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Co-hosted with London Metropolitan University.

This was the first joint event between Socio-Cultural and CHAT and Early Childhood and Care SIG. This event brought together researchers at all career stages to share their work in Early Childhood Education (ECE) that takes a sociocultural approach or a Cultural Historical Activity Theory perspective. These theories recognise that children’s development is shaped by interactions, relationships, and the environment, and that children are active creators of knowledge, constructing and modifying their practices and understandings through their experiences and social interactions.

Early Childhood Education is facing multiple challenges in the current socio-political context including the funding crisis, the impact on recruitment and retainment of staff in the early years workforce, and austerity policies. Furthermore, the full impact that the COVID lockdown has had on children’s learning, development and readiness for school is already emerging and is likely to exacerbate existing inequalities at this critical stage. We invite academics, teachers and research students to consider how these current challenges in ECE can be addressed, and the possibilities of new framings towards a more holistic, agentic and democratic way of working with young children.

We aimed to facilitate a discursive and collaborative space where relevant stakeholders can come together to discuss current debates in early childhood education with a focus on socio-cultural theories and practices.

Featured keynote talks by Professor Iram Siraj and Dr Liz Chesworth.