Vol. 13 No. 1 (2026): Critical Issues Essays

We are pleased to announce our first issue of 2026, featuring essays submitted for the Critical Issues section with focused editorial support from Beth Blue Swadener. Her comprehensive introduction offers insight to the popularity of this new section as we face complex and baffling political turns that leave folks in ECE and academia searching for ways to share their perspectives and work for needed change. We thank the authors of the eight essays included in this issue and look forward to this ongoing section, foregrounding provocations through critical personal narratives, in future issues.

We also want to encourage readers to review our updated Editorial Team page, noting our expanded Editorial Board membership and renewed and new roles for editorial support and journal section leadership. While this special issue focuses on the Critical Essays section, we are excited to have new leadership for our Children’s Perspectives section and for independent submissions. We will have our 2nd annual Editorial Board meeting during the upcoming 2026 RECE conference in Otepoti/Dunedin Aotearoa/New Zealand November 20-24th.

The journal will also feature two upcoming special issues. The next issue, to be published in November 2026, is titled Early Years Policy and Activism: Optimism in Im/possible Times with guest editors Mark Nagasawa, Brooke Richardson, and Kate MacCrimmon. This issue explores the complexities of a living Early Childhood Education history by amplifying the experiences of activist children and families, educators, policymakers, artists, and scholars within movements to create just early childhood policies, spaces, and places. The November issue coincides with the RECE annual conference and includes over ten articles illustrating various forms of activism in troubling times.

We are currently seeking submissions for the March 2027 special issue, guest edited by Shemine Gulamhusein and Nicole Land. This issue engages in the question “How do we get to know moving with children?” and will provide a space for thinking together about how we might attend to, craft, and sustain affirmative, responsible and co-created relations, knowledges, and practices for moving with children. The guest editors’ goal is to create a collection of scholarship regarding the physicality of our work in ECEC, specifically movement with children.

In addition to the special issues, we also welcome independent manuscript submissions on a rolling basis. This section provides an ongoing opportunity for scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy professionals to submit original work that is not linked to a themed collection. We invite empirical, theoretical, methodological, and critical contributions that align with the journal's focus on childhood studies, children's rights, education, policy, and related interdisciplinary fields. All submissions will undergo the journal's standard double-blind peer-review process. For inquiries regarding independent submissions and the review process, please contact I-Fang Lee at i-fang.lee@newcastle.edu.au.