First Transitions to Early Childhood Education and Care: Intercultural Dialogues Across the Globe

This book brings together the work of researchers from around the globe around the topic of children’s first transitions to early care and education. It discusses political and sociocultural contexts, theories, and ideologies around the theme. The book offers perspectives and findings on adult expectations around a child’s first transition, infant emotional experiences, the role of space, the part that key objects play in infant transitions, and the role of time. It also discusses age of first entry, routines and rhythms of the institutions, and the future expectations of those involved.

The book takes a culturally responsive approach, revealing at times striking commonalities across countries, and at other points distinct differences in the people, environments, orienting pedagogies, and policies that inform an infant’s transition into care.

E. Jayne White is Professor​ of ECE at University of Canterbury, Professor II at Western Norway University of Applied Sciencs and ​Adjunct Professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She specialises in early childhood education pedagogies - exploring possibilities for teaching and learning inquiry through visual methodologies and technologies. As Editor-in-Chief of Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy, and President of Association for Visual Pedagogies, Jayne leads the development of visual pedagogies into research and publications around the world. Her special interest, and passion, lies in the area of infant and toddler learning within the new normalities of institutional (ECE) experiences, and what she describes as ’the work of the eye’. As Co-Editor of the Springer series she ​pioneers the field of educational scholarship for children aged birth to three, and has contributed to two books in the series already. Jayne led the overarching ISSEET project that underpins this book. As well as conceptualising the project design and coordinating the international teams, she also led both the Aotearoa NZ and Australia research teams over the life of the project.

Helen Marwick is a Developmental Psychologist and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education of the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. She holds an MA Hons from the University of Edinburgh (1977) and a PhD in Child Development from the University of Edinburgh (1987). She has researched extensively on social interactions, communicative development and interpersonal understanding, and is currently involved in research on intersubjectivity, conceptual development and relational identity. She has developed the ’Playboxes’ approach, which promotes and assesses active interpersonal engagement, communication and imaginative pretense, and which is being used in educational settings both nationally and internationally. Dr Marwick jointly leads the International Study of Social and Emotional Early Transitions (ISSEET) which involves researchers from Brazil, Finland, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, as well as Scotland.

Niina Rutanen is a Professor in Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, Department of Education, University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Helsinki. Her main research interests have focused on childhood studies, zero to three-year-old children in early childhood education from socio-cultural and comparative perspectives, and application of relational and spatial approaches in research on early childhood institutions. The most recent project ＂Tracing children’s socio-spatial relations and lived experiences in early childhood education transitions -project (Trace in ECEC 2019-2023, funded by the Academy of Finland) explores children’s transitions from home to ECEC, during ECEC and to pre-primary education in Finland. This project​ includes international collaboration as part of International Study of Social and Emotional Early Transitions (ISSEET) -project.

Katia de Souza Amorim is a Full Professor at the Department of Education, Information and Communication, from University of São Paulo (Brazil), specialized in Infant Development and Early Childhood Education and Care. She is a Psychiatrist (1987), holds a master in Psychology (2001), a PhD thesis in Mental Health (2007) and a higher level teacher thesis in Infant’s language development (2013). She is coordinator of projects granted in the two central areas: 1) Infants and young children with and without special needs development, interaction, language, communication, meaning and bonding, analyzing the complexity of the processes in diverse relations (parents, siblings, teachers, etc.) and in different contexts (home, ECEC institutions, foster and family care, hospital); 2) Infants’ transition to ECEC. She is a member of the WG of ANPEPP (Group on Social Contexts of Development: evolutionary and cultural aspects) and coordinator of CINDEDI (Research Center on human development and early childhood education). She is the coordinator of international interinstitutional exchange between University of São Paulo (Brazil) and University of Tampere (Finland). She leads the Brazilian research group jointly with researchers from five other countries (Scotland, Finland, USA, Australia and New Zealand), who are investigating the complex transition process when babies start attending an ECEC institution, fomenting a dialogue between the fields of Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Education.

Laura Herold is a Teaching Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences and the program leader of the Birth through Kindergarten Special Education Integrated Teacher Licensure Program at the University of Arkansas in the United States. She holds an MA in Early Childhood Education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a PhD in Educational Studies from the same institution. Her work on young children’s development and learning focuses on infant transitions and developmentally appropriate guidance and instruction of young children. Dr. Herold leads the US team of the International Study of Social and Emotional Early Transitions (ISSEET), which links collaborative researchers from Brazil, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, and the United States. Her work on early childhood educator preparation focuses on equity of access and achieving parity of pay by empowering and licensing educators.