Susan Waltham is a Senior Lecturer teaching on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the School Of Education and Childhood at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her academic expertise is in child psychology and human development, diversity and equality. Her research is centred on identity construction in young children in multi-cultural, multi-linguistic settings. She also works as an independent consultant with organisations and early years settings in China, Pakistan and Malaysia. She was involved in developing a new school in Lahore, Pakistan that uses an emergent curriculum model for children of 3 to 12 years old. Currently she is working on introducing a play based curriculum to kindergartens (3 to 6 year-olds) in a number of cities in China. Susan has been a foster and adoptive parent for 31 years.