The authors of this work are three distinguished academics: a Swede, a Brit, and a Canadian, with many years of involvement in children and their education. It was published at the turn of the 21st century, when terms like quality, evaluation, and excellence began to permeate education; concepts that it addresses, primarily focusing on the issue of quality.

The book has experienced exceptional success, was reissued, and translated into many languages. It is considered one of the reference texts on the topics it addresses, concerning quality and the education of children from birth to six years old. The authors operate on four interdependent levels of analysis: discussions regarding modernity and postmodernity, critical exploration of the concept of quality and related terms, such as evaluation and excellence, the potential functioning of preschool institutions as a marketplace, in the ancient Greek sense of the term, and the classic question of the possibility of transferring or importing successful institutions, ideas, and practices into another context, in another country.

Contents

Introduction by the editors to this edition

Introduction by the authors to this edition

Introduction by the authors to the second edition

Acknowledgments

Foreword

1. About this book

2. Theoretical approaches: Modernity and postmodernity, power and ethics

3. Constructing early childhood: What we believe early childhood is

4. Constructing the preschool institution: What we consider its purpose to be

5. From the discourse of quality to the discourse of meaning-making

6. The Stockholm experiment: Constructing pedagogy that speaks with the voice of the child, the educator, and the parent

7. Pedagogical documentation: A practice of reflection and democracy

8. The World of the Few and the World of the Many: Threats and opportunities

Bibliography

Index of terms and names

Foreword by Carlina Rinaldi