framework for guiding curriculum and pedagogy in all early childhood settings. In this article, several core members of the Charles Sturt University-led Consortium contracted to develop and trial the EYLF outline the political and policy context that has shaped its development; the intent and approach of the Consortium; and some of the many 'decision points and dilemmas' (Westbury, 2007) they encountered. The article concludes with reflections on lessons learned and implications for early childhood curriculum development.

Growing international interest in the early childhood years has been accompanied by an expansion of public programs in Australia targeting young children and their families. This article explores some of the influences and rhetoric that frame these initiatives. It encourages critical examination of the discourses that shape the nature of early childhood programs in Australia and identifies a range of barriers that inhibit the involvement of early childhood teachers in the design and delivery of social policy initiatives for young children. As the imperatives of programs seeking to overcome social disadvantage take prominence in Australian early childhood policy initiatives, pedagogical perspectives that promote universal rights to more comprehensive early childhood experiences can easily be silenced. The article calls for pedagogical leadership to overcome these barriers and promote the democratic rights of all children to high-quality and publicly supported early childhood education and care programs.Moss (2001) observes that early childhood education and care can often be viewed as 'technology for social stability and economic progress, the young child as a redemptive vehicle to be programmed to become a solution to certain problems' (p. 13). This powerful observation sets a context for the following critical analysis of the influences on early childhood social policy in Australia. Often expressed in the separate domains of health, welfare and education, this article exposes the dichotomies that these artificial demarcations create in a social policy context. While early childhood teachers may consider themselves influential in the design and delivery of education and care programs, powerful policy agendas are dominating the discourses of early childhood education and care that favour health and welfare imperatives over more comprehensive and pedagogically driven possibilities. Within this context, the term 'pedagogies' is used to express approaches to curriculum, learning and teaching that recognise the complex interconnectedness of health, welfare and education in young children's lives -approaches that are grounded in images of children as capable and resourceful.The article begins by outlining the global impetus for public interest in early childhood as an important life phase. It then analyses Australian responses to these influences and describes consequent changes to public provisions for young children within this country, drawing on specific examples, particularly within New South Wales. It argues that the selective use of particular types of research evidence and reliance on a narrow range of evidence is diminishing the importance of early childhood pedagogies. The article highlights a subtle and yet powerful shift in the intentions and outcomes for children's services across Australia. It alerts early childhood teachers to pervading images of the 'vulnerable and needy' child within social policy and how these images are acting to shape curriculum and ways in which teachers work with childre...

Early childhood education and care services in Australia are undergoing major reforms, following widespread community concern about the quality of provision in general and the viability of corporate childcare in particular. A National Quality Framework has been developed by the current Australian Government to improve the quality, access and equity of early childhood services. As with any major social, political and economic change, however, the implementation of the reform agenda is subject to complex and often competing forces. In the paper, we describe the early childhood landscape in Australia today, and the possibilities and potential barriers to carrying out the much needed reforms proposed by the Australian Government. Early childhood professionals and the wider community are embracing the opportunity to work together to achieve a transformation in the way we educate and care for young children.

Australia’s National Quality Framework identifies responsibilities for early childhood educators who work with infants to plan for and assess their learning. Educators are urged to be ‘responsive to children’s ideas and play’ and to ‘assess, anticipate and extend children’s learning’. Responsiveness in relation to infants is often couched in terms of emotional support and attention to the attachment relationship, or in detailed guidance about supporting the infant in care routines. Drawing on Levinas’s ideas of ethical encounter to frame a consideration of infants’ learning more broadly, this article suggests the possibility to see beyond traditional perceptions of infants as objects of the attachment relationship, and identifies the potential for infants to be viewed as ‘initiators’ who guide educators’ responses. Working with Levinas’s ideas of absolute responsibility in the face-to-face encounter, the notion of ‘response-ableness’ is used to examine educators’ decisions and actions as they share in learning encounters with infants. Using video footage captured during an infant’s encounter with learning, the decisions of the educator prove influential. Creating a narrative of this experience illuminates the educator’s response-ableness, and shows how an infant’s ideas and investigations might form the basis of the learning encounter. Close examination of educator response-ableness may lead to richer possibilities for infants’ encounters with learning, beyond the curriculum of care.

Images of children as strong and capable rights-holders have nestled comfortably into the vernacular of early childhood education and care discourses. Promoting a view of children as entitled to contribute to decisions that affect them, these images are now framing themes of many curricular guides and learning frameworks. The inclusion of infants in these curricular guides suggests that they too are entitled to have a say in their learning, and yet little is understood about how we might get to the heart of what an infant thinks, intends and experiences. This article explores possibilities for visual narratives to enable a closer proximity to infants' perspectives in relation to their learning. Drawing on Levinas's ideas about ethical encounter and benediction, the authors seek ways to make visible the thinking, theorising and intent of one infant as she reveals her interests in learning.