Sonja Arndt

Sonja Arndt is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Education. Her academic career at the University of Melbourne includes prior roles as Lecturer, with her research and teaching intersecting philosophy of education, early childhood teacher education, and cultural studies. Arndt leads the Educational Philosophy Research Hub and is a member of the Global Childhoods Research Hub. Her research specializations encompass constructions of the self/other, children and childhoods, philosophy of education, intercultural pedagogy, cultural otherness, and posthumanist perspectives in early childhood contexts. Current projects include an Australian Research Council-funded investigation into early childhood teachers' cultural wellbeing, emphasizing philosophical approaches to teachers' storying and its entanglements in children's lives.

Arndt has authored and co-authored numerous influential publications. Key works include the co-edited book Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies (Springer, 2020); 'Early childhood teacher cultural otherness and belonging' (Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2018); 'Contesting early childhood professional identities: A cross-national discussion' (Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2018); 'Teaching in the age of Covid-19' (Postdigital Science and Education, 2020); and 'Philosophy of education in a new key: A collective project of the PESA executive' (Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2022). She frequently engages in collective writing projects that advance post-qualitative methodologies and reconceptualizations of early childhood professional identities. Arndt received the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in 2023 for her project Constructing a framework for early childhood teachers' cultural wellbeing. She serves as President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA), Deputy Editor of Policy Futures in Education, and co-editor of the Springer book series Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories. Her scholarship impacts early childhood education through diffractive ethics, transnational policy discussions, and reconceptualizations of teacher and childhood agencies.

Professional Email: sonja.arndt@unimelb.edu.au