Guest Editor: Dr. Catherine Hamm (Victoria University, Australia)

In considering settler accountabilities for the early childhood field, the following questions frame possibilities for activating political and ethical teaching and learning practices in places of ongoing settler colonialism;

How might everyday moments of teaching and learning ‘refigure’ Indigenous presences on unceded lands and territories (Nxumalo, 2015)? How can the field of early childhood work to foreground Indigenous worldviews beyond tokenistic ‘grandslam’ approaches (Harrison & Greenfield, 2001)? How does the field of early childhood enact ethical and political response-able (Haraway, 2008) practices in places of ongoing settler colonialism? What are our ethical and political accountabilities in places of unequal relations (both human and more-than-human)? 

Guest editors: Dr. Rachel Heydon and Bronwyn Johns (Western University)

The literature on intergenerational learning programs is inter- and trans-disciplinary, including but not limited to intergenerational art programs (LaPorte, 2002), singing groups (Cusicanqui-Messaud & Salmon, 2005), technology programs (Gamliel & Gabay, 2014), and multimodal curricula (McKee & Heydon, 2015). This literature has much to say about critical issues in early childhood education such as the social positioning of young (and old), understandings of disability, and the purposes of education (e.g., Heydon, 2007). It is this criticality that can too often be missing from the intergenerational literature, and is the crux of this call for papers.

In this special issue, we invite papers related to intergenerational learning in all its forms, and are particularly interested in innovative intergenerational research and programming that prompt a reconceptualising of children, elders, learning, and the like. 

Guest editors: Dr. Fikile Nxumalo (University of Texas at Austin) and Dr. Nikki Rotas (University of Alberta)  

Building on the potential invigorations of bringing interdisciplinary perspectives into conversation with early childhood environmental education, this special issue invites critical and creative interventions into questions of research and practice in early childhood. In this special issue, we invite papers that reconceptualize environmental education in ways that situate teaching and learning within current environmental precarities, intervene into dominant child-nature discourses, trouble normative methodologies, and unsettle the universalisms and omissions of the Anthropocene. 

Rédacteurs invités: Joanne Lehrer (Université du Québec en Outaouais), Christine Massing (Université de Regina), Scott Hughes (Université Mount Royal), Alaina Roach O’Keefe (Université de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard)

Ce numéro spécial est donc consacré aux partages d’histoires d’espoir et d’actions concertées, reliant la théorie à la pratique. Nous attendons des propositions canadiennes et internationales liées aux pratiques d’apprentissage professionnel qui s’étendent au-delà des programmes individuels, mettant en vedette des partenariats et des efforts de mobilisation communautaire à l’intérieur et à travers différents contextes éducatifs liés à la petite enfance (Centres de la Petite Enfance, maternelle, halte-garderie, etc.) et en lien avec diverses thématiques : philosophiques, pratiques, critiques, transformatrices, personnelles et d’espoir. 

Guest editors: Joanne Lehrer (Université du Québec en Outaouais), Christine Massing (University of Regina), Scott Hughes (Mount Royal University), and Alaina Roach O’Keefe (University of Prince Edward Island)

This special issue, focused on professional learning in early childhood education and care, is dedicated to sharing stories of hope and coordinated action, linking theory with practice. We seek Canadian and international submissions related to professional learning practices that extend beyond individual programs, showcasing partnerships and community mobilization efforts within and across various settings for young children (child care, Kindergarten, drop-in centres, etc.) in relation to philosophical, practical, critical, transformative, personal, and/or hopeful themes. 

Kindness at School: What Children’s Drawings Reveal About Themselves, Their Teachers, and Their Learning Communities by Dr. John-Tyler Binfet, published in the latest issue of Journal of Childhood Studies, has received some fantastic media attention in British Columbia.

Please check out some of the press coverage:

• Radio interview with Dr. Binfet
• UBC Okanagan study finds kids see teaching as an act of kindness - BCLocalNews.com
• Students see teaching as an act of kindness - Infonews.ca

The story has also been picked up by Kelowna Capital News, Kelowna Now, Castlegar Source, The Boundary Sentinel, The Trail Champion, The Rossland Telegraph, and MyInforms.com.

Congratulations, Dr. Binfet. 

This special issue of Journal of Childhood Studies imagines contributors taking up the provocation of the title (or a variation) to explore the ludic form across not only the early childhood landscape but through the myriad human activities that intersect and weave through that landscape and beyond. The Editors will consider works in and through: performing arts, performance studies, the visual arts, the child’s eyes, psychology, teacher education, educational research, teacher practice, play theory, and early learning and care. This list is by no means exhaustive, leaving open a playful approach to imagining play as otherwise.