نبذة مختصرة : The regulation and control of young children has been the subject of an increasing amount of research and scholarship in early childhood education. There is a growing trend among all sectors of the field that recognises the limitations of some of the traditional theoretical and methodological perspectives and as a result many early childhood educators have been actively seeking alternative ways of understanding and being in the world. In this issue, all of the articles contest the boundedness of the field by challenging the ways in which we have been taught and subsequently learnt to think about young children, what they should be doing and who they should be within institutions such as schools and before school settings.In the USA many children identified as not meeting required standards during the school year attend summer school in order to ''catch up''. Christopher Brown (''Creating Opportunities'') presents the case of Steven, a child diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, and analyses his experiences in summer school, looking specifically for opportunities for Steven to succeed. Using Bakhtin, Brown shows that adherence to the conventions of curriculum and expected school behaviour results in Steven''s carnivalistic actions and words being seen as deviance. Brown contends that Steven''s opportunities to learn on his terms are not considered and thus his chances to ''catch up'' over the summer are compromised significantly. Relatedly, Zsuzsanna Millei (''The Discourse of Control: disruption and Foucault in an early childhood classroom'') investigates disruption in a pre-primary classroom in Western Australia, arguing that notions of disruption are constructed by behaviourist discourses and thus construed as a problem of teacher control. When combined with maintenance of traditional power relationships in the classroom, the limitations imposed by a control discourse mean that there are few occasions for children to act agentically in their classroom experiences. Millei endorses ''disciplined activity'', which is based on intrinsic motivations and values, and recommends a revision of teacher-child power relations so that young persons can experience very different classroom experiences than those based on a discourse of control.Moving to children''s thinking brings further consideration of the confines of dominant research traditions and practices. In ''Contexts, Collaboration, and Cultural Tools: a sociocultural perspective on researching children''s thinking'', Jill Robbins explains the merits of understanding children''s thinking within a contextual framework of how children participate in the sociocultural activities of their communities. This perspective repositions the traditional focus on the individual to one of relationships in communities that accounts for cultural histories and current circumstances, as well as the complexities that go with any community considered holistically. Robbins maintains that this approach provides an understanding of the richness and dynamism of children''s thinking. Algebra, too, has been subjected to challenges to traditional ways of how we think about and teach it, particularly in relation to young children. Warren & Cooper (''Introducing Functional Thinking in Year 2: a case study of early algebra teaching'') suggest that the conventional approach to mathematics of concentrating on counting and operations with particular numbers does not assist children to ''develop a consistent conceptual base that can deal with all numbers''. They contest the focus on the accuracy of answers at the expense of understanding the processes used for reaching answers, and contend that this restricted knowledge in the early years impedes later development of algebraic thinking. Using children in their second year of schooling from three different classes, Warren & Cooper taught a lesson and introduced functional thinking that concentrated on change, specifically about relations and transformations between things. Although there was mixed success, of importance is the idea that children were forced to think relationally rather than sequentially, which is a higher level of thinking and the type required to engage successfully with all numbers.The next three articles confront directly matters of power that occur regularly in early childhood settings. Taylor & Richardson (''Queering Home Corner'') and Robinson (''Doing Anti-homophobia and Anti-heterosexism in Early Childhood Education: moving beyond the immobilising impacts of ''risks'', ''fears'' and ''silences''. Can We Afford Not To?'') tackle social justice issues of gender and sexuality. In responding to a recent public outcry that came as a result of the children''s television program Play School showing a girl called Brenna enjoying a visit to a fun park, along with her friend Meryn and her two mothers, Taylor & Richardson claim that early childhood education remains a bastion of heteronormative family privilege. Using three episodes of home corner play, the authors discuss the restrictions of the powerful discourses of childhood innocence and hegemonic heterosexuality, but also the ways in which children transgress gender norms that fortify heteronormative social relations. Taylor & Richardson suggest that home corner is a potentially transformative space and alert us to the possibilities that lie there for everyday social justice work.Robinson asks whether early childhood educators can afford to remain inactive and risk continuing to approve tacitly the harmful impact of homophobia and heterosexism on individuals in the broader society. Making the point that most hate crime based on sexual identities is perpetrated by ''adolescent boys and young men whose homophobic and heterosexist attitudes are well entrenched during their schooling years'', Robinson reasons that this necessitates the incorporation of anti-homophobic education in early childhood settings. She draws on recent research with early childhood educators to show the gamut of responses to surveys and interviews that include fear, ignorance as well as informed decisions not to engage in anti-homophobic education because of the personal risks involved.The final article, by Jen Skattebol (''Insider/Outsider Belongings: traversing the borders of whiteness in early childhood''), analyses transcripts of episodes of play where the negotiation of identities is about subtleties of the power of gendered whiteness. Notions of childhood innocence are again challenged by sophisticated and complex interactions amongst children, and when read against a social justice agenda provide insight into the myriad of ways that children attempt to disturb the established social order. Skattebol''s revealing teacher self-analysis points to the nuances to which teachers need to be attuned if they are to resist condoning and therefore perpetuating the inequitable patterns of the established social order.A colloquium by Megan Gibson (''BIG ART small viewer: a collaborative community project'') tells how one community-based kindergarten (Campus Kindergarten) with a strong visual arts program became involved in a project where children visited the University of Queensland Art Museum several times to view and respond to selected artworks. The project culminated in an exhibition of children''s works in the University of Queensland Art Museum.Book reviews in this issue include My Right to Play: a child with complex needs (debating play), written by Robert J. Orr (2003) and reviewed by Yarrow Andrew and We Don''t Play with Guns Here: war, weapon and superhero play in the early years, by Penny Holland, which is reviewed by Gloria Latham.Sue Grieshaber & Katrina WeierQueensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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