here, we develop that concept in detail. we offer an original contribution to the literature by first arguing that reconceptualizing imaginary friends/companions as depicted in the dominant euro-western discourse of developmental psychology is required. this deconstruction demands the input of a range of fields and disciplines that include indigenous voices. in particular, we draw on bereavement studies, parapsychology, psychiatry, anthropology, religion, and spirituality to show that, in many cases, researchers of ics and researchers in these other fields are potentially investigating the same phenomenon. this overlap is largely september 2022 34 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research obscured by disciplinary boundaries and their respective ontologies and terminologies, which remain separate. finally, we propose that childhood studies would benefit both theoretically and in applied contexts from embracing the study of this reconceptualization of the cross-cultural phenomenon of ics. the language of “imaginary companions” to develop our definition and reconceptualization, we need to analyze scholars’ language and its underpinning assumptions. as the term imaginary friends/companions implies, most authors in the field view ics as creations of the mind, usually as part of children’s play. the title of taylor’s (1999) seminal book imaginary companions and the children who create them encapsulates this view. in her introduction, she writes, “imaginary companions … are just a variation on the theme of all the pretend play that is going on in the preschool years,” albeit important play for cognitive and emotional development (p. 7). similarly, armah and landers-potts (2021) link ics to “imaginative play” and similarly refer to the children “who create them” (p. 31). davis et al. (2018) also describe them as a form of imaginative play (p. 2790). such language is not confined to euro-western scholars. in a chinese study, lin et al. (2006) describe the children as engaging in imaginary companion play. in japan, moriguchi and todo (2019) write: “having an imaginary companion (ic) is an example of children’s imaginative and pretend play” (p. 269). in addition, there are sections on ics in books about imagination, such as those by singer and singer (1990) and harris (2000). even where authors sometimes deviate from the explicit term imaginary, the underlying assumption that ics are deliberate creations of the mind remains the same. for example, klausen and passman (2006) refer to “pretend companions within the broader context of pretend play,” and note that “imaginary companions/playmates” are interchangeable terms (p. 349). the term invisible companions is increasingly seen in the literature. this usage could be viewed as a potential step forward in opening up the conversation to wider understandings that go beyond the often unquestioned stance of pretend creations. however, some authors, such as gleason et al. (2000), gleason (2004) and wigger (2018), use it interchangeably with imaginary companions. others, such as roby and kidd (2008) and tahiroglu, mannering, and taylor (2011), use the term invisible to differentiate these companions from personified object friends such as toys, which are visible to others, but still assign the unseen companions to the realm of the imaginary. hence, use of the term invisible companions does not necessarily remove the automatic association with imagination, but it has the potential to create a space for a looser connection, a space that leaves room for different disciplinary and ontological interpretations. in the ic literature, the word invisible implies that normally the companion is only seen by the child while remaining invisible to others. the interchangeability of the words companions and friends is common. while most children describe their ics as being joyful additions to their lives, there are accounts of some being unpleasant and problematic for the child (adams, 2020; gleason & hohmann, 2006; hallowell, 2007; majors & baines, 2017; taylor, 1999). for example, hallowell (2007) reports details of 5-year-old lewis’s ic throwing clothes, pulling hair, and opening and closing drawers. taylor (1999) also describes children complaining about their ics hitting them, throwing temper tantrums, and putting yogurt in a child’s hair. therefore, we use the word companion instead of friend. further consideration of the different types of ics is also needed as part of our reconceptualization. narrowing our focus: different forms of ics svendsen (1934) is generally recognized as establishing the first definition of ics, which others have continued to use and/or adapt (klausen & passman, 2006; mclewin & muller, 2006). svendsen (1934) described an ic as being september 2022 35 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research an invisible character, named and referred to in conversation with other persons or played with directly for a period of time, at least several months, having an air of reality for the child, but with no apparent objective basis. (p. 988) svendsen deliberately excluded cases of children ascribing a personality to an object. harris (2000) deemed this exclusion unnecessary, favouring a more inclusive definition based around “pretend play in which the child temporarily acts out the part of someone else using pretend actions and utterances” (p. 30). numerous other authors have also included these object friends, such as taylor (1999), roby and kidd (2008), carter and bath (2016), davis et al. (2018), wigger (2018), and fernyhough et al. (2019). some studies also include other types of ics, such as animals (klausen & passman, 2006), superheroes and angels (armah & landers-potts, 2021) or a role/ character that the child plays (mclewin & muller, 2006). a small number of scholars also include paracosms— imaginary worlds that contain multiple characters and pretend identities (hoff, 2005; klausen & passman, 2006; taylor, 1999). we share svendsen’s decision to exclude object friends. instead, we focus only on ics that take a human form. we make this choice first because empirical studies show that the majority of ics take a human form (majors & baines, 2017). second, the inclusion of object friends is unambiguously a form of pretend play in contrast to playing with invisible companions, where questions (should) arise as to whether these should unquestioningly be classified as imaginary or not. third, the experience of interacting with a being taking a human form appears in a range of disciplines, albeit not framed as imaginary/invisible companions as they are in developmental psychology. by focusing only on those human companions that are normally invisible to others, we capture the core phenomenon, which can be detected in a range of literature in other disciplines. whereas others have used the terms imaginary companions and invisible companions interchangeably, we do not. from here on, we differentiate these as follows: • we use the abbreviation ics to indicate imaginary companions, as per traditional conventions in developmental psychology which often use the terms invisible companions or imaginary friends/ companions interchangeably: those in human form, personified objects, animals, superheroes or angels, a role/character that the child plays and/or a paracosm. the child interacts with the companion(s) on a repeated basis rather than in a one-off encounter. the term implicitly and/or explicitly assumes the companions are all pretend creations in play. • we use the abbreviation ivcs to indicate invisible companions: those in human form that are normally only discernible to the percipient. the child interacts with the companion(s) on a repeated basis rather than in a one-off encounter. the term does not implicitly and/or explicitly assume that the companions are all pretend creations in play. september 2022 36 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research table 1. comparative summary of the characteristics of abbreviations ic and ivc permitted characteristic ic imaginary/invisible friend/companion ivc invisible companion deemed to be imaginary yes yes or no human form yes yes personified object yes no animal yes no superheroes, angels, etc. yes no role that a child plays yes no paracosm yes no repeated interactions yes yes discernible to others no no discernible to the child * yes yes *experiencing the invisible companion may involve one or more of the following, in any combination: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and/or sensing their presence. beyond developmental psychology: ivcs in different fields essentially, we have deconstructed the concept of imaginary/invisible companions by setting aside the dominant assumptions of imaginary play and focusing on the most common manifestation: those with a human form. in so doing, we illuminate the core experience children and adults report. narrowing our focus to this core experience of interacting with ivcs facilitates engagement with other fields that also study human-form invisible companions, although they frame them differently. we now outline fields that study the same or similar experience, noting their respective conceptual framing and terminologies, before moving on to discuss interdisciplinary approaches in more detail. we begin with different branches of psychology. bereavement studies another means of framing the experience of encountering an ivc is located in bereavement studies. here, the invisible person is deceased and known to the recipient. in this context the ivc is often termed sense of presence (steffen & coyle, 2010, p. 273). hayes and leudar (2016) observe that between 50% and 80% of people report the presence of a deceased person whom they had been close to. this presence can take different forms, including hearing their voice or other sounds related to them, feeling their touch, seeing, and/or sensing them. theoretical explanations for encountering the deceased include the stages of grieving developed by kübler-ross (1969) and kübler-ross and kessler (2005). one stage is that of denial, during which the bereaved person may see or sense the deceased. while this model has been considerably critiqued (stroebe et al., 2017), there are nevertheless many reports of people’s encounters with their deceased loved ones. another model is attachment theory, based on bowlby’s concept that young children develop a bond with their primary caregivers, which recognizes that adults also have bonds with other adults. bowlby proposed that following a death, the bereaved person often seeks to reestablish the attachment and may see or hear the deceased (field et al., 2006). the terminology of continuing bonds, which can aid the grieving process, is also used in this field (steffen september 2022 37 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research & coyle, 2010). while most research focuses on adults, clabburn et al. (2019) identified continuing bonds as a common theme in papers exploring young people’s experience of bereavement. they described the bonds as spontaneous events that usually involved the bereaved person seeing, hearing, or sensing their deceased loved one. these were mostly positive experiences, although in some cases they caused distress. different language is used elsewhere. for example, guggenheim and guggenheim (1996) coined the term afterdeath communications, which are also referred to as visitations (kwilecki, 2011, p. 221). as described in the literature on the grieving process, these communications can similarly take a number of forms, including sense of presence, visual images, voices, smells, unusual activity in electrical appliances, and appearances of natural phenomena (kwilecki, 2011). in addition to occurring in either waking or dream states, communications can also take place during meditation, coma, or near-death experiences (tassell-matamua & mccormick, 2016). the percipient may also feel the touch of the deceased, and the experience is often within the first year after death (kwilecki, 2009). tassell-matamua and mccormick (2016) and exline (2021) note that these experiences can overlap with “continuing bonds.” the experience of repeatedly interacting with a deceased person following bereavement may therefore be applicable to a small number of cases reported as ics, dependent on the child’s circumstances and their description of the companion. the ontologies embedded in theories of grieving are varied. they include: beliefs that by encountering the deceased, the bereaved person has experienced a “misperception” reflecting their denial of the death; psychoanalytic theories suggesting that the experiences are a form of wish fulfillment; and experients’ views that they are genuinely communicating with the deceased person (cooper, 2017, p. 357). whichever of these ontologies are assumed, the concept of being able to interact with a deceased person who is normally invisible to others challenges developmental psychology’s explanations of deliberately creating a person for the purposes of play. parapsychology the concept of after-death communications also crosses over with areas of study in parapsychology. irwin and watt (2007) note variations in defining parapsychology. their reference point is “the scientific study of experiences which, if they are as they seem to be, are in principle outside the realm of human capabilities as presently conceived by conventional scientists” (p. 1). irwin and watt do not assume the existence of the paranormal, although they observe that other scholars in the field do and that some contemporaries also define parapsychology as the study of the paranormal. the most relevant area of parapsychology to ics is the study of apparitional experiences. irwin and watt (2007, p. 192) note that this term is based on a theory that an objective entity exists. they present a taxonomy of four types: experimental, in which living people create an apparition of themselves which appears to a specified participant; crisis, in which a person undergoing a crisis appears; postmortem, when a person who has been dead for at least 12 hours appears; and ghosts, where the same figure is seen in the same location on several occasions, often by a range of witnesses. taylor (1999) draws parallels between childhood ics and adults who report ghostly appearances. while taylor recognizes the subjectivity inherent in judging whether an experience is real or fantasy, shaped in part by culture, she argues that for an adult’s report of a ghost to be considered the same as a child’s report of an ic, the adult needs to believe that the ghost is a figment of their imagination. for taylor, the belief that the invisible person/entity is imaginary is an essential criterion; where this belief exists, there are clear similarities between the ontologies of september 2022 38 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research developmental psychologists and some parapsychologists. however, where a person is certain, or suspects, that a ghostly apparition is/might be real, this contests developmental psychology’s assumption that all are imaginary creations. psychiatry another discipline that addresses the phenomenon of perceiving a person whom others usually cannot is psychiatry. the experiences of hearing voices and seeing people who are not accessible to others are referred to as auditory and visual hallucinations. these can occur separately, as hearing voices or seeing visual phenomena, where they are termed multisensory hallucinatory experiences (steenkamp et al., 2021 p. 5). if we apply this psychiatric language to a typical ic report, most would be unisensory experiences as they contain both seeing and hearing. the phrase auditory verbal hallucinations is also regularly used (fernyhough et al., 2019, p. 1; jardri et al., 2014, p. 221). in psychiatric practice, diagnoses of mental illnesses are guided by the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, (apa, 2013), which defines and classifies disorders in considerable detail. it states that in schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, auditory hallucinations are the most prevalent and are involuntary. however, despite historical concerns that ics were a sign of mental illness, this view has been discredited (fernyhough et al., 2019; taylor, 1999). in fact, there is increasing recognition that hallucinations are prevalent in the nonpathological general population (jardri et al., 2014; larøi et al., 2006; steenkamp, 2021), including in children and adolescents. causes can vary, encompassing physical conditions such as migraine and life events like trauma, abuse, bullying, and bereavement. such hallucinations are often transitory, passing when a physical condition has been treated or a problem resolved, and in the case of trauma through therapy, often with no need for medication (larøi et al., 2006). nevertheless, psychiatry is a relevant field to consider in this reconceptualization. as defined in the diagnostic and statistical manual, disorders are founded on western medical and social constructs that move beyond developmental psychology’s notion of purposeful imagination to explain the experience of interacting with invisible people. anthropology, religion, and spirituality given that psychiatry and psychology are dominant fields in euro-western cultures, it is necessary to move outside psychology and explore other disciplines that have a stronger focus on different cultures. these can challenge the dominant disciplines and incorporate wider worldviews, including those of indigenous communities. anthropology is a particularly important discipline for these purposes. earlier, we considered parapsychology’s study of ghosts. some of these reports of what parapsychologists term ghosts may cross over with concepts of the soul or spirit. hunter (2015) notes that within anthropology, the term spirits applies to a wide range of nonphysical entities. these include spirits of the dead, nature spirits, angels, and deities. he describes different theoretical approaches. intellectualism and cognitive approaches, typical of early anthropology, tend to be reductionist in nature, aiming to explain away the belief in spirits. in contrast, relativist approaches focus on the importance of people’s belief in spirits as opposed to whether or not the spirits exist. eller (2014) observes that the belief that humans have a spiritual element(s) that can survive the body after physical death is common to most cultures. this idea takes different forms. in christianity it is the soul; in hinduism it is atman. eller (2014) demonstrates the diversity of beliefs across cultures. for example, the tausug communities of the philippines believe that the soul comprises four parts. similarly, the konyak nagas of india believe that the soul is made of several parts which separate at death. many cultures believe that spirits appear to people in the physical world. varner (2010), writing on north american indigenous communities, notes that the kawaiisu believe that the spirit or ghost, the inipi, can become visible in the form of a human being and subsequently disappear or fly september 2022 39 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research away. in kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw culture, a ghost becomes visible when it arrives to fetch the soul of a person before their death. astuti (2011) spoke with young people in the village of vezo in west madagascar when exploring how the children constructed their understanding of death and the afterlife. the adults wanted to rid the children of dangerous thoughts, including preventing malevolent angaste spirits appearing in their dreams and leading them toward illness and death. children were also taught that the olo vakatsy were spirits that had risen from the dead who were unwanted by their families, and were visible. cassaniti and luhrmann (2011) also highlight differences in the cultural framing of supernatural encounters in their study in the usa and thailand, which found that the thai participants tended to refer to entities such as ghosts in sensory terms compared to the us participants who tended to refer to experiences as external autonomous beings. in addition to anthropological studies, surveys in the fields of religion and spirituality have gathered data on religious and/or spiritual experience. as nelson and hart (2003) recognize, these surveys are often framed around generic questions such as “have you ever had a religious or mystical experience that is a moment of sudden religious insight or awakening?” (p. 3). typically, these studies collect data on a wide range of phenomena, much of which is not relevant to this paper, but we extract those data which are. nelson and hart conducted a survey of 453 adults in the usa with a mean age of 20.5. they asked participants if they had “ever seen, physically felt, smelled or heard something or somebody that [they] realized in retrospect was not readily there in the same way as ordinary everyday objects, people and events” (p. 18). in total, 44% (n=199) reported they had, of which 29% (n=58) had experienced it twice or more. another question was: “have you ever felt a presence of someone who was not there in a physical way?” (p. 18). the majority, 58% (n=263), reported they had, of which 43% (n=113) had experienced it twice or more. some studies gathered retrospective accounts of childhood encounters (e.g., hoffman, 1992; scott, 2004). again, questions have tended to be framed broadly and elicited a wide range of responses. hoffman (1992) collected “over 250” accounts from adults aged 20 to 85 of a childhood experience which was “mystical or intensely spiritual … moments in which [they] seemed to experience a different kind of reality” (p. 18). he organized the experiences into nine categories, one of which—“uncanny perceptions”—included narratives of seeing people no one else could see. some were people known to them who had died and others were unknown to them. hart (2004, 2006) argues that developmental theory has traditionally dismissed the idea that children have genuine spiritual experiences. in a separate publication (hart & zellars, 2006), he and a colleague write on ics specifically from a spiritual perspective. they observe that some descriptions of ics are “qualitatively distinct” from conventional accounts (p. 6). specifically, some appear to provide wisdom to the child, taking on the role of guides. they detail four case studies, two of which took a human form. meg, an american woman, described her childhood companion as a french-speaking girl who used to watch over her and comfort her in difficult times. hence, according to various cultures, many spirits can take a human form, such as hunter’s (2015) spirits of the dead, the inipi (varner, 2010), sensing someone (nelson & hart, 2003), seeing a person (hoffmann, 1992), and the invisible woman and girl described by hart and zellars (2006). these ontologies resemble those of bereavement theorists and parapsychologists and, with their other-worldly conceptions, also challenge developmental psychology’s focus on imaginary creations in play. however, not all spirits adopt a human shape, even those which once had an earthly life, such as the tasel, reported by eller (2014). these spirits which adopt different forms also offer a pertinent interruption and challenge to the dominant discourse. while this paper focuses on ics in human form, wigger’s (2019) multicountry study september 2022 40 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of ics revealed that some were shapeshifters, such as 4-year-old amy’s ic, called cinderella, who was a girl who had previously appeared as a blue dog. similarly, aguiar et al.’s (2017) study reported a 9-year-old child whose ic, a boy, could shapeshift into any kind of animal to avoid being caught. while there are no systematic studies of human ics who have the ability to change shape, and this type comprises a very small minority of ics, their existence is important. while they may well be perceived as deliberate creations of the imagination, the belief in shapeshifters is embedded in many cultures, from ancient civilizations through to contemporary communities. kachuba (2019) explains that in ancient greek mythology, the god zeus transformed into different people and animals, and describes how, in the 1990s, the yukaghir in northern siberia believed they could transform into animals. bluett (2020) also notes that in the european celtic tradition, shapeshifters were seen as beings that could move between different realms. widespread beliefs in the spirit world are therefore an important challenge to the predominant discourse. furthermore, although this paper has not focused on ics that take other forms, such as angels and paracosms, we nevertheless recognize that these are important features of some children’s lives, as explored earlier in a wider context by the lead author (adams, 2010). discussion and implications we have adopted the narrow definition of the euro-western concept of an imaginary friend/companion of those taking human form, and then set aside the automatic assumption of it being a creation of the imagination. we then focused on the core experience—that of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and/or sensing the presence of another person on a repeated basis who is not normally perceptible to others. in so doing, we have been able to identify the same phenomenon being studied across different disciplines, albeit enshrined in varying respective ontologies, epistemologies, and terminologies. it is important to emphasize that not every report in a different field is relevant to the definition of an ivc. for example, some accounts of ghosts, spirits, or after-death communications are only singular manifestations, which would not meet the criterion of a repeated interaction (see table 1). in this section, we first draw on examples of authors who make links between their respective field of study and others to develop our argument that an interdisciplinary approach needs to consider all relevant fields, not just one or two. second, we challenge the dominance of euro-western approaches, particularly that of developmental psychology’s discourse of ics, and call for the consideration of a wide range of disciplinary perspectives according to the specific experience being reported. finally, we consider the implications for childhood studies in embracing the study of ics and ivcs. breaking down disciplinary barriers the summaries of disciplinary approaches presented above, which investigate the reframed phenomenon of ivcs, reflect the tendency for many scholars to remain within the confines of their own discipline, wedded to their own ontologies, epistemologies, and associated terminologies. of course, there are exceptions, where researchers have drawn on other fields and suggested parallels with them (e.g., dein, 2012; little et al., 2021; steffen & coyle, 2010; wigger, 2019). for example, dein (2012) notes that both psychiatry and parapsychology focus on anomalous phenomena which include having visions and hearing voices. we add that some of these experiences, particularly if the being appears in human form, may well be categorized as an ic from a developmental psychology perspective. little et al. (2021) write from a parapsychological standpoint, observing the parallels between children’s accounts of ghosts and reports of ics. they conclude that while there are some differences between the two, there are more commonalities; for example, both types of accounts include communicating with another entity, hearing audible voices, and experiencing visions. similarly, steffen and coyle (2010), writing on bereavement, propose that sensing the presence of the deceased september 2022 41 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research might be considered as spiritual. they note that many positivist-empirical paradigms in psychology are reluctant to consider it in this way, in part because of the inherent conceptual, epistemological, and clinical difficulties arising. exline (2021), a psychologist of religion and spirituality, reaches out to other disciplines in her work on after-death communications. she explores them through three different frameworks—psychopathology, normal psychological processes, and supernatural encounters—outlining the different interpretations and implications each framework brings. critically, she shows how the same experience can be understood in these three different ways—an approach we take here, albeit that we draw on more than three disciplines. while steffen and coyle (2010) and exline (2021) focus specifically on the bereaved who experience the presence of a person known to them, these interdisciplinary views may well apply to a small number of encounters in the ic literature, that is, when a bereaved child describes their companion as a person known to them who has died. researchers of ics would not necessarily be aware if a child was bereaved, making this type of encounter difficult or impossible to identify in most studies. such examples may be found in parapsychology and/or further illuminated if children used the words ghosts or spirits. however, if they were participating in a study of imaginary friends, they might not use the former terms. one potential exception was detected in majors’ (2013) study of eight children aged between 5 and 11 in the uk. an 11-year-old girl referred to as ella described her ic as the spirit of her grandmother, who had died when ella was 4 years old. ella explained how she shared her problems with her ic, which helped her understand them better and to relax. conversely, if children were participating in a study about ghosts or spirits, they—and the researchers—may not use the phrase imaginary friends. how researchers frame their questions is, of course, highly pertinent in shaping the answers receive. some scholars who specifically research ics have also drawn on different fields. wigger (2019), a social worker and ordained presbyterian minister, drew on psychology, including theory of mind, but also considers different cultural and religious beliefs. he reflects on “a variation on the theme of imaginary friends” in mexico (p. 123), the alux—spirits which children often see in fields and forests—and suggests that various religions and cultures have “in-between” figures such as angels, ghosts, and ancestors (p. 122). in addition, psychologists fernyhough et al. (2019) note a recent interest in comparing ics with auditory verbal hallucinations. they explore the relationship between these phenomena and inner speech and argue that ics show a “hallucination-like experience … which shows meaningful developmental relations with the experience of inner speech” (p. 1). bluett (2020) focused on ics in her doctoral research, set in the context of children’s relationships and early years education in aotearoa new zealand. she also contested the euro-western dominance that automatically assigns the experience to the imaginary and argued that we also need to consider different cultures’ knowledge and understandings. in particular, she explored inheritance as an important feature and detailed how celtic and māori storying includes the existence of companions, unseen to others, throughout the lifespan to give advice and counsel. this narrative is not considered by the dominant euro-western discourse on ics but is explored by hart and zellars (2006). writing in the usa, they suggest that some ics appear to give wisdom to their human friends. bluett (2020) develops the term culturally compatible travelling companions (p. 349) to reflect the importance of inheritance in diverse cultural understandings based on her belief that: children are the recipients of ancestral inheritance which informs and upholds sophisticated and complex epistemological and ontological approaches to conceptualising the various relationships, and relationship companions. (p. 399) while the authors cited in this section offer clear examples of working across disciplines to understand the september 2022 42 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research respective, similar phenomenon they focus on, we argue that this reach needs to extend further to include the wide range of fields we outlined earlier as relevant to the specific experience—fields which together embody a combination of diverse worldviews. challenging dominant discourses the privileging of the dominant discourse around ics is, as shown earlier, evident in the language used, even in some cases of the term invisible replacing imaginary. literature also demonstrates this privileging when the identification of ics is discussed. for example, wigger (2018) suggests, when citing mills’s (2003) finding that children in india may have friends from a previous life whom they consider to be nonimaginary, that it could also be the case that children around the world have such companions, but that they are interpreted differently in light of particular socio-cultural beliefs. (pp. 47–48) we propose that these past-life beliefs and other explanations such as paranormal, spiritual, and/or religious should be considered with equal status, rather than, in this case, imposing a euro-western view onto indian cultural values. if this approach were taken, then different questions would arise: • have researchers in india missed accounts of past lives or seeing spirits in the west because of particular sociocultural beliefs which have labelled them imaginary companions? • are children in the west who are thought to have ics actually remembering past lives or seeing spirits? a similar difficulty lies with klausen and passman’s (2006) claim that “many early descriptions of pretend companions may not be recognized as such because they were depicted in terms of spirits and other supernatural concepts” (p. 351). when referring to mills’s (2003) findings that children in india had relatively limited time for play, they asserted that “children in india have had few opportunities to develop pretend companions” (klausen & passman, 2006, p. 352). again, the unquestioned assumption is that alternative non-euro-western descriptions are not correct. their statements could equally be reframed as follows: • many early descriptions of spirits and supernatural concepts may not have been recognized as such because they were depicted in terms of pretend companions. • children in euro-western cultures have had few opportunities to identify past-life and/or spirit encounters because their companions have been categorized as pretend/imaginary companions. moving away from developmental psychology but remaining with a euro-western view, little et al.’s (2021) parapsychological paper suggests that some ic reports may: constitute “disguised or overlooked” ghostly episodes or encounter experiences … [and] some ic experients might merely interpret their perceptions as imaginary play or fantasy constructions when in fact they involve something more anomalous. (p. 19) while they acknowledge the wide range of encounter experiences, we could reframe their statement this way: • some experients of ghostly phenomena might merely interpret their perceptions as a ghost or haunting when in fact they involve an imaginary companion we use these reframed statements to further illustrate that the same experience can be viewed differently: that in september 2022 43 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research some cases, the same phenomenon is being studied but alternative explanations are rarely considered. for clarity, we are not denying that many ivcs are imaginary as understood in developmental psychology. many children purposefully create them as part of play, just as they might create an invisible rocket on which to fly to the moon, or mentally transform a tree branch into a magic wand, and children’s voices are important to the conversation. indeed, in her early work, taylor (1999) proposed that a child needs to believe that the ic is imaginary for it to be classified as such. however, not all researchers pose this question to their participants. we also maintain that the dominant euro-western discourse—which tends to constrain all ics to this narrow definition of pretend play (see armah & landers-potts, 2021; davis et al., 2018; klausen & passman, 2006; moriguchi & todo, 2019)—can limit alternative explanations. neither are we arguing that most ivcs are ghosts, spirits, or hallucinations. we do not privilege any of the views detailed in this paper. some apparitional experiences reported in parapsychology would not be relevant as they may be singular occurrences and/or be apparent to several people and/or appear to the child but not involve interaction with them. similarly, it is unlikely that theories of grief are relevant to significant numbers of reports of imaginary friends/companions because few children would have been bereaved at the time. hence, not all perspectives are pertinent to all cases. rather, we suggest that a range of perspectives may be relevant to most reports of ics, not simply those of developmental psychology. through reconceptualizing ics that take a human form, returning to the central core experience separated from the assumption of imaginary play, we can make a small indent into the robust boundaries of academic silos. this facilitates an interdisciplinary approach, which in turn also demands changes to the research questions we pose— questions that do not necessarily privilege any one ontological position. new questions may need to abandon current implicit assumptions and incorporate subtle changes to the language used. for example, a developmental psychologist might avoid using the words imaginary and invisible interchangeably, and a parapsychologist may ask a child to describe seeing an invisible person rather than a ghost. this different approach simultaneously concurs with and challenges the current dominant discourse; it respects the ontology and epistemologies of developmental psychology by accepting that many encounters with invisible companions are likely to be pretend play, but gives equal credence to a wide range of other disciplinary approaches which are not necessarily restricted to the cultural norms of the researcher(s) and their participants. the implications for childhood studies although ics are recognized as a cross-cultural phenomenon (see armah & landers-potts, 2021; lin et al., 2016; moriguchi & todo, 2019; wigger, 2018), it is barely visible in childhood studies. canosa and graham’s (2019) literature review assessed how childhood studies has evolved and found that it has tended to be more multidisciplinary than interdisciplinary. they identify that many are reluctant to move outside the typical boundaries of their disciplines, and argue that each subdiscipline tends to publish in, and cite from, particular journals at the expense of drawing on broader literature. we can also apply this point to the work on ics, which tends to be located in developmental psychology and its associated journals, rarely drawing on other literature, including that from childhood studies. majors’ (2013) study of ics, published in the journal childhood, is one exception. in a similar vein, tatlow-golden and montgomery (2020) argue that childhood studies has largely remained reluctant to draw on psychology in general and developmental psychology in particular. they go on to lament that childhood studies has focused primarily on social-constructionist approaches, and suggest that neither psychology nor childhood studies has responded to reciprocal calls to see what each could offer the other. they write: september 2022 44 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research being open to explore the work of psychologists, even while continuing to discuss paradigmatic differences, would change childhood studies from a multidisciplinary to a more interdisciplinary project, unafraid to dialogue with difference. (p. 14) the study of ics and ivcs can contribute to this interdisciplinary endeavour as part of the quest to understand this shared feature of global childhoods. certainly, the emphasis on social constructionism is relevant, because sociocultural factors have a strong bearing on how encountering an invisible person can be labelled and interpreted, from imagination through to a spirit encounter, among other aforementioned possibilities. mills’s (2003) initial attempt to compare ics in the usa with those she anticipated finding in india is a good example of how cultures shape understanding of the same experience in very different ways. applying a social constructionist lens to classifications of ics and ivcs offers an interesting area for future exploration, albeit with the recognition that some religious and/or cultural ideas are not easily transferable or open to reframing. canosa and graham (2019) also identify calls in childhood studies to disrupt ideas, including gagen’s (2010) rally to “push the boundaries … through greater experimentation and more dissent from the protocols” (p. 32). if childhood studies embraced ics and other experiences not commonly addressed, this could lead to increased conversations around thinking differently about children’s experiences. with this proposed reconceptualization from ics to ivcs as just one example, this and similar moves would contribute to advancing childhood studies’ outlook and its further development as a field. the subdisciplines of childhood studies may find the concept of ivcs of interest, both theoretically and, where relevant, in applied contexts. for example, there are potential applications in education for theory and practice. the proposal to reframe ics and embrace both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, as proposed here, offers an area for critical thinking and debate around ontologies and epistemologies for students in secondary, tertiary and higher education systems. challenging the taken-for-granted euro-western assumptions that all ics are imaginary forms of play is a practical way of illustrating the power of critical thinking through a topic many students will identify with, even if they did/do not have an ic or ivc themselves. younger children in schools and childcare settings may also benefit from discussions around ics and ivcs, particularly because they are the most likely to currently have them. ics feature in children’s literature, such as imaginary fred by colfer and jeffers (2016) and the adventures of beekle by santat (2014). while most are written from euro-western perspectives and there is a need for more representation of different cultures, they are useful resources, including to children who have not had such a companion. the texts can be used as a literary device in creative writing or the arts and also as a conversation starter to explore children’s experiences and/or ideas about who and what these invisible companions might be, particularly in cultures different to their own. bluett (2020) suggests, in relation to new zealand’s early years education curriculum te whāriki, that teachers can become critically aware of their own storying and reach outside their personal worldview to “consider what else may be known about children and childhood” (p. 737); that is, by recognizing that other cultures bring different interpretations of ics to that of the privileged developmental psychology worldview. this list of benefits is by no means intended to be exhaustive; rather, it indicates the possibilities that can exist for childhood studies and applied practice should some in the field choose to embrace this common feature of childhoods and challenge the dominant euro-western conception. conclusion if we are to truly understand the phenomenon of imaginary/invisible companions of human form, we need to september 2022 45 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research be open to a wide range of explanations. reconceptualizing the phenomenon of ics by taking it back to its core experiential components—of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and/or sensing the presence of another person on a repeated basis who is not normally perceptible to others—aids in breaking down the academic silos—silos which obscure the fact that researchers in a range of disciplines are, in many cases, studying the same phenomenon but not recognizing that they are doing so. as mills (2003) showed in her work in india and the usa, researchers’ language needs to be culturally compatible with the context in which the study is situated. therefore, the developmental psychologists’ ontological position that ics are creations of the imagination is as valid as any other. but other ontologies are equally important. some of these encounters might be continuing bonds, after-death communications, spirits, past-life memories, ghosts, nonpathological hallucinations, or, in rare circumstances, pathological hallucinations. in many cases, albeit not all, these are potentially the same phenomenon but have been labelled differently. in being open to a wide range of cross-cultural understandings, including those held by underrepresented voices, we can potentially transcend multiple disciplinary boundaries. this can lead to new understandings of this enduring element of invisible companions, who will undoubtedly remain alongside children around the world for centuries to come, no matter how researchers might describe them. september 2022 46 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references adams, k. 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(2011). ghosts, meaning, and faith: after-death communication in bereavement narratives. death studies, 35(3), 219–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2010.511424 larøi, f., van der linden, m., & goëb, j. l. (2006). hallucinations and delusions in children and adolescents. current psychiatry reviews, 2, 473–485. https://doi.org/10.2174/157340006778699756 lin, q., fu, h., wan, y., zhou, n., & xu, h. (2018). chinese children’s imaginary companions: relations with peer relationships and social september 2022 48 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research competence. international journal of psychology, 53(5), 388–396. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12392 little, c., laythe, b., & houran, j. (2021). quali-quantitative comparison of childhood imaginary companions and ghostly episodes. journal of the society for psychical research, 85(1), 1–30. majors, k. 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(1990). the house of make believe: children’s play and the developing imagination. harvard university press. steenkamp, l. r., tiemeier, h., blanken, l. m. e., hillegers, m. h. j., kushner, s. a., & bolhuis, k. (2021). predicting persistence of hallucinations from childhood to adolescence. the british journal of psychiatry, 219(6), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2021.11 steffen, e., & coyle, a. (2010). can “sense of presence” experiences in bereavement be conceptualised as spiritual phenomena? mental health, religion, and culture, 13(3), 273–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674670903357844 stroebe, m., schut, h., & boerner, k. (2017). cautioning health care professionals: bereaved persons are misguided through the stages of grief. omega—journal of death and dying, 74(4), 455–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222817691870 svendsen, m. (1934). children’s imaginary companions. archives of neurology and psychiatry, 32(5), 985–999. tahiroglu, d., mannering, a. m. & taylor, m. (2011). visual and auditory imagery associated with children’s imaginary companions. imagination, cognition, and personality, 31(1), 99–112. https://doi.org/10.2190/ic.31.1-2.i tassell-matamua, n. a., & mccormick, b. m. e. (2016). after-death communication: a typology of therapeutic benefits. journal of near death studies, 34(3), 151–172. https://doi.org/10.17514/jnds-2016-34-3-p151-172 tatlow‐golden, m., & montgomery, h. (2020). childhood studies and child psychology: disciplines in dialogue? children & society, 35(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12384 taylor, m. (1999). imaginary companions and the children who create them. oxford university press. trionfi, g., & reese, e. (2009). a good story: children with imaginary companions create richer narratives. child development, 80(4), 1301–1313. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01333.x september 2022 49 vol. 47 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research varner, g. r. (2010). case studies in religion: native american traditions—ghosts and spirits. lulupress inc. wigger, b. j. (2018). invisible friends across four countries: kenya, malawi, nepal, and the dominican republic. international journal of psychology, 53(1), 46–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12423 wigger, b. j. (2019). invisible companions: encounters with imaginary friends, gods, ancestors, and angels. stanford university press. i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton 08  fall     editors: dr. laurie kocher, douglas college, coquitlam, british columbia dr. veronica pacini-ketchabaw, university of victoria, victoria, british columbia guest editor, special issue: neoliberalism dr. luigi iannacci, trent university, peterborough, ontario publications chairperson: dr. iris berger, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia cover photo: dr. sylvia kind © 1996: the canadian association for young children issn: 0833-7519 author guidelines: visit www.cayc.ca       canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 3 in recent years early learning and child care (elcc) has received unprecedented attention from canadian politicians including government of new brunswick (gnb) policy players. reverberating arguments of other provincial governments, the new brunswick (nb) consortium perceives elcc as essential to achieving broader economic security and social well-being. mantras such as quality, self-sufficiency, readiness, future prosperity, and appropriate development are uttered mechanically at each elcc related policy pass. accompanying this discursive normalization are a host of new programs and practices that promise to be representative of best practice, complement the kindergarten curriculum, and effectively prepare author’s bio emily ashton is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in child and youth care at the university of victoria. she is a graduate of the critical studies in education master’s program at the university of new brunswick where she completed a thesis titled governing new brunswick early learning and child care: ethical and political tensions. abstract in recent years early learning and child care (elcc) has become a significant priority area for many provincial governments, including new brunswick (nb). the nb consortium perceives elcc as instrumental to achieving broader economic prosperity and social wellbeing. in hopes of problematizing rather than normalizing the contemporary spotlight on elcc, i interrogate how school readiness has become the selectively targeted problem for which pre-school developmental testing is proposed as the solution. the specific means purported to address school readiness in nb is the early years evaluation – direct assessment (eye-da). while eye-da testing is ongoing and powerful, i conclude that the recent pan-canadian uptake of curriculum frameworks and pedagogical documentation may incite counter possibilities and provocations for those of us working with young children.   canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 [page 3 to 24] www.cayc.ca i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 4 young children for school (gnb, 2008). in line with neoliberal regularities, these technologies of intervention demarcate instrumental ends for early childhood institutions, configure elcc primarily as human capital investment, and produce new kinds of child-citizen-subjects. with hopes of problematizing rather than normalizing the contemporary spotlight on elcc in nb, i turn to michel foucault’s concept of governmentality to frame my analysis. first presented by foucault in a series of lectures in the late 1970s, governmentality has since been productively expanded by theorists in many disciplines including those of reconceptualising early childhood education (ailwood, 2004, 2008; bloch et al., 2003; duhn, 2006; hultqvist & dahlberg, 2001; pacini-ketchabaw, 2007). like many of the meaning-making concepts utilized in critical and sociological studies of childhood, governmentality embraces a host of terms that differ from their typical, common-sense meanings. an introduction to key notions of government, rationality, technology, and neoliberalism will follow. of particular interest in this article is how a neoliberalized construction of school readiness plays out as the selectively targeted problem of elcc for which pre-school developmental testing has been proposed as a solution. a key technology of measurement and intervention purported to diagnose and remedy school readiness in nb is the early years evaluation – direct assessment (eye-da). the eye-da is described as a “direct measure of the developmental outcomes of children ages 3-6 years” (willms, 2009a, p. 43), and represents child development as four distinct, measurable domains. an inquiry into the eye-da permits a singular micro-level look at how neoliberalism and neoliberal assessment function in elcc. emerging questions include: how do measurement technologies figure children, families and educators; how does evaluation surveil the caretaking practices of families and educators; what happens when direct state intervention shifts to a celebration of privatized expertise; what gets altered when standardized evaluations become intelligible as best practice; and how has child developmentalism been extended and recoded to include neoliberal qualities of flexibility and readiness? governmentality: key terms in foucaldian usage, government departs from its connection with the direct rule of political state parties, such as liberals or conservatives, and, instead, is concerned with structuring the “possible field of actions of others” (foucault, 1982, p. 221). this understanding lends focus to “how” questions of government: how are we governed? how are our choices guided by others? how do we steer the actions of others? how do we govern ourselves? (dean, 1999). government here has two component parts: rationalities and technologies.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 5 governmental rationalities rationalities, understood as “ways of thinking” (miller & rose, 2008), are the composite of thoughts, ideas, and justifications underlying and guiding our reasoning processes. why do we make sense the way we do? how do we translate sense into action? what actions do we choose? rationalities comprise discursive fields that are varied and inconsistent; they are tension-filled and require constant negotiation (rose, 1999). as an example, consider the mainstay of article 3 from the united nations declaration of the rights of the child: “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” what theories and bodies of knowledge inform our beliefs about children and what is best for them? do our frames of reference include human rights, economic future capital, or neuroscience discourses? what language do we use to think children and their needs? what do our cultures and histories teach us is desirable for children? do we protect the child or promote their participation or both? how? who should act government, communities, families, educators – and in what capacity? different rationalities will be reasonable in different contexts. the vital point is that rationalities make reality “thinkable in such a way that it is amenable” to action (rose, 1996, p. 42). once accessible in thought, political rationalities stimulate a variety of tactics and tools to instrumentalize “in practice those very notions, ideas, or visions that define a certain mode of political thinking” (hultqvist, 1997, p. 406). the fusion between technologies of government and governmental rationalities is made: “thought becomes governmental to the extent that it becomes technical, it attaches itself to a technology for realization” (rose, 1999, p. 51). governmental technologies in foucauldian deployment technology also has more than nonstandard connotations. in everyday use, the designation technology might refer to computers, cell phones, or mp3 players; in sum, the machines that facilitate work, communication, and entertainment. these technologies are most often perceived as neutral, apolitical commodities that are disentangled in their materiality to any web of power. on the other hand, a governmentality perspective considers technologies to be interventionist and interspersed by power relations: technologies are the practical means and measures through which conduct is guided and regulated. technologies include the techniques, procedures, apparatuses, equipment, tools, and strategies that affect action. in functioning to shape actions and bodies, even at their seemingly most mundane, technologies are always caught up in relations of power. think again of the computer and the networked, hypertextual landscape of information that is available on the internet: when i (re)search what do i find? see? believe? what sort of machine do i use? what knowledge is accessible? who has access? where is this knowledge stored? who controls it? what do i do with this information? what are the knowledge effects? “the very nature of a technology,” iris duhn (2006) contends, “is that it depends on connecting a diverse range of knowledges, practices, capacities, skills, dispositions, types of judgments and forces” (p. 36). in every way     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 6 technologies are political. in elcc centres, examples of technologies are as varied as the materials in the room from posters that hang on the wall, the lego in the block corner, the cutlery used at lunch to the clock that marks activity transitions, the curriculum binder housed the office area, the division of children into aged groupings, the sign-in sheets at the entrance, to the green space of the naturalized playground. how we think about these technologies and how we intra-act with them and each other is governmentality. neoliberalism as governmentality: key features neoliberalism evades a simple, singular definition: each neoliberalism takes different forms and is realized in different ways to different degrees. wendy larner (2000) posits that neoliberalism be understood as policy, ideology, and governmentality. in this framing, neoliberalism includes a system of ideas, a transfer of ideas into policy-like pronouncements, and a translation of policy text in to everyday practices and actions. neoliberalism as governmentality ties these facets together into a rationality (i.e. a way of thinking) made practical and technical (i.e. a technology). this is not to say that neoliberalism coheres neatly in application as translations will always be unequal and uneven. however, there are some neoliberal regularities that can be mapped including the role of the state, the prominence of experts, the individualized and responsibilized image of the adult and child subject, and technologized forms of assessment. neoliberal state the neoliberal state is an “enabling state” that functions primarily in an organizing role (fejes, 2008, p. 87). this is not to say that the state and politicians no longer have a powerful influence in our lives, but that their primary function has shifted from authoritarian directors to network producers. for example, in the gnb (2008) elcc policy document titled be ready, the “government role” is stated as providing “a policy and regulatory framework,” “supporting parents,” and “help[ing] to create an environment in which all members of society understand and value the benefits of high quality child care services” (p. 2). creating frameworks and environments and helping parents is far removed from direct disciplinary intrusions that limit the freedoms of citizens. as such, the neoliberal state can be thought of as a as a “centre of calculation” (rose, 1996, p. 46) through which a “delicate affiliation of a loose assemblage of agents and agencies flow” (miller & rose, 1993, p. 84). the state becomes one player among many, albeit a power participant or a team captain to carry the metaphor further. the neoliberal state relies on partnerships with privatized institutions, non-political experts, public employees, and economically savvy, self-governing individuals in order to govern at a distance (miller & rose, 1992, 1993).     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 7 neoliberal expertise foucault (1991) traces how neoliberalism arose in response to the problem of intensive, paternalistic, and centralized state rule (i.e. governing too much, governing too intimately). expertise emerged as one solution to too much direct state intervention (miller & rose, 1992, 1993). the intensification of expertise allows for increased political action at a distance that is characteristic of the neoliberal state as described above. experts are able to create and occupy networked zones between state authority and citizen experience. in one way, experts can align themselves with the issues deemed important by politicians. experts link their agendas to the policy goals of the state. in another fashion, experts work directly with individual citizens in the contexts of their daily work and leisure lives. dispersed from centres of political rule, experts can be perceived as non-political, neutral actors especially when renamed as partners. nonetheless, experts work to instill in individuals the self-regulatory, self-maximizing techniques that “will align their personal choices with the ends of government” (miller & rose, 1992, p. 189). experts are not inherently good or bad, ethical or immoral, but function strategically in an always potentially dangerous network of governmentality. experts – and no longer necessarily state officials – are most trusted to guide citizen action. neoliberal subjects neoliberalism concurrently presumes and produces particular kinds of subjects. flexible, self-sufficient individuals are to be responsible, response-ready, and response-able (fendler, 2001). individuals are expected to continuously learn more and work to improve themselves (rose, 1999). neoliberalism becomes “an ethic in itself” (harvey, 2005, p. 3) as human action and relationships are reconfigured as entrepreneurial endeavours and contractual relations. it is important to note that neoliberal conduct is not automatically monetized but does entail a translation of market principles into all aspects of life. money need not change hands for experiences to be figured in cost-benefit terms. for example, at the state level, care and learning translate into potential capital accumulation and risk management aversion. at a familial level, parents are encouraged to seek out, choose, evaluate, and monitor the best early learning programs for their children. at the level of the individualized child, learning is understood to begin at birth so children in quality elcc centres learn earlier and learn more, which translates in to a more promising and productive future for all. entrepreneurial, self-sufficient citizens translate care and learning “into market-oriented behaviour” (dahlberg & moss, 2005, p. 45); in a marketized relationship, elcc is transformed into a commodity to be shopped and bought.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 8 neoliberal technologies of assessment “studies of governmentality,” jo ailwood (2004) writes, “are concerned with the ways in which particular knowledges at particular moments become established within circuits of power” (p. 536). these circuits of power are deeply enmeshed in disciplinary knowledges which “determine what is normal, then develop measures and other practices to assess if individuals are normal and to shape them towards a norm” (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2006, p. 29). these measures and practices are collectively termed technologies. as an illustration of how knowledge and technologies co-construct each other, the scientific knowledge of child development is combined with technical and statistical knowledge designed to measure learning in the production of standardized readiness achievement tests. these tests figure as technologies of measurement that relate what counts as knowledge, construct what it means to be an educable subject, and determine who are considered to be good teachers, schools, and nation state (fendler, 1998; fejes, 2006). such tests are also examples of what foucault names dividing practices – the knowers (and non-knowers) become sortable. tests as a singular technology then give way to a host of other interventions designed to bring others up to the norm. in elcc contexts these additional technologies may include literacy intervention programs, playgroups, tutoring and worksheet practice, or parenting classes. in this neoliberal climate of increased responsibilization and accountability, sue dockett and colleagues (2007) note, “it is not surprising that there is an accompanying focus on assessment [that] extends to assessment before school entry” (p. 19). amos hatch (2002) refers to this phenomenon as an “accountability shovedown” into the early childhood years (p. 457). while some may wish to distinguish between what qualifies as an evaluation, a test, or an assessment, i tend to use the terms interchangeably as each implement shares a will to know, sort, and divide. carol ann wein’s (2011) observations convey some of my unease: i avoid the terms assess and assessment here because they imply a range of meanings that i hope to distance from pedagogical documentation—accountability and the judgment of learning. to judge is to remove oneself from participation. if the teacher is removed from relationship to and responsibility for the learning, it becomes solely the learner’s responsibility. the learner who has not learned is then considered to be in jeopardy and a failure. to view the child learner as a failure is, in my view, unethical, violating the rights of children to have a safe learning environment. (n.p.) rather than avoiding the terms evaluation, test, and assessment i wish to highlight their intrinsic judging character by collectively referring to them as technologies of measurement that     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 9 constitute individualized childhoods. furthermore, wein’s introduction of pedagogical documentation as ethical praxis will be revisited in a later section as a technology of countermeasurement that holds potential to disrupt the high-stakes testing regime of neoliberal accountability. the intent thus far has been to provide the groundwork for an analysis of how features of neoliberal governmentality including expertise, individualism, responsibilization, marketization, assessment and surveillance combine to configure the conditions of possibility for the full-scale implementation of the eye in nb. at first sight: introducing the eyei the eye is described as a “universal assessment tool to assess children’s early development” (pei, 2011, “eye”), and a “direct measure of the developmental outcomes of children ages 3-6 years” (willms, 2009a, p. 43). the eye consists of two measurement mechanisms: the eye-da (direct assessment) and the eye-ta (teacher assessment). in nb the eye-da is directly administered to all anglophone and francophone 4 year-old children attending “school readiness clinics” as part of transition-to-school initiatives in the year prior to kindergarten (gnb, 2007b, p. 10).ii the eye-ta is a “systematic online assessment” carried out once school starts by kindergarten teachers without the direct participation of the individual child (crisp, 2008). the eye-ta is completed in a student’s first months of kindergarten with possible follow-up tests at a later period. in nb the eye-ta is currently used by the francophone sector only (st-laurent, 2010). eye assessments are being implemented in other canadian provinces as well, including the eye-da in pei and the eye-ta in alberta (eye, “news”). this discussion however will mostly engage the eye-da and will focus on nb. the eye-da represents child development as four distinct, measurable domains: (1) awareness of self and the environment, (2) cognitive skills, (3) language and communication, and (4) physical development, which is subdivided into gross and fine motor skills (eye, “eyeda”). as a one-on-one individually administered assessment, the eye-da testing directly involves children in face-to-face skill-based activities. the test administration takes between thirty minutes to an hour per child, and, except in exceptional circumstances, a child is ushered into a private testing space with a “district evaluator” who he or she has just met for the first time (butler, 2009, p. 8). the test is composed of 48 specific measures which break down to 12 tasks in each of the four developmental domains listed above. provided below are samples of the scripted test prompts: • now we are going to do some matching with shapes. i’m going to point to a shape on this side, and i would like you to show me which one on the other side matches the shape.”     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 10 • “now we are going to do some counting…can you count to 6?” (scoring guide: can count to 6= 3 points; can count to 5 = 2 points; can count to 4 = 1 point; unable to count to 3 = 0 points) • “we are going to use a crayon – this time i want you to colour in this shape – try to be very careful and do your best work.” • “now we are going to get up and get moving! watch closely. i am going to stand on one foot!”… “now, i want you to do the same as i did…( willms, 2009a, p. 7)iii data from the individually administered assessments is inputted into a web-based tool that generates reports on each individual child in addition to mapping and graphical summaries at the school, district, community, and provincial levels (eye, “overview”). parents are subsequently mailed copies of their child’s report card, and sometimes follow-up phone calls are made to secure participation in selective interventions (mcauliffe, 2009). mary butler (2010) gives the following examples of interventions: • child makes scheduled visits to the school to experience and practice kindergarten routines; • parent and child attend one ½ day per week for five weeks in the spring or summer to learn language development strategies; • some children receive individual attention for 45 minutes per day for the first five weeks of school; • referral made for additional assessment by related professionals; diagnosis and interventions followed. (p. 37)iv gazing deeper into the eye the intensified focus on elcc in nb is largely “about preparing our youngest children for school” (gnb, 2008, p. 6). school readiness or as i rewrite the term “schooled readiness” to draw attention to the narrow accumulation of skills that typically act as the referent – is constructed as the dominant problem for which elcc interventions such as the eye are poised as solution. schooled readiness has become a prominent feature in recent gnb documentation. for example: • our action plan to be self-sufficient in new brunswick, the government’s overarching policy plan: “to transform our workforce we will: make the strategic investments required to ensure that every child arrives at kindergarten ready to learn.” (gnb, 2007a, p. 7) • a government public relations’ and media campaign slogan for the new elcc curricula, “for now. for life. be ready!” (http://www.gnb.ca/elcc-curriculum.asp)     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 11 • the department of education and child development policy 703: provincial student code of conduct: “as a parent, i will ensure that my children come to school ready to learn.” (gnb, n.d., p. 6) • be ready for success: a 10 year early childhood strategy for new brunswick (gnb, 2008). • when kids come first, the department of education plan’s first commitment: “to ensure school readiness” (gnb, 2007b, p. 9). while the contextual specificity of the statements should be taken into account, i nonetheless include them in order to draw attention to the ever more present and frequent use of readiness to link disparate statements and policies together.v an analysis of the eye must therefore include attention to the political contexts and ethical conditions under which so-called problems become problematized. for example: how did schooled readiness become a problem to be solved? how is readiness used? what does readiness do? this troubling of schooled readiness is also directed towards the role that knowledges play in its constitution, and, subsequently, to the experts authorized to conduct interventions in conduct. guiding questions of this sort include: how is schooled readiness assembled as knowable? who is authorized to know and solve readiness? how have readiness and child development been mobilized together? what comes together in the readiness assemblage? following these sorts of questions, the eye is figured as a political, cultural, and economic affair as much as it is an elcc concern. the meaning and significance of a technology can be made intelligible through interrogating the particular historical and political moment in which it is set. in this way the eye can be seen as one component of a larger composition of political shiftings a singular embodiment of preeminent neoliberal rationalities mixed and strengthened by discourses of schooled readiness and child developmentism. within these structurings the eye erects children’s schooled readiness (and therefore children, parents, and educators) as a problem to be known, diagnosed, and overcome. the eye portends a response to policy statements such as, “we must make certain that every child acquires the reading and problem-solving skills they will need in the modern economy” (gnb, 2007a, p. 22). only the eye is not so much a response, solution, or guarantee to such stated neoliberal requirements but intimately entangled in the address. what i mean is that the eye continually assures its own existence by re-proving and constituting the very problem (i.e. schooled readiness) it relies on for its existence. in order to explore these complicated complicities i read the eye in concert with the marketization of readiness, development, and fun, and the impacts for elcc educators.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 12 marketing readiness the eye is created, owned and operated by ksi international inc., a self-proclaimed “commercial research organization” (ksi, “about ksi research”) that takes on the role as child development expert who networks between government agencies and individual citizens. the organization states that their “primary focus has been on developing assessment tools to provide educators with data on child development to maximize the accuracy of the educational planning and design decisions they make” (“about ksi research”). my aim is not to discount their supportive motives, nor to villainize ksi personnel in any way, but to bring attention to what can happen when elcc, children, schools, and families are constituted in a marketized relationship. how does this marketized relationship take form? on their website, ksi aims “to be ‘second to none’ in terms of service and support to our clients. we value your business” (“about ksi research”; emphasis added). ksi is “dedicated to the clients we serve…from the children who are assessed, the teachers using the evaluations, to the policy makers designing school curricula” (eye, “about us”; emphasis added). what image of the child is evoked when children are named as clients? what might it mean when we consider that readiness can be bought and sold? in nb the eye implementation is paid for by the department of education and child development. costs include the purchase of training, assessments, and reports directly from ksi, and the hiring of additional staff comprised of largely retired teachers to be testers, short-term staff such as supply teachers to run intervention programs, and specific departmental appointees to liaise with ksi (e.g. program coordinator position, 2011). actual figures have proven to be unattainable. the only public cost-related mention of the eye is in a policy document, in a section on current investments: “$2 million annually in early kindergarten registration, orientation sessions, transition-to-school coordinators, a new early years evaluation (eye) assessment tool, and various transition to school initiatives” (gnb, 2008, p. 8). is this how public education dollars are best spent? this last question is of course very complicated. neoliberalism is seductive. we desire the best, that same “second to none” that ksi promotes. we want children to do well in school and in life, we hope to teach and raise them well, and we are understandably confused by the contradictory messages and techniques served-up in the surplus of educative readiness products now available on the marketplace. neoliberalism works because all these important questions and many more besides can be gathered into particular ways of thinking and doing that connect to our hopes, dreams, and fears. but these desires do not have to be taken for granted; we can trouble what we find to be self-evident. this said let us not forget that ksi’s profit motive cannot be severed from their educative one. in a presentation for the cross-canada national strategy for early literacy consultation event, the eye presentation ended with this slide: “last but not least: other products and services are offered through ksi and affiliated companies. please see our     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 13 website for details. www.ksiresearch.com” (butler, 2009, p. 19). the eye are listed on the early years evaluation website under the heading “products.” the eye is for sale across canada and around the rest of the world as well.vi marketing developmentalism proponents and creators of another canadian-made readiness assessment used worldwide, the early development index (edi), argue, “school readiness is increasingly defined as a holistic construct, encompassing not solely cognitive facets, but also physical, social, emotional, and communicative ones” (guhn, janus, & hertzman, 2007, p. 369). early childhood education reconceptualists gunilla dahlberg, peter moss, and alan pence (2006) offer a jarring critique: despite frequent talk about a holistic perspective…the child is frequently reduced to separate and measurable categories, such as social development, intellectual development, motor development. consequently, processes which are very complex and interrelated in everyday life are isolated from one another and viewed dichotomously, instead of viewing them as intrinsically interrelated functions that all work together in the production of change. (p. 46) the implied assumption of the eye-da and similar tests is that knowing which readiness domain is weakest can lead to specifically targeted interventions which can simply isolate and redress the problem. this reductive focus on isolated skills and developmental domains is especially problematic with young children because “standardised assessments do not recognise that young children can demonstrate skills and abilities in many different ways, and are not particularly sensitive to cultural and linguistic diversity” (dockett et al., 2007, p. 35).vii the eye-da perceives children’s learning and development as distinguishable, separable entities, and this is visible in the reports issued to parents. explained by doug willms, president of ksi, parents receive a report which “lists each of the developmental areas and uses a colour-coded box to indicate the child’s results” (p. 47). although described by its creator as “not used to label children” (willms, 2009b, p. 51), the eye-da reports showcase a traffic-light colour rating system. red for stop, yellow for caution, and green for go. furthermore, a slide from an eye presentation reads: “children are identified using three colour codes” (butler, 2010, p. 28). in a semantic framing, synonyms for identified include branded, categorized, recognized, and labeled. what might attempts to avoid label do? can such evaluation ever avoid labeling? what are ways of doing assessment that might engage possibilities of doing otherwise?     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 14 the red, yellow, and green colours correspond to categories of development outlined at the bottom of the parental report card: “appropriate development: approximately 70% of children of this age are in this category; experiencing some difficulty: approximately 15% of children of this age are in this category; and experiencing significant difficulty: approximately 15% of children of this age are in this category” (willms, 2009b, p. 48; butler, 2010, p. 28). located to the left-hand side of the report page are brief descriptions of the four developmental domains with 2-4 bulleted examples for each. for example, the details provided to parents for the “physical/motor” domain are as follows: this area refers to children’s abilities to: • use crayons, pencils, and scissors (e.g. copying shapes, letters, and numbers) • balance, jump and hop on one foot (willms, 2009b, p. 48; butler, 2010, p. 28) part of how the eye has become an unquestioned inscription device is through banalized statements of development like the above. i am not arguing against children having experiences with scissors, markers, or physical activity, nor their importance, but what concerns me is that these skills become the truth of child development and of the children themselves. the language and practice of child development can neutralize political and ethical questions; what counts as child development and readiness is not natural or universal, nor is its measurement. child development assumptions are integral to the construction of the eye evaluation questions and to the evaluative conclusions drawn from the data. in a document titled “classification criteria for the early years evaluation (eye)” it is explained that “age-based norms are used for the eye-da to determine whether children are indicated as red vs. yellow vs. green” (eye, “research”). while my displeasure with the formula has already been expressed, i wish here to focus on the pre-determination of coloured placements. the colours signal “cut-off scores” which “are set such that approximately 20% of the population will be red and 20% yellow per domain. intentional so that we don’t have children ‘falling through the cracks’” (st-laurent, 2010, p. 3). in other words, within each domain we establish two cut-off scores, one distinguishing between red and yellow, the other between yellow and green. the cut-scores were set such that the percentage of children with red scores is about 15%, and the percentage with yellow scores is about 30%. these two levels of vulnerability are consistent with national and international results on other assessments, such as the oecd programme for international student assessment (pisa). (eye, “research: classification criteria”)     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 15 what the quotations make known is that the eye-da is purposefully designed so that 15-20% of the child population will be red and judged to be “experiencing significant difficulty.” this is another way in which developmentalism works with assessment technologies to sort, manage, label, and discipline children. there is something immensely unsettling about a test which is intentionally designed so that a fifth of children do not perform well and are therefore constructed as failing to develop appropriately and normally, and an even larger 30-40% are identified at-and-asrisk. marketing social justice the marketization of eye takes another precarious turn in its connection with social justice. ksi and its affiliated research institute (crisp) promote their services in terms familiar to neoliberal rationalities wherein politics are now being played out on the “moral register” (mouffe, 2005, p. 5). rose (1999) argues that citizen-subjects “have become obliged to think ethically. hence it is likely on the terrain of ethics that our most important political disputes will have to be fought for the foreseeable future” (p. 188). with the ascension of the ethical in mind, the eye and other similar quantitative measurements are being justified in the name of “inclusion” (willms, 2010) and “social justice” (beswick, sloat, & willms, 2008). what are the possible implications and ramifications when ethics are refigured in a marketized formulation? joan beswick, elizabeth sloat, and doug willms (2008), in their article titled “four educational myths that stymie social justice,” frame “early monitoring” (p. 124) and testing of children as the material of social justice (p. 125). the authors write: unfortunately, educational practices are shaped by multiple forces and, all too often, are influenced less by empirical evidence than by prevailing sociopolitical mores and the deeply held beliefs of educators and educational communities… the result is a plethora of practices that persist even though their effectiveness remains unproven. these practices are widely adhered to because educators believe they confer benefits—a belief that, although false, resonates with the idiosyncratic experiences or value systems of influential individuals. in other words, these persistent ineffectual practices assume the status of myth, acquire credibility, and rarely are critically examined. (p. 116) i intend no disrespect to the authors, however, i do take issue with many of their ideas. firstly, i find the possibility that “educational practices are shaped by multiple forces” hopeful. i name this hope a possibility because it seems very few people are making decisions for the many, and the democratic experimentalism that peter moss (2008) speaks of resides in the realm of hoped     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 16 for and not-yet. i oddly agree with the authors that there are “influential individuals” whose “value systems” dominate educative practices, although our perception of who those individuals are clashes mightily. i believe these authors and some of their colleagues in the fields of child development and educational testing are the “influential individuals” whose – to twist their words against them – “ineffectual practices assume the status of myth, acquire credibility, and rarely are critically examined.” social justice is definitely a desirable and admirable goal but its meaning needs to be continually unpacked and its actions continually debated. i cannot provide a sign-posted path on how we can achieve social justice with and for children, however, i am fairly confident that technologies of measurement and surveillance are not the most just route to take. marketing fun the eye-da is repeatedly rationalized by pronouncements of pleasure by those responsible for both its administration and marketization. examples include: “children love doing the eye!” (willms, 2009b, p. 44), and, “colourful pictures, manipulatives, and physical activities make the eye-da fun and engaging for children” (butler, 2010, p. 18). these discursive assertions are further tied to the materials used in the testing procedures. the early years evaluation boasts that the “eye-da test kit materials…include…stickers for the children” (eye, “products: eye-da”). stickers, as we are all expected to know, make for good childhood fun. sara ahmed (2008a) adopts a cultural studies approach “to explore how happiness can make certain truths 'true' and certain goods 'good'” (p. 7). ahmed asks, “to what do we appeal to when we appeal to happiness?” (p. 7). i wonder: what is appealed to when the eye is fashioned as fun? why is fun so integral to the eye public perception campaign? what truths does fun make seem true and what goods does fun make appear good? how does fun intersect with an image of the child? how does fun help sell the eye? how might claims of fun shut out dissensus? thinking back to my own school evaluation experiences, i question whether fun is an appropriate tag line. in bringing happiness and power into encounter ahmed (2008a) considers how happiness functions as a “world-making device” (p. 11). more questions emerge: what world does fun bring about? what world does the eye help make? the eye brings into being a world where the schooled readiness of children is an object to be known and children are subjects to be managed (while nevertheless being happy). the complexities of neoliberalism figure messily in this configuring of worlds. ahmed writes that thinking about happiness in a critical way pays attention to “how happiness and unhappiness are distributed and located within certain bodies and groups” (p. 11). what child-bodies get to have fun? who is excluded? who gets rewarded with a sticker? how does fun support the norms and ideals of normal child development, of schooled readiness, of being “successful in school and in life!” (eye, “about us”)?     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 17 part of what makes the eye presentable as fun “is in part what it conceals or keeps from view” (ahmed, 2008b, p. 132). in an article in a local nb newspaper, parent andrea mcauliffe (2009) describes the eye-da testing environment: over the last two weeks, much of the talk among the moms at my son's pre-school has centred around mysterious meetings. children across the province have been having one-on-one sessions with teachers in preparation for entering kindergarten in september… "what goes on once we leave the room? what are they talking about in there for 45 minutes? my kid told me she was jumping on one foot. what does that have to do with kindergarten?" such a scenario might be expected to evoke critical questions; however, critiques of the eyeda are rarely, if ever, made in public forums. mcauliffe asks important questions that deserve further engagement. ahmed (2008b) encourages such asking too when she instructs, “we need to get beyond the appeal of happy surfaces” (p. 134). we need to ask what lies under fun. marking educators part of what underlies the eye is a host of consequences for elcc educators. the processes of eye marketing discussed above make their mark on our image of elcc educators. schooled readiness panic works to bring actions of elcc educators under minute inspection, and also re-envisions elcc centres and educators as producers of schooled children. the perceived lack of “training” of elcc educators then becomes a derived area of concern; the eye acts as an indirect measure of elcc educator “performance” (ball, 2003). there are approximately 2600 elcc educators in nb and slightly less than a third are reported to have “a one-year early childhood education (ece) certificate, a bed or a university degree in child studies” (gnb, 2008, p. 8). this information is presented in a policy document as “70 per cent do not have recognized ece training” and the statistic is textually positioned directly before the statement: “a key requirement for high quality child care is appropriately trained staff” (gnb, 2008, p. 8). this textualization matters. what image of educators is being constructed? what counts as training? neither experience working with children nor professional development of other sorts, such as self-directed study or participation in meetings, workshops and conferences, are acknowledged. if un-schooled readiness is the problem for which the eye and ksi produces solutions then “untrained” educators are unfairly being put to task for the constructed state of a readiness crisis. constructing a perceived lack of training as a correlate for a lack of readiness marks a failure to move beyond the reification of “training the always, already ‘failing’ early childhood educator” (novinger, o’brien, & sweigman, 2005). schooled readiness as the     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 18 problem space of elcc is not designed to highlight educators’ innovative strengths. the eye-related effects for elcc educators and centres are uneven. educators are being pressured to contextlessly and directly teach the skills measured by the eye-da, and their practices come under increased surveillance.viii furthermore, children have been pulled from feepaying elcc centres to attend the free readiness sessions offered by the department of education and child development through local school districts. other elcc centres have capitalized on the readiness push and remarketed their programming to offer “preschool” in addition to the provincial curriculum. i have visited a centre where children of age 4 were rote taught phonics for a portion of their preschool morning routine. however, elcc educators also engage in many everyday acts of resistance against the eye and the testing of children. hallway conservations with parents have revealed the well-kept secret that “you can just say no to the test, your child doesn’t have to take it, and nothing bad will happen”; parent meetings have been held to discuss concerns about the schoolification of children with invitees from the school districts and department in attendance; educators have accompanied parents and children to meet their kindergarten teacher, and have encouraged families to take their learning story portfolios and narrative documentation with them to their schools. educators are unequally positioned against this powerful test, powerful corporation, and powerful discourses, but they prove now and again that they are not powerless. eyeing an otherwise the eye is only a portion of the picture of elcc in nb. the new brunswick curriculum framework for early learning and child care ~ english (nbcf) offers another vision (unb ecc, 2008).ix constructed as a framework, the nbcf requires interpretation and meaning making. this, i believe, marks its pedagogical promise and potential. as a values-based curriculum, possibilities exist to rethink the image of the child, trouble developmental discourses, and complicate standardized technologies of measurement. in the nbcf two types of assessment practices are mentioned: narrative assessment illustrates, describes, and interprets the learning of individual children or groups of children through careful listening, photographs, observations, anecdotal records, and multimodal learning stories such as those developed in conjunction with te whāriki the new zealand curriculum. this form of assessment builds community and links children’s learning to curricular goals and future planning. normative assessment is typically an individual assessment that locates an individual’s development in relation to age-group norms, such as developmental     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 19 milestones. this form of assessment must be used carefully and thoughtfully, keeping in mind that all norms are socially and culturally biased. (p. 63) the nbcf notes that the kind of assessment practiced makes available, reflects, and enacts different perspectives, beliefs, and insights about children, families, learning and curriculum. the eye is clearly situated as a form of normative assessment whereas the nbcf recommends practices of narrative documentation that “emphasize a strengths-based approach” (p. 63). especially important to me is that in the many examples of documentation and assessment practices listed in the nbcf for example, creating learning story portfolios, constructing project webs, and listening to children (p. 64) 15-40% of children will not be left behind or labeled as vulnerable. what could shift if children came to kindergarten with a learning story portfolio rather than a one-page report with a few green, yellow, or red lights? there are possibilities offered in the nbcf to see and do differently. however the nbcf is not immune to neoliberal influences, although they do present differently than the eye. a pedagogical framework is not an innocent technology as it is always already enmeshed in specific historical, cultural, and political contexts (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2011). the flexible, competent, and individualized child introduced earlier takes form in pedagogical expressions which figure “children as curious and communicative individuals” (unb ecc, 2008, p. 8), “agents in their own learning” (p. 60) who demonstrate “flexible and fluid thinking” (p. 45). also the neoliberal push for learning is perhaps inescapable in any curricular document regardless of its postmodern affinities and efforts to shift dominant discourses. i am not against learning nor am i discounting this strong reconceptuaized image of the child by any means. i offer this because i am for not getting too comfortable or too settled. this new image of the child and the other pedagogical principles expressed in the nbcf are perhaps best understood as provocations (pacini-ketchabaw & pence, 2011). in provocations lie possibilities. the recent take-up of curriculum frameworks across canada has opened spaces for elcc practices that engage with meaning-making (dahlberg, moss, & pence, 2006), and “attend to the complexity and plurality of childhood” (hodgins, 2012, p. 4). a form of what the nbcf names above as narrative documentation is practiced in british columbia as pedagogical narrations. iris berger (2010) writes of pedagogical narrations as a process of making visible educational experiences, thought, and practices “in the public realm, thus becoming subject to public critical thought and dialogue. these narrations provoke us to think anew and to resist normalized and habitual conceptions of childhood, education, learning, and assessment” (p. 58). what might become of assessment if practiced publically? how might foregrounding responsibility and relationality reconceptualize assessment? what is possible if we make     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 20 meaning together? what these brief counterexamples show is that within the cacophonous complexities and contradictions of neoliberalism are productive possibilities, potentialities, and provocations for all of us working in early learning and child care. references ahmed, s. (2008a). the happiness turn. new formations, 63, 7-15. ahmed, s. (2008b). multiculturalism and the promise of happiness. new formations, 63, 121-139. ailwood, j. (2008). learning or earning in the “smart state”: changing tactics for governing early childhood. childhood: a global journal of child research, 15(4), 535-551. ailwood, j. (2004). genealogies of governmentality: producing and managing young children and their education. australian educational researcher, 31(3), 19-34. beswick, j. f., sloat, e. a., & willms, j. d. (2008). four educational myths that stymie social justice. the educational forum, 72(2), 115-128. berger, i. (2010). extending the notion of pedagogical narration through hannah arendt’s political thought. in v. pacini-ketchabaw (ed.), flows, rhythms, & intensities of early childhood education curriculum (pp. 57-76). new york: peter lang. bloch, m., popkewitz, t., holmlund, k., & moqvist, i. (eds.). (2003). governing children, families, and education: restructuring the welfare state. new york: palgrave macmillan. braidotti, r. (2010). on putting the active back into activism. new formations, 86, 42-57. butler, m. (2010). early years evaluation overview and implementation practices: informed practice. saskatoon, sk, june 18. retrieved from http://earlyyearsevaluation.com/en/index.php/en/resources/presentations.html. butler, m. (2009). early years evaluation. presentation for the national strategy for early literacy hearing. march 13. fredericton, nb. crisp. (2008). early years evaluation direct assessment. canadian research institute for social policy: crispfact. retrieved from http://www.unb.ca/crisp/cfacts.html dahlberg, g., & moss, p. (2005). ethics and politics in early childhood education. new york: routledgefalmer. dahlberg, g., moss, p., & pence, a. (2006). beyond quality in early childhood education and care: postmodern perspectives (rev. ed.). london: falmer press. dean, m. (1999). governmentality: power and rule in modern society. london: sage publications. dockett, s., perry, b., campbell, h., hard, l., kearney, e., & taffe, r. (2007). early years learning and curriculum: reconceptualising reception: continuity of learning. adelaide, au: department of education and children’s service, government of south australia. duhn, i. (2006). the making of global citizens: traces of cosmopolitanism in the new zealand early childhood curriculum, te whāriki. contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(3), 191-202.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 21 eye: early years evaluation (eye). (2013). early years evaluation. retrieved from http://earlyyearsevaluation.com fejes, a. (2006). the planetspeak discourse of lifelong learning in sweden: what is an educable adult? journal of education policy, 21(6), 697-716. fejes, a. (2008). to be one’s own confessor: educational guidance and governmentality. british journal of sociology of education, 29(6): 653-664. fendler, l. (1998). what is it impossible to think? a genealogy of the educated subject. in t. popkewitz & m. brennan (eds.), foucault's challenge: discourse, knowledge, and power in education (pp. 3963). new york: teachers college press. fendler, l. (2001). educating flexible souls: the construction of subjectivity through developmentality and interaction. in k. hultqvist & g. dahlberg (eds.), governing the child in the new millennium (pp. 119–42). london: routledge falmer. foucault, m. (1991). governmentality. in g. burchell, c. gordon, & p. miller (eds.), the foucault effect: studies in governmentality: with two lectures by and an interview with michel foucault (pp. 87-104). chicago: university of chicago press. foucault, m. (1982). the subject and power. in h. l. dreyfus & p. rabinow (eds.), michel foucault: beyond structuralism and hermeneutics (pp. 208-226). brighton: harvester. gnb. (2008). be ready for success: a 10 year early childhood strategy for new brunswick. fredericton, nb: province of new brunswick. gnb. (2007a). our action plan to be self-sufficient in new brunswick. fredericton, n.b: province of new brunswick. gnb. (2007b). when kids come first: a challenge to all new brunswickers to build canada's best education system. department of education. fredericton, nb: province of new brunswick. gnb. (n.d.). policy 703: positive learning and working environment. department of education and child development. province of new brunswick. retrieved from http://www.gnb.ca/0000/policies.asp guhn, m., janus, m., & hertzman, c. (2007). the early development instrument: translating school readiness assessment into community actions and policy planning. early education and development, 18(3), 369-374. harvey, d. (2005). a brief history of neoliberalism. oxford: oxford university press. hatch, j. a., (2002). accountability shovedown: resisting the standards movement in early childhood education. phi delta kappan, 83(6), 457-463. hodgins, d. (2012). pedagogical narrations’ potentiality as a methodology for child studies research. canadian children, 37(1), 4-11. hultqvist, k., & dahlberg, g. (eds.). (2001). governing the child in the new millennium. new york: routledge falmer. ksi: ksi research international (2009) inc. (2013). ksi: leading informed practice. retrieved from https://ksiresearch.com/     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 22 larner, w. (2000). neo-liberalism: policy, ideology, governmentality. studies in political economy, 63, 5. mcauliffe, a. (2009). kindergarten, here we come. parental guidance. telegraph-journal. january 29. retrieved from http://earlyyearsevaluation.com/en/index.php/en/resources/news-articles.html miller, p., & rose, n. (2008). governing the present: administering economic, social and personal life. cambridge: polity. miller, p., & rose, n. (1992). political power beyond the state: problematics of government. british journal of sociology, 43(2), 173-205. miller, p., & rose, n. (1993). governing economic life. in m gane & t. johnson (eds.), foucault’s new domains (pp. 75-105). london: routledge. moss, p. (2008). markets and democratic experimentalism: two models for early childhood education and care. retrieved from www.bertelsmannstiftung.de/ bst/de/media/xcms_bst_dms_24015__2.pdf mouffe, c. (2005). on the political. new york : routledge novinger, s., o’brien, l., & sweigman, l. (2005). challenging the culture of expertise: moving beyond training the always, already failing early childhood educator. advances in early education and day care issues, 14, 217-241. pacini-ketchabaw, v. (2007). child care and multiculturalism: a site of governance marked by flexibility and openness. contemporary issues in early childhood, 8(3), 222-232. pacini-ketchabaw, v. & pence, a. (2011). the postmodern curriculum: making space for historically and politically situated understandings. australasian journal of early childhood, 36(1), 4-8. pei. (2011). early years evaluation. parents. government of prince edward island. department of education and early childhood development. retrieved from http://www.gov.pe.ca/eecd/index.php3?number=1031246&lang=e. rose, n. (1996). governing advanced liberal democracies. in a. barry, t. osborne, & n. rose (eds.), foucault and political reason: liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government (pp. 37-64). london: ucl press. rose, n. (1999). powers of freedom: reframing political thought. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. st-laurent, g. (2010). using the early years evaluation to pave the way for positive transitions in new brunswick francophone schools. presentation at positive transitions to school: the role of the early years evaluation. saskatoon, sk, june 18, 2010. retrieved from http://www.unb.ca/crisp/positive_transitions_to_school.html unb ecc. (2008). new brunswick curriculum framework for early learning and child care ~ english. fredericton: government of new brunswick. wien, c. a. (2011). learning to document in reggio-inspired education. early childhood research and practice, 13(2). retrieved from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v13n2/wien.html willms, d. (2010). the science and practice of early years evaluation. presentation at positive transitions to school: the role of the early years evaluation. saskatoon, sk, june 18, 2010. retrieved from http://www.unb.ca/crisp/positive_transitions_to_school.html     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 23 willms, j. d. (2009a). raising and leveling the learning bar in ontario. ontario education research symposium. retrieved from www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/doug_willms.pdf. willms, j. d. (2009b). successful transitions during early childhood. parent education today: impacting practice. upstart. calgary. retrieved from http://earlyyearsevaluation.com/en/index.php/resources/presentations.html.                                                                                                                           endnotes i most of the references to the eye were obtained from the official early years evaluation website. as dates and page numbers are not available, i have referenced the webpages with title descriptors and hyperlink headings which should allow easy discovery of the information via the homepage: http://earlyyearsevaluation.com/en/. the same citation process was used for ksi: https://ksiresearch.com/. ii each school district in nb (7 total) offers their own transition-to-school programming although most contain a variation of the following elements: “october and november: ready set gokindergarten parent information meeting facilitated by transition to schools coordinator. many facts regarding your son/daughters pre-k development will be discussed. november: welcome to kindergarten program from the learning partnership. both parents and children attend this active session put on by the schools. you will receive a bag of fun educational activities and materials for your child. january, february and march: early years evaluation (eye-da) for all the children that are attending kindergarten in the fall and are administered at zone schools. appointment times will be set at ready set go meeting and you will receive a phone call to confirm. may: kindergarten orientation for children and parent information at each zone school. parents and children attend this session as we have an exciting day planned” (anglophone west school district, 2013). iii in a report titled “quality criteria for measurement in social research: a study of item bias in the early years evaluation direct assessment (eye-da)”, marotta (2010) lists the following eye-da test items: the items of domain d…item 1, for example, asks children to stand on one foot for a certain period of time; item 9 asks them to draw a person; item 10 asks them to print their name…in item 8 of domain c, for instance, test administrators must evaluate how well children pronounce ‘dogs like to run and play’ (‘les chiens aiment courir et jouer’); ‘most rabbits have soft fur’ (‘la plupart des lapins ont le poil doux’); and “a turtle moves slowly’ (‘la tortue avance tres lentement’). item 9 of the same domain presents three pictures and asks respondents to tell a story about the picture. test administrators are required to evaluate students based on story coherence and use of appropriate grammar” (pp. 12-13). iv what must be made clear here is that a direct and causal relationship cannot be drawn between the eye-da and the aforementioned interventions. for example, pre-kindergarten visits to schools are not eye specific – they would happen anyway and did so before the eye became commonplace. furthermore, referrals to what nb calls early intervention services are not a direct consequence of the eye either. referrals to specialized services do happen post-eye-da testing, i am not denying that fact, but only making the point that many children and families have received additional support regardless of eye-da administration. as one last hesitation on my part i wish to bring attention to the short duration of the applauded interventions. educational research has consistently shown that interventions of shortterm duration, including parental education programs, are short-lived and ultimately ineffective in the long term (lansford & borstein, 2007; schweinhart & weikart, 1997; siraj-blatchford, sylva, muttock, gilden, & bell, 2006; wilson et al., 2012).     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca 24                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         vthe more recent elcc policy document published in nb does not contain the phrase “school readiness”. i do not interpret this absence as a strong change in focus but an indication of a system in flux. in 2011 the day care and childhood services division of the department of social development was transferred to the department of education. the focus of the newly amalgamated department was on a “continuum of learning” as introduced in the plan, putting children first, “which will better prepare young children for the future” (gnb, 2012, june 7, press release). vi since its beginnings in 2005 the eye has been used in four countries to evaluate more than 44,000 children (butler, 2010, p. 13). while my analysis attends to ksi specifically, i wish to make clear that they are neither the sole contributors nor practitioners of school readiness in nb. part of the power of neoliberal governmentality is that we are all (unequally) enrolled and implicated. as rosi bradiotti (2010) reminds us, “we are in this together” (p. 42). vii a related critique of the eye-da i wish to highlight emerges from a very unlikely source – the early years evaluation website itself (earlyyearsevaluation.com/en). a promotional series on the website titled, “eye-ta in action,” showcases video clips from teachers and administrators in edmonton catholic schools who are using the kindergarten level eye-ta. teacher, lisa milan, shares the following about the eye-ta: “it really, i think, is an authentic way of looking at children and targeting what their needs are because as teachers [we] know them the best, and we see them for the whole month and we can see what they can do in a variety of situations. and so it’s not just someone coming in and seeing what they can do at one point in time, we can see what they can do in different situations and they’re comfortable with us and we’re able to see what their true needs are and how we can help them” (“eye video”, 2012). milan (unintentionally) brings focus to several problems with the eye-da: singular context, singular measurement, singular encounter, and singular time. the eye-da is not designed to recognize that young children show different strengths in different contexts in different ways with different people, and that children’s abilities are rapidly changing in the prior-to school years (sirajblatchford, sylva, muttock, gilden, & bell, 2006). viii in be ready (2008) plans were also initiated to “create a new childcare resource service” where parents can “access background information on caregivers” (p. 31). such surveillance of elcc educators fits with jo ailwood’s (2008) comments on how “the work of early childhood educators in the year prior to compulsory schooling is increasingly becoming public, as their professional practices are produced and managed in order to create the ‘school-ready’ child” (p. 549). ix the francophone sector early childhood curriculum, curriculum éducatif: services de garde francophones, was produced and published in a similar timeframe to the nbcf.     canadian children journal of the canadian association for young children volume 39 number 1 2014 www.cayc.ca   08  fall     in this issue: from the editor’s desk special issue: neoliberalism guest editor dr. luigi iannacci, phd, trent university, peterborough, ontario i’ve got my eye on you: schooled readiness, standardized testing, and developmental surveillance by emily ashton bear-child stories in late liberal colonialist spaces of childhood by veronica pacini-ketchabaw, lara di tomasso, fikile nxumalo producing neoliberal parenting subjectivities: ant-inspired readings from an informal early learning program by rosamund stooke neoliberal fun and happiness in early childhood education by cristina d. vintimilla radical education and the common school: a democratic alternative by michael fielding and peter moss reviewed by kim atkinson call for contributions: ‘the visual arts in early childhood education’ find other articles from this issue at www.cayc.ca canadian-children-vol-39-1-e-ashton in-this-issue june 2022 8 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research entangle, entangled, entanglements: reimagining a child and youth engagement model using a common worlds approach virginia caputo dr. virginia caputo is an associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at carleton university, ottawa, and since 2011 the director of the landon pearson centre for the study of childhood and children’s rights. from 2005 to 2009 she directed the pauline jewett institute of women’s and gender studies, helping to design and launch a graduate program on the themes of transnational feminisms and globalization. her particular contribution is her expertise on girlhoods, gendered childhoods, and the changing contours of young people’s lives in global and decolonial contexts. dr. caputo’s interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of feminism, anthropology, and childhood/girlhood research. her ethnographic research focuses on investigating the lives of children and youth, especially girls and young women, viewed as engaged social actors. her contributions to the literature span anthropology, girlhood studies, the social study of childhood, feminist scholarship, and feminist musicology. she is cofounder, with landon pearson, and the managing editor of the canadian journal of children’s rights. email: virginia.caputo@carleton.ca this paper responds to the call to explore pedagogical relations and dialogues in considering how to create climate pedagogies that are responsive, dynamic, and transformative in thinking about human and nonhuman relations. using the lens of entanglement, the paper attempts to bring into dialogue children’s rights and morethan-human ways of thinking to understand what, if any, commonalities lie in these two projects and whether and how a rights-respecting approach can be productively reconfigured in envisaging a dynamic climate pedagogy. it considers several tensions that arise from this entangled dialogue to probe both the overlaps and points of incommensurability in the two approaches. this includes viewing asymmetrical power and logics of coloniality that assert themselves through rights discourses and rights-based techniques based in an angloeurocentric worldview that narrowly defines who is included in the “human” of human rights. to illustrate these entanglements, the paper draws on a child/youth-led and child/youth-driven participatory model called shaking the movers (stm) created in 2007 by the landon pearson centre and used with youth as well as with children in early childhood and other settings across canada each year. the model aims to enable children’s civil and political rights. shaking the movers was used as the framework for a workshop held in williams lake, british columbia in 2017. the workshop serves as a case study in this paper to illustrate some of the entanglements that arise in practice when considering rights-respecting and more-than-human approaches. the analysis draws on scholarship from several disciplinary locations, including stuart aitken’s critical childhood concept of the postchild, veronica pacini-ketchabaw and affrica taylor’s notion of agency as not exclusively human and conceived as collective rather than an outcome of individual intent, and shenila khoja-moolji’s analysis of an ethic of interdependency and alliance when understanding human rights in context. each of these perspectives informs a contemplation of how to reconfigure the shaking the movers model amplify its strengths. the paper concludes with thoughts on the ways entanglements create a productive space both for bringing together a more-thanhuman and rights-respecting approach to attend to actions emanating from the margins and for invigorating and understanding how to meaningfully engage children located in interconnected and interdependent worlds. key words: more-than human; children’s rights; common worlds june 2022 9 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research entangle, entangled, entanglements. bronwyn davies (2019) discusses entanglements as a constant interweaving process wherein children “resist, challenge, indulge and transgress gendered ways of becoming through their interand intra-actions with humans (e.g., peers, parents, educators), nonhumans (e.g., material, animal) and the morethan-human (e.g., computers)” (p. 37). using the lens of entanglement, the purpose of this article is to consider the possibility of an entangled space that draws together elements of rights-based and common worlds approaches to bring them into dialogue. according to affrica taylor and miriam giugni (2012), a common worlds approach is “a conceptual framework developed to reconceptualise inclusion in early childhood communities. common worlds take account of children’s relations with all the others in their worlds—including the more-than-human others” (p. 108). this view employs an expansive concept of agency where human relationships emerge and are entangled with nonhuman and more-than-human others. while drawing on a common worlds approach, my intent is not to reconcile it with a rights-based one; rather, it is to attempt to create a space to consider how to broaden a rightsbased approach with its individualizing tendencies by using a lens of entangled human, nonhuman, and morethan-human relations. the impetus for thinking about the possibility of overlaps in these two projects of children’s rights and common worlds approaches stems from identifying a gap in the way that a child and youth engagement model called shaking the movers (stm), with which i have been involved through the landon pearson children’s rights centre, employs a rights-based approach after seeing it unfold several times in practice. briefly, the honourable landon pearson and her colleagues created the stm model over a decade ago to fulfill their interest in designing a youth-driven and youth-led workshop where young people could explore their rights while adult allies remained on the periphery of the workshop space (pearson & collins, 2011). the original idea was to create a model to engage children and young people in rights conversations and activities while disrupting an adult-centric design. the goals of the model are threefold: to gain awareness of the convention on the rights of the child (crc), to explore connections between civil and political rights and young people’s lives in practical contexts, and to develop understanding of associations among childhood, young adulthood, rights, and social change in a contemporary context. the model that pearson and her colleagues envisaged in 2007 would amplify children’s perspectives and views and offer them an opportunity to learn more about the crc, their civil and political rights, and how to activate their rights in substantive ways. the idea was to create a design with children and young people at the centre of organizing, directing, and implementing the model with their peers, while adults could act as allies by offering logistical support and by listening and then responding to children’s and young people’s views and concerns with tangible actions. while a premise of the model is its relational element, one of the issues that came to my attention was how this relational element could be reconciled with the individualized, neoliberal conception of rights used to frame the model that reflects western notions of autonomy, choice, and freedom. by this i mean that the shaking the movers model assumes an autonomous individual and upholds a particular view of children and childhood that is steeped in western values and norms, presuming, for instance, that children have both the freedom and capability to ensure their rights will be upheld. thus, the universality of rights is emphasized with duty bearers held accountable, although in practice they merely need to be informed of, and acknowledge, children’s perspectives. while the model has been revised over the years to address relational critiques, gaps remain in the model’s design and how and whether it fully attends to relational and contextual features. since 2007, the landon pearson centre has supported shaking the movers workshops in many regions in canada. in 2019, for instance, workshops were held with children and young people aged 8 to 17 in locations including june 2022 10 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research ottawa, toronto, montreal, moncton, iqaluit, edmonton, and vancouver, and shaking the movers early childhood workshops were piloted with younger children aged 3 to 5. with the assistance of local academic partners who help to provide the infrastructure for the workshops, young people design the content and lead and facilitate each workshop, which is organized around a particular theme (or an article of the crc) decided on by the previous year’s young participants. originally, from 2007 to 2011, the workshops were organized and hosted by the landon pearson centre over a two-day weekend on the carleton university campus in ottawa. participants and their chaperones stayed in the campus residences and attended the workshop on saturday and sunday, with informal activities on saturday evening. since 2011, workshops have moved to regional locations and some have been designed as one-day events. since 2020, they have been held virtually on zoom due to the covid-19 pandemic. each workshop has a lead academic organizer who works with several youth facilitators. they meet ahead of each shaking the movers workshop to discuss the themes they would like to highlight with the participants and subsequently devise arts-based activities to explore each theme at the event. the workshop usually begins with an overview and discussion of the articles of the crc that pertain to the theme. youth facilitators lead this overview presentation. following this opening session, the day is divided into different activities. the event ends with a circle gathering to acknowledge everyone’s participation and to discuss next steps that participants would like to see happen. in whatever configuration, the workshop is in the hands of young people; they act as facilitators, participants, and note-takers and author the culminating report that captures young peoples’ words, artwork, perspectives, and concerns. these reports are circulated by the landon pearson centre to “movers”— adults who make decisions on behalf of children and young people in different sectors, including academia, government, policy, education, health and legal sectors, and childand youth-serving agencies. landon pearson circulates the culminating reports to members of her child rights academic network (cran), whose members include academics, advocates, lawyers, nongovernmental and government employees working with child and youth issues, and graduate students.1 consistently, stm workshop participants report that stm provides an opportunity for them to participate authentically, in part because the model supports a process locally owned by children themselves. over the past 14 years, stm has grown into a sustainable participatory structure that forges connections between young people and adults in a dialogue about what is important to children and how this can impact decision-making processes that uphold and respect children’s civil and political rights. the workshops have generated a cohort of children and young people who are now aware of their rights, understand how international human rights legislation affects their lives, and are able to speak for themselves and on behalf of their peers from an informed position. stm supports and recognizes children’s capacities for participation as active citizens who know and understand that they are important and their civil and political rights matter. what seems evident from feedback from participants over the years is that when children and young people find themselves in places they perceive as safe, they are more likely to express their views and experiences. one clear and consistent message heard from young people after they attend an stm workshop is that it is the first time they have felt that their views and perspectives have been heard and taken seriously. they report feeling an enhanced level of confidence both as individuals and as part of a larger collective to effectively address issues relevant for young people’s lives through their new understanding of a rights-based approach. the culminating reports document stories of personal growth and awareness and a broadened view of the ways rights are intertwined with lived experiences. the creative and collaborative stm space enables these connections and reflections to flourish by transferring power to children and young people and consistently positioning them as the ones who lead the movers. participants have reported leaving stm workshops understanding that as rights holders, they can hold to account the duty bearers who make decisions on their behalf. thus the shaking the movers workshops have been highly successful in bringing together children and young people to discuss the crc and learn about their rights. however, a gap remains regarding the model’s relational june 2022 11 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research aspect. in this regard, my argument is twofold. first, given that participation is at the core of the model, more attention needs to be paid to the overemphasis on individuals and less on participation viewed as relational, entangled, and dependent on having access and opportunities in the context of diverse social relationships. the gap in my view is to move beyond a focus on children and youth, to decenter the model (spyrou et al., 2019), in order to attend to structures of inequality and oppression that situate individuals in contexts and in relations with others in a far more complex way than the present model allows. second, while the workshop enables children and young people to “shake the movers,” there is no mechanism in place to assess whether movers have implemented the recommendations articulated by stm participants, nor is there any mechanism to make adults accountable to children and young people. this gap could be addressed with an entanglement model that sees intergenerational activism and advocacy as a possibility. shaking the movers: an example from williams lake, british columbia in 2017, the landon pearson centre supported local academic organizers to organize a shaking the movers workshop for children and young people living in williams lake, british columbia. the organizers incorporated restorative justice elements into the original model design, and this modification is what piqued my initial curiosity that eventually led to the question posed in this paper. given the presence of this restorative justice approach, i was interested in whether the williams lake workshop could be used as a case to understand whether and how a lens of entanglement might illuminate a way to reimagine shaking the movers to move beyond the individual child figure that anchors the design and is used in children’s rights discourse. my interest is in contemplating youth engagement as an interrelationship among human, nonhuman, and more-than-human elements. thus, using a critical childhood studies lens, the questions that frame this paper include: how can theorizing the entanglement at the interface of a human-centered rights-based approach and a common worlds perspective offer insights into developing a dynamic and responsive pedagogy? what effect does theorizing this entanglement have on understanding the workings of each approach? finally, in what ways might the stm model be reconfigured, and how might this revised model account for and attend to contextual and relational elements, including settler colonial logics, racialized histories, and socio-political and economic inequalities that constitute the contexts in which the model is implemented? admittedly, theorizing this entanglement is hardly straightforward given that rights-based approaches are human-centered while common worlds approaches move the child focus to the periphery in order to attend to the interdependency of the human, nonhuman, and more-than-human. to consider shaking the movers, then, through a lens of entanglement requires a suspension of prioritizing either approach. one must also make a conceptual effort to see beyond discourses, including those that problematically invest in the universal child figure tethered to biology and immaturity, in order to disrupt the focus on the child in need of protection and to use the concept of interdependence to interrupt a static view that depends on a universal, normative, and individualized rights subject with choice, autonomy, and free will. sarada balagopalan (2018) traces the reliance on this rights subject and points to three broad models that emerge in children’s rights scholarship: one that is philosophical, a second that has a pragmatic focus on implementation of rights provision, and a third focused on participation and an agentic child subject capable of exercising their rights (p. 127). each of the three models rests on a singular child figure and assumes a universal biology according to age that aligns with a western bourgeois ideal of childhood circulated by the crc (boyden, 2003; nieuwenhuys, 1998). the model in children’s rights scholarship focusing on participation is perhaps most pertinent for the present consideration of shaking the movers with its emphasis on “voice” and its intent to provide young people with a space from which to speak. while the emphasis here may highlight agency that is lacking in the other children’s rights models june 2022 12 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research balagopalan highlights, which perceive children as needing protection, it nonetheless problematically posits agency as “giving voice” rather than viewing agency as a process. critiques of this view of agency as transparent authenticity are found in recent critical childhood studies scholarship that seeks to decenter and move beyond the individual child figure to attend more specifically to relationality and contextual features of agency (kraftl, 2006; spyrou et al., 2018). in these critiques, agency does not begin from the assumption that all children possess a rights-based subjectivity; rather, they critically consider this formulation, the power that informs such a view, and the implications for children of deploying agency as choice and free will, especially for those living in racialized, postcolonial, and settler colonial contexts. further, common worlds approaches conceptually regard agency by viewing humans as agentic subjects among many (pacini-ketchabaw & khattar, 2018; pacini-ketchabaw & taylor, 2019), although scholars note the destruction and violence that accrues from human agency (haraway, 2008; latour, 2005). agency is viewed as productive of relations with others in the world rather than solely held by individuals, especially given the urgency that current environmental conditions demand (cohen et al., 2011). in addition to agency, the concept of responsibilization that rests on individual children as agents of the future emerges in children’s rights discourses rather than a view that acknowledges their presence in the world of adults and the notion of a collective future. responsibilization is embedded in the language of children as rights holders and adults as duty bearers, which features in children’s rights discourse, including the shaking the movers model, where children also bear responsibility in this formulation. not only does this language reflect neoliberal ideals, it positions children through individual agency as responsible to act to find solutions to the very problems they encounter in their lives rather than illuminating the structural features and the historical and cultural-political contexts in which children live. in effect, the language positions children as both the source of the problem and those who potentially hold, or could be held responsible to find, solutions to these problems. one example can be seen in how children are responsibilized as individual stewards of the environment and those who care for the natural world (conceived as existing separately from, rather than entangled with, adult’s and young people’s lives) where nature is to be acted upon and controlled. in this formulation, human mastery over the environment is enabled by a view of nature as a human resource. thus, the neoliberal and colonialist views embedded in the language of responsibilization are at odds with common worlds approaches that attend to the interdependence and indivisibility of the concepts of children, childhood, nature, and environments, each of which is agentic and situated in dynamic historical and political contexts. in view of these critiques of some of the conceptual features of children’s rights discourse, attempting to locate points of overlap between rights-based and common worlds approaches presents significant challenges. however, hanson and nieuwenhuys’s (2013) notion of children’s rights as a “living practice” may provide a fruitful pathway. they argue that rights should be seen as an “imperfect compromise” negotiated at particular points in time and in specific contexts, albeit by individuals in relation with others. the question to consider is whether this view might be configured to recognize that despite the contradictory meanings children’s rights hold, rights as living practice might be extended to encompass material, nonhuman, and more-than-human elements through an emphasis on interdependency rather than individuality to highlight relationality shaped by children’s collective concerns. in reflecting on the design of the stm model, it seems to me that the notions of both living practice and imperfect compromise might offer possibilities for reimagining this model, in part because elements that are central, such as place making, are relationally understood and rooted in the intricacies of locales that seek to honour children’s lives in respectful and dignified ways. the “compromise” is to consider whether rights-based models that feature value-laden concepts such as rights, freedom, and choice, and that serve to problematically position the human as rational and self-interested, can be reconfigured in reconstituting stm in view of a common worlds approach. shaking the movers williams lake is an example of a workshop that places value in local, place-based action june 2022 13 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research thus activating ideas of connection, interdependence, and collectivity in recognizing multiple ways of living. the theme of “displacement and climate change” was explored at the workshop in williams lake, the site of a massive forest fire that had a profound effect on the community there. the forest fire is a significant element of the material conditions in which children are emplaced in williams lake that goes beyond an isolated incident. rather, the fire that occurred in 2017 and devastated this community speaks not only to broader issues of the increasing threats due to the climate crisis but to the ways governments prioritize profits over people, neglect to develop sound ecological approaches, and fail to acknowledge a colonial history that enacted racist and violent policies that continue to harm indigenous communities to this day. indeed, indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by wildfires, by contaminated water supplies, by lack of sufficient housing and insecure food sources, among other issues. for instance, according to a 2021 study by sandy erni and her colleagues published in the canadian journal of forest research, approximately 4.1 million people, or 12.3 percent of the canadian population, reside within “wildland– human interface (whi) areas, where forest fuels intermingle with or abut housing, industry, and infrastructure” (p. 1). the authors go on to say that “fire activity is expected to increase further in the coming decades as a result of climate change” (p. 1357). the deadly fire in lytton, british columbia, in june 2021 that killed two people and destroyed the entire town is one devastating example. the landon pearson centre’s partner at simon fraser university organized stm williams lake.2 they partnered with punky lake wilderness camp society (plwc), a nonprofit organization based out of williams lake that runs a variety of culturally and spiritually based youth programs following indigenous teachings for youth. plwc’s mission is to create a safe and welcoming space for young people. in addition to plwc, other community partners were involved with stm williams lake, including right to play, equitas—international centre for human rights education, and thompson rivers university. the workshop was held over two days in late october 2017, a few months after the fire. the theme chosen for the workshop continued a topic from the previous year’s stm workshop on environmental rights and the concept of displacement. ten children and youth aged 10–18 participated (1 male, 9 females). participants lived in or near the williams lake area and all had been impacted by the forest fires. youth facilitators (2 males and 1 female) were 23–24 years old; two were current simon fraser university criminology students and one was a recent graduate from the program. all participants were briefed on the workshop and consented to participate and to have their words and images recorded. below is an excerpt from the williams lake youth culminating report (taghipour et al., 2017) describing the workshop: the conference began with a brief introduction of shaking the movers and a territorial acknowledgement by an indigenous member from punky lake wilderness camp. participants were welcomed into the room with music, light snacks and refreshments. the [youth] facilitators took the lead and continued to introduce the circle process and our invitations for the participants included a series of circle guidelines. shaking the movers is built on the foundation of restorative justice and models a circle conference process in which all participants are encouraged to sit in the shape of a circle and use a talking piece. participants were invited to speak from the heart, speak their own truth and allow each member to participate fully by using a talking piece as a self-regulating tool. when a participant has the talking piece, they have power to speak and other participants without the talking piece have the power to listen. next, participants briefly introduced themselves and moved on to the opening question. participants were asked to name three places that felt like home. responses varied and included connections to the community, nature and family life. places mentioned were: band room, quesnel lake playground, in trailer park, school hockey rink, places to play music, places to read a book, gym because i like to run, grandma’s house, library because i like to read, running around the lake in my running shoes. (p. 7) interconnection was one of the core themes that was woven through the stm design of the williams lake june 2022 14 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research workshop, which was intended to foster a collaborative and inclusive approach to shared learning with attention to broader historical and indigenous elements that infused the local context and with a view to making long-term changes (taghipour et al., 2017). learning circles were a key feature of the williams lake workshop and all of the workshops held in british columbia. the concept and practice of the learning circles emerged from restorative justice education. as evans and vaandering (2016) note, circles are “a learning community that nurtures the capacity of people to engage with one another and their environment in a manner that supports and respects the inherent dignity and worth of all” (p. 8). the authors name ten essential elements embodied in learning circles: acceptance of identity; inclusion; safety; acknowledgement; recognition; fairness; benefit of the doubt; understanding; independence; and accountability (p. 8). several of these elements align with a common worlds approach while others, such as independence and accountability, do not. nonetheless, the framework develops an ecological approach to children’s rights and might be useful for critically considering the notion of participation (gal, 2017). as gal (2017) argues: the ecological approach to children’s rights stresses that to understand the phenomenon of child participation, it is necessary to consider conditions and processes that affect children and youth, expanding the environment under consideration to include children’s families, communities, the professionals working with them, policy makers, and eventually, the entire regulatory regime. (p. 57) it is here that i see a point of opening to consider a common worlds approach and to expand this list. this would mean that in addition to regulatory regimes, what needs to be added to this list has to do with the conditions of inequality resulting from colonial histories, uneven access to resources, and the impact of extractive industries for children and their families that deplete local environments, for example. stm williams lake draws on and embellishes the ecological approach to engage children and youth in a number of ways. in facilitator training for the workshop, for instance, they drew from boyes-watson and pranis’s (2015) work on learning circles to introduce and close the workshop. in designing activities for the workshop, facilitators found innovative ways to engage with participants and communicate through imagery, text, and sound about their experiences living there. for instance, as the young participants drew pictures, danced and played in the outdoors, and offered their experiences of the fire, the youth facilitators, in turn, organized their responses using the symbol of a flower to name these experiences. they named the positive responses roses and the experiences that arose from the fire, or something they learned, buds; the negative challenges they saw as persisting after the fire they called thorns. the young people exchanged stories about the fire, recalling how it had displaced people and animals, making them all “leave where they call home.” one person presented an image with a changing gradient (dark to light) as a metaphor for the stages of the forest fires, noting, “first, there was a lot of smoke. then there was fire.” in envisioning life after the fire, one person observed that “little plants and all the trees grew back from the fires and us growing as a community and supporting each other.” in these words, likening the regrowth of the community to the regrowth of the forest, we hear how the fires activated and reorganized relationships. another young person recalled that, “when the fires were here, for me, it wasn’t that scary because god would protect our house and not leave us alone. we went to victoria and the beaches. i liked the beach that i called the crab beach.” she went on to describe how she imagined herself as a crab because “the crabs have a strong coat to protect them.” these words reveal instances that signal human, nonhuman, and more-than-human interdependence that could be embellished by the facilitators with a view to creating a responsive climate pedagogy that moves beyond a focus on the individual child figure as steward. another example of an activity used by the stm williams lake facilitators that could be expanded to emphasize a common worlds approach, even though it relies heavily on a rights framing, is consideration of the crc articles themselves. young participants decided together which of the articles of the convention could be used as prompts june 2022 15 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research for discussion or an activity. they selected article 2, the right to live; article 31, the right to play and rest; and article 7, the right to a name, an identity, and belonging. as the young people moved among the trees in an outdoor space performing the ideas in each of the articles, they mimicked swaying branches, lay in the grass with their arms outstretched covering themselves in leaves, and wove in and out of the trees. the young people said that their movements were meant to convey ideas of play, rest, identity, and belonging. it seems to me that each topic, whether the right to live, play, or have an identity, could be considered using a common worlds approach emphasizing interdependence with human and nonhuman worlds in a way that would not preclude critically understanding the crc, not only as an aspirational document but as one that emerges from neoliberal viewpoints. for instance, in focusing on children’s right to live, a fulsome discussion would consider how an individual’s right to live is intertwined with the rights of living and nonliving others. this discussion could extend beyond the individual child to consider how historical contexts and legacies create the conditions for inequalities to flourish that enable some to live fully and preclude this right for others. such a discussion would excavate the system of valuation as well as inclusion and exclusion that is present and that shapes relationships. this would include a critical consideration of how the right to live is interlinked with histories of white settler colonialism, apparatuses of violence, and cultural understandings of relational care as well as an ethic of care. thus, rather than viewing the article of the convention in isolation, looking for a point of tension between children’s rights and common worlds approaches would enable a broader discussion at an stm workshop. this would entail an instance of both an imperfect compromise and viewing the convention as a living document with the possibility for revision in practice. another point where a possibility presents itself to reimagine the shaking the movers model is in the use of the learning circles. each workshop not only begins with a learning circle but ends with one as a way to celebrate and bring closure to the gathering for participants. the circles offer an opportunity to express gratitude for time spent together, to exchange a marker of connection and care, and to acknowledge their interrelationship with place. during the final circle discussion on day two of the 2017 stm williams lake workshop, for instance, the children gathered in the circle to share their experiences of the weekend spent together. everyone agreed that stm workshops generally should always take place outdoors and “not in rooms inside buildings.” one participant noted that global warming is killing a lot of animals, like up north polar bears—they are not only starving, they are drowning. but like lots of places, kids do have good ideas, but they think people with more experience have better ideas, but nobody asks us. what these snippets of conversation convey is the importance of place and an acknowledgement that place shapes relationships and relationships shape place in ways that are inclusive of humans, animals, and weather, in this case. the young people’s words display an understanding of the broader forces that shape their lives, such as global warming, and how they are not only impacted by these forces but how they, in turn, experience and impact them in ways that entangle with responsibilities and circumstances collectively. it seems to me to be a point of opening that might be leveraged in reimagining shaking the movers. learning circles offer a way to shift children’s-rights language to imagine a space beyond the individual child figure and emphasize interdependence, not only with other participants but with materials and nonhuman others that are part of the stm workshop experience. the final feature of the stm model is the concept of movers. following each workshop, the culminating reports that capture the ideas, words, artistic expressions, and perspectives of workshop participants are circulated to members of the landon pearson centre’s child rights academic network (cran). landon pearson has been convening cran annual meetings since 2008 at carleton university to consider the stm reports. at each annual cran gathering held in early winter, landon pearson requires movers—those adults who have decision-making june 2022 16 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research powers that affect children’s and young people’s lives—to respond directly to what the young participants had to say in the culminating reports and to specify a tangible action in how they do their own work that they will take in response. the stm participants are invited to join the cran meeting virtually via instagram live to hear decision makers respond to their concerns and indicate how their perspectives will make a change in the work they do on behalf of children and young people. part of the value of this component of the stm model is the possibility for social change led by young people who direct the agenda for adults. in describing the stm williams lake workshop, one sees ways to reimagine the model through the lens of a common worlds approach. while the model begins with a rights-based framing that immediately sets up tensions, as noted earlier, regarding how human rights, undergirded by humanist philosophies and eurocentric assumptions, inform this discourse (benhabib, 2007; merry, 2006) to focus on individuals recognizable as human and as holders of rights, the framing can be productively disrupted. agency, as noted above, can be reimagined to move away from celebrating it as a mere expression of resistance or resourcefulness toward understanding agency as process that arises from relational, material, and contextual entanglements. while recognizing that stm presently tends to overemphasize the agency and resilience of children and young people, i would argue that through learning circles there is a way forward to offer a counter view to agency that interrogates the notion of resilience by attending to conditions of inequality that arise in historical, cultural, and political contexts. other points of opportunity are seen in the ways stm emphasizes working collectively to create and enable social action, thereby undermining the notion of a universal, autonomous child figure that presupposes a notion of the subject as responsible citizen. the liberationist notions of voice, autonomy, and participation embedded in rights-based approaches are evident in the stm model; however, rather than foreclose the model entirely, i propose to pursue an imaginal approach with a view to finding ways to strengthen elements of the model for a youth engagement approach that works in a common worlds manner. this means taking seriously the notion of living rights in an expansive way to include human, nonhuman, and more-than-human entanglements. following spyrou et al. (2018), this approach demands a conceptual prying open of the concepts that anchor the stm framework—in this case, notions of agency, participation, and responsibility—to refigure them through interdependence and mutual accountability and to expose exclusionary practices arising from racialization, settler colonialism, and other elements that rightsbased approaches make invisible. the concept of participation is particularly problematic in this regard in terms of inclusionary and exclusionary practices. in the case of shaking the movers, when children and young people are recruited to act on set grounds, some voices are necessarily amplified while others are disqualified and invalidated. thus, participatory involvement alone cannot overcome these challenges. a critical perspective would acknowledge, instead, that regardless of good will and intentions, giving children opportunities to participate does not always ensure that their perspectives get heard appropriately and equally. in terms of the stm design, while the intent may be to engage children and young people, reimagining the model means attending to the ways knowledges are generated, valued, included, and excluded, which can only be accomplished using a critical lens of interdependence. this revision to the model would significantly improve the stm design. finally, in bringing into dialogue children’s rights and common worlds approaches through the example of stm williams lake, hanson and nieuwenhuys’s (2013) notion of children’s rights as a living practice provides a pathway. it offers a way to consider rights as an imperfect compromise negotiated temporally and contextually. what it accomplishes is to expose the many tensions that arise when attempting to look for points of overlap between a common worlds approach and a rights-based approach, including asymmetrical power, logics of colonialism, and rights-based techniques steeped in an anglo-eurocentric worldview that narrowly defines the human of human rights. once these tensions are exposed, i would argue that negotiating this imperfect compromise is much more june 2022 17 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research possible. while this movement may not go as far as a common worlds approach demands, it seems to me to be a helpful beginning toward the reconfiguration of the child figure beyond a liberal ethics view at the centre of a rights model. i concur with stuart aitken (2018), who argues that “universal child rights have not worked” (p. 707) and calls for a radical, sustainable ethics that “dares to admit that children’s humanity is something more than we, as adults, can imagine” (p. 707). aitken points to an overlap between children’s rights and all-too-human approaches in arguing for expanding a rights-based approach that would “understand us as all-too human, as more than our corporeal selves” (p. 707); he writes that a posthumanist perspective “questions what precisely we can and should have rights over” (p. 707). indeed, in contemplating stm williams lake, the children and young people who participated there understood this question of rights and power in terms of their lives and lived experiences. aitken’s notion of lifespace comes to mind here. he asks children’s rights scholars: what would happen if we “give up on children as monadic beings, as subjects and objects of rights, with all the specific and singular rights that accrue to those positions?” (2018, p. 709). i would argue that the design of the stm williams lake workshop, with its emphasis on communal, inclusive, and shared practices and the use of a restorative justice framing drawing on learning circles in its design, amplifies this view of agency that is not exclusively human and participation that does not rest on individuals but is conceived as collective. to conclude to conclude, i point to shenila khoja-moolji’s (2017) concept of an ethic of interdependency and alliance, which seems to me particularly useful in interrogating a rights-based approach and how it might overlap with a common worlds approach. khoja-moolji notes that one of the obstacles that prevents us from recognizing alternative conceptions of human dignity and ways of living is the false assumption that the discourse of human rights, with its moral authority and links with powerful mechanisms like the un institutions, is the only conception of human dignity. she argues for transforming human rights from a call to “commonality in spite of differences to a call that acknowledges differences and seeks to practice pluralism” (p. 398). reflecting on her own research, she calls for “a strong ethic of alliance with, and interdependence across all forms of living, even as villagers sought to improve individual well-being” (p. 395). she talks about replacing the unitary subject of human rights or the delinked body that is alternately vulnerable, suffering, and empowered, stating that, “in such modes of living, the human body is no longer the center but part of a wider assemblage whose meaning comes from the interactions of all of its parts” (p. 394 again, it seems to me that this wider assemblage includes nonhuman and more-than-human others, which has relevance for reimagining shaking the movers with an ethic of interdependency and alliance. in bringing a common worlds approach into dialogue with a rights-respecting one in this paper, my expectation has not been to arrive at some consensus or uniformity. rather, my interest has been to offer possible points of rupture to intervene in revisioning the stm model in order to create it in a way that is attuned to a productive common worlds pedagogy. this revisioning includes a call to expand stm to see children as part of a wider assemblage that includes human, material, nonhuman, and more-than-human interdependence. in beyond stewardship, affrica taylor (2012) notes that children’s often-playful encounters with the more-than-human display openness to the “becoming with” dance of relating of which haraway (2008) speaks. as she notes, regardless of the ways in which our human-centric educational frameworks position children—as individuating human beings developing rational autonomy, as individual learners about the world, and/or as individual change agents in the making—children’s actual worldly relations far exceed our binary schema. (p. 10) the worldly relations of participants in the stm williams lake workshop far exceeded a static binary schema. june 2022 18 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research as a case to consider for moving forward in future with stm, i would argue that the design of the williams lake workshop presents an opportunity to embrace dynamism, to promote an ethic of interdependence with nonhuman and more-than-human worlds and to honour the dignity and shared humanity inclusive of children and young people, nonhuman, material, and more-than-human elements of lived experiences. to see these moments as pedagogical openings means to honour silence, to unfix social ontologies, and to actively be in reciprocal relationships. haraway (2008) calls this “cohabiting with a difference in ways that allow all species to ‘flourish’” (p. 301). thus, in reenvisaging the stm model, the intent is to provoke an opening up of thought and to acknowledge multiple and diverse conceptualizations of human, nonhuman, and more-than-human in order to see rights as nodes of imperfect compromise in networks of relations. this reimagined shaking the movers holds a space to critically consider the entanglements, that is, the tensions that entangle and are entangled when people live their lives being human and more-than-human. endnotes 1 reports from the all shaking the movers workshops are available on the landon pearson centre website under the shaking the movers tab: https://carleton.ca/landonpearsoncentre/shaking-the-movers/ 2 to read the shaking the movers williams lake report: https://carleton.ca/landonpearsoncentre/wp-content/uploads/shaking-themovers-bc8.compressed.pdf june 2022 19 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references aitken, s. (2018). young people, rights, and place: erasure, neoliberal politics, and postchild ethics. routledge. balagopalan, s. (2018). inhabiting “childhood”: children, labour and schooling in postcolonial india. palgrave macmillan. benhabib, s. (2007). another universalism: on the unity and diversity of human rights. proceedings and addresses of the american philosophical association, 81(2), 7–32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27653991 boyden, j. (2003). children under fire: challenging assumptions about children’s resilience. children, youth, and environments, 13(1), 1–29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.13.1.0001 boyes-watson, c., & pranis, k. (2015). circle forward. building a restorative school community. living justice press. cohen, t., colebrook, c., & hillis miller, j. (2011). theory and the disappearing future. on de man, on benjamin. routledge. erni, s., johnston, l., boulanger, y., manka, f., bernier, p., eddy, b., christianson, a., swystun, t., & gauthier, s. (2021, april 9). exposure of the canadian wildland–human interface and population to wildland fire, under current and future climate conditions. canadian journal of forest research, 51(9), 1357–1367. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2020-0422 evans, k. r., & vaandering, d. (2016). the little book of restorative justice in education. skyhorse. gal, t. (2017). an ecological model of child and youth participation. children & youth services review, 79, 57–64. https://psycnet.apa. org/doi/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.05.029 hanson, k., & nieuwenhuys, o. (2013). reconceptualizing children’s rights in international development: living rights, social justice, translations. cambridge university press. haraway, d. (2008) when species meet. university of minnesota press. khoja-moolji, s. (2017). the making of humans and their others in and through transnational human rights advocacy: exploring the cases of mukhtar mai and malala yousafzai. signs, 42(2). https://doi.org/10.1086/688184 kraftl, p. (2006). building an idea: the material construction of an ideal childhood. transactions of the institute of british geographers, 31(4), 488–504. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2006.00225.x latour, b. (2005). reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford university press. merry, s. e. (2006). transnational human rights and local activism: mapping the middle. american anthropologist, 108(1), 38–51. https:// doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.1.38 nieuwenhuys, o. (1998). global childhood and the politics of contempt. alternatives, 23(3), 267–289. https://doi. org/10.1177030437549802300301 osgood, jayne and kerry h. robinson (2019) re-turns and dis/continuities of feminist thought in childhood research: indebtedness and entanglements. in j. osgood & k. h. robinson (eds.), feminists researching gendered childhoods: generative entanglements (pp. 17-40) bloomsbury. pacini-ketchabaw, v., & khattar, r. (2018). pedagogies for times of climate change: closing the gap between nature and culture. ontario ministry of education. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/brief_5_pedagogies_en.pdf pacini-ketchabaw, v., & taylor, a. (2019). the common worlds of children and animals: relational ethics for entangled lives. routledge. pearson, l., & collins, t. (2011). shaking the movers. a model for collaborative engagement. https://carleton.ca/landonpearsoncentre/ shaking-the-movers/ spyrou, s., rosen, r., & cook, d. (eds.). (2018). reimagining childhood studies. bloomsbury. taghipour, m., morrison, b., & wright, l. (2017). children on the move: stm british columbia on climate change. https://carleton.ca/ landonpearsoncentre/shaking-the-movers/ june 2022 20 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research taylor, a. (2017). beyond stewardship: common world pedagogies for the anthropocene. environmental education research, 23(10), 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452 taylor a., & giugni, m. (2012). common worlds: reconceptualising inclusion in early childhood communities. contemporary issues in early childhood, 13(2), 108–119. https://doi.org/10.2304ciec.2012.13.2.108 july 2020 27 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research witnessing the ruins: speculative stories of caring for the particular and the peculiar john drew and kelly-ann macalpine john drew is a phd candidate in education studies at western university. his research is situated at the intersection of curriculum and animal studies, and he is particularly interested in the potential for literature and popular culture to help foster multispecies empathy. he was awarded the 2018 animals and us: research, policy, and practice outstanding graduate student paper prize. before returning for doctoral studies, he was a secondary english teacher. email: jwdrew@uwo.ca kelly-ann macalpine is a phd candidate in curriculum studies at western university. with particular attention to early childhood environmental education, she is curious about posthumanist perspectives that shift ontological and epistemological conversations about child-nature relations in environmentally precarious times. her current research and scholarly publications focus on the pedagogical significance of storying the peculiar relations that emerge with and between children and more-than-human others. email: kmacalp2@uwo.ca to witness is also to participate in the world in its relational becoming. thom van dooren & deborah bird rose, “lively ethnography: storying animist worlds” in this fraught moment of history, our world is characterized by ecological and economic precarities, and educational actors respond differently to these instabilities. at the early childhood educational level, pedagogical practices typically emphasize carefully structured routines punctuated by a narrow range of activities that emphasize regulation of the child’s time rather than engaging critically in a moral and political ethic of care acknowledging the “complex life sustaining web” that connects us precariously to each other and the natural world around us (tronto, 1993, p. 103). that is to say, the regulatory-focused ethic of care often takes priority over the actual education of the child. education requires the child to be challenged with experiences of the other beyond their own and to reflect on these experiences, a process which can be perceived as a “violent” intervention into the otherwise pure domain of childhood (todd, 2001). moreover, in canada, many parents must purchase child care services, which means the effectiveness of the care is at least in part determined by the consumer’s satisfaction with the quality of care (dahlberg et al., 2013). care is thus situated within individualist, consumer-oriented, and human(child)-centered priorities rather than outward engagement and reflection. in this context, early childhood educational approaches to care are often decontextualized from ecological and more-than-human precarities, as well as from the economic influences contributing to such precarities. educational scholars and practitioners are confronting long-held anthropocentric pedagogical practices as well as notions of care. to trouble the notion of care, this article draws from the collaborative research that stories the collective experiences of children, educators, and researchers at an early years learning centre located in an emerging suburban enclave of a mid-sized city in southwestern ontario, canada. our work is guided by the question of how we as educators and scholars reclaim and augment the politics of care. through the practice of storying everyday encounters, we explore how emerging and precarious relations with more-than-human others, both real and imaginary, challenge anthropocentric notions of care. key words: pedagogies; children and animals; care; early childhood education; more-thanhuman relations july 2020 28 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research a concept of care modelled on insulation, rather than exposure to precarity, emphasizes a neoliberal ethic of decontextualized consumption as opposed to one focusing on ethics of reflection and relationality. given this context, how do we as educators and scholars resituate and augment the politics of care within early childhood? how can we expand our webs of concern to foster a coconstitutive, more-than-human relationality? how can we confront inequities and recognize the ways that we are implicated and interconnected on social, institutional, economic, and ecological levels? to grapple with these challenging questions, in this paper we draw from collaborative research that stories the collective experiences of children, educators, and ourselves as researchers at an early years learning centre located in an emerging suburban enclave of a mid-sized city in southwestern ontario, canada. drawing from donna haraway’s (2016) notion of speculative fabulation, our pedagogical work embraces the “the practice and process of tracing; [of ] becoming with each other in surprising relays” (p. 3). accordingly, our work takes up haraway’s example of tracing to pursue the patterns observed during our forest encounters. we encourage the children to engage actively and imaginatively during these encounters, not simply to appeal to the authority of the adults. pedagogically, we seek to position ourselves, and the children, relationally to the entanglements and processes occurring around us rather than containing these worlds from all-knowing pedagogical positions of mastery. in troubling these tensions that emerge in the becoming-with other, we wonder, as haraway does, “what kind of caring and response-ability could unexpected collaboration evoke” (p. 22) in precarious and troubling times? the ruins situated in a new elementary school, the centre provides child care and educational services to the young families that have only recently taken up residence in the newly built homes that surround the school. not far beyond the horizon, and well within the children’s view from the school yard, are numerous unfinished homes and embedded foundations surrounded by barren, clear-cut landscapes, a testament to the continued growth and development of this nascent community. market ideologies, ever more pervasive in their influence, promote progressive perceptions of development despite increasing cultural awareness of the clear ecological costs (including animal displacement and destruction) of urban sprawl. this dissonant affinity toward development, despite its clear environmental consequences, is connected to the more voracious tenets of neoliberalism. along with amplifying tensions between socioeconomic classes, such antagonisms also position human welfare (typically associated with productivist expansion) against the well-being of the more-than-human world. at the same time, ongoing pedagogical models have become increasingly outcome driven and data based, emphasizing the values of competitiveness and distinction supported by documentable evidence of success, even for the very young. this occurs despite research indicating the limitations and counterproductiveness of such audit-driven educational philosophies (dahlberg et al., 2013). these productivist values serve to entrench individualist, competitive values which children are encouraged to adopt if they are to successfully navigate these pedagogical frames. in the neoliberal context, care becomes increasingly inward focused and contingent on an atomized relationship to the world(s) around us (han, 2017). in this way, pedagogical models and values come to mirror the prescribed linearity of the technoscientific and neoliberal goals they seek to emulate, thereby helping to shift our conceptions of care, as maria puig de la bellacasa (2017) argues, “from a co-constructed interdependent relation into a mere control of the object of care” (p. 186). this productivist, instrumentalist reduction of care to the status of transactional object correspondingly erodes empathetic human relations. this codification of care in early learning contexts influences the subjectivities of the children being constituted within the early learning environment. when care is reduced to a transactional object, rather than a coconstituted relation, it discourages meaningful engagement with worlds beyond their own. in this way, objectification and commodification of care narrow relational and experiential possibilities in ways that reinforce july 2020 29 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the nature/culture and species divides. the implications for the more-than-human realm are especially dire as animals become increasingly “othered,” reconstituted as objects to be manipulated and mastered or to be surrendered to the care-less mechanics of the neoliberal growth machine. we seek to challenge these onto-pedagogical norms. we are committed to rendering child-animal relations visible, audible, comprehensible, even tangible for the children of the centre. drawing from the work of affrica taylor and miriam giugni (2012), we also frame our pedagogical work within the guiding question of “how might we live together in a heterogeneous common world, a world that allows difference to flourish?” (p. 112). in doing so, we promote a collective, multitudinous engagement with, and appreciation of, the precarious complexity that characterizes the delicate balance of our ecosystems. we begin by positioning our work within a common worlds onto-epistemological framework (taylor, 2013). accordingly, we emphasize the connectivity between ourselves, the children, and their more-than-human surroundings (pacini-ketchabaw & taylor 2015; taylor & giugni, 2012). our research acknowledges that in sharing a common world, we therefore share similar, yet also distinct, precarities and vulnerabilities (pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2015). in this way, we are committed to pursuing a relations-of-care modelled on an ethic of more-than-human intersectionality. however, part of this positioning requires us to acknowledge that we as researchers, the educators, and even the children attending the centre are not entirely innocent in these processes (haraway, 2003; puig de la bellacasa, 2017). in the case of the specific centre of this study, we recognize that the land now occupied by the school and surrounding neighbourhood had only a decade previously been a combination of farm fields and forest. far earlier, of course, before settler colonial expropriation, it was inhabited by the indigenous people, and we, the authors, acknowledge that our work is situated on the traditional territory of the anishinaabeg, haudenosaunee, attawandaran (neutral), and wendat peoples. our presence, the school’s presence, and the expansive urban sprawl all detrimentally affect these places and spaces. indeed, it is the productivist processes of neoliberal expansion that has made our presence in the education centre possible for the very reason that the centre, and the school that holds it, could not exist without such demographic and developmental growth. and, of course, these particular forms of growth remain anything but innocent, because they cannot emerge without inflicting grievous harm on worlds beyond our own. we must acknowledge, as rautio, hohti, leinonen, and tammi (2017) remind us, that the mutual vulnerabilities between humans (large and small alike) and animals are not equally distributed, and indeed, we must be careful not to lose sight of the tensions and potentially harmful encounters that exist between the human and more-than-human world(s). pedagogies of process our pedagogical and research praxis attempts to bring these more-than-human precarities to the surface so they may be reflected on meaningfully by the preschoolers and toddlers that populate the centre. our experiences at the centre are characterized by regular encounters with a small forest behind the school and the many disparate species and materials contained within it. here, over the last two years, we have witnessed a continuously shifting landscape of developmental encroachment and the resulting effects on the animals inhabiting the enclosed, ever-shrinking forest. and so, week after week, we venture out into the forest to not only bear witness to these (often quite ruinous) transformations, but to be “in the world” experiencing the “finite and dirty” immanence of nature-culture entanglements beyond the “transcendent and clean” domains (haraway, 1997, p. 36) of the carefully contained classroom infrastructure. in these encounters, we are then attempting to extend the latourian project of shifting matters of fact to those of concern by “learning with” the more-than-human worlds rather than “about” them (latour, 2004; taylor, 2017). in doing so, we hope to contribute to the ethicopolitical shift advanced by puig de la bellacasa (2012, 2017) to challenge the productivist/instrumentalist values july 2020 30 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of western neoliberalism by “staging” attentive, care-full, immanent worldly encounters (2017, p. 53). we are committed to an aspiration, as opposed to a tangible goal or outcome, because it signals our willingness to engage with the only true constants our world offers us: uncertainty and mutability. guided by a commitment to the aspiration of noticing and the active and ever shifting process of slowing down, our pedagogies are guided by the practice of paying attention to the particular and, at times, peculiar. accordingly, our pedagogical emphasis on processes of noticing and paying attention requires a complementary methodological commitment. foremost, our pedagogical aspiration is deeply invested in illuminating the hidden processes around us. as educators, we seek to guide the children’s learning by intensifying and concentrating their focus by engaging deeply with the experiential dimension of process. through guided engagement with meaningful and intentional forms of process, children may begin to perceive the broader dimensions of external processes reflected within their own practice. the educational emphasis on process is informed by a commitment to fostering qualities of creativity, reflexivity, collectivity, and resiliency. the foundation of our process-based pedagogy is comprised of the intersecting emphases on relations, intentions, and materials. the relations between the human and the more-than-human worlds are all too often obscured in educational contexts. such engagement requires an immersive and reflective involvement with the materials that comprise our world. linking our social relations with materials (natural and otherwise) offers context to an otherwise decontextualized society, while helping children see through nature-culture divisions. in doing so, we must actively resist the cult of individuality undergirding child-centered pedagogies and with it, the neoliberal cultivation of consumer subjectivity. children should be guided into process through shared, collective experience so that their interpersonal interdependency comes to reflect our wider ecological interconnectedness. this requires clear, meaningful intentions. the children must engage in processes that move beyond neoliberal goals of productivity and consumption by formulating intentions that will allow them to pursue their curiosity in ways that will not always yield productive outcomes but will ultimately allow them to build their competence while pursuing their curiosity in purposeful ways. david orr (1992) has argued that “all education is environmental education” in that our choices to include or exclude ecological concerns in our curriculum informs children of the value we ascribe to the natural and more-than-human domain. by thinking with a common worlds framework (taylor, 2013; taylor & giugni, 2012), children, researchers, and educators grapple with tensions that arise while trying to understand place within the context of environmental and socio-political realities of life in the anthropocene. the concept of place in early childhood settings is frequently culturally constructed as a neutral domain or “mute backdrop” (nxumalo & cedillo, 2017) that transcends social, political, and historical tensions within which it is rooted. yet, by circumventing human exceptionalism and attending to “situated knowledges” (haraway, 2016) inherent in a coconstitutive multispecies world, common worlds pedagogies invite us to move away from abstract mastery by providing connectivity with hidden human and more-than-human dimensions that are always already present and informing place(s). similarly, teresa lloro-bidart (2017) emphasizes “emotional, embodied and affective ways of knowing” for environmental educators when approaching nature and non-human animals (p. 125). such an approach encourages us to “study up” with the more-than-human realm rather than “study down” in ways that promote human mastery over animals and nature (plumwood, 2002). when we attempt to define nature in purely scientific/rationalist frames, we too often draw distinctions between our human perspectives and nature. the scientific/rationalist frame often obscures how culturally constructed such distinctions are. in addition to reinforcing the nature/culture divide, such pedagogical framing casts nature and animals passively, further positioning nature and animals as objects to be mastered within the cultural imaginary. as karen barad reminds us, “nature is neither a passive surface awaiting the mark of culture nor the end product of cultural july 2020 31 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research performances” (barad, 2007, p. 183). by shifting from thinking about to thinking with, place thus becomes understood as an embodied assemblage (barad, 2007). in storying place, our project seeks to draw pedagogical attention to the visible tensions inherent to place, including settler colonial appropriation of unceded indigenous lands, displacement of more-than-human others, and ecological devastation. witnessing the ruins the child care centre occupants bear witness to the ruins within the expansionist project of (settler/colonial) communal development. in the service of this urban expansionist project, the land is figuratively flattened (that is, drained of its historical as well as contemporaneous entanglements). simultaneously, the land is literally flattened by the ploughs pressing out the inconvenient mounds and contours decorating the land now zoned for roads, houses, and condos. this narrative compels us to see these spaces merely as exploitable backdrops. by internalizing this narrative (that is, by leaving it unexamined), we as educators would unwittingly reproduce it in our everyday practice, perhaps by drawing children’s attention to and labelling “mighty machines” or describing “community workers” in theme-based activities in ways that would normalize, even sanctify, these expansionist processes. such onto-pedagogical narratives become further ossified when educators attempt to counterbalance the perceived “unsightliness” of our capitalist machinations with exposure to the increasingly rarified splendour of the “natural” world. thus, often, such pursuits require elaborate pilgrimages to carefully manicured parks to observe the animals contained within (indeed animals are sometimes imported to) these artificial sites by human hands (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2018). when we approach nature in this way, we are merely mollifying the effects/affects of ravenous capitalism with “infernal alternatives” (stengers, 2018, p. 54) that ultimately serve to reproduce its larger instrumentalist, productivist goals. according to such logic, some select representatives of the more-than-human world are privileged for the aesthetic (and consumerist) value they hold. the images, experiences, and stories we privilege with visibility are therefore propped up by the surplus multitudinous stories consigned to invisibility, and often disposability. as kathryn yussof (2018) argues—those more-than-human elements which resist integration into the broader capitalist narrative are typically erased from representation or dismissed as being surplus to requirements. we are mindful of these processes of visibility (and invisibility) in our forest encounters as the children and educators cannot arrive at and leave the centre without constant reminders of the ever-emerging enterprise of expansionist development set against the shrinking forest and field backdrop. the signs of construction vehicles that pass by on the road, the men in orange vests and hard hats passing back and forth along the nearby construction sites pushing overloaded wheel barrows, the adjacent housing lots containing finished but as yet empty homes, and the outerlying land cleared for immediate development. every day, children are exposed to any, or all, of these processes that have become a naturalized backdrop to their daily experiences. this teeming space of “development” is punctuated by the unavoidable vertical contours of two rapidly escalating condominium towers looming on the horizon behind the centre. the sight and sounds of this frenetically emergent landscape ambiently saturate the children’s daily experiences. we must attend to the spaces of erasure and erosion to counter this all-too-clean narrative of progress. the liveliness of the forest thus becomes overshadowed, choked by the feverish pace of neoliberal progress. every time we encounter the forest with the children, we are living these broader political-economic tensions on a direct, immanent level. the forest is a “blasted” space that consistently reveals evidence of precarity (kirksey et al., 2013; tsing 2015). the children are paying attention to the spaces and corresponding entanglements that characterize the forest-scape. on the forest’s extreme end, the educators and children have noticed the forest’s erosion, both visually and aurally. during the everyday encounters, we notice how caring relations emerge within july 2020 32 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research the particular and the sometimes-peculiar entanglements of children and their more-than-human companions. the children’s stories of the real, the shadowy, and the mythical matter as they navigate their position within this precarity. forest liveliness: storying the particular inside the ever-eroding forest, the children, educators, and we found rabbit tracks, and on previous encounters we spotted deer and turkey vultures taking refuge in what appears to be the final wooded domain remaining in the area. these are all signs of life persisting among the peripheral ruins of capitalist advancement and encroachment. abandoned wagon wheels and farm implements found in our excursions into the forest remind us of farm fields that once existed, created and tended to for generations by settler-colonials after replacing the indigenous people who lived on the same land. the forest then looms for us as a perpetual marker of the constant volatility, vulnerability, and interdependency characterizing naturecultures. anna tsing (2015) challenges us to acknowledge these kinds of repressed “capitalist ruins” that increasingly pervade our experience. tsing wants us to see that within these hostile spaces, there are lives and worlds that somehow persevere within the precarity of these spaces and whose stories need to be heard. our pedagogical approach focuses on “reframing” our aesthetic attention as a means of “restorying” the world to encourage children to “attend to” rather than escape the ruinous aesthetic of late capitalism. fallen trees, fallen comrades in early winter, the educators and i took a group of preschool children (ages 3–5) on a walk to the surrounding forest. as we stood at the forest’s outer edges, one of the preschool children pointed to a weather-damaged tree. the tree was partially blown over from a recent windstorm. as she pointed to the tree, i noticed her furrowed brow and sensed she was trying to imagine the cause for the tree’s partial collapse. “i feel sorry for the tree,” she announced somberly. i asked her why she felt sorry. she responded that someone cut the tree down. i asked her why someone would do that. she told me in a very matter of fact way, “it is because they don’t need it anymore!” i am struck, not only by the child’s words, but also by the unflinching way she explains the tree’s destruction. without speculating too much, we must acknowledge the activity pervading the neighbourhood and consider how it might influence this child’s sympathy for the tree and the story she imagines. the space that she walks through every day tells a story: the cycle of land clearance for continuous development. what does this story mean in the eyes of a 4-year-old? it is difficult to say, but her storying of the tree’s demise reflects the deeper truth of her surroundings: that is, a world governed by a ruthless instrumentalist logic where that which is extraneous, surplus to our instrumentalist goals, is devoid of exploitable value and rendered disposable—indeed killable. the child’s sympathetic response to the tree’s fate suggests “empathetic engagement” (gruen, 2015) with a fellow living being that has, within her interpretive narrative, been killed by a human being for the simple reason that it held no commodifiable value. during the transitory space between winter and spring, we (two educators and myself ), wandered toward the forest with a small group of seven children, only to realize that the forest had been disconcertingly diminished, seemingly overnight. slowly the realization of the destruction of a patch of trees dawned on the children as they starred quizzically at the barren space filled with only jagged stumps where the tall trees once stood. many of the children moved around to examine the tree stumps, seemingly awestruck by this radical transformation of a once-familiar space. there were questions of where the trees went and what happened to them. it was quickly july 2020 33 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research understood that the trees were cut down. although most of the trees had been removed, a few of the children noticed the “remains” of formerly standing trees piled a little farther off in the distance, seemingly awaiting retrieval and ultimate disposal. one child resisted the collective movement to peruse the altered landscape. instead, she sat impassively at the edge of the former tree line. noticing this silent but clearly affective response to the environment, i sat down beside her and asked what she was thinking. looking at me with barely suppressed tears, she declared, “i don’t like what happened to the forest!” after acknowledging this understandably mournful response, i asked what she thought happened to it. she responded disapprovingly, “they cut it!” another child came over to share in this sense of grief for the trees that had once stood here. she looked around and asked me, “where will the birds go?” unsettling the birds matters of care require an attentiveness, not only to what is present, but to what is absent. although the trees were no longer seen, their absence deeply resonated with the group. birds regularly populated this section of the forest, and with spring arriving, their presence was becoming noticeably more robust. just the previous week, many of the children had noticed the audible signs of their presence. now this besieged section of the forest seemed eerily silent. the conspicuous absence of the earlier aural avian vibrancy seemed to be informing the children’s concern. the children see beyond the clear-cutting, seemingly well aware of the consequences to their more-than-human comrades. one of the most noticeable signs of ruins has been the gradual silencing of a familiar avian animal whose rhythmic pecking seems to announce the return of spring and the renewal that attends it. this spring, the sounds of home construction (the clackity-clack of hammers pounding nails) are much more pervasive than they were the previous year. last year, these building sounds had been muted—morphing, almost musically, with the similar staccato rhythms of the woodpeckers, constituting a near symphonic natureculture aural assemblage and the processes of “ecosocial reproduction” as animals engage in their own forms of care work and reproduce both their own communities and the larger ecosystem (coulter, 2016). now, the sounds of these industrious birds are washed out and the children have difficulty locating actual pecking sounds amid the ever more ubiquitous human construction sounds. the preschoolers, educators, and i continue to venture deep into the forest. because the weather is still too cold for the clamorous enterprise of home construction, the first pecking sounds of woodpeckers from deeper inside the as-yet-untouched confines of the forest can be heard. these sounds break the spell of the silent forest ruins. one child asks what the clackety sound he hears is and another child blurts out that it is a gun, pantomiming a machine gun pose and providing the appropriate sound effect. another, perhaps remembering our springtime forest encounters from the previous year, declares it to be a woodpecker. one or two others ask what a woodpecker is. “what do you think it is?” one of the educators asks, redirecting the inquiry. “it’s a bird!” one of the children triumphantly declares. “see, the birds are farther inside the forest,” the educator affirms. after exposure to such stark precarity, it is important for the children to see that the birds persist within the shrinking edges of the forest, but a new appreciation of the birds’ precarity is increasingly evident amid the children’s queries and suppositions. as we venture farther in, other birds become visible and audible, and some of the children spot the first robins of the season. overhead, we spy two birds’ nests we hadn’t noticed before. a child says the nests are the birds’ homes and where the mother and father birds protect their babies. it is not lost on me that the children are highlighting place and animals’ own forms of care. for now, the birds are able to endure precariously within the ravenous development and capitalist ruins (tsing, july 2020 34 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research 2015). there are consequences to thoughtless actions of capitalism. to flip the narrative of careless acts to thoughtful acts of care, the educator and i wonder how we might trouble the children’s connection to birds’ homes in the trees and the violent act of clearcutting trees. this line of thinking is further complicated when we also learn that the trees were cut down to make room for a proposed “nature park” complete with foot paths leading to an adjacent playground for the children and their families to frolic in. noninnocent acts of remediation further trouble human response(ability) within the ruins. speculation and wonder: storying the peculiar massumi (2011) tells us that sometimes “opening up data to its edginess means resisting traditional modes of representation, modes of representation that ‘capture’ an event either through attention to detail or through a totalizing perspective that encapsulates a story” (springgay & zaliwska, 2015, p. 140). and so, the educators and researchers begin this process of inquiry and opening. we shift our thinking: instead of asking “what am i looking at?” we begin to wonder who/what are we entangled with, and how might these encounters inform/ transform our ways of knowing and being in the world. the following encounters illustrate some of the questions and tensions that arose during the commingling of forest bodies and human bodies, and how the presencing of the animate and inanimate, and of real and imaginary, inform and transform our ways of thinking with and being with the more-than-human other. the shadowy the educator and i are taking seriously the pedagogies of noticing in our work what it might mean to live ethically alongside more-than-human others. we work from the edges, both the physical and the metaphorical, as we stay within what stephanie springgay and zofia zaliwska (2015) refer to as the “intra-active surfaces” (p. 139). we take our collaborative research with a group of five toddlers (ages 1–2) very seriously. we wonder what it means for us and the toddlers to be part of the forest’s liveliness amid the ruins, to enter into caring relations with the seen and unseen critters of the forest. one winter morning while walking through the forest, the educator, the group of toddlers, and i stop to notice the many different tracks in the snow. in previous walks we became aware of how our feet left imprints in the snow. a new layer of snow provides us the opportunity to see that our footprints are not the only prints we see, as there are many more different indents and markings. rather than labelling the markings as bunny tracks or deer tracks, we begin instead to follow them to see where they might lead. as curious trackers we speculate where we are going. one of the children states, “we are going to their house.” another asks, “are we going to find rabbit poop?” what is interesting to the educator and me is that none of the children questions whether other beings are present in the forest. the children do not need to see critters to understand their presence. how might traces of passing animals provoke our understanding of complex and emerging child-animal relations? how do sites of animal-child track mashups inform matters of care? i use poetry as a form of reflection, of storying the past/present/future of places of commingling. valerie janesick (2016) reminds us that “poetry shuts out the excess and noise ... it inspires respect and awareness of their [in/ non/human] stories (p. 32). the poem below is meant to narrate the staccato thoughts that swirled around my wonderings of the deer tracks the educator, the toddlers, and i noticed during our many winter ventures into the forest. as we followed tracks we tried to (re)trace the movements of the unseen. shadowy tracings july 2020 35 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research snow reveals tracks tracks reveal possibilities possibilities reveal stories shadowy stories crossing time and space walking, crawling, slithering, running, leaping away from and towards paths converging and pulling apart snow reveals tracks remembering and forgetting snow melts and shadows fade rooting stories; erasing stories shadowy tracings of stories untold whose presence remains unseen waiting watching listening maria puig de la bellacasa (2017) reminds us that speculative inquiry “pushes the boundary of acceptable” (p. 73), while val plumwood (2002) writes that “openness and attentiveness give us sensitivity to the world ... allow[ing] us to be receptive to unanticipated possibilities” (p. 195). in reflecting on the tracks encounter, the educator and i resist (mis)representing the stories of “what else.” rather, the tracks become provocative shadowy stories of animals living in liminal and precarious spaces. while tracks and tracings remind us of the movements of the critters that traverse the forest spaces, we are left to speculate what it might mean to care for more-thanhuman others who go unseen. the mythical the winter visits to the forest have led to unique and unexpected encounters. on one particular walk the morning after a snowstorm, we (the educator and i and the five toddlers) are met by different sounds such as howling winds and creaking tree branches. but as we venture deeper into the treed area, another unexpected sound emerges. one of the toddlers is making a very loud “eeeeeeoooooeeeeee” sound. as the educator and i exchange a look of confusion, i ask him what he is doing. in what is best described as a nonchalant response, he tells me he is calling the “snow monkey.” i counter with a quizzical “snow monkey?” the toddler does not offer any further explanation, he merely looks up and points. as the group of toddlers look up toward an unidentifiable space where the unidentifiable creature sits, they all chime in, calling to the snow monkeys with their boisterous “eeeeeeoooooeeeeees.” the educator and i wonder how the intra-actions of snow, wind, vines, and bodily movements emerge as snow monkeys. of course, we can never be fully sure, but we speculate that the mythical snow monkey emerged from the complex entanglement of the real and the imaginary. perhaps the birth of the mythical snow monkey began with the vines that are intertwined throughout the forest space, tangled around and across the trees (both the living and the dead). the educator often refers to the vines as monkey vines. but on one particular walk there was a lot of snow that clung to the trees and vines, and when we shook them the snow fell and hit our faces, bodies, and the ground. perhaps the movements of hands, limbs (human and nonhuman) and snow together storied the mythical snow monkey. perhaps thinking with snow monkeys, the mythical story of unlikely and peculiar kinship, illustrates the complexity of caring relations with the more-than-human other. july 2020 36 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research as the educator and i continue to reflect on the child–snow-monkey encounter, we wonder what it means to be in relation with a being that is not. how do we think with and be with the mythical or the shadowy? as barad (2012) notes, “all bodies, not merely ‘human’ bodies come to matter through the world’s iterative intra-activity— its performativity” (p. 152). barad’s notion of intra-activity is essential to this process, because it emphasizes onto-epistemological continuity and relationality as opposed to dialectical or hierarchical separation and divergence. this emphasis on the continuity of human and more-than-human material interactions is critical to our care-full work. accordingly, our pedagogies of lingering allow us to sit with our wonderings of how the story of emerging relations with “snow monkeys” might offer a glimpse into how mattering and caring are linked. as we continue to struggle to understand what it means to be in a caring relation with the more-than-human other, the snow monkeys push us to be thoughtful. it is early spring, and the melting snow exposes a “new” forest. we (the educator, the five toddlers, and i) walk through the forest differently in the winter and the spring. the warming spring sun melts the snow, exposing many of the unnoticed and forgotten things that are always already occupying forest spaces. today we are not greeted with the shadow tracks or snow monkeys but rather the newly exposed moss, construction debris, fungi, fallen and rusted barbed wire fencing, food wrappers, plastic water bottles, and one lone skull of a dead animal. the skull is all that remains of the once-lively raccoon. although the educator and i are drawn toward the skull, it goes seemingly unnoticed by the toddlers. we are curious about why such an unfamiliar sight might go unnoticed. while the educator and i speculate about why, the group of us becomes refocused on the noises. we hear a distant “chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee” filtering through the sounds of construction. the educator points toward four chickadees frolicking in the trees above. as she and i try to mimic the chickadee call, the toddlers all look up to see where the birds might be. after one of the toddlers tries to make the same bird call, he adds “where did the snow monkeys go?” he waits for a brief moment, perhaps hoping the chickadee will respond to his concern over the whereabouts of the missing snow monkeys. engaging with a pedagogy of lingering through slow acts of noticing provides us with the time to be curious. tsing (2015) argues that curiosity is “the first requirement of collaborative survival in precarious times” (p. 2). the educator and i consider how the care the children demonstrate toward the imagined animals might be extended farther to the disappearing and already disappeared animals within the forest. our pedagogies are guided by tsing’s contention that the world is populated by the ghosts of vanquished spaces, lives, and experiences (both figuratively and literally), and so we ask ourselves: where are these tracks coming from or going to? we struggle to understand what it might mean to care for the ghostly presence of the forest creatures we cannot see. the children search for these elusive “ghosts” within an increasingly vanquished space, but for now many of the vanishing animals seem consigned to the realm of the imaginary. in our pedagogical work we remain open to staying with the precarious relations of the real, the shadowy, and the mythical as we think with the complex, knotted, and entangled politics of care. final thoughts in witnessing and navigating the ruins and those who endure therein, we see glimpses of a nascent ethic of care. however, in troubling matters of care we remember that our presence (researchers/educators and students alike) is dependent on these productivist/consumerist dynamics. by acknowledging our own ethically entangled relationship to these fraught and contradictory processes, we hope to better reframe and restory the world around us. through the practice and process of speculative fabulation, stories of relational complexity emerge and push july 2020 37 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research us to think otherwise. haraway (2016) reminds us that “perhaps it is precisely in the realm of play outside the dictates of teleology, settled categories and functions that serious worldliness and recuperations become possible” (pp. 23–24). accordingly, we resist pedagogies of containment that present children with worldclosing answers and explanations that all too often stymy, rather than engage, curiosity. similarly, we challenge the managerial models that prioritize the regulation and structure of children’s time and experience. we seek to offer the space and freedom for children to follow the traces, and to imaginatively engage and speculate about all the possibilities and tensions, that exist in the world(s) around them. as such, we are committed to bringing this essential instability of our surroundings to the surface of educational encounters with the children. in doing so, we (the children, educators, and researchers alike) become more aware and sensitized to the entanglements comprising our world. such a world ceases to conform to the prescribed flatness of linearity, predictability, and monotony. we instead become alive to the possibility, vibrancy, precarity, and care of/for/within a dynamic world that is ever in flux. this goal must always remain an aspiration, however, one guided by the humble awareness that we can never hope to fully know or understand everything our world offers. humility, not mastery, guides our inquiries. *although no children or educators are specifically identified in this article, all have given consent to have their stories told. july 2020 38 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references barad, k. 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(1993). moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of care. routledge. tsing, a. (2015). the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton university press. van dooren, t., & rose, d. b. (2016). lively ethnography: storying animist worlds. environmental humanities, 8(1), 77–94. https://doi. org/10.1215/22011919-3527731 yusoff, k. (2018). politics of the anthropocene: formation of the commons as a geologic process. antipode, 50(1), 255–276. https://doi. org/10.1111/anti.12334 july 2020 53 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research making “cuts” with a holstein cow in early childhood education and care: the joys of representation teresa k. aslanian and anna rigmor moxnes teresa k. aslanian is an associate professor in the department of early childhood education, university of south-eastern norway. her research is concerned with retheorizing early childhood education concepts and practices through critical and posthuman theories. email: tea@usn.no anna rigmor moxnes is an associate professor in the department of early childhood education, university of south-eastern norway. her research is concerned with early childhood education, kindergarten practices, and posthuman theories. email: anna. moxnes@usn.no cow of mine, i thank you delicious milk you give to me every day, along with my bread i drink your milk, so sweet (peter andreas jensen, “my cow, i thank you”) nonhuman animals and representations of such animals are ubiquitous in children’s lives in early childhood education and care (ecec) centres, as illustrated in the above meal song from 1873, still commonly sung by children and their educators at mealtimes. there is growing interest in the education sector for research on child-animal relations, with two recognizable branches of research. the first branch has been concerned with exploring nonhuman animals as a resource for learning about life cycles, birth, illness, death, taking responsibility, and care relationships, with a particular interest in the care and empathy nonhuman animals seem to produce, teach about, and inspire (meyers, 2007; rud & beck, 2003). a more recent branch of research problematizes the idealization of nonhuman animals as teachers and sources of care practices, focusing instead on the complexities of multispecies lives and care practices as noninnocent (hohti & tammi, 2019; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). moving from a traditional understanding of care as connected to goodness, intention, and morality (noddings, 2012), recent research is concerned with care as not necessarily only good or moral. reminding readers that “nothing holds together without relations of care,” maria puig de la bellacasa (2017, p. 67) argues that care is more than (and not even necessarily) a moral activity. living in a relational world requires care. care relations therefore involve more than care as a human, moral, and pleasant activity. care is ontological; care is being in a relational world. care practices are entangled in nature/ culture and involve the complexities of relational worlds. to understand entanglements of care in animal-child relations requires both thinking with care (puig de la bellacasa, 2012, 2017) and an interest and a willingness to think with things. this article explores children’s play with representations of animals, specifically the holstein cow, as noninnocent care practices in the context of early childhood education and care environments. we use barad’s relational ontology and chaudhuri’s concept of zooësis to activate a temporal diffractive analysis of memory stories about children’s play with cows in ecec read through facts from past, present, and future livestock-rearing practices. we connect the joy of playing with representations of nonhuman animals to the responsibility associated with multispecies lives, and to care as the production of flourishing. key words: care; representations; play; child-animal relations; temporal diffraction july 2020 54 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research in this article, we explore children’s play with representations of nonhuman animals, paying special attention to the holstein cow, as noninnocent care practices in the context of ecec environments. the term animal can imply a group inclusive of humans or exclusive of humans. for ease of reading, we will hereafter use the term animals or other animals to refer to nonhuman animals. to explore children’s play with representations of animals, we have collected memory stories (hohti, 2018; moxnes, 2019; moxnes & osgood, 2018) and facts from past, present, and future livestock-rearing practices which we carefully read with karen barad’s (2017) relational ontology and the concept of zooësis (chaudhuri, 2007) from the field of animal studies. through our readings, we explore how relations between children and animals and representations of animals can involve care but not necessarily moral care. rather, we argue that children and animals do care when playing with animal figurines, as they make agential cuts that contribute to the world’s flourishing. approaching children-animal relationships as temporal and material entanglements, this article contributes to knowledges about children-animal relationships as noninnocent practices of care and world making in ecec. thinking about the holstein cow with care, for us, means approaching it with curiosity and being cognizant of its entanglements and our own entanglements with it as we follow memory stories along unexpected turns. zooësis, play, and relational ontology the traditional meal song reproduced above (jensen, 1873) tells the story of the cow as a giver of milk and child as appreciative receiver of its gift. such social representations of animals in educational settings are problematized in critical animal studies for producing simplified stories about what animals are in relation to humans that render the complexities of animal-human care practices invisible (linné & pedersen, 2013). una chaudhuri (2007) suggests the term zooësis to conceptualize the performative practices and discourses that permeate human-animal relations. the term denotes the state of being an animal, as defined by humans, through animal-human relations. we draw on the concept of zooësis to explore how the animals and humans in our collected memory stories perform in certain ways, according to certain roles, and how children may be socialized into these practices. at the same time, we are fascinated by children’s ability to also sidestep human-animal cultural roles, through play. children’s play is often described in early childhood literature either as a medium for language development, cognitive development, learning, and social skills (änggård, 2016; greenspan & lieberman, 1994; steinsholt & øksnes, 2003,) or as children’s particular mode of being (greve et al., 2018). play can also be understood as an active agent in itself (steinsholt & øksnes, 2003). we understand play in light of barad’s relational ontology (2007, 2017) as coproduced intra-active processes. play is something children do with otherthan-human materials, and representations of animals are often among these materials. as such, the intra-active play of children and representations of animals contributes to a “cultural animal unconscious” (chaudhuri & enelow, 2006, p. 3), producing other discourses and cultural practices beyond animal as object of care, carer, or source of food, clothing, or protection. plastic animal figurines are to be found in most norwegian ecec centres and are among the props used along with storytelling as language materials that aid learning new words and terms in ecec (karsrud, 2014, p. 126). in such learning perspectives, representations of animals are often understood as static and objective descriptions of animals. as early as 1967, donald ball pointed to looking beyond the manifested features of toys and viewing them as agents rather than objects. we understand animals and animal toys in ecec, not as a static source of learning about life cycles, mutual care, etc. (cole & stewart, 2014), but as agents along with children enacting mutual world-making practices (haraway, 2008, p. 287). july 2020 55 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research barad’s (2007, 2017) relational ontology supports our view of toys as agents, drawing on quantum processes in which phenomena do not exist as independent entities but rather are always mutually producing each other through entanglements or intra-active processes of becoming. thinking with relational ontology, we understand relations between the environment, children, and toys in ecec, not as subject-object relations, but as mutually entangled phenomena that produce each other and affects within ecec environments and beyond. any intra-action, according to barad (2007), entails responsibility for what is enacted. being responsible requires “taking account of the entangled phenomena that are intrinsic to the world’s vitality and being responsive to the possibilities that might help it flourish” (barad, 2007, p. 396). we read the responsivity to flourishing as a way to understand care as more than moral and more than human. we believe this orientation can provoke a release from habitual modes of perceiving care, children, and children’s play (hultman & lenz taguchi, 2010) as independent phenomena. as intra-action, play can be described as children’s potential involvements with the world’s vitality and its flourishing. an ethics of responsibility reminds us that space and time are not separate. harm done in the world today shapes the world of the future. drawing on descriptions of temporal diffraction in quantum physics, barad (2017, p. 67) suggests that not only space but time involves entanglements. the idea of temporal diffraction challenges us to rethink time as distinct from place by exploring the ways in which time, space, and matter entangle and work through each other. the past is present in the future, entangled in places and things. barad (2017, p. 69) explains temporality as “where the ‘new’ and ‘old’ might coexist” and “where each history coexists with the others” (p. 68). diffraction patterns become, in barad’s words, “a manifestation of different times bleeding through one another” (p. 68). inspired by ideas of how stories inhabit each other, we sought out our own memory stories of the holstein cow and the memories of our early childhood educator friends and colleagues. our aim was to think with the holstein cow and better understand the ways in which it was entangled with us in the time and space of our lives as early childhood educators. we spent ten days in the course of our daily lives talking among ourselves, friends we came across, and colleagues we met in the practice field and at universities about the holstein cow. we were surprised to find that experiences with cows and representations of cows were commonplace and interwoven in ways not previously reflected upon. using a plastic animal figurine of a holstein cow as guide, in this article we weave collected memory stories of past entanglements with the holstein cow in ecec through reflections on livestock-rearing practices past, present, and future. exploring what temporal diffractions make possible, we ask, how does the holstein cow invite us to think differently about representation, play, and care? thinking with a holstein cow figurine the plastic figurine of a holstein cow (figure 1) stands out to us as perhaps the most common physical representation of animals in ecec environments. representation is problematized in postmodern literature as a subjugating force (foucault, 1980; kincheloe, 1997; maclure, 2013). representationalism asserts that representations reflect that which is represented. foucault (1980) argued that representations do not merely reflect what already is but are part of what produce that which is by the discourses the representations produce. in other words, systems of power produce the subjects they subsequently come to represent. july 2020 56 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 1. a plastic figurine of a holstein cow. figure 2. painting of an ideal holstein cow. source: https://thewildanimalstore.com/product/holstein-cow-toy (used with permission). an example of foucault’s thinking can be found in the miniature, plastic representation of a holstein cow (figure 1). using this figurine as an example, children who do not live around cows but have access to the plastic figure that adults call “cow” will perhaps come to understand a cow as a somewhat emaciated creature, perhaps with a relatively large udder. figure 3. the holstein cow before aggressive breeding. the shape of the cow’s body is the result of its relations with humans and 150 years of continuous breeding to produce high quantities of milk. the cow’s bodily resources are sent to milk production rather than to producing july 2020 57 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research muscle on the back and hips (orland, 2003). the cow’s friendly, hornless head is the result of systematic removal through breeding to avoid fighting in stalls (bächi, 2016). the breed has been standardized for optimal milk production and the representation in the form of a plastic figurine normalizes the “standardized vision” (grasseni, 2005, p. 48) of the holstein cow (figure 2). the holstein cow is central to efforts at mapping genomes of animals to maximize economic gain. prior to breeding for dairy production, the holstein cow was visibly more muscular (figure 3). the very genome of the holstein cow in the united states has been changed as a result of breeding by the dairy industry through artificial selection for economically important traits, resulting in the economically desired increased milk production and a regrettable concomitant decrease in fertility and immunity (ma et al., 2019). the cow transformed by humans through biopower into a milk producer is presented to children as simply a cow. children learn to understand the holstein cow as a willing producer of milk for the benefit of children and humankind (cole & stewart, 2016). it would seem to a child that cows have large udders so that they can provide us with milk. the popular representation is tiny, meant to fit into the palm of a young child’s hand and teach the child where the milk we drink comes from. the aggressive breeding of the holstein cow illustrates a form of zooësis through a human-animal cultural and biological entanglement in which cows perpetually perform as producers of milk in response to human demand. play, intra-action, and agential cuts lina (3 years old) is smuggling out a black and white plastic cow figurine, hiding it in her pocket. when she comes outside, she hides behind the house, next to the cow fence. she makes a fence on the grass, using small sticks and stones, and places the plastic cow on her field. then she lays down, watching the real cows on the other side of the fence, while slowly moving the smuggled cow figurine towards the crowd of cattle over the fence. how does the holstein cow become something different and more than an innocent farm animal or product of the dairy industry in the hands of children? lina becomes another human producing and “playing” the holstein cow as performer. through play, she also becomes a world-maker with the cows, whose aliveness complicates representations with unpredictable elements. lina’s engagements with the plastic cow and the real cows are materialized cultural practices, but in the ongoing materialization, there is also imagination and intra-action. lina’s meeting with cows’ situation in the world and her imagination produces new representations: a fence, like the one that restrains the real cows, is made from the sticks and stones of the forest ground. the sticks become something else in lina’s hands. worlds being created trouble the binaries between micro and macro, nature and culture, nonhuman and human, real and imaginary (barad, 2017, p. 56). the real is involved with the pretend, and the child’s play produces new borders of real and unreal, inside and outside. challenging the tradition of representation, barad (2007, p. 137) argues that it relies on an underlying idea of the preexistence of entities. from an agential-realist perspective, a holstein cow does not actually exist, because phenomena are constantly becoming through intra-active relations. the representation of a holstein cow therefore describes a nonexistent subject as if it were stable, as if it were something. representations are actually more like manifestations, images of an idea that is always in the past, a trace of myriad intra-actions. to understand representations as intra-actions (leahu, 2012; timeto, 2011), we can consider barad’s concept of the agential cut. agential cuts are temporary enactments of apparent separation of agential phenomena produced within an apparatus (barad, 2007). in quantum physics, particles can occupy superpositions, which means they can, in a way, be anywhere until they are measured. upon measurement, entangled particles “take their places,” positioning themselves differently according to how they are measured, so that, until measured, the particles exist both “here” and “there.” things, though indeterminate and being produced through intraaction, are perceived as distinct and become distinctive when viewed through a particular apparatus. july 2020 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research an agentic cut can be likened to a measurement—that act of breaking in and observing or disturbing the superposition, the neither here nor there-ness. a “cut” defines what is made to be present and what is made to be absent. engaging with various apparatuses enacts change and produces desired and sometimes undesired agential cuts (i.e., changes in the world, world making). when we view lina’s play with the cow figurine as a practice of making agential cuts, the figurine is not a reflection or static image, but an actor that is shaped by and shapes the world through intra-active engagements. cuts make things present, but where does the absence go? agential cuts are described as violent (barad, 2014) and enacting change upon the world. children’s play enacts cuts, change, and transformation in a peculiar way. children’s play involves representations that do not have a stable representational content and are not generalizable (luntley, 2018). play is a thinking/doing/being in which that which is thought, done, and becomes is nongeneralizable but makes sense only in its particular becoming as an entanglement. we want to connect children’s play with representations of animals with the concept of the void (barad, 2017). drawing on both derrida’s concept of the void as something that is both present and absent and the concept of the void in quantum field theory, barad (2017) describes the void as an aspect of the ephemeral nature of the world. the world, which is a becoming, requires a void which is nothing— the absence of beingness, and therefore the cauldron of possibility, of becoming. all that becomes springs out from the void and continues to be entangled in the void. absence, at a quantum level, is entangled in presence. barad (2017) connects the void to imagining and we connect it to children’s excess imagination relative to adults. we suggest that the presence of absence—the void—allows children and adults alike to understand a plastic figurine as a cow and for children to understand it in another moment as something else entirely. we relate children’s play with the void to maclure’s (2013) description of the practice of nonrepresentational research, which includes being “caught up in the momentum of becoming” (p. 662, italics in original) and the act of “‘surfing’ the intensity of the event that has caught us up, in order to arrive somewhere else” (p. 662). in the following memory story, we follow two young boys playing enthusiastically with plastic animal figurines, seemingly without considering what the figurines are meant to represent, but rather surfing the intensity, and becoming with. in the corner is a shelf, and on that shelf a red box full of plastic farm animals, including the holstein cow. each morning the box is emptied into a doll-carriage. two boys, 2-and-a-half years old, speed-drive the doll carriage full of plastic animals to the opposite corner of the room. here they dump the contents of the carriage, spin around the room for a few minutes, and then return to the animals and shovel them back into the carriage. a new corner is found and the animals dumped. they are lying on the floor ready to be shovelled back into the carriage when it, sooner or later, returns from its spinning voyage around the room. a staff member enters the room. she watches the scene for a few seconds before picking up the red box and starting to put the animals back into it. she explains to the boys that they have to take care of the animals. they are meant to be played with as animals on a farm. she illustrates it by holding up each species one by one, stroking them with her hand, and pronouncing their names loudly and clearly—c-o-w—and the sound it makes—m-o-o. the boys are standing still, watching her. the next morning, the scenario with the animals and doll carriage is repeated—no stroking the animals, only dumping them. later, through conversation, the boys share with their teacher that they were dumping building materials. when the boys played with their toys, the figurines’ representational content was not determined by the visible signs and manifestations of representation, but by the logic of the world the boys and toys were making. matter was not assigned a stable meaning, but together they were performing ongoing new meanings, in a joyful process 58 july 2020 59 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research of world making. any apparatus has a particular shape that is “the properties of the ‘components’ of phenomena” that “become determinate and … meaningful” (barad, 2003, p. 815). for the children in this story, their ecec centre was an apparatus, and the animal figurines had a certain role in that apparatus—a learning about life and death role, a learning about caretaking role, and a learning about where food comes from role. through play, the children navigated the apparatus with unexpected moves, reconfiguring the cultural meaning of and performance of animal-human relations in unique and fluid ways. pretend play has been described as relating “in its own special ways to other activities” (binkley, 1974, p. 568). in some ways, toys as representations of other things can also be understood as intra-actions. for example, when playing with young children, we have observed that educators often refer to toys as the creatures or objects they represent. educators and children alike play this game, even before any pretend or play has begun. when we are calling a plastic figurine of a cow “a cow,” we are making it a cow, and it is becoming cow. while these may be the ways educators understand the figurines and intend them to be used, children may and often do understand objects differently (aslanian, 2018) and use them in a variety of ways—not necessarily as animals at all. a plastic figurine of a cow can be building materials—or anything imagined in the intra-action. when children act with plastic animal figurines in unintended ways, they are engaging in productive, intra-active, relational processes. the difference between the way the children used the figurines and the way the educator used the figurines reminds us of bohr’s story, retold by barad (2007) to describe agential cuts, of a blind person with a stick: when the stick is held loosely, it appears to the sense of touch to be an object. when, however, it is held firmly, we lose the sensation that it is a foreign body, and the impression of touch becomes immediately localized at the point where the stick is touching the body under investigation. (bohr, 1963, p. 99, as cited in barad, 2007, p. 154) barad goes on to explain how the stick can or cannot be used to feel one’s way around a darkened room. the stick cannot usefully serve as an instrument of observation if one is intent on observing it. the line between subject and object is not fixed, but once a cut is made (i.e., a particular practice is being enacted), the identification is not arbitrary but in fact materially specified and determined. (pp. 154– 155) when the stick is held firmly, it becomes an instrument with the body and can be used to feel about a darkened room. the adults observed the plastic figurines and identified them according to their intended representations, metaphorically holding the figurines loosely, as objects, as static representations, while the children used the figurines and the doll carriage as subjects, extensions of themselves and instruments in the world. the same figurine acts in different ways according to what practice is being enacted. the above narrative begins with excited play and ends with excited play, but in the middle, a staff member tries to change the play into something more recognizable, seeing the figurines as static and in terms of the apparatus she was a part of and being produced by. the plastic animals were being dumped here and there, rather than being treated the way children in the centre were expected to treat them, as objects representing animals that teach about care. we suggest that the children were rather thinking with the animal figurines and together with them, in this sense, doing care through engaging with figurines as instruments for the production of shared vitality. the complex joys of representation for very young children without an abundance of representational capacity and experience, toys seem to july 2020 60 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research function as “open” representations and potentialities (luntley, 2018). the representations themselves are toys to play with. for children, representations of animals are not necessarily reductions, but doors into the void (barad, 2017) where new possibilities can come to life. the development of representational capacity allows children to relate to the outside world and understand themselves as separate from it (greenspan & lieberman, 1994). the ability and desire to represent is thus a part of mental functioning necessary to interact in a complex world. returning to lina, the readily available sticks and stones become a fence with lina’s hands engaging in representation as play. the wooden fence lina observes keeps the living cows away from her, while the fence she builds brings the cows closer to her, through play, creation, and imagination. rather than understanding representations as reductions of phenomena, we suggest that representations are also open ended and continually in flux. this aspect of representation is embraced when children play with representations, or toys. children’s play with representations of animals sidesteps static understandings and instead engages in ongoing and iterative materializations of the world, entangling agricultural practices with education and the joy of play. we read the concept joy as nuanced and something other than happiness and find support in differing between happiness and joy when reading donna haraway (2008). she points to joy as deeper: as something that shines from inside out, something caused all around (haraway, 2008, p. 241). for rosi braidotti (2017), joy is about an ethical ideal, or aspiring “to the joyful affirmation of virtual possibilities, of what ‘we’ are capable of becoming” (p. 24). joy in this sense is intimately connected to the void, as a place of becoming. by paying attention to children’s play with representations of animals as intra-actions, we flip the picture, from a human-centered view of objects being the result of humans doing and producing, to a posthuman view of what nonhumans and humans produce together. in so doing, we open opportunities to discuss representations as contributions and generative forces for change. we propose that, rather than the animal figurines inspiring learning about care as the educator expected, the children, along with the animals, did care, insofar as they together produced new possibilities, new ways to be, and thus participated in the production of flourishing and the “vitality of the world” (barad, 2007, p. 396). the stories told through children’s play with toys and stories told through the educators’ understandings of how toys should be used coexist side by side. they diffract when they are read together and create new and other stories. in our reading, children-animal relations involve both more than moral care taken and, at the same time, not “necessarily moral” caretaking. relationships involve noninnocent care, as an amoral world-making activity and ontological force (puig de la bellacasa, 2017). through play, children and animal figurines produce new relationships, joy, flourishing, and vitality without the aim of being good or doing right. similarly, children’s play with representations of animals is also unintentionally taking part in troubling human-nonhuman animal practices. entanglements with living holstein cows cow figurines are often marketed as seemingly caring families (bull, cow, and calf; figure 4). the farm is often portrayed as a place where animals and humans live together in peace (linné & pedersen, 2017). one of our favourite songs to sing in early childhood settings, “my cow, i thank you” (jensen, 1837), reproduced at the beginning of this article, tells this story. as early childhood educators, singing this song before a meal with the children brought us feelings of gratitude and proximity to nature. the sentimental emotions we felt when singing “my cow, i thank you” cast a peculiar light, however, when thinking with the rearing practices in the worldwide dairy industry. the idealized happy cow family is not materialized through dairy farm practices. for farmers to run a dairy farm, they must ensure that their cows produce a high quantity of milk. to meet the economic demands of the dairy farming industry, cows must produce milk constantly. to achieve constant lactation, the cow is inseminated once a year to birth a calf. calves are taken away from their mothers, either directly july 2020 61 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research after birth or after a couple of days. these calves are either slaughtered after about eighteen months for meat production or selected as future dairy cows (linné & pedersen, 2017, p. 114). the milk we have been thanking cows for is not being offered to their own offspring but being taken for ours. the song tells the story of cows giving delicious milk, as a gift. a cow is imagined as having both agency and benevolence toward humans. some accounts of human-animal relations emphasize the agency and emotional labour of cows who produce milk for humans (linné & pedersen, 2017), suggesting cows are cooperating with farmers to produce milk. i remember walking through a friend’s barn listening to her talking about how she cares for her cows. she explained how her stock was brought up from the stock of her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. the farmer and her cows were deeply rooted on the farm. though the industrialized farm and this small family farm tell different stories of colonization and biopower, the past shapes the present. the 150 years of breeding of the holstein cow is visibly present in real cows and in the toy figurines (figure 4) being sold as a happy family belonging to a cozy farm. figure 4. farm animal set found for sale at a gas station in norway. photo credit: teresa aslanian. the taste and nutritious quality of cows’ milk depends on what the cows eat. the second and third verse of the traditional song “my cow i thank you” are less well known and not usually included in the meal song, but they describe what makes the milk so delicious. the full song was included in norway’s first textbook for schools in 1873. don’t take the withered straw eat instead the juicy grass! grass makes your milk so sweet here is the field, so wet and fresh here, the beautiful flowers grow here, the little creek flows here, you find food in scrubs and paths eat well, my dear cow. jensen, 1873 july 2020 62 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research most cattle in norway spend most of their days in a small compartment without much freedom of movement. concern for animal well-being and a growing awareness of repercussions for animal health—and thus productivity—is generating increasing pressure on farmers to shift to free stalls in which cows can move about freely through the day. the norwegian parliament has decided that all cows will be kept in free stalls by the year 2034 (lovdata, 2019). the law guarantees cows that live in free stalls outdoor freedom of movement for at least eight weeks during the summer. for cattle who live in small compartments without freedom of movement inside the stall, a full 16 weeks of outside freedom of movement are required. these measures are the result of concern for animal welfare, but the concern is positioned in an economic framework in which the happiness of cows is always measured against the potential for economic gain or loss (asdal & druglitrø, 2017, p. 68; bächi, 2016). earlier we argued that representations are like traces of myriad intra-actions and that agential cuts are temporary enactments. we see the representation of the holstein cow as enactments of cattle living 36 weeks a year in a stall, as a small plastic cow figurine in lina’s hand, the husky body of the holstein cow before aggressive breeding (figure 1), the large udder on the modern ideal cow (figure 2), the happy cow family, and the farmer talking about her care and devotion to her cows, deep caring roots, and milking-machines. splash! a cow let go of a cow patty just next to me. i jump, but too late—grey/brownish, stinking cow manure up my legs and on my new yellow shoes ... letting the cows out fields surround the early childhood education centre. each spring the farmer lets the cows out, and on that day, watching the cows coming out is the big happening for all the children and adults in the centre. turning back to the joy of making cuts, we invite you to watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lvwqzyi0urc the responsible practice of assuring cows’ freedom of movement outdoors during summer months has produced a ritual that occurs every spring when the cows are let out. the event is a pasture release that locals often gather to watch. visitors come to see the cows set free into green pastures as they hop and run like dogs or sheep, playing with each other, eating the fresh grass and trotting around. the cows are clearly overwhelmed with joy as they are set free into green pastures and the people who come to watch are visibly moved by the cows’ expressions of joy. at the same time, their heavy, milk-filled udders restrict their movement and tell another story. materialized in the letting out of the cows, we find the entanglement of human-cow relationships is awakened as the cows are released from a winter of closed quarters and, from the perspective of critical animal studies, their ongoing emotional labour (linné & pedersen, 2017, pp. 118–119). the cow, including the plastic representation, facts from livestock rearing, and the memory stories, has, together with barad’s (2007, 2017) thinking, helped us to shift our perspective from representation as static and objective reduction to representation as intra-active, potentially generative, and part of the more-than-human world. thinking with the holstein cow through temporal diffractive readings of memories and artefacts, along with the concept of zooësis, has sparked complexities of care and comfort, utility, tradition, and ethically complicated (joy) practices. through the various cuts, we have struggled to become with the holstein cow in childhood settings, with past and present practices in cattle industries materialized in social representations of animals in the hands and lives of children. we have argued that understanding children’s play with representations of animals as making cuts sheds light on representations as intra-actions and play with animals as a form of care in ecec environments and, in a broader sense, children’s participation in world making. children’s relationships july 2020 63 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research to plastic figurines of animals involved reconfiguring cultural practices, ideas, and performances of humananimal through making agential cuts, sidestepping the limitations of the apparatus of ecec and taking part in the “world’s vitality” (barad, 2007, p. 396). we have explored child-animal relations that involve care, but not innocent care. rather, care as practiced through the flourishing that children and animals produce together through imaginative intra-active play. employing temporal diffraction with zooësis produced the possibility to view the mingling of human-animal social practices and the joys of representations available in children’s play that offer opportunities for other-than-human animals and human animals to become otherwise. in the autumn, when the cows are back in their stall, the children take over the field. skipping around, they run like mad, jumping over old, dry cow patties in seeming joy. acknowledgements we would like to thank the kindergarten staff members and colleagues who generously shared their memory stories with us. we also want to thank our reviewers for thoughtful comments and suggestions that pushed our thinking further along. thanks also to university of south-eastern norway for the research grant that allowed us to delve into child-animal relations in ecec. july 2020 64 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research references änggård, e. 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(2015). learning with children, ants, and worms in the anthropocene: towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. pedagogy, culture, & society, 23(4), 507–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1 039050 july 2020 66 vol. 45 no. 2 journal of childhood studies articles from research timeto, f. (2011). diffracting the rays of technoscience: a situated critique of representation. poiesis & praxis: international journal of ethics of science and technology assessment, 8(2–3), 151–167. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10202-011-0099-5 june 2023 51 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice childhood worldings of brittle bone disease: a portrait in five triptych research poems brenda cleary, franco carnevale, and argerie tsimicalis brenda cleary (mscn, rn) is a community artist and nurse member of the mcgill university-based voice research group (voice: views on interdisciplinary childhood ethics) and the shriners hospitals for children—canada. email: brendacleary@gmail.com dr. franco carnevale (rn, phd psychology, phd philosophy) is a full professor at the ingram school of nursing, mcgill university, and principal investigator of the mcgill-based voice research program (voice: https://www.mcgill.ca/voice/). dr. argerie tsimicalis (rn, phd) is an associate professor at the ingram school of nursing, mcgill university, and holds the inaugural nurse scientist position at the shriners hospitals for children—canada. poetry, as perhaps no other written form, demonstrates the profoundly interrelated nature by which a phenomenon co-arises by its collective parts. found poetry wherein research documents are abbreviated and combined to produce concise representations of data offers a particularly useful means of preserving and presenting research insights within their multifaceted and emotionally evocative context. the purpose of this paper is to offer the childhood studies community a collection of found poems offering insights into representative worlds of children living with dis/ abilities, chronic hospitalizations, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding their perioperative care. the collection represents the summa totalis poetic crystallization of a multiyear ethnography focused on the ethical experiences of the childhood osteogenesis imperfecta (oi) community as encountered in a specialized north american pediatric oi clinic. the collection deliberately bridged multiple separate (yet deeply connected) worlds of children, clinicians, and family members to reveal their interdependence and yet preserve each individual’s distinct viewpoints. the collection is divided into five triptychs: the ethical community; solitude; culture; decisions; and hidden struggles. each triptych is composed of three poems examining these research themes from diverse interlocking vantage points within the community of care to highlight their dynamic interplay. background of foundational study the complete collection of found poetry shared here is derived from research conducted at the shriners hospitals for children®—canada in collaboration with voice—views on interdisciplinary childhood ethics research group at mcgill university. the research aims to promote a stronger recognition of the voices of children with oi this paper offers a collection of found poems offering insights into representative worlds of children living with dis/abilities, chronic hospitalizations, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding their perioperative care. the collection represents the sum tota poetic crystallization of a multiyear ethnography focused on the ethical experiences of the childhood osteogenesis imperfecta community as encountered in a specialized north american pediatric oi clinic. the collection deliberately bridges multiple separate (yet deeply connected) worlds of children, clinicians, and family members to reveal their interdependence and yet preserve each individual’s distinct viewpoints. key words: children with dis/abilities; found poetry; osteogenesis imperfecta; brittle bone disease; ethical dilemmas; perioperative care june 2023 52 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice and their desire to participate in matters of importance to them (wang et al., 2022). culture, hospital protocols, and clinicians’ ability to engage with children play an important role in whether or not children are fully heard in clinical settings. the question then becomes: how might children’s complex values, ethics, and preferences be made visible (and actionable) to adults who care for them during their chronic hospitalizations? (wang et al., 2022). thinking and feeling with poetry while the collection of poetry offers a considered response to this question, it refuses any clear answers. in a previous coauthored methodology paper, “the poetics of brittle bone disease,” we discussed the slow, intentional creation process of the found poems and situated qualitative themes within the greater discussion of childhood bioethics (cleary et al., 2022). much like how one would cut up pictures in a magazine to make a collage, different parts of research interview transcripts were cut and pasted to compose these found poems. in this case, the first author intentionally hand-cut pieces for each of the found poems from our research team’s extensive interviews with children with oi and their siblings, families, and clinicians and accompanying research field notes (wang et al., 2022). each word, line, space, and punctuation mark was painstakingly selected to communicate emergent research themes within their emotive matrix and contained by the aesthetic logic of poetry (see figure 1). in this article we share all of the created poems to be engaged directly as the works of literature that they are. figure 1. a simple diagram showing the poems in progress during the stages of composition. as opposed to the secondary abstractions of more traditional research, the poetic form allows readers to directly immerse themselves in a felt push-and-pull of contradicting forces within a child’s experience of hospitalization. these poems are offered as tools to think about, feel, and companion the unseen struggles children face in their attempts to enact their values. through intercalating the voices of multiple adult care providers, readers are invited into multiple layers of felt difficulty, paradox, uncertainty and pathos, inherent to navigating childhood bioethics. the layering of multiple vantage points in the triptych format reveals the tesseract (see figure 2) of forces in the hospital ecosystem interacting at micro, meso, and macro levels to support or thwart children’s inherent agency. this collection of found poetry offers a clear, integral, and simultaneous line of sight into the heart of this emergent ethical dilemma, yet neither dictates readers’ interpretations of it nor captures the composing author’s june 2023 53 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice point of view. thinking and feeling with poetry, as such, is not an innocent act but one laced with ambiguity and conjecture. readers find here not a sanitized set of idyllic poems but one that is at times grotesque, transgressive, and vulnerable. figure 2. a tesseract is offered as a metaphor for the collection of poetry’s ability to portray multiple visible and invisible dynamics and points of view simultaneously (petrov et al., 2022). the collection the collection revolves around repeated use of the triptych: a work of art divided into three pieces but presented as a single unit. the triptych served a classical format of european art from the middle ages onward that, without overt explanations, invokes the patriarchal euro-western lineage of many ideas framing modern clinical care. the following five triptychs, ethical community, solitude, culture, decisions, and hidden struggles, each offer readers possibilities for a more wholesome picture of what the vast interiority of children might include. the founding study communicated the need to include children in medical decisions and discussions of import to them lest they suffer unnecessary duress (wang et al., 2022). the collection of poems, on the other hand, may offer some insight into the child’s mind and heart so as to encourage greater efforts to elicit their perspectives and inspire more child-centric practice. “the ethical community,” the initial triptych, flanks an extensive presentation of children’s suffering in silence with an image of their resilience on one side and the clinical community discussing possibilities for a better way of including children in perioperative processes on the other. it is followed by the triptych “solitude,” which evokes how children with dis/abilities have embraced a creative and lively solitude within their experiences of social othering and alienation. “culture” assumes the center of the collection and grounds the poetry in an awareness that cultural forces can serve as a source of strength for children and families, as well as a heavy inertia deterring positive evolution in models of clinical care. “decisions” reveals children’s own solutions to bioethical dilemmas and portrays forces preventing those solutions from being operationalized. for instance, the poem “parent patient” allows readers to feel alongside the paralyzing fear of parents that prevents them from enacting the kind of collaboration children ask for in “a child’s response.” “hidden struggles,” the final triptych, invites readers into the subjective struggles of the human beings who offer childhood clinical care and the young human beings who receive it, specifically, the struggle of a surgeon against his patriarchal training, the tension between the natural ability to relate to children versus the lack of it, and the resistance of dis/abled children against discrimination at large. the final triptych alights an empathy for all the actors who have crossed the stage of our minds as we wrestle with the literary work. in the ensemble, readers experience the interconnectedness of seemingly individual struggles and the interdependent nature of their positive solutions. above all, readers experience the richness of children’s “inner universe” and the importance of authentically listening, responding, and including children in their clinical care. june 2023 54 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice triptych 1: the ethical community we begin our explorations with the following triptych, the ethical community, which challenges adult readers to consider the ethical dimensions of bridging their solitudes with those of children. the triptych first introduces clinicians and hospital administrators in “art allows us to connect.” these (primarily) adult voices are drawn from individual interviews and a large panel discussion focused on improving the inclusion of children in medical decision making. “operations by surprise” is drawn exclusively from children’s interviews. the two poems draw attention to the is/ought tension in clinical care: the gap between what is currently operational clinical practice and what is envisioned as a more ideal manner of delivering care. in this case, readers see the stark contrast of a stoic child silently enduring hospitalization against the possibility of eliciting vivid disclosures of children’s own needs, preferences, and ethical values with an improved bedside approach. while the silence of children is not explained, readers are invited to invoke their empathy to ponder what this marginalization might feel like for a child facing surgery. readers also see that children experience acute concern for their families during their own surgical procedures. the last poem, “crazy strong,” names the subjective presence of a researcher bearing witness through her field notes and draws heavily from an interaction of a physiotherapist’s interruption of her interview to conduct a clinical assessment. the excerpt was selected to highlight the strength children develop in bridging the is/ought divide. the poems synergize to elicit greater respect for children’s courage and philosophical depth and the love that steadies families in difficult times. readers are invited to become allies to children in their journey. art allows us to connect you know they are tough decisions: “it wouldn’t be good to amputate too early because it was thought that there would be a better result if you kept your two feet.” art allows us to connect. when a child doesn’t speak, it doesn’t mean that they are not engaged. some contexts facilitate expression while others suppress it. give them a little space to draw how they are feeling and show where their pain is. their inner universe is rich and alive. artmaking is one vehicle to enter a child’s world, reveal what was hidden or unknown, and visualize what is going on inside their head. it is morally important to be authentically heard. the child’s voice is needed to know their best interests. give them a little space to draw how they are feeling and show where their pain is. if the concept of ethics is where you draw the line, june 2023 55 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice art is not traditionally part of the guidelines to let them know that they are being heard. so nurse... parent... doctor... i know it’s scary and intimidating to create this world from zero. instead of using the world that is already there… awareness is an important first step in creating change… attunement to a child’s voice is the work of everybody: a shared vision. a shared culture. a paradigm shift. equip them with the power. do you like to dance? child: no. i like to make (others) dance. can you help me? operations by surprise my dad, to keep track for us, he tattoos himself. every time you fracture he gets a tattoo? participant: yes. surprise! spine fracture having bent the rods. pain. both femurs broken. waiting a long time. june 2023 56 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice humiliation. nobody told me it was going to be like this. pain and immobilization. unable to wash. i stink. surprise operations that really really hurt. my dad, he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to regret it if something happened. i black out. restless nights. you’re worried about your mom who has to take care of you? so much pain. surprise! stuck in your bed. doing your business in the bed. i stink. can i go outside? please? [his sister fed him spoonfuls of food while his head was immobilized by screws] it’s in the process of healing. is it discouraging? a little. they don’t listen to us. my parents don’t speak english. the doctors only really speak english. i didn’t feel ready to go back home. nobody tells them what’s happening. surprise! yeah, i would say it’s them [the staff ] that make the decisions. c’est la vie. we can talk about it but it’s gonna happen. it’s gonna happen. it doesn’t matter how it’s announced or introduced. it changes nothing. june 2023 57 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice when you get an operation you just want to lay back and do nothing. when you’re going through difficult situations you try to get yourself out of it. but with an operation you have to just let things pass. it just takes the time it takes. i feel tired but... oi isn’t…? participant: no. my condition, apart from the operations, doesn’t really take up much space in my life. interviewer: no? you don’t have the feeling that it keeps you from doing things? participant: no. crazy strong [i didn’t know if i should stop the interview or stop reading the story...or?? playing is the heart of the child’s world in mind and in body.] so, you’re a tennis player? ...your sister is the dancer...right? [she drew a picture of herself in a tutu. she drew a picture of the constellation of hercules hanging inside her heart. she seemed to hide her face for a moment... bury it behind her pillows... tearing up... the villain of their story took away the children’s ability to play, left them sitting on the bench alone watching others move with their bodies freely.] physiotherapist (interrupted us): left hand last one. keep trying. squeeze as hard as you can, more and more and more; okay, good work. look at how strong you are. that’s crazy... june 2023 58 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice triptych 2: solitude the selection continues with an exploration of the nuanced nature of children’s solitude as a source of strength, imagination, and fruit of the suffering imposed by othering. while no two children are alike, this triptych offers us a window into this aspect of a hidden world that is both a source of creative rapture and sorrow. oi-affected children and youth transcend the struggle of stigmatization and the solitude it entails through rich imagination, perseverance, physical play, and a deep sense of solidarity with other children. by understanding their unique concerns, we can better help them thrive according to the values and concerns that are important to them. artmaking is one tool many oi-affected children and youth use to express themselves to others and an instrument of resistance against limiting social narratives of dis/ability. in my little bubble in my little bubble, i’m really good. when you go to the hospital, do you play games that involve the people around you, or are the activities only for you? child: only for me. i don’t really make direct ties with other people. i alone think about things. i look out the window and i imagine myself. do you feel different from other kids at school? yes. i don’t have friends. i feel so different from other people. but i don’t feel the need to have friends. i isolate myself mine, just mine there are so many things in their lives over which they have no control. but i do all the things; whatever i want and i can, i do it: • my puppet that i want to make • crayons, or pastels, or markers • sled hockey allows me to skate and play hockey june 2023 59 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice • making origami • drawing in the hospital • to have the nonverbal expressed • watercolours or acrylics? • making dolls participant: yeah, and i modified it. interviewer 2: in your head. ta-da! (laughs) it’s beautiful! to laugh at situations that are a bit difficult they said [my leg] it was like robocop! [explaining the prosthesis] i just write poems, stories, to have the nonverbal expressed, couplets... haiku... i want to audition for television to be... a comedian [!] interviewer: so, you like to make art at the hospital? participant: yes. i just like the thought of me creating something, and it’s just like, mine, it’s just mine, nobody... else’s in my imagination in my imagination, me and my friends have this universe we actually become. june 2023 60 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice i play the costume is on in your head. when i sleep at night, or when i rest, i like to think about them: my dreams. it’s like this regeneration potion but they couldn’t control it because they haven’t unleashed it yet, and so they go, “well, my god! we have powers!!” interviewer: the parents couldn’t control it? they couldn’t control their powers. they didn’t know the powers ……… in my dreams. interviewer: what do you like most, when you have complete freedom or when they…? participant: complete freedom. that’s when my imagination goes... (makes sound reminiscent of rocket soaring) triptych 3: culture the third triptych, culture, brings into view the forces of culture at work in the ethical community: both the microculture of family and hospital and the headwaters of colonial paternalism either opposing or synergizing with them. we see children’s awareness of identity in the poem “family culture,” which references the work of caring, young patients’ positive response to childcentric environments, and their engagement with family traditions. in these poems we see the ways in which adults charged with their care come together like a patchwork quilt that wraps around the children as best they can. children with brittle bone disease want us to know that they are not as fragile as we may think and are aware of the social dynamics driving their care. “creating a culture” intercalates the voice of a surgeon talking about leading by example with the voices of children aware of the impact of workplace culture on the quality of their care. in this poem children name the power of generating “good” (i.e., responsive and inclusive) hospital culture as how they believe all children facing operations can best be served. the triptych ends with “the surgeon’s scarring,” which offers readers a rare glimpse behind assumptions of paternalism to show june 2023 61 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice how surgeons grapple with the ethical dilemmas inherent in their work. family culture every wedding that happens in our family, my grandma folds 1001 paper cranes, and um, folds 1001 paper cranes and makes them into, like, our family crest. as a family those are the happiest moments. [traditions hold the world together.] my mother is always there. she always comes. she’s closest to me. she knows more than your father? yes... she gives him a list of things to do. they want the best for me. she’s always there. she always comes. interviewer: do you go out together after treatment to eat somewhere or something like that? father yeah, we usually do. interviewer that’s fun. what kind of food do you like? father everything. (laughs). if you fold 1001 paper cranes, then the gods will grant you your wish. creating a culture the way is by example. it was like, just like the atmosphere, it’s like, it wasn’t really a hospital, even though it was, just how, kind of peaceful, calm, all the things you associate with a home that you’ve been to for a while. june 2023 62 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice she enjoys coming here a lot better. we love the breakfasts playrooms... bright colours. i could tell everybody in the hospital was close, they all knew each other, there was a real sense of community. are you able to teach that to your residents? to your fellows? if i could have one magic power? it would be for transformation... to replicate the good hospital. the surgeon’s scarring do we scar them for life? do i bypass the parents to inform the child? informed consent is mandatory for adults. parents forbid me from telling the child. traditionally, children were viewed as possessions of their father and not beings in their own right. so where is the cut-off ? where is that transition, ethically? what am i supposed[/]obliged to tell that child? what does a [5-year-old] understand about 2%? how much input does the child have? a [5-year-old] doesn’t see the bigger picture. we can’t afford for him to be 18 and say, oh, now i want the surgery. should we be including the child in the whole decision process [?] it may just confuse them? i think that you have to listen to your child and try to figure out what’s what, but if the child doesn’t have the competency to take the decision, if they don’t understand the bigger picture... june 2023 63 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice maybe the assumption is that they’re not mature enough to see the bigger picture. …..but maybe they do….. how do you consider that? when the [5-year-old] tells me he doesn’t want surgery, i know that no matter how you’re going to look at it, it’s… a… horrible… decision… we don’t give him the light of day. triptych 4: decisions although making space for the voices of children is the work of everyone in the hospital ecosystem, habits can get in the way of that. children have plenty of suggestions for how to make the hospital better for them. children know exactly what helps them during their hospitalizations and we can hear their suggestions in the following poems. above all, they do not want to be surprised by upcoming surgical procedures. the following triptych shows multiple forces at play in peri-operative decision-making processes. for instance, “parent patient” draws from clinician interviews and demonstrates how parents are often so overwhelmed with the prospect of children’s upcoming procedures that they displace their children’s participation in medical decision making. “a child’s response” derived exclusively from child interviews proposes that children and parents work as a team. they also suggest that physicians use appropriate means to communicate with children so that they can understand these procedures and render their assent. these poems open with a poetic exploration of the question “do we listen to children to appease their emotions or to ensure that they are authentically heard?” this question frames the call and response structure of the second and third poems by invoking a critical ethical dimension to the way in which adults listen to children. do we listen to children to appease their emotions or to ensure that they are authentically heard? do we listen to children to appease their emotions or to ensure that they are authentically heard? participant: mama… mother: what, my love? participant: it hurts. nurse: i know it’s scary and intimidating. don’t be afraid. participant: i am afraid. why do we listen to children? is it to soothe their emotions, or to make sure they are authentically heard? june 2023 64 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice i have to start to trust more in myself but. she doesn’t know how. most children are talked over and not talked to. it impacts children when they are suddenly offered that space. children need support in terms of making that experience more common. child: yes, the doctor told me it was a little dangerous…… that i could be... [pause] paralyzed. i didn’t know how it was going to finish, and i was a bit scared, but at the end i decided to do it, because i knew it was the best for me. parent patient that’s our perception. as a medical team, do we impose the way that we think or not? is it ethical to impose a treatment on a child? well, the law tells you yes, it is. …....<<<<<<<<[[[[their parents.......they are frozen]]]]>>>>>>>>....... they are so afraid to make the wrong decision, so they don’t make the decision. my values and my approach are themselves an ethical question. where do you draw the line? …....<<<<<<<<[[[[ their parents.......they are frozen]]]]>>>>>>>>....... they are so afraid to make the wrong decision, so they don’t make the decision. june 2023 65 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice they say, “i would like my kid to be aware. he has to understand what is going to happen...” it is not up to me to decide. i am going to influence that patient’s approach toward his kid [i mean] the parent’s approach. we will take that away from you. we will make the decision. you know, i catch myself just talking to the parents and the kid is just sitting there the kid is just sitting there. my values and my approach are themselves an ethical question. a child’s response child: even in the best hospital parents have the final say. i don’t think it would be too scary if somebody was to ask for my permission. but i know why they didn’t tell me about this. they didn’t want me to feel like i made the wrong choice if anything bad happened. can you tell me what’s going to happen? if you don’t want to do something and your parents say you have to i would back them up and say it’s not all about you; i’m also here. there’s a risk you are not the only person alive. it’s not all about you. i’m also here [he seemed to trust that his parents would listen] if it’s like life or death, i would not want to know. it would be scary. i would be scared june 2023 66 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice but i would want to know. i would say no. if you show me the light out of it. yes, bad things that could happen, but the worst thing is when it’s too quick to know what’s happening. not everyone is attuned to hearing children’s voices and communicating with them. fractions? yeah. i learned that last year, not really anymore. oftentimes grownups use numbers [to explain medical information]; it doesn’t always work with children. maybe. how do you say... a pie? kind of like cut it up in 100 to show chances of winning or losing. tell me something good would come out of it, like, yeah. like if i could be able to walk, run, and play and do things that other people can do. tell me what’s going to happen, what my condition is step by step, almost. {surgeon: parents should talk with their children, families should talk to other families, it’s better if it’s a group decision}: less stress, slowly, yeah, slowly, yeah, so they can process. have parents step it through instead of someone brand new. somebody is less likely to be shy with their parents as opposed to with a stranger or someone that you met like once four months ago [who can’t] get to the heart of the problem. june 2023 67 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice [end of interview] triptych 5: hidden struggles the final triptych, hidden struggles, reveals the process of perioperative decision making and unseen struggles therein, specifically, the struggle of a surgeon against his training, the tension between the natural ability to relate to children versus the lack of it, and the struggle of disabled children against discrimination at large. in “a bit fatherly” transcripts from an interview with a surgeon show an individual somewhat regretfully reviewing how large the sociological forces are that dictate medicine and how he is sadly “father(ly).” the poem “innate or learned skills?” showcases two approaches to working with children from the transcript of a nurse performing clinical care with a child in the room versus a story recounted by one of the participants about his medical care in another hospital. in this brief poem the contrast in the bedside manner is evident and readers are turned to the question of whether these skills can be taught, learned, and enacted at a greater scale. the question of social change is raised again in the final poem, “the hardship was not a medical problem,” in which children’s fight against discrimination and their commitment to integrity in the face of injustice is clear. we see in this triptych social change in the psyche of healthcare providers grappling with social norms, the granular change of sensitive micro-decision making with children, and the need for a more compassionate world both in spirit and in literal, concrete change to built environments. the poetry makes visible these hidden struggles so that their solutions can also emerge. a bit fatherly the concept of ethics is where you draw the line. my approach, sadly, is a bit like a father. that has nothing to do with medicine: it is the approach of society. what we believe is best for the child is sociology... it is an institution... residents tell me, “oh, you’re like a mentor to us.” the way is all by example. that has nothing to do with medicine: it is the approach of society. you give them a false hope that, yeah yeah, they’re part of the decision, but in fact, they don’t know, they don’t know best. it’s something that you realize in getting older. my approach, sadly, is a bit like a father. june 2023 68 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice innate or learned skills? nurse: you want to leave with that on? participant: no. nurse: okay, you decide: yes or no? participant: yes. nurse: you want to pull it off ? go ahead. participant: no, you do it... oooooh, owwwww. nurse: don’t touch; it’s done. look! you see? vs. « there were doctors i didn’t like there [at the other hospital]. interviewer: why? participant: because they were a little mean. interviewer: what did they do? participant: every time i asked them to stop touching my leg. they didn’t listen. me, i don’t like that. » the hardship was not a medical problem it’s physical and social barriers; the hardship was not a medical problem. it’s physical and social barriers; .......the teachers were not nice. ........bullies. ........the doctors were a little bit mean. he wished that he would not feel so much pain when others made fun of him. stigmatization: that was the hardship. i did not live with the sense of being different; children in my school were sensitized. they started saying what would and would not work for me [so i wouldn’t have to]. june 2023 69 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice still, i would like there to be ramps instead of steps, bigger bathrooms. if i could change the world? kindness. i would just make everyone a bit kinder. it’s hard work to throw roses in return for rocks. final thoughts childhood perioperative decision making involves determining the “best interests” of the child and making decisions accordingly. nonetheless, clinicians and families can exclude children from the very conversations that define those best interests. in so doing, hidden concerns, preferences, and what children need most to flourish through hospitalizations might never enter clinical care plans. child patients may be left feeling bewildered, abandoned, and unheard in already unfamiliar hospital settings. the poems reference children experiencing “operations by surprise” when they may have clear ideas for how to create perioperative processes that engender a sense of safety and positive lived experiences for all. chronically hospitalized children, such as those living with brittle bone disease, often develop complex strategies to navigate medical decision making despite prevailing societal notions of their fragility. disseminating children’s expertise, as done in this collection, challenges assumptions that children are but passive recipients of adult care. eliciting perspectives and solutions from children, as a collective practice, must form the fulcrum of any movement toward more child-centric models of care. poetry, however, is too nuanced an art form to stop at a mere directive. the collection does not allow readers to point a finger at the supposed ignorance of adults who need to “get with it” and update their practice. in the words of the poet naomi shihab nye, the poetry collection allows readers to relate with “[sorrow] till your voice catches the thread of all the sorrows and you see the size of the cloth” (nye, 1995, p. 21). parents and clinicians have their sources of bewilderment and moments of felt powerlessness. by offering insight into the interwoven threads of all these actors’ interlocking vulnerabilities an all-encompassing compassion is evoked. reaching for professional reflexivity necessary to address the potential deficiencies of the past becomes emotionally safe in the warmth of this compassion. without giving marching orders, the poetry points to the ways in which all actors, whether facing or brokering difficult medical decisions, need to be individually resourced in order to engage the work of social change and fully support children’s inherent agency. the children’s voices presented in this collection of poetry seem to indicate that change is possible. acknowledgments brenda cleary served as arranging poet of the original research transcripts. ethnographic data emerged from the tireless support and efforts of our research team. specifically, we thank ms. khadidja chougui, dr. maria ezcurra, and ms. claudette bilodeau for assisting with the recruitment and data collection, the participants june 2023 70 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice and key stakeholders who offered their insights, and voice trainee ms. yi wen wang for her support. the original ethnographic study was conceived, drafted, and overseen by dr. argerie tsimicalis. the study was conducted in collaboration with dr. franco carnevale. this study was initially funded by luce foundation and later supported by the tunis shriners, newton foundation, scotiabank™, and the mcgill nursing collaborative. ms. cleary was the recipient of the chang family bursary fund, mcgill faculty of medicine research bursary, réseau de recherche en santé buccodentaire et osseuse masters fellowship, and the first lady helen lemieux internship program “research—straight to the heart,” shriners hospitals for children®. dr. tsimicalis is the recipient of a chercheur-boursier junior 1, awarded by the fonds de recherche québec-santé (frqs). june 2023 71 vol. 48 no. 2 journal of childhood studies ideas from practice works cited cleary, b., carnevale, f. a., & tsimicalis, a. (2022). poetics of brittle bone disease: using found poetry to explore childhood bioethics. journal of poetry therapy, 35(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/08893675.2022.2043120 nye, n. s. (1995). kindness. yellow moon press. petrov, m. s., todorov, t. d., walters, g. s., williams, d. m., & witherden, f. d. (2022). enabling four-dimensional conformal hybrid meshing with cubic pyramids. numerical algorithms, 91(2), 671–709. https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2101.05884 wang, y. w., carnevale, f. a., chougui, k., & tsimicalis, a. (2022). how children’s participation ought to be practiced: a preliminary ethical framework to optimize the participation of children with osteogenesis imperfecta in health care. journal of clinical nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.16398 _goback _bookmark0 _hlk114395344 _hlk119056174 june 2022 21 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research keepers of the night stories janna goebel janna goebel, phd, is an assistant professor of sustainability education in the school of sustainability and a senior global futures scientist in the julie ann wrigley global futures laboratory at arizona state university. her ecofeminist scholarship focuses on how education can be conceptualized beyond the human and explores how relationships among humans and the more-than-human world matter in how we approach sustaining life on earth. her dissertation stories are based on the six months she spent on familyowned coffee plantations in southeastern brazil. email: janna.goebel@asu.edu the responding to ecological challenges with/ in contemporary childhoods interdisciplinary colloquium on climate pedagogies launched with a call to unsettle taken-for-granted assumptions about human-earth relations and to focus on ways that children, educators, and researchers are responding to the urgency of our current, humaninduced climate crisis. one such assumption about the human relationship to environmental breakdown, which is referenced in the 2018 intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) report, posits that if humans are able to create technological fixes to sustain net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, these creative, humangenerated solutions have the potential to resolve the climate catastrophe (conty, 2018; ipcc, 2018). the success of the human race at generating such techno-fixes is premised on the myth that humans are separate from and in control over the environment. humans are both the cause of the problem, as the perpetrators of environmental demise, and the solution to the problem, as the saviours who will generate the necessary techno-fixes to prevent earth’s complete destruction (braidotti, 2013, haraway, 2016b). in this era, as we stand on the precipice of ruin, we can no longer deny that the fates of the human and more-than-human worlds are inextricably linked (taylor, 2017; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). the resulting not-so-simple reality is that humans must urgently question our most basic narratives and dangerous illusions about human exceptionalism in order to fundamentally shift the way we understand our, and earth’s, interrelated mortal fate (plumwood, 2010). education, which is positioned as a tool for addressing climate catastrophe, is a key puzzle piece within this narrative of uncertainty and precarity. the ipcc report (2018) alludes to the importance of educating the next generation of scientists and innovators who will work toward human-generated technological solutions to lower carbon dioxide emissions. furthermore, education contributes to reducing the global social inequalities that cause people to experience the effects of climate change disproportionately (see cho, 2020). education even has the potential to teach ways to improve the health and well-being of human and more-than-human species alike that suffer due to rising global temperatures. however, education also furthers economic growth that is partially responsible for causing the current climate predicament. we are careening down a path toward irreparable harm. this paper, which i presented at the responding to ecological challenges with/in contemporary childhoods colloquium in january 2020, is an extension of my dissertation research with children and the more-than-human world in brazil. drawing on donna haraway’s work and inspired by karen barad’s framing of diffraction, i take an ecofeminist, common worlds approach to my study of how children learn through becoming-with more-than-human worlds. you are invited to join in our stories and become-with us as, together, we follow provocations in different directions across time and space and speculate “and ifs.” key words: becoming-with; worlding; speculative fabulation; stories june 2022 22 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the urgent need for a paradigm shift from humancentric education to generative learning-with more-than-human worlds is clear. this paper responds to the need to transform relationships between humans and earth. specifically, through stories and speculation, this paper provokes reflection on children’s relationships with/in more-thanhuman worlds and inquires: (1) what are some multispecies, multimattered interactions (haraway, 2016b) that characterize child-earth stories? and (2) who are the foci (or keepers) of these stories? becoming-(with) the world the hyperseparation between humans and earth creates a hyperbolized notion of a nature/culture divide on which human exceptionalism is predicated. this division is based on the idea of nature as given and culture as constructed (braidotti, 2013; plumwood, 2010). such a division creates a fallacious choice between self and other in an us-versus-them mentality (plumwood, 2010). posthumanist scholars have responded to the hegemonic nature/culture divide by framing the relationship between nature and culture as a continuum (braidotti, 2013) or an inseparable natureculture (haraway, 2003). these concepts disintegrate the boundary between the given nature and constructed culture. a focus on naturecultures opens the door to research that goes beyond humancentric relationships (pacini-ketchabaw & nxumalo, 2014). children’s natureculture encounters are multimattered and multispecies as they become-with (haraway, 2016a, 2016b) the books that children read and the trees they climb. the world is emerging through ongoing interaction (chandler, 2013; haraway, 2015). the understanding that we are of the world causes us to reconsider the durable and hegemonic assumption of human exceptionalism that places the human species in power over earth. one way this human-earth ontological shift is reflected in education is through a common worlds pedagogy. this approach focuses on a more-than-human relational ontology that emerges from interspecies encounters within multispecies landscapes and offers a way to engage in education that is focused on co-inhabiting and coshaping worlds with living and nonliving matter (taylor, 2017; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015; tsing, 2012). it builds on donna haraway’s (2008) concept of contact zones to problematize the way that “education has traditionally located the developing child within an exclusively human sociocultural context” (taylor et al., 2013, p. 54). moving beyond humancentric sociocultural contexts into focused contact zones illustrates how children animate more-thanhuman worlds through mixed-up, mutual entanglement as a part of common worlding (merewether, 2019; taylor & giugni, 2012). this paper takes a common worlds approach to study how children become-with multispecies, multimattered relations, thus making stories, which make worlds. story generation we generated our stories in a landscape of biodiverse ecosystems: lush atlantic rainforest and rolling hills of sunsoaked coffee plants in southeastern brazil. we generated our stories in a one-room, mixed-grade schoolhouse that was nested in this landscape. the school itself was a small building with a classroom, an eating area, two washroom stalls, and a small kitchen meant for only one chef at a time. there were no fixed or physical barriers that completely separated the inside of the school from the outside of the school. the lack of barriers meant that the indoor/outdoor binary of schooling was dissolved and exchanged for a holistic understanding of how children’s learning spaces are embodied and embedded within the indoors and outdoors (merewether, 2015). the front door was a metal gate that allowed for the butterflies, dust, smoke, noise, and bats to enter and exit unobstructed. the window to the classroom had a broken glass pane through which we could peer out at the plantation across the street. there was a chalkboard at the front of the room, rows of eight desks total for the elementary school students, and a low, colourful table with small chairs in the back for the three preschool students. june 2022 23 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research school participation i participated1 in schooling activities with the teacher and the 11 children who attended a multigrade elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse. while in school, i held multiple roles. sometimes i joined the older students in their activities. most often i helped the teacher by assisting the preschool children with their tasks, playing with blocks and reading books. i spent most of my time at the small table in the back of the school sharpening pencil crayons for the preschool children. we drew together on our own papers or on the same paper all at once. these cocreated drawings now live in a large scrapbook that stayed at the school to keep our stories. and thus our stories continue across time and space. walking conversations walking interviews, or walking conversations, are a way to explore children’s ecological learning and relations between themselves and other species through a focus on children’s entanglements with the more-than-human world within and beyond school walls (somerville, 2007; somerville & green, 2011; somerville & powell, 2019; taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2017). this method allows for researchers to “follow and document the key relations that emerge over time between children and other species within their imperfect, everyday, local ‘common world’ environments” (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2017, p. 133). walking conversations offer flexibility to “see what happens” without any assumptions about how the research should go (somerville & powell, 2019, p. 20). in these stories, i followed where the multispecies participants led and went where i was invited. sometimes this meant that i did not make it to the schoolhouse for “formal” school participation. i followed the youngest (human) participant, an 18-month-old toddler, as she said “vem cá” (come here), and we roamed the coffee plantation to check the chicken coops. i paused on my walk to school to observe the ants and the butterflies along the road. i walked the children home from school and heard stories about the spirit of a body that was buried on our path. i kept memories of these experiences in reflections, musings, and notes. i never recorded audio of these conversations. audio/visual recordings a digital camera and audio recorder that i brought to brazil kept parts of our stories. when i was alone in my room, i noticed that the dogs would typically bark at 11:30 at night. it fascinated me, and i recorded these sounds. the preschool children recorded themselves inventing stories for the pictures in the books they were not yet able to read. the camera became central to our stories. for the purposes of this paper, i will focus on some of the visual storylines that emerged from the more than 1,000 photos and videos we generated together. reflections and musings we wrote handwritten and typed reflections and musings. these musings and reflections form part of the narrative as well and are woven into the vignettes in this paper. the notes have their own voice as they continue to speak beyond the time that they were “recorded” through a diffractive analysis. diffractive analysis karen barad’s (2007) concept of diffraction as a methodological tool for analysis offered a way to stay with the stories. the multiple readings and rereadings of our musings, notes, drawings, videos, and photos that are part of a diffractive analysis allowed for new connections and narrations (magnusson, 2018). focusing on child-earth multispecies relations through a common worlds approach, rather than centering children, illustrates how inquiry can see beyond the human without erasing the human. lisa mazzei (2014) describes the process of diffractive analysis as reading the data “through multiple theoretical insights [moving] qualitative analysis away from habitual june 2022 24 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research normative readings (e.g., coding) toward a diffractive reading that spreads thought and meaning in unpredictable and productive emergences” (p. 742). just as light diffracts as it moves through a prism, this diffractive analysis travelled in many directions and continues to travel across time and space. the stories did not begin upon my arrival to brazil nor did they end upon my departure. children were not lying in wait for my arrival for their more-than-human relationships to take shape as “my research” shed light on them. similarly, these stories, our stories, did not begin as you started reading them. instead, as you read, now, we story anew. with each reading emerge new stories. with each time and place emerge new worlds. i sat in the kennels with the dogs at an animal shelter where i volunteered and revisited our stories from a place of discomfort and multispecies connection. i kept paper next to my bed at night and wrote musings that were inspired by our stories without looking at the paper and in the pitch dark when i abruptly awoke from a dream. i painted watercolour paintings of nothing in particular. i walked along the local golf courses and ponds while listening to songs that were part of our stories or the children’s voice recordings. i spent months intermittently immersed in these relations until new stories and vignettes emerged. in this paper, i share a sample of the vignettes as well as some provocations and a speculative reimagining of our stories with an invitation for you, now, reader, to join, diffract, and story with us. toucan introduction a toucan is the entry point for the visual storytelling vignettes in this paper. this is not to say that the image of a toucan (figure 1) was the first image generated in this study. it was far from the last. however, this toucan was an invitation to us all to use our shared digital camera. early into my second visit to this community in southeastern brazil, i was getting reacquainted with one of the families that had looked out for me the year prior. as we discussed the many changes that had taken place in the region in the year that had passed, a toucan landed on a palm tree in their yard. i removed the digital camera from my backpack, zoomed in, and captured a photo of the bird. figure 1. a toucan perched in a palm tree. the children were instantly curious to know more about the camera and see the photo. they asked if they could use the camera. their grandparents discouraged this because the camera appeared to be expensive and fragile. as four of the children gathered around, i explained the features of the camera, how to zoom and focus, and how to make sure the camera was supported at all times both by hanging it from the neck strap and by holding it in their hands. this camera was not a child-friendly device, nor was it light and easy to navigate. despite these barriers, the children adapted to using the camera with ease, the grandparents were reassured that there would be no problem june 2022 25 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research if the camera broke, and everyone adjusted to the camera’s presence. the mess of plastic, metal, glass, and batteries that we call a camera became part of our stories. it accompanied us on our walks and in our conversations. we took photos during the day and at night. the children shared the camera and took turns running around what they called “their worlds” capturing images. they took pictures of the cats and chickens. they documented the plants and trees that they themselves had planted. we photographed the sunsets, the school bus driving by, coffee growing on the plants and drying on the ground, the pigs, and a spiderman sticker on a bike. there was little structure or design to the endeavour. the camera was there for us all. we experimented with the zoom and the flash. we discovered how to record videos. the children took photos that were blurry, and they became part of our stories. they took photos of the flowers, and they were part of our stories in both their physical and photographic presence. one evening, as the moon rose over the hills of coffee plants, one of the teenagers grabbed the camera and photographed it. we passed the camera around and each took a turn trying to photograph the moon, an elusive ball of light in the night sky (figure 2). figure 2. a moonrise over a hill of coffee plants. the camera was a part of our stories in the children’s homes and in their school. when we were at school together, the children photographed items and objects around and outside of the building. when i first arrived to the school, i found it interesting the way that objects were recycled. i photographed an old tire that had been turned into a planter and the plastic-bottle vertical garden that was hanging on an outside wall of the school. as i was looking through the photographs, i noticed that one of the children had also chosen to photograph the soda bottle garden. in a series of four photos, the child played with the camera zoom so that the entire bottle was in the frame, then only part of the bottle, then a leaf inside the bottle was the focus, and, finally, the bottle was removed from the frame. june 2022 26 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research figure 3. composite of images taken of a plastic-bottle garden outside the school. in this composite of photos (figure 3), as the photographer changes the composition, the plastic is decentered and the focus shifts to the plants. margaret somerville (2017), in encounters with children, stones, and water, observed that the children remained silent as they recorded videos of themselves throwing stones into the water. they also framed the video in such a way that only the stones and water were visible, actively decentering themselves (somerville, 2017). in the case of this story, the plastic bottles in these photographs were not just plastic bottles. they were a vertical garden. they were erased from view. conversing with plastic a plastic bottle that became a central part of our stories was my reusable blue water bottle with a filter straw. to reduce my need for bottled water, i carried this filter bottle with me everywhere i went. the children loved playing with the bottle. one of the girls in particular would tell everyone around that the straw was a filter, and she would open and close the mouthpiece over and over. a few of the children chose to take pictures of the water bottle and a sticker on it that said “keep nature wild” (figure 4). figure 4. images of my water bottle, a part of our stories. june 2022 27 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research on one of my outings, i forgot to bring my reusable water bottle and was forced to order bottled water at a restaurant. the bottle that was delivered was aesthetically pleasing. it was made of a thick red plastic and had a long, narrow neck. my friends at the table gave me a hard time about needing to buy a single-use plastic bottle. they recommended i bring it to school to see if the children might want to somehow incorporate it into one of their art projects. i obliged. the children were curious about why i had brought the bottle to school. i explained that i just could not bring myself to throw it away and wondered if we could use it somehow in the school. they passed the bottle around, and one of the preschool children had the idea to remove the cap, press the mouth of the bottle to his cheek, and then switch it to his ear. to his delight, he could hear something when he did. he ran around the classroom inviting the other children to listen to the bottle. they experimented with placing the side of the bottle on their cheeks and then switching the mouth of the bottle to their ears to listen. this carried on for a while. the children connected with the bottle. the bottle reciprocated with its sound waves. the children named the sounds the bottle made and settled on describing it as the noise the waves make on the beach where they go on holiday. we carried on the conversation with plastic until interest faded and the bottle returned to being discarded plastic somewhere on the crowded bookshelf. becoming-with garbage the vignettes thus far have painted an idyllic picture of children’s artistic storytelling of their relational childhoods in this region. taylor (2014) argues that one of the downfalls of a view of children as entangled within earth-otherassemblages is that it may romanticize childhoods, running the risk of painting a utopian picture of children’s connections to earth. instead, reconceptualizing childhood as nature/culture assemblages is a closer approximation of childhoods as they are: situated and entangled (taylor, 2011, 2014). the relationship between children and plastic is much more nuanced than their gardens made of plastic and their conversations with plastic. a common practice in this rural area is to burn garbage. the restaurant next door to the school sits inside the home of one of the local families and is known for its use of a traditional woodfire stove. patrons sit in an extension of the family’s kitchen as the food stays warm on the stove. when guests finish their meals, the restaurant owners collect their plates and dispose of their garbage in the fire. thin, flimsy, single-use plastic cups shrivel and disappear into the flames. waste that is too large to quickly dispose of in the stove is burned in piles outside. the variable and complex human-plastic-earth relationship takes many forms in their inextricable links to one another. humans and morethan-humans alike become-with (haraway, 2016a, 2016b) plastic as they breathe it in through their lungs and their leaves. in the early days after the camera became central to our stories, one of the 10-year-old boys was taking pictures of the area around him. as he prepared to capture a photo of garbage burning in a pile outside of the restaurant, he casually said, “i’ll take a picture of the destruction of the environment,” and then he carried on photographing the world around him. the smell of smoke was ever present. due to the use of fire to dispose of waste or clear the land by burning trees, the smell of smoke lingered in the air and permeated the boundaries of the local homes and the school. because the schoolhouse itself did not have any physical barrier to completely seal the inside from the outside, breathing the ashes of burning garbage was unavoidable. seen worlds, dream worlds, whole worlds over the course of our time together in the school, i was with the children on a day when, in connection with a lesson about the environment, their teacher asked them to draw the world that they see and the world that they june 2022 28 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research dream for the future. figure 5. a child’s drawing of the world that he sees (right) and the world that he dreams (left). the children’s drawings followed from a conversation they had about pollution in their community river and the act of burning trees to clear land. in figure 5, a 10-year-old boy drew that agora (now) he sees a school bus spewing exhaust, a person cutting trees, garbage fires, the sewer leading into the pond, and garbage outside the garbage can. in the world that he dreams (sonho), on the left side, he drew a pond full of fish, a bicycle, rain, a person planting trees, and garbage in the garbage can. while there is a performative nature to these drawings and they are in direct response to the teacher’s prompt, it does not negate the realities of the relationships that the drawings depict. the drawing in figure 5 was created by the same child who had, prior to this activity, asked to use the camera to take a picture of the destruction of the environment. the other students’ drawings were similar in that they mirrored the discussion about pollution and fire. these drawings keep our stories. they are part of the story of earth’s demise. they depict human destruction and a shared hope to live in better harmony with the planet. outside of the school activity to draw the world that they see, an 8-year-old girl used the camera to take pictures of everything she saw around her grandmother’s home, which is the restaurant next door to the school with the woodfire stove. figure 6. a photograph a child took of her grandmother’s home/restaurant, the church, and the school. june 2022 29 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research the image in figure 6 shows the school as a narrow grey sliver on the left, the church, which is adjoined to the school, and the grandmother’s home/restaurant, which is the purple building on the right. alongside the wall between the church and the home is a row of wispy plants and succulents. immediately after taking the photo above, the girl spun around and declared, “now i will take a picture of the rest of the world,” and she photographed the other side of the street (figure 7). figure 7. the rest of the world. as i revisited the photographs thinking with (jackson & mazzei, 2011) our stories, i mused and wondered, was the child bringing into focus a part of an existing world? was the child-camera-cloud-plant-sunlight-street assemblage emerging as a story through which a new, parallel world would come into existence? how many such worlds can exist in parallel pluriversality (stengers, 2011)? who are the keepers of these stories, and, by extension, these worlds? speculative fabulation: provocations the vignettes in this paper have something in common: they center what we—the intergenerational human participants—chose to photograph and draw. we are the focus of these earth stories. our camera and our relationships are the keepers of these stories. yet we, alone, cannot claim sole creation of these stories nor can we bear the weight of keeping these worlds. sharing our stories here and in this way thus far illustrates, through a humancentric lens, some of the species with whom, and matter with which, we are in relation. in their multimattered ethnography, taylor and pacini-ketchabaw (2015) also use vignettes to draw together the various data sources, such as photos, fieldnotes, reflections, and ponderings. they discuss their challenge to constantly work against the desire to position children as central actors in the analysis process (taylor & pacini-ketchabaw, 2015). by visiting and revisiting the data as they crafted the vignettes, they were able to move away from understanding the data through a child-centered lens. the diffractive analysis used here is one step toward decentering children. a reading of the vignettes through this lens will bring into focus the ways that children are inextricably linked with the more-than-human world through their multispecies, multimattered interactions (haraway, 2015) with a camera, a toucan, trees, drawings, the moon, garbage, and plastic. however, the analysis and vignettes fall short in imagining what these relationships mean to the creation (read: keeping) of other worlds, stories, and possibilities in an era of ecological precarity. as a response to climate catastrophe, education must undergo a radical reimagining. iveta silova (2020) responds to isabelle stengers’ (1997) call to begin by asking and if ? among a list of provocations, silova (2020) asks: and if learning was about attuning to and engaging with these interconnected different worlds, rather june 2022 30 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research than differentiating, ranking, and hierarchizing them? […] and if these imaginings, learnings, and pedagogies facilitated the metamorphosis of our selves, helping us move beyond an autonomous, rational selfhood, while animating “self-in-relation” to a more-than-human world? (p. 143) drawing inspiration from stengers (1997), silova (2020), and haraway (2013), this paper provokes and if ? by shifting the narrative to reimagine the vignettes shared here using sf. haraway (2013, 2016b) uses sf to refer to speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, speculative fiction, science fact, science fantasy, and string figures. she elaborates that sf also means “so far,” to open up a model for worlding what is yet to come (haraway, 2013). the current, time-bound ecological catastrophe calls on research and practice in education to reconfigure what it means to live differently with the planet and live and die well with earth’s mortal critters (haraway, 2016b; malone & truong, 2017). speculative fabulation, and sf in its many forms, disrupts our takenfor-granted assumptions—including those about what research, data, and pedagogy can do and be—by eliminating hierarchical relations and revealing an alternative imaginary beyond. in the short fable that follows, keepers of the night stories, i invite you, the reader, to story-with the vignettes to speculate about what might come into focus if we were to decenter the humans from the story and instead foreground the damage that humans collectively cause. in doing so, consider how to position humans “with and of the earth, and the biotic and abiotic powers of this earth [as] the main story” (haraway, 2016b, p. 55). and if the toucan were monitoring the well-being of the canyon from atop its perch on the palm tree? and if the trees were absorbing the plastic chemicals that were released from the fires? and if the trees were gradually becoming plastic as they absorbed these toxins? and if the moon shone down on the tree’s flowers, which had absorbed so much plastic they had turned into synthetic candles? and if… keepers of the night stories the tree did not know it would become a candle. for nearly 140 years it had been a tree and done tree things. when the toucan needed to see what was happening in the canyon, the tree lent its branches as a perch. when the garbage fires burned just up the road, the tree’s leaves purified the air. as the plastic bottles discarded at its feet slowly leeched their chemicals into the earth, the tree gathered these toxins into its trunk and kept the ants safe. the tree did not notice that its oldest branches had become rigid, but the moth had noticed. on this night, after the rain had cleared the smoke from the air and washed it into the river, the moth, as one of the keepers of night stories, fluttered its wings and signalled to the moon that the time had come. the rays of the moon shone down onto the tree’s white flowers that were now round candles which were years in the making, and tonight, brand new. acknowledgements since writing this article, i have learned that storytelling about keepers of the night is an indigenous practice that helps children understand the nocturnal world (see, for example keepers of the night: native american stories and nocturnal activities for children by michael j. caduto and joseph bruchac). the synergies between the stories generated in this article and indigenous traditions of storytelling compel me to continue learning about how to respectfully engage with such stories and practices. june 2022 31 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research endnotes 1 this research was reviewed and approved by the author’s institutional review board (irb) prior to implementing the study, including recruitment and screening activities. all participants received and signed consent/assent forms for themselves and/or their children. some children and/or their parents chose to opt out of the study prior to its implementation. june 2022 32 vol. 47 no. 3 journal of childhood studies articles from research references barad, k. 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