Volume 51, numéro 1, mars 2026

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Access to nurturing early learning and childcare (ELCC) and a supportive early childhood environment play critical roles in promoting children’s cognitive, social, and behavioral development. However, access to these relevant programs and services remains inequitable, especially for historically marginalized communities, such as Black people. This paper reports the experiences of Black parents (n=25) as they navigated ELCC in Kingston and London, Ontario. Findings highlight four interrelated themes: systemic barriers in accessing ELCC services, lack of access to information and community support, cultural insensitivity at ELCC spaces, and socioeconomic challenges with accessing ELCC. The paper concludes with suggestions of actionable strategies to build trust and reorient the ELCC system to serve all children.

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Based on the transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, we studied the experiences of families and children facing socially disadvantaging circumstances in Montréal in navigating this novel learning environment, with a focus on community organization supports. These families faced pronounced difficulties adapting to online learning due to disorganized communication with schools, unexpected shifts in parents’ roles, and resource constraints. However, the community organization was instrumental in supporting families and promoting a sense of agency in children. Policymakers ought to prioritize investment in community organizations that target educational supports to prevent/reduce adverse outcomes associated with pandemics or other public health emergencies.

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This qualitative study investigates how sanist systems of oppression within early childhood education both reflect and reinforce dominant discourses on mental health and madness. Through a Mad studies analysis of both qualitative interview data with postsecondary early childhood education and child studies students, as well as policy and curriculum documents relevant to Ontario postsecondary early childhood education studies, we seek to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions and create space for mental difference. This study was conducted with 25 postsecondary early childhood education and child studies students, with the data analyzed using both Foucauldian and institutional ethnographic methods. Ultimately, this study illustrates how madness and Mad educators are constructed as a potential harm to the profession, reinforcing sanist forms of discrimination against educators with mental health differences.

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This study evaluates the content of the most popular YouTube videos worldwide in terms of the presence of messages that support or hinder children’s food and nutrition literacy, using Azam Doustmohammadian and colleagues’ conceptual framework of food and nutrition literacy in children. Forty-four food-related videos were selected from the three most popular child-themed YouTube channels. The results revealed that the cognitive aspects of the framework were slightly supported in the selected videos; however, negative messages were prevalent. Although there was no positive content to support children’s food and nutrition literacy regarding interactive, emotional, and discussion skills, it was found that only contradictory messages were given in the emotional skills dimension. Another significant aspect of the findings, as discussed through the lens of childhood studies, is that certain types of eating behaviours were presented as more favourable than others, and many subtle moral messages were detected regarding normative assumptions about bodies, health, and food practices.

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Addressing the underrepresentation of male early childhood educators is crucial due to their role in fostering children’s holistic development. Male educators provide unique perspectives and serve as role models in a gender-sensitive environment. This study builds on existing research through a literature review and semistructured interviews with a global sample of ECE practitioners and students. Findings reveal that social, psychological, and economic barriers contribute to the gender imbalance. Raising awareness about men’s positive impact in ECE and creating incentives for male educators are essential. Inclusive instructional designs in ECE programs can encourage gender diversity and support balanced development for young learners.

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Early learning and childcare (ELCC) programs provide a critical context for responding to young children experiencing trauma. In shifting beyond an individualistic framing of trauma, this study explored how the emerging concept of trauma-and violence-informed care (TVIC) can be implemented in ELCC programs. Methods included interviews with early childhood educators, a parent focus group and walk-through of an ELCC centre, and participant observation. Analysis identified “a shared understanding of trauma” as foundational to implementing TVIC. Other themes included “changing the way we work with families,” “(re)designing spaces,” and “taking care of the carers.” Program- and practice-level implications are discussed.

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This paper presents a reflective account of the implementation of The Diary of My Emotions, a pedagogical project designed to support and highlight the existing emotional competencies in a preschool classroom in an economically underresourced context. Grounded in critical childhood studies and postdevelopmental approaches, the initiative engaged children and their families in co-constructing emotional understanding through multimodal literacy, embodiment, and the visualization of their peer culture, which evoked their existing emotional skills and cultural knowledge making. Despite challenges such as time constraints and initial family resistance, the project contributed to a more inclusive and emotionally supportive educational environment.

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This review of Amari Johnson’s Under a Black Star examines his autoethnographic account of the BlackStar community in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Johnson reframes marronage away from overdetermined focus on escape and instead as pursuit of freedom, a process of disengagement, flight, and reengagement. I analyze the central concepts in the book and how they articulate a desire-based pedagogy. Following Johnson’s lead, I situate this work within Black geographies to think through how these practices create safety and possibility for Black children while also raising critical questions about making a live(d) Black world on Indigenous lands.

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Anti-Oppressive Child and Youth Care: Critical Conversations (Andrea Christensen, editor, Canadian Scholars, 2025) both educates and advocates for identity recognition and change within the child and youth care sector. Diverse voices not always present in the past decades of professional dialogue for the sector unpack, explore, and share about the necessity for anti-oppressive approaches, why they should exist, and how they can be implemented.

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This book review discusses Queer Kids and Social Violence: The Limits of Bullying, edited by Elizabethe Payne and Melissa J. Smith, which unpacks the anti-bullying framework that depoliticizes and individualizes LGBTQ+ youth in schools. Thirteen chapters with different methodologies and critical perspectives on social violence against queer youth focus on better understanding the experiences of queer and trans youth and disrupt the simplistic and individualized intervention to create “safe space” in schools. The book emphasizes how bullying is a structural mechanism through which gender privilege is (re)produced in different forms, by different agents, and in different directions within schools.

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This review examines Anti-Oppressive Child and Youth Care: Critical Conversations, edited by Andrea Christensen, a collection that brings together scholar-practitioners and youth to interrogate child and youth care in Canada. Grounded in storytelling and critical frameworks such as critical race theory, intersectionality, Indigenous relational ethics, fat studies, and anti-oppressive practice, the book addresses issues including anti-Black racism, ableism, anti-fat bias, and toxic positivity. This review highlights how the text moves beyond theory toward applied, reflexive praxis, particularly through its pedagogical design and critical reflection activities. It also considers the book’s Canadian focus and its relevance beyond that context.