Context of Early Childhood Education and Care

ECEC has an interdisciplinary, holistic and integrated orientation. As an emerging field, it calls for its own knowledge base, beliefs, values, and principles of practice. It dialogues with other branches of established and specialised knowledge base such as philosophy, history, child development, psychology, ethology, anthropology, sociology, paediatrics and education among others. For those who practice this profession, that is, Early Childhood educators, it means keeping up theory emerging from these established disciplines, translating them into their own practice and reflecting on these actions. In turn, it also involves contributing to theory, critically reflecting on and in practice, and transforming thoughts into action.