Vol. 11 No. 1 (2024): Post-foundational and Critical Childhood Studies: New and Emerging Scholarship-Part I

Special Issue:Post-foundational and Critical Childhood Studies: New and Emerging Scholarship-Part I

Guest Editors: Xue Yin and Meredith Whye, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Introduction to the Special Issue by Marianne N. Bloch, Editor, International Critical Childhood Policy Studies

We are pleased to announce the publication of new peer-reviewed research articles from eight researchers who are currently working in various institutions around the world. In the summer of 2024, the special issue co-editors, Xue Yin and Meredith Whye, and I discussed the possibility of their doing a guest edited special issue. They decided to focus the special issue of the journal on post-foundational theories and methodologies and critical childhood studies. In addition to that focus, the co-editors and I wanted to highlight recent scholarship of those near completion of their dissertations and those within the first few years of their career, after the completion of their doctoral degrees. The co-editors, Xue Yin and Meredith Whye solicited abstracts from a variety of different networks and organizations including the Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education organization, The Critical Perspectives in Early Childhood Education Special Interest Group in the American Education Research Association, the Comparative and International Education Society, and several other groups focused on post-foundational and post-structural theories and methodologies.  Nineteen abstracts were submitted and sixteen authors were asked to submit complete articles to the journal to be reviewed for publication in the journal. After review and revisions, all sixteen articles will be published in a two-part Special Issue series. The current issue, Part I, with eight articles, is presented below (December, 2024), while Part II, with eight articles, will be published in early January 2025.

In putting together the initial ideas for this two part special issue, the special issue co-editors wanted to highlight the theoretical and methodological approaches used by a group of newer academics in the fields of critical childhood studies and those focused on reconceptualizing early childhood education. They wanted to illustrate the variety of topics that researchers are currently focused on, and to highlight, based on submissions, new ways to approach persistent issues in the fields of childhood studies and early childhood education. The eight articles in Part I of this special issue range from studies of infants and toddlers to studies of ten year old refugee children. The authors in this issue present research from Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Kenya, Korea, and the U.S.

We would like to thank all of the reviewers for this two part Special Issue. We paired one senior researcher/academic with a graduate student reviewer who volunteered to do reviews for each article.  Reviewers' knowledge and background in post-foundational and critical childhood studies, and in doing research and writing contributed a great deal to our ability to give good feedback to authors for revisions. The advice and comments from the senior scholars and graduate student reviewers helped to make each article better than when first submitted.

We’d also like to thank the members of our editorial team, Chao-Ling Tseng, I-Fang Lee, Lucy Heimer, Beth Blue Swadener, and Shirley Kessler for giving advice on a variety of issues during the process of publication and to thank Shirley Kessler and Eileen Troemel for aiding us with copyediting.  Finally, as editor of the journal, I want to acknowledge the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education organization (www.receinternational.org) for their sponsorship of the journal over the past few years.  Their sponsorships have allowed us to offer a free, open access (no subscription, no fees for articles, internationally accessible and downloadable) set of articles for your knowledge and enjoyment.   All the articles are available below.