Scholars have argued against a post-COVID return to normality on the grounds that the pandemic offers an opportunity to break with the past and imagine a different, more just future. In this analysis of pre-kindergarten teachers' reflections on teaching during COVID-19 in the state of Michigan, we take up the notion of the pandemic as a portal to…

Chile was one of the OECD member countries where schools stayed closed the longest during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study provides information about the type of relationship constructed between families and preschools and the conditions under which parental involvement occurred in distance learning experiences during the interruption of…

Having a qualified, stable, and healthy workforce is a critical component of a thriving early care and education (ECE) system. However, ECE educators--especially those who are women of color--have long encountered low wages and a lack of benefits, coupled with a physically demanding and stressful work environment. Burnout and teacher turnover are…

The main purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of preschool teachers who have inclusion students with special needs in their classrooms during distance education process carried out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with 10 preschool teachers who have inclusion students with special needs in…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services and families, impacting family access to services and their communication and engagement with educators. This study aimed to examine parents' perspectives of family engagement with ECEC services during the pandemic. Primary caregivers in…

In March 2020, COVID-19 dramatically and indelibly altered the U.S. educational landscape. Drawing on data from interviews with 30 Michigan preK teachers, Bethany Wilinski, Alyssa Morley, and Jamie Heng-Chieh Wu describe the centrality of family engagement in their pandemic preK education and the practices that contributed to stronger home-school…

Future Forward is an early elementary literacy program which, through a family-school-community partnership approach, integrates one-on-one tutoring and family engagement to support literacy development at school and at home. In the 2020-21 school year, as part of an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Mid-Phase grant, the impact of a modified…

This brief provides an overview of the four attendance-focused interventions districts partnering with the National Center for Rural Education Research Networks (NCRERN) implemented and evaluated through randomized controlled trials in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years. The tested interventions were personalized messaging, mentoring, family…

This study utilized a mixed methods design to analyze responses from a nationally distributed survey of professionals' (N = 1,000) experiences conducting initial evaluations for early intervention and preschool special education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most personnel reported pausing their initial evaluations at some point during the…

This study explored similarities and differences in how early childhood education (ECE) teachers (n = 947) and early childhood special education (ECSE) teachers (n = 160) provided remote learning to young children and their families following COVID-19 shelter in place orders in the spring of 2020. The most utilized remote learning activities for…

Communication between teachers and families in early childhood is a key aspect of successful teacher-family engagement. The goal of this exploratory study was to investigate how teachers communicated with families in early childhood classrooms and what they communicated about. This study of 31 teachers working with children birth to age five,…

This book brings together a series of papers on education in rural Zimbabwe. It is informed throughout by the generative theory of rurality, which sees rural communities as the most significant agents in solving the challenges they face. Against this theoretical backdrop, the 13 chapters challenge policy makers, researchers and educators to…

In this article we experimentally evaluate Colombia's Think Equal program, which teaches socioemotional skills to children ages 3 to 6. Given the context of COVID-19, the original design was adapted as a hybrid model, alternating in-person and remote instruction and engaging families in the implementation of the curriculum. We found that the…

This qualitative study examined families' experiences supporting young children's (ages 3-8) remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-three participants completed open-ended questions in an online survey and three of those participants shared further in an online, recorded focus-group interview. Parents revealed young children's…

This paper provides results from the randomized control trial project, Promoting Development and Home Reading of Supplementary Texts for Young Readers in Cambodia. One control and three treatment groups were assessed on how literacy and reading habits changed when households were provided a variety of high-quality and low-cost early reading…