Liz Brooker is a Reader in Early Childhood at the Institute of Education, University of London. Liz was an early years’ teacher for many years, and her interest in the home experiences, and transitions to school, of ethnic minority children stemmed from her own work with children and families. Liz has continued to study early transitions, including those of infants and toddlers into their first group-care settings, with a focus on young children’s agency as they engage with new environments. More recently her work has focused on play, using a sociocultural perspective to describe how the social contexts of children’s play shape their own development and that of the communities they construct with others.