Lesbian parents live in a world that often assumes that all families consist of mum, dad, and the kids. This can complicate their families’ participation in early childhood education. Through interviews with gay mothers, this article draws out the tensions underlying their experiences at early childhood centres. These mothers negotiate between achieving visibility ...

A solid mathematical vocabulary is a crucial basis for later mathematical learning. This article follows the development of mathematical language in a two-year-old. It examines when preschoolers learn basic terms—for colour, position, shape, and number—and documents the order in which they become part of this child’s meaningful vocabulary.

Dominant cultural beliefs about disability can impact on the learning, participation, and inclusion of disabled children. This case study highlights the experiences of one family and their daughter, Clare, at their early childhood centre, where teacher beliefs about disabled children being “deficient” and “different” resulted in Clare not fully participating in the life ...

For the teachers at Botany Downs Kindergarten, inclusion is an attitude and a set of values. They don’t just focus on special-needs children; they create a welcoming, inclusive environment for all involved in the kindergarten—children, families, teachers, even pets—and use possibility thinking to overcome problems and increase inclusion.

In home-based early childhood networks, co-ordinators play a key role in supporting educators to provide quality education for children. This article investigates what co-ordinators can do to effectively support educators to enhance their work with children, including providing supportive advice and on-the-job training.

Ann Hatherly distills three key messages from the Early Childhood Education Information and Communication Technology Professional Learning Programme.

Miles Barker analyses the development of The New Zealand Curriculum from the point of view of preservice teacher education. He presents 20 challenges that he believes the new curriculum poses for teacher educators.

Using an infamous case of cyber bullying, Dennis Sumara, Brent Davis, and Tammy Iftody  examine how we should teach “ethical know-how” for use in the social spaces of the Internet—a world that disrupts empathy but vastly magnifies consequences as people have myriad connections but are rarely face to face.

In this article Jim Neyland responds to Dennis Sumara and Brent Davis in 2007’s Curriculum Matters, revealing how the writings of 20th century thinkers such as Niebuhr, Macquarrie, Korzybski, Fromm, and Dewey resonate with their idea of the “ex-centred” individual.

Years 7–10 have now been identified as a distinct learning pathway within The New Zealand Curriculum. Penny Bishop and John Downes recognise this as an opportunity to address the declining engagement of young adolescents with school. They present some principles that could be used to guide towards an engaging ...