Reimagining Teachers’ Professional Development and Teaching Practices in Early Childhood Education: Toward UNESCO’s New Social Contract

1. Introduction

Today, the field of education faces unprecedented challenges that necessitate innovative approaches to teacher education and teaching practices (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Hussein, 2025; West & Bautista, 2022). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has called for establishing a new social contract for education to address numerous global challenges facing education, including, but not limited to, preparing younger generations for an increasingly interconnected, complex, and uncertain future. The new social contract demands a shift in teacher professional development (TPD) approaches and classroom pedagogies to prioritize equity, sustainability, holistic well-being, and collective agency in the face of immense global complexity. This editorial introduces the Special Issue entitled Teacher Professional Development and Teaching Practices in Early Childhood Education: An International Landscape. The issue brings together critical research spanning diverse international contexts and investigates foundational TPD approaches, pedagogical innovations, and systemic barriers in the field of Early Childhood Education (ECE). The new social contract for education requires moving beyond traditional TPD models (often defined by rigid academic metrics and standardized compliance) towards systems focusing on the educator’s professional agency and children’s unique needs. The articles included in the issue illuminate five critical domains where this transformation can be reimagined, namely: (1) reorienting TPD for sustainability and teacher agency; (2) pedagogical innovation in TPD and teaching children; (3) building teachers’ competencies for the future; (4) ensuring equity and inclusion in ECE; and (5) exploring and defining core teaching practice. This Special Issue illustrates the targeted reforms and philosophical transformations necessary to anchor TPD in ECE within this new social contract by UNESCO.

The International Commission on the Futures of Education of the UNESCO has articulated a vision for transforming education through a new social contract that positions education as a public endeavor and common good (UNESCO, 2021). In its seminal report, entitled “Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education”, UNESCO offers a transformative framework for reconceptualizing the teaching profession in the new age. Central to this transformation is the reconceptualization of teaching as “a collaborative endeavour where teachers are recognized for their work as knowledge producers and key figures in educational and social transformation” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 9). UNESCO’s vision for teacher professional development (TPD) moves beyond traditional models of individual skill acquisition, advocating for collaborative, inquiry-based, and socially transformative approaches.

The new social contract for education is grounded in two foundational principles that profoundly affect TPD: First, the principle of “assuring the right to quality education throughout life” expands the traditional conception of education to encompass lifelong learning and continuous professional growth (UNESCO, 2021, p. 12). Second, the principle of “strengthening education as a public endeavour and a common good” emphasizes the collective responsibility for educational outcomes and the need for collaborative approaches to teaching and learning (UNESCO, 2021, p. 13). These principles underscore the importance of nurturing teachers who can effectively work in diverse educational contexts and support students from varied backgrounds. The new social contract particularly resonates with the concept of teaching as a “collaborative profession” that prioritizes “reflection, research and the creation of knowledge and new pedagogical practices” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 90). UNESCO’s vision for TPD focuses on addressing conflicting demands teachers face in complex educational systems through institutional support, collaborative networks, and systemic change (Dussel, 2021).

UNESCO’s transformative framework regards the work of teachers as integral to reimagining education and fulfilling the social contract for our shared futures. This paradigm shift requires (1) reorienting TPD for sustainability and teacher agency by linking continuous TPD to practical experience so that teachers have the autonomy to employ their professional judgment and expertise in designing student learning. Concurrently, the framework stresses fostering (2) pedagogical innovation in TPD and teaching children, moving teaching from an individual activity within a closed classroom to collaborative work. This collaborative engagement involves envisioning new forms of curricula and utilizing cooperative learning approaches supported by networks of specialists. (3) Building teachers’ competencies for the future is vital, requiring that individual talents and abilities are strengthened by support and collaboration, with ongoing professional development focusing on subject, didactic, and pedagogical knowledge. This development can be instrumental in (4) ensuring equity and linguistic responsiveness to address the diverse learning needs of children in today’s classrooms and create just and equitable learning environments. Finally, these various transformations will be critical in (5) exploring and defining core teaching practices as inherently collaborative, characterizing teachers as masters of their environments whose professional knowledge is built through collective reflection on shared experiences.

The Special Issue brings together critical research spanning diverse international contexts and investigates foundational TPD approaches, pedagogical innovations, and systemic barriers in the field of Early Childhood Education (ECE). The following sections examine how TPD and teaching practices can be reimagined within UNESCO’s framework through the five critical dimensions highlighted above. Each article is categorized and summarized within the most directly related dimension, although we acknowledge that certain articles address multiple dimensions concurrently. Figure 1 provides a visual representation of these dimensions and their alignment with UNESCO’s vision for TPD and teaching practices.

2. Reorienting TPD for Sustainability and Teacher Agency

A cornerstone of UNESCO’s new social contract is the recognition of educators as agents of change, capable of critical reflection, dialogue, and ethical decision-making, rather than mere implementers of external policies. Several studies in this Special Issue reveal the tension between traditional, standardized TPD models and the demand for flexible, context-responsive professionalism. The following three subdimensions, namely teachers’ professional agency, structural reform in pre-service education, and sustainability through professional investment, have been derived from UNESCO’s (2021) framework.

2.1. Teachers’ Professional Agency

Arias de Sanchez and Li (Contribution 2) examined the conflict experienced by early childhood educators in a Canadian province tasked with piloting the highly structured, positivist Pyramid Model within an existing flexible, interpretivist curriculum framework. The clash between these paradigms generated significant tensions, manifesting as dilemmas including predictable versus unpredictable practices and professional interpretation versus compliance. Rather than abandoning their philosophical values, the educators engaged in reflective processes to achieve paradigmatic coexistence through iterative cycles of action research and focus groups. This reflexive approach led to professional growth, empowering educators to selectively blend Pyramid Model tools into their emergent, play-based practices. The study concludes that TPD must create spaces that spark dialogue and immerse educators in the discomfort of the unfamiliar to cultivate their agency and professional identity.

2.2. Need for Structural Reform in Pre-Service Education

To nurture such adaptive and reflective professionals, initial teacher education programs must move beyond insufficient structural models. Valle-Flórez et al. (Contribution 12) assessed the perceptions of 1048 future ECE teachers in Spanish universities, finding that while curricular design and planning were perceived as satisfactory, significant structural problems persisted in evaluation strategies and participation/interaction. Students expressed dissatisfaction with formative assessment and demanded timely, descriptive feedback and opportunities for reflection. Furthermore, low perceived participation was linked to large student cohorts, which impede the active methodologies necessary for implementing the competence-based approach advocated by the European Higher Education Area. These findings demonstrate that reimagining teacher education requires institutional commitment to reducing cohort sizes and prioritizing flexible, reflexive evaluation practices.

2.3. Sustainability Through Professional Investment

A successful social contract relies on a motivated and committed workforce. Drawing on the job demands–resources theory, Leung and Lam (Contribution 6) investigated the impact of professional development opportunities on Chinese kindergarten teachers’ work performance. The research confirmed that professional development opportunities function as crucial job resources, positively predicting work performance by enhancing teachers’ professional commitment and work engagement. This highlights a direct link between investment in high-quality professional learning and the sustained quality of ECE. Therefore, institutional support, strategic TPD offerings, and a focus on minimizing time and resource constraints are essential policy interventions for realizing the aims of UNESCO’s social contract.

3. Pedagogical Innovation in TPD and Teaching Children

The new social contract proposed by UNESCO (2021) places children’s holistic development and well-being at its center, demanding that education systems prioritize relational and socio-emotional capacities over a narrow focus on pre-academic goals. The three following subdimensions, namely integrating arts, play, and holistic development, play as pedagogical resistance, and digital tools for positive education, emerge from UNESCO’s call for pedagogical innovation that centers children’s holistic well-being and socio-emotional development.

3.1. Integrating Arts, Play, and Holistic Development

Several studies of the Special Issue highlight how pedagogical innovations rooted in creative expressions and play can operationalize the goal of holistic development. One of them is the study by Rodrigues et al. (Contribution 11), which describes Portuguese initiatives that integrate music, arts, and environmental education to promote children’s social understanding and emotional regulation. These projects embody a “caring cluster” concept, recognizing that improving childhood care is the mission of a supportive community, involving families, educators, teachers, and artists. This multidisciplinary model aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. The study employs a qualitative methodology, using interviews and observations across multiple ECE settings to document how arts integration fosters both children’s development and teachers’ professional growth. The authors emphasize communicative musicality as an innate human capacity for coordinating vocalizations and gestures, which is foundational for cognitive and linguistic development, demonstrating how arts-based approaches can enhance multiple developmental domains simultaneously.

3.2. Play as Pedagogical Resistance

Wiltshire et al. (Contribution 13) argue that ensuring playful learning is an act of defiance against mandated systems that prioritize scripted curricula and testing. Through a mixed-methods study integrating real-world fieldwork via community-engaged learning, the researchers successfully demonstrated to pre-service teachers how play is vital for academic skills, executive function, and socio-emotional development. Pre-service teachers engaged directly with children in community settings, documenting play behaviors and reflecting on their observations through guided coursework. This approach cultivates an asset-based lens toward playful pedagogies, preparing teachers to advocate for developmentally appropriate practice within complex accountability systems. The study found that direct community engagement significantly shifted pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the legitimacy and necessity of play-based learning.

3.3. Digital Tools for Positive Education

Li et al. (Contribution 7) address the scarcity of positive education in TPD by deploying an online digital storytelling workshop for Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. Through the workshop, teachers mastered digital storytelling techniques (e.g., filming or incorporating emotional content) to teach positive values such as character strengths like love and bravery. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-workshop assessments, revealing significant gains in teachers’ confidence and competence in both digital literacy and positive education pedagogy. This bridges digital literacy with the promotion of well-being, moving positive education from abstract theory to practical, hands-on application that teachers can immediately implement in their classrooms.

4. Building Teachers’ Competencies for the Future

Based on UNESCO’s new social contract, ECE professionals should possess robust technical and pedagogical content knowledge to navigate the digital and scientific complexity of the 21st century. The following four subdimensions, which include integrating technology and computational thinking, mastering foundational science and arts skills, online professional development, and relational competence, derive from UNESCO’s emphasis on preparing teachers with future-ready competencies. Multiple articles in this Special Issue address these subdimensions, reflecting their centrality to contemporary TPD.

4.1. Integrating Technology and Computational Thinking

Preparing future teachers for technology integration is crucial for maintaining relevance in modern classrooms. Hijón-Neira et al. (Contribution 3) investigated an innovative methodology using AI-generated contexts to teach educational robotics and foster computational thinking among preservice ECE teachers in Spain. The study found that the AI-aided methodology significantly increased participants’ confidence in their ability to teach with educational robots. The AI-generated context made content more relatable and supported personalized learning, resulting in improvements in computational thinking domains such as problem-solving and algorithmic thinking. This research highlights the need to incorporate AI and educational robotics into teacher education and TPD programs to prepare future educators for modern classrooms.

4.2. Mastering Foundational Science and Arts Skills

Specialized pedagogical gaps persist in foundational areas. Zoupidis et al. (Contribution 14) studied preservice teachers’ intentions to use inquiry-based science learning, specifically the control of variables strategy. Using the theory of planned behavior as their theoretical framework, they administered questionnaires to 156 preservice teachers and conducted follow-up interviews. Their findings emphasized that while student teachers showed a strong intention to implement inquiry strategies, this intention was hindered by their estimation of the opinions of significant others (normative factors) and perceived personal gains/losses (attitudinal factors). Importantly, the study revealed that different levels of control of variables strategy comprehension correlated with distinct approaches in their future teaching, arguing that initial teacher education must ensure consistent, explicit mastery of such scientific inquiry skills.

Similarly, Kong and Xiong (Contribution 5) surveyed 402 pre-service ECE teachers in Hong Kong and found that they reported the lowest self-confidence in teaching music activities requiring specialized skills (e.g., instrumental performance, music creation), compared to other learning areas. Using correlation analysis, they established a strong positive correlation between confidence and belief in music’s importance, underscoring the necessity for TPD to address these pedagogical content knowledge deficits. The challenge is heightened further by the dissonance between traditional Confucian values, which favor rote memorization and teacher authority, and the modern child-centered curriculum demanding creative, student-led pedagogies.

4.3. Online Professional Development (OPD)

For the new social contract to be realized, TPD must be accessible and flexible. Ng and Bautista (Contribution 9) demonstrate that online TPD models provide sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable solutions, which are crucial, especially for addressing post-pandemic educational realities and diverse teacher needs. Through a survey of 89 Hong Kong kindergarten teachers who participated in a music-and-movement online TPD course, the researchers found that high-quality online courses resulted in high satisfaction, especially among teachers who initially had limited music-and-movement backgrounds. Online TPD allows teachers to access materials asynchronously, revisit content, reduce travel costs, and balance professional responsibilities. The success of asynchronous online TPD in teaching complex skills validates its potential as an effective format for delivering specialized, hands-on, and novel content.

4.4. Relational Competence and Emotional Self-Regulation

Nilfyr and Ewe (Contribution 10) conducted a systematic review underscoring the critical importance of high-quality teacher–child relationships in fostering emotional self-regulation, a skill recognized globally as pivotal for academic success and school readiness. Their review, grounded in an interactionist perspective and Scheff’s theory of social bonds, examined 28 empirical studies and warned that the pervasive global trend toward pre-academic instruction risks marginalizing essential relational values, potentially hindering learning by eliciting frustration in children. The review highlights that teachers’ socio-emotional competence, the ability to recognize, acknowledge, and manage emotions, is essential for creating secure social bonds. This competence acts as a vital buffer against children’s behavioral challenges. Conversely, teachers who struggle to regulate their own emotions risk undermining teacher–child relationships, thereby hindering children’s emotional development. The authors argue that TPD must elevate relational competence, alongside subject-specific knowledge, as an integral part of contemporary ECE programs.

5. Ensuring Equity and Linguistic Responsiveness

Equity and inclusion are fundamental demands of the UNESCO global education agenda. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on education aim to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all. Moreover, the new social contract highlights the need for teacher education and TPD to become acutely responsive to cultural and linguistic diversity and to address systemic resource inequalities. Addressing the interconnected nature of linguistic and cultural diversity in achieving the overarching goal of equity is critical because educational disparities often follow lines of language and culture, contributing to exclusion. Simultaneously, the classroom environment for literacy equity must be transformed to address the reality that many students worldwide lack the minimum reading proficiency. Schools must be reimagined as protected, safe, and inclusive educational sites, with their architectures and spaces redesigned to encourage individuals to work together and facilitate effective collaboration. Two key subdimensions emerged here.

5.1. Supporting Multilingual Children and Culturally Responsive Teaching

Jaramillo-López et al. (Contribution 4) conducted a scoping review focused on practices used by monolingual educators teaching multilingual children with minoritized languages. The review confirmed that a warm, linguistically responsive teaching and culturally responsive teaching environment is essential for ensuring children feel welcome and successfully engage in learning. Key strategies identified include facilitating translanguaging (allowing first language use in play-based contexts), providing multilingual materials, and using nonverbal communication. However, the review noted that explicit culturally responsive teaching practices regarding immigrant families are often scarce in regions like Latin America, where teacher preparation for multilingualism tends to be inadequate. The authors argue that effective practice requires collaboration with multilingual colleagues (assistants or intercultural facilitators) and families to exchange cultural knowledge. This underscores the responsibility of TPD programs to intentionally incorporate these culturally and linguistically responsive practices to counteract the systematic marginalization of minoritized languages.

5.2. Classroom Environment for Literacy Equity

Addressing equity also involves ensuring access to high-quality learning environments and appropriate materials. Alsubaie (Contribution 1) investigated the relationship between the early childhood literacy classroom environment, teachers’ practices, and Arabic-speaking children’s acquisition of literacy skills in Saudi Arabia. The study used structural equation modeling to confirm a mutual, evidence-based interrelationship among all three variables. A conducive physical environment (e.g., availability of books, appropriate furniture, and good lighting) positively affects both children’s acquisition of literacy skills and teaching practices. Effective practices, such as interactive reading and reflexive dialogue, support children’s oral, narrative, and vocabulary skills. The study pointed out a challenge related to resource scarcity, noting a relative lack of high-quality learning materials for teaching Arabic literacy compared to those available for other languages. This gap requires policymakers and institutions to actively partner with institutions to produce appropriate educational materials, ensuring equitable access to the tools needed for foundational literacy development among children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

6. Exploring and Defining Core Teaching Practices

To effectively implement the ambitious goals of the new social contract, the ECE field requires a shared, empirically grounded definition of what constitutes excellent teaching. The transformative vision of the new social contract relies heavily on exploring and defining core teaching practices, which requires moving away from the unsustainable demands of teaching as a solitary practice and recasting it as a collaborative profession characterized by teamwork. Key practices include empowering teachers as reflexive practitioners and knowledge producers, granting them the necessary autonomy and support to design and generate new pedagogical methods and research collectively.

López-Jiménez et al. (Contribution 8) address this need through a systematic review focusing on the identification of core practices, which are fundamental teaching actions that significantly impact learning. The review confirms a global interest in incorporating core practices into teacher education programs. While the conceptualization of core practices follows five dimensions, recent research places an overwhelming emphasis on teachability, often neglecting the empirical validation of the practices’ impact on student learning or their relevance in complex, real-world contexts involving in-service teachers. A major finding is the significant gap in empirical evidence for identifying core practices exclusively for teacher education in ECE. The authors caution that adopting generic core practices lists derived from higher educational levels, such as eliciting student thinking, risks becoming decontextualized and inappropriate for ECE learners who are still developing language and thinking skills. They urge the ECE community to identify core practices by studying successful practices of experienced in-service teachers across diverse settings, rather than relying solely on abstract theory. This work is essential to construct a common language and a precise repertoire of high-leverage practices that meet the aspirational demands of the new social contract for education.

7. Conclusions: Charting the Path to a New Social Contract for TPD in ECE

The collective insights from this Special Issue underscore that reimagining TPD in ECE must be a systemic endeavor that confronts inherited philosophical conflicts, addresses structural deficiencies, and intentionally embeds equity and human development into its core methodologies (Fairman et al., 2023). The new social contract for education is not a passive framework but an active mandate for transformation.

The articles included in this Special Issue illustrate the following imperatives drawn from the research in TPD and teaching practices in the field of ECE:

• Elevating Teacher Agency: TPD must move away from promoting compliance toward fostering reflective tension and supporting the negotiation of conflicting paradigms (e.g., interpretivism and positivism). This recognizes that professional growth occurs through reflexive dialogue and co-creation of knowledge.
• Investing in Holistic Competence: Relational competence and socio-emotional skills must be centrally taught as foundational professional competencies, alongside specialized pedagogical content knowledge in inquiry science, music, and arts, ensuring teachers can foster emotional self-regulation and holistic development.
• Mandating Context-Responsive Educational Approaches: Initial teacher education programs must undergo structural reform, reducing excessively large student cohorts, providing timely, high-quality formative feedback, and integrating immersive, community-engaged learning to link theory with practice in culturally relevant ways.
• Prioritizing Digital and Equitable Access: TPD must strategically leverage scalable formats like online TPD to deliver specialized content (e.g., computational thinking and digital storytelling) and urgently address resource disparities, such as the scarcity of culturally and linguistically appropriate materials for minoritized language groups.
• Establishing Core ECE Practices: Future research must employ rigorous, contextualized methodologies to empirically validate core practices specific to ECE, ensuring that the next generation of teachers operates with a precise, high-leverage set of actions aligned with the complex demands of multilingual and holistic learning environments.

By responding to UNESCO’s call through these concentrated efforts, the global ECE community can ensure that TPD becomes a pathway for delivering a high-quality, equitable, and transformative education that truly prepares children and educators alike for our shared, highly interconnected, and complex future.