The World Yearbook of Education 2009 volume: Childhood Studies and the Impact of Globalization examines the concept of 'childhood' and 'childhood development and learning' from educational, sociological and psychological perspectives. This contributed volume seeks to explicitly provide a series of windows into the construction of childhood around the world, as a means to conceptualizing and more sharply defining the emerging field of global and local childhood studies. At the global level there has been an increasing discontent with how children have been reified and measured. Prevailing Eurocentric and North-American notions of 'childhood' and 'development' across the North-South boundaries show vast differences in how 'childhood' is constructed and how 'development' is theorized.

Marilyn Fleer is Professor of Early Childhood Education and Foundation Chair at Monash University, Australia. She is also the Centre Research Director for the Centre for Childhood Studies.

Mariane Hedegaard is a Professor and Leader of the Centre for Person, Practice, Development, and Culture (PPUK) at the Department of Psychology, Copenhagen University.

Jonathan Tudge is a Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA.