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We present a conceptual analysis, grounded in empirical data, of how young children’s creative play is framed by the ‘pedagogic culture’ within which the child is playing. Drawing on data from a research study with the broad aim of documenting children’s creative play in Western play-based early childhood education, we gathered exploratory qualitative observations, self-initiated iPad video diaries and researcher-led activities to describe children’s creative play. We adapted the Analysing Children’s Creative Thinking Framework as a starting point for coding and the analyses focused on three contextual cues within the pedagogic culture – space, interpersonal collaborations and materials. We ground our discussion in a contextualist theoretical frame to demonstrate that in isolation, each contextual cue presents a degree of framing to children’s creative play. When analysed as a synergy of contextual cues, however, we begin to see that the dynamic make-up of each of the contexts, and the interplay among them, create a ‘pedagogic culture’ that transforms children’s creative play. We present ‘stories’ of each pedagogic culture that we observed, to describe how children’s creative play manifested within each culture.

This article explores the use of iPads as part of a child-centred data collection approach to understand young children's creativity. Evidence is presented from a small study of three-to five-year-old children's creative play. Analysis of the children's engagement with iPad video diaries and free-to-use tablet applications was logged across two early educational settings over a threemonth period. The findings suggest that iPads offer a mechanism to allow children to articulate their creative play and to encourage involvement in the research process. However, bespoke research software to use with early years children is required to improve this process. Keywords Creativity, iPad, methodology, play, technology, young childrenThis article reflects on the process of using technologies -specifically iPads -as part of a childcentred data collection approach for understanding creativity. The context for this article is a series of methodological questions that were challenging for the design of a study into children's creativity. The aim of the project was to establish effective methodologies for exploring young children's creativity in partnership with the child, including their perspective. Several explorations of children's creativity were evident in the literature (Howard-Jones et al., 2002;Kudryavtsev, 2011;

This case study of a first-year woman principal in a small, rural school district describes succession effects from the perspectives of the female principal, some faculty members, a parent, and another administrator in the district. Open-ended interviews with the participants revealed a number of conflicting perceptions. The new principal perceived that she was successful in bringing about changes in the school on behalf of children. However, most of the faculty members considered the principal to be unsuccessful because she did not value their expertise or listen to their point of view. Some members of the community and the school board adopted the teachers’ perceptions. In the middle of her second year, the principal was terminated. Implications drawn from this case study may be of value to school leaders.