EECERA 2027
24 – 27 August | Zagreb, Croatia
Affirming and Deepening Ethics and Values in Early Childhood
The world is changing and in these times of significant challenge to our democratic beliefs and values EECERA believes it is important to re-visit and re-affirm the ethical norms and values which bind us together and enable collective action which works for social justice, inclusion and equality. Early childhood is a period when fundamental values and ways of being and belonging are established. These values develop through the felt actions of family, communities, services, and societies, all of which are grounded in diverse contexts and shaped by a myriad of close and distanced relationships. In choosing this theme we recognise that the norms which guide our work, actions and interactions, and form the basis of any community. They enable participation, inclusion and rights-based, respectful interactions and guide us in fostering learning environments for children, adults and organisations which support daily life and enable them to thrive and flourish.
EECERA encourages those who work closely with young children in practice, policy and research spaces to understand their responsibilities to act with ethical intent and socially focused values which ensure all children can understand and enact their rights in an inclusive, supportive and welcoming environment. In support of this commitment, EECERA has revised its Code of Ethics, establishing the guidelines more clearly around children’s rights; the development of AI, social media and digital technologies; the Global Sustainability Goals; and the proliferation of secondary, computer generated data. These chosen priorities reflect our concern to ensure our actions, and the knowledge we generate collectively through EECERA, are ethically underpinned and reflect our core values.
Exploring the deeper philosophical and ethical concepts which underpin our work and foregrounding the shared and diverse system of values which shape out work seems apposite and will enable us as a community of early childhood activists to feel our solidarity, and, whilst acknowledging the differences that enrich us, gives us a stimulus for both conserving and evolving our mission. We hope this conference will expand knowledge, improve self-reflection and promote ethical decision-making for those engaged as practitioners, as researchers and as policy decision makers, to ensure young children’s early development is embedded in communities of action which acknowledge their rights and individual capacities.
This conference will put ethics and values at the heart of our collective thinking and dialogues and invites critical reflection on how they are shaped, evolve and endure in a changing world and what the implications are for research, policy and practice. We welcome contributions that explore these questions from multiple disciplines and cultural contexts. The role of ethics in shaping research, policy and practice for young children will be centre stage in all presentations and topics might include: professional codes of conduct, dilemmas in care and education of children, AI’s impact, navigating personal privacy, working for social justice, incorporating new technologies, navigating ethical and value conflicts in our work.
This conference intends to spark rich dialogue and collaborative learning around how early childhood can provide the site where the societies and the individuals who live in them can function with dignity, respect, mutuality and in which inclusion, active participation and rights are established and reinforced, even, and especially, in the digital age. The conference aims to identify, exemplify and explore the role of ethics in public life and create an experience which exemplifies and ensures ethical and professional values are celebrated and foregrounded in our collective work for children of today and tomorrow.
The 35th EECERA Annual Conference is hosted by the Faculty of Teacher Education (UFZG), University of Zagreb. It is organised by UFZG in conjunction with Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC).
The conference is chaired by Dr Adrijana Višnjić Jevtić, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb.
The call for papers will open in November 2026.
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