The goal of this study was to examine how different types of social experiences in kindergarten relate to Grade 1 academic achievement, while controlling for possible genetic and shared environmental influences through the use of the monozygotic (MZ) twin difference method. Social experiences in kindergarten included relationship quality with the…

This paper looks at ways in which a group of children aged three-four years exhibited evidence of self-regulation and metacognition. Videotaped episodes of children's activities and audiotaped dialogues between children and practitioners about the activities were analysed using an observational framework. The data here show children of three and…

This study explored the role of school in promoting positive bicultural and bilingual identities through the encouragement of Spanish use in 7 Latino children in 1 kindergarten classroom in North Carolina. Using a case study approach, researchers collected data through participant observations and interviews to examine the classroom practices of…

As a result of rapid demographic changes in our society, more children from diverse racial/cultural backgrounds join our early childhood classrooms. The majority of early childhood teachers, on the other hand, are middle-class and of European-decent. This paper provides early childhood teachers with both theoretical and practical understandings…

Social and economic changes affect children indirectly, through the modifications they engender in parental behavior. No-fault divorce laws, for example, made divorce easier and led to a substantial increase in the number of separated families. In contrast to social and economic change, technological change can impact children directly without…

In this Voices Inside Schools essay, Hannah Katch and Jane Katch reflect on gender roles and how they are enacted in the classroom. When Timothy, a student in Jane's kindergarten class, refuses to count himself as one of the boys during a math lesson, Jane begins a conversation about social constructions of gender with her daughter, Hannah.…

The purpose of this article is to revisit Parten's study on social play from cultural, environmental, social and economic aspects. Young children's social play is viewed as a critical means to foster and enhance language, cognitive, social and emotional development. Social play theory has been predominately viewed from developmental perspectives.…

The following article will address the need for classrooms to promote the use of children's literature whose characters speak in a dialect other than Standard English (specifically African American Vernacular English, or AAVE). It will begin by drawing attention to the lack of authentic representation of African Americans in picture books…

The intent of this study was to explore the perceptions of Black middle and upper class preservice teachers as they relate to teaching and learning in high poverty urban schools. Participants included 11 senior early childhood education preservice teachers at a historically Black college in the southeast region of the United States. The study was…

Set mainly in a UK context between 2003-2007, this article presents selected findings from a doctoral study, Companionable Learning: The Development of Resilient Well-being from Birth to Three; and from a series of subsequent studies carried out in English settings. Two questions have been explored: firstly, what are the interdependent components…

According to the National Research Council (NRC 2007), three critical components significantly influence students' science learning: teacher knowledge, teachers' opportunities to learn, and instructional systems. If students' science achievement is strongly correlated with teachers' science competence, and core competencies are central to…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the disability discourses of ten pre-service teachers enrolled in a one-semester undergraduate social studies and language arts methods course. This undergraduate course drew on a disability studies approach that advocated a social model rather than a traditional medical approach to…

Data from two qualitative research projects indicated a relationship between the type of early childhood setting and children's independent collaborative play. The first research project involved 22 three and four-year-old children in a daylong setting and 47 children four-year-old children in a sessional kindergarten. The second project involved…

In this study, we explored some of the factors related to the acceptance of evolution theory among Greek university students training to be teachers in early childhood education, using conceptual ecology for biological evolution as a theoretical framework. We examined the acceptance of evolution theory and we also looked into the relationship…

Global concerns about what constitutes an appropriate curriculum and pedagogy for young children inevitably raises questions for teacher educators and the content of teacher education programmes. These concerns have been particularly visible in England following recent policy initiatives and the resultant "academic shovedown" and…