Early Years Education and Care in Canada

Susan Jagger is an Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University in the School of Early Childhood Studies. She was the recipient of the Sue Williams Excellence in Teaching Award. Her research interests include environmental education, learning gardens, community mapping, poststructuralism and deconstruction, informal learning, STEM education, children's participation, participatory research, and arts-based research approaches.

"This book is a significant and necessary read that provides future educators with foundational values, beliefs, themes, and histories that inform pedagogical practices and policies in the Canadian context. It makes visible the discourses embedded in different educational theories and how they produce particular knowledges and practices. It will support students in critically reflecting on their own pedagogical understandings by directing them to examine the historical and present-day thinking that informs current early childhood education." - Kathleen Kummen, PhD, Chair, School of Education and Childhood Studies, Capilano University "Far from being a dry look at history and philosophy, this book weaves together Indigenous and non-Indigenous, international and national, historical and contemporary, and traditional and reconceptualised influences on Canadian early childhood education to create a collection that contributes much to current understandings of the field. By looking forward as well as looking back, the chapters remind us of the ways in which past practices have influenced current endeavors. At the same time, they outline directions and identify challenges for future pathways in early childhood education." - Sue Dockett, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Early Childhood Education, Charles Sturt University

• Acknowledging the LandList of Figures, Photos, and Tables Preface: Engaging with the Past and Present to Imagine Possibilities in the Early YearsChapter 1: Awāsisīwiwin: Early Childhood Education and Indigenous Ways of KnowingChapter 2: Spirituality of PlayChapter 3: The Right to Education and the ChildChapter 4: Holistic Education: Teaching and Learning, Planning and Reflecting with the Whole Child in MindChapter 5: Experiencing Education in the Early YearsChapter 6: The Great Debate Applied to Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP): Moving beyond Dichotomies in the Early YearsChapter 7: Children's Rights: Raising Awareness amongst Professionals Working with and for ChildrenChapter 8: Children in Society—Thinking Sociologically about Children and Childhood in a Canadian ContextChapter 9: Thinking and Doing Otherwise: Reconceptualist Contributions to Early Childhood Education and CareChapter 10: Working Collectively with Commoning, Worlding, and Inheriting in Early Childhood Education in Canada: Common Worlds PedagogiesChapter 11: Empathy and Rubber Sushi Are Not Enough: How Disability Can Help Us Get to Social JusticeChapter 12: Walking with the Tikanaagan: Reclaiming Indigenous Family SystemsChapter 13: Supporting Black Flourishing in ECEC: Lessons on Black Theory and ResistanceChapter 14: A Critical Feminist Examination of Play in Early Childhood Education and CareChapter 15: There Are Relationships beyond the Classroom: A Nature KindergartenChapter 16: Are you okay? RECE Experiences of the Ontario-Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care PlanContributor Biographies