Introduction

This edited volume offers a unique investigation on Early Childhood on a truly global dimension, focusing on how Early Childhood Education and Care policies, practices and discourse is framed in different national contexts such as Kenya, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Japan, Brazil and China, but also England, Wales, Italy, Finland, Ireland, United States, Australia and New Zealand. What is being introduced here is a collection of contribution that offer innovative insights on the cultural presuppositions of policies, pedagogies and practices shaping Early Childhood Education. This nurtures an intellectual space for reflection, open to researchers, practitioners and all interested in children and education, a space that includes alternative perspectives from those hegemonizing many Western heritage countries. It can be argued that ‘celebrating diversity’ could be key to the collection, not only due of the great variety of the contexts for the studies presented, but also considering the differentiated disciplinary angles taken by authors, who approach Early Childhood Education and Care from Sociology, History, Pedagogy, Social Work, Communication Studies, Pragmatics, Psychology. Diversity concerns not only contexts and discipline, but also the methodologies applied by the contributors