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Children attending centre-based early childhood care and education programmes across Australia are most likely to be grouped according to age and development. While multi- or mixed-age grouping has been seen to have positive benefits on young children's learning and pro-social behaviours, this approach is not usually adopted in the organisation of children's grouping in most long day care settings across the county. This paper reports on a case study which explored one urban children's setting where the outdoor learning space has been specifically designed to enable a mixed-age approach for children. The findings suggest that while the educators see many benefits across the age groups in engaging in this approach, there is still a preference to segregate the very young children arising from concerns for their safety. The study also found that planning for learning especially in regards pro-social learning with the older children has been problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Self-concept is one important yet understudied construct, often associated with healthy children's well-being, and particularly crucial for those raised in rural disadvantaged communities. Also, commonly acknowledged is that adults, including parents and teachers, play an important role in fostering self-concept. The overall aim of the current study was to explore self-concept differences between rural and urban children in the state of Victoria, Australia, and to investigate relationships between student-teacher relationships, parental school engagement and self-concept in both groups. The sample comprised 219 triads of children (aged between 7-14 years), parents and teachers, representing rural (n = 33) and urban (n = 186) areas. Children, parents, and teachers completed measures related to self-concept, parental engagement with school, and quality of student-teacher interactions, respectively. No significant differences were detected between the self-concept levels of rural and urban children. However, associations between the student-teacher relationship, parental engagement, and self-concept differed between demographic groups. The unique selfconcept experiences of children from rural and urban areas in Australia have important intervention and research implications. The role of the student-teacher relationship in the development of self-concept in children from rural locations should be considered in addition to parenting and home factors typically associated with fostering selfconcept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the extent to which demographic, economic, geographic and social situations influence the decisions parents living in urban areas make about the type of child care they use for their young children. Childcare has been a social and political issue of growing importance in Australia. This has largely been due to the increase in dual income families, with rising numbers of mothers entering the labor force. Between 1971 and 1991 the labor force participation rate of all women aged 15 years and older increased from 37 per cent to 52 per cent, and by 1991 about 60 per cent of couple families with dependent children had both parents in the labor force. In 1993 nearly half of all Australian mothers with children aged 0-4 years were in the labor force the majority on a part-time basis. The demand for childcare services has thus increased to the extent that between 1984 and 1993 the proportion of children in Australia who used either informal, formal or both types of child care rose from 39 per cent to 49 per cent. INSET: Satisfaction with preschool work-related child care..

At the heart of Issue 1 Volume 28 is pedagogy and hope. It is a reminder of Paulo Freire's ‘Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed’. As Freire eloquently articulates: Without hope, we are hopeless and cannot begin the struggle to change. To attempt to do without hope, which is based on the need for truth as an ethical quality of the struggle, is tantamount to denying that struggle one of its mainstays. (p. 8) Emilia Fägerstam commences this issue with a study about environmental education centre officers' and teachers' observations and perceptions of urban children and young people's experiences with/of/in nature. The study was situated in New South Wales, Australia, revealing some of the unique challenges in the Australian natural environment. Consistent with existing research and commentary, Fägerstam identifies that teachers perceive urban children and young people as having limited experience in nature, often mediated by fear and agitation. She echoes the increasingly identified need for nature to be readily and authentically experienced by children and young people at school and in their everyday lives, alongside a call for teacher education to incorporate outdoor education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]