This is the ninth volume in an annual series designed to provide an academic forum for the publication of original research, critical reviews and conceptual analyses of theoretical and substantive issues related to the education, care and development of young children.

Hardbound. The papers appearing in this volume reflect current thinking about the contexts of our thought, methodology, the nature of experience while teaching and program improvement, and how we conceptualize play in the curriculum.

This volume revisits a number of themes that have appeared in earlier Advances publications, including Social Contexts of Early Development and Education and Reconceptualizing Play. New social contexts for early education and care often require that we aim our inquiry at social conditions that have not existed in the past, as well as elaborating long-standing concerns. Studies of some of the social contexts of early education point to how many of the needs of the field are unique, depending on where and when we do our work, and with whom we work. Reconceptualizing Play points to the multiple...