Volume 49, Number 3, December 2024

EN:

This qualitative study examines the communication and language supports available for children in educational environments. By doing this, it also examines the support provided by adults in educational settings for the participation of children with disabilities in educational decision making and the facilitating factors and barriers in children’s participation. This study was conducted with 11 participants, including six teachers, one parent, and four children. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis and the results of the analysis revealed four themes. The outcomes of this research emphasize the impact of varied multidimensional factors involving the individual and their proximal environment.

EN:

Collaboration among professionals is promoted in various disciplines. In the context of this literature review, I define collaboration as an ongoing multidimensional process that includes interaction, time commitment, the exchange of expertise, and the maintenance of a professional working relationship with stakeholders to promote best outcomes. There is an absence of collaboration among early childhood professionals: those supporting children and families and those in higher education. The absence of collaboration among early childhood professionals is a disservice to children, their families, and future early childhood professionals. Early childhood professionals in higher education have an ethical obligation to collaborate with one another to promote skills, knowledge, and pedagogical practices that will produce graduates of the highest quality. A consequence of collaboration is that graduates will be better prepared to make the greatest possible difference by supporting children and their families to achieve equal outcomes and well-being.

EN:

In an era in which Canadian governments are focused on increasing families’ access to affordable early learning and childcare (ELCC), there are increasing concerns about the inclusion of children with disabilities. This paper reports on the experiences of parents of children with disabilities in accessing ELCC programs in British Columbia. Findings highlight four interrelated themes: experiences of unbelonging; systemic mechanisms that reinforce unbelonging; impacts of unbelonging on children, parents, and families; and experiences of inclusion and belonging. The paper concludes with a discussion on opportunities for disrupting structural ableism and reorienting towards a childcare system in which all children can belong.

EN:

This paper explores the lived experiences of African/Black people, particularly within the context of a tri-citizen Ghanaian Nigerian, and Canadian scholar. Employing the concept of “wake work” inspired by Christina Sharpe’s notion of “sitting with” and gathering phenomena disproportionately affecting African/Black people, it utilizes archival methods to trace the ancestral disruptions, resistances, and ruptures in various spaces. Challenging Eurocentric narratives, it examines the colonization of Indigenous knowledge systems and the erasure of African spirituality. The research advocates for mandatory integration of African Indigenous education in early childhood programs, urging educators to support the heterogenous journeys of African/Black Indigenous communities to reclaim space, resist hegemonic discourses, and center African ways of knowing to foster empowerment, healing, and decolonization.

EN:

This article focuses on a narrative roleplaying game collectively constructed and performed at the Dr. C. Tobar García Children’s Hospital for Mental Health in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this game, the hospitalized children, many of whom faced situations of extreme social vulnerability, learned concrete narrative skills (e.g., developing a fictional character, narrative plotting) which they could later use for playful practices of collaborative storytelling in their homes, schools, and neighbourhoods. We consider that it is necessary to study and share this creative process with the hope to enhance playful practices of collaborative storytelling with children in vulnerable contexts.

EN:

This paper tells of an early childhood educator’s search for meaning making while experiencing a crisis of the self—a deep questioning of personhood, worthiness, ability, and purpose. It represents a snapshot of a particular time in a particular life at the convergence of a master’s program in ECE, a worldwide pandemic, and a provincial research project, which culminated in personal crisis and a great unsettling of identity. It is written in first person, from the ‘I’—the author’s humancentric appraisal of a personal pedagogical intervention, a reckoning with the self—in the hope of finding something otherwise, and something more generative as an educator within early childhood education. The paper grapples with the question of how we can create the conditions for early childhood educators to “read hard, think hard and write hard”—to dig deep, and to go deeper (St. Pierre, 2019) without dismantling a sense of self or a personhood that embodies a deep desire to contribute positively to our unfinished world.

EN:

This book review discusses The Impossibility of Muslim Boyhood by Shenila Khoja-Moolji, which provides valuable insights into how Muslim boys are constructed as potential “future terrorists” in both American and Indian contexts. Khoja-Moolji explores how this invented image denies Muslim boys innocence and is shaped by the collective trauma of past terrorist attacks and anxieties about imagined future threats. She also examines the intersectionality of this constructed image, highlighting how it is influenced by the dynamics of anti-Muslim racism, racial capitalism, public discourses, and institutional practices.

EN:

Indigenous Child and Youth Care: Weaving Two Heart Stories Together by Cherylanne James is discussed in this review as a critical contribution to child and youth care education in Canada. James’s Indigenous feminist orientation invites child and youth care students to unlearn colonial narratives, to instead center Indigenous approaches to care. The reviewer highlights the effectiveness of James’s approach in engaging in “difficult knowledge” with learners to foster relational accountability, and shares how this approach models “journeying,” moving from deficit-centered orientations toward Indigenous-led, desire-based approaches for decolonial care. The text guides child and youth care students to reflect critically on their role in supporting Indigenous futurities.

EN:

This book review aims to provide a broad reflection on (An)Archive: Childhood, Memory, and Cold War, highlighting its theoretical and methodological relevance for the study of past childhoods and childhood studies in general. It emphasizes the innovative approach of creating an alternative public archive, as well as the compelling focus on constructing collective memories through biographical narratives situated in various geographies and time periods influenced by the Cold War.

EN:

By examining what transpires at school for children of mixed-status immigrant families in what is spoken and what is kept silent, Figueroa demonstrates students’ depth of understanding of their own immigration status and how it shapes their self-identity. Through this collaborative longitudinal research, citizenship and self-advocacy are explored in a manner that amplifies marginalized students’ voices and expertise.

EN:

This review of Alt Kid Lit: What Kids’ Literature Might Be, edited by Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason, explores the anthology’s analysis and reframing of children’s and young adult (CYA) literature that exists outside of normative print culture. The review focuses on the text’s emphasis on diversity and interdisciplinary approaches to critiquing mainstream print culture and the exclusionary world of CYA studies and publishing. Exploration of the book’s 13 essays, 2 interviews, and a panel discussion and the themes contained within reflects the pedagogical value inherent when marginalized perspectives and texts are given the attention they deserve. Overall, Alt Kid Lit is praised for its significant contributions to CYA scholarship and its potential to make lasting contributions in the work of scholars, educators, and librarians working with CYA literature and readers.