Professor Sonja Arndt

Profile

I am an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. My research and scholarship focus on cultural Otherness, early childhood education and the early years of childhoods. My current ARC project elevates complexities in early childhood teacher cultural realities. It argues for fresh and increasingly philosophical approaches to articulations of teachers' storying to bring to the fore their entangled nuances in their own and in children's lives. I am the President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA), Deputy Editor of Policy Futures in Education (PFIE) and co-editor of the book series, Children: Global posthumanist perspectives and materialist theories.

Research

Publications

Malone, K., Tesar, M., & Arndt, S. (2020). Theorising posthuman childhood studies. Singapore: Springer.

Arndt, S., Adriany, V., and Tesar, M. (2025). A feminist new materialist lens on gender and sexuality in early childhood: Insights from Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand. (pp. 437-459). In Prioletta, J., Davies, A., & Smith, K. (Eds). Handbook of gender and sexuality in early childhood. Bloomsbury.

Arndt, S. (2018). Otherness ’Without Ostracism or Leveling’ Towards fresh orientations to teacher foreigners in early childhood education. In M.A. Peters & M. Tesar (Eds.). Troubling the changing paradigms: An Educational Philosophy and Theory Early Childhood Reader. Volume IV. (pp. 95-105). Oxon, England: Routledge.

Arndt, S., Smith, K., & Yelland, N. (2024). Conceptualising ‘the more-than-migrant’ child. Qualitative Research Journal. Doi: 10.1108/QRJ-03-2024-0065

Sparrman, A., Hrechaniuk, Y., Smith, O.A., Andersson, K., Annerbäck, J., Arzuk, D., Bodén, L., Blaise, M., Castañeda, C., Coleman, R., Eßer, F., Finn, M., Gustafsson, D., Holmqvist, P., Josefsson, J., Kraftl, P., Lee, N., … Arndt, S. & Cardell, D. (2023). Child Studies Multiple – Collaborative play for thinking through theories and methods. Culture Unbound: Journal of current cultural research, 15(1), Linköping University Electronic Press: http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.3529

Arndt, S. (2020). Diffracting relationalities in early years pedagogies of care. Special Issue: Philosophies, politics, and pedagogies of care in the early years Global Studies of Childhood. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2043610620974016

Tesar, M., & Arndt, S. (2016). Re-configuring and Deterritorializing Subject↔Object Relations in Education, Editorial, Post-human perspectives on subject/object debates. Special Issue, Journal Educação Temática Digital. 18

Arndt, S., & Tesar, M. (2016). Early childhood assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand: Critical perspectives and fresh openings. Journal of Pedagogy. Special issue: Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi’: New Zealand Perspectives on Early Childhood Education, 6(2). 71-86. Doi: 10.1515/jped-2015-0014

Tesar, M. & Arndt, S. (2016). Vibrancy of childhood things: Philosophy and political ecology of matter. Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies, Special issue on new empiricisms/new materialisms, 16(2), 193-200. Doi: 10.1177/1532708616636144

Arndt, S., & Tesar, M. (2016). A more-than-social movement: The post-human condition of quality in the early years. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17(1), 16-25. Doi: 10.1177/1463949115627896

Expertise