Guest post by Jasmiina Leskinen & Sini Kontkanen Figure 1. Children gathering natural materials from the forest to build huts for their Bee-Bots. What happens when a small yellow robot meets pinecones, twigs, and childrens’ imagination? In our project BeeConnected, we set out to discover precisely this — how playful making with Bee-Bot robots and…
Guest post by Vanessa Neves The EnlaCEI research group is all about understanding how babies and toddlers develop culturally when they’re in collective care and education settings. Between 2017 and 2019, we followed a group of infants (aged seven to ten months) as they began their journey at a Brazilian Early Childhood Education Centre, EMEI…
What a study in Mongolian kindergartens reveals about technology, participation, and democratic learning Guest post by Tserennadmid Shagdarsuren and Tala Fig. 1. A child explores light and shadow with toy animals.* When we talk about children’s agency, we often imagine a child making an independent choice—selecting an activity, taking the lead. But what happens when…
By Anne Marie Villumsen and Katrine Nøhr Young children are increasingly recognised as important contributors to research about their own lives. Yet this recognition raises a fundamental question: how can researchers create opportunities for children to share their perspectives in ways that are meaningful for them? Within the Danish research project TRoLD (Flourishing Through Play),…
Guest post by Gila Hammer Furnes Photo by Gabriel Gonzalez on Unsplash For many years, discussions about digital technologies in early childhood education focused primarily on access, use, and digital competence, while questions of ethics and judgement often remained in the background. Today, children are increasingly protected from digital technologies through restriction and control, while simultaneously expected to…
Guest post by Prof. Dr. Armin Schneider According to the German Law (not dissimilar to laws in other countries) parents are considered the main guardians of their own children. They are responsible for caring, educating and raising their children, instilling their own ideas, beliefs, rules, and attitudes. Children’s and parents’ rights and the state’s supervisory…
Guest post by Lesley Wood and Mariëtte Koen Across the globe, early childhood education (ECE) is widely recognised as the foundation for lifelong learning, well-being, and sustainable development. Yet in many resource-scarce contexts, achieving high-quality and sustainable provision remains a pressing challenge. Our upcoming EECERA presentation offers a different perspective that moves beyond deficit views…
Guest post by Debra Williams Traditionally, reflection in Early Childhood Education has been positioned as an individual professional competency or a compliance requirement linked to quality assurance systems. However, this framing is increasingly insufficient in the context of digital documentation platforms and data-driven pedagogical environments. This research explores how reflection is being reshaped by digital…
By Tracy McElheron Maynooth University, Ireland EECERA Narrative – How we grow together I think I need to provide some personal context to really convey the significance of attending EECERA 2025 for me this summer. Without turning this into an online CV, it’s important to state that I have been in practice, working directly…
By Jane Spiteri When we talk about climate anxiety or eco-emotions, we usually picture teenagers marching with placards or adults lying wide awake at night worrying about the future. Rarely do we imagine a four-year-old quietly lining up toy animals because “the forest is on fire”, or a five-year-old asking whether the sea will still…
By Valerie Sollars- University of Malta, Malta* 1998: My initial encounter with EECERA. I found myself attending the EECERA conference in Santiago de Compostela. Although relatively close to Malta, it took three flights and twelve hours to reach Santiago de Compostela – from noon to midnight for the outbound journey and 6 a.m. to 6…
By Gerry Mulhearn- Charles Sturt University, Australia Membership of EECERA for over twenty years has been a major influence both professionally and personally for me. Many aspects of EECERA have contributed – the journal, SIGs, and identifying mutual interests and contexts, but most of all attending many annual conferences. Living in Australia and working in…
By Michel Vandenbroeck– Emeritus Professor, Ghent University, Belgium Michel presenting at EECERA 2017 in Bologna. In 1986, I started to work at the Centre for Innovation in Early Childhood (VBJK) in Belgium. The center emerged from a collaboration between the universities of Ghent, Brussels and Louvain and was situated in the Ghent University. Our main…
EECERA 2025 in Bratislava gave us a conference to remember. The opening reception in the aula of Comenius University — a beautiful and historic setting — began with warm welcomes from the Faculty of Education and our President, Professor Chris Pascal. Children danced, and a local teacher filled the hall with music on a long-necked…
Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA. Planting Seeds of Resilience in South Africa’s ECCE through Local Hubs and Collaboration* By Sandra Bruwer, Lesley Wood and Benita Taylor- North-West University, South Africa Resilience in the face of…
Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA. ECCERA Narratives – How we grow together By Irene Gunning- EECERA Board of Trustees We’re launching a new EECERA blog, and we’d love you to be part of it. As…
by Dr Christina Egan Marnell, Early Childhood Ireland Photo by Shelby Murphy Figueroa on Unsplash Over the past 5 years, Early Childhood Ireland has been investigating how a culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy can be developed through a play and arts-based approach. Often co-constructed with educators, this journey has taken us into the realm of storytelling,…
One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA. Early Identification and Intervention for Students…
One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA. Leveraging LEGO Bricks and mentoring program…
One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA. How Well Are You, Dear Early…
