Nikolay Veraksa is a Professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leading Researcher of the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow City University, Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Early Childhood Education and Development, Honored Doctor of Gothenburg University. Has an experience as an invited editor of the International Journal of Early Years Education (2011), European Early Childhood Education Research Journal (2014); published book Vygotsky’s Theory in Early Childhood Education and Research (edited by Nikolay Veraksa and Sonja Sheridan) – Routledge, 2018. Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson is Professor at University of Gothenburg. Her research interest focuses on didactic issues, that is, how preschools can contribute to children’s learning. She also devoted her research time to children’s learning in literature, ethics, mathematics, and ICT, as well as the youngest children in preschool. Further, she worked on a meta-analysis of all the empirical research performed in her research group regarding and developing a theoretical foundation for preschool education science.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Vygotsky's Theory Culture as a Prerequisite for Education.- 3. Learning and development in a designed world.- 4. Dialectical thinking.- 5. Social representations of play Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond.- 6. Children’s perspectives informing theories and Nordic preschool practice.- 7. Preschool children’s pretend play viewed from a Vygotskyan and a Piagetian perspective.- 8. Piaget and Vygotsky powerful inspirators for today’s students in early education.- 9. Constructivism and social constructivism in the study of relationship.- 10. Piaget and Vygotsky’s play theories The profile of Twenty-First-Century evidence.