Sally Peters

Sally Peters is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Waikato, specialising in the transition from early childhood education to school, children's learning and development, and transitions at other life stages.

Academic career
Peters first completed a Diploma of Education at the University of Waikato, starting in 1987. She followed this with a Bachelor of Education, a Master of Education, and then completed a PhD titled "Crossing the border": An interpretive study of children making the transition to school at Waikato. Peters then joined the faculty of Victoria University of Wellington, in the Institute of Early Childhood Studies. Peters returned to the University of Waikato in 2000, and was appointed full professor in 2023. As of 2024 she is Head of Te Kura Toi Tangata School of Education Operations.

Peters research focuses on children’s learning and development, and in particular transitions. She began researching transitions from early childhood education to school, but moved on to include transitions at other life stages, and other kinds of transitions, such as transitions in thinking. She also researches edges and liminal spaces in a variety of contexts, such as cultural borders. Peters and Vanessa Paki co-led the New Zealand parts of a five-country international project, which was funded from the International Research Staff Exchange Scheme, and was called Pedagogies of Educational Transition [POET].

Peters was involved in the 2017 refresh of the early childhood education curriculum Te Whāriki, and is on the Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Voices Group, which advises on the implementation of the refreshed curriculum.

Peters is the anthology editor for The Bloomsbury Handbook of Early Childhood Transitions Research, along with Aline-Wendy Dunlop of the University of Strathclyde and Sharon Lynn Kagan, of Columbia University.