Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss how kindergarten, as a learning arena equal to a university college, creates learning spaces that engage or intervene in the professional learning of student teachers in early childhood education. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on narratives from students in work-based education. Findings The paper addresses the complexity of education by outlining how the concept of learning is applied in earlier research on work-based learning (WBL). Research limitations/implications This earlier understanding is complemented this with two theoretical lenses (sociocultural and sociomaterial thinking) to analyse a constructed narrative from the students. Originality/value The two theoretical positions open up to examine knowledge development and potentially enrich the picture of learning spaces in experiential WBL, going beyond the student as an individual learner.

Early Childhood Education: A Vibrant Arena in the Complex… doubt that we must considerably ramp up our work for sustainability in order to protect the foundations for a good life on planet Earth.

In recent years, sustainability has been increasingly recognized within the early childhood education and care (ECEC) context. Early childhood educators’ capacities to design meaningful learning opportunities for young children have been underlined. The article reports on a study of student teachers’ learning during a project about multimodal storytelling and sustainability in ECEC teacher education. The study explores how multi-modal storytelling might contribute to the capacity to conduct education for sustainability in the context of ECEC. The participants were first-year student teachers at a Finnish university. The results show that multimodal storytelling can contribute to addressing challenging issues linked to sustainability through holistic learning processes. Hereby, multimodal storytelling opens for the exploration of existential issues and complex aspects of sustainability education. It contributes to the reflection and discussion of values, knowledge and skills that are vital for the capacity to conduct sustainability education in the early childhood.

In recent years, the sustainability crisis has raised interest in the concept of resilience, i.e., the capacity to persist, adapt, or transform in the face of change and challenge. However, to date, resilience has only been studied to a limited extent within early childhood education and care (ECEC). This paper reports on a study that used critical document analysis of national and international policies to explore if and how the concept of resilience within ECEC could contribute to sustainability in a world of rapid change. Five national and four international documents were analysed through the theoretical lenses of childism and place-based education. The results show that resilience is implicitly expressed in ECEC policies yet is rarely linked to sustainability issues. Instead, policies mainly limit resilience to the psychological dimension and the individual child. The conclusion is that ECEC is an apt context for supporting resilience in multiple ways. It suggests using a holistic understanding of resilience to advocate for ECEC policies that include diverse perspectives of families and local communities, incorporate indigenous voices, and recognise the interconnectedness between humans and the more-than-human world.

Premises for sustainability in Finnish early childhood teacher education-from vision to implementation. Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) should, according to national policy documents and curricula, promote sustainable development and a sustainable life style. Early childhood educators play a key role in implementing strategies of sustainability in ECEC. This implies that sustainability should have a prominent position in early childhood teacher education. However, this is not the case. The aim of this article is to present how sustainability is formulated in Finnish policy documents as well as the premises for sustainability education in early childhood teacher education. Methodologically the study builds on a triangulation of three types of research material; national policy documents, a study of teacher students' understanding of the concept of sustainable development, and a survey concerning courses on sustainability in early childhood teacher education. The results show a discrepancy between the vision and implementation of sustainability in Finnish early childhood teacher education. Based upon the study's findings, we discuss how sustainability could be reinforced in early childhood teacher education.