Access to playful experiences outdoors is critical for children's learning and development. With a significant amount of young children attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings (OECD, OECD Publishing, 2023), these programs have an important role in furthering children's equitable access to outdoor play. As part of a larger…

With a General Election just weeks away -- what are the British public's views on equality of opportunity and social mobility? Do today's voters want to see greater action to level the playing field, and should we be investing to equalise opportunities? To answer those questions, the Sutton Trust has commissioned More in Common to conduct…

Despite the crucial role early educators play in young children's development, the field has always struggled with poor compensation and inadequate support (McLean et al., 2021). The persistent undervaluation of the ECE sector and the labor provided by the nearly all-female workforce can be traced back to its racist roots, when enslaved Black…

In South Africa, the recruitment and retention of men to teach in the foundation phase (Grade "R"-3) has gained national attention. In a patriarchal society such as South Africa, where such jobs are regarded as the purview of women, men's perceptions of gender and gender equality in schools might explain their existence at this level of…

Pre-school teachers' competence to see and decide to use learning opportunities in informal play-based situations (i.e. situation-specific skills) is key for high-quality pre-school instruction. Current insights into pre-school teachers' situation-specific skills and their association with underlying teacher disposition and instructional materials…

Behavioral interventions delivered in preschools can help young children who need support for their behavior. However, preschool teachers face barriers to implementing behavioral interventions, leading to a research-to-practice gap. To better understand how to support preschool teachers, we conducted a scoping review of determinants (i.e.,…

This study examines the role of nature in children's literature on bookshelves in early childhood education settings to explore how books in kindergarten classrooms represent nature and the relationship between nature and humans. The findings are (a) cursory references, (b) human autonomy over nature, and (c) nature as a learning opportunity.…

Currently the number of men working in early years education in England is very low at 2%. This stubbornly resistant workforce pattern matters because it perpetuates the entrenched gender stereotype of young children's education and care as women's work. It is extraordinary to find this corner of gender statis in a world that is supposedly in the…

Background/Context: Both correlational and experimental evidence suggests that having access to books can be a key resource for accelerating the literacy outcomes for children. Results from a 20-year study across 27 nations by Evans, Kelley, Sikora, and Treiman (2010), suggest that children growing up in homes with many books obtain 3 years more…

With the study reported on here, we aimed to determine the career barriers on organisational alienation and professional burnout levels of pre-school teachers and to reveal the relationship between their organisational alienation and burnout levels. A relational survey model was used in the study. The population of the study consisted of 896…

Self-regulation is a critical emergent developmental competency that lays the foundation for children's later psychosocial health and academic achievement. Recent work indicates that physical activity and energetic play opportunities support children's self-regulation in the early childhood classroom. Many early childhood programs offer…

This study explores and compares the role of Bangladesh's universal preschool in enhancing learning achievement at the end of primary education before and after introducing a new policy. Children's access to preschool has increased, and the learning achievement of the preschool non-participants' decreased after introducing the new policy. The…

Purpose: We examine the content, context, and management of literacy learning opportunities in a large, diverse sample in the US and whether these opportunities were differentiated by children's oral language and decoding skill levels. Method: A total of 1,404 children in 153 preschool-through-third-grade classrooms were observed for several…

This study investigated the types of reading instruction and opportunities prekindergarten children have both at school and outside of school to understand how their reading develops during the first semester of prekindergarten. An abundance of research suggests that many children enter kindergarten lacking foundational reading skills that they…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how teachers of kindergarten through second grade describe students' socialization opportunities during online learning and the supports needed for effective fostering of socialization during online learning in southeastern Pennsylvania. The theoretical foundation for this research…