Shifting landscapes in early childhood education

Change occurs in young children’s lives as a matter of course. Healthy children grow and develop (Berk 2012). They make multiple horizontal transitions daily, for example moving from mealtime to play, and navigate major vertical transitions, such as starting school (Kagan and Neuman 1998). Children experience changes to their routines at home when their parents make adaptations to working practices (Kim 2020; Snyder et al. 2021), and they experience new approaches to curriculum and pedagogy at first hand in their settings (Manning, Thirumurthy, and Field 2012; Murray 2017; Yang et al. 2022). When educators leave early childhood education (ECE) settings, it is children who must adjust to new educators. Whilst ECE educators may move to new settings for their professional development in strong workforce systems, in weaker systems educators’ dissatisfaction results in the ECE workforce attrition that results in change for children (Nutbrown 2021). War wreaks havoc in children’s lives, often displacing them from their homes and the carers and educators they know (Korp and Stretmo 2020). In recent decades, the pace and variety of change in young children’s environments, including their experiences of ECE, have increased exponentially, affecting young children’s lives in many different ways (Clark 2022). While young children appreciate novel experiences (Murray 2022), they also thrive on continuity and routine (Clark 2022; Zigler and Kagan 1982). Balance may therefore be important. In this short critique of some of the shifting landscapes in ECE, I discuss ways the field is transforming at the macro-policy level, before considering some of the changes experienced by children and adults who care for them. The focus of this editorial on ’Shifting Landscapes in Early Childhood Education’ was inspired by the articles included in this issue of International Journal of Early Years Education. Each addresses one of four shifting landscapes in the ECE field: transformations in early childhood policy and provision, transitioning between locations in early childhood, young children’s encounters with illness or death, and innovations with digital technologies in the early years.