This book explores the emergence of earthly methodologies in early childhood education approaches for thinking, creating, and acting in generative ways. Beginning with a 'wool-ing' encounter on a small beach in Oslofjord, a collective of women gather without predetermined aims, opening space for listening, care, and relational attention to bodies, materials, and place. Through diffractive inquiries, the chapters ask how attunement to Earth reshapes education. Drawing on ecofeminist, Indigenous, and posthuman perspectives, the book reimagines childhood as of the Earth - entangled, relational, and inseparable from planetary futures.

“Moving beyond anthropocentricism and human centered worlds is an urgent task and responsibility for today's scholars and educators. This creative, aesthetically engaging, and intellectually stimulating collection of examples and methodological invitations not only offers ways of knowing and doing 'otherwise’, but it also foregrounds multitudes of ecological and earthly (wool) becomings. Entangled multispecies care in action!”                                                                                                                        

----Mirka Koro, PhD, Professor of Qualitative research, Arizona State University

“This book is a powerful and imaginative exploration of earthly methodologies and unfolding childhoods in the Anthropocene. It foregrounds skillfully crafted research-creation encounters, wool-ing, sensing, drawing, making-with, that trace more-than-human relations across times, places, and material histories. Drawing on ecofeminism, critical posthumanism, and Indigenous knowledges, it opens vibrant alternatives to human-centered pedagogies. A compelling, multifaceted read that lingers as an invitation to think, feel, and practice otherwise.”

----Camilla Eline Andersen, PhD, Professor of Early Childhood Education, University of Inland Norway 

Karen Malone is a professor of education and environmental philosophy, geography, and childhood studies in the school of social science, media, film and education at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. She is an international author, educator, and post qualitative researcher who studies human–environment relations and the impacts of the ecological crisis on global childhoods and other-than-human earthly beings. Her research applies ecofeminist, posthumanist and Indigenous theoretical perspectives to key global issues such as multispecies kin, climate change and childhoodnature.

Mona-Lisa Angell is an associate professor of pedagogy at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Angell is a former preschool teacher and holds a Ph.D. in Humanities, Culture, and Education Science from the University of Southeast Norway. Her research is arts-based and post-qualitative and spans across pedagogy, art, philosophy, and politics. She is interested in relations between pedagogy, care, knowledge-production, difference-production, and social and earthly justice. Angell is co-editor of 'Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology', as well as past-editor of the ECEC practitioners’ journal ‘Barnehagefolk’, for which she served as editor-in-chief from 2010 to 2017. She currently co-leads the research group “Methodological Un‑twinings with(in) Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education Studies” with Hanne Berit Myrvold. 

Natália M. Santos da Costa is an associate professor and researcher at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. She is a psychologist and has obtained her Ph.D. at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Her work is underpinned by cultural-historical and systemic perspectives. Her research interests include the developmental and experiential facets of babies’ movement, embodiment, interactions, sociocultural processes in development as well as spatiality and materiality in Early Childhood Education and Care.  

Bente Fønnebø is a docent and senior researcher in arts and craft at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. She has also been a kindergarten teacher, special education teacher, archaeologist, and illustrator/artist.

Maybritt Jensen is a theatre scholar and associate professor in drama and theatre at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Her research interests are in qualitative and post-qualitative philosophy in arts based and performative research.  

Hanne Berit Myrvold is a preschool teacher and holds a Ph.D. in Educational Sciences from the department of education at Oslo Metropolitan University. She currently co-leads the research group “Methodological Un-twinings with(in) Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education Studies” together with Mona-Lisa Angell. Myrvold is also co-editor of “Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology”. Myrvold has a broad interest in different research topics related to early childhood studies, transdisciplinary and trans-/post qualitative research methodologies, and theories including more than human perspectives. Currently she teaches pedagogy at the Department of Early Childhood Education, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. 

Reiko Hayashi Nakata is an associate professor at Nagano Junior College in Japan. She is interested in early childhood and care (ECEC) policy and pedagogy in Nordic countries, especially its transformation within global trends. Together with colleagues from Japan, she has edited and co-authored books on education in Nordic countries.  

Cecilie Ottersland Myhre is associate professor of Pedagogy at the Department of Early Childhood Education, Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). Her work spans early childhood studies and the philosophy of education, and she has led and contributed to the research group “Methodological Un‑twinings with(in) Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education Studies,” exploring how methodologies both structure and enable experimentation. She holds an intermediate degree in psychology, foundation degrees in sociology and education, and Educational Professional Studies from the University of Oslo (UiO), and has extensive experience preparing future kindergarten teachers, developing and coordinating undergraduate programs, and leading the program on children’s development, play, and learning. 

Ann Merete Otterstad is an early childhood pedagogy, professor emerita at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Her research interest is on feminist new material and posthuman theories and post-qualitative research design and holds a Ph.D. in methodology. 

Ann-Hege Waterhouse is professor of arts education at the department of visual and performing arts education, faculty of humanities, sports and educational science, University of South-Eastern Norway. She holds a PhD in cultural studies and has worked in teacher education as an art teacher and researcher for more than 25 years. She has published widely in national and international outlets and has authored several books. Her research interests are wide-ranging, with particular emphasis on artistic research; materials and materiality in artistic processes; arts-based and post-qualitative methodologies; and children’s artistic processes in the school subject Design, Art and Crafts. She previously co-led the research group “Methodological Un‑twinings with(in) Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education Studies” with Cecilie Ottersland Myhre.