Background: Little is known about how parents and other caregivers conceptualize preschool quality, or what factors they prioritize when selecting a preschool. Caregivers of children with disabilities have the additional challenge of finding a preschool that can address their children's special needs. Objective: We explored the factors caregivers…

Affording children's agency is an important pedagogical underpinning of a high-quality early childhood program. Yet little is known about how teachers' interactions create spaces for children's agency. From the perspectives of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this paper investigates how teachers and children navigate agency through…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe kindergarten teachers' experiences with integrating play-based learning into standards-based academic curriculum in a school district in South Carolina. Play-based learning experiences were defined as instances which allow children to engage in active, social learning experiences in…

This study explored the lived experiences of 20 Australian early childhood preservice teachers while on practical experience placement and examined the factors that informed their pedagogical experiences when working across both prior-to-school and school settings. Transcripts from interviews were analysed using grounded theory-informed…

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated longstanding systemic and structural inequities in early childhood, particularly for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and low-income families and providers. Through the remainder of 2020, it is anticipated that the pandemic will continue to disproportionately impact these communities. In July and August, the authors…

Leaders, policymakers, and systems developers seek to improve early childhood programs through data driven decision-making. Data can be useful for informing continuous quality improvement efforts at the classroom and program level and for creating support for workforce development at the system level. Early childhood program leaders use…

In the context of joint decision-making, we investigated whether preschoolers alter the informativeness of their justifications depending on the common ground that they share with their partner. Pairs of 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 146) were introduced to a novel animal with unique characteristics (e.g., eating rocks). In the common ground condition,…

Early childhood professionals have established a set list of characteristics that denote a high quality early care and education environment for children under the age of kindergarten, but these may not be the same characteristics that parents consider in the decision-making process. The researcher used survey research to obtain quantitative…

Educare is a network of enhanced Early Head Start (EHS)/Head Start (HS) (birth to age 5) programs that implement innovative Research-Program Partnerships (RPPs) to engage researchers, program leaders, staff, and at times, other stakeholders in a collaborative approach to supporting data use practices for decision-making and continuous quality…

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) is a framework for delivering effective and efficient services and supports to meet the needs of all young children and their families so they can achieve essential developmental and early academic learning outcomes. With this evidence-based planning book and video set, you'll discover how to design,…

American public schools today are perhaps more linguistically and culturally diverse than at any other point in American history. Nearly one in ten U.S. students is currently classified as an English learner (EL). This report explores the intersection between ELs and charter schools and provides ideas for helping policymakers use charters as…

In this study, the pedagogical decision-making processes of 21 Australian early childhood teachers working with children experiencing parental separation and divorce were examined. Transcripts from interviews and a focus group with teachers were analysed using grounded theory methodology. The findings showed that as teachers interacted with young…

This study investigated kindergarten teachers' decision-making process regarding the acceptance of computer technology. We incorporated the Technology Acceptance Model framework, in addition to computer self-efficacy, subjective norm, and personal innovativeness in education technology as external variables. The data were obtained from 160…

Preschool children's interest in popular culture is linked to many determinants of obesity development including branded energy-dense foods and sedentary play using digital technologies. In addition, highly packaged foods and throwaway toys reinforce unsustainable environmental habits encouraged by immersive marketing systems. Interrupting the…

This report describes the quality improvement efforts of early childhood education programs participating in Iowa's Quality Rating System (QRS). It identifies supports and barriers to quality improvement and examines how quality improvement supports and activities relate to changes in program quality ratings across time. The study team developed…