Recentring sociocultural practice in early years education: positioning MESH as a pedagogical orientation

The early learning environment has increasingly become a site of competing educational priorities. On one side are educators committed to holistic, play-based learning that values children’s curiosity, creativity, and social relationships. On the other side are policymakers influenced by neoliberal agendas emphasizing standardization, accountability, and the production of future workers for a competitive global economy. Over the past three decades, this latter orientation has come to dominate, narrowing pedagogical possibilities and constraining children’s agency. This shift has contributed to a growing emphasis on technical and measurable skills, while the humanities and social sciences are increasingly positioned as supplementary rather than foundational. Responding to renewed calls for socially and democratically engaged early years education, this conceptual paper positions MESH—Media Literacy, Ethics, Sociology, and History—as a transdisciplinary pedagogical orientation for recentring sociocultural practice in the early years. By situating MESH within contemporary debates in early years education, the paper highlights a growing scholarly consensus on the need to centre children’s rights, agency, and critical engagement with their social worlds. Its contribution lies in illustrating how these commitments may be enacted in early education settings through a transdisciplinary orientation that draws together insights from the social sciences.