The practice of pedagogical documentation in Early Childhood Education is much more than making children's learning visible. Instead, it should be understood as a way of giving value to pedagogical work. According to Malaguzzi (1998), education is about taking positions on ethical and pedagogical values. Thus, what kinds of meanings we make through pedagogical documentation matter (Lenz Taguchi, 2010). In other words, working with pedagogical documentation leaves a visible manifesto offering the possibility to discuss and engage in dialogue around the pedagogical work and disposition, generating questions, meanings, curiosity, and knowledge. In this regard, Lenz Taguchi (2010) argues that pedagogical documentation is an active agent in generating discursive knowledge and part of the process of constructing meaning in pedagogical practice, "it becomes what it actively does and performs" in relation to the curriculum-making process (p. 64). Pedagogical documentation takes the shape of the curriculum inquiry. It becomes a driving force in the curriculum-making process, opening possibilities for approaching curriculum as becoming and living. It makes us aware of our pedagogical and ethical responsibility as educators. Lenz Taguchi (2010) states that in this process "we are collaborative creators and inventors of learning events with children and our colleagues” (p. 94). 

In this new special issue of the Journal of Childhoods and Pedagogies, we have invited examples of pedagogical documentation from Canada and Australia that regard the curriculum inquiry and pedagogical documentation as living and ongoing curriculum-making processes and perceive educators/inquirers engaging in collaborative processes of creating knowledge and meanings with children and/or other educators. The following examples of pedagogical documentation will take the reader on journeys to blackberry bushes, volcanos, roads to freedom, community gardens, slippery wooden ice rinks, forests with "faces", and many other worlds. This work attends to how ideas, knowledge, and understandings are created and co-constructed. Pedagogical documentation is a way of knowing, re-knowing, re-cognizing the worlds, and challenging and disrupting the taken-for-granted status quo. 

Happy reading the best wishes from

Dr. Annabella Cant, Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Bo Sun Kim, Guest Editor

Note: all families and educators have given written consent for the use of photographs and identifiers of their children in this issue of the Journal of Childhoods and Pedagogies.

References

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education:

Introducing an intra-activity pedagogy. London, UK: Routledge.

Malaguzzi, L. (1998). History, ideas, and basic philosophy: An interview with Lella Gandini. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds.), The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia approach--advanced reflections (2^nd ed.). (pp. 49-97). Greenwich, CT: Ablex.