Introduction to Children’s Exploration and Cultural Formation

The notions and ideas of the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which are outlined in Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2015), can be seen as an introduction to how exploration can be brought more directly into early childhood education, thus leading to children’s cultural formation both locally and globally. In this document, the UN and UNESCO ask for a loci-based, ecological, integral education. This educational process combines historical knowledge recognizing cycles and planetary boundaries with children’s equity and well-being in efforts to build better education programs for the future also along with critique that challenge the UN and research for not going far enough (Boldermo & Ødegaard, 2019; Holden, Linnerud, Banister, Schwanitz, & Wierling, 2018). With this book, we hope to take a step in this direction by bringing exploration and cultural formation into the debate while outlining our visons for future early childhood education (EEC). In line with Arjen Wals (2017), we find that children’s exploration and cultural formation are important for their creation of meaningful and compassionate lives, where both the nonhuman and human worlds on the Earth is the key questions of our time.