Abstract

Rapid societal and technological changes worldwide have challenged educators to reconceptualize pedagogy in early childhood education, as well as in primary settings. Today, young children use a variety of tools, such as images, photos, screens, tablets, written texts, spatial materials, gestures, virtual reality and the Internet of Toys (see Holloway and Green 2016). Their use reflects the diversity in representations and meaning making in formal early childhood educational contexts and at home. In twenty-first-century classrooms, the variety of texts and increased possibilities for digital communication have diversified the ways that children interact, understand and make meaning in different social contexts. Furthermore, classrooms are more diverse due to gender and ethnic differences, identity politics, life experiences, abilities and learning needs, socioeconomic backgrounds and various cultural settings (Kulju et al. 2018).