EN:

This paper explores children’s engagements with music during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. We draw on repeated, qualitative, online interviews with children that explored their experiences during the pandemic. During these interviews, the topic of music came up many times and was present in the children’s lives in many ways. Inspired by Christopher Small’s concept of musicking to understand music as an action, and grounded in new-materialist emphasis on the interweaving of human and nonhuman entities, we examine children’s musical assemblages to discuss how they engaged with music to express themselves and connect to others early in the pandemic in ways that helped them through a difficult time.

EN:

This article examines high school students’ responses to an exercise from the Chilean National Writing Plan which invited students to “write an evil text.” The data was analyzed through a diffractive reading using affect theory. We asked the texts: What do affective repertoires related to villainy do to students becoming writers? We describe the affirmative potential of these affects and strategies used by students becoming writers to contest normative childhood and youth relations with cultural products and affective repertoires in education. Based on our findings, we posit that the entanglements between writing exercises, student writers, and villainy produced non-normative affects related to evilness, which in turn assembled into cultural zones of exception in which children and youth could speculate around complex topics such as the pleasures related to violence.

EN:

This article critically examines the domain of early learning and care (ELC) in Canada, often termed early childhood education or early childhood studies. We delve into the Canadian ELC landscape, focusing on identified gaps in antibias education, especially concerning African/Black families. Drawing from a comprehensive literature review, we highlight disparities faced by African/Black children and families compared to their white and other racialized peers in the Canadian child welfare system. We conclude with six actionable recommendations to bridge these gaps, emphasizing collaboration among all stakeholders.

EN:

This study aims to illuminate the perspectives of 40 marginalized children about school choice in two global cities in Canada. It builds on the sociology of school choice and critical geography, with a focus on children. By utilizing mixed-methods geospatial research, this study finds that children prefer attending a neighbourhood school where they feel supported by the community and experience daily connections to nature. These children’s perspectives offer new insights into how to move beyond neoliberal market reforms by pursuing transformative and decolonial approaches to educational policy making.