Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Ahead of Print.
‘Readiness’ and transition are topics of ongoing debate in relation to early childhood education. Critiques of schoolification and the impact of a ‘school-readiness’ agenda on policy and practice point to a tendency for increased formalisation of learning as children progress through their early years of schooling. In England, these first years of school-based education involve a transition between different and distinct educational frameworks, from the Early Years Foundation Stage to the National Curriculum in Key Stage 1. This transition can be problematic as tensions emerge between different pedagogical traditions, thus creating a potentially challenging experience for children as they progress from one educational context to the next. In this paper I argue that post-humanism can offer a useful theoretical framing to explore and critique this transition, opening space to question the role of matter in shaping experiences of transition in early years educational spaces. The paper is inspired by diffractive approaches to scholarship that encourage creativity and experimentation, making space for the researchers own co-constituted experiences in the production of new ideas and theories. The theoretically based discussion considers the notion of a ‘problem space’ in relation to early years transitions, before exploring post-human perspectives and asking the question ‘can matter, matter differently’ in transitional experiences. The paper concludes by posing a series of questions designed to prompt further discussion and debate about ‘readiness’ and transition, putting the focus on child–matter intra-actions and their potential for supporting a more complex and nuanced understanding of transition in the early years.

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Ahead of Print.
This paper explores and renegotiates the shapes of teaching in preschool education. Therefore, I engage in storytelling drawing from Haraway and create encounters together and with preschool practices and practitioners in connection to a policy change that introduced teaching into the Swedish preschool curriculum. This multiple inquiry complexifies teaching, starting with the preschool practitioners’ questions and concerns about teaching in preschool. Through stories, teaching takes both place and space in preschool education, challenging and confirming ideas and traditions on how to do preschool. Teaching takes multiple shapes and becomes a practice that extends beyond a specific event, encompassing both preparatory planning and subsequent reflections, as well as the continued process, intertwined with global trends of formalising early childhood education. Resisting a simplified story of the purpose of preschool education, I propose storytelling as a way to acknowledge teaching in preschool practices.

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Ahead of Print.
In this article, we introduce a relational approach to toy pedagogy. A narrative and three photographs from field studies in kindergartens function as sticky knots. By following Haraway and her philosophical explorations of string figures, we discuss the stickiness of the photos and how they contribute to understanding a concept like toy pedagogy. By interrupting the traditional understanding of toys in pedagogical practice, we suggest that toy pedagogy evolves between children, toys and the environment. Multiple connections appear when examining the photographs in light of kinship, which leads to creations of the environment as a place where companion species engage in processes of becoming-with the world. Finally, we discuss how toys affect networks of meaning and worlding, take part in producing dreams and give hope to the lives of children.

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Ahead of Print.
This paper examines the role early childhood education has as an institution that potentially provides for children from differing cultural and language backgrounds and instils respect and tolerance for difference. The particular focus is an emphasis in the Australian early childhood national curriculum that presents a strengthened importance on First Nation Australians. As a country Australia has had a history of racism since European occupation. This attitude has had a detrimental impact on First Australians and many migrants. The context of the paper is the recent national referendum where the Australian populace denied a voice to parliament for Indigenous Australians. In this paper we explore initiatives introduced to support the idea of reconciliation by introducing Aboriginal perspectives into the early childhood curriculum. The research is project-based and we examine the role of early education in supporting long-term equity and social justice in a country that still suffers from a colonial/settler outlook.