By exploring the different perspectives, concepts and practices adopted in early childhood settings in Denmark, Finland, Aotearoa, New Zealand and Sweden, Empowering Early Childhood Educators demonstrates the potential of participatory and democratic approaches in day-to-day early years practice.

Acknowledgements List of Figures and Tables List of Contributors Foreword: Professor Peter Moss Our reasons for writing this book: reflections from the editors Introduction Part 1: The Foundations Chapter 1: The Purpose of Education Today Chapter 2: The Reflexive Educator Chapter 3: Democracy and Participation in Early Childhood Education Part 2: Five International Pedagogies as Provocation Chapter 4: Maria Montessori (with Perspectives from Sweden) Chapter 5: Reggio Emilia (with Perspectives from Sweden) Chapter 6: A Finnish Perspective of Early Childhood Education Chapter 7: Te Whāriki Chapter 8: Danish Outdoor Nature Pedagogy Part 3: A Way Forward Chapter 9: Wider Issues In Early Childhood Education Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Hope for the Future: New Possibilities for Sustaining a Reflexive Approach Afterword: A Meeting Place Index

In the current climate this book’s timely challenge to an outcome-driven curriculum will be welcomed by all concerned by the pressures of top-down approaches to ECE that focus on data and accountability at the expense of children’s experiences. Whilst McLeod and Giardiello furnish a clear-sighted critique of contemporary policy and its implications, their main concern is to offer a way forward by empowering EC educators through critical self-awareness. By questioning personal beliefs and practices, educators can become more reflective in their pedagogy and therefore better equipped to resist inappropriate pressures from elsewhere...The authors’ commitment to social justice shines through this text and underpins their conviction that ’empowering early childhood educators is a crucial enterprise’. Reflective practice can be difficult for students who have come through an education system where they were taught to look for ‘right answers’, it requires an ‘epistemological shift’ in thinking (Hanson, 2013). This book is ideally placed to support such an epistemological shift and nurture reflective dispositions. Students, lecturers and practitioners will all find inspiration, not only so they can avoid being ‘blown about by the winds of cultural and pedagogic preference’ (Brookfield,1995:265) but to stand tall and actively challenge the downward pressures of inappropriate expectations. - Rory McDowall Clark, TACTYC