UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: This Convention is a legal framework which outlines the various responsibilities governments have to ensure the rights of children (persons under the age of eighteen) and their access to protection and to services without discrimination. As described on the UNICEF website: “The Convention changed the way children are viewed and treated – i.e., as human beings with a distinct set of rights instead of as passive objects of care and charity” (Source: https://www.unicef.org/crc/index_30225.html). The Convention has been ratified by every member of the United Nations except the United States. 

Child-centred education: Child-centred educational approaches place the child in the centre of practice. Early childhood environments are accessible to the child with child-sized furniture and materials placed at the child’s level. Curriculum and planning are based on the children’s needs and interests and children are seen to learn through play. The concept of child-centredness attends somewhat to children’s agency and participation, but falls short in advancing democratic principles such as working together, listening, and cooperation (seen, for example, in the early Dewey Laboratory School).

Rights-based education: This framework recognizes the child as capable, socially competent, and agentic. 

Ecological Systems Theory: Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory examines the ways in which cultural, historical, societal, institutional, familial, and community contexts are influences upon and influenced by children’s development and learning. He situated the child in the centre, surrounded by a series of concentric circles each representing a relationship within a system. 

Ecology: Ecology refers to the study of the relationship between organisms and their environment.

Ecosystem: Ecosystem refers to the relationship between organisms and their environment.

Microsystem: Elements within the environment with which the child has direct contact, such as family, peers, and teachers. There are also systems within these microsystems such as sibling groups within families or friendship groups within the classroom.

Mesosystem: The mesosystem considers the interactions between two elements in the microsystem. For example, the interactions between a child’s parents and their teacher may have a positive or negative impact on the child’s development and learning.

Exosystem: The exosystem encompasses relationships between elements in the microsystem and settings the child has indirect involvement with such as the parent’s workplace.

Macrosystem: The macrosystem includes cultural and societal values, beliefs, policies, and ideas which influence the child’s development and learning by directing our actions toward them. 

Chronosystem: The chronosystem is the influence of time on the child’s development. 

Parenting styles: Psychologist Diane Baumrind initially identified three main parenting styles (Authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive) and subsequent research separated permissive into permissive indulgent and permissive indifferent. These styles were defined based on two dimensions: parental warmth and parental control. The research which informed the development of the original model was conducted with white middle class families and, therefore, is an ethnocentric way of understanding parenting in a diverse society. 

Authoritative parenting style: This parenting style is characterized by high warmth and high control. Adults set clear expectations and limits for their children, but are responsive to them. Seen as the “optimal” parenting style in Euro-North American contexts, control is used to address the tensions between freedom and responsibility. 

Authoritarian parenting style: This parenting style is characterized by low warmth and high control. Adults set clear expectations and limits for their children, but do not exhibit warmth or responsiveness. This parenting style has been negatively portrayed, however cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that some cultures do not outwardly express affection in the same manner as a white middle class parent might. It does not mean that these parents are unresponsive to their children. This style has also been found to offer protection for children raised in poverty. 

Permissive indulgent parenting style: This parenting style is characterized by high warmth and low control. The adult is responsive to the child, but does not set limits or expectations for their behaviour.

Permissive indifferent parenting style: This parenting style is characterized by low warmth and low control. That is, the parent is indifferent to the child.