Critical interdisciplinary research that challenges, extends and explores knowledge and understandings of contemporary childhoods.

Recent and current initiatives include:

• Dark Play & Digital Arts in Early Childhood (link to wordpress: Sakr, De Rijke, Osgood)
• Children’s Art & Creativity in the Early Years
• CIEC Special Issue: Dark Play & Digital Landscapes, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood Journal (Osgood, Sakr, de Rijke)
• PhEMaterialist: Affective Methodologies in Educational Research (ESRC Workshop Series Proposal awaiting submission, Osgood)
• Performing Methodologies in Early Years Research Network (Nordic Research Council Funding, Osgood with Otterstad)

Recent Publications include:

• De RIJKE, V. (2017, in production) ‘Scribble: a technology without history’ for Ubiquity Journal of Pervasive Media
• De RIJKE, V. SINKER, R & PHILIPS, M. (2017, in production) ‘Pregnant Rapunzel Ambulance: digging beneath the surface of an online game for girls’ CIEC Special Issue: Dark Play & Digital Landscapes, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood Journal
• De RIJKE, V. & BAILEY, F. (2017, in press) ‘Soho So Home: a case study of belonging’, International Art in Early Childhood Journal
• Sakr, M. (forthcoming) Digital Technologies in Early Childhood Art: Enabling Playful Experiences. London: Bloomsbury.
• Sakr, M., Federici, R., Hall, N., O’Brien, L. & Trivedy, B. (contract signed) Creativity and Making in Early Childhood: Challenging Practitioner Perspectives. London: Bloomsbury.
• Sakr, M. (forthcoming) Which comes first: the story or the text? How digital affordances challenge us to re-think children’s construction of narrative during art-making. In S. Garvis & N. Pramling (Eds.) Narrative in Early Childhood Education: Communication, sense-making and lived experience. London: Routledge.
• Kucirkova, N. & Sakr, M. (forthcoming) The child’s self in personalised story-making apps. In C. Burnett, G. Merchant, A. Simpson & M. Walsh (Eds.) Mobile Literacies: The Case of the iPad in Education. Springer.
• Kucirkova, N. & Sakr, M. (forthcoming) Digital technologies, children’s learning and affective dimensions of family relationships in the home. In S. Punch, R. M. Vanderbeck & T. Skelton (Eds.) Geographies of Children and Young People: Families, Intergenerationality and Peer Group Relations. Springer.
• Sakr, M., Connelly, V. & Wild, M. (in press) Imitative or Iconoclastic? How young children use ready-made images in digital art. International Journal of Art and Design Education.
• Sakr, M. & Kucirkova, N. (in press) Parent-child moments of meeting in art-making with collage, iPad, Tuxpaint and crayons. International Journal of Education and the Arts.
• OSGOOD, J. & ROBINSON, K. H. (2016, in press). ‘Celebrating Pioneering and Contemporary Feminist Approaches to the Study of Gender in Early Childhood’ in K. Smith & S. Campbell (Eds) Feminism in early childhood: Using feminist theories in research and practice. Springer.
• OSGOOD, J. GIUGNI, M. & & BHOPAL, K. (2016, in press). Reconfiguring motherhoods: transmogrifying the maternal entanglements of feminist academics, chapter four in K.A. Scott & A.S. Henwood (Eds) Women Education Scholars and Their Children’s Schooling. London: Routledge. [subjected to peer review]
• OSGOOD, J. & GIUGNI, M. (2016) ‘Reconfiguring ‘quality’: matter, bodies and becomings in early childhood education’ in G.S.Cannella., M. Salazar Perez & I, Lee. (Eds). Critical Examinations of Quality in Early Education and Care. New York: Peter Lang.
• De RIJKE, V. (2016, in production, for Conference & publication) “Running wild”: C21st Fears for and of the Child, the Beast’
• De RIJKE, V. SINKER, R., HOLLANDS, H. & PAJACZKOWSKA, C. (2016) ‘Art is (not) Play’ Performance at ‘ART IS…’ symposium event, Tate Modern.
• De RIJKE, V. & SINKER, R. (2016) ‘The Empty Box,’ Playground 4 (PG4) TATE Publications, pp24-29.
• KAYE, L  (2016) ed. Young Children in a Digital Age: Supporting Learning and Development with Technology in Early Years, London: David Fulton
• Price, S. Jewitt, C. & Sakr, M. (2016) Exploring whole body interaction and design for museums. Interacting with Computers. http://iwc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/09/25/iwc.iwv032.short
• Sakr, M., Connelly, V. & Wild, M. (2016) ‘Evil cats’ and ‘jelly floods’: Young children’s collective constructions of digital art-making. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02568543.2015.1107156
• KAYE, L. (2015) ‘The Use of Technology and e-learning among academic staff: a case study’
• HARDING, J.  PhD and enormous TV/Media output
• Sakr, M., Connelly, V. & Wild, M. (2015) Narrative in young children’s digital art-making. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy.http://ecl.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/30/1468798415577873.abstract
• Kucirkova, N. & Sakr, M. (2015) Child-father creative text-making at home with crayons, iPad, collage & PC. Thinking Skills and Creativity. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871187115300109
• Sakr, M., Jewitt, C. & Price, S. (2015) Mobile experiences of historical place: A multimodal analysis of emotional engagement. Journal of the Learning Sciences. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508406.2015.1115761#.VydgxdQrLIU
• Sakr, M., Connelly, V. & Wild, M. (2015) The semiotic work of teachers’ writing in displays of young children’s drawings. In A. Archer & E. Breuer (Eds.) Multimodality in Writing: The state of the art in theory, methodology and pedagogy. Bingley: Emerald.
• Sakr, M. & Kucirkova, N. (2015) Making the ‘here’ and ‘now’: Rethinking children’s digital photography with Deleuzian concepts. In A. Hackett, L. Proctor & J. Seymour (Eds.) Children’s Spatialities: Embodiment, emotions and agency. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• De RIJKE, V.  & BAILEY, F. (2014) ‘Mud mess and magic: building student teachers’ confidence for art & the outdoors in early years’. International Art in Early Childhood, 2014 (1). pp. 1-16.
• Harding, J. Chaudhuri, S. (2008) The Creative Moment Project Arts Council: Creative Wellbeing Creative Partnerships,.