Changing attitudes towards disabilities have resulted in corresponding transformations in social justice and human rights issues that have led to an increase in inclusive education practices across the world and a corresponding change in emphasis to address social inclusion of students with disability in the inclusive classroom. Research indicates that students with disabilities do not automatically benefit from the opportunities of inclusive education. To understand the situation of these students, their perspectives should be reported. The following paper reports results of three international studies from Australia, Indonesia, and the Netherlands, whereby students with disabilities were provided an opportunity to express their thoughts and perceptions regarding friendships and acceptance in the inclusive classroom, using a range of methodologies. Despite differences in culture and abilities, the students across all three studies highlighted the importance of having a friend and being socially accepted by their peers.

Early childhood education is a sector often mis-represented in the media and public domain, depicting a sector beleaguered by low salaries, lack of professional recognition and inadequate working conditions. Missing from this depiction is the fullness of the everyday teaching and learning experiences of early childhood educators, and subsequent joy experienced in working with young children and families and the significant contribution of this emotion to educator practice and sense of wellbeing. Using an online survey, educators were invited to share their perspectives of factors that are contributing to the crisis in the field, their daily encounters with children and the moments, both big and small, that shaped and guided their pedagogy. Findings suggested that while the concept of joy was embraced and validated by educators, it was also elusive and hard to define. Suggestions for validating the place of joy as central in early childhood education conclude the paper.

Children’s right to be heard is an issue raised in recent years in the Global North, which has also been acknowledged by Chinese researchers currently studying child development and education. However, Chinese researchers still often prefer the perspectives of adults in their research on young children, citing a lack of suitable methodologogy for collecting and interpreting young children’s voices. This article recognises the significance of including young children’s perspectives in research. It discusses how Western methodologies for listening to their perspectives, such as the Mosaic approach, can be adapted for use in Chinese socio-cultural contexts. By reflecting on the first author’s research on the lived experience of leftbehind young children in a Chinese rural area, the article explores the development and implementation of such a methodology. The research findings indicate that the Mosaic approach, alongside phenomenological interviews and other research tools, provided an effective approach that enabled achievement of the research aims. Flexibility and reciprocity in relationships were two key contributors to effectiveness of this approach to research in a Chinese context.

High-quality Professional Experience (PEx) placements are central to the preparation of ‘classroom ready’ graduate teachers in Australia. However, there are frequent suggestions from the Australian Government that PEx is not as effective as it could be. Perennial PEx concerns raised in government reviews include: the need for strong partnerships between higher education providers and schools; the quality of ITE candidates and their suitability to teach; the ongoing shortage of high-quality placements and mentors; placement diversity and timing; student placement poverty; and the need to address workforce shortages. Against this backdrop we sought to systematically examine 60 stakeholder submissions to Reform Area 3 of the Australian Government’s 2023 Teacher Education Expert Panel Discussion Paper, which recommended new PEx guidelines, system-level partnership agreements, Centres of Excellence, and student support to ‘improve the quality of practical experience in teaching’. Using content analysis software Leximancer, we mapped themes and perspectives in the responses of seven stakeholder groups, each with distinct motivations and expertise: higher education providers, regulatory bodies, Councils of Deans, employers, teachers’ associations, advocates and individuals. An eighth group, ‘other’ represented three stakeholders that did not fit existing categories. Three overarching meta-themes were identified: (i) provision of funding and resources, (ii) creation of high-quality placements, and (iii) the necessity (or not) of new partnership agreements. While stakeholders noted broad support for the recommendations of the Discussion Paper, a diversity of perspectives was evident in their discussion of resources and preference for ‘centralised’ agreements to support consistent and widespread delivery of high-quality PEx.

This research tells the story of an interpretation of joy particular to early childhood education. For writer Zadie Smith, joy comes in many iterations; it may be a small pleasure or a grand affair, experienced internally or relationally, and, most importantly, has the capacity to increase rapidly when children are involved. The joy that accompanies children is much more than a feeling, it arrives unexpectedly at times of discovery and important moments in relationships. This chapter reports the findings of a qualitative research project involving early childhood educators in Australia that sought to identify the presence and significance of joy in their professional lives. This phenomenological study examined how educators felt about joy, how they experienced joy in their daily practice, with results revealing a joy that is particular to the field, and one that could be a valuable point of focus in early childhood education. This chapter re-defines and outlines this version of joy, and in doing so, proposes how attending to joy through an aesthetic lens can create a new narrative of the early childhood profession, one that is sustainable through the practice of joy.