ABSTRACT
This introduction chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book talks about dialogic pedagogy and the provocations it offers for the early years. It offers a persistent focus on dialogic pedagogy that is based on the inspiration of a Russian philologist and thinker called Mikhail Bakhtin. The term 'dialogism' can be loosely described as a way of exploring the social event of voice as learning. It provides tremendous scope to consider pedagogy well beyond traditional classrooms or even spoken language. Thinking about these concepts in relation to pedagogy provides a great deal of scope to consider the role of love, laughter and play in educational settings for the very young. Dialogic pedagogy advances the idea that teaching is a shared act or deed and, as such, the learner has a strong agentic role to play in their own learning and even in the learning of the teacher as an event-of-being.
