Research and theory suggests that children and families are best served by a preschool to third grade approach (PreK-3) to early childhood education that is aligned, integrated, and based on developmentally appropriate practice. Because of the recent expansion of publicly funded preschool programs, principals are becoming increasingly responsible…

Preschool teachers have a responsibility to create a sense of belonging for all children and families in their classroom community. Utilizing a funds of identity approach, this study examines how one preschool teacher uncovered the resources emergent bilingual children brought with them from home into school. She used this knowledge to…

In UNESCO's recent publication "Education for Sustainable Development: A Roadmap" the idea of community is described as playing an important role in the organization of education for sustainable development as a means of supporting transformations towards sustainability. In the present study we examine the relationship between community…

A prominent phenomenon in education in Europe and internationally is the demand for research-based education, which is also the case in Sweden, the context of this study. Therefore, greater academic demands have been placed on teachers, which can present a distinctive challenge for teachers who were educated when teacher education prioritised…

More than sixty years after "Brown v. Board of Education," racial and economic segregation in American schools is deepening. At the same time, dynamic racial and economic change in cities and suburbs offers new opportunities for intentional school integration. School leaders are an integral part of those opportunities. We draw on the…

This study investigated the impact of a course-based community asset mapping (CAM) project on undergraduate students' capacity for identifying and understanding assets within communities surrounding specific schools. The mapping project was grounded in the literature on culturally sustaining pedagogy and experiential education and involved teacher…

This joint Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) written by Swati Adarkar, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education (ED) and Katie Hamm, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) highlights various sources of funding streams to support high…

The current paper describes an urban university-anchored but community-based consortium of early childhood centers and community partners in a large Midwestern US city. The goal of the Consortium is to provide professional development opportunities that include networking, coaching, and collaboration as part of a community of practice (CoP)…

The aim is to contribute knowledge about educators' beliefs about children's belonging in early childhood education. The study applies parts of Nira Yuval Davis's theory about the politics of belonging. Six group interviews were conducted with educators from four Swedish preschools. A content analysis is used as a first step, followed by a…

Although most education policy decisions are made at the state level, America has been having a national debate over the future of our schools for the last several years. Arguments have raged over COVID-related closures and the resultant student learning loss, Critical Race Theory, school funding, parental choice, college debt, and more. The 2022…

As linguistic diversity increases in the U.S., it is essential for pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs to expand their capacity to serve families whose home languages are not English. Family engagement is a key component of early childhood education; however, it is unclear whether family engagement practices uniformly benefit students from diverse…

This book presents the Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model (TIPM), an innovative framework for promoting critical consciousness toward decolonization efforts among educators. The TIPM challenges readers to examine how even the most well-intentioned educators are complicit in reproducing ethnic stereotypes, racist actions, deficit-based…

Little is known about how supportive relationships and parent communities materialize, or fail to materialize, in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings characterized by family diversity. This paper explores parents' lived experiences of belonging and non-belonging through semi-structured interviews with 12 parents of children from…

This study sought to evaluate the self-learning curricula of a kindergarten in Saudi Arabia by applying the context, input, process, product (CIPP) model. To this end, the study utilized a mixed-method design, where teachers (N = 420) had been randomly selected and surveyed, and school inspectors (N = 15) had been interviewed. Furthermore, a…

Parents and guardians can be a powerful resource for teachers, but it takes skill and confidence to build partnerships, or parentships, and proactively engage in a positive way. Kyle Palmer draws from his experience as both a principal of a Model PLC at Work® school and a parent to offer practical strategies for including parents or guardians as…