Early Childhood Education and Care in a Global Pandemic : How the Sector Responded, Spoke Back and Generated Knowledge

Early Childhood Education and Care in a Global Pandemic is a book that highlights how the international early childhood education and care sector responded to the global COVID-19 pandemic. It shows the resiliency of the sector around the world as it grappled with a rapidly changing environment of uncertainty and complexity. Drawing on a diverse range of early childhood education and care contexts, the book captures real-life examples of how COVID-19 impacted children, educators and teachers, and families. Chapters present cases of the particular challenges that COVID-19 presented in a wide range of countries and then how they responded to these challenges – challenges that tested the resilience of children, educators and teachers, and families. By forward anchoring, each chapter examines the opportunities that arose from these challenges and how new local knowledge was produced as new ways were found to support children, educators and teachers, and families during this time. This book offers early childhood education and care a timely resource on lessons learnt from a once-in-a-lifetime event. It offers the sector a way forward to commit to developing new ways of thinking and working that stem from the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cover Endorsement Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations List of contributors Foreword 1. Preschool children’s ideas about the COVID-19 pandemic 2. Dora’s doll got sick: Preschool children’s wellbeing and play during the COVID-19 crisis 3. Back to day one: The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the return to kindergarten in Australia 4. Children’s transition between home and ECEC services: Innovative practices during the COVID-19 pandemic 5. Children’s participation in education during COVID-19 6. COVID-19 pandemic and centre-based services for children under three: Evidence and insights from the Portuguese context 7. Predictors for caregiver involvement in childcare, education, and early learning in Kenyan urban informal settlements during COVID-19 8. Drop-off at the gate: Challenges to parent–staff collaboration in Danish childcare in the era of COVID-19 9. Education and care: Expanding traditional pedagogies with(in) a pandemic 10. What does it mean to educate and care for children in Brazil in times of COVID-19? 11. Struggles at the frontline in pandemic times: Time to reimagine early childhood care and education in South Africa 12. Distance learning in Cameroon: Case study of private nursery school teachers’ experiences and challenges amidst the COVID-19 lockdown 13. Politics and practices of the new normal: What are preschool teachers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey? 14. The role of the Australian Education Union Victoria in supporting early childhood educators during a global pandemic: Tensions, challenges and opportunities for the profession 15. A ‘quint-essential(ised)’ ECE workforce: COVID-19 and the exploitation of labour Afterword Index