Submission Information – Due Dates + Editorial Themes

Our print magazine is published quarterly. Below are the editorial themes and print* deadlines for Exchange.

SPRING (Feb.) 2025 – Climate and Hopeful Futures

• Articles Due: November 1, 2024

SUMMER (May) 2025 – Intergenerational Relationships

• Articles Due: February 1, 2025

For this issue, we are eager to curate pieces that highlight those who come together in collaborative and creative communities across the boundaries of age and experience. These intergenerational relationships are at the heart of early childhood, and this issue is devoted to celebrating them.

Each day, in early contexts of care, education, and creativity the world over, adults and children co-create communities rooted in love, play, and imaginative exploration. Even among adults working, for example, on teaching teams in communities of practice, or on strategic initiatives, there are often multiple generations at work. All of this is not to mention the many directors, administrators, and policymakers who support the work of classrooms by advocating for the field and amplifying the stories of everyday educators and children for broader audiences. Together, they surface, draw from, deepen and challenge a broad store of knowledges–and, of course, move toward new ones! Submissions might explore these relationships and their fruits, challenges, and invitations.

What, we are eager to wonder, does it mean to envision early childhood education as intergenerational work?

FALL (Aug.) 2025 – Storytelling for Advocacy + Impact

• Articles Due: May 1, 2025

To be human is to tell and be immersed in not just one, but in many worlds of stories. Stories about who we are as people and as educators, stories about children and who and what they are, and about the field in general (including directing, teaching, leading, and working in community) motivate, challenge, concern, and provoke us. Storying our lives, our worlds, and our work are processes that are forever unfolding—and these processes can be generative spaces as we strive to grow in our work and as we decide to advocate for the work that we do. In this issue we invite pieces centered on these stories. How, we wonder, is storytelling related to advocacy?

In early childhood education (ECE) advocacy is a popular word. At its core, it involves action—the pursuit of opportunity, equity, and voice and, (through inviting all of these) storytelling creates a space for transformation, change, and lasting impact. Perhaps you are a policymaker who has worked to tell important stories for years in pursuit of systems-level change in your local, state, or organizational context. You might also be a teacher for whom telling stories to, about, and for children is a central piece of your work—how, via these stories, do you advocate for children? How do your stories support others in deepening their images of the child?

We are also interested in stories of self. One of the most powerful stories—that has huge implications for how, of if, one becomes an advocate, is the story they tell themselves about themselves. What is your story as an educator? What might the stories of educators bring to or add to conversations about the field both on the levels of practice/pedagogy and policy? As you write, remember: stories are not static. Indeed, it is their flexibility–their ability to shift, change, evolve, transform and be re-imagined over time and in light of new experiences–that often renders them so appealing.

WINTER (Nov.) 2025 – Emergent Leadership Strategies

• Articles Due: August 1, 2025

While traditional paradigms of leadership emphasize things like the bottom line, outcomes, and so-called measurable outcomes / benchmarks, those of us who work in human and heart-centered professions such as early childhood know that being a leader goes far beyond any or even all of those things. Leaders inspire, encourage, and support, they embrace collaboration and, with deep humility and honesty, understand that they are not the sole holders of knowledge. As we curate this issue, we are interested in collecting work that explores innovative leadership practices that embrace collectivity, collaboration, and that are unafraid to challenge the status quo.

Perhaps you are an early childhood leader who changed things up and watched your program transform as a result? Perhaps you are wondering about what is possible, and have musings and questions that you are wrestling with? Maybe you’re a classroom teacher who is thinking about what leadership looks like in your role? You might even be someone who’s started to invite children into conversation on big issues and ideas, following a co-leadership model that’s more radical than you might have once thought possible? What might process-oriented leadership look like? Where do current frameworks get things right? Where might they grow? We welcome insights from practitioners and thinkers across all domains.

*Note: Submissions for the digital magazine are accepted any time!

• Innovative + Inspiring Pedagogies
  • Nature- and land-based pedagogies
  • Indigenous and culturally-sustaining pedagogies
  • Emergent and child-centered practices
  • Visual and multimodal expressions
  • Perspectives on / stories from family child care (FCC)
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, + Belonging
  • Anti-bias and anti-racist practices
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion
  • Indigenous and culturally-sustaining pedagogies
  • Multilingual learners and communities
  • Working with and supporting children of diverse ability / with special rights
  • Creating communities grounded in inclusion
• Social + Emotional Development
  • Social and emotional learning (including expansive paradigms)
  • Trauma-informed practices and perspectives
  • Practitioner self-care
  • Working with families
  • Supporting families through life transitions

• Advocacy
  • Participatory community work
  • Early childhood issues and advocacy
  • Strategies for taking action
• The Arts + Creativity
  • Supporting creativity and innovation in children and in teachers
  • Arts-based work, research, and practice
• Literacy + Storytelling
  • Emergent literacy practices and perspectives
  • Work that embraces an expansive approach to literacy / multiliteracies
  • Selecting and curating literature for children
• Teaching + Learning
  • Teacher stories and research
  • Teacher training and formation
  • Teacher practices
• Leadership, Professional Learning + Growth
  • Institutional + pedagogical leadership
  • Professional growth and development
  • Communities of practice and co-inquiry
  • Mentoring, coaching, and team-building