This study examines how the Chinese public interprets and evaluates the Home-Based Child Care (HBCC) policy introduced through the Home-Based Child Care Management Measures (Trial), drawing on debates from Douyin, a Chinese short-video platform. Using Python and Scrapy, we collected comments from five high-engagement Douyin videos. A mixed analytic workflow combined descriptive coding with Fairclough's three-dimensional critical discourse analysis. Findings show three recurring patterns. First, HBCC was frequently re-named through familiar labels, which reduced perceived professional status and reinforced gendered assumptions about care work. Second, comments constructed strained relationship networks, positioning HBCC as an intrusion into household and neighborhood life, revealing low baseline trust and limited tolerance for uncertainty. Third, risk and burden were framed through strong modality and cost-risk calculations, linking minor incidents to conflict and liability and translating care into a market-like transaction. These patterns suggest that, in addition to regulatory design, implementation depends on how responsibility boundaries, complaint/mediation pathways, and professional identity are communicated and made verifiable. For European systems where home-based provision is established or expanding, the study cautions that 'formalisation' alone does not secure public confidence. Trust-building infrastructures, clearer liability arrangements, and de-gendered professional narratives are central to sustaining supply and social acceptance.
Low retention among newly graduated teachers and high turnover among the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce have become an international concern. Though engaged teachers tend to report more job satisfaction and remain longer in their profession, research on novice ECEC teachers' job satisfaction and work engagement is scarce. Thus, this study explores novice ECEC teachers' evaluations of their work engagement and job satisfaction in a universal ECEC system while considering their varying background characteristics. It also investigates the understudied association between novice ECEC teachers' work engagement and different dimensions of their job satisfaction. Structural equation modelling analyses were conducted on the survey data collected from two cohorts of ECEC teachers (N = 333) starting their teacher education in 2018 or 2019 at seven Finnish universities. The results showed positive relationships between several background characteristics of ECEC teachers, i.e. financial satisfaction, age, work experience, and work engagement; financial satisfaction and all aspects of job satisfaction; and age and professional fulfilment. Moreover, positive associations between novice ECEC teachers' work engagement and job satisfaction dimensions (i.e. work condition satisfaction and on-going support) were found. Accordingly, implications regarding ECEC teacher education and policies are discussed.
This study investigated the quality of educator-child interactions in French toddler classrooms and examined whether interaction quality varied across activity types. Observations were conducted in 40 classrooms using the CLASS-Toddler, which assesses interactions across two domains: Emotional and Behavioral Support (EBS) and Engaged Support for Learning (ESL) (La Paro, K. M., B. K. Hamre, and R. C. Pianta. 2012. Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Manual, Toddler. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes). Four activity types were observed: book reading, early academic activities, free play and mealtimes. Research Findings: Overall, EBS was rated higher (M = 4.57, SD = 0.73) than ESL (M = 2.31, SD = 0.44), indicating limited opportunities for learning-oriented support. Activity type was related to differences in both domains, but effects were selective: ESL was higher during book reading than during free play and EBS was lower during mealtimes than during book reading; mealtimes and early academic activities did not differ significantly from free play. Observed child-to-educator ratio and group size were not significantly associated with either domain. Practice or Policy: Findings underscore the need to strengthen educator preparation and ongoing training, especially in language- and learning-supportive interactions. Book reading may serve as a practical entry point for modeling language-rich strategies across the day.
Recent research in science education has mainly focused on children aged 3-6, while studies on those aged 0-3 remain scarce. This study analyzes the exploratory behavior of children aged 0-3 in an educational setting that was intentionally designed to foster emergent scientific learning in early childhood, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of magnetism. Using a qualitative approach, 38 video sequences recorded in a nursery school were analyzed by applying an ad hoc analytical scale developed for this study, drawing on the Exploratory Play Scale by Van Schijndel et al. (2010. "A Sciencing Programme and Young Children's Exploratory Play in the Sandpit." European Journal of Developmental Psychology 7 (5): 603-617). The findings reveal a progression from spontaneous sensory exploration to intentional strategies, in which the science educational setting and materials serve as mediators in the development of early scientific practices. This study reinforces the view that complex scientific phenomena, such as magnetism, can be introduced at very early ages (0-3). Furthermore, it underscores the potential of well-designed and structured educational environments to foster the emergence of scientific activity, reaffirming the importance of adults' role in the pedagogical design of learning spaces for children aged 0-3.
The early learning environment has increasingly become a site of competing educational priorities. On one side are educators committed to holistic, play-based learning that values children's curiosity, creativity, and social relationships. On the other side are policymakers influenced by neoliberal agendas emphasizing standardization, accountability, and the production of future workers for a competitive global economy. Over the past three decades, this latter orientation has come to dominate, narrowing pedagogical possibilities and constraining children's agency. This shift has contributed to a growing emphasis on technical and measurable skills, while the humanities and social sciences are increasingly positioned as supplementary rather than foundational. Responding to renewed calls for socially and democratically engaged early years education, this conceptual paper positions MESH-Media Literacy, Ethics, Sociology, and History-as a transdisciplinary pedagogical orientation for recentring sociocultural practice in the early years. By situating MESH within contemporary debates in early years education, the paper highlights a growing scholarly consensus on the need to centre children's rights, agency, and critical engagement with their social worlds. Its contribution lies in illustrating how these commitments may be enacted in early education settings through a transdisciplinary orientation that draws together insights from the social sciences.
This study adopted a sociocultural perspective to examine children's involvement in learning through play in relation to teachers' strategies for imaginative play. Six Hong Kong kindergarten teachers and their students at two kindergartens were observed and video-recorded with consent. Among the imaginative play episodes observed, the teachers were frequently involved and positioned inside the children's play. While seeking to understand the children's perspectives and ideas, the teachers encouraged the children to expand on their contributions. Although nearly half of the observations revealed that the teachers did not directly join the children's imaginative play, they frequently prompted it and asked guiding questions. This finding indicates that the teachers were supportive of the play. Moreover, the children frequently built on both the teachers' inputs and their own ideas when the teachers positioned themselves inside the play. The interactions between the teachers inside the play and the children in play reflected their shared perspectives on co-constructing play experiences. The study provides socioculturally informed implications for supporting children's participation in play-based learning through teachers' effective strategies for imaginative play, highlighting the importance of teacher education in enhancing kindergarten teachers' competencies in adopting responsive approaches in early childhood education and promoting their wider adoption.
The main aim of the paper was to examine the association between children's performance in four motor competence tasks and three physical fitness tasks and their perceived competence regarding performance in each task. A total of 52 five-year-old children participated in the study (25 girls and 27 boys). The mean chronological age was 5.08 yrs (SD .279). The main findings indicated a significant difference between the genders, as girls had a significantly better score in placing bricks and higher perceived competence than boys in 4 out of 7 tasks. Moreover, gender differences emerged in the association between the actual task performance and their self- evaluation. When the data was analyzed separately, only one correlation was significant for the girls. Although they showed two medium, three small, and two trivial correlations, these findings overall indicate relatively weak associations between girls' objective task scores and perceived competence. For the boys, two correlations were statistically significant, and the overall pattern of results closely resembled that observed for the total sample. Boys demonstrated one large, three medium, two small, and one trivial correlation. Overall, these findings provide evidence of gender differences in perceived competence.
This article presents a scoping review of global research literature on how social inequality is produced and reproduced in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), viewed through a critical-theoretical lens. The review includes 114 empirical studies published between 2014 and 2024. Across this body of research, ECEC is represented as a site where power and privilege are continuously negotiated through everyday routines, pedagogical practices, and material environments. The studies show how majority norms - such as whiteness, heteronormativity, developmentalism, and dominant language ideologies - are reproduced through play, documentation, and teacher - child interactions, often framed as neutrality or equality. These practices are interpreted in the literature as concealing structural inequities and are characterised by and sustaining patterns of exclusion. Across the reviewed literature, we identify a cross-cutting dynamic conceptualised as equality blindness: a tendency to frame neutrality, sameness, or childhood innocence as fairness, thereby obscuring structural conditions and rendering inequalities unexamined. This concept highlights how seemingly neutral practices may reproduce dominant norms and limit the recognition of inequity. The findings reveal that ECEC institutions across diverse contexts are constructed in the research literature as both spheres of reproduction and as potential spaces for transformation towards greater social justice.
