Globally, Early Years policies and documents have set out aspirational outcomes and benefits for children, their families and the wider society. These policies have emphasised the place of early childhood provision within the wider global agenda, by tackling inequality and disadvantage early on in children’s lives. However, these strategies have also raised further debates regarding the way they have informed and shaped curricula frameworks and pedagogical approaches.

The international team of contributors to this book argue that if these issues are not explicitly acknowledged, understood, critiqued and negotiated, emerging policies and documents may potentially lead to disadvantaging, marginalising and even pathologising certain childhoods.

Divided into two parts, the volume demonstrates the dialectic nature of both policy and practice. The chapters in this wide-ranging text:

• explore and articulate the philosophical premises and values that underpin current early childhood policy, curricula and pedagogies
• explicitly acknowledge and articulate some of potential conflicts and challenges they present
• provide examples of divergent and creative pedagogical thinking
• highlight opportunities for enabling pedagogical cultures and encounters.

Debates on Early Childhood Policies and Practices is aimed at a wide readership including academics and researchers in early years education, policy makers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, practitioners and early childhood professionals.